Citius Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:CTXR) Is Running As We Expected

Back on September 8, we published this piece outlining our expectations for Citius Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:CTXR).The company had been the subject of a bit of promotional activity at the time and, while we're always wary of a stock that's making gains on the back of this sort of thing, we generally take a look to see if there's anything underlying that could imply that the gains are well supported and that the promotional activity could just be sparking a longer-term wave of speculative interest in the stock in question. CTXR Daily ChartOur conclusion, in this instance, was that yes – there could well be some longer-term upside momentum on the cards for Citius and its shareholders and that, specifically, we could get some strength heading into the close of 2017.Here's our conclusion from that piece:

"A recent NASDAQ listing is no doubt going to bring with a flurry of speculative volume and should attract some institutional interest along the way. With the pivotal Mino-Lok trial poised to begin and the hemorrhoid program advancing fast, there is a wave of potential catalysts set to hit press that could compound the influx of speculative volume and really get this running during the coming 12 months."

Fast-forward a couple of months and it turns out we were bang on the money. Citius gained close to 10% yesterday to trade at $4.69 a share – up 42% on our September highlight price.The company is now a NASDAQ stock and, not only has it gotten underway with a pivotal trial that could prove to be a game-changing one for the company and its revenue-generating prospects, we've also seen some fresh data hit press supportive of an efficacy argument for the asset under investigation as part of the just mentioned pivotal phase 3.For anybody that missed our previous coverage, Citius has developed a product called Mino-Lok that's designed to overcome a problem commonly associated with the catheters that are used to deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients. Specifically, these catheters are prone to becoming infected and – when they do – the only real option that physicians have right now is to remove them and replace them with a fresh device.The problem with this, however, is that there are severe complications associated with this removal and replacement, making the procedure both dangerous and costly from a time and capital requirement.Citius has developed Mino-Lok as an attempt to reduce the necessity for catheter removal. it's a sort of antibiotic wash type system that plugs into the catheter in question for a couple of hours each day and removes the bacterial layer that builds up over time and that (generally) is the cause of the infection that ultimately necessitates removal.The device has gone through some pretty rigorous early-stage testing and the company has shown that it can be effective in reducing the rate of infections when used for two hours each day in patients that have these catheters installed, as compares to patients that have the catheters in place but who don't undergo treatment with the Mino-Lok therapy on a daily basis.The most recent data, which derives from an international study of Mino-Lok, showed 95% effectiveness for Mino-Lok therapy in achieving microbiological eradication (which essentially means cleaning out any bacteria that might cause infection) of the catheters as compared to 83% for the control arm of the study.The phase 3 that we paint as potentially being a game changer for the company earlier in this piece is getting underway as we speak and will enroll a total of 700 patients in the US, with half set to receive Mino-Lok therapy and the other set to receive standard of care. The primary endpoint of the study looks at the difference between the two arms in terms of which has the higher level of required catheter removal and, if the data is strong, it will underpin a new drug application (NDA) on completion.Keep in mind that there is not much cash on the books here and that, as a result, there is good chance we will see some degree of dilution before the phase 3 trial is completed. At last count, June 30, Citius had just shy of $200,000 on hand.Check out our previous coverage of this one here. We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on CTXR, sign up below!Image courtesy of bensonk42 via FlickrDisclosure: We have no position in CTXR and have not been compensated for this article.