Telix Pharmaceuticals has topped the inaugural Financial Review Fast Global list, with international revenue growth at the Melbourne-based, cancer-fighting biotech soaring off the back of a drug approval in the US.
The massive revenue surge at Telix was not the result of a major acquisition – which would disqualify it under list rules which stipulate the majority of revenue growth must be organic – but of winning approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for Illuccix, its screening tool for prostate cancer.
“That has been working well for a century, but the main limitation of that approach is you can only treat what you can see or what you can localise, and it causes a fair bit of collateral damage,” Behrenbruch says. “Hormone therapy means you put on a tonne of weight, you have higher risk for all kinds of diseases and you lose your erectile function as well,” Behrenbruch says.
He cites several reasons for this, including Australia’s research and development tax incentive scheme and the country’s ready supply of the medical isotopes which Telix needs to make its products, thanks to the work of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Look out for Telix to remain a fixture of the Fast Global list for some years to come. Already a very rare biotech company that is cashflow positive, the market for Illuccix is set to further expand with approvals pending in China and Japan, but then the eventual addition of cancer therapies promises a step-change in growth.