Shares of Macclesfield-based Redx Pharma plc rose 4% on Wednesday after the drug company focused on cancer and fibrosis announced that it “successfully initiated dosing of the first patient cohort with a combination of RXC004, the company’s lead drug candidate, and nivolumab.”

Redx Pharma shares have soared more than 300% in the past 12 months to give it a current stock market value of around £180 million.

The firm’s biggest shareholder is San Francisco investment firm Redmile Group LLC with a 79.55% stake.

Redx Pharma said: “RXC004 is also currently being evaluated as monotherapy in a Phase 1 clinical study, from which top line results are expected by mid 2021.

“The primary objective of  the Phase 1 combination study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of RXC004 in combination with nivolumab in patients with advanced malignancies.

“The announcement today confirms that the first three patients have initiated treatment with 1mg RXC004 along with nivolumab.

“The results from the combination study are expected to read out in H2 2021 and will be used to define a dose of RXC004 to be used in combination with standard dose nivolumab in a Phase 2 study in patients with genetically selected microsatellite stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer (MSS mCRC), which is planned to start to recruit patients in H2 2021.”

Redx Pharma CEO Lisa Anson said: “We are delighted to have initiated dosing of our first patient cohort in our Phase 1 RXC004 and anti-PD1 combination study.

“We believe that RXC004 has the potential to offer clinical benefit both as a monotherapy and in combination with immunotherapies for patients with Wnt-driven advanced solid tumours.

“This important milestone opens our combination study programme, which is an exciting addition to our ongoing Phase 1 monotherapy study which is on track to report headline results by mid 2021”