Sirtex Medical chief executive Gilman Wong said the liver cancer therapy company wants to move away from being a single product company and will use its $50 million in spare cash and a debt-free balance sheet to pursue acquisitions.
Delivering a 58 per cent rise in half-year net profit to $17.7 million, Mr Wong said Sirtex was on the hunt for medical developments that have passed through clinical trials and are ready for commercialisation. “The main strength we have demonstrated as a business is to take something that is a novel therapy to market,” he said.
Dose sales of the company’s radioactive beads, SIR-Spheres, which treat inoperable liver cancers via targeted internal radiation, rose 26.3 per cent to 4950 units in the six months ended December 31, 2014. The increased demand was because of greater recognition of the therapy, Mr Wong said.
SIR-Spheres have been considered a last line of defence, but the company is hoping the results of its seven-year SIRFLOX study that are due in March will convince oncologists and surgeons to see the device as a first-choice therapy. Changing clinicians’ attitudes to the technology will open up a much larger market for the company.