ASX announcements are numerous and daily. Let’s catch up on five ASX news items you may have missed.
Race Oncology [ASX:RAC] announces melanoma pre-clinical study
Last Friday, Race Oncology Ltd [ASX:RAC] announced it’s entering a collaborative preclinical research program with the University of Newcastle to explore the use of its cancer drug bisantrene as a melanoma treatment.
Melanoma cancer researchers Professor Xu Dong Zhang and Associate Professor Lei Jin will lead the project.
Race’s project aims to explore bisantrene’s feasibility as a novel treatment for melanoma using cellular and mouse models.
The announced study initiates Pillar One of RAC’s Three Pillar strategy.
The results of the study will inform any Phase Two trials on humans, which are scheduled to begin in 2022.
The current project’s results are expected to be reported over the coming 12 months.
While RAC’s share price slumped slightly on the news — RAC shares are currently 3.2% down this week — RAC shares are still up 121% YTD and up 1,200% over one year.
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4DS memory secures another US patent
4DS Memory Ltd [ASX:4DS] is a semiconductor development company specialising in non-volatile memory technology.
4DS develops Interface Switching ReRAM for next generation gigabyte storage in mobile and cloud.
Last Wednesday, the company announced to the ASX that it was granted an additional US patent.
All up, 4DS has a portfolio of granted US patents of 30.
The company noted that it owns 100% of all its granted patents and applications since it develops them in-house.
That means 4DS patents are free from royalty and licensing obligations.
4DS Managing Director Dr Guido Arnout stated that ‘these patents and additional filed applications are strategically important for the commercialisation of 4DS technology going forward.’
4DS shares are up 5% today at time of writing and 68% YTD. Additionally, the 4DS share price is up 600% over one year.
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Paladin Energy [ASX:PDN] completes placement and entitlement offer to raise A$192.5 million
Last Friday, Paladin Energy Ltd [ASX:PDN] announced that it successfully completed an institutional placement and entitlement offer of new fully paid ordinary shares in Paladin.
According to the company, the institutional offer will raise about $192.5 million as part of Paladin’s fully underwritten $218.7 million equity raise announced last Wednesday.
The offer price came to 37 cents per new share and represented a 20.4% discount to the last traded price of PDN shares on 16 March.
The company expects to be free of corporate debt post its equity raise.
The equity raise also enhances Paladin’s financial flexibility ahead of its Langer Heinrich Mine restart.
Paladin’s equity raise presentation last Wednesday mentioned that the company’s recent moves enable Paladin to ‘prioritise efforts and resources on maximising the value of the Langer Heinrich Mine.’
The company expects improvements in the uranium market.
For context, first production from Langer Heinrich was in 2007 with peak production in 2014.
Operations were suspended in 2018 due to low uranium prices.
Paladin launched a Mine Restart Plan in June 2020, which aims to bring the mine back into production.
The retail component of the entitlement offer will open this Wednesday, 24 March with Paladin expecting to raise $26.2 million.
Paladin share price is down 14% over the last week.
However, it’s still up 58% YTD and up 800% over one year.
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IOUpay [ASX:IOU] added to ASX Technology Index
IOUpay Ltd [ASX:IOU] announced last week that it was added to the S&P/ASX All Technology Index [XTX].
Effective prior to the market open today, IOU is now listed on one of the most prominent indices of Australian tech stocks.
Index funds that track the All Technology Index will be obliged to purchase IOU shares over the coming days.
This follows the company’s announcement last Wednesday updating the market on IOUpay targeting the growth opportunities in South East Asia.
The presentation highlighted that IOUpay already processes more than 20 million transactions per month in Malaysia and the likes of Citibank and MBSB Bank are its strategic partners.
IOU share price is up 10% over one week and up 190% YTD.
The lucrative BNPL space has seen investors drive up IOU shares as much as 6,800% over the course of one year.
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Pilbara Minerals [ASX:PLS] announces prepayment agreement and digital sales platform
Pilbara Minerals Ltd [ASX:PLS] had two interesting ASX announcements last week.
First, last Monday Pilbara announced that Yibin Tianyi Lithium Industry (Yibin Tianyi) will provide a US$15 million unsecured prepayment to Pilbara’s operating subsidiary Pilgangoora Operations (POPL).
The prepayment will go towards the $22 million of improvement works underway on Plant 1 at Pilgangoora, Western Australia.
The prepayment will help POPL to provide up to a further 40,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of spodumene concentrate product following the successful commission of the Stage 1 improvement works, scheduled for the September 2021 quarter.
According to Pilbara, following the successful commissioning of the Stage 1 improvement works, the offtake agreement will total up to 115,000tpa of spodumene concentrate.
An offtake agreement is an arrangement between a producer and buyer to purchase or sell portions of the producer’s upcoming goods.
The offtake agreement is usually struck before any construction or operation of a production facility to secure a market for its goods.
Second, last Thursday Pilbara announced it entered an agreement with GLX Digital to launch a new sales and trading software platform for its Pilgangoora project.
The goal for the platform is to offer flexibility to transact by auction, tender process or bilateral sale.
The platform will be trialled with unallocated or available spodumene concentrate product, ‘including envisaged unallocated future production capacity from the recent Altura project acquisition.’
Pilbara expects the first sale(s) in the ‘coming months’.
GLX Digital’s platform will initially be used to sell unallocated or available spodumene concentrate ‘that sits outside existing offtake terms.’
Finally, Pilbara remarked upon a ‘material increase in new potential credible buyers of its spodumene concentrates’ with fresh producers entering for the first time and existing producers expanding.
Pilbara is not the only one noticing a rise in interest for lithium and lithium-exposed investments.
The rising lithium price and the potential boom in electric vehicles and clean energy corresponded with share price jumps for lithium stocks.
As we’ve covered here in Money Morning, stocks like Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd [ASX:VUL], Lithium Australia NL [ASX:LIT] and EcoGraf Ltd [ASX:EGR] are up over the past year as investors seek exposure to sustainable energy markets.
Now if you want to read more information on lithium stocks, then you can read this free report here.
Regards,
Lachlann Tierney
For Money Morning
