Exclusive: Oasmia Chairman Talks About How They're Changing Cancer Drug Delivery Treatment

Oasmia Pharmaceutical AB - American Depositary Shares OASM is one of only three Swedish companies listed in the United States. While well known in Sweden, Oasmia entered the U.S. market in 2015 and is making waves in the world of oncology with a new drug delivery system that aims to improve existing chemotherapy treatments.

The technology is known as XR 17, an excipient that makes previously insoluble drugs into water-soluble formations.

Most oncologists use chemotherapy, which remains the most common form of cancer treatment when surgery is not an option. Oasmia is focused on improving existing chemotherapy treatments by changing the way the drugs are delivered.

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"Chemotherapy drugs have been on the market for many years, with our drugs, we are improving chemotherapy and the goal is to replace the existing market. Our methods provide a better quality of life for the patient than the existing chemotherapy agents that are currently being used," said Oasmia Executive Chairman Julian Aleksov in an interview with Benzinga.

What makes Oasmia unique is that the company formulates its drug in-house.

"Generally the manufacturing at a smaller company at this stage is done separately, in our case, we have built the whole manufacturing chain and supply chain, today we have the manufacturing capacity and facility to cover and supply the US and global market, within our product portfolio," said Aleksov.

Oasmia has been open to licensing its proprietary technology outside oncology and has been in talks with major pharmaceutical companies to do so.

"We are currently looking for licensing agreements with companies that have their own pipeline in solubility and drug development. We are also looking for licensing partners for their product development outside oncology that have some sort of drug delivery problems. Excipients can be used across the board - it is a very interesting opportunity," added Aleksov.

Currently, there are four drugs in Oasmia's product portfolio, and its latest drug Paclical, an Ovarian cancer treatment drug, is under review with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and is preparing submit to the FDA for market approval.

Oasmia is also one of the first company's in the world to enter the animal health segment. In 2015, the Global Animal Health Market was valued at approximately $30 billion.

"When it comes to animal health it is an interesting market new market with very big development potentials for the coming years," said Aleksov.