Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vistin Pharma Quarterly Report Q2 2026 Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your questions via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our first speaker today, Magnus Tolleshaug, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning and welcome everyone to this second quarter and the first half year 2026 financial results presentation for Vistin Pharma. My name is Magnus Tolleshaug, Chief Executive Officer of the company, and with me today I have our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Alexander Karlsen. I will now go through the highlights. The revenue in the quarter ended at NOK 100 million , compared to NOK 118 million in the second quarter of 2025. We had a significantly stronger Norwegian krone compared to euro in the quarter of 2026 compared to last year, affecting the revenue in local currency. The revenue year to date ended at NOK 212 million, compared to NOK 233 million year to date last year. A decrease of 9%. The EBITDA for the quarter ended at NOK 22 million, compared to NOK 30 million in the second quarter of 2025.
The EBITDA of NOK 22 million was positively affected by higher sales volume, however, offset by a weaker euro. If you look at it, the currency neutral, the EBITDA decreased by approximately NOK 2 million compared to second quarter of 2025. The EBITDA year to date is NOK 49 million , compared to NOK 60 million year- to- date last year. The earnings per share for the first six months of 2026 ended at NOK 0.8 per share, compared to 0.91 NOK in the first half of 2025. In the first half of 2026, we had a sales volume of 3,100 metric tons, an increase of 8% corresponding to 240 metric tons compared to the first half of 2025. An ordinary cash dividend of a total one NOK per share was paid in the quarter, corresponding to approximately 44 million NOK.
As previously communicated in our first quarter presentation, the main distillation vessel has reached end of its normal lifespan and will need to be replaced. It is planned in an extended biannual maintenance stop in the fourth quarter of four weeks for both manufacturing lines. The planned stop will typically impact the production and sales volume in the same quarter. Here we have a nice picture of our manufacturing plants in Norway. The sustainable production in the middle of the forest. It is a nice picture. It shows the facilities. In the front you can typically see the newest warehouse, that is the gray box with the white logo.
In this plant, 5, 6 40-feet containers are coming in every week with the raw materials and the same amount of containers is leaving the manufacturing plant every week with API to Larvik and Brevik Harbor, to short sea to Rotterdam, and then long sea to the rest of the world, and also by truck to all over Europe. We produce 365 days a year, 24/7, only interrupted by maintenance stops. It is a high-speed manufacturing plant, very highly automated. In Vistin, we are today a pure-play metformin company supporting patients worldwide in a growing market. Diabetes is one of the largest health emergencies in the 21st century. Metformin is still used as the baseline treatment for diabetes type II. Of course, you have combinational drugs you can put on top, but still the main use of type II diabetes is metformin.
In Vistin, we would like to say that we have a good growth opportunity in this market. We are one of the leading global producers of high-quality metformin based in Europe. If you look at the market demand for metformin, and you look for reports or market intelligence, you can see that it is still expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 4%-6% on an annual basis, according to the International Diabetes Federation. Vistin's global market share today is about 10% and will also continue to be around 10% when we fill our manufacturing plant with the new capacity, that is because we are growing in a growing market. Here we see a picture of the number of millions of people living with diabetes today in the world. 10% of these figures are typically diabetes type I , where you get insulin.
90% of these cases are diabetes type II, where you typically get metformin as the baseline treatment. It is really a lot of millions of people. 590 million people are estimated living with diabetes today. Around 550 million have type II diabetes, 3.4 million deaths per year. The health expenditure on diabetes is enormous. It is estimated at around $1 trillion. This is a picture of the world map, more or less showing a bit the same, but you could say that the IDF, the International Diabetes Federation, is expecting the number of patients with diabetes to grow with approximately 45% until 2050. Up to 850 million people expected to have diabetes in 2050. You also have today around 650 million people in the world living with a pre-diabetes condition that can also be treated and diagnosed. It is really a pandemic.
Here we see a typical snapshot of our export sales out of Norway, all the way from U.S. and Canada and Latin America in the west to Japan in the east. We typically export and sell our API to mid-size and large-size reputable pharmaceutical companies who then transforms our API, the active pharmaceutical ingredient, into the drug product. Today, as far as we know, we are sold and patients are using our API in more than 100 countries around the world. We have had a long and successful track record. Here you see a graph of the revenue development since 2010 to last year. You can see the jump in revenue in 2023 when we installed our new manufacturing line the year before. It is nice to see that we have transformed the manufacturing lines into revenues.
I would like to hand over to our Chief Financial Officer, Alexander Karlsen, who will take us through the more details of the financial results.
Thank you, Magnus. Let us start with the sales volume. We had a sales volume of close to 1,600 metric tons in the second quarter, which is an increase of around 8% or 120 tons compared to the second quarter last year. Looking at the first half sales volume, we had around 2,860 metric tons in 2025, while this increased to 3,100 metric tons in the first half of 2026. Moving on to the revenue, which came in at NOK 100 million in the second quarter compared to NOK 118 million in the second quarter last year. Increased production volume has resulted in more volumes available sales, which highly has transformed into actual sales. As Magnus mentioned, the NOK has significantly strengthened against EUR in the second quarter, which is affecting the sales in local currency. The average sales price, ASP, was lower compared to same quarter last year.
As we have seen, the spot prices of metformin fluctuates with the global raw material prices, and the raw material prices has been lower in the second quarter this year compared to same quarter last year. Another effect on the revenue in the second quarter is product mix and onboarding of customers in new regions, which also influenced the sale price. Year- to- date, NOK 212 million in revenue compared to NOK 233 million year to date last year. Gross margin, 66%. The volatility on the raw material and freight prices due to the Middle East/Iran conflict has been reduced during the summer. They are more as stable state on raw material supplies. However, there are still uncertainty around the movement in the second half of the year. EBITDA of NOK 22 million in the quarter.
On the positive side, increased volume and a weaker USD compared to NOK, which is positive for our raw material purchases. On the other side, stronger NOK versus EUR had a significant effect on the revenue and hence the EBITDA. FX neutral, EBITDA decreased by approximately NOK 2 million compared to the second quarter last year. EBITDA margin came in at 22% in the quarter, and the first half EBITDA was NOK 49 million compared to NOK 60 million last year. Going a bit more into the details in the income statement. We have had a look at the revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation amortization. We can look at depreciation, NOK 6 million, an increase around NOK 500,000-NOK 600,000 compared the same quarter last year, driven by more capital sales and assets/investments we have done.
Looking at the net finance, we had an income of NOK 2 million compared to an expense of NOK 1.2 million same quarter last year. This year's income is driven by currency hedging contracts in EUR. As previously communicated, we do use forward hedging contracts on a portion of our sales to net out potential volatility in the currency rates. Net profit came in at NOK 14.1 million compared to NOK 18.5 million same quarter last year, while year to date, the net profit was NOK 35.6 million compared to NOK 40.2 million. That gives an earnings per share of around NOK 0.8 versus NOK 0.91 for the first half of 2025. Looking at the balance sheet, total non-current assets of around NOK 232.4 million compared to close to NOK 240 million last year. This is mainly the building machines equipment at our plant in Kragerø.
The small decrease is driven that we have had higher depreciations compared to what has been invested in the period. Looking at the current assets, there is a small decrease in inventory. We have slightly higher safety stock of raw materials compared to last year and slightly less finished goods. There is an increase in the receivables, and that is driven by that a significantly part of the second quarter sales was shipped out and invoiced in June. So we expect that to go down somewhat for the coming months. That gives total assets of NOK 434.7 million compared to close to NOK 422 million last year. Having a look at the equity and liability side of the balance sheet, equity increased to close to NOK 320 million compared to NOK 294.3 million last year. That is even with the dividend payout of NOK 44 million in the quarter, which decreased the share premium.
Total long-term liabilities, NOK 33.3 million compared to NOK 22.3 million last year. For the short-term liabilities, NOK 81 million compared to NOK 105 million last year. We have a net debt as of end June of close to NOK 8 million, and there is also available credit facility if needed. That brings also the equity and liability side to close to NOK 434.7 million compared to NOK 421.7 million for the same period last year. With that, Magnus, I will give the word back to you.
Thank you, Alexander. I will now go through a summary of the presentation. We have had a second quarter revenue of NOK 100 million with the corresponding EBITDA of NOK 22 million, so a 22% EBITDA margin. We have had a sales volume of 1,580 metric tons in the quarter and 3,100 metric tons year to date, an 8% increase compared to same quarter last year. We managed a gross margin of 66%, even with significant negative currency effects compared to the same period last year. So it shows a good commercial execution. We have built significant safety stock of critical raw materials over the past quarters, which is mitigating potential supply chain interruptions due to the Middle East conflict. Compared to pre-Hormuz situation, increased freight and raw material prices are expected a bit going forward due to this Hormuz situation.
Typically in turn, this influences also the global Metformin prices. The long-term renewable energy supply agreement that we have signed with Statkraft until 2032 provides predictable power prices irrespective of market volatility. This secures 100% green renewable hydropower long-term with a very favorable carbon footprint compared to other metformin suppliers Far East. The Vistin sales and the marketing team, we are actively working in new regions to offer our products and onboard new customers to fill our manufacturing capacity. The global Metformin demand is still expected to grow by an underlying growth of 4%-6% per year. The main distillation vessel in production has reached the end of its normal lifespan and will need to be replaced. This is planned in an extended biannual maintenance stop in the fourth quarter over four weeks, where both lines will be idle.
The planned stop will impact the production and sales volume in the same quarter. We normally don't guide, but since the stop in the fourth quarter is relatively large, we find it fair to our investors to inform about this upfront, and we also informed about this in our first-quarter report. In Vistin, we are continuously working for improvements and growth opportunities, and have started also to look for ways to further increase production capacity and, of course, improve unit cost. Vistin, we are strategically well-positioned as many European clients prefer high-quality supplies, nearshore production, and an attractive ESG profile using renewable energy with an extremely low carbon footprint. An ordinary cash dividend of one NOK per share was paid out to shareholders in June, corresponding to approximately 44 million NOK.
With that, I think we're done with the presentation and can open up for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click submit. We currently have. Oh, sorry, sir.
Yes, please go ahead.
We currently have no phone questions. I will now hand back to the speakers for webcast questions.
Okay. We are looking into the list of questions here. The first one is a nice one. It says, "Congratulations with the steady state production and sales in the first half year of 2026." Thank you very much. The first question is Metformin DC 95%, our new product. What is the status and timeline for the first commercial sales, and is the margin expected to be higher than for standard Metformin HCl? Well, first of all, the DC 95% is ready now for commercial sales. We are working actively with new leads around the world, but as you know, in the pharmaceutical business, things take time. You send samples to customers, they need to qualify your DC grade, and then file the DC grade to the authorities, et cetera. Things take a bit time.
But basically, the first commercial sales of 95% DC is ready by end of this year or 2027. The second question is, maybe you can take that one, Alexander.
Yeah. It's how much of the 2026 ASP, meaning average selling price, decline is due to lower market price versus customer and product mix. I would say 70%-80% is the lower market price. As you see, if you go into more details in the operational cost line, you will see that there also a significant decrease in raw material prices, both in the first half and the second quarter compared to last year. That's correlated to what we see, that raw material go down and also the metformin price go down. We also are actively looking into new leads and customer around the world to fill the capacity of the plant, and it's normal to have some kind of introduction prices to onboard new customers. As we said, did have some effect on our ASP in the second quarter.
Yeah. There is a third question from the same investor. The distillation vessel. Will the new vessel be like for like replacement or will it increase capacity or reduce energy use and cost per kilogram? Well, it is basically a like for like replacement. However, the project around the installation is also going to increase the capacity for the butanol. So it's both increasing our options for the capacity on the butanol, but also basically a like for like when you look at it from equipment perspective. The energy use and cost per kilogram, I don't know, Alexander, whether you have any comments to that, but I think it's probably like for like.
The replacement is like for like, but will give some cost benefits on suppliers for butanol and a bigger tank so we can reduce the number of fillings. So it will give some cost benefits. There's also another question on the cost of the CapEx to replace the distillation unit, and it's not very huge. It's more the job because it's a big tank that's going into the plant, and the CapEx is less than NOK 5 million including installation and everything.
Another question here. It's about capacity and unit cost. We state that we are looking for ways to further increase production capacity and improve unit cost. What specific opportunities are you evaluating or potential capacity increase and cost reduction per kilogram could these initiatives deliver? Well First of all, improving unit cost is bread and butter when it comes to a manufacturing company like ourselves. So that's a continuous improvement. Also regarding OPEX savings and looking at how, let's say, the working processes in the manufacturing plant and in the organization can be done. When it comes to the statement, we can also say that we have started to look into some R&D feasibility studies where we look upon how we can utilize and improve our chemical process in a smarter or better way. There are always options to look into that stoichiometry.
It can be what type of raw material qualities we can eat and use in the process, et cetera, without affecting the quality of the API. As a high-quality premium API supplier, we also need to make sure that every change we do or plan is making sure that the API coming out of the plant is the same quality as we are famous for.
Yeah. In addition, I would add that if you break down our biggest cost buckets, you have raw materials and personnel costs. In addition, for the pure operational cost, it is electricity, where we have the Statkraft contract. It is the water and sewage cost, where we had a really great project two years back, where we now reuse 80% of our water used for cooling down reactors. That was a product that is less than three years payback, and we save around NOK 5 million a year. The last big cost bucket is really waste that come out of production. That is something we look at because today we have to store this in tanks and drive to places where it has to be stored. It is rather expensive.
There we are looking if we can reuse some of that, can it break it down so it is less toxic, et cetera. That is something, initiatives we are working on that can be really positive on our OPEX in a couple of years ahead.
There is another question here about an update on the 15% ownership for the CF Pharma. If you can elaborate a bit on the planning there, what are the plans? The ownership in CF Pharma, first of all, gives us good access to management of the company. What we can say is that we are actively looking into some cases together with CF management currently, but we are not going to guide anything about the outcome of that. There is a question whether we can publish the metformin prices on our homepage. Well, I do not think we are going to do that because it is extremely difficult to predict metformin prices because you have prices of metformin on the stock market varying very much depending on the type and quality and the region of the world for metformin.
I think if you want to look at metformin prices, what we can say is that there are databases out there that you can get into, either payable or not, where you can see the trends on the metformin prices. But which one is exactly the correct and whether that is corresponding to the prices that we have in Vistin Pharma, that will be up to the investors to guess. Let's say our prices of metformin will be shown in the figures that we show every quarter. There is a question, which new regions in the sales and marketing team are working with, and how will the sales influence it? Great question. We have been working very actively, I would say, the last year because we need to fill the capacity of the manufacturing site.
The regions where we already now have been able to acquire, I would say 3 - 4 new customers is the [NIMIA] region and the Middle East. We also established new customers in the Latin America, and then we are very briefly also started to explore some opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa. Whether it will influence how is the pricing is the question. Well, when you are onboarding new customers, first of all, you need to convince them why they should spend 1 year and a half to qualify you as a supplier. And of course, you need to have competitive pricing to be able to be considered as a new supplier. But it depends.
The pricing will also depends on whether the customer just wants to have a plain metformin without any extra features or whether the new customer is interested in extra features like analysis, like extra release tests, like documentation or safety stock. So that is also influencing the pricing. And as Alexander mentioned in the financial figures, the product mix from quarter to quarter is also influenced by the amount of extra services per material number.
I think with that, we have answered all the question. And thank you for listening, and we can now close the call.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.