Let’s all buy WANdisco, as England supports used to (almost) sing.
Shares in the collaboration software specialist rose 6.1% to 350.15p after it won a contract with a “top five UK bank”.
Seeing as the upper echelon of the UK banking sector is normally regarded as a “top four” it is possible to deduce which bank this is although the company was not saying. What it did say was that the bank wants to migrate an initial 500 terabytes to Amazon Web Services using WANdisco's LiveData Migrator platform.
2.45pm: Feedback buzzing after support from Amazon
Feedback PLC (AIM:FDBK) buzzed higher after it received funding from Amazon Web Services (AWS) in support of its cloud-based tuberculosis (TB) screening programme for rural communities in India.
The company has been awarded funding through the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative, which aims to accelerate research and innovation to advance understanding and detection of infectious diseases in order to mitigate potential outbreaks.
Sharess in Feedback were up 8.0% at 0.875p.
1.50pm: Intosol pays off its former broker
Intosol Holdings PLC (LSE:INTO) (sounds like an Otis Redding tribute act) added one-sixth to its stock market value at 7p after it paid off its former broker, Hybridan.
The luxury travel company settled all legal matters resulting in the termination by the company of the broker agreement with Hybridan.
The company has paid in full the six-month penalty fee of £30,000 plus legal fees/interest of £17,500 after receiving a loan from a major shareholder.
12.55pm: Tungsten Corporation admits defeat - but not culpability in its US legal battle
Tungsten Corporation PLC has agreed to stump up £1.13mln to settle a US legal claim against it, although it still denies the allegations.
The supply chain financing specialist believes that settlement of the claim at this time is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.
The legal claim has been hanging over the company since early 2020.
11.50am: RUA Life hits a bump in the road with its polymerically sealed vascular grafts
RUA Life Sciences (AIM:RUA) PLC lost a fifth of its value at 108.85p after it received a bit of a knockback from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Last month the company announced the submission to the FDA of its premarket notification (510k) for a range of polymerically sealed vascular grafts.
After initial document review, the company's regulatory team held an initial meeting with the FDA to discuss certain novel aspects of the RUA grafts and, as a result, mutually agreed to convert the 510k submission to a pre-submission process, allowing the Company and the FDA to agree on the additional data required to facilitate the 510k approval. The regulatory pathway has been extended and, as a result, RUA no longer anticipates first commercial sales of grafts to be achieved during the first quarter of 2022.
10.55am: N4 Pharma has rethink after Covid vaccine setback
N4 Pharma PLC (AIM:N4P), for some the very definition of a volatile stock, plunged 24% today to 5.9p after what looks like a major setback for its vaccine development programme.
$N4P - N4 Pharma PLC (AIM:N4P) Price Monitoring Extension https://t.co/waIDNMdi6R
— Keith Rumsey (@keithhrumsey1) December 13, 2021
The company, which is developing Nuvec, a novel delivery system for cancer treatments and vaccines, said preliminary results from mouse immunogenicity studies carried out by Evotec using Covid-19 plasmid DNAs and other controls have not shown meaningful immunological response despite good in vitro antigen expression. Lack of immunological response in positive control animals brings into question the validity of the whole study, N4 admitted.
Taking into account the recent data and very positive oncology work, the company has strategically decided to focus its resources on advancing its work in gene therapy whilst continuing its vaccine delivery efforts in conjunction with partners working with specific, proprietary products.
10.00am: Purplebricks (AIM:PURP) plunges after it uncovers procedural problems in its lettings business
Purplebricks Group PLC (AIM:PURP), once expected by some to put traditional estate agents out of business, has delayed publication of its results.
It recently became aware of a process issue in how it has been communicating with tenants on behalf of its landlords in relation to deposit registrations.
The shares tumbled 21% to 25p on the news with the company saying the potential financial risk from the SNAFU could be anything from £2mln to £9mln.
9.05: MyHealthChecked trading ahead of expectations while Eve Sleep reassures the market
MyHealthChecked PLC (AIM:MHC), the consumer home-testing healthcare company, chose a good time to issue a trading update.
With the prime minister, Boris Johnson, warning of a “tidal wave of Omicron cases” – whether as a means of distracting everyone from “Christmas Partygate” or because there might actually be a wave of cases on the way – the company saw its shares shoot up 26% to 2.65p, having hit 2.85p at one point.
The company said underlying earnings (EBITDA) for 2021 will top current market expectations while turnover will be at the upper end of the range of forecasts for turnover.
Eve Sleep PLC was another company whose shares were boosted by an upbeat trading update.
The shares rose 22% to 3.05p after the mattress flogger said it is on course for a second consecutive year of revenue growth, in line with market expectations.
“Notwithstanding strong November comparatives in the UK, eve's UK e-commerce channel achieved sales order growth in the Black Friday month of 4% year-on-year and 64% when compared to the pre-covid 2019 comparative period,” the company said.