Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Net Element, Inc. (NETE) Taking a Bite from the Golden Apple, Inc. (AAPL)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is a brand that many technology companies want to be affiliated with because of its cultural and technological influence in the world today. Net Element International, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE) is one of those companies that is actually able to leverage the powerful Apple brand for its benefit.

Last month, Net Element announced an agreement to provide Apple Pay services to its secure mobile-transaction platform, which will make it possible for those with Net Element’s transaction platform to be able to handle and process Apple Pay when used with iPhones that possess NFC (near-field communication) capability.

Upon the initial announcement in late November, shares of Net Element spiked to about $2 per share before retreating back to current levels. However, the run on the stock at that time can be seen as a future indicator about investor sentiment in the company, as Apple Pay begins to be integrated into the Net Element mobile-transaction and mobile-payment platform. As that integration process completes, Net Element’s mobile-services platform will be well-positioned to be a featured tool in many transactional contexts.

There is little doubt that with the increased proliferation of NFC-enabled iPhones in the marketplace and the continued evolvement of NFC capability, services like Apple Pay and Google Wallet will soon become as standard a payment system as swiping a debit or credit card today. As the wave of mobile payments continues to build, Net Element is leveraging a relationship with Apple Inc. to be at the top of that wave by the time it crests and takes over many transactional tableaus. Apple Pay is trending positively, and Net Element is positioning itself to ride that trend wherever it goes.

For more information, visit www.netelement.com

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Monday, December 29, 2014

VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA) – Developing Leading-Edge Biotechnology Offerings

VistaGen Therapeutics is bringing human biology to the front end of the long and costly drug development process. Among the most troubling aspects of drug development are unexpected heart and liver toxicities that often arise during human testing. Applying its stem cell technology and the human heart and liver cells it produces from stem cells, the company’s new generation of customized biological assay systems have been designed to predict early in development how humans will respond to new drug candidates in the long run.

In the years since VistaGen was founded, its technological advancements are finally catching on and allowing the founders of the company to realize their dream: to create the type and quality of human cell-based biological assay systems that provide a real understanding of the potential therapeutic and toxic effects of new drug candidates long before they are ever tested in animals or humans. Today’s next-generation biological assays are indeed providing crucial preclinical human cardiac data, soon to be followed by human liver data, that will increase the likelihood of selecting safer therapeutics for clinical development.

VistaGen has focused on developing various offerings over the years, including a novel clinical-stage drug therapy that has emerged as a leading new drug candidate in the multibillion dollar global antidepressant market. These offerings include:

•     AV-101 – an orally-available small molecule drug candidate VistaGen has under clinical development. This therapy has completed the first phase of development for the treatment of a number of neurological diseases and disorders. This list includes Major Depressive Disorder and chronic neuropathic pain, both disabling conditions affecting millions around the world.

•     CardioSafe 3D™ – the company’s human heart cell-based bioassay system that, following significant development, is demonstrating a propensity for being a clinically-predictive system for the preclinical cardiac safety screening of new drug candidates, including anti-cancer drug candidates such as kinase inhibitors, a new category of drugs that has revolutionized cancer therapy because of its increased target cell efficacy and reduced systemic toxicity when compared to classic cancer drugs and other therapeutic compounds. VistaGen is using CardioSafe 3D to expand its internal pipeline through various “drug rescue” programs. The goal of these drug rescue programs is to re-engineer or re-design (that is, rescue) once-promising new drug candidates developed by large pharmaceutical companies but abandoned before FDA-approval due to heart toxicity issues. The company believes the broad range of insightful heart toxicity data it can generate using CardioSafe 3D will give it a valuable head start in its and its collaborators’ efforts to re-design and develop a new, VistaGen-owned variant of these once-promising drug candidates, each with the same therapeutic potential as the original but without the heart toxicity issues.

•     LiverSafe 3D™ – an innovative, customized, three-dimensional in-vitro bioassay system being validated to complement CardioSafe 3D for drug rescue applications. Using human liver cells produced from stem cells, the company is planning to use LiverSafe 3D™ to evaluate potential drug rescue candidates with metabolism and liver toxicity issues.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.vistagen.com

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Friday, December 26, 2014

Vycor Medical, Inc. (VYCO): Two Businesses and Nearly $14B Market Opportunity

Boca Raton, Florida-based Vycor Medical operates two distinct businesses through which the company has built a hearty portfolio of FDA-cleared, revenue-generating medical solutions. Collectively these businesses address significant global markets with combined value of approximately $13.7 billion.

Vycor’s NovaVision offers a suite of complementary therapies providing vision rehabilitation for neurological brain damage (such as stroke). The company has amassed an IP portfolio of 33 granted/issued patents, five pending patents, and is the developer of Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT), the only FDA-cleared therapy targeting vision loss resulting from neurological trauma.

While current post-traumatic therapies exist for speech, physical and occupational rehabilitation, vision therapy is often left unaddressed. To the more than a quarter (28%) of stroke victims that suffers from visual disorders and for the 20% that experience permanent vision loss, NovaVision’s focus on this critical missing therapy is of considerable value. The company enjoys limited peer competition within this area of therapy as there are no other clinically supported alternatives to the company’s light-based prescription stimulation therapy.

NovaVision has also developed the first commercially available computer-based eye movement therapy available for home use. Supported by decades of scientific research and 20 clinical studies, the company has completed two professional NeuroEyeCoach models that re-train patients to optimize their remaining visual field. This technology is currently available in the United States; additionally, NovaVision commenced a three-center patient trial for NeuroEyeCoach in Germany, Austria and Italy.

Vycor’s ViewSite is focused on bringing to market devices that increase safety and revolutionize surgery across multiple disciplines. Among other products, the company has developed a neurosurgical device used to access a specific target within the brain (such as a tumor). The ViewSite Brain Access System (VBAS) is a suite of single-use devices designed with a minimally invasive shape to enable the surgeon to access a specific target within the brain.

Accurate target access also creates potential for significantly less damage to the surrounding tissue compared to the risk of damage caused by the sharp edges of traditional blade retractors. The minimally invasive design also enables surgeons to use the device in challenging procedures that were once considered “inoperable.”

VBAS is fully commercialized and Vycor has initiated and is taking action following a four-pronged growth strategy to saturate the market:

•     Drive U.S. market penetration – VBAS has been approved in more than 170 hospitals in the U.S. with additional hospitals in the approval process.
•     Increase focus on international expansion – Vycor has established distribution agreements in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan and the UK.
•     Secure more clinical and scientific data – Vycor is strongly supported by neurosurgeons at Weill Cornell Medical Center, has seven peer reviewed/published studies, and has a pipeline of new studies expected to be completed in 2015.
•     Focus on new product development – Two of four planned new devices are currently going through the manufacturing process in Asia; finalization of design and testing, along with co-marketing and co-promotion agreements are being explored.

As Vycor carries out its growth strategy, the company is reaping the fruits of its progress. In the first nine months of 2014, Vycor reported revenue of $991,001, a 26% increase over the same period in 2013. The Vycor Medical division (VBAS) accounted for revenues of $710,743, a 41% increase compared to the same period in 2013. Gross profit for 2014 was $865,021, a 26% increase over 2013, a margin of 87% for both periods.

The company benefits from the guidance of a strong management team, board of directors, an advisory board, and impressive product portfolio that affix Vycor to incredible market opportunity. Pertaining to its stroke/TBI VRT and NeuroEyeCoach, the company sees approximately $4 billion aggregate US/EU market opportunity and $13 billion global market opportunity, in addition to $700 million market opportunity for the VBAS family of devices.

For more information, visit www.vycormedical.com

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ENGlobal Corp. (ENG) – Specialty Engineering at Its Finest

ENGlobal Corp., a specialty global engineering services firm, provides engineering, automation and professional services to entities operating in the United States and beyond. The corporation caters predominantly to the energy sector and, for close to thirty years, has offered choice Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Management (EPCM) projects as well as first-class automation solutions through two business divisions:

•     Automation; and
•     Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management.

Automation
The company’s Automation segment serves the petroleum refining, petrochemical, pipeline, production, process, and pulp and paper industries and specializes in integrated services that relate to the design, creation and execution of:

•     Complex, process distributed control and analyzer systems; and
•     Advanced automation, information technology, and electrical projects.

This segment also designs, assembles, integrates, and services control and instrumentation systems for specific applications in energy and processing related industries.

Engineering
ENGlobal’s EPCM segment serves the energy, chemical and petrochemical manufacturing, utility, oil and gas, and alternative energy developing industries. This group offers consulting services relating to the development, management and execution of projects that require professional engineering, construction management and interconnected support services. Service offerings include:

•     Conceptual studies;
•     Project definition;
•     Cost estimating;
•     Engineering design;
•     Environmental compliance;
•     Material procurement;
•     Project management;
•     Facility inspection; and
•     Construction management.

Within the EPCM segment is ENGlobal’s Government Services group, which provides electrical and instrument installation, technical, design, maintenance and calibration, operation and repair services to government, public sector and international facilities. This dedicated group also specializes in the turnkey installation and maintenance of automation and instrumentation systems for the U.S. defense industry around the world.

ENGlobal’s founders have endeavored to make the company a preferred provider of EPCM projects and advanced automation integration services around the world since it was established in 1985. The ENGlobal team continues to strive to make this vision a reality by carefully delivering solutions that bring success to the company’s stakeholders.

For more information, visit www.englobal.com

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Friday, December 19, 2014

Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. (CWCO) Continues Impressive Growth Trend

Consolidated Water Company, over the course of its 41-year history, has evolved from a small private water utility in Grand Cayman to a Nasdaq-listed (1995) regional water provider expected to achieve 2014 revenues of $67 million, according to analysts polled by Capital IQ.

Today, CWCO designs, builds, operates and in some cases finances seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants and water distribution systems in five Caribbean countries with little or no naturally occurring fresh water, growing population and tourism levels, and where the use of SWRO is economically feasible.

CWCO accomplished its growth primarily via strategic acquisition, industry and technical expertise, and by capitalizing on its exclusive water utility franchise in Grand Cayman, which as of 2012 census had a population of roughly 56,700. The company supplies water to private bulk water customers, retail customers and government-owned utility companies in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Bali and Belize.

Collectively, the company has 14 desalination plants with total production capacity of 26.4 millions of U.S. gallons per day. The company’s largest SWRO plant, which was commissioned in July 2006, is the Blue Hill plant in Nassau, Bahamas, with a production capacity of 7.2 million gallons per day.

A look at the company’s books shows that despite a dip in 2013, which the company attributes to lower retail sales volume, CWCO has achieved comfortable growth in the last three years.

2011 – net income of $6.6 million on revenues of $55.2 million
2012 – net income of $9.3 million on revenues of $65.5 million
2013 – net income of $8.6 million on revenues of $63.8 million

For the first nine months of 2014 the company reported net income of $5.3 million on $50.3 million in revenues, compared to net income of $7.5 million on revenues of $48.6 million for the comparable nine months of 2013.

As of March 31, 2014, CWCO had debt of $9.5 million; $41.2 million in working capital; $141.2 million in shareholders’ equity; and $160.4 million in total assets. The company also has a healthy dividend yield at 3.05% with an annual payout of $0.30. First-quarter 2014 dividend is set at $0.075 per share, unchanged from the fourth quarter declaration.

The solid growth and strong balance sheet points back to the company’s experienced leadership. CWCO CEO and engineer Frederick McTaggart joined the company as director in 1998 and has served in his current executive capacity since 2004. From April 1994-October 2000, McTaggart was the managing director of the Water Authority-Cayman, the government-owned water utility serving certain areas of the Cayman Islands. He also previously worked for the Caribbean Utilities Company, the electrical utility on Grand Cayman, as a mechanical engineer. He is joined and supported by a qualified and experienced team of professionals that share a corporate vision for continued growth.

Among other expansion opportunities, CWCO’s management is focused on new markets in Mexico and Southern California, a region dependent on water imported from the Colorado River and forecast to rapidly increase in population over the next 20 years. In Rosarito, Mexico, CWCO is progressing on its proposition for a conveyance pipeline and desalination plant with production facility estimated at $600 million.

For more information, visit www.cwco.com

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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Net Element, Inc. (NETE) Robust TOT Platform a One-Stop Shop for Full Spectrum Payment Processing, Risk Management & Business Analytics

Net Element, which is primarily focused on mobile payments, payment processing and value-added services via their TOT Group family of companies, is poised for serious growth with their unique browser-based software platform for rapidly integrating secure payment processing into existing web apps, as well as their overarching TOT Platform, an omni-channel, market-spanning transactional platform for handling mobile payments billing. The rise of NFC payments (near-field communications), powered by smartphones interacting with payment terminals at stores, is having a transformative impact on the commercial landscape and creating a new paradigm of walletless phone-powered transactions.

Recent market analysis by WorldPay projects credit and debit card payments will continue to decline as a percentage of the overall payment processing market in coming years, receding by over 16% in the next three years alone, as e-commerce and e-wallets displace more and more of the antiquated card-based transactions. WorldPay sees e-wallets evening out with credit and debit cards and then progressing ahead as the dominant format through 2017, when they estimate the dollar value of global processing using the new methods will soar to around $1.6T. Of course, a big part of this evolution will be dependent on the emergence of specialized mobile payment solutions keeping up with the growing market penetration of smartphones, and this dynamic creates a huge opportunity for transaction platform developers and service providers like NETE.

The TOT Platform allows companies to fully outsource the payment and risk management requirements needed to execute Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Level 1-compliant solutions, with a dynamic hosted page featuring multiple payment methods. With such architecture at their disposal, NETE client companies can easily roll out new mobile payment solutions that are universally accessible with ease and the simplicity of new merchant onboarding means the sky is the limit when it comes to getting new, even small merchants up and running in no time flat.

Moreover, the TOT Platform has a powerful business intelligence backend that allows for rigorous data analysis and reporting; a business intelligence backend which simultaneously eliminates the need for an often quite expensive customer support console, since typical support functionality is built right into the TOT Platform’s dashboard. From risk reduction and loss prevention, to supply chain or logistical optimization, TOT Platform’s highly flexible toolset grants merchants real-time situational awareness over their day-to-day operations, enabling them to execute new efficiency strategies, or identify and capitalize on hidden opportunities, or even those that were hiding in plain sight before the platform’s implementation.

Monitoring transactions in real-time, as well as keeping tabs on factors like acceptance and chargeback rates (along with the reasons for them), gives merchants the power to recognize potential conflicts or operational roadblocks almost immediately. The long-term analytical might of the platform allows business owners to go even further, rapidly drilling down into the merchant channels to find out exactly what is happening. With risk management features like complete data validation, as well as built-in basic, third-party and dynamic/intelligent risk checks, and even a comprehensive credit assessment bench (including tools like 3-D Secure, Address Verification Service and Card Verification Value), the TOT Platform can help eliminate much of the standard risk factors encountered in the industry.

All of this sets up the platform’s provider routing gateway for global payment processing, TOT Gateway (which already has over 250 payment processors linked to it), quite well indeed. TOT Gateway is adaptable too, enabling payment processing using traditional, as well as alternative payment methods, with full support for real or even virtual currencies. These capabilities make the TOT Gateway component of the TOT Platform more than a mere global payment routing gateway, they make it the biggest and one of the fastest growing global networks of such payment providers in existence today.

For more information on Net Element, visit: www.NETElement.com

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ENGlobal (ENG) Engineers Market Attention with Results

Engineering and automation continue to be two aspects of various sectors of the economy that have gained much value in recent years. This can be especially true in the energy sector, where a company like ENGlobal (NASDAQ: ENG) has gained significant ground. Over the last couple of years, the company has made substantial progress in the areas of engineering and automation, and it has resulted in four straight quarters of profitability and a stock that has gone up nearly 34 percent in 2014.

The stock does hold a 52-week high north of $4 per share but is currently trading under $2 a share, which may make this a good value opportunity. The company has year-to-date revenue up about 27 percent over the same period in 2013 and net income of more than $5 million, which is a turnaround from a $2.6-million loss in the previous year.

Since the company divested its Field Solutions division two years ago, ENGlobal has been striving to be more profitable in its existing Automation segment and its Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Management segments. The company has gained attention for its nearly three decades of operation and its core values of acting ethically and responsibly and always putting safety first in all of its work. ENG has been a stock to watch lately, and the company is well positioned to continue its momentum with positive cash flow and profitability.

For more information, visit www.ENGlobal.com

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Tuesday, December 16, 2014

VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA) AV-101 Rivals Ketamine and Other Next-Gen Anti-depressants

On the street ketamine is referred to as “Special K,” a drug popular in the party scene because of its hallucinogenic and other psychotomimetic, or psychosis-like, effects. In the operating room, ketamine has long been used for general anesthesia, and a growing body of research also shows ketamine as highly effective at treating depression, especially in patients who are inadequately treated by currently marketed antidepressants – treatment-resistant patients with Major Depressive Disorder. It’s the dangerous chasm between illicit party drug and FDA-approved general anesthetic that raises concern over using ketamine as an antidepressant. The upside is that the continued focus on depression unveils breakthrough alternative treatments currently in development and a changing paradigm for treating Major Depressive Disorder.

Most currently available antidepressant drugs act on serotonin and related neurotransmitter pathways in the brain and require a long lag in onset of antidepressant effects, usually requiring several weeks of administration before therapeutic benefits are achieved. But about 10 years ago, researchers recognized that ketamine has properties that within a matter of hours help alleviate symptoms of patients with Major Depressive Disorder.

A more rapid-acting antidepressant would have a phenomenal impact on the treatment of depression, and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), is among those researching ketamine’s potential for this indication.

Dr. Carlos Zarate, Chief of Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology at the NIMH, is conducting a Phase 2 clinical trial to examine whether ketamine can cause a rapid-next day antidepressant with longer lasting effects. In a previous study, ketamine produced a rapid antidepressant effect within hours, but the effect lasted less than one week.

As highlighted in an article on NPR, Dr. Zarate’s previous study of 30 depressed patients who were dosed with ketamine did in fact demonstrate changes in brainwave activity that indicated the drug is capable of strengthening connections between neurons in areas of the brain associated with depression.

While these studies and others raise new hope for depression patients, especially for treatment-resistant major depression patients, the primary concerns of using the ketamine for this indication remain.

Among those concerns are the requirement of intravenous (IV) administration in a clinical setting, serious psychiatric effects of the drug, risk of abuse, and the lack of long-term studies. While some clinics provide ketamine that patients can self-administer via IV at home, the practice is a rare departure from the standard practice of monitoring patients when they take the drug.
Pharmaceutical companies hope to dissolve many of these challenges by developing drugs that utilize ketamine’s depression-alleviating properties without the side effects. GLYX-13, made by a company called Naurex, is one such drug.

In the company’s recently reported phase 2b study of GLYX-13, the new data confirmed the efficacy and safety results from an earlier phase 2 study, which documented the drug’s rapid onset of antidepressant activity within two hours and lasting for an average of seven days.

Additionally, GLYX-13 was well-tolerated with no sign of the psychosis-like effects associated with ketamine. This is unarguably of incredible clinical significance when it comes to advances in antidepressants. The catch? GLYX-13 is administered intravenously, which for most patients is an inconvenient if not unrealistic method of administration on a weekly basis.
Medical advances are the results of perpetual fine tunings of initial clinical achievements. On that note, Dr. Zarate at the NIMH also has an eye out for new generation antidepressants such as GLYX-13, Cerecor’s CER-301, and VistaGen’s AV-101.

Dr. Zarate has agreed to be the principal investigator of an expected Phase 2 depression study of VistaGen’s AV-101, a novel drug candidate that that might be more potent than GLYX-13, again with out ketamine-like side effects. Furthermore, AV-101 is administered orally by capsule.

In two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase I clinical studies, AV-101 was well-tolerated and without signs of sedation, hallucinations or the schizophrenia-like side effects often associated with ketamine and other similar channel blockers.
The phase 1 studies were conducted at the University of California, San Diego, by Dr. Mark Wallace, a colleague of psychiatrist Dr. David Feifel, one of only a few academic psychiatrists to offer ketamine treatment. In a recent New York Times article, Dr. Feifel notes that the biggest challenge of ketamine as an antidepressant is that the effect quickly wears off.
VistaGen’s upcoming phase 2 trial will study AV-101’s ability to improve overall depressive symptoms in adult subjects with Major Depressive Disorder. The trial is expected to start in the first quarter of 2015, be conducted by Dr. Carlos Zarate of the NIMH, and funded by the NIH, which previously awarded VistaGen $8.8 million of grant funding for its preclinical and phase 1 clinical development of AV-101.

VistaGen believes its orally-available AV-101 candidate has the potential to deliver the same therapeutic benefits of ketamine and other NMDA receptor modulators, but without IV administration or side effects. AV-101 is also an FDA fast track designation candidate and demonstrates additional potential in epilepsy, pain and Parkinson’s disease.

Depression is a huge, debilitating and global public health concern. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression –according to the NIHM, 7% of that number are U.S. adults. Though the FDA has approved antidepressants for decades, the treatments fail to adequately provide rapid-acting and long lasting benefits in treatment-resistant patients with Major Depressive Disorder. As evidenced by the recent suicide of actor Robin Williams, whose long battle with depression was widely publicized, there is tremendous need for a new generation of safe and fast-acting antidepressants.

The paradigm of depression treatment is shifting away from the use of FDA-approved, long-lag onset drugs toward faster-acting treatments like ketamine. Despite the challenges associated with ketamine, its growing acceptance among the psychiatric community and national media continues to spread. How much more so will the world embrace a new generation of antidepressant candidates, like GLYX-13 and AV-101, that are in sync with this new paradigm but void of the typical challenges?

For more information about AV-101, visit www.vistagen.com

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ENGlobal Corp. (ENG) Well Positioned to Provide EPC Services for Oil, Gas, and Alternative Energy Sectors

In only the last five years or so, the U.S. has seen an energy revolution take place with oil and gas production figures hurtling us back into the number one slot globally. With the nation’s biggest management consulting and investment banking firm for the engineering and construction industry, FMI Corp., projecting an average 17% growth rate for oil and gas construction CAPEX through 2017, continuing to rise sharply from the roughly $55B spent last year, the market for energy sector service providers will likely continue to see considerable upside.

Back in 2008 most of the oil and gas was coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, Texas and Alaska, but with the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology, areas like Pennsylvania and West Virginia (Marcellus Shale), Oklahoma (Anadarko Basin) and North Dakota (Bakken) have played an increasingly prominent role in bringing down energy costs for the average consumer. Moreover, the industry is learning to drill shale better, with average well performance increases owing to factors like better well engineering, which ultimately results in enhanced flow rates. In Oklahoma alone more than 2.6k oil and natural gas wells were completed last year, and over in the Marcellus, the latest EIA data indicates natural gas production just continues growing by leaps and bounds, with over 15 billion cubic feet per day reported through July this year representing roughly 40% of U.S. shale gas production, up over 650% from 2010 production figures of around 2 Bcf/d.

Needless to say, the immense growth of domestic oil and gas recovery infrastructure, as well as a similar, yet less pronounced growth in utility-scale and other alternative energy infrastructure, has been a bonanza for EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) companies. The Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research recently reported PV (photovoltaic) solar installations grew by over 1.1K MW for Q2 2014, with even residential (up 2%) and non-residential (up 13%) showing strong upticks from first quarter growth figures. Utility-scale solar capacity has been doing even better over the last two years, up 309%, or nearly double that of residential and non-residential growth, hitting around 7.3k MW by midpoint this year.

The market for EPC service providers to the utility-scale solar and wind sector is on-track to hit $7.2B next year and federal tax incentives, set to expire in 2017, will likely send sector players rushing into the arms of smaller companies, as the biggest EPC’s find their margins tighten sharply. Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently projected domestic renewable energy capacity (minus hydro) as doubling by 2021, with the dearth of large utility-scale projects forcing the largest EPC companies to rethink their business models. Small-scale PV growth looks like the sweet spot moving forward, as the small-scale PV market size for EPC services stands to hit around $6.3B in 2016.

Overall this is a very bullish environment for smaller EPC providers like ENGlobal Corp. (NASDAQ: ENG), especially considering the vast technical expertise the company has amassed in the closely-related field of automation. With numerous successful control system migrations (considered some of the most technically challenging work in the industry) under their belt, ranging from vendor-sponsored jobs to full “rip & replace” conversions, ENGlobal’s EPCM segment (as they also provide construction management) can handle a wide variety of all the major vendor distributed control system (DCS) hardware and software.

The numerous awards the company has recently received, like a big project from one of the country’s leading automated pipe handling equipment companies to do procurement, integration and testing for a series of automated driller cabins, is a clear endorsement of the company’s engineering and automation prowess. Another large deal, handed to ENG by an established midstream master limited partnership, has the company acting as their automation systems integration contractor, handling the complete builds of and testing on a variety of process control shelters, including the PLC (programmable logic controller) systems, as well as the railcar and truck loading, and unloading facilities, even including all of the requisite satellite stations.

ENGlobal has also teamed up with a number of leaders in the alternative energy sector to bring vital renewable fuel processing facilities to fruition, ranging from demo pilot plants to standard processing units. The company has wide-ranging expertise in a host of core alternative energy processes, expertise derived from first-hand experience doing a broad array of different types of projects, from their core competencies in refining and petrochemical processing, which dovetails with biofuel projects, to solar and wind installations. The company’s robust engineering know-how allows ENG to take a project from conceptual engineering and feasibility studies through to design, permitting, construction and management, including the necessary secondary services, all under an umbrella that includes detailed consulting from some of the top minds in the engineering today.

The company’s core competencies, established through years of work in upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas, where they have provided full service engineering, procurement and construction, makes ENGlobal extremely well positioned to handle the emerging energy sector landscape’s dynamics over the coming years. The company is large enough and robust enough to tackle any project from whiteboard to field logistics across projects ranging from oil and gas to renewables, yet is small enough to not suffer from being caught in the bite as federal tax incentives get rolled back in alternative energy, or as falling energy prices impact the shale boom.

To learn more about ENGlobal Corp., visit www.ENGlobal.com

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Net Element’s (NETE) Process Pink Offers Merchants, Consumers the Chance to Join Fight against Breast Cancer

Net Element leverages a portfolio of core technology and operational business partners to be an aggressive competitor in the mobile payments and value-added transactional services market. The company owns and operates TOT Group, Inc., a global mobile payments and transaction processing provider. Among TOT Group’s consortium of companies is Unified Payments, which operates a portfolio of brands including Process Pink, a provider of credit and debit-card based payment processing services that supports leading national charities.

Thanks to the aggressive campaigning of Susan G. Komen® for the Cure and the Think Pink Foundation, people around the world associate pink ribbons and the term “think pink” with the fight against breast cancer. TOT Group’s Process Pink also plays this chord. When a consumer makes a credit card purchase at a Process Pink participating merchant, a portion of the transaction is donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) charity. To be clear, Process Pink has an affiliation with NBCF, not Susan G. Komen or Think Pink – but the company does utilize the infamous pink ribbon and namesake.

The Process Pink brand is growing in awareness and over the years has received many awards and recognitions:

•     Inc. Magazine #1 Fastest Growing Company 2012
•     Certificate of Recognition (presented and signed by Mayor Phil Katzakian of Lodi, California)
•     Congratulatory $1.00 bill presented by the Lodi Chamber of Commerce and signed by Pat Patrick, President & CEO of the Lodi Chamber of Commerce
•     Featured on ABC World News with Dr. Tim Johnson
•     Featured in multiple broadcasts on Fox Networks in Illinois

Process Pink prides itself on fast and secure authorizations coupled with reliable uptimes and merchant services such as a range of payment solutions, industry-specific solutions, core technology, point-of-sale (POS) equipment and financing. The company also offers partnerships for agents, ISOs, financial institutions, non-profit organizations, referral partners and software developers.

The broader Net Element brand is also growing, with an international presence in selected emerging markets. The company is led by a management team with extensive backgrounds in payment processing, finance and marketing, along with a recently expanded board of directors.

Net Element is a resilient business with strong recurring revenue, diversified customer base, and visibility within the financial payments industry as well as the investment community. Aside from its TOT Group division, Net Element also owns and operates Unified Payments, which was recognized by Inc. Magazine as the No. 1 fastest growing private company in America in 2012; Aptito, a next-gen cloud-based point of sale (“POS”) payments platform; and TOT Money, a mobile billing solutions provider and Russia’s top-ranked SMS content provider.

For more information, visit www.netelement.com or www.processpink.com

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Friday, December 12, 2014

Stonegate Capital Partners Bridges Small-Caps with Institutional Investors

Donald Trump has been quoted as saying, “You’re generally better off sticking with what you know.” While Mr. Trump has experienced the good, bad and ugly side of investing, one cannot deny he has a lot of agreeing company when it comes to his advice. Emerging small-cap stock companies indeed are a part of this group – focused on what they do best while surrounding the enterprise with trusted advisors known to be proven experts in their crafts as well.

Perhaps this is why Stonegate Capital Partners, an investment banking and corporate advisory firm, has thrived among small-cap stock companies for more than four decades. Stonegate, rooted and focused on what it does best, bridges the divide between public companies and institutional investors, either through private placements, coordinating block trades, or through open market transactions.

From the day Stonegate opened its doors, its mission has been to find innovative, undervalued public companies for its network of leading institutional investors who seek high quality opportunities. Stonegate offers a wide variety of services including equity research, sales and trading, investment banking and capital markets advisory services.

The company’s ambitious institutional outreach effort is a major building block set within the foundation of the firm, and is noted for being vital to its success. This, combined with its team’s extensive institutional relationships and experience with complex capital market issues, creates an incomparable platform for companies looking to grow their institutional shareholder base and ultimately realize optimal valuation in their stock.

Largely responsible for the company’s success in meeting customer needs is a sales team that maintains constant communication with a large market of institutional investors. By leveraging a proprietary database of institutional investors, the group employs an effective tool that gives Stonegate unmatched insight on how the fund managers make buying decisions. Subsequently, the company can screen for various investment criteria such as sector preferences, minimum market cap and liquidity requirements. The result is a sales team that can quickly identify the most appropriate buyers for each company it represents. And with time being the precious commodity that it is, management benefits by meeting exclusively with qualified and vetted institutions.

Stonegate’s experience with small cap institutions, in concert with dedicated and focused sales professionals, is a precious differentiator in a wide, cluttered field of investment banking firms. The company’s team oriented approach is closely aligned with each client. Leading by example is co-owner and company CEO Scott Griffith who joined Stonegate in 1992. Prior to joining Stonegate, Mr. Griffith was a Vice-President at Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette from 1980 to 1988 and a Vice-President at Smith Barney from 1988 to 1992. Mr. Griffith received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Florida State University in 1979.

For more information on the company visit www.stonegateinc.com

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VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA) Embarking on Key Stage 2 Clinical Trial of Potential Breakthrough Major Depression Therapy

With the very public suicide of actor/comedian Robin Williams recently, the battle with major depressive disorder, or MDD, has moved even more into the public light. VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: VSTA) has become one of a small group of companies developing a new generation of antidepressant drugs to combat depression where current antidepressants and other therapies have come up short.

VistaGen is slated early in the New Year to begin a Phase 2 clinical trial of its AV-101 with the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), the mental health arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), builing on encouraging signs of safety and the drug’s potential to better combat major depression without the lag in onset of therapeutic benefits and some of the serious side effects often associated with currently-available anti-depression therapies and treatments.

With nearly $9 million of prior support from the NIH, VistaGen has been working diligently to develop AV-101 for various diseases and conditions of the central nervous system (CNS), including depression, chronic pain and other CNS disorders, and AV-101 is reportedly showing the notable potential for success in combating one of the most prominent disorders in the world – one which is estimated to affect about 1 in 20 people globally and indirectly impacts families and friends of those sufferers. That potential has now caught the attention of the NIMH, which is expected to collaborate with the company and sponsor its upcoming Phase 2 clinical study of AV0-101 in major depression.

In its NIH-funded Phase 1 clinical trials in healthy volunteers, AV-101 was safe, with no adverse side effects. In those studies, multiple subjects on AV-101 (none on placebo) expressed positive feelings of well-being similar to ketamine’s rapid-onset antidepressant effects, without any of ketamine’s serious side effects. There were no reports of hallucinations, sedation or any schizophrenia-like effects which have been reported with drugs such as ketamine and similar treatments that have produced what are called rapid-onset antidepressant results.

This Phase 2 trial is due to be both started and completed in 2015, offering hope for a potential safe and effective breakthrough treatment for major depression, something that has eluded patients and healthcare professionals for decades.

For more information, visit www.vistagen.com

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Kopin Corp. (KOPN) is “One to Watch”

Kopin, based in Massachusetts, is a leading developer and provider of innovative wearable technologies designed to transform the way people see, hear, and communicate, through the use of enhanced visual, verbal, audio, and head-gesture command capabilities. Their extensive portfolio of patented technologies includes ultra-small displays, optics, speech enhancement technology, low power ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), ergonomically designed headset computing systems, and associated software. The company supplies the consumer, industrial, and military markets.

Kopin technology capabilities include:

•     Display – Kopin continues to set the standard for near-eye display performance and quality, producing the world’s smallest and highest-resolution transmissive liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

•     ASIC – Kopin’s compact, low-power application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are critical for the miniaturization and minimal power consumption requirements of wearable headsets.

•     Ergonomics – Wearable devices are redefining the interactions between users and technology. Kopin understands that the role of human factors and ergonomics is critical in shaping the experiences these devices deliver.

•     Optics – Kopin optics are ideal for wearable headset devices because of their small, light-weight form factors and their ability to produce sharp and colorful images that enhance the capabilities of their display products.

•     Speech Enhancement – Kopin’s voice capabilities enable ultimate hands-free convenience for wearable headsets. Their technology and expertise is focused on improving the voice recognition accuracy even in the noisiest conditions.

•     Software – Kopin has been prolific in advancing human-computer interaction modalities for wireless “hands-free” mobile computing and communications.

•     Packaging – Portable electronics, including wearable headsets, require the skilled packaging of many parts into very tight spaces to reduce the size and weight of the unit.

With their technology portfolio and extensive system design experience, Kopin provides tailored solutions that boost user productivity and efficiency, and accelerate product development.

Kopin solution offerings include:

•     Headset Solutions – Golden-i 3.8D is a reference design headset system for industrial applications. It has a powerful microprocessor, a display pod that provides an equivalent of a 15-inch screen, a 14-MP camera, 9-axis motion sensor to track head motion, and wireless connections via WiFi and Bluetooth. The Golden-i 3.8D offers hands-free operation with voice command and gesture control. It is designed to fit all head sizes and features unique plastic stabilizers and an innovative spring-loaded headband that distributes pressure evenly above the ears with soft pads.

•     Rugged Solutions – With decades of experience in product design and development for industrial and defense related applications, Kopin has the tools to make rugged products a success. Kolpin assists from the early stages of requirements definition and system design trades, to detailed hardware, embedded software and optical design, development testing, volume manufacturing, and production support.

Kopin’s recently reported Q3 financial results show an 85% year-over-year jump in product revenues, with a reduction in the rate of cash used in operating activities.

For more information, visit www.Kopin.com

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Medicure Inc. (MCUJF) Fights the High Risks Associated with Common Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease is the most common killer United States and Europe. Acute coronary syndrome (ACS), a common complication of coronary heart disease, is associated with more than 2.5 million hospitalizations worldwide each year. Medicure Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company that directs its attention in areas that fight back these staggering numbers through its research, clinical development and commercialization of human therapeutics.

The company has raised over $140 million and has allocated it toward the clinical development of cardiovascular drugs. In 2006 Medicure acquired the USA commercial rights to the cardiovascular drug, AGGRASTAT (tirofiban HCl), originally developed by Merck. AGGRASTAT (an antiplatelet medicine that prevents blood clots from forming), along with Heparin, is indicated for the treatment of acute coronary syndrome. Medicure’s builds value for its shareholders by generating revenue to support operations and make investments in the drug’s clinical advancement.

The company’s central focus is on the US commercial sales of FDA-approved small molecule, AGGRASTAT, and leverages the company’s experienced commercial team to facilitate bringing it to market. As of late, there is renewed interest in the drug coming from hospitals and clinicians as a result of notable clinical and economic data. Furthermore, Aggrastat is indicated to reduce the rate of thrombotic cardiovascular events in patients with non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS).

The US rights to Aggrastat are owned by Medicure’s subsidiary, Medicure International, Inc. (Barbados) and the product is distributed in the United States by Medicure’s US subsidiary, Medicure Pharma, Inc. The company sees small molecule development opportunities as one would conclude from MCUJF’s current development programs in the neurology and cardiology fields.

For more information on the company visit www.medicure.com

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Thursday, December 11, 2014

VistaGen Therapeutics Inc. (VSTA) AV-101 Poised to Emerge as a Leading Candidate in Multibillion Dollar Global Antidepressant Market

Depression affects nearly 7% of all adults in the U.S. and over 350M people worldwide according to the World Health Organization, and it is a major contributor to overall disease statistics. GBI Research forecasts the global antidepressant market as growing to around $13.4B by 2018 with a CAGR of approximately 1.8%, even though the primary market component, serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), has continued to produce red flags like ill-served patients and a variety of dangerous side effects.

The FDA-approved anaesthetic ketamine is currently used for starting and maintaining anesthesia, with the chief applications being to induce sedation during intensive care or as a serious pain killer. However, ketamine has also more recently been shown to have significant effect as a fast-acting antidepressant in depression patients that don’t respond well to the typical depression medicine available on the market today, such as Prozac, which mostly target monoamine neurotransmitters. Pharmacologically classified as an NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor antagonist, ketamine induces a trance-like state and, in addition to pain relief and sedation, causes memory loss. Ketamine is classified as a dissociative agent alongside other drugs in its class, like PCP (phencyclidine), with side psychotomimetic effects like confusion, seeing flashing lights and bright color, things that make it popular as a club drug of abuse. The clinical and therapeutic emergence of ketamine in major depressive disorder (MDD) has naturally been significantly slowed down, despite its efficacy in placebo-controlled studies at the NIH, due to these acute psychosis-like side effects (and the potential for abuse, despite having to be administered intravenously), opening up a massive opportunity for a new generation of safe and effective, fast-acting drugs giving the benefits of ketamine while minimizing or eliminating these psychotomimetic side effects.

The rush is now officially on to bring such fast-acting antidepressant agents to market, but to gain widespread approval and clinical acceptance, such agents would ideally need to have comparably robust efficacy and rapidity of onset to intravenously (IV) administered ketamine, according to the Global Therapeutic Head of Neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Husseini K. Manji, MD, FRCPC. Dr. Manji has also noted that to truly gain widespread acceptance, such agents really need vital characteristics that further distinguish them from ketamine, like oral availability and a toxicology profile that would make the agent viable for daily or even chronic use.

One such promising new generation agent, GLYX-13, is an IV-administered partial NMDA receptor agonist being developed by a private company, Naurex, Inc. which raised $18M during its launch of Phase 2 efficacy testing for GLYX-13 back in 2011, and that was without any prior clinical efficacy data. To date, based mostly on the potential of GLYX-13, which is currently Phase 3-ready, Naurex has raised over $160M from a broad array of sector heavy-hitters, including Baxter Ventures, the venture capital arm of Baxter International (NYSE:BAX). Naurex’s latest raise brought in $80M this December 3, largely due to positive Phase 2 data showing robust and sustained antidepressant effect in major depressive disorder patients, again with giants like Baxter and Genesys (NSE:GENESYS) on board.

Another promising new generation antidepressant agent, currently entering Phase 2 development, the same pipeline stage as GLYX-13 was in when Naurex raised that first $18M chunk of their development war chest, is AV-101 from VistaGen Therapeutics (OTCQB: VSTA). VistaGen’s share price is highly accessible to investors and the company is currently poised to launch an important Phase 2 clinical efficacy study of AV-101 in early 2015. The company is planning to collaborate with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) expected to provide NIH sponsorship of the study.

AV-101, a prodrug which is rapidly and enzymatically converted into the established and highly potent NMDAR antagonist, 7-chlorokynurenic acid (7-Cl-KYNA), after crossing the blood-brain barrier, is novel, orally available (in a capsule), non-sedating, and non-hallucinogenic, with no signs of the schizophrenia-like side effects associated with other NMDA channel blockers, such as ketamine. VistaGen’s focus on the glycine binding site (GlyB) within the NMDAR could prove to be one of the best approaches in the new generation antidepressant space to date, potentially offering compelling advantages over competitors like oral-availability and a highly selective method of action.

VistaGen also has an ace up their sleeve, a highly-respected NIH physician with considerable clinical experience using ketamine in major depression, Dr. Carlos Zarate, Chief of the Experimental Therapeutics & Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB) and Section on the Neurobiology and Treatment of Mood Disorders at the NIMH. Dr. Zarate will be conducting the NIH-sponsored Phase 2 efficacy study of AV-101 for major depression early next year. They should have the CRADA hammered out sometime early next month. Savvy investors will want to keep an ear to the ground for developments on AV-101, as this candidate could emerge as one of the leading new generation antidepressants, with therapeutic potential in a variety of central nervous system (CNS) disorders as well, including chronic neuropathic pain, epilepsy and even neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease.

For more information on VistaGen Therapeutics, visit: www.VistaGen.com

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