1. Tiziana Life Sciences (NASDAQ:TLSA)

Year-to-date gain: 227.8 percent
Market cap: US$256.36 million
Share price: US$2.26

Tiziana Life Sciences is a clinical-stage biopharma which is developing therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, degenerative diseases, and cancer-related to the liver. Its pipeline of candidates is built on its patent drug delivery technology that provides a possible alternative to intravenous delivery. Tiziana’s lead candidate is intranasal foralumab, a fully human anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody.

Tiziana Life Sciences shares hit US$1.69 on March 7 after the company filed its investigational new drug application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a Phase 2 clinical trial in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is supported by the ALS Association. However, by early April that value had fallen back to US$0.78 per share.

A series of positive news flow later in the spring helped to give Tiziana shares another boost. In April, John Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts commenced dosing of the biotech company’s intranasal foralumab in Phase 2 trials for patients with non-active secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. On May 7, the company shared positive results from the use of its lead candidate in improving the quality of life for patients with that form of multiple sclerosis.

Tiziana is also studying the use of intranasal foralumab for treating moderate Alzheimer’s disease. On May 9, it announced that PET scans of a patient with moderate Alzheimer’s showed a significant reduction in microglia activation associated with neuroinflammation after three months of treatment.

Shares of Tiziana reached US$1.62 on May 13.

On July 21, the company announced an ‘unexpected discovery’ in its findings of an immunologic analysis of the patient with Alzheimer’s disease.

‘In an unexpected discovery, the analysis revealed an increase in phagocytosis markers in classical monocytes, suggesting that nasal foralumab may enhance their ability to clear amyloid plaques,’ the press release states. ‘This unexpected effect may open new avenues for treating Alzheimer’s Disease by targeting both inflammation and amyloid accumulation.’

Tiziana’s share price climbed through the remainder of the month, hitting a year-to-date high of US$2.50 on July 31.

2. Palvella Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PVLA)

Year-to-date gain: 224.98 percent
Market cap: US$416.08 million
Share price: US$37.64

Palvella Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharma developing treatments targeting rare genetic skin diseases for which there are no FDA-approved therapies. The company’s product pipeline centers on its patented QTORIN platform, which has an initial focus on rare genetic skin diseases.

Its lead product candidate, QTORIN rapamycin, is currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial in cutaneous venous malformations, and a Phase 3 clinical trial in microcystic lymphatic malformations (LM). QTORIN rapamycin has been granted breakthrough therapy designation, orphan drug designation and fast track designation from the FDA for the treatment of microcystic LMs.

After starting the year at US$12.00, shares of Palvella had surged to US$20.99 by February 18. About a week earlier, the company had shared plans to expand the Phase 3 trial to include pediatric patients from three to five years of age. That momentum in Palvella’s share price continued to rally to US$29 per share on March 13.

June produced a number of significant milestones for Palvella. On June 9, the company received initial proceedings from a grant issued by the FDA Office of Orphan Products Development for its Phase 3 trial, and on June 23, it completed enrollment for the trial with 51 subjects, 25 percent over its target. The company closed out the month with news it was added to the broad-market Russell 3000 Index and the Russell 2000 Index.

The company said it remains on track to deliver top-line Phase 3 data in Q1 2026 to support its planned new drug application submission later that year.

While the company didn’t release news in July, Palvella Therapeutics’ share price climbed significantly through the month to hit a year-to-date high of US$39.87 on July 28.

3. OKYO Pharma (NASDAQ:OKYO)

Year-to-date gain: 163.03 percent
Market cap: US$117.35 million
Share price: US$3.13

OKYO Pharma is a clinical-stage biopharma developing therapies for the treatment of neuropathic corneal pain and dry eye disease. Its lead candidate is urcosimod, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and non-opioid analgesic.

So far in 2025, the company has achieved multiple milestones related to its Phase 2 trial of urcosimod for treatment of neuropathic corneal pain.

On April 30, OKYO announced plans to end the trial early to analyze the data from the patients who had completed the trial, with the goal of accelerating its clinical development and expanding the program. Supporting the decision was the fact that urcosimod had previously demonstrated safety in OKYO’s completed Phase 2 trial of the candidate to treat patients with dry eye disease.

The next day, news broke that the FDA granted urcosimod fast track designation for the treatment of neuropathic corneal pain. OKYO’s stock price reached US$1.57 on May 1.

On July 17, OKYO posted strong top-line data from its Phase 2 clinical trial, and stated it is planning a meeting with the FDA to discuss next steps for its lead drug candidate. The following day, OKYO received US$1.9 million in non-dilutive funding to support its clinical development of urcosimod.

Shares of OKYO hit a year-to-date high of US$3.17 on August 5.

4. IO Biotech (NASDAQ:IOBT)

Year-to-date gain: 129.47 percent
Market cap: US$144.28 million
Share price: US$2.16

IO Biotech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing immune-modulating therapeutic cancer vaccines based on its T-win technology platform, designed to activate T cells to target both tumor cells and the immune-suppressive cells. The company’s lead cancer vaccine candidate IO102-IO103, which has the brand name Cylembio, is currently in clinical trials.

The FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation to IO102-IO103 when used in combination with Merck’s (NYSE:MRK) anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA for the treatment of advanced melanoma based on positive Phase 1/2 first line metastatic melanoma data.

At the start of the year, IO Biotech completed enrollment in its Phase 2 trial of IO102-IO103 with KEYTRUDA as a treatment given before and after surgery for resectable melanoma or head and neck cancer.

On February 4, the company published results from a preclinical study of its second immune-modulatory therapeutic cancer vaccine candidate, IO112, targeting arginase 1, which plays a key role in immune suppression.

In mid-March, IO Biotech was named to Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025. The following month, the company presented new preclinical data for its lead candidate IO102-IO103 as well as IO170, which targets Transforming Growth Factor beta.

In its Q1 2025 financial results and business highlights released on May 14, IO Biotech shared that a readout of primary endpoint data from its pivotal Phase 3 trial of its lead investigational therapeutic cancer vaccine in patients with advanced melanoma is expected in the third quarter of 2025.

Shares of IO Biotech reached a year-to-date high of US$2.40 on July 28.

5. Spero Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SPRO)

Year-to-date gain: 110.95 percent
Market cap: US$124.12 million
Share price: US$2.22

Spero Therapeutics is developing novel treatments for rare diseases and multi-drug resistant bacterial infections with high unmet need. The company’s lead drug candidate is tebipenem pivoxil hydrobromide (HBr), a late-stage development asset developed in collaboration with pharma giant GSK (NYSE:GSK) to treat complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs), including pyelonephritis.

Spero has an exclusive license agreement with GSK for the development and commercialization of the drug candidate in all ex-Asia markets. The FDA has granted tebipenem HBr qualified infectious disease product and fast track designations.

Shares in Spero traded below US$1.00 for much of the first half of 2025. However, the stock’s value surged 245 percent on May 28 to reach US$2.35 per share after Spero reported that its Phase 3 trial evaluating tebipenem HBr for treating cUTIs met its primary endpoint and stopped early for efficacy. GSK plans to include the findings in a filing to the FDA during H2.

Spero shares reached a year-to-date high of US$3.04 on July 9.

The lithium problem for batteries

Lithium dominates in batteries used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, but faces challenges — it is costly to extract, geographically concentrated and comes with environmental and geopolitical concerns.

As global demand for batteries surges, researchers are racing to find viable alternatives that are both abundant and efficient. Multivalent-ion batteries offer one potential path forward. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which carry a single positive charge, multivalent-ion batteries using materials like magnesium or zinc carry two or three.

In theory, this means that they can pack more energy into the same space. However, their larger size and stronger charge make it difficult for them to move through standard battery materials.

“One of the biggest hurdles wasn’t a lack of promising battery chemistries — it was the sheer impossibility of testing millions of material combinations,” said lead author Dibakar Datta, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “We turned to generative AI as a fast, systematic way to sift through that vast landscape and spot the few structures that could truly make multivalent batteries practical.”

To tackle the challenge, Datta’s team developed a “dual AI” system. The first part, a crystal diffusion variational autoencoder (CDVAE), was trained on vast datasets of known crystal structures. It could generate entirely new porous transition metal oxides, a class of material known for its structural flexibility and ionic conductivity.

The second part was a fine-tuned large language model (LLM) designed to narrow the list.

It focused on materials closest to thermodynamic stability, a critical factor in determining whether a compound can realistically be made and used in the real world.

The CDVAE cast a wide net, creating thousands of hypothetical structures with large, open channels. The LLM then acted as a filter, selecting only those most likely to hold up under actual manufacturing and operational conditions.

Five new battery candidates

“Our AI tools dramatically accelerated the discovery process, which uncovered five entirely new porous transition metal oxide structures that show remarkable promise,” Datta said.

These structures, the study suggests, offer unusually large pathways for ion movement, a crucial step toward making multivalent batteries that charge quickly and last for long periods of time. Quantum mechanical simulations and stability tests confirmed that the materials should be both synthetically feasible and structurally sound.

The five compounds now move to the next stage — experimental synthesis in collaboration with partner laboratories. If successful, they could be incorporated into prototype batteries and eventually scaled for commercial production.

Traditional materials research is often a painstaking, years-long process of hypothesis, synthesis and testing.

By contrast, AI can rapidly explore enormous “material spaces” that would be impossible for humans to search manually, flagging only the most promising candidates for further investigation.

What it means for the batteries of tomorrow

Multivalent-ion batteries have been studied for decades, yet few have reached commercial readiness because the necessary materials either didn’t conduct ions well enough or degraded too quickly.

By using AI to overcome that bottleneck, the research team hopes to accelerate not just battery chemistry, but also the infrastructure needed to support electrification on a global scale.

However, the five materials identified by Datta’s team aren’t ready to replace lithium tomorrow. They still need to be synthesized, tested in lab-scale batteries and proven to perform under real-world conditions.

Safety, scalability and cost effectiveness all remain open questions.

Still, the study’s authors argue that their AI framework has already proven its value by shrinking what could have been a decades-long search into a matter of months.

“This is more than just discovering new battery materials — it’s about establishing a rapid, scalable method to explore any advanced materials, from electronics to clean energy solutions, without extensive trial and error,” Datta added.

20 year copper price performance.

Chart via Macrotrends.

The pandemic’s impact on mine supply and refined copper in 2020 pushed prices higher despite the economic slowdown. The copper price climbed from a low of US$2.17 in March to close out the year at US$3.52.

In 2021, signs of economic recovery and supercharged interest in EVs and renewable energy pushed the price of copper to rally higher and higher. Copper topped US$4.90 per pound for the first time ever on May 10, 2021, before falling back to close at US$4.76.

Also affecting the copper price at that time was expectations for higher copper demand amid supply concerns out of two of the world’s major copper producers: Chile and Peru. In late April 2021, port workers in Chile called for a strike, while in Peru presidential candidate Pedro Castillo proposed nationalizing mining and redrafting the country’s constitution.

In early May 2021, news broke that copper inventories were at their lowest point in 15 years. Expert market watchers such as Bank of America commodity strategist Michael Widmer warned that further inventory declines into 2022 could lead to a copper market deficit.

After climbing to start 2022 at US$4.52, the copper price continued to spike on economic recovery expectations and supply shortages to reach US$5.02 per pound on March 6. Throughout the first quarter, fears of supply chain disruptions and historically low stockpiles amid rising copper demand drove prices higher.

However, copper prices pulled back in mid-2022 on worries that further COVID-19 lockdowns in China, as well as a growing mortgage crisis, would slow down construction and infrastructure activity in the Asian nation. Rising inflation and interest hikes by the Fed also placed downward pressure on a wide basket of commodities, including copper. By late July 2022, copper prices were trading down at nearly a two year low of around US$3.30.

In the early months of 2023 the copper price was trading over the US$4 per pound level after receiving a helpful boost from continuing concerns about low copper inventories, signs of rebounding demand from China, and news about the closure of Peru’s Las Bambas mine, which accounts for 2 percent of global copper production.

However, that boost turned to a bust in the second half of 2023 as China continued to experience real estate sector issues, alongside the economic woes of the rest of the world. The price of copper dropped to a low for the year of US$3.56 per pound in mid October.

Elevated supply levels kept copper trading in the US$3.50 to US$3.80 range for much of Q1 2024 before experiencing strong gains that pushed the price of the red metal to US$4.12 on March 18.

Those gains were attributed to in part to tighter copper concentrate supply following the closure of First Quantum Minerals’ Cobre Panama mine, guidance cuts from Anglo American (LSE:AAL,OTCQX:AAUKF) and declining production at Chile’s Chuquicamata mine. In addition, China’s top copper smelters announced production cuts after limited supply led to lower profits from treatment and refining charges.

BHP’s (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BHP) attempted takeover of Anglo American also stoked fears of even tighter global copper mine supply. These supply-side challenges continued to juice copper prices in Q2 2024, causing a jump of nearly 29 percent from US$4.04 per pound on April 1 to a then all-time high of US$5.20 by May 20, 2024.

What was the highest price for copper ever?

The price of copper reached its highest recorded price of US$5.959 per pound, or US$13,137.75 per metric ton, on July 24, 2025. It hit this peak during intra-day trading before closing the day at US$5.88. The red metal’s price surged more than 17 percent since the start of July to its new all time high. Read on to found out how the copper price reached those heights.

Bitcoin and Ethereum price update

Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at US$118,815, down by 0.1 percent over the last 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest price for the day was US$120,693.

Bitcoin price performance, August 11, 2025.

Chart via TradingView.

Analyst Omkar Godbole offered a cautious outlook, pointing to lower trading volumes for Bitcoin despite similar prices in July and a Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) discount suggesting weak US institutional demand.

Ethereum (ETH) has outperformed after a weekend rally.

Ethereum broke past US$4,300 on Monday as FG Nexus announced the acquisition of 47,331 ETH, worth about US$200 million. Meanwhile, data from Etherscan shows rising daily transaction counts over the past several weeks.

Creator coins like ZRO and PUMP also saw gains after announcements like Coinbase’s new DEX feature and LayerZero’s acquisition. Bondex CEO Ignacio Palomera called these developments an evolution in how creators can monetize their content. US consumer price index data on Tuesday (August 12) could fuel or dampen the crypto rally.

Altcoin price update

• Solana (SOL) was priced at US$176.39, down by 3.6 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation for the day. Its highest price was US$180.86.

• XRP was trading for US$3.16, down 1.7 percent in the past 24 hours and at its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest was US$3.22.

• Sui (SUI) was trading at US$3.69, down by 5 percent over the past 24 hours, and its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest level was US$3.77.

• Cardano (ADA) was trading at US$0.783, down by 3 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest was US$0.8008.

Today’s crypto news to know

Bullish aims for US$4.82 billion valuation in upsized IPO

Bullish has increased the size of its planned initial public offering (IPO), targeting a valuation of up to US$4.82 billion. It plans to raise as much as US$990 million by selling 30 million shares priced between US$32 and US$33 each, a higher range than its previous filing, but still below its US$9 billion target in a failed 2021 SPAC merger.

The cryptocurrency exchange said it will convert a significant portion of its IPO proceeds into US-dollar-backed stablecoins through partnerships with token issuers. BlackRock-managed funds and Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment have shown interest in purchasing up to US$200 million worth of shares.

Bullish is expected to price the offering on Tuesday and debut on the NYSE under the ticker “FLY” the next day.

Tether and Rumble propose joint acquisition of Northern Data

Tether and Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM) have proposed to jointly acquire all shares of artificial intelligence infrastructure company Northern Data, according to a press release issued on Monday.

According to the proposed terms, USDt issuer Tether, already Northern Data’s largest shareholder, would support the transaction, which would see each Northern Data shareholder receive 2.319 newly issued Class A Rumble shares for each Northern Data share offered, leading to roughly 33.3 percent of Rumble ownership being transferred to Northern Data shareholders. The final exchange ratio may be adjusted for the potential sale of Peak Mining and a related debt reduction, which would increase the exchange ratio.

Subject to definitive documentation, Tether would also significantly increase its investment in Rumble, becoming a key customer with a multi-year GPU purchase commitment.

Chainlink to partner with ICE

Blockchain oracle platform Chainlink announced a partnership with US-based Fortune 500 company Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) on Monday to bring foreign exchange and precious metals data onchain.

The collaboration will unite Intercontinental’s consolidated feed, an aggregator of market data from over 300 global exchanges and marketplaces, with Chainlink Data Streams’ derived data sets, which provide market information to power tokenization for over 2,000 decentralized applications and major financial institutions.

This partnership is the latest move to further integrate traditional market infrastructure with blockchain systems.

El Salvador targets wealthy investors with new Bitcoin banking law

El Salvador has approved a new investment banking law designed to attract institutional and high-net-worth crypto investors. Licensed investment banks with at least US$50 million in capital will be able to provide Bitcoin and other digital asset services, but only to clients meeting “sophisticated investor” criteria.

Requirements include at least US$250,000 in liquid assets and advanced financial knowledge.

The banks will be allowed to issue bonds, structure public-private projects and offer digital asset products. Lawmakers say the changes aim to position the country as a regional financial hub and draw in foreign private capital.

The move comes as President Nayib Bukele consolidates political power through constitutional reforms extending presidential terms and removing term limits.

Blue Origin to accept crypto payments for space flights

According to a Monday press release, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has partnered with payment processing company Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) to allow customers to buy tickets to outer space using crypto and stablecoins.

Trips will take place on Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rockets, and direct payments will now be accepted from popular wallets from the likes of MetaMask and Coinbase.

“Our mission has always been to revolutionize commerce by simplifying the transaction process, and we’re thrilled to now extend that vision beyond Earth,” said Taylor Lauber, CEO of Shift4.

“This partnership will enable adventurous travelers to book the adventure of a lifetime, no matter their preferred payment method — all with a simple, frictionless experience,’ he added. Blue Origin has flown more than 75 passengers past the Kármán Line, the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and space.

“We believe crypto and stablecoins are going to become an increasingly popular way for consumers to pay, particularly for high-end purchases, as both the consumer and merchant benefit financially from these transactions,” commented Alex Wilson, head of crypto at Shift4.