Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Valeo Pharma Inc.'s fourth quarter results conference call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. Also note that the call is being recorded Tuesday, January 31st, 2023. I would like to turn the conference over to Frederic Dumais. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Present with me today for our fourth quarter and year-end 2022 results conference call are Mr. Steve Saviuk, Valeo’s CEO, and Mr. Luc Mainville, our Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin our call, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements regarding the company’s expectations or future events. Such expectations are based on certain assumptions that are founded on currently available information. If these assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements contained in this conference call. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise other than as required by securities laws. I would now like to pass the call over to our CEO. Please go ahead, Steve.
Thank you, Fred. Good morning, all, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and year-end 2022 results conference call. I will start by quickly reviewing our latest quarterly and yearly results, providing a brief commercial and operational update, and then I'll pass the call over to our Senior VP and CFO, Luc Mainville, who will provide more details on our record fourth quarter and year-end results. For the past several years, our calls have dealt with the changes in revenue growth that Valeo has undergone from the previous year. This year, 2022, we have witnessed change in revenue growth move to a different level. Positioning Valeo as one of the leading publicly traded, domestically owned pharmaceutical companies in Canada, our growth is just getting underway.
In 2022, we posted revenues of CAD 27.7 million, an increase of over 100% from last year. Our adjusted gross margins for this period increased to CAD 9.4 million, a 109% improvement. Fourth quarter revenues hit another record at CAD 12.7 million, up 274% over the same quarter last year and sequentially up 108% over Q3 revenues. Our current annualized revenue run rate is in excess of CAD 50 million as we speak, and we expect that it will increase to over CAD 80 million by the end of fiscal year. Our adjusted EBITDA loss has sequentially decreased for the fourth quarter in a row and stood at CAD 2.9 million in Q4.
We expect this trend to continue as operating expenses flatten and start to decline due to the reduction of non-recurring launch costs. During the course of the year, we raised in excess of CAD 60 million in two complete financings. In December of 2021, we raised a CAD 25 million debenture from a private placement with Desjardins Securities with the participation of Investissement Québec and a number of other institutions across Canada. The remaining balance arose from a $30 million U.S. dollar non-dilutive debt financing provided by Sagard Healthcare Partners, providing a strong validation of our business model, as they are specialist healthcare investors. We still have another $10 million from the Sagard facility, which can be drawn down to provide for future product acquisitions.
We ended the year with a cash position of CAD 22.5 million. 2022 was a year of both organic growth and strategic product acquisition, which has diversified our commercial operations around a group of core products that have significant upside revenue potential and are well positioned in their respective markets. Our strong revenue performance reflect the therapeutic value of our products and the effectiveness of our 85 person strong commercial field team aligned within three commercial business units. In our lead therapeutic business unit, Respiratory and Allergy, our advanced asthma therapies, Enerzair Breezhaler and Atectura Breezhaler, lead the way with continual month-over-month prescriber and prescription growth. At the end of December, with the latest data that we have, prescriber physicians numbered over 1,400 and cumulative prescriptions totaled over 34,000.
We also, the data on that is that 40% of our total, that total prescriptions of 34,000 actually arose in the last three months of the calendar year. We're seeing that strong momentum now in prescription growth. One must remember that these products were launched barely over a year ago. In that context, we've done, I think an incredible job. Given the fact that COVID, especially at the beginning of the year, was still very present and remains so today. That positive trend has continued in Q1 of 2023, with sales of these asthma therapies increasing over 40% from Q4 on a dollar basis. We are challenging the established asthma brands and gaining increased awareness through our dedicated 60-person commercial team, commercial field team.
These products are now amongst the leading recommendations by respiratory specialists. During the year, we engaged in over 40,000 physician interactions with access to physicians starting to approach pre-pandemic days. We continue to forecast that these two therapies have peak expected revenue potential in excess of $100 million. At the end of Q3, Valeo acquired the license rights to ALLERJECT for the treatment of severe allergic reactions. Having existing revenues of $4 million annually, Valeo has developed innovative awareness campaigns that will support our official commercial launch of ALLERJECT in mid-February. With its voice-activated advanced delivery device and industry-leading reliability rating, ALLERJECT will bring true change and benefit to this market. Although sales of ALLERJECT have not yet materially impacted our top line, we expect to capture significant market share in the busy spring and summer seasons.
Ophthalmology has long been an area of interest for Valeo. In late August, we acquired the license rights for two ophthalmology drugs, Xiidra for dry eye and Simbrinza for glaucoma from Novartis Canada. With existing sales of approximately CAD 23 million, these well-regarded patented drugs are forming the backbone of our newly formed ophthalmology business unit. We worked hard and assembled this business unit in just under three months. As of the beginning of the first quarter of 2023, we have launched our dedicated commercial activities in support of these drugs. The resumption by Valeo of promotion for these two therapies using conventional as well as innovative outreach strategies is expected to yield continued growth for both products in the quarters to come.
We also expect to add new ophthalmic therapies in the future and build a broad portfolio offering that is favored by our target physician audience. Our specialty drug business unit counts Redesca, a hospital-based anticoagulant amongst its strongest products. Redesca sales has continued to climb following its launch in April 2021. It is now the number 1 enoxaparin biosimilar in Canada. That growth is expected to continue as the province of Ontario has recently announced the adoption of a policy favorizing biosimilars. This policy is expected to come into the effect at the beginning of April. Given that Ontario represents 45% of Canadian enoxaparin sales, we are anticipating a jump in growth as this market opens up to biosimilar competition.
Last year on this call, I referred to Valeo's product portfolio having a peak sales potential of $125 million. Our current portfolio estimates now place this potential well in excess of $200 million. A significant increase in large part due to our ongoing business development efforts, which continue to identify opportunities for Valeo to leverage its existing commercial and operating capabilities. When we use the word leverage, we are referring to our ability to add products generating sales and margins while only providing for nominal increase in operating costs. Looking forward, we expect that our Q1 2023 revenues will reach a new record level, and we forecast full-year revenues to exceed $60 million. Given our previously mentioned peak sales targets, we believe there is considerable growth left in the tank.
I would like to wind up my portion of this call by paying tribute to the over 125 entrepreneurial women and men whose daily efforts are making Valeo one of the fastest-growing healthcare companies in Canada. Valeo brings innovation to Canadians, innovation sparks life. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO, Luc Mainville, who'll go through some of the intricacies of our financial statements for the quarter and year-end.
Thank you, Steve. Valeo has achieved record revenues and adjusted gross margins in Q4 2022 and fiscal year 2022 due to the continued growth of Redesca, Enerzair, and Atectura, coupled with the addition of 3 new core products. Sales of each of Xiidra, Simbrinza, and ALLERJECT have commenced during the first quarter of Q4 and have had immediate impact on our revenue. Our annualized revenue run rate at the end of fiscal year 2022 now exceeds $50 million. This represents a significant increase over our fiscal year 2022 record revenues. Expenses to support and reach peak market potential for these products have been added since the July 2022 transactions. Incremental expenses relate mainly to sales and marketing activities. The balance of the existing commercial and head office infrastructure has been impacted by a lesser extent, thus providing for significant leverage and economies of scale going forward.
Our fiscal year 2022 financial results also show the full impact of two financings completed during the year. Following the $25 million convertible financing completed in December 2021, we've secured a USD 30 million term loan from Sagard Healthcare Partners in Q3. The Sagard loan has provided Valeo the required non-dilutive capital to meet the in-licensing and working capital requirements for acquiring the rights to Xiidra, Simbrinza, and Allerject. As mentioned, the corporation achieved record quarterly revenues in Q4 2022 at $12.7 million compared to revenues of $3.4 million in Q4 2021. Net revenues in Q4 increased 274% over Q4 2021 and 109% over the prior Q3 2022 quarter.
For fiscal year 2022, Valeo achieved record revenues at $27.7 million compared to $13.6 million for fiscal year 2021, a 105% increase. The quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year increases resulted mainly from the addition of Xiidra, Simbrinza, and ALLERJECT for Q4 2022, as well as the continued growth of our core assets, Redesca, Enerzair, Atectura . The last three products contributed to the full year in fiscal year 2022 compared to only two quarters in the prior year. Our gross profit in Q4 2022 was up 41% over the Q4 2021 period at $1 million, while our gross profit for fiscal year 2022 increased significantly over the fiscal year 2021 period at $6.3 million compared to $4 million, representing a 59% increase.
Our gross profit percentage in Q4 2022 has been impacted by the increase in amortization of product rights following the Novartis and Kaléo transactions, as well as the material non-recurrent impairment of intangible assets and write-off of inventories associated with product launch. To better appreciate the progress we're making in generating incremental gross profits from growing revenues and improved product mix, we have introduced adjusted gross profit as a non-additional, non-GAAP definition to our MD&A. Adjusted gross profit eliminates the amortization charges related to licensing fees, as well as specific non-recurrent items impacting our gross margins.
After taking such adjustments into consideration, our adjusted gross profit have increased significantly over prior periods at CAD 3.6 million and CAD 9.4 million for Q4 2022 and fiscal year 2022, representing a 320% increase as well as a 109% increase over Q4 2021 and fiscal year 2021, respectively. Despite these gains, our Q4 2022 and fiscal year 2022 adjusted gross profit percentage was impacted by lower margins from new products, which contributed to more than 50% of our revenues in Q4 2022. The Xiidra, Simbrinza, and ALLERJECT transaction have been structured predominantly based on declining transfer prices. Transfer price will reduce annually over the term of the agreement to compensate for the lower upfront on signing and will further decrease as sales increase, thus providing improved gross profit sequentially going forward.
The transfer price for Kaléo agreement will reduce over time as Kaléo hits commercial milestones. Total operating expenses stood at CAD 7.6 million in Q4 2022 and CAD 25.9 million in fiscal year 2022, compared to CAD 7.7 million and CAD 16.8 million in Q4 2021 and fiscal year 2021. Our total OpEx have increased in the later part of fiscal year 2022, 2021, sorry, to support the growth of our commercial platform and head office infrastructure. Since then, our ratio of total OpEx to revenue continues to decline as we take full advantage of our operating leverage. For Q4 2022, the ratio of total OpEx to revenue improved significantly at 60% compared to 104% for the prior quarter and 229% for Q4 2021.
Our financial expenses were CAD 4.1 million in Q4 2022 compared to CAD 0.5 million in Q4 2021. Financial expenses for Q4 2022 included the full impact of the CAD 25 million convertible debenture completed in Q1 2022, as well as the non-dilutive $30 million term loan financing completed in July 2022. Financial expenses for fiscal year 2022 were CAD 7.6 million compared to CAD 1.3 million for fiscal year 2021. Financial expenses also included a CAD 1.3 million net foreign exchange loss, mainly resulting from the conversion at year-end of the U.S. denominated Sagard loan secured in Q3, less FX gains on cash. We are tracking foreign exchange and believe our current exposure is acceptable.
We intend to be more proactive and manage our FX exposure as we approach repayment of the Sagard loan in the last quarter of fiscal year 2024. We actually expect FX gain on the Sagard debt in Q1 2023, as foreign exchange rates have improved since year-end 2022. Q4 2022, despite strong commercial gains and continued leverage of our commercial and corporate infrastructure, our net loss was $9.3 million compared to $7.7 million in Q4 2021, representing a 22% increase. Our net loss for fiscal year 2022 was $25.7 million compared to $14.2 million for fiscal year 2021. Adjusted EBITDA loss for fiscal year 2022 was $14.5 million compared to $8.6 million in the prior year.
Our adjusted EBITDA loss in Q4 2022 was CAD 2.9 million, down 47% compared to the last quarter of fiscal year 2021. Our adjusted EBITDA loss was also down 16% compared to the prior Q3 2022 quarter. This represented the fourth consecutive quarterly improvement of our EBITDA loss since we've expanded our corporate and commercial infrastructure in 2021. At the end of Q4 2022, cash stood at CAD 22.5 million as compared to CAD 2 million at the start of the year, representing a CAD 20.5 million increase.
Our working capital at year-end 2022 stood at CAD 25.2 million as compared to a negative CAD 3 million at year-end 2021, representing a CAD 28.2 million improvement. With CAD 22.5 million in the bank and access to an operating line of credit, which is permitted under the Sagard agreement, we have access to significant resources to continue implementing our corporate strategy. Fueled by the growth of our six core commercial assets, our revenues are increasing steadily. We are projecting continued improvement in our operating mix, our product mix and sequential quarterly improvement in our operating margins, while our operating expenses are expected to remain flat. The investment we've made in our corporate and commercial infrastructure are clearly paying off in providing considerable operating leverage going forward. This concludes the financial part of our call. I will now turn the call back to Steve.
Thank you, Luc. We are now ready to open the call for questions. Although this portion of the call is reserved for questions from financial analysts, we invite any of our shareholders or listeners on this call to contact us directly with any questions they may have, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can. Operator, you may now proceed with the questions part of this call.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star followed by one on your touchtone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, we ask that you please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you do have any questions. Your first question will be from Scott McAuley at Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.
Morning, gentlemen. Congrats on the significant growth on the quarter. Really great to see. A few things for me. I know in kind of past calls, you really focused on the goal of reaching break even, you know, ideally kind of by the end of the year, kind of looking forward. Is that still a focus for you and something that we should be watching for, as you kind march towards in the next few quarters?
Yeah. Luc, I'll start, maybe you can chime in afterwards. Hi, Scott. Thanks for listening in and for your questions. Definitely our goal is to be break even on an adjusted EBITDA basis by the end of the year. I think Luc's comment, and I alluded to it also, that the fourth consecutive quarter of declining EBITDA losses is a positive trend. We expect that trend is going to actually continue and accelerate over the course of the remaining course of the year. The short answer is, yeah, we absolutely are still having that as our goal and our target. Luc, any comment there?
Yeah, maybe I could add some color to that. Thanks, Scott, for the question. Clearly, break even has become and is currently our number 1 priority, and we're already seeing in Q1 2023 the impact of not only sales growth, but improvement in our product mix. More than than sales, it's important for us that our I would say our high margin products contribute significantly to our top line. With a flat operating OpEx, the growth of Redesca Enerzair Atectura and the progression, the lowering of the transfer price on the three new assets is demonstrating, improved margins in Q1.
Already right now, we have visibility on what our numbers are gonna be in Q1, and clearly, it's a significant step in the right direction. 2023 is the year where we aim at finishing the year on a break-even level. After that, it's gonna continue, as because these assets are growing, OpEx are flat, any further quarterly improvement is gonna contribute to the bottom line.
Definitely. Makes sense. Very, very clear. Thank you. On, on the operating expenses, you know, looking at kind of the employee compensation, you know, has been, as you've said, kind of been flat, or even come down a little bit, especially on the sales and marketing side. There is, you know, pick up in the kind of sales expenses and marketing expenses, which I think is reasonable given the amount of activity you guys are doing. Are you expecting, especially with more planned around ALLERJECT official commercial launch, in the next month or so, some of that the sales and marketing expenses to rise a little bit? Not necessarily the personnel costs, but just the costs of, you know, med affairs and other types of things.
Are you kind of really expecting it to remain flat, kind of quarter-over-quarter?
Yeah. Luc, you should go ahead with that one.
Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Again, thanks, Scott. Clearly you're asking the tough questions, but it's easy to answer. Sales and marketing is a, is a bucket of course, compensation, but you've got direct, you know, marketing expenses in there. You've got samples and bunch of things. What we're seeing actually is that we see the launch expenses associated, let's say with Atectura, which has been very high over last year, have come to a stable level. Also sample expenses. The sampling, you know, that we actually incur on purchase, not on usage. You know, they fluctuate, but, you know, we've had significant samples over the last couple of quarters.
Yes, there will be some increased spending for the new product, Allerject. We only added a couple of people to support that product, in-house reps, telemarketing and other initiatives. We're not gonna have like 20 people on the ground to support those assets. We are anticipating commitment to Allerject. Same thing for Xiidra and Simbrinza. The ophthalmology, you know, unit has been put together and completed in Q1 2023. You know, these are increased, expanding over prior levels, but at the same time, we see some savings that are occurring elsewhere in the portfolio. Long answer to a short question. What we're seeing right now is that our OpEx is gonna be flat for the coming quarters.
That's great. That's great. You kinda touched on that there's still the 10 million left from that, or 10 million USD left from the Sagard term loan. A re you actively looking at new products? How is that pipeline, kinda looking for you guys? Do you expect to do something in the near term, or is that, you know, closer to the end of the year? You know, you may decide that there isn't anything there that you wanna pounce on.
You know, Well, Scott, as you know, we did announce several months ago in licensing of the sabizabulin, which I guess earlier this week or last week we announced the filing acceptance with Health Canada. That's an add-on drug that we believe will be accretive this year. There's what's really nominal investment from an upfront point of view. To your question, yeah, we continuously look at products. We have a number of opportunities that are in the pipeline. You never know how quickly these will drop.
Yeah, we want to access that Sagard funds to grow the top line and to, you know, there is leverage, there is space available in some of our business units in terms of being able to handle more products. You know, the key element there is if we, if we add top line, we add margin, we don't expect our operating costs are gonna increase in any significant way. I mean, you might add one more person in the warehouse or something of that nature, but these are nominal considering the opportunity. Yeah, we're active on the business side. I'd like to think and as you've seen over the last few years, we seem to be adding products on a yearly basis.
I'd like to think that we'll continue to do so this year.
Definitely. That's great. Lastly from me, I'll get back in the queue. I know there was some inventory write-offs, you know, just over $1 million. I think you touched on it kind of related to product launch inventory. Can you go give a bit more color around that in terms of, you know, if there are any, well, kind of any additional write-offs that could be coming over the course of the year, or if any kinda what exactly those write-offs were related to?
Yeah, maybe I'll start.
Okay.
Can you-
Okay. You go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of it was around or a good chunk was around the launch of Redesca, where minimum order quantities for some of the smaller selling SKUs were higher at that time. We were in a position where we decided to go with the whole portfolio, and we continue to sell the whole portfolio. In the more recent times, we've been able to work with the manufacturer to lessen some of those slower moving SKUs. When I say lessen, reduce the quantities. It was a... I'd classify it as a one-time start-up cost.
As you know, in our business, there's always some amount of inventory write-off, but we've been very good at limiting that to really immaterial amounts in the past, other than these one-time charges. I think that's, I would not expect that to be a recurring element going forward.
Maybe to add to this. Yes. I mean, clearly this happens on new products only. I mean, to give you an example, Simbrinza, Xiidra, and ALLERJECT products, the initial inventory purchase has already been completely depleted within two months of taking over these assets. I think it's a question of minimum order quantity as you're launching product without having any visibility on what SKUs are gonna be in demand, but, you know, clearly we had to adjust that in the early first two years. I think more importantly, it's the timing. You wanna make sure you're launching on approval as quickly as possible.
You know, we've made some decisions regarding timing and, you know, percentage of products per SKU, and that is only on launch. There's, of course, Redesca, but there's also, you know, a lot of write-off on Hesperco, which we were expecting to be a bigger product for us. We're no longer, you know, expecting a significant sales on Hesperco, and we've taken a write-off to make sure that this wouldn't haunt us in future with our future numbers. Right now, we, you could argue that our write-downs have been, you know, turning the page on assets which do not represent the future of the company.
That's great. Thanks, guys. I'll get back in the queue, and congrats again on the great quarter.
Thanks, Scott.
Great. Thank you.
Next question will be from Andre Uddin at Research Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Steve and Luc. Just actually had two quick questions. I'm looking at your balance sheet. With your current sales force infrastructure, are there any products that you could actually bring in to leverage that sales force in a similar type of agreement that you had with Novartis in terms of profit sharing, without taking on any more debt? Are there any of those types of BD products out there right now?
There's, yeah. The variables on all these sort of runner or focus on upfronts, margin split, things of that nature. Historically, in the past, we've been very fortunate to enlighten some products with very little upfront and more of a lower margin split. That's what we continue to look at those opportunities. We continue to see some of them. That sabizabulin is a great example. Nothing upfront. Inventory levels will be managed more by Veru than us. That's.
There are sometimes you have to look at things where there is maybe a bit higher up front and with stronger margins, and those would probably be more on existing sale products as opposed to new products. The flip side in terms of our coverage, our respiratory team is busy now. I mean, you know, we have the Enerzair Atectura. These are drugs that are really of a first tier. I mean, we think Enerzair will become one of the, you know, top drugs by revenue in Canada. I guess the what we've shown in the last few months, especially 40% of our overall sales in the last three months of the calendar year, 18% growth on average month-over-month, it's pretty significant.
I think respiratory is pretty well dominated in those areas. Ophthalmology and our specialty hospital sales force absolutely have room in the bag. We're looking for products that can that really, you know, will allow us to use that word leverage, which is, you know, using the same people to do more and generate more. Absolutely, that's where the focus is.
That's great, Steve. Thanks. Just looking at your current run rate in terms of growth trajectory of your products, assuming the interest rates stay roughly where they are right now, which is hard to figure out, but would you need about CAD 20 million in sales to actually break even on a cash flow basis?
Yeah, that's, I think Luc computed. You can add to that.
Yeah.
That's why.
The-
We expect that's our fourth quarter.
We expect the fourth quarter to exit the year on with that level. That's gonna be on an EBITDA basis, break-even cash. You got to factor in the working capital requirements for inventory and receivable. We believe that, of course, the interest to support to carry the debt. We think that break-even cash flow is next year, and EBITDA is exiting 2023.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your touchtone phone. Your next question will be from Christopher Loo at iA Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
teve and Luc. Calling in for Chelsea. Congrats on the record revenue quarter. Just got a few questions. The first question is kind of specific, and it's related to the again, the inventory write-off, just kind of following up on that. Is it because, like, there's expiration dates for these products? Is that why they're written off? I'm just wondering if you can just add a little bit more detail to that.</p>
Luc, do you want to take that one?
Yeah. You're right, Christopher, and by the way, thanks for joining the call and say hi to Chelsea. Yeah. As you know, every product we take on has an expiration date. Sometimes it's 3 years, 30 days, 36, sorry, 20, 24, 30, 36 months from manufacturing date. When we receive those products, we do have a window to be able to sell all these assets before they get into what we call a window, where the retailers will not take over that products, and that's typically 6 months prior to shelf life. With that in mind the initial Redesca batch that was purchased, you know, late before launch in 2021, actually in 2020, came to maturity.
The SKUs, actually the write-off is specific to two SKUs. We have eight SKUs and for that product, and we kind of lined up our purchasing, our MOQ or in our initial batch, to line up on the innovator like Lovenox. For some reasons we weren't able to deplete those assets before they came to short life. This is a reason why you write off. With regards to Hesperco, it's an anticipated situation because when we're looking forward, we're clearly with the current sales level, will not be able to deplete those assets. There's been a bit of both.
You know, I'll try. It's obviously harder to estimate short-term demand on newly launched products because the uptake is always, there's a lot of variability in the uptake. It's a lot easier on products that have an existing run rate. Now, Redesca has this run rate and so challenges around a product like that that's growing is more to make sure you have enough inventory rather than having too much inventory. It's just every product has a different profile, different supply dates in terms of lead times and in many cases different expiry. Our logistics team does a heck of a good job. You know, unfortunate Redesca write-off, but that's not gonna happen.
We've been able to realign more along the true demand versus at the time of launch. I think these are, you know, one time charges.
So you think like from the Redesca, kind of experience and then these new products that would you see something like this happening for the new products? Or you think like what you're doing is kind of should be able to address this?
The new products, Chris, you gotta remember Xiidra and Simbrinza are already products that have sales in both products. As Luc mentioned, we sold out the initial inventory. you know, our challenge with Xiidra and Simbrinza is to make sure we have enough inventory. The products are selling-.
Mm-hmm
...actually a little bit ahead of, certainly in the case of Simbrinza, the demand is stronger than we had forecast. What's kind of interesting about that, and it's because it's there's so many facets to our business to consider, but our ophthalmic sales force has only really gone live the third week of November. It's really had no impact in the fourth quarter. I mean, we did sell products in the fourth quarter, but we had no one promoting these products. They were just ongoing sales. It's a lot easier to forecast, you know, and project the inventory demand on an existing product than on a new launch-
Mm-hmm
...where there's a lot of very, reimbursement, you know, you know, as you know, doctor visits, the established criteria, I guess, number that most big pharma uses takes six visits for the first script. How fast do you get out there? All of these things. I think right now we're in good position with going forward in terms of inventory, where we have a lot of inventory, but we're selling it's needed to reflect and support the growth in our sales.
Maybe, Steve, I'll add one thing to Redesca. People forget that we didn't pay any upfront when we acquired the rights to that asset. I think as part of all these negotiation, you know, the initial order was something that was also negotiated with a minimum order quantities. You put all of that together, you know, we have now a, you know, a very strong asset that's contributing significantly to our top line and more gross margin and bottom line within 18 months of launch. We haven't paid anything to acquire the rights upfront. I think when you put that in perspective this is a situation that is non-recurrent, that needed to be adjusted to truly reflect our, you know, our true margins.
you know, we're happy to explain it.
That's really great. You explained how, you know, you're dealing with it, so I really appreciate that. Just looking at your performance, your growth margins prior to Q4, it was on a really great trend, like 33%, 35%, 37%. I'm just kind of wondering, what do you see perhaps as the estimate for your growth margins in the next fiscal year and maybe for the long term once you've really scaled up? Just kind of can give some info for that.
I'll take that, Steve, and maybe you can come in after. I did explain that when we, you know, when you look at our current quarterly sales, Xiidra, Simbrinza and ALLERJECT, you know, have represented more than 50% of our Q4 sales, and less of our, you know, they're gonna be a declining percentage in Q1 2023. Those assets, again, were acquired with a, you know, creative, I would say, transfer price structure. In the early days of the agreements, the gross margin from these assets is, you know, somewhat lower than we would like, this is gonna change over time. Over the term of the agreement, the transfer price goes down, you know, our gross margin goes up.
It will also accelerate, the more we sell, the more we accelerate our margins. Last milestone that we're going to hit on Allerject that's going to help us reduce the transfer price. What we see is that, you know, we took, you know, you could consider that we've taken a hit as a percentage gross margin. We've had an impact, a positive impact on the dollar gross margin, which because these products are contributing to our margins. Our goal is always to aim towards 50%, which we think is the norm in our industry.
Mm-hmm.
You gotta take that in perspective and say, how much have we paid for these assets? We've captured CAD 25 million of assets for, you know, CAD 11 million up front. Typically, you buy 2x revenue to have bigger margins. We've paid less than half of revenue, so we have to address, you know, the short-term impact of that. Going forward, we think we're gonna trend. It's gonna. You're gonna see quarter-over-quarter growth in the gross margin because of what I explained earlier.
Okay, thanks. My last question is regarding just kind of a broader question. You have a lot of assets, right? Right now, you have a lot of assets and, you know, there's debt that you took on to acquire all these assets, and you have that CAD 10 million that you're kind of still looking to build the pipeline. I mean, let's say if you just... Is that necessary to reach break-even EBITDA for you to acquire like, more assets? Or do you think like based on what you have, how, like how far can you just run with what you have? Because you have so many new assets, right? Like, how important is acquiring new assets at this stage?
Maybe, Luc, I'll start, and you can answer. We definitely believe we can not only reach break even in, because all of the dates that we're talking about in terms of positive EBITDA and or adjusted EBITDA, positive cash are based on our existing portfolio. We're not considering adding any other products. We think we can build, and I mentioned in my script that, you know, our estimated peak sales potential is well in excess of CAD 200 million, I think CAD 230 million, CAD 240 million. We, you know, we're really. The scene that we're starting to see the fruits of a really intensive efforts around our asthma products where, you know, you're seeing 40% of the 12-month revenues for asthma prescriptions happening in the last three months.
There's that seeding process, that early stage process, those proverbial six doctor visits, they're paying off now. We think we can become a very strong top line, well over CAD 150 million top line with existing products, well over CAD 200 profitable. Adding products, you know, I think there's a couple of things. Potentially brings that break-even, advances it, brings it closer. The second thing, this leverages our team. I mean, we don't want to be limited in terms of what our potential is as a company. We don't feel pressured to add products to become profitable. What we look at is adding products and the right products that actually leverage our capabilities, maximize our, the use of our commercial team.
If that brings us profitability sooner, so be it.
Maybe to, again-
Okay.
Thanks. To add to that, Christopher, I'd like to pick up on one thing you said. You started your question by saying we have so many products. Well, that's not the way we see it. We have several key products. We have other products. We do, we think our portfolio is great right now, but don't forget we're running this business on a business unit approach. Ophthalmo unit has two products, can pick up additional products. Same thing for the specialty and respiratory. More than having assets, you need to have the right assets. As Steve alluded to, we have what we call door opener assets, products that doctors want to see, want to talk about, and each of the BU have additional capacity and same thing at the head office.
You know, we will always look to add assets that make sense, that can contribute immediate margins. Right now, our focus is clearly not to take a phase 3 assets and invest in regulatory risk or launch a product from scratch. We have the capacity to take on additional assets, and that's our priority. It could be also that we could add an extra leg to our corporate structure if we would find another ophthalmo business unit that could come in. You've seen the impact on our top line, 50% growth in top line, 20% impact on OpEx. You could do that deal anytime, so we could add another leg if we felt that it was the right way to go.
Okay. Yeah, I know it's really impressive, like with your current asset pool, like you're able to kind of aim for that break-even EBITDA already and have that great sales trajectory. All that additional stuff is just like cherry on the cake kind of thing. Yeah, I appreciate your kind of taking the time to answer my questions. Those are all the questions that I have.
Thank you, Christopher.
Thank you.
At this time, we have no other questions registered. Please proceed with closing remarks.
Great. Thank you, operator. I really appreciate everyone's time this morning. You know, we, as you can tell, we are very proud of our record on the revenue and margin side, both on a quarterly and annual basis. We see that continuing for many quarters. All our products are different. Or certainly the six core out of our 14 products have different growth expectations, we don't see a sort of a flat lining of that growth at any time over the course of the next two, three years. We see that that's kind of the horizon at the very least right now. And that's demonstrated in the quarter-over-quarter revenues that they're generating.
We are and it's, you know, positive cash flow is really the holy grail for us. I mean, and for most investors. As board management employees of Valeo still own over 50% of the shares. Really, we feel that amongst ourselves very much with our, with our investors. We all have the same objectives about building enterprise value and share price. Our asthma drugs are is really the diamond we believe in the portfolio and one of the real top drugs in Canada. We're very fortunate to have the rights to this drug. You're seeing that growth as I previously mentioned, we'll continue to see it. Again, you know, asthma revenues up 40% in the first quarter over the fourth quarter.
It's just demonstrating that, yes, the product has superb therapeutic value to patients, but we're seeing that in sales and in the physician support. With that, I feel very confident that Valeo will continue to be one of the leading, if not the leading revenue growth company from the healthcare side in Canada. I encourage you all to stay tuned and look forward to meeting you all again and giving you an update on Q1, which is gonna happen in about a month and a half from now. Look forward to seeing you all soon. Thanks again for being on this call.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines. Enjoy the rest of your day.