I attended the Asep Medical Holding/$ASEP.c investor information webinar this morning, so I thought I would share some highlights from it with you all.
11M deaths are caused by sepsis per year which is almost 20% of all deaths. $ASEP's diagnostic technology can detect sepsis within 1 hour (current tests take 24-48h). Rapid detection is important because for every hour you delay treatment there is a 7.6% increased probability of death. $ASEP's most recent study of this technology had 313 human patients and found this tech had 92% accuracy, 88% sensitivity, and 94% specificity.
About 1M sepsis deaths are due to antibiotic resistance, many of which are from bacteria biofilms. $ASEP's second technology is a peptide treatment that attacks bacterial biofilms. The presentation touched on two initial Clinical opportunities for the treatment.
The first is chronic rhinosinusitis, a currently chronic condition that antibiotics cannot cure because it is caused by bacterial biofilms. However, ASEP's peptides have demonstrated excellent results in animal models, showing an antibacterial & anti-inflammatory response.
Another initial clinical opportunity is wound infection. Currently, to get out biofilms in an open wound you have to scrape out the wound however, $ASEP is developing peptide wound dressing that kills bacteria. The US Defence Department is helping to fund this project.
$20M of development money has already gone into $ASEP so far, largely through grants. Promisingly grant money is expected to continue to come in. Specifically, the US Defence Department is expected to continue to contribute. These grants are all non-diluted which is a win-win for the company and shareholders.
$ASEP is a couple of months away from being listed on OTC markets (possibly under the symbol $SEPSF). Additionally, they are working towards uplisting on the NASDAQ which could happen as soon as 4 months after the OTC listing.
$ASEP is also in the process of getting FDA 510(k) approval for their diagnostic tech and are working with a 3rd party to help them file for the 510(k) in late Q2 or Q3 of this year. It is expected that once they file the FDA will take 5-10 months to respond. $ASEP then plans to get approval from Health Canada in Europe using largely the same data it used to apply for the 510(k).
Additional catalysts that can be expected for 2022 are:
- The continued progression of their technologies
- Partnership opportunities
- A fairly large grant opportunity that is TBA
Unsurprisingly $ASEP is trading 8.11% up at $0.40/share, MC is $22.45 M