Stockwinners Market Radar for August 17, 2021 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

18:36 EDT Krispy Kreme to pay initial dividend of 3.5c per share - The company stated earlier in its Q2 earnings press release: "We expect total net leverage to be under 3.0x in the next 12 months. In accordance with our dividend policy, we expect to pay an initial cash dividend of $0.035 per share for the quarter ending October 3, 2021. Thereafter, we expect to maintain a stable quarterly dividend until we reach our long-term net leverage policy of 2.0x."

17:46 EDT Alfi jumps up over 40% after disclosing tablet rollout in rideshare autos - Shares of Alfi were up 40.6% in today's regular trading session and up another 5% after-hours at $10.65. Earlier today, the company "announced an update on the rollout of its AI-enabled tablets to rideshare drivers throughout the U.S. The Company has begun the national rollout of intelligent tablets directly to drivers who opted into the rideshare program in 13 additional major markets, with a simple three-minute instructional video on how to install the tablets. The rollout to new markets marks the ramp-up of Alfi revenues and expands the successful partnership Alfi has developed with independently contracted Uber and Lyft drivers in Miami, FL., providing them an additional revenue stream, while enhancing the passenger experience at no cost. By utilizing Alfi's technology, advertisers gain a powerful understanding of those hard-to-reach audiences that are no longer inside their homes, and can update tailored messaging in campaigns by age, gender, geography, customer emotion, brand behavior and interests, all in real-time. Alfi's computer vision changes and runs ads remotely to deliver the right content, to the right person, at the right time in an ethical and privacy-compliant manner."

17:25 EDT 3D Systems CEO buys 4,260 shares of common stock - In a regulatory filing, 3D Systems disclosed that its CEO Jeffrey Graves bought 4,260 share of common stock on August 16th in a total transaction size of about $125K.

17:02 EDT Potbelly names David Daniels as Chief Marketing Officer - Potbelly announced the appointment of David Daniels as its Chief Marketing Officer, effective August 23. In this senior leadership role, Daniels will report to Bob Wright, President and CEO of Potbelly. Daniels will lead the Branding, Marketing and Digital teams as he focuses on leveraging the unique Potbelly brand position in support of the Company's growth strategy. Prior to joining Potbelly, Daniels served as Senior Vice President of Marketing at The Food Hall Co. in Dallas, Texas.

17:01 EDT Texas Governor Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19 - Office of the Governor Communications Director Mark Miner issued a statement after Texas Governor Greg Abbott tested positive for COVID-19: "Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result. Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor's Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment. Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms. Everyone that the Governor has been in close contact with today has been notified. Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott tested negative." Companies with COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the U.S. include Moderna (MRNA), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX). Reference Link

16:54 EDT CommScope director Watts buys 65,000 common shares - In a regulatory filing, CommScope director Claudius Watts disclosed the purchase of 65,000 common shares of the company on August 13 at a price of $15.2602 per share.

16:49 EDT Virpax Pharmaceuticals jumps over 30% to $19.84 after FDA response on MMS019

16:41 EDT Advanced Energy CEO buys 5.9K shares of common stock - In a regulatory filing, Advanced Energy disclosed that its CEO Stephen Kelley bought 5.9K shares of common stock on August 13th in a total transaction size of $502K, boosting his stake by 21%.

16:35 EDT Mister Car Wash opens new location in West Jordan, Utah - Mister Car Wash is expanding its presence in the Beehive state through the opening of its newest location at 5512 West 7800 S., West Jordan, UT 84081. "We're thrilled to be growing our footprint even further in Utah with the recent opening of our Herriman store and now our latest location in West Jordan" said Ryan Darby, vice president of development and construction. "At the center of each new opening is our core value, 'We Care,' and that attitude shines through each and every employee at Mister as we provide top notch service to our customers."

16:34 EDT FDA grants accelerated approval of GSK's jemperli - AnaptysBio (ANAB) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a second indication for GSK's (GSK) JEMPERLI for the treatment of adult patients with mismatch repair deficient recurrent or advanced solid tumors, as determined by an FDA-approved test, that have progressed on or following prior treatment and who have no satisfactory alternative treatment options. JEMPERLI was generated by AnaptysBio using its proprietary somatic hypermutation antibody platform and subsequently developed by TESARO, Inc., now a part of GSK, under a collaboration agreement. Eight AnaptysBio-generated therapeutic antibodies have advanced into clinical development to date. JEMPERLI is the first AnaptysBio-generated antibody to obtain FDA approval, and this is the second indication for JEMPERLI to be approved by the FDA in 2021. This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate and durability of response. Continued approval for these indications may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial(s). "We are pleased that JEMPERLI has been FDA-approved for a second indication and will be available to a broader cohort of solid tumor patients," said Hamza Suria, president and chief executive officer of AnaptysBio. "AnaptysBio's capital-efficient business model is focused upon advancing our wholly-owned first-in-class antibodies to multiple clinical catalysts over the upcoming 18 months and is supported by milestone and royalty revenues under our GSK collaboration."

16:31 EDT Valaris announces floater contract award - Valaris Limited announced that it has been awarded one-well contracts with Shell Namibia Upstream B.V. and Shell Sao Tome and Principe B.V. offshore Namibia and Sao Tome and Principe, respectively, for drillship, VALARIS DS-10. The precise timing of the first contract is to be confirmed, but is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2021. The Sao Tome and Principe contract will follow on directly from the Namibia contract. The contracts have an estimated duration of 60 days each.

16:24 EDT Krispy Kreme jumps about 3% to $14.44 after Q2 results and guidance

16:19 EDT La-Z-Boy reports Q1 written same-store sales up 10.4% - Written same-store sales for the entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network: Increased 10.4% for the fiscal 2022 first quarter compared with the fiscal 2021 first quarter. Compared with the pre-pandemic fiscal 2020 first quarter, written same-store sales increased 28.6% for the fiscal 2022 first quarter, for a compounded annual growth rate of 13.4%.

16:17 EDT La-Z-Boy raises share repurchase authorization to 9M shares - Representing approximately 20% of shares outstanding.

16:13 EDT Vivos Therapeutics reports details of obstructive sleep Apnea study - Vivos Therapeutics announced a more detailed summary of the national study results announced by the Company on July 13. As previously announced, one in four patients in the study treated with Vivos' FDA Class 1 DNA appliance for certain orofacial anomalies reported no remaining OSA symptoms, which is defined as patients having an Apnea Hypopnea Index score of less than five post-treatment. The more detailed study data now available reports that prior to treatment, 20 patients had severe OSA, which, from an AHI perspective, improved or is improving by 53%. Of these 20 patients, none have reported worsening of their OSA symptoms, while 3 patients still have severe OSA, 12 have moderate OSA, 4 have mild OSA and 1 has no OSA. The study data also reports that for the 18 patients who began the study with moderate OSA, the average percent improvement in AHI score is 64%. One patient's AHI score worsened by 1 category , while another slightly increased by 2.1. The balance of the patients had improved AHI scores by an average of 64%. After treatment or mid-treatment, 2 patients remained moderate, 10 have mild symptoms and 5 have resolved their OSA symptoms. In addition, 36 patients in the study had mild symptoms pre-treatment. Of these, 1 now has severe symptoms, 4 have moderate symptoms, 16 have mild symptoms and 15 have no symptoms of OSA. Commenting on the additional study data, Kirk Huntsman, Vivos' Chairman and CEO, stated, "By addressing maxillary palatal deficiencies, we believe Vivos' treatment protocols represent an improvement over CPAP and mandibular advancement devices with 27% of the study participants reporting a complete resolution of their OSA symptoms. These measurements are taken without a Vivos appliance in the mouth, whereas MAD measurements are taken with the appliance in place. The more detailed data now available from this study confirms that the Vivos device works well for many patients, with the study showing very strong and statistically significant evidence for an increase in airway volume and transpalatal width. We know the investment community and other interested parties have been looking for more real world data about our devices, so we are pleased to share this more detailed study summary and its positive results."

16:09 EDT Bottomline Technologies announces up to $50M stock repurchase plan - Bottomline Technologies announced that its board of directors has authorized a stock repurchase program pursuant to which Bottomline may purchase up to $50M of its common stock. The authorization will remain in effect for 12 months.

16:07 EDT Cree, STMicroelectronics expand silicon carbide wafer supply pact - Cree (CREE) and STMicroelectronics (STM) announced the expansion of an existing multi-year, long-term silicon carbide wafer supply agreement. The amended agreement, which calls for Cree to supply ST with 150mm silicon carbide bare and epitaxial wafers over the next several years, is now worth more than $800M. "This latest expansion to our long-term wafer supply agreement with Cree will continue to contribute to the flexibility of our global silicon carbide substrate supply. It will continue to contribute importantly to our global silicon carbide supply, complementing the other external capacity we have secured and the internal capacity we are ramping. The agreement will help meet the high volumes required by our product manufacturing operations in the next years, with a large number of automotive and industrial customer programs in high volumes or ramping up," said Jean-Marc Chery, President and CEO of STMicroelectronics.

16:04 EDT Starboard says 'consistent in its view that change is needed at Box' - Starboard Value, one of the largest stockholders of Box, with an ownership stake of approximately 8.6% of the company's outstanding shares, provided the following statement in response to recent materials published by Box. "Starboard has been consistent in its view that change is needed at Box to ensure improved accountability for delivering results, enhanced compensation and governance practices, and stockholder-friendly capital allocation policies, and we believe there is a severe need for direct representation for common stockholders on the Board of Directors. We have focused our campaign on the opportunities we see to create substantial long-term value at Box for our collective interests as owners of the company. We are disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised, by the company's decision to resort to unfounded disparaging remarks in its latest attempt to maintain the status quo. We would note that when we have seen these kinds of desperate actions in the past, this type of rhetoric is typically driven by hired advisors and not generally from members of management or the Board. Unfortunately, this seems to be evidence of the Board once again abdicating its responsibility and/or showing a lack of sophistication. We know our fellow stockholders are more sophisticated and understand the issues and merits of the situation. We would highlight that Box barely attempted to dispute our statements regarding the blatantly false and misleading claims included in the company's investor presentation and, in fact, filed a revised version of one of its misleading and incorrect slides earlier today. We would also note that Box has still not addressed the clear and serious questions around the preferred equity financing and the Board's decision to allow KKR, a ~$400 billion investment firm, to syndicate 70% of the transaction, likely for a fee, while only retaining a $150 million investment in Box. KKR's investment represents an amount less than half the size of Starboard's common stock investment in Box. Box has also failed to reasonably address many serious questions about the Company's poor compensation and governance practices, other than by taking further reactive actions in an attempt to appease stockholders in the midst of this election. The company's tactics during this contest and its poor performance for years should only confirm that stockholders need representation on the Board. Despite Box asking stockholders to support the status quo due to one or two quarters of mild improvement in certain trends, we would point out that Box has had a long history of false starts only to disappoint again in future quarters. As RBC Capital Markets stated in its equity research report on August 12, 2021: 'Proxy fight seems like the most likely reason for the release of preliminary results. To recap, activist investor Starboard has nominated three new directors to the board to replace three Box directors (including CEO Aaron Levie on, at least, a temporary basis). We echo many of Starboard's concerns in our recent initiation, namely on execution, and believe Box could benefit from greater oversight and board leadership.' We remain open to working with Box, and, if elected, our nominees remain committed to constructively engaging with management and the Board to create long-term value for the benefit of all stockholders. Do not be fooled by the Company's rhetoric, our interests are completely aligned with yours. We appreciate the support received from our fellow stockholders to date and urge all stockholders to vote FOR Starboard's slate of director nominees on the WHITE proxy card today."

16:04 EDT Marinus Pharmaceuticals reports topline ganaxolone Phase 2 results - Marinus Pharmaceuticals announced topline data from its open-label Phase 2 trial evaluating safety and efficacy of adjunctive oral ganaxolone treatment in 23 patients with seizures associated with tuberous sclerosis complex. The primary endpoint showed a median 16.6 percent reduction in 28-day primary endpoint seizure frequency relative to the four-week baseline period, with 30.4 percent of patients achieving a 50 percent or more seizure reduction. During the trial, patients with focal seizures showed a median 25.2 percent reduction in focal seizure frequency. "We believe the totality of the data is encouraging and supports advancing to Phase 3. There was notable activity in focal seizures, a meaningful 50 percent response rate, and consistent results in this refractory patient population, including patients on both cannabidiol and everolimus," said Joseph Hulihan, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Marinus. "We look forward to initiating our Phase 3 trial and adding to the body of evidence that supports ganaxolone's potential as an innovative treatment option for rare epilepsies." The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to ganaxolone for treatment in TSC. The FDA's Office of Orphan Drug Products grants orphan status to support the development of medicines for rare disorders that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. Orphan drug designation provides certain benefits, including market exclusivity upon regulatory approval, if received, exemption of FDA application fees and tax credits for qualified clinical trials.

14:52 EDT Trulieve Cannabis appoints Nilyum Jhala as Chief Technology Officer - Trulieve Cannabis announced it has named Nilyum Jhala to serve as its Chief Technology Officer, or CTO. Jhala, who previously served as Vice President of Global and Digital Technology at Hallmark Cards, "brings more than two decades of experience in technology leadership and digital transformation results in multinational retail and wholesale environments," the company stated.

14:30 EDT Apple disables SharePlay for use in next betas of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15 - Apple said in a blog post that SharePlay has been disabled for use in the developer beta 6 versions of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and tvOS 15, and will be disabled in the upcoming beta 6 release of macOS Monterey. SharePlay will also be disabled for use in their initial releases this fall. SharePlay will be enabled for use again in future developer beta releases and will launch to the public in software updates later this fall. Reference Link

14:13 EDT BlackBerry's QNX system has cybersecurity vulnerabilities, FDA warns - The Food and Drug Administration is informing patients, health care providers and manufacturers about cybersecurity vulnerabilities with a "real-time operating system" designed by QNX and owned by BlackBerry. "These vulnerabilities may introduce risks for certain medical devices and drug manufacturing equipment," the agency said in a statement. FDA is not aware of any confirmed adverse events related to these vulnerabilities, it added. Reference Link

13:47 EDT Palantir bought $50.7M of gold in preparation for 'black swan events' - Palantir disclosed last week that during August, it purchased $50.7M in 100-ounce gold bars. "Such purchase will initially be kept in a secure third-party facility located in the northeastern United States and the Company is able to take physical possession of the gold bars stored at the facility at any time with reasonable notice," Palantir said in its quarterly filing. The company told Bloomberg that it is preparing for another "black swan event" and inviting customers to pay for its data analysis software in gold. Accepting nontraditional currencies "reflects more of a worldview," Shyam Sankar, Palantir's Chief Operating Officer, said in an interview. "You have to be prepared for a future with more black swan events."

12:32 EDT B. Riley Financial names Jimmy Baker president of B. Riley Securities - B. Riley Financial announced the promotion of Jimmy Baker to President of B. Riley Securities, Inc. Baker will continue to serve as the firm's Head of Capital Markets. As President of B. Riley Securities, Baker will now oversee the firm's Investment Banking activities while continuing to strategically lead the firm's Capital Markets platform as well as its Institutional Brokerage.

12:00 EDT Zhangmen Education falls -15.8% - Zhangmen Education is down -15.8%, or -58c to $3.09.

12:00 EDT Sunlight Financial falls -24.4% - Sunlight Financial is down -24.4%, or -$1.82 to $5.62.

12:00 EDT Waterdrop rises 10.4% - Waterdrop is up 10.4%, or 36c to $3.81.

11:24 EDT Cannae Holdings leads $270M funding round in Sightline Payments - Cannae Holdings announced that the company has led a $270M funding round in Sightline Payments having invested $240M. This investment follows Cannae's $32M investment earlier in 2021 and values Sightline at more than $1B, post-money. William P. Foley, II, Chairman of Cannae, commented, "After seeing Sightline's groundbreaking technology firsthand at the recent launch of Resorts World Las Vegas, I am more bullish than ever about Sightline's ability to be at the forefront of the digital transformation afoot in the North American gaming, sports, and entertainment ecosystem. Gaming is poised for a cashless revolution and Sightline is positioned to be a leader. I look forward to helping Sightline continue their tremendous growth."

10:47 EDT Select Energy Services enters 'stalking horse' deal to buy Basic Energy assets - Select Energy Services (WTTR) announced that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement for the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Agua Libre Midstream, LLC and other water-related assets, operations and assumed liabilities from Basic Energy Services (BASX). The asset purchase agreement constitutes a "stalking horse" bid in a sale process being conducted under Section 363 of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. As such, the company's acquisition of Agua Libre remains subject to approval by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division, and is subject to court-approved bidding procedures, including the potential receipt of competing offers for Agua Libre and certain other of Basic's assets and operations at auction. It is expected that the sale process will be completed during the second half of 2021 and the business is expected to remain operational throughout the process.

10:20 EDT Basic Energy commences voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in Texas

10:00 EDT Vedanta falls -12.4% - Vedanta is down -12.4%, or -$2.22 to $15.63.

10:00 EDT Sunlight Financial falls -19.0% - Sunlight Financial is down -19.0%, or -$1.41 to $6.03.

10:00 EDT Endeavor Group rises 10.4% - Endeavor Group is up 10.4%, or $2.39 to $25.48.

09:53 EDT Moderna COVID-19 vaccine approved by U.K. MHRA in 12-17 year olds - An extension to the current UK approval of the Spikevax vaccine, formerly COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, that allows its use in 12- to 17-year-olds has been authorized by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA. This Conditional Marketing Authorisation extension granted by the MHRA is valid in Great Britain only and was approved via the European Commission Decision Reliance Route. This is when the marketing authorization application made by the company references the decision made by the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use. Spikevax is authorized in children aged 12-17 years in Northern Ireland under the CMA extension granted by the European Medicines Agency on 23 July 2021. Dr June Raine, MHRA Chief Executive said: "I am pleased to confirm that that the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna has now been authorised in 12-17 year olds. The vaccine is safe and effective in this age group. We have in place a comprehensive safety surveillance strategy for monitoring the safety of all UK-approved COVID-19 vaccines and this surveillance will include the 12- to 17-year age group." Reference Link

09:47 EDT Lightning eMotors falls -14.0% - Lightning eMotors is down -14.0%, or -$1.35 to $8.28.

09:47 EDT Sunlight Financial falls -19.8% - Sunlight Financial is down -19.8%, or -$1.47 to $5.97.

09:47 EDT Danimer Scientific rises 8.4% - Danimer Scientific is up 8.4%, or $1.12 to $14.39.

09:37 EDT J2 Global to change name to Ziff Davis following consensus business spin-off - J2 Global announced it intends to change its corporate name to Ziff Davis, upon completion of the planned spin-off of its consensus business in Q3. Following the spin-off, Ziff Davis is expected to trade under the Nasdaq ticker symbol ZD.

09:32 EDT Fresh Del Monte releases 2020 Sustainability Report - Fresh Del Monte released its 2020 Sustainability Report which further solidifies the company's leadership position in defining what sustainable production means at scale for large producers. The company is taking a bold step in expanding its sustainability efforts beyond just its operations as a way to do its part in reducing - what a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls - the "widespread, rapid, and intensifying" effects of climate change. Fresh Del Monte's Sustainability Report delves deep into the company's commitment to ongoing environmental protection, providing healthy choices for consumers, and empowering the health and well-being of its team members and communities, including a list of its ambitious 2030 goals toward creating A Brighter World Tomorrow. Expanding on the company's commitment to growing responsibly and sustainably, Fresh Del Monte takes its efforts beyond its operations to create resilient and multifunctional landscapes. Utilizing a holistic approach to regenerative agriculture, Fresh Del Monte works to thrive alongside its local communities and ecosystems by increasing soil health, carbon sequestration, ecosystem services, water availability, and quality throughout its operations and watersheds. Fresh Del Monte has already surpassed two of its 2025 sustainability goals around environmental protection and team member well-being while continuing to make steady progress toward the other goals. This year, the company has set even more ambitious goals for 2030, such as implementing regenerative and soil health management practices in 100% of owned and associate grower's farms, reducing food loss and organic waste sent to landfill by 50%, and reducing virgin plastic usage by 25% on purchased consumer packaging compared with its 2020 baseline.

09:29 EDT ACM Research's operating subsidiary completes IPO regisration with CSRC - ACM Research is providing an update on the status of the proposed initial public offering and listing of shares of ACM's operating subsidiary ACM Research (Shanghai), on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Sci-Tech innovAtion boaRd. The China Securities Regulatory Commission has indicated that ACM Shanghai has received approval for its STAR Market IPO registration and will soon enter the issuance process for the STAR Market IPO. ACM estimates that the issuance process will be completed in the next several months, but the timing is subject to numerous factors outside ACM Shanghai's control.

09:27 EDT AB Value joins Bradley Radoff to implement changes Rocky Mountain Chocolate - AB Value Management together with its affiliates , and the other participants in this solicitation representing approximately 12.53% of the outstanding shares of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory announced that it has agreed with Bradley Radoff to combine their efforts to implement change at the Company. The Concerned Shareholders of Rocky Mountain support AB Value's previously announced slate of highly-qualified director candidates for election to the Company's Board of Directo rconsisting of Andrew T. Berger, Rhonda J. Parish, Mark Riegel, Sandra Elizabeth Taylor and Mary Kennedy Thompson. "We are pleased to announce the formation of the Concerned Shareholders of Rocky Mountain and are determined to continue championing shareholder interests at the Company," said Andrew T. Berger, Managing Member of AB Value. "It is clear to us that all of the Company's recently announced changes have been purely reactionary and only further demonstrate that many of the incumbent directors will go to great lengths to avoid making difficult shareholder-friendly decisions. This only strengthens our resolve to continue our campaign to maximize value for all shareholders of the Company." The decision to join forces to gain representation on the Board comes on the heels of the Company's failure to keep its promise to refresh the Board with "world class directors" and seeming incapability of demonstrating world class transparency.1 The Concerned Shareholders of Rocky Mountain believe that its highly-qualified director candidates, if elected, will not only re-position the Company for success, but add a needed injection of integrity to the boardroom.

09:24 EDT Tyler Technologies announces five-year expansion of AOIC agreement - Tyler Technologies announced a five-year agreement with the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, or AOIC, to extend and expand the partnership between the AOIC and Tyler that began in 2016 to provide the eFileIL electronic filing solution to the Illinois Courts. Over 21M civil and criminal filings have been made online since 2016 - saving court users time and money by reducing trips to the courthouse and making paper copies. The total contract is valued at approximately $63M over five years, a portion of which is covered by the e-Business filing fee paid by Illinois Court users in civil cases.

09:23 EDT Home Depot feels 'pretty good' about long-term outlook for home improvement

09:20 EDT Home Depot: U.S. comps in first 2 weeks of August consistent with Q2

09:18 EDT Verisk Analytics is chosen by Joyn to transform commercial underwriting - New InsurTech Joyn Insurance is using analytics and technology from Verisk to transform the experience of transacting insurance for brokers who serve small and medium-sized businesses. With Verisk's insurance policy programs, Joyn can rapidly deploy court-tested coverage language backed by unrivaled loss costs data to aid in pricing.

09:16 EDT GoDaddy launches new Pay Links and Virtual Terminal features - GoDaddy announced the launch of new Pay Links and Virtual Terminal features within GoDaddy Payments, enabling small business owners to take online and remote payments without the requirement of a website or an online store. Small businesses without websites are often left out of ecommerce solutions, despite consumers' increasing preference for paying online. With Pay Links and Virtual Terminal, small businesses without a heavy web presence can continue to attract and serve their customers with a customizable and affordable online payment solution that suits their unique needs-whether that's a local pizza parlor, flower shop, photographer or craftsperson selling their goods on Facebook or Instagram. Pay Links enable small businesses to create a link to a secure checkout page, share it with their customers across email, social media, text or generate a designated QR code and get paid within minutes.

09:16 EDT Fortinet, HashiCorp announce FortiManager Integration - Fortinet announced integration between Fortinet's FortiManager and to simplify and automate Day 0 and Day 1 operations for multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments leveraging the Fortinet Security Fabric. With organizations leveraging hybrid cloud and multi-cloud to move faster and be more agile, they are looking to automate and scale their DevOps lifecycle through the use of Infrastructure as Code to provision, configure and tear down needed cloud infrastructure on demand. Fortinet's integration with Terraform provides customers with more ways to efficiently deploy, manage and automate security across even the most complex multi-cloud environments. HashiCorp is a key Fortinet Fabric-Ready technology alliance partner as part of the rapidly growing Open Fabric Ecosystem. With more than 400 integrations, the Open Fabric Ecosystem extends the breadth of the Security Fabric beyond Fortinet's own products, achieving a more holistic view of the IT infrastructure, resulting in an overall greater ROI and comprehensive protection across customers' entire digital attack surface. With the most recent integration, Fortinet and HashiCorp deliver robust and deep security automation for DevOps-driven multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments leveraging the Fortinet Security Fabric. John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet said, "With the integration between FortiManager and Terraform, Fortinet and HashiCorp are enabling organizations to automate security provisioning, eliminate errors caused by misconfiguration, and simplify the rollout and change management of security policies. Ultimately, this integration provides organizations with more confidence to implement new applications while reducing their infrastructures' complexities."

09:14 EDT Capital Senior Living holder Ortelius opposes transactions with Conversant - Ortelius Advisors, which owns approximately 12.7% of the outstanding common stock of Capital Senior Living announced that it has filed a preliminary proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to be used to solicit votes in opposition to the Company's recently announced transactions with affiliates of Conversant Capital. This follows Ortelius' August 9th letter to Capital Senior Living's Board of Directors regarding its opposition to the Transactions. Peter DeSorcy, Managing Member of Ortelius, commented: "Ortelius looks forward to actively soliciting votes in opposition to Capital Senior Living's ill-conceived Transactions with Conversant. After reviewing the Company's preliminary proxy statement, we are further convinced that the Board lacks the acumen, experience and stockholder perspectives needed to credibly evaluate strategic alternatives and make the right financing decision. Perhaps we should not be surprised, given that Capital Senior Living maintains an entrenched and staggered Board comprised of several long-tenured directors with insufficient capital markets expertise, and who have overseen stockholder value deterioration of approximately 93% since the stock's peak in 2015. Fortunately, stockholders will have an opportunity to reject the Board's desire to hand control of the Company to Conversant at the upcoming special meeting. We also want to stress that Ortelius firmly believes in Capital Senior Living's assets, operations and long-term prospects, and recently purchased another 5.5% of the Company to take our ownership to 12.7% of the outstanding common stock. Although it is disappointing that the Board has decided to ignore our recent letter and offer to discuss alternative financing options, we are very encouraged by the positive feedback that many stockholders have proactively shared with us. Ortelius will continue to advocate for stockholders' best interests and vigorously oppose these questionable, costly and highly-dilutive Transactions, which we believe will irreversibly impair value for existing stockholders."

09:11 EDT Usio wins contract to support NYCEDC vaccines incentive program - Usio announced it was awarded a contract by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, or NYCEDC, to support the mayor's recently initiated Vaccines Incentive Program. Under this program, the city will provide a $100.00 cash reward to New York State residents and employees who receive their first dose of the COVID vaccine at sites that run on the City's vax4nyc appointment platform. First-time shot takers will either be mailed a pre-paid debit card or be issued a digital one immediately via email. Usio's contract is to provide both the physical and virtual cards and underlying electronic payments technology. Louis Hoch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Usio, said, "We are very honored that the NYCEDC has chosen Usio for this very important program. Our ability to quickly offer a solution that provided the convenience and simplicity NYCEDC wanted for the payments element of this program illustrates our ability to provide creative, innovation payments technology in both the physical and virtual worlds. The program is already up and running, and we look forward to supporting its success in achieving the mayor's vision for New York City."

09:09 EDT Bassett Furniture says July wholesale orders increased 2% y-o-y - Bassett Furniture Industries also announced that wholesale orders for the fiscal month of July 2021 increased by 2% over July 2020 and 29% over July 2019 and that wholesale shipments increased 11% over July 2020 and declined 1% as compared to July 2019. "We are pleased that the pace of business remains strong as evidenced by our increase in orders for July as compared to 2020 and 2019," commented Rob Spilman, Chairman and CEO. "As I discussed in the Q2 earnings release issued on July 1, 2021, the strong business conditions seen over the past 14 months have overwhelmed our industry's trucking segment resulting in shipping delays of manufactured and imported goods. Exacerbating this is our difficulty in hiring and retaining warehouse workers, which is also causing increased labor costs that are cutting into Zenith's operating margins. All of this culminated with our plants recently running at reduced capacity to provide Zenith some breathing room to reduce shipping gridlock. Coupling this with other supply chain issues such as the availability of certain fabrics, our shipments continue to lag behind the pace of incoming orders. Consequently, our wholesale backlog has increased 9.8% since the end of the second quarter. We have also continued to receive additional cost increases from several of our vendors which will negatively impact our wholesale margins for the third quarter and will likely result in our fourth price increase for our customers during the current fiscal year. Further complicating our operations is the recent resurgence of COVID-19 in Asia, primarily in Vietnam where we source a significant amount of our bedroom and formal dining room furniture and certain component parts for our manufacturing operations. Our Vietnamese partners were recently forced to cease operations and are currently not expecting to commence manufacturing again until mid-September. With all of that said, our cancellation rate has not risen significantly. We are working diligently to increase our shipping rates so that we can unlock the profit that is hidden in our massive backlog."

09:08 EDT Mimecast announces integration with Humio - Mimecast (MIME) announced the strategic API integration with Humio, a CrowdStrike (CRWD) company. The integrated solution is designed to deliver email-based threat intelligence with advanced detection, investigation and threat hunting. Enterprise organizations leveraging the integration gain search and correlation capabilities across all log types to better detect and respond to advanced cyber threats. "Email threats are becoming harder to stop and proliferating each day. Business email compromises, spear phishing attempts and the rise of ransomware are among the biggest challenges IT and security teams face," said Jules Martin, vice president, ecosystem & alliances at Mimecast. "Our integration with Humio helps provide organizations increased visibility with live searches and real time dashboards, empowering threat hunting teams to find potentially malicious activity before it lands in an inbox. Incident response teams are empowered to work faster, a vital benefit when containing incidents before they become a full-scale breach." Humio's unique architecture enables customers to log everything, and joint customers can ingest Mimecast logs with other log sources including infrastructure, network and software. This provides customers with complete visibility across their threat landscape, coupled with fast search performance and comprehensive query language, enabling threat hunters to quickly ask any questions of their data.

09:06 EDT Virpax Pharmaceuticals receives FDA response and guidance on MMS019 - Virpax Pharmaceuticals announced that it has received a written pre-investigational new drug response from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for MMS019, its patented and proprietary high-density molecular masking spray under development for use as an anti-viral barrier product. Virpax believes the results of the pre-IND response support further research on MMS019 as an intranasal protective that may limit transmission of the viruses to others. Virpax expects to move forward and pursue a New Drug Application for MMS019 as a once daily intranasal treatment. The FDA has indicated that Virpax may pursue an NDA drug approval with the Office of Non-Prescription Drugs. The Company has engaged Syneos Health to assist with the optimal clinical trial design based on an efficient timeline. "We are very pleased with the response from the FDA. We believe that the initial pathway to move forward with the development of MMS019 has been clarified," said Anthony P. Mack, Chairman and CEO of Virpax. "The pre-IND meeting provides an opportunity for open communication between the Sponsor and the FDA to discuss the IND development plan and to obtain the FDA's guidance for clinical studies for the new drug candidate. As our development program proceeds, we will define the strategy for our drug-device combination product candidate, MMS019, for use in an over-the-counter setting as we look to support a consumer-friendly OTC indication." Virpax previously announced that it has completed in-vitro, ex-vivo and in-vivo trials for this product candidate. MMS019 demonstrated inhibition of viral replication of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza in animals at much higher ranges than what is encountered by humans in the nasal passages; no adverse effects were observed during the studies. In addition to inhibition of viral replication, the animal studies also demonstrated decreased levels of the virus in animal brain tissue, a potentially important observation as recent studies have shown neurological conditions with survivors of severe Covid.

09:04 EDT Bird announces integration with Google Maps - Bird announced an integration with Google Maps (GOOG, GOOGL) designed to provide easier access to shared electric vehicles for sustainable transportation and trip planning. Starting August 17, users of Google Maps will have the ability to see the availability and location status of Bird e-scooters and e-bikes. The integration comes on the heels of Bird's announcement of its intention to enter the public markets through a definitive agreement with Switchback II Corporation (SWBK).

09:03 EDT Srax announces $10M stock buy-back, special dividend of approximately 23c - Srax announced a $10M stock buy-back program, and a one-time special dividend of approximately 23c per share. The company will be issuing preferred shares to shareholders of SRAX common stock on September 20 . The preferred shares will hold approximately $6.5M worth of Sequire clients stock, and as the shares are sold, the proceeds will be distributed to the preferred shareholders. "We're excited to reward our shareholders with this dividend," said Christopher Miglino, Founder and CEO of SRAX. "We think there's an opportunity to begin buying back shares of SRAX and we're in the right financial position to do so

09:02 EDT Deere, UAW begin negotiations on labor agreement - Deere & Company and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America have started negotiations on a new labor agreement. The current six-year master agreement covers approximately 10,100 production and maintenance employees at 12 Deere facilities and expires on October 1. In Iowa, the facilities are Davenport Works, Des Moines Works, Dubuque Works, Ottumwa Works, and Waterloo Works, including Tractor and Cab Assembly, Engine Works, and the Foundry. In Illinois, the facilities are Harvester Works in East Moline, North American Parts Distribution Center in Milan, and the Seeding Group and Cylinder Division in Moline. In Kansas, there is one facility, Coffeyville Works. A separate agreement also is being negotiated to cover nearly 100 production and maintenance employees at Deere parts facilities in Denver and Atlanta.

08:54 EDT Save Foods appoints Art Dawson as chairman of advisory board - Save Foods announced that it has appointed Dr. Art Dawson as Chairman of its Advisory Board. The newly formed advisory board will focus on building market awareness and facilitating sales of Save Foods' produce treatment solutions. He is the founder and president of the Dawson Company, an agriculture and post-harvest consultancy, as well as editor of "The Heartbeat of Agricultural Technology," a digital magazine focused on cutting-edge industry technology.

08:49 EDT Centene's Ohio subsidiary awarded Medicaid contract - Centene Corporation announced its Ohio subsidiary, Buckeye Health Plan, has been awarded a Medicaid contract by the Ohio Department of Medicaid to continue serving members with quality healthcare, coordinated services, and benefits. The contract will commence in early 2022. Under the new contract, Buckeye will deploy new, innovative initiatives to meet members' unique needs, including the launch of new technologies and local programs in partnership with providers and community partners.

08:41 EDT Neuronetics launches website to meet demand for depression resources - Neuronetics announced its new website to meet consumer demand for information on accessing advanced treatments for depression. The enhanced site also makes it easier for healthcare providers to learn more about this important treatment option for their patients. NeuroStar Advanced Therapy for Mental Health is the leading non-drug and non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment for depression. In a recent market research survey commissioned by Neuronetics, 67 percent of patients with Major Depressive Disorder said they were unhappy with their current treatment; 60 percent wish there were better options; and 56 percent were extremely interested in learning about new treatment options for depression - underscoring the critical need for more mental health resources and awareness on available non-drug alternatives. Aligning with this research, the Company's updated website now has added content in a centralized hub to reflect what patients need to make informed decisions about treating depression.

08:41 EDT Flora Growth signs LOI to acquire Vessel for $30M in cash, stock - Flora Growth announced that it has signed a letter of intent, or LOI, to acquire 100% of Vessel Brand. Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Vessel distributes its hardware and accessories throughout the United States and internationally, and has numerous products in its development pipeline. Flora Growth has signed an LOI to acquire 100% of Vessel for consideration of an aggregate amount of $30M to be satisfied by a combination of a cash payment and/or the issuance of Flora common shares. The completion of the transaction to acquire Vessel is subject to customary closing conditions, including due diligence to the satisfaction of both parties and the entering into of definitive agreements. Following the closing of the transaction, and continuing for a period of three years thereafter, one nominee of Vessel shall be nominated to the board of directors of Flora for approval by Flora's shareholders at its annual shareholder's meeting.

08:39 EDT Document Security promotes Todd Macko to CFO - Document Security Systems announced Todd Macko has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer effective August 16, 2021. Macko is a Certified Public Accountant with over 25 years of financial management, corporate strategy, and executive business leadership, and brings a wealth of experience to his role at DSS.

08:37 EDT Beazley appoints Patricia Kocsondy as head, U.S. cyber & techChubb - Beazley (BZLYF) has appointed Patricia Kocsondy as Head of US Cyber & Tech. Kocsondy comes from Chubb (CB), where she served as senior vice president, errors & omissions and cyber underwriting, for Chubb Limited's North American Financial Lines. Based in New York, Kocsondy will report to Bantick and focus on middle market and large risk cyber & tech underwriting in the US.

08:36 EDT Christy's enters multiyear subscription licenssion agreement with Avid - Avid announced that post-production rental provider Christy's Editorial has selected a multiyear subscription licensing agreement for 500 seats of Media Composer Enterprise video editing software. With its migration from perpetual software licenses, Christy's achieves easier and more efficient delivery of the editing tool specified by the majority of its premier client base.

08:35 EDT Muscle Maker's Pokemoto signs agreement for three new locations - Muscle Maker's newest subsidiary Pokemoto, a 14-location concept known for its healthier modern culinary twist on a traditional Hawaiian poke classic is ramping up its franchising efforts to expand the millennial and Gen-Z fueled brand in the northeast and beyond. The chain can be found in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Georgia. Pokemoto recently signed an agreement for three locations in Hampshire County Massachusetts; specifically, the towns of Northampton, Amherst and Hadley increasing the brand's overall footprint by 21%. "One of the goals of the Pokemoto acquisition was to expand with the goal of increasing our traditional and non-traditional footprint and in turn, accelerating our top line sales, and here we are 90 days in, with a three-unit deal signed." said Mike Roper, CEO of Muscle Maker. "We are in the process of integrating Pokemoto into existing and new Muscle Maker Grill locations to run dual brands in areas that are targeting Millennial and Gen-Z demographics. We believe our added buying power, expertise in franchising and site selection, operations and marketing and additional resources such as adding a robust tech solution completed the package to bolster Pokemoto's franchising program. The trendy fresh-ingredient "build your own" bowl, burrito or salad model is very attractive to prospective franchisees for multiple reasons including but not limited to: low startup costs, smaller footprint, minimal cooking and the ability to serve guests quickly in a linear fashion. Guests want delicious, high-quality cuisine and they want it fast. Pokemoto is here to deliver - in our restaurants via our contactless kiosks or on the go."

08:31 EDT QOMPLX and SPAC Tailwind Acquisition mutually terminate combination pact - QOMPLX, a cloud-native leader in risk analytics, and Tailwind Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company, announced that both companies have mutually agreed to terminate their business combination agreement . The proposed business combination, announced in March 2021, was conditioned on the satisfaction of certain closing conditions within the timeframe contemplated by the Agreement. "The reason for the mutual decision lies with market conditions preventing certain of the closing conditions from being satisfied," said Philip Krim, chairman of Tailwind Acquisition Corp. "Although this is not the outcome we had hoped for, we remain optimistic in the growing cybersecurity and risk analytics industry and will continue to seek to identify opportunities that can capture value for shareholders." Neither party will be required to pay the other a termination fee as a result of the mutual decision to terminate the Agreement. In light of the mutual decision to terminate the Agreement, Tailwind Acquisition has cancelled its special meeting of stockholders to approve the business combination and related matters, which was scheduled for August 17

08:26 EDT Walmart expects grocery market share gains to continue in Q3

08:25 EDT NetSol Technologies partners with Motorcycle Group for for cloud-based NFS - NETSOL Technologies has signed an agreement with Motorcycle Group to deploy the cloud-based version of its flagship NFS Ascent platform across the customer's entire operations. This agreement marks the first official sale for NFS Ascent in the U.S. market. Motorcycle Group, consisting of MotoLease and MotoLoan, presents lease and loan offers simultaneously to qualified applicants so that motorcycle and powersports dealers can maximize their sales and enable consumers to pre-qualify and select their vehicle through Motorcycle Group's advisors.

08:21 EDT HUMBL welcomes Robert Cornish as Senior Technology Advisor - HUMBL announces that Robert Cornish has joined HUMBL as its new Sr. Advisor, Technology. Rob most recently served as the Chief Technology Officer of Gemini, where he was broadly responsible for all aspects of technology, including technology vision, roadmap, delivery and operations across the organization.

08:20 EDT Nutanix with Cyxtera other tech partners to launch Federal Innovation Lab - Nutanix (NTNX) and Cyxtera (CYXT) announced their partnership to launch the first Nutanix Federal Innovation Lab, powered by Cyxtera's digital exchange and Enterprise Bare Metal. The Federal Innovation Lab, located in a Cyxtera data center in Northern Virginia, provides U.S. Federal customers as well as industry partners with an environment to build proofs of concept and test mission-critical applications using on-demand infrastructure that readily supports hybrid multicloud solutions via a single operating platform. Developed and deployed in collaboration with Intel and other industry-leading technology solution providers, the Nutanix Federal Innovation Lab provides an ecosystem of seamless, dynamic, on-demand capabilities ready to help support testing of the most demanding workload requirements, at scale. The Innovation Lab is a dedicated space focused on translating technology innovation into proofs of concept to simplify and automate U.S. government agency IT environments for their journey to hybrid multicloud..."The Nutanix Federal Innovation Lab will use the latest Intel technologies (INTC), including Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel Optane persistent memory, to address mission critical challenges and deliver outcomes for government agencies," said Greg Ernst, Vice President and General Manager of U.S. Sales at Intel.

08:19 EDT Hill International awarded contract by the Tule River Tribe Gaming Authority - Hill International announced it was awarded a contract by the Tule River Tribe Gaming Authority to provide owner's representative services for Phase 1 of the relocation of the Authority's Eagle Mountain Casino. Valued at $200 million, the project will "relocate" casino operations to a new site approximately 17 miles from the current location. The first phase of the work includes building a new 2,000-seat Event Center, River Steak House, coffee house, 24-hour diner, sports bar and grill, and gaming spaces for 1,750 slot machines and 20 table games. Hill's services will encompass construction management, scheduling, estimating and cost management, quality control, planning and coordination with third-party providers, and contract administration, among others.

08:17 EDT Infinera announces new executive appointments - Infinera announced new executive appointments to strengthen its leadership team as it further aligns its business to maximize market opportunities in the new era of open optical networking. The company announces the following executive appointments: Ron Johnson, General Manager of Optical Systems & Network Solutions Group - responsible for driving Infinera's growth in open optical systems and software as networks move to 800G in the core, 400G in the metro, and 100G coherent to the edge. Tom Burns, General Manager of Optical Modules & Coherent Solutions Group - responsible for Infinera's optical modules and coherent solutions, including the company's industry-leading ICE optical engines and its recently announced suite of ICE-XR optical pluggables. Azmina Somani, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Optical Modules & Coherent Solutions Group - responsible for optical modules and coherent solutions engineering. Russ Esmacher, Senior Vice President of Strategy - responsible for strategy, marketing, and corporate development in leading the company's strategic planning processes and executing plans to achieve market share gains and the company's target business model.

08:14 EDT CytomX Therapeutics announces employment inducement grants - CytomX Therapeutics announced that on August 16, 2021, the Company granted seven new employees options to purchase a total of 172,600 shares of the Company's common stock at an exercise price per share equal to $4.81, which was the closing trading price on August 16, 2021, the date of the grant.

08:13 EDT Candel Therapeutics announces closing of initial public offering - Candel Therapeutics announced the closing of the issuance of an additional 887,994 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $8.00 per share. The shares were issued pursuant to a partial exercise of the underwriters' option to purchase additional shares of common stock in connection with Candel's previously announced initial public offering of 9,000,000 shares of its common stock. The gross proceeds from the exercise of the option to purchase additional shares were approximately $7.1 million, bringing the aggregate gross proceeds to Candel from its initial public offering to approximately $79.1 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses.

08:12 EDT Herc Holding buys Texas-based CBS Rentals in accretive transaction, no terms - Herc Holdings announced that it has entered a purchase agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Texas-based CBS Rentals . The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, is expected to close prior to the end of 2021. Terms were not disclosed. CBS is a full-service general equipment rental company comprising approximately 190 employees and 12 locations serving construction and industrial customers throughout Texas, as well as locations in Carlsbad, NM, and Kingsport, TN. The addition of CBS expands Herc Rentals' presence in Texas - one of the largest equipment rental markets in North America - to 38 physical locations, which collectively provide general and specialty equipment rental solutions and related services. "We expect the acquisition to be accretive to earnings in the first year. We remain well positioned to pursue growth through a variety of initiatives, including investment in key fleet categories, greenfield branches and acquired operations, while maintaining our commitment to a sound financial footing."

08:11 EDT Alzamend Neuro contracts Altasciences to conduct AL001 bioavailability study - Alzamend Neuro announced that it contracted Altasciences to conduct a six-month Phase I relative bioavailability study for AL001 for dementia related to Alzheimer's disease in September. The Phase I first-in-human study is for the purpose of determining potential clinically safe and appropriate dosing for AL001 in future studies. AL001 is a lithium-delivering ionic cocrystal under development as an oral treatment for patients with dementia related to mild, moderate, and severe cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer's disease. The Phase I study will investigate the pharmacokinetics compared to a typical single dose of a marketed 300 mg immediate-release lithium carbonate capsule in healthy male and female subjects. The lithium and salicylate components of AL001 will be given within the amounts already approved for use in patients. The purpose of the research study is to test the safety, tolerability, and bioavailability of the study drug, AL001, compared to the currently marketed formulation of the comparator, lithium carbonate.

08:10 EDT KnowBe4 launches updated Automated Security Awareness Program 2.0 - KnowBe4 announced the launch of its updated Automated Security Awareness Program 2.0 and availability in six new languages. ASAP's refreshed user interface and updated questionnaire was designed to make the process easier and faster for IT admins to get their security awareness training programs started. After answering some simple questions, ASAP will create a user-friendly program and schedule of tasks automatically. This robust cybersecurity tool helps IT admins build a comprehensive security awareness training program quickly. It is one of KnowBe4's tools offered at no charge.

08:09 EDT Walmart: 'Important that as many people in the U.S. get vaccinated as possible' - CEO Doug McMillon, on the company's earnings conference call, said that it is "important" that as many people in the U.S. get vaccinated as soon as possible and vaccines be made available around the world.

08:08 EDT MEI and Kyowa announce dosing of first patient in Phase 3 study of zandelisib - MEI Pharma and Kyowa Kirin, a global specialty pharmaceutical company, announced the dosing of the first patient in a Phase 3 study of zandelisib known as COASTAL. COASTAL is evaluating zandelisib, a selective phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase delta inhibitor, in combination with rituximab in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, or FL, or marginal zone lymphoma, or MZL, who have received at least one prior line of therapy.

08:08 EDT Kratos 'remains committed' to be ready for 2023 Skyborg Vanguard Program - Kratos Defense & Security Solutions announced that it remains committed to be ready for a 2023 Skyborg Vanguard Program of Record, echoing the commitment expressed by the U.S. Air Force in its August 16, 2021 update on the Skyborg program. Skyborg is an autonomy-focused capability developed to enable the Air Force to operate and sustain low-cost, teamed aircraft that can thwart adversaries with quick, decisive actions in contested environments. The program aims to enable airborne combat mass by building a transferable autonomy foundation for a family of layered, unmanned air vehicles. As designed, this foundation will deliver unmatched combat capability per dollar by lowering the barriers to entry for industry and allowing continuous hardware and software innovation in acquisition, fielding and sustainment of critical mission systems. During this effort, AFRL will prototype a suite of autonomy and unmanned system technologies equipped with capabilities that can support a range of Air Force missions.

08:06 EDT EchoStar subsidiary Hughes awarded IDIQ contract by U.S. Air Force - Hughes Network Systems announced that it has been awarded one of several prime positions on an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a ceiling of $950M by the U.S. Air Force to support its Advanced Battle Management System. Hughes will offer flexible satellite communications solutions that leverage open systems design, modern software and algorithm development in order to enable ABMS, part of the broader Joint All Domain Command and Control effort to deliver information accessibility to the warfighter.

08:06 EDT Walmart CEO: Confident in fundamental strength of business - Comments taken from Q2 earnings conference call.

08:06 EDT Cidara, Mundipharma announce completion of enrollment in Phase 3 ReSTORE trial - Cidara Therapeutics announced that the companies have completed recruitment of the pivotal Phase 3 ReSTORE trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of rezafungin as a potential first-line treatment for candidemia and invasive candidiasis. The trial includes 184 patients diagnosed with candidemia and/or invasive candidiasis. Jeffrey Stein, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Cidara, added, "With the completion of enrollment of ReSTORE, we remain on track to announce top-line data by the end of this year and anticipate filing our New Drug Application in the U.S. and similar regulatory filings outside the U.S. in mid-2022." Cidara has partnered with Mundipharma who will be responsible for bringing rezafungin to patients outside the U.S. and Japan. ReSTORE is a global, randomized, double-blind, controlled Phase 3 pivotal clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of once-weekly intravenous dosing of rezafungin compared to once-daily dosing of caspofungin, the current standard of care, to treat patients with candidemia and/or invasive candidiasis. The primary efficacy endpoint of ReSTORE, which will be used to support a U.S. Food and Drug Administration NDA submission, is all-cause mortality at Day 30. The primary efficacy endpoint for the European Medicines Agency is global response at Day 14. The ongoing global Phase 3 ReSPECT trial evaluating rezafungin versus the standard antimicrobial regimen to prevent invasive fungal disease due to Candida, Aspergillus and Pneumocystis in subjects undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplants continues to enroll patients as planned.

08:04 EDT PepsiCo targets 'Net Water Positive' by 2030 - PepsiCo announced its ambition to become "Net Water Positive" by 2030, aiming to replenish more water than the company uses, which would place it among the most water-efficient food or beverage manufacturers operating in high-risk watersheds. With safe water access a critical component of the holistic water stewardship agenda, The PepsiCo Foundation is also launching a new $1M program with leading NGO and long-term partner, WaterAid to bring safe water to families in Sub-Saharan Africa - expanding its 15-year, more than $53M safe water access initiative that reaches over 20 countries and has helped more than 59M people since 2006.

08:02 EDT Cognizant acquires digital engineering assets from Hunter Technical Resources - Cognizant has acquired digital engineering assets from Hunter Technical Resources, a privately-held digital engineering and project management agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Hunter Technical Resources engineers specialize in high-demand skills, including full stack development, machine learning, DevOps, systems architecture and data science. The acquisition extends Cognizant's talent network in key markets, strengthening the company's digital engineering resources in the U.S. as well as Cognizant's position as one of the world's largest digital engineering firms.

07:50 EDT HUMBL appoints Brad Hoagland to board of directors - HUMBL (HMBL) announced that Brad Hoagland has joined the HUMBL Board of Directors as an independent director. Hoagland holds the position of CFO and Secretary of Ecoark Holdings (ZEST).

07:48 EDT Huize announces $5M management share purchase plan - Huize Holding announced that its Board of Directors has approved the Management Share Purchase Plan, pursuant to which Mr. Cunjun Ma, the Company's Chairman of the Board and CEO, and certain other members of the Company's management team intend to allocate their personal funds to purchase up to an aggregate of $5M worth of the Company's ADSs during a six-month period following today, pursuant and subject to applicable laws and the Company's securities trading policy. The management share purchase may be made from time to time in the open market at prevailing market prices, in privately negotiated transactions, in block trades and/or through other legally permissible means, depending on market conditions and in accordance with applicable rules and regulations. The management team has agreed to be subject to lock-up restrictions for a period of six months with respect to the proposed purchased shares.

07:43 EDT HCW Biologics announces publication on TOBI discovery platform - HCW Biologics is focused on discovering and developing novel immunotherapies to lengthen health span by disrupting the link between chronic, low-grade inflammation and age-related diseases. The Company featured its internally-developed Tissue factOr-Based fusIon discovery platform in a recent research article published online in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Immunology Research. Using the TOBI discovery platform, the Company has created novel multi-functional immunotherapeutics to rejuvenate the immune system to reduce the accumulation of senescent cells and suppress the activity of inflammasomes. These fusion immunotherapeutics are comprised of cytokines, chemokines, ligands, receptors, and single-chain antibodies carefully selected and designed to work in tandem to stimulate, inhibit, or target specific immune responses. The key aspect of the unique TOBI platform is that it uses a novel tissue factor protein scaffold. The extracellular domain of human TF was selected as it has a rigid elongated structure comprised mainly of ss-sheets with its N- and C-termini located at distal ends of the polypeptide, permitting genetic fusions of other protein domains without anticipated steric interference. This TF domain does not interact with the cell membrane phospholipid bilayer and, as a result, does not exhibit procoagulant activity. Consistent with these properties, the Company found that genetic fusion to the TF domain promoted increased production of difficult-to-express proteins, such as IL-15. Additionally, the TF fusion proteins could be readily purified by affinity chromatography using anti-TF antibodies and low pH elution conditions, like those used in Protein A-based affinity purification of therapeutic antibodies. As a proof of concept, HCW Biologics' published scientific article describes the creation of the molecules HCW9201 and HCW9207 as well as their individual functionality which mimic a cocktail of cytokines IL-12, IL-15, and IL-18 to prime memory-like natural killer cells for cell-based cancer therapy. However, use of the IL-12/IL-15/IL-18 cocktail for generation of memory-like NK cells for adoptive therapies is limited by the lack of available, scalable GMP-grade reagents for advancing this approach beyond early-phase clinical trials. HCW9201 and HCW9207 are expected to overcome such a production problem in the large-scale GMP manufacturing process. HCW9201 is already in clinical development to replace the IL-12/IL-15/IL-18 cocktail for patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia.

07:41 EDT Humacyte announce addition of CCO, integration of commercial-scale manufacturing - Humacyte announced advancements in its commercial operations with the appointment of B.J. Scheessele as Chief Commercial Officer. In addition, Human Acellular Vessels produced in the Durham, N.C. facility are being administered to subjects throughout the U.S., Europe and Israel as part of clinical trials that are being conducted under two investigational new drug applications. Humacyte expects to submit a biologics license application to FDA in 2022 seeking approval of the HAV for its initial indication in vascular trauma. Scheessele will provide leadership, direction and strategic vision to drive the commercial launch of the HAV in its initial vascular indications and follow-on market expansion. Prior to joining Humacyte, Scheessele served as Executive Vice President of Global Marketing for Quest Medical Imaging. Humacyte's large-scale, commercial manufacturing systems, known as "Luna200", are housed in its 83,000-square-foot bioprocessing facility in Durham, N.C. Each modular, automated Luna200 system, with enhanced process controls, can grow 200 HAVs at a time. Humacyte previously presented data from its Phase 2 comparability clinical trial evaluating HAVs manufactured in the Luna200 system at the International Conference on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Clinical results demonstrated comparable three-month safety and efficacy outcomes to the prior, pilot-scale systems previously used to manufacture the HAV. The Durham facility is fully operational and capable of supplying current clinical trial product needs in the U.S. The facility also achieved compliance with EU good manufacturing practices and Qualified Person Certification to allow product to be supplied to ongoing studies in Europe and Israel. On February 17, 2021, Alpha Healthcare Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company, and Humacyte announced the execution of a definitive business combination agreement along with a fully committed $175 million PIPE financing agreement. On August 24, 2021, AHAC will hold a special shareholder's meeting to vote on the proposed business combination with Humacyte.

07:36 EDT Moxian completes corporate reorganization - Moxian announced that the reorganization of Moxian as a British Virgin Islands company has been completed. As a result of the corporate reorganization, on August 16, 2021, each outstanding share of Moxian's common stock was converted into the right to receive an ordinary share of Moxian. Pursuant to the merger agreement approved by Moxian stockholders at the annual meeting of stockholders held on July 19, 2021, the number of ordinary shares in Moxian BVI owned by each shareholder as a result of the merger is the same as the number of shares of common stock previously owned in Moxian immediately prior to the merger. Trading of the ordinary shares of Moxian BVI will begin on the NASDAQ Capital Market on August 17, 2021 under the symbol "MOXC," the same symbol as that of Moxian common stock.

07:34 EDT HLS Therapeutics reports agreement with Pfizer for Vascepa in Canada - HLS Therapeutics (HLTRF) announced that effective August 13, 2021 it has entered into a promotional services agreement with Pfizer (PFE) for the promotion of Vascepa in Canada. Vascepa is a treatment designed to reduce the risk of major adverse cardiac events in statin-treated patients. Under terms of the Agreement, Pfizer will deploy a team across Canada to support education about Vascepa with primary care physician groups. HLS's existing salesforce of approximately 30 field personnel and support staff will remain primarily focused on the specialist physician audience. HLS will retain responsibility over Vascepa's commercialization and will record all revenue related to Vascepa sales in Canada. "We believe Vascepa has the potential to improve the lives of the many Canadians suffering from, or at risk of, cardiovascular disease and we look forward to collaborating with Pfizer to bring this innovative therapy to those in need," said Gilbert Godin, CEO at HLS. "While our cardiovascular sales team will continue to focus on specialists such as cardiologists and endocrinologists, this partnership will enable us to educate and efficiently expand interactions with a general physician audience that is 3-4 times larger. Ultimately, we believe this collaboration will benefit patients and physicians while at the same time strengthening the economic potential for the product and expanding the benefit to society."

07:31 EDT Lion Group announces strategic partnership with Dawa - Lion Group Holding announced its latest strategic partnership with Dawa Future Graphic Technology. Through this partnership, the two companies will jointly innovate and develop the Metaverse AI tool - "Cloud Production Platform", establishing a new form of digital market and establish a leading position in the construction and development of the Metaverse field. Dawa Technology is one of China's largest communities for VR, AR, XR developers and content creators, that gathers veteran researchers, developers, creators and project operation teams.

07:20 EDT Brookfield Infrastructure reminds Inter Pipeline shareholders to tender to offer - Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) reminds IPL (IPPLF) shareholders to tender to its offer as outlined in the Fifth Notice of Variation and Extension dated August 6, 2021. Brookfield Infrastructure is confident that at the August 20th deadline we will meet the modified statutory minimum condition and be in a position to take-up and pay for all tendered shares. IPL shareholders are encouraged to tender to the Offer as soon as possible to receive their chosen form of consideration shortly after take-up. Shareholders who do not tender prior to the Offer expiry may be delayed in receiving consideration from Brookfield Infrastructure. The company said, "Upon the successful conclusion of our Offer, we intend to commence a subsequent transaction to acquire the remaining shares that were not tendered. The timing and details of such transaction will be released at a later date." IPL shareholders may elect up to 100% cash consideration, totalling C$20.00 per share of IPL without being subject to proration or 0.250 of a class A exchangeable subordinated voting share of Brookfield Infrastructure Corporation, subject to proration.

07:18 EDT SmartCentres unveils PXL Gallery public art installation - SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust officially unveils the PXL Gallery, a 10,000 square foot low resolution LED permanent art installation in SmartVMC, its flagship 100-acre master-planned city centre in Vaughan. This modern art installation features rotating exhibits of curated moving artwork created by acclaimed digital artists.

07:16 EDT Genius Sports to acquire creative performance platform Spirable, no terms - Genius Sports announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Spirable, "a leading creative performance platform,. Transaction details have not been disclosed," said the company. Spirable allows brands, agencies and rights holders to create, automate and optimize highly personalized content. The at-scale offering uses live and contextual data and AI to distribute content across the major digital media channels including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat. The SaaS platform is highly complementary to Genius' existing media and advertising products, expanding the Company's ability to deliver fans contextually relevant and personalized content. The combination of Genius Sports' official sports data, extensive network, and operational scale with Spirable's highly innovative video platform will result in deeper engagement, higher performance, and lower cost of acquisition for partners. Spirable's customers will broaden Genius' extensive global brand network, adding household names such as Spotify, Coca-Cola, P&G, Domino's, Diageo and Heineken. In addition, Spirable has established links with the sports and gaming sector, providing its services to businesses including DraftKings, Flutter, WynnBET, Betway, 888 Holdings, and Entain. "The sports sector has always been at the pinnacle of advertising and marketing, and more than ever brands are looking to maximize their engagement with fans before, during and after events," said Ger O'Meara, CEO of Spirable. "Over the past six years, our talented team has helped change the way brands create, scale and optimize creative to reach their customers. Together with Genius Sports, we will work to offer more valuable real-time content that will increase fan interaction and retention." The completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and expected to take place in the second half of 2021.

07:14 EDT Tilt Holdings announces second agreement with Old Pal - TILT Holdings announced that it has entered into an exclusive agreement to manufacture, package and distribute select products by Old Pal, a Los Angeles-based lifestyle cannabis company. Per the new Agreement, TILT's Pennsylvania subsidiary, Standard Farms, will bring Old Pal into the company's full-service wholesale manufacturing, packaging and distribution platform in the Commonwealth, expanding the Company's relationship with Old Pal beyond Massachusetts. Standard Farms will be launching Old Pal's Classic 7-gram Whole Flower pouches and one-gram 510 Oil Cartridges, provided by TILT subsidiary, Jupiter Research.

07:11 EDT Day One Biopharmaceuticals appoints Scott Garland to board of directors - Day One Biopharmaceuticals announced the appointment of Scott Garland to the company's board of directors. Garland is a 30-year veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry with deep commercial and executive leadership experience. Garland is the chief executive officer of PACT Pharma, an immuno-oncology company focused on developing neoantigen targeted T-cell therapies for solid tumors.

07:10 EDT Main Street announces cumulative investment totaling $38.5M - Main Street Capital announced that it recently invested a cumulative total of $38.5M across three investments, including two new portfolio investments and one follow-on investment to support the growth of an existing portfolio company. Main Street recently completed a new portfolio investment to complete the minority recapitalization of The Affiliati Network, a leading performance marketing agency in the U.S. that specializes in affiliate marketing and lead generation solutions for brands and advertisers. Affiliati bridges the gap between advertisers seeking customer leads and affiliates who deliver high quality customer traffic. Affiliati was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California. Main Street, along with its co-investor, partnered with Affiliati's founder and CEO to facilitate the transaction, with Main Street funding $20.4 million in a combination of first-lien, senior secured term debt and a direct equity investment. In addition, Main Street and its co-investor are providing Affiliati with a revolving line of credit to support its future growth initiatives and working capital needs.

07:07 EDT Walmart reports Q2 U.S. comparable sales growth 6.1%

07:05 EDT AzurRx announces WHO publication of 'adrulipase alfa' as name for MS1819 - AzurRx BioPharma announced the World Health Organization has published "adrulipase alfa" as the proposed International Nonproprietary Name for MS1819. MS1819 is a recombinant lipase enzyme that is currently under development for the treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency associated with cystic fibrosis and chronic pancreatitis. AzurRx is pursuing parallel monotherapy and combination therapy clinical pathways with MS1819. The company reported topline results from its Phase 2b OPTION 2 monotherapy trial in March 2021 and expects to report full topline results from its Phase 2 combination therapy trial, evaluating MS1819 in combination with PERT, for the treatment of severe EPI in patients with cystic fibrosis, in the third quarter of 2021. The WHO is expected to render a final decision on the use of adrulipase alfa for MS1819 by November 2021.

07:03 EDT Gritstone, CEPI announce agreement to advance COVID-19 vaccine program - Gritstone bio announced that the company entered into a funding agreement of up to $20.6M with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to advance the development of Gritstone's CORAL COVID-19 vaccine program with an initial focus in South Africa. "Our unique approach combines our self-amplifying mRNA platform with a broad set of viral antigens beyond spike intended to drive robust and durable immune responses comprising both neutralizing antibodies and CD8+ T cells. With this unique antigenic breadth, our CORAL vaccine may offer protection against emerging spike variants of SARS-CoV-2 that appear challenging for first generation vaccines," said Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Gritstone. Under the terms of the agreement, CEPI will fund a multi-arm Phase 1 study evaluating the CORAL program's SAM vaccine in naive, convalescent, and HIV+ patients. The funding will also support pre-clinical studies, scale-up and formulation development to enable more stable drug product. The study will evaluate two different SAM vaccine constructs that each target both the spike protein and other SARS-CoV-2 targets and are designed to drive both robust B and T cell immune responses. The trial is expected to initiate before the end of 2021.

07:03 EDT Wingstop names Stacy Peterson as EVP, Chief Digital and Technology Officer - Wingstop announced Stacy Peterson will now serve as EVP, Chief Digital and Technology Officer and the promotion of Marisa Carona to SVP, Chief Growth Officer and Stevie Benjamin to SVP of Digital Marketing. Stacy joined Wingstop in 2013 and is well-recognized as a leading technology executive in the restaurant industry. Since joining Wingstop in 2015, Marisa has been fast-tracking up the company ladder after leading key areas of the business including corporate strategy, ESG, training, and serving as Chief of Staff to the CEO and Vice President of Strategy. Stevie joined Wingstop in mid-2021 as VP of Media after successful stints leading media strategy at MillerCoors, Target and Discover.

06:39 EDT Ault Global Holdings regains compliance with NYSE listing rules - Ault Global Holdings announced that on August 13, 2021, the Company received written notice from the NYSE American stating that AGH has regained compliance with all continued listing standards set forth in Section 704 of the NYSE American Company Guide. By meeting the continued listing requirements, AGH has resolved its continued listing deficiency and, effective at the start of trading on August 16, the "BC" designation, signifying noncompliance with the NYSE American's listing standards, was removed from the Company's "DPW" trading symbol.

06:32 EDT Sea Limited raises FY guidance for digital entertainment, e-commerce - The company said, "We are raising the guidance for both digital entertainment and e-commerce for the full year of 2021. We expect bookings for digital entertainment to be between $4.5 billion and $4.7 billion, representing 44.4% growth from 2020 at the midpoint of the revised guidance. We also expect GAAP revenue for e-commerce to be between $4.7 billion and $4.9 billion, representing 121.5% growth from 2020 at the midpoint of the revised guidance."

06:09 EDT Aurinia Pharmaceuticals acquires two novel pipeline assets - Aurinia Pharmaceuticals announced the addition of two novel assets that will expand the Company's rare autoimmune and kidney-related disease pipeline. The first program, AUR200, was acquired by way of Aurinia purchasing all of the common stock of Thunderbolt Pharma, a private company. AUR200 is a recombinant Fc fusion protein designed to specifically block B-cell Activating Factor, known as BAFF, and A Proliferation-Inducing Ligand, known as APRIL. BAFF and APRIL promote B cell survival and differentiation and have been shown to play a prominent role in the pathogenesis of certain autoimmune and nephrology conditions. For the acquisition, Aurinia made an aggregate upfront payment of $750,000 to the shareholders of Thunderbolt and will be responsible for future regulatory milestones upon investigational new drug, or IND, acceptance by the FDA or any equivalent authority. Additionally, Thunderbolt shareholders will receive low single digit royalties on any future net sales. AUR200 is currently undergoing pre-clinical development with projected submission of an IND to the FDA by the end of 2022. The second program, AUR300, was secured through a global licensing and research agreement with Riptide Bioscience, a private company. AUR300 is a novel peptide therapeutic that modulates M2 macrophages via the macrophage mannose receptor CD206. Dysregulation of M2 macrophages drives fibrosis. AUR300 acts to reduce M2 dysregulation and decrease inflammatory cytokines, and therefore may have significant clinical applications for autoimmune and fibrotic diseases. Riptide has longstanding expertise in interpreting the etiology of fibrosis, including the discovery of lysyl oxidase and procollagen. As part of the agreement, Aurinia paid Riptide an upfront fee of $6M. Additional milestone payments are due upon certain development, clinical and regulatory milestones, and royalties will be payable upon commercialization. It is anticipated that clinical development for AUR300 will commence during the first half of 2023.

06:05 EDT Clean Energy announces new deals for RNG - Clean Energy Fuels announced a slew of new deals in response to the demand for renewable natural gas, or RNG. RNG represents more than 74% of the 26M gallons of fuel Clean Energy expects to provide through these recent signed agreements. Clean Energy has a stated goal of providing 100% zero-carbon renewable fuel at its stations by 2025. Clean Energy signed a multi-year agreement with the City of Pasadena for an anticipated 1.5M gallons of RNG to fuel 53 vehicles, including solid waste, transit buses, dump trucks and street sweepers. Big Blue Bus, the transit agency that services one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the county, Santa Monica, CA, has extended its RNG fueling contract with Clean Energy for five additional years for an anticipated 10M gallons of RNG to fill its 189-bus fleet. Gold Coast Transit, which serves Ventura County, CA has signed a multi-year fuel supply agreement with Clean Energy for an expected 4.2M gallons of RNG to fuel 56 buses and 25 paratransit buses and vans. Clean Energy has entered into a long-term agreement with Cedar Bus Company, of Buffalo, NY, to provide an estimated 2M gallons of fuel to power 60 shuttle buses that provide paratransit and university transportation. The City of Sacramento, County of Sacramento, and the City of Redlands have all extended their RNG supply agreements with Clean Energy for an anticipated 1.M gallons to fuel refuse trucks and other vehicles. KALM Energy, based in Lincoln, NE, has contracted with Clean Energy to take over operations of its three CNG stations that fuel transit buses, refuse trucks, heavy-duty trucks and passenger vehicles with annual gallons estimated at 1M gallons. The first site fuels the Omaha Metro Transit Agency, and two public access stations, located in Lincoln and Council Bluffs, IA, fuel natural gas fleets in the region. Clean Energy has been contracted by the City of Fort Smith, AR, to build a $1.8M station for the city's sanitation department to fuel refuse trucks and provide maintenance services at the site. Clean Energy has also signed an agreement to provide $380,000 in facility modifications for the City's sanitation maintenance facility. The Olathe School District in Kansas has contracted with their transportation provider DS Bus Line to run 30 CNG school buses in place of 30 diesel buses for an estimated 75,000 gallons of CNG per year. DS Bus Line, the transportation operator for Olathe Schools, utilized a grant to purchase CNG school buses. The buses will be deployed and operable for the upcoming school year. Clean Energy is facilitating station expansions for national solid waste company Republic Services in two additional California locations, allowing it to double the number of RNG-fueled trucks in Sun Valley and accommodating an additional 34 refuse trucks in Pacheco. Clean Energy currently provides RNG for Republic Services trucks in 22 states. RoadEX, a large California drayage company, is adding 16 new natural gas trucks to their fleet through the Chevron and Clean Energy partnership Adopt-A-Port program. In migrating from diesel fuel to RNG, RoadEx has committed to an approximate 960,000 gallons of RNG over the contract term.

05:15 EDT Tiziana Life Sciences announces publication of Foralumab data - Tiziana Life Sciences announced publication of a scientific article in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Immunology. The study was completed in collaboration with scientific teams at the Harvard Medical School and Intrials, a Latin American CRO based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The aim of the study was to assess safety of intranasal Foralumab and evaluate its potential benefits in treating immune hyperactivity and lung inflammation in mild to moderate COVID-19 patients who were outpatients at the Santa Casa de Misericordia de Santos Hospital in Brazil. Thirty-nine patients were randomized into three cohorts: no Foralumab treatment, nasal Foralumab + Dexamethasone and nasal Foralumab alone administered for 10 consecutive days. All arms were allowed to continue standard of care medications. Treatment with Foralumab was well-tolerated, and all patients completed the study. No serious adverse events were observed. Eleven patients experienced an adverse event, including headache, burning in the nostril, retrosternal pain, pustular lesions and itching in cervical area, dysuria, tachycardia associated with anxiety and insomnia. Treatment with Foralumab resulted in significant reduction in lung inflammation. The CT scan of the lungs obtained prior to the start of treatment and at study completion revealed a marked improvement in clearance of lung infiltrates, predominantly in patients receiving Foralumab alone as compared to patients in the control cohort. The CT scanning data strongly correlated with significant reduction in levels of inflammatory markers, such as IL-6 levels and CRP at day 10.