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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Gretchen, and I will be your operator today. Welcome to Knight Therapeutics Inc. 2020 Fourth Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Before turning the call over to Jonathan Ross Goodman, CEO of Knight, listeners are reminded that portions of today's discussion may, by their nature, necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. The company considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they are prepared but cautious that these assumptions regarding the future events, many of which are beyond the control of the company and its subsidiaries may ultimately prove to be incorrect. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether a result of new information, future events, except as required by law. We would also like to remind you questions during today's call will be taken from analysts only. Should there be any further questions, please contact Knight's Investor Relations department via e-mail to info@knighttx.com or via phone at (514) 678-8930. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded today, March 25, 2021. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Jonathan Ross Goodman. Please go ahead, Mr. Goodman.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Knight Therapeutics Fourth Quarter and Year-end 2020 Conference Call. I'm joined on today's call with Samira Sakhia, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Amal Khouri, our newly promoted Chief Business Officer, Yahoo! Arvind Utchanah, our Chief Financial Officer; and Jeff Martens, our VP, Commercial. The past year was a transformative year for Knight with the completion of the acquisition of Grupo Biotoscana. Despite the challenges due to COVID-19, we continue to progress our integration while advancing on our product portfolio in both Canada and Latin America. We have received regulatory approvals from Health Canada for Estrella, IMVEXXY, BIJUVA and received regulatory approval for Lenvima and Halaven in Ecuador. We continue to focus on we continue to focus on our mission to acquire in license, develop and commercialize innovative medicines and high-quality branded treatments to improve the health of patients in Latin America and Canada. I would now like to turn the call over to Samira who'll walk through the corporate update.
Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. First of all, I'd like to extend my own Yahoo! and congratulate Amal well on her promotion to Chief Business Officer. Amal was Jonathan's first hire at Knight. And during the last 7 years, she has done an amazing job in leading Knight's corporate and business development as well as corporate strategy. Amal was instrumental in the diligence and negotiation of the acquisition of Biotoscana, and in 2020, led the mandatory tender offer and navigated the complexities of Brazilian securities laws to get it done. I also want to welcome Jeff to Team Knight. Jeff has been working with us over the last year to in harmonizing commercial efforts, including marketing, sales and market access throughout Latin America. Jeff has over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical industry in marketing, market access and sales and comes to us from Novartis, where he led several -- where he held several executive roles at Novartis in Canada, which is part of the LATAM region as well as Australia. Over the last year, we have been focused on managing through the pandemic while continuing to integrate. As we've discussed before, Biotoscana was an amalgamation of 4 different companies, 2 of which were regional licensing organizations and 2 branded generic companies in Argentina. Further, the operations ran as individual countries operating independently. Over the last year, we have focused our efforts in bringing all 5 companies, including Knight together. We have made great strides in our commercial leadership teams at both the regional and country level we've expanded our business development organization and have made progress in filling key roles with top talent in finance. During 2021, my focus will be to continue to strengthen our scientific affairs and manufacturing structures. In addition, we will continue to implement systems and processes, which will bolster efficiencies, coordination and compliance. As we get through integration, we are building a stronger platform for continued growth. Turning now to the 2020 NCIB, which we launched in July of last year. Under this NCIB, Knight can purchase up to 10.9 million common shares until July 2021. During the year, we purchased 944,000 common shares for aggregate cash consideration of approximately $5.5 million. So far, in 2021, we have purchased an additional 2.9 million common shares at an average price of $5.25 per share for aggregate cash consideration of $15.2 million. In addition, late last year, we filed a short-form base shelf prospectus, which enables Knight to offer for sale and issue up to $360 million in common shares subscription receipts and debt securities from time to time for a period of 25 months, during which the shelf remains valid. I will now turn the call over to Amal for an update on BD activities.
Thank you, Samira. As previously mentioned, an important part of our BD effort in 2020 went towards completing the tender offer process in Brazil that resulted in the acquisition of 100% of GBT in the third quarter, followed by dealer Sting in both Brazil and Luxembourg. In parallel to completing the acquisition, we dedicated our efforts to strengthening our BD capabilities and ensuring coverage and expertise across our expanded region. Today, our team is spread across 4 countries and is led by our new Head of Business Development, the Cigna Saverio, who's based in São Paulo and Brazil. Saverio joined Knight in August of last year. He has over 20 years of experience in pharma, having spent the last 12 years at Ashe, one of the largest Brazilian pharmaceutical companies. As Ashe Severo lag both business development and R&D activities. That resulted in the launch of over 300 branded generics and innovative products across Latin America. On the portfolio side, we completed market assessments across our key countries to identify and prioritize key therapeutic areas and further refine our portfolio strategy. We will continue to focus on oncology and hematology in fractures diseases, immunology, gastrointestinal and central nervous system. We will pursue a 3 pronged strategy to build our portfolio. First, we will pursue the acquisition of innovative legacy products from big pharma. Second, we'll in license innovative late stage products; and third, we'll develop our branded generics portfolio for Select Latin American country. I will now turn the call over to Jeff to go over the product update.
Thank you very much, Amal. It is my pleasure to provide the first update on our products as well as our commercial structure which continue to advance in this year of integration. Starting with our structure, as Samira mentioned, we focused our efforts on integrating and regionalizing our strategic brand planning process, and strengthened our teams, both by promoting internal talent as well as recruiting externally. As for our products, we continue to advance our portfolio throughout our region. In the first quarter of 2020, we launched Cresemba in Brazil for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis and invasive mucormycosis for adults. Knight holds the rights to commercialize the product in all of Latin America and is an early launch phase in multiple countries, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Peru. It also launched Carfi in Argentina, which is indicated for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. During the year, Knight received regulatory approval from health Canada for Ibsrela for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. Ibsrela was launched earlier this month, and is now covered by most private insurance companies in Canada. Knight also received regulatory approval for both IMVEXXY and BIJUVA. IMVEXXY and Evigil Insertion has been approved for the treatment of postmenopausal moderate to severe dyspareunia, a symptom of VVA due to menopause. BIJUVA is a once-daily combination of estradiol and progesterone in a single oral capsule and was approved for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms due to menopause. We expect to launch both products in 2022. Moreover, Knight has obtained regulatory approval for Lenvima and Halaven in Ecuador. Lenvima has been approved for several indications and is used to treat patients with thyroid, compacular and advanced renal cell carcinomas. Halaven is used for the treatment of locally advanced metastatic breast cancer and unresectable soft tissue sarcoma. Lenvima and Halaven have both been launched in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru, and we are pending approval in Colombia. And with that, I'll pass it over to Arvind to go over our financial results.
Thank you, Jeff. In the course of this conference call, I will refer to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings, which are non-IFRS measures. Knight defines EBITDA as operating loss or income, excluding amortization and impairment of intangible assets, depreciation, purchase price accounting adjustment and the impact of hyperinflation accounting. Adjusted EBITDA excludes acquisition costs and nonrecurring expenses. We define earnings as adjusted earnings as adjusted EBITDA plus net interest income from cash, marketable securities and backlogs. I am pleased to report that for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, we reported revenues of $55.2 million, an increase of $17.9 million or 48% compared to the same period last year. For the 12-month period, we reported revenues of just under $200 million, an increase of $152 million or 320% compared to last year. The growth in revenues is explained by the consolidation of a full year of GBT's results compared to only one month in 2019. In 2020, Knight generated revenues of $78.7 million in Brazil, $37.8 million in Argentina, $34.8 million in Colombia and $33.9 million in the rest of Latin America. For the quarter ended December 31, 2020, we reported a gross margin of $20.1 million or 36% compared to $18.4 million or 49% in the same period last year. For 2020, gross margin was $81.7 million or 41% compared to $26.9 million or 57% in 2019. Excluding the impact of hyperinflation, the gross margin would have been 40% for the quarter and 44% for the year. Furthermore, we recorded an inventory write-off of $3.2 million during the quarter and $10 million for the full year, mainly due to the impact of COVID-19 on certain new product launches. Our operating expenses increased by $5.8 million for the quarter and $50 million for the year compared to the same period in 2019. The increase for both periods is mainly explained by the consolidation of GBT's results, which accounted for $11.2 million of incremental expenses for the quarter and $56.4 million for the full year. The increase is partially offset by onetime costs related to the GBT acquisition and the public proxy battle incurred in 2019. The interest earned on cash, marketable securities and strategic loans for the quarter was $2.8 million, a decrease of $2.6 million or 48% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. For the 12-month period, interest income was $14.3 million, a decrease of $9.2 million or 39% compared to last year. The decrease during both periods is due to a decrease in interest rates as well as a decrease in our cash, marketable securities and strategic loan receivable balances. In addition, we recorded interest expense on our bank loan of just under $404,000 for the quarter and $2.4 million for the year. The EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of $832,000 compared to a positive EBITDA of $228,000. The decrease was mainly driven by $3.2 million of inventory write-off and partially offset by a quarter of consolidation of GBT's results. EBITDA for the year was $7.8 million compared to a negative EBITDA of $9.4 million last year due to the consolidation of GBT's results. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.8 million, a decrease of $4.4 million or 71% compared to the same period last year. The adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was impacted by lower gross margin due to product mix, inventory write-offs and foreign exchange as well as an increase in operating expense due to the timing of our commercial initiatives. For the 12-month period, our adjusted EBITDA was $16.8 million, an increase of $14 million over last year. Adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter of 2020 were $4.2 million, a decrease of $7.1 million compared to the same quarter last year. For 2020, adjutant earnings were up $28.7 million or $2.7 million compared to the same period last year. Now moving on to gains and losses that are not reflected in adjusted earnings. We recorded a net gain on financial assets measured at fair value through P&L of $25.4 million during the quarter and $48.1 million for the year. The gain is mainly coming from our strategic fund investments. I will now turn the call back to Samira.
Thank you, Arvind. Since the start of the pandemic last year, our focus has been on ensuring that physicians and patients continue to receive uninterrupted quality medications in all territories. Our teams have been -- have remained focused on taking care of each other, while continuing to build and grow the business. And I want to thank all our nights for their continued dedication to building a leading pan-American ex U.S. specialty pharmaceutical company. Looking ahead, we remain committed on continuing to integrate and grow Knight. And with cash, cash equivalent and marketable securities of $392 million or $3 per share, we will be focused on bringing new business development opportunities. I'll now turn the call back to Jonathan for his concluding remarks.
Thank you, Samira, and I'm never on mute. Firstly, I just really want to congratulate Amal again. Amal, firstly, this team that has presented to you this morning. We've been working together, I've just calculated, for about 45 years together. It's staggering. And we're going to continue to make people better and drive great shareholder value. And I'm very nothing makes me proud to than watching this team grow and execute flawlessly. Thank you for the confidence, my team, and this concludes our formal remarks. I'll now open up the call to questions. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] And it looks like we have a question from Andre Uddin from Mackie Capital.
I was just wondering, in terms of -- maybe you could just discuss where Canadian book prices are in terms of both acquiring and in-licensing relative to the last few years. Just curious.
Sure. So Andre, you want to ask about the licensing efforts or the pricing side?
The pricing side, just in terms of prices.
Sure. So As you may have seen in the papers and over the last several years, the PMPRB has been has been on an effort to change the drug pricing in Canada to reduce it. It's really about changing the list price and not really -- not the price of most provinces paid because the provincial price is governed through pCPA. That legislation went into or the regulations and guidelines went into effect, as of Jan 1 this year, and they're being implemented as of July 1 this year. And the slight 6-month delay has been because of COVID. There is going to be drill reduction on the changes really going from that 7 countries basket to 11 countries, which includes more countries in Europe as well as Japan. And it has impacted our ability to in-license because, obviously, the price in Canada impacts prices in other countries. It also impacts our profitability that we're able to achieve. And when we set out for our kind of our global footprint and what we looked at is kind of where the Canadian market was where other markets are and where can we, as a company, achieve growth, and that's why we positioned ourselves for Latin America. We're obviously not abandoning Canada. Canada is a great market. But we need to be mindful of the level of growth we can achieve here.
And so just in terms of you wanted to acquire, for example, a legacy asset or something like that in Canada? Are the prices for such an asset? Have they gone up or down? Can you just comment on that as well please?
Are you -- do you mean about price in the market or acquisition prices?
Acquisition prices, yes, and in-licensing prices as well.
So right now, when we look for legacy asset acquisition, we're doing it not on a Canada only basis because we have the pan American ex U.S. footprint. Amal and I will let her add to it some more, but she and her team are looking at various combinations and permutations of all of our territories, some of our territories, just Latin America. Valuations have been competitive for years, and we don't see that changing at any time soon because these are always competitive processes. So, Amal, I'm going to turn it over to you.
No, fully agree, Samira. I would say, from a purchase price perspective, it's we -- it's similar dynamics. It's really deal specific. No major changes kind of at a general comment.
And just in terms of -- I wanted to ask you also about your VC investments. I know you made an investment in several VCs over a few years ago for about $125 million. I'm just wondering if have you tried to monetize those investments or what your plans are with those investments, if you can comment?
Sure. So we -- as we've said over the last couple of years, the VC investments have been -- have proven to be very successful on a financial basis. Unfortunately, the reason we did them was to be able to in-license more products. And that hasn't really shown any real traction on it. So we're not looking to invest in new VC projects. That being said, we don't really need the cash at this point. We have cash on the balance sheet of $392 million today. So we're not really looking to divest. And what we're seeing is that because they're performing really well, there is no need. And if we were to try and sell in the secondary market, we'd have to take a discount, and we don't need to do that right now.
And when do you think you could realize those VC gains?
We are already realizing a lot of VC gains. We're seeing that the distributions that we're getting from the plants actually it's now starting to exceed the capital calls. And as of the end of December, we have about -- we have a commitment of just around $30 million left. The funds are expiring between one of them as early as later this year to about 10 years from now. And they're kind of tailing out, but we're starting -- we've been seeing distributions for a while.
And just one last question. If you look at your drug portfolio across the board, what would be your top 3 growth drivers for 2021?
Well, we're growing -- so we're growing in a lot of different places. We're growing in our oncology space. We're growing in our infectious disease space and we're growing in our BGx space. And everybody is really focused despite COVID to execute on that. So we're seeing it with -- in Lenvima and Halaven, we're seeing it and especially even especially Chrisanta as well, whereas launching in Brazil. We are going to see growth even on Amazon, which got really hit badly by COVID last year and in Canada on NERLYNX Trelstar Atra.
Our next question is from David Martin from Bloom Burton.
First question. You had quite an increase sequentially from Q3 to Q4. Despite COVID still being rampant in Latin American countries, I'm wondering what accounted mainly for that sequential increase. Was it the launch of Cresemba? Is there inventory adjustments? Or is there just seasonality in the LatAm business?
Sure. Can I give a quick answer, and then I'll actually turn it over to Jeff. So in Q3, we actually had the inventory adjustment happened, where we saw a little bit of a downtick because of COVID wholesalers had started to rationale to limit their the inventory that we were carrying. And there was never a fundamental issue related to the products. And as we came into Q4, things normalized back because there was nothing fundamental earlier. The second thing is that while COVID was rampant or is rampant today, there was a little bit of a lift because it's the summer in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. And similar to what we saw in our summer last year, there was a little bit of opening. Jeff?
I really don't know if there's much more of it adds I guess, other than it's so hard to predict with COVID, the movement quarter-on-quarter. But I mean to Samira's point, we did see oncology treatments increased in Q4 versus Q3, which I think helped. And I think that drove some of what we're seeing in Q4.
The destocking in Q3 have been normalizing in Q4. Is much of Q4 stocking back up, like did sales exceed use of the drugs? Or did it largely reflect use of the drugs?
It largely reflected the use, because the destocking that happens. And then when you -- when they continue to purchase for what they need, if let's say, they went from 90 to 60 days, there was a month less that happened in Q3. But Q4, it's now for 3 months.
Okay. Okay. Next question. I think your -- the profile of the drugs that you acquire in-licensing Canada are different from the profile of the type of drugs you in license for Latin America. Are you able to rationalize that? And will we see drugs that you acquire in license for both Canada and Latin America?
I'm going to let Amal answer that question.
Thanks, Samira. So I would say maybe just a correction to the statement that you made. There will be drugs with the same profile that we will be looking to license for the entire territory. So for both Canada and Latin America. So for example, if you look at legacy assets that we look to acquire Air products with existing sales, those -- that's the type of product that we acquire across our territory. Same growth for in-licensing of innovative assets. Again, the rights are available, we'll go after those types of products for the entire territory, where there is a difference potentially on type of products or anything that's more on the branded generic side. That's the type of products that have an opportunity in LatAm rather than in Canada. So that's where you'll see that distinction. So overall, we're still looking for products across our territories, but we want to, of course, remain flexible and adapt to specific market needs. If there is an opportunity that works for one part of the territory rather than the other.
Okay. And my last question is with the cash that you have on the balance sheet now, is it going to be blocking tackling your way to a bigger portfolio? Would you look at buying something like GBT again? And are you focused now just on Canada and LatAm? Or could you buy something someplace else in the world?
And then I'll let Amal answer that as well.
So we're focused on Canada and LatAm. We need to complete our integration. We need to to start building on the platform that we have. So the focus geographically is going to be Canada, LatAm. In terms of acquisitions, the focus is going to be products and product portfolios. On the M&A side, potentially bolt-on for -- if we see a good opportunity for an acquisition that really brings something specific that complements the business, whether it's in terms of footprint or capabilities or portfolio.
Our next question comes from Justin Keywood from Stifel.
I just had a question on the inventory write down, and I believe this occurred in a couple of quarters in a row. I'm just wondering what the dynamic is there. And if you can give some additional color? And do you expect that the write-downs to maybe normalize going forward?
Well, Justin, I can tell you, we don't like to have inventory write-downs, but I'm going to let Arvind answer this question.
Thank you, Samira. So I mean, as we've said before in previous quarters, we've been impacted by COVID, especially on the new launches. We continue to monitor our launches. But at this point, we can't really predict what's going to be happening in the future because we're really trying to balance the new launches as well as the limitation of our supply chain, which is, in certain cases, a limited shelf life on our products as well as long lead time. But as Samira mentioned, we're really working how to minimize any future impact in terms of write down.
This is Jonathan. And this overage in inventory is a inherited. And we're doing a much better job now forecasting inventory so that we don't ever have to take these types of right downs once again.
All right. Appreciate that color. And is there like some type of ERP systems that's being implemented to manage it or the use of technology or just better forecasting?
Justin, all of the above. So there is a lot of work being done on forecasting. At the local level, at the global level and Arvind and his team are now in the process of implementing a global ERP system because that never existed before. It was all manual.
And that global ERP system, is that still in the early stages of being implemented? I know these projects can be quite comprehensive or is that well underway?
It's underway, and I -- let me just actually speak to integration. So one of the things is we are -- it's not just integration of people and companies. We're integrating systems whether it's ERP, whether it's learning, HR, pharmacovigilance, and we expect integration to continue for the next year or so.
And then I just had a broader question on M&A. I know there's already been a few questions around this. But I'm just wondering on timing. Obviously, there's a few headwinds in the near term, but it does seem like the business remains profitable and maybe characterize kind of this at the bottom level. Is there -- like I'm just wondering, can we get a sense of timing when there may be some M&A in bolting on to the LatAm platform? Or would you prefer to just kind of manage the business and maybe integrate some of the ERP systems in the intern just to make sure that the platform is well under hand to then pursue some further M&A?
So I mean I'll answer 1 half, and then I'm going to turn it over to Amal for timing. Our team has been focused on multiple prongs. And one is integration. One is continuing and making sure that we're running the business properly. And the third is in-licensing and acquisitions. So we have been doing that for the -- since we did this transaction. The focus last year was the second half of the transaction. Because if you recall, we only bought 50% of Biotoscana, and then we had to buy the second half. And in the meantime, we were also pursuing other activities. But it's not a one or the other proposition here. We're doing it all. So Amal, if you could just answer on timing.
Yes. I mean, timing, I can comment on the timing of the effort, which is we are working in parallel integration. As Samira said, commenting on timing of the future acquisition is not something that we can comment on, as you know, there's a lot of factors that play into that, including when the opportunities are available. But we are we are pursuing. We're not -- we haven't taken a break to say kind of let's integrate first. We're doing all of that effort in parallel. And we have to be focused and selective as to the type of M&A opportunities that come our way to make sure that we're doing the right deals at the right time.
Our next question comes from Endri Leno from National Bank.
Sorry to guess on the inventory question again, but just a couple quick ones there, if I may. You mentioned that in Q4, it was -- I mean, the situation was more or less balanced. But Q1, I mean, has seen a lot of cases in Brazil or certain parts of Brazil rather I mean would you say that there -- I mean would that Q4 situation continue into Q1? Or have you seen any kind of shift or differences there? And as the second part of the question, is there any opportunity to for example, move inventory from one country to another, right? Because some of them are moving at different speeds, like sort of from Brazil to Argentina or to Chile and so on.
Right. Thank you, Endri. I'm going to ask Arvind to answer this question.
Thank you, Endri. So in terms of the movement between Q4 and Q1, it's really hard to predict because there's also a bit of seasonality. So the other point I wanted to mention on the Q4 improvement was also like in LatAm, like this was also the beginning of summer for LatAm. And as you know, there was a lift down on certain restriction, which also help our initiatives in LatAm. Whether that continues into Q1 remains to be seen, especially given the recent log downs and third wave in certain countries in LatAm. And in terms of inventory, the question of inventory, so we continuously assess moving inventory between the different countries, especially to avoid write-downs. In some cases, we have certain products where we have a unique SKU where can we move across different restriction in LatAm. But in other cases, we have restriction depending on the regulatory approval of even shelf life, which really mitigates how much we can move around.
Great. I just wanted to ask on actually Cresemba I mean it has come up as potentially as a source of growth going forward. I mean, how is it doing at this point in terms of the launch when you compare to your modified expectations versus -- given the situation, the pandemic.
Thanks, Endri. I'm going to let Jeff answer this question.
Yes. So on Cresemba, I think what we've seen is the launch is going well, it's underway in multiple countries. The launch, particularly in Brazil, as you can imagine, launching a medicine during a pandemic is extremely difficult and hard to predict. So that, I think, has got us to a point now where we're adapting to that situation. We have seen nice traction with Cresemba due to our promotional efforts in although we're cautious because Brazil is going back down into a lockdown. So again, these things are hard to predict. But so far, I'd say things are going to plan.
And I just want to add -- sorry, I just wanted to add in markets where we had an earlier launch, especially a market like Mexico, where they had launched in 2019, the product is performing much better-than-expected because 1/3 of patients -- COVID patients actually do get invasive fungal infections where Cresemba can be very helpful. But unfortunately -- so it's kind of a balancing. On overall, it's doing okay, but in one market, it's doing really well in the other one, where we have a lot of headwinds to be able to launch during the pandemic.
Okay. And the last question for me is that, I mean, we've heard some cases, anecdotally, in some cases, not that there has been a delay in care because of COVID and sort of a pent-up demand, especially when it comes to even cancer treatment, I mean, have you seen something like that? Or do you -- have you seen any evidence of that, particularly in Brazil, right? Like that is being most impacted for now? Or any of the other countries in Latin America?
Endri, we're actually seeing that in all of our markets that diagnosis patients are not going to get tested or diagnosed and diagnoses are taking a little bit longer. Just like Jeff mentioned earlier, one of the upticks or a small uptick that we saw in Q4 was treatments in oncology, where patients started to go back. Do we believe that there's going to be some sort of uptick in demand? There may be, and it will really depend on the product where we'll see it.
[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Douglas Miehm from ARB (sic) [ RBC ] Capital.
Yes. First off, congratulations, Amal. Second, one of these questions have been asked, but one of the things I am curious about is that, I know previously, Mexico was a focus for the company and as a bolt-on and are trying to identify products that you could license in or purchase. Could you tell us how that market has been developing for you? If there's anything on the horizon that you could talk about?
Thanks, Doug. I'm not going to talk about anything that's on the horizon, but I'm going to let Amal answer the rest of the question.
Thanks, Samira. Thank you, Doug. Yes. I mean we Mexico continues to be a priority for the same reason that we mentioned earlier, which is we have a young affiliate and really need to build so we are continuing to look at opportunities for the entire territory, including Mexico, but also specifically to see if there are opportunities even if it's only for Mexico, that's also something that we're considering. The Mexico itself is going through some challenges with the relatively recent government and whatever impact that had on the on their health authority. But everyone the industry is dealing with that. And we're -- again, we're looking at that to see if there are any specific opportunities, but all to say, we continue to -- it continues to be a priority and a focus for us to build in Mexico, whether it's through products or portfolios or even M&A.
Okay. Great. And the second one is more general, has to do with expected returns or hurdle rates that the company is willing to accept between Canada and LatAm. Given the changes in Canada, we are seeing, are you prepared to look for lower returns out of Canadian acquisitions or purchases? Or you don't -- you're not seeing that. And LatAm is still your first choice.
No -- sorry, go ahead, Samira.
Sorry. Go ahead, Amal. Go ahead.
No, I was just going to say kind of in terms of the focus, again, we're looking at our entire territory. Rate of return is really an opportunity specific. So it depends on the risk profile that comes with the specific acquisition or in-licensing opportunity that we're looking at. But we are looking across our territory. And again, it's -- I would say it's more opportunity specific rather than a general territory return rates.
And one thing I would add is we also look at it on a portfolio basis. We may take a little bit of a lower return if we knew that this is going to set us up for something bigger later.
Our next question is from David Novak from Raymond James.
Congratulations to Amal. I really just have one broad industry question this morning. And that's, there's been a fair bit of noise recently from the FTC and its counterparts and other countries which seems to reflect a move to a tougher M&A regulatory environment in major jurisdictions. Just wondering if you could share some insight into how, if at all, you view this impact on your BD pipeline going forward. Do you see this impacting a licensee's willingness out-license specific assets for example, what are the broader implications there as you see it?
I don't think we're really seeing much of them, but I'll Amal who's closer to its answer that question.
Yes, I agree. And thank you, David. I agree. We're not really seeing yet a direct impact of that on the on the availability of -- for licensing opportunities or activities. But we'll continue to monitor to see if we start seeing any direct impact.
Next question comes from David Martin from Bloom Burton.
Yes. Just a follow-up question related to the inventory management of the wholesalers. You mentioned and we've seen in the news that they're going back into lockdown. Are you seeing the wholesalers running down their stock again? Or that's not happening this time?
So right now, we are not seeing a shift in that. I think there was that one blip that we saw in the you have to also remember in these markets, things like transportation, movement of goods is a little bit more difficult than what you see in Canada, I mean, getting a product from Montréal to Vancouver, it takes -- it's safe and it's easy to do, and it takes a couple of days when you're going from a warehouse in a location in Brazil to northern Brazil, it may be more complex. So the wholesalers do like to have more safety than what you would normally see in the channel. And we're not -- we're -- we don't expect there to be much further reduction even if there is some reduction.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Rob Curry from Lewisburg Investment.
Just really wanted to zero in here on Canada for a second. I'm probably going to ask some ignorant questions here. But when you look at the the patented medicine prices review board, kind of what they're talking about, you mentioned that earlier. You said that it's more of a list price thing, but then also it's going to impact you. Can you just give me a little bit more clarity on what you mean by that? And kind of what you expect the hit could be in terms of revenue going forward, just on like a percentage? Like, are you seeing your drug prices drop 5% to 10%? Or like if you can give any kind of number there, kind of zero in on would be great.
Sure. Okay. So the way PMPRB works is, first of all, it only regulates patented medicines. They don't regulate broader than that. They also -- they have visibility when it comes to the patent, just the list price. They don't look at if we have a discount that we work with at the provincial level. So a great example of that is a product like Probuphine, which we -- which is a patented product. We sell it across Canada. We have an agreement with the provinces pretty much everyone except British Colombia, where there is a price for them. That price is going to be compared to what is being sold for in several European countries. And we know what our price is, we know what the European price is. And in this specific case, we're not going to see a reduction. In the Knight portfolio, the fact that we are so young, and we don't have a very big portfolio. We're really not going to see much of an impact on a lot of our business because we've only got a few products out there. But we will see comparator prices in Canada to products that we may want to bring to Canada drop. So you have a -- there may be a product that we want to have in oncology or CNS or GI that we want to bring to Canada, and it's no longer feasible because as a licensor, where we have a profit kind of sharing with our partner. And if you have a low price for Canada, it's just not financially feasible either for the partner for ourselves to launch that product in Canada.
Yes, that's super helpful. Just a quick follow-up, if I could. There's -- when I think about the kind of business model that you guys are running and looking back to the Paladin days, and this is obviously an operating leverage business. You guys have had a lot of M&A questions on the call already, so I won't do that again. But I guess the question is, you talk about you looking at your portfolio more broadly, but I don't know that that's necessarily fair because there will be some areas of your portfolio that would be already hitting that operating leverage that we saw -- that we see with these types of business models and the other areas that would be still being a drag, Canada being one of them. So if you're kind of saying that Canada is going to be a tougher place to have more licenses, is it going to continue to be a drag on earnings for the foreseeable future? Or do you see it reaching profitability? And how does that work? I guess kind of the broader question is like what's going to be the cadence of margin going forward? Are we going to start seeing more operating leverage come through over the next 5 years? Or is it going to be more of a -- we got to wait for 10 years is that before we start to see that? And that's really where the question is going, is when does operating leverage to show up? And how do you treat Canada if it's a drag on earnings now, if you can't really bulk it up necessarily? And that would be the same for other Latin American regions as well where the same will be true. How do you guys approach that, where some areas would have better density in some areas wouldn't?
Sure. So it's very complicated. When we look at -- when we look at and an acquisition of a product, it's really -- that is -- we don't look at it just on a region basis that it's bulking up the -- is bulking up Brazil. It's more that it's bulking up our organization and making us able to afford the launches that we have to do. So we're excited about the portfolio that we have in Canada, and that does grow, and it gets us to profitability. The issue that we have is that we need to have similar to most pharmaceutical companies, a balanced portfolio of products that are generating steady cash flows and products that we're investing in. So the priority for wall and her team is to really strike that balance for us. And when it comes to the products that generate cash flows, we're not we're not going to stay wholly to -- it has to be for Canada or it has to be for Mexico because it's shoring up the entire business.
I guess -- sorry, I'll just ask a clarification before I let it go here, but if you don't necessarily -- do you need Canada that does help you the negotiation table to also negotiate for Canada, even if Canada is a drag on earnings. I guess that's the -- I guess what I'm saying is it feels like why would you be in Canada? Why wouldn't you actually just almost eliminate that portfolio and move on if it's not going to be a great place for you guys anymore? Or if you're saying that like, no, actually having this kind of scale helps us negotiate. Yes. I guess I'll leave it at that.
Sure. I'm going to actually let Amal answer how Canada factors into our negotiations.
Sure. So I mean simulated, Canada continues to be an important market. And when it comes to negotiation on territories, there's, of course, our preference to in license or acquire products for our entire territory, but we're only 1 of 2 parties usually in a transaction. So also, a lot of it depends on what the seller licensor is looking for. So we really have to balance kind of what we're looking for versus what the licensor seller is looking for balance that flexibility and look at what makes sense for the portfolio.
Our last question is from Tania Gonsalves.
Just one for me here. Amal, I think you mentioned that you're focused on completing the integration of GBT right now. Could you provide some more color on exactly what else remains to be done? And I guess, the time line of when this will be completed and whether it could benefit the OpEx line in any way?
Tania, I'm going to take that. Amal's focused on around building. There's a whole bunch of us that are focused on integrating. So when it comes to integration, we've made a lot of size on our commercial side on the BD side. We're well on our way with finance, especially with the talent across the organization. We're going to continue to sharpen that a little bit more. Where now my focus is really on the scientific affairs side. So that R&D, quality, regulatory, medical teams. And we really -- this year is going to be a push on that as well as on the manufacturing side. And underneath all of that is systems and processes so that we work as one company and -- ensuring efficiencies, ensuring compliance and really having the platform from which we can facilitate and quickly bring in a product, launch a product, track the inventory, report our numbers and analyze. And be -- and you have to remember, our industry is heavily regulated. So when it comes to quality control, when it comes to pharmacovigilance, we want to be able to pass-through without any big issues when it comes to audits from various agencies and whatever because that's always work. And that's what we're -- that's really where we're we are. I mean, so we're about halfway through, and there's another year of integration left for us.
Perfect. And then when you talk about bulking up some of these caps that -- is it safe to say that we're not necessarily going to see OpEx synergies that may see arise as you build out the teams and optimize performance?
I think it's -- what I'm hoping to do is kind of balance between systems and people. That we achieved some efficiencies, and people are doing less manual exercise and more analytical exercise.
[Operator Instructions] It appears that we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back over to our speakers for any additional or closing.
It's Jonathan speaking. As you know, that I am frugal, some say, cheap. And we have purchased -- in 2021, we have purchased year-to-date 2.9 million shares at $5.25 a share. And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you for your confidence in the Knight team and joining our Q4 2020 conference call. Please stay healthy and stay safe.
This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time. Thank you.