Knight Therapeutics Inc. (GUD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, you are joining Knight Therapeutics Annual General Meeting. I would now like to turn the call over to Jonathan Goodman, Chairman of the meeting. You may begin.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Knight Therapeutics' Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Once again, this year, we have chosen to hold the meeting via live audio webcast. My name is Jonathan Goodman, Executive Chairman of Knight Therapeutics, and I will chair today's meeting. Also with me on the call is Samira Sakhia, our President and CEO; and Bryan Kujawski, our External Counsel. Samira will act as secretary of today's meeting. Steve Gilbert and Claire Girard of Computershare Investor Services will be acting as scrutineers for this meeting. Our agenda today is straightforward. First, we will conduct the formal part of our meeting. Following the formal part of the meeting, Samira will make a few remarks. Finally, we will do our best to answer any questions you may have. Questions, objections, proposals and comments may be provided by registered shareholders or the duly appointed proxy holders through the question box identified by the message icon on the top-right portion of your screen. To respond, our External Counsel will read the question aloud, and either I or Samira will respond. Please note that we will only be taking questions today from shareholders of Knight. I will now call the meeting to order and ask the secretary to confirm delivery of notice of this meeting and to report on the number of shares present by webcast or by proxy.

Mr. Chair, notice of this meeting was mailed to the shareholders on or before April 13, 2022. The scrutineers have advised me that we have at least 67 shareholders represented at this meeting, either via the webcast or by proxy, representing 63,775,307 shares. The shares represented at this meeting carry in aggregate, [ 64.5% ] of the total outstanding shares eligible to vote at this meeting.

Thank you, Samira. Therefore, I declare that, in accordance with Knight's bylaws, sufficient shareholders are present, either via webcast or by proxy, to constitute a duly convened Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Knight Therapeutics. We will conduct the voting on all matters to be considered at this meeting by ballot through the facilities of this webcast. The ballot will be open for voting on all resolutions at the same time. This will allow you to choose to vote to each resolution immediately or wait until conclusion of discussion of each resolution prior to casting your vote. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on each resolution in turn. In addition, due to the nature of this forum, I will each -- I will call each motion, and the secretary will second the motions. The voting is now open. All registered holders and duly appointed proxy holders may cast your vote now through the webcast platform by clicking your desired selection. In order to vote on all matters coming before this meeting, please use the Vote button on the right side of your screen on the webcast platform. Once discussion of all items of business have concluded, I will give you time to enter your votes and then declare voting closed on all resolutions. The results of the votes will be published following the meeting in accordance with the rules of the TSX. I will now table the meeting -- the minutes of the meeting of the Annual Shareholders' Meeting of Knight Therapeutics held on May 13, 2021. It sounds like a pandemic ago. I'm a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move that the secretary be dispensed from reading the minutes of the May 13, 2021, Annual Shareholders' Meeting.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics Inc., and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. The motion is passed. I will now table the consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, and the report thereon of Ernst & Young, auditors of the corporation. I'm a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move that the secretary be dispensed from reading the auditors' report.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics Inc., and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. The motion is passed. I will now introduce the directors of Knight Therapeutics proposed for reelection for the ensuing year. The directors of Knight Therapeutics proposed for reelection are: Jonathan Ross Goodman, James Gale, Samira Sakhia, Robert Lande, Michael Tremblay, Nicolás Sujoy and Janice Murray. As I mentioned earlier, to facilitate the logistics of the meeting, I'll present the motions for the term of business proposed by management and Samira will second. I'm a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics, and I move the following persons be nominated directors of Knight Therapeutics for the ensuing year: Jonathan Goodman, Jim Gale, Samira Sakhia, Robert Lande, Michael Tremblay, Nicolás Sujoy and Janice Murray. I now ask Samira Sakhia to second the motion.

Mr. Chair, I am a shareholder of Knight Therapeutics Inc., and I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. You're being so helpful. Are there any comments, questions or additional nominations? [Operator Instructions]

No questions.

Receiving none, please proceed to cast your votes. If you have not already done so, we will move on to the next item of business. [Voting]

I will now present a motion to appoint auditors for the ensuing year and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. I move that Ernst & Young LLP be appointed as auditors for the 2022 fiscal year and that the Board of Directors be authorized to fix the remuneration. I will now ask Samira Sakhia to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. Are there any comments or questions? [Operator Instructions]

No questions.

The next item of business is the approval of unallocated rights under the corporation's ESP (sic) [ ESPP ] for the ensuing 3 years. The full description of the renewal as well as the full text of the resolution is set out on Page 52 of the Management Information Circular. In order to be effective, this ordinary resolution must be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by shareholders at this meeting. I move that the secretary be dispensed from reading the full text of the resolution to approve the renewal. I will now ask Samira to second the motion.

I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. Are there any comments or questions before we vote of the approval of unallocated rights under the corporation's ESP -- ESPP? [Operator Instructions]

No questions.

There being no further questions or comments, I move that we vote on the resolution to approve the unallocated rights under the corporation's ESPP.

I second the motion.

Thank you, Samira. This being the last item of the formal business portion of the meeting, I will pause now to allow my registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have not already done so to cast their votes on this resolution and any other item of business brought before this meeting through the webcast platform by clicking their desired selection. [Voting]

Thank you. The voting is now closed. Based on proxies received and votes cast at the meeting, I declare each nominee for election of director elected as directors of Knight Therapeutics Inc. to hold office until the next annual election of directors or until their successors are elected or appointed. Auditors for the ensuing year, appointed; the directors authorized to fix remuneration of the auditors; the unallocated entitlements under the ESPP approved, and I declare each under motion carried. We now move to the next portion of our business where Samira will provide more information on the events of 2021.

Thank you, Jonathan. During 2021, we continue to execute on our strategy of building our pan-American ex-U.S. footprint, focusing on our people, building on processes, expanding our product portfolio and achieving record performance. We made significant strides towards completing the integration of Grupo Biotoscana acquisition, all the while strengthening the team and processes and driving strong performance. As a part of our integration activities, we completed the implementation of several key systems, and we further strengthened Knight's management team in order to continue delivering on growth and operational excellence. Our business development team closed the acquisition of Exelon and entered into an exclusive supply and distribution agreement with Incyte. Our regulatory team advanced our portfolio with the approval of several products in Latin America, and our commercial team continue to deliver on strong growth on our key brands. It is thanks to the hard work of our employees that we achieved unprecedented results in 2021, and we entered 2022 with a stronger platform that is well equipped to continue delivering on further growth and success. I'll now provide an update on the business. As you know, Knight is a multinational specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring an in-licensing innovative pharmaceutical products across -- for Canada and Latin America. Knight was founded in 2014 by Jonathan, who is Co-Founder of Paladin. Paladin had 19 years of consecutive record revenues. The stock price went from $1.50 to over $150 per share, with a market cap that went from $6 million to $3.2 billion when we sold the company. Knight first day was February 28, which was the day that Paladin was sold to Endo. We initially -- Knight was initially owned by the shareholders of Paladin as part of that consideration. Since founding, we have raised over $685 million, all at increasing valuations. We've deployed or committed to deploy over $900 million of capital to date and have generated revenues of almost $300 million -- generated net income of almost $300 million. In 2019, we acquired the controlling stake of Grupo Biotoscana, a specialty pharmaceutical with presence across Latin America. And in August 2020, we bought the balance of the company and today own 100%. In May of 2021, we acquired Exelon from Novartis for $217 million. The history of our companies coming together, Biotoscana started off as a Colombian specialty pharmaceutical company that was in-licensing products across the Andean Countries. Then they went on to acquire United Medical, which is a Brazilian specialty pharmaceutical company, and then added 2 branded generics company, LKM, DOSA, who are both based in Argentina and, during that time, also launched an operation in Mexico. And then we came in, in 2019 and became the solution that is pan-America, ex-U.S. What is great about our 2 companies is that our growth strategies are the same. We in-license -- we in-licensing late-stage prescription pharmaceuticals. We acquire mature or underpromoted products on big pharma, developing near-term, low-risk, low-expense products. In the Canadian space, that would be maybe adding IP around our products. In Latin America, that's really about the branded generics portfolio. And both companies have had a history of bolt-on acquisitions of either portfolios or companies that complement our current business. Today, we are -- in our portfolio, Brazil is our largest operation by sales, with Colombia and Argentina close, second and third. When it comes to people, we have the majority of -- we have almost half our people in Argentina, and that's really because we have 3 manufacturing plants and an R&D center there. We have over 100 products. In the trailing 12 months of December, we reported over $240 million in revenues. One of the reasons we pick Latin America is really the size of the market and the growth of the market. As you can see, this is a market that is growing more rapidly and is larger than the Canadian market. And together in that broader platform, we see more business development that we can do. The only issue is over the -- especially over the last couple of years, during the pandemic, the LATAM market has been negatively impacted by exchange rates. This is a slide that I've been showing for over 20 years, and this is really where our focus has always been, which is really in that late stage of development where we bring in products that are either approved in another market or ready to submit. We take and regionalize all of our dossiers, get them regulatory approved, obtain reimbursement and then commercialize throughout our countries. Today, we have a very broad portfolio between our branded generics and innovative products. 25% of our brand -- of our business is coming from BGx, the balance coming from innovative. We're also starting to see more alignment between our hospital and infectious disease products versus oncology as well as other specialties, and we are really continuing to diversify our business. Going on to a couple of some specifics about our products. We have 2 products, Lenvima and Halaven, in our oncology portfolio that we have for all of South America. The only market that we miss is really Mexico. Lenvima and Halaven, we have from Eisai. Lenvima is a product -- oral oncology product that has multiple indications throughout our territories. It is in early launch phase in the majority of our countries. Halaven is a product for metastatic breast cancer and liposarcoma, again in early launch phase in the majority of our LATAM countries. The other thing that I want to highlight is that we do have several branded-generics portfolio products that are throughout our countries as well in oncology, and this really provides us a diverse portfolio that we can go to payers with and give physicians choice. Going on to a few oncology products that we have for select territories. We have Trelstar and NERLYNX for Canada and Abraxane for Brazil. Trelstar is a product that we know really, really well because the Paladin team was the team that launched it. And we're already -- we launched it in 2020 during the -- in 2021 during the pandemic, and we are seeing great growth in that product. NERLYNX is a product for breast cancer, both early adjuvant and metastatic, and we see growth in that product. Abraxane is a product that we have for Brazil for pancreatic cancer, and this is a product that has continued to grow as there is very limited choice for these patients. On the infectious disease side, we have 2 great products with AmBisome and Cresemba. AmBisome is a product that we have been promote -- our team knows really well and has been selling for 20 years. And we renewed the license with Gilead in 2020. Cresemba is a product that's in early launch phase. It is well recommended as first line in the EU and the U.S. treatment guidelines, and we continue to see growth in this product throughout our territories. On the CNS and gastroenterology portfolio, these are places where we want to continue to grow. So as you -- as I mentioned earlier, we brought in Exelon from Novartis, is a product that, in 2020, did USD 47 million. What we really -- approximately 2/3 of the sales are coming from Brazil and Colombia. And the majority of the sales come from patch, which we know is a preference for patients and caregivers because of its less side effects. It's also very easy to administer. And we have this product for all of our territories from Canada, all the way down to South America. Ibsrela is a product that we just recently launched in Canada for the treatment of IBS-C, irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. This is a growing market. And we think Ibsrela is well positioned to be a treatment in this category. In LATAM, in certain countries, we have the Dr Falk portfolio, which is made up of a multitude of forms and treatments, and it allows patients and physicians to switch therapies as necessary in order to address the response to the patient. On the pipeline front, we have really been focused on continuing to expand this. As I mentioned, we signed with Incyte earlier late last year with tafasitamab and pemigatinib. We also have in our Canadian portfolio, BIJUVA and IMVEXXY that we expect to launch in 2023. We are also expanding our branded generics portfolio in Argentina, in Chile, in Colombia and Brazil, so that we can, again, provide more choice to patients, physicians and payers. As a partnering organizations, we are working with the largest of the pharmaceuticals, some regional companies as well as the smallest of biotechs. And we want to be the partner of choice for pan-America ex-U.S. On our balance sheet, we have financial assets, and we used our balance sheet to be able to get new products. Over the life -- over the last several years, we've loaned over $170 million to over a dozen partners for double-digit growth. Today, we have about $28 million outstanding. On the fund investments, again, this was a strategy to be able to bring in new products. Unfortunately, this strategy has not been very successful when it comes to products, but has been extremely successful when it comes to financial returns. And we continue to see double-digit returns on these assets. One of the things that I'm really proud of is how our team has achieved the turnaround and the integration and what we see post -- especially in last year is growth on revenue, growth on EBITDA and growth on cash flow. And we expect to continue to do that over the next few years. As of the end of December, we had 150 million shares outstanding with total assets of over $900 million, almost $200 million of financial assets and just $36 million of loans. We had a market cap of $600 million, 116 million shares outstanding and 5.5 million of options and awards. And our insider holding continues to rise and is at almost 20%. We've also amassed a great management team over the last couple of years with myself, Amal and Arvind. We now have VP of HR, VP of Commercial. There's 4 of us that are based in Canada and 4 of us that are based in LATAM with Monica, Daniela and Leopoldo being the most recent additions. We have a great Board with Jonathan as Executive Chair; Jim Gale, who is Lead Director. He runs a private equity group in New York and has a lot of experience having been a former Lead Director at Paladin. Myself; Robert Lande, who runs an FX company in New York and has been a Board member almost since founding of Paladin. Janice Murray, who is the former Head of Novartis Canada and has significant experience as CFO of [ Can ], LATAM at Novartis; Mike Tremblay, who is former Head of Astellas Canada and has a lot of experience with AmBisome, which is one of our larger products; Nico Sujoy, who runs a private equity in Argentina and was a former Board member at Biotoscana and was part of the Advent Group when they were setting up the strategy of that pan-LATAM specialty pharma. In 2021, we had great achievements with record revenues and record EBITDA. We strengthened our management team. We acquired Exelon from Novartis; entered into a distribution agreement for -- with Incyte for 2 great oncology products; obtained approval for the metastatic breast cancer indication for NERLYNX; approval for Lenvima, Halaven and [ Rembray ] in Colombia; and we continue to advance with our integration and systems implementations. Why Knight? To be a partner of choice for Canada and LATAM. Because we have a great infrastructure and a unique footprint across all of our countries, we have an experienced and dynamic management team. We have a proven ability to fill the pipeline as well as secure mutually beneficial transactions, a proven track record for profitable growth and the financial strength to execute on our strategy. That concludes my comments for today, and thank you for joining our AGM.

Now we'll be pleased to answer your questions from shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders. [Operator Instructions]

All right. Let's give it about a minute to see if anyone has any questions. So far, none. But let's give a little pause. So it appears that we have no questions.

As there are no further questions at this time, I now ask Samira for a motion to terminate the meeting.

I move that the meeting be terminated.

Thank you, Samira. I will second the motion. Unless there are any objections, we will consider this motion carried. Are there any objections?

No objections noted.

I declare the motion carried and the meeting terminated. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, thank you again for your interest and ongoing support and for taking the time to join us today.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the call. You may now disconnect.