Last checked at 
(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Thursday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
----------
Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd - Turku, Finland-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company - Appoints Birge Berns as interim chief medical officer. Berns will be based in the UK and will start on Friday. She is a pharmaceuticals executive with a background in oncology, clinical medicine, rheumatology and immunology. Berns succeeds outgoing CMO Marie-Louise Fjallskog, who is stepping down but will be proposed as a non-executive director at Faron's extraordinary general meeting on Friday. In this new role, Fjallskog would continue to be involved in the development of Faron's wholly owned immunotherapy asset, bexmarilimab.
----------
Molecular Energies PLC - Argentina and US-focused oil and gas production company - Updates investors ahead of general meeting being held later on Thursday to approve the sale of the entire issued share capital of President Energy Holding UK Ltd. Says the team has been evaluating alternative major energy projects, with a focus on sustainable aviation fuel. Adds that it has started feasibility planning for the industrial scale production of this fuel, noting that while its work is at a preliminary stage, it has already signed several non-disclosure agreements with potential stakeholders and relevant partners with whom it enjoys established relationships. Further, says that its exploration well in Paraguay is now expected to spud at or around the end this month or the first week of October. The rig mast has been erected and rig testing is now commencing with the repaired blow-out preventer after final testing currently now scheduled for delivery at the end of September.
----------
Mercia Asset Management PLC - Warwickshire, England-based specialist asset manager - Non-Executive Chair Ian Metcalfe tells annual general meeting on Thursday that the company has made a "positive start" to the current financial year. "The group remains well placed to support existing funds' portfolio companies, as well as adding new investments to those portfolios as a result of our continuing group-wide liquidity position and strong deal origination capabilities," he says. "We remain optimistic for continuing progress across the group during the second half of the current financial year."
----------
StreaksAI PLC - London-based provider of artificial intelligence-based conversational technologies - Launches Streaks Idols, a social product and artificial intelligence character generator which offers a range of customisable AI-powered chatbots capable of sophisticated humanlike interaction. Says the chatbot can respond to text and voice prompts, with video prompts currently under development. Adds that it is a mass-market product that will enable the general public to generate their own AI characters with innate monetisation, allowing creators to generate revenue as users engage with their online personas.
----------
88 Energy Ltd - Subiaco, Western Australia-based oil and gas company - Says mapping of recently identified upper slope fan system across its Project Phoenix acreage on the central North Slope of Alaska has been finalised. Seismic interpretation and log correlation has revealed that the reservoir is more extensive than originally mapped, correlating over four miles to strong shows in the Icewine-1 well. Resources in this reservoir are not currently included in the company's resource estimates as they have yet to be assessed. Notes that the quality and strength of shows recorded during the drilling and logging of Hickory-1 remain "amongst the best the company has witnessed to date". Moreover, says post-well geochemical analysis of Hickory-1 sidewall core data indicates fluid maturity to be in the early-peak oil window.
----------
Filtronic PLC - Sedgefield, England-based designer and manufacturer of products and sub-systems for the aerospace, defence, telecoms infrastructure, space, and critical communications markets - Inks contract with global provider of low earth orbit satellite communications equipment. The contract is valued at USD4.3 million, with revenue expected to be recognised in financial 2024, is for the supply of Filtronic's innovative Cerus32 solid state power amplifier module combined with a customised control board. The SSPA modules will be installed in selected ground station locations for the second phase of the customer's earth station antenna deployment which is designed to provide full E-band connectivity to recently launched E-band enabled LEO satellites.
----------
Trakm8 Holdings PLC - Birmingham, England-based telematics and data insight provider - Executive Chair John Watkins says that the financial year has started in line with management's expectations and that Fleet and Optimisation revenues have been ahead of last year. However, as anticipated, Insurance revenue continues to be suppressed because of the capacity constraints in the Insurance market that have persisted, though the addition of two new customers recently has provided some mitigation to this. In the first five months of the current financial year, new unit sales fell 28% to 63,402 from 87,362 a year prior. Total total connections have reduced overall by approximately 6% to 326,000. The firm now expects revenue for the six months ending September 30 to be "slightly lower" than last year's. It originally expected that during the second half of the current financial year the capacity issues would ease. However, it now believes that the downside risk of these challenges may continue for the remainder of the financial year.
----------
By Holly Beveridge, Alliance News reporter
Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
