It’s rare for a company to take a drug from the clinic to commercial success, but James Barder and his team at Futura Medical have done just that with their fast-acting erectile dysfunction (ED) gel, Eroxon.
This week has been a pivotal one for Futura, as it posted its first-ever profit, well ahead of expectations.
Analysts have since raised their financial forecasts for the company, buoyed by this success. And the best may be yet to come, as the US launch of Eroxon looms.
Futura Medical’s fast-acting erectile dysfunction gel, Eroxon.
If the company’s choice of partner is any indicator, Futura could be set for a significant breakthrough in America.
It has teamed up with Haleon, the GSK spin-out and one of the world’s largest consumer healthcare companies.
Eroxon will also have the distinction of being the only ED treatment available over the counter in the US, giving it a substantial competitive edge.
Despite these milestones, Futura’s progress was largely overlooked by the market this week, with shares slipping 5% to 36.6p, valuing the business at just over £100 million.
Analysts, however, see much greater upside, pricing the shares between 125-130p.
In the wider market, the AIM All Share drifted a point lower to 743.68 amid thin trading volumes. Investor interest remained focused on the FTSE 100, which rose 75 points to 8,257.87.
Elsewhere in the small-cap space, Chariot, a Morocco-focused oil and gas group, appeared to deflate investor expectations when the Anchois-3 pilot hole failed to deliver additional resources. The stock fell 49% to 3.37p, a steep drop considering the side-track was more of a bonus than critical to the investment story.
Down 43% at 14p, Vector Capital has joined a growing list of businesses exiting AIM as they struggle with the lack of interest and high listing costs. The company will cease trading on Monday.
Ethernity Networks dropped 37% to 0.31p, despite what seemed like positive announcements. The decline was likely driven by last week’s discounted fundraising round of £540,000 to provide working capital for a US aerospace contract. Despite the sell-off, the contract’s milestone payment suggests the company is in a better position than the share price implies.
A further case of success masquerading as failure (based on the direction of the share price and possibly only for technical reasons) was Greatland Gold (down 22% at 5.42p).
On Wednesday, it announced it was buying out mining giant Newmont to take full control of the Havieron gold-copper project, as well as acquiring ownership of the nearby Telfer operation.
The cash and shares deal, worth $475 million, will create an integrated operation in Western Australia’s Paterson province. The share price took a bit of a biffing as the company tapped the market for equity investment to fund the deal.
Havieron, with a mineral resource of 8.4 million ounces of gold equivalent, is slated to produce 258,000 ounces of the yellow metal a year, while Telfer could produce 426,000 ounces. There is also potential for expansion.
While fallers dominated the headlines, a few success stories emerged this week.
In the natural resources sector, Orusur Mining saw its share price jump 49.1% to 3.95p after announcing it would acquire full ownership of the Anza gold project in Colombia.
The deal, subject to regulatory approval, includes a 1.5% net smelter return (NSR) royalty and a fixed royalty of $75 per ounce for the first 20,000 gold equivalent ounces produced.
Quantum Blockchain Technologies was up 26% at 0.63p following the appointment of José Rios as strategic adviser. Rios, a former Intel executive with 25 years of tech industry experience, played a crucial role in Intel’s Blockscale ASIC project for Bitcoin mining, bringing valuable expertise to Quantum’s blockchain development efforts.
Meanwhile, Blackbird PLC surged 29% to 6.39p after it reported a significant increase in users of its video editing platform, elevate.io, and a reduction in first-half losses. Usership grew from 800 to 1,800 in September following a Google Ads campaign. CEO Ian McDonough highlighted this as a crucial step toward monetizing the platform, with new features in the pipeline and a payment gateway expected early next year.
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