Oxford Cannabinoid (LON: OCPT) shares are up 6% this morning. OCPT shares are up on the back of an announcement about Phase I testing. Which, well, OK, but it does seem to be a bit much for something that simple.
Note that Phase I testing is vital in drug research - both sorts of drugs, both fun and pharma. So we’re not dismissing the necessity of passing Phase I testing - there’s no way to gain approval to market without it. But it’s also true that Phase I comes right at the start of the testing process. This is also the cheap part of the process. There could be another 5 to 8 years after this before there’s anything marketable. So, yes, failing Phase I is something that kills a development program. But passing it, well, it just opens the door to that next step in the long process.
Oxford Cannabinoid share price from Google Finance
The announcement: “Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies Holdings plc (LSE: OCTP), the pharmaceutical company developing prescription cannabinoid medicines, is pleased to announce that dosing of all the cohorts of the Phase I, single ascending dose study for OCT461201 has been successfully completed. No safety or tolerability concerns were exhibited with any dose tested. As a result, OCTP is satisfied that it is safe to proceed to the next stage of clinical development of its lead compound OCT461201. The trial was conducted in the UK in healthy volunteers by Simbec Research Limited, part of Simbec-Orion Group Ltd, using a single ascending dose protocol.”
So, yes, OK, it passed Phase I testing. Which is necessary. But it’s a cannabis extract. And the entire point of researching cannabis extracts is that we know that there are no safety concerns.
Phase I testing is simply a test to see whether the drug or treatment poisons healthy volunteers. It’s Phase II that then goes on to ask whether it does anything useful as a treatment. Humans have been using cannabis for millennia now and other than a possibly unhealthy interest in cheeseburgers we’ve found no safety problems. Therefore this is hardly news - we’re researching a drug precisely because we know there are no safety concerns. So,finding out there are no safety concerns is not exactly new information.
We don’t really see the value add here that is.
