Daily Brief Australia: S&P/ASX 200, Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals and more

• Taiwan has been our top long but showing momentum deterioration. ASX and Kospi met rally targets to finesse a dip and secondary push. HSI long struggling. Short near 21,000.
• Japan and India are our immediate short plays. NKY dip and rally with bigger top due at 28,500.
• April is a bullish month but once the buoyant cycle terminates, we will turn more aggressive on the short side (NKY, HSI, Korea and even Taiwan is on our radar.

Paradigm has announced day 168 (six-month) data from the PARA_OA_008 trial, which is evaluating injectable pentosan polysulfate sodium (iPPS) as a potentially disease-modifying treatment for knee osteoarthritis (kOA). Highlights from the interim data include: structural changes in several disease features as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), potential support for disease-modifying OA drug (DMOAD) activity from trends in biomarker data, and persistent positive responses in WOMAC scores. During the second half of CY23, Paradigm intends to discuss with the FDA and EMA a potential regulatory pathway for DMOAD indication labelling; we believe that the outcome, along with clarification on the Phase III development pathway, could represent a significant catalyst for the company.