To my fellow directors, Mr. Blair Norfolk and Ms. Dominique Fisher. There are no apologies. All voting today will be done by a poll. Each shareholder will be able to vote online during the meeting for the purpose of voting by poll today. On a poll, each shareholder, whether voting online or by proxy, is entitled to one vote for every share held by that member. If the proxy is the chair of the meeting at which the resolution is voted on, the proxy must vote on a poll and must vote as directed. If the proxy is not the chair of the meeting, the proxy need not vote on the poll, but if the proxy does so, the proxy must vote as directed. I appoint the company secretary to act as the returning officer to conduct the poll and to report to me the results of the poll.
We will announce the poll results and advise as soon as the results are determined. Please note the online poll will commence after the first resolution and will be closed after the formal part of the meeting is closed. I have satisfied myself that in accordance with the Constitution, a quorum is present, and I therefore declare this meeting open. I declare the proxies received are valid in accordance with the Constitution. The company has received proxies to vote in place of members represented by a total of 50,664,848 voting shares in the company. Please note that any proxies appointing the chairman to vote at their discretion have been voted in the affirmative by the chairman for all resolutions. Please refer to the screen for the summary of proxy votes cast for each resolution.
You can vote anytime via the Zoom poll that should be available and via a pop-up on your screen. You will all have received a notice of meeting detailing the business to be dealt with today. I would now, with your concurrence, move that the notice of meeting be taken as read. I refer you to the first item of business in the notice of meeting, and to table the financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2024 and the reports of the directors and auditors thereon for consideration by members. Members should note that the financial statements and reports are not tabled for approval but simply discussion. Members should note that a representative from our auditors, MVA Bennett Assurance Pty Ltd., is in attendance on the call to answer any questions directed at them.
Now, are there any questions on the accounts or the reports of the directors and auditors? Are there any questions? No, thank you. I'll proceed. I refer you to Resolution One of the Notice of Meeting and propose by non-binding resolution that for the purpose of Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act and for all other purposes, approval is given for the adoption of the remuneration report as contained in the company's annual financial report for the financial year ended 30 June 2024. Are there any questions on the resolution? I'll proceed. I now formally put the resolution to shareholders and ask you to complete the poll online. I'll just hold while we give people time to vote. All persons who intended to vote have now voted. We'll move to the next resolution.
I refer you to Resolution Two of the Notice of Meeting and propose by ordinary resolution that for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 14.5 and for all other purposes, Ms. Dominique Fisher, a director, retires by rotation and being eligible, is re-elected as a director. Are there any questions on the resolution? I now formally put the resolution to shareholders and ask you to complete the poll online. Of all persons who intended to vote, now voted. Thank you. We'll move to the next resolution.
I refer you to Resolution Three, the Notice of Meeting and propose by ordinary resolution that for the purposes of Listing Rule 7.4 and for all other purposes, shareholders ratify the issue of 2.5 million unlisted options expiring 31 March 2026, exercisable at AUD 0.50 in the capital of the company on the terms set out in the explanatory statement accompanying this notice of meeting. Are there any questions on this resolution? I now formally put the resolution to shareholders and ask you to complete the poll online. Of all persons who intend to vote, now voted. We'll move to the next resolution.
I refer you to Resolution Four of the Notice of Meeting and propose by ordinary resolution that for the purpose of Listing Rule 7.2, Exception 13(b), and for all other purposes, shareholders approve the issue of up to 21,912,230 securities under the company's employee incentive plan for a period of three years commencing. Excuse me. Sorry. For a period of three years commencing on the date of this meeting, the terms of which are summarized in the explanatory statement. Are there any questions on the resolution? I now formally put the resolution to shareholders and ask you to complete the poll online. Of all persons who intend to vote, now voted. Thank you. We'll move to the next resolution.
I refer you to Resolution Five of the Notice of Meeting and propose by special resolution that for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 7.1A and for all other purposes, approval is given for the issue of equity securities totaling up to 10% of the issued capital of the company at the time of issue, calculated in accordance with the formula prescribed in ASX Listing Rule 7.1 A.2, and otherwise on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement accompanying this notice of meeting. Are there any questions on the resolution? I now formally put the resolution to shareholders and ask you to complete the poll online. Have all persons who intend to vote, now voted? I'm going to hold for a little bit here just to ensure everybody's had time to complete all their voting. If you just bear with me, we'll give that another 20, 30 seconds.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as there is no other business that can be properly brought before this meeting, I formally declare the meeting closed. I now welcome a short presentation and company update by Founder and Managing Director Blair Vega Norfolk. Thank you.
Thank you, Ilario, and welcome everyone. Firstly, what a fantastic year it has been in 2024 and a start to FY25. We couldn't do it without the support of you all. It is really quite touching the amount of support we have from our shareholder base and a growing shareholder base with now more than 2,600 shareholders on Biome Australia, an increase of more than 1,000 over the past 12 months. Really strong support showing, which has definitely supported our volume increasing and our share price to record levels over the last few months. With that in mind, I have a short presentation. We did release it to the ASX yesterday, which I'll just bring up on my screen. If you could just give me one moment.
Okay.
Can everyone see that? Yes. Wonderful.
So I will skip some of the formalities, but just a very quick overview for those that may be new to the business. Biome Australia is one of the first global movers in the world of targeted probiotics or live biotherapeutics that are specific specialized probiotic products that, when put through placebo-controlled, randomized double-blind clinical trials or gold standard research, have the ability to support patients with different health concerns or even diseases. So being first mover is a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility to make sure that we are appropriately training and upskilling health professionals with these types of products. So because of that, we've taken an approach of education first and being a practitioner-only brand. So our brand, Activated Probiotics, is positioned behind the counter in pharmacy as a professional or practitioner-only brand sold via recommendation.
So essentially what we're doing is we are recruiting the 20,000 or 30,000 pharmacists in Australia to be professionally recommending our products. Also, doctors and, importantly, naturopathic and health professionals and integrative medicine professionals recommending these activated probiotic products in the market. So Biome Australia IPO'd in November 30, 2021, and it's been a very exciting journey for the business. So since founding the company in 2018, Biome has been on a journey to make sure that we had some of the most unique products in the global market within the probiotic space, but also make sure we had sufficient protection around our intellectual property in either ownership of formulations or long-term exclusive licenses. When we launched the Activated Probiotics brand in 2019, so a few months before COVID, we had a big challenge on our hands being based in Melbourne, Australia.
We started off the business with about 200 pharmacies and nine Activated Probiotics products. We then went on that journey of developing and training and re-educating Australian health professionals on the ability to use these products in their clinical practice to support patients not just with gut health, but with their mental health, with bone health or osteoporosis prevention, most recently cholesterol reduction, asthma with the Biome Breathe, eczema and acne and skin health and dermatology, and other various conditions that Activated Probiotics has clinically proven probiotics to support. The journey of Activated Probiotics and Biome Australia has been of rapid growth. In FY20, we did around AUD 830,000 in revenue. Then the following preceding years was 2.1, 4.1, 7.3, and last year we closed with 80% growth at a touch over AUD 13 million in sales.
The products, as I mentioned, are practitioner-only, and what that means is they're not a retail product. They're a high-value premium product and products that work proven by the clinical evidence supported by the recommendation of health professionals. So the activated probiotic product range is not sold on deals or discounts like most vitamin brands or front-of-shop probiotics. They're a premium price point, premium yet affordable. There's no discounts or deals. You are paying for an outcome or a health solution rather than the idea of general health, which is why we've managed in such a short amount of time to get significant support from the medical and healthcare industry. Some quick business highlights. So we now have more than 5,000 distribution points in the Australian market. That's made up of a mixture of pharmacies, so community pharmacies, including TerryWhite Chemmart and Priceline Pharmacy, our largest pharmacy partners.
Then importantly, the medical and practitioner channel. So that is integrative doctors in private practice, naturopaths, and other health professionals now including dentists with the Biome Dental probiotic and new oral microbial concept. We have data from our large retail customers, including TerryWhite, that have shared their rewards databases, buying on average two of our units per transaction. Those are monthly boxes of Activated Probiotics, and they're returning to repurchase more than six times a year as an average. That is very strong support from customers. The brand is the number one growth brand in the Australian market by none and has been for about four years. And within our wholesale partners and TerryWhite Chemmart, and Priceline, we've managed to see the same result as number one for growth.
In TerryWhite Chemmart, we shared in our update to market last week that we're now number two in revenue to the market leader, and we would like to see over the next couple of years that we take that position as number one as our shelf space continues to grow and as the customer demand for Activated Probiotics continues to thrive. We've successfully launched our EU business and now launched into Canada, as we shared last month, initially with a test market launch and now with a wider market launch as we've seen the market de-risk very quickly. I've spoken to the practitioner-only model but a little bit more detail of why this is so important.
It's a high-value sales model that essentially allows Biome to recruit health professionals to recommend and endorse our products by us detailing the clinical trials and the value of the patient outcome for their business, for their patients and their customers. This is an unusual strategy, but it is a high-value one, much more like a subscription-based model, but in a professional sense. The customer stays in the value chain. They give feedback back to the pharmacist around how the product's working and supporting their families. And then they often end up on three or four or five of our different probiotic products for different applications for themselves or for their family. Only a couple of weeks ago, we were very pleased to share with the market our Vision 27, so Vision 27 is our three-year strategic plan for Biome Australia.
Within that, we gave a revenue guidance to the market of three years cumulative sales of AUD 75-AUD 85 million for FY25 to FY27. A key part of that, obviously, is distribution growth and business development. How are we going to get there from AUD 13 million last year to cumulative sales of up to AUD 85 million? That'll be bringing the last three years we did AUD 24 million up to the next three years, AUD 75-AUD 85 million. Growing our distribution from 5,000, as I shared previously, which is currently roughly 40% of the addressable distribution market, up to 8,000 distribution points over the next three years.
We'll be doing our ongoing business development, which is always underway with our field education and sales staff, visiting accounts, whether they be pharmacists, doctors, or naturopaths on any given day, helping them better understand how to use these products in clinical practice, and a key component of that is the co-prescribing or the adjunct medication market. This market is the concept of a pharmaceutical intervention being recommended or one of the activated probiotic products being recommended alongside a pharmaceutical medication or a prescription through that process of the script in or script out at the pharmacy counter. Why this is incredibly interesting? It really is the blue sky opportunity for Biome Australia in that there are 330 million prescriptions a year on the PBS and outside the PBS. That's total prescriptions in Australia.
Biome Australia is operating mainly within the probiotic market, which is a AUD 500 million-AUD 600 million annual turnover market in Australia. However, once unlocking this adjunct opportunity, we believe we can significantly grow that Australian probiotic market by being able to be sold alongside medications. I'll give one example of this. Biome Cholesterol Probiotic, our most recent product launch in the last couple of months, is the subject of four published randomized placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trials on reducing cholesterol in an adult population. This probiotic was studied alongside statins, the frontline treatment for cholesterol, and also the number one and two medication on the Australian PBS by volume, by medication volume and patient numbers. Also, as a standalone, this product has done two clinical trials showing it significantly reduces cholesterol.
However, when put together as an adjunct or a complement, it improves the effectiveness of the statin and the patient outcome, which is an incredible opportunity for pharmacists to not only improve the quality of life of their patient, but make a lot of money in doing so as well. So giving them an opportunity to grow their business, their gross margin, their gross profit with something that is really meaningful, low risk, and works. A key part of the Vision 27 is an international market acceptance and growth. We've spoken about the European market a little bit over the last few years in that we did an extended test market phase, with phase one of that gaining the trust and, I suppose, proof with health professionals in the U.K. and Ireland, that being doctors and integrative health professionals such as naturopaths.
After that two-year test market phase in January this year, we launched into health retail being pharmacy and health food shops, and that rollout is underway and increasing scale, certainly within the Vision 27 period. Canada, more recently, we launched a test market only about six or seven weeks ago, and this market has exceeded expectations so far in that in a short amount of time, we managed to skip a few of the steps because we saw so much early positive feedback from the local practitioner market, the retail market in that there was a huge demand for the product and a huge lacking of availability of quality probiotic products within the Canadian market that led us to fast-tracking our wider market launch, which we'll be very pleased to give feedback to the market over the coming months. Supply chain.
This is a very interesting area for Biome as we continue to grow and scale. We have spoken about the opportunity to onshore manufacturing in Australia by using local partners and assessing other opportunities within manufacturing. Currently, we are shipping a lot via air from Italy in the finished product coming over in refrigerated containers. The reason why we do this is we have a very high-quality partner in Italy. So far, no one has met our quality control standards to make our specific specialized probiotics. This is a point of review for the management team, and we'll be giving updates over the coming periods on this topic. Potentially even more excitingly, though, is the new probiotic strain that Biome owns, Lactobacillus plantarum, named BMB18.
This strain has recently completed its initial commercial due diligence and testing and trialling to make sure we can get a commercial yield in manufacturing and production. It's been characterized to see it's got particular properties that we're looking for that I can't speak about today. It has been lodged with the Deutsche DSMZ International Strain Bank in Germany under Biome's name. There will be some ongoing R&D projects on this. There will be very exciting updates for our R&D and new product development pipelines. Finally, and last but not least, is the new brand and product range, Activated Therapeutics. Activated Therapeutics is a brand of products that sit alongside the Activated Probiotics range. This is by no means a sidestep just to have more products to sell in the range.
Over the last three or four years, the product development team at Biome Australia has been scrutinizing many different products, many different research and disease opportunities that Biome Australia and our professional model of education working with health professionals would be able to support patients with. There were a number of products that didn't meet the guidelines for Activated Probiotics, being they may not be a probiotic, they may have a different type of evidence or research, and/or be from a different part of the market, i.e., supporting later stage female health, for example, post-menopause, rather than focusing on earlier stage life and children's health and pediatrics. So this group of products that have not been revealed yet are very exciting products. They are gut health adjacent.
They have significant clinical research, and they offer large-scale health concerns and conditions that we believe we'll be able to open up to the market very quickly in H2 as the brand comes along, and we can share more details. In summary, FY25 sales, I'm sure most people on the call have already seen, AUD 13 million, up 80%. A new record quarter in Q1 of AUD 4.25 million with AUD 122,000 EBITDA once adjusted for non-cash share-based payments. Gross margin has been maintained above 60%, 61%, and this has actually increased since we IPO'd in 2021 from around 54%. That's with the increasing price pressures going into our cost of goods as well. The team have done a fantastic job managing gross margin. Cash at bank, AUD 2.67 million at September 30. A few other highlight points here that's relevant.
The same store sales in pharmacy for Q1 were up 68% versus the same stores the same time the year before, which is very important to note because that's showing the underlying business growth is coming from our business development of our accounts. It's not signing new deals, new product launches, or sugar hits of revenue. There are always ongoing clinical trials at Biome Australia. It's important to note, these are low-risk studies that only increase the body of evidence on our existing products and expand their application into new health areas so new patient populations can take advantage of these products.
One example of that I'll give is the Biome Osteo clinical trial, which is a follow-up study on the initial trial published in The Lancet Rheumatology on Biome Osteo, which showed over 12 months versus placebo, Biome Osteo reduces bone loss in a post-menopausal population, post-menopausal female population by 78%. The follow-up study is now looking at a later stage population, so slightly older females that have already been essentially diagnosed with osteopenia, so they're halfway between healthy and osteoporosis, which will give us new applications to work with health professionals on a larger population, so I believe that is all. There's one last point on here that I will bring up. Activated Probiotics makes a significant effort to make a lot of money for our retail and practitioner partners.
While it is a good thing to be able to say that Activated Probiotics is improving health outcomes and helping patients, which is our motivation, we also make sure that our business model caters to pharmacies to make more money than the other big vitamin brands and other suppliers that operate within pharmacy accounts. In many cases, our stores are reporting in excess of AUD 50,000 gross margin return on floor space. That's per meter. So this is a metric in health retail or anyone that has a background in retail will know. And within our space, that is absolutely the leader in our category and in the entire vitamin sector.
We've made sure that because we don't discount, we have a premium product and we offer a strong gross margin for pharmacy partners, we're able to deliver more profitability per square meter than other brands, which as a newer stage, an earlier stage market entrant, I'm sure you can appreciate is quite important. On that note, I'll hand over. We have about five minutes left to answer a few questions. I've just been handed one here. I'll read it out loud. Is your preference to simply have more shop fronts or focus on growing revenue per shop front? What revenue could a single shop front manage to achieve if they really supported and sold your product? Okay, I'll start with the high end and then I'll go to the low end.
The best pharmacy last year, Independent Community Pharmacy, it was based in New South Wales, actually in Camden. I'd say that's a fringe suburb of Sydney, lower middle class. No reason why this store should be the best store, but it is a community that really, you know, invests in their pharmacy and their pharmacy that invests in the community. This store reached a maximum of 925 boxes per month and averaged 450 boxes of activated probiotics in last calendar year. Off the top of my head or back of the envelope, this represented about a AUD 200,000 business to Biome Australia and scanned sales of around AUD 350,000. I can hear a calculator typing in the background with my CFO checking my numbers and he didn't say anything, so I think I got it right.
So, you know, if you do the math on that times 5,000, that would be a very nice business. However, my goal as CEO is for the average account for Biome Australia to be 10% of our best account. I believe that's a conservative opportunity. And even with that, say a 20-25,000 average account would lead Biome Australia to being the largest brand within the Australian market. And by doing our full-serviced approach, we're seeing a consistent basis that we sell a lot more units than even the large vitamin brands. So for Biome, we don't want to be everything for everyone. We don't want to be everywhere. It's a premium approach. It's an outcome-based approach. We don't want to be in Woolworths. We don't want to be in discount pharmacy or on Amazon. We want to provide more value, more profit, and more positive health outcomes.
To deliver that, we need to work with premium health and service-based providers. That's why we work with community pharmacies, why we work with doctors and other integrative health professionals. But most importantly, we need scale. We picked our partners wisely, and we see TerryWhite Chemmart, the leading pharmacy, largest pharmacy group in Australia, but also the leaders in health and service. Priceline Pharmacy is our national partners for scale. I suppose I'm answering this in a roundabout way, but no, we don't want more shops. In FY25, the strategy I put to my team was, let's develop the accounts. I don't want too much new business this year. I'd love to continually show the market that our growth is coming from the underlying businesses. We're so confident that it is. At the appropriate time, we will slowly bring on more accounts.
We have 5,000 plus now, that we will give an update on that probably half year to the market. I'm sure that that number has increased over the last six months. And as we develop them, it obviously adds OPEX bill to the company by bringing on more accounts. We currently have 15 full-time sales and education staff on the road in Australia. I believe that team with the current distribution could deliver up to about AUD 30,000 annual revenue in terms of the amount of accounts we've got and the amount of sales staff servicing them. We could reach that level. However, it's always a hedging bet. You know, once we cross that AUD 20 million-AUD 25 million sales rate, we will look to increase distribution and add a few more sales reps to make sure that our service level is maintained.
So it's not a hard and fast rule. It's something that we adjust and look at every quarter and every half. But we believe right now the best opportunity for Biome is to continue to develop our accounts and be the number one revenue generator in those accounts. Another question, what's happening with the Activated Nutrients brand? So a company and the brand that I started in 2012 before Biome Australia, something I'm very passionate about. The products in the Activated Nutrients range are incredibly strong products, but unfortunately, they are a retail brand. They are not health professional-focused and education-targeted. As a result, we lean into what we're very good at. We are the best in the industry at education, at training, at customer service and support. In the retail product, that's front of shop. Activated Nutrients sits in health food stores and pharmacies in front of the counter.
For Biome Australia, that puts them up for competition against Swisse and Blackmores and other discount large vitamin brands with massive marketing budgets. So for Activated Nutrients, we saw the future opportunity to launch a new brand in Activated Therapeutics. The highest quality products from Activated Nutrients will be merged into Activated Therapeutics, the new brand. And this brand, with its professional packaging, its professional education and approach, will be, I suppose, the future of Activated Nutrients. So I would like to say that in time, Activated Nutrients will support existing customers, but it will slowly, you know, disappear, and Activated Therapeutics will take over where it left off. Is there any other questions? Because we have only a couple of minutes left. So far, that's everything. So last chance for anyone to jump in with a question.
Blair, I just wanted to, if I could just jump in for a second, I just wanted to firstly thank our shareholders for their support, obviously since IPO, and particularly in the last year, just the rapid growth of our share price and the company in general, and in particular, I'd like to thank on behalf of the board yourself, the executive team, Doug Lowe, Jaroslav Boublik, Ilario, and everybody else involved in the company, because it's been quite an effort to get there, and the team have been exceptional, and we've held OpEx down incredibly well, and when we do that, it loads up the team. The team have risen to the challenge, and we're very grateful for the effort.
Okay, no more questions. I think we can declare this presentation also closed. Thank you to the board as well for your support, Dom and Ilario.
We look forward to sharing our half-year results in not too distant future and continuing to share on this incredible journey that has been Biome Australia. So again, from myself, thank you. Thank you, everybody. We'll declare the meeting closed. Ciao. Thank you.