All right. Good morning, all of you, and welcome to Aspen Pharmacare's Capital Markets Day, with a very special focus on manufacturing. My name is Bonga Nkosi, Investor Relations at Aspen Pharmacare. I'd like to welcome all of you who are here present with us today at our NDB facility in France, and also a special welcome to all of those who are joining us online via webcast. I'd like to remind all of our webcast joiners that they are able to pop their questions in the Q&A session, and we'll be able to address those at the second session. I'd also like to advise you that for our in-person attendees, you all would have been allocated groups, and those groups will be the groups that you use for the tour.
For those joining us online, when we break for the second session, we'll then come back at half past two CET. A regulatory statement for all of you to note, and with that, there will be a short video, and our first speaker will then begin, which is Stephen Saad. Thank you all very much.
Although healthcare today is advancing at an extraordinary rate, many of the most vulnerable have been left behind. We believe that the challenge in modern medicine includes not only discovering innovative medicines but also ensuring equitable access to all. In 2007, Aspen's leadership started its journey to build the most technologically advanced sterile operations facility in the Southern Hemisphere. Today, Aspen has built two fully operational sterile Suites in South Africa and is bringing a third online in early 2025. These facilities produce a wide variety of life-saving medicines, including anesthetics, vaccines, and biologicals. The facilities had hardly been completed when it was immediately called to action, producing the first made-in-Africa COVID vaccine. Over 200 million doses were provided to the continent.
This is an endorsement that today's sterile Suites will reshape and expand our capacity to significantly improve access to safe and affordable healthcare globally. We are Aspen, and we are deeply invested in healthcare. Healthcare: We care.
So good morning, everyone, and welcome, and thank you particularly those of you that I'm looking, I'm looking at now, who've taken the time to visit us in person. Really, really special day, and I really think it's gonna be very valuable to the people that have come. There's been a lot of conjecture about why we spend so much time, I spend, personally spend so much time in France in October. I wanna let you know, it is especially for the Capital Markets Day, I've brushed up on my French, and so I'm going to be giving this, this presentation. I'll do a bit of French, a bit English, and so hopefully you'll see that I, I didn't waste my October here. So let me start with, Bonjour, bienvenue, merci beaucoup pour votre temps et l'intérêt que vous portez à Aspen.
Allez les Bleus! And for those of you in South Africa who didn't understand much of that, let me tell you what I said. Let me just decode it to show you now. Howzit? Go Bokke! So, thank you once again. France has always been a very special place for Aspen, and we obviously had a vision for France long before we realized that even our full Aspen logo is in French colors. Clearly, we knew something then that no one else knew, and only after 2007 and the 2023 World Cup did everyone else in South Africa love France. So we also had a vision to invest in sterile manufacturing, and we hope to show that Aspen also knew something then. And in time, everybody globally will love this, our strategy around manufacture. You know, the advantage...
It's hard sometimes when you have a vision. It takes a while to realize, and you will appreciate it when you walk around the facilities today. It's not something that. It's not a program that you can knock up overnight. It's real stuff, and it's something that, and why I appreciate having Capital Market Days in the facilities, is anyone can give you a corporate presentation, a corporate brochure, and you can walk around. But I think to really appreciate a key part of the Aspen business is that we are industrialists. I've said it before in the past, but we are industrialists, and we've transformed facilities. You'll— For those of you that have seen the South African facilities and for what you'll see today, you'll realize that what we provide is cutting-edge technologies. We're not just a me-too manufacturer globally.
You'll also get a chance, you get the talkers, and you get the workers, and you'll get the chance to meet the engine room, the sort of the worker bees in Aspen. It's a real good opportunity to talk to the people who turn the motor. We're very proud of our plants, but we're even more proud of our people. The people are very proud of themselves, too, because when you see the volumes that we make, you realize that we contribute to millions of people's lives daily, and making a difference, a very positive difference, on to their lives and to healthcare generally. I'll leave that for the people that follow me to tell you a little bit about what they do. Let me...
Sorry, I think I better get to the slides. Okay, so insights. What are we hoping to achieve today, and what are we hoping to achieve for you? Is really to give you some insights into our manufacturing expertise, the opportunities it's created, and a demonstration, particularly, I'd like the demonstration of our confidence and our ability to execute on it. Because we can all do a spreadsheet and say, "Okay, you've got this amount of contribution, this amount of this, this amount, and your share price goes up by this amount." But there's a lot that needs to be done, and so you have to have the best team to deliver on these opportunities. We've had a settle period now.
We've gone through a period of consolidation, and it's been a very important period of consolidation from a business perspective, and if you look at a business, not in one or two years, but if you look at it over decades. We had a period of very aggressive globalization, and we didn't know how else to globalize properly because we kept building at one country at a time. We had South Africa, then you go to Australia. You know, it doesn't... You don't have to be Nostradamus to work out that you're not gonna be here by the time you've launched your twentieth country. So it was an aggressive area, and we also entered into many new areas of business. We certainly have got scars and stars from the many lessons learned.
I would say that there were some areas we were less successful than we were hoped to. There were some areas we were more successful beyond what we could ever dream of. But what we work where we got it right, I believe, is fortunately, we've made the bigger calls around, we made our bigger calls, we got most of our bigger calls right. And in particular, I hope that you will be aligned with me when you say that our biggest call to date has been our investment in manufacturing and relying on manufacturing as a growth engine. So there's been no bigger investment right from the early transactions, which Sean will take you through, of how we even acquired sites like this, and we had to get the products with it.
So we've got there's no big investment we've made than in manufacture, and I believe that we're in a really strong position now to demonstrate that what we've done in the past has cumulated into these events that you'll see today, and over the next few years, there's real opportunity. We poised for strong growth. We expect from calendar year 2024 good growth for our business across commercial pharma, and particularly, you know, it's the second half of our year, the manufacturing kicks in, and, you know, we treat them... Within Aspen terms, manufacturing is our very own bomb squad. They're coming into the second half, and they've got to deliver the results. So that's the Aspen bomb squad. We've got a lot of confidence in what we've created.
You know, when we if I have to look through some of the results in the past and when we first globalised, this one would do better than we thought, this one would do worse, and this one might do a little as we expected. We sort of came out where we wanted to, but it wasn't predictable. And we now have confidence. We have created a solid, more predictable global foundation, and I'll explain to you why a little bit later when I come back. We've got a business. When we look at where we had, we had geographic, we had one geographic area or two. We've got a diversified business, and that's diversified business risk, 'cause it creates new risk. You know, you end up in places like Russia and...
But broadly, we have the diversification does diversify risk, and we've capitalized on existing and new capabilities, and those existing capabilities included some of the commercial platforms we had, but we created new ones. We knew how to make finished dose form, but we improved it to steriles, and the new capabilities were on things like chemicals and APIs, where we have a really big business and a very strong business there. And actually, our business is quite strange because you have a commercial model which is very emerging market focused, and we have a manufacturing model which has quite a heavy reliance on developed markets, and the API business in particular is developed markets. So we get quite an interesting mix of currencies into our business. So delivering growth from our manufacturing is our single most important priority within our business.
It has to be as we speak. It's important. We've shared this vision for a while, and I remember when we first shared the vision, everyone was very enthusiastic, and then six months later, they said, "But your ROIC has gone down." I said, "Well, you know, it doesn't improve if you're building something," and then a year later, they said, "It's got worse." We said, "Yes, we've built more." And so you don't get an immediate return. It's not immediate gratification here. So it's very important to deliver to those of you who've shared this vision along the way, on both of... on our vision. Also, there's been a lot of capital allocated, and when one allocates capital, it's nice to see nice buildings, but you also expect to get returns.
And where we are today is an exciting point because we've talked and talked, and now we are very close to the delivery period. We're about to run on. It's just the start. Years of preparation, and we're all dressed up and ready to go. So just about to sing the national anthems, because literally, it's weeks away. We are, you know, January one is weeks away. It seemed like it was forever, but here it is. And filling our total available capacity has the potential to exponentially increase short to medium-term earnings, and Sean will take you through some of those.
The real focus today, I think for those of you that are gonna walk around with us, and for those of you that even who are watching from afar, is we wanna deliver on the contract. You know, you don't wanna keep... You know, we've got a vision to look forward, but we've delivered a lot to ourselves on paper, and we now need to deliver on these, execute the sterile contracts. Important to deliver on those contracts because when you walk around today, you will see all the lines. All those lines are staffed.
You'll walk into places where the HVAC, the air conditioning type systems, the things that manage, are all there, all the laboratories are there, all the people are there, the structure's there and built, and all we have to do is put the volumes into that facility without much change in our cost base, and that is what will be a material driver for our earnings from financial year 2025 going forward. But to quantify all of those and give you all the numbers attached to it and where it goes, I'm gonna hand over to Sean. I think Sean is... Yeah, there he is. Sean, you had more hair there than you've got now.
Thank you.
Thank you. It's good, Sean. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, thanks, thanks for coming this morning. I really appreciate all the efforts to get here. You might be wondering that I look like the same in that photo with the color suit, but this is actually a blue suit. So blue and red for the French colors. So really in support of our French facility and all the hard work that the French team have put together in getting Aspen NDB to the place it is today, and I really thank each and everyone in Aspen NDB for all the efforts that they've done over the many, many years, and I will be taking you through that journey. So in my presentation today, I'm gonna take you through a strategic journey into our sterile manufacturing, and it, it'll give you a little bit of perspective of where we've travelled.
It's not, as Stephen said, not a short-term journey, and you just start today and we get the returns. But it's been a long journey, and we've had scars and stars along the way. But at the end of it, we're now at a point where we think we can execute on that plan, and I'm gonna take you through the journey that led up to that point. So it all started about eight years ago when Aspen foresaw that there would be a global competitive advantage to investing in sterile manufacturing. And what led us to that bold decision that we made eight years ago? Well, first of all, we anticipated that there would definitely be a future shift towards biologicals and other advanced sterile technologies.
Secondly, we predicted this would be spearheaded by global pharma, and with global pharma spearheading it, you're gonna get sustainable demand and volumes to support the manufacturing strategy. Thirdly, by moving in early, which Aspen did at eight years ago, starting that journey, we're able to get first mover strategic advantage, so we're ready to take advantage of those. We've got available capacity to take advantage of those demand opportunities. Very importantly, though, going back to our core strategy, which is increasing patient access, we saw this as a real opportunity to increase patient access to steriles in Africa, and that was a real underpin for us as well. You'll be exposed to this a lot today, but we did see a lot of high barriers to entry in this sterile business.
The complexity of manufacture is next level. It's probably the only thing more complex is aeronautical and space engineering, but this is highly, highly complex manufacture. You'll be exposed to that today, so a very high barrier to entry there. The other one is the investment, the cost, the time it takes to invest. I mean, this is eight years later, and a lot of people don't have the ability to take those bold decisions, but we did do that eight years ago, and we're ready to take advantage of the opportunities that we see in front of us and that we have secured already. Last, but not least, we also saw an opportunity, and we've done this with other portfolios, is to embark on an insource strategy.
So we came up with a strategy whereby we could get, you know, do this sterile investment, but also get a payback from the savings that we generate by moving our own product portfolio into the facilities and giving a payback on that. And that also gives you the benefit in your commercial pharma business of sustainable gross margins because you're getting a lower cost of goods on a sustainable basis. So it really gives you a win-win from a commercial pharma, and you get the payback, and I'll take you through a slide on that a little bit later on. The areas that we invested in, and you'll be exposed to some of those today, are the prefilled syringes, anesthetics, vaccines and biologicals, vials, cartridges, and blow-fill-seal.
The key message that I want to leave you with on this slide is that investing now would be late. We would have missed all the opportunities that we've now secured. So we took the right decision at the right time to invest in the right part of the business in sterile manufacturing. Aspen is in a very, very unique position. We've got the benefit of being able to increase patient access to medicines, high quality, affordable medicines, which we've had as our core strategy for the last 25 years. So we've got the benefit of being able to do that in conjunction with driving our commercial delivery imperatives, and this is all underpinned by sustainable volumes.
The four pillars that enable us to achieve this symbiotic relationship are, over the last 25 years, we've built very strong relationships with all of global pharma, which has given us access to a solid network of manufacturing and commercial opportunities, which we've taken advantage of over the years and obviously will take advantage on in our sterile manufacturing strategy. We've also forged very strong alliances with governments, multilateral agencies, some of you are here today, and helped them in their quest to increase patient access to high-quality, affordable medicines. So you can see the synergy and the symbiotic relationship coming through there. But you can't do any of that without highly skilled and capable technical expertise. And I'm not gonna talk too much about that.
I think you'll make your own mind up today when you see what we've... what the level of expertise and capability is in this facility and in the South African facility. And the fourth pillar is globally competitive cost of manufacture. We've demonstrated that right from the beginning of time when, in ARVs and other segments of the business, and we're able to deliver on global cost of manufacture. So if you take those four pillars together, you can see there's a symbiotic relationship between patient access, which gives you increased volume, the increased volumes give you commercial delivery and commercial sustainability. Over the last 25 years, we've also ensured that we've been able to consistently ensure patient access to high quality, affordable medicines, critical medicines, in very challenging circumstances.
I'll take you through a very quick timeline journey of this, just to illustrate where we, where we've invested and helped patients to access. It all started in 2005. A long time ago now. I think I still had a bit of hair in those days. So, in fact, I think I might have had blonde hair at one stage when I lost a bit, but that's a side story. But yeah, in 2005, we were the first to get U.S. FDA approval for our ARVs globally. We also secured generic licenses for our ARVs from working in conjunction with all the global pharma heavyweights, including GSK, Gilead, Boehringer Ingelheim, MSD, BMS, J&J, and others, amongst others. In 2007, we were at the front.
We had made our first investment in 2007 in our very first sterile facility, and we made our alliance with Lilly, and you'll hear that coming up a couple of times in the commercial pharma side. We built a good relationship with Lilly. We partnered with them and with endorsement from the WHO, to provide capreomycin, which is a multi-drug resistant tuberculosis product for Africa and saved many lives. Then comes to 2020, and there we were again for COVID. Multiple initiatives, ranging from dexamethasone, anesthetics and thrombosis, to help relieve the respiratory problems caused by COVID, and ending with our venture into making the J&J COVID vaccine, and supplying that to the market and saving multiple millions of lives.
That gave us the opportunity to get endorsement from the African Union for African manufacturer support, and we entered into a partnership with Serum. Soon, sometime later in 2024, we'll be in a position, depending on all the regulatory approvals, to start commercializing those products for pediatric vaccines across the African continent, supported again by Gavi, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and CEPI. Lastly, the agreement that we've secured with Novo for the supply of manufacturing supply of human insulin to the African continent. So if you look at this timeline and you know what is the common message across this timeline? There's two themes. The one is our partnerships with Global Pharma, which you saw from the previous slide, and the second is our alliances with the multilateral agencies and governments.
Without those two, you wouldn't have been able to succeed in any of these ventures, besides the other two pillars that I mentioned earlier on. On to anesthetics. Anesthetics has been a key enabler in building Aspen Sterile Manufacturing Foundation. And you may ask, why? Well, if you go back, and I know a lot of you queried why we did this in 2017, but we invested. We did two major transactions for the acquisition of global anesthetic portfolios from both AstraZeneca and GSK back in 2017. But we didn't just do that for the commercial benefit. We did that because we'd come up with our vision in 2015 of investing in sterile manufacture. So in conjunction with that investment decision, we also took the decision to invest in sterile manufacture for the anesthetics.
So we put together an insourcing strategy to insource those portfolios into our facilities, drive the savings. So we expect to spend about just under ZAR 6 billion, ZAR 5.6 billion rand in CapEx for the anesthetics insourcing, and hope to get a payback, which we have guided, a little later than we originally guided because of delays from COVID and obviously the prioritization we've given to other sterile opportunities. We've guided that we'll get to ZAR 800 million savings by FY 2026, and you can see there's a seven-year payback on that and underpins that. But that wasn't the only benefit to this. This we built these facilities to be able to take on additional capacity, so there was available capacity to take advantage of the sterile opportunities that we envisioned eight years ago.
So the facilities that we've invested in, Oberursel, where we do our topical creams and ointments in Germany. NDB, Blow-Fill-Seal, it sounds like a foreign concept, but you'll see all of that today in the facility. This is a facility that's gonna come online, I think, around about April 24th. And so that one will start coming on and driving anesthetics insource savings. And then lastly, we've got a facility in South Africa, where we invested in vial and cartridge capabilities. But the key message is that if you look at the tagline that I've put at the bottom there, is that since 2020, we've guided that the value doesn't just sit in with the payback from the insourcing.
It also sits in the spare capacity that we've invested in to take advantage of opportunities and to drive superior return on invested capital over the medium term. Coming on to houses. When you all talk to Stephen, he always talks about... Just gonna put my notes in there. He always talks about the sterile facilities as houses, and he says, "You've got to build a strong house. If you build a strong house, and it can and it's got the ability to pivot and adapt, you can put any furniture in that house." So when you look at the houses that we've built, both in South Africa and in France, we've built them to the highest spec so that we are able to take advantage of different types of opportunities.
You'll hear a lot of stories about how we've pivoted our manufacturing strategy, depending on the formulation or products that we've been able to get an opportunity on. A very good example, and I think you'll hear a recurring theme on this, is our ability in the J&J COVID vaccine era, where we were bringing in our anesthetics onto line one, and all of a sudden, we had the opportunity to do J&J. You know, with a very short period of time, I won't steal Hemant's thunder, he will take you through that in his presentation. We were able to pivot our manufacture to manufacture the COVID vaccine.
So coming onto the NDB house, and the first brick in this journey was our commercial transactions that we entered into with GSK back in 2014. Just as an aside... Okay, I've got to watch my time here. But I was in this room when we did that acquisition. I remember sitting here doing the due diligence. But we invested in the products with the products, and we took ownership of this facility back in 2014.
We then purchased another anticoagulant, Mono- Embolex from Novartis in 2015, and that was the start of the vision, the 2015 underline, where we said, "Right, now we, now we can start with our eight-year vision." So the next building brick then was to reshape the capacity of this facility so that we can build it to the highest spec, if you go back to the house, and also at the right capacity levels to take advantage of capacity opportunities. So to give you some perspective, we only retained one filling line from the original business that we purchased. We invested heavily in automated processes, state-of-the-art prefilled syringe lines, which you'll see today.
Over that period of five years, we spent up to EUR 100 million over five years in investing in this facility, and you'll see the benefit of that today when you go through the facility. In 2020, we disposed of our thrombosis business to Viatris, and in that transaction, we did secure a ten-year supply agreement with Viatris and a lock-in supply agreement for heparin API. So they became our anchor tenant and cover much of our fixed costs. With those anchor tenants, gives you the ability to drive incremental returns with future opportunities that you get on board. So that was a real key building brick, where you got a secure anchor tenant.
Moving on then, we secured the three contracts which were announced in our 2023 results, one of them for mRNA, and we still have available capacity for future opportunities, which we estimate to be around about 35% available capacity. So that is really the story behind our NDB house, but I haven't really done it justice, so you can see it today for yourselves. Coming on to the South African sterile house, we built our original house in 2007 with the ability to make eye drops, ampoules, and small vials. Our key contract that we secured there was a company called Prestige in the USA. We supply over 30 million eye drops a year to this export customer, and they really have formed our anchor tenant for that building.
So we already, even before our, our 8, 8-year vision, we had an earlier vision in sterile. So that was the first building brick, and you'll hear that referred to as Suite One in, in, in some of the presentations that you get exposed to. Then we, then we implemented our insourcing strategy, which was, to bring in the anesthetic portfolio production into our facility. Again, building it at the highest spec to include vaccines and biologicals, and that, that we covered in that, that previous slide. Then that gave us the opportunity to pivot to J&J vaccines in 2020. Because we built it at the highest spec, we were able to convert, and you know the story, 225 million doses supplied, put Aspen on the global stage from a capability and quality and reputational perspective.
Very importantly, gave us further motivation to invest another ZAR 2 billion, which we launched in 2022, and that's what we call Suite Three, and that'll come online later in 2024. I'm not gonna go through this in too much detail, but that also gave us an opportunity to get the Serum technical transfer and collaboration arrangement for the pediatric vaccines. Last but not least, we've now secured Novo as another big tenant for our South African facility. Again, we've still got room for future opportunities, and we estimate this to be around about 55%-60% of capacity. The important thing for our South African facility is its cost-competitive steriles, made in Africa for Africans at the highest quality level.
The important thing about South Africa, we've got an existing infrastructure that we can piggyback on. So all of these contracts, you get incremental returns as you bring them on, because we've got all the support structures in place already. Right. Well, it's eight years on, and I think now strategy has become reality. We are now well poised to harvest the returns. So over time, we've spent ZAR 10 billion over this eight-year journey in sterile CapEx spend. Where are we now, and where are we going to? If you cast your eye to the bottom of this graph in FY 2023, and I'll just start with the quantitative, the sterile contribution.
We're sitting at—we sat in 2023 with a ZAR 1.1 billion under recovery, where our fixed cost investment exceeded our production output value. We've guided that in 2024, this is gonna grow to ZAR 500 million in the second half, and I think that's where Steven referred to 1 January being an important inflection point. FY 2025, we're guiding that we will end between ZAR 3 billion and ZAR 3.5 billion contribution, and scaling up to FY 2026 to our ZAR 4 billion contribution. In parallel to that, our anesthetic in-source savings will increase from ZAR 400 million in 2023 up to ZAR 800 million in 2026. Obviously, in the future, we will have additional upside from future opportunities using the available capacity that's still available.
From an earnings perspective, if you take our guidance of contribution being 70% of EBITDA, in FY 2026, we're targeting incremental normalized headline earnings in excess of ZAR 5.50 a share, which is a 35% increase on our FY 2023 earnings. But not only that, we also gonna have the benefit of increased free cash flow because all of these contracts are working capital light, and we're able to drive strong free cash flow in the medium term.... Last but not least, coming back to the return on invested capital, which Stephen spoke about and everyone was complaining. We do see that as we bring these new contracts on and the future contracts, we're going to have the ability to increase that return on invested capital over the medium term.
And so I think just to conclude on this slide, we, we're ready now for strong and accelerated medium-term growth for the sterile manufacturing business. So thank you for your, your time, and I'll hand over to, to Martin.
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. My name is Martin Pretorius. I'm Integration Director here for Aspen NDB. You might notice a strong South African accent. I've been with Aspen since 2015 and recently transferred over to Aspen NDB. I'll give you a quick overview of the South African sterile operations or the sterile house in South Africa. We'll start off with a bit of history of the site, dating back many, many years. So the heritage can be traced back to a business that commenced trade in South Africa in 1850. On the top left, you'll see 1967. That was the first Lennon Limited facility that was built in Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha.
In 1975, an R&D facility was established with the aim of registration of generic products, and then with Aspen forming in 1997, you can see the heritage facility that is pictured on the top right. So this facility is still on site, but it has undergone significant modernization in recent years to bring it in line with Aspen and global pharmaceutical standards. And you'll recognize the saw roof structure as you walk through this facility in France as well today, so do keep your eyes open for that. Then in 2004, that picture is our oral solid dosage facility, referred to as Unit 1 , where we constructed the facility. In 2005, we obtained our FDA approval, as noted earlier, for the first manufacturing facility for the approval of antiretroviral generic medication.
Then moving forward to 2007, when the investment in sterile capacity started in our South African business with the formation or the building of Suite 1, which was then later completed in 2009. After that, in 2014, the expansion continued with the construction of SVP or Suite 2, which is the newest facility. That completed in 2020, and that was part of the anesthetic insourcing, and it was also the facility where we produced the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine during the pandemic. And then today, Gqeberha stands proud on the same site it started manufacturing all those years ago, but with world-class infrastructure, equipment, and skills that is aligned with the pharmaceutical standards that we set ourselves.
I'll go through a quick video of a virtual tour of the facility just to give everyone an overview as to what the facility looks like, and you will see the NDB site today in real life. So the first part is the raw material store. As part of the manufacturing process, our first step is to receive the raw materials. We get them from many parts of the world. We then store them for final testing and release, and after this, they are then issued to our production facility. The next step in our production process is dispensing, so it's after we have stored the material and we have the purchase order raised, we then go into the weighing process. We allocate the right quantities, and from here, the products, material is issued to the manufacturing team.
We have the ability to do standard, dispensing, and also we have high-class dispensing isolators, which allows us to introduce high-potent products, which gives us a lot of flexibility to bring various types of products into our, South African sterile business. After the dispensing process, we move into our manufacturing part, which is our thawing step, which you'll see a bit later today in a bit more detail. After that, we move into our filling process. The filling part is the most critical part of our business in the sterile process. In fact, this is where, after we've mixed the solution, we then add all the products together. We then move it into our filling area, and we are able then to inject the solution into ampoules or vials or whatever dosage form we have.
In this area, we normally do this in our isolator environment, so it's a very high, controlled environment. In here, we monitor microbial controls as well as particulates to make sure that the product is free from any contamination, and that we are able to have high reliance on everything that we produce on these lines to make its way to our patient. After this, the product is then put onto a capping machine, where we apply the cap, and from here, it is carefully moved out of the filling area, and we progress through to our work-in-process areas. We have various stores in our facility for work in process. We have ambient as well as cold storage, as our products has different temperature control conditions. Then visual inspection is one of our other most critical processes.
This is where we subject every single injectable unit that we produce to a series of cameras that inspects for particulates, for any integrity concerns, and any even cosmetic defects. And this is the final and most important gate before the product is released and makes its way to our customer. Then the last step in the manufacturing process is packaging, where we put the ampoule or vials into a cardboard container with a patient information leaflet. It is then cartoned, we apply anti-counterfeit measures, and from here it is palletized, and it is then issued to our warehouse team for final preparation before we move into the shipping process. Various products that we have require cold storage. Our anesthetics are cold storage products, which means we have to maintain the cold chain. We have the ability for 2-8 as well as -20.
So the -20 images that you see here, this is where we store our vaccine products. They are kept and controlled at sub-zero temperatures, and after this process, we also apply a series of security measures and temperature control devices so that these shipments are monitored all throughout the process, from the time it leaves our warehousing until it reaches the distribution center and ultimately on its way to the customer. Then, after the product is manufactured, the process is not complete, but at this stage, we have introduced all the quality attributes into the product, and then we go into our final testing, where we do chemistry and microbial testing.
In our chemistry laboratory, we do all the standard tests for assay and purity, making sure the product is at the right efficacy and is also at the right patient safety levels before we are able to, to release this to market. Another key part of our quality control is microbial, where we confirm all the product manufactured and the environment it was manufactured in is subscribed to the required standards. Now, we test over 20,000 plates of microbial readings a month to make sure that our environment is maintained at the stringent conditions that is associated with sterile manufacturing. And then the last process of our supply chain is the shipping, where we prepare and ship both local and international export, and this is where we ensure that our patients have access to the medicines that we produce in this facility.
Then, taking a look at the capabilities and the capacities of the sterile facilities in South Africa. So we have a wider range of sterile capability, ranging from injectable ampoule and vials, but also to ophthalmics or eye drops. So the two ampoule lines that we have are dedicated to our anesthetic products. We have two eye drop lines that is part of our Prestige, or the long-standing relationship with Prestige for U.S. export. They are dedicated to eye drops. Then we also have the three vial lines that are currently in use. The first vial line that you see there is the line that we initially installed for anesthetics. Then we pivoted into the COVID vaccine manufacture, and this line has now been returned back to its original intent.
The second line, which is a vial and cartridge line, is where we produce Novo Nordisk insulin, and then the third vial line is where we produce our pediatric vaccines as part of the Serum partnership. In addition to these seven lines, we also have two vial lines coming on board in 2024, and that also allows us space for three additional filling lines in our Suite Three facility, which will then give us the ability to have 12 sterile filling lines for ophthalmics and injectables in our sterile facility. The sterile capacity expansion was done in conjunction with this Aspen NDB, France facility.
The aim was to create a single sterile platform across the group, and really, that was done by leveraging all the synergies we had in skills, in process, in products, to make sure that we can implement and standardize all our manufacturing processes across these two sterile businesses. Some of the examples that we have is, from the very first design of our South African facility, we had alignment and agreement and support with, with this team to make sure that our process flow, our infrastructure design is aligned, to make sure that we can learn from, from this world-class facility. Our very first sterile operators were qualified on-site, in this room. They had their final qualification, and we were able then to progress with our first injectable, qualification activity in our Suite Two facility.
Then our equipment design and process, including equipment selection, was also done in collaboration with the Aspen NDB team. And then lastly, the lean practices that you will see on the tour today, a lot of those were taken and built into our manufacturing platform in South Africa to make sure that we can leverage what is already working and implement this into our sterile business in South Africa. One of our key value propositions is the ability to be flexible and adaptable. You've seen this in the discussion we had earlier with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, where we were able to pivot and reassign capacity to the pandemic quite quickly. Similarly, we can see it in other examples.
With Novo Nordisk, this was also done by our ability to pivot and reallocate the existing capacity to this new product, to benefit from this opportunity. This was done by facilitating a technical transfer of introducing a new product, but in collaboration with this, we also had to make facility modifications. In the photos, you'll see some of the modifications done to support the Novo Nordisk transfer. We had to install a new facility for formulation, for insulin manufacture. A new dispensary was built, and we also made modifications to our filling area to ensure that the filling line is able to produce the very specific requirements for insulin products, sorry. In addition to the Novo Nordisk, we also have the four technical transfers from Serum. That's following the same process.
Hemant will speak about the rapid implementation methodology later this afternoon, but with similar approach, to be able to be flexible, to find new ways of implementing these products, and to make sure that we are able to transfer them into our facilities at the highest standards and to be able to commercialize thereafter. Now, all of this is also done in collaboration with our French colleagues and South African and French colleagues. The expertise, the people, the learnings are shared amongst. A lot of the changes that we do bring into our facilities aimed at introducing automation to ultimately ensure that we have high efficient processes and processes that ultimately geared up to ensure that we achieve the right quality standards.
Now, lastly, I'll take you through some of our ESG initiatives for the South African business, mainly on water, steam, and energy from recycled plastics. So water sustainability in Southern Africa and for us is quite a key part. So we in 2022 commissioned a water pre-treatment plant with our own borehole that was drilled on site. We are able to extract enough water at 800 or 750 kiloliters a day that's able to cover our entire site usage. So we're able to run our full site off our water pre-treatment plant.
In the next 18 months, we plan to install a second pre-treatment plant and a second borehole, which will be able to double our daily extraction, our daily supply, which will able to cover any future expansions that we do undertake on site. On steam generation, one of the biggest projects that we embarked on is to move away from heavy fuels and move into biomass for steam generation. This is a project that was started in 2021, and the next 6 months we aim to be on complete biomass for steam. Some of the clear benefits here is that the emissions from biomass is a lot lower. It's 10 times less than the South African legal standard, and there's a significant reduction in our CO2 emissions by running this process.
Another important benefit is with the integrated supply chain, it does create jobs outside of our facility for collection points for biomass materials such as wood or certain materials that can be used. That is a good support for our local entrepreneurs. And then lastly, on the energy front, we have quite a few initiatives running on this front. In addition to solar power, with many of our facilities having installed solar capacity, we're also in the process of commissioning and building a 20-megawatt refuse-derived fuel power plant. So this is basically where we take solid municipal waste that we can burn off. We turn it into superheated steam that is then connected to a turbine, and we're able to either use the electricity or save it for later utilization, depending on the load.
So this 20-megawatt facility will be able to provide complete security to our site. We'll be able to run off the grid and also to be running at a cost that is lower than the South African power utility, namely Eskom. And then similarly to the biomass, there's a significant benefit for job creation as well, where we have able to set up local collection points for the municipal waste or the non-recycled materials, to create further jobs. And also, with rather than these items moving to landfill, we're able to incinerate them and, and to draw power from these items. I hope that was a good overview of the South African business. I will then hand over to Stefan. Thank you.
Martin?
Yes.
Are you bringing those veldskoens to France? You're looking to make a fashion statement here?
I have to represent.
Well, you know you've made it when you get the French wearing the veldskoens, eh?
We're not quite there yet. Yeah.
Well done, Martin.
Thanks. Thank you.
Hello, everyone. So if Martin have a little and small South African accent, I've got a small French accent, so I will, I will try to do my best with that. Okay? So just to start and introduce myself. So, I'm Stefan Defossez, in charge of the transformation for the site. So what is the role of the transformation director? I'm in charge of the communication, the continuous improvement, the training, and also the digitalization program. Okay? So first of all, it's clearly an honor to receive you all on the site, and we are very proud to have you on site. And I would like to thank also all the persons on this side who work for the logistics aspect to make this day a success as well.
I will have the privilege to give you a flavor of what is NDB site, commonly called NDB for Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville, before the visit. So first of all, a few information about the history of the NDB site. So, at the beginning of the twentieth century, this Normandy valley was famous for the textile industry, and in the beginning of the twentieth century, so this site was dedicated to textile. And, for the little anecdote, it was making a wick for candles. Okay? And then, during the sixties, the site was bought by Schering Laboratories, and it was the beginning of a pharmaceutical industrial journey. During the eighties, Sanofi bought this site, and it was bought after by GSK in 2004.
And, Aspen acquired this site in 2014, and to make this site as a really strong and wonderful sterile platform in Europe... and also with a huge level of quality, as we are approved by the major international health authority, like FDA for the US, European or French authorities as well, so, and EMA. So we are with the major health authority approved. Just some figures that have in mind that every hour, it's in the world, 20,000 patients will take a medicine from this site. So we have a huge responsibility for the patient at the end. Few elements on this map. So, welcome again on this site. So in green, so you have the main buildings of the site on this map.
In green, this is the API workshop, so API for Active Product Ingredients. We have three different buildings in which we are manufacturing this drug substance. Then in a red bubble, it is a Blow-Fill-Seal, the last huge investment made on the NDB site. You've got in blue bubbles, so three bubbles for the prefilled syringes. One building dedicated for filling, one for inspection and packaging. We've got the pink bubble, which is the laboratories, the amber bubbles, which is a warehouse. You are able to see the little red star. It is where we are now, okay? So you are really in the middle of this campus, and the yellow triangle will be the spot that you will have the opportunity to visit later. So this campus is near 200,000 square meters, okay?
So please, during the visit, stay with your group. We don't want to lose somebody, okay? So we want to have you with, with us during the lunch, okay? Quick overview of our key processes on the site. I spoke about API production manufacturing, so we are manufacturing in this API, area, all the anticoagulants, used on this site. Then we have the prefilled syringes. Prefilled syringe, we are making different product, anticoagulants, diluents, mRNA technology, and flu vaccines. For the last two, we are under transfer of technology. Technology transfer, sorry. And then, and not, the last but not least, the blow-fill-seal, for anesthetic product, in which we are manufacturing polyamps, either in polyethylene, either in polypropylene, and polybags as well. Focus on the prefilled syringe capacity.
In this building, we have two formulation areas in which we are preparing the suspension, the solution, in fact, which will be filled after on the filling machine. We've got three high technology filling machines which allow us to fill the different products, and the speed of these different machines is between 27,000-57,000 syringes per hour. This last machine is one of the speediest machines in the world. We've got as well four inspection lines. The inspection lines run between 24,000-36,000 syringes per hour, and with really high visual technology to inspect 100% of our syringes, as we've got in South Africa, explained by Martin.
We have a huge responsibility, as I said at the beginning, because at the end of the separation, there is always a patient, and so we are there to clearly protect them, and the quality is clearly in the heart of our activities on site. Then we've got six packaging line. On this packaging line, so we have multiple format adapted to the request of our different customers, and the speed is between 15-24,000 pack per hour. The capacity, as you are able to see, it's 350 million syringe per year, and one-third are still available. Focus on blow-fill-seal capacities. So just the technology start with, you know, polyethylene granules. These polyethylene granules are molded, then melted and molded in polyamps.
Then this polyamps is filled and then sealed. We've got 100 automatic leak detection system in place, and you have also a unique system on visual automatic inspection in the world, because we will have the first machine, we will be able to make 100% visual inspection on polyamps on this site. So it's clearly a clear advantage. Well, then three terminal autoclave for final sterilization of the product and two packaging line. The global capacity for the Blow-Fill-Seal is 50 million polyamp per year, and it is a key contributor of insourcing project such as AstraZeneca for anesthetic product, and the first commercial batches will be done for April 2024. Focus now on capacities on laboratories and warehouse.
As I said before, quality is the heart of our activities, and every day, the obsession is to clearly meet the quality expectation in the world, and our quality systems are there to secure that. For sure, laboratory is a strong player for. So laboratory, we've got three different divisions, one for physical chemistry. So in the physical chemistry, it's more than 20,000 analyses per year, which are done. In microbiology, with among other different analyses, it's 25,000 environmental analyses per year, and for the packaging component control, it is more than 2,500 controls per year as well.... Focus on warehousing, so we've got more than 7,000 pallets storage capacity at ambient temperature. But also with the mRNA journey, we are working on this site.
We are installing a huge capacity for the cold chain with a different characteristic between 2 to 8 degrees, -20 degrees and -40 degrees. Also we are working, all, all the way of working on new, with that, because you could imagine that with -40 degrees, you are able to see during the the video of, Martin, how, people, wear specific, tenue. At the end, it is, roughly 92% of our export, of our production, which is exported and, with, around 275 SKUs. Globally, it's 22,000 pallets every year who leave the site around the world. So we've got a breaking news to share with you today because, in fact, two weeks ago, we just obtained, in fact, the Gold certification by the EcoVadis organization.
So it is a very important satisfaction for us because these very good results place the NDB among the best-rated company in the world. Only 5% assessed by this company, EcoVadis, rate are rated Gold certification. So it gave us, in terms of sustainability, a good place. Have in mind that it's around 100,000 company who are assessed every year for this certification. So we are very proud to share that and as a breaking news today. In terms of water consumption, we make some huge improvement. So the level of water consumption we are using per year now, it's below 100,000 cubic meter per year. As you're able to see, we divided by five our water consumption in 10 years.
That means, we did a lot of effort to do that with two main things. We had all the building, which has been destroyed, replaced by another. We transfer the machine in the new buildings, and with new technology using less water, we were able to reach this first step. The second step was also we use a lot of air conditioning, HVAC, and we need the chilled water, and we changed, in fact, the cooling water to a new technology. I don't want to be too, too much on scientific, but, but with a adiabatic process, and it was the second step, which was very helpful to reach this very good results. And last but not least, how we are impacting in terms of carbon footprint on the planet.
So, also, globally, in two years, we will decrease by 50% our carbon footprint on this site. A lot of different action to do be able to achieve that. I think that you were able, maybe when you arrived this morning at the entrance of the site, just on the right side, on the right side, there is a big solar panel park. So if you didn't have the opportunity to see that this morning, you will have the opportunity during the visit. So a big solar panel. It's not the day to have solar panel, but sometimes you have sun in Normandy, don't worry. And the biggest also impact will be with the biomass heater. So the biomass heater, Martin, gave us some explanation.
So clearly, to use waste wood to use this waste materials in a heater and to save a lot of carbon footprint. Okay, so I hope that this presentation gives you the taste of what is Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville, and you will have all the opportunity during the visit to go deeper in detail for all the different questions. Thank you.
Thank you.
I think we're on time.
Thank you so much, Stefan. Thank you all to all the speakers in the first session. I hope that was very informative for all of you in the room and those of you who are joining us online. We will now break for the actual site visit. I'll ask the in-person attendants to congregate in the entrance in your various groups. For those of you who are joining us online, you can use the same link that you joined in in the first session for the second session. We will meet again at half past two CET, and we ask for a little bit of grace if we are slightly late in the second session and not start. Thank you all. Afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to the second session. I hope all of you in the room enjoyed your tour of the facility.
We're going to head right into the next speaker, which is Lorraine. Lorraine, if I can ask you to come up, please. Thank you.
Sure, the lights are bright here. So, good afternoon, everyone. I really do hope that you enjoyed your tour of the site today, and I really just want to thank Elizabeth and the site leadership team and all of those who have assisted. The organization was brilliant. It really went well, so thank you very, very much. So today, we've showcased to you our manufacturing capacity and capability... And Aspen have responded to major disease burden time and again, and we continue to refine what we do in order to have a rapid response, should it need be needed at any time. And as you will have seen, we have a first-mover strategic advantage, as the demand for sterile, advanced sterile technology is definitely on the rise. Sorry.
So in terms of our commitment to patients, promoting access to medicines through the provision of a reliable supply of high quality, affordable products using our manufacturing platform, is the driving force behind everything that we do in manufacturing, operations in Aspen, and serving the patient takes center stage. So I'm coming to quality by design, and quality is at the core and heart of everything we do, and certainly on our tour, I'm sure the guys heard "quality" at least 100 times. So, I'm hoping it was similar on the rest of the tour. It's just an absolute non-negotiable in pharma, and we have an intricate process where precision and excellence are just absolute requirements. There's not any negotiation on that, because we have to ensure the efficacy of our medicines for our patients and their health and wellbeing.
So quality can't just be assured by taking it off to the lab that you saw, doing a few tests and saying, "Okay, it passes all the tests, the product's quality, and we can release it." Quality is carried through right throughout the value chain. So right from choosing who supplies us with components, materials, even our building suppliers, there are all sorts of checks and balances that we put in place, all the way through the product life cycle, to releasing it and even beyond. So, for example, stability testing. So we carry on testing products right throughout their shelf life to make sure that everything that is received by a patient, no matter whether it's just been released or it's near the end of its shelf life, it's good.
We also, you know, post the sale of products, we constantly monitor the safety of our products. So we take complaints and information from patients and doctors alike, and we process it in databases, and we then use that information to really improve the quality of our products or improve the quality of our product information. So how do we assure this compliance? 'Cause it's got to be everything that we do. We live, we breathe, think, sleep, quality. And so we have a few levers that we have to assure compliance. The first one is we have some internal controls. We have internal audits, we have self-inspection, and these processes are undertaken by various internal Aspen personnel, reported on and acted upon if needed. We also then have multiple visits from regulators.
They have different inspection cycles for different factories, but it's at least every 2 years, they come, 2 or 3 auditors, 3 weeks at a time. They spend going through everything from A to Z. And then our suppliers, our customers, and prospective clients, they also come around frequently, and I think I had a look for the South African operation. This year, 35 out of the 52 weeks have had either a visitor audit, a regulator audit, or some kind of assessment going on at the site. And then our sites have multiple approvals from stringent regulators. So I think some of you saw the Japanese product running. We service the USA, right across Europe, so some of the most stringent regulators have given us approval.
That just assures that the products are always safe, and reliable for use by our patients. So I think today you all had the opportunity to go and have a look at where we do the manufacture of the Fondaparinux API. And so as part of our continuous assurance of, of excellence and quality, we have to remove any chemical impurities from anything that we deem suitable for, for human use. So I think you would have seen on the, on the wall there, I think Elaine showed you, it's very complex chemistry. There's a total of 59 steps, the 53 that you saw, and then the 6 that we do, here in NDB. And it starts with the manufacture of what we call three building blocks. So we have three chemicals that we combine together.
One of the building blocks is made in a bunker because it's a highly explosive reaction, and we make these three building blocks with three separate suppliers. So we keep the integrity of our know-how very carefully. So what happens is we combine these building blocks into the API, the crude, what we call crude or impure API, which is there on the left-hand side of the screen. Now, that's done at our API site in the Netherlands, okay? So they buy the building blocks, they put it into crude, and they deliver it here to the to NDB. NDB then test it, and you can see the line on the top there, the brown line. So all those little bumps that you can see along that line are the impurities that are still present from the complex chemical reactions that have been carried out.
So what we do here is then, I think you all would have seen, we take it through the charcoal, we take it through filters, we do precipitation, and we get the pure substance, which is greater than 95% pure, out of the process. And I know some of you asked, we start off with many kilos and end with a few kilos. So it's an intense process, and it removes all of those impurities. And then, what we do is we take that pure substance, and we take it back to our laboratory, where you saw some of our very sophisticated equipment, and we test it, and then we get the blue line.
So the big spike on the blue line is actually the Fondaparinux, but you can see that all the impurities have been removed and reduced, and you can see the material then loses its browny, orangey color and becomes the pure white substance. We're always striving to improve continuously on how we can purify more and more. Then, if I come to the next point, which I wanted to make on quality, I'm sure you all saw the automatic visual inspection that we did today. So because all injectable products are delivered directly into the body, and some are even directed into the bloodstream, it's absolutely essential that we cannot have the tiniest of contaminant in there. If you have a look there, I've got a picture of a 100-micrometer particle.
I think that's the limit of what the naked eye can detect, and we've got to detect particles even, even smaller than that particle. So we've developed the process, and you all saw our automatic visual inspection. For those who were in my group, you got a little cheat. We, we went to have a look at the new visual inspection line, which is our 22 camera, high-speed line. But we have these, these cameras that you all would have seen working on the visual inspection line, and they have the ability to detect any particles that or any actually anomalies, so they can pick up cracks in syringes, they can pick up little chips of glass, they can pick up anything.
There's some 300 cameras that work behind those machines, picking up all the different particles or anything, and then you saw that they were being rejected and moved off. Sometimes we have a false reject, we take them back, we do it again, and if they're still rejected, we reject them. But that gives us the assurance that absolutely no particles will go anywhere in an injectable product. Some of you may also have seen the manual visual inspection, which is also a mandatory requirement, where they were looking at that special in that special light. Interesting to note that they have a specific time for which they can work to make sure that there's no personnel fatigue in doing that visual acuity against those lights.
You would have seen the little stopwatch there, where they're timing what they do. Quality is the first and foremost consideration of our customers, and that's all our customers. When we engage with our new prospective customers, really, one of the first things, before we get into commercial negotiations and discussing all sorts of technical detail, the first thing they want to do is come and do a quality audit. They send sometimes teams of three, four, five people, they come for a couple of weeks, and they go through all our processes, procedures, the way we operate, and once that's been successfully completed, we then come to the next step, which they will then come and do some audits, such as health and safety, environment, cybersecurity. They look at our technical capabilities.
So they do the quality, they then do all this diligence, and then once we've said, "Okay, we're compatible," then, we move to a more commercial process. And not every pharma company has the same quality offering. I think you would have seen today, we have cutting-edge technology. We have a high level of automation, which eliminates the possibility of human error, and we have a very strategic approach to quality. As I said earlier, it's at the core and heart of everything that we do. These are just some of our customers. The bottom one is Viatris, but these are some of the quality statements. So you can see from Big Pharma, it's a real big focus. These are all off the Internet, where they have the statements on their websites.
So what is our sterile value proposition? And I think core to our value proposition is our motivated, capable, and patient-centric teams that we have. And really, the mindset of the teams is they make it happen. Okay? That's... Anyone you talk to who's involved in the projects, they'll tell you that we're gonna make it happen. And our rapid and compliant execution of technical transfers, and then the subsequent commercial manufacture through our solution-oriented and patient-centric approach, is critical to our success. So I'm sure Hemant will take you through it a bit later, but we say, "Okay, what date do we need the product out the door? How do we work backwards to make sure that we can meet that timeframe?" And we frequently receive recognition from our customers.
J&J, when we were doing the COVID vaccine, they referred to us as the jewel in their crown. And, I'm just gonna read an extract of an email that they sent to our teams, at the end of 2021, where they said, "At the end of a very challenging year, we wish to express our sincere thanks to the entire Aspen team for the exceptional performance. Together, we pushed boundaries and achieved goals which initially seemed unachievable." When we started with the J&J vaccine, we weren't the first company that they were working with, on the tech transfer, but when we finished, we finished in first place. So we really... And I'll let Hemant take you through all the timelines, but it was unprecedented in the industry. Then, as you know, we're working with Novo on the insulins.
Again, we've applied our transfer approach, which is very different to their standard approach, and recently they sent us a photo of them all having a cake that had Aspen written all over it, and they were celebrating that we'd met one of the milestones because they actually just didn't really believe it was achievable. But we made it, so they definitely celebrated. And these endorsements come from some of the biggest pharma companies globally, so it really is something that we are exceptionally proud of. So how do we do it? Well, we have a no rest, no rust approach. Because not everything is gonna work according to plan.
Of course, we all sit down, we do a beautiful plan, but we're not naive to think that that plan is just gonna execute day by day, and everything's gonna go just as we, as we hoped it would. And it's our ability to find solutions and our agility, our agile approach, which are really the core enabler of, of what we, what we do, and it's really valued by our customers and our, our, our partners. So I'm gonna give you a couple of examples. They, they gave me a limited time here, so I can't take you through them all. I'm very sorry, but you'll just get a couple. But you can always catch me afterwards, I'll give you the rest. So, recently, we, we were approached, by Novo: "Really need to get insulin out in the African continent.
How quickly can you help us?" So we had a look at their vial. It's a very special vial. It's not like ones that we use. And we looked and we said, "Okay, if we get a line, it'll take this long." And then one of the team said, "Hey, what about if we take that line over there and adapt it?" So we looked into that with our equipment supplier, and lo and behold, he said, they actually said, "Yeah, we can do this." So that shaved between 12 and 18 months off the project. And I think Martin also shared with you how we adapted the building. So he was showing you that we had to do some building infrastructure changes to accommodate it, but that's all done and complete, and the project's moving forward.
So, that's the type of agility and ability we have. And then another example, which I want to share with you, and I can actually even show you some parts of it, but we started a vaccine transfer project with one of our customers, and they also asked for very tight timelines. And we said, "No problem," started the project. We've been running for a few months, actually, and we got a phone call: "Can we have an urgent meeting?" "No problem." They said, "Oh, we need to tell you that we actually have to change from glass syringes to plastic syringes." So we said, "Oh, okay." Formed our little task team.
We all sat down, we got our equipment suppliers together, and we said, "We've got a new challenge." Always wanting to, you know, see how we can improve on what we do. And it might seem like a small change, and if you look at it, it's quite hard to tell. I think I showed some of you the plastic syringes. They also look a little bit like glass, but it's not quite that simple. So if you have a look at the bottom there, when you walk out, there are two tubs under the... One opaque tub and one transparent tub with syringes in it. Now, the plastic syringes come in the transparent one, and the normal syringes we use for thrombosis come in the opaque one. So what's the problem?...
When you saw the filling line running, we have sensors that track that tray all the way across the process. But now the sensors can only detect the opaque tub. Then suddenly being able to shine through the transparent material now means we have to adapt the line to do all of the or make all the sensors able to work off the transparent tub. Then we went to visual inspection, and some in my group, we did a quick detour and had a quick look at Vulcan, which is where we're going to be doing the visual inspection for this plastic syringe. And yeah, the material's different. So the cameras and the algorithms and all the different activities, the syringe is a slightly different diameter.
So all those line adaptations and recipes for the visual inspection had to be changed. And then if you go through to packing, you would have seen all the syringes going through into... out of the comb or nest into the machine to be labeled. Of course, this one is different. So all those robots that we have there doing this now need to be changed in order to be able to work with that syringe. But really, this task force did incredible work, and I'm very happy to report that there was no impact on our tech transfer timelines, and the project is running with the same end date. And then just on technology transfer, so I'm not going to steal Hemant's thunder.
But really, an efficient and compliant tech transfer process is a critical differentiator because sometimes they can take three, four years if you don't have this rapid approach that we have followed. And of course, if we follow the rapid approach, we get our capacity full quicker. We also get access for patients much quicker. So for us, it's really something that we pay critical attention to, and we have teams that are really geared up to be able to find solutions and deliver technology transfers quickly. Then importantly, executing on our capacity full strategy. So you can see there, and I'm sure all of you know these, but we've got, and Sean mentioned the multilateral partnerships, the partnerships with various companies, the Novo, we've got mRNA.
So we've announced recently some of the partnerships that we have, and we have another, a number of other partnerships under discussion at the moment. So I left a space there. Watch that space for in the coming months. Hopefully, soon the slide will be very crowded. And I'm very happy to report that we are on track with our various projects. In terms of everything that's within Aspen's control, we're meeting all our milestones. For the serum vaccines, we are targeting SAHPRA, which is the South African regulator, as well as WHO pre-qualification next year. It's a... Well, that's something where we're quite reliant on the cooperation of the regulator, but we have a lot of interaction with them to really drive home the importance and to collaborate with them.
So just in closing, I think it's been alluded to already, January 2024 is, I think, five weeks away now. And that's where we really start executing on our, our capacity full. You've seen some projects in full swing here, very much likewise in Gqeberha , and, we really do look forward to the very exciting times that we have in terms of delivering, from 2024 onwards. Thank you. I'm going to call on Hemant now, who is going to take you through the technology transfer process.
Okay. Okay, good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to take you through the technology transfer process, but I'm going to do it in relation to the COVID vaccine project. So we have a proud history of undertaking numerous tech transfers with various multinational companies, and that's come through in all of the presentations. This experience, coupled with our tech transfer... rapid tech transfer process, enabled us to transfer the J&J COVID vaccine ahead of all other CMOs. Having started in a position of seventh, we were able to transfer the vaccine first within a period of 6 months. Now, to put this into perspective, like Lorraine said, a tech transfer of this nature would have taken anywhere between 18-24 months.
I want to pause on that timeline because all of us have lived through the COVID pandemic, and I want you all to think about what 18-24 months timeline would have meant if that's what it took for us to achieve manufacturing the vaccine. We wouldn't have had an impact on any patient. So this was a monumental effort. This incredible achievement, coupled with our excellent service delivery post the transfer, led to J&J, as Lorraine mentioned already, referring to Aspen as the jewel in the crown. Today, I'm going to provide you some insight into our tech transfer process so that you can understand how we achieved this monumental effort. The tech transfer process usually starts with the information exchange, and this is normal at the beginning of the process, whereby both companies exchange intellectual property.
During COVID, many of the CMOs undertaking the tech transfer were susceptible to cyberattacks. We at Aspen were in a fortunate position in that our IT infrastructure had a high level of security, meaning that we can receive the IP from J&J and store it safely. The reason why there were cyberattacks was because of the IP being precious and the amount of research that was behind the IP. Once we receive the IP, then we undertake what's called a due diligence, and it's a mutual due diligence. This normally occurs in two phases. The first phase will be a desktop due diligence, and the second phase will be an on-site physical due diligence, which Lorraine mentioned already about the audits that are undertaken at our sites.
Now, during the desktop due diligence, what Aspen will be looking at is we want to understand the product, we want to understand the process for manufacturing the product, and we're also looking at the materials used to manufacture the product. This is done so that we can determine whether it's feasible for us to manufacture the product at our site. Now, during the J&J COVID vaccine, we went through the due diligence for the product, and we picked up a very important fact on the drug substance. The drug substance couldn't be processed with a high level of intensity of light, and we needed to put the drug substance into a room with less intensity light. And this is important because what we'll then look at this, and we'll consider our infrastructure.
Do we have a room to place the drug substance in with a low intensity of light? So that's important for us. Now, when a partner company or J&J looks at Aspen, and they're undertaking a due diligence, they're basically looking at our infrastructure, they're looking at our capabilities, which you saw at NDB is vast, and then they're also looking at the quality systems that we have in place, which Lorraine mentioned. Now, when they look at this, they're looking at it from a perspective of risk to their product, patient, as well as their reputation. Now, many of you will recall during the COVID pandemic that there were a lot of travel restrictions, and this proved challenging for J&J because then they couldn't come onto our site and undertake their due diligence.
So to overcome this challenge, we were able to provide them with a live interactive tour. It was a virtual tour of the site, and it was done using state-of-the-art technology as well as using Google Lens. And this was very important for the project, because it enabled J&J to assess our infrastructure and our capabilities and actually led to them appointing us as a CMO. Now, I'm going to take you through... And the next step, sorry, is establishing commercial terms. So once we've done the due diligence, we move on to commercial terms. And what sets us apart from other CMOs is that we have high-speed machines, they have cutting-edge technology, high levels of automation, and this allows us to afford economies of scale, and also thereby adding a commercial benefit to our customer.
Now, I'm going to take you through the more technical aspects of the tech transfer, and I think here is where we showcase our capabilities, we walk the talk, and we produce the product of the highest quality specifications, needed by our customer. So in this process, I'm going to start with the drug substance. And this was key for us to receive the drug substance timeously from J&J for us to meet our project timelines. But it is also key for us to receive ongoing, continuous supply of the drug substance so that we could maximize our output from the site. To this extent, we supported J&J in receiving the drug substance by applying for import permits in advance of the shipments being sent, because these had long lead times.
We worked with customs officials to make sure that the shipments were offloaded and cleared timeously, and we also alerted customs officials so that they were aware that shipments were coming on the weekend, and they... we, we ensured that they had presence at the ports during the weekends. So when we received the drug substance at minus 60, we then have to transfer it into a freezer at the same specification, minus 60. And I think you will recall during COVID, there was a lot of media coverage around, the cold chain distribution for the finished product to the patient. And equally, in the manufacturing sector, we had a similar challenge. We had to maintain the cold chain during the entire manufacturing process.
During that, we had to establish our freezers, and when we spoke to J&J, they referred us to their supplier in the US, whom we engaged with, and the supplier came back with a 6 months lead time and said, "That's the time just to start the manufacture." We then couldn't accept that timeline, and we pivoted to work with a local manufacturer in South Africa, and we were able to manufacture the freezers, design and manufacture the freezers with the supplier in a period of 3 months. These freezers were made out of shipping reefers or shipping containers, and these were really adequate for the role that we needed them... So once we have the drug substance, I'm now gonna take you into the thawing step.
Thawing may seem relatively straightforward because it's basically transferring it from a solid form into a liquid form. However, it wasn't that easy for the J&J drug substance, because once we thawed the drug substance, we couldn't refreeze it. So our planning and our processing had to be exceptional and meticulous. And, we also like, I think Martin showed it in his slide with the drug substance in the thawing room. We had to have a thawing room that had motion sensors so that when people entered, the light came on, otherwise, the room was always dark. So once we thaw the drug substance, we then transfer it to a vessel, and to that vessel, we add the remaining materials, which are mixed to form the product mixture.
This product mixture is transferred into our filling line, and our filling line basically fills an exact volume into each vial. Now, our filling lines are capable of detecting the volume on each and every vial to make sure that they are exact. And some CMOs use what's called, statistical sampling. So they take a portion of the vials and check whether the volumes are identical. Now, filling the exact volume in the vial is really important because it's, it ensures that the patient receives an accurate dosage of the medicine that they're receiving. So once we fill it in the vial, I think you've seen a lot of inspection on all of the presentations and at the site.
We send it to the inspection area, and just to recap on everything, when it's at the inspection area, basically we're looking for defects, and we're looking for foreign particles. I'm not sure if you'll manage to see this, but we also have trained manual inspectors at the site. So these are the individuals are trained to identify defects. So when the line ejects what it thinks is a defect, it then gets passed through, or it gets sent to the manual inspectors to look at. So once we're done with inspection, we send it through to the packaging area. Here, we label it in the branding of the customer. In the case of J&J, we transfer the finished product to the -20 freezer. Now, once it's in the freezer, we have to undergo the quality control testing, the release testing.
In the case of the COVID vaccine, there were numerous labs that tested our product around the world, including the J&J Laboratories. We had a 100% success rate, whichever lab, irrespective of which lab tested our product, in the release testing. Now, this is a very unique story when it came to the COVID project because it was a first for all of us. The labs were really constrained during COVID because they were testing for multiple companies, and they had tight scheduling. A plane was chartered to pick up our samples from PE, and the pilot didn't even get off the plane, and the samples were sent back to the US for testing, just so that we didn't miss the slot with the lab in the US.
That was the key for us in progressing in the project. Now, once we finish the testing, we generate data, and this data is really important from a regulatory perspective in registering our site. What is the regulator looking for? They're looking to see that our data that's generated at the site is comparable to the original data generated by J&J. We had no queries on our submission. When J&J submitted our data, we were registered on the first shot. One would think now that the tech transfer process is over, and we can walk away, it doesn't end there. We also have the logistics and commercialization to take care of.
To do this, what we did at Aspen is we partnered with the logistics service providers from J&J because of the cold chain shipments. We ensured that our teams were adequately trained to handle and manage the shipments of the finished product. Another interesting fact from that was each and every pallet, Martin showed you the data loggers, which measured the temperature during transport. On top of those data loggers, we had each and every pallet had a tracking device, meaning that J&J could track it, the pallet, anywhere at any given time in the world. So they could identify the pallet, track it, because the cargo was very valuable, and this was a security measure.
And I'd like to close by saying, we're very proud of the fact that we produced 225 million doses of COVID vaccine. And I think, we saved the lives and improved the quality of lives of many people. This is our mission at Aspen, and this is something that motivates the teams that Lorraine mentioned when we undertake tech transfers. Thank you.
Thank you, Human. Thank you. So it's been a long day, and when I put on a presentation, you know, we're good at doing tech transfers. And you guys look, "Oh, that's one line. What-- Where's the number?" I just thought it would be good for you to understand what a tech transfer involves and what it entails, and it's a lot more than two longish words. So, a really fantastic achievement from our teams, and they've gotten a very important achievement for what we hope to do. And for all of you who've come today, I really appreciate those of you who've come in person because just like tech transfer, to truly understand this business and where it's going, I think you have to see the sites.
You have to see what we're doing on the sites. You see it's real, and to see the technologies here. Besides the fact that you're getting your 10,000 steps in, so you're getting points on your health programs, which was, that's you also got a little bit of exercise here. So I'm gonna talk a little bit, just a little bit about Aspen, aside from manufacturing. I'm not... You've seen everything you've kept to see on manufacturing. I'm not going to spend take you through a whole lot more and rather leave a little bit more time for Q&A. But let's have a look at, you know, what Aspen's trying to do strategically and just look at our strategic focus.
Commercial pharmaceuticals, remember, is three-quarters of our business and sales, and obviously the bigger portion of the profit because we lose money in our finished goods for manufacturing. The way we see our business, and our business is very up. I look at our business in commercial pharma as without China, and then there's China, and then there's manufacturing. The commercial pharma business without China is about two-thirds of the business, in rough terms. That's sort of what the turnover is, and, you know, we talked about the house and the house needing strong foundations, and it's very hard to launch or build anything unless you have strong foundations. That's what we've been trying to do, is consolidate that foundation, get predictability so that you have the confidence to be able to launch.
I think this is the phase we're in now, and to tell you that with two-thirds of the business, we're very clear that we have a very strong foundation. The other third of the business sits between China and manufacturing. Manufacturing is, like, 25, and the balancing, just less than 10% is probably it sits with the Chinese business. This business without China has got sustained organic growth, and beyond the organic growth. We've got an ability to supplement this business because of the. We've got a very good footprint and a very different footprint from most, and so we are able to get to transactions that leverage this footprint. You've seen some of the transactions that we've done already, even in this period coming up.
The transactions for the LatAm portfolio will once again bolster our footprint in Latin America, which is an important area for Aspen, as well as the Lilly transaction in South Africa. What you should also know, to go back to organic growth, is we're trying to get in these transactions, the pipelines as well. So yes, we, we want a pipeline of branded products, a pipeline of generic products outside of what we do ourselves, but to be able to have partners that bring them to us. And these are pipelines we wouldn't ordinarily have access to, and we have achieved that in those two transactions. The LatAm transaction goes live on 1 November, and the Lilly transaction's also been cleared by regulators, and we think we have a 1 January start there.
I must say, every time we look at our plans for Mounjaro launch in South Africa, they increase, and Lilly said, "Whatever number you put there, put a multiple on top of that." And it is definitely the most exciting launch we've ever had for our South African business, and we've had many, many exciting launches in the business, obviously over two and a half decades. And the launch date is for next year, probably around the middle of next year, the anticipated. Of course, we've got to need regulatory approval, and as you know, this product has now been approved for weight loss, including diabetes in the U.S. So a very exciting launch for our team, and teams are very excited with what they might be able to do with that product.
So two-thirds of our business, predictable, good, good organic growth, pipelines to sustain it, and many people approaching us. It's sort of a stampede. You know, one multinational comes to you, then another. "Gee, if GSK can do it or Lilly can do it, Amgen can do it, maybe there's another plan for people who can do things better than, than ourselves." And, you know, just taking on Amgen, the growth that we've achieved relative to what Amgen did is very material, to them, and they say, "Whew! It was a really good call." So it's... It makes sense for everybody and both parties. China has sort of hung over Aspen because it's been a bit of a dilemma for us because it's been an unbelievable performer within Aspen, and we've taken...
We've got a great team, and they took products that were declining at 19%, and they've more than doubled the business since then. So we've got a fantastic team. And the Chinese business, the China economy and the pharmaceutical business is a very big opportunity. And, you know, I look at people and they say, "Oh, China, but, you know, it's not growing so much anymore." Well, you know, it's doing really bad. It's dropped from 10% to 6% growth rate. Everybody else in the rest of the world put up their and say, "Please, give me 6% tomorrow." And that's important for us because as more and more people get into absolute wealth, the absolute ability to afford their medicines, that's been part of our model across emerging markets. They want the branded products.
We make it accessible, and so the Chinese market is a very real opportunity for Aspen. However, hanging over us after all this good performance is something called VBP. Now, we can discuss what VBP means, but in terms that are easy to understand, it sort of says post-patent. It's the Chinese way of taking a product post-patent in a forceful way, but it's post-patent. Other markets, your turnover drops, and then you're able to build it up afterwards if you... with the right protection. So very important for us was two, two areas in our focus for China. We wanted an area where we could protect our team, which is mainly dealing in hospitals. Remember, anesthetics, Fraxiparine, mainly dealing in hospitals. How do we put more products onto that platform to compensate for the VBP impact? And also how do we license products in?
Because the other opportunity that's proving very interesting for Aspen is that many Chinese companies with good technologies want to use Aspen either to, as a company that can give them a global footprint with anesthetics, a company that can look very good on an IPO, as opposed to potentially a local company, and a company that's not. There's been quite a lot of issues in the Chinese market about how people have traded in there in terms of bribery, corruption, all the rest, and they feel comfortable that Aspen wouldn't be involved in all of this. And we busy piecing together a puzzle on that side. And the second part, so that's preserving what we call hospital...
Everything goes through a hospital in China, but I'm talking about hospital-based products, where you're gonna go into a hospital and get an injection. How do we preserve that good team and grow it? And two, how do we get what we call more retail-focused products? Now, retail-focused products are not, as you might think, you know, going into a supermarket or something like that. It's products you get in the pharmacy, where you say, "You know, I don't want that particular medicine. I want that brand because I recognize and like," and you've got some discretion over what you wish to choose.
I think we've made a very, very good progress, and it's taken a lot of hard work and years, but we've got a high degree of comfort of managing products that will fit on top of our portfolio, give us what we're looking for in maintaining our team, and then having new products that we'll in-license that will give growth and sustainable growth into the future, in that team. And so that often means looking at other products that are either post-VBP or post-patent that we can add on top, that don't have the risks of being eroded, and then also bringing in sort of new chemical entities that will do have a patent, but it's a long way off.
We're also trying to work in the retail space, but I think the first part of the business, we have a very high degree of confidence of where we're gonna do, and all I can tell you is probably just watch that space, and hopefully we can get you some sort of update on that shortly. On manufacturing and our strategic focus for manufacturing, it's a critical success factor to our strategic vision and ambitions, and today is... we bring you here because it's that important.
Of course, it seems crazy to be talking about a business that's, you know, that a quarter, it only makes up just 25% of the sales in the business, but it's an important business for us commercially, which Sean's taken you through some of the numbers, and what we achieve socially, and it gives us a capability to really enhance equitable access. And, you know, a lot of people say, "Oh, equitable access." There's a commercial angle to equitable access, so, you know, don't think that this is only a one-way street. As Sean mentioned to you, commercial, having volume is a very important part, and I'm glad you've walked around these factories.
You say, "Oh, my God, I have a lot of fixed costs." If I can put volume in here, I get that volume at lesser increments, and that's what access often gives us, is big volumes that is able to pay your base costs, and you're able to put other volumes on top. In addition, just the tech transfers that Hemant was referring to, we've been very fortunate in that being involved in ARVs, for example, we might have had 10 or 15, whatever number of tech transfers from multinationals, each coming with how they wanted to put an ARV into Aspen to get access, and that was cool.
But what was better for us was that we learned, from every tech transfer, we learned something, and whether we took one step out of that process or two, by the time we had everybody's best, their best tech transfer process, we were able to take steps out of each. And we now have a situation where people think that Aspen is the best tech transfer company in the world in terms of what we do, and a lot of that has been because we created access. Lots of companies felt the need to give access, gave us the tech transfers, and we took the best out of...
We picked the eyes out of the best tech transfer process to be able to be in the situation we are today, where we are able to do tech transfers at least at quicker than twice that, what the industry standards might be. From a commercial point of view, the delivery here is material to growth and returns. I don't need to recap all of this, but I think it's clear that we have installed capacities, and you've seen the costs are all there. There's a real need now to be able to put more volume in there to get the recoveries. And calendar year 2024 is an inflection point for us.
We moved from, from losses for many, many years, and the sort of only spike we had in terms of either getting out of losses was largely in the COVID, when we sold some of the COVID vaccines. But we moved from significant from loss-making to significant profitability. We had always hoped in our plan with COVID, when we switched out, was that the assurances given to us at the time was that, you know, this was a two- or three-year project and was gonna be two or three years, and then this all kicked in, and, you know, COVID might dissipate and go away. It just- it went away a little quicker than than we realized, and certainly a lot less than we were, we were led to believe by those that were going to buy the vaccines from us.
Sean has covered the fact that it gives you a fundamental shift in returns on assets and material advances in profitability. We put the products in, we don't. There's no better profitability you can make than making more profitability off the same number of assets that you have. And our focus, we all focus on where you're going and what's next, but really, our focus has to be on our existing contracts, which will achieve a contribution of ZAR 4 billion with material upside at full capacity, but our focus has to be on delivering that first, the first ZAR 4 billion, which has a very high percentage of EBITDA attached to it, or incremental EBITDA. The API business took quite a knock during COVID times, but it's happy to tell you, it's been restored to pre-COVID levels.
Very important part of this manufacturing. If you take our manufacturing in rough terms and say, "If you're on a piece of paper, you're doing ZAR 10 billion of sales, and you make ZAR 1 billion," bear in mind that the manufacturing business is here and finished are making big losses of over ZAR 1 billion. So all of that profitability is coming out of our API business. One of the very interesting shifts that we've seen is the heparin price, which over time seems... We initially told you it was a commodity, and it just kept going up and up and up, and literally went up, literally, the cost went up fivefold. And so we thought, "Phew! This heparin price is, maybe it's not a commodity." And of course, there was swine fever, and then COVID, it was very heavily used.
But what we're seeing now is a very rapid unwind of the Heparin pricing. The Heparin price, I was chatting outside to a few of you. The Heparin price and the Heparin process, you're buying effectively something that is a waste product, so it isn't worth anything to the slaughterhouses. It's worth... In fact, it costs them money to get rid of it, but suddenly it became gold. And so the price goes up and up and up, and you can't negotiate with anybody because there's somebody else who will pay even more. Now, nobody wants to pay anything.
And this is a real opportunity for Aspen, because one of our biggest drags in our manufacturing business, and one of the bugbears in here, is the extent of working capital that we have tied up here and our inability to control, particularly the heparin component of that working capital. And I think I was also chatting outside, and sometimes in life, you've got to know when you're skillful, and to be honest enough, when you've just got lucky. And we haven't been skillful in heparin. We've just been lucky in the process, and that it sort of went up, and you're buying here, and then 18 months later, or a year later, whenever you're selling it, it's worth more.
But this is the first opportunity we've had since we've had Heparin in almost a decade, where we are able to talk to people and say, "Now, you see, what you thought was gold is now worth nothing." So let's think about what really goes on in this process. You've got something you want to throw away. We've got real technical skills, and I want to tell you, the Heparin and the Heparin process are amongst the advanced skills that one requires in pharmaceuticals to be able to manage this process. The biological product is coming out the bloody stomach and intestine of a pig, and you're turning this into a product. There's quite a lot of science to get it from there to into your leg, and arm, and backside, or wherever you take it. But it's a lot of...
So let's respect the science. Let's respect you've got something, but let's also not... If you're gonna charge us ZAR 100 for something, and we're gonna have to keep putting on each every time we have a yield, or it's gonna go to ZAR 150 and ZAR 200, and it's just gonna become unaffordable. Let's rather see it for what it is, which is zero, and let's see if there's a model where we can share together in that process. We are getting some very positive responses. What that - the potential it has for us is very simple. We shared... We don't - we are not part of the commoditization process. We are able to deal with our end customers and are we competitive, and of course, it has a significant reduction.
We're gonna have a significant reduction in our cost of holding stock anyway. I remind you, we have an unwind coming to Viatris. There's a reduction in the costs, and also we've truncated one of our processes by 6 months, from 12 months to 6 months in the process, which means we even have to hold less stock. I think we're really working hard to make sure we're in a situation where we de-risk ourselves from the commodity cycle and the values associated with heparin. And hopefully, when we next talk in our next presentation, a few months' time, this is something that's been well addressed. Why Aspen? I'm not gonna tell you anything more.
I think when I tell you why Aspen, I think you've walked the walk, you've heard the people that can really talk the talk, as I told you, they're talkers and they're workers, and you've heard from the workers today. But you know why Aspen? We punch above way above our weight to deliver access. I'm not going to take you through the timelines, but I want to tell you, each step there of the way has been a jump up further about on how we do what we do from the very early days, and, you know, it gave us so much satisfaction with what we achieved. I mean, it's great when you achieve good results and everything, but it also gives you satisfaction when you achieve these type of results.
And we sort of got addicted to it, and it just keeps going. Looking at that man there taking steps, he looks a bit like Johnnie Walker going up those stairs. The difference between Johnnie Walker and me is he seems to get stronger as the steps get higher, but I think every time I have a Johnnie Walker, I don't quite... I'm not walking as well by the last one or better by the last one. But yeah, he certainly. I think I am, but he certainly is. I think the bottom line here is we're really passionate about what we do. We have a real purpose, and there's really a good reason to wake up and embrace every day. And I always say, you cannot just rely on material things alone to deliver you happiness.
Whether it's your personal business life, there's got to be a greater purpose to what you do. So we have that, and we've got a great team. Our teams have taken you through their facilities, they've taken you through their processes. If I take a step back and say, "Well, you know, I'm not a very technical guy. Have we really got something here or not?" I think if you're unsure, the only way I can answer this question for you, because I'm not a very technical guy, I don't have nearly the skills of the people that spoke before me here... except maybe Sean. We've got a client base of pharma giants, and endorsement, which is real endorsement of capability and process integrity.
When you look at these clients, and you see that every major multinational recognizes Aspen and endorses Aspen, at the end of the day, what have, what has Big Pharma got? They've only got intellectual property. That is their... And that intellectual property is in their products. The products are their baby. This. You don't just hand your baby over to a stranger unless you make sure it's in really capable and safe hands, and that's what they do. And so when I say Aspen's highly regarded, you hear lots of people, "Oh, my company," you see hundreds of presentations, we this, we that. I'm saying, "Listen to us, that's fine.
Believe us if you choose to, but if you're unsure, understand there's your stamp of quality and your assurance that you might need." I really love the stories that Lorraine and Hemant shared in terms of how we find solutions, and we are incredibly, we are incredibly agile. You know, Lorraine tells you a story about glass to plastic. Let me tell you, there was complex engineering solutions required there that I actually thought we couldn't get through. I mean, I even said, "Put me on the line with the bloody glass maker, the plastic maker. I want to hear what is going on here!" And what was achieved by this team was just incredible, and so well done to the team here. So it's clear that we've invested in top-class infrastructure and facilities.
You've seen that, and it's really only trumped by, by the people in the team and the passion with which they do things and the passion with which we find solutions. So, so I think that's a good enough reason for Aspen. You know, one of the other areas is, I think Sean might have said the words, we're at the right place, the right time, with the right capabilities. There is an incredible increase as we speak, and it's literally moving weekly, daily, for sterile demand, for cartridges and prefill syringe capabilities. Absolutely unprecedented. You find the machinery suppliers are now needing more than 24 months to supply you. This is, you know, might have been 9 months, 12 months, even 18, but now it's now more than 24 months. The obesity market is going to need billions of weekly demand to meet.
So why do I say billions? Well, think about a person taking it once a month or needing it. That means you're gonna need 80 million people, give you 1 billion doses. It's as simple as that, and you've got to go and find somebody who's got a billion doses of spare capacity. Now, you've seen a pretty big site here that's got 350 million doses. You're going to need 3 of those sites, but they've also got to be empty. We can... Best we can offer you, so if you come to us, the best we can give you is 100 million. It's very hard to find 10 sites that can even give you this, very few sites that can give you 100 million.
So this is a market which is going to be a big market, and you can do the maths. Remember, they're saying this market's gonna need 800-900 million. The reality of the market is this: there is a demand, there is a very large demand, but only the rich can afford it. So you're gonna be—you have to be rich to be able to access this market for where it is now. So this is your first surge, but the second surge has to come as well because a lot of these products are going generic, not necessarily the ones that are there, but some of the earlier generation of Novo products.
So your other customers that are approaching are people who want to have first-to-market opportunities in this space, and it's very likely that the American system, which has now given some sort of enforced price cuts on products, no health system's gonna be able to afford $100 billion of just extra costs. So I think your next wave is going to be lower-cost products coming in, also increasing volumes, which will be the biggest surge of volumes. What you see now, there's a second wave to come, and I believe it's a generic wave that comes. And that's from an Aspen perspective, we're pretty agnostic. Of course, it's easier to negotiate a price of 2 if someone's price is 100. It's a lot harder to get 2 if their price is 10, but it's still not a very big percentage.
I think that's how we are seeing the obesity market. The largest players are investing very aggressively in capacity expansion. I think it's in every... You read in every paper, you read in news ads, and they're looking both at internal and external capabilities. One of the bigger logjams is actually not so much full finish, but the API. The API is a peptide, and these peptides require a lot of investment, and there are a lot of steps and processes. And, you know, Aspen has a good understanding of peptides because we make a lot of our own on our Dutch facility as well. So there is that is going to be a sort of an area they're going to invest heavily in and, of course, in fill finish.
So our opportunity, the opportunity for those with immediate available capacity, as Aspen has, and I think Sean said, "Listen, you, we've got to invest in the right time." So it's the chicken and egg. When do I put the capacity in? Do I wait? If you wait and you put in now, I believe you're late. There might be something later on, but you're late for this wave. So you've got to make some pretty bold decisions early on, which Aspen made. They weren't uncalculated decisions. They weren't anticipating the obesity market, but they were funded by the anticoagulants and other things. But by funding it through that way and savings, we actually created a bigger opportunity.
And so it's really having that capacity at the standards now, and there are processes being run at the moment, and we're hopeful to be selected in this process.... The nice thing is that as a general rule, dealing with a multinational in these processes can take years, the whole process they run through. But these processes have a lot of urgency, as you can imagine, and so the timing of outcomes is imminent. Our initial feedback is really positive. You've heard Lorraine give you the feedback from the multinationals in terms of their comments around Aspen and the ability to deal with. So our capabilities are really well respected. I mean, I got that firsthand from the highest sources saying, "Wow, you're really on our radar.
We think you guys are fantastic, and we love what we see in your facility. So we're hopeful, but if it's not this, it'll be something else. We filled half our capacity quite quickly with other products, and there's an opportunity, but there is... I can't deny that there isn't a short-term opportunity or potential here that we would hope to be a part of. And then finally, you know, manufacturing is something that sort of has to be in your DNA. At the moment, it's very hard. We see lots of exciting opportunities, so one gets distracted, but full focus has to be to deliver on existing opportunities. You know, you've got to keep being grounded and say, "This is what we've got.
We never had this." We've had five years of having a solid foundation. EBITDA has been flat, but gee, we've done a lot of damage to the debt that was at over ZAR 50 billion, and it's come down, and we spent... At the same time, spent all the money on these facilities, gave you dividends. But the reality is, the EBITDA hasn't grown. But it- but we have settled all our debt and debt obligations. Here is an opportunity for our next surge in EBITDA and EBITDA profitability, and this is what we now need to deliver, and this is the start. You know, this first ZAR 3 billion odd of EBITDA that comes with this first wave is really great because it just goes right through the income statement. And then finally, I think manufacturing excellence is in our DNA. It's...
You've got to try and find your position in an industry. You know, we're not like backline players. It's not glamorous and glitzy. It's more like scrumming. It's a dark art. You spend honest endeavor pushing machines around and sort of putting your head where no one else wants to go. So but I do know that with effective execution, as we've seen, we've got an opportunity to convert our investment in our bomb squad in manufacture into a global trophy, and that's what our aspiration is here today. And I hopefully that we'll keep you updated on the trip as we go along. But as I said, the starting whistle is soon. It's five weeks away, as Lorraine pointed out. So great. So thank you once again, and thank you for your interest and time taken to listen to our story. Much appreciated.
Thank you. Are we going to go into Q&A?
Yes.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Stephen, and the second session speakers. We will now go on to the Q&A session for the day. We have, as a reminder for those who are attending online, there's a Q&A tab that you are requested to pop your questions in, and we'll get to you after we've attended to the questions in the room. And with that, I'd like to offer those who are here with us today to raise their hands if they have a question, and please wait until you receive the mic to ask your questions for the benefit of those who are joining us online.
Bonga, have you got... Sorry, I'm just going to move out these lights here. Have you got the questions online there?
Yes.
They are there. Oh, okay.
So, we've got some questions online. The first question comes from Letlotlo Lenaike from Investec: You have guided to increased free cash flow as a result of lower working capital requirements. How will this additional cash be utilized? Debt repayments, reinvestments, returned to shareholders through higher dividends?
Yeah, look, there are numerous ways to return to shareholders, and so at the appropriate time, you've got to look. But if your profitability is going to go up substantially and your share price stays where it is, probably your better way to return to shareholders is to buy your shares back, I would have thought. And as not a very well-kept secret, if we could buy all our shares back tomorrow, I certainly would be the buyer. It's just a little bit out of range. But I think we'll... The reductions in working capital are not material enough to make massive differences to Aspen, and would probably go initially against our... would go to reduction about debt.
I think, you know, if we look at our working capital, the total value of working of Heparin alone must be about ZAR 4 billion. ZAR 4 billion. So it's, it's not going to be-
Maybe-
... massive influx, but just-
Yeah, maybe just to add, if you remember, we also guided that we've spent this eight-year period, or a lot of that period, investing in our manufacturing. So you have seen that we have started to invest in our commercial pharma with these deals that we've announced and all the opportunities that we're looking at in China. So that would also be part of that strategy as well, is to reinvest in our commercial pharma business, as it has been starved of, let's call it real investment over that period.
Yeah, I think what you should take out of this is we've done a lot of our strategic spend. So when I called it strategic spend, strategy is always a dangerous word, strategic, because often an excuse for not getting returns. So, but we've spent a lot of money on our facilities. And we need, as Sean brought in his slide, to harvest those opportunities. I don't think you're gonna see us doing those type of big spends without returns. If we are to spend, as Sean pointed out, it's likely to be in commercial pharma, and that's a well-understood model. You know, you buy something on day one, and it gives you a turnover on day one and profitability on day one. We are not likely to be embarking on another manufacturing site project.
Before we even do something like it, we've got to get proper returns. And I'm not talking IRR returns that you do on... We've got to get proper returns for the risk. We need the reward for the risk we took, and that means we need substantially higher returns than what one might say I got this in my IRR model. Okay, next question is from Urban Frische from Kieger AG
There's two parts to the GLP-1 production. For those of you that don't know necessarily what that means, that refers to the diabetes/obesity products. There's the peptides, as I referred to earlier, the actual making of the API, which is something we could look at and probably should, but our full focus is on the finished fill portion of it and delivering what we need to deliver here. And yes, we do have an interest. Yes, we do talk to all the major players, and there are other players in the market as well. Those people that want to be a first to launch of a product, for example, in the US, they need to be thinking about where they get the manufacture now.
As I said to you, you know, if the world's gonna have 800 million patients, and that comes to, I don't know, 10 billion doses, there's quite a lot of capacity that's gonna be needed. But I believe if it's going to go from zero to 800, the smaller portion of the first growth will come to those with high-priced products. So the Americans will get it, et cetera, et cetera. But the next wave of lower-priced products will be the ones that drive quite a big volume share.
Okay, the next question is from Lurisha Chetty from Ashburton. Her question, she's got two separate questions. I'll speak about the first one. You have provided us with current and committed prefill syringe capacity at 65%. Perhaps, can you give us a sense of how much of that relates to committed already commercially manufactured volumes such as Viatris, diluents, and your thrombosis business?
Sure. I mean, in very rough terms, because there's no such thing as an exact number on all of these, is that... and when you think about manufacture, I'll just digress for a while. It's a bit like filling a shopping center, okay? You start with your big guns that cover your costs and give you big volumes, and that's sort of where our thrombosis is, which between ourselves and Viatris, phew, around ZAR 150 million-
Yeah
... doses of product. And then there's a further 100 that's coming online. Some of it's already online, like like vaccine diluents for, for GSK, but the rest comes out of mRNA and other contracts, largely around flu vaccines and, and further diluents. And that gives you another 100. Now, with that, it gets us into the profitabilities that you've seen. But the real profitability comes when we fill the last 100. As I said to you later, you know, earlier, if you if you fill it for EUR 1 or EUR 2, whatever, it's a really big incremental gain for us. And for those of you that did the walk-through with us, you'll see there's there's not a lot more OpEx you can add to those 3 filling lines at all, all working as we speak. Is that...
Sorry, was that the question, or did I go off at a tangent?
Yes.
Okay.
No, no, that was the question.
Okay.
The next question is: Are you on track, sorry, for mRNA and the winter seasonal vaccines to begin contributing in the second half of FY 2024?
Yes. Sorry, it's the second half. It's the second half of our financial year 2024. Sorry, it was not the first half of calendar year 2025. I got a bit confused there. Yes, and Lorraine, as Lorraine told you, she's on target. If we miss, it will be because it might be... And we won't miss the number because our numbers are there. If we go beyond that number, it's because Serum has come online. You know, there's quite a big opportunity there if we get our- we get the regulators and that aligned. But we've sort of really put that number very low in our call for calendar year twenty... financial year 2024 and financial year 2025. It's...
We haven't put big numbers in that space, and the numbers we've done have already got to the contracts that we have because we feel comfortable that we're in control, totally in control of that process.
Okay.
So yes, we are on track, but I think, Lorraine, you said as much.
Yeah.
That was it. Who am I to argue?
Okay, the next-
If you notice that there's... Things get done at Aspen properly. And why? We've got only women running the operations. Elizabeth runs the site, Lorraine runs the business, operation. Because it's very easy.
I'm gonna give an opportunity to anyone on the floor. Otherwise, I'll move on to questions.
There's one here in the front.
Okay, great. If I could... Over to you, sir.
Hi. Hi, Stephen. So, you've talked about building, you know, strong houses and also you having a bomb squad and everything, and you've done extremely well, right? In the therapeutic areas, you've been in the past, anesthetics and thrombosis, highly niche and super specialized areas. Now, with this foray into low-cost biologics and into insulin, you're kind of opening up a big third arm, right, if you will. In terms of maximizing this opportunity, you know, what are the things that you need to do to invest in being able to really get the full potential out of what you're doing with Novo, and in some ways with Lilly? What are the kind of investments you'll need to make? What areas, like manufacturing, technology platform, you know, building your talent base? So that's one question.
Yes.
I'll have a couple of other questions, but I just wanted to kind of understand a little bit how you're thinking about this.
And this is just not a cliché, but if you live in Africa, retaining talent is not always easy. And really good talent often gets, you know, gets pulled out. Even during the COVID period, you find, you know, John Nkengasong, that head of the Africa CDC, he was so brilliant, the Americans have taken him to head the PEPFAR funds. And Strive, who head the whole operations, he's been pulled into the Gates Foundation. So you get headhunted at every level in this. So you can sit and whine about it, or you actively manage the process and stay in charge of the process. And to do that requires a lot of training and training skills.
You know, one of our big funders, our biggest funder in Aspen is the IFC, and they are great. You don't often... You know, people talk about bankers being partners, but these are important partners to Aspen because they sit here, and they support us in wanting to build that talent pool with us. Our view is to create courses that we go through universities. You come do practicals with Aspen, and we deliver a pool of human capital into the African continent. So that is something that we really wanna be a part of, and the IFC want to be a part of with us, and so that is very exciting. But maintaining that capital is a critical part. In terms of structures and physical builds, I think we're in a good space because...
But you do need to change things. So, you saw the sites today. mRNA did put pressure on us in certain areas. We've had to build warehouses to cater for this very cold chain. At the same time, we had to increase the lab and the lab equipment by more than 25% to cater for testing on RNA, which is different testing to others. So there are different stresses and strains, and people like Novo in the South African facility, they've got specs way beyond what machinery specs you normally get with standard line. Their standards are off the charts, but we will work to those standards, take the machinery up to those standards.
It does require an investment, but the interesting part is, the more you invest and the more you go up from standard, the less competition you have, and the more opportunity. And you also have a bit more flex in terms of pricing, generally as well, in terms of getting returns. So I don't think we have to invest more in this. There will be no massive jumps in machinery, but I think that we have to keep investing in talent pool. I use South Africa as an example, but it's the same in France. And France would have... Down the road, there's GSK. Novo are building a site now for their weight loss products up the road. So there's always a pull on talent in every continent, in every place.
But we are more sensitive to changes in on the African continent.
Just a second follow-up question to this is that, you know, obviously you're doing everything possible on the operations manufacturing side, right? With Lorraine gonna cover whatever is contractually there. How are you gonna get Novo to give you pretty much that head space that you desire, right? Everybody getting access in Africa to a low-cost, high-quality insulin, right? So how would they be incentivized to do that? Is that gonna be primarily their responsibility, or is there gonna be some kind of a partnership where they will involve you and, you know, grow the overall pie much bigger than what they have been doing on their own?
So Novo are capacity-constrained on insulin, and so they've come to Aspen. Their commitment is to take it from 1 million patients to 4 million patients. The cost of that insulin is a fraction of what it comes into, for example, the developed markets. So it's now absolutely affordable. So they and that, a lot of it is due to what Aspen could provide in terms of taking a product and converting it. And so they can easily pass it on. And remember, they've also got capacities. On the same line you make insulin, you can also make Wegovy or weight loss products, right? There's lots of pressures on that, that...
So we providing solutions for insulin, it should be quite easy for them to get involved, and now it's affordable to the multilateral agencies across Africa. So I think that the ability to create access is easy. And also, the multilaterals and the African patients, who are so under-serviced, have got an ability to pay for these products. So I think the part we have played was to be able to give them a conversion cost that's so efficient to make it easily accessible and ready, and it's on the African continent for them. So there's a desire to go from, I think it was, 16 million doses with like range of about 60. Is it 64? Something like it.
Mm.
So there's a... It's, it was a fourfold increase, and so it's, it's a big, it's a big jump in patient numbers, and if that goes, I'm sure then there's more to be had. We have the capacities to increase. Now, that's where we might- If we wanna go beyond five vial lines, we would have to pay more for another vial line and another line. But it's-... The payback on those lines is really quick, as long as you have a volume commitment. That's a very important part of what Aspen wants to achieve, is to have those volume commitments. Very hard to get them during COVID era because someone said, "I don't know if my COVID vaccine's gonna work." You know, you, you- "I'll pay your costs, but I'm not gonna pay you or give you a long-term contract.
You need to partner with us." So that's. But it's a different thing if someone says, "I want you to make insulin." Or, you know, you say to them, "Okay, you know what your volumes are. You show that commitment. I want 5 years, I want 10 years," and you've seen what it takes to do a tech transfer process. Forget about Aspen. Other people are giving you an 18-24 month process. All the regulatory changes, you're not even seeing a site as good as this. Why would you want to go and switch out of it? So I think those contracts will stay with us for as long as we perform.
Just a last question-
Sure.
If you will. With respect to Aspen, you know, with the kind of place that you're holding within the Africa continent, with these capabilities you have built over the years, how do you see this diabetes foray? It can be a very, very big... It's one of the biggest segments, right, you're entering. If you look at compared to your past two segments, anaesthetics and thrombosis are niche, super niche, compared to diabetes, which is like an ocean. So when you look at Aspen, say, 5 to 10 years from now, how will—how do you see yourself competing with—There are industry players in Morocco. There is a small hub there doing some insulin work. There is another one in Egypt that is coming up.
What kind of things that you would need, key success factors, to enable Aspen to jump and come into the forefront and be the number one?
I think you talked about thrombosis anesthetics, but remember, we're going right into the lion's den with pediatric vaccines for Gavi. You know, that's. You know, one thing I've learned in life, you can't complain, okay? If you're gonna go and compete, you must go and compete properly. And you can talk the words, but if you think that we are competitive on ARVs, when 60% of the costs in the API are made in China and India, well, if we can compete in that space, when there's hardly any API cost in these other spaces, and facility costs only, and we are competing with only 40% of the opportunity, and someone's marking up on the 60, and you've got to compete with them. Aspen has an ability to compete. We're really fortunate within our South African facility, in that it's a large campus.
We have many, many expenses that are common, so we can add lines without adding huge incremental costs. Even at this NDB facility, if you say, "We want another line," I was talking to the team with me, it's no problem for us to put another line in, and the team here will build that site, and maybe they'll build it in 12-18 months. Our delay will be the machine takes, taking 24 months or more. But once you put it in here, those incremental costs, as you saw on the line, there are very few people on the line. So it's not a lot of extra costs to put on an already established site.
Mm-hmm.
But if you say, "Hey, take this up and go next door here and build this thing," oh, my goodness, you're in for so much cost, you can't make it. Now, South Africa, relative to NDB, from an ability to absorb cost, is sort of on steroids, in that it's a big campus that's fully absorbed across many different manufacturing forms besides steroids. So that is our ability to compete. And, you know, you can talk about competing, but at the end of the day, you've got to do it, and I think we've had 25 years of showing that we can compete. It might not be the first prize to be competing with India and China in, on their own space, but we can do it at that level.
But at the same token, we're good enough to be, to give Lilly, Novo, whoever else, what they're looking for as well, and that is unique to Aspen. There's not a lot of people can do that, and I say that... I think that ability to compete comes from generic roots, because we've always been competing largely with India, generically, successfully, in the spaces that we want to play in. So, I'm very comfortable that if we can give Gavi vaccines, we can be even more competitive in, in areas like, insulin, et cetera, where there's shortages of the API. There's not a lot of competition, there's shortages, but there are other areas that open up for us in biologicals as well, that we'd like to be a part of, too. There's The Johnnie Walker's got a few more steps. You know, we had- ...
We had Johnnie Red there at the bottom, and we got to Johnnie Black, and what was the one? We haven't. We've got Green now at the top, but we've still got a few humps to get to that, I don't know, a Platinum and the blue one.
Yeah.
So there's still a few, there's still a few more steps to go there. Just because that's the last step, it's not the end of the road. You know, there's MABs, there's more biologicals that we can look at, there's a lot of the cancer products. So there's a lot we'd like to look at and be a part of. And, many people are embracing... You know, these whole, I suppose all of us are like that, but the industry sort of flocks and say, "Aspen are the people to be with. You can't go anywhere else. You must go there." And, and, you know, we're building that reputation. It's not built overnight, it's not done with words. It's done with all the people that spoke before me, who really execute on those words.
So, I think we're in a very good space there, and—but, you know, you're as good as your last game, so you've just got to always stay on guard.
...
Yes, Christopher.
Stephen, you mentioned here that you see that the diabetes, obesity market is going to grow when prices are coming off. And then you also mentioned that in China, you were thinking about generic business in China when we come a sort of post patents. And if I relate these two statements with the last question here, can you see a possibility when semaglutide is going off patent, the Chinese market is the first one that's going off, that you can actually provide a API and also the fillings for the Chinese market in your manufacturing sites? Is that a possibility or is that out of the question?
It's not out of the question, Christopher, and I'll tell you why. We, we supplied Gilead products to China out of our facilities in South Africa. So our South African facility has got a proven track record of providing millions of packs into, into the Chinese market. And you've got to decide what part of that market you want to play in and be in. A lot of people going into peptides, because of the semaglutides, but it's not a very easy space to be in. And from what I'm seeing out in the market and my intelligence out there, it's the same players getting a little bit bigger. Mainly European players in that space who are getting a little bigger and adding 300 or 400 kilograms of capacities to that site.
So I think it's a market we really got to watch and see the space. We'd like to be a player in that market to manufacture. I think our advantage is be relatively agnostic where the volumes go. Just as long as the volumes are there, and the capacities we've got available are really small in the scheme of what could take off in that market. And we had-
What kind of capacity you have?
Oh, no, well, the capacity. So the people are talking from an API level of 3.5-4 tons of manufacturing. There's hundreds of kilograms out there, that's all. That. Well, I got my volumes right there. So, so there's that. In terms of volumes of, of syringes, you know, we've got 100 million. I told you they only need a tenth of the people. They think they need it's 1 billion. So, you know, we've got a very small. And we can only fill our capacity once. You know, I, as I say, I don't. I think we'd be too late with our capacity. If we put another line in, we took 2.5 years. We, we late, and I think either those companies would have found somebody else or put their own capacity in as well.
I think we, we've got to... We can only do it once, and, and hopefully we do it soon.
Thank you.
So Stephen, you pointed up earlier, I think it was ZAR 5.5 a share of earnings from these contracts by 2026. Yeah? So that's, I don't, somewhere between sort of 50-75 ZAR a share in terms of value, which the market isn't giving you much for at the moment. Yeah? So I suppose there's two things. One, you know, what's the risk to the core business? Yep, that's the first question. And then secondly, you know, in terms of timelines and news flow, you know, when do we hear, for instance, the names of the players that you've signed here? It's the first thing, I think that was when tech transfer was completed. And secondly, with regards... There's been a lot of talk about the obesity market.
Yeah, you're obviously in discussions with people. These guys presumably are gonna have to make some decisions relatively quickly over where they go with customers. So, you know, when might we hear on that? So the question is, one, where's the news flow from here, for the market to get more comfortable at 550? Risks to the core portfolio and, you know, when do you expect Lilly to knock on the door?
I think that, in terms of news flow around manufacturing, manufacturing contracts, in terms of the mRNA player within here, we would expect to announce that around about April. Lorraine, you happy with that? Because the, the arrangement, the commitment, whatever the contractual position is, that will be announced post-tech transfer and as soon as it's commercialized. We're hoping to have those commercialized in financial year 2024, and it'll be in that last quarter, so early in the last quarter. Otherwise, it ain't gonna make your June results. So, and we've told you that we think it will. So we will be announcing that then. The obesity market options, looking at what they call... They have things called requests, RFPs or RFQs requests.
Basically, they send things out to you to say, "Can you do this, and can't you do that?" We obviously had an advantage with Novo, having had a very successful transfer and having them make cakes with the name Aspen on. That was quite a nice picture, except it was-- didn't look a very edible cake that I saw. I think Aspen name stayed intact on top of it. You weren't gonna dig into that, but... So you know, those, those processes are relatively quick, and I think you would get responses somewhere between from December to February, March next year. It shouldn't be... You, you'll know in a very short space. So, there's nothing here that I think drifts past the sort of April date in terms of announcements. So that was your first question, or sorry,
The core business.
The core business, and that's what I tried to demonstrate in the slides. If we achieve what we want to achieve in manufacture, and our, our commercial pharma business without China is 65% of the business, and if the current manufacturing is 25, you've got 90% of your business, which is either the manufacturing is delivering the sort of numbers that you mentioned, and the commercial pharma business without China is an absolutely rock-solid business, and it churns out all the cash. The only reason we're all sitting here today, the only reason we can build all these factories, is because that base business doesn't require heavy investment. Well, it does. We pay lots of people. We've got a lot more reps than anybody else on the road in emerging markets.
Could, but that's a fixed cost that we put more and more products on top of, and that business is absolutely rock solid. Yes, we get shakes. We have Russia does this, Venezuela does that, but, it's in a strong position, and there's less than 10% of our business which we've had to really work hard to. It hasn't been in intensive care, but we knew intensive care was coming, which is the Chinese component, Alex. And, we've, we've worked very, very hard on it, and I, I'm hopefully that also in the similar time period as I gave you for the rest, you'll hear something on what we've done in China. But even if we don't do anything in China, it's a one-off knock, and you've got the rest pumping forward.
But, I don't want to take a knock in China, not the knock, it's the opportunity loss if we don't hold everything together, and so it's certainly not part of our plan. Was that everything? Was there another one? Sorry.
Yeah, I think that, that's-
Yeah
... that, that's everything. So-
I think it's high predictability in two-thirds of the business and high cash flow.
So in other words, you're pretty comfortable that the core business doesn't fall off a cliff?
That's what we always talk about in terms of a foundation house, is if we couldn't jump another step, if your base wobbles. Our base was not stable in the past. You know, things that we bet on, like Japan, we thought was gonna be a great market for us, and they brought in all these mandatory price decreases, so you have to get out. We thought we were gonna be very good at heparin in Europe. We weren't so good. We had to get out. But there were areas we didn't think we'd be so good in, like API, and they churn out lots of cash and all the rest. So once we had predictability, then you can move forward of your... Predictability is really, for us, cash flow.
I mean, we've got predictable cash flows over the biggest chunk of our business, and the place that's fully absorbed cash in our manufacturing has now got to produce the results to really drive our business forward. And, you know, you say, "Oh, if you drive ZAR 5 of earnings, it'll give you ZAR 70 or ZAR 80 more." I think there's a halo effect for the whole business because there's a credibility and, you know, these guys have been talking about this story. We're not sure if we believed them or didn't believe them. Now we believe them, then you get, you know, different stories, and that comes with all its own risks and rewards. I've been in this business at a 7 or 8 P, and I've been here when it's over 100.
Let me tell you, when it's over 100, from a management point of view, is the most scary part of the business. We still... People, "Are we growing 50%?" "Oh, we know you're joking." You know, so, so it's a... I'm not here to, to talk about share prices. I'm here about to deliver on a vision, and that vision is about turning big capital investments into strong cash flows. And whatever that comes to in earnings and share prices, it'll be what it will be. But, it, it's got to come now.
Sorry, so maybe just sticking with the core business, if we can call it that, so regional brands, ex-China. One of the key things Aspen's done really well over the years is its deal-making ability. So doing ViiV Healthcare, LatAm, or doing Eli Lilly, and that keeps the revenue ticking over there. Just in terms of your competence and your strategy on that front, to what extent is the deal-making institutionalized? Is there a sort of a long-term strategic plan, or is it more you wanna be agile, you wanna be opportunistic, see what comes up? Just high level, sort of how is it institutionalized within Aspen, and what's your thinking there?
You know, you always have to be agile and opportunistic, okay? But what is it that makes somebody say, "We want to work with Aspen?" So when you say institutionalized, there's an institutionalized within Aspen, and there's a story coming in from the outside. The more people that want to do a deal with Aspen because they trust your the way you carry yourself, your marketing codes, those are very strong and critical factors. And then you look at the market and say: Where is this market going? And you see these obesity products. If you want an obesity product, you can't even get it in Europe or Australia. It goes to America first because they pay. Okay, so if that's the case, if Europe can't get...
By the time you get to emerging markets, how much do they really want to be there? How much does this make sense? And is there somebody that can manage those emerging markets? And which is something I've sort of spoken to you about over time and said, "We've got this footprint." I believe it's a matter of time before more and more multinationals say, "We're not sure that we are the right people to be..." They're not gonna come to Aspen and give us Europe. It's almost impossible to get Australia from some. But it's not impossible to talk to us about Latin America, China. Even though China is a big market, there is a real anti-China feel around the Western world.
You know, people will say to us, and say to our board, "It's not if China goes into Taiwan, but when." So there's a completely different view of the world depending upon where you sit. So there are opportunities in China now that we've never seen before. And so I think that our opportunities will come because others will follow people who fit onto our footprint and say, "But this is the way to go." Of course, you have to deliver, but we have always delivered. So I do think that part is work in progress, and we have done deals in the past.
And even after the couple of deals we've done in South Africa recently, there's a couple more multinationals saying, "Well, maybe this is the right model for us." So as soon as they struggle in LatAm or struggle in Africa, we, we are the only option in terms of a go-to partner. I talked to another really big multinational, and they said there's only... And they treated Europe as one, but there was only, I just don't want to get that wrong, it was either 12 or 14 territories that they ideally would want to be. They just took a commercial hit. There's 12... The rest, what do they want to do in Thailand? Whatever they do in South Africa, if they take their business up by fourfold, tenfold... it's still not even, you know, it's not even one tenth of one product in the U.S. Why are they here?
Any other questions in the room?
Thanks. Roy Campbell RMB Morgan Stanley . Just, maybe one for Sean. A slightly technical question, but, Steven spoke about the heparin price coming off. Firstly, how does that play into the—how does that impact the contract that you have with Viatris and the, kind of the stock that you've MR for that? That's number 1. Then number 2 is, is there a risk that you have to write any of that down to a lower of cost or net realizable value, given the price coming off?
I'm happy to answer that one, sorry, because I did the deal with Viatris and it... So effectively, the purchase price for the LatAm product is settled by cash and a quantity of heparin, a fixed quantity. And that doesn't change, so we in a good space. And that mops up a big chunk of what we have. We are filling up now our heparin at much lower cost, so there are no risks around net realizable value.
What we're really trying to achieve, right, is a not a short-term win or, you know, medium-term gamble, is to say, "Hey, how do we deal with this effectively for five years?" The only way to deal, in our opinion, to deal with it, is to go to the people that supply and it costs them nothing, add our cost to it, and say, "Guys, we've got something together in here. And whatever we sell for, we'll do some type of split together." To me, that is the logical model if you take a step back from it. We could not get people to listen to us, as I told you before.
However, it just takes them to have to throw away one batch, two batches, three batches, and get used to the fact, which is now where they are, that they don't have the value they thought they had, for them to say, "Okay, well, that doesn't sound like a bad idea, what you're doing," so, and suggesting. And we want that in a long-term partnership, and then we can trade with anybody because you will have the lowest cost of goods, and the commoditization risk is now no longer sitting with Aspen. And we really are a middle person, we shouldn't be taking commodity risk. We've been smart in offloading it, and the price has gone up, but I can't look you in the eye and say, "Listen, we've got this thing under control." It's. We don't.
But if we do get it the way and we've got it under control, that will be probably the best part of any API business that we have or section of an API business, if we're able to achieve what I'm, what I've articulated to you. So Viatris not impacted in terms of pricing, because we're going to give them that fixed quantity at the price that was done for the purchase price, and we don't have an NRV risk.
Thank you. Second question is this, maybe if you can just talk a little bit more around the potential of Mounjaro in South Africa. You know, it's still early days. Is the insurers up for it? Who's the market? You know, it's a tough economy over there. So, who's the target market and why the excitement? Thank you.
Cool. Funny enough, the target market aren't necessarily people with diabetes or people that are overweight. As you might see it, that's what—certainly, what we're seeing is lots of people are taking the product for... It's wrong, because you really should be giving it to diabetic patients first. The market, sure, the economy is tough in South Africa. It's tough everywhere. You know, the South African economy has grown with no power. The German economy decreases with lots of power. So, you know, we can want as much as you want, but at the end of the day, wonder with a bit of power, what type of relative growth you'd have? And, you know, Aspen get a good look at global economies because of the number of markets we're in.
That said, there's only a percentage of the market that can afford these products, and I don't think many governments are going to be able to pay for these products, no matter where they are, at the prices that they are at at the moment. In the South African market, because of the shortages of products like Ozempic, if they sell at 1, people are buying them at 3 and 4. They're going to those, they're not beauticians. I'm trying to think of the word. It's not anesthetist, what do you call this? Aesthetician. Sorry. They're going to, they're going to people like that. There are people paying multiples just to get access to those products. And you don't need to sell...
If something's selling for ZAR 1,000 or ZAR 2,000 a month, you don't need a lot of patients to be able, in absolute numbers, to get there. So yes, people are battling, but there are always people who seem to be prepared to pay for these products. But I go back to the point I made on the whole market. That is only a small percentage. The big number, because you've got decent volume with a high price, but you, you're gonna-- I think if you get your pricing right, you're going to have a massive volume, with, with a lower price. It might still come to the same numbers. And I think the South African market, you should see in terms of the former, which would be...
Because, you know, the pricing is we get a transfer price from Lilly, so it's there'll be a smaller volume, but the pricing is high enough to make it a very large product. And did you ask me how big it was going to be, or was it Alex? I can't remember. I don't even want to give you a number. You know, whatever they tell me, they say, "You can double that or triple that." I'm not going to give you a number until I actually see it, but it's a big number for us. ... Jeez, we've got a lot of questions from people that we didn't walk you enough in that facility. I said, "Tie them up!" Run them ragged.
Sorry, I'm Philippe Plagier from Proparco. I have a question regarding local production in Africa. During COVID outbreak, there was so many discussion about enhancing local production in Africa, and today, after the COVID epidemic, do you see any change in the context? Do you think that local production from political side in African countries today, do you think there is a potential? Aspen, as you are already in Africa, in South Africa production, could you have a competitive advantage, and do you have a strategy of developing activities in other countries in Africa?
It's a really good question. I'm so glad you touched on it because it sort of was not covered sitting here in France. But African medicines and supply of African medicines and the things that you... Stefan, can you just move a little bit that way? Thank you. Sorry, thank you for that. Is a very political subject, and anything, in my opinion, anything that becomes political seldom gets commercial focus because people like to pontificate and talk, and those people that are politicians are talkers, and they're not doers. So I mean that with no disrespect, but that has been my experience to date, and one of the big letdowns that we had as a company in terms of the COVID space. In terms of the manufacturing, you know, we had countries like Mauritius wanted to put...
Everybody wanted to manufacture, and sort of the noise has gone down a bit. In my personal opinion, you simply can't have lots of sites everywhere across the world. Having had a walk through here, you'll see you can't. It would be really bad to take half the volume out of here and put it into another site down the road here in France, because you're gonna have two sites that don't work, rather than one site that works really well or two sites that half work. As a company, we are focused on being able to provide one vaccine for every African. That would be where we want to get to, that there's a pandemic, that Aspen is the company that can provide the whole of Africa. That said, it's too big an obligation for one company.
It's too big for us to sleep at night, to have that. So there needs to be other centers within Africa, to be able to spread the risk, and just the pressure. Having lived through one COVID, I want to tell you, the pressure, I've never felt pressure like that. Every day, the president is phoning me. And, you know, "Is the electricity on? Is it off?" You know, "Who's got the switch here?" It was a very, very emotional time and a very tricky time, and it's not a pressure I would wish on anybody else. So I don't think there's space for too many players, and so Africa's got to be smart around that. Probably the biggest thing I can tell you on this is, is there the political will to do this? And we will find out on the 6th of December.
There've been many engagements. I think it's the 6th. I think it is the 6th of December, so it's only a few, just, next week. There's a very important meeting that Gavi are having, and that meeting will cover some key areas, like what are we gonna do? And these, and there's tangibles, not... They've all said on big stages now, "We want to support Africa local manufacturers." But on the 6th of December, we are supposed to get the tangibles, i.e., if you launch product A on there, we'll pay you $10 million in finished form. If you do the API, we'll pay you $20 million. For every vaccine that you make, every vial, we're gonna pay you X cents for that vial or Y cents, whatever.
That's the level of what we're doing and how we're gonna. And we will have a fund, or we won't have a fund, that will be dedicated to Aspen, Aspen, sorry, African manufacturer. I hope it's just Aspen. But to African manufacturer, and this is how many billion dollars are in this fund. They are sitting with surplus funds as well. Bear in mind, they were sitting with lots of funds that came in for COVID. If I remember, it was $6 billion more than they, they spent, et cetera, and how they're gonna use some of that to promote this regional manufacture in, in Africa. Is Aspen looking to put more sites in Africa to do this? We've got sites in Ghana, we've got sites in Dar es Salaam, we've got sites in Kenya, Nairobi.
We really would be happy to try and assist, as I mentioned, through the training and the human capital. Build another site? Phew, you know, we've got... We sort of stretched. You know, I've got our manufacturing people, you've seen them all here. We've got South Africans sitting in France. We've got French people coming to South Africa, and we stretched in manufacture, and we don't wanna be, I think that would be a bridge too far for us without certainty of volume. And I simply trust, even when Lorraine tells you, you know, "We're on track," she'll tell you, "We're on track with Novo. We're on track with mRNA." We're just not sure where there's politics involved, you know, will the WHO give us the registrations or not? It's the same thing, and having been burnt so badly by the promises made...
If you, for those of you that listened to the podcast with the Africa CDC and Gavi and the promises of over 1 billion doses to Aspen and the delivery of 0, you know, because J&J got those doses, not Aspen the ones. We've got to be really cautious about builds there. So we're gonna focus really on human capital and see how this works. We're gonna have to focus on our own strengths. In life, sometimes it's better to make something strong, stronger, than try and dilute that effort too far. And I think we've got a strong operation in South Africa that we should build on first if the idea is to create pandemic preparedness. But we're not the only manufacturer.
There's people in Egypt that are working hard, there's other people in South Africa, there's Senegal, but I just can't see 50 countries making their own vaccines. I think it would be counterproductive.
Okay, is there a question in the room?
So the 6th of December, put that in your diary and let's see, and we'll see if the politicians deliver on what they promised. But certainly there is a commitment, and it will... So I don't mean to be disrespectful. There's certainly been high engagement. It's not just suddenly a surprise. There's been very high engagement, and we feel really positively towards what we are positive, and I hope it's not misplaced, but we are positive about what will come out of that area. And also, you're finding a lot of multinational companies who've got important products for access, globally, for globally, but also for access, who see advantages to making in Africa for Africa.
Don't discount the fact that you can come to Aspen and make an insulin or any product and have it access for Africa at a really good price. But you know what? You can also sell it in the US and Europe. So there's real value in coming to Aspen. You get all the ESG points you want, but you also can get a better cost of goods than you can make it yourself. And there's... While there are those commercial advantages, too, it gives us a real strength. Okay. Well, lovely. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks for walking the walk with us, literally, and kicking the tires. As you can see, there's still a lot of work to be done here, but we're getting ourselves into a good position.
Yeah, we're sort of getting ourselves onto the track. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.