Tag Archives: cse issuer stories

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

InnoCan Pharma: Better delivery of CBD to the body holds the potential to lower costs and broaden treatment options

CBD is advertised as providing relief for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other benefits. Its popularity reflects, in part, that it is positioned as non-psychoactive while still providing access to many aspects of the cannabis plant that are good for human health.

The challenge is to create a more precise and efficient method for delivering CBD into a patient’s body, preferably allowing for synergistic effects and/or controlled release.

InnoCan Pharma (CSE:INNO), based in the Israeli tech hub of Herzliya, has found what might be the golden ticket for CBD-integrated pharmaceutical technology in the form of a method to inject CBD into the body.

InnoCan and Ramot, Tel Aviv University’s business engagement centre supporting scientific discovery, are collaborating on a revolutionary exosome-based technology that targets both central nervous system indications and COVID-19 coronavirus symptoms, as CBD-loaded exosomes have the potential to provide anti-inflammatory properties to help infected lung cells recover. Public Entrepreneur spoke with InnoCan Chief Executive Officer Iris Bincovich recently about this project and other exciting directions the company’s technologies are taking.

Tell us about your personal background and how InnoCan came to be.

My background is in healthcare, working in the international pharmaceutical and cosmetic and medical device arena, and I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the Israel Institute of Technology.

I have experience developing strategies and building brands in the dermatology space, and I have worked and communicated with top pharmaceutical companies and cosmetic companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Estée Lauder and L’Oréal.

InnoCan Pharma was established by Yoram Drucker, an Israeli serial intrapreneur with experience founding companies in the field of stem cells; Ron Mayron, former CEO of Teva Israel, Teva Pharmaceutical being one of the most important generic drug producers in the world; plus Nir Avram, who was on the pharmaceutical innovation team at Perrigo and holds a number of patents, not to mention more than 30 years of experience developing topicals. We bring worldwide experience in healthcare and nearly 20 years of international marketing, business development and sales experience. I have led and managed hundreds of successful international transactions in the OTC cosmetics and dermatology sector.

InnoCan gives me an opportunity to utilize my experience, take my knowledge in the healthcare markets and combine it all into a company that today is active in three different segments.

We are involved in several pharma projects with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and with Tel Aviv University to better administer cannabinoids into the body with innovative delivery platforms and potential to treat several diseases.

We have also developed a line of over-the-counter topicals, Relief & Go, targeting a variety of skin conditions associated with issues like pain relief. Our pain relief spray provides a fast-action muscle relaxant and pain relief. It contains an analgesic blend of active ingredients, with isolated CBD to provide temporary relief of muscle and joint pain.

And we developed a line of CBD-integrated derma cosmetics, SHIR, whose formulations feature a tailored blend of active ingredients and technologies.

Let’s talk about the technology itself.  How is the company using exosomes and CBD?

We are developing a new platform that delivers cannabinoids in an improved way into the body. Our latest project is a collaboration targeting the COVID-19 virus with Tel Aviv University and Professor Daniel Offen, who heads the Neuroscience Laboratory at the Felsenstein Medical Research Center.

Exosomes have the ability to target damaged cells like a targeted missile, improve regeneration and assist in their recovery. Together with Professor Offen, an experienced researcher on cell and gene therapy in neurodegenerative diseases, we are looking to develop new technology that might be applicable to several indications.

Professor Offen is a co-founder of several biotechnology companies developing therapies for neurological disorders. One of them, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, developed cell treatment for ALS patients and is now in Phase III clinical trials.

Along with Professor Shulamit Levenberg of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, he previously utilized loaded exosomes administered by intra-nasal spray into rats with severe spinal cord injuries. The results were dramatic. Within a few weeks, the rats began to walk again.

With COVID-19, most people die from a secondary infection and lung or multi-organ failure. CBD is highly anti-inflammatory, and CBD-loaded exosomes, which we refer to as CLX, may hold the potential to provide anti-inflammatory properties and assist in the recovery of infected lung cells.

The lungs are the organ most affected by COVID-19, so the CLX are expected to be administered by inhalation.

How far along in the development process are you?

We are in the preclinical stage, which we estimate will take nine to 12 months. We will begin production of exosomes loaded with CBD and then do in-vitro proof of concept in several models.  From there, we will do animal proof-of-concept models and then safety testing.

InnoCan’s strategy is to combine R&D with commercial experience. Professor Offen has more than 20 years of experience working with stem cells and exosomes, and he has already established companies developing therapies for neurological diseases.

How do these different delivery methods compare to taking CBD oil orally?

We are developing a unique technology with Professor Barenholz from the Hebrew University to enable the injection of CBD into the body. When you take cannabinoids orally, about 80% of it is destroyed by enzymes of the liver. Patients overload to achieve a therapeutic level.  More than that, the dose is not controlled systematically. In each case, a drop of oil is put below the tongue and it might take some time from administration until therapeutic effect is achieved. Size and therapeutic effect can differ from one drop to the next. We are proposing a much more controlled and effective delivery system.

CBD is an oil molecule that normally cannot be easily injected into the body. But once isolated inside a capsule, such as a liposome, it could be injected. Liposomes are small vesicles that could entrap a substance inside.

Imagine a child with epilepsy – which there is already an FDA-approved CBD drug for – having a seizure; today he needs to be under close care, to be given the medicine, it will take a few minutes until the effect begins, and so on. InnoCan’s approach could be different. We are looking at a solution where the child will have a smartwatch connected to a pump with injectable CBD-loaded liposome. Then, instead of the child having a seizure, maybe falling to the floor and needing someone to administer CBD, the watch will sense the seizure and instruct the pump to inject a specific amount of CBD into the body. Precise delivery of CBD immediately could assist in relieving the seizure.

And this is just one application. For an epilepsy seizure, the CBD would be released immediately, but the liposomes can also be multi-layered to prolong the release of the CBD. We are developing a platform for several potential indications.

For example, for people suffering from chronic pain, we may be able to offer an injection once a week, and over time one could have a consistent release of CBD into the body.

Professor Barenholz has already developed a liposome-based breast cancer drug, named Doxil, that was licensed by Johnson & Johnson. We are working with people who have done this before and are connected to the commercial side. This is the value-driven proposition of the company.

Do you have any other products headed for commercialization?

We have our over-the-counter topicals, patent pending products that combine CBD and other active ingredients targeting skin conditions, pain relief, as well as for itchiness.

We also have a line of premium cosmetic products for women. Those products are now being produced by two manufacturers: one in New Jersey for the US market, and one in Portugal for Asia and Europe. Sales will start in the second half of 2020.

Eventually, the world will open up again, and there are lots of plans for the future, including additional distribution contracts for the topicals.

In Canada, we are in dialogue with several companies to enable local distribution. We need to collaborate with a local licensed producer in order for them to manufacture, distribute and sell our topicals to the different provinces. And I can say that we are in the screening process of who is going to be our local partner there.

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about InnoCan Pharma
at https://innocanpharma.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Draganfly: This drone pioneer aims to become the world’s go-to provider for “unique” data

While it was only in the past several years that drones gained broad recognition as valuable commercial tools, these amazing machines have actually been at work improving our lives for decades. Draganfly (CSE:DFLY) has been serving companies and governments looking for high-quality drones and related services for over 22 years, selling to markets as large and important as public safety, agriculture and industrial inspection.

That list is just a start says Draganfly Chief Executive Officer Cameron Chell. Public Entrepreneur caught up with Chell recently to discuss Draganfly’s development to date and where the company is heading in the medium and long terms. According to Chell, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the value Draganfly can bring to society – and Draganfly shareholders – given time. And that includes playing a role in helping the world manage the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Drones have been available for commercial applications for a generation, but interest and real-world use have really gained momentum in the past few years. Why?

I think what’s driving the momentum is the actual practical use of drones. It’s sensor functionality, battery life, cost and actual regulation and awareness of drones, and people getting more comfortable with the functions they create. Basically, I think it’s the convergence of all the technologies coming together, and certainly the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that this is a tool that can be used in a contactless way, as a resource multiplier, or to carry out functions that humans don’t necessarily have to do now and risk close contact.

There are many competitors in the industry. How does Draganfly’s experience over more than two decades give you an edge?

We are the oldest commercial manufacturer of drones in the world. The first drone ever credited with saving a human life sits in the Smithsonian today, and it was a Draganfly drone fitted with a thermal camera. What separates us is our technology and our software.

You mentioned COVID-19. Draganfly recently initiated “pandemic drone” test flights. Tell us more.

On the pandemic side, the software we use can do two things: it can measure social distancing and mask-wearing, so it can measure how well people are carrying out what officials are putting in place. And the second thing it can do is measure vital signs.

The real advantage of our technology is that we can, for the first time ever, really, start to provide real-time data on the effectiveness of things like mask-wearing and social distancing, and we can start to get real-time data on community health, as opposed to waiting to see how full hospitals become, or relying on models of where the pandemic might go.

In this case, we can have cameras measure social distancing and vital signs to determine infection rates within a crowd on the beach at a particular time of day, or what the infectious or respiratory potential is of a crowd in a football stadium. It doesn’t make a diagnosis, it doesn’t identify people, but it does come back and provide real-time data on where we think we’re at in terms of the infectious cycle at that moment. We provide both an aerial and fixed-base camera platform for different use cases.

What has been the response from local governments and others to the test flights?

From a technology standpoint and from a public official standpoint, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. They understand that this isn’t a scenario where people are being identified and profiled, but rather it’s providing real-time data. For the first time they may not only get a sense of potentially what the health consequences are to first responders or the public in general, but they can also start to monitor whether potential hotspots are emerging and whether policies are working to help start opening up economies again.

Who are some of the customers for Draganfly drones?

Draganfly has sold over 9,000 drones, primarily for public safety, but also to agriculture, construction and mining. It is all the industries you would expect, but our primary customers have been public safety, law enforcement and border patrol.

We’re seeing demand grow from that sector, but interestingly also for consumer safety and workplace safety. Imagine places such as theme parks, convention centres, factory floors or retail outlets, where you’ve got consumers coming in and management wants to ensure a couple of things. One is that their workforce is safe and not bringing in potentially infectious diseases, and then there is consumer safety and advocacy, where you might have a convention centre or a theme park that’s putting this type of system in place to benefit consumer confidence. An interesting concept that we see starting to develop is that the same way you and I get a weather report right now, we’re going to see the emergence of health reports.

Where do you see the drone industry in three to five years? And what does this mean for you as a company?

We are a North American manufacturer, so there’s lots of data security concern as it relates to foreign manufacturers. We really see ourselves growing in the domestic space or, quite frankly, amongst NATO or Five Eyes countries, to be able to provide drones and secure data delivery.

How do you make money in the drone business? Is it volume, or government and agency customers that generate recurring revenue, or the consumer market?

For sure, it isn’t from consumers. We think foreign manufacturers will continue to dominate that space.

For us, we will continue to do contract engineering for military applications. That’s just a staple of ours that provides a good base of income. Ultimately, our recurring income will be driven by data analytics and management. Today we build specific drones, devices, software and services for industry verticals in which we can provide hardware, software, services and data management that give our customers a competitive advantage in their industry.

We do sell drones to end users, and it is a growing market. However, we see demand being very strong in turnkey and subscription-based services. Companies aren’t necessarily looking for a drone and a pilot. There’s an element of that, but the bigger growth area is going to be more around turnkey service. I’m an insurance company and I want rooftop inspections for 5,000 homes a month, say, and I just want the data. And where Draganfly differentiates itself is that we’re really good at incorporating sensors and providing data you typically can’t get from other drone providers.

You are also helping to find landmines. Tell us more about this work.

This is a great example of a large untapped market that requires specialized equipment and software, not to mention data analytics and management. We’re working with a partner called Windfall Geotek, which has a ton of experience in this space, but they need a specialized drone with specialized sensors in order to provide their AI with the data that is beyond just magnometer data. We expect to roll that out in force over the next eight months.

What’s really exciting about this is not just being able to uncover mines without having people and dogs at risk, but also the amount of data that we collect – the patterns of mines, the number of mines missed in the past, the areas and the regions. Building a database of this type of stuff really helps the AI to be able to uncover more mines.

Your acquisition of Dronelogics Systems earlier this year marked a big change. What does this deal mean for Draganfly?

Dronelogics is a 10-year-old company with a fantastic reputation and incredible management. They do great integration work with multiple drone systems.

We intend to make more acquisitions, and the two principals at Dronelogics are key for us to build on top of our acquisitions and do proper integration. The other advantage of the acquisition is that they sell a lot of other manufacturers’ products, but as we get moved into that mix, we become vertically integrated a bit whereby they can provide either Draganfly products and/or our contract engineering services.

You’ve built up a strong team. Tell us about the group.

Andy Card is former White House Chief of Staff under George W. Bush. He was also Secretary of Transportation. His endorsement of our company is important. He only sits on two boards: us and BNSF, which is the massive railroad system. To have his ear, his insight and global perspective has been fantastic. He works with us on public relations, but also in terms of being able to provide business development insight into both the government and industrial worlds.

We’ve also got John Mitnick. He’s the former General Counsel of Raytheon and former General Counsel of Homeland Security. John’s role is insight and advisory, but also penetrating us into the government’s position of not moving forward with foreign drones and looking to North American manufacturers.

Julie Myers is on our advisory board. She’s former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security. We also have Dr. Jack Chow, who was the first Assistant Director-General of the WHO on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who is a big drone advocate and has been for 10 years.

Is there any other core message the market needs to know about Draganfly?

Draganfly is a data company that makes drones, devices and software, and provides services to create and provide better data. The strategic differentiator for Draganfly is that we provide data to our customers that basically nobody else can. An example would be the landmine data, or health measurement data. You might think of us today as a drone manufacturer, but three years from now, or five years from now, I believe Draganfly will be a prominent business brand you will associate with data analytics and management. That’s where you go to get your data, or that’s where industry goes to get its data. Data is valuable, but unique data is priceless, and the name of the game for Draganfly is to create unique data.

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Draganfly
at https://draganfly.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Sixth Wave Innovations: After taming mining, explosives and cannabis challenges, this PhD-filled team puts COVID-19 on notice

Almost everywhere you go these days, you come into contact with multiple products and services without knowing they are there. Some make life easier or more convenient, while others go so far as to keep you alive, or at least out of harm’s way. We don’t see these products because a non-expert would not even conceive of such things. But thank goodness some experts do, as some of these technologies are fueling the promise of overcoming COVID-19 and pandemics of the future.

Sixth Wave Innovations (CSE:SIXW) is one such group, where a highly accomplished team that includes seven full-time PhDs is adapting proprietary molecular identification technology to tackle COVID-19.

Sixth Wave’s COVID-19 research builds on its recent successes in partnering with the United States Department of Defense on explosives detection, as well as on its gold refining and its extraction of CBD and THC from cannabis. Its technology has consistently provided solutions to highly complex scientific challenges. Now, Sixth Wave is committed to successfully adapting its proprietary rapid-detection technology to the COVID-19 puzzle in time to make a difference.

More on that shortly. But first, the basis of Sixth Wave’s business: molecularly imprinted polymers. Few people know what these are, as only a handful of companies in the world even work on furthering such technology. It truly is science at the cutting edge.

Most people think of plastic when they hear the word “polymers,” but these large molecules are far more ubiquitous. For example, wood is a polymer (a natural one), as is protein. To put it simply, a polymer is a material made of long repeating chains of molecules. Each has unique properties, dictated by the types of molecules in the chain and how they bond together. The basic molecules that serve as the links in a polymer chain are referred to as monomers, a defining feature being their capacity to form chemical bonds with other molecules.

At its most basic level, Sixth Wave’s technology identifies specific molecules by creating a polymer with qualities that first attract the molecule in question, then see if it fits. Imagine, for example, a complex magnetic puzzle missing a single piece. The magnetic field draws certain types of pieces with opposite magnetic charges toward the puzzle. When one fits, the puzzle signals to the user that it has found the missing piece.

When a Sixth Wave product identifies its target molecule, it triggers a specific chemical reaction embedded in the polymer by Sixth Wave scientists. In the COVID-19 example, it might cause a colour change to indicate that the person being tested carries COVID-19. The applications are endless.

“The doctors are telling us that water droplets are transmitting COVID-19 from our mouths,” says Dr. Jon Gluckman, Sixth Wave’s Chief Executive Officer. “Once developed, we think we can take the new polymer and embed it into a variety of testing devices, including in an N95 mask or a breathalyzer. You could arrive at an assisted living facility, for example, and be asked to put on a mask as you check in. If it changes colour after several breaths, they know you are carrying the virus. You could do the same thing at airports, train stations or ferry terminals. This would provide a way for everyone to be tested so that even if someone looks good and does not show symptoms, they don’t get beyond the point of inspection if they are carriers and risk infecting others.”

The key to the concept is the ease of testing. No machines or bloodied fingers. No swabs poking into your nasal cavity.

The idea is to embed the polymer in testing form factors that are inexpensive, easy to self-administer and allow for immediate results. “The earlier and more frequently you can test, the better,” says Gluckman. “We need something you can use every day, so you can show up for work, be tested, and if you don’t have it, you’re good to go, and everyone is safe and comfortable with their environment.”

As mentioned earlier, the Sixth Wave team – many of whom Gluckman has been working with for over 15 years – has a proven track record of commercializing molecularly imprinted polymers.

Explosives detection was the largest success, seeing Sixth Wave develop and sell wipes for military applications that could detect TNT, ammonium nitrate and other explosives at extremely low concentrations. “If you wiped a surface and there was a nanogram worth of explosives there, you would see the colour change,” explains Gluckman.

More recently, the team has developed products for the mining industry, conducting lab and field trials with some of the world’s top gold companies, the current focus being pilot plant testing with Kinross Gold Corporation.

“We moved into mining with a cheaper, more efficient and environmentally friendly way to conduct gold and silver extraction when companies use our polymer in place of activated carbon,” says Gluckman. One of the main advantages is that Sixth Wave’s IXOS product has been capturing more precious metals, and fewer of the unwanted minerals that come along with them, than when activated carbon is used.

Similar technology is used in another new Sixth Wave product called Affinity, which extracts CBD from hemp, or CBD and THC from cannabis. High efficiency and high purity are the selling points for Affinity, and Gluckman says the company is ready to start recognizing revenue in this segment during 2020.

“On the cannabis side, our development work is largely done, and we are finalizing supply agreements with our manufacturer. Affinity will also be manufactured at our facility in Lafayette, Louisiana,” Gluckman explains. Extensive test work was conducted with cannabis producers, and Sixth Wave is confident the demand is there.

“With mining as well, very little additional development is needed,” Gluckman continues. “We have already taken the production to commercial levels, and our focus now is getting the product to market. We see a lot more drive for innovation at gold mines, which leads us to have more customer opportunities.”

But it is a slow cycle. “A company might choose our technology but still be in the pre-feasibility stage,” Gluckman notes. It’s a market worth the wait, mind you, because a scenario assuming 10% adoption across global gold production suggests the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to Sixth Wave annually, according to Gluckman.

With the scientists who develop the core polymers freed from having to do modifications and test work for the mining and cannabis markets, development resources are becoming more focused on COVID-19 detection. “The world has an immediate and dire need to manage COVID-19,” says Gluckman. “There will be more deaths and little economy left if we don’t figure this out as a society. We’re proud to do our part to help the world get healthy again.”

To that end, chemistry work on the COVID-19 product has begun. Importantly, Sixth Wave can use synthetic molecules for development so that it does not have to work with the live virus. This is another benefit of past product development – handling live explosives is equally undesirable when working on products that involve chemical reactions.

As for the timing of COVID-19-detection products, “I think we are about four or five months away from having particles that would have gone through some testing and internal verification,” says Gluckman. “We are putting together a team that will include external laboratories to provide testing with the live virus. We have several universities we are talking to, and they have access to what we would need to test with.”

Sixth Wave is also partnering with companies that could manufacture products featuring the polymers, including a producer of N95 masks. “I would think in a six-month time frame that we could have the first test units available for approval by the Canadian government, and we’d submit them for approval in the United States.”

At this point, it should be clear that Sixth Wave is not just some company jumping on the COVID bandwagon. It is using proven in-house technology to tackle the COVID-19 chemical structure in more or less the same way it has approached other complex scientific challenges that have continuously resulted in successful solutions.

“In the space of seven years, Sixth Wave has developed and sold millions of dollars of explosives detection products to the US military, and we have created markets for molecularly imprinted polymers in the mining and cannabis industries,” Gluckman concludes. “Our products all lead to lower costs, are easy to use and feature capabilities unavailable with any other technology. We are a young company, but we are solid. We are not in this for a quick buck. We want to make a positive difference in the world.”

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Sixth Wave Innovations
at https://sixthwave.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

HealthSpace Data Systems: Governments in need of contact tracing to cope with COVID-19 turn to a trusted name

Public health departments have for decades been running contact tracing programs to reduce the spread of communicable diseases and other threats, stepping in to mitigate the impact of everything from unsafe restaurant food to unprotected sex to tainted tattoo needles.

But amid the widespread and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing has taken on a new sense of urgency. In the US, the novel coronavirus has spread to all 50 states, and deaths climbed above 125,000 in late June 2020. Meanwhile, the introduction of an effective vaccine is still some way down the road.

As a result, overwhelmed state and local health officials across the US are turning to private companies such as HealthSpace Data Systems (CSE:HS) to help devise solutions.

HealthSpace, an established Software as a Service (SaaS) company currently serving more than 500 public health departments across North America, responded to the challenge by extending its HSCloud Suite and My Health Department products to create a fully automated digital contact tracing platform for COVID-19.

Several US public health departments have deployed the British Columbia–based company’s platform, including the State of Hawaii and several counties in Washington State, Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina. The automated platform can be up and running within 48 hours, although most departments usually complete their initial setup over the course of two weeks.

“Our platform not only has the ability to be deployed rapidly, it fits perfectly with the normal course of work public health departments are already doing,” explains Chief Executive Officer Silas Garrison. “We believe that as numerous people begin to be employed to bolster contact tracing efforts, our platform will be a proven benefit to accentuate the human effort with an automated solution.”

Over the years, health departments have typically had in-house staffers or contractors retrace the steps of people who tested positive for diseases and record anyone who had contact with them. The trackers then embarked on the painstaking process of cold-calling each contact to ask a series of questions and determine if they had experienced symptoms, while also encouraging them to avoid infecting others.

However, ramping up operations to handle the scope and breadth of COVID-19 tracing is a daunting task for most cash-strapped state and local governments. It means hiring hundreds, if not thousands, of tracers to work in large call centres. It also means training the contact tracers through online programs or sometimes weeks of in-person instruction.

Even with the best training, there’s a huge hurdle to overcome, as contact tracing is only effective if the contactee is willing to pick up the telephone and converse with the caller. The pick-up rate for unfamiliar or unidentified numbers in today’s society is very low. And the people who do answer are often guarded and uncooperative, if not downright abusive.

The logistics of launching a contact tracing program, hiring and training tracers, renting office space, and maintaining it for months can be costly, and far beyond the reach for some jurisdictions facing plummeting tax revenues as a result of the pandemic.

For HealthSpace, given the company’s years of work providing hundreds of state and local governments with its powerful self-serve enterprise cloud and mobile platform to manage their operations, stepping up to help both clients and non-clients in need during an unprecedented public health crisis seemed like a natural fit.

Garrison says it was during an initial general outreach to its customers about COVID-19 that HealthSpace first learned of the growing need at public health departments to find ways for a rapid scaling up of existing contact tracing operations, assuming the departments even had such operations to begin with.

He says HealthSpace’s automated contact tracing platform is simply a “modified version” of its foodborne-illness-tracking service, which has been in use for years. That is why the company was able to deploy the platform quickly, with minimal need for additional capital or other resources.

“It took very little technical effort to get this up. And immediately we turned it on and we started to spread the word out to our customers,” says Garrison. “We had several early adopters, literally within 24 hours, and it didn’t take too long for the word to spread.”

The platform, which was rolled out in April, connects with individuals daily by sending a unique and secure link via text message or e-mail. The link leads to a questionnaire that the recipient fills out by entering symptoms, temperature, places visited and people they have been in direct contact with.

These latter people are sent questionnaires each day, too. If anyone exhibits symptoms, health officials know immediately, issue quarantine directives and arrange for testing or treatment.

Information is securely stored inside the company’s cloud-based platform. Public health departments can access the encrypted data – which they own – for detailed real-time reporting and analysis. In addition, the data can be securely sent to healthcare providers, a service the company has always provided to its customers as part of its My Health Department product.

Garrison notes that HealthSpace’s automated platform isn’t meant to supplant human tracers. “They still need teams of people to manage this information, because you might have all the information oriented digitally. It still takes more specialized knowledge and skill to look over that information and determine who they need to make a more proactive outreach to.”

In order to get established clients, as well as new ones, to adopt the contact tracing platform, the company is providing a version for free, for 90 days in most cases. Also, waiving upfront fees acknowledges that many local and state governments don’t have the funds to purchase the platform right now.

“They are getting the benefit of the platform today for a situation that is dire and are able utilize it while they’re waiting on getting their funds in place,” Garrison explains.

“What this has done has actually worked to our benefit. They are now references and have been spokespersons for us in several key areas that will translate to sales. So, it actually works as a very powerful, tip-of-the-spear sales tool, because they are able to get it for free, get it into people’s hands and appreciate its power and value. And now they’re talking to other potential customers about it, which could directly translate into exponential sales growth for us.”

Organizations deciding to use the platform for the long term will pay $200 to $300 per month for each user – a nurse or epidemiologist, for example. A client requiring 10 user accounts could thus generate up to $36,000 in annual revenue.

The approach appears to be working, as HealthSpace announced its first contract incorporating contact tracing for COVID-19 in mid-June. The agreement will see Mecklenburg County Health Department in North Carolina use HSCloud Suite for contact tracing and managing its Onsite Program for five years. The work with Mecklenburg County will generate revenue of US$157,800 for HealthSpace.

The company shared news that same month that counties in Ohio, Arizona and Illinois have started using the platform as well, with HealthSpace providing it on a gratis basis for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2020 and beyond, Garrison says public health departments can pivot the automated tracing platform to tackle other epidemiological outbreaks once the COVID-19 crisis is under control. For example, the company is in talks about using it to track people living with HIV.

“The platform is so flexible and powerful that it extends well beyond the COVID-19 situation,” Garrison says. “This is a sustainable path forward for a new business model within our existing platform.”

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about HealthSpace Data Systems
at https://web.healthspace.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

VSBLTY Groupe Technologies: Helping brick-and-mortar retail fight back with superior consumer insight

In the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, a perplexed Tom Cruise enters a futuristic Gap store and is immediately greeted by a friendly face on a digital screen welcoming him and asking about his recent purchase. Twenty years ago it seemed like a far-flung idea, but today Cruise’s interaction is well within the realm of possibility for the modern shopper.

In a sense, the futuristic shopping experience is an early example of the use of proactive digital display, a technology that Philadelphia-based VSBLTY Groupe Technologies (CSE:VSBY) is pioneering for the retail and security sectors. Artificial intelligence and machine learning comprise much of the horsepower behind this transformative product.

“Everything in that movie is absolutely what we can do right now without any stretch,” says VSBLTY Chief Executive Officer Jay Hutton. “Right now, we are gathering metadata, or non-identifiable information, to aggregate and collate at scale.”

The idea for VSBLTY came together in the minds of Hutton and business partner Tim Huckaby, a developer at Microsoft and now VSBLTY’s Chief Technical Officer. The two believed the big players in digital display had failed to innovate over the last decade and that the industry was poised to undergo significant disruption.

Was there a way to create digital signage that contained computer vision software to measure quantitative and qualitative engagements and interactions? Hutton and Huckaby knew that previously uncaptured metrics such as the characteristics of individual shoppers could provide valuable insight to retailers.

Enter VSBLTY’s software. The key lies in marrying digital displays with real-time measurement, allowing retailers new revenue opportunities by delivering the right message at the right time to a specific audience.

For today’s retailer, traditional point-of-sale and out-of-home advertising provides limited engagement with the consumer and does not generate data to analyze. The VSBLTY platform integrates signage, security and analytics to optimize opportunities throughout a store.

“The physical store supplants the internet as a premium place for brands to deliver impressions because the shopper is in a place where they can buy the product being promoted – it’s instant gratification,” Hutton explains. “Brands will re-vector internet spend to stores because the store is more measurable, more instantaneous and more connected to upselling, or sales lift.”

Results from successful activations have challenged long-held assumptions about shopper behaviour. One example, centred around the March Madness basketball tournament, started with the idea that men aged 25 to 40 would rather not cook a meal when they are watching games. VSBLTY’s software was deployed in the frozen foods aisle of a grocery store using five different products and measured on multiple engagement types such as traffic, coupon redemption and sales. The outcome? An approximately 500% increase in engagement compared to conventional signage in the frozen foods section, and three times the coupon redemptions. In an unintended result, the entire frozen foods aisle saw a sales boost.

The shift from wanting more impressions to more qualitative engagements is a seismic trend in the marketing world. Companies are using phrases like “customer intimacy” and “brand engagement” more than ever, Hutton says. “The companies know the only way to get to this ‘promised land’ is through digital means. It’s enormously disruptive.”

For companies, it’s not so much a question of if they can use it, but if they will. There are very real privacy – and legal – concerns associated with this type of technology, which Hutton acknowledges. He shares that one large brand eager to adopt the software believes customers are ready for it, but the company wants to navigate the legal complexities before it commits to installation.

But there’s a “clear runway” to adoption, Hutton says, as a new generation raised with the internet comes to the fore. Shoppers can opt in to the experience much the same way as they do by using a points card or a brand’s mobile application. It’s exchanging privacy for value, Hutton says. “I’m willing to give up some things that are germane and intimate to me in exchange for some value. That’s an open, ongoing dialogue in retail.”

The probability of the younger generation accepting this trade-off is much higher than with older consumers, which is partly why retailers haven’t adopted the technology en masse. “The brands know it’s a waiting game,” Hutton says. “If they do it now, they may only see, at best, 30% opt-ins, but years from now, it’s 75%.”

Retailers are expected to fully understand the model over time, and the same goes for using the displays to enhance security. Deployed in the public sphere, the technology could be used to help identify people with warrants out for their arrest or to pinpoint anomalous behaviour. “Our hypothesis is that we are overwhelming our operators with too much to look at,” Hutton says. “By letting the software analyze the information, we’re giving the operator some context.”

One of VSBLTY’s biggest deals was signed in 2019 with Energetika, an international provider of lighting solutions, to install thousands of security kits powered by VSBLTY software in Mexico City.

Energetika deployed cameras and VSBLTY ran the analytics, looking for altercations, fires, car accidents, persons of interest and gathering crowds. Around six months into the project, the crime rate has fallen by a significant amount in several of the city’s 16 boroughs. One of these, Cuajimalpa de Morelos, went from 11th safest to safest in about seven months. “It’s like a cyber neighbourhood watch leading to an outcome that you could argue is valid and reasonable,” Hutton explains.

The technology is also being deployed to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Hutton. VSBLTY recently teamed up with a cyber security product and building services company to provide advanced camera technology that enhances security and enables temperature screening before people enter office buildings.

“Computer vision has the ability to identify who you are, whether you’re supposed to be where you are and determine if you’re showing any fever symptoms,” Hutton says. “That’s a really interesting connection point between what we currently do and what COVID-19 is requiring us as a society to do.”

The company is looking ahead to a busy 2020 as its pandemic involvement adds more to an already full plate. In 2019, VSBLTY received more orders in the fourth quarter than it had in the first three quarters combined, and it saw its first seven-figure order in the first quarter of 2020.

The challenge now is to keep momentum going throughout the coronavirus pandemic. But Hutton still anticipates that 2020 will be the company’s first profitable year, offering revenue guidance of between $10 million and $15 million.

If VSBLTY’s success is any indication, that Gap store in Minority Report may become reality before we know it. “Brands are dominated by people who grew up on the internet and understand that impressions are best maximized where there’s measurement,” says Hutton. “What’s happening in that movie is not too far away.”

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about VSBLTY Groupe Technologies
at https://vsblty.net/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Generation Mining: Investors rush to rare palladium pure play as metal price soars

Palladium is not a metal that the average person on the street is likely to know much about, but with the race on to create a cleaner, greener world, that could soon change.

Over 90 percent of this so-called ‘white metal’ is used to make catalytic converters for cars with internal combustion engines, and it’s also used plentifully in hybrid vehicles. As regulations tighten across the auto industry to reduce emissions, more palladium is needed than ever before.

This dynamic is behind the meteoric price rise for the metal in the last couple of years, going from around $800 USD per ounce to $2,300 USD. A potential supply deficit in the years ahead is adding fuel to the increase.

Based on one study’s findings, the globe’s 10 million ounce-a-year palladium market is set to experience a deficit of 1.9 million ounces in 2020, as mining production has been steadily falling since 2004 and there is a dearth of new mines coming onstream.

Generation Mining Ltd. (CSE:GENM) is looking to take advantage of that backdrop with some big ambitions in the PGM (platinum group metals) space. With its shares having more than doubled in value since the beginning of 2020, recognition of the strengthening palladium price is broadening just at the right time.

The company’s flagship asset is the Marathon Palladium Project, which is in partnership with Sibanye-Stillwater, a major player located a few miles from the town of the same name in Ontario.

Marathon is the largest undeveloped palladium project in North America. It has already had 1,000 holes drilled into it, and has been the subject of two feasibility studies at lower palladium prices. Generation Mining is the operator.

“It’s had great work done on it,” explains Kerry Knoll, Generation Mining’s Executive Chairman.

“It was not a mine when people tried to develop it before, when palladium was at $500 an ounce, and it wouldn’t be a mine today at $500 an ounce. But at $1,000 and higher, it is a mine,” he says.

Several companies have been involved with the project since the mid-1980s, including Marathon PGM Corporation, Stillwater Mining, and Mitsubishi.

The numbers for Marathon – 7.1 million palladium-equivalent ounces in the main deposit – are compelling.

Generation Mining’s preliminary economic assessment, published in January of this year, was based on a palladium price of $1,275 an ounce, which gave the deposit a pre-tax net present value of $1.19 billion CAD at a 5 percent discount rate. One can only imagine the economics today, given the price of palladium is well above $2,000 per ounce.

Going into production could make Generation Mining, as Knoll puts it, “lots of money,” but he points out that the mine would still be profitable even at $1,000 an ounce.

Knoll also notes that Marathon, which has a mine life of 14 years, represents something of a rarity for investors, as it is a pure-play palladium project (even though it also contains metals such as platinum and copper).

In addition, palladium projects tend to be held by private companies or are just one part of a huge mining company’s overall portfolio, so getting exposure is tricky for investors.

When asked how the Marathon deposit compares to others around the world, Knoll says, “There’s a couple of very large ones in South Africa. Ivanhoe has one, a company called Platinum Group Metals has one. They’re much larger than ours, but they’re also slower to develop because they’re underground mining. Ours is an open pit, surface mine, and we can get into production a lot quicker because of that. And it’s also a lot cheaper.”

Generation Mining aims to bring the project and its 194,000 palladium-equivalent-ounces per year to commercial production. According to the PEA, initial capital costs are pegged at $431 million, which Knoll reckons is eminently achievable, via a number of options.

“Financing mines today has never been more flexible,” he explains.

“There are streaming royalty companies to which we could sell, perhaps, the gold, or a part of the gold and a part of the platinum stream, upfront for cash. And it looks like we might be able to raise up to $100 million doing that on pretty reasonable terms.” Knoll also cites the equity and debt routes and points out that Generation Mining’s partner Sibanye must provide 20 percent of the money or get diluted down.

The project, neatly situated in a region where mining is part of the tapestry of life, boasts excellent local infrastructure, including Trans-Canada Highway access, a main rail line, power, and an airport.

“One of Canada’s largest gold mines, Hemlo, is located just down the road from us and it’s still in production, although it’s been winding down and the locals are looking forward to the jobs that we would bring to the area,” says Knoll.

Generation Mining is just the latest company that mining industry veteran Knoll has been involved with. He and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Levy were behind the sale of Pine Point Mining and its zinc project in the Northwest Territories to Osisko Metals for $35 million in 2018.

He explains how Osisko Metals didn’t want to buy all of the exploration assets, so Generation Mining was spun out into a separate company, which then struck an option deal the same year to buy a 51 percent stake in Sibanye-Stillwater’s Marathon deposit.

Generation Mining can earn up to an 80 percent interest by spending $10 million over four years, at which point Sibanye can re-acquire 31 percent to bring its stake up to 51 percent, though Knoll reckons this is unlikely because Sibanye will need to spend over $100 million to do that.

Sibanye is a pretty decent partner to have, of course, since it is the second-largest palladium company and largest platinum company in the world, so its knowledge of the commodity and the industry is extensive.

Knoll says Sibanye can be particularly helpful once the project is in production. Sibanye would be able to assist Generation Mining with the marketing and sale of its concentrates to smelters (a co-marketing arrangement is in place with Sibanye), which can be an onerous process for smaller companies.

In January, Generation Mining announced an $8 million financing to advance the Marathon project. Resource sector legend Eric Sprott invested $5 million of the total, joining other big names on the shareholder register, including Lukas Lundin and Osisko Mining.

There should be plenty of news flow in coming months as the company hires its engineering team and selects the group to carry out a feasibility study. It also plans to restart the permitting process.

With the green energy story getting louder by the day and lesser known metals increasing in global importance, Generation Mining’s Marathon project is taking a well-deserved place in the spotlight.

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Generation Mining at https://www.genmining.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Northstar Gold: The new face shining brightly in the Kirkland Lake gold camp

When you’re a new name in exploration on the market, it helps to have an established project with a proven team at the helm.

This statement certainly holds true for recently listed Northstar Gold (CSE:NSG), a company that is working on advancing the Miller Gold Project in Ontario’s famous Kirkland Lake Gold District. This region has historically delivered more than 25 million ounces of gold from seven mines.

Northstar is led by Chief Executive Officer Brian Fowler, a seasoned mining executive with over 38 years of experience in mineral exploration under his belt. Behind Fowler is a veteran team of mining and capital markets experts with decades of insight and success advancing resource companies and projects.

Miller is a 1,100 hectare property just south of the town of Kirkland Lake, central to a district that has been producing gold for more than a hundred years.

In the early 1900s, the historic Miller Independence Mine saw a number of shallow shafts and three levels of development on the high-grade gold No. 1 Vein, with limited success. Exploration by Northstar and others since then has defined additional shallow high-grade gold veins, with a historic estimate of 270,000 ounces of gold at 11.5 grams per ton, and a lower-grade bulk tonnage gold exploration target at Planet Syenite that may contain up to 500,000 ounces of near-surface gold ranging in grade from 1 to 3  grams per ton. None of these targets has been tested at depth.

It’s the geology, however, that excites Northstar’s CEO the most. “The Miller Gold Property has very compelling geological similarities to the Macassa SMC (South Mine Complex) and other Kirkland Lake gold deposits,” explains Fowler. “Miller has the same style of vertical and flat, high-grade gold-telluride veins that are a unique feature of the Kirkland Lake District. Furthermore, gold mineralization on the Miller Property is controlled by a ‘first order’ fault structure (the Catharine Fault) that joins the regional Kirkland Larder Break and similar first order structures within the Kirkland Gold District. These fault structures acted as channels and traps for gold deposition.”

Fowler goes on to explain that it has been determined that gold mineralization at Miller was emplaced at the same time as that at the Kirkland Camp gold deposits, some 2.6 billion years ago. These similarities and geological features suggest Miller could be tapping the same gold source as the Kirkland Gold District.  The Macassa mine has been in production since the 1930s and owner Kirkland Gold continues to find and produce high-grade gold more than 2 kilometres below surface. The Miller Property, on the other hand, is essentially unexplored below 300 metres.

“We’re really excited [to have] both Kirkland-style high grade gold-telluride veins and broad low-grade intrusion-related gold mineralization in significant quantities on the Miller Property,” Fowler says, “Our main job now is to do some drilling on these targets and bring them to 43-101 status. If you stand back and look at it, we could be knocking on the door of around 700,000 to 800,000 ounces here.”

Since Northstar picked up Miller in 2012, the company has spent around $2 million on exploration. Including the use of  ground magnetics, 3D IP surveying, and nearly 6,000 metres of diamond drilling in 27 holes. Those holes returned multiple high-grade and broad low-grade intersections with abundant visible gold. In 2016, the company mined and processed a 932 ton bulk sample from the historic No. 1 vein that averaged 5.1 grams per ton gold.

Most of the past drilling done at Miller has been vertical in nature.  Subsequent surface stripping and sampling by Northstar has defined numerous vertical high-grade gold veins and structures, which cannot be assessed, let alone discovered, by vertical drilling. This year’s drill program will see Northstar utilize angled holes to properly test these new targets.

“We’re very confident that we’re going to make new discoveries at Miller, possibly within the Catherine Fault zone itself, which amazingly has never been drilled,” Fowler says. “It’s comparable to Kirkland Lake Gold’s Amalgamated Break where they’ve found an incredible amount of high-grade gold mineralization that remains open at depth. These structures can be incredibly rich and with kilometre-scale strike and depth continuity. We believe we have all the makings of a Macassa SMC-like gold mineralizing system at Miller and we’re really anxious to get the drill spinning.”

At 3,000 metres, the Phase 1 drill program is scheduled to commence in late February. This will have a preliminary focus on confirming and expanding portions of the near-surface Miller Independence historic estimate and the Planet Syenite bulk tonnage gold exploration target. Drilling will also follow up other known near-surface, high-grade and intrusion-hosted gold targets, including Allied Syenite.

Having a few million dollars on hand to support exploration doesn’t hurt – Northstar closed its $3 million initial public offering on December 31st of last year at $0.30.

“Everyone thinks we either definitely have a gold market or we’re heading into a solid gold market,” Fowler says of the company’s healthy IPO. “We believe our timing was perfect.”

There’s even more to Northstar Gold than Miller, though. The explorer also has the Bryce Gold Property and the Milestone copper-nickel-cobalt claims. These could add value at the drill bit or through farm-out opportunities.

The task ahead for Northstar is to prove up the claims at Miller. “We’re going to do it through a concerted and robust exploration effort, which we are now permitted and funded to complete,” Fowler concludes. “I really believe there is excellent potential to make some significant gold discoveries at the Miller Gold Property this year.”

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Northstar Gold at https://www.northstargoldmining.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Talisker Resources: Shorter timelines to discovery are the goal with prime BC projects

Terry Harbort, Chief Executive Officer of Talisker Resources Ltd. (CSE:TSK), is convinced that he and his team have found the perfect gold project to catapult their junior resource company into the big leagues.

This past December, the Toronto-based explorer purchased 100 percent of the Bralorne Gold Project in south-central British Columbia from Avino Silver & Gold Mines in a multimillion-dollar cash and stock deal.

Consisting of three main mines, Bralorne was one of the longest producing high-grade gold deposits in British Columbia, operating from 1929 to 1971. Though some 4.2 million ounces were pulled from the earth at a recovered grade of 17.7 grams per ton, the mining operation was eventually shut down due to depressed gold prices.

When mining in the area came to a halt, gold was at $200 per ounce, adjusted for modern inflation. With gold now selling for nearly $1,600 USD per ounce, Harbort says Talisker is eager to get at “that $200 rock still left in the ground” at Bralorne.

“We looked all throughout that region of south-central BC and we came across the Bralorne project, which initially was something that was probably bigger than what we were searching for,” explains Harbort, a veteran geologist who’s worked for major miners such as AngloGold Ashanti. “But we were able to do what became a transformational transaction for the company.”

For Talisker, which Harbort formed alongside some close industry colleagues, greenfield exploration was the plan when trading commenced on the Canadian Securities Exchange in spring of 2019. However, the acquisition of Bralorne advances the company into the next stage in one fell swoop.

Bolstered by $25 million in financing and royalty sales, the company kicked off 2020 by firing up the first drill rig at Bralorne in early February.

Harbort says Talisker will drill 3,000 metres along strike extensions of existing veins with plans of further drilling 6,000 to 7,000 metres in April, with results expected around the middle of the year.

The company has 45,000 samples from Bralorne and plenty of other data that, according to Harbort, is enough to give the company confidence that significant gold deposits remain in the ground.

“We can actually see where the samples intersected veins, and we can wireframe these into vein models and calculate what an approximate potential grade would be,” he says.

“We know, historically from the production, that the continuity was very high. So, it means as we go to depth and along strike we’ve got a pretty good chance of the veins continuing at a very high grade. We believe that’s what we’ll be targeting, as opposed to drilling and hoping we hit veins. We’re drilling the way we already know where the veins are. That really reduces our risk.”

Looking ahead to the rest of 2020, Harbort says Talisker is “working toward defining what the footprint is and how many millions of ounces are potentially there” as part of a crucial resource statement expected for release in early 2021.

In addition to Bralorne, Talisker also holds 85 percent of the gold belt at Spences Bridge, another exciting gold project in British Columbia. The claim stands as one of the largest land stakes in the province’s history.

At Spences Bridge, Talisker has formed a strategic alliance with Westhaven Ventures, which owns the Shovelnose high-grade epithermal discovery contiguous to Talisker’s claims.

“Initially, the Spences Bridge gold belt was what was called a frontier gold belt where people see indications of a certain style of mineralization but deposits there have never been discovered,” he explains.

But in September 2018, that all changed when Westhaven discovered a high-grade vein deposit, promoting the project from frontier status to emerging. Subsequently, “the whole belt could host a number of discoveries.”

Harbort says Talisker “aggressively” explored Spences Bridge in the last field season, when it was just starting up as a new company. During that time, Talisker had 23 geologists at the site who collected more than 3,000 stream sediment samples and defined eight drill targets. For 2020, the company has budgeted $3.5 million for 20 geologists working on five projects.

While Bralorne and Spences Bridge are Talisker’s most important projects in British Columbia, the company has several more in its portfolio, ranging from early stage projects to advanced ones. All told, Talisker’s properties comprise 270,605 hectares over 288 claims, three leases and 154 crown grant claims, making the company a dominant exploration player in south-central British Columbia.

Harbort says Talisker was attracted to the region in the first place not only because of the geology and celebrated mining history, but also the abundance of scientific theory.

“We believe that there are a number of belts in that part of British Columbia that haven’t been well explored simply because there’s not a large number of low sulphidation epithermal gold deposits or mines,” he explains. “What we noticed very quickly was that there was a knowledge gap in the exploration techniques for these types of deposits, and the textural and alteration interpretation, to tell where a deposit’s stratigraphy was.”

However, gold mining isn’t only about geology, science, or the data. Logistics, Mother Nature, and minding the bottom line for investors also play a crucial role as well. That’s why Harbort loves “the latitude and the weather” in south-central BC, not to mention a developed infrastructure, unlike some colder, more inaccessible regions of the province.

“The field stage is very short and access can be problematic in other parts of BC. You often have to fly in with helicopters and fly them to a base. You’ve got to build camps. It becomes very expensive,” he says.

“The areas that we’re exploring are just a couple of hours drive from Vancouver. We don’t have to build camps; our geologists can stay in hotels in local towns. We don’t have cooks and kitchens. We don’t have any helicopter support.”

As a result, Talisker is much freer to capitalize on positive outcomes and to channel the savings back into the project. This makes it possible for them to work longer during the year, and shorten exploration timeframes.

“That means we can do a lot more with our investors’ money and hopefully give them a short discovery timeline so they can get a return a lot quicker than on projects in more northern areas,” Harbort explains.

When it comes to investors, current or prospective, Harbort points out that most of the company’s financing comes from deep-pocketed institutional investors who embraced Talisker in its early period. So, retail investors might want to take notice.

“They know they’re not backing us because of luck. They are backing us because of the management team, because of the assets that we have and our ability to get access to capital and then to successfully execute the plan.”

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Talisker Resources Ltd. at https://taliskerresources.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Rockcliff Metals: CEO Alistair Ross is bullish on copper as everything goes electric

Rockcliff Metals (CSE:RCLF) is a Canadian near-term copper producer and active explorer in the Snow Lake greenstone belt of Manitoba.

The company has one of the largest land parcels in the Snow Lake mining belt, a region home to copper, zinc, gold, and silver deposits – the portfolio spans more than 4,500 square kilometres. Also key to the plan is the Bucko Mill, a facility that Rockliff will convert to process copper (it was originally built to handle nickel).

Rockcliff’s growth outlook is simple to grasp, with near-term annual copper production projected at 20,000 tonnes and rising gradually to over 50,000 tonnes.

Chief Executive Officer Alistair Ross spoke with Public Entrepreneur about the realities of taking a mine into production in the current environment, and what shareholders can expect from his team in 2020.

You are a seasoned mining veteran who has lived in many different parts of the world, including England and Africa. What drew you to Rockcliff’s project in Manitoba?

The opportunity to build a mining company from scratch was something I had been contemplating for a while. When the Rockcliff opportunity presented itself, I was asked to take the company from an explorer to a producer, from essentially a one-person company directing exploration activities to a company that would find its way into the mid-tier ranks of copper producers.

I jumped out of my second retirement when I saw the resource base it already had. The fact that some of the heavy lifting had already been done with Greenstone Resources providing the capital to get us through the study phase, and Norvista providing the cornerstone asset of the Bucko Mill lease as well as an important mineral resource in the Tower project, is really important.

Rockcliff’s portfolio of properties is extensive.  Walk us through the highlights.

The bulk of the properties are similar in a couple of ways. One, the deposits are at or near surface, and that would allow for rapid access via ramp and portal rather than shaft. Secondly, they are typically narrow veins and steeply dipping in nature. This has allowed us to focus on designing a mining method that could fit multiple ore bodies and allow the transfer of capital equipment from one mine to the next.

Tell us how you transform a junior explorer into a high-grade copper-zinc producer.

Our strategy is to focus on our copper-rich deposits initially due to our belief that, of all metals needed for the next phase of greening our planet, copper is virtually a core part of almost all solutions currently being contemplated and pursued.

Battery-powered electric vehicles, renewable power generation, storage of energy – all of these require copper in differing amounts. BHP put out a forecast in May 2019 suggesting that at the mid-point of forecast EV penetration, approximately 1 million tonnes per annum of extra copper would be required.

How we are aiming to position ourselves to deliver some of that extra production is by selecting three of our more promising projects (Rail, Tower, and Talbot) for drilling with an eye to preliminary economic analyses. We would then select the best looking project to advance to a bankable feasibility study (BFS) that would include defining the work required to recommission the Bucko Mill.

We would concurrently permit the mining property and the mill to become a copper producer and have a financing plan in place so that – upon board approval of a construction decision at the end of 2020 – we could begin to mobilize in early 2021. That would all be with a view to producing our first concentrate for sale in early to mid 2022.

Outline your work program for 2020 and tell us if you expect it to be a busy summer.

The whole year will be busy. We intend on having updated resource statements for Tower, Rail, and Talbot by the end of February, and our preliminary economic analyses of those three properties should be ready by early May.

From there, we would go into a bankable feasibility study on the chosen property for completion by year-end. In parallel, our permitting for the mine property and the mill will be proceeding, and our financing plan will be completed based on the preliminary economics.

While we are waiting for the BFS project selection, we are drilling our secondary properties at Copperman, Free Beth and Tramping. As soon as we have made our decision for the BFS property, we will then launch an intensive drill program to further upgrade our knowledge and allow for BFS-level work on the resource, mining, and metallurgical factors.

Can you shed some light on Rockcliff’s status regarding production permits, environmental permits, and road access to the Snow Lake properties?

We have taken all the samples and completed our studies on the Tower and Talbot properties. At Rail, we are just short of our spring study samples to be in a similar position.

We have completed our studies on the implications of placing copper tailings in the tailing area at Bucko and found no impact. We are therefore ready to file for a Notice of Alteration for the mill once we have completed our mining studies to understand what throughput may be required to match the mine output.

Roads are only contemplated for the Talbot and Rail properties, and studies are underway to assess both environmental permit applications and engineering design implications.

How much cash do you have on hand and how far does it get you?

We currently have sufficient funding to complete our required exploration program with approximately $12 million in our flow-through account, and we are on track to complete our studies for a board construction decision in December. We have about $5 million in our hard dollar account to support us until then. We would require a raise to begin construction in 2021.

What are the prospects for subsidiary Goldpath Resources, which has five highly prospective lode-gold properties within the Snow Lake area?

We are pleased that Kinross Gold has agreed to continue its earn-in option at Laguna and Lucky Jack, and we look forward to seeing their continued success. The rest of the properties are of secondary interest at the moment and we will be undertaking a strategic review of their role in our company during 2020.

Given your advanced work, has the company signed any preliminary offtake agreements?

We have not signed any offtake agreements but we have been approached with expressions of interest to talk as our studies develop. Our very early review of the ores suggests that our concentrate will be clean and of reasonable to high grade. So with current knowledge, I do not anticipate any issues placing these concentrates on the market at competitive rates.

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Rockcliff Metals Corp. at https://rockcliffmetals.com/.

CSE Issuer Stories, Magazine

Cerro de Pasco Resources: A new generation breathes life into an old mine with benefits that reach far and wide

Cerro de Pasco is a centuries-old community nestled high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, but after nearly 400 years, a local mine that once brought prosperity must rethink a path forward in alliance with the nearly 50,000 people who now live there.

What began as an underground operation became an open pit at the centre of a growing population of miners and their families. Outdated mining technology resulted in inefficient yields. Tailings and stockpiles grew, and contaminated dust and water crept into surrounding areas.

There’s a huge economic opportunity in the tailings and stockpile at the site, though, not to mention known in-situ resources, 11,000 hectares of concessions, and unexplored areas.

But Cerro de Pasco Resources (CSE:CDPR) wants to do more than make money.

Chief Executive Officer Guy Goulet and Executive Chairman Steven Zadka have a vision that, if everything goes right, will see parts of the population relocate away from certain areas to new locations with clean drinking water, heat in their homes, and well-paying jobs – for the benefit of all stakeholders.

The company bought the mineral rights to the tailings and stockpile in 2012 and in November, inked a deal to acquire the mine itself and all accompanying infrastructure. Public Entrepreneur caught up with Goulet and Zadka as they began transitioning the company into production, initiating a multi-decade plan to revitalize a mine and restore a city.

Tell me about your background in the mining industry and how Cerro de Pasco came to be.

Zadka: In 2011, through my capacity as an investment banker, I came across the opportunity to buy the mineral rights on the tailings and stockpile in Cerro de Pasco and decided to jump on it.

Guy was running a company called Maya Gold & Silver in the early 2010s, and I was one of the bankers. He closed a very difficult client of mine and had incredible energy, so I said, “This guy knows how to do things.” He left that company in 2017 and I reached out.

Goulet: I was working in Morocco, and Steven approached me while I was on my way out, following the restart of a silver mine there.

We teamed up to accelerate the development of the project and list the company on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

I’m also attracted to pro-environmental projects. In 2000, I co-founded H2O Innovation, which is the largest water treatment company in Canada as of today.

What are we looking at here in terms of metals? What’s the game plan on the mining side?

Zadka: I knew that there was silver, lead, and zinc. And I discovered that there was also copper and gold in the tailings. The grades are pretty good, both because they’re old and they come from one of the richest mines in the world.

You’ve got material, metals literally sitting on top of the ground, which is much less expensive than traditional exploration.

We’re buying two subsidiaries that are producing and permitted. For 2019, we estimate their revenues were about $120 million combined.

Permitted capacity is about 20,000 tonnes per day on sulfides and right now, it’s doing 7,000 tonnes a day, and once we bring these tailings into production, the annual revenue starts getting into the $250 million to $300 million range.

With all the resources we have and what we’re acquiring, we have a 17 year mine life. But the reality is that the mine is going to go for much longer because there’s 11,000 hectares of concessions and areas that are largely unexplored.

Goulet: Post-acquisition combined, Cerro de Pasco will be the largest holder of silver in one single site. There is a need to increase the current production capacity up to its permitted level of 20,000 tonnes per day.  We estimate this will require about $35 million of capital. Once production levels are up, cash flow will start to generate rapidly.

We’re in the process of raising the capital required for the first phase, which is $65 million USD.

You’ve called Cerro de Pasco a resource management company. What does that mean?

Zadka: A traditional mining company is only focused on extracting metals from the ground. That’s what mining is; it’s going into the ground, digging up dirt, and putting the waste somewhere.

We call ourselves a resource management company because we plan to do more than just mining. There are some aspects of mining at Cerro, but there’s other aspects involved.

For one, we’re reprocessing the materials that are sitting on top of the ground, which is not theoretically mining. There’s also storage of waste.

If you can return clean water to the environment, you’re managing a resource. If you can turn your waste into building products, or turn pyrite into heat to generate hot water, you’re managing a resource.

With that in mind, how is resource management going to help the people of Cerro de Pasco?

Zadka: We’ve been completely open and transparent with the community and the local government. We’ve told them the truth, and the truth is that this is a mess that can be turned into an opportunity with some reorganization, planning, and support from the local authorities and community.

The government acknowledges that Cerro de Pasco is laden with lead, and they have a plan to relocate sections of the city 30 kilometres away from the mine. What they need in order to do that, amongst other important factors, is support from the most important economic driver in town. That’s us.

Peru has a program called “Obras por Impuestos,” or taxes for works, that enables a company to use taxes generated from operations to fund infrastructure projects for the benefit of society. You can fund roads, sewer lines, hospitals, and schools.  One of our main objectives is to do just that.

We also want to take it a step further. None of the cities in the Andes Mountains have heat, and it’s freezing every night. We have so much pyrite, which produces heat on its own, that we can harness to produce hot water and we could pump that hot water through the city.

Goulet: We want to do more water treatment systems and educate the young people to wash their hands before they eat. We want them to play in parks where we’re going to renew the topsoil.

I come from Thetford Mines in Quebec, which was the world capital of asbestos. You know what I was doing as a kid? I was going with my bike and playing in the dumps. In Cerro de Pasco, we want to avoid that.

There is a problem of contamination in Cerro de Pasco, but just as important is the problem of poverty. That mine used to employ 7,000 people.  Some 1,200 work there now in some capacity. In an area that is 4,400 metres high, what else is there to do for work besides mining?

Let’s recall that the problem of contamination is not mainly due to mining activities. The old city is located on a geological natural accident: a massive intrusion of lead, zinc, copper, silver, and gold. A “mine” is what it’s called today! And the population has been living from that operation over the past 400 years.

We want to help solve that problem of poverty and restore prosperity in the community.

The company is listed in North America, but what does your management team look like in Peru?

Zadka: I’m based in New York, and Guy’s based in Canada, but the heart of the management team is in Lima and Cerro de Pasco.

We employ several Spanish speaking expat VPs, who are specialists in different areas like mining, geology, metallurgy, environment, health, and safety.

Everybody that works with us has a very special drive, and I don’t think you find that at other mining companies because this isn’t only about making money. Here, we’re trying to make a difference.

Goulet: We’re going to spend $58 million over the next four years on HSEC (Health, Environmental, Social and Communities). We have a social license, which is essentially a vote of confidence from a key component of the population that agrees with our business plan. That’s an important asset in Peru. We received positive signals from the Minister of Energy and Mines, the local government, and the President himself.

Can an environmental restoration project like this also be profitable?

Zadka: There are multiple benefits to the local population and the environment, but at the end of the day we believe this is a very compelling investment.

Not surprisingly, investors are cautious about tailings and stockpiles because they tend to be a finite resource. They would not normally offer the opportunity to find something above and beyond expectation that could make the stock go up by 10 times overnight.

However, Cerro de Pasco not only has 170 million tonnes of reserves in the tailings and stockpiles, but also 140 million tonnes of material in the ground and 11,000 hectares of concessions in one of the most prolific mining districts in the world, which has never been properly explored.

We’re talking about almost 1.6 billion ounces of silver equivalent.  That would be the biggest amount of silver in one location on the entire planet. Nobody else has that.

What does the long-term picture look like?

Seventeen years from now, a large portion of the population won’t be living in Cerro de Pasco anymore. They’ll no longer be affected by the hazards of the area.  They’ll have access to clean water and live in proper homes.

There are still two approaches to mining. There are companies that try to skirt ESG-related issues, and there are those that see the opportunity to deal with these issues head on.

We aspire to be a leading example of why you shouldn’t run away from these problems. If you’re innovative and you’re willing to go the extra mile, you’re going to have a much better impact on the outcome. Cerro de Pasco needs that outcome.

This story was featured in the Public Entrepreneur magazine.

Learn more about Cerro de Pasco Resources Inc. at https://pascoresources.com/.