Sign Up NowThis Month's Tiny Gems - August 2013

Galena Biopharma, Inc. (GALE)
Duma Energy Corp. (DUMA)
CodeSmart Holdings, Inc. (ITEN)

 

 

 

Galena Biopharma, Inc. (GALE)

 

Galena Biopharma, Inc. (GALE) is focused on developing and commercializing targeted oncology treatments to address major unmet medical needs and advance cancer care. The company’s peptide vaccine immunotherapies harness the patient’s own immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells. Utilizing peptide immunogens has many clinical advantages, including an excellent safety profile and long-lasting protection through immune system activation and convenient delivery.

 

Abstral® is Galena’s FDA-approved therapy for breakthrough cancer pain in opioid-tolerant cancer patients. It is estimated that at least 40% of cancer patients experience breakthrough pain episodes multiple times per day, each with a median duration of 30 minutes. The innovative Abstral formulation rapidly dissolves under the tongue in seconds, provides rapid relief of breakthrough pain in minutes, and matches the duration of the entire pain episode.

 

NeuVax™, currently in a Phase III trial, has been developed to bolster the immune response in breast cancer patients. The trial, entitled PRESENT (Prevention of Recurrence in Early-Stage, Node-Positive Breast Cancer with Low to Intermediate HER2 Expression with NeuVax Treatment), is being conducted under an FDA-approved Special Protocol Assessment (SPA). The therapy targets the 50% to 60% of patients with tumors that express HER2 in low-to-intermediate amounts and achieve remission with current standard of care, but who have no available HER2 targeted adjuvant treatment options to maintain their disease-free status. NeuVax can be used to help the body target and kill undetected cancer cells before they grow into metastatic tumors.

 

The company’s second product candidate, Folate Binding Protein (FBP), is a highly immunogenic peptide that can stimulate the immune system to recognize and destroy preclinical FBP-expressing cancer cells. FBP is over-expressed in more than 90% of ovarian and endometrial cancers, as well as 20%-50% of breast, lung, colorectal, and renal cell carcinomas. This vaccine is currently in a Phase 1/2 trial in two gynecological cancers: ovarian and endometrial adenocarcinomas.

 

Galena’s experienced management team has an excellent track record in clinical development, commercial operations, and successful partnership execution. Enhanced by multiple development and commercial collaborations, the company’s suite of immunotherapeutic solutions is poised to capitalize on the vast opportunities in today’s healthcare industry.

 

 

Duma Energy Corp. (DUMA)

 

Duma Energy Corp. (DUMA), the oil and gas production firm with a solid domestic footprint of interests in Illinois and Texas (both onshore and offshore in Galveston Bay), has been making significant progress at their Owambo Basin assets over in northern Namibia recently, where the company holds 39% working interest in a giant, 5.3M acre onshore petroleum concession. The latest report out of DUMA’s exploration concession in the Owambo Basin (July 9) has established UK-based survey firm, Bridgeporth Ltd., running extensive gravity magnetic analysis on four key blocks (1714A, 1715, 1814A, and 1815A) of the massive concession, which is roughly the size of Massachusetts.

 

This latest aerial survey work will achieve a much higher spatial resolution than anything previously done on the huge concession, less than 15% of which is even covered by an old 2D dataset composed of information from 1960-1990. The other concession holder on the Owambo property is privately held, Hydrocarb Energy Corp., with whom DUMA signed the farm-in deal late last year. Houston-headquartered Hydrocarb has the Petroleum Agreement on Owambo with the Republic of Namibia and also has a great deal of experience working underexplored oil and gas in highly prospective, emerging regions around the world, with offices in Abu Dhabi and the UAE, as well as their offices in Windhoek, Namibia.

 

Chairman and CEO of DUMA, Jeremy Driver, pointed to operator Hydrocarb’s previous detailed geologic and geochemical field analysis on Owambo (study prepared by Weatherford Laboratories out of Houston) as indicating the potential for an active petroleum system on the site and asserted that both companies were really eager to get through this current phase of field work on the project. Given that the target here is potentially in excess of a billion barrels of oil, the sense of urgency shared by DUMA and Hydrocarb is understandable and this latest effort paves the way nicely for a more comprehensive seismic acquisition program in the near future, so the two companies are currently laser-focused on mapping out the route ahead with some much-needed gravity magnetic analysis.

 

The next step after this gravity magnetic work will be drafting a modern 2D seismic data grid, with projections set for early next year to have accomplished this task, taking time in the interim to ensure that the structural setting and depth to basement model delineated by the gravity magnetic work is accurate. Confidence is high at DUMA regarding Owambo and we should see some interesting numbers here in early 2014.

 

 

 

CodeSmart Holdings, Inc. (ITEN)

 

CodeSmart Holdings, Inc. (ITEN), through its subsidiary The CODESMART™ Group, Inc., is a premier national subject matter expert for ICD-10 education and compliance in the United States. Its flagship product, CODESMART™ UNIVERSITY, is a well-respected online program of study for existing coders, new coders, clinicians, and healthcare roles of all types.

 

CODESMART™ University was created through the combination of a leading panel of ICD-10 subject matter experts and a major four-year accredited university, which contributed the nation's top course designers and a platform that already provides interactive education to more than 60,000 students per year in degree programs. The ICD-10 training provided includes live professors who work with and guide students through the programs of study in ICD-10.

 

CodeSmart Holdings has built its reputation by providing customized training to hospitals, health systems, and physician’s practices nationwide, in addition to Puerto Rico, as well as a host of other services. The company is well positioned to help the healthcare industry address the unprecedented number of mandates coming into effect in the next two years.

 

In addition to the revenue generation from its on-line training offerings, the company provides additional services to increase brand awareness and generate additional streams of income. The company also offers ICD-10 preparation for healthcare providers, outsourced coding, code auditing, and on-site workshops that can be simultaneously accessed online via webinars. With a strong marketing campaign and business model addressing today’s rising healthcare concerns, CodeSmart is poised for rapid growth.