Sit back.
Take a deep breath and just relax, your share portfolio is doing just fine.
Or at least it is if you have stock in The Calmer Co International.
With a massive jump of more than 185 per cent, the company is this week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week after surging from 0.7c to touch 2c. The Calmer Co’s mission to provide natural solutions to calm the nerves, induce sleep and support mind and muscle relaxation, appears to be a hit with customers after it recorded eCommerce sales of $16,000 per day for the month of May.
The company’s product range includes drinking powders, teas, shots, concentrates and capsules. Originally basing its products on the use of kava – a shrub traditionally used by Pacific Island communities for sedative, hypnotic and muscle-relaxant effects – it is also looking into the calming effects of CBD (hemp), ginger, curcumin, magnesium and others natural medicines.
The latest figures show an impressive 10 months of consecutive online sales growth with May’s total alone up by 45 per cent compared to April, to record a very tidy $496,000 in eCommerce income. And the sales are not just isolated to online trading.
Total revenue for the past month increased by 28 per cent and is expected to come in at more than $610,000 compared to $470,000 in April. Management puts this down to strong sales through Coles Australia and its Fijian Tourist channel retailers – Jacks of Fiji, Tappoos and Prouds.
It adds that the Shopify USA channel will soon be the major engine for growth in the world’s biggest kava market where the regulatory framework supports launching new innovative products in the future. The Calmer Co processes about 3 per cent of the kava produced in Fiji and is predicted to grow some 6 per cent of the country’s kava in the 2025 financial year.
The company has obviously found a strong market for its products as more and more people look towards the benefits of natural medicines. Although, the heavy online and retail uplift could be putting a little more stress on sales staff.
Luckily, they appear to have a pretty good solution to any additional anxiety caused by the increased workload – revenue!
Taking out second place on this week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runners list is Firetail Resources. Its stock jumped more than 177 per cent from a previous close of 4.5c to touch 12.5c on the back of picking up an 80 per cent share of the York Harbour copper project in the Canadian province of Newfoundland.
The company signed a binding option agreement with York Harbour Metals through a staged earn-in for the project. It contains small-scale historical underground workings that produced 100,000 tonnes at between 3 per cent and 12 per cent copper, 7 per cent zinc and pretty solid silver figures from 1898 to 1913.
Shallow previous exploration at York Harbour delivered some impressive intercepts, with a 29m hit at 5.25 per cent copper and 9 grams per tonne silver from 147m including 3.24m grading a whopping 9.54 per cent copper, 3.5 per cent zinc and 10g/t silver from 167.8m. Another hole recorded 7.17m at 6.56 per cent copper from 42.21m including 2.29m going a hefty 15.88 per cent copper from 42.21m.
In addition to the impressive historic drill hits, Firetail says no property-wide airborne electromagnetic survey has been flown across the operation, meaning there is significant potential to identify further volcanic massive sulphide systems at the 47.25-square-kilometre site.
York Harbour is 180km west/south-west of the high-profile, high-grade Green Bay copper project that is currently under development by ASX-listed Firefly Metals.
Oh, the company also increased its ownership in the Picha and Charaque copper projects in Peru up to 70 per cent, just in case you weren’t sure that Firetail is showing faith in the recent return of interest in the reddish metal. This week’s bronze medal goes to ASX-listed Osteopore – making a welcome return to this column after two appearances earlier this year – after its shares leapt by more than 88 per cent from a previous close of 5.3c to touch 10c. The price hike coincides with the company revealing it had hit some key milestones in its $18.7 million partnership with Singapore’s NDCS and A*STAR to develop next-generation dental implants.
Originally signed back in 2021, the project has developed 3D printing technology that can combine patented biological additives and polymer compounds, which can speed up bone regeneration. The major milestones included demonstrating that the successful combination of patented biological additives and polymer compounds was non-cytotoxic, showing no adverse reactions and good biocompatibility … which is obviously a good thing!
The global dental bone graft and membrane substitutes market was valued at USD$11.47 billion (AU$17.19 billion) last year, with a projected value of USD$27.55 billion (AU$41.3 billion) by 2030. Osteopore says the next-generation dental implant project is now set to progress towards in vivo studies in biological models.
While the company’s latest share price surge did not reach the dizzying heights of earlier this year – including an incredible 1060 per cent increase back in late March – almost 51 million of its shares changed hands following yesterday’s announcement. The run continued today with a further 5.6 million shares bought and sold.
Just missing out on a podium finish this week is INOVIQ – which should feel pretty hard done-by after confirming it has successfully produced and isolated engineered exosomes that target and kill breast cancer cells in vitro. The announcement prompted a share price hike of more than 72 per cent from a previous close of 46.5c to touch 80c before it announced a trading halt.
The company is developing and commercialising a portfolio of diagnostic and exosome-based products for the earlier detection, diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of cancer and other diseases.
According to its latest news from a proof-of-concept study, a breast cancer-targeting protein was expressed in exosomes released by immune cells. The modified exosomes were isolated and concentrated from immune cell-conditioned media using INOVIQ’s “EXO-ACE” technology, which recovered more than 80 per cent of exosomes from cell-conditioned media with more than 95 per cent purity.
When treated with these exosomes, 75 per cent of breast cancer cells died within 72 hours. The result has encouraged INOVIQ to progress its exosome therapeutics program, initially focusing its therapeutics on metastatic breast and ovarian cancers.
Nearly 4.9 million of the company’s shares changed hands following the release of the study results, which eclipsed its previous highest volume of more than 1 million back in June last year.
Cancer is a global scourge and breast cancer is a major health concern for thousands of Australians every year. Any progress made in addressing and potentially providing a cure for this horrendous disease deserves any success that comes its way.
While this is only the early result of a proof-of-concept study for INOVIQ’s exosome treatment, we wish them all the best for its follow-up program.
Good luck, INOVIQ, from us and all families being confronted with the insidious disease.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Michael Philipps
