Faron Pharmaceuticals Oy (FARN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
April 26, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Unknown Attendee
attendeeHi, and welcome to Redeye Initiate. Today, we'll present several exciting companies that we've recently initiated coverage of, each time starting out with a short investment case by the lead analyst, which will be followed by a company presentation and we'll round off with a short Q&A. Now with much further ado, I'm happy to introduce the first company, Faron Pharmaceuticals, and a prerecorded investment case by lead analyst, Kevin Sule. Enjoy.
Kevin Sule
analystFaron Pharmaceuticals is a Finnish biotech company focusing on developing the next generations immunotherapies. Its current pipeline consists of 3 candidates, bexmarilimab, Traumakine and Haematokine targeting immuno-oncology, organ protection and regenerative medicines, respectively. Since 2015, the company's stock has been publicly traded, and it's currently dual-listed on both the NASDAQ First North Growth Market, Helsinki and the London AIM market. We argue that lead candidate bexmarilimab has great potential to ignite a paradigm shift in the current landscape of immuno-oncology. It has shown a great potential to turn previously cold tumors, which are unidentifiable by the immune system, to hot tumors, which reignite the immune defense. Interim data from ongoing MATINS study has shown clinical evidence of efficacy and overall survival rates. Faron will soon be running 4 different trials with bexmarilimab in several different indications, both as a single agent therapy and as a combinational therapy. We believe this provides bexmarilimab with a great potential of reaching the markets where we see a blockbuster sales potential. We estimate peak annual sales of more than USD 4.3 billion. Looking at the future of the company, we see an appealing case with multiple inflection points ahead. Near its end are the initiations of combination trials, BEXMAB and BEXLUNG where we expect top line data in 2024. Further, we have the conclusion of the dose exploration part of the current MATINS trials and the start of the expansion part later this year. Overall, we believe there are exciting times ahead for Faron Pharmaceuticals and many reasons for investors to follow on, on its journey. That concludes the investment case. And now it's time to welcome Faron Pharmaceuticals, along with the CEO, Markku Jalkanen, here with us today to give us their presentation of the company. Welcome, Markku.
Markku Jalkanen
executiveThank you very much, and good afternoon. As already indicated, we are a dual-listed company, and this is just to disclaim the forward-looking statements I will make with my presentation. We do have 3 different targets: one to control the escalation of information in the cases where it's all escalating due to a number of reactivations and that could actually endanger our central organs. However, I'm going to spend most of my time on our immuno-oncology product, bexmarilimab, that is a typical humanized antibody blocking function of CLEVER-1 receptor. And I will tell you how that actually activates the immune system of the decline within the cancer patients. And the third one is really locking the multiplication of the hematopoietic stem cells. We have learned how that is controlling the bone marrow and we have our agents at the moment, which actually can activate that one and obviously, that could be very helpful for the patients who are suffering from a permanent or short-term capacity of the bone marrow to replicate. But as said, based on this, we have a pipeline and especially focusing on the immuno-oncology product, bexmarilimab, as a single agent last-line treatment, but also in combinations, and I will elaborate that and also the reasons why we do that. It's very interesting because there was a strong scientific rationality why bexmarilimab combined with the current PD-1 blockade can actually maximum activate both of those treatments. So bexmarilimab, we call it bex in simple, but is in name so we need to use it, anti-CLEVER antibody. And let's look first what the opportunity is. We all are very excited about this check point inhibitors, mainly focusing on PD-1 and PD-L1, CTL-4. There are some other candidates but they all focus to control the inhibition of this immunological synapses. They are effective on those patients where they can really bring up the benefit. But it's only roughly 20% or less among the different cancer types. Approximately just at the moment, there are 200,000 patients in U.S. alone who fail the efficacy treatment of these PD-1 inhibitors. And yet, they still generate a significant sales. So we need to understand that why that is so. And even combining them, having 2 at the same time or in line is not really helping that, so they're just increasing the side effects. We believe that by naming the immune system, the bex, it provide a significant help for this current checkpoint inhibitor treatments. And I will tell you why that is the reason. The CLEVER-1 is a receptor that builds an immune suppressive phenotype for these myeloid cells, which migrate from bone marrow to the site where they are attracted to move on. And this is a physiological cell pipe also in use in some of the physiological settings, pregnancy being a very good example where we have to immune suppress the mother's host immune system against the embryo. Otherwise, we would lose the embryo. The malignant cells, tumors have picked the same system to protect themselves and hide themselves against the host immune system. And that allows them to grow locally first and then to metastasize. And obviously, if you could knock out this hiding malignant cells now, you can actually then help the recognition of this tumor as a foreign material and start to fight with your own immune system. When we do that treatment with bexmarilimab, it totally convert the readout of the transmit from these cells then becoming immuno-activators, and that will result as shown on the lower panel of this final figure to activate PH-1, activation of T cells. And obviously, those are the ones we would like to have around the tumor because then they can see if they are naive cells, the tumor antigens and really generate the program a case those antigens, meaning that they can attack the tumor. Often they use different kind of involuntary cytokines, and those are known and can be measured given even circulation. So macrophages target well recognized and very important really to control the tumor environment, to activate the immune system against the tumor. So this is a simplified version of the same situation. When CLEVER is active, it would degrade everything and there's no antigen presentation to our immune system. When you close the CLEVER-1, on the right-hand side, we start the initiation, and activate the immune system. So this is the whole mechanism and brand new mode of action, and we are the only one who is utilizing that at the moment in treating the cancer patients. The year '21 was really successful to us. We confirmed several earlier key findings as we reported some weeks ago. First of all, bex is extremely well tolerated. We have more than 200 patients already treated with first-in-human MATINS study. And there's hardly no really serious adverse events. We have seen some immune-related events, but those have been able to manage with the steroids, which is actually a good sign because we know that then we have activated the immune system. We already have seen a clinical benefit as a mono therapy in last-line cancer patients. These are the patients who had no options anymore. Believe it or not, we have in some of the cancer type, more than 30% response rates measured as a clinical benefit. And the clinical benefit means that to stabilize the cancer growth or you start to shrink the tumors, both we have seen. The best one example I'm going to use today is the melanoma, which we have previously reported in one of the conferences. And obviously, it's very key and important to understand can we premeasure something from these patients who gives the best response. And we know that already that if you have a low level of interferon gamma, TNF alpha, typical inflammatory markers or even Interleukin-6, those are the ones we can get the benefit out. If you have already interferon gamma high activation going on, we are not helping them. Having said that, keep in mind that those are the patients who benefit the clinical current checkpoint inhibitor treatments. And that allows us, hopefully, really give the reason why the combination will be really successful with these cancer types. Then along with the development, we have also really build up a combination diagnostic system in order to really also look at the levels of CLEVER-1 in those patients. And much of this data from those 200 patients, they will be prepared while I'm speaking. And hopefully, we are able to report some additional data in the ASCO meeting, where we will have a poster at that time. It's early June. So as said, cold tumors normally have no interferon gamma activation, but if you give a bex to them, they start to immediately express interferon gamma. With top tumor, you already have high expression interferon gamma, and those are treatable or actually the ones who actually can respond to the current checkpoint inhibitor. This all means that if we can now activate the cold tumor on the left, you may really target there on and thereafter the checkpoint inhibitor treatments in order to get the maximum benefit from both of these treatments. If you look at the markers we have been using in these patients have a clinical benefit, you can see that this is a very significant group of the markers really to prep up the possibility to identify the patients. These are what they call rough analysis, you are looking the difference, our curve and standard curve in order to predict what probabilities these markers could provide. And as you can see from the right-hand side, if you combine interferon gamma, TNF alpha, Interleukin-6 and 8, we have more than 90% probability to predict that they are responder for our treatment. This is a last-line treatment, keep that in mind. So it really makes then sense really to start to look also the combinations. Here is a melanoma case, as I indicated, you can see few examples here. Typically, the ones who are refractory to current PD-1 blockade, they have a high expression of CLEVER-1 positive macrophages. You can see on top histological stainings. And they also like very few CD-8 cells typical for a cold tumor. Then below those, to look at what happens to those patients who have a low interferon gamma, maybe on originally baseline levels, and those are on the right-hand side. This is an algorithm scale. You can see that we have a 10- to 20-fold or even higher expression of interferon gamma -- presence of interferon gamma in the circulation within the first 20 days post administration of bexmarilimab. Those who get this reaction to take place, they also survive. In this cohort, we have 3 patients out of -- 4 patients out of 11 and all are still alive after 9 to 12 months at the moment. All of this will be also reported through the ASCO meeting. So very good examples really. But then think about the combination. We know from the PD-1 blockade that is really activated the T cells, and that is indicated in the middle. There are some information that we can also increase the interferon gamma and enhance the antigen presentation, but that's not very strong. But then look at the bexmarilimab outcome, we activate the macrophages, we increase significantly interferon gamma, TNF alpha expression. We know that we can activate the naive T cells and that is very important. And then we know that we can enhance the antigen presentation. And if you look at the lower table section, if we combine them and just collect all these positive effects, you have almost a dream team here to treat the cancer. Maximally activated T cells using the PD-1 blockade and then activate all immune system using the bex. Would that be a combination or in a row, we don't know that yet, but even that is under testing at the moment. So that has set up a scenario where the MATINS data will provide us way to go to the regulators, mainly FDA, then set up information and ask, do they want us to continue with a randomized trial or a single-arm trial that we do not yet know but it's really based on the data. But at the same time, we expand the first a lung combo that is in collaboration with San Antonio in Texas, and that's about to start, then have a basket trial later on ex combo where we have options really to expand the trial in different directions, depending on the data. And then at the same time, we are just about to initiate the first hematological malignancy, acute myeloid leukemia. That is a very interesting opportunity to us because these myeloid leukemia cells do express CLEVER-1 to their surfaces. And we know from its chemo settings that if you knock out the CLEVER-1, they do stop the replication. And obviously, we can show that benefited in this myeloid leukemia patients that would be a fantastic result because there are so few options for those patients at the moment. So a lot of people are asking how about the partnering. We know that this could become a significant partner opportunity, but we don't want to do this yet. We'd like to obtain additional data really to generate the value for the shareholders. I have collected here a few examples. You have heard about CD47 company, EUR 5 billion Pfizer bought another one for EUR 2 billion, anti-CD47 never demonstrated a single agent activity as bexmarilimab has shown. And we believe that by controlling the macrophages can really provide additional benefit for the patients and activate their immune system. And if their immune system is in good shape enough, they can really start to resist the cancer growth. That is really important to understand as well. So bex definitely brings a new mode of action to these treatments, and we try to accelerate this program as fast as we can. We do have plans to expand the Traumakine really to these ischemic conditions in collaboration with some of the funding agencies and we hope to be able to report something about that in this year as well. We have a new CMO, by the way, Swedish background from Uppsala, but has been living quite a while in the U.S., taking over, especially Lytix management activities where she had lot of experience with myeloid target previously. And you may also know that we just strengthened our financial position by obtaining a debt finance from IPF. They're Genève based. So with this, happy to take any of the answers or questions -- sorry, questions you may have for me. Thank you very much.
Kevin Sule
analystThank you for a great presentation, Markku. Some truly exciting times ahead for bexmarilimab, with the initiation of the upcoming combination trials.
Markku Jalkanen
executiveThank you.
Kevin Sule
analystNow for some questions. You have mentioned previously that bexmarilimab could also offer potential as a treatment in infectious diseases, vaccine development and more with patents and patent applications backing this up. Is this something that we could see or hear more of in the future?
Markku Jalkanen
executiveYes. We already know that some of these chronic infections like tuberculosis to attract the same CLEVER-1 positive myeloid cells really to hide TB from the host immune system. And we have ongoing collaborations in that area. That is something where we need to see the efficacy outcome as well, and we may need to go to the primate models later on, but that is something which absolutely is ongoing on background.
Kevin Sule
analystInteresting. And just a quick question about Traumakine following the discontinuation of the HIBISCUS trial, what does the future of Traumakine look like?
Markku Jalkanen
executiveWe have ongoing collaboration with DoD in U.S. Department of Defense. And we have -- they ordered Traumakine testing in primate models where the ischemia practically can be prevented or ischemia-induced injury can be prevented. Moving that one to the clinics is our one of the targets. Really, when we get there, we do not know precisely yet, but we also would like to have an external funding for that one. Then there are a number of other cytokine-released syndrome related conditions. And many of them are related to cancer. We have a whole bunch of new cell-based therapies for cancer as well and the risk over there like with the CAR T therapies is to really induce to massive reaction at the very beginning, and you need to slow down that. You can't use cortisol or corticosteroids because you actually prevent the immune system totally. But interferon-beta intravenously given is the perfect example where you can actually control the cytokine storm. It's very similar condition what you see in ischemic conditions after a massive tissue injuries. And obviously, those are the areas where we are really looking forward to have additional clinical trials without interference of corticosteroids. That's really important to keep in mind.
Kevin Sule
analystYes. Perfect. Thank you so much, Markku, for your presentation and your answers.
Markku Jalkanen
executiveThank you. You're welcome.
Christian Binder
analystWelcome back. I'm Christian Binder, life science analyst at Redeye. And now I have the pleasure of presenting a short investment case for Ultimovacs. Now Ultimovacs is a Nordic biotech company developing therapeutic cancer vaccines. The company is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and was founded in 2011. Since listing in mid-2019, the company shares handily outperformed broader Nordic indices and given several major potential value inflection points during the coming year and years, we believe that it may well extend its lead over those broader indices. Ultimovacs' lead candidate UV1 targets human telomerase, which is expressed in about 90% of solid tumors, and therefore, the drug candidate has broad applicability. In accordance with the broad applicability, the company is driving a broad Phase II pipeline for UV1 comprising 5 clinical trials, combining UV1 with 4 different checkpoint inhibitors. Now given its strong ownership and financial backing, the company has the funds to achieve these goals. So for example, in last October, the company raised some gross proceeds of NOK 270 million from an oversubscribed private placement in an arguably difficult funding environment for biotech. Now the first 2 trials to readout from the company's 5 Phase II trials for UV1 will be INITIUM in malignant melanoma and NIPU in mesothelioma. We believe that should readouts from these trials be positive, this will likely to a licensing deal with a big pharma company, given that late-stage trials in oncology are usually quite expensive. And given the high number of potential trials that you could imagine running with UV1 a partnership would likely be an optimal situation. Currently, we model a licensing deal worth up to USD 1.2 billion with $200 million paid upfront and 20% royalties on potential future UV1 sales, following INITIUM and NIPU, which will readout first, likely in the first half of 2023. Now the company also has a second project, which is the TET adjuvant technology platform. That project is currently in an earlier stage. So in Phase I, where the company has a trial in prostate cancer. And given that UV1 is much more advanced, it currently constitutes around 89% of our estimated project value for Ultimovacs. Therefore, the coming Phase II readouts will be critical for our investment thesis. So as I said, INITIUM in malignant melanoma and NIPU in mesothelioma readout in the first half of 2023. We just as a company has delivered very promising efficacy data from 2 Phase I trials in malignant melanoma, combining UV1 with checkpoint inhibitors. In the other indications, so mesothelioma with NIPU and also ovarian cancer with DOVACC, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with the FOCUS trial and non-small cell lung cancer with the LUNGVAC trial. In these indications, we believe that efficacy is currently somewhat more uncertain. However, should those trials deliver positive efficacy results, we believe that these will be major value inflection points as it would validate the broad potential of UV1 and also motivate driving the candidates towards late-stage trials and also expand clinical development. So currently, given Ultimovacs' pipeline for UV1, we estimate non-risk-adjusted peak sales of some USD 3.8 billion. However, should currently ongoing trials be positive, you could imagine expanding development to several different cancer indications, but also earlier stages of these indications. And therefore, estimated peak sales potential may increase substantially in the future. Now another very positive aspect of Ultimovacs is its strong institutional shareholding, which is a key component in our view, why the company has such strong access to capital. Now to summarize, Ultimovacs has broadly applicable pipeline candidates. The company has proven its ready access to considerable amounts of capital even in arguably difficult funding environments for biotech companies. And given its broad Phase II pipeline for UV1, you already have high visibility for major value inflection points over the coming years. Now this concludes my picture of Ultimovacs. Thank you so much for your attention. Now I have the pleasure of introducing Ultimovacs' CEO, Carlos de Sousa. Carlos, thank you so much for being here today. Please go ahead.
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeThank you, Christian, and it's a pleasure to be here. And of course, I will be -- and thanks for the introduction and the summary of the company. I will be repeating some of that information. As you can see in the slides, we are a public listed company. As mentioned by Christian, so I need to show you this slide. So who is Ultimovacs? We are immuno-oncology biotech company, working with next-generation universal cancer vaccines with several key benefits. It's off-the-shelf product, easy to use and with the potential to be broadly applicable in a multitude of different types of cancers. One of the concept of this being a universal cancer vaccine is we enable, we educate and help the immune system to identify and kill cancer cells. And we do that by flagging the expression of enzyme hTERT that as mentioned by Christian as expressing 85% to 90% of the cancers at all stages of tumor life from early stage to advanced stage. We have long-term follow-up of the Phase I trials more than 5 years with good long-term safety, strong efficacy in this Phase I data. That was really recognized by the Food and Drug Administration by granting us [ track on drug ] designation in the fall of 2021. We have a broad Phase II pipeline with 5 Phase II clinical trials that too when completed will have enrolled more than 650 patients in 100 hospitals in 15 countries and really addressing cancers with high unmet need. And excitingly, all these trials will start reading out very soon during the first half of 2023. As a potential, we really have a broad potential to be used as a baseline therapy and because we work in synergy with the immune checkpoint inhibitors. And our Phase II trials combine our vaccine UV1 with 4 of the top leading 5 checkpoint inhibitors. As mentioned by Christian, we have a fortunate position that we have a good cash position that gives us the runway to the first part of 2024 and also the fact that we have a strong and solid shareholder base that really led us the team focused on the business. So the checkpoint inhibitors have transformed the treatment of cancer. Starting in 2011, '14 when the first checkpoint inhibitors were introduced. And really, what you see here is that the checkpoint inhibitors are the fastest -- the biggest and the fastest growth of all classes in all pharma, expected to reach by the end of 2022, about $40 billion in sales and by 2026, close to $70 billion. You see there the top 5 checkpoint inhibitors and mentioned -- as mentioned by Christian, we are in combination trials with 4 out of these top 5. So very importantly, we are not going to be competing with them. We are going to be using combination. And as you can see, even a small share of this huge market is a huge commercial opportunity for UV1. But of course, the checkpoint inhibitors have also some challenges. Their role is to block the tumor defenses. But then the patient needs to have an active immune system that can penetrate the tumor and destroy the cancer cells. And that has been one of the big challenges for the checkpoint inhibitors when used as monotherapy. So that's -- we provided other side of the equation really providing that synergistic effect of activating, educating and expanding the patient's immune cells that then can penetrate the tumor and destroy the cancer cells. As you can see, here are the active clinical trials. As mentioned, we have some early Phase I trials. We have an ongoing Phase I trial in melanoma skin cancer with pembrolizumab that I'll show you briefly some data and was presented last year at ASCO, the biggest cancer conference in the world. And then we have 5 Phase II trials where the particular day these trials are all in randomized in combination with the standard of care and properly powered to drive statistic comparisons. We have a lot of interest from top cancer centers. And in 2 of these studies, we also are collaborating with 2 of the big pharmas operating in this space, in the mesothelioma study with Bristol-Myers Squibb and in the ovarian cancer study with AstraZeneca. As mentioned, we also have the second technology that I will touch briefly. As we don't have much time, I just want to show you some of the data that we got in terms of efficacy. This tells you -- shows you in red what was the percentage of patients in this small study, 30 patients that's responded basically that reduce the tumor size or completely cleared the tumor cells that was in 57% of the patients in this advanced stages. We use historical data to compare as most other companies, and you see they are in the gray area, what is the comparison. The most exciting data is really the percentage of patients that totally eliminated the cancer cells, 33% versus 5% to 12% when we look at historical data, that is the official data from pembrolizumab. So very exciting. But of course, we need to continue to show these exciting data in our Phase II programs. As I mentioned, you see here in one slide, all the 5 studies that we are running, as I mentioned, all randomized comparative and statistically powered. The INITIUM trial, the most advanced one is in combination with nivolumab and ipilimumab in malignant melanoma skin cancer. We have 120 patients out of the total of 154 enrolled at the last quarterly report, and we expect the top line results in the first half of 2023. The NIPU study, the second study also more advanced is in mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer caused by asbestos, also in combination with nivolumab and ipilimumab and the study was run by the Oslo University Hospital, and we supply UV1 and Bristol-Myers supply ipi and nivolumab. We also expect the top line results from this study in the first half of 2023. Then the DOVACC trial in ovarian cancer is run by the Nordic Society of Gynaecological Oncology and the European umbrella network. And in these studies, we participate together with AstraZeneca. The study has started enrolling just in December of 2021. So we expect results sometime during 2023, but we will provide a better guidance in the beginning of next year. The FOCUS trial in head and neck cancer, a very, very tough cancer, is in combination with pembrolizumab is being run by the Halle University Hospital outside of Berlin, a very experienced center. And we have enrolled so far 10 out of 75 patients. And similar to DOVACC, we expect to get results during 2023. And the most recent study to be added to this group is the LUNGVAC study in non-small cell lung cancer to be run all in Norway, basically all the key centers in Norway treating lung cancer patients are going to be part of this study led by Professor Brustugun out of the Drammen Hospital, and we expect the first patient to be enrolled now during the first half of 2022. So briefly on the second technology, very exciting innovative TET is an adjuvant technology, all vaccines need an adjuvant component and then a peptide component. And we are now with the first product coming out of this technology in prostate cancer run at the Oslo University Hospital and we'll be providing more updates towards the end of the year. So what you see here in terms of expected developments of the company, of course, as mentioned by Christian, the very exciting period is the start of the first half of 2023, when we expect the top line results from INITIUM and NIPU can be transformative to the company. But also during this year, we are going to have additional data in overall survival of the study in combination with pembrolizumab, the first patient in LUNGVAC and the TENDU study safety data. So a very exciting period for the company. Financially, I just want to highlight the fact that we have this very good situation of a strong cash position, giving us a runway towards the first part of 2024. We have a very experienced team based in Norway and Sweden. 25 employees, very busy, very committed, have 7 nationalities and very important for us, a very solid and strong shareholder base that have been with the company for a long time and really give us this a solid position that allows us to focus in the business. So in summary, as a company, we have a good investment case. We have a cancer vaccine platform operating in the immuno-oncology space with broadly applicable in different cancer types and different therapeutic combinations, strong commercial potential in different combinations, have shown a good safety profile and clear signals of clinical efficacy, a broad development program, validation from the regulatory authority by granting us fast track designation, orphan drug designation. Also validation from the oncology community and pharma companies for participating in all these projects, a very exciting new technology, experienced team, strong shareholder base and most important for our investment shareholders, multiple key value inflection points coming in the next 12 to 24 months. And with this, I want to thank for your attention, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Christian Binder
analystThank you for a great presentation, Carlos. Maybe we could start off with INITIUM. So patient recruitment seems to be progressing very well for that trial. As you remarked on in your presentation, you had recruited some 120 patients out of 154 as of February 16. And data analysis will start when 70 patients have reached progression-free survival or died. So it seems like is it fair to say that top line data there could come in early 2023? What kind of factors will affect when you can present top line data?
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeWell, we -- by the least, when we design the study, we expect that these events will come in around 12 months. But the factors that can influence these results. As a matter of fact, they are to date delayed results if the therapies have a better efficacy than expected. And then you will have the -- in these 70 events happening at a later stage. So we will inform the market when the last patient is enrolled in the study. And then, of course, we will continue to follow up these patients. For the time being, we maintain the first half of 2023 as the best guidance.
Christian Binder
analystInteresting. And recently, staying with malignant melanoma, recently FDA approved Opdualag, a new checkpoint inhibitor combination for a malignant melanoma treatment. So that's the second checkpoint inhibitor combination now on the market. Do you think Opdualag will become relevant for combination with UV1 in future clinical trials? I assume it won't be relevant for a potential late-stage trial following INITIUM so to speak.
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeIt's excellent news for patients. We have been talking with the key opinion leaders. And the positive aspect for us is basically that is another combination that UV1 can be used together with. So it's for us is an additional opportunity. Talking with key opinion leaders, they don't see the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab to disappear. Where they see more the use of the new combination is potentially as a replacement of the monotherapies. So we see the opportunity in the future to use these combinations with the new LAG-3 and nivolumab. But to -- the physicians are still waiting for additional data, particularly in terms of survival.
Christian Binder
analystRight. And as said, Opdualag will be the second checkpoint inhibitor combination for late-stage melanoma treatment. So do you think for future potential pivotal trials in late-stage melanoma, do you think FDA wants to see benchmarking against dual checkpoint inhibitor combination? Or do you think combinations with a single checkpoint inhibitor therapy will still be relevant as well?
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeIt's an excellent question. I cannot answer for the FDA. But I can tell you that talking with key opinion leaders and still conditional to more data on the new combination, they really see that the potential changes is basically that the new combination will be replacing the mono checkpoint inhibitors, pembro and nivo. But it's still -- we still have to wait but it looks like it's more the -- where the treatment paradigm is moving into.
Christian Binder
analystRight. It seems like we have time for one more question. So maybe a little quickly. In terms of adjuvant, the neoadjuvant therapy, how should investors think about a potential expansion of UV1's clinical development into these types of therapy? Is that something that you could imagine running in parallel of late-stage trials for UV1 in late-stage disease? Or would that probably come after potential market approval in late-stage disease?
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeIt's an excellent question, and it's a big opportunity for us. And it will be dependent on if we are the ones running the Phase III or if it's as expected and part of our strategy to -- in a partnership with a big pharma. But definitely, the potential with -- in the big pharma will be to move into earlier stage treatment while you run a Phase III.
Christian Binder
analystUnderstood. That was unfortunately all the time we had. So Carlos, thank you so much for presenting today.
Carlos de Sousa
attendeeThanks, Christian, and thanks, everybody.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeWelcome back, everyone. Now I have the pleasure of introducing Fram Skandinavien, and we'll start off with a prerecorded pitch of the company by lead analyst, Fredrik Reuterhall, enjoy.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystFram is an investment company based in Vietnam with a market cap of SEK 156 million. And the revenue last year was SEK 47 million. First, a short background on Vietnam. They have almost 100 million inhabitants and they had a GDP growth of 6.4% since 1985, which is quite astonishing. And the IMF thinks that next year, Vietnam is going to grow with 6.6%. And Vietnam has come a long way adopting tech with high penetration of mobile use and the tech scene is actually booming in the country right now. The 3 founders, Christopher Beselin and Max Bergman and Duy Vu owns 38% of the shares and 45% of the votes. And the management has over 10 years of experience and they all live and work in Vietnam. And we believe that the key here is the management and it's very, very good that they have skin in the game. Fram has 2 business arms. It's Digital Brands and IT Development, and it's roughly 50-50 split between them. Digital Brands grow fast. They had a really revenue growth of 62% between 2019 and 2021. And last year, they had a revenue of SEK 26 million, but made a loss of almost SEK 7 million. On the other hand, IT Development is profitable. And in 2021, the revenue was SEK 21 million with an EBIT margin 9%. And actually, last October, Fram bought a small IT development in Sweden with 10 employees. And we do like the revenue mix of Fram. Digital Brands developing scalable brands and IT Development, a stable, cash-generating business. And we argue this combination lowers the risk of the case. So looking more in details of Digital Brands. It started in 2015. And the idea from the beginning was to use the cash flow from IT Development to start new digital ventures, use improving business models in Vietnam. Today, it has 6 brands but put focus on 3 of them, where Carmudi Vietnam is the largest one and stands for roughly 60% of Digital Brand's revenues. Think of Carmudi, in Sweden, where Carmudi is foremost an auction site for cars, but they are classified ads there as well. EveHR is an app that helps companies to manage flexible benefits and rewards for its employees, and it's a SaaS model and the customers pay a monthly subscription fee. And then DragonLend, lastly, is a loan platform for small businesses where they can lend money. Back in February, the management launched a new strategy. This means that we stay away from starting and managing own companies, to invest both in private and publicly traded companies. And most focused then, of course, is on tech and digital consumers. They will also look at blockchain technology and the use of digital currency. And we find the strategy interesting and looking forward to see where it will take Fram in the future. So if we look at the valuation, we're using a net asset valuation method. And our base case comes down to SEK 66 with roughly 40% discount to its NAV. So if you want to read more of the whole analysis, you can find it at Redeye.se. And that's it for me. And now over to the CEO and Founder, Christopher Beselin, who will do a presentation, and I will be back afterwards with a Q&A.
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeMy name is Christopher Beselin, I'm the Interim CEO and Board member of Fram. And today, I have a short presentation for you. This is what we're going to cover. We're going to do a short introduction and talk a little bit about the new strategic direction for our group. We're going to go through today's portfolio that we hold in the company. We're going to go through also the management team and the Board of Fram, and we're going to finish off with the financials and the value case. So kicking off here, a little bit about the history of the group. Fram was founded in 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, Vietnam. That's also where I'm presenting from today. Myself, my background is originally from investments at Cevian in Sweden, activist investment fund. And then I moved to Vietnam 10 years ago to start up an e-commerce platform here called Lazada in Vietnam. And then I was the CEO for Lazada in Vietnam, the CEO in Lazada Malaysia; and then we sold the group to Alibaba for $3 billion. And after that, we started up Fram here in Vietnam. And Fram has evolved from being an IT development group only at the outset to then become a venture builder, starting digital companies from scratch. And now we are maturing into what you see under the third bullet on this slide. So currently, we are a listed investment company that focuses on the digital consumer blockchain and other technology companies in Southeast Asia. And then we have a little bit of a bragging bullet there on being the best micro-cap or highest quality micro-cap IPO when we were listed in 2017. So this is the new strategic direction for Fram. As I mentioned and the vision and the strategy for the group at the moment is to be a listed investment company focusing on digital consumer, blockchain and other tech in Southeast Asia. So not only in Vietnam, but in the broader Southeast Asian region. We have said that we're going to invest primarily in 3 asset classes, that's the private Southeast Asian tech companies, so basically venture capital in Southeast Asia, listed Southeast Asian tech companies, which is a segment that has evolved over the last 5 to 10 years in this region. And also Web3 or blockchain, meaning both digital assets like tokens and potentially NFTs, but also blockchain and blockchain-related companies, so it can really be equity in this bucket as well. So really, if you want to simplify, it's also a subset of private tech companies in Southeast Asia. The opportunity that we are addressing and these following slides here, they come from the Google and Temasek tech or e-Conomy report on Southeast Asia. This is a region that is slightly forgotten for most or that we don't know so much about in Europe and the U.S. It's a region of 600 million people, which is roughly than half of China's population. It's spread across a number of countries and economies, primarily 6 of them that you have on the slide here, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. If we look in terms of digital consumer, digital economy and Internet users in this region, it's all the way up at 450 million. So Internet and digital behavior is very well penetrated and it's also growing very fast in this region. And if you zoom in on the different countries, you can see that the largest and fastest-growing economies in this region or digital economies in this region is really Vietnam and Indonesia. Vietnam is where we have done most of our investments in our business building historically, but we are now also expanding the scope and primarily targeting Vietnam and Indonesia. If I go into today's portfolio, really, what we have in the group is a -- primarily 3 digital ventures. In total, we have 6 digital ventures, but these are the 3 where we see the long-term winning potential. So that's Carmudi, which is a car marketplace, maybe best understood as a combination of Blocket deal and KVD, the car auction site in Scandinavia. And then we have EveHR, which is an employee benefit and employee engagement platform in an app format that we offer to Japanese employers, Japanese companies. Then we have DragonLend, which is a small, medium enterprise lenders. So lends or gives credit to small- and medium-sized businesses in Vietnam. And then finally, we have an IT development business, which is really where Fram started. And today, we have 70 developers in this business unit. It's roughly SEK 35 million of annual revenue, profitable double-digit EBITDA margins, which also then, of course, partly finances the growth of the other ventures. So this is the bulk of the portfolio that we have today in the group. Here is an extract from the quarterly report. This is roughly how we value the different parts of our portfolio. It's really a net asset value calculation. I'm going to come back to this a little bit later. But you can see out on the far right that most of the SEK 240-odd million of net asset value is concentrated in the venture building portfolio, which constitutes around SEK 200 million of that SEK 240 million of net asset value or I should say the digital brands constitute that. If I then go to the leadership, both in terms of management and Board of Fram, this is the Board, myself that we talked about a little bit in the beginning, then we have Stina Andersson, who currently is the CEO of Bonnier Group in Sweden, previously with Tele2 and Kinnevik, also a long stint at McKinsey. Then we have Mikael Steinbach, who is the Chairman of the group. Mikael has a long track record from different emerging markets with Ericsson. Anything from the BRIC countries to this region, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, et cetera. The management team consists of myself in the interim CEO role, and then we have Max Bergman, who is CEO for the fintech businesses. He previously built BIMA in Sri Lanka to profitability and 300 employees. Then we have Duy Vu, who's been with Fram since the start. He is now the CEO of Carmudi, our most important digital business at this stage. And then we have Son Ngo, who is the Group Finance Director, has a long experience within different CFO positions, also some investment positions. Here, we have the management that is responsible for the tech and the IT development business. So we have Thea Phan, which is a Swedish Vietnamese women, who has a background both in finance and tech. And then you have a range of senior tech profiles here on the slide, and I won't go through in detail. Finally, I'm going to finish off with the financials and the value case of Fram to give you a brief sense of the opportunity. These are the financials. Top right, you have the digital brands' revenue evolution. You see that it's been consistent and rapid growth up until the Q -- I see that the quarters are not the right numbers there. But the last quarter on that slide is Q4 2021, not 2020. And that's where we saw a significant jump when we reported our strongest quarter ever in the group. The digital brands were then growing by roughly 90%. You actually saw a similar development in the IT development part of the business portfolio in terms of growth, but that was also part of an acquisition that we made in Sweden, which was roughly half of that growth. In terms of profitability, you can see that we step-by-step are closing the gap to breakeven. It's primarily thanks to this combination of a profitable IT development business and a fast-growing digital venture portfolio. So that's quite a nice evolution. Then finally on the value case. So here, I try to illustrate in a kind of a step-by-step manner, how we see the net asset value of the group and also the upside to the current market cap. So on the far right, you have the current market cap around SEK 150. And on the left, you see the different components of our NAV. We see EveHR, DragonLend, they are valued based on the latest financing round we did with third parties in these companies. So it's kind of an earnings linked valuation. Then the IT development is valued at SEK 1.3 million, the reported revenues at SEK 37 million. And if you look at peers, so smaller IT development companies that are profitable, they're valued at around SEK 1.6 million top line. So that's probably a conservative to fair valuation. And then we see Carmudi, which is by far the largest venture we have in the portfolio today, which we have then valued at 10x sales. And when we look at traded peers here, I mentioned a few of them here on the right, listed car marketplaces, Frontier Digital Ventures, Carsales.com, Carzoo, et cetera. They are typically valued in the 10 to 15x revenue. And we have also then just put 0 on the smaller ventures where we don't see significant upside in the current constellation. So that's Wowmelo, a buy now pay later model, Marry.vn which is a wedding marketplace, and Nordic Coder, an educational platform for engineers. So you basically get those for free, so to speak. And then we get to SEK 240 million of net asset value in the portfolio assets today without any of the new investments and the new strategy. And that's roughly how we see the 60%, 70% upside to current market cap. So I think that's all for my intro. Thanks a lot for listening to this part.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystThank you very much, Christopher, for that presentation. I have a few questions to ask you here. And you launched a new strategy in February. Can you tell us more about it?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeYes. The strategy is relatively straightforward. And I mean, it's -- we are now an investment company focused on tech in kind of all the major asset classes in Southeast Asia. And we want to basically offer an opportunity to European investors to get exposure to this region in the world, in this sector in the world as basically a complement, I would say, to kind of Chinese listed tech that lately has gone through quite a tough phase with a lot of regulation and so on. So I think in Southeast Asia, you have faster growth, lower valuations and lesser regulations that are problematic than in China.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystOkay. So I'm interested to hear about the new Fram investment organization. How will it look? And how will you source new investment opportunities?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeYes. So it's an interesting evolution. I mean we're going from being an operational group, and now we have seen our portfolio mature somewhat. And so our operational overhead team has, to a large extent, kind of transferred into the different ventures. And instead of being an operational overhead organization, we're becoming an investment organization. So we are now recruiting a couple of analysts here in Vietnam. We're recruiting one analyst in Indonesia to cover the listed tech space in Indonesia. And then we're starting the kind of regular investment process of building a deal pipeline, sourcing both the kind of VC type deals and also covering the listed space.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystOkay. That's great. Are you looking at any specific investments right now? I mean, type of tech private or public companies or any specific country?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeIn the private side, we're mostly looking in Vietnam at the moment. So we're primarily zooming in on SaaS businesses, which traditionally have been held back in Vietnam because of the lack of micro payments really. And I think that, that space is now finally opening up in a nice manner. Also in the blockchain space, we're looking primarily in Vietnam where you have some of the highest adoption rates in the world in terms of decentralized finance and kind of the more cash flow generating use cases for blockchain. In terms of the public space, it's definitely Indonesia, where you see a number of larger listed tech companies that have come on to the stock exchanges the last few years, such as Bukalapak, Grab, Sea Group, et cetera.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystSo I want to talk a bit more about IT development. And it's going through a pretty exciting time right now. Can you talk or tell us about the ongoing profitability focus and the expansion plans for IT development?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeYes. I mean, I'm very happy to see what has been done in terms of the turnaround in the IT development. We did the acquisition, but actually, if you clean out the acquisition and look only on the previous IT development that we also had before the acquisition, we have gone from basically not growing and not making any profit to being very profitable, 15%, 20% EBITDA, growing double digit. And I think that's all thanks to Thea and her team that is leading the IT development unit. So they've done a fantastic job. And with that, the profit from IT development is still going to cover all of the investments that we're making ongoing into the digital ventures. And in terms of growth, it's -- I think the main driver is perhaps kind of blended teams with the recently acquired IT development company in Sweden. So blended teams of Swedish and Vietnamese IT developers.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystI think it sounds very interesting. And you clearly communicated that you want to narrow the discount to the net asset value in the Q4 report. What's your strategy going forward to achieve this?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeI think the first thing is just to simplify and clarify what's basically in the portfolio and in the group and also start to present ourselves as an investment company and make sure that people understand that the value is in the portfolio and maybe not always in the P&L. So we have helped, I think, investors to zoom in on the 3 digital ventures where we see value, and we have kind of clearly valued them verifiable valuations from the investment rounds that we have done, verifiable valuations from other listed peers, and we're going to keep all on doing that more frequently so that people can transparently track that. And I think then people will look at underlying value and step-by-step, the market cap we'll approach. Then there's also this, we need to communicate our story. So we need to do Investor Relations work, which we didn't really do during the COVID years when we were focused on operations, which I think was the right focus. But now we can come back out and communicate more and clarify the investment case. And I think it's going to come quite naturally, actually.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystOkay. So lastly, coming back to COVID. We've seen pretty hard lockdowns in China right now. And what do you see in Vietnam? You see any risk that it is going to happen there, too?
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeI would say, basically 0 risk. I mean, you should never say 0, but we had our hard lockdown in Q3 2021. And in a way, it was a similar awakening for Vietnam, just what you're seeing in China now, Vietnam was transitioning from a COVID Zero strategy that has been very successful up until then. And then with the latest variant that was so contagious that you can't really run a COVID Zero strategy. Then when society shifts from these strategies, then there is this kind of emergency knee-jerk reaction of shopping everything down in a very strict way. And we went through that phase and we are on the other side of that phase, has opened up since Q4. Cases are going down. Deaths are basically almost none anymore. So yes, I would see almost zero risk for that. And I think politically, the country has learned a lot from Q3.
Fredrik Reuterhall
analystOkay. Well, that's very good to know. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
Christopher Brinkeborn Beselin
attendeeThank you, Fredrik.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeWelcome back, everyone. Devyser Diagnostics is an exciting company that we recently initiated coverage of. Now why is it exciting? Well, our lead analyst Erik Nordström will tell you in the following prerecorded investment case. Enjoy.
Erik Nordström
analystDevyser is a Swedish diagnostics company founded in 2004 that specializes in complex DNA testing. The company's test kits are today used in routine diagnostics in -- at laboratories in more than 45 markets globally, providing its customers with a simpler, quicker and more cost-efficient solution than traditional methods. The product portfolio today includes 28 CE marked test kits as well as 2 software tools. And these test kits are split into 3 different segments, namely oncology, hereditary diseases as well as post transplantation monitoring. Devyser has managed to grow at an impressive high growth rate over the course of the past 5 years, and it has recorded a sales CAGR of 29% for 2016 to 2021. But it is still in the beginning of its growth journey according to us. The company is headquartered in Hägersten, Stockholm and it currently employs 90 staff. The shares are traded on NASDAQ First North Premier since December 2001. And you can see the share price growth on the right-hand side of the slide. So moving on to our investment case. So an investment in Devyser offers investors exposure to the fast-growing next-generation sequencing market for genetic testing within hereditary diseases, oncology as well as post transplantation monitoring. And this is a -- the combined market here is growing at a very fast pace, and it is expected to grow at the CAGR of 13% over the coming 5 years. And thanks to its single tube solution that simplifies the routine diagnostics workflow, significantly reducing the turnaround time and reduces the risk of testing mixed up and contaminated, Devyser has a very strong value proposition in our view, that should enable it to grow faster than the underlying market over the coming years. And we foresee a sales growth of 35% between 2021 and 2026. And this is higher than the company's own organic growth target of 30%. And the growth should be fueled by strong secular trends and geographical expansion, M&A as well as a higher uptake of genetic testing within next-generation sequencing in its key markets. Devyser has an attractive business model in our view. It operates a model where it's a so-called razor-blade model, but without selling the razor. So it only sells high-margin consumable products, and this should enable it to run the business with high margins over the coming years. Moreover, we see scope for economies of scale as the company levers its efficient development -- product development process with 6 to 18 months from product idea to launch. And by combining a direct sales model with an indirect sales model using a strong network of independent distributors, the company today sells its products in more than 45 markets globally. It aims to convert to some strategically important markets from distributor sales to direct sales, though. And this strategy has proven successful historically, especially in Italy where it transformed to a direct sales model in 2014. And since then, it has managed to grow at the sales CAGR of 40%. And sales per sales FTE has more -- has approximately doubled since then. So it's, of course, interesting to do this transformation. And we believe that the current share price fails to do justice to the long-term potential we see in the case. And our valuation is based on a DCF model. And we have a base case of SEK 118 per share. And we believe that this gap could be closed by quarterly reports, product launches as well as geographical expansion. So looking more specifically at our valuation. On the next slide, you can see our DCF model and its key assumptions on the right-hand side. And as mentioned previously, we foresee sales growth of 35% CAGR for 2021 to 2026, while the sales CAGR for the full forecast period is estimated at 21%. And this valuation gap could, as mentioned previously, be closed by quarterly reports and product introductions as well as geographical expansions. And we also argue that M&A opportunities as well as inclusion in national screening programs should be strong growth drivers that could push the share price towards our base case in the near term. So lastly, to sum up with some concluding remarks and why we consider Devyser a compelling investment for the long-term investor. So it offers 28 diagnostic test kits and 2 software tools, spanning the 3 segments of oncology, hereditary diseases and post transplantation monitoring. And up until today, it has sold approximately 2.5 million tests. And the product offering is strong in our view, and we believe that Devyser differentiates itself from its key competitors through accuracy, quality, time efficiency as well as flexibility. And even though it has managed to grow at a very impressive pace over the past 5 years, we still argue that Devyser is in the beginning of its growth journey and foresee a sales CAGR of 35% over the coming 5 years. And national screening programs as well as M&A opportunities should be additional growth drivers to -- that should drive the share towards our base case. And lastly, we argue that the current share price fails to do justice to the long-term potential that we see in the case and see more than 60% upside from current share price levels. So that concludes the investment case of Devyser. Thank you.
Unknown Executive
executiveAnd now it's time to move on to the company presentation, and I would like to welcome CEO, Fredrik Alpsten.
Fredrik Alpsten
attendeeThank you very much for that. Devyser is a rapidly growing, and I must say, a company with very nice margins. We were listed at NASDAQ First North Premier on December 10 last year. The IPO was multiple times oversubscribed, and we got many new institutional investors as shareholders. But more about that later. We are active in DNA sequencing and DNA diagnostics, probably the most exciting and fastest-growing path of the health care industry. In 2000, 22 years ago, Bill Clinton at that time, the U.S. President, announced at a very famous press conference in the White House, and you can find his press conference on YouTube, that they have managed for the first time ever to sequence a patient's whole genome. This was fantastic news. Now you can predict if a patient will get a particular disease or has a specific disease. It will also open up a lot of other opportunities. However, there were 2 big problems. First, sequencing for this patient had taken 15 years to perform. And secondly, it had cost USD 3 billion. However, just like for the tech development, things are now going very, very fast. Full sequencing at the patient's genome now takes 3 to 4 weeks instead of 15 years. And it costs approximately USD 10,000; earlier, USD 3 billion. It's in this industry that Devyser act in DNA sequencing. We are still a relatively unknown, but we are a Swedish company founded in 2004 that develops, manufactures and sells diagnostic test kits and software for complex DNA sequencing. They are adapted to the leading DNA sequencing platforms, especially to NGS, the next-generation sequencing platform, which is the latest and fastest growing platform. But we have also products for the earlier platforms like qPCR and standard sequencing. We are working in 3 focus areas: hereditary diseases, which is our biggest area, representing approximately 70% of our total sales. We're working in oncology, representing approximately 25% of our total sales. And we are also working in post-transplant monitoring, which is our smallest area, but that is the area that's growing fastest at the moment. We sell our products through clinical diagnostic labs, either via our own sales reps or via distributors. As you heard earlier, we are based in Stockholm, Hägersten, but we have sales offices, own subsidiaries in 7 other countries. And we are, at the moment, approximately 100 employees. So what do we do? We develop, produce and commercialize genetic testing kits to guide targeted cancer therapies. It enables rapid diagnosis of hereditary diseases and post-transplant follow-up. All development and all manufacturing are taking place in-house here in our facilities in Hägersten, South Stockholm. So how do we do it? Well, I think the reason why we have been so successful, high growth and profitable more or less since we started the company, is because we put the customer, the routine diagnostic lab in focus. We provide easy to implement, maintain and use solutions, resulting in substantial time and cost savings for the customer, the lab. As you heard earlier, the growth in the company has been high. Since 2015, the growth has been 37% per year in average. And this is despite a big pickup in 2020 due to COVID-19. Since the company was founded, we have sold products for more than 2.5 million diagnostic tests. And we are at the moment selling our products in more than 45 countries all around the world even if we have had a very European focus up to now. We have very nice margins on our products, 77% for 2021, I must say almost pharmaceutical margins. And the nice thing is that when the volumes are increasing and the proportion of direct sales is increasing, the margins are increasing. Since -- the company was founded more or less as an R&D company, and we have today developed and launched 28 CE-approved products. We have been very successful in this. It takes us 6 to 8 months from product ID to a registered and launched product. We are attractively positioned in the value chain. You can divide our market into 3 parts, of which we are active in 2, the 1 to the left and 1 to the right. And we work in the part of the market with the highest margins. I used to say that we have a razor-blade business model but without a razor. The first step is the one to the left: selling reagent kits to predefined genetic tests. We develop, manufacture and sell reagent kits, consumables with high margins, recurring revenues. And the reason I'm saying recurring is when a customer has validated our product, it's a very, very big stretch for them to switch to another supplier. And actually, the number of customers that have left us since the company was founded can be calculated on one hand. Step two in the value chain is the sequencing instruments, third-party instruments, general-purpose instruments that [indiscernible] more or less every laboratory. We neither develop nor sell these instruments. Step three is selling our data analysis. The amount of data generated have increased and become more and more complex. And we have been very active in software development over the last couple of years, and we have now a very competitive offering to our customers. And sometimes, we sell the reagents without the software, but the most common is that we sell reagents together with the software. For many years, Devyser has focused its operation on developing world-class products. There has been much less focus on marketing and sales. However, this has started to be fixed properly. So we have now a very clear growth strategy, consisting mainly of 3 initiatives. The first initiative is strengthening our sales organization in key markets. It means primarily switching from distributor sales to direct sales in certain countries. But we're also talking about increased focus in countries where we are selling via distributors. The second initiative is a geographical expansion. And here, we are primarily talking about U.S. and some Asian countries. And since August 2021, we have a own sales organization in the U.S. The third initiative is focus on core products and launch of new products. Since the company was founded, we have launched in average 2 new products every year. And to maintain higher growth, we think it's important to continue doing that. As you heard earlier, we were listed at Nasdaq First North Premier on December 10. The offering was multiple times oversubscribed. In total, we raised SEK 348 million, including the over-allotment option. And we are very glad and very proud that we got many well-known shareholders on board. Our biggest shareholder is Rutger Arnhult. He has been with the company more or less since the company was founded. Other big shareholders are Robur, Fjärde AP-fonden, Berenberg, Ferd and Deka. All our 3 founders are still active in the company, and they are still big shareholders in the company. We have 3 financial targets. The first one is revenue growth. Devyser's growth is to achieve an annual growth in excess of 30% per year. And if you look to the right on the slide, you can see that we have been much better than that over the last couple of years. The second target is to achieve a gross margin in excess of 80% in the medium term. We are not yet here, but we are optimistic. High volumes will give higher gross margins. The third target is to achieve an operating margin, an EBIT margin about 20% in the medium term. And here, we also talk about 3 to 5 years from now. We are now investing a lot in the market and sales buildup, so that will take some time before we have a decent EBIT margin. But that's a decision we are taking. We can run this company [ profitable ], but now we are investing in marketing and sales to take benefit from the momentum we have with our products. A fast summary of Devyser and what I have tried to say during this rather short presentation. We are a Swedish developer, manufacturer and seller of advanced genetic test kits combined with software. They are adapted to all the leading DNA sequencing platforms. We have a proven business model, which has given us high revenue and profitability more or less since the company was founded in 2004. We had -- during the last years, had an average sales increase of 37% per year. And that's despite the fact that we were heavily affected by COVID-19, especially in 2020. We have a focused and validated genetic product portfolio with a strong valuable proposition, 28 developed and launched products since the company was founded. Our focus has been to simplify the life for the lab. With our products, the lab can streamline the testing process, going from days to minutes, good for the lab and good for the patient. And important, we are addressing significant and growing markets. If you look at the general diagnostic market, it grows by a couple of percent. However, if you look at DNA sequencing, especially NGS, the part that we are active in, it is the fastest-growing market of all diagnostic markets. Opportunities with DNA sequencing are huge. We have probably just started an exceptional journey. And our strategy has a rather low risk. We have done this before. We have increased sales by converting distributor sales to direct sales. And we will now continue doing what we have done so successful over the last 17 years. With that, I leave over to Redeye.
Erik Nordström
analystThank you very much, Fredrik, for a very interesting presentation. So moving on to the Q&A. So my first question is that you're currently embarking on scaling up the business in the U.S., which is the world's largest market for genetic testing. So how will you approach this market? And what is your growth strategy here?
Fredrik Alpsten
attendeeYes, it's correct. It's the world's largest market, but it's not only that. It is also the market with the highest prices. Thus, it's a very interesting market for us. And since the fall of 2021, we have a small local U.S. organization. And we have started to focus on the 3 of our most promising products. But as U.S. is a very big market, we have also decided to targeting a focus on certain customers, and we are here working towards the high-volume labs. But as always, for all our products and for all our markets, it takes something between 6 to 12 months from first contact with the customer until you see a buy customer. Thus, it will probably take us another couple of months before we see the first really good outcome from the U.S. sales. I talk about Q2, Q3.
Erik Nordström
analystInteresting. And Italy is a very important market for you. And your transformation, as you mentioned in the presentation, from distributor sales to a direct sales model back in 2014 was obviously a wise decision as you have managed to grow at a CAGR of nearly 40% here since then. And what you say have you learned from this? And how can you replicate the successful Italian sales model in other strategically important markets going forward?
Fredrik Alpsten
attendeeWell, our products are a rather small part of the distributors' total product offerings to the end customers. Thus, the distributors easily focus on high-volume products where they can add most of the money. But by having a dedicated sales force like we are having now in Italy and are planning to have in more countries, we can sell better. It works very well in Italy, and we are sure it will work in more or less all countries where we are active. We have already seen it in the Nordics and in Germany, and it's a very good way forward, having focused sales reps.
Erik Nordström
analystAnd you briefly touched upon this in the presentation, and you have grown at a pretty impressive rate despite the COVID hiccup in 2020. And the pandemic has obviously caused challenges for all companies in the sector with difficulties in accessing customers. You have a global component shortage as well as higher transportation costs. But the pandemic has also resulted in significant investments in testing infrastructure, and there are a lot of interesting initiatives going on here for diagnostics companies like you. So we see interesting opportunities here on the back of better testing possibilities. So how can you develop from this development?
Fredrik Alpsten
attendeeYes. It's an interesting question because, of course, the pandemic was very bad for many companies, including Devyser. But we see some good things coming out from here. The investments in testing infrastructure have been huge, and it's actually very good for us. And we are sure that we can benefit a lot from it in the next coming years even if, of course, it's very difficult to put a figure or a number on that.
Erik Nordström
analystInteresting. I think that concludes the Q&A session. Thank you very much, Fredrik, for participating today, and it will be very interesting to follow your journey going forward.
Fredrik Alpsten
attendeeThank you very much.
Erik Nordström
analystThank you.
Christian Binder
analystWelcome back, everyone. Now I have the pleasure of introducing Lipigon Pharmaceuticals, and we'll start off with a prerecorded investment case by lead analyst, Richard Ramanius.
Richard Ramanius
analystLipigon's investment case is rather simple as it boils down to features and advantages of its main candidate, Lipisense. It is a first-in-class antisense drug that targets ANGPTL4. This is a protein that regulates triglyceride blood distribution in the body. So simply put, what this drug does is that it blocks the production of this protein, and this in turn produces triglycerides in the blood or in other words, blood fats. This candidate is now ready for Phase I, so all preclinical development and studies have finished. One feature with this drug and its upcoming clinical trials, which is quite unique, is that it will be able to demonstrate potentially proof of concept already in Phase I. And as you know, Phase I normally tests safety in healthy volunteers. And this will be the case for Lipisense as well. But even healthy volunteers, obviously, have blood fats. So for a simple blood sample, you will be able to measure the blood fat levels before and after treatment with the drug. Of course, there might be some difference between a healthy individual with very low levels of blood fat and a sick individual with very high levels. If the drug works, you will find it more or less already by Phase I. And another feature resulting from this is that the regulatory pathway to approval is quite quick and simple as you can measure efficacy by a simple blood sample because the indication that Lipisense will likely be used for is severe hypertriglyceridemia or in other words, very high levels of blood fats and especially around 1,000 milligrams per deciliter or more. And what happens with these patients is that they often have an inflamed pancreas because of the blood fats. And what Lipisense will be able to do is to demonstrate reduction in triglycerides or blood fats rather than trying to prove a reduction in pancreatitis, which is more complex. This also means that the trials Phase I and Phase II can be smaller compared to disease endpoint because a reduction in blood fats is -- that's essentially a biomarker, which you can measure through a blood sample. So this means that the studies will be quicker and faster compared to many other types of drugs. Another very important point for the investment case is, of course, the large -- potentially a very large market. People who suffer from too high blood fat is huge and specifically those with more than 1,000 milligrams per deciliter or more, which is the main focus for -- we believe, for this drug who are in risk or in severe risk for pancreatitis. That's a group of 1.3 million people in the 7 major markets. So if Lipisense can safely reduce blood triglycerides, we believe that it has a blockbuster potential or it could sell more than $1 billion per year. Another interesting feature which you could say is a bonus is that if we assume approval in this indication in severe blood fats in the blood, it could, in the next step, be expanded into cardiovascular disease prevention as an addition to statins. This is a huge market with around more than 100 million patients in the 7 major markets. But this would demand very large clinical trials, 10,000 patients perhaps and certainly a partner. So this would be further down the line. If we look at risks for the investment case, then it's quite obvious that Lipisense needs additional funding for its Phase I trial. And some key facts. Share price was SEK 4.35 when this video was done, which translates to market capital of around SEK 40 million. Adjusted enterprise value around SEK 20 million, which is really low valuation for this type of asset. I would say this is an extremely depressed valuation. But it's a biotech bear market, so tough times for biotech right now. And our base case is 12, and that's adjusted for a funding round.
Christian Binder
analystNow following the investment case, we'll go on to the company presentation. And now I'm happy to introduce Stefan Nilsson, Lipigon's CEO. Stefan, thank you so much for being here today. Please go ahead.
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeWell, thank you for having me. And thank you, Richard, for that nice introduction. Makes my work a little bit easier. So my name is Stefan Nilsson. I'm the CEO and one of the cofounders of Lipigon Pharmaceuticals. We're a company that works with lipid-related diseases and where there are huge unmet medical needs, as Richard already mentioned to you. We are a portfolio company, meaning that we are not just a one-trick pony with one program. Of course, Lipisense is our main program right now and our main focus. But we have the -- we want to build up our portfolio using both different modalities and also going for both niche and broad indications. As Richard also mentioned, these niche or orphan indications makes the risk for development lower and also gives us an attractive premium pricing. So we have already, I think, shown through a lot of -- through several collaborations with -- including AstraZeneca, Secarna, HitGen and Swedish gene therapy company, CombiGene, that we are very knowledgeable in our field and that we are a partner that others want to collaborate with, and this is how we try to build our portfolio with -- through collaborations with other experts in other areas. Our pipeline has 4 programs. The focus of today is Lipisense program 1. We also have the already partnered gene therapy program with CombiGene. We have a dyslipidemia project, or actually there's 2 targets there, with HitGen. And there's a spinout from program 1 using the same type of molecules but for a different indication called ARDS, where we collaborate with Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. We work in a space where you could partner already really early all the way through late-stage development. But I would say that our sweet spot is here in Phase I, Phase II, where we can show proof of concept. And that's what Richard was talking about for Lipisense already in Phase I, which usually is safety and tolerability. We can also have efficacy measurements on the same pivotal endpoints that will give us a market approval after Phase III. So Lipisense is a first-in-class antisense oligonucleotide targeting the gene ANGPTL4. So what it does is it hinders the gene from being expressed and hinders the body from manufacturing the protein ANGPTL4. ANGPTL4 has link to plasma lipids and blood fats and also a strong link to different cardiometabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease but also linked to Type 2 diabetes, to fat liver disease and also to chronic kidney disease. And these are all diseases that are very common in metabolically challenged patients such as Type 2 diabetics. That's a really good target that has everything that you'd like to have from a -- that you'd like to see in a good drug target. This is the competitive landscape. And the first 3 colored drugs are those that already are approved. Here, in the red square, you have those that are in clinical development. And as you can see for a target, they target 2 different targets. It's ANGPTL3, which is a sister gene to ANGPTL4, and ApoC-III. So others, they have focused on these 2 targets, and this is an advantage for us since we are targeting ANGPTL4. And why are we only one targeting ANGPTL4? Well, because ANGPTL4 was early on a little bit tainted by monoclonal antibody development, which showed some side effects. These side effects is something that we can circumvent by using the antisense approach. So we have a molecule that targets the liver only and only knocks down the production in the liver. And thereby, we don't see those side effects that was seen with monoclonal antibody approach. And in fact, if we go to human genetics, ANGPTL4 comes out as the best target when it comes to coronary artery disease and also Type 2 diabetes. And what you should appreciate in this picture is that those 2 main competitors that we are up against, ANGPTL3 and ApoC-III, they are not significantly linked to these 2 diseases or ApoC-III is for coronary arteries, but ANGPTL3 is not for coronary artery disease but also not for Type 2 diabetes. So it's really the best lipid target out there based on human genetics that we are working with. And human genetics is a really, really important part of modern drug development. It's not a guarantee that you will succeed, but it certainly increases the chances working with a target like this. We are targeting plasma triglycerides with Lipisense. And in the top of the pyramid here, we have FCS, which is an orphan disease, only 6,000 patients in the 7 major markets, sky-high plasma triglycerides and high risk for acute pancreatitis. Moving down the pyramid, the number of patients increases to millions of patients, but still very high triglycerides and a very high risk for acute pancreatitis. And those 3 in the top here, that's where you can have approval on -- based on TG reduction only. And remember, TG reduction is something that we think that we will see already in Phase I trial, the Phase I trial that starts later this year. And at the base, you have this extra topping, which is this moderately elevated triglycerides where a big pharma partner could come in and finance Phase III trial for cardiovascular disease having done tens of thousands of patients. And this is something that could happen if we first prove that we have a compound that is potent and safe. There's really high unmet need when it comes to cardiovascular disease. Basically, only 1/3 of all cardiovascular [ bands ], all heart attacks or strokes can be hindered even when you reach the treatment goals. So this huge 2/3 that still occurs, if you can do just a little bit there, you would change the life for many, many patients because cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer in Europe. 45% of all Europeans die from cardiovascular disease. So there's, of course, a huge potential here. Just reducing this risk with a few percent would, well, as you understand, affect a lot of people. And when it comes to acute pancreatitis, these [indiscernible] figure shows that with elevated triglyceride levels, you will have a higher risk for pancreatitis and also higher risk for mortality and pancreatic necrosis, et cetera. So the link between elevated plasma triglycerides and acute pancreatitis is really there, and there's no question about it. That's why you will get approval based on TG lowering only. We have a lot of preclinical data from mouse models basically showing that Lipisense corrects plasma lipids in a gold standard model that we can protect mice from diet-induced obesity, improve the glucose handling and also lower fat levels in the liver. And most importantly, when we investigated this side effect, as I told you about called lymphadenopathy, there was no signs of this. And -- well, to sum up this, we are a portfolio company. We're focusing on Lipisense, but we want to diversify the portfolio with time based on targets, indication and modalities. We're modality-agnostic and works with whatever modality that fits the targets that we want to work with. Lipisense specifically is a highly derisked and soon-to-be clinical program. Already in autumn, winter this year, we will have efficacy readouts. It's the strongest lipid targets based on human genetics. And it's also the only ANGPTL4 inhibitor in development. So that gives us true first-in-class potential. And on top of that, really attractive niche indications that allows us to have smaller clinical studies and do our development faster and more cost efficiently. And with that, I'd like to say thank you and open up for questions.
Christian Binder
analystThank you so much for a great presentation, Stefan. Now let's kick off the Q&A. Maybe we could start with, would you agree that your main competitive advantage is the research group in Umeå? And how are these people integrated into the company?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeIt's definitely so. We have a long experience in the field of lipid-related disease, 50 years. I had my own training in this group. I had my PhD there. And I'm one of the cofounders, and Gunilla Olivecrona was my supervisor and also a cofounder of the company. We're both active in the company. I'm the CEO, and Gunilla is employed as a senior consultant. So we were very active there. But also most importantly, we have a great network out there in the field of lipid research, and this has helped us a lot throughout the years.
Christian Binder
analystVery interesting. You've already covered competitive landscape a little bit, but could you just elaborate a little bit on who do you view as your main competitors in dyslipidemia? And what are Lipisense's advantages over its competitors?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeYes. Well, the advantages that we have -- or the main competitors are those that I mentioned, and I prefer to talk about competing targets, ANGPTL3 and ApoC-III, because there are so many companies working with these. Those are our main competing targets. And we have several unique selling points on top of those that I mentioned. We have an effect on not only plasma lipids but also glucose handling on liver fat and also chronic kidney disease, all of which are diseases that are very common in those patients that often show dyslipidemia. So that's our main advantages.
Christian Binder
analystThat's very interesting. Now regarding the coming Phase I trial, could you tell us a little bit more about the endpoints? And specifically regarding the efficacy endpoint, is that the same one? Or does it differ from potential efficacy endpoints for Phase II and Phase III trials?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeFor the Phase I, safety and tolerability are the main endpoints. So triglycerides in this case will be an exploratory marker. That means the study is not designed per se to show statistical significance when it comes to TG lowering, but we have a really, really good chance of seeing these -- seeing triglyceride lowering. And when it comes to Phase II and III, triglyceride lowering will be the endpoint for those studies. And if we stay within the field of severe hyperdyslipidemia, also the endpoint that would give us approval after Phase III.
Christian Binder
analystVery interesting. Going on to what do you think are the main advantages of having triglyceride reduction as a regulatory endpoint for approval?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeThose are very good. We've seen in the past by other companies and the development of Phase III that it will definitely be -- if something doesn't change, it will be an approvable endpoint.
Christian Binder
analystVery insightful. Now following Phase I, could you discuss which indications could become relevant for further clinical development?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeWell, it's -- first of all, it's those in the pyramid, those that are triglyceride-based. If we, after Phase I, have really good data or after a smaller Phase II can show that we have a very safe and efficacious compound, it's -- well, it's really -- it's highly probable that this will get the attention of big pharma. And when big pharma comes in, these niche indications are not interesting. They will be interested in cardiovascular prevention. So after Phase I or after a smaller Phase II, that's where they can diverge. But there's -- if we continue to develop this until Phase III, it wouldn't be a problem for a big pharma to jump in and start their own Phase III for cardiovascular disease.
Christian Binder
analystUnderstood. And it seems like we have time for one more question. Maybe we could round out with what do you see as the main triggers for Lipigon in the coming 12 months?
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeIt is, of course, the -- everything that has to do with the clinical trials of Lipisense. It's the approval from the government, and there is the start of the trials, of course. When the single ascending dose study has -- the so-called SAD study finishes and when we can have interim data and, of course, finishing up the whole Phase I with a multiple ascending dose as well. And on top of that, of course, we have all our other programs that have a continuous development. And so I think it will be -- if you look at the news coming out from Lipigon in the last year, there's been plenty of them, and we will have even more the coming year.
Christian Binder
analystVery exciting. That was unfortunately all the time we had for the Q&A. So Stefan, thank you so much for presenting today.
Stefan Nilsson
attendeeThank you very much.
Christian Binder
analystWelcome back. Now I'm happy to introduce Binero Group, and we'll start off with a prerecorded investment case by lead analyst, Jacob Svensson.
Jacob Svensson
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Charlotte Darth
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analyst[Foreign Language] investment case [Foreign Language] Mestro.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystMestro offers a cloud-based energy monitoring software, which collects -- automatically collects, analyzes and visualizes properties' energy usage. Magnus Astner founded the company back in 2005, and it has since grown to over 100 customers and more than 8,000 properties connected. Over the last 5 years, contracted annual recurring revenue has grown by almost 24% annually, reaching SEK 18 million at the end of 2021. Mestro software is sold under a SaaS model and is used in 1 of 3 ways, either as a detective tool, highlighting buildings with poor performance and energy savings that can be made or for collecting data for internal benchmarking purposes, or lastly, for collecting data for sustainability reporting purposes. Mestro's value proposition is that it is one single interface where the property owner can find all his property's energy usage in one single platform. So the investment case. Mestro's cloud-based energy monitoring service is well positioned for a world where going green is becoming a necessity. Mestro has shown strong growth, and it looks to accelerate this growth in the coming years. We estimate that annual sales will reach $56 million by the end of 2025 or almost a CAGR of 29%. Mestro operates under a SaaS model and is well staffed. And thus, we think they have a good operating leverage and will reach profitability and reach an almost 20% EBIT margin at the end of 2025. To support our case, where Mestro accelerates the revenue growth, we see that Mestro has an impressive property portfolio or customer portfolio with some of the Nordic region's largest property owners and managers as customers. This signals Mestro's value proposition and show that this competitiveness is at the forefront. To support our case where Mestro accelerates its revenue growth, we find that Mestro has a good customer portfolio, with some of the Nordic region's largest property owners and managers as customers, signaling Mestro's value proposition and that its competitiveness is at the forefront. Moreover, Mestro shows strong SaaS metrics with a churn of less than 3% on average, which has been combined with a good upselling, so Mestro has a net revenue retention of 107% over the last year. And with the 2 recent framework agreements signed with CapMan and Heimstaden, we believe that Mestro will be able to grow its presence internationally through its current customer base and thus accelerate revenue growth even further. So the valuation. Our base case for Mestro is SEK 14.5 per share. This equals an EV sales multiple of 3.8% on our 2022 sales estimates or an upside of almost 37%. We think this is fair thanks to the strong growth outlook and clear operating leverage. Base case also implies a lower EBIT-to-sales multiple than the average Nordic SaaS company. Would Mestro trade in line with its peers? We see an upside of almost SEK 17 per share or roughly a 60% upside. When we value Mestro, we compare Mestro with private market transactions, we see that Mestro could be valued almost at SEK 20 per share if it were sold to a bigger company, reflecting an upside of almost 85%. That concludes the investment case. Thank you. I would like to welcome Gustav Stenbeck, CEO of Mestro, to the stage. You may now present.
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeThank you so much. So I can't stand still. So you guys are going to have to live with me actually walking around stage, and I'm hoping that's going to be technically fine. But I'm here to talk about why Mestro is a really good investment case. And I'm going to start off by talking about the 3 really big emerging trends that we're seeing that are working in our favor. So the first one is that we've already seen energy prices rise. And it doesn't matter if you're listening to me from Stockholm in Sweden or from Northern Sweden or from Southern Norway or from the Continental Europe. You're going to be affected by higher energy prices. And we're working with the software that can help you get a better handle on how you spend energy in your properties. So secondly off, we're seeing that there's a lot of more pressure from stakeholders for companies to become more sustainable. So it's important for companies to have a firm handle on how they work with sustainability issues in their property portfolios. And thirdly, well, we're seeing a huge digital debt that's being worked at for properties as it stands today. So property companies have a huge investment case in front of them to make properties more digital, and we can help them do this in a very cost-efficient and easy manner. So what do we do? Well, the problem is quite easy, what we solve. And that is what you don't know, you can't really do anything about. So we have a software suite that does effectively 3 things. The first one is that we collect, the second one is we process, and the third one is that we visualize energy data. And we do this in a seamless way where other companies usually have interfaces. So they don't collect or they don't visualize. They need other partners to do so. And whenever you connect 2 pieces of software, you're always going to have problems. Mestro has none of these connections. We can do everything seamlessly on its own. So who are we? And where have we come from? And whenever I talk about this, usually, I want to show this particular slide because we're not the new kids on the block. We've been around for quite some time, which you can see on the time line, but that's given us a lot of time to really hone our skills and make sure we have an awesome product for our customers to use. And if you follow the customer list and you see how it's grown over the years, you can see that we have virtually a who's who of all the Swedish big property companies on our customer portfolio. And we've grown with these companies to new markets. As you saw in the previous slides, we're now present in 6 markets in Europe, and we have 4 other under contract. Here's a couple of wins in what we do. So essentially, you see a couple of numbers here. We have 100 companies in Mestro. We have approximately 8,000 properties that we manage. We have a really, really new and cloud-based software that does all this. So all the IT investments are done. We're also doing some pretty good wins for our companies that we help in terms of energy savings. And you see them on the right. And it's kind of funny because you're seeing all the 2020 numbers. You're not seeing any 2021 numbers there. And that's because we just -- last week, it's actually showing you that I wrote this -- will be released, but it actually was released a couple of days ago. And that is the Mestro Summit, which is our sustainability report for all the properties that we look after. We have a unique insight into how properties are run and handled across the Nordics. And we anonymize this data, and we present it at least once a year where we show customers and the markets how energy and energy consumption is changing in the properties that we work with. We also show you sustainability data and lots of other trends on how properties are being run and managed. And if you're interested in this data, just go to mestro.com, and you can download the report from there. So I told you, we're on 6 markets as it stands today. So we're in Sweden, we're in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland and the Netherlands. And then along with one of the framework agreements we signed with Heimstaden just a couple of weeks back, we also have Germany, the Czech Republic, U.K. and Iceland under contract, and we're working to start supplying our services to those countries as well right now. And of course, going forward, I think it's not a tall guess to say that we're going to continue growing on to mainstream and to main Continental Europe. So if I'm going to talk a little bit about the market, usually, I start off by showing you this picture. And this is another bragging picture. This is our client list, and these are a couple of the clients that we have today. And what usually happens, whenever I show a client list of Mestro's and I ask the person on the other side of the table, what do you think of the clients, they say, well, pretty much, that's a pretty good client list. You pretty much have all the clients possible to get right now, right? There's no real growth potential in the future. And usually, I answer with this. So here, you're seeing all the applicable properties. So this is the total obtainable market that we have for Sweden. So it's about 380,000 properties that Mestro can handle and work with in Sweden. And then you're seeing -- on the top left, you're seeing 7 dots. Those are the 7,000 properties that Mestro has. Each dot represents 1,000 properties. And if you look at this picture, it becomes very apparent that there's a lot of blue ocean left only in Sweden. It means that we have a lot of growth potential in our home market. Right now, there's a lot more cheddar left in the cupboard. And we can do this work all day. We can actually look at the Nordics if we want to. And here, you see the same picture. You see 1,000 properties being represented by one dot. And here, you see 1 million properties represented. And then you see Mestro's approximately 8,000 properties that we have in the system right now at the top. So in the Nordics, there's even more blue ocean left. And then I'm not even going to show you Europe. You get the idea. So we have a lot of potential to grow, and the market is really big to continue growing on. So we've got those trends really working for us. And the question is then, how do we create value? And we do this quite easily. We're a pure SaaS company, so we don't have any hardware. If a property company with 100 properties comes to us and say, "We want to start using your software." We don't reply by saying, "You need to install this piece of hardware first." We always use the hardware or the infrastructure that's already in place in the property as it stands today. So this means that the customer can easily and cost-efficiently get started to measure their energy consumption as it stands already today without any further investments. And we do this, as I said previously, with a unique 3-tiered approach where we both collect, we process and we visualize the data for our customers without the use of any third-party systems. And if you're interested in how the business runs, well, it kind of looks something like this. We supply and manage service to our customers where we charge them per property. We can actually charge them per square meter as well, but usually, we charge them per property. And then we have a pricing interval where we can charge as little as approximately a little over SEK 1,000 per property per year, and we can go as high as approximately SEK 12,000 per property per year. We have an average income that averages somewhere around SEK 3,000 per property per year. And then we have a subscription period that lasts for approximately 12 months. We have a setup cost that is usually anywhere in between the same as the subscription cost for year 1, and then it becomes a pure SaaS model, or actually now when we did the IPO about 3 or 4 months ago, we can actually start shrinking the setup costs a little bit to make sure that we get even higher subscription models. So we have approximately 10 services that we continue to develop and a lot more sub-services under that. And we have a really compelling and sticky product because we can see that the customers stick with us. You saw a churn number that was an average over the past couple of years. I want to give you the churn number for 2021, and that was 0.9%. So in 2021, we had less than 1% of churn. And as you can see here, we had an upsell that was the equivalent of more than 30% of our committed annual recurring revenue. So in summary, the shift to smart cities here, we're seeing it as we stand right now. And it's converging on these 3 trends, and Mestro's really well positioned to actually provide value for our customers on each one of these 3 trends. So we're seeing energy prices. They are continuing to rise, and we're not seeing any solution in the near future. Energy prices are higher and they're here to stay. We're seeing that sustainability is becoming a lot more important for the stakeholders that are present, both as investors and as people that are looking to work for companies that provide meaning. We're seeing that it's important for our customer base, not only to work with energy but to work with sustainability. And third but certainly not least, we're talking about the digitalization of properties as it stands today. And we can provide an easy and cost-effective way of getting our customers more digital when it comes to their energy consumption. So if you want to get a hold of me, Gustav Stenbeck, I'm all over the web. Otherwise, drop me a line at [email protected]. I have 14 more seconds. Maybe I should dance a jig or maybe I should just give them to everybody here right now. Thanks a bunch. It's been great to be here and talk.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystOkay. Now it's time for some Q&A. So you started rolling out your product in Continental Europe. Can you tell us more about this market? And how does it differ from the Swedish market?
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeWhenever I say something is easy, my CTO starts to kick my a** because nothing is really that easy when it comes to tech. It's easy on a kind of fundamental or just basic level, but once you have to build it, it's a bit more complex. But on the fundamental level, the way that you collect energy data is the same all across Europe, which means that legislation through the European Union has made sure that it should be approximately the same way I get energy data in Germany or in the U.K. or in the Czech Republic or in Spain as it is that I do in Sweden. There are some minor adjustments that needs to be done, but fundamentally, the same right to data employs. So that means that Europe is kind of the same way in that sense. But the other thing is that Continental Europe is obviously a big market. You have some really big property giants that are present in Germany, U.K., Czech Republic, the markets that we're getting access to right now, which means that when it comes to growth potential through Continental Europe, getting one really big customer in Europe is going to hit heavier than getting one big customer in the Nordics.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystOkay. And do you have any -- because now you're going to roll out through your existing customers, do you have any strategies to target the customers -- local customers in these new markets?
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeI think yes, we're going to target them a lot through online partially. But I think showing you the images of the blue ocean we still have left in Sweden and Norway and Denmark and the Nordics means that we have to also invest in the existing markets we're in today. So we're not going to overextend to find new markets when we're seeing that the existing markets have so much blue ocean left. So we're going to be opportunistic when it comes to these new markets like we are today, and that's given us the possibility to extend into Germany, U.K., Czech Republic. But we're not going to spend huge amounts of investor money and time targeting these countries specifically when we're seeing a lot of traction in the existing markets as well.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystOkay. And there is a few competitors out there doing similar things as Mestro. How do you compete with them? And how do you -- where do you see your value proposition compared to theirs? And what are you working on to make that distance further away?
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeWe compete with them by being the best. So we offer the best energy solution out there. And I can say that without kind of blinking twice. But if we look at how we look to widen that gap is that we have a really good tech team that has been working a lot when it comes to building the product into what it is today. And we've rebuilt the product a couple of times to make sure we don't have any real legacy. And we're seeing some of these kind of dragons and giants that are on the market today. They're kind of built on a lot of legacy code and platforms, which means that they can't be nearly as agile as we can be when it comes to rolling out their product offering, even on existing markets. A lot of them aren't even cloud-based, which means that as a SaaS and pure cloud-based company, we're kind of unique when you compare us to the big dragons. And also when it comes to kind of the smaller companies, usually they don't have the integrated offering that we have, even when you look at the competition in Continental Europe. Either they don't do the collection and processing stage of energy collection or they don't do the visualization stage. So when it comes to bringing all these kind of functions in-house, I'd say we're unique. And then I'd like to top it off by our excellent customer success team. So we have customer success managers that helps our customers success with their implementation, and we can see that it works.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystAnd you have a quite like niche offering focusing mainly on the energy side. Have you -- what are your thoughts about partnering up with other software companies that are targeting the real estate sector as well?
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeWe are doing it as we speak. So what we're kind of looking at in doing is that we have -- I mean at first glance, you could look at us as being kind of a small company. But we're not. I mean we have 100 customers. We've got more than 8,000 properties. There are software companies out there that would kill to get access to our customer and the portfolio of customers that we have. So what we're doing right now is that we're talking with other interesting software developers that have ancillary products that are kind of similar towers but not directly competing that we can offer within our ecosystem of products to make sure that they get an even better experience and that, of course, we can also extend beyond the reach of our current code.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystOkay. I think that's all the time we have for Q&A today. Thank you very much.
Gustav Stenbeck
attendeeThank you so much for having me.
Rasmus Jacobsson
analystThank you. And that concludes our event. Thank you very much for watching today.
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