BioCorRx Inc., an Anaheim-based company that’s struggled to find a revenue-generating product, may be gaining traction soon, according to one top executive.
“We’re starting to hit some milestones,” Brady Granier, chief executive of the company’s pharmaceutical unit, told the Business Journal in a recent interview. “This product has a strong ability to be a difference maker.”
That product is BICX104, which is a biodegradable naltrexone pellet injected into the stomach of recovering drug addicts.
The company is conducting a Phase 1 clinical trial at the Orange County Research Center in Tustin, where study participants have completed their treatment phase and are now in a follow-up phase, which is scheduled to end March 22 when the last enrolled participants have their final, day 168 follow-up visit.
“To date, the study site has not observed any serious adverse events or unexpected adverse events,” principal investigator Dr. Andrew Mallon, said in a Jan. 19 statement.
Addictions
BioCorRx (OTC: BICX) is a thinly traded company with a $12 million market cap. Companywide, it employs fewer than 20 workers, including contractors.
The company, which dates to 2008, was originally founded as an addiction treatment center in Santa Ana.
While it’s occasionally created excitement among investors such as when its stock price almost reached $28 each in 2018, it’s struggled to find products that can generate revenue. The company, which says it develops programs for drug abuse and weight loss, hasn’t topped $1 million in annual sales for at least the past five years.
In 2016, it formed its pharmaceutical subsidiary to take what it’s learned from its clinics to treat drug abuse and try to develop a medication to treat addictions.
“We created a pharmaceutical company from being in the trenches of an actual clinic,” said Granier, a former nurse and marketing executive who has worked in a variety of roles at BioCorRx since 2013.
Relapses
One thing the company knows well is how often drug addicts relapse because they don’t take a daily dose of medication such as naltrexone, which dates to the 1960s as an effective way to manage alcohol or opioid abuse by reducing cravings and feelings of euphoria associated with substance use disorder.
The company decided to experiment with an injectable dose of naltrexone that can last up to three months. The pellets, about the size of a contact lens, are like the injection of hormone pellets, Granier said, adding that it’s not a major surgery.
BICX104 is being developed with the collaboration of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and has an active new drug status. The federal government has given $9.3 million in grants to study this procedure.
The dose is designed to last three months rather than a patient taking a pill once a day.
“Compliance is a big issue” among people trying to recover from drug abuse, he said. “We think our form of delivery is the best.”
The company’s board of directors on Nov. 22 approved exploring a potential spinoff of the pharmaceutical unit, a move that Granier said would gain clarity among investors.
“Every time we present what we’re doing, people get confused,” he said. “A separation makes clearer to the investment community that what we are doing is different than a brick-and-mortar clinic.”
