Genovis launches FabRICATOR®-HPLC for automated antibody analysis
FabRICATOR HPLC is a column that enables automated analysis of therapeutic antibodies during development, production and formulation of antibody-based drugs. The product can be used in existing analytical systems on the market, which means that customers do not need to invest in additional hardware.
“As FabRICATOR has become increasingly established on the antibody analysis market, we have perceived a need to further simplify and automate sample handling for our customers. FabRICATOR®-HPLC is an enzyme reactor that gives our customers new opportunities to transfer their existing methods using our enzymes onto fully automated instruments thereby reducing operator time, sample handling and increasing throughput,” says Fredrik Olsson, CEO.
FabRICATOR®-HPLC is the second product that Genovis has launched this year. Earlier in April the company launched GlycOCATCH™, a new technology for purification of glycosylated proteins.
For more information about FabRICATOR-HPLC column: https://www.genovis.com/products/igg-proteases/fabricator/fabricator-hplc/
Half-Yearly Report January – June 2018
· Net sales rose by about 48 percent to SEK 8,578k (5,812k).
· Operating result before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA)* totaled SEK -596k (-1,624).
· Comprehensive income for the period improved by SEK 352k to a loss of SEK 1,793 (loss: 2,145k).
· Comprehensive income per share, basic and diluted, improved by SEK 0.01 to SEK -0.03 (-0.04).
· Genovis signed distribution agreement for the South Korean market
· Strengthened marketing organization in the US and Kevin Cook hired as Senior Application & Market Area Manager for the subsidiary Genovis Inc.
· Expanded product portfolio and launched GlycOCATCH™, the first product in the company’s new protein purification product category.
· Carried out a directed share issue that raised SEK 10.1 million for the company before transaction costs.
* Genovis has chosen to apply IFRS 16 in advance, as well as the simplification rule regarding short-term leases. Consequently, this will not have any effect on the figures reported for 2017. Costs for rent and leases are therefore recognized under depreciation and amortization and beginning in 2018 will not affect EBITDA for the Group.
Half year in brief
· Net sales rose by about 40 percent to SEK 14,825k (10,607k).
· Gross profit improved by SEK 4,045k and totaled SEK 14,062k (10,017k).
· Operating result improved by SEK 1,745k and totaled -3,292k (-5,037k).
· Comprehensive income for the period improved by SEK 2,026 to a loss of SEK 3,189 (loss: 5,215k).
· Comprehensive income per share, basic and diluted, improved by SEK 0.04 to SEK -0.05 (-0.09).
Events after the end of the period
Genovis expanded its sales and marketing organization at its Lund headquarters and hired Rob Horsefield as Sales & Business Development Manager. Rob has several years of experience in the industry from sales in analytical chemistry, pharmaceutical development and protein chemistry.
Comments from Fredrik Olsson, Chief Executive Officer
Extremely strong sales growth in Q2
The extremely strong growth at the beginning of the year continued during the second quarter: sales surged 48 percent compared with the previous year and totaled SEK 8.6 million (5.8). This is the single best sales quarter in the history of Genovis. Thus we have now had 15 quarters with sales growth (YoY). For the half year, sales totaled approximately SEK 14.8 million, which represents sales growth of about 40 percent for the first six months of the year. The strong sales with a continued high gross margin creates a good platform for long-term sustainable growth and profitability.
Our sales grew on all markets during the quarter. Our strategy is still to have a presence in all key markets and right now Asia is our priority, with the goal of signing contracts during the year for Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. The increase in sales is driven by increased demand, both for our more mature products that have been on the market for a few years and because our recently launched products have rapidly been accepted on the market. This is a clear confirmation that our strategy and business model with customer-focused innovation creates value and growth opportunities for Genovis. In particular, our product portfolio in the glycomics area has achieved faster sales growth. We realized there was a pronounced need in the market for new analytical tools in the field of glycomics, but the response has been both larger and faster than we had initially expected. During the quarter we expanded our portfolio with yet another product in glycomics, GlycOCATCH™, which is our first product for protein purification. Two important scientific articles from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine were published during the summer. Both of these articles demonstrate new and different applications for our glycomics portfolio, which in the long term will open completely new business opportunities for Genovis.
Genovis is in a growth phase and against this background we carried out a rights issue during the quarter with the goal of continuing to strengthen and grow our sales and marketing organization. In addition to the previously announced recruitment of Kevin Cook to our US organization, Rob Horsefield is now joining the Genovis team in Lund. Rob Horsefield brings valuable industry experience and will initially promote our expansion in the Asian markets and develop our business in relation to partners and potential wholesalers, as well as support our continued growth in Europe.
With more than half of 2018 behind us, the beginning of the third quarter clearly indicates continued sales growth. The investments that we have made during the quarter to strengthen our marketing organization and to secure the right patent protection are crucial for us to be able to maintain the high pace of our development portfolio and sales moving forward.
I confidently look forward, along with our expanding team, to accompanying Genovis on its continued journey of growth.
Genovis further expands marketing organization
Rob Horsefield holds a PhD in protein chemistry and joins us most recently from Agilent, where he worked for six years as Account Manager and Product Specialist in chromatography and mass spectrometry. Previously Rob worked with protein analysis at AstraZeneca.
“I am extremely pleased that Rob has chosen to join our team. He will contribute industrial experience from the analytical industry and he also brings a clear customer perspective from his years in the pharmaceutical industry. Hiring Rob is in line with our commitment to focus on high industrial expertise in our expanding market organization, which will help to further enhance our innovation moving forward,” says CEO Fredrik Olsson.
“Genovis continues to grow their exciting SmartEnzymes product portfolio for the important therapeutics market place – this is one of the main reasons for my interest in this role. I am looking forward to working with these products, the great team at Genovis and their important customer base in Europe and Asia. I hope we can take advantage of my experience with protein biochemistry, time within the biopharma sector and within LC/LC-MS sales, to maximize sales opportunities and grow the business,” says Rob Horsefield.
Communiqué from Genovis AB (publ) Annual General Meeting May 17, 2018
The Annual General Meeting adopted the following resolutions:
- The balance sheet and income statement were adopted.
- The Board and the Chief Executive Officer were discharged from liability.
- The Board shall consist until the next AGM of six ordinary members without deputies.
- Ordinary members Kenth Petersson, Mikael Lönn, Lena Mårtensson Wernrud and Mårten Winge were re-elected.Lena Söderström och Peter Hein was elected new Board members.Mårten Winge was elected Chairperson of the Board.
- Remuneration will be paid to the Board of Directors in the amount of SEK 100,000 to Board members and SEK 200,000 to the Chairperson of the Board.
- Remuneration to the auditors will be paid on account.
- A Nomination Committee will be formed with representatives of the four largest shareholders at September 30, 2018.
- Guidelines for remuneration to the Chief Executive Officer and other senior executives were adopted in accordance with the Board’s proposal.
- The AGM resolved on the authorization to issue shares with or without preferential rights for existing shareholders. As a result of this resolution, share capital could increase by a maximum of SEK 1,625,000 through the issuance of a maximum of 6,500,000shares.
Interim Report January – March 2018
· Net sales rose by about 30 percent to SEK 6,246k (4,794k).
· Gross margin* was 90 (89) percent.
· Operating result before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA)** totaled SEK -16k (-2,534k).
· Operating result improved by SEK 1,495k and totaled -1,368k (-2,863k).
· Comprehensive income for the period improved by SEK 1,476 to a loss of SEK 1,396k (loss: 2,872k).
· Comprehensive income per share, basic and diluted, improved by SEK 0.03 to SEK -0.02 (-0.05).
· Cash flow from operating activities was a loss of SEK2,024k (loss: 1,586k).
*Excl. other revenue and “Change in inventory, finished goods”
** Genovis has chosen to apply IFRS 16 in advance, as well as the simplification rule regarding short-term leases. Consequently, this will not have any effect on the figures reported for 2017. Costs for rent and leases are therefore recognized under depreciation and amortization and beginning in 2018 will not affect EBITDA for the Group.
Events after the end of the period
Genovis has hired Kevin Cook as Senior Application & Market Area Manager for the subsidiary Genovis Inc. Kevin Cook has 20 years of experience with mass spectrometry from both the pharmaceutical and technology industries. Over the past ten years Kevin has worked with marketing and sales of instruments, consumables and reagents for mass spectrometry, which is a good fit with the market for Genovis’ products.
Genovis launched a new product, GlycOCATCH™. The new product, GlycOCATCH, is a tool for fast, simple and specific purification of proteins or peptides and is aimed at pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies, as well as universities that work with O-glycosylated proteins. GlycOCATCH is designed to make these analyses easier, which has been requested by both industry and regulatory authorities..
Genovis carried out a directed share issue of 2,805,838 shares in accordance with the authorization granted by the Annual General Meeting on May 11, 2017. The issue was directed to a small group of qualified investors and raised SEK 10.1 million for the Company. The subscription price was SEK 3.60 per share.
Comments from Fredrik Olsson, Chief Executive Officer
2018 begins with strong momentum throughout the business
We continue to show strong growth in the first quarter of 2018. Our sales increased by 30 percent compared with the previous year and now amount to SEK 6.25k (4.8k). This means that we have now had sales growth for 14 consecutive quarters. Growth is exclusively organic as the number of orders continues to rise sharply and the repeat purchase rate continues to develop positively for the entire product portfolio. Just as for our industry colleagues and as we have seen in past years, we experience seasonal variations, with the first and third quarters somewhat weaker on the revenue side. Consequently, it is particularly encouraging that EBITDA was significantly improved this quarter, compared with the previous year, SEK -16k (-2,053k*). Our gross margin remains at an expected high level of 90 percent. We can also report that all geographic markets grew during the quarter.
Our strategy to expand our presence in key markets remains unchanged. After the end of the period we signed an additional distribution agreement, this time with Chayon Laboratories in South Korea, a market where biopharmaceuticals are on the rise. Our goal is to have agreements with partners in all key markets in Asia before the end of the year. In the next phase we are focusing primarily on Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
We are clearly in a growth phase, where our expanding product portfolio lays the foundation for new business in all markets. We want to take advantage of and accelerate this strong momentum. Consequently, the Board of Directors decided to carry out a rights issue in order to rapidly gain guaranteed access to additional expansion capital. With the capital raised from the rights issue we can immediately strengthen our sales and marketing organization, thereby ensuring continued development of our popular patent-protected products and so continue on the proactive path of our growth journey. The rights issue is a clear acknowledgement of the quality of the Company and increases the value for Genovis shareholders.
As part of our strategy to increase our sales and marketing initiatives we have recruited Kevin Cook for our US sales organization at Genovis Inc. Kevin Cook has extensive experience in marketing and sales in mass spectrometry from both the instrument side and the reagents side, as well as great technological know-how combined with experience from the customer side. With a wide network of contacts, Kevin will focus on potential customers in the biopharmaceutical industry on the west coast of the US, at the same time that his experience will support us in our future product and application development.
In addition to this recruitment in the US, we intend to strengthen our marketing organization with additional employees. With our base in Lund, we are preparing for continued expansion, both in our existing markets and by developing the business in the Asian markets together with our partners and new distributors. Our continued success at Genovis also improves prospects for hiring top-notch talent. We receive many qualified applicants to our positions, including a large number of spontaneous applications, which strengthens us in our ambitions for the future.
At the end of April Genovis launched its first product for enrichment of proteins prior to analysis, GlycOCATCH™. In simple terms, this product facilitates and speeds up analysis processes, which has been requested by the industry, academia and regulatory authorities. This is our first product in this segment and it will be exciting to follow developments moving forward. Just as with many of our previous launches, we expect that GlycOCATCH will mainly begin to be used in the discovery phase, after which it will gradually be integrated into other parts of the value chain.
With a good start to the year from the first quarter, I see great opportunities to improve our business moving forward. The signs at the beginning of the second quarter indicate sales growth will continue to be strong. With our current efforts to further promote growth by enhancing our organization with new talent and several additions to the product portfolio, I look forward to working with my colleagues to strengthen our position as an innovative partner to the global pharmaceutical companies and driving developments at Genovis forward.
* EBITDA for 2017 was adjusted to allow for a fair comparison on the EBITDA level since the Company chose to apply IFRS 16.
Genovis carries out directed share issue to raise SEK 10.1 million for the company
Selected qualified investors have subscribed to the rights issue. Through the rights issue, the company will raise proceeds of SEK 10.1 million before transaction costs, which are estimated at SEK 600 thousand. The price per share is SEK 3.60 and is 8,3 percent below the volume-weighted average price during the last 20 trading days prior to this announcement. After the rights issue the total number of shares and votes in the company will be 63,100,000 and share capital will amount to SEK 15,775,000. The rights issue entails a dilutive effect of approximately 4,65 percent based on the total number of shares in the company following the rights issue.
The company experience increased demand both in current and newly launched products. This is particularly evident on the largest markets in US and Europe but also for the Asian markets. The board estimates that profitability is possible in short term but has decided to make an active effort to take advantage of the company’s favorable market position and lay the foundation for strong and sustainable growth over time
The reason for deviation from the shareholders’ preferential rights is to facilitate raising capital, in terms of both time and cost-efficiency, for expansion of its market organizations.
Redeye AB has acted as financial adviser in connection with the issue.
Genovis launches GlycOCATCH™ for purification of O-glycosylated proteins
With the addition of GlycOCATCH, Genovis is expanding its already unique offering of products within the field of O-glycans and streangthens its position as an innovator in this market. The new product, GlycOCATCH, is a tool for fast, simple and specific purification of O-glycosylated proteins or peptides and is aimed at pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies, as well as universities. Both biopharmaceuticals and various types of biomarkers are often O-glycosylated, which poses a challenge for detecting and analyzing these proteins. GlycOCATCH is designed to make these analyses easier, which has been requested by both industry and regulatory authorities.
“The response to our existing products within the O-glycan segment has been extremely positive and with GlycOCATCH, we look forward to contribute to new answers to analytical questions in both the pharmaceutical industry and academia,” says Fredrik Olsson, CEO of Genovis.
For more information about GlycOCATCH: www.genovis.com/glycocatch
More about O-glycans and GlycOCATCH
There are two main types of glycans (sugar chains) attached to proteins: N-glycans and O-glycans. O-glycans are more difficult to analyze since their attachment to protein sites is less predictable, while at the same time no tools, such as those used for N-glycans, are available to analyze them. Many human proteins contain O-glycans and research suggests that they are of great importance to biological processes. An important aspect in the analysis of proteins and glycosylation is the actual sample preparation. With GlycOCATCH, Genovis adds a product for “affinity purification” of proteins that are O-glycosylated. These types of proteins, which can be found in protein-based drugs and in nature, may be able to serve as important biomarkers in the blood. The ability to quickly and easily purify these proteins improves sensitivity, for example in mass spectrometric analysis.
Genovis strengthens its marketing organization in the US
“I am extremely pleased that Kevin has chosen to work with Genovis and our growing team of talented and innovative employees. Kevin will contribute his extensive experience, unique expertise, and a large network developed through years in the industry. He will continue our efforts to strengthen Genovis’ business model based on a deep technical understanding of customer needs, which will further strengthen our brand and innovative impact,” said Fredrik Olsson, CEO of Genovis.
“I am excited to join such a technology-oriented company as Genovis, with its superior products,” said Kevin Cook.
Proposal to expand the Genovis Board of Directors at 2018 Annual General Meeting
Lena Söderström has been CEO of Senzime AB (publ) since 2013 and was previously CEO of Isconova and Kibion; prior to that she held various positions at Fresenius Kabi and Pharmacia. Lena has extensive Board experience and is currently on the Board of Directors of Uppsala University Holding AB and SLU Holding AB.
Peter Hein has extensive experience from leading positions in the life science industry. He has been CFO at Q-Med and Biolipox (Orexo). He has also served as CFO and CEO of Granngården. His background is in business and finance, including at Ericsson and Swedish Match in Switzerland. For the past two years Peter has worked as a consultant and interim CFO for a couple of small biotech companies.
“We are extremely pleased to be able to bring in two such experienced and knowledgeable individuals to the Genovis Board of Directors. The company is currently in a growth phase with an expanded geographic presence and a strong dynamic product portfolio. We consider this proposal to the AGM of two such talented candidates with new skills to be extremely valuable,” says Mikael Lönn, chairman of the Nomination Committee.
The new Board of Directors in the proposal to the AGM is as follows: re-election of Mårten Winge, Lena Mårtensson Wernrud, Kenth Petersson and Mikael Lönn, and election of Lena Söderström and Peter Hein.
The Nomination Committee proposes re-election of Mårten Winge to serve as Chairman of the Board.
Genovis signs distribution agreement for South Korean market
It was a South Korean company that had the world’s first antibody-biosimilar approved. Since then, the market for biopharmaceuticals has continued to grow strongly in South Korea.
Both Samsung Biologics and Celltrion have large research and production facilities for biological drugs, including biosimilars, in South Korea. The production capacity of both of these participants is expected to grow sharply over the next few years, which will make South Korea one of the largest players in the market moving forward.
To meet the need for development of biologicals Genovis has chosen to partner with Chayon Laboratories, which is headquartered in Seoul. The company is engaged in the sale and distribution of several products for drug development and has a technically oriented sales strategy similar to the successful strategy that Genovis developed in the European and American markets.
“The South Korean market has a well-established base in biopharma that has mainly focused on ‘biosimilars’ (generics of biological drugs), and there are great ambitions to become world leaders in the development and production of biological drugs over the next few years. We look forward to the opportunities offered by cooperating with Chayon and the continued establishment of our products in an exciting market,” said Fredrik Olsson, CEO of Genovis.
Chayon Laboratories has an extensive customer base and well-educated sales organization that will be a great asset for reaching the South Korean pharmaceutical companies and facilitating continued development of biopharmaceuticals.
“Genovis provides innovative products for the biopharmaceutical industry. We look forward to introducing the latest technologies from Genovis to the South Korean customers,” says Minah Lee, Managing Director, Chayon Laboratories Inc.
ABOUT CHAYON LABORATORIES
Chayon Laboratories strives to introduce the best and latest technologies in life science. Since its inception in 1997, Chayon Laboratories has become a leading company for the distribution of advanced technological equipment and services for various applications.
