Welcome to the Nanoform Q1 Report 2023. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, all, and a warm welcome to Nanoform's Q1 2023 Report presentation. My name is Henri von Haartman, and I'm your Director of Investor Relations. Today, our CEO, Edward Hæggström, CFO, Albert Hæggström, and Chief Commercial Officer, Christian Jones, will present to you. This presentation is webcast through Financial Hearings, and there is also the possibility to call in and listen by phone. The presentation slides are shown throughout the webcast, and they can also be found on our webpage, in the Investors section. After the presentation, we will hold a Q&A, and it's possible to ask questions by dialing in. We will start today with a short introduction to Nanoform and then move on to CEO review, the commercial aspects, and the financial aspects. With these words, our CEO, Edward Hæggström, please go ahead.
Thank you, Henri, welcome also on my behalf. Nanoform is a technology platform company. We work out of Helsinki. We have approximately 150 employees, and we are listed in Helsinki and Stockholm. Next slide, please. We basically address a very big problem in the pharma industry. The fact is that there are too few new drugs coming out, even though there is a lot of investment made to have more drugs on the market. Next, please. We address one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem, why there are so few drugs coming out. That of poor bioavailability. It basically means that you have an molecule, which is potent per se, but it's not taken up by the body. This problem is big, and it's growing. Next, please. How do we do it?
We're taking coarse powder, and we make it very fine. By doing that, we increase the specific surface area with the powder, which means that it's easier for the body to take up the medicine. Next, please. We have a proprietary process, which is a green technology. This process is basically a two-step process. First, you dissolve API into CO2, and then you precipitate it out. We balance three processes, condensation, nucleation, and agglomeration. Next, please. By being able to do this, there follows a cascade of benefits. Increased solubility drives increased bioavailability, it enables new medicines. It also enables a regimen where you can use reduced dosing. This can reduce the side effects. It can allow and enable a patent expansion game, both longitudinally and in parallel.
By having to make less of the medicine, the production costs and the CapEx goes down. Of course, when most of the drug is taken up by the body and not excreted, also, the environmental footprint goes down. This is also driven by the fact that less of the medicine needs to be manufactured and shipped around. Next, please. We have spoken about the small molecules. We also have an offering in the large molecules. Small molecules, think Ibuprofen, large molecules, thinks Insulin. Here in the center, you can see enhanced drug loading and tailored release profiles. One could also say that people are interested in having a high concentration and a low dynamic viscosity. All these five are relevant to what we do, and we operate between one and 150 kilodalton. That's a size measure. Next, please.
The process we have on the large molecule side is different than the one we have on the small molecule side. Here you can see a nebulization step, you can see an evaporation step, an ionization step, and an electrostatic collection step. This is also a green technology. Next, please. There are basically three pools that we can tip into. 58,000 failed drugs in the last 40 years, 5,800 existing drugs, and 20,000 drugs in development. We use many times the acronym API that stands for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient. Next, please. What do we actually do? We work with global large pharma, with mid-sized and specialty Pharma, and with Biotech. They bring us bulk API that they own. We nanoform it, meaning we make the powder very, very fine. We always get paid.
We get paid to show that we can nanoform, we get paid to show that Nano forming is a good thing to do, we get paid to produce kilograms of material, and later on, we also get paid, royalties for having a product on the market. Next, please. I now move into the CEO review. Here, the title says we have had a strong start to 2023. We got the multi-API license from Fimea, which is the National Medicines Agency. This means that we can work on many different APIs in our factory. We have also started to manufacture for clinical use in Project Blockbuster. This means that now we are producing clinical-grade GMP material. On the commercial side, we have a very strong momentum, where we have signed 13 new GMP deals and three new major pharma relationships.
Christian will talk more about this. We also see here that operating free cash flow has started to improve. Albert will talk more about this. The gross margin has dipped a little bit. The reason is that our GMP QC laboratory, which is operational, has not yet got its stamps from Fimea. It will get them later this year. This means that we have to send samples outside for quality assurance. The balance sheet is solid, with EUR 63 million in cash and no debt. It's clear that we have confidence in our near-term business targets. We think they are clearly reachable. Next, please. Here I want to talk a little bit about growing up a company. When doing that, it's important to have the axis.
We can see that from the IPO to now, we have scaled up the number of customer projects. We went from five to 16, the number of customers enrolled from five to 40, and the number of employees from five to 150. For 12 times, eight times, and three times respectively. Next, please. An increased number of non-GMP and GMP projects signed in 2023 versus 2022, as well as an improved operating free cash flow in 2023 versus 2022. We are on track on both. Next, please. What's our next checkpoint? It is 2025. We will have there a cash flow positivity, 90% gross margin, and there will be approximately a little bit more than 70 new APIs coming in each year. Out of this, the cash flow positivity is most important.
Next, please. With this, I thank you at this moment and hand over to Christian. Christian, please.
Now I'll take us through the commercial presentation, and I'm pleased to share these slides with you. Slide 20, we can see this represents the market, the number of drugs that are on the market, and as we can see that trend is only going in one direction. There's a huge amount of molecules that can potentially be improved and can also be helped towards the market. We go to the next slide. We also see that obviously with those 21,000 molecules, there are 5,500 companies supporting. I'm moving the slides, no need to do them. Thank you. There are 5,500 companies supporting those molecules moving forward.
A lot of companies for Nanoform to talk to see how we can support them in their journey. From, from our perspective, our business model is very simple. We operate in terms of proving the value of the technology, we call that a proof of concept project, and that's non-GMP. We move to Proof of Process, where once we've proven that value, we look to optimize the process further before transitioning to GMP, which is good manufacturing practice. That's a quality standard of manufacture in which is required for clinical production. There, we support our clients in terms of clinical manufacturing at the various phases of their molecules development, from phase I all the way through to marketed products and lifecycle extension.
Of course, there are drugs on the market that we also look at. Whether it's lifecycle extension or 505(b)(2) improvements to existing products, Nanoform are very active. What this slide also tells you is that there's a good amount of attrition at the various stages of a molecule's journey, and that there's a timeline associated with development of compounds to the market. We have a nice spread of molecules across that those pipeline, and we operate in a fee-for-service model across that pipeline until the product is commercialized, in which we have a royalty component to our technology. That really nicely brings me onto this slide.
As I said, a fixed fee per project, somewhere in the region of EUR 50,000-EUR 500,000 per API per project, very much depends on the scope of the work. A fixed fee per project in the GMP manufacturing, again, somewhere in the region of half a million to EUR 10 million, depending on the volume of material that needs to be produced and the phase of development. Drugs on the market, we would have a commercial supply agreement with our partners to supply the material from Nanoform to them, and with a commercial royalty deal associated. That royalty is anywhere between 1%-20%, depending on the value that the technology delivers. Clearly, in some instances, you know, it's a nice-to-have, the royalty number will be lower.
In other instances, it's a must-have, without our technology, that molecule will not move forward, and of course, that royalty number would then be much higher. We move on. I'm delighted to sort of reiterate some of the points that Edward made. 2023 so far has been a very strong year. That has materialized from the momentum that was built up in H2 and Q4 of last year. We've now been able to sign 13 new non-GMP deals. Six of those were signed in Q1 . Seven so far have been signed in Q2 , and of course, you know, we still have another month and a half approximately left, so hopefully that number will increase for the Q2 report.
Importantly, you know, we still continue to work with our major pharma partners and onboard new major pharma partners as well as the many biotechs that we work with. This quarter, we saw three new major pharma relationships initiated, including our first Japanese major pharma. We also were re-awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the work that we're doing with them around supporting medicines for patients that need them. Project Blockbuster is an important project for Nanoform and one that saw our GMP manufacturing campaign commence in May, post the approval from the Finnish Medicines Agency for our multi-API license. It's expected to take a couple of months of production.
Once the material is produced, it will be shipped for manufacture of final drug products during Q3 , and the human pilot PK study is going to commence in Q4 . The readout of that, we expect Q1, 2024 . Exciting times, this first half so far. Looking at the commercial relationships that we've established, I'm delighted to be able to announce that we have two new names that we can publicly disclose of the partners that we work with. Those previously were AstraZeneca and BI. Now we can add to that GSK and Sanofi. I'm very, very pleased to be able to do that. We also work, as I said before, with many smaller companies, Biotech and mid-sized Pharma, and have different types of relationships as well in the co-development and collaboration mode.
This is a nice snapshot of the different therapeutic areas, at which Nanoform is active. You know, we're working across many within the preclinical space, but clearly, we also have, you know, several, that we're working on in the marketed space. Marketed really means either we're working with the innovator on a life cycle management opportunity for their product, or we're working on a 505, angle for that product, with a specialty pharma company. If you can see this slide, you'll also see that the weighting in terms of the volume of projects is clearly in the preclinical space, which is where most people come to Nanoform when they have issues around bioavailability, which is typically seen in preclinical moving into phase I.
That's where we have the majority of our work, but you can also see clinical programs that we're working on from phase I through to phase II and III. I participated in a flash talk, a webinar with Drug Hunter recently, with myself and Chris Worrall, who's in my team, and with Dennis Hu, the CEO of Drug Hunter. Dennis is a renowned scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and set up Drug Hunter last year. He's a former Genentech employee, well known in the medicinal chemistry and drug discovery space. Dennis wanted to talk to us about our technology, and we worked together at utilizing both Nanoform and Drug Hunter resources to evaluate how drugs have changed since the 1970s.
Actually, I would recommend, if you have the time, to watch this presentation because it is quite insightful and enlightening about the different types of molecules that are being developed, the current types of molecules that are trying to be developed today versus the ones back in the '70s. I think this is only going to continue to become more challenging for our grandchildren's drugs as well when we look forward. Of course, these new types of compounds, they need new technologies to overcome these challenges, and that was what we were talking about as well. Small is sustainable, and we are having an increasing number of discussions now with our major pharma partners, in particular, around sustainability.
helping them to achieve their net zero goals by 2030, and some of them even sooner than that. They're not going to get there unless they adopt new technologies and new approaches and different ways of working. You know, we had one of our major pharma clients that actually said, "CESS could be the green alternative to spray drying." Spray drying utilizes lots of organic hydrocarbon solvents. Some of those solvents actually can be, you know, really unpleasant as well, and from a toxicity perspective. You know, our technology uses recycled carbon dioxide, which can also be captured as well. It's a very green alternative to the current processes and manufacturing.
Most importantly, if we can reduce the dosage for a product, that will have a much bigger impact to the carbon footprint from a supply chain perspective than anything else. Obviously, that will also support the trends in onshoring of manufacturing from the East to the West, the smaller quantities that might be required to be manufactured. If there's an ability to do that through Nanoform's technology, that could really help in a positive way for this increasing trend that we see today. Small is green, and it's also lean. We have a tool called Starmap, which helps us to map out the projects with our partners, which molecules to take forward, and really quickly identify which experiments not to do.
You know, as a digital twin to our CESS technology, Starmap is being routinely used by Nanoform and an increasing interest from our pharma partners to use it as a screening tool for their molecules. As Dennis said, in our talk, if I was a medicinal chemist and I had two molecules, one of which I knew could be nano-formed and one might be more challenging, there's no brainer, I would go with the one that I knew could be nano-formed. It's about providing the possibilities in an early stage and increasing those possibilities so that you don't narrow your path too far in development and you keep many doors open. Hopefully, Starmap will continue to be a very useful tool for our pharma partners. Now over to Albert for the financial section.
Thank you, Christian. I must say that considering what is happening in the world today, I'm really looking forward to what AI can do for the pharma industry as well, because we have been working on this for some years, and we have already seen a lot of impact from that. Going to the numbers, here you can see that we added two employees in Q1 so we were at 152 at the end of the quarter. As we have said previously, this is the year when we focus on productivity and processes, getting more out of the engine, we don't plan to increase the headcount very much this year. We expect it to be rather flat.
Number of lines will continue to increase because we are, here in the number 20, is, for example, not included in the GMP two and three, because they will be included when they are commissioned, later on in the year. The same goes for, for, some non-GMP lines that are being built as we speak. If we then go to, what Christian was talking about, momentum. In Q4 , we showed that, the big pharma was traveling again. We sent many proposals out, and this trend has continued. Here you can see on a rolling six months, we are clearly back on track on the growth trend, and we had a record number of proposals, sent 42 in the last, half year.
That can be compared to 25 at the end of Q3 . On a rolling 12 months, you can see that we hit a new high of 67. This is, of course, remember that there is a four to six months lag usually between proposals issued or sent and them being signed, the proportion of them being signed, because we do really well or we do very high quality on the proposals, so we have lots of discussions with the clients already before we send the proposals. We go over from proposal to sign, you can see the same here as Christian mentioned. We are back on high level and we signed 13 in the first five months of the year.
Most likely we will end the quarter, six months rolling for the first half as a new high. That means, of course, that when the comparison for H2 will be very easy compared to last year, we should see the 12-month rolling also start to increase again. If we look at the revenue, the revenue in Q1 was slightly below last year, and it was of course impacted by the slowness in H2,2022 . However, if you look at it from a rolling 12 months point of view, the impact is very small. We see this as a plateau until we continue to grow that again.
Number of revenue-generating projects, more than 22 dozens, in the quarter that contributed to the revenue. Also, when you look at it from a 12 months rolling point of view, you can see that we had 35 projects that generated revenue in the last 12 months. Another impact we saw in Q1 , or actually already in Q4 is that now when we have been ramping up the GMP for clinical manufacture, as we not yet have internal GMP QC, we have been using outside help, and that had some impact on the materials and services costs related to the projects.
If you exclude them, they were more than EUR 100,000 in the quarter. If you exclude them, the gross margin would actually have increased to about 95% in Q1 . That is because we have now the tank, the big tank, where the cost of the CO2 has come down dramatically. That means that excluding the GMP QC costs, the gross margin has been increasing compared to last year. It was above 95% in the quarter. Here you can see the quarterly numbers and the rolling 12 months. You can also see that when you look at rolling 12 months, the impact was much smaller.
Finally, I want to talk about the free cash flow, operating free cash flow, and here we saw also an improvement. If you look annualized, that means four times the last quarter, we have improved clearly, so it was below EUR 25 million or minus, compared to its peak number of minus EUR 33 million in Q2 2022 . On the right-hand side, you can see that the bigger impact came from the smaller investments.
This will continue in the coming quarters because we now have a sizable nanoforming fleet, and that means that this year will be about improving the processes, getting more out of the machine, getting productivity up, and therefore increasing a top line, decreasing CapEx, and we believe we can keep the costs rather flat. All these three will impact positively the operating free cash flow. Which we can see here, the a little bit bigger picture about how it could look like in the coming years towards our target of 2025. To reiterate, we expect rather flattish costs and lower CapEx in this year, and it should help to improve the cash flow. All in all, our balance sheet is very strong. We have EUR 63 million in cash and no debt.
You have all the pictures, tables, sorry, here. I will not go through them now. I think we can go to the Q&A. Thank you.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Christopher Sundman from SEB Sverige. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. You've made some really pretty phenomenal progress on the underlying business, and this has all been driven from your production site or manufacturing site in Finland. You've raised capital to build a site in the US, and I think I saw something about a site in the UK as well. What can you tell us about what the status is of that? And I mean, Yeah, I guess I may have some follow-ups on that.
Sure, Christopher. Happy to take the question about Bald Eagle. Basically, Bald Eagle is in a slow holding pattern in the U.S. We have identified four states. We have in every state, identified one or two facilities. We are, as we speak, having drawings with sort of specific technical details for a copy-paste operation to be possible for that. The reason why we have it in a holding pattern is the slower growth that we saw in the end of last year, and we wanted to make sure that the cost outliers and the top-line growth were synchronized in a proper way. Albert, do you wanna say something else to this?
Yes, I would also add that we have all seen what has happened to the interest rates, and we all know that there is a lot of new capacity coming online. By capacity, I mean new facilities, R&D, and manufacturing facilities in the US, and that the pricing and the rent levels have not yet been impacted fully by the higher interest rates. We have seen the REITs coming down. Many of them have share prices have fallen by 50% or more, but the rent levels have not changed that much. We are also, in that sense, opportunistic, that we don't wanna sign too long, let's say, 10, 20-year leases at the previous peak levels. We want to see that we certainly find the right place with the right partner at the right price.
We are in that sense, not in a big hurry to do it. Of course, as Edward said, this has also to do with the fact that we now have a significant amount of lines in Helsinki, and we have also learned that we believe we can do more than five projects per line per year, both on the sales side and the biologic side. That, of course, means that when you have 20 lines and soon 3 GMP lines, there is ample capacity in Helsinki, and that we also take into consideration. Related to the U.K., we have not established or planned to establish a plant there, at least not yet. However, what we have done during the quarter is that we established a subsidiary in the U.K.
We have one in the U.S., and we have one in the U.K. now.
Okay, thanks. That's great, very clear. Follow-up to that is, do you feel convinced that you have the sufficient funds to build this U.S. facility once you decide to pull the trigger? Then a separate question. Very nice to see the slide on projects by therapeutic area, or let's say the various therapeutic areas in which you have products. Is that a slide of projects that are ongoing? Thanks.
Yes. If I take the first question first, whether there is sufficient fund for our US expansion? The answer is yes. Reason is that, it's clear to us that we have learned a lot, which is relevant to keep the costs down for the copy-paste function there. It's also very possible that, people who want to partner up with us in the US may want to contribute to the financing of those. Short answer, yes. On the therapeutic areas, those areas are areas that we work in actively, yes.
If I just add to what Edward said about the funding. Remember that, as Edward said, we can do it with a partner, but there are also different alternatives. You can lease, or you can buy, or you can do a combination. From that point of view, also, we have enough capital to go to the U.S. as well.
Thanks so much.
The next question comes from Max Herrmann from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks very much for taking my questions, congrats on, now having, I guess, 10 out of the top 20, pharma companies. Quite an achievement in the number of years you've been operating. A couple of questions. One is on, you know, way back when you, were, initially floated, you were kind of gave a very, large range of what, APIs would be nano-formable. I wondered whether, given you now have quite a lot more track record, you're getting a better idea of, chances of success in the field, for the APIs that you're working on. Then secondly, just, to Albert, really, on, the cash flow.
you know, clearly you're working on an awful lot of non-GMP assets at the moment, and that's, you know, contributing nicely, but not hugely significantly. To get to that break-even in 2025, you're gonna have to be, I assume, working on a lot more GMP assets. I wondered, how many do you think you'll need to have in the hopper, as it were, in active, I guess, working on programs in 2025 to get to that target? Thank you.
Okay, Max. First, you asked about the API range and chance of success. I think that it's clear as we have moved forward, that the range is more towards the higher numbers than to the lower numbers. We have become really good at processing those APIs. As you also know, there are many other factors playing into whether they then become products on the markets, and therefore, I would like to keep the range sort of broadish. The chance of success. We have a fairly good understanding of the chance of winning a POC. We are building an understanding of the transition probability to GMPs. I would like to be a little bit careful in still guesstimating that.
When it comes to probabilities for having the, a product on the market, for me, it's fairly clear that we will have one, but the exact timing and, exactly sort of how fast, we will have one or many, it's too early to tell. Over to Albert for the cash flow.
Yeah, yeah. Just to repeat what Edward say, I would put it like this: we have not seen anything that would suggest that our estimates of how big a proportion of all the APIs we could nanoform or what the probabilities of successes will be in the mid to long term has changed, or would be lower than we believed two, three years ago. We are still seeing that we can nanoform very many of the APIs out there. When we also added the 3B category with high potency, that increased a lot. There are very few APIs that we can't handle, and many of the ones we can handle, we can nanoform, and we are getting better at it.
At the same time, the number of success, there are so many factors that depends on whether a project continues, and very few of them has to do with nano-forming. It's, I would say that we have seen nothing yet that would diminish the probabilities compared to what we believed in when we did the IPO. When you look at the cash flow and how many GMP projects and how many non-GMP projects do we need to become cash flow positive, I would put it like this, that it's not very difficult to calculate from the slide, which Christian showed about the value of the GMP projects and the value of the non-GMP projects.
Remember, a non-GMP project is at EUR 50-EUR 250, roughly, if it's POC. When you go into PoP, it's double that. EUR 250-EUR 500. In general, the non-GMP is between EUR 50 and EUR 500. When you do a small, early, let's say, phase I , you can have from half a million EUR or EUR 1 million upwards. When the size of the clinical trials go to phase II and phase III, the value of that can go up even to EUR 10 million. Considering our cost base today, you can quite easily calculate how many GMP projects do we need to be cash flow positive.
I will not give you a more detailed answer than that.
Maybe a follow-on just in terms of the Project Blockbuster then. You know, that's obviously an existing drug that's you're nano-forming, you know, 505(b)(2) route. You're in collaboration there. How are you gonna account for the GMP? That I assume will go into revenues, but some of the costs will go into the JV, as it were. Just trying to understand the accounting for that. Would that be one of your therefore larger GMP runs, given it's likely to be closer to commercial as just the phase I at the moment, so that's gonna be in the smaller range?
Maybe I can divide your question into two parts. One that has to do with kilograms, and one that has to do with euros, and Albert can take the euro part, and if I take the kilogram part. You're right, since this is a 505(b)(2), it's clear that, we are gonna need to produce first probably a few kilos and then a few tens of kilos, and then for the market, probably a lot more than that. I actually know the numbers. I think the important part here is that we have already done internal tests that show that we should have no problems meeting the timelines and the kilogram lines that are required for this project.
This is, of course, important both for us and for the consortium and then ultimately also for the patients out in the field. This kind of security of supply and the fact that people start to look into our ability to manufacture larger quantities, I'm not afraid of talking about a ton or so. I think it's just a natural part of our maturation. Albert, the euros, please.
Otherwise, it's in from an IFRS point of view, it's booked just like any project. You book revenue according to percentage completion of the project in the top line, and then you have the direct materials costs, and then you have the most of the other costs will be in the other operating costs, in the line external R&D.
Right
... most likely scenario.
Right.
Remember also that if we then receive any income from that, in one form or the other, then that would be sort of we would get 25% of that, as we own 25% of the project. All in all, we have also said that as we do a lot of the work, because an very important part of the total project is the nano-forming part. We expect the impact from the project to be cash flow positive for Nanoform, despite the fact that we hold 25% of the project.
Great. Thanks.
The next question comes from Jon Berggren from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello, thanks for taking my question. I have one for Albert. I was wondering about financing coming quarter, EUR 2.3 million. You mentioned in the report, FX gains EUR 653 K, interest income EUR 362 K. What were the other elements that contributed to finance income here?
So-
missing something. Thanks
In the finance, you have the fluctuation in the Herantis shares that we own also.
Okay, got it. Thanks.
The next question comes from Lars Hevreng, from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Thanks. You mentioned in the report about the capacity at your biologics lines. Could you say anything about the expected utilization of these and any potential client intake?
Henri, help me here. We have disclosed that we are commercial on the biologics side. We are also clearly able to provide the quantities that are needed for the POC level where we work now. Related to biologics GMP, we are still not at biologics GMP. Basically, there are two parts to biologics GMP. One is the material part, where you need to be compliant and compatible. Then the other one is to have the stamps. Here again, it's a synchronization of how our sort of commercial evolution takes place there versus how we invest money in it.
When it comes to the compatibility and compliance with the materials, there we're already on a level where we could sort of do it already right now. When it comes to build out the infrastructure, there are certain investments which are sort of fairly straightforward, that has to do with containment that we haven't done yet, but we know how to do them. Basically, you can think of the biologics as following the small molecules development on the commercial side with a certain lag. I don't wanna put an exact number there, but, you know, something maybe between two toPfour years to give you a range. Maybe Albert Hæggström and Christian Jones wants to give a commercial and financial aspect to this, too.
Yeah, I would put it like this, that we have several non-GMP lines on the biologics side, and as you know, we have now been talking to clients about the biologics. During the first year, we did not show or talk any details about the process, but then when it was published, we have been deepening the discussions, and we have seen a clear increasing interest in the biologics side during the last quarters when Christian and his team have been able to talk about the specifics around the process and how it works and show the schematic and bring clients to the site to see it, and so forth. Christian, please, if you have some additional comments.
Yeah, I would just say, echo what you've said already. I think without disclosing things that we can't, there is a lot of interest there. There, as we can see in the marketplace, there is a significant interest as well in nanoparticles associated with biologics, which perhaps in the light of COVID and vaccines, there has been I'd say a lot of companies that are also looking in this space, what we're doing is quite different, and really opening up, you know, novel delivery routes, potentially increasing drug load per unit volume for injectable formulations. Those are the areas where we see the most interest from our pharma partners.
There are some big challenges out there that need to be addressed with biologics. You know, we have a lot of interest from major pharma and smaller Biotech into seeing whether our technology can help to address those challenges. I think the plus side around the biologics technology is we've advanced the CES technology at a, you know, quite a rapid rate. When I came into the business 5 years ago, to where it is today, it's a very different technology, and, you know, we've achieved a lot.
Because we've had that rate of innovation and growth, from an operational perspective, we have established a lot of expertise in engineering and in technology commercialization that has helped the biologics technology, and I think the biologics technology as a function will then accelerate faster even than the CES technology did over time. I think it's a very big positive for that technology as we move forward.
Also as a reminder, that when we went public, our target for 25, year 25 was to have 50 new APIs and 25 lines. Just to remind you that when we launched then the biologics, we increased that number from 50 to 70 new APIs by 25, and we increased the number of lines from 25 to 35. That implicitly then gave you that we believe that we could have 20 projects per year from biologics side and 50 from CES side, and then 10 lines and 25 lines. That was the thinking, and on a general level, I think that these assumptions are still quite valid.
All right. Thanks, all.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you, operator. On behalf of Nanoform, I would like to thank all participants today. If someone has additional questions, you are most welcome to contact us after this. We wish everybody a great Thursday afternoon and evening. Thank you and goodbye.