Shares in Filtronic (LSE: FTC) have soared by over 20% today after it announced a major new contract win. The designer and manufacturer of microwave electronics products for the wireless telecoms infrastructure market received an order worth $7.9m for its new range of integrated antennas. The order is from a major European OEM and is a follow-on to the orders which were announced earlier this year that were worth $5.9m in total.
Clearly, this is excellent news for the company and has been warmly received by the market. However, the company’s shares are still down by 45% in the last year and with Filtronic being a loss-making entity in each of the last two years and remaining in the red in the first half of the current year, investor sentiment could come under a degree of pressure in the near term.
Despite this, Filtronic is progressing through a major restructuring and could return to profitability over the medium term. However, it may still be prudent to await further updates regarding its financial performance before buying a slice of it.
Also rising by more than 10% today are shares in Angle (LSE: AGL). The specialist medtech company has stated that the results of Barts Cancer Institute’s ongoing work with its Parsortix liquid biopsy system have provided evidence in support of the use of Parsortix in the detection and assessment of prostate cancer.
In fact, the Parsortic system may assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer through a simple blood test, which is crucial since it means that men with low level disease could avoid unnecessary and potentially harmful solid biopsy and surgical intervention. Similarly, men with an aggressive form of the disease could be fast-tracked for further investigation and treatment.
Clearly, this is good news for Angle and opens the potential of another highly differentiated liquid biopsy application for Parsortix in a key area of medical need. As such, the company’s shares could continue to rise and while they remain relatively high risk, they may be of interest to less risk averse investors.
Meanwhile, shares in ReNeuron (LSE: RENE) are also among the top risers today. That’s despite there being no significant new flow having been released by the company, although the stem cell therapy company may still be benefitting from improving investor sentiment following its positive news flow of last week.
This was where the first patient had been treated with its cell therapy candidate for a disease which causes blindness called retinitis pigmentosa. It marks a significant milestone for the company, partly because it marks the commencement of clinical development activities in the US, which could become a major market for ReNeuron. And while the outcome of the trial is clearly a known unknown, there is the potential for ReNeuron to continue to deliver the share price gains of the last three months, where is has risen by around 20% due in part to gradually improving investor sentiment.
