AZTIQ AND INNOBIC ANNOUNCE PRICING OF SECONDARY SALE OF LOTUS COMMON STOCK BY AEMH

LONDON and BANGKOK, Thailand, July 3 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aztiq Pharma Partners (“Aztiq”), a private equity company focused on the life sciences sector, and Innobic (Asia) Company Limited (“Innobic”), the life science arm of Thai oil and gas conglomerate PTT Public Company Limited (“PTT”) (collectively, “the shareholders”), today announced the pricing of a sale of 25,095,850 shares of Lotus Pharmaceuticals (1795:TT; “Lotus,” “the company”), a multinational pharmaceutical company, at a price of NT$297 per share. The trade will be settled on July 5, 2023, subject to satisfaction of customary settlement procedures. The sale is being executed by Alvogen Emerging Market Holdings Limited (“AEMH”), which will continue to own 41% of Lotus common stock after the close of the transaction. Inclusive of Innobic’s direct holdings of Lotus, the shareholders will continue to own approximately 47.7% of the company.

Robert Wessman, Founder of Aztiq, commented: “Today’s announcement is a big step in the evolution of Lotus that started as a company whose business was nearly entirely domestic. The company today has evolved into a global pharmaceutical company with a vast portfolio of products and a global reach that touches nearly every corner of the world through the company’s export business or through Lotus’s own commercial infrastructure that spreads throughout Asia. As Chairman, I look forward to continuing to work with Lotus’ proven management team that has led this transformation to collaborate on strategy and grow the business going forward.”

Dr. Buranin Rattanasombat, Chief New Business and Infrastructure Officer of PTT, and Chairman of Innobic, commented: “This transaction is a significant step for Lotus as it concurrently increases free-float of the stock and diversifies the shareholder base with strong institutional investors. As a leading shareholder of Lotus, our interests remain truly aligned with those of the company and its valued shareholders.”

J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse are acting as placing agents for the trade. 

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MAKE A SPLASH: 2023 YILAN CHILDREN’S FOLKLORE & FOLKGAME FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL AUG 13

 

County Magistrate Mrs. Lin Tzu-Miao with students of Lize Elementary School in Yilan, who were one of the first to experience the "Waterverse" facilities at the 2023 YICFFF (Photo: Business Wire)

KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 (Bernama) -- Visitors are invited to the 2023 Yilan International Children's Folklore & Folkgame Festival which runs until Aug 13, at the Dong-Shan River Park in Yilan County, Taiwan.

With such exciting and challenging facilities at the Festival this year, Yilan County Magistrate Lin Tzu-Miao invites visitors worldwide to this grand event to challenge their limits.

Themed "Gaming in the Metaverse" this year, a great variety of waterplay facilities in the "Waterverse" are built to entertain kids and adults alike, and visitors can also experience the exciting high-altitude facilities at the iconic Starry Sky Tower.

According to a statement, the most dazzling landmark of this year's festival is undoubtedly the "Interstellar Headquarters" located in the middle of the pools.

Shaped like a gigantic rocket tower, this intimidating facility is 45 metres wide and 12 metres high, spanning across the three major pools.

As visitors enter the space shuttle, they can overlook the scenery of the entire Dong-Shan Park and experience the thrill of high-speed water skiing as an astronaut in a rocket.

In front of the rocket tower, there is also the "Water Arena" where water columns emerge with the flow of music. All these facilities help create an exciting yet cozy and safe space for all visitors to enjoy a splashy summer.

Meanwhile, at the Starry Sky Tower next to the pools, visitors can have fun with the 270-metre "Skydrop Adventure" to slide high above over the pools, try the thrilling 14-metre-high "Soaring Skyslide" to quickly descend to the ground, or challenge the four-storey-high "Skybound Swingtopia", among others.

-- BERNAMA

YOMAEX EXCHANGE CREATES NEW ERA OF DIGITAL CURRENCY TRADING

KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 (Bernama) -- The YOMAEX exchange recently announced that its registered users and transaction volume exceeded 10 million and US$1 billion respectively, further consolidating its position as a leading exchange. (US$1=RM4.66)

In a statement, YOMAEX said this milestone achievement has attracted widespread attention from global digital currency investors and injected new impetus into the development of the industry.

YOMAEX platform head of marketing, Perry Schmidt said: "In the face of changes in the industry, we adhere to the strategy of 'seeking change in stability', focusing on technological innovation and product polishing, aiming to lead a new era of digital currency transactions.

“Our self-developed high-speed trading engine can process millions of orders per second, and is at the forefront of the entire industry.

“We have always firmly believed that compliance is an important guarantee for the long-term development of the industry. YOMAEX has been certified by multiple international regulatory agencies, which is the best way for us to provide users with a safe and reliable trading environment.”

In addition to the development of the exchange, YOMAEX is also committed to building a rich ecosystem and realising its global vision.

Schmidt added the company’s goal is not only to become the largest exchange, but also to build a rich ecosystem through diversified sectors with YOMAEX Academy, YOMAEX Research, YOMAEX Labs and YOMAEX Charity.

“YOMAEX's goal is to lead the development of a new era of digital currency trading with unique advantages such as rich and practical investment tools, advanced engine systems, top security technology, and huge community partners,” he concluded.

-- BERNAMA

Curia Bags 2023 Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Leadership Award

KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 (Bernama) -- Curia, a contract research, development and manufacturing organisation, announced it has been awarded a Best Practices Customer Value Leadership Award in the CRDMO industry by Frost & Sullivan.

“We are very honoured to be recognised with this award, which underlines the hard work and dedication of all of our employees to delivering quality and reliability when serving our customers.

“We remain steadfast in our noble purpose of improving patients’ lives, a mission that begins with our commitment to creating value for our customers,” said Curia Chief Executive Officer, Philip Macnabb in a statement.

Frost & Sullivan noted in its report that the company’s rebrand from AMRI to Curia in 2021 put a focus on science at the centre of its brand identity, highlighting a pledge to help customers advance “from curiosity to cure”.

Curia has evolved over time to offer a comprehensive range of services from drug discovery through development to manufacture of both drug substance and drug product for pharmaceutical and biologics companies.

The award recognises how Curia seeks out innovative solutions by using the latest technologies to efficiently move products from discovery to development to commercial scale to accelerate speed to market for its customers.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan employs a rigorous evaluation, measuring business and customer impact, to identify companies that consistently innovate to meet their customers’ needs while navigating new challenges and opportunities.

The winner is recognised for providing a superior customer experience for overall price, performance and quality.

-- BERNAMA

ST KITTS AND NEVIS EXTENDS CBI PROGRAMME SUSTAINABLE GROWTH FUND LIMITED TIME OFFER

KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 (Bernama) -- St Kitts and Nevis has extended its Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF) Limited Time Offer (LTO) until Jan 31, 2024, allowing investors to gain approval for alternative citizenship in the country in as little as 60 days for a reduced fee.

In December last year, the St Kitts and Nevis Head of the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU), Michael Martin announced the enactment of the updated St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Regulations 2023, which included the introduction of the LTO for the SGF investment option, effective Jan 1– June 30.

However, on June 29, Martin made comment regarding the LTO stating the country has received an overwhelming response and demand for its SGF investment option via the LTO, and felt that it had to extend the offering for another seven months.

The SGF remains the quickest and easiest route to alternative citizenship in St Kitts and Nevis. A main applicant can acquire alternative citizenship by contributing only US$125,000 to the SGF and receiving approval in principle within 60 days of acknowledgement by the CIU of submission of their application. (US$1=RM4.66)

According to a statement, revenue from the SGF has facilitated economic development and social upliftment in the country.

It is used to provide financial support to educational institutions, and medical facilities, as well as support infrastructural development, increase tourism, preserve local culture and heritage and support sustainable growth initiatives in the twin-island nation.

Via Citizenship by Investment (CBI), St Kitts and Nevis has found ways to protect the dual-island from global shocks by offering favourable business policies aimed at growing corporations in international markets, and using international funds channelled to the SGF to diversify and grow its economy to meet global needs.

For nearly 40 years, St Kitts and Nevis has been the pioneer of the global investor immigration industry and those who recognise this are taking advantage of the LTO.

-- BERNAMA

Mattermost Unveils "OpenOps" To Speed Responsible Evaluation Of AI-enhanced Workflows

KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 (Bernama) -- Mattermost Inc has launched “OpenOps”, an open-source approach to accelerating the responsible evaluation of artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced workflows and usage policies while maintaining data control and avoiding vendor lock-in.

Launched at the 2023 Collision Conference, OpenOps emerges at the intersection of the race to leverage AI for competitive advantage and the urgent need to run trustworthy operations, including the development of usage and oversight policies and ensuring regulatory and contractually-obligated data controls.

It aims to help clear key bottlenecks between these critical concerns by enabling developers and organisations to self-host a “sandbox” environment with full data control to responsibly evaluate the benefits and risks of different AI models and usage policies on real-world, multi-user chat collaboration workflows.

In a statement, Mattermost Chief Executive Officer, Ian Tien said the company created OpenOps to help organisations responsibly unlock their potential with the ability to evaluate a broad range of usage policies and AI models in their ability to accelerate in-house workflows in concert.

The system can be used to evaluate self-hosted large language models (LLMs) listed on Hugging Face, including Falcon LLM and GPT4All, when usage is optimised for data control, as well as hyperscaled, vendor-hosted models from the Azure AI platform, OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude when usage is optimised for performance.

The first release of the OpenOps platform enables evaluation of a range of AI-augmented use cases including Automated Question and Answer; Discussion Summarisation; Contextual Interrogation; Sentiment Analysis; and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) Collection.

The OpenOps framework recommends a four phase approach to developing AI-augmentations namely Self-Hosted Sandbox; Data Control Framework; Trust, Safety and Compliance Framework; and Pilot and Production.

Furthermore, the OpenOps framework includes capabilities such as Self-Hosted Operational Hub; AI Bots with Interchangeable AI Backends; Full Data Control; Free and Open Source; as well as Scalability.

-- BERNAMA

Toshiba Launches 100v N-channel Power Mosfet Supporting Power Supply Circuits Miniaturisation

 

Toshiba: a 100V N-channel power MOSFET "TPH3R10AQM" fabricated with Toshiba’s latest-generation process, U-MOS X-H. (Graphic: Business Wire)

KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 (Bernama) -- Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (Toshiba) has launched “TPH3R10AQM”, a 100V N-channel power MOSFET fabricated with its latest-generation process, U-MOS X-H.

According to Toshiba in a statement, the product targets applications such as switching circuits and hot swap circuits on the power lines of industrial equipment used for data centres and communications base stations.

TPH3R10AQM has industry-leading 3.1 megaohm (mΩ) maximum drain-source On-resistance, 16 per cent lower than Toshiba’s 100 volt (V) product, “TPH3R70APL”, which uses the earlier generation process.

By the same comparison, TPH3R10AQM has expanded its safe operating area by 76 per cent making it suitable for linear mode operation. Reducing the On-resistance and expanding the linear operating range in the safe operating area reduce the number of parallel connections.

Furthermore, its gate threshold voltage range of 2.5V to 3.5V, makes it less likely to malfunction due to gate voltage noise. The new product uses the highly footprint compatible SOP Advance(N) package.

Toshiba will continue to expand its line-up of power MOSFETs that can increase the efficiency of power supplies by reducing loss, and help lower equipment power consumption.

-- BERNAMA