Nanoform Finland Oyj

OMXH:NANOFH

Earnings Call Analysis

Nanoform Returns to Growth with Record Customer Projects and Strong Financial Position

In the latest quarter, Nanoform saw a turnaround with a record number of customer projects signed, leading to a positive year-on-year growth in revenue after six quarters of decline. The company expects this momentum to continue, targeting a gross margin above 90%. With cash reserves of EUR 46 million and no debt, Nanoform is well-positioned for future growth. It anticipates signing multiple licensing agreements and further GMP projects in the upcoming quarters. Notably, the pivotal trial for Nanoenzalutamide is set for the first quarter of next year, reinforcing the company’s commitment to innovation and market expansion.

A New Era of Growth

In the third quarter of 2024, Nanoform reported a significant turnaround as they signed a record number of customer projects, particularly in the non-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) sector. This marks a concrete shift from a prolonged period of negative growth over the past six quarters, where year-on-year growth was consistently declining. For the first time, the company achieved both positive year-on-year and sequential revenue growth from Q2 to Q3. The management noted their intention to maintain this upward trajectory, indicating that sustained growth will continue in the coming quarters.

Financial Performance Insights

Despite the positive signs, the revenues are still relatively low compared to industry standards. Yet, with a robust cash position of EUR 46 million and no debt, Nanoform's balance sheet remains strong. Plans are in motion to enhance gross margins, which are projected to exceed 90% due to improved operational efficiencies from insourcing their GMP Quality Control (QC) lab. This will bolster gross profits directly tied to rising revenues, transforming Nanoform into a more competitive player in the pharmaceutical technology space.

Strategic Shifts and Deal Flow

The company is set to witness an increase in the proportion of GMP contracts moving forward, which are crucial for higher revenue streams. Nanoform targets to secure several deals across various products in the upcoming quarters, with their pipeline already showing strong interest. They have received six term sheets for their innovative product kernels, including Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide, which are being tailored to withstand competitive pressure in the market. The management anticipates multiple partners in different markets, emphasizing an auction-like scenario for securing these partnerships.

Upcoming Clinical Trials

Significantly, Nanoform has indicated plans for important clinical trials for Nanoenzalutamide, aimed to start in the first quarter of the coming year. These trials are being approached collaboratively, with the costs shared among consortium partners, typically amounting to around EUR 1 million. This study is pivotal for not just product development but also for reinforcing the company’s negotiating power with potential commercialization partners.

Industry Positioning and Future Prospects

As the demand for improved and innovative drug delivery methods grows, particularly in the realms of bioavailability and reducing pill burdens, Nanoform is well positioned. Their technology promises benefits over conventional methods, such as reducing multiple large pills down to single, more efficacious tablets. Furthermore, as they engage with major pharmaceutical companies and showcase successful case studies, their credibility in the market increases. Management sees an encouraging outlook with expectations for future growth in both small and large molecule project interests.

Conclusion and Takeaways

The strategy put forth by Nanoform aims to solidify its market presence amid growing competition. Emphasizing high-value partnerships, transitioning projects to GMP standards, and leveraging an innovative technological edge creates a narrative of strong upside potential for investors. The focus on operational growth coupled with a positive industry sentiment makes Nanoform a company to watch for significant returns as it continues to navigate through its growth phase ahead.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Henri Von Haartman, executive]

Good afternoon, all and a warm welcome to Nanoform's third quarter 2024 report presentation. My name is Henri von Haartman and I'm your Director of Investor Relations. Today our CEO, Edward Haeggstrom; CFO, Albert Haeggstrom; Chief Development Officer, Peter Hanninen; and Chief Commercial Officer, Christian Jones will present to you.

This presentation is webcasted through Financial Hearings and there is also the possibility to call in and listen by phone. The presentation slides are shown throughout the webcast and they can also be found on our webpage in the Investor section. After the presentation we will hold a Q&A and it's possible to call in and ask questions.

We will today start with an introduction to Nanoform, then financials, then our product kernels and we conclude with commercial aspects.

With these words, our CEO, Founder, Professor Edward Haeggstrom. Please go ahead.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Thank you, Henri, and welcome also on my behalf. Just up front a few things. We're going to talk about a record number of POCs. We're going to talk about deal negotiations, which shows the relevance we have in the industry. We're going to talk about registration batches, which shows that we can meet those deals once signed.

We will show that the insourcing of the GMP QC lab really has driven the gross margin up, and we will talk, of course, about Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide, the 2 blockbuster things that are our sharpest tip right now. You will also see faces from very senior leaders in the industry. Again, a testament to the fact that our relevance is growing as we move forward. There will probably also be talk about mosaic, which is a web of deals that we are starting to work on.

Next slide, please. Here we can see our key strategy. It really has 3 pillars. One, all active pharmaceutical ingredients should be Starmapped. So basically, our AI is able to give them a ranking on how well we will perform and then how we should set the knobs on the machine.

Nanoform works with customers and partners to enable both novel and existing molecules to become new and improved medicines. This is important. We do stuff in-house. We do stuff with development partners and we do stuff with commercialization partners.

The third box, in parallel to show a conservative industry the power of nanoforming, we create up to a dozen product kernels. Here the important part is we need to drive the development and the uptake of the platforms. Therefore, we do this. We partner out in order to not have to take all the costs ourselves.

Next, please. Here you can see the 4 platforms for small molecules called CESS, for large molecules called BIO, for formulation and the AI. We already spoke about STARMAP. The nanoformulation is where we really make sure that the APIs that we have nanoformed, they then go into a formulation which drives the biological response.

And then both for the small molecules and large molecules, you can see that high drug load has surfaced as something which is important to our prospects and customers. On the small molecule side, you can see that the bioavailability continues to be very important.

Next, please. Here you can see about the bioavailability. The idea is that when you nanoform, you take coarse powder, you make it very fine. And the reason why this is effective is that you increase the active surface area.

Next, please. Here is a biologics slide. In the entire universe of biologics, there are very few technologies and you can see that our nanoforming creates small particles, which has allow us to play this game with high concentration. It allows us to use, for instance, small needles. It allows us to use moderate injection forces. And most importantly, it opens up new commercial strategies for people playing in this universe.

You can see in the middle a spray dried, which is one of the key contenders, and then you can see lyophilized flakes to the right. Lyophilization is very cold, think minus 60. Spray drying is warm or hot, think 60 to 100 degrees. And we are then in the Goldilocks zone where it's neither hot nor cold.

Next, please. Here you can see the simplified value chain. So basically, we work with large pharma, mid-sized and with biotechs. We get the bulk API in, we Nanoform it. They own the material. We get paid for service. We've get paid to make material and then we get paid for technology access or for royalty-based pricing later on.

Next, please. Here you can see 5 boxes with highlights from Q3. As said, we had a new quarterly record on the customer non-GMP project signed. This is, of course, important because it means that we learn about new APIs and we also get the opportunity to move them into GMP projects.

The revenue growth is back. Albert will talk more about this.

Then you can see in the third box, Takeda. Takeda is a big company in the biologic space. And of course, here we are very, very happy for the endorsement we got and also to be able to bring projects forward. And of course, later on into GMP.

We can see in box number 4 that we have continued to manufacture GMP material for the registration batches and the pivotal studies.

And then the last box, we have been working a lot this year and this quarter on collecting term sheets, letter intents to really build up these auctions for deals to be made around the product kernels.

Next slide, please. With this, I hand over to Albert. Albert, please.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

Thank you, Edward. If we start, as Edward said, you can see that we signed a record number of deals in the quarter. So of course, the quarters fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter, but we clearly see that we continue to be at a 20 plus level. And we see the interest growing, and this was also helped by the fact that the biologics side is now starting to pick up. So we see growth, in the future quarters and years clearly in the number of projects.

To the right-hand side, you can see the rolling 12 months numbers. Of course, the important thing is that we also are working and we expect the proportion of GMP contracts-to-contracts overall or projects overall to increase in the coming years.

If we then look at the revenue, we are still at quite low numbers, but you can see that after 6 quarters of negative year-on-year growth, we now had a positive year-on-year growth. And one thing which I think is potentially more important is that this was the first time we also saw a sequential growth from the second to the third quarter. And usually, the third quarter is lower than the second quarter because when people are in July on holiday, we don't book any revenue. But despite this situation, we booked more revenue in the third quarter than in the second. We really feel that after this 1.5 year of negative growth, we are back in growth mode and that should continue in the coming quarters and years.

We got the Fimea license in August and already in the last quarters, we have been able to more efficiently use outsourced GMP QC analysis. But now from the fourth quarter going forward, this will drop further and this will of course help the gross margin to go back to a level that we target, meaning above 90%. This will improve the gross profit further. So when top-line grows and the gross margin is above 90%, that means that even you get direct impact from the growing top-line to the bottom-line.

And here you can see all the sort of analysis, the different kind of analysis that needs to be performed when you do a GMP campaign. So up until September, more or less all of it was outsourced. Now we have insourced it and we only use our outsourcing partners for to have a sort of second source if needed or if something would happen. But basically, everything has been insourced.

This of course, also lowers the shipping cost. It also improves the flexibility. We can do it in-house. People [ work ] 50 meters or 5 meters and they get -- so we improve the speed, the interaction between the teams. And of course, this also means that our service offering is broader because we don't have to utilize outsourced resources. So clients can ask us to do it in in-house and that's a positive thing.

If we then look at the operating free cash flow, the positive trend continues and we expect it to continue in the coming quarters and years. At the end of the third quarter, Nanoform had EUR 46 million in cash and short-term governmental bonds -- government bonds, T-bills, and we had no debt. So we have a strong balance sheet. And this is, of course, important for us also when we no negotiate around deals that the counterparties understand that we are well-funded, we have a strong balance sheet and that is a good thing.

Final slide is around near-term business targets. Here you can see the traction so far. Number of customer projects, we target to sign more this year than last year. We also target to improve the cash flow this year versus last year and we still target to sign 1 -- at least 1 license or commercial supply agreement during this year.

We have signed already half a dozen term sheets or we have received already half a dozen term sheets, the first LOI is signed. And here we can say that for us, these are deals and these are agreements when we work together with the commercialization partner to put millions and millions of tablets on the market around the world for the coming 5, 10 or 15 years. That means that for us, it's important to strike good deals, not whether they are signed in December or January or so. So what we now say is that we will sign several deals on several products during the coming quarters.

And with this, I hand over to Peter to talk more about the product kernels.

[Peter Hanninen, executive]

Thank you, Albert. To start and to reiterate as well, in order for us to further accelerate the adoption of our technology offering by the industry, we are developing internally a number of these nano-enabled reformulations. And this is really to show the global pharmaceutical industry in practice what our technology can enable for their products across a range of delivery routes and for both small and large molecules. And each of these has also the possibility to become a commercially attractive partnering opportunity for us in line with what we are already seeing.

The most advanced of these are, of course, our Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide projects that offer an alternative to ASDs. And as a reminder, amorphous solid dispersions or ASDs, as they are commonly known, is really the technology that has enabled a past generation of poorly soluble drugs. And ASD-based medicines is a group of approximately 50 products now on the market selling for an estimated $50 billion annually and with hundreds of products estimated to be in the development pipeline as ASDs.

Amorphous materials are notoriously unstable, requiring a high amount of polymers to stabilize the drug product. And this means that in some cases less than 10% of the content in a pill is actually the drug substance that makes the patient better and the rest polymers and other excipients. And for the patient this means large or many tablets that need to be taken.

What we are doing with our nanocrystalline formulation platform is to enable significantly higher drug loads in the product and for the patient this means smaller pills and a reduced pill burden. And we believe our technology can here provide an attractive alternative both for the originators and value-added medicine companies alike. And this is also what we are seeing in practice at the moment.

As we reported today, we are very pleased that the Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide projects have attracted clear partnering interest as evidenced by the term sheets received and as Albert earlier mentioned. We are now in the process of making sure that we can get the best possible partners for commercialization of these assets and expect to sign several deals on several of these in the coming quarters.

For Nanoenzalutamide we look forward to the pivotal trial, of course, that is planned to start first quarter next year. And as has been mentioned, we're currently manufacturing the material for this. In parallel we, this morning, also reported that we were pleased with the results from an in vivo pharmacokinetic study in which we compared our crystalline Nanoapalutamide tablet prototypes to the originator presentation.

These results give us confidence in choosing the lead prototypes and should also accelerate the interest in this opportunity among potential partners. Based on our earlier experience with Nanoenzalutamide, following further optimization of the formulation, we believe the next step should be a pilot PK study in humans.

To close out on my part, as you can see during the past 12 months, we have been able in short order to build momentum in this space and are in addition to Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide working on a number of additional product kernels already. And these are overall, I would say, progressing very well.

We cannot yet disclose the identity of all of these for IP and commercial reasons, but we will of course provide updates when appropriate. Following on the progress of Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide, we target to partner also these for commercialization in the coming few years.

And now I will turn over to Christian.

[Christian Jones, executive]

Thank you very much, Peter, and a pleasure to talk to you today about our commercial function and the activity that we've seen in the last quarter, in quarter 3, but also throughout the year.

We're going to talk in this section around the work that we've been doing with our customers and our partners to help enable their novel and existing molecules to become new and improved medicines. So here we're typically talking about innovative pharma from preclinical stage all the way through to lifecycle management of their assets.

As you can see on this slide, it's a very busy slide and it's busy for one reason because we've been busy. Top left, we have Dr. Ajit Shetty, former chairman of Janssen and Dr. Mak Jawadekar, a former Pfizer Global Exec visiting our facilities earlier this year, to be able to attract people like this to our organization says something about the work that we're doing.

And next to them we have a visit that was carried out by AstraZeneca. We were delighted to welcome Sophie and Geof from AstraZeneca. Geof is the BD Director for their innovation growth area and Sophie is a R&D Director within AstraZeneca. A continuation of 5 years of relationship with AZ and one that we're very pleased to see moving forward as we continue to grow together in partnership with them.

To the right of that, you see us in Portugal recently, a couple of weeks ago, visiting our partners Bluepharma. Bluepharma and Nanoform are part of the ONConcept consortium and we are working together to secure a successful future for Nanoenzalutamide and Bluepharma are the drug product manufacturing partner as part of that consortium.

And then on the right, this is a photo taken from last week when we were in Japan. We had a packed-out audience of Japanese delegation, about 300 strong in that room, senior scientific and commercial representation from the major pharma companies in Japan, very interested at the expansion of Nanoform's technology into this marketplace and the innovation that our technology can deliver for both the domestic market and also for the international markets for Japanese pharma companies.

Bottom left, you'll see Dr. Andreas Liebminger, the Head of the Plasma-derived Therapy Pharmaceutical Sciences at Takeda, who presented on Nanoform's technology back in May of this year and presented on the opportunity for high concentration biologics to be achieved with Nanoform's BIO platform. This was a pivotal moment for us this year and one that has seen, since then, significant traction in the marketplace around Nanoform, around what we are doing [Technical Difficulty] for the offering that we can sell and partner.

And we have seen a lot of interest around how Nanoform can help to enable high concentration biological products. Take IV products and convert them to subcutaneous injection. Take a 2 injection a day product and convert it to a single injection a day. The industry sees significant value in this. And then at the same conference, we had Christian Schneider from Celanese presenting on our technology.

And to the right, you'll see some of the other conferences that we've been active in. CPHI, that was held in early October, was a record CPHI for Nanoform. We saw 120 pre-arranged meetings. Now, I'll put this into perspective. The previous year, we had 54 and the year before that, 40. So to go from a gradual increase of pre-arranged meetings to suddenly 120, something has changed. And people are starting to see the value of what Nanoform are doing.

We've seen a significant interest in our technology for, as I think, case studies exemplify that Peter mentioned, enzalutamide, apalutamide. Pharma customers have started to see the real value of what we can do to take products that would ordinarily be several tablets and reduce them to a single tablet. Discussions around these products were held at CPHI, but also discussions around early development pipelines and how Nanoform could actually enable a single tablet for a pharma company to be launched where no generics could ever copy that tablet, and that is valuable.

We also saw at the PODD conference a fantastic event where Nanoform really took center stage. The opening of that conference was held by Bob Langer, who opens the conference each year, followed by a Zeitgeist presentation by Anand Subramony, SVP at Lilly, followed by Nanoform. And we had an audience of about 1,000 people in the room, in the grand ballroom in Boston and not one person got up to leave, and I was very proud to see the company presenting on that stage. On the following day, I was privileged to chair a panel discussion with GSK, Takeda and others around high concentration biologics.

So a theme has certainly started to emerge. It's the value that Nanoform can place in improving bioavailability, and increasing drug load for small molecules, and increasing drug load, and patient convenience for biologics.

So if we move to the next slide, you'll see that we've had a positive increase in the number of customers in the last 9 months, but we've also seen an increase in the number of projects and 17 projects added and as Albert mentioned a record number in this last quarter with 12 non-GMP projects signed.

This just gives you an overview of the types of therapy areas that we're working on from pre-clinical all the way through to marketed products, and we've shown this information previously in previous reports. But the next slide that I'm going to show you is a little bit more detail around some of the active programs we have ongoing and some of their formulation challenges. And these are some of the reasons that pharma companies come to Nanoform.

So you can see here that we work with mid-sized pharma and biotech all the way through to large pharma. We work across a variety of different therapeutic areas, oncology, infectious disease, respiratory, CNS being areas called out here. But the formulation challenges, drug load is a common challenge, fine particle fraction, this is the delivery to the lung is also another area where people see that our particles can have increased benefits, and long acting injectables and sustained release profiles and other areas. But what you also see from this slide is that we have a growing proportion of projects in the large molecule space.

And I would say that this has really taken off in the last year, the level of interest around our large molecule platform. The current companies in the marketplace servicing this very challenging delivery mechanism is Halozyme and people are really seeing Nanoform's technology as potentially a superior alternative to deliver more patient-centric medicines for patients.

And if we move to the next slide, you can see that the year may be drawing to a close, but we're still very, very busy. Next week, we will be at the SEB conference in Stockholm, followed by DNB's conference in Oslo, followed by conference in Manchester on the pharma partnering side, and other activities throughout the year, leading into a very busy start to next year and going forward as we progress. But I think the message is a significant amount of commercial interest in Nanoform's technology is really ramped up throughout this year. Q3 saw a big uptick in the number of projects. And based on the level of interaction that we've seen in Q3 and into Q4, we should see some significant results coming forward in terms of sales and future business as we move forward.

And I will end the presentation here and open up for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Christopher from SEB. Please go ahead.

[Christopher Uhde, analyst]

Christopher Uhde from SEB. I guess my first question is just in terms of sort of operational KPIs or to track, you used to, up until this quarter, give out information on the number of proposals issued. That's no longer there. What can you say about that? And just trying to get a sense of what your confidence is in hitting your 2024 target and the sort of carrying the momentum towards that acceleration of projects signing growth. So that's my first question.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Christopher, Edward here. We are business as usual here. The proposals issued is on a good level, and we see momentum carrying into the next year.

Christian, do you want to say something more?

[Christian Jones, executive]

Yes, I think we're focusing much more on, perhaps in this presentation, on the deals that we have upcoming and the sort of the mosaic around how we might want to sort of structure those deals. And the level of commercial activity has dramatically increased. So we just didn't think it was that relevant to include that information into the report. But what's going to speak is the numbers that we deliver, and you'll see that at the end of the year.

[Christopher Uhde, analyst]

And so then, I guess, my next question would be sort of around the term sheet versus the project. So you mentioned that 6 have been issued and several projects are actively sort of being negotiated, I guess. So is the ratio basically -- are we talking basically, one more or less per project, or are there any that have multiple projects? And can you say if Nanoenzalutamide has more than 1 term sheet that's been issued for it? That's the next question.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

So Edward here. Christopher, this is a convoluted question that you posed, but let me see if I can answer in a simple way. The mechanism for going POC to GMP, I see that as a sort of one process. Then I see the product kernel negotiation, the deal negotiations, as being a different process. Of course, the reason why we can have these negotiations is the work we have done before and the networks we have put in place.

Then you asked whether there are more than one takers for each of these opportunities. The answer is yes, and that's, of course, what we want to do. We want to create an auction-like situation there.

Peter, do you want to add something?

[Peter Hanninen, executive]

No, exactly. So these processes typically move in a fashion where first you have non-confidential discussions, then you have some confidential discussions. There is an expression of interest, which may be followed by a term sheet, and then the discussion sort of moves forward from there. And with that in mind, the further the projects have advanced, the more term sheets there are on the table and vice versa.

So the short answer to the question is that yes, there are multiple term sheets for enzalutamide, and we are progressing all of these processes in a, I would say, quite controlled way to be able to extract as much value from them as possible.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

If I answer a little bit different, so on all the projects, so not only Nanoenzalutamide and Nanoapalutamide, but also the other kernels where we have already initiated discussions, we expect to have multiple partners for different regions. So if you think about Europe, you have 5 big countries in Europe, and then you have Europe. So we could have local champions, and then we could have a European champion. You have U.S., where you could have one for U.S. or several for U.S. You have Japan, you have Middle East, Africa, and you have Asia. So all these regions have different discussions, and all the products have different discussions. So we expect to get, as we have said, several signed agreements on several products in the coming quarters.

[Christopher Uhde, analyst]

And then, all right, so you have a slide now comparing where you are today versus the IPO. Yes, and it's pretty fantastic progress, I think, operationally. But so we're basically almost 5 years since the IPO. So how well differentiated are you today versus alternatives that are not necessarily yet well established, but so both on the CESS and the BIO side of things?

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Can I ask a question, whether you mean from technology point of view or how do you mean?

[Christopher Uhde, analyst]

Yes. Well, I mean, definitely, I was thinking of the technology point of view. I don't know if there are other aspects that you think are worth addressing that'd be interesting here too.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Okay, so let me answer you in 2 ways. From a technology point of view, I think we are now after 5 years of commercial efforts, well differentiated people have a clear understanding of what we have tried to do and what we have done due to several thousands of customer interactions that we have had over the years.

Then when it comes to a commercial differentiation, I think, as we said in the beginning of this call, there seems to now crystallize out bioavailability and the high concentration. That doesn't mean that it's the only thing we do, but those are core drivers for then what was here described as having the ability to go into a 1 pill strategy, or so forth.

Maybe, Christian, you want to say something else?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

If I continue directly from there, so I would put it like this. When we did the IPO, we had a few lines and we have had potentially 100 or so hours on the lines. Now we are at 10,000 hours on the lines. We have a very robust technology. We have done 100 projects and at the beginning or at the IPO, we were mainly thinking about can we Nanoform them? Can we put them on the line? Can we get certain particles? Now we have a lot of knowledge. What can we do? We have come up with a new way to produce these crystallized particles alternatives for ASDs and we have concretely produced tablets that are much, much smaller and much fewer than what the big pharma companies have been able.

So think about it. You have a blockbuster product -- several blockbuster products on the market where you need to take many pills or a really, really big pill that's difficult to swallow. This development was done over 5 or 10 years with the resources of a large pharma launching a blockbuster. We have been able to do something that nobody has been able to do before. Create, for example, 1 pill for Nanoenzalutamide 160 milligram or 1 pill for 240 milligrams Nanoapalutamide. So 10,000 hours on the line, robust process, being able to make products that nobody has been able to make before. And this is sort of the key. So we -- and we have built, so we have 20 lines. We have the Fimea licenses and so forth, and we have a brand which is really recognizing the industry. So we are a very different company.

But Christian, you have been on the journey also. So how would you answer this very interesting question?

[Christian Jones, executive]

Well, I think, when we first started out, people were interested. There was speculative interest around what we were doing. I think we started to show the value of what we can do, as particularly with these examples of enzalutamide and apalutamide. And people realize that this is a technology to be taken seriously, especially when we say we're going to put a product on the market by 2027. The pharma industry is all about risk. For Nanoform, it's all about being able to prove that we are not a risk, that we actually can create significant value for our partners. And so by being able to talk about putting products on the market, by being able to actually do it, actually shows the industry that the technology is something to be taken seriously.

And also, since over the last few years, we've scaled the technology, and we're now at production rates that are capable of producing 10 metric tons per year for a single line. And that gives huge confidence to our pharma partners, where they're talking about a global population that needs to be fed with their medicine. So we are building that confidence. And I think being able to show the value and demonstrate it on products allows partners to see us differently.

And added to this, when we think about the small molecule platform, there is also in parallel, and this is not something we necessarily set out to do, but was a function of our technology inherently built in, is it's green, right? It's a green technology. And we when you compare that to the other technologies available to try and achieve the same, say, or say something similar, it will be perhaps not as good. These are not green technologies, spray drying is a very carbon heavy technology. And we're able to get better results, similar by availability, but much better drug loading, and do it in a green way. And that very much aligns with the major pharma companies in which we are working with.

And as you can see from this slide here, having built up relationships with 11 major pharma companies now, some of which have allowed us to use their logos on the right-hand side. And with many other companies, we're starting to really get the brand visibility, recognition and credibility out there. I hope that answers your question, Chris.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

I'd like to start with a few questions regarding your customer project pipeline. Firstly, you signed 12 non-GMP deals in the third quarter. Is this a new normal, or should we assume return to a sort of more normal level from fourth quarter onwards?

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Sami, you asked us to have a crystal ball. I think that the best estimation for where we are going is to take a moving average of what we have.

Albert, do you want to add something?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

I think what we have said is we expect to see growth in the coming quarters and years. And that is also related to the number of projects. But of course, there will still be fluctuations between the quarters.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Okay. And then my second question would be, do you see possibilities to make new GMP deals over the next 2 quarters? Which projects would have the potential to move into a more commercial phase?

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Albert, do you want to take that one?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

I think we are not giving guidance on how many projects we are going to sign for the coming 2 quarters. But what we expect is that we expect to see more GMP projects coming in the coming quarters and years. And if you think about these projects, for example, here, many of them are such that we -- they could go to GMP. One where we have, for example, publicly stated that [ that ] we will get animal results in the beginning of the year or in the first quarter is from Takeda results. And this is one example that we have been able to publicly mention. Of course, if these are great, then they could move quite quickly to GMP. But of course, also around all these product kernels that we do, when we sign deals, they will also become GMP projects in the coming quarters and the years.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Then I would have a couple of questions regarding deal making around your 7 product kernels. Firstly, you so far received 6 term sheets following some 100 meetings. Do you expect to receive a material amount of additional term sheets based on these meetings? Or do you actually need to have additional meetings with new prospective clients in order to grow the amount of term sheets?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

No, so what we have done there is that we have had 100 plus meetings. And we expect to get more term sheets and more LOIs and more deals on multiple or several products in the coming quarters. So remember, if you take 1, 2, 3 and more products, we will do get many term sheets and sign several deals on each of these in the coming quarters. That's the target.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Yes, so just [indiscernible]

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

Many of the meetings have been held, and we will still hold many meetings to come in the coming months and quarters.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Yes, but like you have enough, let's say critical mass in the prospect pipeline, that you just need to work through that pipeline in order to get more letters of intents.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

We already have the critical mass, but of course, we will continue to talk with the potential partners.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Okay, and then maybe finally, can you comment on the quality of term sheets that you have received? Are these product speaking acceptable to you? Or do you need, let's say, more higher quality term sheets in order to grow the number of LOIs and actually reach contracts with customers?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

We -- these are all serious players, so they don't do low quality stuff. It's -- they are all quality term sheets, and these are serious pharma companies, and they only do quality stuff. And that is also what we expect.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

Yes, and how are the kind of commercial terms and conditions looking from your perspective? I mean, are they in line with your assumptions or any sort of surprises?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

They are in line with our assumptions. And of course, it's always a negotiation, and the positive thing is that because we have so many interested potential partners, that means that we will get lots of term sheets. We have already got several, and that means that we will be able to strike fair deals. Fair is the right word. We are not trying to maximize any one single deal. We are trying to assign many fair deals, where we add value and we get paid for it.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Christian Glennie from Stifel.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

The 12 projects signed in the third quarter, I'm just trying to understand the dynamics behind that. I mean, historically, you've called out sort of biotech funding weaknesses and things like that, for reasons why previous quarters may have been low. Biotech funding hasn't -- that environment has maybe improved a little bit, but not significantly. So what would have driven that sort of significant step up in the third quarter, please? And then maybe if you can say anything around the sort of mix between small molecules and biologics in that in those 12.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

So maybe we will let Christian take this, but in a sort of short way of answering, it's clear that our brand has continued to grow. And now it generated this kind of search, which we are, of course, very happy about.

Then when it comes to the mix, I think that what you see on the current slide shows something about the mix. We started from only small molecules. And then now we have this ratio that you can count here. And I think that the ratio of the large molecules will continue to increase on this slide, but maybe Christian from the trenches.

[Christian Jones, executive]

Yes, I would say absolutely right, Christian, it's not like biotech funding and suddenly taken off. However, I think what we had started to do, maybe a year to even 18 months ago, was to start to really entrench and develop our relationships with our major pharma partners, because they have deeper and broader pipelines, and have more funding available to support developments of their projects. And that's really paid off. Because from those relationships, we've been able to take some major pharma companies that have had several projects that they want to give to us at a given time. And that's helped. And of course, we hope to see that continue as we work on those projects with them. So that's -- I think that's why potentially, you started to see an uplift.

We do sense that there is the biotech market does seem to be moving more positively. Some of the engagements that we've had over the past 12 months or so, where maybe we've had projects on hold, some of those biotechs have suddenly got funding, and then therefore, they're able to work with Nanoform. But I think, it's a combination of that plus the efforts and the focus that we've placed on trying to win business with major pharma as well.

And then to the large molecule, small molecule split, I would say, still slightly more on the small molecule side, but a growing interest in the large molecule area. And so what this pipeline will look like in 12 months from now, I don't know, but large molecules is certainly a very, very hot area for us. And people see our technology is very, very attractive to enable better products.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

Also remember that we -- our target is to beat all major pharma companies, let's say the 20 biggest ones have sort of recurring business with them, standing purchase orders where they can send us 10 molecules or so per year. And then we would get a lot of molecules in every year. This is our long-term target. We are still not there. But we have seen more multi-API deals with large pharma, which can fluctuate. But our target is to get to a situation where we have with all the major ones, they send us every year, new molecules.

And one thing, for example, we have now been saying is that if anybody has a drug under development, where they know that the dosing will be above 100 milligrams, they should consider nanoforming instead of, for example, spray drying. Because if you have a dose above 100 milligrams, you will have a problem with drug load, you might have a too big pill or too many pills. By coming to Nanoform, all these projects, ASTs with a more than 100 milligram should be nanoformed. And this is one example where we could see in the coming years, a really nice growth.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

Maybe thinking about revenue progression from here you called out return to growth here, but sequentially you have seen quarter-on-quarter growth through this year. Typically, the fourth quarter has been your best quarter, maybe last year was a bit of anomaly there. You'll get stuck into executing these new contracts -- new projects. So just wondering whether you would expect sequential growth in the fourth quarter for revenues versus Q3.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Albert.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

IFRS is always a little bit tricky and projects, how many hours are used and so forth. But of course, our target is to have sequential growth quarters and over the years. And we want to get to a total different level of revenue from where we are today. So we need to get into the total different level compared to where we are. And that will happen when you move from non-GMP to GMP. In GMP, the numbers are much higher and also when we start to do these deals where we get all kinds of fees and milestones and so forth. So that is how we see it.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

And I guess maybe the pivotal trial for that Nanoenzalutamide. What more can maybe say at this point regarding -- and I know probably that the size and scope of that trial may vary according to the sort of partnering discussions you have. But what can you say in terms of maybe the number of patients, the -- I think it's clear on the objective on the bioequivalence, but maybe patients that sort of overall sort of time and cost of that trial. Is that something that maybe you [indiscernible] actually conducts or should we have to assume at this point that that you'll be partner funded and led?

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Maybe I can start here. So it was about Nanoenza and what kind of clinical trials to expect. First of all, we do Nanoenzalutamide together with the own consortium for now. And that means, of course, that all the costs are shared in 4 equal parts. Should the originator come in, of course, there may be a very different setup then.

Then when it comes to the clinical trials numbers of patients, I think the best way of thinking about it is, this here is going to be something which looks like an [ under ] pathway, and it means that the numbers are the numbers that you see in those kind of studies. I don't see anything which would make this very different, in that sense. Then if we go with the originator, they will probably be able to lean on data that they have, which means that the number of patients enrolled or subjects enrolled could be smaller.

I don't know. Peter, do you have any other comments on this?

[Peter Hanninen, executive]

Yes. Maybe just to mention that, that the expectation is that this will actually be done in in healthy volunteers, via bioequivalence study, as said, and following in principle the guidelines for these types of bioequivalence studies and so fed them fast and state and in healthy volunteers and then comparable setup in Europe based on European regulations.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

And the final comment, so this will not be a very large study and it will not be very expensive. So we are talking about, if you think of it as a EUR 1 million or so rather than EUR 5 million cost and of course, divided by 4 parties. We, of course, also part of the negotiations with all the potential partners that will there be or what kind of signing fees or upfront payments and what kind of payments for participating in the study costs, what kind of milestones for success like positive outcomes or filings or market authorizations. So this is all part of the of the negotiations with all the partners. But if you think of it from a cost point of view, we don't expect these product kernels to increase the cost very much for Nanoform in the coming quarters. And remember also that there is also potentially other kinds of fundings for available for any kind of projects if we want to.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

So if I maybe interpret it, there could be a scenario in which the consortium and or maybe just Nanoform decides to that sort of EUR 1 million or so for the trial that seems doable, either yourselves or through the consortium. And then that would -- the results of that trial then strengthens your hand in in potential partnering discussions. Is that a scenario that could play?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

That is one positive possible scenario, but it might also be that you -- we sign a few partners before we do the study and then a few partners after, depending some partners would like to have the study results before they sign, others want to sign earlier at potentially a little bit lower price. So this is very much dependent on the project and on the partners we are talking to and they are all -- they all have different preferences and we may -- we need to make this mosaic considering that we have multiple products and we have multiple regions and we have multiple partners we talk to.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

And then maybe one final one, maybe just on the commercial side, you seem to be indicating that you could look to do have effectively kind of multiple partners in multiple markets or multiple geographies. I mean that would -- typically most companies would look for maybe trying to get one single partner at least to cover Europe and maybe a different one for U.S. as a sort of minimum, reduces the complexity of those relationships and maybe gets stronger partner sort of buy-in to driving that franchise. I'm just curious, if anything I'm missing as to the benefits of multiple partners in multiple markets.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

So if you think of it from a market-to-market, so there are local champions who has all the, for example, on oncology doctors or all the -- in one country. And then you have another one where you have a different company that is the local champion. And then you have these larger companies that might be interested in the whole of Europe, but they don't have the close connections to all the oncologists or urologists or so. So that that means that we want to find the partners that have the connections to the oncologists and the urologists in the large markets in Europe, all 5 of them.

[Christian Jones, executive]

Albert, But maybe if I could just add, and it's a point -- an important point to know, Christian, that we're not planning to launch this product as just a standard generic that gets sort of prescribed or switched by the pharmacist. The idea here is that there would be a product detailing team, that would effectively sell the product to the specialists, the urology or prostate cancer specialists in the individual markets to show the differentiation and the value that the product can deliver for patients. And that's a slightly different strategy than just a very standard generic product play. That's why it's important to identify who can really drive those valuable discussions within each particular territory.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Christian, I could add here. Your question is spot on. It's the boon, but it's also the curse of having a valuable platform technology. It allows you to have many different games going on at the same time. And here, as part of the mosaic that I talked about an hour ago, we are now in the fortunate situation that we need to figure out together during the conversations and together with ourselves in what order and how to cadence and sequence the deals that are in front of us, both those that are already sort of on the table and those that will be entering onto the table. This is a very nice task. It's a complicated task, but the good news is it's something that has been done before. And we are going to have a very clear cut, hopefully, clever approach to it where we try to minimize the level of complexity and still being able to drive out the platforms as effectively as we can.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Christopher from SEB.

[Christopher Uhde, analyst]

I just was wondering in terms of, this on slide, I guess, 25, [ here yet ] the 21 projects on there. And you've had altogether 88 project signings to date. So are -- maybe I missed this. Are these 21 projects all the ones that are still sort of underway still, maybe you've successfully -- POC did for example and there's still interest to continue forward. What happened to the others? Is it simply the -- yes, and what can you say about that?

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

So this is a slide where we -- so in the -- on the previous slide, if I show that, this is where we showed you that there is a very broad therapy area among the projects we have and also that they are in different phases. This new slide is one where we show that the broadness of the formulation challenge, but this is not necessarily now exactly the ones that we are working on right now, but this is more to show that the formulation challenge can be very different between the different projects.

[Edward Haeggstrom, executive]

Peter, do you want to add anything to this?

[Peter Hanninen, executive]

Nothing to add from [ me ].

[Christian Jones, executive]

Yes. I concur with what Albert said.

[Christian Glennie, analyst]

So it's not that they may -- we shouldn't assume that all of these are necessarily active any longer.

[Albert Haeggstrom, executive]

No. And you shouldn't assume that they will all continue either. Also remember that when we have had successful projects, they can be dormant for a while and then they can come back. So this is also something that we are learning that projects can due to funding situation with biotechs or so forth, so we have done the POC and now they are waiting for funding, and then they come back. So this is a fluent situation in that sense.

[Operator]

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Henri Von Haartman, executive]

Thank you, operator. On behalf of Nanoform, I would like to thank all participants for today. If you have any more questions then please do reach out to us, and we wish everybody a great Monday afternoon and evening. Thank you, and goodbye.