Firebrick Pharma (ASX: FRE) shares are up 86% today as they make an information release. The last set of test results of their cold cure, no, do you see, those test results were wrong. Entirely so, absolutely: “Firebrick Pharma (ASX:FRE) announced an expert in data analysis independently reviewed its problematic 2023 Phase 3 trial data of Nasodine into the common cold determining “inaccuracies in trial efficacy data” with no efficacy conclusions therefore able to be drawn. FRE will market Nasodine as a nasal antiseptic/disinfectant with sales forecast to commence in 2024.” So, you know, despite no proof that it works we’ll be marketing it anyway.
Which is one business tactic we suppose. The actual announcement itself: “No conclusions could be drawn from the modelling or the Company’s previous investigations
as to the cause of the inaccuracies in the 2023 Trial data. However, the impact of the COVID
pandemic on patient reported symptoms and quality of life measures used in the study could
be a factor. The Company emphasises that it has no concerns about the reliability or accuracy of the safety data from the 2023 Trial. Those data were collected independently, were consistent with the 2019 Trial and confirmed the favourable safety profile of Nasodine.
The modelling project brings to a close all investigations into the 2023 Trial. Firebrick will now proceed with all previously deferred trial closure activities (refer to QAR), including processing of all other (non-efficacy) patient data, database lock and preparation of a clinical study report. As stated in the QAR, Firebrick remains committed to the development of Nasodine for the common cold but will now consider alternative study designs that could avoid the problems experienced in the 2023 Trial. There are no immediate plans to repeat the 2023 Trial.”
Or as we can put that, we know it’s safe but we don’t know it works. We’ll not go through that testing palaver again and we’ll just move direct to selling it. Well, there’s a certain simplicity to that as a business plan.
Firebrick Pharma share price from Google Finance
We covered this back when the test results were announced by Firebrick Pharma: “Firebrick Pharma (ASX: FRE) shares are down 82%. FRE shares are down on the back of a quite glorious failure - actually performing worse than the placebo being used in the testing process. Often enough - and this is, of course, why we do all of this pharma testing - the result is not much different from the placebo, or statistically indistinguishable and so on. But to actually perform worse than, yes, that’s a grandiose failure.” The placebo was water - just plain, pure, water. So, the evidence to hand is that Nasodine works worse than squirting tap water up your nose. But it’s going on the market anyway.
As we say there’s a certain simplicity to that business plan but we’re not quite sure how well it will work.
