Spherix Incorporated ( NASDAQ: SPEXD ), company announced positive data from its drug candidate SPX-106 in reducing Serum Triglycerides in Preclinical Testing. Stock skyrocketed more than 48 % to $ 5.
Our Call: Buy position may be initiated for trade at this levels.
Below is the News Release:
Spherix Drug Candidate SPX-106 Shows Statistically Significant Reductions in Serum Triglycerides in Preclinical Testing
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| Spherix Incorporated |
SPX-106 is one of five small molecules licensed by Spherix last year. In early 2011, Spherix initiated the preclinical development of SPX-106 and D-tagatose as a treatment for hypertriglyceridemia. In the recently completed study, treatment of animals using combination therapy with twice-daily oral dosing significantly reduced triglycerides by 43 mg/dl compared with control animals with a mean triglyceride level of 118 mg/dl (p=0.01). The same therapy significantly reduced total cholesterol by 73 mg/dl from a mean level of 378 mg/dl compared with control animals (p=0.01).
SPX-106 is in preclinical development in combination with other agents, including D-tagatose, for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis, hypertriglyceridemia and related dyslipidemias. The Company has initiated development of SPX-106 and D-tagatose as a treatment for hypertriglyceridemia, and plans to start an initial human efficacy study in the fourth quarter of 2011 or the first quarter of 2012.
"Spherix has toxicology, preclinical, clinical and other studies underway, and the findings of this preclinical study advance our understanding of the effects of SPX-106 and D-tagatose on triglycerides and cholesterol," said Dr. Claire Kruger, Chief Executive Officer of Spherix. "The market for triglyceride-lowering drugs exceeds $3 billion annually in the U.S. alone, and we believe that, should our studies be successful, there will be an important role for SPX-106 to play in the treatment regimen."
In December 2010, the Company signed a research contract with a leading global contract research organization (CRO) to investigate the role of SPX-106 and D-tagatose in lowering triglycerides. Work will continue through at least 2012. In the first phase of this program, the Company is working with the CRO to design and execute studies in cell culture, animal models and humans to clarify the mechanism of action of SPX-106 and D-tagatose in modulating triglycerides in the metabolic syndrome.
About Spherix
Spherix Incorporated was launched in 1967 as a scientific research company under the name Biospherics Research. The Company now leverages its scientific and technical expertise and experience through its two subsidiaries -- Biospherics Incorporated and Spherix Consulting, Inc. Biospherics is dedicated to developing and licensing/marketing proprietary therapeutic products for treatment of diabetes, metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis. Biospherics is actively seeking a pharmaceutical partner to continue the development of its Phase 3 compound for the treatment of diabetes, D-tagatose, while exploring new drugs and combinations for treatment of high triglycerides, a risk factor for atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction and stroke. Spherix's Consulting subsidiary provides scientific and strategic support for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers of conventional foods, biotechnology-derived foods, medical foods, infant formulas, food ingredients, dietary supplements, food contact substances, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, consumer products and industrial chemicals and pesticides. For more information, please visit www.spherix.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Investors are cautioned that such statements in this release, including statements relating to planned clinical study design, regulatory and business strategies, plans and objectives of management and growth opportunities for existing or proposed products, constitute forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks that product candidates may fail in the clinic or may not be successfully marketed or manufactured, we may lack financial resources to complete development of D-tagatose, the FDA may interpret the results of studies differently than us, competing products may be more successful, demand for new pharmaceutical products may decrease, the biopharmaceutical industry may experience negative market trends, our continuing efforts to develop D-tagatose may be unsuccessful, our common stock could be delisted from the Nasdaq Capital Market, and other risks and challenges detailed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date of this release. We undertake no obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
SOURCE Spherix Incorporated
ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey - Resorts Casino Hotel, which raised some hackles this year with a bare-derriere billboard to promote a show, is taking things even further in a bid to win back business.
The casino's new owners held a grand reopening to unveil the skimpy new flapper costumes that got them sued this year by female cocktail servers fired after being deemed not sexy enough wearing them.
And the casino announced it will host a nightly adults-only Naked Circus in a parking lot tent starting in July. Actually, it is only mostly naked, much like New York's Naked Cowboy, but you get the idea.
"It'll be as naked as the law allows," said Resorts co-owner Dennis Gomes, who is fast gaining a reputation in the casino industry because of his willingness to push sex to promote his brand and generate publicity and buzz.
His son Aaron Gomes said the female performers will wear pasties and G-strings.
Dennis Gomes says it all is designed to win back millions of dollars in business the casino lost under previous owners that nearly closed it late last year.
Resorts posted a $5.3 million operating loss in the first quarter of this year, but Gomes and co-owner Morris Bailey, a New York real estate investor, are pumping large amounts of promotional cash into the casino to try to rebuild its customer base after buying it last December at a steep discount.
The Naked Circus show, which will start on the July 4th holiday weekend, will be one of three daily circuses that Resorts will host in Atlantic City, the second-largest U.S. gambling market after Las Vegas, Nevada.
The casino also unveiled its new flapper costumes, which cocktail servers will wear from now on. They are the costumes that resulted in a lawsuit from 15 servers fired in March after an outside panel hired by Resorts deemed them insufficiently sexy in the new garb.
The lawsuit is pending.
The black-fringed flapper dresses, worn with black fishnet stockings, are extremely low-cut in the back. Billboards that Resorts put up around town and on the side of its building show two models wearing them with part of their rear ends exposed, and it is obvious they are not wearing undergarments. (Servers on hand for the May 27 announcement were.)
"Sexiness is just part of it," Gomes said. "It's excitement, fun. Everything that Las Vegas has, we're going to have."
Gomes, who made national headlines for letting customers play tic-tac-toe against a chicken when he ran Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino and Resort, is bringing a new slant on that promotion to Resorts: "The Tic-Tac-Toe-Playing Chick."
"There will be this woman, and customers can play tic-tac-toe against her," Gomes said. "If they win, they get $5,000."
The ceremony was held a day after the 33rd anniversary of Resorts' opening in 1978 as the nation's first casino outside Nevada.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Economic Headlines for June 3 2011 ( Friday ) :
1) The pace of growth in the U.S. services sector picked up slightly in May after a sharp drop in the previous month, according to an industry report released Friday.
The Institute for Supply Management said its services sector index rose to 54.6 last month from 52.8 in April. The reading came in just above economists' forecasts for 54.0, according to a Reuters survey. The bounce came after April's reading fell to the lowest level since August 2010.
2) New hiring from US employers was far less than expected as high energy prices and Japan's quake effect dampened new hiring. Jobless rate rose to 9.1 percent, Nonfarm payrolls increased 54,000 last month, the weakest reading since September, the Labor Department said on Friday.
Private employment rose just 83,000, the least since last June, while government payrolls dropped 29,000. Economists had expected payrolls to rise 150,000 and private hiring to increase 175,000 in May.
The government revised employment figures for March and April to show 39,000 fewer jobs created than previously estimated.
Sino Forest Corp ( PINK: SNOFF ), stock plunged ore than 77% in last two trading session after analyst Muddy Waters Research released an investigative report and investors have dumped all the holdings Read More.
Groupon, Online Coupon company filed for Initial Public Offering ( IPO ) in a latest series of social networking site IPOs offerings to tap US capital markets. Company will trade under the ticker of GRPN but price range and exchange was not disclosed.
Groupon filed to raise up to $750 million in its IPO. However that figure is preliminary and could change.
In April, a source told Reuters that Groupon could raise as much as $1 billion in the IPO, which could value the fast-growing daily deals site at $15 billion to $20 billion.
A string of hot Internet companies including Facebook and Twitter have received multibillion-dollar valuations, raising questions about how these companies, albeit fast-growing, could justify the sky-high valuations.
Other Internet companies including LinkedIn Corp and China's Renren Inc have had strong IPO debuts in recent months, causing speculation that other companies would rush to follow.
Underwriters are being led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
"While we're looking forward to being a public company," said CEO Andrew D. Mason in a letter to potential stockholders. "We intend to continue operating according to the long-term focused principles that have gotten us to this point."
The letter also hints that the company is looking forward to "agressively investing in growth."
( Source: Reuters )
( Source: Reuters )
EntreMed Inc ( NASDAQ: ENMD ), stock of the company jumped more than 42 %, without specific news or announcements from the company.Traders might keep an eye on the stock as some news development might be announced.
Our Call: Cautious trade, Wait for news before buying stock
Our Call: Cautious trade, Wait for news before buying stock
Orexigen Therapeutics Inc ( NASDAQ: OREX) plunges more than 30 % and touched a 52 week low as FDA committee is not convinced to approve its experimental obesity drug without additional heart safety trials data.
Below is the detailed news:
Orexigen Therapeutics said on Friday that it would explore opportunities for its products outside the United States after failing to sway U.S. regulators from their demands for a heart safety study before approving the company's experimental obesity drug.
The company said, after a recent meeting with the Food and Drug Administration, that the FDA would not consider approving the drug, Contrave, for a narrower population with lower cardiovascular risk without data from the heart outcomes trial.
Orexigen also said its proposed heart study was rejected by the agency.
The FDA rejected Contrave earlier this year, dealing a severe blow to what stood to be the first new diet pill in a decade and crippling Orexigen's shares.
Orexigen said on Friday that it would appeal the latest FDA decisions through a resolution process, saying the agency's request for the heart outcomes trial was "unprecedented and would generate significantly more information than is necessary or feasible."
According to Orexigen, the FDA plans to hold a general advisory committee meeting early next year to discuss cardiovascular assessment for obesity therapeutics.
Meanwhile, Orexigen said it would put on hold any further development for its obesity programs in the United States "until a clear and feasible path to regulatory approval is identified." It will also speed up exploration of opportunities for its product candidates outside the United States.
( Source: Reuters)
Mahindra Satyam, a leading global consulting and IT services provider, and MasterCard®, today announced the establishment of a Center of Excellence for testing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The center will provide support for global testing for MasterCard business applications, as well as application development in Java and Business Intelligence.
"At MasterCard®, our focus as a company is to deliver innovative products and solutions for our customers and cardholders, and we look for the best organizations to help us deliver on this commitment," said Sheryl Andrasko, Group Executive, MasterCard® Worldwide. "We believe that working with Mahindra Satyam will enable us to continue deliver on these goals to meet the global needs of these key stakeholder groups." she continued.
Mahindra Satyam's Testing Center of Excellence for MasterCard® will support the company's efforts around research and development, and facilitate global collaboration.
"Establishing this Center of Excellence connotes the beginning of a valued relationship with MasterCard®" said Lakshmanan Chidambaram, Senior Vice President – Sales & Operations, Mahindra Satyam.
Through this collaboration, Mahindra Satyam intends to leverage its proven expertise of testing in credit card functionalities and automated process to enhance the customer and cardholder experience for MasterCard® around the world.
Italian luxury goods maker Prada is due on Friday to set the price range for its $2 billion initial public offering in Hong Kong.
Here are some facts about Prada's business history:
GLOBAL REACH
* Founded almost a century ago, Prada is run by designer Miuccia Prada and her chief executive husband Patrizio Bertelli.
Prada, which also owns Miu Miu, Church's and Car Shoe brands, plans to open about 80 stores annually over the next three years, 30 of them in Asia. It had 319 stores globally at Jan. 31, 2011.
Prada reported record sales of 2.1 billion euros ($3.02 billion) in 2010 and core earnings of 536 million euros.
Europe is its biggest market, accounting for 42 percent of sales, while Greater China and the rest of Asia-Pacific together account for 40 percent. Asia is its fastest-growing market.
FAMILY OWNERSHIP
* Miuccia Prada, her brother Alberto and sister Marina indirectly own 65 percent of Amsterdam-based Prada Holding BV. Bertelli's Luxembourg-based holding company Pa.Be owns the rest.
Prada Holding owns 94.887 percent of the fashion company Prada SpA. Six years ago Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo bought the remaining 5.113 percent stake for 100 million euros.
Bertelli has transferred half his stake in Pa.Be. to three companies for succession purposes.
ASIA FACTOR
* Prada has debts of more than 1 billion euros -- partly due to a buying spree during the 1990s -- while its net profit more than doubled to 251 million euros in the 2010/11 year ended Jan. 31, helped by its retail network expansion and growth in Asia. Prada expects its Asian sales to overtake those in Europe over the next three years.
It plans to open design centres in Hong Kong and Paris this year.
HONG KONG IPO
* Prada has been considering an IPO for a decade. First planned for the Milan bourse, the offering is now to take place in Hong Kong, which accounted for about a fifth of global IPOs last year. The offering could value Prada at around 8 billion euros and allow it to draw Asian investors.
Hong Kong bourse guidelines would require management changes, including two executive administrators based in Hong Kong and three independent administrators.
Prada's IPO is slated to be priced on June 17, with listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange set for June 24. The roadshow starts on June 6.
Goldman Sachs, Credit Agricole's CLSA brokerage and Italian banks UniCredit SpA and Intesa Sanpaolo's Banca IMI unit, both on Prada's board, were picked as joint bookrunners and global coordinators of the IPO.
Prada has turned down approaches by private equity firms.
India's services sector expanded at its slowest pace in 20 months in May as soaring prices and interest rate hikes gnawed at new business growth and reduced the level of optimism, a survey showed on Friday.
The seasonally adjusted HSBC Markit Business Activity Index, based on a survey of over 400 firms, slipped to 55.0 in May from 59.2 in April, marking its twenty-fifth successive month above the 50 level that divides growth from contraction.
While the latest reading underlines a reasonably solid pace of growth in the services sector, its decline is an indication that continuous rate rises aimed at containing inflation are putting the brakes on India's rapid expansion.
The easing momentum for business activity and new business is evidence that policy tightening and high inflation is filtering through to growth, said Leif Eskesen, chief economist for India & ASEAN at HSBC.
All sub-indexes saw a fall when compared to April, with the exception of input costs and employment.
New business received by service companies remained strong but the pace of expansion slowed with the sub-index falling to its lowest level since October last year.
Among the sub-indexes, business expectations saw the steepest fall to 67.8 in May from 72.8 in April, as respondents, though confident of the sector's performance over the next 12 months, slightly tempered expectations as economic uncertainty loomed.
Data released earlier this week showed Asia's third-largest economy grew at its slowest annual pace in five quarters in January to March as consecutive interest rate hikes, aimed at reigning in soaring inflation, began to take effect.
Gross domestic product rose 7.8 percent from a year earlier, lower than 8.3 percent in the previous quarter and below the median 8.2 percent forecast in a poll.
While weaker-than-expected growth might cause the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to raise rates in smaller increments, the survey showed price pressures will persist.
The RBI has no choice but to continue its tightening cycle to bring about a slowdown in domestic demand, which is sufficient to lessen capacity constraints and ease inflation pressures, Eskesen said.
Input costs increased markedly in May due to rising wage bills and raw material costs. Further inflation pressures are expected as the economy braces for an increase in government-controlled prices of diesel and cooking fuels.
Prices charged also rose in May as service providers transferred rising costs to consumers, but the slightly weaker pace suggested a slight reduction in margins.
Last month the RBI raised rates by half a percentage point, declaring some near-term growth would need to be sacrificed to tame inflation, which stood at 8.66 percent for April.
The service sector continued to add jobs with the index for employment signalling an increase in the pace of hiring.
Data released earlier in the week showed Indian manufacturing PMI dipped and factory growth eased globally, with the most pronounced slowdown seen in the United States.
