Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: AMPE) is a development stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel therapies aimed at treating common inflammatory conditions for which there are limited treatment options. The company’s development pipeline currently features two product candidates advancing through late-stage clinical trials in the United States, including Ampion™ for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee (OAK) and Optina™ for the treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME).

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, currently affects more than 100 million people in the United States alone, with over 48 million suffering from OAK. Meanwhile, the prevalence of DME is estimated at about 30 percent of patients inflicted by type I or type II diabetes mellitus for 20 years or more. For reference, roughly 11.3 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 20 lives with some form of diabetes.

Late last week, Ampio issued a news release updating its shareholders on the status its clinical development programs. The company is in ongoing discussions with the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research regarding the best path forward to obtain a Biological License for Ampion™ for the treatment of OAK. According to Michael Macaluso, chief executive officer of Ampio, the FDA has provided a “number of fair and reasonable paths forward to a Biological License” and Ampio hopes to “have a final decision on the path we will follow by year-end.”

In addition to its late-stage Ampion™ development program for the treatment of OAK, Ampio also recently completed a pilot study designed to examine the safety and efficacy of the candidate as a treatment for patients with osteoarthritis of the hand (OAH). Macaluso described the trial as “a small pilot study designed to examine the safety of a single injection of Ampion™ into the basal thumb joint of patients with hand OA, which is common, troublesome, and has limited treatment options.” After four weeks, 66.7 percent of patients treated with Ampion™ demonstrated an improvement in pain, while just 33 percent of patients in the control group noticed an improvement.

“These preliminary results were not unexpected as they are consistent with the results from over 1800 patients in our OA of the knee studies,” Macaluso added in a news release.

The most recent update regarding the development program for Optina™, issued early last month, notes that a manuscript, titled ‘Potential Beneficial Effect of Low Dose Danazol in Combination With Renin Angiotensin Inhibitors in Diabetic Macular Edema’, was accepted for publication in Acta Ophthalmologica, an international peer-reviewed journal in the field of ophthalmology. The article reports on the clinical benefits of Optina™, as observed from a 12-week multi-center, placebo-controlled, double-masked randomized trial. The findings were also presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Retina Society in San Diego, California.

For more information, visit www.ampiopharma.com

Before the opening bell, Medical Transcription Billing, Corp. (NASDAQ: MTBC) (NASDAQ: MTBCP) announced that its board of directors has declared monthly cash dividends for its 11% Series A Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Stock for December, January and February. These monthly dividends will be valued at roughly $0.23 per share, or 11% of the $25 per share liquidation preference, and will be made payable on the 15th day of the following month. The applicable record date for the newly-announced dividends will be the last day of the relevant calendar month.

News of the dividends comes just over a week after MTBC reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2016. Among the highlights from these results, the company reported its fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. Additionally, MTBC expanded upon its recent trend of quarterly revenue growth, recording $5.3 million for the three-month period. With revenue growth of 130 percent from 2012 to 2015, MTBC has established a position as one of the fastest growing technology companies in the country. This position was reaffirmed earlier this week when MTBC was named among Deloitte’s 2016 Technology Fast 500™, the fifth time since 2009 that the company has achieved this honor.

While MTBC’s third quarter revenue total was a mild decrease from the comparable period in 2015, a result that MTBC’s management team attributes to a loss of clients from subsidiaries purchased during the third quarter of 2014, the company has already positioned itself for forward growth through the October acquisition of MediGain, LLC and subsidiary Millennium Practice Management, LLC.

Noted as the company’s largest acquisition to date, the MediGain purchase included accounts in good standing with annual revenues of more than $10 million. When considered in combination with MTBC’s acquisition price of $7 million, the company’s management team expects the incremental profits from the transaction to exceed the cost of capital and therefore become accretive to shareholders in 2017. Other highlights from the MediGain acquisition include the addition of experienced new members to the MTBC team in North America and an expansion of its Asia-based staff to additional countries with talented, cost-effective workforces.

“We are greatly encouraged by the growth opportunities provided by our recent acquisition of MediGain. The successful closing of this transaction has positioned MTBC to experience exponential growth through access to new, untapped markets,” Mahmud Haq, chairman and chief executive officer of MTBC, stated in a recent news release. “In turn, we expect to expand our client base and deliver significant revenue growth in 2017.”

For more information, visit www.mtbc.com, and see the company’s fact sheet at http://ir.mtbc.com/events.cfm.

November has been a promising month for CytoSorbents Corp. (NASDAQ: CTSO), a critical care immunotherapy company. The New Jersey-based company, specializing in blood purification to control deadly inflammation in critically ill and cardiac surgery patients, reported its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016.

CTSO reported that product sales for the third quarter of this year were up to $2.14 million, a new record, marking the sixth quarter in a row to show substantial growth with sales up by 100% from 2015’s $1.07 million. The jump was attributed to increases in both direct sales and sales through distributors.

Total revenue for the third quarter of 2016, including product sales and grant revenue, came in at $2.4 million, marking an overall gross margin of $1.4 million compared to $0.7 million in the third quarter of 2015. In addition, product gross margins for the third quarter of 2016 were approximately 5% higher than in the same quarter of 2015.

As a result, Aegis Capital Corp. upgraded its CytoSorbents estimates, offering the company a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of $20. The report states: “CTSO reported revenues of $2.41 million versus consensus of $2.21 million and our $2.25 million estimate.” The report also highlighted that Aegis expects further acceleration through 2017.

Highlights from the report include the growth of CytoSorb sales of 13,000 units, the fact that REFRESH 1 met its safety endpoint, and that CytoSorbents has $6.4 million in cash with $5 million available from its credit facility with Bridge Bank. As a result, the company expects to have enough funding for its operations through the second half of 2017.

CytoSorbents’ Q3 2016 sales report is not the only aspect of the company’s recent success. In November of this year, CTSO announced the addition of Belgium and Luxembourg to its direct sales directories, expanding its distribution to include 42 countries around the world. These new additions will allow CytoSorbents to target these focused markets with its own direct sales force.

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

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato, in his immortal Socratic dialogue, had the great philosopher express his astonishment at the new diseases plaguing Athenian society and their bizarre and horrible names. Our position today is very similar. Strange, horrible afflictions with bizarre, frightening names like cancer, Ebola and Zika, unknown or unrecognized until modern times, threaten us with epidemics and pandemics. For a hundred years or so, we’ve fought them off with traditional vaccines and pharmaceuticals. Now, a new battlefront is set to open with the advent of DNA vaccines from companies like Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INO).

Traditional vaccines stimulate the immune system to respond to threats from antigens in the lymph and blood. The lymph is a colorless fluid containing white blood cells that bathes the tissues. These traditional vaccines are said to stimulate humoral immunity. (Humor is a medieval term for body fluid.) The most famous of them, perhaps, and certainly the first was Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine in 1796. Traditional vaccines have been developed against numerous bacterial and viral pathogens, but their development against many life-threatening viruses has been elusive.

DNA vaccines, by contrast, stimulate cell-mediated immunity, which is good, since most of the scientific community believes that it is cell-mediated immunity, rather than humoral immunity, that has the dominant role in fighting viral infections. The problem is that viruses live and replicate inside cells. They seize the synthetic machinery of the host and, therefore, are sheltered from antibody surveillance. Cell-mediated immunity, however, can detect and destroy these infected cells.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is revolutionizing the fight against cancers and other infectious diseases with a range of these DNA immunotherapies (vaccines). Its technology platform is applicable to cancers and infectious diseases and the company has developed antigen-targeting immunotherapy and vaccine product candidates for HPV-caused pre-cancers and cancers of the breast, lung, pancreas, and prostate, as well as hepatitis, HIV, influenza, and Ebola. Its lead program targets cervical dysplasia and has just completed a phase II clinical study.

In March, the company announced (http://dtn.fm/3PRmG) that this immunotherapy to treat cervical dysplasia (VGX-3100) had earned recognition as the “Best Therapeutic Vaccine” by the World Vaccine Congress held that month in Washington, D.C. The Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards honor outstanding vaccine advancements and achievements of therapeutic and preventive vaccine developers across the global industry, as judged by a panel of global biotech industry stakeholders.

At present, Inovio’s proposed phase III clinical program for the VGX-3100 program is under clinical hold. The FDA has requested additional data to support the shelf life of the newly designed and manufactured disposable parts of the CELLECTRA® 5PSP immunotherapy delivery device. The hold does not pertain to any of Inovio’s other ongoing clinical studies. Management expects the VGX-3100 issue to be resolved by the first quarter of 2017, with potentially no delay in the overall completion of a phase III trial.

By year-end, Inovio expects several clinical read-outs, including those from the 40 patient Zika trial and the INO-3112 head and neck cancer study, in addition to interim data from its Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) vaccine. A research report from Aegis Capital (http://dtn.fm/3J2eg), issued last week, set a price target of $12.00 for Inovio’s stock, which is currently trading at just over $8.00.

For more information, visit www.inovio.com

Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: PGNX), a company focused on the development of innovative treatments and therapies for cancer, in particular prostate cancer, recently released its financial results for the third quarter of 2016, reporting higher revenue and net income compared to the third quarter of 2015. The growth can be primarily attributed to the FDA approval and U.S. commercial launch of its flagship product, oral Relistor®, for the treatment of opioid induced constipation in patients suffering from chronic non-cancer pain, according to an Aegis Capital Corp. analysis (http://dtn.fm/8EJce) released on November 8, one day after the Q3 results.

The Aegis report underlines that the strong Q3 results warrant the designation of a ‘Buy’ rating for Progenics and a higher stock price target of $11, compared to the current $5.71. In the third quarter, Progenics reported $53.9 million in revenue, compared to $1.4 million in Q3 2015, which reflects the significantly higher royalty income of $3.3 million from Relistor®, compared to $1.2 million during the same reporting period of 2015. Relistor®, in its tablet form, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in July of this year, which triggered a $50 million milestone from the company’s commercialization partner, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX), along with subsequent royalties and the potential of sales milestones of up to $200 million. This was followed by the launch of oral Relistor® on the U.S. market in September. Total Relistor® sales (for both the oral and the subcutaneous versions of the product) amounted to $22.1 million, which resulted in $3.3 million in royalties.

In addition to the higher revenue, Progenics also announced a $50 million royalty-backed loan from HealthCare Royalty Partners. The loan matures on June 30, 2025, and will be repaid exclusively from royalties on future Relistor® sales, with a 9.8% per annum interest rate. Any future sales milestones from Valeant are excluded from the agreement. The loan helped Progenics end the quarter with $98.9 million in cash and cash equivalents, which is $24.8 million higher than the figure reported at the end of last year.

According to Aegis Capital, this loan will allow Progenics to have a cash balance large enough to support the launch of its next pipeline product Azedra®, a late-stage candidate being evaluated for the treatment of rare sympathetic nervous system tumors (pheochromocytoma and paragangliomas). Currently undergoing registration trials for the treatment, Progenics expects topline results in the first quarter of 2017. If the results are encouraging and the Azedra® trial meets the requirements of the Special Protocol Assessment, Progenics plans to submit a new drug application to the FDA in the first half of next year, with approval likely to happen by the end of 2017.

The Aegis report also mentions that, with its current cash balance and the expected Relistor® sales royalties, Progenics will be able to continue development of its oncology pipeline, which includes PSMA (prostate specific membrane antigen)-targeted imaging agents such as 1404 (SPECT/CT imaging agent currently undergoing a phase III study of 450 prostate cancer patients), PyL™ (a PET/CT agent that will begin to undergo phase II/III trials by the end of the year) and 1095 (with a phase I study in metastatic prostate cancer patients set to begin in the fourth quarter of 2016).

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

Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR), a biopharmaceutical company in the business of developing new medicines for people living with life changing conditions, now helps more than nine million patients worldwide. Nektar also offers a proprietary pipeline made up of drug candidates for oncology, pain, anti-infectives, and immunology. The company has 12 approved products, including Movantik, Adynovate, and Onzeald.

Movantik, which is used for the treatment of opioid induced constipation, was approved for sale in both the U.S. and Europe in 2014, allowing Nektar to see a significant increase in sales and royalty payments. Adynovate, used in the treatment of hemophilia A in patients aged 12 and above, was approved for sale in the U.S. in 2015. The company also partnered with Shire, giving Nektar an extra $55,000 in sales.

Onzeald is used in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer with brain metastases. The company partnered with Daiichi Sankyo on June 1, 2016, giving Daiichi exclusive commercialization rights in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and Turkey. This partnership could potentially give Nektar a total of $60 million in commercial and regulatory milestones.

In addition, Nektar Therapeutics recently presented new clinical data (http://dtn.fm/g8OQs) from its ongoing phase I dose-escalation study of NKTR-214 at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2016 Annual Meeting. The candidate is an investigatory immunostimulatory therapy that expands specific cancer fighting T-cells and natural killer cell abundance in the tumor’s microenvironment.

According to Dr. Ivan Gergel, Senior Vice President, Drug Development & Chief Medical Officer of Nektar, “NKTR-214 resulted in robust activation of the immune system and encouraging anti-tumor activity, including a partial response observed in a patient who continues to be treated with NKTR-214”. There has been evidence that seven out of the 18 patients so far have had radiographic reductions in tumor size per RECIST 1.1 on NKTR-214.

With this in mind, Aegis Capital Corp. (http://dtn.fm/cxSm0) initiated coverage on Nektar Therapeutics, offering the company a ‘Buy’ rating with a target price of $21. Areas covered in the report include the sources of revenue, details of the partnerships put in place, and an oncology clinical collaboration with BMS for evaluating the combination of Opdivo and NKTR-214. The target price was based on an EV/Sales multiple of eight, which was applied to the expected sales of $378 million by 2020.

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

The U.S. cannabis market is expected to continue and even speed up its exponential growth as a result of last week’s vote to legalize recreational or medical marijuana in eight more states. This is good news for an industry that is already growing at a fast pace, being set to exceed $7 billion this year, according to ArcView Research estimates. The trend is likely to continue, as experts predict the marijuana market to reach roughly $22 billion by 2020 and $50 billion by 2026. But even if the market is growing so quickly, legal businesses operating in the sector still do not benefit from the same support, tools and solutions that most other businesses receive, due largely to the fact that marijuana is still classified as an illegal drug by the Federal Government’s Drug Enforcement Administration.

Banking and financial institutions in particular are cautious when it comes to providing service to cannabis industry players, as legislation bans them from opening accounts or enabling transactions involving marijuana business owners. In this climate, it is up to companies such as Singlepoint, Inc. (OTC: SING) subsidiary SingleSeed to help legitimize the industry by assisting medical or retail marijuana businesses to grow safely and securely. The company’s management hopes that the current situation will change following last week’s vote to legalize recreational marijuana use in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada, and to allow medical marijuana in Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota.

“The issue is now too big to ignore, and we expect that Washington will have to hammer out details to create a ‘bankable environment’ for institutions ready to take part in history,” Singlepoint CEO Greg Lambrecht said in a recent news release.

Until then, SingleSeed Payments, one of the first merchant service providers in the cannabis industry, is determined to help cannabis business owners thrive by providing them with state-of-the-art non-cash payment solutions and mobile marketing tools. The company awoke from a quiet period only recently, prompted by the unprecedented growth of the industry, and is now working to bring the latest technology and the most effective payment tools to the market. With a declared goal of educating and informing shopkeepers and customers about key issues on the retail and medical marijuana market, SingleSeed provides three main services: Pay by Text™, Cashless ATM and Text Message Marketing, each of them designed to help businesses be more effective.

The Pay by Text™ system is a payment solution that allows customers to pay anytime, anywhere, via text message. The message includes a direct link to the product the customers want to purchase and a checkout page. Cashless ATM is a ready-to-use out of the box system, requiring only a functional Internet connection. The system provides inventory tracking options and added safety and convenience for marijuana dispensaries that also offer delivery services. The Text Message Marketing service is designed to help marijuana business owners develop a closer relationship and improve communication with their customers, with the ultimate goal of increasing sales.

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

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This Thanksgiving, AAA, North America’s largest motoring and leisure travel organization, is expecting over one million more Americans to travel. According to the company’s 2016 Thanksgiving Holiday Travel Forecast, there will be more than 48.7 million travelers, marking the highest Thanksgiving holiday travel volume since 2007.

Travel has gone up 1.9% this year alone, leading to a 29% increase of travelers during Thanksgiving over the past eight years. According to the report and its attached infographic, 89.4% of people will be traveling by car, a 12.5% increase from the 2001 to 2015 average. In addition, air travel has risen 10% above the 2010 post-recession rebound year, and other modes of travel are also expected to increase by just under 1%.

But why are people suddenly choosing to splash their cash this Thanksgiving? The answer is simple: steady economic growth and low gas prices. According to the Albany Herald (http://dtn.fm/x5CX5), AAA officials estimate that low gas prices have saved drivers a huge $28 billion this calendar year alone. Forecasts also show an increase in consumer spending of 4.2%, with a rise in personal income of 3.4% and a 2.3% increase in disposable income. Not only this, real GDP is expected to increase by 1.6% over last year’s figure, and unemployment is expected to drop by just under 5%.

An article on the AAA Newsroom (http://dtn.fm/Z1kfO) predicts travelers top ten travel destinations to be Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, Orlando, New York City, New Orleans, Anaheim, Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, and Seattle, many of which appear in the featured cities list of NextTrip, the flagship company of Monaker Group (OTCQB: MKGI).

Monaker Group, a technology-driven travel company, works through NextTrip, a real-time booking engine that offers consumers the chance to book every aspect of their trips, all in one place. The company offers a choice of alternative lodging in a number of locations around the world. MKGI works with a number of airlines, cruise lines, hotels, tour operators, car rentals, and concierge services, allowing holidaymakers to plan their entire trips from the comfort of the NextTrip travel planner.

This NextTrip booking system gives consumers the power of choice while allowing them to make informed decisions right from their homes. Thanks to key partnerships with well-established travel brands, Monaker aims to become the one-stop-shop for vacationers across the U.S and around the globe.

For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com

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Before the opening bell, GainClients, Inc. (OTC: GCLT) announced its continued partnership with Wardley Real Estate, the company’s largest real estate customer. Wardley originally implemented GainClients’ innovative GCard platform during its semi-annual technology rally in April 2015, when it introduced approximately 275 of its agents to the benefits of the GCard. Since that time, the number of Wardley agents leveraging the GCard to build industry relationships and enhance sales has grown to roughly 375 throughout the states of Utah, Colorado and Nevada.

“We are very pleased to continue our relationship with the Wardley Real Estate Company,” Ray Desmond, president and chief executive officer of GainClients, stated in this morning’s news release. “The extended partnership demonstrates the effectiveness of our technology and we look forward to providing service to Wardley’s team of agents for many years to come.”

The GainClients GCard begins as a virtual business card and supplies unique features designed to help those operating in the real estate industry establish and improve relationships. Available for both iPhone and Android devices, GCard includes various home search tools that can be branded for each individual real estate professional, such as Home Scoop™ real estate data, integrated and IDX home search databases, mortgage rate calculators and seamless connectivity with preferred real estate partners. Home Scoop™, in particular, provides a bevy of helpful data to aid in the home search, displaying everything from home value and comparable sales to school rankings and area demographics.

“The GCard is a great solution for our company,” Jeff Sommers, an owner and broker of Wardley, added in this morning’s news release. “It’s one platform that allows us to manage new and existing client data, market to clients and track their home search activity. Our agents particularly like and use the GCard’s text/sign rider feature, which allows consumers to simply text to receive information about any given home and be connected to that agent via the GCard.”

In an update issued earlier this month, GainClients offered shareholders some additional insight into its near-term plans. Notably, the company intends to focus its efforts on uplisting to a higher, audited reporting tier of the OTC Markets that’s compliant with all SEC reporting standards. As part of these efforts, GainClients will look to release its third quarter financial results in the coming days, with plans to disclose fully audited statements by the second quarter of 2017. Additionally, GainClients aims to focus on the development and commercialization of a new proprietary software product stemming from its recent partnership with CLOVIS, LLC. The company’s management team expects this partnership to result in the formation of “a world-class, big-data company by combining GCLT’s technology and CLOVIS’ client base backed with years of programmatic ad-tech experience.”

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

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As part of its constant efforts to offer one of the most comprehensive suites of electronic health records, practice management and revenue cycle solutions on the market, Medical Transcription Billing, Corp. (NASDAQ: MTBC; MTBCP) provides its customers with a comprehensive suite of mobile health applications designed to significantly improve patient engagement and give practices secure and consistent access to real-time information. The native mobile applications offered under the mHealth umbrella are designed for a wide variety of tablet devices and smartphones and are fully integrated with the company’s core suite of services and products.

One of the most inclusive apps is MTBC’s Personal Health Record (PHR) for Android and iOS devices. This app affords any medical practice’s patients direct access to their medical history and detailed health info, including lab reports, bills or claims. The PHR is safe and easy to use and also allows patients to schedule appointments and view their appointment history wherever they are and whenever they want to. Key features of the app include: flexibility in making appointments; easy access to a patient’s medical history, medications and immunization info; ability to process payments and track payment history; secure messaging between patients and their doctors; and the ability of having patients directly edit their personal details such as address or phone number.

Another app that gives practices access to clinical information anywhere and anytime is the MTBC iEHR – Electronic Health Records app for iOS, Android and Amazon devices. The app has a highly intuitive interface providing superior flexibility and functionality so as to access critical information at any time and subsequently improve safety and quality of patient care. With the iEHR, practices and patients can view upcoming and past appointments, review complete patient medical history including medication and hospitalization records, create and sign patient charts at the point of care, send prescriptions straight to pharmacy and create and submit bills.

Electronic prescribing of medication can actually improve patient safety and reduce deaths caused by possible prescription errors, as various studies have shown. With this in mind, MTBC developed the iRx app. Compatible with both Android and iOS devices, this app allows doctors to prescribe medications quickly using their smartphones or any other smart device. The app enables medical professionals to review any drug contraindications including interactions with other drugs, or whether they are right for a specific patient based on factors such as medical history, allergies, immunizations, and others. iRx also offers access to chart summaries and the possibility of viewing and replying to patient or office messages.

Practices struggling with rising administrative costs might be interested in the iCheckIn application for iPad – an app designed to automate and greatly simplify the patient check-in process. Offering more self-service options to patients, this application also allows for safe verification of insurance information and secure credit card payments. It enables patients to update their own information and review their payment history and balance, thus helping a practice achieve higher operational efficiency while saving time and money.

For more information, visit www.mtbc.com, and see the company’s fact sheet at http://ir.mtbc.com/events.cfm.