Q BioMed Inc (OTCMKTS:QBIO) Is One Step Closer To A Huge Oncology Market

Towards the end of last year, we took a look at a small biotech play called Q BioMed Inc (OTCMKTS:QBIO). The company had just logged some gains, and had drawn our attention on the back of this run. At that point, Q BioMed was going for around $4 a piece. At the start of January, the company ran up to more than $10 a share, in anticipation of a presentation at the Biotech Showcase in San Francisco. That's a nice run, but the start of the year is always a bit of a hype period in the biotech sector, with a number of major conferences on the calendar, and the company settled down into the end of January to in the $5-6 range.Earlier on this month, this dipped to around the price point at which we first highlighted the company (a little over, to be precise), and we put it on our watch list at that price, in expectations of a return to the upside momentum and a closing of the $5 to $10 gap.This week, we've seen some of it closed. Q BioMed ran up around 12% on Wednesday, and we think there's probably more to come, based on the driver behind the run.Here's why.So, for those new to the company, Q BioMed is a biotech with a pretty simple business model – it buys or licenses assets that are either approved already or in the late stages of the clinical development pathway, and takes them to market in the case of the former, or carries them through final stage development, and then to market, in the case of the latter.It's got two assets in its portfolio right now, one ready to go, one that's going to need to jump a couple of regulatory hurdles before it hits the shelves.The former is the one we're interested in here, as it's the asset that's going to take this company to revenue generation phase, and in turn, help to remove the dilution risk that makes companies at this end of the biotech spectrum unpredictable exposures.The asset's called SR89, and it's a generic formulation of what's called Strontium Chloride. As we noted last time, this is the stuff that's used in the toothpaste of bone cancer sufferers to help alleviate the pain associated with the condition. That administration method isn’t particularly efficient, however, and Q BioMed is trying to bring a more potent formulation, an IV administration formulation, to market, in the form of SR89.And it's this asset (sort of) that has brought about the latest run.The company announced back in December that it had struck a financing agreement with a third party that would see $4 million injected into its cash balance across three tranches. Convertible debentures underpinned the cash, and as we highlighted last year, this isn’t ideal from a dilution perspective, but the three tranches helped to keep sweeten things a little, and we were of the view that if this was what was needed to get SR89 on the shelves (and it was) then a bit of dilution is worth shouldering.The latest announcement, which hit press on Wednesday, revealed that the second tranche has closed, bringing the total received to $2.5 million.There's more than 350,000 bone cancer patients right now in the US, and 380,000 new diagnoses of patients with breast, prostate and lung cancer occur every year, of which around one third will develop bone metastases. This is a big market, and one that could generate significant return for Q BioTherapeutics when this drug gets to market.So what's the next step?The next step for the company, and our next catalyst as far as this platform is concerned, is the closing of a contract with a CMO to get this drug manufactured. Alongside the financing announcement, management stated that it expects to close negotiations and launce commercially by the end of Q2.One to watch.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on QBIO, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in QBIO and have not been compensated for this article.