Vistin Pharma ASA

OSE:VISTN

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vistin Pharma ASA First Quarter 2022 Results Presentation Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alexander Karlsen. Please go ahead.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation. As mentioned, today's presenters will be myself, Alexander Karlsen, the CFO; and Magnus Tolleshaug, the Chief Commercial Officer and the interim CEO.

I'm now handing the word over to you, Magnus, to start the presentation.

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

Thank you, Alexander. I will go through the highlights of the first quarter 2022 results. The revenue in the first quarter ended at NOK 33 million versus NOK 71 million in Q1 2021. We had a decrease in revenue for the quarter, driven by less volume available for sale due to the planned production stop for the Metformin Expansion Project installation. The 2022 sales prices has been increased to reflect the current raw material and freight prices.

When it comes to the EBITDA, for the first quarter, it ended at minus NOK 18 million versus plus NOK 15 million in Q1 2021. The EBITDA was unfavorably affected by the limited sales volume available, start-up costs for the new line, stronger Norwegian krone versus euro and the record high electricity prices in the quarter. The start-up costs driven by onboarding of new operators and quality head count and semi variable overhead costs.

The financial results is expected to improve from Q2 2022 with more volumes available for sale.

Both the existing production line #1 and the new line #2 is producing as of the end of March. The existing line #1 successfully resumed production in the second week of February. And the new line #2 is producing, however, at reduced capacity during the initial ramp-up phase.

The capacity is expected to ramp up gradually during Q2 to Q4 this year and reach an annual capacity of more than 5,500 metric tons by the end of 2022. An annual capacity of approximately 7,000 metric tons is expected to be reached during 2023. And the first commercial batch from the second production line is expected to be shipped out to customers in the second quarter of 2022 as planned and as previously communicated.

Approximately 70% of the MEP investment is paid as of end March, and the project cost is according to budget.

Vistin, we are a pure-play metformin company with a bright outlook, as we like to say. And diabetes is really one of the largest health emergencies in the 21st century, and metformin continues to be the gold standard treatment for type 2 diabetes. And Vistin, we are a leading producer of premium quality metformin based in Europe. So we'd like to say that we have a bright outlook.

The global market demand for metformin is expected to grow by an annual compound growth rate of 5% to 6% annually. And the Vistin global market share, from a volume perspective, will be approximately 15% with the new full capacity.

Some short background on the use of metformin. Metformin continues to be the first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes. It is used to lower the glucose -- blood sugar levels or balance the blood sugar levels.

It is a cost-efficient treatment, the most cost efficient treatment with very limited side effects and long-term safety profile.

It comes in tablet form and can be combined with insulin or other glucose-reducing medications. It can be primarily metformin in the tablets or it can be combined with other APIs for second- and third-line treatments, so-called combination products.

Diabetes is really a global epidemic. Based on the International Diabetes Federation numbers estimates from 2019, about 463 million people was affected by diabetes in the world and this is expected to grow up to 700 million people as an estimate in 2045, an increase of 51%. So it's really a global epidemic. And out of the figures of diabetes, about 90% of diabetes patients are having type 2 diabetes and 10% having type 1 diabetes.

Vistin Pharma, we are selling our products globally. So we're selling to customers all the way from Japan in the East to U.S. and Latin America in the West. Majority part of our customers are based in Europe, and we are selling through large international pharmaceutical companies our API. And then they are transforming that into their drug products and selling out to the local markets all around the world. So today, Vistin Pharma API is used to treat patients with diabetes in more than 100 countries.

And with that, I think I will hand over to our CFO, Alexander Karlsen, who will bring us more through the figures in detail for the quarter.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

Thank you, Magnus. And as already mentioned, low sales volume is driven by existing line #1 only producing for some weeks in the quarter. For Q2, we expect increased production and sales volume as line #1 will produce the whole quarter, and they will also produce volume from line #2. However, Q2 is still an initial ramp quarter for the new line.

Having outlook at the sales or revenue. The revenue, again, affected by the limited sales volume and a stronger NOK versus euro compared to the same quarter last year. We have basically sold all available volume in the quarter.

For the sales prices, it was negotiated in Q4 '21 and was at that time based on the record high raw material and freight costs at that time. The Ukraine situation has further increased volatility in the market. However, quarterly price negations with main customers in 2022 is giving us the ability to adjust sales prices according to the current cost base.

Due to uncertainties of freight lead times from China in relation to COVID situation in the country and the mention of the Ukraine situation, we have further increased the safety stock of critical raw materials to secure the MEP volume ramp-up.

Going to the result and the EBITDA. EBITDA came in at minus NOK 18 million, heavily affected by the limited sales volume and start-up and onboarding costs for the new line. To put in perspective, we expect no changes in overall manning for 2022, which should give us some significant volume leverage when we're ramping up going forward and especially from the second half of the year.

A large portion of our production costs do not directly correlate with volume. For example, cleaning, maintenance, closing, purchased services, electricity for keeping the plant running, et cetera. So when this quarter we have had a limited production, we do still have a significant portion of these costs. So this is an important driver behind the untraditional weak result in the quarter. In addition, we had a onetime negative effect of NOK 1 million, which is an inventory adjustment.

There's a lot of, call it, writing in the media about the electricity prices and we are also affected by that. If you look at this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, our electricity cost is up by around 150% even with a 50% reduction in production volume. So we have started some work on this to see how we can significantly reduce the power consumption in the plant going forward, but we do not expect that these projects will materialize before 2023.

Going to the income statement, I think we've been through most of these numbers. I'll add that depreciation and amortization came in at NOK 2.7 million for the quarter, net finance income of NOK 1.5 million bringing the earnings before tax to minus NOK 19.4 million. The loss for the quarter was NOK 15.2 million.

Having a look at the balance sheet, starting with the assets. We continued to see an increased fixed assets driven by the MEP project. We have deferred tax assets of around NOK 32 million driven by the realized loss for Energy Trading and also now a loss in the first quarter.

Inventory is quite high. We have very little finished goods at inventory, so most of our inventory balance is the critical raw material that we have an extensive safety stock. So there's a lot of raw material in stock.

Decrease in cash balance mainly driven by dividend payout and the MEP installments, bringing us to a total asset balance of around NOK 316.5 million.

Looking at the other side, the equity and liabilities. We have no interest-bearing debt, a small lease liability of NOK 1.1 million. Total equity, NOK 260.6 million, giving us around 82% equity ratio, which we consider pretty strong.

We have, as mentioned, secured our revolving credit facility to handle the planned liquidity effects for ongoing expansion and investments, bringing total equity and liabilities balance to NOK 316.5 million.

I think that was all from the finance review, Magnus, and I'll now hand the word back to you for a MEP update and summary.

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Alexander. I will go through an update on the Metformin Expansion Project and a summary. As mentioned, the line #1 is producing according to plan. The line #2 started production last week of March and is currently producing at reduced capacity during the initial ramp-up phase. The capacity is expected to ramp up gradually during Q2 to Q4 this year and reach an annual capacity of more than 5,500 metric tons by the end of 2022. The annual capacity of approximately 7,000 metric tons is expected to be reached during 2023.

The first commercial batch from the line #2 is expected to be shipped out of the plant to customers in Q2 as planned. And in March, we also had a successful inspection by the Norwegian Medicines Agency, NoMA. And we are -- an approval by the NoMA of the new line is expected in Q2 according to plan.

The current organization is capable of handling the expected 2022 volumes without adding additional FTEs.

We will have -- from a financial perspective, we will have an increased working capital requirement in the first half of 2022. This is driven by raw material stock, as Alexander mentioned, and the time from production start of line #2 to payment from customers since we are producing to stock on line #2 and awaiting the formal approval before we can sell the material from line #2.

We're also building a new warehouse and having a project for recirculation of cooling water, which started in the first quarter. This will require more than NOK 25 million in CapEx and the government grant of approximately NOK 4 million is secured for the latter project, the recirculation project. And the financial results is expected to improve from the second quarter of 2022 and onwards and accelerate from the second half with leverage from the new production capacity.

So as a summary, the metformin market is expected to continue to grow by 5% to 6% annually on a global basis. Diabetes is one of the largest health crises in the 21st century. Metformin is expected to maintain its position as the gold standard treatment for type 2 diabetes in the foreseeable future.

We see an attractive growth potential to be realized when the additional manufacturing capacity is available.

And the COVID-19 situation has really been an eye opener to both authorities and industry, leading to large pharma looking for lower-risk supply chain and short-traveled medicines. And Vistin is strategically well positioned as many European customers prefer high-quality supplies with short-traveled distances.

So the expansion project to increase the capacity to approximately 7,000 metric tons is on track. The first commercial batch from the second production line is expected to ship out in Q2 2022 as planned.

And with that, I think we are done with the Q1 2022 presentation and now open up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are currently no questions on the phone line, sir. I will hand back to you.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

Thank you. We have started to receive some questions in the webcast. We have 2 pretty similar questions regarding production target or production volume for 2022.

I think it's important to answer those questions. I will emphasize that we expect the annual production rate to be around 5,500 tons at end of 2022. That do not mean that we will produce 5,500 metric tons in 2022. I think we previously mentioned that we have set out an ambition -- ambitious production target of 5,000 tons. We'll come back to them when we are further into the ramp-up phase. But we also mentioned in the last quarter presentation that we will not sell all of the production volume in 2022 because there are some lead times from production to release and ready for sale.

Next question. This is something about the electricity costs. We use approximately between NOK 1.5 million to NOK 2 million per month in electricity costs, obviously depending on weather, temperature, production volume, et cetera. But it's obviously a concern for us the escalating electricity costs, but we also have started to look at some interesting initiatives to how we can significantly reduce our power consumption. But as of now, the focus is on MEP. So that is -- those initiatives will probably not materialize before 2023.

Another question is, "After the new production is fully up and running in 2023, can you elaborate on what kind of new projects Vistin has in pipeline?"

I would say that, first of all, we have a big job in front of us to get up to 7,000 tons. And we have -- we are according to plan, and we have a ramp-up phase in 2022. And even if we reach the surgical capacity of 7,000 tons in 2023, there's still a lot of job to do to sell that kind of volume. And I don't think it should be expected that we will sell 7,000 tons in 2023. That will take some time to materialize that volume.

I think when we complete -- or when we are further into the ramp-up phase and the volume -- production volume materialize, there's a lot of exciting projects we are working on to give productivity and cost saving in the plant. We have mentioned the recycling of water. Today, we're using drinking water to cool down the production equipment. Our plan is to recycle that and reuse 80% of that. That will give us some significant savings from 2023.

We mentioned electricity project to reduce the power consumption, that can give us some nice upside. So there's a lot of things we have on our plate and that we will start to work on and continue to work on when the intense MEP phase calm a bit down after the summer.

There's a question here on the COVID-19 as an eyeopener. Do you want to answer that, Magnus?

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

I'd be glad to. Yes. The question is about that COVID-19 situation has been an eyeopener for lowering risk of supply chains and the question is whether we've seen -- have any plans to increase its product portfolio in the next years.

Well, I think as Alexander said, our main focus is to get the new -- capacity of the new line up and running. And at the moment, we are a pure metformin API producing company. We also produce direct compressible granules to the market, to customers. And at this point, we don't -- I'm not going to comment on whether we have any plans to increase our portfolio. Our main focus is to get the new capacity up and running.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

The next question was in relation to Palla Pharma previously owned by Vistin, but sold out in 2018. And the question was if Vistin was interested in acquiring Palla Pharma?

And the short answer is no.

There's also a question about manning with the ramp-up. I think as mentioned, we hired operators and quality FTEs in late Q4 2021. So as of now, we have the manning to produce the expected 2022 volume and that is both for the operators and the administration. And then we will see more when we come into 2023 and how the volume materialize if we need any more head count. But as previously communicated, we expect a significant volume leverage on the head count as we ramp up the volume in '22 and '23 and onwards.

There's a question about, "How do you plan to finance the final installments for the MEP program?

We have had -- or we have secured a revolving credit facility with Nordea. So we are not kind of concerned when it comes to liquidity. It should be more than sufficient to both the final MEP installments, the other interesting CapEx projects we have ongoing in '22 and '23 and also the short-term working capital requirements having a lot of raw material -- sorry, raw material in stock.

The next question is regarding backlog of orders, orders not delivered.

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

Yes. I can answer that question. The question is, "What is the current backlog of orders or orders not delivered?"

Well, we have a good dialogue with our customers. Obviously, we have orders laying for the year and some time going forward. But as mentioned, we have a good dialogue with our customers meaning that orders are delivered according to the capacity ramp-up of the line #2. So -- and the line #1 is running and delivering the orders as it should. And line #2 is ramping up and that additional capacity and volume coming from Line #2, when that is approved, is then going to go directly to customers.

So at the moment, we don't have any significant backlog. It's more a matter of planning together with our customers.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

There's also -- the next question is about, "Isn't there stiffer competition more focused on outsourcing and pricing?" And then a question also about prices on the new capacity. Maybe you also want to comment on those questions, Magnus.

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

So that was a long question. The price, well, the question here is, "Could the price be affected to be able to sell the new capacity?"

I understand the question as if the current cost drivers in the market or the pricing in the market could affect our ability to sell the volume. If you go on to the back, you could say that we have, as also mentioned in the presentation, a good -- deep dialogue with our customers and have agreed to have quarterly adjustments of the sales prices. I think the general price for metformin in the world has probably increased a bit because of the raw material situation in the world. But as long as we're able to increase the prices along with the increasing raw material costs, we should be fine, I think.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

And there's also a question about dividend payout in 2022.

The Board has proposed for the annual general meeting that they get a proxy to pay out up to NOK 0.75 per share by end of 2022. So we'll take that up on the annual general meeting on the 19th of May. And the Board will probably then come back during the year depending on how the world -- sorry, or how the year plays out financially.

And maybe you can also have a short comment on the competition in the market, how that's playing out, Magnus.

[Magnus Tolleshaug, executive]

Yes. The competition in the market. I think all metformin producers in the world is seeing increased raw material and freight costs. So what we do -- one thing that we do see is that the uncertainty from the COVID-19 situation and now adding the unfortunate situation in Ukraine in March also gives additional variability and uncertainty in the supply chains around the world.

So that what we do see is that some of the European companies are starting to look for at least sources of starting materials or API coming from Europe, so that the supply chains are shorter and that the delivery time lines are quicker.

And that is what Vistin is able to deliver: high-quality metformin delivered anywhere in Europe within 24 hours.

We also see -- I would say from a sustainability perspective, we see a relatively strong ask from the customers of making sure that suppliers going forward have a focus on ESG-related matters and sustainability projects and deliverables that is matching their long-term strategic focus.

So there also, I think, Vistin Pharma is very well positioned when it comes to where we are placed and all the projects and the good deliverables we have made and delivered over the past years and are going to continue to focus on. So I think sustainability is probably a differentiator between Vistin Pharma and some of the other competitors in the market. So we see a strong ask there. That's good.

[Alexander Karlsen, executive]

I think now we've been through all the questions. So we want to thank you for today, and we can now close the call.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.