Good morning and welcome to AFT Pharmaceuticals' annual meeting. I'm David Flacks, the Chair of AFT. I'd just direct your attention to this important notice on the presentation, which, along with my prepared remarks and the slide presentation, has been released both to the NZX and ASX earlier this morning and will also be lodged on our website. So, on behalf of the Board, thank you for attending the 2024 annual meeting. We've this year again enabled the option to join the meeting via webcast, and we extend our thanks to those who've joined by this means. Before we start the formal business of the meeting, a couple of housekeeping points. First of all, please, could you make sure that your phones are switched to silent?
In the event of an emergency, please make your way to the door that you came through and follow the instructions of the staff onto slide four. Let me begin by introducing to you your directors: Hartley Atkinson, who'll be presenting to you shortly, Marree Atkinson, Ted Witek, who's travelled here from Canada, and Andrew Lane at the end there, who was appointed to the Board in September 2023 and is today offering himself for election to the Board by shareholders. Anita Baldauf is retiring from the Board today and is currently overseas and sends her apologies. Also joining us are Bryce Henderson and Rebecca Clark, representing our auditors, Deloitte, and they'll be available to answer questions later in the meeting if necessary. Our lawyers, Harmos Horton Lusk, are also present.
I'd also like to introduce you to some of our senior management team who are here today. Could I ask you to stand up when I call your name? Malcolm Tubby, CFO and Company Secretary. Ioana Stanescu, Chief Scientific Officer. Vladimir Ilievski, Regulatory Affairs Manager. Louise Clayton, Director of International Business. Scott Crawford, I thought I saw, there we are, right at the back, General Manager, Promoted Products. And Scott Porter, National Sales Manager for New Zealand. Thanks, guys. You can find details of all directors and the senior management team in the annual report and on our website. Slide five. The company's constitution prescribes a quorum requirement of five shareholders. As you can see, and I'm delighted to see so many of you are here, this requirement has been met. Accordingly, I declare the meeting formally open.
The items of business for this meeting and the resolutions to be considered by shareholders are contained in the notice of meeting, which was sent to shareholders on 1st July 2024. So, in terms of the order of the meeting, to start the meeting, I'm going to say a few words, following which Hartley Atkinson, our founder and managing director, will give his presentation. We'll then consider the formal business and resolutions of the meeting. In relation to the resolutions, there will be opportunities for shareholders to ask questions as we address each resolution in the formal part of the meeting. There'll also be an opportunity to ask general questions after Hartley has given his presentation. At the close of the meeting, we hope that you will join us for refreshments. Slide seven. I'm proud to report that AFT has delivered another year of significant growth and expansion.
Full-year operating revenue increased by 25% to NZD 195.4 million. As you can see on the slide, revenue is more than four times the revenue we were generating at the time of our listing on the NZX ASX at the end of 2015. We also delivered record earnings. EBITDA rose by 22% to NZD 26.2 million, and our operating profit increased by 23% to NZD 24.2 million. Our products are now sold in more than 70 countries, and we've seen robust top-line growth across all territories. We are particularly pleased with our progress in the United States and China, the world's largest pharmaceutical markets. The intravenous form of our Maxigesic pain relief, which you'll see just on that poster there, went on sale in the United States earlier this year, and that triggered a $6 million license payment from our distributor, Hikma Pharmaceuticals.
We are now working towards the launch in the US of Maxigesic Rapid, which is a rapid-dissolving form of the medicine. In June, we signed our first US distribution agreement for Maxigesic Rapid with Alexso, an established pharmaceutical distribution company, and we expect further distribution agreements to follow. Meanwhile, as we announced in early July, having secured a distribution agreement of our topical antiseptic, Crystaderm, with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange-listed Hainan Haiyao, we are now ready to make our first steps into the Chinese domestic market. We see this as a first step in this important territory. These launches and the broader growth across all regions underscore the effectiveness of our strategy and our proven and unique ability to consistently identify and address unmet health needs across the world. Alongside these achievements, we've continued to invest for future growth.
As Hartley will discuss in detail shortly, these efforts have seen the launch of new products in our core Australasian markets, the expansion of new business operations in North America, Europe, the U.K., and Asia, and the addition of several new projects to our development pipeline. Slide eight. Our performance in the 2024 financial year represents an extension of a decades-long record of growth. The diagram on the left of the slide shows the continued growth in AFT's shareholder equity. It reached a low of NZD 5 million in the 2019 financial year and since then has grown steadily to almost NZD 90 million in the latest financial year. Over the same period, as you can see, our debt-to-equity ratio has also significantly improved.
This success is not only attributable to the growth of Maxigesic in international markets. It also reflects strong growth in Asia across a range of products and, importantly, our stellar growth in Australasia, the engine of our business. By way of example, at IPO, we had about 100 products in New Zealand and 45 in Australia. As of today, these numbers stand at 150 products on shelf in New Zealand and more than 85 in Australia. More importantly, we continue to expect strong growth in the coming years, both through in-licensing and through commercializing our own intellectual property. Our payment of a maiden dividend last year and the significant increase in the dividend this year is a tangible demonstration of the Board's confidence in the company's prospects. Again, as Hartley will discuss in detail later, we are now looking for the next target of $300 million revenue.
So, in light of such a positive outlook and such an enduring record, it should come as no surprise that we are disappointed with the current share price. Our shares are now trading at around $3, and this price is only slightly higher than the $2.80 at which we issued shares in the company at the initial public offer. We acknowledge that our growth trajectory has not always been smooth. Our international rollout has not always proceeded at the pace we anticipated. There have been delays to some development projects, and our earnings have not always met market expectations as we prioritize growth or face the normal volatility in demand, which is the nature of our business.
We understand investor frustrations with these challenges, but to value the company's shares at a price that's largely unchanged from when we joined the NZX and ASX is inconsistent with the progress we have made. Again, your Board believes AFT has created significant value through substantial growth, ongoing investments in R&D, and through the payment of dividends. I can assure you that Hartley, I, and the rest of the Board and the entire management team are focused on ensuring that the value we have created is recognized, and we are working hard to make this happen. Slide nine. Putting in place a governance framework that is focused on long-term sustainability is at the center of the Board's efforts. Over the last year, we've continued to evolve this framework in line with best practice and align it with the interests of our stakeholders.
The biggest change this year has been the completion of our first climate risk assessment and the initial disclosure required under the Aotearoa New Zealand climate standards. As part of these efforts, we've modified our governance framework to ensure the systematic assessment and management of the company's climate-related risks and opportunities. At the center of the program is a standing management-led committee, the Climate Governance Working Group, which updates the Board quarterly on its activities. We are committed to playing our part to assist in the global efforts to limit greenhouse gases and mitigate the impact of climate change. To this end, we've established targets for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions consistent with limiting global warming to a 1.5-degree increase, and we're actively developing our emissions reduction plan.
Our approach to sustainability and our reporting of it is founded on a clear sense of prioritizing the sustainability matters that are material to the business. We settled on our priorities, set out on the top left-hand side of the slide, through a rigorous program of engagement with all our stakeholders in 2022. We followed up with stakeholders again this year to ensure our assessment remained robust. We report on these matters in detail in our annual report, but I do want to discuss a couple of important highlights. Our top priority is working to improve health and well-being. This is the best measure of success in this domain and the progress we've made with sales growth and the expansion of our product portfolio.
One development we're particularly excited about is the planned launch in Australia and New Zealand of a cold and flu medicine that incorporates the restricted decongestant pseudoephedrine. The AFT formulation incorporates a technology that limits the criminal extraction of the decongestant, which is used as a key ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine. This is an innovation that not only meets the demand for effective cold and flu medicines, it's also one that helps to protect the more than 7,000 pharmacies across Australasia that stock our products. Many pharmacists fear the new availability of pseudoephedrine will see criminals targeting their businesses. In other areas, we've further embedded processes to ensure we operate ethical and sustainable supply chains and minimize our environmental footprint. These efforts have seen our key product suppliers attest to compliance with our supply code of conduct and our modern slavery policy.
We've also met the majority of our goals to increase the sustainability of our packaging, and we're continuing to do so. Finally, we've continued to build a culture that is aimed at retaining the immense talent that we already have in the business and bringing in new talent to advance our strategy. This is a culture that celebrates diversity, fairness, and performance. By way of illustration, we have a very diverse team. Our over 110 employees hail from 24 countries and represent 27 cultural identities, and 60% of the team are women. AFT is fortunate to benefit from a talented team committed to the company and its success, and I want to thank the team for their dedication and hard work over the past year. Before closing, I just want to touch on changes within the boardroom.
As I mentioned earlier, we welcomed Andrew Lane to the Board in September 2023. Andrew has brought to the company more than 30 years' experience in the global pharmaceuticals industry with expertise across a broad range of areas, and he's helping us to sharpen our focus in a number of critical areas. Andrew will address you ahead of his election to the Board. Meanwhile, Anita Baldauf, who joined the Board in 2020, retires at the conclusion of this meeting. I want to thank her for her service. Her perspectives on international markets and finance have been of great value as we've extended our global footprint. I also want to acknowledge the rest of the Board and our Managing Director, Hartley Atkinson, in particular, for their efforts and commitment to the company's success. Finally, I want to acknowledge you, our shareholders. AFT is a strong and growing company, and I want to thank you for your continuing support. I now invite Hartley to address the meeting.
Thanks, David. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Look, I'd just like to take you through just an overview quickly of some areas that we're working in and things we're working on. Our key number one market presently at the moment is Australia, and we've continued to make good progress. I can remember many years ago, actually, when we first decided to start in Australia, a lot of people kind of looked at us and laughed and said, "You know, that's kind of a dumb idea because most New Zealand companies that start in Australia fail and go broke." But look, we were confident, and we backed ourselves, and now that was one of the key strategic decisions we made from way back.
We were pleased to break $100 million in sales, which we did this last financial year, but certainly that's not the endgame, and there's huge additional potential in the Australian market, which we know very well and we like very much. We get very good feedback and very good support in the Aussie market. So look, as you can see, we've grown sales really well in the last year, and what we've got is a big pipeline of products coming to grow. Not only do we want to grow existing products and product ranges, but we're also looking at new products coming in as well. You can see on that pie graph on the far right, we still do have quite a lot of OTC products, and that's what we have been mainly focused on.
We are in licensing a number of novel prescription drugs, so probably over time we will get a few more prescription drugs, but mainly through patented type of innovative products. There are a lot of products around that say a really large pharma won't really license in because it's not something like the latest cancer cure. But look, cancer obviously is an incredibly important area of therapy, but there are honestly so many areas that are not addressed that companies are making some really nice treatments that patients need, and we're able to license those through our contacts. That's one of the things we've been working on heavily is in licensing products for our Australasian market. That's Australia, and certainly in New Zealand, our home market, it's certainly not a poor cousin. We're making, we believe, very good progress.
We saw nice growth last year in our OTC product portfolio. Scotty has been doing a very good job, and our New Zealand team in expanding our New Zealand market. We're certainly looking forward to moving through that $50 million mark, which we're certain that we'll do this financial year, and that's sort of good progress. You can see once again, looking on the pie graph on the far right side, the New Zealand market is more maybe diverse in terms of its mix. The OTC products are still the major part, and we do have quite a lot of hospital products and some prescription products. But certainly, we will also, New Zealand will be focusing very much on the OTC products, which we see as a lot of further opportunity for growth.
On the far left, you can see one of the recent sponsorship activities we've been doing with the New Zealand Warriors. It seems to work very well for us, and we're able to get a lot of exposure and leverage in local pharmacy stores by using our association with the Warriors. Then we've mentioned, looking at the next slide, looking at the Australasian growth, we are, as I mentioned, licensing in a lot of products. Typically, one of our approaches and the sort of thing we're doing, just to give you a bit of color to it, if you look at the right, we sort of do have in Australia a good portfolio of iron-based products, and what we've done is added and expanded to that. These are some new forms of our iron products that we've introduced.
Originally, many years ago, I think it was 2006, we introduced a product called Ferro-Tab to the Australian market. What actually happened was the front desk lady rang me and said, "Excuse me, Hartley, there's a lady doctor from Adelaide who wants to talk to you." And I said, "Yep, put her on the phone. We'll have a chat." And she said, "I'll just ring in because I want to know why on earth your company has iron tablets available in New Zealand and you don't make it available for our Australian patients." And I said, "Okay, thank you very much. That's a very good point," and basically put the phone down and went straight down the back to the reg team and said, "Right, we've got to sort this one out." And that was an example of listening to customers who have been helpful trying to tell you things.
And we got started with our Ferro range, and we're still building and expanding it to this day. So that's certainly building on product ranges is something we do work on. For instance, in New Zealand, we're the number one allergy company in the whole market, so we have a very broad range of allergy products. And with our pain products as well, we've also seen the opportunity to expand our pain range, which we're doing that at the moment. So that's the sort of opportunities that we're trying to play off. Looking at the next slide, and look, certainly Asia is on our back doorstep, and that's an area that we are focusing on. So when I say Asia, I'm meaning Southeast Asia through up to North Asia and China, whereas David's mentioned China's the world's second largest pharma market after the United States.
So it's certainly somewhere where we'd like to operate, and we're basically very close. We believe at the end of this calendar year, we'll make our first sales into mainland China. We're not quite at $2 million sales through our Tmall sites, but we're getting there. But we're working. We're over $1 million, and we're now on our way to $2 million. So the cross-border e-commerce has worked quite well, but the internal China market's much, much bigger than cross-border. So that's the reason why we were working on getting Crystaderm approved in China, which we achieved last year. And we were then approached by quite a large state-owned company called Hainan Haiyao, and we have concluded that agreement and just preparing to launch, which we believe should be an interesting opportunity.
And we're also having further discussions, actually, in the China market for some of our other main products as well, which obviously is a work in progress, but we would hope to be able to announce something in the next coming few months. So sort of that's Asia, and there's a lot of opportunity. It's only really just starting in Asia, so there's a lot of work to be done, but we do believe there's good opportunity. Moving to the next slide, international, we're classifying that as basically everywhere outside Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. You can see on that graph on the top right, we steadily increased the number of countries that we sell product in, and we are building sales, as you can see on the graph on the left.
I mean, one of the key markets we're looking at is the United States, which, as you know, is the largest pharma market in the world. So we have launched in February. We launched through our licensee, Hikma, and Hikma are the third largest supplier of hospital medicines in the U.S., so we believe they're a pretty good partner. They're kind of not the biggest, but they're hungry in number three. So we're working with them, and they're working hard on the next strategic IV in the U.S. market. But as well, we've also got the tablet approved presently, and we've got our first deal, as David mentioned, but we are working and would be hoping in the next few months to announce additional things in the U.S. market. But also, we have our own operations now established.
We have an office in the U.S., and that gives us the opportunity to look at some of our other OTC unregulated type of medicines, which we do see. We have been selling these through Amazon, but I think it's also a good opportunity through physical stores within the U.S., and we're just starting to work on that as well. So moving to the next slide. Look, this is our global map, which we've shown you in the past. We've actually taken off all the individual country comments because, to be honest, it started to get too crowded. We've now actually got quite a few countries, things happening. You can see the bits in yellow where we've already launched product or are selling product.
The bits in blue are where we're still working on it to have agreements, and the white is where we're not going to be present or are not yet present. So the areas in white that we're still working on are the Philippines, where we do have products filed but not yet registered, and Japan as well, which is a tricky market in terms of it's very locally dominated by Japanese companies, and there are very specific regulatory restrictions. We've just recently completed our first Japanese patient study with Maxigesic IV, which we're waiting for the data for that. But that's one of the requirements that the Japanese regulator has. They don't accept data from foreign patients. You do have to do studies on Japanese patients, and they even have a whole manual that defines exactly what a Japanese person is.
But the point is, I guess, is that every country has its rules. You can't tell them what to do. Our job is to find out how it all works. We fit into it, and that's one of our learning processes. We do have a lot of approvals around the world now, but also we've certainly learned a heck of a lot and continue to do so. And using that knowledge is a really good opportunity to leverage the business significantly going forward, which is what we're working on. The other thing maybe to point out is those various red dots. We've been doing a lot of work on expanding our global footprint. This is pretty much where we're going to end up. What we've done is we've deliberately chosen effectively really markets with an Anglo-Saxon kind of background or system.
The reason why is that the regulatory is actually pretty consistent over all these countries. So even Hong Kong, which I totally understand is now reverted back to China, but the actual system that they left regulatory-wise is still pretty much a British type of regulatory system. So for us to do drug registrations, we're well experienced in that, something we understand really well. So certainly, we're beefing up operations in Hong Kong. We have an office there. We have our Asia manager, Lorraine Popelka, who runs our Asia business, and obviously, being so close to China is really important. We are beefing up and have operations in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur for Malaysia. We have recently, looking now across the map, South Africa. We've recently purchased a company in South Africa, and the reason for doing that is it saves a lot of time.
If we said, "Okay, we're going to set up today," it would take us two years to get all the paperwork and the registrations and everything with SAHPRA, that's the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. It would take us that long to get everything set up. So by purchasing effectively a shell company with all the licenses, we save ourselves two years. And as we all know, time is important. So we've done that, and I just heard overnight that we're now ready to start filing so we can file literally today a whole lot of medicines in the South African market. I've got another slide. I'll show you a bit more later. And then the other markets, we have got an office. We have an office now in the United States in Detroit. So we've employed someone who runs our American operations, and he's based in Detroit.
It's actually had a real rejuvenation. You may have seen things in the past. We visited there recently and certainly very pleasantly surprised how nice it was, how amazing the restaurants were, and actually very good for business, has very good cost-effective office space and things like that. So we're not spending a lot of money on those type of things. And we also set up in Canada in Toronto. We're Ted's based. We have a person we've hired there, and he was the ex-CEO of Aspen Canada. So Aspen's a big multinational, multi-billion dollar global company. So he's had a lot of really good experience, and we're doing a lot of work now in Canada. In the EU, we're running our base out of Ireland at the moment, and we've hired a QA person to handle all our European stocks that are selling.
There's a lot of important regulatory stuff, so we run that out of Ireland. And then, as I've mentioned before, we also have an office in London. We've made a lot of progress in the U.K. market, and we have four people now working out of our London office in Whitechapel. But look, just to give you a bit of an idea, there really is a lot of work gone into this global footprint part. The results are not here yet because with pharma, it always takes, honestly, about a couple of years. But I think these things are all well set up, for we've got a number of things starting to happen towards the end of this financial year, but we'll get the full year's benefit next year. So now moving to the next slide.
Yeah, just to sort of give you a bit more detail about our global footprint. So in the U.S., as we've mentioned, we've launched Combogesic, it's called. So we usually have two names. It's either Maxigesic or Combogesic. In some countries, they won't allow us to use the Maxigesic name because the regulator says it's a bit like a therapeutic claim. But so in our Australasian markets, it's Maxigesic. In Europe and the U.S., it's Combogesic. So we've launched the IV, as I mentioned, and the tablets. We're just getting them lined up and working to launch them towards the end of this calendar year. We have a manufacturing site in the U.S., which is presently preparing to do manufacturing run. And then in the U.K., we've done a lot of work there since we talked last year. We've literally got six approvals in the U.K. market.
We're actively selling Combogesic IV and Combogesic tablets. We're actually pretty pleased with our performance of Combogesic tablets. The U.K. market's not simple. People have told me there hasn't been a successful analgesic OTC launch for about 25 years, actually. But the way, touch wood, we're going at the moment with the Combogesic is making really good progress in Boots, where we first of all did our launch, and now we've been approached by the second largest pharmacy group in the U.K. called Superdrug. They've seen how it's going nicely in Boots, and they want to sell it in Superdrug. So in September, we're expanding our distribution from Boots to Superdrug. But actually, Boots gives you pretty good coverage of the whole U.K. market, but certainly having that additional distribution through Superdrug will be really useful. So we're busy doing that at the moment.
And then we have quite a big pipeline of products that we either have filed or we're looking to get approval. So as I think you note there, we've got a pipeline of 22 products to file. And if you look at our various pipelines, I've just put down really what we have signed and agreed and what we have in process. But behind this, there's literally probably another at least 50 products to go into these different markets. And what's important, and we're seeing, like if I ask Vlad and say Vlad will file a dossier, his team will file a dossier for us in Australia and New Zealand. But if he files the same dossier in Canada, the same dossier in Singapore, the same dossier in Hong Kong, the same dossier in the U.K., it isn't that much time to more work.
It's only a little bit more work. Vlad's nodding. But it's true. So it actually makes really good leverage and really good sense for us to be able to do this because we're getting a lot of operating efficiency and time, we believe, by taking this kind of approach. So we've certainly been working hard on that, and we are making progress. These sales will also start to add. We're looking for more launches towards the end of this financial year in the U.K. In Europe, we've also done a lot of work as well. We mentioned you may have picked up or may not have. We did purchase a number of licenses from a bankrupt, insolvent German company. And what we're doing at the moment is we are getting those licenses up to date with manufacturing, which does data, which does take about six months. Classic pharma thing.
You think it's ready to go, but no, there's a bit of fixing up to be done. But look, we've got a lot of opportunities to sell these products around Europe. There's still over 500 million people in Europe, so it has nice opportunity. And additionally, we've acquired actually a niche injectable product that has been discontinued by Big Pharma, and that also gives us other opportunities. But these things will only really start to hit the sales about the end of this financial year, but there's quite a lot of activities around these three new AFT affiliates. And looking at the next slide. So not to be left out, as we've mentioned, Canada. So we have already got experience in Canada. We are selling, or we've got a distributor selling for us Maxigesic tablets.
We did do an agreement a while ago for Crystaderm, so we do have a local partner actually who's going to launch Crystaderm for us in Canada. Canada's still a really nice market. There's 41 million people in Canada, and a lot of times what happens is companies that we're working with will say, "Just register in the U.S.," and they don't bother with Canada because it's too small, and they think it's not worth getting out of bed for. But if we look at the different pharmaceutical market sizes, our biggest potential market is the U.K., clearly, that's a big market with 67 million people and a lot of market size. However, next biggest is clearly Canada. Then comes Australia, and closely after Australia comes South Africa, and then comes Hong Kong and Singapore and New Zealand are kind of about close.
So therefore, we've carefully looked at all this, carefully chosen the markets, carefully chosen the products. This is not something that's kind of knee-jerk, unthought of. We've really been through the whole strategy and everything, but also got good experience in a number of these markets through the regulatory side anyway. So Canada, we also got a good pipeline of drugs. We've got basically one we've submitted already, another four we're preparing. But once again, we do have that list I talked about of 50 that we're working on as well. So South Africa, we talked about a bit before where we've purchased the company. The company also comes with access to about 10 product licenses. So we are working on those, and we believe we should be able to start selling at least some of those at the beginning of FY 2026.
And then we also do have our pipeline I've talked about. We can start filing that literally today in our South African company. Singapore, we've been doing a lot of work there. We're selling Maxigesic tablets. They're going quite nicely. We're launching the IV, launching the Rapid form of it. We have had a number of business successes in the hospital area, and we've got a number of contracts with HSA, which is the Health Sciences Authority. So we're expanding on that. And then actually, what we do find too is that Singapore really likes looking to Australia. So the fact a lot of the products we're talking to them about are available in Australia, for them is a big tick. And we find that too in the U.K. If we have approvals in Australia or Singapore, note, not New Zealand, we actually get an expedited approval system.
So instead of having to wait 18 months, you can probably get a dossier approved in about 6 months in the U.K. So that's a huge advantage for the U.K. market as well. In Hong Kong too, we've launched Maxigesic tabs. We're doing the IV. Once again, we have a big pipeline, and we're working on expanding that. So this is some of the things we've kind of been putting together over the last 12 months, and it's starting to come to fruition, but there's a lot still to happen. So then just to talk a little bit about the R&D, which is actually pretty important to our pipeline.
I mean, to be honest, I've been quite surprised I've had the odd comment from some people that say, "Why on earth are you spending NZD 12 million or NZD 15 million that could go to your profit?" Honestly, that is an incredibly short-sighted observation. A value in a pharmaceutical company, and personally, I believe we have no value attributed for our pipeline, is in the pipeline. So what we've got is we've got a mixture of things we're rolling out, we've spent money on, we've developed, and we can make some money now. And then I'll show you in some of the following slides, we've got a really good pipeline for the future as well. So we have Maxigesic in about nine different dose forms, and they are either rolled out or in the process of being rolled out. The Crystaderm is actually very difficult to make, proprietary technology.
If you think about it, hydrogen peroxide is the active ingredient. You know how it bubbles in the bottle and fizzles and disappears. That product we've got is stable for two years. So the proprietary base that we have melts at your skin, on your skin at 33-34 degrees, and releases the active ingredient and is stable for two years. So it's a very tricky sort of product and actually very hard to make as well. So we're launching that, as we said, in China, Canada, but also we're looking at a number of other places. We purchased a while ago a product called Micolette. This is a micro-enema, which is kind of a niche product. But when I say niche, the global market's about $190 million-$200 million, and there's only one product generally.
So this is an alternative, but we have a lot of interest in this product as well. And I mean, the sort of money we bought it for Malcolm was what? Was it 200 or 250,000? Was it New Zealand or euro? Yeah, EUR 250,000. We bought it off a company that had financial difficulties, and we just swooped in and got it. And we've been working on sort of getting the manufacturing set up and being able to sell it in different countries. So that was another example of things we've been able to take advantage of our cash position and to acquire something for what's really a very good deal. Kiwisoothe is our kiwi fruit-based product. It's a tablet, and we're just finalizing a sachet manufactured in Italy in a very nice GMP-approved pharmaceutical plant.
So we're rolling that out, certainly in all our affiliates initially and talking to a number of companies. And we have another Capsaicin, a topical pain product, and we're rolling that out as well. So that's the current sort of part of the R&D portfolio. And then just flicking on to our future pipeline, which we believe there's a lot of value in this, but it's still a work in progress. But some of these things are not too far away. The Pascomer, at the moment, we're doing various filings. So we have facial angiofibromas, a rare orphan disease where children have growths on their face, and this helps to treat that. And then another condition, we're just conducting clinical trials at the moment in Spain, is the port wine stains.
So if you've seen some people have a big port wine colored stain on their face, and what they do is they laser them off, but the problem is they grow back. Using something like Pascomer will either stop or slow down, we expect, the rate that these things grow back. Another product, we did a deal with Massey University and Gillies McIndoe. This is a topical treatment for strawberry birthmarks. Pretty prevalent, actually. A lot of kiddies do have strawberry birthmarks. Usually, most of them are from the neck upwards, so they're visible. They do tend to resolve over time. Serious ones, it is an oral drug you can take, but it's actually pretty toxic, and it's only used for the really bad cases.
What we're looking at with this is to develop something that can be used in any strawberry birthmark, is safe, etc., not like the oral treatment. So this one is well underway. We have another one, keloid scars, once again with Massey and Gillies McIndoe. So basically, this is a condition where most of us, fortunately, that if you do cut yourself badly, have an operation, you have a scar, and that's the end of it. With keloid scars, they keep growing, and there actually aren't really any treatments other than trying to cut them out again or sometimes using injections. So this is another example where there are lots of diseases or problems that people have that they need treatments, but there aren't treatments.
This is where we're coming in, and we've got our first we've found some really good agents that work, and we filed our first patent has been filed, and we're looking to file other patents. So that's an early stage. We have another project and something called vulvar lichen sclerosus. That is quite a nasty condition that affects females. You can gather from the title and look, there aren't any approved treatments for that either, and we're doing that as a co-development with a company we work with really closely called Hyloris in Belgium. They're based in Europe. So we're underway with that. And we've got an antibiotic eye drop, which is for drug-resistant eye infections. Yeah, the obvious downside is if you have a drug-resistant eye infection, you don't use the proper treatment, you go blind. So it's pretty serious.
At the moment, this drug is compounded heavily in the U.S. The U.S. FDA hate compounding pharmacies. There's been a number of problems where stuff hasn't been done properly and caused major problems. The current product they compound is actually acidic and stings the heck out of your eye. So we have a special patent we licensed from a U.S. company around a formulation that's stable, not as acidic, all these sort of things. We're actually just gone to FDA now to discuss the clinical program. So we're quite well advanced with that one. Pain, we've got something called burning mouth syndrome, which is quite more common than I ever thought, actually, and did some research on that. That does disproportionately affect postmenopausal women. So that is something as well that we're developing. We do have our NasoSurf drug delivery system.
So instead of having an injection, you can take the drug intranasally. We have had challenges with that one. It's taken us a long time to get a consistent dose delivery, has been very technically challenging, and we are hoping we are close to getting to the end of that one. But some of these things are technically quite complicated. So certainly, there's a lot of work had to go into that. We do also have this other one that's sort of entitled hospital injectables. What we're very conscious of, things we're spending money on and maybe a bit further away, you also need money coming in now and money coming in in a year's time. We have a really good portfolio of hospital injectables. We have 4 or 5 of them, and we're getting those produced ourselves with a partner we have.
Basically, if you look at the market for just our territories, it's like over $100 million. So we want those products anyway, and we get a much better deal by making them ourselves with our partner. So that's something we're doing. Like being in Europe, if other companies are interested in Europe, that's also a big market. So we are doing things like that, which are not as heavy duty as the rest of the R&D portfolio, but they will help to generate money quicker. The one we've talked about a little bit mentioned, this has taken a lot longer than we thought, but we are negotiating a contract at the moment, and there's German lawyers involved. They seem quite slow, actually.
I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of dealing with German lawyers, but every time we have, they're quite slow, to be frank. But anyway, we believe we would hope to be able to let you know something about this in the next sort of couple of months. It's a very nice project. It's an injectable. It's a novel drug. It's in a big category. It has advantages over other drugs in that category, but it needs a large clinical study of literally 1,000 patients. So that's the reason we've got involved, and we're hoping, can't promise or guarantee, but we're hoping to get that to fruition. We've been working on that. Marree and I met the original person literally about 15 months ago at the U.S. BIO meeting in San Diego.
So yeah, it's been a lot of work gone into that, but we're hoping to get that agreed soon. Looking at the next slide, almost final slide, there's just one more after this. I just wanted to give you very quickly a little bit of an idea. People talk about tech companies, don't they? They actually never seem to include a pharma company when they talk about a tech company. But a lot of work we do is actually quite technical. And this is just to give you a bit of an overview when we're talking about the strawberry birthmarks project, what are we going on about? We talk about looking for drugs, trying to identify them. So the far top right is an example of a kiddie with a strawberry birthmark. And what we do is from those, we're working with Gillies McIndoe Research Institute in Wellington.
What is done is those cells are isolated in this sort of top graph, and you can grow them. Basically, what they do is they grow the cells. Then you can take those cells, and you can screen different drugs and say, "Well, what stops the strawberry birthmark cells growing?" If you look at that graph on the bottom right, that's just an example of some different drugs where on one axis, you've got the suppression of growth of the strawberry birthmark cells, and then on that bottom axis, you've got the concentration of drug you need to get that done. Clearly, the less concentration, the better, and the more it 100% stops it growing, the better as well. Really, you're able to screen a lot of drugs and see what does work.
And you can see there that some of them are pretty hopeless, although only work at a high concentration, and certainly, one of them works pretty well at a lower concentration. Now, the other interesting bit is that what seems to happen too is a lot of times with these sort of things, you might have synergy. So if you have two drugs, you then might find instead of a 1 + 1 activity, you get a 3 activity. And that's synergy when you get a greater effect than just the additive effect. So what we're able to do is we're able to model using these various plots. I won't bore you with the exact details, but you can see that kind of red area on the far right, that shows you the most synergistic combination. You might mix them together at different concentrations.
You can model this all through a mathematical model. There's a couple of models you use, and from that, you can identify what the ratio should be. So if you find drug A, that might be twice as much of drug A, and you have one times drug B. But if you have a different ratio, it might not work as well. And that's also very good for a patent or IP position. You've got supporting data. It's something novel, something unique. It has utility that it helps people, it fixes the condition. So see, from this, we were able to identify two compounds that were very synergistic, worked very well to treat strawberry birthmarks. So once we've done that, we then go and work on the formulation, and we've got that underway in Canada at the moment. This company literally does multiple formulations.
It does four creams, two ointments, two gels, does a whole lot of work on that. Then we identify a formulation, then you get that manufactured, and then you can start doing a clinical trial. So that's the sort of process. So it is actually quite innovative, and there's a lot of R&D and IP behind it. So that's the sort of an example maybe of some of the things that we're working with, just to give you a quick snapshot. And then finally, look, we believe we've done a lot of work to get a lot of things set up. And as David said, the results are coming along quite nicely so far. I think if you look at the pure sales graph, it's not just a straight line. We're getting a bit of an upward bend, which is certainly what we're aiming for.
Everything we've done to date has really been aimed at growing the business, at really hitting that long-term goal. I know sometimes we've had a bit of flak if some people said we should be focused much more on just profits. To be honest, we haven't been because we believe that that will get funded by this growth in the long term. There have been times we could have said, "Look, we have some extra money. We'll invest it in things." We actually have gone the investment route to really hit it out of the park, and that's certainly what we are genuinely aiming for. I mean, the positive things we believe we've got set up and sort of ready to go is this ongoing rollout of Maxigesic and its line extensions. We do have these additional R&D products.
We are spending a good amount of money on those at the moment, but we believe commercially it makes a heck of a lot of sense. You only need one good R&D product in the U.S. to really knock it out of the park. So certainly, that is one of our key things we're focusing on. And look, in our local markets, as you've seen, we've got that pipeline of over 60 new products we're looking to roll out over the next 24 months in Australasia. So that's sort of underway.
And then with the other markets around the world that we've been busy and working hard to set up all these affiliates, then also we want to roll more products and more pipeline through them, which is going to start happening at the end of this year or beginning of next year, but will be an ongoing thing over the next few years as well. And outside, we're now very focused on looking at that $300 million annual revenue mark, which we know we've got a bit of work to do and a few things to do, but that's really what the management team is very much focused on. But thank you. Hopefully, that gives a bit of a background of what we have been doing. Great.
Thanks, Hartley. Oops. So we're now at the point in the meeting where we open up for questions on either financials, the business update, or any other matters that you would like to raise. Directors and senior management team are also going to be around here after the meeting, and we're very happy to answer questions while we have a cup of tea. So anyone who wants to speak, please, could you raise your hand? Please, could you state your name before you ask a question? I'd also like you to wait until the microphone gets to you because otherwise, the people online are not able to hear the question. And in the interest of fairness to all shareholders, if anyone wishes to speak, please, could you be as concise as possible and considerate to other shareholders wanting to ask questions? So questions, anyone? Grant. We need a microphone, please, for Grant.
Grant Diggle, Shareholders Association. First of all, congratulations on another good year, and great to see the progress. And also to Hartley, thank you again for your usual explanation around the products and the pipeline and the research and development that makes it really, really clear where you're heading to. Just one point in your accounts. We note that as in FY 2023 and FY 2024, you've made a small political donation. Now, while these were common up until about 10 or 15 years ago, the Shareholders Association position has always been that companies shouldn't make political donations. They should be left to individual shareholders. And in fact, many companies have a written policy that they don't make such donations. We also have to say that AFT is the only NZX company that makes political donations.
I can answer that. I can answer. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I guess from our perspective, to be frank, I know it's connected with a political party, but we actually don't see that. We see it's connected with our local MP, and it's a dinner club. It's not a lot of money. And one of our frustrations as a company is because we do so much work around the world, we often get very little help or even recognition locally. We've won more awards in Australia than we've ever won in New Zealand. And that's kind of interesting, isn't it? So we found, though, by having at least an interaction with our local MP, whoever they are, they could be Labour, National, ACT, or Green, whoever our local MP is, we at least want to feel as though we have someone we could go ask in Wellington that could maybe raise an issue that we had.
That's really the only reason. So yep, I guess it comes out as a political one, but it's only with our local MP as far as we see it. And it's an attempt to at least think maybe we could have someone to talk to in New Zealand. Otherwise, often we find we struggle, and we don't get much acknowledgement at all from various authorities. Get more elsewhere.
Thank you.
Thank you, Grant. Any other question or? Sir at the back. Could you wait for the microphone, please?
Gordon Hardy is my name. I think the view forward and the R&D and all the way they're driving the products is fantastic. But unfortunately, you've overlooked the share price and the shareholders. And they are the source of the future for finance or should be for the finance for the company. I think that's something that needs to be considered. I compliment you on so many things, but sales and growth and all that is great. At the end of the day, you've got to be in business for a bottom line. That's what's got to drive the share price. I think if you can focus on driving that share price, the future will be fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you. As I mentioned in my address, we are very conscious of the share price. We are doing everything we can to ensure that the company does grow. As Hartley mentioned in his presentation, short-term profit is not necessarily what we're looking for. We're looking for longer-term profits. That's why we're putting money back into R&D and spending $12 million-$15 million a year on that. We'll continue to do that. But we are very keen to see, as you are, we are all shareholders, very keen to see that share price increasing and improving. But thank you for your comment.
Sir. Hartley, congratulations on keeping your head around so many products and new developments. Sorry, John Balasoglou is my name. Apologize. I just want to, in the normal corporate terms, you have a hero product that drives a lot of the revenue and the profit. And I might have missed that, but I don't see any, I assume that's Maxigesic Pain Relief OTC. Can you tell us kind of what percentage of total sales comes from that product and a gross profit margin on it?
I'll allow for that. Ample questions. Yeah. Look, the question was around, I guess, our largest product. I mean, Maxigesic is, I think, making about 15% of sales overall, and we're projecting it's probably going to grow a little bit more on that over the next as IV kind of picks up. But look, I think it's quite important, though, to recognize that we actually are quite diverse, and we've always wanted to be diverse. We've seen that during COVID, that some products went actually quite badly during COVID, and other products went very well during COVID. So we're purposely trying to, and part of the thing with the pipeline is we actually always wanted to diversify the base. So Maxigesic is our strongest product presently, but we do see that definitely other products can grow. I mean, it is contributing a good chunk to the profits. But the thing is very much, our business plan is very much based on having a diverse base.
So sometimes people do say to us, "Oh, yeah, but you're just a Maxigesic company, aren't you?" The answer is no. We're not. We're a pharmaceutical company, and Maxigesic presently is, I guess, one of our hero products. But we've got a lot of other products that we're seriously working on. So that's definitely important, but also other things and getting that base is really important to spread risk. We're very focused on spreading risk. We're not like one product just in the U.S. Everything's bet on that one thing. We like to spread it. I mean, it started from when Marree and I started the business. We literally started with NZD 50,000. We didn't always, we sometimes worried, "Did we have money for the groceries?" And that's why we spread risk, literally. And personally, I always think it's safer too. So our business looks at a wide, diverse base.
Yeah. My name is Haley Ching, a shareholder. Yeah. I wish to inquire about last year, AGM. Dr. Atkinson mentioned about you have bought a bankrupt company in Singapore for about $3 million so that we can further develop their unfinished product. Then may I ask that what is the position now?
Thank you. Now, I'm not quite sure. Last year, I think we said we'd bought a bankrupt company, and it was actually the one I referred to in my presentation in Germany. So what we've done is we purchased that company with nowhere near $3 million. It was about EUR 400,000 or something like that, which was a very good deal.
And basically, we are now in the position of we found out after we bought it, some of the, we had to do some product variations to bring the licenses up to date. Loana's smiling because she had teams been doing the work. So we're very close. Probably August, won't we, loana? We'll have finished that housekeeping and got those products suitably renovated to sell. And we've got a number of agreements. We're negotiating with a German company, but also those products, what the angle is, is we can then use the German license to get what's called repeat-use licenses in other European countries. And that's presently what we're doing. We've had discussions with another company in a major European market. So it is that thing with Europe where there's a lot of people, a lot of nations, and it spreads out.
So the opportunities can really spread out from just one German company with three licenses is quite interesting. But the other thing too is because we had that, we could then get the same product approved in the U.K. within 6 months using the mutual recognition. So there's all sorts of advantages that came off that. So that was just, I think that's the one you're referring to. We never bought any companies in Singapore.
Oh, that's good. Yeah. Thank you. By the way, I wish to inquire because you have 70 products. Then any products that are good for the skin after shaving or for the sheep after mowing, after cutting all the wool from that? Do you have that sort of product?
Yeah. We do have a number of dermatology products. We have a range we sell in Australia and New Zealand called Topiderm. Scotty, don't we? We have quite a range in local pharmacies. So yeah, we do kind of have a whole range of topical type of products under the Topiderm range. So those could be helpful.
Thank you. Why I mentioned that is just because on the website, say, on 26th of May, actually, last year, I forgot to mention during last year, AGM livestream. And it mentioned that in Europe, you have to be mandatory worldwide from 1st of July next year. After all the wool, what shall I say, shedding from the sheep, you have to apply antiseptic so that they won't suffer. Because New Zealand is, I think, the biggest sheep owner in the whole world. And your product may be able to apply to that because that rule will be mandatory in the whole world, including New Zealand.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry, I probably misheard you. But yeah, well noted.
Thank you. Yeah. Then go to the Fieldays Agricultural Show to mow your product. Yeah. Yeah. Although, I guess just to quickly make the note because a lot of people have asked us about the veterinary market. We purposely, strategically, we're not going to focus on the veterinary market because it's only 2% of the pharmaceutical market around the world. So our strategy is where there's plenty of human drugs, honestly, like heaps and heaps. So we're just going to focus on the human pharmaceutical market. But this one will be 58 million tablets. Quite a big market. Because I think those tablets will be suitable for the animal as well. Yeah. But it's up for you to decide for me.
Thank you. Could we have maybe someone else to ask a question now? Thank you very much for your question. Anyone else got any questions they'd like to ask, please? Okay. Okay. Well, look, as there don't appear to be any further questions, we'll now come to the formal matters requiring resolution, which are outlined in the notice of meeting. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on each matter being put to shareholders. As required by the NZX Listing Rules, a poll will be conducted for each of the resolutions. And the polls will be conducted all together at the end of the formal business. Your board supports each of the resolutions being put to the meeting and has stated in a notice of meeting each director intends to vote all shares and undirected proxies held by them in favor of these resolutions. And we will show proxies cast for each resolution before we vote. Next slide. Resolution 1, Auditor's Remuneration.
The proposed resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration for the current year. In accordance with the Companies Act, Deloitte has been automatically reappointed as the company's auditor. Details of statutory audit fees paid to Deloitte for the financial year ended 31 March 2024 are set out in the 2024 annual report. The 2025 audit fees are expected to be comparable to last year's with provision for an increase as the audit scope broadens with the company's expansion and with additional climate disclosure requirements. I now propose as an ordinary resolution that the directors are authorized to fix the fees and expenses of Deloitte as auditor for the 2025 financial year.
Are there any questions concerning this motion? There appears to be no questions. So the poll on all resolutions, as I said, will be conducted at the end of the formal business. And we'll now move to the next resolution, which concerns my reelection to the board of directors. Accordingly, I'm going to hand over the meeting now to Hartley.
So yeah, look, just as David said, I'm just handling this. He's retiring by rotation in accordance with the listing rules and offers himself for reelection. The board recommends David as a director and unanimously supports his reelection. His bio is set out in the notice of meeting. I'd now like to invite David to briefly address the meeting on his proposed reelection.
Thank you, Hartley. And thank you, everyone. Is that okay? So I joined the board in 2015 as AFT was looking to raise capital and list on the ASX and NZX at that time. That was a critical and exciting time for AFT, and I was able to assist with my experience in capital markets.
I knew very little, however, about the pharmaceutical industry. During my nine years as chair of AFT, I've really only learned and started to understand the rudimentary principles of the industry. It is a complex industry, which is what makes it so interesting. I've learned that AFT, your company, is an outstanding New Zealand pharmaceutical company, indeed a great New Zealand story of innovation and growth. We are a minnow amongst the giant pharmaceutical global companies. Like so many New Zealand companies, we punch way above our weight. With only just over 100 employees, we have an amazing research and development capability, a regulatory team which is very small by international standards, but which achieves incredible outcomes with regulatory authorities around the world, plus strong sales and marketing teams and an impressive senior management team. AFT is respected globally by our suppliers, our customers, and our partners.
We are respected globally for our products, our innovation, and the way we do business. I feel very privileged to chair this company. My background, as many of you will have heard previously, is in corporate and commercial law, both as a partner of Bell Gully and as general counsel and company secretary of Carter Holt Harvey when it was one of our largest listed companies. I have, over recent years, become a professional non-executive director for both listed and unlisted companies across a range of industries. I'm also involved with a number of organizations on a pro bono basis. I have good experience as both a director and a chair. I feel we still have a lot to achieve.
We had a strategy day a couple of days ago, and your board is excited about the potential we have as a company as we continue to grow our international presence and introduce new products to the market. You will have heard Hartley outline some of these earlier in his presentation. There is unfinished business, and I'm very keen to help AFT achieve our goal. I do hope to continue as your chair and ask that you do vote for me. Thank you.
Thank you, David. I now propose that David be reelected as a director of AFT. Are there any matters for discussions or questions concerning this matter? Grant.
Grant Diggle, Shareholders Association. First of all, David, you've done a great job chairing this company. I obviously attend a lot of meetings each year, and so I get to see the good, the bad, and the extremely ugly of chairmanship. You've done a great job. Now, the association's position is that we like to see board rotation for renewal and refreshment of boards. So generally, we like to see terms of around nine to 12 years, except as in the case of Hartley, where we have a founding director or a substantial shareholder. So while we don't expect you to make any comment at the moment, we would appreciate some sort of comment from the company, perhaps towards the end of your current term, given you will have served for 12 years at that stage, just so we know where things are heading. The other thing we're looking forward to always is succession planning.
Just as boards look to the CEO for succession planning among the senior management, we like to see a plan for succession among boards. So we know that the risk of board loss, institutional knowledge, historic knowledge, etc., is covered off. So as I say, that's just our comment.
Thank you, Grant.
Thanks, Grant. If I could just comment briefly. Thank you. So yes, we'll talk to the Shareholders Association prior to three years' time, assuming I'm still around in three years' time. On board succession, that is an important point. I think you will have noticed that our board, we have had a number of changes in our board over recent years. With Anita's resignation, we are in the process now of recruiting or looking for a new director as well. So thank you for your comments, Grant, as ever. We appreciate your support. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Being I assume no further questions, we'll now move to the next resolution. I'll now invite David to resume as chair. Thank you.
Thank you. Hartley, thanks very much. Now, the next resolution is that Ted Witek sorry. Next slide as well. Ted be reelected as a director of AFT. Ted's also retiring by rotation in accordance with the listing rules and offers himself for reelection. The board recommends Ted as a director and unanimously supports his reelection. His bio is also set out in the notice of meeting. I will now invite Ted to address the meeting on his proposed reelection.
Thank you, David. First of all, good morning to everyone. It's always a pleasure to be with the team here in Auckland. I'll just tell you a little bit about myself. I'm an American-Canadian dual citizen, currently based in Toronto. My current position is a full professor at the University of Toronto in the School of Public Health and the Faculty of Pharmacy. I mention that because I've taken on that role after several decades in the innovation-based pharmaceutical business as another way that I can make impact with young students. Also, my desire to make impact and every time I spend my how I spend my time in my career. That relates how my interest is in continuing in my role as an independent director of AFT Pharma. I'm pleased to be considered for reappointment. I talk about my current appointment being in academia, but it actually follows some 35 years in the research-based pharmaceutical industry. What is unique about my career is that I've actually been able to work along the whole value chain of the pharmaceutical business.
What I mean by that is I started off when I had black hair as a young research scientist working on the bench screening compounds for particularly respiratory diseases, asthma, and chronic obstructive lung disease. Spent a good part of my career doing that and spent the core of my career in clinical and regulatory development. I've had the good fortune to develop successful drugs that are helping many, many patients. During the core of that career, I was based in the United States, where most of my interaction on the regulatory front was with the U.S. FDA, having several dozen meetings with them over the course of my career. As was mentioned several times in Hartley's presentation today, the USA market is the largest market in the globe. You see that our presence is increasing there.
I welcome the technology of WhatsApp, how often Hartley is able to call me and discuss some of the strategies as we work to increase our presence in that market. Now, the other point I wanted to mention is I've also had the good fortune in my career to work for a company that was always concerned with one's personal and professional development. I did spend the last 12 years of my career as a chief executive officer, first having appointments in Germany, then as a managing director in Portugal. And what brought me to Canada was a 6-year term as a CEO of Boehringer Ingelheim in Canada. So with that vast experience, I come back to my point of my desire to make impact. Through this experience, I'm able to work with Hartley, my fellow colleagues on the board, and the management team.
35 years is a long time. I can say with confidence that we have the most dynamic and focused team that Hartley has organized here. I do have the opportunity to work with them on a regular basis. Thank you for the consideration for reappointment. I look forward to making whatever contributions I can to the success for Hartley, the team, and of course, you as shareholders. Thank you very much.
Great. Thank you, Ted. I now propose that Ted be reelected as the director of AFT. Are there any discussions or questions concerning that motion?
Hi, Professor Witek. Yeah. It's nice to know that you are a professor in this field. And because then you would like to read lots of articles about research, like Funding New Medicine earlier, I recommend you to read The Economist of the 16th of September to the 22nd of September last year. That was after the AGM. And it's page 67. It mentioned AI in science. It's faster, better, more productive. And in Britain, they are already using this AI to find new antibiotics, etc., etc., much more faster. I trust in you that you will do such a research. Thank you, Professor Witek.
Thank you very much for that comment. I agree wholeheartedly that augmented intelligence, artificial intelligence, will have a major impact on our industry. Not only the basic innovation-based research where we're able to even use artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics to design drugs, but also in a company like AFT, where we can apply AI tools in our daily work across all of the disciplines of the company. We have discussed this at the board again this week. We'll be happy to report on that progress a year from now.
Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Okay. We'll now move to the next resolution. That is that Andrew Lane be elected as the director of AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited. Andrew was appointed to the board in September 2023. In accordance with the applicable NZX listing rules, Andrew retires and being eligible, offers himself for election as a director of AFT. The board unanimously supports Andrew's election and considers Andrew to be an independent director. Andrew's bio is set out in the notice of meeting. I will now invite Andrew to briefly address the meeting on his proposed election. Andrew.
Thank you, David. While I have been on the board for 9 months, it's obviously the first time I get to address the shareholders. I thought it appropriate to give you a little bit of history. I've been in pharmaceuticals for 30 years. 20 of those years was in international markets, primarily in Asia and then in Europe. My last posting before I retired and decided to come back to New Zealand was running, New Zealand terms, a $9 billion global pharmaceutical company, which gave me a lot of experience of manufacturing across the world, developing drugs in multiple parts of the world, and having to solve some of the things that AFT is now embarking on in international markets.
So I've come back here and wanted to impart some of my experiences into a pharmaceutical company. And I'm absolutely delighted to join such an innovative New Zealand-based pharmaceutical company, which, when I was contemplating coming back to New Zealand, I didn't think would be possible. But I'm really delighted to have had this relationship in the early stages. And I hope to get reelected because the journey that AFT is going to embark on in the international markets, you've seen it started and really is just the starting. And I think the growth prospects over the next decade are immense. And it's a really exciting journey to be on. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. So I now propose that Andrew be elected as a director of AFT. Are there any comments or any questions that anyone would like to raise? No? In that case, we can now move on to the next resolution. There are no more resolutions. So we're going to go to you will see on the screen proxies that have been cast for each resolution. It's the first time we've seen this as well. And as I mentioned earlier, we're going to conduct a poll at the end of the meeting on all resolutions. So just have a look at those. Okay. And now, as there's no further business, we will now conduct the polls on the matters described in the notice of meeting. Please use the voting card that you received when you registered on arrival. Please complete your voting paper by ticking for, against, or abstain in the appropriate place on the form for each resolution. If you've got any difficulty, please raise your hand. Someone will come and assist you.
Please remain seated until your voting card has been collected. Our share registrar, Computershare, will come round with ballot boxes and collect the voting cards. Are there any other items of general business? Grant.
Me again.
That's okay. Thank you.
I note that the meeting has been webcast. I wonder if you would consider using Computershare's online platform next year. The benefit of this is it allows for shareholders joining online to both ask questions prior to or during the meeting and also allows them to vote at the voting point. And it collects all the votes together. Since COVID, we've noted that probably about 68% of NZX companies are now using one of the two registries online meeting platforms as well as having a physical meeting. So just a comment.
Thank you, Grant. And look, that is something that we are considering and we will consider for next year's meeting. I should just mention that we did receive a question from a shareholder via our website. This was about pseudoephedrine and whether we have a product available. We did talk about that during our presentations. And we do have a product registered in Australia and filed in New Zealand, but not yet available. The question also asked whether we'd seen a downturn in sales on cold and flu medications because we don't have it yet available. And the answer is no, we have not yet seen any such downturn. Any other matters of general business? In that case, I will now move to close the meeting. And on behalf of the board, thank you again all for attending this 2024 annual meeting of AFT.
We will announce the results of the polls to the stock exchanges later this afternoon. I now invite all of you to meet directors and senior management over a cup of tea, which will be served very shortly, or coffee, to the right of the room over here. Once again, may I remind you to stay seated until someone's collected your papers, which I think has now all been done. Thank you very much indeed. I declare the meeting closed. Thanks very much, everyone.