Mayne Pharma Group Limited (MYX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone. I'm Frank Condella, Chair of Mayne Pharma. It is my pleasure to welcome you to Mayne Pharma's 2023 Annual General Meeting. As we have a quorum, I now open the meeting. Once again, this year, we are offering a hybrid meeting, allowing shareholders to participate in person or via webcast. You'll see on the screen here, our disclaimer statement. I'd ask that you take note of it before we get started. I'd also like to say that personally, I usually don't like reading from a script. But since this has now been given to ASX, I've got to stick to it until we get to the questions. So sorry that you'll see me reading a lot. Let me first take a moment to walk you through the procedural aspects of today's meeting. Shareholders hand proxy holders present in the room can ask questions. If you are watching on the webcast and are shareholder, you have the ability to ask questions through the meeting platform. [Operator Instructions] If you experience any technical difficulties, there is an AGM help line number included in the online meeting guide. A recording of this meeting will be available on our website after the meeting. We will address questions at the relevant time during the meeting. Questions may be moderated. And if we receive multiple questions on one topic, they will be combined. Finally, due to the time constraints, it is possible that we may not be able to answer all questions. And if that occurs, then we will revert back to you individually after the meeting. Now moving on to the voting aspects of today's meeting. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. Subject to voting exclusions specified in the Notice of Meeting, the persons entitled to vote today are all shareholders, representatives and attorneys of shareholders and proxy holders who hold red admission cards. On the reverse of your red card, is your voting paper, which details the motions that are being put to the meeting. Relevant instructions are also printed on the reverse of your admission card. For those participating online, voting for all resolutions is open and will remain open during the AGM. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, you will see a vote icon displayed on your screen. Click on this icon, which will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, select one of the available options. You'll have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare that voting is closed, at which time your most recent selection will be registered. I would now like to introduce our Board of Directors, senior executives and the company's auditor. Joining me in the room today, are fellow Non-Executive Directors, Professor Bruce Robinson and David Petrie. Online, we have our fellow Non-Executive Directors, Dr. Kathryn MacFarlane, Ann Custin and Patrick Blake. Anne Lockwood, who has been nominated to join the Board, is also in the room today. We have 2 of our U.S.-based management team joining us in person, our CEO and Managing Director, Shawn Patrick O'Brien; and our CFO, Aaron Gray. Our Company Secretary, Laura Loftus, will moderate the shareholder questions with our IR adviser, Craig Haskins. The company's fiscal 2023 auditor, David Petersen from Ernst & Young, is here in the room as well as representatives from BDO, who have been nominated to be appointed as our auditor in Resolution #6. We appreciate that [indiscernible] are hosting the AGM today. Thank you, Nick. The procedure for today's meeting is as follows. First, I'll present my Chair's report, then Shawn will provide an update on the business, and finally, we will go into the formal part of the meeting, during which we will vote on the resolutions outlined in the notice meeting. So moving on to the Chair's report. Fiscal 2023 was a year of executing the strategy that we articulated at last year's AGM. As you may recall, in fiscal '22, we set out a plan to reposition the company for growth and explore options to unlock the value of Mayne Pharma's businesses through active management of the corporate portfolio for the benefit of all shareholders. Our executive team led by Shawn and Aaron, have steadfastly pursued these goals, overseeing the divestiture of Metrics Contract Services, allowing us to repay our $361 million syndicated debt facility and pay $47 million fully franked dividend to shareholders. We built out our women's health franchise with the addition of portfolio of on-market products and sold our U.S. retail generics business during fiscal '23. In just over a year, Shawn's business acumen and deep industry experience have already had a meaningful positive impact on the company. We're pleased with the prices we received for the businesses we divested and with the performance of the assets in license. As with the period of transition, there have been some challenges. And that said, we remain focused on optimizing shareholder value. I'm pleased that our efforts during the past year have resulted in a simpler, more transparent overall business model with higher growth potential. To this end, our key operational and strategic priorities are: to deliver growth in the existing business of U.S. women's health, U.S. dermatology and international without any significant use of capital for acquisitions; complete the integration of the licensed women's health portfolio with a focus on increasing sales, improving net selling prices and managing our cost structure; continue to drive NEXTSTELLIS unit growth while improving net selling price and delivering a positive contribution margin by managing our cost structure effectively. We are planning to launch our low-strength BIJUVA in the second half of this fiscal year; we refine -- we will be refining our dermatology channel strategy to drive better market assets for patients and prescribers; and we're going to be working to further improve the performance of our International segment with new manufacturing revenue streams and targeted investments to increase site productivity and capabilities; finally, we're going to improve our operational efficiency with a refreshed program of cost and efficiency initiatives that will ensure the business is appropriately scaled to support profitable sales growth. While we are encouraged by what we have accomplished during the past year, we acknowledge that we have more work to do. We have the right team in place to build on the recent momentum and continue to achieve the goals we set forth last year. Specifically, we have taken important steps to reduce costs where possible and make strategic investments where necessary, while remaining committed to a conservative position regarding capital structure as we complete the transition of our company. We continue to manage and monitor the assets and liabilities related to recently divested and acquired assets, optimizing cash during closeout. The team is focused on building and planning for the future to maximize the full value of the entire Women's Health portfolio. And with the grant of the new patent for NEXTSTELLIS, we have strong intellectual property protection on all of our Women's Health assets. And we're working to create a relative advantage in dermatology and to leverage that advantage as we aim to be the preferred commercialization partner for owners of patent-protected products. Our unique platform spans the entire pharmaceutical value chain, and we believe we have a differentiated position in this market. Our performance with [indiscernible] illustrates our ability to effectively bring access to patients while delivering profitability for ourselves and our partners. And today, we seek approval to move forward with an expanded on-market share buyback program, which the Board believes is a highly attractive use of capital. We have made a great deal of progress over the past 12 months and have a clear vision to how to grow our women's health and dermatology franchises in the U.S. and our international business here in Australia. And I'd like to thank the Board and our employees for their tireless efforts in executing on our planned transition and our shareholders for their belief in our strategy and support of the team as we implement our strategic road map. With that, I'll turn the floor over to Shawn, who will be making the presentation on the business.

Good morning, and thanks, Frank. It's my pleasure to present at my second Annual General Meeting as your CEO of Mayne Pharma. At last year's meeting, I made some observation I was in the job for roughly 60 days and made sure that NEXTSTELLIS would be a success going forward, and we delivered on operational and commercial excellence, reduced the complexity of the business and focused on operating cash and returned the business to profitability. And today, I'll show you our journey is progressing quite nicely so far. In addition to last year, we had very disappointing results in our dermatology franchise. And it's been a very busy 12 months since that. A significant progress has been made on the dermatology front. And as I address the meeting, I want to share some of the achievements and highlights. Some of the ongoing challenges we still see as we rebuild Mayne Pharma into a growth engine. As we noted, we're in a rebuilding transition of the company and must admit that it hasn't been without some bumps in the road, but we've taken the feedback that we've had from our various shareholders and are committed to make our operating performance simple, transparent as we can. So our agenda allows me to highlight the aspects of the business, so I'll step right into that now. By way of summary, today's Mayne Pharma is focused and less complex company than it was at the commencement of fiscal year '23. Over the last 12 months, we've taken steps to ensure that our people, our processes and our products are all aligned to meet the needs of our patients and drive profit in the business. We're solely dedicated to commercializing novel pharmaceutical products with a focus on U.S. Women's Health and dermatology. We are actually one of the top women's health companies now in the United States. And in dermatology, one in 3 prescriptions can be fulfilled with our portfolio of products within Mayne. We have a strong international business based in Adelaide, which includes our CDMO as well as our sales and marketing operations for domestic sales and the international distribution of our products. We view ourselves as a growth company with large opportunity across all 3 segments. Here's a summary of what was a very busy year in fiscal year '23. First, we set out to reduce the complexity of the business, refocusing our core segments. And to this end, we completed the sale of Metrics Contract Services and subsequently sold our U.S. generics business for a combined total of $565 million. And we expanded our position in women's health in the U.S. market by acquiring exclusive commercialization rights for portfolio 3 branded contraceptive and menopause products and a portfolio of prenatal vitamins. Secondly, we saw delivering successful commercialization of our flagship contraceptive product, NEXTSTELLIS. We refreshed our marketing strategy, relaunched the brand in the second half of '23 to strong results. For the full year, NEXTSTELLIS revenue was up 267% compared to fiscal year '22. The momentum is building with units increasing 39% from the first half to the second half in fiscal year '23. And the strength of NEXTSTELLIS launched combined with the successful integrations of the products we acquired from TXMD in January resulted in significant transformation of the U.S. women's health franchise. Third, we really had to address the challenges we faced in our dermatology business due to the prior commercial practices and co-pay charges and pricing pressure. We first articulated this time last year. I'm pleased to report we saw a significant second half rebound in our dermatology business in fiscal '23, with 314% increase in revenue in the second half and a return of positive contribution for the dermatology business. And then finally, we made changes in our international vision with our Australian-based specialty pharmaceuticals and CDMO business to improve the manufacturing efficiency and performance and commercial execution here in Australia. We've adopted a conservative approach to our financial capital management, and we transitioned the impact of large fiscal year '23 transactions and worked through significant number of legacy issues with our final objective to set Mayne on the path towards generating positive operating cash and returning the business to profitability. We achieved positive operating cash flow of AUD 14.1 million in the second half of fiscal year '23. And following various asset sales, we actually ended up the year with a net cash position of AUD 173 million. This compares to a net position of $317 million debt position at the end of fiscal year '22. In addition, we commenced an on-market buyback of the shares of 10% of the shares. And today, we're seeking to increase that to 15%. Some of that dwell on the -- next slide, please, on the specific results of fiscal year '23, except to say that results excluded both MCS and retail generics, and included the newly licensed products from TXMD in the second half, but they set us up for profitable growth in fiscal year '24 and beyond. Our objective is to simplify the business, report the numbers in fiscal '24 in a simple, transparent and reflect on the operating performance of the businesses and generate operating cash. To be honest, the fiscal results in '23 didn't really reflect the hard work of the team across the business. Next slide, please. However, the underlying momentum did carry through to what was much cleaner and improved operating and financial performance in our Q1 results that we released just a month ago. And as you can see here with the year-to-date results for October, that momentum has continued. You can see from a total company perspective, net sales were AUD 124.8 million, which was sequentially up 35% on the prior 4-month period. And our gross margin was up 50% to $71.7 million and an underlying EBITDA was a positive $1 million. Our 2 primary segments showed strong results, and we're particularly pleased with the turnaround in dermatology business after a lot of hard work by the team to get the business back on track. Sales were up 55% sequentially over the last 4-month period, and the margin is recovering to better performance [indiscernible] due to the performance of core portfolio and the addition of new product launches. Women's Health, our Branded Products division, sales were up 45% sequentially with growth in NEXTSTELLIS and the licensed portfolio of products [indiscernible] IMVEXXY, BIJUVA and ANNOVERA. For NEXTSTELLIS, it's worth noting that after a drop in net selling price in fiscal year '23, largely due to one-off effects, net selling prices recovered to the previous levels following actions we initiated back in May. The licensed portfolio is improving, and we remain conservative in our gross to net accounting as we finalize the integration of all these assets into the business. I'm happy that all 3 operating segments delivered positive contribution during the first 4-month period. In addition to driving sales growth, we initiated cost and efficiency programs across the business to reduce costs in absolute terms wherever possible and improve efficiency, also to ensure that we get the right ROI on our investments in the marketing. As mentioned earlier, we're adopting a conservative approach to capital as we work through these transactions that have come through the business over the last year. With that, I'll take a look at each business unit. PPD, which is 96% based on the product revenue from our women's health is showing significant growth. Looking at the entire franchise, during 2023, we made several key moves to strengthen the position in the U.S. women's health market. While we're already recognized and established name with patients and providers, we built on this by acquiring licensing rights, we're complementing portfolio of stable products with long patent lives up to 2039. We also relaunched our flagship product, NEXTSTELLIS with a refreshed marketing strategy. And here, our women's health today in the market is served by a strong commercial infrastructure and field representatives of 94 people to target our customers. We are now one of the top specialized women's health companies in the United States serving OB/GYNs. On November 6, we announced in the market that the issue of an additional U.S. patent for NEXTSTELLIS, this patent protection takes us to June 2036. This additional patent is meaningful as it provides us with the opportunity to expand access to this highly effectively and unique oral contraceptive. The patent is an important part of our strategy to vigorously protect the commercial success of NEXTSTELLIS, one of our key growth drivers over the next 10 years and to add the overall strength to the U.S. portfolio in the United States. The momentum we generated in the back half of fiscal year '23 is continuing in fiscal '24, with October year-to-date sales up 45% compared to the prior 4-month period, and contribution at $5.5 million. In October, we actually delivered 40,000 cycles of NEXTSTELLIS in the month, up significantly from September. As I mentioned, our NEXTSTELLIS retargeting strategy is working, and we restored our net selling price. We continue to refine and streamline our marketing strategy to maximize ROI. We have eliminated roughly USD 8 million of costs for fiscal year '24. And overall, we expect to see gross margins at this level continue to move forward. Throughout the rest of fiscal year '24, we expect to complete the integration of the licensed portfolio of products, which includes the closeout of a number of working capital matters and to focus on the growth and improving net selling prices and continue delivering on the growth of all 4 brands in the market. And we're pursuing a growth strategy with expected launch, as Frank said, of our low-strength BIJUVA, which will leverage our sales force and our effectiveness in the market. And finally, we hope to take advantage of the enforcement of the ACA law under the executive order signed by President Biden, out-of-pocket expenses for birth control for patients should be zero. This is the law that's been in place since 2002. And recently, we've seen Vermont take action, the State of Vermont. If the ACA is acted uniformly across the entire United States, this would represent a big improvement in gross to net for NEXTSTELLIS and ANNOVERA going forward. Let's look at the dermatology franchise, which has been a remarkable turnaround from the conversation we had 12 months ago. The year-to-date October performance started in the first half of '23, back just after this meeting last year. In October compared to the prior 4-month running period, we're up 55.5% on net sales with a 175% increase in gross margin. We're seeing improvement in gross to nets. And our channel strategy and individual product economic decision is driving much more sustainable results. We've introduced co-pay monitoring, which will drive additional improvements, we believe, in our gross to net that we've seen in our women's health brand. We've launched a number of new products, and we're seeing solid performance. Our disintermediation strategy is active and working and our goal is to generate positive contribution and cash contribution for the year by capitalizing on new product launches and transitioning from disintermediation and fulfillment process to fully scaled position. So we're in a pilot phase right now, and we expect to launch that fully in the new year. So this is our dermatology franchise. We have 5 branded products here and over 20 authorized generics and generic dermatologicals, as I mentioned, can fulfill roughly 1/3 of the prescriptions that are written in the United States in dermatology. Our newest product, RHOFADE, an FDA-approved topical cream to treat rosacea. We're pleased with the early launch of RHOFADE. We had net sales over $2 million in the first month of October and the Rx levels are starting to return back to what we saw before the product was taken off by the market by Novan. As of today, Mayne Pharma is seeking to be seen as the #1 company in the patients and the providers' eyes for dermatology. We've taken significant actions to restructure and introduce commercial disciplines into this business, and it's showing in the results I shared with you here today. We're on track to deliver sustainable potential of our dermatology franchise as we continue to build our market position with strong and profitable pipeline of products. Including RHOFADE, we expect to launch 10 products between now and March next year. Looking over at international business. We have seen the results a little softer than expected in the first part of this year and this was the result of the timing of some production runs, especially for Dr. Reddy's generic products. But overall, the business -- and we've seen actually in the month of November, that almost returned back. So our international business consists of 3 sectors: our domestic supply of commercialization of specialty products, including dermatology, NEXTSTELLIS here in our OTC business known as Mayne Pharma Australia; our international sales of products that we manufacture in the facility in Canada, South America and Europe; and thirdly, our CDMO that makes products for pharma customers, including ourselves, Dr. Reddy's, who bought our U.S. generic business and the international products that we distribute. We delivered growth in fiscal year '23, under new management leadership that it can -- a lot of initiatives were commenced in the manufacturing facility to improve product flow-through and productivity and efficiency and also on procurement. October year-to-date net sales and margins are down from the period-over-period if we look on the rolling 4-month period, but up over the previous year. And we still have initiatives of improvement on the efficiency that we're going through, and we have selective investments on equipment to improve our effectiveness. We're seeing continuing progress on growing our opioid substitution or OST in the European markets and elsewhere. Going forward, the company is going to continue to pursue selective investments in the business and business development to ensure that we're running capacity at this facility. Looking at the overall strategy in the capital market with fiscal '23 serving as a launching pad, this is where we're focused in '24, a growth engine. In our women's health or BPD division, we've completed the integration of the women's health assets that we brought in, in January with a focus on improved net selling prices, and we're making good progress there already. For NEXTSTELLIS, we're targeting a profitable run rate expected to happen in this December or early next year with continued growth throughout fiscal year '24. And as I mentioned earlier, monthly cycles were up to 40,000 for the month of October. We plan to launch low-dose BIJUVA in the menopausal market, leveraging our sales force. And for our dermatology segment, we continue to see capital-light accretive business opportunities to drive our commercial excellence and use disintermediation to create patient access. We are further refining our channel strategy to leverage our ability to drive market share and partnerships and improve profitability and a clear objective for this side of the business. Finally, in our International segment, we will pursue targeted investments and new manufacturing revenue streams. We'll continue to drive specialty and generic product sales, including NEXTSTELLIS in Australia as well as invest in targeted manner in the Salisbury facility to improve productivity and capabilities. We expect all 3 business units to deliver positive contribution margin, cash flow and EBITDA generation for the entire business in fiscal year '24, and that's a $100 million improvement in the EBITDA from the previous reporting period. We've initiated a cost reduction program. We've taken out roughly $10 million and $8 million directly in our women's health business, and we secured $2 million in improvement of cost of goods. And in addition, we're focused on the supply chain, manufacturing, packaging, logistics and general overheads. We've taken a proactive approach on cost and efficiency and expect to deliver additional initiatives going forward across the business. And I'm pleased to report that the positive momentum that has carried in the second quarter will continue to progress across women's health in dermatology and benefit the efficiencies going forward. And finally, relative to our cash position and capital management, we actually ended up October with roughly [indiscernible] million, only $1 million difference from our cash position we had in September, and that was down from the $220 million cash position we had at the end of the June. But a number of important outstanding items were resolved. So far, we repaid all the receivables facility, spent $14 million on catch-up payments and chargebacks and incurred the number of charges in discontinued operations and legal matters. The Board has made it very clear that as we transition the business, we remain conservative on our balance sheet and capital structure. We have made a significant progress in improving our working capital management and with receivables and inventory significantly reduced. We've paused M&A as we drive by leveraging our existing portfolio, and we're reviewing the appropriate capital structure and mix of facilities as part of completing the transformation of the company. As outlined in the notice, we're seeking shareholder approval to increase the limit of the on-market buyback from 10% to 15%. Our expectation, as I said earlier, is the group will generate operating cash flow positive in fiscal '24 and be EBITDA positive for fiscal '24. Frank, back to you for the formal part.

Thanks, Shawn. We'll now move to the formal part of the meeting. The AGM provides an opportunity for you to reelect your directors, to reflect on the company's performance over the past year and to raise any questions you have about the company. All shareholders should have received the notice of meeting and it is my intention to take the notice of meeting as being read. I want to make sure all shareholders feel comfortable to ask questions today and express any concerns you might have. There are a number of procedural matters, which I must draw your attention to. This is a shareholders' meeting and only shareholders, their attorneys, proxies or authorized company representatives are entitled to vote or ask questions at this meeting. In order to ensure that all shareholders' views are taken into account, all items of business before the meeting where a vote is required will be determined by way of a poll. I appoint David Squires of Computershare Investor Services as the returning officer to manage the poll process. If you experience any difficulty in your participation via the online platform, please call the AGM line on your screen. And we will show you the proxies received from shareholders after we have taken questions on the relative item of business. Open proxies in favor of the Chair will be voted in favor of all resolutions on the agenda and I'll now go through the items of business rather. The first item of business notice listed in the notice of meeting is to receive and consider the financial report of the company for the fiscal year ended 30th of June 2023, and the reports of the directors and auditor. This item also gives shareholders the opportunity to ask questions about the company and its operations. The company's current shareholder, Mr. David Petersen from Ernst & Young, is also available today to answer any shareholder questions on the audit, if required. The notice of meeting includes the resolution related to the change of auditor, which we'll get to shortly. So I'll first ask anyone in the room, if you have a question, and then we'll move on to questions that have been submitted online and during the meeting. So I now invite shareholders to ask questions on the accounts or operations of the company. [Operator Instructions] If there's no questions on the floor, Laura, do you have any questions? Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I didn't see you.

I'm a shareholder in the company. I've been a shareholder for about 3 years, I guess. My question is, that was very clinical presentation that was being put forward here. Where does sustainability fit in with the DNA of Mayne Pharma? And it's one thing to see great results and the company really has turned itself around. I've got to admit that the share prices are moving in the right direction. I feel the company from that standpoint is doing really well. But when we talk about the fact that we have great labels, et cetera, I'd like to hear some good new stories on women and what positive effect it's having on that, do we have any stories on that level? I guess -- so question one, where does sustainability fit? What frameworks are we aligned to? And two, it will be good when we see these presentations, I was a little bit late, so maybe I missed something in the stuff, but to see some good news stories about what positive effect the company is having there in the community?

Okay. So first on the sustainability aspect. We are actually, next week, we're going to be in our operation in Salisbury, South Australia, and we are actually starting to set specific goals for sustainability, ESG, et cetera. And we hope to be able to report on that next year, everything from carbon emissions to recycling, et cetera. On the Women's Health side, I think Kathryn MacFarlane, Dr. MacFarlane is online. And Kathryn, do you think you can answer the question on that about the impact in the community?

Sure. I will say we don't have sort of a single patient specific story for you, but I can speak to the fact that our contraceptive products, ANNOVERA and NEXTSTELLIS are amongst the sort of novel products that women can choose from. I don't know how much you know about them, but NEXTSTELLIS provides a unique estrogen to women that has properties that make it very tolerable, and ANNOVERA provides monthly vaginal ring that lasts for a whole year. And just to put it into context, at least in the United States, about half of all pregnancies are unintended pregnancies. It doesn't mean they're unwanted, but they're unintended, unscheduled, unplanned pregnancies. And with the use of hormonal contraception, you can have effectiveness that exceeds 95%. So we think we're providing women a lot of freedom to pursue their goals and dreams, mostly young women who are on our products. And then with the products we acquired from TherapeuticsMD, the menopausal products, the other 2, these really provide a huge lifestyle improvement for women who are in menopause and who are suffering from symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats and vaginal dryness. And so these products, I can tell you from over 20 years of experience personally in this market, talking to women, they make a dramatic difference in their lives, everything from not having embarrassing night sweats or hot flashes during the day if they're in a meeting, they are able to stay at work, to improving their relationship with their partner due to the vaginal health. So all of those things, I think we feel really good about what our products are doing for women. And then on the dermatology side, we certainly help anybody with acne. We certainly have our Doryx line of products and are terrific for acne. And we have a number of other products that really improve what can be very distressing symptoms to patients with various skin conditions. So I hope that gives you a little bit of insight. And your comment is interesting to me and makes me realize that we probably need to collect more of these individual patient experiences. But I'm quite confident based on what we've been doing over the years that we're making a big difference for women and people with skin conditions.

Thank you, Kathryn. Professor Robinson, would you like to add to that?

Look, there's not a lot to add to what Kathryn has already said in a general sense, but as an endocrinologist who prescribes these products for people, I think you're right, we should be collecting some of the anecdotal evidence about the benefits that they're having. I've been providing, obviously, having described my conflict of interest to patients on both samples and then prescriptions for patients for NEXTSTELLIS, is certainly a better oral contraceptive for controlling breakthrough bleeding in a lot of young women. Unfortunately, we don't have on the label its value in terms of probably reducing clots and being preferable in terms of lipid profile. We can't put that on the label. But I suppose those of us who prescribe it are seeing those benefits. And I think my dream would be to get a drug such as this on to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme here in Australia. But in fact, only about 1/3 of [indiscernible] and unfortunately, none of them contain the progesterone and drospirenone, which is in NEXTSTELLIS, which is a much better progesterone than a lot of the other ones in terms of tolerability. Just to add to what Kathryn said about skin conditions, the skin is the most outward manifestation, I suppose, if anything that goes on in our body. RHOFADE, you've heard about for acne rosacea. This is the condition where women particularly get quite raised red patches on their cheeks, it is very disfiguring for people and causes them a lot of embarrassment and at times even psychological challenge. As you know, acne itself in adolescents, interestingly, in the United States, the sales of the acne-related products go up as kids are about to return to school. So clearly, young people are very concerned about this. And I think we've got a portfolio of products now in the dermatology division, which really enable us to move sequentially or doctors to move sequentially from Doryx, which is still the go-to medication that dermatologists and GPs will use in Australia for acne through a succession of other more potent medications to try to get control of this for young people. Because psychologically, this really does screw people up. Anyone who's got young daughters, particularly or sons with acne, are very self-conscious of it. So I think we've got a great portfolio of products. But your point about getting some anecdotal evidence to support the value of this portfolio is a good one.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Is there any other questions on the floor? Do we have any questions online?

There are a couple of questions online. So the first one is, at what stage is the $10 million cost-out program?

Okay. Aaron, would you like to address that? The question was at what stage is the $10 million savings?

So in terms of the $10 million savings, the $10 million savings comes from really 3 main sources. One source is the elimination of a region for the Women's Health sales force. That region has been fully eliminated. So that's 100% executed. Another source of the cost savings is a reduction in the DTC spend. That reduction has not -- in terms of cash, we won't spend the cash because we've changed the commitment around the spend. So I would call that also executed. There's another piece of the $8 million because this $10 million is divided into 2 pieces, as Shawn mentioned, which is related to certain third-party contracts, high-dollar third-party contracts. We've completed or we're in the process of completing the negotiation on the largest driver that falls into that final bucket, and that negotiation -- fundamentally, we have 2 offers in front of us right now, both of which achieved the objective. So I would also call that 98% completed but until I fix my signature, it's not done, but I would call that also largely completed. The final piece of the $10 million. So that was $8 million. The final piece of the $10 million comes from a negotiation on the cost of goods sold position for one of our products. That negotiation is completed and signed. And so the $10 million is the fiscal year '24 number. We would expect that number to be a little bit higher on a full 12-month basis. But I would call it 100% effectively executed.

And just to be clear, we had plans for this year for more spending versus last fiscal year, and that's because the revenues are driving up so high. And if you look at the leverage in cost and revenue as we go out into the year, and I think you're seeing it already, you're seeing a much increase, a higher increase in leverage, if you will. Our cost base is staying pretty stable, but revenues are going up dramatically. Any other questions?

Another one is around market share of NEXTSTELLIS and what the target market share is?

Okay. The target share of NEXTSTELLIS is 100%. But it's kind of hard to actually -- there's a couple of different ways to measure market share. There's unit market share and there's dollar market share. In the United States, almost all oral contraceptives, which is where NEXTSTELLIS competes, are generics. And then you have the branded market where that's really where NEXTSTELLIS competes. So I can't give you a specific number, but I can say that NEXTSTELLIS is continuing to grow in both units and dollars. And if you want a third-party source, you can look at IQVIA or [indiscernible] and you can look at the oral contraceptive market. Anything else? Any other questions on the floor? All right. Moving on.

Well, I would just say with NEXTSTELLIS, there's a lot of headroom left.

Yes. Both in units and dollars. Yes. So the next item of business is the reelection of directors. This year, Pat Blake and myself are retiring by rotation and offer ourselves for reelection at this meeting. And Ms. Anne Lockwood is offering herself for election. Anne, would you raise your hand, please? Okay. Thank you. All the directors' experience is set out in the notice of meeting, and I'm going to hand over to Bruce Robinson for the next resolution, which covers my reelection.

Thanks, Frank, and good morning, everyone. The first resolution is for the reelection of Frank Condella. Is there anyone in the room who would like to ask a question on the reelection of Frank? Thank you. Laura, are there any questions online on the reelection Frank?

No, there are no questions online.

So I'll now display the proxy votes on this first resolution. I think [indiscernible]. Excellent. All right. I -- the proxy votes are there. Looks fairly solid, Frank. So I'll now hand back to Frank. I'll leave it to you.

All right. Thankfully, they have page numbers, all right. Where were we. Okay. The next 2 resolutions are for the reelection of Pat Blake and the reelection of Anne Lockwood. I will take any shareholder questions on these 2 resolutions together. Is there any questions on the floor? Any questions online?

No questions.

Okay. So if there's no further questions, I'll display the proxy votes for these 2 resolutions. As you can see, they're passing quite comfortably. So the next resolution concerns the company's remuneration report, which is set out in the annual report. Now under the Corporations Act, shareholders are entitled to an advisory vote on the remuneration report. And you'll see from the proxy votes received at our remuneration report, it has been voted against by a significant number of shareholders. This is disappointing to the Board. Actually, why don't you flip forward to the actual votes and then we'll come back. Because we made significant changes over the past year, actually over the past 2 years, to align the remuneration package for senior executives who more closely align the variable pay portion with performance of the business. And the fiscal year '23 was a period of transition with the exit of the former CEO and CFO and recruitment of a new U.S.-based CEO and CFO and a number of significant transactions as outlined earlier today. So due to this transition, there were exit payments and there were onboarding payments, and these were one-offs and will not be repeated. The fiscal year '24 short-term incentive for the CEO and CFO have specific KPIs. And if you move back then at the end of fiscal year '24, results will be measured against these specific KPIs. Now I know that we haven't displayed this before. And in the feedback we've received from both proxy advisers and from shareholders, we are making these available now. Now some specific numbers are not shown here, for example, what the EBITDA target is because that would be competitively sensitive. However, when you see the payout of the STI next year, if that target isn't met, you'll obviously see that the CEO and CFO don't get pay for it. So you'll know that they undershot what the target was. But I can't give you that target today, that would both be competitively sensitive and setting guidance, which we don't do. So -- but the LTI was also modified. We reduced the LTI to accommodate the STI from an overall remuneration perspective. And this slide demonstrates it, it's kind of hard to read because it's all the way at the bottom. But if the CEO grant, for example, and the base price is $5, then for the LTI to vest, a 30-day VWAP for Mayne Pharma in 3 years' time must be $6.30 just for 20% [indiscernible] and to get 100% vesting, then it has to be up to $7.60. So that's a pretty significant increase over time. I think it's a 50-some-percent increase in the share price. So I think you'll see that if our share price is above that in 3 years, then most people will be happy with the [indiscernible] CEO and the CFO along those lines and it's aligned with our goal to maximize shareholder value. In addition, we received some feedback on the director remuneration, and the Board will be reviewing for potential changes with a full understanding of the market comparables. Now is there anyone in the room that has a question relative to the remuneration report? Yes, sir.

Management approach from advisers [indiscernible] they're clear on the metrics and EBITDA, and that's been discussing [indiscernible] generally, that they potentially might release positive recommendations after the [indiscernible] discuss this. And hopefully, again, your message across -- and boy, what's happened today is what can you say?

Well, yes, we did meet with a couple of the proxy advisers. Another proxy adviser does not take meetings. Interestingly, the ones that we met with recommended against, and the ones that we did not met they recommended for [indiscernible]. I think that there's a couple of issues with the recommendations against and the reasons they gave were related to the payouts of the former CEO and CFO, which we were -- we really didn't have any choice of what we were paying based on both precedent and contract in terms of what their contractual agreements were. And in terms of recruiting a CFO and the CEO, there were some onboarding payments, which is pretty routine in the United States, but apparently not so in the Australian market. But I would say that a lot of shareholders are using remuneration report votes for a broader context and not necessarily focused on remuneration. Any other questions on the floor? Any questions online?

Nothing online.

Okay. Thanks. Well, we've seen the vote already. So you can see that we've received a strike this year, which is unfortunate, but we will be looking to increase transparency and potentially make some changes on the directors' remuneration. And of course, we've now made the STI specific goals available for you to see. And by the way, this is only the second year that an STI is in place for executives for the last, what, 10 years, I think. So the next resolution concerns the issue of an STI grant of restricted stock unit performance rights and the issue of LTI performance rights for our CEO. As you know, shareholders have to approve any grants of shares to the CEO or any director. And in terms of the proposed award of securities to Shawn O'Brien, they composed of 2 components. There's a restricted stock unit performance right issued, which comprise 50% of the STI awarded to Mr. O'Brien in fiscal year '23. So the way we structure the short-term incentive is for all executives, that 50% is paid out at the end of the fiscal year based on achieving the goals. And half of that is -- all of that is in cash. And then half of the award is deferred for one year, and that is paid in shares. So as long as the executive is still in the role one year later, then they get the shares that were awarded as a portion of their STI. Performance rights for Mr. Brian's long-term incentive award fiscal '24 is based on his contract, which is 150% of his base remuneration. Anybody have any questions on this. Yes, sir?

[indiscernible]?

You mean LTI, you mean 50%? STI, okay. So the STI for the CEO's target is 50% of his base remuneration. Now let's say he achieves all of it, which is 50%. And let's say, his remuneration is $100,000. So that means his -- the total STI is $ 50,000, $25,000 gets paid in the first year in cash. And then he gets $25,000 worth of shares but we hold them for a year and then he gets it a year later. Any other questions?

But that's based on delivery of the targets?

Yes. I'll just use an example, but I mean he may get nothing if he doesn't achieve any of his goals or if he achieves his annual goals, he could get 100%. So it's all based on performance against goals. Any other questions?

Not online.

Okay. So this resolution is passed based on the proxy votes and if nothing changes. So where are we here? Okay. So moving on to Resolution 6, which covers the appointment of BDO Audit as our auditor. The company undertook a tender process for its external audit function this year. Following this process and upon the recommendation of management and the Audit and Risk Committee, the Board recommends that the company appoint BDO Audit Proprietary Limited as the company's external auditor. ASIC has consented to Ernst & Young's resignation as auditor to take effect at the end of this meeting as required under Section 329 of the Corporations Act. And thank you, David, and to Ernst & Young for your services over the past 7 years. Is anyone in the room that would like to ask a question on the proposed appointment of BDO as auditor? Okay. Anybody online? So if there's no further question on display on the screen, the proxy votes received as of now for the next item. And you can see that over 98% have voted in favor. So I now move to Resolution 7, which covers the proposed extension of the on-market buyback. on May 10, 2023, Mayne Pharma announced that it would conduct an online market buyback program for up to 10% of the Mayne Pharma's issued capital -- share capital in the 12 months prior to that day. Mayne Pharma is seeking approval to allow an extension of the cap to 15% of its shares over the next 12 months starting now. And if -- and just to explain, the company has certain restrictions based on corporate governance and the Corporations Act on how many shares combined and when it can buy shares. But all of this would do is just to raise the potential of how many shares we can buy in a year because unless you agree, it can only be up to 10%. So is there anybody in the room that would like to ask any questions? Anybody? Yes, sir.

[indiscernible], can you just clarify how much you bought in the last 12 months, how much of the 10% that was approved, did you actually?

Right. So you have to understand, first of all, I think, as Shawn said, we spent $1.4 million so far fiscal year-to-date, how much have we spent? No. Since we started the buyback, how much have we?

That's approximately $10.6 million.

So far, since we started the buyback, we have spent AUD 10.6 million on acquiring shares on the market. And as a percent, that's. [indiscernible] Okay. So we bought -- we used $10.5 million as of yesterday, 2.7 million shares. What percentage of the outstanding shares is that, do you know? It's about 3%. Okay. Thanks, Laura. So you have to realize that we're restricted in certain times, we can't buy shares. So if we have inside information, I'll give you an example. Well, we haven't been for 12 months, yet either on the share.

So it worries me a little bit that you did a lot of -- we're going to do this, we're going to do that. Good to hear you're saving the money. But if you're really focused on growth, then is it a really prudent way to actually get the share price up by growing the company or by buying stock.

I understand. There has been a number of shareholders that are interested in receiving capital back. And we think that in this situation, if we have excess capital, it's the most efficient way to return to shareholders. But I get your point, sir.

[indiscernible] I also want to see the company go well, so.

Absolutely. We do too. We'll be very prudent about it. Thank you. Okay. So is there any other questions? Any other questions? Okay. So I think if we display that resolution, you'll see that it's been over 1 million approved. So please note that -- so first of all, the people, if you have any questions about changing your vote or if you haven't voted, please raise your hand and Computershare will help you. For those online, please ensure that you have cast your vote on all the resolutions as I will close the poll formally 10 minutes from when I declare the business of the meeting closed. Please note that the results of the poll will be notified to ASX later this afternoon in accordance with the Corporations Act and we will also place the results on the company's website as soon as they become available. And I now declare the business of the meeting closed, except with the conduct of the poll, which will close in 10 minutes. So thank you for your attendance and support, and Mayne Pharma looks forward to your continued support in the coming years. Thank you very much for coming today, and thank you for those who attended online. Good morning.