Not only has the stock market been on a steady climb in recent days, but once again many penny stocks are trending green. There is strong sentiment of an economic turnaround that has investors hopeful for not only the long-term, but the near-term as well. Though it must likely won’t be an easy path, there has been good news daily. That said, many would be investors don’t quite understand what is taking place in the stock market currently and speculation has become somewhat of a driving force.

There has been a ton of nastiness to wade through during the 1st half of 2020. We’ve watching a pandemic and protests/riots sweep through the news front. Nevertheless, headlines regarding the economy appear to be a significant constant at the moment. Thought stimulus checks have become a band-aid for millions in the U.S., the economy opening back up sooner rather than later will attract the attention of market bulls lying in weeds.

Read More: Are You Following These 3 Penny Stocks In The Short-term?

Typically, penny stocks are atypical of the norm and stick to the own market trends. The broader markets may move one way, and penny stocks overall may move with them, but overall they usually do their own thing. Knowing this, I want you to focus in on these 3 penny stock ideas before Friday as they all have interesting news to focus in on.

Your No. 1 Penny Stock To Watch Before Friday: iBio, Inc.

iBio, Inc. (NYSE American: IBIO), a biotechnology company, provides product development and manufacturing services to clients, collaborators, and third-party customers in the United States and internationally. The company’s services cover the stages of pre-clinical development, regulatory approval, commercial product launch, and on-going commercial phase requirements. Its lead therapeutic candidate is IBIO-CFB03 for the treatment of systemic scleroderma, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and other fibrotic diseases. The company is also developing vaccine candidates for third parties.

iBio, Inc. announced initiation of preclinical immunization studies for its second COVID-19 vaccine platform.

The new subunit vaccine (“IBIO-201”) combines antigens derived from the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein fused with the Company’s patented lichenase booster molecule (“LicKM”), which is designed to enhance immune response. The addition of the LicKM booster to a subunit antigen is expected to improve the likelihood of achieving single-dose, prolonged immunity while also increasing manufacturing capacity through increased potency.

“The launch of our second COVID-19 vaccine program is emblematic of the speed, flexibility and scalability we can achieve by combining our plant-based FastPharming System™ with other technologies in our intellectual property portfolio, such as LicKM,” said Tom Isett, Co-Chairman & CEO of iBio. “As a company with purpose-built pandemic response capabilities, we are pleased that in a matter of weeks we successfully discovered and advanced two promising, unique, internally-developed, COVID-19 vaccine programs into IND-enabling studies. Equally important is that our plant-based system avoids resource-intensive scale-up challenges associated with traditional manufacturing approaches so that we should be able to more rapidly produce high-quality material for hundreds of millions of doses upon regulatory clearance.”

Your No. 2 Penny Stock To Watch Before Friday: Mereo BioPharma Group plc

Mereo BioPharma Group plc (Nasdaq: MREO), a biopharmaceutical company, acquires, develops, and commercializes therapeutics for the treatment of rare and specialty diseases. Its product candidates include BPS-804, a novel antibody, which is in Phase IIb clinical trial for the treatment of osteogenesis imperfecta; MPH-966, an oral small molecule that is in Phase II clinical trial to treat Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency; BGS-649, an oral aromatase inhibitor for the treatment of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism; and BCT-197, an oral p38 MAP kinase inhibitor that has completed Phase II clinical trial to treat acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The company also develops OMP-305B83 and OMP-313M32, which are anti-cancer therapeutic candidates in clinical development stage.

Mereo BioPharma Group plc (NASDAQ: MREO, AIM: MPH) today announces the completion of a $70 million (£56 million) private placement (the “Fundraising”) with a number of new and existing U.S based institutional and accredited investors. OrbiMed led the Fundraising with participants including Vivo Capital, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Pontifax Venture Capital, Samsara BioCapital, Commodore Capital, and funds managed by Janus Henderson Investors alongside existing investors Boxer Capital of Tavistock Group and Aspire Capital Fund, LLC.

Highlights

• Private placement completed raising $70.0 million (£56.0 million) before expenses.
• New Ordinary Shares and Convertible Loan Notes issued provide the Company with certainty of receiving the full amount of the proceeds of the private placement at closing.
• 89,144,630 new Ordinary Shares have been placed at the Issue Price to raise $19.4 million (£15.5 million) before expenses, utilising share authorities granted on 2 June 2016 and 19 June 2019 and issued on a non-pre-emptive basis.
• Convertible Loan Notes have been issued in an aggregate principal amount $50.6 million (£40.5 million) to complete the Fundraising.
• Price per Placing Share of 17.4 pence.

Dr. Denise Scots-Knight, Chief Executive Officer of Mereo, said, “We are delighted to have attracted the support of such a broad range of high-quality institutional investors. We are pleased to also be announcing today that we plan to progress etigilimab into a Phase 1b study and believe etigilimab has the potential to target a significant unmet need in oncology. We look forward to progressing etigilimab, setrusumab and alvelestat further and believe this Fundraising leaves Mereo extremely well placed to progress on our strategy.”

Your No. 3 Penny Stock To Watch Before Friday: Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd.

Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. (NYSE American: CANF), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops small molecule therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer, liver and inflammatory disease, and sexual dysfunction. The company’s lead drug candidate CF101 (Piclidenoson), which is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. It also develops CF102 (Namodenoson) that is completed Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as in Phase II trial for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis; and CF602, which is in pre-clinical trial for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. has collaboration agreement with CMS Medical to develop, manufacture, and commercialize Piclidenoson and Namodenoson; and Univo Pharmaceuticals to identify and co-develop specific formulations of cannabis components for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory, autoimmune, and metabolic diseases.

Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. announced it has successfully concluded a meeting with the Scientific Advice Working Party (SAWP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regarding Phase III development of its drug candidate Namodenoson in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer.

Namodenoson is Can-Fite’s adenosine A3 receptor (A3AR) agonist which has recently been shown to prolong median overall survival (OS) in a selected patient population with HCC in a Phase II clinical trial. Can-Fite sought scientific advice from the EMA to complement previous input from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its recent End-of-Phase II meeting regarding plans for a Phase III registration trial of Namodenoson in patients with HCC and Child Pugh Class B7 (CPB7) cirrhosis. Having completed its meeting with the SAWP, Can-Fite now has sufficient regulatory input to conduct a registration trial in accordance with the requirements of both the U.S. and the European Union.