Showing posts with label Update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Update. Show all posts

Friday, 27 September 2013

iOS 7 security update patches lockscreen flaw

September 27, 2013 09:16 AM ETNetwork World - Apple yesterday released an iOS 7 software update that fixes a security flaw that let users bypass the iPhone lockscreen to access a range of onboard information and online accounts.

IOS 7.0.2 seems to be mainly a security patch, but the update screen also says there is a new Greek alphabet keyboard option for entering a passcode.

A day after iOS 7 was released earlier this month, Forbes' Andy Greenberg reported that a U.S. soldier had somehow uncovered a rather complex series of actions that let him bypass the lockscreen, at least on existing iPhones that updated to the new firmware.

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The actions involved swiping upwards on the lockscreen to bring up the iOS Control Center, then opening the alarm clock app, then holding down the power button to show the "power off" and "cancel" options, then tapping "cancel," and finally quickly double-clicking the home button to bring up the multitasking screen for various apps.

According to Greenberg's account, the user could then access the phone's camera and stored photographs and, more importantly, the ability to share the photos via various associated accounts, and therefore access them: including email, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World.Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnwwEmail: john_cox@nww.com

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.

Reprinted with permission from NetworkWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sunday, 22 September 2013

Patch Monday: A way to avoid more Microsoft Automatic Update fiascos

Patch Monday: A way to avoid more Microsoft Automatic Update fiascosn

This month's Black Tuesday -- Sept. 10, 2013 -- enters the record books as Microsoft's most patch-botching month in history. That's quite an accomplishment, frankly. Having followed Microsoft's bungled patch efforts since long before the ascendancy of Patch Tuesday, I think there's a better -- if rather unorthodox -- way to manage patching.

The release dilemma is quite straightforward: Microsoft has to test the patches without letting them leak to the bad guys. Conventional wisdom dictates that if the bad guys can reverse engineer the patches before they roll down the Automatic Update chute, Windows as we know it will cease to exist. However, given the recent revelations of governmental stockpiling of zero-days, the ascendancy of companies that specialize in selling such zero-days to governments and corporate spies alike, and the fascinating proposal that the U.S. government share its zero-day trove with private companies (for a fee, of course), I think the day-and-date exposure threat is way overblown.

Here's my proposal: Instead of rolling all the patches out via Automatic Update on Black Tuesday, engulfing an unsuspecting public and creating all sorts of buggy havoc, I think Microsoft should let volunteers test the patches one day earlier. Call it Patch Monday. That would give software manufacturers, corporate customers with patch testing capabilities, enthusiasts and, yes, hackers, a one-day head start on the pandemonium that invariably ensues upon unleashing Automatic Updates.

Microsoft would put together all of the patches as it now does for Black Tuesday. But instead of keeping the security patches under wraps until the fateful moment on Tuesday when millions and millions of machines get hit almost simultaneously, it should let volunteers take a swing at them 24 hours earlier.

That would've given Kaspersky Antivirus, for example, a chance to test KB 2823324 a day before its release and to discover that older versions of Kaspersky would freeze. It would've given ambitious Outlook 2013 users a chance to see before KB 2817630 hit that their folders disappeared. It would've offered Office Starter Edition users a chance before KB 2589275 got rammed down the Automatic Update chute to scream about the fact that they're being told to buy Office 2010. The Brazilian manufacturer of the banking security plugin "G-Buster" might've avoided the massive meltdown of PCs in Brazil after KB 2823324 hit. And on and on.

Of course, the immediate argument is that, by opening up an all-volunteer Patch Monday, you're giving the bad guys a head start -- an extra day to reverse-engineer the patches and wipe out the Internet. To which I say, "baloney," or something less printable.

The really bad guys already have hundreds of zero days at their disposal. Chances are very good that the most tied-in government-sponsored crackers already know about the holes that Microsoft is going to patch. The real vulnerability lies with bad guys who aren't working for the government. They  don't have enough money to buy a zero day, but they're capable of reverse engineering and distributing a massive malicious attack in 24 hours. Yes, such people do exist.

Microsoft already has a rating system that can pinpoint patches vulnerable to those kinds of attackers. Every security bulletin these days has three key components, described in a TechNet article, which you can see readily on the SANS Internet Storm Center listing for each Black Tuesday. Each security bulletin (and presumably each individual patch) gets rated with a severity level, an exploitability level, and a description of whether the hole has already been publicly disclosed.

My proposal for Patch Monday has some wiggle room for Microsoft: If a particular patch (not a security bulletin, but an individual patch) has a severity rating of critical, an exploitability rating of 1, and it has not yet been publicly disclosed, Microsoft may (that's the operative word) choose to withhold the patch from Patch Monday volunteer testing.


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Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Microsoft botches still more patches in latest Automatic Update

Microsoft botches still more patches in latest Automatic Update

No sooner did Microsoft release the latest round of Black Tuesday patches, than screams of agony began sounding all over the Internet. At this point, I've seen verified problems with KB 2817630, KB 2810009, KB 2760411, KB 2760588, and KB 2760583. Here's what we know at this point.

KB 2817630 is not a security patch, it's a gratuitously delivered functionality patch for Office 2013, and man has it had an impact on functionality. I've seen dozens of reports that installing this patch, possibly in conjunction with the KB 2810009 patch that is part of MS13-074, causes the folder pane in Outlook 2013 to disappear. An anonymous poster on the SANS Internet Storm Center offers this picture of the effect.

Thirteen hours after the first posts complaining about the problem appeared on the Microsoft TechNet forum, Microsoft still hasn't done anything. As of 00:15 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, Sept. 11, the patches are still available, still marked for automatic installation, and the KB articles have not been updated to reflect the screw-up.

It appears as if uninstalling both patches will bring the folders back, although there's a more substantive workaround offered by one of the posters on the TechNet forum:

This behaviour seems to be caused by using the latest version of the shared Office library mso.dll 15.0.4535.1002 from KB2817630 in combination with an outdated version of Outlook. Try installing KB2817503 to update Outlook to the matching version 15.0.4535.1004. I don't have the issue with the missing folder pane in this constellation. Updating Outlook with the August 2013 hotfix (KB2817503) restored the reading pane on multiple machines.

KB 2760411, KB 2760588, and KB 2760583 are parts of the MS13-072 and MS13-073 security patches for Office 2007. There are many reports of the patches being offered and re-offered and re-re- ... you get the idea. On sevenforums, poster harin35 says:

No error messages. Windows Update appears to install them; but the updates have not been installed. These are 'important' updates.When I run Windows Update again, these three updates reappear as 'important' updates.

No guidance for handling the problem is on offer in the usual forums, because the people moderating the forums haven't a clue what went wrong and Microsoft isn't saying a thing.

Again, as of 00:15 am PDT on Wednesday, Microsoft hadn't pulled any of the patches, nor had it updated the KB articles, posted any recommendations on the usual fora, issued a press release, or made one iota of effort to help its customers. 

Does this make you feel warm and fuzzy about automatic app updates in Windows 8.1? Terry Myerson, are you listening?

t/h SB

This story, "Microsoft botches still more patches in latest Automatic Update," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.


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Monday, 9 September 2013

Business Objects update adds stability, data source support

IDG News Service - SAP has unveiled a new version of its Business Objects BI (business intelligence) software suite that features support for more than 140 data sources and the promise of more stable deployments.

Business Objects 4.1, which was announced Monday, follows the 2011 release of version 4.0. That product slipped well past its original release date, but even with the additional time, many users reported stability issues.

"It wasn't where we wanted it to be," said Jason Rose, vice president of BI product marketing, in an interview. But in the intervening period, SAP made "some significant changes" in the Business Objects development organization with a focus on improving quality and stability, he said.

Along with a number of feature packs, those changes have helped increase customer satisfaction, Rose said.

Now SAP is hoping that with the arrival of 4.1, customers still running version 3.1 will make the leap and upgrade. Most of Business Objects' customers remain on earlier versions, with some 6,500 on 4.0, according to Rose.

New features in 4.1 include support for more than 140 data sources, including Amazon Web Services' Elastic MapReduce and Hadoop Hive. "We're really making the platform big data-ready," Rose said.

The release also brings new SDK (software development kits) and APIs (application programming interfaces) for partners, including one that allows them to create more advanced visualizations. "It's going to be huge for the partner community," Rose said.

Adoption of 4.1 may also be helped by a feature that supports the use of Desktop Intelligence, or DeskI, a popular tool among some users, but for which SAP is no longer providing new updates. While that policy remains in effect, release 4.1 of the Business Objects suite includes a Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack that allows users to view DeskI documents.

The update also features a range of improvements for viewing reports and dashboards on mobile devices; connectivity with SAP's HANA in-memory database; and integration with Jam, SAP's social collaboration software.

SAP is expected to discuss the Business Objects release further during the ASUG SAP Business Objects User conference this week in Anaheim, California.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Sunday, 25 August 2013

Update: Missteps may have hit a tipping point for Ballmer

IDG News Service - An accumulation of blunders under Steve Ballmer's leadership may have hit a tipping point this year, leading to Friday's groundshaking announcement that Bill Gates' former right hand and heir, as well as Microsoft's fiercest cheerleader, will step down as CEO within the next 12 months.

In recent years, Ballmer has been the target of critics over a variety of issues, including their dissatisfaction with the company's stock performance, Google's dominance in search advertising, the perception that Microsoft reacted late to cloud computing and its weak position in the tablet and smartphone OS markets.

"There have been a whole series of market shifts that Microsoft has either missed entirely or misjudged their importance," said Al Gillen, an IDC analyst.

Rebecca Wettemann, a Nucleus Research analyst, said Ballmer should have exited the stage several years ago, because he has lacked the vision to see market fluctuations and failed to properly execute on opportunities.

"This gives Microsoft a chance to start a new chapter and hire a CEO who has vision to lead the market, and not follow it, which is what Microsoft has been doing," she said. "It must be someone who isn't looking just at how we move people to the next version of Office, but how we innovate to drive value to customers."

Most recently, Ballmer has been in hot water over Windows 8, a major upgrade of its flagship OS that many perceive as a flawed release. Billed as a product of historic importance, Windows 8 represents Microsoft's attempt to improve Windows' anemic participation in tablets and smartphones, where Android and Apple's iOS dominate.

However, Windows 8, which began shipping in October, has been heavily criticized due to its radically redesigned user interface, which is based on tile icons and optimized for tablets and other touchscreen devices.

Windows 8 also has a more traditional Windows desktop interface for running legacy applications, but many consumer and enterprise users have complained that toggling between the two interfaces is clunky and inconvenient. There has also been an outcry about the removal of the Start menu and button.

Microsoft plans to release an update for the OS, called Windows 8.1, in October. It addresses these complaints and several others, but there is a concern that the fixes may be too little, too late to salvage the OS's reputation and that it might end up being a fiasco like Windows Vista.

Some critics maintain that attempting to build a single OS for desktops, laptops and tablets was a strategic mistake because Microsoft has ended up instead with a product that isn't good enough for any of those devices. Apple's strategy, by contrast, has been to have Mac OS for its desktops and laptops, and iOS for the iPad, iPhone and iPod.

Microsoft CEO since 2000, Ballmer wrote in an email to employees that Microsoft's \"best days are ahead.\" Ballmer will stay in command until his successor is found.Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, 21 August 2013

YouTube gets an update on mobile, with Chromecast in mind

IDG News Service - YouTube is adding new video-playing functions to its mobile app on iOS and Android devices. Some of the tools are aimed at giving users more control over how they stream video to their television sets using Chromecast, Google's new video streaming device.

The changes are being rolled out officially today, Google-owned YouTube announced in a blog post. A smaller rollout among just a small percentage of users on Android took place on Monday, a YouTube spokesman said.

Chief among the changes is a new tool letting users swipe to move a video to the bottom of the device's screen and reduce its size so they can search for other content while the video still plays. The idea behind the feature is to bring more potential videos to users as they explore within the app, even if the smaller video doesn't command their full attention.

"You can watch a video about making the perfect fried chicken while searching for homemade salted caramel sauce recipes," said YouTube software engineers Matias Cudich and Waldemar Baraldi.

The new version of the app includes several other enhancements to change how it displays video and interacts with other devices like Chromecast. The YouTube app already has a "Cast" button to let users send videos from their smartphone or tablet to their TV through Chromecast, Google TV or PlayStation 3 console. With the updated app, there is a preview screen users will see when the app is connected to their TV.

With the preview, users will see a thumbnail of the video on their smartphone or tablet, allowing them to play it on their TV or add it to the queue, without changing the video that is already playing.

Google unveiled its $35 Chromecast device last month, as a cheaper alternative to competitive devices such as the Apple TV set-top box. Chromecast plugs into a television's HDMI port to let various types of video and music content be pushed to the television from users' smartphones, tablets or desktop computers.

The new version of the YouTube app also lets users search and browse channels for playlists. Previously, users couldn't search or watch playlists within the YouTube mobile app, a spokesman said.

Finally, the updated app features a cleaner, simpler look that will be seen in other apps from Google, YouTube said.

The last time YouTube received considerable changes on mobile was last year, when the iPhone 5 and iPad version of the app got an enhanced look. Last year the Android version also received some speed improvements and an improved interface for channels.

YouTube faces rising pressure to stay fresh and offer new features to users as the mobile video landscape expands. Twitter's Vine app and video on Instagram are two rivals both vying for attention from users.

To give people another option, YouTube's founders recently launched MixBit, a service designed to let users shoot, edit and stitch videos together coming from multiple sources.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Sunday, 18 August 2013

Update: Microsoft restores Outlook.com after three-day outage

Computerworld - Microsoft on Saturday apologized for a three-day partial outage of Outlook.com and said the email service was back up and running, only to note hours later that problems still plagued some customers.

Early Saturday, the Redmond, Wash. company said it had finally resolved Outlook.com's issues, which stemmed from a failure in a caching service of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), the popular synchronization service widely used to sync smartphones and tablets with company email, contacts and calendars stored on Microsoft Exchange Server systems.

"We want to apologize to everyone who was affected by the outage, and we appreciate the patience you have shown us as we worked through the issues," Microsoft said in a note appended to its services status board.

On Wednesday, Outlook.com, the SkyDrive cloud storage service and the Peoples contacts application suffered partial outages that began around 10 a.m. ET. While the Peoples problem was fixed about five hours later, SkyDrive's was not fully resolved until Thursday around 4 p.m. ET.

Some users of Outlook.com, however, were unable to access email on mobile devices that relied on EAS -- a category that includes iPhones, whose iOS uses EAS for synchronization -- until around 4:30 a.m. ET Saturday.

During the outage, Microsoft said, the cache service failure "caused these devices to receive an error and continuously try to connect to our service. This resulted in a flood of traffic that our services did not handle properly."

Microsoft said it had already taken steps to prevent similar problems in the future. "[We] have made two key changes ... one that involved increasing network bandwidth in the affected part of the system, and one that involved changing the way error handling is done for devices using Exchange ActiveSync."

The cache flood problem Microsoft described sounded reminiscent of the trouble earlier this year that the company documented in iOS 6.1-powered iPhones and iPads which affected not only on-premise Exchange servers within enterprises, but also Microsoft's own infrastructure, including its Office 365 subscription service.

But Outlook.com's problems were not completely behind it Saturday morning. Around 2:30 p.m. ET, Microsoft again logged a problem on the status board, saying, "A small percentage of mobile users may experience intermittent issues while syncing email."

Microsoft said the problem was resolved at around 8 a.m. ET Sunday.

The Outlook.com outages were an embarrassment to Microsoft for multiple reasons, including a boast the week before that its Office 365 cloud-based service exceeded 99.9% uptime each of the last four quarters, and new attacks against rival Google Gmail in another run of its "Scroogled" campaign that kicked off Aug. 9.

Microsoft touts its own Outlook.com as an alternative to Gmail.

In fact, the latest Outlook.com outage was the second this year within weeks of a new Scroogled attack. In mid-March, about five weeks after a different Scroogled round, Microsoft's online email service went dark for about 15 hours.

Outlook.com has logged numerous interruptions in the last 60 days, including on June 14 and 27; July 1, 2, 3, 11, 12-14 and 25-26; and the event that began Aug. 14.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at Twitter @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed Keizer RSS. His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

See more by Gregg Keizer on Computerworld.com.

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Monday, 12 August 2013

Apricus Biosciences Update Call (Transcript)

Apricus Biosciences Inc (APRI): Apricus Biosciences Update Call (Transcript) - Seeking Alpha (function(_,e,rr,s){_errs=[s];var c=_.onerror;_.onerror=function(){var a=arguments;_errs.push(a); c&&c.apply(this,a)};var b=function(){var c=e.createElement(rr),b=e.getElementsByTagName(rr)[0]; c.src="//beacon.errorception.com/"+s+".js";c.async=!0;b.parentNode.insertBefore(c,b)}; _.addEventListener?_.addEventListener("load",b,!1):_.attachEvent("onload",b)}) (window,document,"script","4ffae9d6f05d1da630000008"); if (SA.Data && SA.Data.Cache) { var adata = SA.Data.Cache.get('campaign_content'); }.market_currents_list li .ticker_date_left .mc_list_tickers a{font-weight: normal} var ms_slug = ''; var article_dashboards = 'transcript'; var article_sectors_themes = '@transcripts@us@drug-manufacturers-other@healthcare@article@'; var ratings_hash={} var ARTICLE_ID = 1628712 ; var ARTICLE_TYPE = 'transcript'; var ARTICLE_LOCK = ""; var availableABVersions=["ver_a"]; var abOBJ = new ABTest('transcript_pagination', availableABVersions); var machine_id = cookieExists('machine_cookie') ? parseInt(readCookie('machine_cookie')) : 0; var abVersion = abOBJ.value; var sliceSize = 4000; try {window.sessionStorage.setItem("/article/"+ARTICLE_ID, '1');} catch (error) {}var mone_article_tags = "{apri};;;{healthcare};;;{transcripts,us,drug-manufacturers-other};;;{}"var ord = Math.floor(Math.random()*1000000000);Seeking Alpha Seeking Alpha Portfolio App for iPad Finance (1) var ipadData; SeekingAlpha.Initializer.AddAfterLoad(function(){ if (SA.Utils.Env.isIPad && !/3/.test(SA.Data.Cookies.get("user_devices"))){ Mone.event("ipad_promotion_top","top_ipad_banner_large","ipad_promotion_displayed"); ipadData = new SA.Data.iPad(); ipadData.instanceName = "ipadData"; var responseHandler = new Object(); responseHandler.handleResponse = function(data){ if (!data.averageUserRating) return; var stars = data.averageUserRating Home | Portfolio | Market Currents | Investing Ideas | Dividends & Income | ETFs | Macro View | ALERTS | PRO   This transcript was sent to 967 people who get email alerts on  . Which cover: new articles | breaking news | earnings results | dividend announcements Get email alerts on   » This transcript was sent to   people who get the newsletter. Get the newsletter » Comments () This article has  comments. To read them or add your own, click here. Download the Free Seeking Alpha Portfolio App Now! The #1 Portfolio App is Now on iPad! Get instant notifications & never miss a critical update on your stocks! Which Seeking Alpha App is best for you? Seeking Alpha Portfolio Tech Investor ETF investor Energy Investor Email me a link to open from my phone: Continue Apricus Biosciences Update Call (Transcript) Aug 12 2013, 11:01  |  about: APRI if (getURLParam('source') == 'yahoo'){ $('yahoo_finance_link_container').innerHTML = 'back to yahoo finance'; }

Executives

Edward M. Cox - Vice President of Corporate Development

Richard W. Pascoe - Chief Executive Officer and Director

Steven R. Martin - Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer, Senior Vice President and Treasurer

Analysts

William Tanner - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Apricus Biosciences (APRI) Q2 2013 Earnings Call August 12, 2013 9:00 AM ET

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Apricus Biosciences Corporate Update and Highlights Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Edward Cox, Vice President of Business Development. Thank you. Mr. Cox, you may begin.

Edward M. Cox

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the call today. I'm Ed Cox, Vice President of Business Development here at Apricus Bio. With me from Apricus is our Chief Executive Officer, Rich Pascoe; along with Steve Martin, our Chief Financial Officer. During today's call, we will review recent corporate events and recap the company's upcoming milestones, after which, we will open the call for questions.

Let me remind everyone, during today's conference call, the management team will make forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. Please keep in mind that such statements are predictions based on current expectations and actual results could differ materially. You should refer to our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for additional discussions on factors affecting our business.

With that, I will turn the call over to Rich. Rich?

Richard W. Pascoe

Thank you, Ed. And good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

At the beginning of this year, we announced a more focused corporate strategy centered on the creation of long-term shareholder value through the continued development, regulatory approval and commercialization through our strategic partnerships of our lead products Vitaros and Femprox. During the second quarter, we made significant strides towards our objectives.

Our main accomplishments during the second quarter were as follows. In June of this year, we gained regulatory approval for Vitaros in Europe. And we continue to work independently, as well as with our commercialization partners, on obtaining national phase approvals for Vitaros in each of the included individual territories across Europe. Last week, we received national phase approvals in the United Kingdom and Sweden, which is exciting progress for our United Kingdom licensing partner, Takeda. We are in licensing discussions with multiple potential partners for Vitaros in the remaining un-partnered territories throughout the world.

Second, we continued to advance the Femprox development program and are actively preparing for an end-of-phase 2 meeting with the Food and Drug Administration in late August. Following receipt of the official FDA [indiscernible], we will be able to provide more clarity on the Femprox regulatory pathway here in the United States. And third, we've completed a $17.1 million public offering of our common stock and warrants, the net proceeds of which we intend to use for our various development, approval and commercialization efforts related to Vitaros and Femprox.

I would now like to cover each of these items in more detail, starting with Vitaros. As you know, Vitaros is our lead product candidate for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, which utilizes alprostadil and our proprietary permeation enhancer DDAIP in a novel, topically applied formulation. Vitaros is approved as a first-line erectile dysfunction therapy in Canada. And in early June, we received news that the marketing application for Vitaros was approved through the European Decentralized Procedure, or DCP. Under the DCP, we filed the application for marketing approval designating the Netherlands as the Reference Member State or RMS on behalf of 9 other European Concerned Member States or CMS participating in the procedure. The CMS states include France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg. As I mentioned, we continue to work independently as well as with our commercialization partners on the next steps, which is to obtain national phase approvals in each of the included territories listed above. Last week, we received a national phase approval for Vitaros in the United Kingdom and Sweden. And while we can provide no assurances on the exact timing of subsequent national phase approvals, we continue to believe that we and our existing commercialization partners remain on track to obtain national phase approvals for Vitaros throughout Europe, beginning in the third quarter of this year and continuing through the first quarter of next year.

Once these national phase approvals are secured on a country-by-country basis, marketing of Vitaros can then be initiated in each country by our commercialization partners. Once launched, Vitaros will become the first new and novel erectile dysfunction product in nearly a decade. And similar to Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, we believe it is well positioned for commercial success due, in large part, to a unique product profile that addresses a large number of patients who cannot or do not respond well to these existing therapies, or who are untreated or under-treated or who are intolerant to the systematic effects of PDE5 inhibitors such as Viagra. In Europe alone, the existing erectile dysfunction products generated over $1 billion in sales in 2012. And Apricus Bio believes that a significant portion of the market remains untreated or under-treated, which represents a substantial commercial opportunity for Vitaros.

We currently have Vitaros partnerships established in key markets including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. Moreover, interest in Vitaros remains strong in many of the unlicensed territories. Concurrent with the European approval of Vitaros in June of this year, we launched a comprehensive partnering process with the goal of licensing Vitaros in the remaining un-partnered territories in Europe, Latin America and North Africa. Our key partnering objectives for Vitaros are to maximize the total deal value for the asset; expand existing Vitaros partnerships wherever possible; and select partners who have a strong clinical, regulatory and commercial presence in their respective territory or territories. We are reviewing bids recently received from multiple interested parties for these available territories and we expect to complete our partnering process for Vitaros in the fourth quarter of this year.

Now I'd like to turn our attention to our other value-creating opportunity, Femprox. Femprox is our topical combination of alprostadil and DDAIP cream for the treatment of female sexual interest/arousal disorder, or FSIAD. The change in the target indication to FSIAD from female sexual arousal disorder, or FSAD, is a result of the recent update of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, or DSM-V for short, which now includes the patient's interest or desire in sexual activities, as well as their physical arousal. There are currently no approved drugs available to treat this condition, and we are committed to the development and approval of Femprox to provide women with an option for this unmet medical need. To date, we have completed 7 clinical trials with Femprox, including a 100-patient Phase II study and a 400-patient proof-of-concept study. And the data generated from these studies strongly suggest that Femprox has the potential to effectively treat a broad untreated patient population. Moreover, we believe that Femprox could be the first and only on-demand treatment for the approval of FSIAD, as there are currently no current products approved for this condition and where estimates of the market size for the condition are on par with that found in the erectile dysfunction market.

Femprox is unique among its competitors in that it has a direct and localized mechanism of action and the limitation for other company's products in this space have been largely related to the systemic presence of drug amongst always either a hormone-based or SSRI or a very high placebo response rate. We believe that Femprox's distinct characteristics, including its topical delivery and unique mechanism of action, separate it from these other development candidates on many levels.

An end-of-phase 2 meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, is currently scheduled for late August of this year. Leading female sexual medicine experts will join the Apricus clinical, regulatory and CMC team at this meeting in an effort to gain further clarity regarding the Femprox regulatory pathway in the U.S. to include discussing such items as the key patient population, primary and key secondary efficacy endpoints, study design, dose selection and safety monitoring requirements. Following receipt of the official FDA meeting minutes, we will complete the Femprox development plan, review that plan with our scientific advisers and then update our shareholders on that program, likely in the fourth quarter of this year.

Now as to the streamlining process we undertook earlier this year, we continued to make meaningful progress during the quarter. In March, we announced the tale -- sale of Totect to Biocodex. Under the terms of this arrangement, we received an upfront payment at closing and are eligible to receive royalties on net sales of Totect during -- or through 2016. In addition, we have very recently discontinued and/or divested our interest in our remaining non-core assets, to include Granisol and BQ Kits Incorporated. With the completion of the divestiture of our non-core commercial assets, Apricus has officially shed the last remnants of its commercial strategy and is now fully positioned for future growth through the advancement of our core assets, Vitaros and Femprox.

Finally, I'd like to make a few remarks about our recent financing. In May of this year, we completed a public offering of common stock and warrants for gross proceeds of $17.1 million. With this additional funding and a focused strategy that we have articulated, we are confident that we will continue to have the financial resources to carry out our upcoming development, approval and partnering efforts related to Vitaros and Femprox.

I would now like to turn the call over to Steve, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide a status report on the second quarter financial results. Steve?

Steven R. Martin

Thank you, Rich.

Late last week, we announced that we would file our second quarter financial results by Wednesday, August 14, and we're on schedule to achieve that timeline. In the announcement, we stated that our auditors indicated that they believe we may have a material weakness in our system of internal controls over financial reporting. And accordingly, the company is reassessing the adequacy of its internal controls over financial reporting related to certain technical accounting matters for those same periods, and those conclusions will be disclosed in the Form 10-Q when filed this week. It is important to note, the company believes that the audited consolidated financial statements included in the 2012 Form 10-K and the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, do not contain any inaccuracies and can be relied upon. The company takes responsibility for the accuracy of its reported financial results and for the effectiveness of its internal controls very seriously. We expect to complete our internal controls assessment this week related to the June 30, 2013, quarter, collaborating with other auditors on the outcome and any necessary disclosure related to internal controls, and deliver complete and accurate financial results in our upcoming 10-Q.

I can report that the financial position of Apricus remains strong. And our cash was approximately $24.8 million as of June 30, 2013, as compared to $15.1 million as of December 31, 2012. Based upon our current business plan, we believe we have sufficient cash reserves to fund our ongoing operations into late 2014. We expect our cash inflows during 2013 will be from licensing revenues received from commercial partners for our late-stage product candidates. We expect our most significant expenditures in 2013 will include development expenditures, including continued regulatory and manufacturing activities related to Vitaros, and costs associated with the clinical development of Femprox.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Rich. Rich?

Richard W. Pascoe

Thank you, Steve.

I want to close by saying that Apricus is well positioned to fulfill its vision of becoming a leader in the development and commercialization of innovative products that improve sexual health. We have made significant strides this year in executing on our strategy with a more streamlined business model, a more disciplined approach to execution and a singular focus on creating meaningful, long-term shareholder value by advancing Vitaros and Femprox. While we have already achieved several key corporate objectives this year, we have a number of important milestones coming up through the remainder of the year and beyond that we believe will help us more fully realize that vision as well as advance patient care and, importantly, to build long-term value for the benefit of our shareholders. These include additional national phase approvals in Europe for Vitaros; commercial launch of Vitaros following those approvals by our strategic partners Takeda, Sandoz and Bracco; signing of additional partnerships in major global markets; providing more clarity on the revelatory pathway and our development plans for Femprox in the U.S.; and growing the Apricus team's support of our key Vitaros and Femprox initiatives.

With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator?

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Bill Tanner from Lazard Capital Markets.

William Tanner - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Rich, I don't know if you want to comment on what the deal structure might look like for some of the partnerships you might enter into, but I guess I'm really interested is, as we look at the unencumbered or the countries that presumably Vitaros will be approved in and have not yet been partnered, how you see those playing out just with respect to whether you're going to engage multiple partners. And then, I guess also, just to your viewpoint on, at some point in time in the future, is it possible that you might see some consolidation of the partnerships given the fact that you've got, at least now, about -- several partners, and presumably more to come. And I have a couple of follow-ups.

Richard W. Pascoe

Yes, thanks, Bill, appreciate the question. Clearly, we are blessed to have several things related to Vitaros occurring here in the second quarter, with the approval across Europe with these first of what we believe to be many national phase approvals. And we're also excited about our existing commercial partners: Takeda, Sandoz and Bracco are taking the lead in that respect. From a deal structure perspective, I think what we're looking for here and what we're focused on right now is our deals that clearly provide us value for an approved product in the territory. And as I said in my prepared remarks, we are placing a priority on expanding existing relationships, which I think gets to the second part of your question. Our expectations are and the guidance we've provided and the bids we've received relative to this exercise have all pointed potential partners in the direction of a market deal in terms of upfront milestones and royalties. And as I said before, wherever possible, we would like to expand the relationship we have with an existing partner into other parts of Europe or the emerging markets. And so we'll have the opportunity to bring more clarity to this topic to the table in the fourth quarter as we work through the process. The interest in Vitaros, from a partner perspective, not just in Europe but outside of Europe and parts of Latin America and North Africa, for example, has been extraordinarily high. And so we're very pleased with the response that we've received from partners that are interested, both current and potential new partners.

William Tanner - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

And I appreciate that you may be limited in what you can say or what you've been told, but any comment that you could make on Vitaros in Canada?

Richard W. Pascoe

Yes, well, we continue to support the Canadian launch preparations with Abbott. Abbott continues to work through the issue that we described in full detail on the last call, and we'll update everyone if we have news to share. But Abbott remains committed to launching the cold chain product. As you know, the shelf life issue there related to the specifications for the product in Canada have been the key sticking point, and Abbott continues to work towards resolution of that.

William Tanner - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

And then, I guess, just a final one. As with, obviously, rights partnered to Warner, anything to report there, any thoughts on the ones that the acquisition, I guess, has consummated, what might -- what opportunities it might present for you guys?

Richard W. Pascoe

Yes. We're anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Warner Chilcott-Actavis merger, simply because we would like to understand more fully what Actavis' intentions are as it relates to the continued development of Vitaros. We know that Warner has remained active with the product, including purchasing clinical trial material from us last year. But at the same time, given the status of that merger and a -- we would anticipate a closing of that deal later this year. It's difficult for them to say much about their portfolio rationalization at this time to us. Having said that, if the opportunity were to present itself for us to repatriate those rights from, in this case, Actavis, we would be very interested in that because we feel very strongly that Vitaros is a product that should be introduced in the United States, and we'd like to see that happen.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Scott Henry from Roth Capital Partners.

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

You've got a lot done this quarter. For starters, the U.K. and Sweden approvals, when do you expect a product launch could happen? I don't know if -- did you have to go through pricing discussions there? And can you quantify the magnitude of those markets?

Richard W. Pascoe

Thanks, Scott. So the U.K. process, of course, has been guided and directed by our partner, Takeda. And the Swedish process is one that we're primarily responsible for through our own efforts, and we'll continue to see that play out here in the third and fourth quarter with the remaining territories. Obviously, United Kingdom represents a much larger market opportunity relative to Sweden and is potentially in -- at least in Western Europe, a -- I would say, a close second to France in terms of its overall value and market opportunity. From a launch timing perspective, we're not commenting specifically on partners -- our partner's timing, but we do believe that Takeda is poised with this particular national phase approval and the preparations that they've laid the groundwork for, to date, to be in a position to be very aggressive on their launch timing. And so we will report out at the appropriate time more details on launch preparations and timing, but we'll obviously be taking that queue and that information with their consent from Takeda.

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Okay. And could you just walk through, I know you've given a lot of this information, in Europe, what countries are partnered and which countries are not partnered?

Richard W. Pascoe

So the countries that are currently partnered are, the United Kingdom is partnered with Takeda, U.K. specifically. Sandoz has rights in Germany and Bracco has the rights to the product in Italy. So that leaves the balance of Western Europe to include the Nordics; Benelux, for example; all of the emerging markets, including Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, North Africa as well as Latin America and Asia Pacific. And the process that we have been working through over the last couple of months is focused on licensing out the remaining territories in Europe to include Eastern Europe, Russia and the like, as well as focusing on North Africa and parts of Latin America. And we've had interest of -- from multiple parties across all of those territories.

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Okay. Now -- and is your goal to partner France now as well...

Richard W. Pascoe

Yes.

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Is that probably the largest European country left not partnered?

Richard W. Pascoe

That is correct. France, Spain are the -- probably the 2 of the most value, combined, when you just look at the patient population, France of course being probably the leader across the board of all erectile dysfunction products in Europe.

Scott R. Henry - Roth Capital Partners, LLC, Research Division

Okay. And then final question, on Femprox. If I heard correct, and maybe I didn't, but it sounds like you've changed the indication from FSD to FSIAD. If that's the case, how should I think about that any differently, if at all?

Richard W. Pascoe

Not at all. This is a result of the DSM-IV being updated into currently the DSM-V, which occurred in May of this year, so since our last conference call. And in an effort to try to make it less challenging for physicians to diagnose women with the condition, the arousal and the interest disorder have been combined now into a single diagnosis, and thus the change. From a clinical development perspective, from an opportunity perspective, and clearly we'll be able to get in front of the FDA here shortly and ask the appropriate questions related to this, we see no change in our strategy or plans for developing Femprox. We think, in fact, this change will potentially make it easier, simpler for us from a recruitment and from a -- attracting patients into the trials that we would run for the product. So it's a nomenclature issue within the DSM-V or the change from IV to V. And as a result, we're adjusting our nomenclature from an indication perspective accordingly.

Operator

If there are no other questions at this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comment.

Richard W. Pascoe

Thank you, operator. And I'd like to thank the entire team here for their ongoing efforts in successfully executing on our strategic focus. We are dedicated to making Apricus Bio a leader in the male and female sexual health marketplace. And I want to thank you all in the call for joining us today as well. And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the company directly.

Again, thank you today for your time.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

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