Micro-Cap Announces Impressive H1N1 Results

By: AllPennyStocks.com News

July 31, 2009
It takes a crisis of epic proportions to make human beings remember who they are – to make them forget such relatively petty concerns as money, job and status, and remember that we are, after all, animals who can sicken and die.

Such a crisis has been and continues to be the H1N1 influenza epidemic now engulfing the world, having claimed more than 700 lives, (a number the World Health Organization, or WHO, says has doubled during July alone from about 330), and driven thousands of others to their sickbeds. The outbreak has also caused social upheaval, provoking local authorities to consider measures to stop the spread – in some cases, closing schools, businesses and summer camps.

So the news that Quebec City-based Medicago Inc. (TSX-Venture:MDG) had achieved positive results with its vaccine to fight the contagious flu strain came not a minute too soon. Results showed that a single dose of five micrograms induced a positive immune response against a new emerging strain of this virus in 100% of vaccinated animals.

Medicago is a biotechnology company focused on developing highly effective and affordable vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs). MDG’s H1N1 VLP vaccine was formulated to protect against the influenza A/California/04/09 virus ("California/04"), which was one of the original viral strains selected by the WHO for vaccine manufacturers.

MDG is rapidly winning acceptance on the research front, a respect marked by a $1.7-million funding award from Quebec’s Consortium for Drug Discovery. The company used the funds to develop a platform that will accelerate its discovery and development of new VLPs, a project carried out in collaboration with Canadian drug giant SNC Lavalin Pharma.

Last financial information available on the company dates back to the quarter ending in March, in which the company reported a consolidated loss of $2.625 million compared to a loss of $326,000 in the same period in 2008. Certainly, the funding award announced in early June signaled good news for the company’s coffers, as it sinks more of its marbles into research, efforts that could see a reward, physically and fiscally.

For all its success in the laboratory, this stock is still relatively cheap, even though it reported near the end of July around the top of a 52-week range that registered around 63 cents on July 27. MDG’s price bottomed out at 15 cents in early March, when equity markets big and small were in the doldrums. On the day of its big announcement, the stock listed at 50 cents a share, and could show investors a “healthy” return if the latest news items affecting the company prove a factor.

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