The major indices were all nicely moving upwards Monday, with the S&P 500 up 0.68% to 2,196.85, the Dow 30 at 18,940.29, up 0.38%, and the Nasdaq up 0.77% to 5,362.63 by mid-day trading. Even the IBB, the index that tracks the biotechnology market, was up half a percentage point Monday. The Russell 2000 also set all-time highs.
Globally, the markets seemed to be setting down to the unchangeable fact of a Trump presidency, as the newly-elected U.S. President starts working towards selecting his team. Despite the huge strike that is being planned in the airline and fast food sector workers in the U.S., the dollar has been buoyant for a while now, and there’s hope that after the Christmas Holidays, the markets, especially the biotech sector, will see some better days after perhaps that sector's worst year ever.
In biotech sector news, Medizone International Inc. (OTCQB:MZEI) has doubled on 20x the usual volume today on news that the EPA has approved AsepticSure®, its hospital room disinfection technology, for U.S. markets. Earlier, in August, the company announced that Cogmedix, MZEI’s manufacturing partner, had received some regulatory approval for manufacturing the AsepticSure System.
Cogmedix had already been enlisted as an FDA-approved manufacturer of medical devices. This lets the company sell its devices in the US. The company today announced that it has been given a registration number for the AsepticSure specific hydrogen peroxide catalyst used in the system.
According to the press release, "The AsepticSure Oxidative Catalyst is EPA-approved for use in hospitals, clinics, food industry, sporting venues, and hotels to disinfect hard, non-porous surfaces at a 1.4% concentration."
MZEI plans to enter a trial period at a major U.S. hospital to verify that their already-achieved disinfection levels in Canada are reproducible in the U.S. The company believes the new EPA approval is a major milestone in its commercial development.
MZEI is a small company with just a $63-million market cap, and its ozone disinfection systems are being sold in the U.S. at present. The company was founded in 1986, and operates out of Sausalito, CA. If the company manages to prove that its AsepticSure system works in the major U.S. hospital, it can certainly add a major contribution to its revenue stream. No wonder the company, which normally trades in the 100k volume range on average, had two million shares bought and sold Monday on account of this news.
