AGM 2024

Apr 25, 2024

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the annual general meeting of Valeo Pharma Inc. At this time, all lines are in 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, press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, April 25th, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Saviuk, President and CEO. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. My name is Steve Saviuk, CEO of Valeo Pharma. I would like to welcome you to our annual shareholders' meeting, which I now call to order. In accordance with the requirements of the corporation's bylaws, I will act as chairman of this meeting, and I appoint Guy-Paul Allard, Vice President, Legal Affairs of Valeo and Corporate Secretary of the Corporation, to act as Secretary of this meeting, and Leslieanne Alano of Computershare Investor Services, our registrar and transfer agent, to act as scrutineer. The directors of the corporation currently are Mr. Richard MacKay, Mr. Steve Saviuk, Mr. Marc Léger, Mr. Richard Lajoie, Mr. Robert Raich, Mr. Charles Bisaillon, and Mr. Al Moghaddam. Apart from myself, Mr. Léger, Mr. Bisaillon, and Mr. Moghaddam are attending this annual meeting and are present. Notice of this meeting was published, and a notice calling this meeting and the management information circular and proxy forms were mailed to shareholders, and I have received a statutory declaration attesting to the publication and an affidavit attesting to the mailing. Accordingly, with the consent of the meeting, we will dispense with the reading of the notice, and I direct the secretary to attach the declaration and affidavit to the minutes of this meeting. I now ask the scrutineer to submit her report on attendance. Mr. Chairman, I, the undersigned, scrutineer from Computershare Investor Services, hereby report that there are at least two shareholders and/or proxy holders present at this meeting, which represent in person or by proxy 57.89% of the total outstanding shares of Valeo Pharma. The first item of business is the presentation of the annual financial statements for the fiscal year ended October 31st, 2023, and the auditor's report thereon. The annual report was mailed with the notice of the meeting and other documentation to each registered shareholder and, in the case of intermediaries, in the number of copies required by them. Extra copies are available should anyone so require. Are there any questions on the financial statements or auditor's report? If there are no questions, I will now entertain a motion to dispense with the reading of the annual report and to receive the annual report, the financial statements, and the auditor's report thereon. My name is Frederic Dumais, and I move that the reading of the annual report be dispensed with and that the annual report, the financial statements, and the auditor's report of the corporation as of October 31st, 2023, be received. My name is Marc Léger, and I second the motion. Is there any discussion on this motion? If not, I declare the motion carried. The next item of business is the election of directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders. The management information circular sent to shareholders prior to this meeting refers to the election of seven directors, and I declare the meeting open for nominations. My name is Fred Dumais, and I nominate the following to serve as directors of the corporation for the ensuing year. Mr. Richard MacKay, Mr. Steve Saviuk, Mr. Marc Léger, Mr. Richard Lajoie, Mr. Robert Raich, Mr. Charles Bisaillon, and Mr. Al Moghaddam. Thank you. Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I will entertain a motion for the closing of the nominations for directors. My name is Frederic Dumais, and I move that nomination for the directors of the corporation be closed and that the seven persons whose name has been read this meeting be elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. My name is Marc Léger, and I second the motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? If there is none, I am advised by the scrutineer that management has received proxies representing more than 86% of the votes cast in favor of the election of each nominee. I declare the motion carried. Therefore, Richard MacKay, Steve Saviuk, Marc Léger, Richard Lajoie, Robert Raiche, Charles Bisaillon, and Al Moghaddam are elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of the shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. Does anyone have a motion in this regard? My name is Fred Dumais, and I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be appointed auditor of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders and that their remuneration be fixed by the board of directors of the corporation. My name is Marc Léger, and I second the motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? I am advised by the scrutineer that management has received proxies representing 99.3% of the votes cast in favor of this resolution. Therefore, I declare this motion carried. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP are appointed as auditors of the corporation until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders, and that their remuneration be fixed by the board. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the business for which this meeting was called. After the meeting, we will give a short presentation of the company's activities and answer any questions that you may have. Does anyone have any further business to come before this meeting before the meeting is adjourned? There being no further business to come before the meeting, I will now entertain a motion for the adjournment of the meeting. My name is Frederic Dumais, and I move that this meeting be adjourned. My name is Marc Léger, and I second the motion. All in favor? Against? Carried. The meeting is now adjourned. Now that the meeting is adjourned, Steve Saviuk, CEO of the corporation, would like to make some brief comments, and then open the floor up for questions and answers. 2024 was a record year in many respects for Valeo Pharma. Sales reached CAD 54 million, almost a doubling of revenues from the year before. The loss was not in the range that we wanted for a number of reasons, and we have taken steps to address this. We're reducing costs. We're diligent about reducing costs, and we will continue to reduce costs throughout this fiscal year. Revenue growth trend for this year has resumed, where we expect revenues this year to exceed the CAD 54 million that we attained last year. We have a very strong product portfolio, among the best in Canada among our peer group. I'll just look at and talk about three of our products. Enerzair, which is our advanced asthma therapy, the first fixed triple dose combination to be launched in Canada, addressing the asthma market for moderate to severe asthmatics. That is experiencing strong sales uptake and acceptance within the physician community. Redesca, our blood thinner, known as low molecular weight heparin, which is a hospital-derived injectable blood thinner. Again, strong sales growth for the last year, and we expect that to continue for this year and for years to come. Finally is Simbrinza, which is the foundation of our ophthalmic portfolio. It's a product that is used for high pressure in the eye, known as glaucoma. We have strong expectations for that as our foundational asset, and we expect to continue and to add assets to that ophthalmic portfolio group. We have to deal with the issues of our balance sheet, which are the maturities that are coming this year, and we are dealing with that, and we feel that we will come to a resolute conclusion in the coming months. We must remain vigilant on our costs, and we will continue to be so over and above what we've already discussed and published in our press releases. Keep a solid cash flow breakeven, our clear focus and are attainable this year. With that's a short summary of the comments. I welcome and I look forward to any questions that you may have, and we will do our best to answer those. Operator, you may open the floor to questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. One moment please for the first question. Again, ladies and gentlemen, should you have a question, please press star one. If there are no questions at this time, I will turn the conference over to Steve Saviuk for closing remarks. Once again, thank you everyone for attending the meeting. We look forward to interacting with you. As we've said in the past, feel free to contact the company should you have any questions. We'll do our best to answer them. Again, we look forward to a strong year for Valeo this year and to be able to greet you again at next year's annual meeting. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. Thank you for joining, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.