• Lexaria’s DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform promotes healthier ingestion methods
• The company continues to leverage its technology in new areas
• Lexaria was recently granted new Australian patents and new notices of allowance

Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (CSE: LXX) (OTCQX: LXRP) is a leader in enhancing the flavor, bouquet and gastro-intestinal delivery of edible cannabinoid consumer products. It has patents granted in the U.S. and Australia for applications of its DehydraTECH™ technology. Moreover, the company has many patents pending in over 40 nations. Lexaria Bioscience’s business strategy involves expanding the applicability of its technology within and beyond the cannabinoid sector. Recently upgraded to the OTC Markets’ OTCQX Best Market, Lexaria Bioscience is based in Kelowna, British Columbia.

The DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform promotes healthier ingestion methods. It considerably improves the body’s ability to absorb cannabinoids, vitamins, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), PDE5 inhibitors, nicotine, drugs, supplements and other valuable molecules. The platform boosts the performance of useful compounds in ingestible products across the taste, smell, speed of action, bioabsorption and bioavailability categories.

The DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform eliminates the unwanted taste in cannabinoid edibles. It also boosts bioabsorption by five to 10 times and lessens time of onset. The effects are felt within 15 to 20 minutes. Essentially, the DehydraTECH™ technology enables the transportation of bioactive substances via oral ingestion and does so without the need for inhalational dosing. It is more effective than traditional ingestion and avoids the dangers associated with smoking. Lexaria developed and out-licenses its DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform.

Lexaria was recently granted three new patents by the Australian Patent Office (http://ibn.fm/77vux). Lexaria Bioscience is the only company with patents issued for oral delivery of all cannabinoids. The new Australian patents bring Lexaria’s international patent portfolio to eight issued patents, including four in the U.S. and Australia, respectively.

In addition, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) issued two new notices of allowance for pending patent applications. Lexaria expects to receive corresponding U.S.-issued patents before the end of this year. The company has filed more than 50 patent applications across nine current patent families.

The DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform patents name a wide spectrum of lipophilic bioactives and food carrier/particles, which can be formulated and delivered using the company’s technology. The patents include method and composition of matter claims. The USPTO issued the first patent in October 2016. In February 2017, the first international patent was accepted for issuance in Australia (http://ibn.fm/hdy48).

Lexaria is continuing to leverage its technology in new areas. For example, the DehydraTECH™ drug delivery platform could allow nicotine to be ingested orally. While the company has not yet partnered with the tobacco industry, its strategy includes disruptive nicotine delivery methods (http://ibn.fm/2LdXQ). It remains to be seen if a nicotine industry partnership might evolve. DehydraTECH™ has been shown to deliver nicotine to the brain quicker than traditional delivery methods. Lexaria Biosciences’ strength is its commitment to using its innovative technology to open up new avenues of growth in diverse markets.

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

• Governments worldwide addressing concerns about global climate changes by enacting policies that affect oil and gas industry-related businesses
• Petroteq Energy advancing ecologically sound, unique technology to supply world’s ongoing energy needs
• Petroteq ramping up proof of concept production of 1,000 bpd in Q3, with plans to boost it to 8,000 bpd by 2020

Amid concerns worldwide about the deleterious effects of pollutants on the planet’s ecosystems, oil and gas industry players such as Petroteq Energy Inc. (TSX.V: PQE) (OTC: PQEFF) continue building the visibility of their efforts to be environmentally conscious, and Petroteq’s current real-time rollout of proprietary technology that will extract oil in a closed-loop, zero-harm process puts it in a vanguard position for touting energy and environmentalism’s compatibility.

“America and the world need energy, and oil is still a very and most cost-effective way to do it,”  company President Jerry Bailey told Fox Business last month (http://ibn.fm/gFQE1), noting that Petroteq’s solvent-based tar sands extraction process distinguishes the company’s Utah desert operation from other industry projects in Canada renowned for their ecological impact challenges. Petroteq’s process is “a new technology. Heretofore, no one has unlocked this secret,” Bailey added. “It’s just another way to give us energy.”

The company’s focus is on technology development, but the just-launched Utah production at a site called Asphalt Ridge is serving as the small-scale real world application of Petroteq’s unique process and is expected to be at full extraction before the end of the current quarter. The company then plans to increase its 1,000 bpd output to 8,000 bpd within the next two years (http://ibn.fm/DUlSM) — a veritable drop in the bucket of oil productivity, but a huge reservoir of potential for the industry, if the production test delivers on its promise.

The company is removing oil-heavy sands and rock from the Asphalt Ridge site, mixing them with a simple solvent formulation, crushing the rock to squeeze out the oil-solvent juices, so to speak, and then advancing the oil to the distillation process while returning “cleaned” sands back to the ground where they originated.

Petroteq’s introduction of its technology is timely. The energy industry has long been in the crosshairs of environmental activists concerned about mankind’s impact on the ecological systems of our planet, whether focusing specifically on air and water pollution, land arability or river flows affected by the carbon- and petroleum-based energy industries and hydroelectric systems.

A number of governments worldwide have begun calling for the reduction or elimination of petroleum-fueled automobiles within the next few decades as a result of the 2015 Paris Agreement’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts (http://ibn.fm/NkQhw). California Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to call a Global Climate Action Summit beginning on September 12 resulted from a desire to draw thousands of political, corporate and activist leaders from across the planet to address pollution concerns in harmony with the Paris Agreement, despite the federal government’s distaste for the pact. Outside of the summit’s gathering, tens of thousands of protestors’ agitation showed that some people are dissatisfied with current efforts and want something more.

“We have plans to let the governor’s office know and to let the global markets know that our lands are not for sale and that we will stand up and protect them,” Thomas Joseph of the Indigenous Environmental Network told San Francisco’s KGO-TV (http://ibn.fm/lgdQA).

Petroteq’s technology is the end result of some five years of research by the company’s scientific teams dedicated to delivering a means of extracting oil that is safe for the environment, doesn’t produce greenhouse gases, doesn’t use high-temperature or high-pressure mechanisms, and can effectively be applied not only to Utah’s “oil-wet” deposits, but “water-wet” deposits in places such as Canada, where extraction has already resulted in significant environmental impact.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Petroteq.energy

• Well-known American radio and TV broadcaster Storme Warren signed to produce unique country music content featuring unedited interviews with top performers
• WhereverTV’s free app works with iOS, Android devices to cover full spectrum of mobile consumer needs, in addition to streaming to desktop or laptop computers
• Worldwide streaming OTT (over-the-top) industry projected to grow at 17.2 percent CAGR, reaching $62 billion by 2020
• Global adoption of OTT content devices offers fresh revenue streams for WhereverTV, which currently broadcasts over 125 live channels

WhereverTV Broadcasting Corp. (OTCQB: TVTV) is a next-generation OTT (over-the-top) television subscription service that manages livestream broadcast programming rights across multiple devices, geographies and languages. WhereverTV’s prepaid, no-contract, subscription television services are delivered to a variety of devices including AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google Chromecast, smartphones, Tablet PCs, streaming media players, computers and connected TVs.

WhereverTV’s OTT Broadcast platform is quickly adopting the mantra of “If you provide it, they will come,” with the addition of American radio and TV broadcaster Storme Warren to its exciting programming lineup. Best known as the host of “The Storme Warren Morning Show” on SiriusXM’s “The Highway”, Warren will create new content for WhereverTV’s growing audience of country music fans. Storme’s first OTT platform-based channel, to be available within 60 days, will be titled “StormeTV” and feature a program called “Storme Confidential” that offers unedited, unscripted interviews with some of country music’s top performers and stars (http://ibn.fm/XkJHS).

WhereverTV’s format allows Warren to get deeply involved with his guests without the worry of time segmented restrictions placed by other platforms. His first episodes will feature Tracy Lawrence, Shane McAnally, Darryl Worley and Kip Moore. Storme’s first season has slated 10 episodes with some of country music’s biggest names.

“We are so excited to have such a consummate and highly regarded professional in the eyes of his peers, bring his unique talents to WhereverTV and WhereverTV Country,” Edward D. Ciofani, CEO of WhereverTV, stated in a news release. “Our goal is to create unique content that is exclusive to WhereverTV customers.”

The growing worldwide adoption of OTT devices and services is enhanced with innovative technologies and personalized experiences, which translates to fresh revenue streams for providers. WhereverTV’s patented Interactive Program Guide (IPG) technology currently handles over 125 live channels that are broadcasted securely over the Internet to any Internet-enabled device anywhere in the world.

The North America regional market accounted for the largest revenue share of the global $35 billion OTT devices and services market in 2016 and is expected to retain its dominance, according to a report by Grand View Research (http://ibn.fm/pehMv). The rapid adoption of OTT across the U.S. is supported by various factors, such as increased broadband penetration, the success of Netflix in the regional market, higher levels of disposable income and consumer willingness to pay for the content. The American TV viewer, on average, streams content on a TV set 2.5 days per week, with revenue projected to skyrocket for over-the-top content, Statista reports (http://ibn.fm/BeCAa). OTT access revenue in the U.S. is projected to increase from $11.9 billion in 2017 to $27.6 billion in 2020, Statista’s report states.

WhereverTV is carving a path in this lucrative market, which provides a cost-effective and economical way of transmitting content via any Internet-enabled device, as Ciofani detailed during an interview with NetworkNewsAudio (http://ibn.fm/BpVXo). WhereverTV’s advantage over its competitors is the company’s patented IPG OTT platform, designed to allow customers to access WhereverTV content across the globe based on content digital rights management agreements.

Creating original content and deepening its expansion into the music industry is a key goal for WhereverTV and its experienced leadership team. Based in Fort Myers, Florida, WhereverTV’s strategy is to increase revenue-generating subscriptions – such as the revenue sharing and brand ambassador agreements signed with Storme Warren – that are desirable to consumers and deliverable anywhere a device can connect to the Internet.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Wherever.tv

• Enters $7.7 billion cannabis market with HempFX™ brand
• Signs $250 million contract to supply 41 million pounds of green coffee annually
• International expansion underway; direct marketers derive 50-75 percent of revenues from outside the U.S.

With ventures in coffee and cannabis, Youngevity International, Inc. (NASDAQ: YGYI) is set for a scalability that is already impacting its financial performance. Over the past six years, the company has enjoyed a CAGR of over 40 percent, with revenues rising from $22 million in 2011 to $166 million in 2017. Now, that growth trend has been strengthened; with the launch of its HempFX™ brand, Youngevity is entering the $7.7 billion cannabis market. The new product line will complement the extensive range of lifestyle products already marketed through the company’s direct selling division. Together, the company’s field-to-cup coffee operations and direct selling activities provide Youngevity with a viable platform to boost business to a global scale. Now it’s clear why its executives were ringing the opening bell at the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square on January 3, 2018.

In a recent interview, Youngevity chairman and CEO Steve Wallach, and President and CFO Dave Briskie, discussed the company’s recent performance and talked about its future plans (http://ibn.fm/aIPrI). The company has spent the last three-and-a-half years building a global infrastructural platform to scale up its direct selling operations. Many large ($500 million or more in revenues) direct marketing companies derive 50-75 percent of their revenues from outside of the U.S. Statistics compiled by Direct Selling News indicate why.

In North America, the top three categories of direct sales – wellness, cosmetics & personal care, and household goods & durables – together make up a $37.8 billion business, a figure that, though large, is dwarfed by foreign markets. In South and Central America, the top three categories, albeit different from the North American top three, bring in $25.2 billion; in Western Europe, they are worth $29.5 billion; and in Asia, a monstrous $84.1 billion of goods are traded in the top three categories. Consequently, establishing an appropriate international infrastructural framework is an essential requirement to global success.

The product line-up is to be fortified with the introduction of the new HempFX products, which were launched in August at the company’s 21st Convention in San Diego, California (http://ibn.fm/14Asd). Soothe™ contains a proprietary hemp-derived cannabinoid oil, as well as a variety of herbs and minerals, and a powerful antioxidant – glutathione. It supports a healthy immune system and soothes sore, tired, achy muscles and joints. Relax™ features the same hemp-derived cannabinoid oil found in Soothe, combined with the relaxing botanicals chamomile, lavender, valerian and melatonin – for sleep-supporting benefits. Uplift™ takes Youngevity’s exclusive hemp-derived cannabinoid oil and combines it with St. John’s Wort and a specialized set of natural terpenes, which are cannabinoid enhancers.

The potential for these products is enormous, as the cannabidiol market is poised for significant growth in the immediate future. A recent report in Forbes citing data from the Brightfield Group estimates that the global cannabis market will reach $31.4 billion by 2021. At the end of 2017, it was pegged at $7.7 billion.

Youngevity kicked off 2018 in grand fashion by ringing the Nasdaq opening bell to celebrate ‘Fit Week’, a most appropriate choice, since the company’s mission (http://ibn.fm/Uzg3Q) is “to help consumers understand the key components needed to reach and maintain optimal wellness and to provide tools and product resources that aid significantly in the process.”

It is likely to end the year in the same celebratory mood. Its wholly owned subsidiary, CLR Roasters (http://ibn.fm/kBG1p), has entered into a five-year contract for the sale and processing of over 41 million pounds of green (unroasted) coffee on an annual basis (http://ibn.fm/fdrIe). Based on current coffee prices and coffee futures, this contract should generate revenues in excess of $50 million dollars per year for each year of the five-year contract. The purchaser of the coffee is a major coffee importer and exporter that has, for over 70 years, been supplying some of the largest coffee brands in the industry. Revenue for this contract covers the period from 2019 through 2023, with first shipments to begin in January 2019.

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

• Legal environment for cannabis businesses remains uncertain
• Main Street banks and big tech avoid the cannabis space
• Leaving opportunities for fintech companies

Reluctance by Main Street banks to provide traditional banking services to cannabis establishments has provided a cornucopia of commercial fare and opportunity for financial technology companies like Medical Cannabis Payment Solutions (OTC: REFG). The company is now offering ‘Green’, a FinCEN-compliant payment processing system for state-licensed cannabis establishments. Through the Green platform, patients are able to link their bank accounts and debit those accounts to purchase cannabis. Presently, most cannabis dispensaries are unable to obtain payment processing services from their banks or the major card networks, such as Visa and MasterCard, so sales are typically transacted with cash. This adds extra costs for security and exposes dispensaries to robbery and other risks. The Green platform obviates those perils. It also comes with money management functions that handle payroll, payments to vendors and much more.

Things are not getting any easier for cannabis dispensaries. In June, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted down an amendment that would have protected financial institutions that open accounts for state-compliant cannabis businesses from punitive action by the federal government (http://ibn.fm/z9q9L). A week earlier, the House Appropriations Committee tabled a similar measure (http://ibn.fm/cNqh0). Now, since Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memo on January 4, 2018, the only legislative bulwark for cannabis left standing is the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment, which is up for renewal this month (September 2018). Such a capricious and ambivalent environment has acted as a wet blanket on any desire that Main Street banks may have developed for banking marijuana dispensaries. Data from FinCEN shows that, in March 2018, only 411 depositary institutions in the U.S. (out of more than 5,000) reported that they were doing business with cannabis establishments.

Banks are not the only entities affected by the uncertainty. The great tech companies like IBM are keeping their distance from cannabis, too, as American Banker has observed (http://ibn.fm/gjWBZ). This presents an opportunity for smaller fintech outfits like Medical Cannabis Payment Solutions who won’t find themselves competing against organizations with much larger resources. They can fill the vacuum and get time to grow, learn and adapt, before the legal environment changes and the tech giants make their entry.

Cash is good; it’s anonymous, costless, and convenient, but it’s also “great for organized crime… great for money laundering… great for theft and larceny… great for cheating on taxes… (and) great for cheating on your payroll,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who sponsored the Senate amendment, stated during a hearing. For cannabis dispensaries, too much of such a good thing may expose them to unwelcome attention and other hazards. With the electronic transaction processing features of the Green platform, robbery, theft and other threats can be avoided. With it, cannabis cash problems can be solved.

Green allows a dispensary to take electronic payments and deposit cash securely, all in complete FinCEN compliance. Merchants can open an account on the company’s website by completing a Dispensary Merchant Application (http://ibn.fm/tT0Ak). Using the system, dispensaries need not worry about regulatory issues, since FinCEN compliance is incorporated into the transaction processing platform. Medical Cannabis Payment Solutions keeps customers in compliance and retains the necessary records to prove that. The company is a Level 1 payment processor certified by Visa, MasterCard and Europay. The Green platform is expected to find widespread application, as it integrates with most shopping carts and POS systems. Presently, it is processing roughly 60 million transactions per month.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Take.Green

• Petrotech ramping up oil extraction in Utah through proprietary technology that could put it in industry-leading position
• Company expects full extraction level to show tech’s capability to clean oil sands in zero-harm loop that boosts environment, industry profits
• Petroteq plans to begin proof of concept with 1,000 bpd production in Q3, boost to 8,000 bpd by 2020 in region with nation’s largest oil sand deposits

For oil and gas industry technology developer Petroteq Energy Inc. (TSX.V: PQE) (OTC: PQEFF), the proof  of its new nature-loving extraction technology is in the oil sand “asphalt” that it is beginning to harvest in Utah. Petroteq Energy is gaining recognition as the developer of a proprietary process for extracting crude fuels from the abundant Utah desert tar sands in a green technology, closed-loop system that uses solvents to remove the crude and return cleansed sand to its extraction point without any incidental pollutants.

The company has applied to uplist to the Nasdaq stock exchange and has launched a project in the meantime to extract up to 1,000 barrels of oil per day at the Asphalt Ridge site, putting its revolutionary technology to the ultimate test in a development that’s being watched by industry. Petroteq announced the completion of continuity testing last month as part of its buildup to full extraction levels, and the company was even highlighted in a recent New York Times article (http://ibn.fm/Y5hNT).

Petroteq expects to be at full extraction during the third quarter of this year and then to quickly increase its 1,000 bpd production to 8,000 bpd within the next three years (http://ibn.fm/3pDmP). While these production volumes won’t be setting any industry records, the proof of Petroteq’s technology’s viability and ecological friendliness would establish it as the first company to successfully turn out commercially profitable crude in such a fashion, granting it an industry-leading position. The Times notes that other companies have tried for years and that U.S. Oil Sands was the latest to fail when it went bankrupt last year before beginning production.

Utah’s raw oil sand deposits are the largest in the nation and have the potential to produce up to 15 billion barrels of measured in-place oil, as well as an estimated additional 23 to 28 billion barrels, according to the Utah Geological Survey (http://ibn.fm/dJmT0), making it a place with prime potential for Petroteq’s plans.

“It’s certainly a new frontier. … It’s going to be a big effect,” company President Jerry Bailey, a former Exxon executive, told Fox Business last month (http://ibn.fm/aPqe7).

“America and the world needs energy, and oil is still a very and most cost-effective way to do it,” Bailey continued. “The process that we’re using in Utah with Petroteq Energy is totally different than Canada. Canada is water-wet sands, causes all kinds of problems environmentally. We’re talking about oil-wet sands in Utah, and we can do this for $30 a barrel and under. So when Utah is able to make oil, Canada is in real problems in the $50 or $55 range… It’s in a range that we can really do something.”

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Petroteq.energy

• BLOCKStrain is poised to lead the charge in providing accountability and transparency in the multibillion-dollar global cannabis market
• BLOCKStrain’s solution will help protect the intellectual property of cannabis cultivators – a service greatly needed in the burgeoning industry

Pioneering into new market frontiers brings the need for innovation and regulation, and BLOCKStrain Technology Corp. (TSX.V: DNAX) (OTC: BKKSF) addresses one of the newest and hottest industries in the marketplace – cannabis.

BLOCKStrain, a full-service software company, stands out in the market as the developer of the very first integrated blockchain platform designed to register and track cannabis intellectual property from genome to sale. The company’s proprietary, immutable and cryptographically secure platform provides a single source of trust in the cannabis industry, delivering an accurate, validated and permanent means of tracking cannabis strains across the full supply chain.

The need for BLOCKStrain’s solution becomes ever more crucial as the cannabis market expands worldwide and as the need for supply chain verification increases. As major cannabis players enter the industry and establish their brands, real-world problems continue to emerge, such as:

• Illegal growers copying major brands in cannabis dispensaries;
• Failed lawsuits regarding intellectual property; and
• Gray market cannabis products passing as legal products.

While supply chain transparency and verification are ongoing issues for various industries, in an emerging industry like the cannabis market, in which regulations are still being established and the proverbial kinks are still being worked out, the need for a reliable means of seed-to-sale tracking is even more acute.

Until recently, cannabis products were largely available only on the black market. As cannabis availability and legalization now continue to expand worldwide, heavy regulations and new standards are emerging to help ensure a safe supply for consumers. BLOCKStrain’s solution answers the call for a trusted means of tracking cannabis products from their source and ensuring origin, product testing compliance and safety.

BLOCKStrain’s solution addresses various unique challenges currently faced in the cannabis industry, including:

• Mandatory Testing: The company’s platform and lab-testing partners offer a process that is streamlined and more efficient, greatly reducing administrative burden and enabling products to be brought to market more quickly.
• DNA-Based Product Validation: BLOCKStrain’s underlying technology creates a genetic fingerprint that enables electronic product identification and validation. This allows anyone along the supply chain, including consumers, to view a product’s complete history.
• Intellectual Property: A key feature of BLOCKStrain’s solution is its ability to help protect the intellectual property of cannabis growers—something that will increasingly be needed as the industry continues to evolve. For instance, if a craft grower develops a distinctive strain that becomes popular among consumers, BLOCKStrain’s platform can facilitate IP protection through a simple registration of the strain’s genome. This creates a permanent record that is readily available in case of future IP disputes, ensuring that proper parties receive licensing fees for use of their IP.

Through its delivery of this innovative, comprehensive, secure and community-driven genetics archival platform, BLOCKStrain is well-positioned to lead the charge in providing much-needed accountability and trust within the multibillion-dollar cannabis market.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.BLOCKStrain.io

• Promising results from the first four exploration holes at Ollague Property have encouraged additional exploration scheduled to begin in September 2018
• The fifth Ollague hole will increase the exploration depth from the current 250 meters to 500 meters
• The new development is coming amid growing demand for lithium and projections for an increase in lithium prices by 2021

Lithium Chile Inc. (TSX.V: LITH) (OTCQB: LTMCF), the largest private owner of lithium-rich land in Chile, has been approved for a fifth hole at its Ollague Property, extending the drilling depth from the current 250 meters to 500 meters. The decision is based on strong indicators from the first four drilling holes, according to a company press release (http://ibn.fm/EY9KX).

The four exploration holes originally planned for Ollague have been completed, and the results from the first one, announced on August 23, 2018, indicated grades in the brine ranging up to 480 mg/l of lithium. The grades increased steadily from 120 meters to the final depth of 300 meters.

Results for the remaining holes are pending, but, based on preliminary information and the data collected from the first exploration hole, Lithium Chile has decided to pursue a fifth hole. Its location will be in the center of the basin, just north of the third and fourth holes.

Road and pad construction have both been completed, following successful surface access negotiations. Drilling was planned to start on September 4. The top 50 meters of the hole will be cased to prevent up hole caving and to also reduce the amount of contamination of the deeper brine. The bigger target depth of 500 meters will allow the company to explore levels of the salar that haven’t been tested before.

Lithium Chile president and CEO Steve Cochrane said that the fifth Ollague hole drilling confirms the positive data collected from the four exploration holes and also suggests the property’s potential to be a great discovery in the field of lithium production.

The new announcement comes at a time when the forecast for lithium production is more than positive. The lithium demand was set at 220,000 tons of lithium-carbonate equivalent in 2017. This number is projected to go up to 900,000 tons in 2025 and two million tons by 2030, according to research and data firm Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, quoted by Bloomberg (http://ibn.fm/nq3Sw).

Lithium-ion battery makers will drive the increase in demand, contributing to a 650 percent increase from current levels by 2027 as the electric vehicle market continues to expand. Because of the steady demand, lithium prices are expected to peak in 2018 and register a slight decline in 2019 due to the greater supply of mined lithium entering the market. A new peak beyond the 2018 level is expected in 2021, Roskill’s lithium market outlook report shows (http://ibn.fm/Cfa3N).

Lithium Chile is currently working on advancing its lithium property portfolio. The portfolio consists of 15 projects that encompass 155,800 hectares covering sections of 14 salars and one laguna in Chile. The lithium-rich salars in Chile are recognized for the high-grade reserves and the lowest cost production in the world. All of the projects are characterized by excellent chemistry lithium brines at shallow depths. The necessary infrastructure has been added to ensure effortless access to the locations.

For more information, visit the company’s website at http://ibn.fm/LTMCF

• PRO 140 requires one dose a week, rather than daily pills
• Treatment has shown hardly any side-effects in clinical trials, while current HIV therapies may cause mild to severe side-effects
• CytoDyn’s treatment is simple for patients to administer with hardly any toxicity

Significant advantages of PRO 140, CytoDyn Inc.’s (OTCQB: CYDY) viral-entry inhibitor, over drugs currently used in HIV treatment therapies have been reported, namely showing little if any toxicity or side-effects in treated patients to date, ease of administration (once weekly dosing) and a lack of HIV resistance developing to the treatment. Although there are several promising HIV therapies currently in development or new on the market, from companies such as Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD), GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK), none are weekly self-administered sub-cutaneous injections in phase 3 development.

Patients on current leading therapies often struggle with treatment compliance due to the complexity of treatment regimens and sometimes high number of pills they must take every day. Non-adherence to current therapies can have major consequences for patients, as even one missed dose may cause the virus to begin multiplying in their bodies, leading to potential resistance against the therapy, according to experts.

In addition, highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) on the market at present can cause mild to severe adverse effects among many patients. Current market leaders are striving to deal with the compliance issue by developing treatments that simplify treatment regimens and which have fewer toxic effects on patients.

There are several factors which may make PRO 140 a popular therapy among patients. While on current treatment regimens, a patient who misses even one dose may face immediate consequences, with his or her HIV viral load increasing. However, PRO 140 in a combination therapy could allow a three-day grace period during which patients could suffer no ill effects from missing a dose. PRO 140 requires just one weekly injectable dose, which could also make it an attractive prospect for many patients who struggle to take pills every day.

Additionally, some HAART treatments consist of multiple pills per day, which can be complicated to administer, as they rely on a combination of different medicines, each of which inhibits HIV in a different way but must often be taken at an exact time, several times a day. A large amount of tweaking and adjustment may be required to find a therapy which works for a given patient. In contrast, PRO 140 is designed as a single-agent treatment or “monotherapy.”

Importantly, PRO 140 has not caused any treatment-related serious adverse events in clinical trials to date, even when administered at high dose levels. Current HAART therapies can have moderate to severe side-effects, including nausea, fever, kidney damage, diarrhea, bleeding and bone loss.

PRO 140 is an antibody rather than a drug.  It works by blocking the most prevalent HIV subtype from entering healthy cells, thus protecting them from infection. The FDA has awarded PRO 140 fast-track designation, and its approval as a combination therapy for HIV could come as soon as 2019, with the possibility of a monotherapy approval afterward as a label expansion.

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

• Net Element subsidiary Netevia processed $1.62 billion in transactions during first half of 2018, with $1.4 billion occurring in North America
• Company’s PayOnline subsidiary part of reorganization involving international business, mobile payments solutions
• Net revenues rose 15 percent during the first half of the year, with gross profits expected to rise another $6.5 million during the next four years

Payment processing technology company Net Element, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETE) is seeing rising revenues from its North American market and is weighing options for monetizing mobile operations on a global scale through its agent contracts, while additional value-added efforts have branded it a company that continues to identify growth initiatives with independent equity research firm SeeThruEquity (http://ibn.fm/gFC7s).

An edited transcript of Net Element’s August 15 earnings conference call released recently (http://ibn.fm/4i3me) notes the dominance of domestic transactions in the company’s revenue report amid anticipated declines in the global payment solutions’ international arena of operations due to the elimination of branded content business as Net Element takes an opportunity to reorganize its international business and join its mobile payments operations with multi-channel subsidiary PayOnline.

The company’s North American Transaction Solutions segment saw net revenue growth over the prior year, according to the earnings report, with a six percent increase for the second quarter and a 15 percent increase for the six-month period. The United States accounted for 88 percent of the quarter’s total revenues, and 87 percent of the six-month total.

A solid sign of the success of Net Element’s Netevia processing platform is that the value of the financial transactions that the company processed grew from $1.18 billion in the first half of 2017 to $1.62 billion in the comparable period of 2018, with $1.4 billion of that amount occurring in North America. The number of transactions processed by the company grew from 35.7 million to 50.2 million.

Net Element’s expertise lies in providing multiple payment channel options to small and medium-sized businesses and their customers while adapting its platform to the particular needs of brick and mortar, unbanked and web-based businesses trying to get optimal results from their revenue streams.

Netevia employs single-use credit card numbers for electronic transactions as a means of combatting fraud when its customers share card information across the internet in e-commerce, for example. The company’s mobile Unified Payments subsidiary is helping smaller-sized businesses combat onerous card transaction fees by employing a subscription model that reduces many of the complications associated with services that aren’t fully responsive to the end user.

“Utilizing a transparent subscription-based pricing model combined with the latest technology solutions, Payment Club can provide positive options to frustrated merchants and streamline their payment processes,” Payment Club President Anthony Kutscher stated in a news release (http://ibn.fm/YYEZk).

CEO Oleg Firer told participants in last month’s conference call that the company is also on track to launch services such as blockchain technology solutions that have been in the works.

“Combined, these strategic initiatives are expected to add over $6.5 million in gross profit over the next 4 years. We’re on track to deliver another year of growth and financial improvement and are pleased with our results as we continue to focus on long-term growth plans,” he said.

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