Implantica AG (8IM1.F) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Implantica Q3 2025 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to speakers, CEO, Peter Forsell; CFO Andreas Öhrnberg; and Chief Corporate Officer, Nicole Pehrsson. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So welcome to Implantica's Q3 Investor Presentation. And I guess you know me by now, but I have invested lots of money and effort in this company, and this is actually the second round of implant business. So I will try to give you a very quick overview of Implantica before I come to the business update for any new listener, but I will try to do it very fast. So first of all, Implantica has 2 platform technologies. We have an eHealth platform and a wireless energizing platform. And with these 2, we can revolutionize health care and we can do many nice products, and we can control people's health from distance, and we can also change treatment from distance, completely unique feature. And based on that, we have then gone through the whole body and try to make patent applications, and we have many pipeline products in this company. We have enough pipeline to become a really, really large company. And for example, the eHealth platform is covered by 25,000 pages of patent filing. So it's an enormous work to protect this for the future. And that's why we have a very shy vision in this company. We should become the world leader in smart medical implants. And I just give you 2 products as an example, people who has a stoma, they have taken away the large intestine, for example, and they have a plastic bag where they collect the fecal matter on outside of their abdominal wall. The business just for plastic bags are $3 billion. People don't need that plastic bags anymore. We make reservoir, open clothes, artificial sphincter, everything ready to go and people don't need anything with the plastic bag. They just need our remote control. Second, people who can't urinate. This is not so fun because they normally put in a catheter in their own bladder 5 times per day. Every time they should urinate, they need to introduce a catheter in their own bladder. And I can tell you when you have introduced this catheter in your bladder once, you have done a real achievement, I can tell you. These people only need a remote control after we launch our product. They could urinate without any hassle because we have an internal device to handle the problem. If we then go further on, our main product is, of course, RefluxStop. This is a device, an implant that is used in the treatment field of 1 billion sufferers. So it's the largest treatment field in the world, even larger than obesity. And here, you see the device at the end of our special instrument we used to introduce it into the body. And the existing surgical methods today, they have all been focusing on compressing or closing, supporting the closing of the sphincter and muscle ring sphincter here who sits between the stomach and esophagus. And that's, of course, because acid should not come up, it's very logical that you should support the closing. The problem is that when you do that, you get swallowing problems, you can't [ bells ] you can get nothing up anymore. And you get so called gas bloating because you can press gas down with your food and saliva, but nothing comes up and you get bloated and distended. So these surgeries also doesn't treat acid reflux very well because you cannot compress so much you get enough treatment overall. So with RefluxStop, we realized what actually caused acid reflux. And therefore, we will be able to make a treatment without affecting the food passage way. So we treat acid reflux much better, and we do it without all the side effects you have with existing surgery. And you can see here that basically, it works like this that in the chest, you are breathing and therefore, pressure is coming and going. Imagine pressure in, pressure out, pressure in, pressure out. And this poor sphincter here, if this comes too close here, you can imagine how it's leaking out through the hole you have in the diaphragm here for the esophagus, it's leaking out pressure variations. And this is affecting this poor sphincter so it gets completely paralyzed. It can't work anymore and you get acid reflux. So by restoring the normal anatomy in a good position, far away from the diaphragm, placing our device on the outside of the stomach in the suture pouch and some other sophisticated sutures you need to treat all 3 components of the anti-reflux barrier. Suddenly you have no reflux anymore. And it's the body itself who treat. It's not the device. We are just giving the body the natural position and the right circumstances basically. And then the body treats itself. So what should you then more know about this treatment field? You should know that the drugs taken today, they are dangerous. It's a large U.S. study follow for 10 years, 157,000 U.S. veterans and 1 out of 20 extra deaths due to this drug, PPI. That's incredible bad. So -- and the problem is that people die from cardiovascular disease or kidney disease or cancer. And no one says, okay, this guy died from a heart attack, of course, it's because of his PPI. No one understands this until someone suddenly do a large study like this. And they have then afterwards gone through and analyzed why are people getting heart attack, we got a PPI. And the answer is that you take something called nitric oxide in the blood vessel. And this goes away by this treatment. And therefore, you open up for atherosclerosis. So your blood vessels get older. You get like -- you can be a middle-aged man, but suddenly, you have blood vessels like you are an old man. And that's why you die from heart attack when you have PPI use. So this was the 4 main reason for death cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, you wipe out your kidney, cancer, infection and parasites because you have no protection of acid anymore. Normally, you eat food, you have acid in your stomach and that protects you from [ ship ] you get when you eat, but not now because the acid is gone. So people don't understand this. It's really -- that's why I repeat it over and over again. This is not fun for the patients. We have also in this area, 48,000 people in U.S. and Europe alone die from esophageal adenocarcinoma. So cancer in your esophagus. And we know that acid that comes up in esophagus that comes over and over and over again. It's burn, it make ulcers, it's terrorized, it make inflammation of your poor esophagus. And this is exactly how you get precancer changes. So if I take an endoscope and put down in any patient, I just take randomly a patient with acid reflux and I put down an endoscope and look, 10% to 20% have precancer changes. We have a huge study where they have gone into registry in Sweden when they look at all people who died from esophageal adenocarcinoma. And what do they find? 38% take PPI. So of the people who died from this cancer, 38% was eating PPI at the time of death. That's a warning alarm bell ringing here. So suddenly, I will go over to the business update. And first of all, of course, you are interested to find out how is it progressing with the FDA. Very interesting question, well motivated. First of all, we have passed not less than 4 FDA pre-approval inspections or we hope we have passed. Anyhow, we had 1 team of 2 inspectors coming to one of our study hospitals, and they have gone through every single data point, every -- they have turned any stone on the data and they have compared the data in the computer system with the data in the patient journal. And it's -- you can imagine 2 people for 5 days asking questions like a machine gun. It's enormous work to supply an audit and inspections like this, mirror inspection and audit maybe with all the things they need. It's really heavy, heavy burden to really handle an inspection like this. Then they came the week after unannounced to Implantica's facilities. So another 2 people and one was the same and new inspector from FDA. And they took the same study and they went through every single data point, every single study details, all the documentation, everything, 2 people again asking questions for 5 days. So it's -- we had a working hour of 120 hours that week to just supply the answers to all the questions. And both these meetings there was a closing meeting where FDA -- we sit together with FDA and they report the results. And both these closing meetings presented with no observations. And that's good for our study and our approval process. Furthermore, we had 2 more inspections. One was again at Implantica's place, but this time to go through our quality system. As a medical device company, you have rigorous paperwork to control every step, everything you do, everything is controlled. It's very advanced, lots of paperwork -- and they ended up this inspection only with minor observations. There were a few observations, but nothing of importance since we will answer within 2 weeks. Finally, the next week, they went to our production facilities, Freudenberg in Germany, and they inspected all the production, how it's going, all the paperwork at this company or their quality system. And even here was only minor observations that will be responded within a few weeks as well. So this is quite promising for our, hopefully, upcoming FDA approval. Regarding the overall feedback from FDA, you remember, we received the feedback on Module 3, the last and final module, and we also received feedback on our answers to Module 2. And basically, you can say that the answer on Module 2, they were focused on post-approval study. That's to say every product implant like this in the United States, when you get approval, you are forced to do a post-approval study. So after you can sell your product and so on, and that's done parallel to selling the product, but you need to do a post-approval study. And all things were focused on how this post-approval study should look like what you should analyze and so on. And -- then we had some other stuff regarding the Module 3. And if this application PMA is called to FDA. That's a very heavy, heavy work and it's lots, lots of parameters and normal investor doesn't understand why is not a specific time line, can't you just say when it's ready here and then it's ready here. It's impossible. It's an absolutely -- it's a huge, huge animal and parameter change. So when we supply, for example, now some test result here, suddenly, FDA has decided that they want to use another way you're presenting these results. And it's not published by FDA. No one knows. But FDA just tells us, no we have changed our mind, now we want another way you're presenting this another test. And suddenly, it's just a redo. This is how live. In this particular case, we were lucky enough that this is just short term and it will quickly be done. But it's just for your understanding, it's not like you have all the rules lined up is that this, this this, this. And we know the timing. No, it's very complex. Very, very, very advanced work to handle this. So the 100-day meeting we had with FDA, there we could clarify exactly what do they now want more from us to give us the approval. And there was no all requirements are for us now clear what we need to do to have the final approval, and they are also all addressable as we see it. We couldn't see anything that was any hurdle for this approval. It's just a little bit more time and soon, we will now file the final response. So another good news is that actually our main device competitor is withdrawing from all markets except U.S. So this is, of course, fantastic for us. They say it for commercial reasons. At the same time, we noticed that it is published results from U.S. largest user. It's called LINX. It's a trademark of product. They published results here that is not so favorable for these products. It's actually very unfavorable that it has a large frequency of swallowing difficulties with up to 30% need to do dilatation -- metal delation, balloon dilatation and also lots of remaining swallowing esophagus, swallowing difficulties. So it's basically very unfavorable results, but we don't know if we have anything to do this or if it has to do with that RefluxStop is a superior treatment, but most likely it's simply that they saying there is a commercial reason, not business enough for them to continue. But that's very, very favorable, of course, for RefluxStop. And not only that, we have also suddenly compared to the existing market today. Today, it's a certain number of reflux surgeries done, and that is compressed a lot because the existing treatment has so many side effects. So therefore, the number of surgeries is absolute to a minimum. But on top of that, the whole market for RefluxStop is suddenly 10x larger than for LINX. And for any other treatment available, and that's because something called IEM sufferers. So when people have acid reflux for a long time, the muscles and the nerves ends and esophagus gets damaged and the food transportation gets worse. They have no strong food transportation down in esophagus anymore. And then you can imagine you take the existing methods and try to close down the esophagus, that means you have your weak food transportation and suddenly you have a stop down and you get unbearable swallowing difficulty. It doesn't work. So, but RefluxStop doesn't affect the food passageway, could suddenly be used in these IEM patients. And there around half of all the reflux patients but they are in a group with very severe sufferers is likely around 10x more candidate for surgery in that half -- I mean the half that is operated today. And this is further supported now by NICE. So NHS, who stands for the health care in U.K., they have an organization NICE to help to evaluate new technology and analyze, look at all the data and so on. And after their very thorough review of RefluxStop, they ended up to say, yes, we allow RefluxStop in NHS public hospitals for IEM patients. That means for half of the sufferers and the severe sufferers. And NHS, NICE they have influence all over the world. We have U.S. investors calling us and want to invest because they have read about NICE guidelines and so on. So this is a very influential and very, very positive and this, of course, then opens up the possibility for the U.S. market. Suddenly, the U.S. market is tenfold larger than before. We are preparing for launch in U.S. We are heavily preparing for launch in the U.S. One part of that is that we have built new -- 2 new production tools so we can produce more units, more quickly and also we can place 1 tool in the U.S. So we can have production both in U.S. and in Europe. And currently, we are building 10,000 RefluxStop units to be prepared for the U.S. launch. Also, we are doing lots of activities to strengthen our case in the U.S. And we have a fantastic market momentum among top U.S. exports for the moment. And in the latest American Foregut Society. So Foregut Society, that is basically an association of all doctors who treat the patient with reflux. And we had a fantastic meeting. We had our lunch symposium, and it was many different lunch symposium that everybody went basically to our [ goals]. We had 120 doctors attending and it was a fantastic event. And also, Professor Schoppmann presented new data up to 7-year data, it mean 2 years from 22 European center has pulled their data together, and he presented that in this American Foregut Society and he had the biggest room available there, and it was really a huge interest, a fantastic interest from U.S. surgeons. So we are getting there. Also we had a fantastic reception. Lots of comments in our booth we had here regarding the 5-year data was published in Surgical Endoscopy. Surgical Endoscopy is a magazine from SAGES. SAGES is part of the guideline society to recommend guidelines for the U.S. market. And their magazine, they published our 2 articles about 5-year results. And exceptional reception previous meetings we had in the U.S., it's always some surgeons who question. Is this really good but this time, no question. Now it was more the question, why is it so good? Why is it working so much better than anything else. So we have come very, very far with the U.S. surgeons. And I can just show you it's an easy parameter to just understand how good treatment you get with RefluxStop. In this case, it's our pivotal study. And you can see that everybody took, of course, drugs before surgery. They had acid reflux, they took PPI drugs. 5 year after surgery is 1 patient, 1 single patient take drugs after 5 years. This is an absolutely exceptional results. There is nowhere in the literature to find anything even close and its total superior. And not only that, you can take the literature, you can look everywhere on the different articles from different centers that do this in real world, real life. And here, I took an example. It's an article from Germany in Friedrichshafen 79 patients, and he had 94.9% for the patient took PPI before surgery and 2.5% after surgery. The same fantastic results in just normal standard health care. Next steps Robotic surgery with RefluxStop. This is the new trend maybe you're aware of, it comes more and more robotic surgery, more and more advanced surgery. Here, you see some pictures of a RefluxStop surgery with robotic surgery. And why is this interesting? Yes, it's interesting because in the United States, 60% do robotic surgery. There will be lots of robotic surgery with RefluxStop in United States. And that is really nice because they also have a fantastic video streaming system. So we can sit here in Europe even and we can guide the surgeons and have a live streaming of the surgery, we can communicate and talk with each other a fantastic way of keeping control of the training process. So we are targeting -- we have more than 100 centers, way more than 100 centers who wants to start, but we will target 25 plus 25 centers initially. And we need to be very careful with training people really, really well. And why is the situation so good in the United States? Yes, because we have a research article that has been published that show that RefluxStop is the most cost-effective asset reflex treatment. It's more cost-effective than any other treatment. So it's economic gain here to operate the RefluxStop compared to the other treatment. That's a really good platform for U.S. expansion. I have a lot of things to say about U.S., but I could not talk too long in this presentation here. This is another advantage of the U.S. approval is that suddenly it opens up markets like Japan, Canada, Brazil, who very much look at the U.S. approval. So in Canada, for example, they said U.S. approval is enough for us and so on. So this is getting further expansion. And for you to see how we systematically building a business like this is like building a house. You start with the ground, you make a very solid ground and you build up from the bottom, the same with the clinical data. The clinical data is the door opener for everything. Today, we have 27 published or accepted benefits. It's like a snowball effect. We have 14 waiting to be sent in or be approved or reviewed. It's like you put a snowball on top of a mountain in the warm weather, and it's just expanding and expanding, expanding. We have a full team just doing this. And this is really, really important for the future to handle this. Then I leave the word for Andreas to talk about the finance update.

Thanks, Peter. Good afternoon or good morning. Net sales for the third quarter amounted to EUR 365, 000 this represents an increase of 6% compared to the same period last year. As a reminder, Implantica is currently only marketed the lead product RefluxStop European key opinion leaders to support the ongoing reimbursement buildout. Adjusted gross margin for the third quarter amounted to 93%, down from 97% in the same period last year. The business consistently achieves exceptional gross margins, underpinned by a simple product design, best-in-class patient outcomes as demonstrated by the long-term clinical data Peter presented and a big competitive moat thanks to robust IP. Our third quarter operating loss amounted to EUR 4.4 million, a 17% year-over-year decrease. For the 9 months, operating loss decreased by 28% reflecting company-wide cost discipline and a decrease in FDA-related expenses. Let's switch slide and turn to cash. Operating cash flow decreased 32% to EUR 3.3 million compared to the same quarter of last year. For the 9 months, operating cash outflows decreased by 34% to EUR 11.7 million underpinned by disciplined cost management. At the end of September, we have EUR 53.3 million of cash and short-term investments. The investments on our balance sheets are simple fixed-term deposits with a leading A+ rated Swiss bank, therefore, we can non-direct financial market risk exposure. There is no interest-bearing debt in our capital structure. So let me sum up this slide by saying we have a solid financial position. Next slide, please. Our investor base is dominated Swedish and Swiss high-quality institutions. We are grateful for the trust and support we're receiving to ensure that GERD sufferers globally are getting access to the best available treatment at scale. Back to you, Peter.

Thank you. Then I think it's time to open questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Filip Wiberg from Pareto Securities.

So my first question is just around the FDA inspections here and that you said you hope to passed. So is that based on the feedback from these closing meeting but they have not formally passed yet? Or can you just explain how that works?

The closing -- they summarize in the closing meeting, and they have no major findings. That's so to say clear. But then all this is a synthesis from the main organization. So the main organization could always say, okay, we want to have a little bit more inspection here or more inspection here. This is not in our hands. But it's extremely unlikely and at the closing meeting, they concluded what their findings were, and there were no major findings.

Okay. But then you had some just minor observations on the other inspections, right? So firstly, did I hear correctly that you expect to respond to this within just 2 weeks or a couple of weeks. And the second is it possible to just briefly explain what they are about just to get a sense of that.

There is really nothing of importance. It's just -- it's a very complex quality system, with lots of things involved and there is some detailed stuff they think we can improve here or there. And it's nothing that we view as any problems. And so we will address this. We will update our system and all this will happen within a couple of weeks.

Okay. So just the third question on the inspections also. You have a final one remaining now. So just wondering like what kind of findings if any, could impact any such approval time or perhaps I should phrase the question like you have had several inspections now and one remaining if I understand is correct, but which one is the most difficult and most critical, so to say.

The most critical is, of course, the study inspections. So the inspection that was at the hospital side and at Implantica, when you have 2 people for 2 weeks doing nothing else than turning every stone. That was by far the most important, and there we passed without any major observations to say at all. The quality systems there you always get some comment. The quality inspector, you can't find anything to improve with your paperwork they are -- that's not a good inspector from that perspective. So it will always be a few points, that standard. And in this case, this is nothing that doesn't that affect the product or production or the approval process. This is just small things to be updated in our quality system, but always should be improved. I mean, it always comes new inspectors, they find some things could be improved. Next time comes another inspector find something. It's a huge paperwork with the huge description of the whole company how it functions. It's very advanced. So I would say for example [indiscernible], I think they had 3 small findings, 2 small findings, 2 small findings. And this has nothing to do with our production or with the approval of RefluxStop. It's their quality system, their way to handle things that they found that they want them to improve nothing that affects the approval at all. And we have one inspection left. That's also a production side. So it needs to be something very severe regarding the production that it can affect time line, if it's part of their quality system and the different things that need to be fixed, but it's nothing that affects the approval process.

That's a very clear answer. And just another question on the actual submission then. So the other part of this, you have a few remaining tests to be done as well, right? So I'm just curious a little bit around the progress on that. Is there anything that has come up that has caused you to revise any sort of expected submission time line based on either factors that have come up from your end or from the FDA.

Because you like so much to question things, I can give you an example. So when you test how long a product could lay on the book shell to wait to be used. So the lifetime hospital could have the product before they use it. You normally in the past, you have put it in a little cabinet like let's say, an oven where you have warm, you have cold, you have a lots of humidity and you mix between warm, cold, humidity and so on in a certain pattern. And then when you have done that for 1 year, you say now we have categorized these products so much, so it has actually 5-year lifetime. That this is how the rules has been before. This is what we have done. This is what we have presented to FDA. Now based on FDA's further investigation and research, they have decided that they want to change that guidelines but it's not published yet. It's nothing we know about. We have no clue. It's -- let's say, you are playing a soccer game. And suddenly, the offside rule is changed. Now it's not offside where the other player is offside, 1 meter before the other player. You are changing the rules during the process because it's such a long process and The FDA always try to update and improve and so on. And therefore, they now say no, 5-year is 5-year. If you should have 5-year lifetime, you need to have 5-year products and make test on 5-year real aged products. Okay. For us this was not a problem because we have a such products already because we have been in business so long. So we have this 5-year old product, so we can easily retest these products and we can fulfill the requirement that FDA wanted and everything is fine. It's just that this test takes, I don't know, 4 weeks or whatever they take. But it's just for the listeners understanding, we have a lots of things, people complain that they don't -- we don't give the right information and give information and so on and so. But they don't understand that we are sitting on a floating surface and trying to give as best answers we can all the time, but it's not in our hands. We are not the decision-maker how FDA should update their rules. It sort of -- we always answer honest and to the best ability. But it's just the way this worked with these very long processes for years. So to answer your question, we are now doing the test. And for the moment, it's up to -- it's the lab who decides the time line. The lab will do the test. Could they now give us priority and do these weeks of test quickly for us or do they have other customers, they need to wait. So we need to wait 3 weeks before they can do the test. We don't sit on all parameters. We just do everything with maximum speed, and it's not so long time left.

Okay. Very good. Just a couple of questions left. So 1 is in the U.K. on the nice recommendation that you received. So are you seeing some kind of acceleration of revenue or new interest from hospitals that you are onboarding since that recommendation came out?

Yes, we are seeing that. But I mean it's -- our main focus now has really been FDA. The whole organization here is involved in everything related to the U.S. launch and FDA and this is really a priority because there, you can suddenly get real business to get real pay and it's such a big step for the company. But it, for sure, will be an expansion in U.K. based on this instruction. I mean, it's fantastic that NICE says that we should be used in the NHS public hospitals. I mean, that's incredible. That's a fantastic starting point. But there is a little bit slow moving everything in this field. And yes, we -- to directly answer your question, yes, it's expanding.

Good. And then just last question from my end. So it's about the randomized controlled trial versus Nissen, which does not seem to be mentioned in the report, and you haven't talked about it on this call, so what's the status there? How many patients are in currently?

So we have decided that we can't manage everything at the same time. It's -- we need to a little bit paues this event to really now get the approval. And after the approval, we will restart this. It's just overload basically. So...

Okay. So you are not -- you will not start operating right now.

No, we will not do any further -- so we have 10 hospitals, some of them -- quite many of them actually 7 still needs training. And so we are not fully ready to get going with this, and we also feel that it's just too much commitment for our organization right now. So we need to focus on the FDA approval. And then we will release this study.

Okay. So quite quickly after an FDA approval, you still expect to be -- to start operating basically.

Yes. That's our target for the moment yes.

[Operator Instructions]

Okay. Questions? Yes. Do you have any questions?

We have a few questions from people who have sent their questions in. We can start with some U.S. questions. The burning one is what's your best guess for a U.S. approval?

My best guess for the U.S. approval is second half of Q1.

Okay. That's very specific. We hope...

But it was the best guess.

Are all of the U.S. insurance companies aboard to finance RefluxStop surgeries now after FDA approval, how fast will the U.S. hospitals start?

U.S. hospitals, you need to make a contract before you can start doing surgery. That is expected to take at least 3 months. Some hospitals could even take 6 months just to make a contract because in U.S., in the legal part, and it's very important, very expanded. So I would say at least 3 months to do these contracts. And we are not allowed to contact any hospital or any insurance companies before we have the approval. That's absolutely a no-go. So we have prepared dossiers and all the material and all the good study results we have and everything and doing lots of preparation work, but we cannot yet contract the insurance companies. The good thing, however, is that there is codes for the procedure for both surgeons and hospitals already in place. The device is a generic code without funding. So not without funding, but the funding is not defined. It's a negotiation with the insurance company. But for the hospital and the surgeon, they are already paid a good amount according to the existing system. So we are in a relatively good position here in U.S. compared to Europe, much better.

Could you share if there's any requirement for the device to be exchanged after some time it stays in the body? Is there some implanted lifespan before the device wears off?

The device is made of medical grade massive silicon. It also becomes encapsulated by the body. So it's the body's defense from foreign material is to encapsulate it in a sick 1 millimeter sick white fibrotic layer. If you have seen meat and you have like a flesh area, you have meat strong layer in between different muscles, for example, that's how you encapsulate the device. So the device, we say that it has 25 years lifetime, but in reality, it could stay for the rest of your life, and it will not degenerate.

Okay. We have a couple of questions on the patent portfolio. Would it not be very beneficial for both the patients and the shareholders if Implantica sold or at least partnered some of the patents in stock? It would generate cash flow and bring help to patients in need faster than at the current rates.

I mean this is not a bad idea that you can license patents. And I can inform you that we have some larger companies infringing our patents. So we have an ongoing action to see if we maybe can get really large financing based on patent infringement, which would be even better than licensing. So this is an ongoing process. And also, we have actually developed a fantastic wireless energizing and communication system. So we are actually building our own ship. You burn small mini really, really tiny, tiny, small ASIC chips. And there, you can have tons of functions in a really small space. And we believe that this is something that potentially could revolutionize the whole implant market and in principle, be licensed to every single implant producer. However, this is still away. It's not tomorrow. But we are -- as I said, we are building this house from the bottom. We will build a large multiproduct company. It just takes a little bit of time, step by step. A good question.

Could you comment on the launch plan road map for your patent portfolio for the next products?

What was the question?

When do you think the next products will be coming to market?

Okay. Launch of the products. Okay. Yes. So the answer to this is that we decided some time back to focus on RefluxStop and the U.S. launch and all the things we needed for RefluxStop. And we have the development work is on a slower pace. We are not spending. As you can see, we have cut down our cost with 1/3. We have 2/3 of the cost today compared to previous. And part of that is we have reduced patent costs. We have reduced R&D costs. We actually have reduced everything. But the R&D it's to a large extent, is a cost issue. How much resources are we placing on the other product. And of course, if we can get going with the business of RefluxStop, if you have a product who has 94% to 97% gross margin, of course, it will be lots of funding generated. It's also a possibility in a positive atmosphere to maybe even get more money into the company in relation to the U.S. launch. There's many options, but it all will be done in a positive atmosphere that will not negatively affect investors.

Okay. Final question. Could you imagine selling shares in Implantica if a large company wanted to acquire a stake in the company? With this additional money, more products could be brought to market faster.

I mean, we do not want to sell the whole company. We want to build a large company, and we want to see this project through. However, to have a minority investor who can see the advantage here and we can do, as you said, more products, and that's absolutely a possibility. If that for me and for the investors will be favorable, so we gain more and the overall outcome will be very successful. Of course, that's -- you should not say no without investigating the matter.

Okay.

Okay. Then I think we have answered last time I tried to read all the questions and answer them at the same time, and that was a bit burdensome because it was so many questions of the same type. But today, Nicole helped me to take away all the duplicate questions and summarize them. So I thank Nicole for that, and I thank you very much for listening. It's a pleasure, nice weather today here. And I wish you a really nice afternoon evening.