Sunday Edition: 24th May

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd and its associated entities may hold direct or indirect interests in securities referred to in this publication and may receive fees or other forms of consideration from entities mentioned. These interests and arrangements may create a potential conflict of interest in the preparation of this material.

The information contained in this communication is provided for general information purposes only and may relate to speculative investments. It does not constitute financial product advice, and has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any investment decision.

Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

Below you can find short overviews of all the content we wrote last week, plus links to each full note.

Further down, there’s also some links to other interesting stuff we came across on our travels around the internet.

Yesterday’s Saturday note: SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are all IPOing. Here's what our tech stocks are doing.

Quick Takes: VKA (x2), EMD, ILA (x2), L1M, OD6, PFE, RML, LKY, AVM, PAT, TRI

Deep Dives: ILA, TRI, ONE, AW1, RCM

Other content: NC1, EMD, BKB, SS1, ION, PNN, WCE

VKA (OTC: VKALF) received drilling approvals for its tungsten project in Nevada, USA.

VKA now has the all clear for a 63-hole campaign - the first drill campaign on the project in over 40 years.

VKA expects to have its rig on site in June (7 days to go...) and drilling to start shortly after.

Tungsten prices are (still) at all-time highs.

From January 1st, 2027 the United States is set to implement an outright ban on Chinese-origin tungsten for military and defense applications.

As that date draws closer, it means we could see a fair bit of interest in what VKA’s doing (especially if the drill results deliver strong results):

(source)

Also, VKA completed a second round of sampling at the same project.

More stockpiles discovered with estimated tungsten grades ranging between 0.4 per cent and 1.0 per cent.

(which is a good find given VKA has short-term production restart plans)

(source)

EMD started psychedelics treatments at its first Victorian clinic.

EMD’s already got clinics operational in Queensland and WA. This is the first operational facility in Victoria.

(from a three-bed facility at the Mornington Peninsula Private Hospital)

The bigger takeaway for us was that EMD confirmed it had thirty therapists trained.

This should mean that EMD can ramp up capacity in Victoria fairly quickly, as long as the demand for its services are there.

Next is NSW...

(source)

We saw this AFR last night too: “The Elon Musk-inspired ketamine craze sweeping Australia”

Thousands of Australians are accessing ketamine to treat severe depression.

Psychiatrists say it has emerged as a highly effective treatment for severe depression when other drugs and therapies have failed. Australia is one of the few countries in the world where it can be taken legally, but only in supervised clinical settings and after other drugs have failed. The number of users is increasing rapidly.

Good to see Avive Health featured in this AFR article. Our Investment EMD is partnered with Avive Health in three (soon to be four) states for psychedelics treatment for PTSD through its Empax programs.

ILA made two high profile appointments this week:

• Mark Herzog to its team as “Senior Global Health Security Advisor”.
• Raymond Taylor as “Senior Scientific Fellow”.

As a biodefense executive, Herzog spent the last 12 years working on “medical countermeasure technology” AND supported “multiple US Department Of Defence and biodefence initiatives”. He also secured US$100M+ in US and international government contracts for a US pharmaceutical company.

As for Taylor - he comes from the $3BN BioCryst (the company ILA bought its drug from) AND throughout his career has secured US$490M+ in US Government biodefence funding including stockpiling contracts.

Both are coming into the ILA team just as ILA is about to move into animal trials to advance its treatment for Marburg disease.

(ILA is going for animal rule approvals which could unlock US stockpiling funding)

AND just as an Ebola outbreak is growing in Africa. ILA’s drug has studies showing efficacy against Ebola too.

More on the Ebola outbreak and how ILA is placed to assist in the Deep Dive section below.

Read more: ILA’s September 2025 Investor Presentation “Galidesivir underpins high level survival rates in Marburg and Ebola animal studies”

RaaS also released an Update Report during the week on these hires: Key appointments amidst an Ebola outbreak:

L1M identified WW1-era historical tungsten workings at its project in Queensland.

Up until now L1M has been focused on gold and copper at this project.

BUT this new tungsten target looks pretty interesting - especially with the shallow WW1-era historical workings nearby.

L1M’s now got a 2km long structure to map further and ~14 rock chip samples in the lab for assays from this part of the project.

In the short-term the focus for drilling is still gold and copper. Drilling is scheduled to start this month.

(source)

OD6 unpacked historic data showing its fluorspar can be processed up to acidspar grades.

That historic dataset OD6 acquired is proving to be pretty valuable.

First, a set of drill results were found, confirming the fluorspar occurrences at the old pits that were mined actually extend past the cliff faces:

(source)

And now 1957 metallurgical testwork data showing the material from OD6’s ground can be processed into high value acid grade fluorspar - i.e. acidspar.

(Over 97% grade fluorspar is known as ‘acidspar’. 60-96% grade fluorspar is known as ‘metspar’.)

Acidspar is what the US military/government is looking for, as acidspar is used to produce AI chips, battery tech, and defence equipment.

Now we have data confirming what OD6’s MD had said “could enable application to the White House for FAST-41 status”:

(source)

FAST-41 status would give OD6 accelerated permitting support, and put it in a position to potentially receive government funding in the same way Canadian listed small cap Ares Mining secured up to ~US$250M in potential financing from the Pentagon.

PFE (OTC: PTMLF) completed a sampling program at its silver-antimony Project in the US.

PFE’s project hosts 18+ historic antimony and silver mines that produced from the late 1800s into the 1900s, all from shallow surface workings.

Despite that history the project has no modern exploration history - no geophysics or drilling.

And now, PFE’s discovered another set of historic workings ~300m away from the nearest structures PFE already knew about.

(source)

Assays from samples on the target are expected in 4 weeks ahead of a drill campaign planned for July/August.

This looks nicely timed with PFE expecting $2M cash from the sale of its lithium asset in July too - should be enough to fund some (or all) of that drilling.

Oh and by the way, PFE’s shares in the private company that acquired the lithium asset are worth ~A$42.6M now. (source)

RML (OTC: RLMLF) gave an update on its US gold-tungsten drilling campaign, following up last year’s gold discovery.

The first few step-out holes are complete and it looks like RML may be onto extensions of its gold discovery (~500m to the south of its discovery) - this is based on visuals only, assays are pending.

First assay results are expected in ~8 weeks. There are still another 40+ holes to come and a second diamond rig coming to site this week.

Drilling could move pretty quickly once that second rig comes in (which means more results, quicker).

RML posted a short clip of the rig in action here (thumbs up from the driller):

LKY (OTC: LKYRF) announced assays from its Desert Antimony Mine (DAM) in California.

LKY hit antimony in all eight of its drillholes - one of them had a small, but very high grade 33.5% antimony hit.

The key takeaway for us was LKY’s antimony hits are below the old workings on the project (the project produced antimony during WW1 and WW2):

Still another two assays to come from the drilling AND results from the rare earths drilling within $16BN MP Materials ground:

(source)

AVM has moved to 100% ownership at its gold project in Victoria.

AVM had initially signed a Joint Venture (JV) deal to earn-in its 80% interest in the project for C$3.0M.

The new deal structure means AVM pays C$4.0M with the payments staged over 36 months and a mix of cash/shares:

(source)

Whilst we do like that Victorian gold exploration asset, the primary reason we are Invested in AVM is for its Mexican silver projects, where AVM happens to be drilling right now.

The project currently being drilled is Gavilanes - the highest grade of the three - sitting ~23km away from $14BN First Majestic’s San Dimas Tayoltita mine (134Moz of silver).

To date, drilling has only tested ~0.2km^2 of the project area while the ~15km^2 of known veins are undrilled. (source)

Which means there is a lot that can go right on this with some more drilling. So there’s a fair bit of upside here that is hard to predict.

(source)

PAT’s neighbour at its copper asset in Zambia, the ~A$11BN Sinomine raised US$764M - with a chunk of the funds going to its copper project (~4km away from PAT).

We Invested in PAT for its Peruvian silver asset.

But PAT also has a pretty interesting copper exploration asset in Zambia.

We found this Bloomberg article which said that China’s Sinomine Resource Group is seeking as much as 5.2BN yuan (US$764M) to fund its African mining projects.

(source)

A chunk of the funding is set to fund expansions of Sinomine’s copper mine in Zambia (the Kitumba project).

Here is how close that project sits to PAT’s ground:

(source)

We are primarily Invested in PAT for its silver project in Peru, BUT we certainly won't say no to a big copper discovery next to an $11BN copper miner.

Especially with how well we would expect PAT’s chairman Hugh to know the Sinomine team.

When he was at Prospect Resources, Hugh executed placements and 2x offtake agreements with Sinomine.

(source)

TRI engaged a specialist Contract Research Organisation (CRO) for Phase 1 safety trials for its brain cancer imaging tech.

The engagement means TRI can get to work on:

• Clinical protocol (trial designs)
• Site selection, and
• Regulatory advancement of the trials.

TRI expects the trials to start in the second half of this year.

Nice to see things moving along with incoming CEO Dr Danielle Meyrick coming onboard on the 1st of June.

We expect things to start moving pretty quickly once she is onboard full time driving the clinical program.

(source - video with Dr Daniel Tillett ) (slides from P3 here)

More on TRI and our Investment case in the Deep Dive section below.

Island Pharmaceuticals (ASX:ILA)

By now you’ve probably seen it in the news...

We first started seeing it last Sunday:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an Ebola outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”.

The next level up is “Pandemic Emergency”, where borders close (*shudders* remember that).

Ebola is a rare but severe and often fatal illness transmitted through direct contact with the blood, bodily fluids, or tissues of infected people or animals.

Ebola is spreading in the remote Democratic Republic of Congo and has tragically killed over 80 people AND has already crossed the border with cases in the Ugandan capital city of Kampala.

(source)(source)(source)(source)(source)(source)

Unfortunately, there is generally an Ebola outbreak in central Africa once every few years.

Why is this one more important? Why the "international emergency”?

• Different strain (rare cousin), not detected by current Ebola tests
• Hence, has already been ripping through the population undetected for weeks - it's already in the 10 biggest outbreaks (by deaths) of the last 50 years.
• No vaccines or treatments exist
• This particular strain has only ever broken out twice in history - today it's already bigger than both previous breakouts combined.
• Already crossed borders - out of remote DR Congo - two cases detected in Uganda’s capital of Kampala - a condensed city with ~5M people.

The WHO says it may be spreading more widely than is currently being detected.

And right now there is no approved vaccine or treatment for this Ebola strain.

(don’t get any ideas, bioterrorists)

During the largest ever Ebola outbreak in history (2014 to 2016, 11,300 deaths) a US biotech company worked on an Ebola treatment with US government funding, developing it in US military controlled laboratories.

(US military? That’s because Ebola is a highly weaponisable virus...)

Animal trials were run and the drug showed it was 100% effective against Ebola inside the first 48 hours. (here are the those results)

(the drug also has positive Phase 1 clinical human safety data - so its been tested in humans too)

(source)

Then US government funding expired, that company pivoted to rare diseases.. and it sold this drug...

To our 2025 Biotech Pick of the Year:

Island Pharmaceuticals

(ASX:ILA)

The drug is called Galidesivir - ILA acquired it from $3.2BN Biocryst Pharmaceuticals last year.

BioCryst together with the US Department of Defense and BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) spent over US$70M developing the drug over 10+ years.

Now ILA owns it.

Read more: ILA: World Health Organisation declares “Health Emergency of International Concern” as harder to detect strain of Ebola with no approved vaccine kills 80, spreads to major city.

TrivarX (ASX:TRI)

The battle between humans versus cancer has been raging for as long as we have existed.

Chances are you have a family member who has been affected.

So can we please hurry up and sort it out, FFS?

Our $30M capped Investment TrivarX (ASX:TRI) acquired a very clever (yet simple) cancer diagnostics tech in December last year.

It can light up even the earliest stage, usually undetectable cancer cells like a Christmas tree.

And if you can see them, you can target them...

If you can find and see them early, there is a better chance of treatment and survival.

And you’ll be surprised by how it actually does it...

TRI acquired the tech way back in December - so why are we writing about TRI now?

Because on June 1st, Dr Danielle Meyrick, the ex-Chief Medical Officer for the $5BN Telix Pharmaceuticals will officially start as the TRI CEO.

And a new high calibre CEO should see TRI accelerate clinical trials and ultimately bring it to market.

Telix (where TRI’s new CEO is from) was a favourite amongst small cap investors, IPO’ing $50M at 65c per share in late 2017 and peaking near $32 in early 2025 at a cap of ~$10.7BN.

(Telix, like TRI also plays in the brain imaging space)

The past performance of Telix is not an indicator of the future performance of TRI.

Dr Meyrick is a big hire for the $30M capped TRI.

After leaving Telix she was Chief Medical Officer at one of the global leaders in isotope-based therapeutics.

So she has spent 20+ years in radiotheranostics and isotope-based imaging - the exact field TRI’s new asset sits in now.

We think that as of June 1st with a new experienced CEO in place, TRI can really start to go hard at developing its new tech and ultimately try to bring it to market.

Which brings us to TRI’s new tech...

TRI’s new imaging tech targets earlier, non-invasive detection of tumour activity beyond conventional MRI limitations.

Finding cancer before it spreads and before an MRI can even see it in the brain.

(Bonus: It makes existing MRI machines already sitting in hospitals more effective - a quick win for hospitals, with no new tech, processes, training etc)

(source)

Phase 1 clinical trials are planned for this year.

Read more: TRI - Cancer diagnostics. Ex- $5BN Telix Chief starts as CEO in 13 days

OneView Healthcare (ASX:ONE)

A humble little “any-tv-connector” box?

How did a connector box that OneView Healthcare (ASX:ONE) deploys into hospital room TV’s give it access to the customers of the biggest hospital software provider in the USA?

A hospital software provider that won a bruising enterprise software land grab battle a decade ago?

During Barack Obama's 8-year US presidential term from 2009 to 2017, there was a MAJOR push (with funding) to force hospitals to digitise all health records.

(Remember doctor offices and hospitals filled with manila folders of paper? Faxing forms etc?)

This led to one of the great enterprise software land grab battles of the 2010s.

The major players going into the fight were Epic Systems, Cerner, Meditech, Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, athenahealth, GE Healthcare's Centricity, McKesson, and NextGen.

...plus a long tail of smaller vendors.

By the end of the decade, the hospital enterprise software market had essentially consolidated around two final fighters - Epic and Cerner.

Epic emerged as the clearest winner.

Epic won the war by quietly locking up almost every prestigious U.S. hospital under one privately-held, founder-run roof...

And now Epic’s software holds the medical records of most Americans while every rival either got acquired, exited, or shrank.

Epic’s software is in 54.9% of US hospital beds, on nurses and doctors COMPUTER screens. (source)

The only place Epic was missing is on... the patient's TV or bedside tablet.

This happens to be the exact spot ONE has been selling its tech into hospitals for years.

Epic started offering a basic, entry level tablet interface for patients.

BUT... (as ONE has known for over a decade)

Every hospital has many rooms, usually with many different TVs and screens of various ages, from various vendors, with different operating systems.

From ancient coaxial CRT televisions to modern TVs and everything in between.

And this isn't changing anytime soon - now imagine trying to display your new patient app on all these different TVs.

(I can barely get my laptop to connect to just one slightly different than usual TV in an Airbnb)

Solving Epic’s problem of “how to display our software interface on a broad range of makes, models and years of hospital room screens” is where ONE comes into play.

ONE solved this problem years ago with a purpose built “connect any type of TV to its software” box.

A box ONE deploys into every hospital room for every ONE installation.

(think of it like a Chromecast that lets you plug into any brand TV or tablet... or for 1980s kids, that little box thing that you needed to plug a first-generation Nintendo into a coaxial TV)

Epic needs this box to display its patient interface to hospital room screens AND a company to work with the hospital to install it.

ONE wants its “box” in more hospital rooms so it can upsell its Tier 1 patient experience platform.

And this week Epic has officially teamed up with ONE to do it.

It looks like sales from this brand new revenue channel could also start to come in fairly quickly too - ONE’s CEO said in the announcement:

“We are already in contract negotiations on an 1,100-bed opportunity and have an active pipeline of other opportunities”

Read more: ONE’s New Revenue Channel - It’s Epic

Also - ONE’s website elaborates a little more on the agreement and gives an example of how the software will look inside the patients room:

ONE was also at the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne during the week showing off its range of connected products for inside the patients room. Here’s ONE’s Managing Director ANZ William Hadden talking from the event:

American West Metals (ASX:AW1)

A few days ago the US government flagged indium shortages - for the first time ever.

(source)

Indium is a critical mineral as it is used in AI chips, night vision systems, missile guidance radars and F-35 fighter jets.

Our Investment American West Metals (ASX:AW1) holds 100% of the largest indium JORC resource estimate in the USA.

The project might also contain critical minerals gallium and germanium too (historic core samples showed a 518m continuous gallium intersection with peak grade of ~77.3 g/t).

AW1 is drilling its project right now.

The first hole from the program has already hit a ~430m extension (based on visuals) to the already giant resource - assay results are pending.

AND for the first time ever, all of the drilling will systematically test for gallium and germanium (as well as other minerals like copper, gold and silver too)

(source)

AW1’s co-founder and Non-Executive Director, John Prineas is in Washington DC right now. (source)

Wonder who he is talking to...

Indium was one of the first critical minerals China placed export controls on, which began back in 2023.

Even in November 2025, when the export restrictions on gallium, germanium, and antimony were put on hold until November 2026, indium was explicitly excluded.

Indium is now the only one of the four export-controlled critical minerals still under full restriction.

(and China produces ~70% of the world’s refined indium product)

Read more: AW1: Biggest indium resource in the USA - this week USA announces indium shortages for the first time.

Watch more: American West Metals (ASX: AW1) Webinar | West Desert Discovery, Storm PFS & Critical Metals Growth

Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM)

Two weeks ago Forbes magazine ran a feature on global silver and gold whale, Eric Sprott:

“The billionaire who has 98% of his fortune in gold and silver”

(Source)

(a publication like Forbes featuring a gold and silver mining investor? Another sign that gold and silver are starting to go more mainstream)

And the ONLY ASX silver stock he has been buying on market since the silver price run started nearly 2 years ago?

Rapid Critical Metals

ASX:RCM

Back in September, mining billionaire Eric Sprott (and, ahem... us too) Invested in RCM.

(subsequently he also bought $1M more on market at 7.8c in January - well above where RCM is trading today)

We think silver is going to at least US$150/oz.

Eric thinks it's going even higher.

And at 81 years of age (with 50+ years of gold and silver mining investment experience) he has seen quite a few precious metals cycles.

So we both added Australian silver explorer and developer RCM to our Portfolios.

(Of course, Sprott and us could be wrong in our silver thesis - commodity prices can be fickle and are impossible to predict with any certainty. This is small cap speculative investing and anything can happen.)

RCM has 67 million ounces of silver equivalent resources across all its NSW silver projects, and wants to get this number to 100M oz silver equivalent.

(Silver is currently trading at US$76 per oz)

RCM can get to its 100M oz target via drilling and making new discoveries and/or land acquisitions (RCM has been doing both over recent months).

Today RCM confirmed it has started drilling again - read the announcement here.

And it could rapidly grow its silver resource with this current drilling campaign - here’s how:

~Six months ago, RCM drilled next to its existing Webbs 14.2M oz JORC silver equivalent resource.

That existing resource comes from just one silver lode alone.

(A “lode” is mining speak for a highly mineralised chunk of ore)

During that recent drilling, RCM clipped the edge of what could be a totally new parallel silver system.

RCM hit 2.6m at 136 g/t silver equivalent with the hole ending in mineralisation - a solid clip.

But because the hole ended in mineralisation, we don't know how big it is - it's unfinished business.

Today RCM announced it has commenced drilling into it from a new position and angle that will allow the drill bit to pass through the (predicted) guts of this new parallel lode.

Is this potential new lode of similar size to the 14.2M oz silver equivalent resource nearby?

Is it bigger?

Are there more parallel lodes?

Read more: RCM: Drilling now. What’s better than one 14.2 million ounce silver lode? Two of them. Next to each other... maybe even three? We should know in the coming weeks.

Bloomberg - Hong Kong will launch a gold clearing system in July, matching London's unallocated architecture to establish a major sovereign Asian alternative for bullion settlement.

Kitco - US senators have introduced the bipartisan Silver Act to expand national stockpiles, integrating silver into Project Vault to safeguard military electronics amid severe global supply deficits.

Mining.com - Perpetua Resources secured a US$2.9BN EXIM Bank loan for its antimony project, establishing a critical domestic antimony supply for US defense manufacturing.

This is the project next to our Investment RML. Perpetua has been going through this EXIM loan process since April 2024 when it received the LOI and formally applied for the loan ~12 months ago.

So it is good to see it now closed and confirmed, another sign the US is committed to creating a domestic critical minerals supply chain.

Bloomberg - Trump’s "Donroe Doctrine" has forced Canadian miner Sherritt to halt Cuban operations, leveraging secondary sanctions adding further pressure on Western Hemisphere critical minerals for US supply chains.

Reuters - A European industry body has warned that Europe must break China’s rare-earth pricing monopoly by incentivising private investment to protect Western critical mineral projects from market dumping.

We think Europe has been slow to act on this so could be a theme to watch for going forward.

China dominates the space, the US is trying to do something about it.

So perhaps Europe will be forced to act sooner rather than later, otherwise it will continue to be reliant on others for critical minerals in the future.

Bloomberg - There was a fierce White House clash after the Pentagon blocked a proposed rare earth deal with Beijing, arguing it undermined critical 2027 military supply decoupling mandates.

Reuters - China has halted heavy rare earth exports to Japan over an escalating Taiwan dispute, forcing premier magnet producer Shin-Etsu to freeze all new dysprosium magnet orders.

Bloomberg - Nickel prices spiked sharply following confirmation that Tsingshan (world’s largest producer of stainless steel) is cutting Indonesian NPI output, triggering rapid short-covering across an already severely strained battery metal market.

We’ve been saying it for a couple of weeks now, perhaps the nickel tide is turning? This is a primary reason why we made our Investment in NC1

AFR - Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is fast-tracking a new Western Australian lithium mine to exploit soaring prices and secure direct supply chains for allied Western automakers.

BKB - Canaccord Genuity – 5th Annual Global Metals & Mining Conference

SS1 - Maverick Silver Project, Nevada, USA - Canaccord Genuity – 5th Annual Global Metals & Mining Conference

BKB and SS1 both presented at the Canaccord Global Metals & Mining Conference last week in Nevada.

This is an exclusive, invite only conference, mainly for institutional investors, with some big companies presenting.

Companies like Coeur Mining (NYSE: CDE), one of the largest North American-based precious metals producers, with an US$18+ billion market capitalization, was also there.

Good to see SS1 and BKB rubbing shoulders with the big dogs and getting presenting slots here.

Hopefully it translates to some strong follow up buying...

ION - One platform. Multiple value upgrade pathways.

Power Minerals (ASX: PNN | OTC: PEIMF) - Very high grade rare earth intersections - Alistair Stephens

West Coast Silver ASX:WCE RIU Sydney 2026

What Really Happens to Gold, Silver, and Oil If the Dollar Dies? | Doomberg Interview

BKB is currently drilling at its Shafter Silver Project - here’s a photo of some of its mine infrastructure in view. Nice sunset too.

SS1 posted a drill rig set up on site, this is one of four drill rigs set to be busy as drilling ramps up at the Maverick Springs Project:

A word of caution...

While we aim to highlight developments in the small cap space, investing in early-stage and small cap companies - like those we cover - is inherently risky.

These companies often face funding challenges, regulatory hurdles, and market volatility. Announcements may reflect aspirations more than guaranteed outcomes.

Things can, and often do, change.

Just because a company has signed a deal, released drill results, or appointed a new director doesn’t mean success is assured.

Always assume delays, cost overruns, or results that don’t pan out.

We’re here to share insights, not offer personal financial advice - so please do your own research and speak with a licensed adviser before acting on anything mentioned.

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Bye for now.