e-Therapeutics' (ETX) results held few surprises after the company's detailed update at the time of its fundraising in March, except for the probability that data for its early stage trials for cancer drug ETS2101 will be available ahead of schedule at the end of this year. Analysts were excited by some initial data readouts that showed a partial improvement for one patient with an untreatable tumour in a 12-patient dosing study. ETS2101 is e-Therapeutics' main product and is being investigated to determine its effectiveness in a number of hard to treat cancers.
The product is at the start of a very long road and the prospects for a a licensing deal are not likely to emerge before 2017, assuming subsequent Phase II trials show positive data. That may sound like overly cautious guidance, but enrolling enough patients and agreeing an adequate trial protocol - the US arm of the ETS2101 trial was delayed over protocol amendments - are significant challenges. e-Therapeutics has budgeted to spend £25m on development before enough data is available to interest potential licensing partners.