Shares of Australian oncology company Marshall Edwards, Inc. (Nasdaq: MSHL) were up as much as 52 percent today after researchers found that the company’s chemosensitizing agent, Phenoxodiol has been shown to kill cancer cells.

“These findings indicate that phenoxodiol may have utility against autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, as well as having potential in management of graft rejection in transplantation patients,” said Prof. Alan Husband, Group Director of Research, Marshall Edwards, Inc.

Researchers at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington, New Zealand found that abnormally proliferating human T-cells, rapidly dividing cancer cells such as primary myeloid and lymphoid leukemic blast cells undergo programmed cell death when exposed briefly to phenoxodiol.

Phenoxodiol is being developed to be used in combination with platinum drugs for late stage, chemoresistant ovarian cancer and as a monotherapy for prostate and cervical cancers.

The treatment is currently being investigated as a therapy for late-stage, chemoresistant ovarian, prostate and cervical cancers and as received Fast Track status from the FDA to facilitate its development as a therapy for recurrent ovarian and prostate cancers.

Phenoxodiol is part of a new breed of oncology drugs – multiple signal transduction regulators (abbreviated as ‘MSTR‘) — that act against the fundamentals of the cancer process, and has shown to kill virtually all types of cancer cells to which it has been exposed in the test tube, according to Marshall Edwards’ Web site. This includes breast, prostate, ovarian, lung, colorectal and head & neck carcinomas, mesotheliomas, leukemias, rhabdomyosarcoma and neuroglioma.