London-listed pharmaceuticals giant GSK issued a statement this morning noting that a court in Florida had found in favour and other defendants that Zantac (ranitidine) was not the cause of a patient’s prostate cancer. This case has been running for some years and some 16 studies have now been conducted, none of which could find a link between the drug and any form of cancer. This clearly still has some way to run, a fact reflected in GSK’s share price barely moving, sitting less than 0.1% lower an hour into the day. It is however meaningfully outperforming the FTSE-100 index.
The bioplastics and radio frequency technology business issued a trading update this morning, reiterating previous comments over a challenging regulatory environment having depressed revenues for the first half of the year, but there was an air of optimism amongst management that these issues could be resolved and performance would improve during H2. However further updates also announced that a two-part funding round would take place to raise just over £1m. Directors see this as being a last resort but the market reaction has been interesting with heavy discounting of more than 60% at the open abating to a degree. By shortly after 9am the Biome share price was around 40% lower.
Again a small cap AIM-listed stock but LungLife AI posted news of a positive development this morning relating to US Medicare coverage for diagnostic testing, something that is seen as being a key step towards commercialisation of the product. The current approvals are a local coverage determination for the California market but this is seen as being instrumental in facilitating a wider roll out.
Headlines we expect on Monday
Plus 500 Interim Results
This time last year Revenue $368m, EBITDA margin 47%, Dividend $0.7344
