Bavarian Nordic A/S (BAVA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Deutsche Bank Depositary Receipts Virtual Investor Conference, dbVIC. I'm Zaf Aziz, with Deutsche Bank team. I'm pleased to announce that our next presentation will be from Bavarian Nordic. Before I introduce our speaker, a few points to note. Please submit your questions in the questions box. Also, all of today's presentations will be recorded and can be accessed by the Deutsche Bank website, adr.db.com. At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Bavarian Nordic, which trades on the Copenhagen under the symbol, BAVA, and on the OTC markets as BVNRY.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation. My name is Rolf Sørensen. I'm Head of the Investor Relations at Bavarian Nordic. I will give you a brief presentation of who we are and what we are doing. A few days ago, we presented our first quarter results. We presented extremely good results. We presented revenue growth of more 60% and margin -- EBITDA margin of 31%, which was way above expectations from the investors and analysts. We have 2 segments: Travel Health and Public Preparedness. Our Travel Health segment grew more than 50% and Public Preparedness, more than 80%. I can come back with some more details in that. On the right side, you can see that the last couple of years, we have seen a nice trend, nice increase in revenue that is trending upwards simply because both segments Travel and Public Preparedness are doing extremely well. And I can explain that in more details in the next slides. We are doing vaccines. We are -- the company is a large manufacturer of and also developing vaccines. And there are a number of trends, megatrends supporting why you should invest in vaccines. Some of the vaccines are supported by climate change. Climate change may not be a positive thing, but actually for some of our -- demand for some of our vaccines, it is a good thing. We have some mosquitoes that used to live in certain areas. But now they -- due to climate change, they can live in broader areas. We have other diseases and/or animals that used to die during winter, now they don't die during winter, and for that reason, you see the need for vaccination. You also see new vaccines. You see innovation in vaccines. So you see new and better vaccines. So compared to 10, 20 years ago, there are new and better vaccines. We've also seen that in 2021, the COVID meant that the awareness in the broad population has increased a lot, meaning a lot for vaccine demand. Also, we have seen that, unfortunately, outbreaks, we are suppliers of Mpox vaccines or what used to be called monkeypox vaccines. Mpox is the disease that have existed in Africa for many years, but we saw outbreaks outside Africa, in Europe, U.S. and Asia back in '22, and we have now seen a huge outbreak that is ongoing in Africa now in '24. So being a large provider of Mpox vaccines is also a part of our -- important part of our business. We are also providing smallpox vaccines. Smallpox can be part of biodefense for many nations, and with the geopolitical situation in many countries, we see in Russia, Ukraine, in the Middle East nations around the world are stockpiling smallpox vaccines. So there are many megatrends that actually support the reason why you should invest in vaccines. So Bavarian Nordic at a glance, who are we? As mentioned, we have 2 divisions. We are a leading provider of travel vaccines, and we are a preferred supplier of -- to governments of vaccines in what we call Public Preparedness of smallpox and Mpox vaccines. We have transformed the company. Five years ago, we would be considered as a traditional biotech company. But now we -- is a profitable pharma, small pharma company. We are present in U.S. and in many locations in Europe, where we have both manufacturing and R&D and of course, commercial activities. So we are an international company, pharma company in transition. On this slide, you can see on the left side, the 2 divisions, on top, the Public Preparedness. In Public Preparedness, as I mentioned, we are selling the Mpox vaccines and smallpox vaccines. And it is actually the same vaccine, but it is approved for 2 very different indications. In Travel Health division, we have different vaccines, rabies and TBE, tick-borne encephalitis, are 2 of the larger vaccines we have. But we also have vaccines against cholera, typhoid, and then we have Chikungunya, which is a vaccine we have recently developed. It was approved earlier this year, and we have recently launched the vaccine in both U.S. and in Europe. It is an area where we see a large potential, and I'll come back to all of these vaccines with more details. In the bottom, you can see 3 other vaccines we are selling from other partners. So we have a large portfolio of travel vaccines. On the right side, in the red area, you can see our pipeline where we, on top, have our cell line, that's the smallpox and Mpox, MVA, where we are working on a new technology, cell line technology. We are planning in this year to do a Phase IIb study that is the only one that is needed for approval. So it is an approved vaccine already, but we are working on this new cell line technology. Otherwise, we have the Chikungunya vaccine. It is also an approved vaccine, but we are planning also by the end of this year to initiate some additional studies for efficacy or pediatric studies. Then we have equine encephalitis study, which is fully funded by U.S. government study in Phase II. And then we have 2 others, Lyme and EBV, 2 early-stage studies that will be initiated next year. In our Public Preparedness, which is part of our business we have had for -- since the beginning of the company when we started. We have estimated a base business of DKK 1.5 billion to DKK 2 billion in revenue on an annual basis. But as you can see on the right side, we've actually provided more than that the last couple of years. And that is because that it's not only a base business to certain governments, but you also see these spikes that come from larger contracts, but also outbreaks. And as I mentioned before, you have seen outbreaks in '22 with impact in '23 and now a new outbreak in '24 with impact in this year, '25. Some of the larger customers we have comes from the U.S. But Canada, we also have HERA in the EU, but also a number of other companies -- countries, sorry, are buying these vaccines for either stockpiling or for vaccination for Mpox vaccines. These spikes have happened, and we believe that there could be spikes also in the future, similar spikes to what we have seen outside Africa in -- back in '22. So when you look at the current outbreak in Africa, WHO have, what they call, Health Emergency of International Concern, which is a unique thing that only was a declaration during COVID back in 2020. Unfortunately, we have this outbreak now in Africa in, I believe, approximately 15 African countries. And as you can see in the numbers on the left side, the outbreak is still giving a lot of new indications in Africa. But you also see on top on the right side, that you see travel-related cases outside Africa, in Europe, for instance, in March and February. So it is a huge issue. Mpox is a dangerous disease and it continues to spread so we are dealing with a number of organizations that are helping the African countries to vaccinate in Africa. So hopefully, these vaccinations can stop the outbreak in Africa. If we look at the Travel segment, first of all, if you look on the right side, you can see that the last 6 years, you've seen a very nice trend. On the bottom, you can see that this is what we have guided. We have guided 10% to 12% growth in -- from now on until '27, annual growth in this segment. And on the left side, you can see some of the products, some of the vaccines. Rabies vaccine and TBE, tick-borne encephalitis, are some of the largest vaccines in this segment. They have shown a very nice growth. TBE is growing as you see new areas of -- endemic areas in Europe. Cholera and Typhoid are 2 new vaccines we acquired back in '23. At this point in time, they are still relatively small vaccines, but we expect sales from these 2 vaccines to be approximately USD 100 million in a couple of years. So we expect to see very nice growth. And as mentioned, Chikungunya is a new vaccine we have recently launched in U.S. and in Germany. And soon, it will be launched in other European markets, a vaccine where we have very high expectations going forward. So a bit more on Chikungunya. We have received approval, and we have launched in U.S. We have received approval and launched in Europe. We have launched in Germany, and we will launch very soon in other countries. We have submitted in Canada. So we will expect some time next year also to get an approval in Canada. It is a market that -- we expect the market to be approximately USD 500 million annual. There are 2 approved vaccines in this area. So we expect to have a fair, a nice part of that market going forward. It is a new market, also the competition vaccine from Valneva, is a new vaccine. So there is a lot of awareness building that needs to be done in the coming years. But in a couple of years, we believe that this is a very big, a very attractive market. We have a very differentiated vaccine compared to our competition. We have a different technology. We have a VLP, the virus-like particle technology. And that is differentiated. This technology has a favorable safety profile with very good tolerability. Otherwise, we also have very rapid onset of action and rapid onset of action is important when we talk about travel vaccines. Very often when we plan our vacations, vaccination is not the first we -- thing we are looking at. So rapid onset of action is important. Our vaccine can provide protection of approximately 50% of vaccinated within a week and for all vaccinated within 2 weeks so which is very attractive, very attractive thing for our vaccine. It's a single-dose vaccine in a prefilled syringe, which is also very nice for the GPs that should vaccinate the users of the vaccine. Our Rabies vaccine, just very briefly, we have -- we are the leading supplier of our Rabies vaccine. We have very high market shares, as you can see on the left side. So we are the owners of that market, basically, both in the German market and in the U.S., and that market is growing nicely. Also goes with the TBE. Here, we have a second position. We have a market share of 29%. The market is also growing nicely. As mentioned before, we see new endemic areas in this market. So for that reason, it's also a nice markets to be providing vaccines to for us. Just a general observation. This is a slide from Evaluate Pharma where they are predicting the vaccine market to grow 6% from now until 2030. But there are different segments in the vaccine market. And actually, the Travel Health is better than all the other segments, is expected to grow 20%. So way above average of the travel. And we have some of the important providers to deliver that growth. We have, for instance, Chikungunya and Rabies and TBE vaccines that could provide some of this growth. So my last slide here is our outlook for this year. We have guided outlook of revenue between DKK 5.7 billion and DKK 6.7 billion, an EBITDA margin of 26% to 30%. And in the bottom, you can see how the revenue is expected to be spread between the different divisions, Public Preparedness and Travel Health. In Public Preparedness, we have guided DKK 3 billion to DKK 4 billion. And as you can see in the bottom, we have already guaranteed contracts of DKK 2.65 billion. So we are close to being in the range of our guidance for Public Preparedness. On the right side, under the assumptions for our guidance, I would just mention to you that we have also received a Priority Review Voucher. It's a voucher that we don't have an intention to use ourselves. So we will sell it at some point in time. And if you follow the markets, you can see that these vouchers are being sold in the market for quite attractive prices. So at some point in time, we intend to sell this voucher and that will come on top because the voucher is not part of our current outlook. And with this, I will turn over to Q&A.

The first question is, if I can talk to capacity and demand, including pandemic stockpiling? Yes, we have -- we say we are manufacturing as much as we can right now. And so we believe that we can easily provide 15 million doses. It all -- it depends, of course, when a new outbreak will happen or when new contracts will appear in the year. But for now, we can easily provide what is needed for an outbreak. Another question is, what is the potential value of voucher? Yes, let's wait and see. But what I can say is that the latest vouchers has been sold of a price of approximately USD 150 million. So very attractive prices is what we've seen recently. I think that's the last 3 or 4 vouchers we have seen. Next question is, which emerging markets are you targeting? And how will you navigate pricing? We are -- to us, access to medicine is very important. We think that delivering vaccines to those who need the vaccines, it's very important. So we are -- we have made an agreement with a manufacturer in India. So we are looking into a tech transfer process. We are also looking to making maybe agreements with other partners so we can provide vaccines to all emerging markets. We are also in discussions with some African countries, whether then -- whether they can manufacture vaccines themselves. So we are -- we have the intention to provide vaccines to everyone who needs the vaccines. It's a very important point for us to have vaccines to everyone who needs them. New question here is, it's a strategic question. In the future do you see Bavarian focusing on niche-infectious diseases or expanding into broader therapeutics? We -- in Bavarian Nordic, we find it important to focus on, you can say, niche areas that is out of focus of big pharma. So for instance, the Travel segment. These diseases are very important. It could be areas outside Travel, but niche areas where the revenue line is below the interest of big pharma. So yes, niche business could be our focus. What are the patent exploration time lines for your core products? Yes, a question about our patent exploration. That is very important. Vaccines is a special area of the pharma. In pharma, you see often these high-growth cases. And then you see IP cases that all of a sudden see that they die out. But in vaccines, you don't have that situation. Some of our vaccines are very, very old. Rabies, our Rabies vaccines are very, very old. You don't see generic vaccines. So in that situation, you can say that our vaccines or our fields within the pharma industry have lower risk. And I think that's an area that is underestimated among investors and analysts that you don't see generic competition. How are you developing cash reserves? Are dividends, buybacks under consideration? Yes. We have -- as mentioned, we have changed our profile. Now, we are a profitable company. And we still have some milestones to pay back to GSK. Those milestones are expected to be finalized in Q2, Q3 this year. Once they are done, we are cash-rich company and also with the voucher. Of course, we have considerations. M&A is an important part of our business. We want to grow our business. We have successfully bought the Rabies and TBE vaccines from GSK back in 2020 and also bought some Chikungunya and Vivotif and Vaxchora from Emergent in '23. So M&A is part of our business. But otherwise, if there are no obvious M&A, money should go back to investors.