Good morning and welcome to ArcticZymes Technologies Q4 presentation 2024. My name is Michael Akoh, I'm the CEO of ArcticZymes , and I'm going to take you through the start of this presentation. I'm joined by Børge Sørvoll, our CFO, as well as our VP of Sales, Paul Blackburn. Thank you for spending your morning with us. Next slide. Just a quick overview of our company to the new ones on board. Next slide, please, Børge. The agenda of today is that I'm going to take you through the highlights of Q4, then I'm going to talk a bit about 2024 year in review, and then I'm going to recap our strategic priorities. Paul is going to take over and share our commercial transformation progress.
Paul joined the company in September last year, and he's a key part of our leadership team and a key ingredient in driving the commercial transformation that we are executing on. Paul is also going to take you through the sales for Q4 within our two segments, Biomanufacturing and Molecular Tools. Next, Børge is going to move on and go through the financials for the quarter as well as the full year 2024. After that, I'm going to come back with an outlook, and then we're going to open up for questions and answers. Next slide, Børge. Looking at the highlights of the quarter, we had total revenue of NOK 26.4 million. There was an improvement from Q3, but down from Q4 2023, where we had NOK 29.1 million. Our EBITDA ended up at NOK 2.7 million, a significant improvement for the quarter compared to Q4 2023.
We also made significant progress during the quarter in terms of delivering on our SAN compliance upgrade program. We launched, according to our plans, a new SAN HQ neo GMP nuclease. We also launched an ELISA kit, which is used for detecting trace amounts of nucleases in the process. I am really, really happy also to report that our new ERP system went live December 2nd last year. I am really, really happy to see that we now have a new, modern, fully functioning ERP system that is going to support long-term operational efficiencies as well as enable the company to scale. A big thank you to the full team that has been working for the past 12 months on this comprehensive project. Paul is going to also talk a bit more about the commercial transformation.
Part of the commercial transformation is putting a new, restructured commercial organization in place. Paul has been driving this since he came, and now we have a restructured team consisting of seasoned business developers as well as new marketing resources. They're going to be essential for driving growth in 2025. If we look back at 2024, then the market conditions, especially within bioprocessing of advanced therapies, were challenging. However, for us, it was a year of transition. It was a year of strategic process to position the company for long-term growth. The commercial transformation has started, and it's going to continue throughout the year of 2025. We've strengthened the team, Paul as our new VP of Sales. We have a new marketing director on board, as well as new business development managers in Europe as well as the U.S. Strategic partnerships have been important to pursue throughout the year.
We are working with several partners, both on the commercial front in terms of increased customer reach, but also on the innovation side. We made significant progress in the quarter in regards to progressing our partnership with a leading viral vector CDMO that is going to start implementing our M-SAN HQ nuclease in their platform from Q2 2025. In Q1, we have already seen the first smaller process developing order come in. In regards to SAN OEM partners, we are also advancing the discussions. Next month, one of the potential partners is going to audit our facility here in Tromsø, where I am currently. It's really, really important for us to also develop scientific data. We have, throughout the year, been able to do so through partnerships with, for example, the Austrian biotech organization, ACIB.
Through that collaboration, we have managed to uncover new benefits of our nucleases. We are going to continue that collaboration throughout the year, as mentioned. We have also worked intensively in regards to developing new prototypes of some of our enzymes. Here we have utilized our partnership with Biomatter in terms of utilizing machine learning to develop new prototypes faster. Finally, on the innovation front in regards to partnerships, under the Norwegian Research Council umbrella, we have the ADEPT project. The main purpose of that project is to develop new enzymes for advanced therapies. Not just cell and gene therapy, but also taking it one step further into RNA therapeutics. Scientific marketing and thought leadership is key for a company like ArcticZymes Technologies. We have innovative products. We have to ensure that we get that out to all our customers.
We launched a number of both webinars as well as publications and posters throughout the year. I am also happy to see that we are starting to see the early signs of progress in regards to building an even larger customer base within biomanufacturing. Paul is going to get back with further detailed data on our growing customer base within that segment. Investment in innovation. Innovation continues to be important for us, even though we have had a large focus on the commercial transformation and expanding our commercial team. This year, we launched two new GMP-compliant SAN products. These products are essential and are going to enable us to enter into more later-stage bio-processing projects as well. More long-term, we also set the foundation out for, as mentioned, advancing the development of mRNA enzymes. We had a publication during the year of our first mRNA restriction enzyme.
We have now decided to put that into development. Last but not least, as mentioned, the ERP system that was launched was an immense effort by the whole team, going to, as mentioned, enhance operational efficiency, improve our supply chain management, and in general, just enable more compliance and better scaling possibilities for the company going forward. Next slide, Børge. Just a recap of the strategic priorities. Those of you that have been following the company have seen this before. They remain the same. We keep on executing on what we have said. One, and the most important one, is the customer-centric transformation. We have to get closer to the market. We have to get closer to the customer. This goes for the whole company, not just for the commercial team. We've strengthened, as mentioned, the commercial team and restructured it, improved our commercial processes.
This is the start. We're going to continue to do so throughout the year. Channel development, although we believe that our direct channel to market is extremely important in regards to getting and building strong customer relationships, and also in regards to innovating, getting direct customer feedback that can enhance our offering and improve our general innovation pipeline. We are a smaller company, so channel development to partners is also a focus, both in terms of OEM deals as well as the CDMO collaboration I talked about. Scientific marketing remains to be a key, and you're going to see publications coming out during 2025 as well. There is the second priority. Throughout the year, we delivered on this priority. We launched two GMP-grade enzymes. In 2025, we are going to complete this SAN compliance program with launching one new GMP nuclease mid of the year.
Finally, we are also going to turn our focus during 2025 more towards molecular tools, more towards application data and repositioning of our excellent molecular tools enzymes. Long-term, as I talked about, it is about expanding our pipeline. It is about broadening our offering within advanced therapies, biomanufacturing in general. Taking our enzymes beyond cell and gene therapy into, amongst others, mRNA manufacturing and analytics. We also, during the year, determined and validated a strong innovation pipeline. Throughout the coming years, we are going to execute on bringing new molecular tools enzymes to the market within mostly sample prep as well as amplification areas. More long-term, we are, as mentioned, also looking into organic opportunities. Next slide. Two main products were launched during the year. We had the SAN HQ ELISA Sensor Plus, as well as the SAN HQ GMP neo.
Both products play an important part in building our customer base and also ensuring that we are also able to go into later-stage drug development projects where GMP compliancy is in most projects a must. Finally, there's the SAN HQ ELISA Sensor Plus, which is a significant upgrade from the predecessor in terms of better sensitivity, and now it's market competitive. Great products that are going to play an important part in growing our biomanufacturing business long-term. Next slide. Yeah, that was my final slide for now. Now I'm going to introduce Paul Blackburn to you, been with the company since September last year. Go ahead, Paul.
Thank you, Michael, for the introduction. I'm delighted to be here on this call today. What I'd like to do is spend a little bit of time introducing myself, talking a little bit about what makes ArcticZymes special in my mind, sort of why I joined. I'd like to give a few more details about the commercial transformation that I'm driving within ArcticZymes. I will go through some of the sales numbers from Q4 and full year. Next slide, please. Who am I? I've got around 30 years' experience in science, sales, marketing, and leadership. I've got a track record of driving commercial success in the life science industry. That's both in bioproduction, but also more generally within life sciences. I've got a particular specialty in building commercial teams and scaling them to perform in a high-performing manner. I really enjoy building organizations that generate sustainable revenue growth. I really enjoy breaking into markets.
I believe I know what bioproduction and molecular tools customers need. I'm looking forward to helping ArcticZymes get there. ArcticZymes is in a unique position. They're a proven company with an incredible reputation. They've proven that they can deliver best-in-class quality, and they're well in tune with the regulatory aspects of the industry. They already have a loyal customer base. What really excites me about ArcticZymes is the untapped potential. The demand for our solutions is growing rapidly. We've got the technology, the expertise, and the market position to capitalize on it. ArcticZymes isn't just another biotech company. It's a real strategic growth engine with significant market upside. That's why I'm here. We're laser-focused on scaling the business strategically, expanding our commercial reach, and more importantly, strengthening key customer partnerships, as well as penetrating high growth segments.
It is more than just increasing sales. It is about really building a commercial powerhouse to deliver long-term sustainable revenue. ArcticZymes is for sure set to be a dominant player in this space. Now is the time to focus on that growth. ArcticZymes is a critical inflection point. The biotech industry will continue to shift, but ArcticZymes has got this great combination of innovation, market momentum, and execution capability. We are going to seize this opportunity. The potential for us to create more value to our customers is massive. I am really confident that with the right focus and the right strategy, we can unlock extraordinary returns. If I put this really simply, ArcticZymes is the right company at the right time. With the right team, we can really drive exponential growth. I will go to the next slide, please, Børge.
As we move forward, we're making a deliberate shift in how we engage with our customers and in our commercial behaviors, moving from a purely or mainly product-focused approach to becoming a true customer partner. Of course, this is essential for long-term success. I'd like to just walk you through what that actually means. Starting from where we are today, we've got an incredible foundation. Our expertise in enzymes is very well established. We're shifting towards focusing on the enzyme features and pricing to a much deeper collaboration with our customers. What this means is moving from a transactional and opportunistic mindset to prioritizing long-term value and stronger relationships. The whole team, not just the commercial team, is now putting customer insights and customer needs at its very core. We understand our enzymes.
Now we need to demonstrate that we understand customers' workflows and challenges, not just transact on orders. This consultative approach really builds relationships where customers will see us more and more as trusted resources of knowledge and expertise. We are the enzyme experts. I think it's really important to note that our customers, our prospects, are not always in buying mode. When they are, we want to be the first partner that they turn to. That's because we've positioned ourselves as experts with real long-term solutions that matter and bring value beyond just the enzyme provision. This shift is going to help us build stronger, longer-lasting relationships that drive sustainable growth. To truly grow and truly deliver, we need to evolve. That's where we're heading. Next slide, please, Børge.
As I mentioned, the whole customer is now engaged in this, understanding, listening, and focusing on our customers. That focus takes us to what the customer really needs. What are their pain points? What are their aspirations, Not just transacting. We are moving from kind of pushing products and taking orders to solving real customer challenges in customer applications. Part of this is bringing rigor to the commercial process. I love professional selling. I love using metrics around behaviors and rigor around opportunity management to help us better. We are working more clearly and more consistently with our CRM to give us better insights. Our newly revitalized sales team has got great skills. We are humble, and we know that there are improvements to be made. We are elevating our selling skills ability.
For example, at our recent commercial kickoff meeting in Tromsø, we went through what you might regard as strategic sales training as well as common sense selling. We need to stay ahead of customer needs, and we need greater urgency to take advantage of opportunities. We need to win more opportunities by shifting from being reactive to being very proactive. With our customers, they expect us to be with them to design in our enzymes and to prove ourselves at very small scale. That is why momentum at that part of the business is incredibly important rather than at the revenue side when customers commercialize and manufacture using our products. We are building a team that will overdeliver on customers' expectations. Critically, we are building a pipeline of well-managed opportunities rigorously. We are building a new sales and marketing team.
We've made great progress since I started in September. We're building also a new approach to business. Next slide, please. ArcticZymes is already having success with many industrial customers. Many customers already regard us as partners. Once they see what we have to offer, they tend to like it. We just need to bring ourselves in front of more customers. It takes time. The sales cycle is long for both biomanufacturing and molecular tools. I've been lucky enough to visit customers many times, at least since I joined. I can see the success that our customers are having with our products. I visited a big pharma in the U.S. that recently acquired a leader in gene therapy. We started working with them back in 2018. Now we're going to be launching our GMP-grade M-SAN.
They're expanding together with a top-tier CDMO to use our enzymes in their production processes. That's not a one-off. We're seeing this again and again. We're integrated into CDMO platforms. We need more, for sure. We're now seeing our customers work towards clinical trials and commercial adoption, commercial manufacturing. Beyond cell and gene therapy, we've also seen adoption of our Salt-Active Nucleases in traditional viral vaccine manufacturing. We've got a couple of exciting projects that we're involved in, including one that should result in a national viral vaccine rollout during 2025. Customers outside cell and gene therapy also include, for example, exosome customers who are also starting to realize that salt-active nucleases can make a massive impact in their process. With regards to molecular tools, we've also seen some success with customers commercializing new platforms where we're built into their consumable preparation or their consumable kits.
Next slide, please. ArcticZymes continues to demonstrate strong commercial momentum. Q4 shows key indicators of sustainable growth and market expansion. Let me walk you through some of the highlights that reinforce why we're in a prime position for long-term success. We closed Q4 with NOK 24.4 million of sales, which is a solid performance despite market challenges. While this is slightly behind Q4 2023's NOK 28.4 million, this reflects a shift towards a broader, more diversified customer base. Basically, three customers spent less. This brings us a strong foundation for future revenue stability. Because we're expanding our customer base and order volume, we've attracted 7.5% more customers, and we're seeing greater order volume of 9.6%. This signals rising demand and engagement with our products. The average order value dipped slightly by 5.1%.
Perhaps this is a natural outcome of onboarding new customers who typically start with smaller purchases before scaling up their orders. What is exciting is we have broken a historical trend, and we had a stronger Q4 than Q3. This is the first time that we've achieved this since 2021. This signals a stronger end-of-year demand and a shift towards more consistent revenue generation. It reflects the effectiveness of our commercial execution and our commercial strategy. We've also seen a healthier geographical mix, with North America contributing 42.6% of orders. This is up from 35% in Q4 2023. This is a direct result of our efforts to expand in key international markets. It reduces our dependency on any single region. Traditionally, ArcticZymes has been more European-focused. We are seeding the market very well at small scale.
It is difficult to know which companies to back and which projects with our customers will be successful. We are more deeply involved with more customers, so we have a better chance. Specifically, with biomanufacturing, we saw stable performance. We have a strong pipeline and sales fundamentals. Quarterly biomanufacturing sales reached NOK 12.2 million, which was steady versus Q4 2023. More importantly, if we exclude headwinds from three major accounts, sales actually grew by NOK 5 million year- on- year, demonstrating this strong underlying demand. I keep saying it, but one of the biggest positives is our continued expansion of our customer base. We are adding new customers at a healthy rate to evaluate our enzymes. This will help offset the swings and fluctuations from larger accounts where phasing of order placement can be an issue, has been an issue.
This diversification further strengthens our long-term resilience and reduces our reliance on any single customer. I mentioned briefly we're expanding into non-cell and gene therapy applications. This unlocking of new markets is very exciting, and it's opening up new revenue streams. Examples of that include viral vaccines and Oncolytic Vaccines. A key takeaway from here, from this slide, is our momentum. Our customer base is expanding, and our technology is reaching new applications. Demand remains strong. We've got a pipeline that's filling with promising projects, and we've got a clear strategy to drive the long-term growth. I believe we're positioned for a good 2025 and beyond. This is just the beginning of a new phase, of course, at ArcticZymes. The new GMP versions that we're launching will further help us build this pipeline. Next slide.
For molecular tools, we had a strong Q4 versus Q3 due to an execution on priorities. Again, we secured new projects and deeper engagement with our strategic customers. We built a strong foundation for long-term recurring revenue. 2024 was very deliberately focused around Salt-Active Nucleases because of this seeding that is necessary and because of the long sales cycle. This investment in SAN has paid off. The next step is to balance the growth in molecular tools. One of the things that we've done here is we've made sure that we've recruited a commercial team with strong molecular tools experience. This is going to help us to strengthen our sales and penetrate the market. Our next step with molecular tools is to sharpen our strategy and be more deliberate.
This approach will ensure that we maximize our impact and secure long-term partnerships and deepen our footprint. Next slide. Our key takeaway here is that ArcticZymes is growing in the right way. Growing the customer base, growing the opportunity pipeline, increasing our engagement, and improving regional balance. Our strategy is already starting to deliver results, and we're really well positioned to capitalize on future opportunities. We've got more customers than we've ever had before. We've got a great blend of bringing customers in through new process development, but also integrating into existing customer processes. We're a company that's building sustainable and scalable growth in a very high-potential market. What I'd like to say is customers are already scaling. Our products tend to stick as they move from research to clinical to commercial. We've already embedded in some high-impact therapies and molecular kits. We need more.
GMP expansion is going to unlock bigger deals and long-term growth. This momentum is real. We are at the heart of an industry that needs better enzymes. With that, I'd like to pass over to Børge, our Chief Financial Officer.
Thank you, Paul and Michael, for that great introduction to our commercial transformation and kind of the strategic priorities that we have going on these days. I will talk a little bit about some of the other accounts that we have on the financial statement. I will start out with the ERP system. It has been a major project that has been going on throughout the year. We have implemented the Jeeves ERP solution now. We went live on December 2nd. We have spent several thousand hours of work, both internal and by external people that have supported us.
Of course, we expect this solution to improve our efficiency and our productivity down the line. Even though you can say we are just at the beginning right now, and we are still learning how to utilize the system to its full extent. During the next year, we expect to know the system a lot better. One of the biggest challenges with this project is that we had to validate the software system due to our ISO 13485 regulation. This means that we need full traceability throughout the value chain. We need data security. It will also mean that we need stronger internal control on all our production processes. This is also a tool that can be integrated with other value-generating tools, such as the CRM systems, the HR systems, and AI a little bit further down the road.
Most importantly, we have a solution today that is up to date. It gives us the flexibility to scale and grow the business in the coming years. Looking at the financials now for the fourth quarter. As both Michael and Paul alluded to, sales continue to be challenging. We had some headwinds in the quarter. On the other side, our expenses are a little bit lower compared to previous quarters, as we have reversed some accruals in the fourth quarter. Our sales revenues ended up on NOK 24 million. It is a decrease from the same period last year where we had NOK 28.4 million. It is also an increase from the third quarter this year by NOK 1.2 million that we saw in Q3 2024.
We also had some positive contribution under other revenues, where we had a newly awarded tax grant where we recognized NOK 1.2 million in the fourth quarter. This also covers expenses that we have had earlier in the year. We also recognized NOK 0.7 million in the ADEPT project that Michael talked about, that for expenses we also had in the fourth quarter. Cost of materials continue to be normalized now, like we saw in the third quarter. This is after, you can see, we talked about the challenging second quarter where we had to dispose of some of our inventory on some of the kits that we had. Personnel expenses are lower than we've seen in the fourth quarter last year. It's lower than what we had in the third quarter this year, where we had NOK 16.1 million.
Also part of this explanation is, as I alluded to earlier, that we have reduced close to NOK 2 million in accrued bonuses for the first and second quarter in 2024. Capitalization of projects in this quarter was NOK 0.8 million, which is also reducing our personnel expenses. This is, of course, lower than we've seen in previous quarters. You can see for the whole year, we capitalized NOK 8.6 million on projects, which is a reduction from the NOK 17.5 million that we did in 2023. Other operating expenses came in at NOK 8.7 million compared to NOK 9.7 million last year and NOK 9.1 million in the third quarter this year. ERP projects continue to be an important part of our expenses. It is also worth mentioning that we have ramped up our commercial activities with travels, scientific documentation, and market data through external parties.
I think one special thing in the fourth quarter is we had kind of a recruitment drive on the commercial side of the business. This had an impact of close to a little bit more than NOK 1 million for that quarter. For the whole year of 2024, sales revenues ended up NOK 104.4 million versus NOK 119 million in the same period last year, which is a reduction of NOK 14 million or a 12% decline. Total revenues ended up NOK 108.2 million versus NOK 119.7 million last year, or a reduction of 10%. Some expenses for the period are at NOK 102.8 million versus NOK 97.5 million in the same period last year, or this is an increase of 6%.
The majority of this increase is related to some extraordinary items, such as the ERP project that is finalized now, but also that we have capitalized less personnel expenses this year compared to what we did in the previous year. You can also see on the graph on the left-hand side that we were able to improve our EBITDA margin again. We were able to deliver 11% margin in the fourth quarter compared to minus 10% in the third quarter this year. There are some extraordinary items that have impacted our quarterly statements. Of course, it has been the ERP project that has been going on for most of 2024. We expensed close to NOK 1.5 million towards the ERP solution. This also includes the kind of the license we had. This expense will disappear moving into 2025.
There will be, of course, some follow-up costs and introduction costs and problem-solving costs as we move into kind of general operations. The project as such has been finalized. We are, of course, live now in 2025. When we are kind of eliminating some of the extraordinary items that we saw both in the third quarter or fourth quarter last year and in the fourth quarter this year, you can see our adjusted EBITDA would actually be NOK 4.1 million this year compared to NOK 2.9 million in the same quarter last year when we adjust for extraordinary items. On the cash flow side, we had a positive change in the fourth quarter of NOK 1.8 million. This includes that we had NOK 0.9 million changes on the short-term investments that we have in mutual funds.
Also, we had NOK 0.9 million on the operations side in positive cash flow for the quarter. For end of the quarter, our cash position was slightly positive, as I said. We have a solid financial position with NOK 170 million in cash. We also have more than NOK 70 million in short-term investments in low-risk interest-rate mutual funds that can be converted to cash within days if that should be needed. With a cash and short-term investments position in excess of NOK 240 million for end of the quarter, I would also like to hand it over now to Michael to round off the presentation and open up for Q&A.
Thanks a lot, Børge, for the walkthrough of our financial results for the quarter and the year. Thank you to Paul for a good overview of what you've been working with and, in general, an overview of the commercial transformation. It has been a year of transformation for the organization, which has been tough at times for the team. We started out the year by doing a reorganization and closing down our Oslo site. In Q1, we have also done an organizational restructuring. We are doing all this to ensure that we embark on a more customer-centric journey. As mentioned, we now have a full commercial team in place. We have, in general, an ambition and plan of having more resources across the organization engaged in customer-facing activities. That is key for our success in 2025. As mentioned, our SAN OEM partnership is progressing. It has taken a bit longer than I first anticipated.
Again, to recap, the partner that we are discussing with and have come the furthest with is going to do an audit in Tromsø next month. CDMO partnership as well on track in Q2 of this year. They're going to start their M-SAN HQ integration on their general platform, which means that new projects that they get in are going to be utilizing our M-SAN HQ product. Portfolio expansion. We're going to launch a new GMP-grade nuclease mid-2025. That is going to, in a way, mark the finalization of the regulatory upgrade campaign that we have been working on throughout the year. That is essential in order to be able to be implemented in more later-stage manufacturing processes. There is also, over time, going to be an increased focus on the innovation side on molecular tools and RNA.
The product development of our restriction enzyme that we have talked about previously has been initiated. That is not a product that is going to be launched during 2025. It is really important for me and the whole leadership team that we focus, have the right priorities, and deliver on what matters in terms of creating growth for the company. I am confident in our team's ability to execute on our strategic priorities and get back on a growth path and create shareholder value during 2025. I am excited. I am looking forward to continuing working together with the whole organization to move ArcticZymes f orward and to put the company back to a growth mode. That marks the conclusion of our presentation. We are going to open up for our Q&A session. I think we already have some questions in.
Yes, Michael. We have received some questions online. I will try to sort them out a little bit. We try and bundle them a little bit here. First of all, we have a question regarding the OEM discussions that we have talked about. You sound a little bit more cautious today than you've been in the past. Has anything changed here?
Nothing has changed in regards to the general timeline that I communicated earlier on. In regards to the actual execution of a signed agreement, it's going to take a bit longer. As mentioned, next month, we are going to be audited by the partner that we have come the furthest with. We are also talking to other companies in regards to OEM agreements and distribution agreements. There is one partner that we have come further with than the rest. Our goal is not to enter into 10 different OEM agreements or distribution agreements. Our goal is really to ensure that we enter into an agreement with the partner where the best fit is. We want to ensure that there is an alignment in regards to priorities in both organizations to ensure success. We are not going to go into an agreement, as I have stated further, just to be able to put out a press release.
Are you only working on more than one OEM partner agreement?
I think I answered that in my response, actually.
Okay. Can you also say something about the revenue impact of that new CDMO integration that you talked about that is starting in the second quarter of 2025?
I think it is still very early days to say anything that is concrete about that deal. As Paul has already alluded to, of course, the sales cycles are long and so on. The benefit with being implemented on a CDMO platform is that we get additional reach. Again, it is going to be early-phase projects. It's not going to be projects that are close to commercialization. I am excited about it because we are extremely well aligned in terms of the focus on providing the best possible yield and purity for the customers. The end goal is, of course, to give more patients access to gene therapy.
Okay. Thank you. Another question. Can you say something about expectations around the usual timeline for pickup and sales on newly launched products? Or how long does it actually take for a new product to have significant impact on both, you can say, the top line and the bottom line?
Yeah. Do you want to say something about the top line and implementation? How long does it take in general terms, Paul?
I can say a few words on that. I mean, we've got customers in our pipeline that are at different phases from designing in and kind of understanding and validating our products through process development, clinical trials, and even commercial manufacture. It can, of course, take years, several years, to get from one end of the spectrum to another. Let's remember, we're not starting at the very beginning with all these customers. We've got opportunity in play already at different parts of that continuum. I think the short answer would be several years. The longer answer is we've already engaged at different stages during that process.
I think something else that's worth remembering is that when we launch a GMP product, a customer will immediately start to use that grade of enzyme. It's far more likely that they would start with the high quality, the bioproduction, the laboratory quality of enzyme, and use GMP when they need to. By launching new GMP variants, what we do is give the confidence to the customers that they're with the right partner who can stand with them from a regulatory point of view.
Thank you. All right. Maybe a little bit more about how you view ArcticZymes position within kind of the nuclease market now compared to competitors, giving the kind of increased competitive pressure?
I think I have a comment on that before I leave the word to you, Paul. The market has definitely changed during 2024. We've seen that there is a number of new competitors promoting their Salt Tolerant Nucleases and such. If you look at the way our customer base is expanding within biomanufacturing, then I think we can go back to some of the responses I've given previously that this might actually help us expand the market for Salt-Tolerant, Salt Active Nucleases. The market is still dominated by nucleases that are not Salt-active. The potential is huge to take share from all those out there using traditional or conventional nucleases. I see it as a positive development also in regards to keeping us on the toes in regards to ensuring that we keep on developing scientific proof material. An example of that is, as mentioned, the ADEPT collaboration where we've worked together with them. We have, as mentioned, uncovered some very unique benefits of our Salt-Active Nucleases in terms of their ability to remove chromatin. Paul, you can maybe also expand.
Yeah. A few words on this. I think we need to be careful to distinguish Salt-Tolerant and alt-active. We are very much Salt-Active. Okay? If we look at how a customer decides on which enzyme to take into their process, there is nearly always an evaluation of different enzymes. To Michael's point, the competition is perhaps helping us to generate more of these evaluations. Where we need to be strong is making sure that customers use our enzymes in the right way and they measure the right things.
Being more rigorous around how we sample to customers and how we support them scientifically through their testing process is really important. I think something else that has come out during my customer meetings is that we're not a new company. That gives customers a lot of confidence in working with us. We're an established enzyme manufacturer. To Michael's point, there is an incumbent enzyme, a default enzyme, if you like, in the market that is perhaps not optimal for the processes that it's being involved in. It really is about making sure that we win when customers test.
Okay. Thank you. When can we expect the first RNA enzyme to be launched? Are there any other enzymes in the pipeline that can be expected to be launched in 2025?
In 2025, our focus is to launch a new GMP-grade nuclease. That is what is in focus. Apart from that, it's all about executing on the commercial priorities that we have.
All right. Are there any other initiatives in 2025 that excite you beyond what you kind of already kind of talked about that you see?
I am excited about a lot, but I think a person that's even more excited than me is Paul. What excites you, Paul, about 2025?
I think ArcticZymes has done really well presenting enzymes to the market. Now what we can do is be really deliberate about the applications where customers have been successful. Customers are now generating data where Michael alluded to the fact that we have publications and white papers that come from customers' labs coming out. What I'm really excited about is just being more deliberate with similar customers. If you like, we can create ideal customer profiles based on what we know about where customers have been successful with our applications. I'm really excited about just being more proactive and more deliberate with these customers with applications that we know that our enzymes are successful.
Okay. Thank you. One question on kind of the commercial transformation that you talked about and your organization. How do you see the commercial or how big is the commercial organization today? And how do you see it move in the future from here, from where we are today?
Michael, should I take that one?
Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Yes. It's okay. At the moment, it's not simply a case of adding more salespeople. That's not what we need to do here. I don't want to get too hung up on the size of the organization. We've effectively got three business development managers in the U.S. We've got two in EMEA. We have a director in each who oversees the business. We have also got two partners in APAC that we work closely with as contractors. I think what is really important is that we focus on lead generation and building the pipeline. There are no shortcuts to having a healthy opportunity funnel.
To do that, we have a new marketing director, a very experienced marketing director from the life sciences market, who works closely with an innovation marketeer and a market development manager. We have a modest direct commercial team, but we do intend to scale it further with lead generation specialists or experts. We are also going to bolster the team with more scientific expertise. Having more scientist-to-scientist discussions is going to be critical to make sure we win those evaluations that I referred to. Thank you.
Okay. I think we are going to just have a few more questions, and then we will try and round off the Q&A session here. I can also say we have a question that you spent close to NOK 5.6 million on the ERP implementation in 2024 or close to 6% of OpEx. Also, can you confirm that this will be zero in 2025?
Maybe I can answer that question. You can say, "Yes, the project has been finalized. We finalized the kind of intensive care period from their support function now early in 2025. We have officially moved into kind of general support with that one." The implementation cost is gone for 2025. There will still be some need for support in 2025, but we are talking about a fraction of what we have spent in the previous year.
Also, I have one question. Have you considered to do some share buyback with the cash position that you have now?
I think I can answer that. I think it is an ongoing discussion with the board. We also want to ensure that we have ability to act on inorganic opportunities. It is something that is constantly being discussed at the board level.
Maybe I lost—we have a—maybe I lost technical question. Maybe it is a little bit hard to answer it. Can you possibly quantify potential savings with the new Salt-Active Nucleases given the chromatin removal and increased purity?
I think that that is going to be a key thing that we are going to be looking more into during 2025. It is not simple and straightforward. As mentioned, we have some collaboration partners that going forward can help us get closer to a more concrete number in cost savings because I fully acknowledge that that is an important part of our sales proof material that the business developers will love to have.
Okay. Thank you. Also, by that, you're saying that our SAN products give less contamination. That also means that we can expect good growth in these sales in the coming quarters and years?
We can definitely expect good growth. I think I would like to just share also what I am hearing and seeing after speaking with a lot of stakeholders within advanced therapies biomanufacturing. 2023, 2024 have been negative years for advanced therapies biomanufacturing in general, especially cell and gene therapy, especially for smaller biotechs. What we are seeing now is that the market conditions are slowly improving.
Going from a negative to a neutral. We are not over in the positive phase yet. There has been improvement also in regards to number of clinical trials being initiated and progressing. It is a business where things take time in regards to sales cycles, processes, and so on. I'm confident that we are in a better position entering 2025 than we were when we entered 2024 on many different fronts, especially in regards to our ability to execute on the commercial front.
I think with those final comments, we will round off this session today.
I would like to thank all of you for spending your valuable time with us this morning. I look forward to communicating with you during the year. We are excited about 2025. We believe that our strategic priorities are right. We are going to keep on working hard to generate growth and eventually also, of course, shareholder value. Thanks a lot.