Avicanna Inc. ($AVCN)

All right. We'll get started. Thank you for joining, everyone. My name is Aras Azadian, CEO, Founder of Avicanna. Some of you would know me for a long time. This is my 10th year in the role. Joined today by -- with Dr. Karolina Urban, who's our EVP of Scientific Affairs and Medical Affairs; and Nick Hilborn, who's our Interim CFO. We're going to take you over some of the corporate updates from 2025, then a little bit of an overview of where we stand as a corporation. But of course, I look forward as well into 2026. So what's coming which is very exciting. In addition to that, we're going to leave a little bit of time for Q&A at the end. So a customary disclaimer notice. But for some of you that are new to the company, I'll spend a minute or 2 and just who we are. So Avicanna is -- now we're fully vertically integrated cannabinoid-based pharma company. We have established what we believe is an industry-leading scientific platform and that his now translated into a commercial platform. This is across four different business pillars now from medical cannabis products, many there quite a brand to our medical cannabis care platform, which is my media to our pharmaceutical pipeline and, of course, our Aureus raw materials division. This is all part of an integrated commercial platform. These business units while we do operate independently, do have substantial synergistic benefits for each other business unit. This has resulted in over 50 commercial products, mainly in the Canadian market. This is part of our plans for 2026 to further expand these into international markets. And we have established footprint and or proof of concept in what is now 24 international markets, resulting in about $25.5 million of revenue during 2025, and essentially adjusted EBITDA breakeven. This is all derived from the scientific platform. Dr. Urban will walk you through some of the developments of this year, but our scientific platform is really where we dedicated the first 5 years of Avicanna into drug delivery preclinical and clinical development and it's something that we take a lot of pride in, and I believe, again, Avicanna is an established leader within that realm. So just a quick overview of 2025. This is what we're going to be covering. So I don't want to take the thunder away from my colleague, Nick, but from a financial perspective, we were able to relatively consistent revenues from last year, a little bit above last year's results of $25.5 million. We did substantially improve our gross profits and gross margins by about 10%, resulting in 53% gross profits. I believe these are industry-leading numbers and an indication of the company's entry barriers and operating -- the fact that we're operating as a more biopharma company. We are happy to be carrying 0 debt in terms of structured debt or debenture on our balance sheet. And again, we were able to substantially improve our adjusted EBITDA to less than $300,000 for all of 2025. So strongest financial performance to date, while the revenue growth was modest, we were able to substantially improve other variables within our financial performance. Nick will dive into that. We did improve our efficiency and margins. We'll dive into how we accomplished that. We were able to also make strategic investments during 2025. So for those of you that have been shareholders for Avicanna for a long period of time, you would notice that we were able to actually reinvest in physical capabilities in Colombia, for example, that has now resulted in improvements of our export capabilities, but also in R&D and clinical development that is really the largest value driver for the company in the long term. We did continue to expand our commercialization efforts in Canada, and I'll expand into that. And then focus more on international advancement and commercialization across new markets, which we will also expand on. So overall, a successful year. We're very happy with the results of the year, and we're very excited for what 2026 has to offer. So just a quick overview of RHO Phyto for some of you that are not familiar, RHO Phyto is our main medical cannabis brand. This is treated as of the medical formulary for insurance adjudication and for clinical practice. From a simple sense, this is a portfolio of advanced medical cannabis products that are utilizing Avicanna's proprietary drug delivery systems to deliver standardized and evidence-based products to patients. Karolina and her team, including our pharmacists and mine are helping patients to do with clinical guidelines and treatment plans and working with the medical community to identify which one of these products is most suitable for various clinical indications or symptoms. Very happy with what we've done with RHO Phyto. Canada has been our proof-of-concept market where we have commercialized about 50 of these SKUs. The learn firm them test it improved the formulation, improved dosing and are consistently revamping this portfolio. We will be now focusing on internationalization and further scale in RHO Phyto in 2026 which we will expand on. Something that in the next slide that we're quite excited about is the pipeline that's coming and Karolina will expand on -- the one after, yes. So something that we're quite excited about, again, is the pipeline. I'll expand on it. But in the next slide, we're talking about what we've accomplished with RHO Phyto, our medical portfolio in Canada. The number of listings we have continue to increase, which means more and more channels. We can call them placements across Canada or listings. These are SKU getting listed within a medical or retail channel, meaning a province or a medical platform other than MyMedi. So we're at 170, and this is a 26% increase from last year. We do now have 50 products in the Canadian market. We believe that number is going to go up by the end of this year with the introduction of our next-generation 3.0 products. But in addition to that, we are removing SKUs that are low performance. So the idea isn't just to bring more and more product into the market, but to bring on products to the market, test them, learn from them, improve them and keep the winners and ideally start linking those products -- particular products to various -- again, symptoms or clinical indications or patient groups which is part of the medical affair efforts Karolina will expand on. This is all done in an asset-light model. So Avicanna is not a licensed producer. We are outsourcing the manufacturing of our proprietary products, meaning, we are tech transferring our formulations. We're ensuring that it's meeting Avicanna's quality standards and these products are being released. What's interesting about this model is its scalability. So as we continue to grow in the domestic market of Canada, but also internationalized, we will be using an asset-light model that allows us to scale without major CapEx. We are in eight national medical platforms, including MyMedi. So my MyMedi being -- is one of the medical cannabis platforms in Canada. We believe it's unique and Karolina will expand on that, but we're very excited to see that we are entering more and more channels where these proprietary products are having significant benefit for patients. Karolina will expand on in fluid and PwdRx. These are two of our technologies that we have finalized during 2025 and its derivative products and I'll leave that for Karolina, but what I'll touch on is the products from this -- from these developments that were going to be translating into the Canadian market during 2026 and into international markets from 2026 and on. So this includes in fluid, which is a liquid version of self-emulsifying drug delivery system that is being utilized as a precursor, so as essentially a nano emulsion going into gummies, resulting in fast gummies. Same technologies being utilized in our new capsules that are going to be fast-acting capsules, sachets and small beverages. The idea here is to be able to reduce combustible and inhaled products within the patient population by delivering fast-acting benefits of cannabinoids within more and more consumer-friendly or patient-friendly dose forms. These are all in esprit products, lots of a protection around these and very excited to see so early results in these products within preclinical clinical development and bring them to the market. PwdRX on the right is powder version of a similar technology, but different that allows us to then solidify these products into hard forms such as tablets and oral pouches.

Good morning, everyone. Over the past year, our Medical and Scientific Affairs, efforts in Canada have remained focused on advancing cannabinoid-based medicine through three integrated pillars: a scalable medical platform, standardized and evidence-based proprietary products and rigorous clinical evidence generation. I'll walk through these briefly. 2025 was the turning point from MyMedi, our medical cannabis care platform, which provides access to cannabinoid-based medicine to patients across Canada with health care practitioner authorization. Originally launched following the acquisition of Medical Cannabis by Shoppers a subsidiary of Shoppers Drug Mart, the platform demonstrated growth supported by ongoing improvements in patient engagement, communication workflows and clinical documentation processes. These operational enhancements alongside the continued expansion and increased utilization of our pharmacist-led support services are driving greater efficiencies across our platform while improving patient retention, continuity of care and overall sales performance. You may ask what differentiates MyMedi from other medical cannabis services. And that's the combination of infrastructure, clinical support and access. We have a diverse multi-brand platform with over 230 SKUs from 65 leading medical cannabis brands. We have a strong medical affairs platform, including clinicians training and accredited education programs through Avicanna Academy. We have integrated insurance and reimbursement capabilities across private insurers public institutions and multiple provincial workers' compensation boards, such as WSIB. And we have bilingual pharmacist-led support programs that are important in treatment planning and specialized services, which is the ones we have developed for veterans. Importantly, this platform not only supports patient care but also enables real-world evidence generation, which I'll touch on like. It also generates clinician engagement and payer integration at scale, positioning it as a core driver of both clinical and commercial growth. We continue to believe that MyMedi, especially when combined with RHO Phyto is the most complete service of cannabinoid-based medicine and perfectly suited for international expansion into markets that are planning to regulate medical cannabis federally. During 2025, we set out to engage and collaborate with the medical community in Canada in an effort to help facilitate the incorporation of cannabinoid-based medicine into standard of care. While we faced early challenges, we are pleased with the progress we made in 2025 and the reception we have received from the medical community. Over the of the year, we have continued to expand our reach within the medical community through targeted education, scientific exchange and collaboration with key stakeholders. This has included healthcare professional training and education that has been focused on clinical guidelines, treatment planning and integration of medical cannabis into products, key opinion leader engagement, including four national webinars, reaching over 700 registrants and over nearly 400 live attendees, strategic collaborations with professional organizations, including the Nurse Practitioners Association of Ontario and the Canadian Pain Society. Conference participation and scientific presence, including our annual symposium, which had over 400 health care practitioner registrations as well as participation in eight other conferences across Pain, Mental health, Pallative Care and Veteran Health, giving us presence across the country. Finally, we enhanced all of our educational infrastructure, including updates to Avicanna Academy and the development of training modules. We also conducted advisory board engagements, including chronic pain and PTSD focused sessions with multidisciplinary experts to inform clinical frameworks and identify gaps in care. All of these efforts are designed to support clinicians in adopting cannabinoid-based therapies in a structured and evidence-informed manner. As a result, we are seeing continued growth in new prescribers engaging with MyMedi, either through direct patient onboarding or referrals through clinic networks, strengthening our position within the medical channel and supporting sustained patient growth. In terms of our pipeline development and translational science, over the last 9 years of preclinical and clinical work on cannabinoids, Avicanna has established a scientific platform and continues to develop intellectual property. Our R&D team continues to innovate and leverage. Our robust understanding of medical cannabis and patent outcomes to deliver proprietary cannabinoid-based products. Our development efforts are underpinned by a robust R&D platform, complemented by observational real-world evidence studies that help inform clinical decision-making and validate our therapeutic approach. During 2025, we also finalized two self-emulsifying drug delivery system platforms, in fluid and PwdRX that are designed and optimized to solve challenges associated with hydrophobic nature of cannabinoids. Both of these unique drug delivery systems utilize a nano-emulsion technology to deliver cannabinoids in a consistent and rapid manner while enhancing absorption and speed of onset. Both of these technologies were also further developed into final product formats that Aras alluded to as part of our 2026 pipeline. Really an incredible example of our scientific platform translation capabilities into commercial efforts. We continue to advance our proprietary oral delivery platforms. First, PwdRX, which is designed to address key challenges associated with cannabinoids, including poor solubility, variable bioavailability and delayed onset. In a recent in vitro study, this platform demonstrated a 74% increase in bioavailability, a 63% increase in peak plasma concentration and 134% higher peak concentration compared to standard MCT oil formulations. We have filed a provisional patent covering this technology, which is adaptable across multiple formats, including capsules, tablets, sachets and pouches. Additionally, in fluid, another self-emulsifying drug delivery system will be utilized in various product formats. This technology was designed for product formats such as beverages and gummies. Finally, we are granted a new USPTO patent covering topical cannabinoid composition for dermatological applications, further strengthening our intellectual property portfolio. We continue to advance a structured clinical development strategy that spans real-world evidence, randomized controlled trials and early phase mechanistic studies. At the foundation of this work is our national real-world evidence study conducted through MyMedi, which is led by Dr. Hance Clarke. This prospective observational study has enrolled approximately 450 patients to date and evaluates patient-reported outcomes across pain, sleep, anxiety, depression, and medication use in routine clinical practice. This study has now been published in the Canadian Journal of Pain, demonstrating significant improvements across multiple clinical endpoints over a 24-week period. We continue to drive this data collection forward as we speak. Building on the real-world evidence findings, we have initiated a pilot Phase II randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial in osteoarthritic pain, which is also led by Dr. Hance Clarke at the University Health Network. This study is a multicenter, 3-arm parallel study that is evaluating our proprietary oral cannabinoid capsules utilizing our solid fed delivery platform. We are currently in recruitment -- patient recruitment phase and this trial represents an important step towards generating high-quality controlled evidence to support clinical and regulatory advancement. Looking ahead, we have also received Health Canada approval for a Phase I randomized placebo-controlled dose finding study that we announced in 2026 and in collaboration with the University of Calgary, led by Dr. Leah Mayo and Dr. Matthew Hill. This study is designed to characterize the dose-dependent effects of oral THC on anxiety, incorporating validated psychometric assessments alongside pharmokinetics profiling and biomarker analysis. Together, these programs reflect a deliberate and staged approach to evidence generation, leveraging real-world data to inform controlled trials and advancing toward more precise dose defined therapeutic strategies. Now I'll turn it back over to Aras.

Thanks, Karolina. Just we'll get into a little bit of the international progress we made during 2025. And at the end of the presentation, we'll talk about our 2026 plans. But as most of you are familiar with the company and the success we've had in Canada. Canada does remain our main market, our priority market, but Canada is also our sandbox. Canada is again where we're optimizing our role fit portfolio, optimizing the services provider in MyMedi, combining into what is a real complete medical cannabis service, and we are then utilizing that to build our pharmaceutical pipeline and intellectual property portfolio. However, during 2025, we were able to accomplish some early signals elsewhere. Initially with Trunerox, for those of you that are not familiar, Trunerox is our first approved pharmaceutical. This is an epilepsy drug for pediatric epilepsy catastrophic indications, including Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndrome and the product was approved for at marketing authorization by Invima, which is the Colombian authorities, the product was launched early Q1 2026. This is a very soft launch. So we're learning from it. We're learning from our first pharmaceutical launch and hoping that we can scale that in Colombia and then internationalize it in other markets, where the Trunerox approval at Invima does us qualify. In addition to that, we were able to commence exports into the United States. We have never breached U.S. federal law. We've never conducted sort of state-level activities, and therefore, are actually quite clear in terms of our U.S. pathway. However, we're able to conduct CBD -- direct CBD product sales through our partnership with re+PLAY. re+PLAY for those of you who are not familiar with, is Al Harrison, a former NBA Veterans CBD recovery brand, which is utilizing our proprietary CBD and CBG topicals. We launched the brand late last year and are now working on the scale of that in the United States with Al and his team. Very excited about the opportunity there because we're utilizing our own organic CBD and CBG that we're producing in Colombia. We're producing the finished product also in Colombia and exporting that into the United States going through obviously the full import and export process. In addition to that, we were able to scale Aureus and more importantly, improve the quality of Aureus, which is our Colombian subsidiary. So in Colombia, we have our majority-owned subsidiary that has been historically focused on the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients, CBD, CBG, THC, using organic materials. Over the last 2 years, we've concentrated on improving the capabilities within this operation to be able to produce organic premium flower so that we can export that around the world. The reason why that's important is, in many of the emerging international markets, such as the European Union, U.K., Australia, flower does still represent the highest proportion of sales, and it is the easiest product to be able to export and we've been able to prove that our infrastructure in Colombia, which has clear cost advantages and environmental advantages and organic certification can meet the regulatory and quality requirements of these markets. We announced that we export to Australia. And as of last year, we were able to enter Europe as well. So we believe this can be something that's going to be scaled during 2026. So we're quite excited about the opportunity this can have as a revenue driver and also as potentially a very large cash cow to then help fund some of the other innovations and international expansions of the company. We were able to enter our 24th market. So this is now -- but in 2026, we enter Australia, which is our sixth continent. For those of you that are not familiar with the regulatory landscape relates to cannabinoids, it's a controlled substance. So there's a lot of code applications and import and export process that needs to -- we need to go through. And no country has the same regulations. So we are navigating a very complex regulatory scheme internationally, and we were able to successfully work with international law to be able to get these products into various markets, something that we're quite excited about, and I'll touch on in terms of what we expect to do in 2026 as a forward-looking statement. So overall, I think we're very well positioned to now scale. We did further improve our processes during 2025. We did land in new markets. We have launched new programs and partnerships. And again, we're operating in a very asset-light model where we believe that the formulations products can enter more and more international markets, while not requiring a significant investment from a CapEx perspective from Avicanna, and while maintaining high entry barriers, whether it's the formulations or it's a low cost of material that we're able to deliver. I think we're going to go into finance now, Nick?

Thank you, Aras, and good morning. I'm happy to provide an update on the financial results for 2025. In 2025, top line revenue was consistent year-over-year at $25.5 million. Avicanna earned gross profit of $13.5 million, representing a gross profit margin of 53%. This is a 10% increase from the 2024 gross margin of 48%. The improved gross margin is a result of increased service and licensing revenue as well as a higher sell-through of Avicanna-branded products on MyMedi. As a percentage of MyMedi sales, Avicanna-branded products sold on MyMedi grew from 17.5% in Q4 2024 to 19.7% in Q4 2025, a 12% increase year-over-year. The company also continued its relentless efforts on cost control, decreasing operating expenses by $1.5 million year-over-year, representing a 9% decrease compared to 2024. As a result, we achieved adjusted EBITDA positivity in the fourth quarter of 2025, earning $310,000. Avicanna also significantly improved adjusted EBITDA for the full year by 71% and achieving a loss of $300,000 in 2025 compared to a loss of $1 million in 2024. This improvement is a direct result of the boost in gross margin and efficiencies within operating expenses. Net loss was also upgraded significantly, up by 41% from $4.6 million in 2024 to $2.7 million in 2025. Avicanna continues to operate with no debt on its balance sheet and managed to improve its working capital position by 23% in 2025 as compared to the prior year. The company is on the path to fund its own operations through operating cash flow and only raised $1 million through a non-brokered private placement during the year as compared to $4.8 million raised in 2024. Now we'll move to the next slide, and we'll go through a brief revenue breakdown. So we operate in many different channels and markets MyMedi.ca in Canada continues to be the major driver for Avicanna. And after a soft first quarter, we were able to deliver 3 sequential quarters of revenue growth, resulting in $20.4 million for the year. As noted on the previous slide, as a percent of MyMedi.ca sales, our medical affairs efforts resulted in a 12% increase of our Avicanna-branded product sell-through, substantially improving our consolidated Canadian gross margins. Other Canadian revenue was comprised of license and service revenue in addition to business-to-business product sales into other channels such as medical cannabis. High-margin license revenue increased by 39% year-over-year from $1.16 million to $1.6 million, while B2B product sales were relatively in line with the prior year. International revenue, most notably from our Santa Marta Golden hemp joint venture achieved revenue of $1.9 million. Although top line revenue was relatively consistent year-over-year in our International segment, we were able to realize significant margin improvement with the shift away from product sales towards service revenue. Now I'll pass it back to Aras for a look forward into 2026 as well as closing remarks.

Thanks, Nick. Again, I'm very happy with the financial results more so from the fact that we have reduced almost eliminated the use for external capital to sustain our business looking forward to 2026. As we look to further scale and invest. I think that gives us a solid ground to build on, and we're quite happy with that. Unfortunately, we're seeing the inverse impact of our financial and corporate and clinical and R&D progress in terms of the stock price. I think that's for anyone that can access public files, it's clear to see that there is an oversupply of the stock coming from one of the major shareholders, so this is public information in a relatively illiquid stock in the TSX in the segment that we're unfortunately associated to the terms of cannabinoids that is having an impact. And we're hoping the progress we continue to make in terms of 2026 and our plans that were for 2026 will help rectify this and really unlock value for shareholders. When we look at Canada, again, Canada is our primary focus, but it is also our more mature market, representing almost 90% of our international revenue. We do expect to continue to grow in a more stable fashion and we do expect to further invest within the R&D, clinical and medical affairs. Quite excited about the launch of the 3.0 products. We believe that this is in line with the needs of the market, both on the medical and even on the retail side, where there's opportunity for licensing of these technologies. We're quite -- it's quite important for us to be able to resolve some of the harm concerns related to cannabinoids, specifically in a harm reduction campaign and fast-acting oral formulations, we believe can offset or reduce the amount of combustible inhaled products that are in the Canadian market, and that's something that we will be dedicating resources to during 2026. In terms of the United States, this is becoming much more important for us as we proceed. We do have a multipronged U.S. strategy, which does include a pre rescheduling and a post rescheduling that is expected. For those of you that are not aware, the United States or Donald Trump has indicated that he expects to reschedule cannabis or cannabinoid-based products federally, and that would allow for significant opportunities from a medical, R&D, clinical, but also from a commercial perspective for companies like Avicanna that have dedicated 10 years now into a complete medical cannabis focus. Within that, we expect to dedicate resources into partnerships, strategic partnerships in terms of licensing and sort of the CBD pathway prior to rescheduling and post rescheduling, hope that we can 1 day bring the MyMedi and RHO Phyto platform into the United States and offer what has worked as a complete medical cannabis care platform in Canada into the United States. In addition to that, we are looking at the U.S. capital markets, something that we've -- we always knew we need to -- we aim to go towards. We've done a lot of analysis, and we have now engaged in discussions to be able to build our U.S. listing pathway in terms of a senior exchange. We believe as a biopharma company that does operate only in federal regulations. We have the capabilities and the regulatory sort of clearance to be able to list on a senior U.S. exchange where we can really unlock value for our shareholders. So this is something that we're going to be dedicating again, time and resources to this year, and we believe it's something that will substantially help to unlock value. From an international market perspective, again, what we did in Canada has worked, and we now aim to take our learnings, our products, our formulations, our technology, whether it's through direct exports of our raw materials out of Santa Marta, which we've already proven or our finished products, whether that's licensing or finished exports of our products like RHO Phyto into various emerging markets, two strategic partnership with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies that are looking to enter the cannabinoid adjacent to the cannabinoid direct model using either our intellectual property or raw materials to various other opportunities as the more and more countries legalize and regulate cannabinoid-based products, the trend we are seeing is that this is under a medical platform. And this is where we believe that Avicanna very well positioned. Again, to take the learnings of the company from Canada intellectual property and scale it internationally. From an R&D clinical perspective, we're quite excited that we're able to reinvest in these opportunities. And during 2025, Karolina and the team have made significant advancements from new product development to preclinical and clinical development. much of which has been done through grants and support from the clinical community. But we have been able to invest into these platforms, and we believe that this will ultimately drive the real value of the company in the future, especially as we go towards the United States and the senior exchange listing as a pharmaceutical issuer. And we're quite excited to see the learnings again from our real-world evidence that we've been able to conduct in Canada or some of our Phase II studies that are now ongoing in Canada into later-stage pharmaceutical development into markets like the United States. And where there's substantial opportunity to then co-develop or license technology as well. So overall, very excited for what we've accomplished. I'm personally very comfortable. This is the most comfortable the company has been in terms of financial performance, being able to stand on its own 2 feet and now look forward and invest in many of the things that we've already proven have worked in different markets or more specifically in Canada, and we believe that we have the team to do so, and we're excited to do so. So we'll open it up now. Karolina is going to help me with some of the questions and happy to answer that for the group.

[Operator Instructions] If we have no questions, you're always welcome to e-mail the team at Avicanna. We're always open to discussing anything and look forward to your feedback. We'll give it 1 more minute. [Operator Instructions] All right, Barbara.

I just had a quick question. Barbara Hickson, I'm a retired investor. Are you finding any interest from other major pharmaceutical companies in terms of acquiring the company?

Barbara, I'll answer that and good question. So far the early interest has come from cannabis companies, and we believe there's one, the value hasn't been right; and two, they will likely shelf the company in terms of the intellectual property and the value that it generates from a medical and pharma perspective. So our target, ultimately, when we consider an exit, it would be a pharmaceutical one. We've had collaborations and engagements, partnerships, some strategic sort of alliances with midsized pharma companies, and we continue to scale those, but we haven't had any direct acquisition opportunities yet. I do, however, believe that once we do eventually listen to the U.S. in terms of a senior exchange and the rescheduling of the United States takes place, that's going to open up the opportunity for more health care biotech investment, but also health care biotech companies getting more comfortable with the cannabinoid space. Today, we're still fighting a significant amount of stigma and hesitation because of the lack of sort of federal authorization in the United States, and that's where a lot of these companies are, as you know, so we see that as a significant opportunity to unlock value and even potentially for an exit. We're not quite there yet. And this is why we're further formatting the company to be more U.S. friendly for such opportunities.

We have 1 more minute.

I think we'll wrap up here. Everyone, thank you for attending. Thank you for your interest in the company. We're happy to keep you updated, especially as we make further progress in 2026. We will be conducting more and more calls, updates, webinars, et cetera, and excited to deliver the results of this year for 2. Thank you. Thanks, Karolina. Thanks, Nick.

Thanks, everyone.