IsoRay, Inc. (ISR) stock surged more than 31% by Friday’s close, and is up another 6% in premarket trade on reports that a radioactive seed helped reduce a tumor almost 70%. IsoRay said it had implanted a radioactive seed of Cesium-131 in a young female patient, which resulted in a significant reduction in her tumor.
The implanted Cesium-131 seed helped reduce the tumor of the young female patient in Peru by almost 70% in a short period of 10 weeks. The tumor was located near the seven-year-old girl’s brain stem in July. The latest Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan showed that the girl’s tumor had diminished by more than two-thirds of its original mass.
Earlier this year, the company announced it had treated its first patient with the liquid Cesium-131 (Cesitrex ®) treatment, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for cancer treatment.
Radiation oncologist, Dr. Randy Sorum, and neurosurgeon, Dr. Ryan Halpin, successfully completed the GliaSite® Radiation Therapy System implant using Cesium-131 for the first time ever. Dr. Sorum said that the treatment was done on a 72-year-old patient diagnosed with recurrent brain cancer that had metastasized from esophageal cancer.
Dr. Sorum spoke about the unique benefit of GliaSite®: that it can deliver radiation directly to high-risk areas, minimizing the risk of damage done to healthy tissues through radiation. Dr. Sorum also said that the patient treated with IsoRay’s Cesitrex® has responded well through the entire treatment process and had shown no post-operative side effects.
IsoRay’s Chief Executive Officer Dwight Babock sees this event as a major milestone for the company as it tries to achieve its twin targets: increase shareholder value and revenue.
The company’s revenue has declined 10.8% over the last year to $4.5 million. Adjusted losses narrowed by one cent a share to 11 cents per share in FY13. IsoRay’s gross margins have contracted 10.6 percentage points over the last year to 3.3%.
IsoRay has seen its share price appreciate by more than 245% over the last year; year-to-date, the stock has increased almost 278%. IsoRay is trading at a blended forward-twelve-months price-to-earnings multiple of 29.2x, a premium of more than 262% to the industry average.
