As the Nasdaq Composite Index sinks triple digits in Thursday morning trading, some smaller companies trading outside the headline index are making healthy moves. Shares of Odyssey Marine Exploration (NASDAQ: OMEX) are the clear leader on the day, with the stock ballooning about 128% to $8.70 following a favorable ruling by the Superior Court of the Federal Court of Administrative Justice in Mexico.
The court ruled unanimously in favor of Odyssey Marine Exploration's subsidiary ExO, reversing a denial for an application to conduct extraction of phosphate sand at the company’s Don Diego project.
Another Nasdaq microcap making a move today is Titan Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TTNP) following the San Francisco-based company saying last night that it inked a deal to sell certain overseas rights to its lead product, Probuphine for the treatment of opioid dependence.
L. Molteni & C. dei F.lli Alitti Società di Esercizio S.p.A, or Molteni for short, a privately-held specialty pharma based in Florence, Italy, has agreed to buy the European intellectual property related to Probuphine, including the marketing application currently under review by the European Medicines Agency.
Per the pact, Molteni will have exclusive rights to commercial Probuphine throughout Europe, as well as certain other countries in North Africa, the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
For these rights, Molteni has made an initial payment of 2.4 million euros (~$2.4 million), while agreeing to additional payments up to another 4.5 million euros (~$5.5 million U.S.) upon the drug meeting certain milestones. Should Probuphine be successfully commercialized in the regions Molteni controls, Titan will also be due payments for up to 15 years of net sales ranging in percentage from the low-teens to the mid-20s.
Molteni also stepped-in and made an indirect investment in Titan by buying $2.4 million of the $4.0 million in outstanding debt owed by Titan to Horizon Technology Finance Corp. Upon full repayment of the debt, Molteni’s investment can be converted to shares of TTNP at a price of $1.20 per share.
Molteni was also awarded warrants to purchase an additional 580,000 shares of TTNP at the same price, as well as board designee and observer rights as part of the deals with Titan.
Shars of TTNP aren’t skipping ground like OMEX, but are up 18.6%, or 20 cents per share, to $1.27 shortly after the noon hour.
