Immuron to sell Travelan® in South Korea

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THE ROADHOUSE PHARMACY: Immuron Limited (ASX: IMC), manufacturer of Travelan®, has entered into an agreement with DB Pharm Korea for the sale of Travelan® in South Korea.

Under the agreement DB Pharm Korea is granted exclusive rights to market, distribute, and sell Travelan® in South Korea.

Travelan® is clinically-proven to prevent the main cause of travellers’ diarrhoea, with 90 per cent efficacy.

Immuron referenced the World Tourism Organisation, in saying diarrheal illness is by far the most common health impairment associated with international tourism in terms of frequency and economic impact.

The agreement requires DB Pharm Korea to comply with specified annual minimum order obligations and it is also required to attain regulatory approval from the Korean Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) for the sale of Travelan® as an over-the-counter drug in South Korea.

Immuron said an application to the KFDA is currently being prepared with approval expected within approximately 12 months.

DB Pharm intends to market Travelan® nationwide through pharmacies, targeting both overseas travellers, especially to south-east Asian countries including China, and local patients suffering from diarrhoea particularly during the Korean summer season.

DB Pharm is a product-driven company with expertise in therapeutics and hospital market with a network of sub-distributors throughout South Korea.

“As we continue to expand the global Travelan® franchise, we look forward to a mutually beneficial working relationship with DB Pharm,” Immuron chief executive officer Amos Meltzer said in the company’s announcement to the ustralian Securities Exchange.

“DB Pharm has a proven record of successfully working with its partners over a long period of time which is reassuring to us.”

Website: www.immuron.com

Phosphagenics patch eases pain in racehorses

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THE ROADHOUSE PHARMACY: Phosphagenics Limited (ASX: POH) has completed a study using its TPM®/Oxycodone topical patch to manage shin soreness pain for thoroughbred racehorses.

Phosphagenics said the study found recovery from pain in all horses within one to two days.

The study was conducted on six thoroughbreds, between two and three years of age, exhibiting cannon (shin) bone soreness arising from injuries in either one or two limbs, with a patch applied daily to each injured limb for ten days.

The shin soreness, rated as either ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ based on universal Veterinary Lameness Scores, in which lameness was evident in circumstances when carrying weight, circling or walking on incline or hard surfaces or when the horses were at a trot.

Phosphagenics claimed the study results showed there were no signs of lameness as determined by the above criteria and five horses treated were pain-free within 24 hours following the first patch application, with the sixth horse pain-free by the second patch application within 48 hours.

Pain relief with the patch allowed the animals to recover without the enduring stress normally associated with such injuries.

The proof-of-concept study was conducted in collaboration with Phosphagenics’ animal health partner, Integrated Animal Health (IAH), through its R&D Division, Veterinary Research Australia.
 
In Phosphagenics announcement to the ASX. Dr John Walker, the principal veterinarian involved in this study said in the results were extremely encouraging.
 
“I have seen hundreds of cases of shin soreness in my 20 years as an equine veterinarian and the oxycodone patch is far and away the best form of pain relief I have seen,” Dr Walker said.

“Instant, powerful and effective.

“According to a recent Racing Victoria report, gastric ulceration is one of the biggest health issues for thoroughbred racehorses.

“The topical nature of this patch’s delivery system means gastric ulceration associated with some systemic drug treatments, such as the NSAID Phenylbutazone, will be eliminated.”

Phosphagenics pointed out that while racehorses were the subject of this study, the application of the TPM®/Oxycodone patch has potential benefits to most companion animals.

“The horse study confirms that the topical application of our oxycodone patch provides a unique opportunity in the large companion animal market,” Phosphagenics CEO Harry Rosen said in the announcement.
 
“Additionally, it provides us with confidence ahead of our Phase 2 topical TPM®/Oxycodone study for neuropathic pain that will commence in the next quarter.

“Our oxymorphone and oxycodone programs are targeting a $12 billion annual market for human use.”

Website: www.phosphagenics.com

Uscom appoints three new UK distributors

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THE ROADHOUSE PHARMACY: Uscom Limited (ASX: UCM) has appointed three new specialist distributors of the company’s Uscom BP+ suprasystolic oscillometric blood pressure monitor in the United Kingdom.

MediMax Global and Healthwatchers have been appointed in England, and Castleblack Health in Ireland.

MediMax Global UK Ltd., established in 2007 is an approved accredited supplier to the NHS and NHS Supply Chain in the UK.

The business is focused on diagnostic devices and consumables for the detection of cardiovascular and peripheral vascular disease in both primary and secondary care markets and in preventative cardiovascular care.

Healthwatchers is a small distributor with expanding programs in the UK home care and preventative health care markets.

Castleblack Health Ltd is a medical device sales company based in Ireland that will promote the Uscom BP+ to the General Practitioner and Cardiology market in Ireland.

The BP+ received the CE Mark in February 2014, allowing the Uscom BP+ device to be sold into the European Economic Area.

“The appointment of these three specialist distributors in the UK will shift our profile and deliver our technology into the hands of new users,” Uscom executive chairman Rob Phillips said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Each of these distributors is specialized in the GP and home care clinical markets of hypertension and vascular health, and each have a commitment to disruptive technologies and excellent science.

“The Uscom BP+ suprasystolic blood pressure monitor suits their sales models perfectly.

“We are currently preparing to manufacture the Uscom BP+ and these distributors are a vital link in a new network of global BP+ distribution planned to come online in the next 12 months as manufacture increases to meet growing distributor demand.”

Website: www.uscom.com.au

PharmAust gets approval for clinical study

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THE ROADHOUSE PHARMACY: PharmAust Limited (ASX: PAA) has received approval from the Royal Adelaide Hospital Governance Committee to begin evaluation of proprietary drug PPL-1 in a Phase I/II clinical trial in man.

This is the final approval required to commence this trial following the earlier approval of the trial from the Royal Adelaide Hospital Ethics Committee.

Following a site initiation visit, PharmAust expects Professor Michael Brown and the team at the Royal Adelaide Hospital will start screening patients for entry into this important clinical trial in coming weeks.

The clinical trial at the Royal Adelaide Hospital will examine PPL-1 in a variety of late stage cancers, potentially including the major cancers such as lung, pancreas, oesophageal, gastric, colorectal, ovarian, breast, prostate, liver, sarcoma, lymphoma, and melanoma. In addition to measuring safety and pharmacokinetics of PPL-1, the trial will determine changes in various cancer markers.

Furthermore, the patient tumours will be biopsied where possible and also studied with the aid of a CT-PET scanner. The study will look at increasing doses of PPL-1 in cohorts of patients with each dose being administered daily for a period of 28 days.

“Pharmaust’s scientific and clinical team, has managed to take a new potential anticancer agent from the bench to approval of ‘first-in-man’ trial within 10 months,” PharmAust executive chairman Dr Roger Aston said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“We are grateful and acknowledge NewSouth Innovations in this discovery and their continued support of the work emanating from the St George Hospital.

“The trial is the culmination of many years of research and development in the laboratory of Professor David Morris.”

Website: www.pharmaust.com.au

Better projects, not bigger the best

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: When considering what happened to investment interest in the junior mining sector many focus their gaze outwards.

At the RIU Sydney Resources Roundup Blue Ocean Equities executive director Rex Adams turned his inwards.

“What went wrong?” he asked. “Why has the sell-off been so savage?

“One thing that went wrong, is the mining industry generally – and I’m talking about the smaller mining industry – didn’t provide the real investment returns to investors.

“There were a handful of iron ore producers, and to be fair, a handful of nickel producers.

“Everything else has largely been an investment boom and not much in the way of an earnings boom.”

 

Adams identified a number of reasons contributing to this lack of investment returns to include:

The strength of the Australian dollar;

Cost flow through from iron ore / coal / LNG expansion;

Energy and fuel costs;

A decline in commodity prices; and

Too many poor quality projects.

“The big rally in the Australian dollar really impacted revenues for everybody,” Adams explained.

“Unfortunately the iron ore boom, the coal boom, and the LNG boom – all the investment that came off the back of these had very large cost impacts across the industry and those costs flowed through into everybody else’s infrastructure.

“Fuel costs had an enormous impact –at the beginning of the decade (2000s) the oil price was around $US a barrel, at $US100 a barrel that energy cost has flowed through almost every input into the mining industry, not just as fuel but as every supply that goes in with an energy cost attached to it.

“Finally, too many companies were chasing too many poor quality projects.”

Adams suggested the industry can’t rely on rising commodity prices to drag it out of the gloom.

He listed off a string of current prices saying he thought they were now pretty good: copper – around $3 per pound, nickel – enjoying a recent run to around $9 per pound, lead and zinc – trading in the region of 90 cents to $1 per pound, gold hovering around $1300 per ounce, and iron ore managing to hang on to the magic $100 per tonne.

“If you have a project that is not robust at these prices, or a bit lower, I don’t think it is a good project,” he said.

“We have to have better projects – or make projects better.

“Some projects can be made better by re-engineering and application of new technologies.

“I think this a focus that should always have been there, but people tended to lose that focus.”

Adams said the return on capital is the most important aspect of any mining project.

Big, he suggested, does not necessarily indicate a project is better than another – even if the investment community usually expresses its desire to invest in bigger companies as it is the health of the project itself most of these institutions are more interested in.

This often leads to companies making wrong decisions as they attempt to make a project bigger than it should be in order to attract the investment dollars.

“Basing decisions on size alone and spending too much capital, often results in poor returns,” Adams said.

“Give me a smaller, high-return project any day; the high-grade zone – or what people perceive as a high-grade return – may be the real ore body, the rest of it is just smoke.”

Juniors face Crunch Time

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Opening the second day of the Sydney RIU Resources Roundup Breakaway Research senior research analyst Mark Gordon explained that we are currently experiencing a market characterised by flat commodity prices, which he expects may continue for some time.

This, he intimated, is only going to make things tougher, especially for the junior resources company, many of which are counting down the seconds to ‘crunch time’.

“I think, over the next three to six months, we are going to see a number of these companies falling by the wayside,” Gordon said.

“These will be the companies that don’t currently have quality projects and are unable to raise sufficient funding.”

“An increase in supply generated during the boom should be able to largely handle expected demand increases for major commodities for the next few years.

“However there is the potential for some minor and strategic commodities to experience significant demand increases/supply contractions.”

 

Gordon said these are important factors, which will need to be taken into consideration when anybody may be considering any investment in the sector.

Another important element to take into consideration is that capital for project development will become much harder for juniors to raise with only those companies with quality projects the ones likely to receive a share of the funding pie.

There are many outside factors which Gordon believes will need to kick in to help shape any upcoming market run.

These will include consistent recoveries in the both United States and European economies, a demonstrated, sustained growth from China, and identified growth in other under-developed economies.

“These include countries in Latin and South America, south east Asia,” he said.

“Increases in demand and growth in those regions should drive prices.”

This doesn’t means, he said, there aren’t any good opportunities currently sitting on the boards of the ASX.

To the contrary Gordon considers there to be a number of good opportunities.

Finding them, however, requires more due diligence than was needed by even the savviest of investors than before, especially with the euphoria and speculation of the boom days being well and truly behind us.

“Only projects with a reasonable chance of discovery or eventual exploitation are getting market attention,” Gordon said.

“There have been a number of good stories over the last few years, particularly new discoveries.”

Gordon highlighted the recent discoveries that have lit au the boards, including Sirius Resources’ Nova-Bollinger discover, Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa find, Peel Resources’ Mallee Bull deposit, and the Thunderbird rare earths find of Sheffield Resources.

According to Gordon the best capital returns are generally from the exploration stage when a discovery is made and everybody becomes excited about the prospects of the company making the discovery.

These rises continue in proportion to the moments in time where funding is approved or offtake agreements (especially for non-openly traded commodities) are secured.

“Particularly in this climate, getting that funding is a very, very important part of any company’s story,” he said.

Gordon emphasised a good investment strategy is to take a portfolio approach as this mitigates risk.

“If you take a basket ten quality junior exploration stocks, there are a number of those that won’t make it,” he said.

“The gains from the ones that do make it, however, can make up for those losses.”

Although new discoveries can set off a bushfire of investment, Gordon said it is important for investors to do their homework about the companies that make them.

Gordon brought out the old guns of invest in exploration companies with good technical teams and whether your appetite for risk draws you to companies conducting their exploration on greenfield or brownfield tenements.

He also identified resource expansion as being an integral part of the initial upward trajectory as companies continue to drill, achieving getting results that will add to the current resource.

“However just adding resources for the sake of it when a critical mass has been reached (particularly in bulk commodities) potentially doesn’t add significant value,” he said.

“I have seen companies where they have continued to drill out to a very good quality resource, but this has not been reflected in its share price.”

“Funding and offtake agreements are good options, while for companies dealing with bulk commodities, infrastructure agreements and solutions are very important.

“Bulk commodities projects are often driven by the infrastructure.”

One final aspect Gordon suggested to consider is how a company and its project compares with peers.

“How do potential revenues and costs stand up when compared to similar projects?” he asked.

“It is a competitive world out there, particularly at the moment.”

Mining investment showing signs of recovery

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The RIU Sydney Resources Roundup conference was opened in style by Colonial First Sate Asset Management senior portfolio manager Dr Joanne Warner.

She opened her presentation with a slide of media headlines, which all spruiked the end of the resources sector as we know it.

“If you look at the headlines – and they are all too familiar – you might think it is all over for resources and this is the point of capitulation, Dr Warner said”

“But for those of you that have really good eyes – if you read down to the subtitles – you will see these headlines are all from April last year.”

 

Dr Warner acknowledged the mining sector has of late been battling through a period where doom and gloom has abounded.

“Yet if you actually look at the returns that we’ve had in the Australian market since then – whilst lagging other sectors – it really hasn’t been too shabby,” she said.

Dr Warner stood back from the macro-environment of the Australian market to look at the mining sector in a global perspective.

In the past year, she explained, global mining stocks – in Australian dollar terms – are up around eleven per cent, and global energy stocks are up 30 per cent.

“This is a cyclical sector and generally the best time to invest is when everybody hates it, but you must do so with patience and you must do so very selectively, ensuring the companies that you invest in will be able to withstand an extended period of tough times,” she said.

One way of looking at the current situation for retail investors is to look at how an institutional investor may weigh up investing in the mining sector versus all their other choices.

The brutal reality to be faced by the strutting suits of the Australian financial sector is that it is not the Australian institutions who always own resources, or the mums and dads.

These are not the investor who make our market go up, instead it is the global marginal buyer, or the global marginal seller, that creates the pressure on share prices, or can create positive momentum.

“Generally to get enough buying power we are talking about the big global institutions,” Dr Warner said.

If these are the people more responsible for the fluctuations of our local market, what do they think about resources at this point in time?

A quick look at recent history – we only have to go back as far as the beginning of 2013 – the metals and mining sector is not exactly in poll position, rather more towards the rear of the field.

It is of little wonder then, market followers tend to take as gospel the headlines of capitulation from April last year, Dr Warner displayed at the start of her presentation.

“Apart from a negative blip in June last year, which corresponded to the first warning shot in China at the credit markets that created a bit of a shakeup in global equity markets, the sector – in US Dollar terms has actually traded sideways – not down, but sideways,” Dr Warner explained.

“Definitely lagging the other sectors and not something that is flashing at the top of your screen saying ‘must buy now!’

“But, at least it didn’t go down and that is refreshing after several years of negative returns.

This all begs the question then of where, if not in mining, are these global institutions investing their money?

Dr Warner referenced a Merrill Lynch, where it asks portfolio managers around the world where they consider themselves to be either overweight or underweight in a particular sector

As it turns out, the majority of portfolio managers – at present – are overweight in bank, discretionary, and industrial stocks.

The reason for this, Dr Warner said, is because they’re the stocks that are the best performers – part of the reason for this is that they are considered to be the most defensive equities.

“If you’re a portfolio manager – and a year ago you had very high weightings to cash and extremely defensive sectors – you were starting to feel like you needed to put a little bit more of that money to work in the equity market, but you’re feeling very cautious – so you go for defensive investments,” Dr Warner explained.

“Investments where you may be getting a dividend yield where they look like they have value to support them.

“Those are the sectors that have benefitted from the inflows back into the equity sector.”

No surprise then that the mining sector is feeling a bit unloved and lagging behind other sectors.

What is interesting is the unloved and least fashionable positions in a global portfolio manager’s asset allocation of materials, commodities, and energy are now developing as the emerging markets

“The earnings per share for mining companies has fallen as too have the share prices, that’s of no surprise,” Dr Warner said.

“In the past three years or so, in the global equity market – as money has started coming back into equities, particularly these defensive sectors – we have seen share prices going up but the earnings per share has not been rising to support those valuations.

“We are at a point now where people are paying a lot of money for insurance – they’re still feeling comfortable owning investments they feel are safe, but they are paying a real premium for that comfort.

“Ironically, we have got the point now – in mining – where the earnings are falling faster than the share prices and you actually get a better dividend deal from the miners than you do from the broader, global equity market.

“That’s a pretty amazing statistic.”

Joe keeps promise to miners

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IN THE LOBBY: While the bulk of the country’s lobby groups bewailed measures lined up in Joe Hockey’s budget the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) said one decision would go a long way to restoring Australia’s reputation for investment in mining and exploration.

Keeping to his group’s ideals AMEC Chief Executive Officer Simon Bennison was licking his lips in anticipation of the repeal of the carbon and mining taxes by the Senate, which he said would send the message that Australia is a safe place in which to invest.

“Australia does not have a monopoly on the world’s resources,” Bennison said.

“Stable public policy settings are essential for long term strategic investment and business decisions in the Australian mining sector.

“The industry is therefore extremely pleased that the Government has not heeded to the uninformed and unhelpful calls by the Greens to scrap the much needed diesel fuel tax credit arrangements that have applied for ‘off road use’ in the agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining sectors for decades.”

“AMEC suggests this must go further and continues to call for the diesel fuel tax credit arrangements to be at least returned to pre-carbon tax levels as proposed in the repeal of the carbon tax package, and then tied to any changes in the excise levy.”

Bennison went on to identify further budget related initiatives, he said will reduce red tape, improve efficiency and reduce duplication in environmental approvals are all supported by the mining industry.

This includes the implementation of the ‘one stop shop’ for environmental approvals, which AMEC hopes will remove duplicative processes between the Federal Government and those of respective State and Territory Governments.

One aspect of the budget that didn’t let the mining industry down was the government upholding its pre-election commitment to introduce an Exploration Development Incentive (EDI) from 1 July 2014 that will allow investors to deduct the expense of mineral exploration against their taxable income.

The initiative is similar to the flow through share scheme that has operated in Canada for years and has been a long time coming with governments of all persuasion ignoring industry pleas.

An incentive scheme was part of the campaign of the Rudd government during its 2007 campaigning, which it subsequently reneged on in order to introduce its ill-fated Resources Super Profits Tax.

“AMEC has been a vocal supporter of this initiative,” Bennison said.

“The EDI will go a long way towards addressing low new discovery rates, an ongoing reduction in Australian greenfield exploration activities and a low number of Initial Public Offerings for mineral projects in Australia.

“It will help Australia to regain international competitiveness and increase its share of global exploration expenditure.
At the RIU Sydney Resources Roundup, AMEC president Will Robinson told The Roadhouse people should not get confused into thinking the main beneficiaries from the introduction of the scheme would be the mining industry.

The beneficiaries would, he said, be those people who invest in the junior exploration sector.

“The EDI tax credit will be provided to Australian resident shareholders for greenfield exploration in Australia,” Bennison continued.

“It is proposed that there will be a ‘no taxable income’ test to ensure that the program is directed to junior minerals explorers to discover the ‘mines of tomorrow’ and provide future taxation streams for Governments.”

“We need to be encouraging additional long term investment in the mining sector to promote growth and productivity, and let the industry get on with business to ‘grow the pie’.

“This will provide considerable social and economic dividends, thousands of jobs and regional infrastructure throughout the Australian economy, including remote communities, and significant revenue streams for all levels of Government.

“This will be in addition to the heavy lifting that the industry has already done over the last six years by paying in excess of $100 billion in corporate tax and royalties.”

Laconia keeps both eyes on Peruvian prize

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THE INSIDE STORY: Actions, they say, speak louder than words and the recent actions of Peru-focused junior exploration play Laconia Resources Limited (ASX: LCR) has a few of the bigger industry players taking notice.

The attraction has come about due to the dual-focussed approach Laconia has taken with its Kimsa Orcco project in Peru.

While keeping one eye firmly focused on assembling a jigsaw puzzle of historic data into an impressive geological model, Laconia has trained its other eye on establishing close relationships with local communities and the Peruvian government.

The Kimsa Orcco project is the amalgamation of Laconia’s 100 per cent-owned Rasuhuilca project and the Huaco Cucho project, over which Laconia has an option to earn an 80 per cent indirect interest.

 

The Kimsa Orcco project consists of two large areas of alteration zones, which Laconia has identified as the Northern Kimsa Orcco prospects and the Southern Kimsa Orcco prospects.

All of Laconia’s Patacancha permits plus the 80 per cent Earn In Option Huaco Cucho permits No 1, No 2 and Once encompass the Southern Kimsa Orcco prospects.

The balance of the 80 per cent Earn In Option Huaco Cucho permits surround the Northern Kimsa Orcco prospects.

The project currently has an Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 360,000 tonne at 1.97 grams per tonne gold and 179g/t silver at a 2.5g/t gold-equivalent cut-off.

When Laconia initially acquired the project in 2011 it knew it held potential to be a worthwhile silver-gold project. Stuart said ‘we always thought there was potential for a mineralised porphyry system driving the gold silver resource, and that was in our longer term thinking,

However, we didn’t expect the project would display such significant copper exploration scope and scale and so quickly

“The project was brought to our attention as a silver-gold project,” Laconia Resources managing director Ian Stuart told The Resources Roadhouse.

“However the more data that emerged and was included by our chief geologist, the more it began to evolve into a porphyry copper project, which has just got better with each lot of additional data.”

After it acquired the project, Laconia set about compiling a database of more than 3,000 channel samples from approximately five kilometres of underground development and adits, and more than 40 diamond drill holes, plus associated survey and assay data.

This systematic review of data highlighted the copper potential of the project area in addition to the project’s already developed existing gold-silver epithermal vein systems.

The review revealed a high fully-intact high-sulphidation copper-gold-silver system with strong potential for an underlying mineralised copper porphyry system or associated deposits.

The results Laconia has achieved haven’t gone unnoticed and the company has recently been kept busy answering knocks on its front door from a number of companies, some much larger and knocking louder than expected.

These unsolicited approaches from entities seeking to conduct due diligence on the Kimsa Orcco project led Laconia to create a virtual data room in late 2013, which allows interested parties to access its technical data under relevant confidentiality agreements.

The idea paid off very quickly with the company recently announcing it has entered into confidentiality agreements with a number of international copper-focussed groups, several of which have conducted sites visits to further evaluate the project and complete due diligence.

One of these site visits has moved to initial discussions on potential corporate activity.

“Due to the restraints of the confidentiality agreements we are unable, at this stage, to identify any of the companies that have demonstrated a very keen interest in what we are achieving at the Kimsa Orcco project,” Stuart said.

“However, what we can reveal is that the level of corporate interest and technical expertise of the interested parties strongly validates our geological assessment and belief that the Kimsa Orcco project has extremely large exploration potential.”

As important as assembling the data base has been to the progress of the project, Laconia has also been busy finalising the necessary Social Licence required for work to begin on the Kimsa Orcco.

Changes to the approvals process for the mineral exploration industry in Peru were effected in September 2011, which means exploration companies must obtain signed agreements from community groups before commencing exploration activities.

Earlier this year Laconia Resources reached agreement with the community of Tintay, the third of three community groups Laconia needed to consult in order to gain social licence within the immediate area of impact of Kimsa Orcco and the contiguous Huaco Cucho concessions.

The Tintay agreement followed community agreements and executed access and infrastructure agreements with the nearby Yanama and Huacana communities.

“Forging the final community agreement with the Tintay formalises Social Licence over the project area and enables us to move forward with our planned drilling campaign,” Stuart said.

“This has taken a lot of hard work, as well as a diligent and considered approach on our part, ensuring we have done everything correctly and in the best interest of all parties involved.

“Community issues are an important part of operating in Peru and after a lot of hard work we have delivered in that regard.”

The strategic nature of Laconia’s dual-focused approach is apparent with the formalising of the agreements with the community groups being just as important as the information the company has put together in the virtual data room to the company’s numerous suitors.

“Our approach to community agreements, gaining Social Licence and all permissions required to drill has without doubt, been of significant importance to the outside corporate interest we have been receiving,” Stuart continued.

Quickly on the heels of finalising its social licence, Laconia received formal permission to drill (Ordene Initio) at Kimsa Orcco by the Peruvian regulator, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM).

The company wasted no time in getting exploration activities underway, kicking off with sampling and geological mapping programs.

“We now have Social Licence, permission to drill, and we have also been granted a DIA [Declaración de Impacto Ambiental], which is an environmental statement,” Stuart said.

“These aren’t trivial matters, they are what the Peruvian government requires us to do and that’s what we have done.”

“Now what people should be asking is why have we bothered to do all that”?

“The reason is that we believe we have a quality project, which we consider to be worthwhile persevering with in, what many people say is, the toughest market they can recall.”

The Kimsa Orcco project is situated on the collapsed rim of the Ccarhuaraso strato-volcano within a highly-visible zone of secondary argillic alteration.

 

The company has used modern exploration technology and processes to become the first explorers to systematically collate all available information and construct three-dimensional models of mineralisation at Kimsa Orcco.

Laconia believes its work supports views of previous explorers, who compared the style and nature of the mineralisation at the Ccarhuarazo Epithermal System to the high-grade El Indio deposit in northern Chile.

With all permits and licences now in place the company’s future work will target the high-grade copper-gold-silver targets within buried intrusive stocks, as well as copper-gold-silver-zinc mineralisation in skarns surrounding buried intrusive stocks.

Laconia Resources Limited (ASX: LCR)
…The Short Story

HEAD OFFICE
Suite 2, Level 1, 47 Havelock Street
West Perth WA 6005

Ph:  +61 8 9486 1599
Fax: +61 8 9486 7899

Email: info@laconia.com.au
Web: www.laconia.com.au

DIRECTORS
Matthew Howison – Chairman
Ian Stuart – Managing Director
Matthew Edmondson – Non-Executive Director
 

MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS
Josephine Patoir             4.3%
Slade Technologies Pty Ltd    4.3%
Ian Stuart                            2.9%

Uscom receives US Patent notification

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THE ROADHOUSE PHARMACY: Uscom Limited (ASX: UCM) has received a Notice of Allowance from the US Patents Office for a new US Patent for the non-invasive measurement of suprasystolic blood pressure.

The patent method is central to the operations of the company’s BP+ suprasystolic oscillometric blood pressure monitor.

Uscom said the BP+ has been recognized as the leading technology for the measurement and monitoring of central blood pressure in an independent study authored by hypertension researchers from Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, Wales Heart Institute, Cardiff, UK, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA and the University of California, Irvine, USA.

The Uscom BP+ has FDA clearance and has completed the CE Mark process to sell into Europe.

“This patent is central to the operation of the Uscom BP+ suprasystolic blood pressure monitor and joins a suite of patents which protect the BP+ technology commercially in the largest medical device market in the world,” Uscom executive chairman Rob Phillips said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“It also distinguishes BP+ from other devices using older and less effective technology.

“We are currently preparing to manufacture the Uscom BP+ and are actively establishing a new network of distribution into the specialised global BP markets.”

The BP+ device uses patent protected “suprasystolic oscillometry” to measure simply and noninvasively central blood pressure at the heart, while older methods measure the pressure in the arm or hand.

Uscom explained the BP+ measurements provide sensitive information about the health of the heart and vessels and are used to improve management of hypertension.

These company claims the measurements are an improvement on conventional blood pressure measurements and can be applied in all research and clinical environments.

Website: www.uscom.com.au