Hello and welcome to this Q&A with Pila Pharma. Today we have the new CEO, Gustav Hanghøj Gram, with us to an investor Q&A where investors are able to meet and ask questions for the new CEO. Gustav, welcome to this Q&A and congratulations with the new role.
Thank you, Anders. It's good to see you again.
Yeah, good to see you too. Today let's jump directly into the questions as we have no presentation but an informal discussion with the new CEO. To begin with, can you tell a little bit about who is Gustav Gram and what is your background?
So I'm Danish and I am, of course, as some of you may know, I am the son of the founder, Dorte X. Gram, who has recently been appointed as new Chairman of the company. I have been with Pila for eight years now, been in the company in a variety of roles. Of course, the great thing about being in a startup is that you have the possibility to touch upon so many areas and really learn a lot, especially from all the good times and the bad times. So I've been with the company since 2016. I've worked mainly within management assistant roles and finance and most recently investor relations. But of course, that also involves heavily certain areas of media and communication.
My own background is actually a little bit different than most since I come from a background where I thought I was going to be a diplomat and I was working abroad with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But I couldn't get the motivation from that type of work because I thought it was a bit too slow and a bit too, how can we say, it didn't allow that much creativity in terms of work. For a young guy with a lot of energy and wanting to do good in this world, I decided to leave and come back to Denmark. Around the same time, Dorte had in-licensed the molecule for Pila Pharma and asked if I could join and help.
So I complied and we started off and we have since been on a great journey where we have conducted a couple of clinical trials and of course we IPOed in 2021. So it's been a very steep learning curve and of course I'm excited for this new chapter. I know that a lot of investors have already met me throughout the years at different events and I look forward to meeting you again. And if you're new to the company, I look forward to meeting you in person at any future event that we have, of course. And today, of course, is mainly about giving investors and potential investors an introduction to me and to answer questions regarding the direction and the change of Dorte going to the chairman.
Yeah. Let's take one of the first questions that has been submitted here. Why is the change of CEO and Dorte as new CSO important for the company and for investors?
I mean, I think it's important to clarify that Dorte has not left the company. I know that some have expressed concern whether her influence would be diminished or disappear altogether and that's not the case. I mean, Dorte is still in a position now where we have basically, we call it a recalibration. So we consider it a calibration of the powers within the company. So Dorte, for a long time, has spent a lot of time and energy on doing investor presentations and financial reports and everyone who works in a small public company knows how much time these reports take to make. So within the company, there has been a desire to assist Dorte in finding more time and energy to focus on what matters. And what matters, of course, is the science.
So Dorte decided, I mean, she's still this majority shareholder with 22% of the shares, of course. And so for some time, it has been thought to also be very good for investors to consolidate the power of the board with the majority shareholder. And of course, Dorte, she decided that now the time was right to conduct some changes. She wanted to take over the board and be able to steer the company in the right direction, if you can say so. And so it's going to be relatively few changes, I would say, to the way the company is operating.
I mean, hopefully it just leaves Dorte with a lot more time to focus on setting the right direction and the right strategy for the company and for me to execute on and as well to conduct the best possible clinical trials, which we need because, of course, that's very pivotal to driving shareholder value and hopefully being able to come with a product that is substantially differentiated compared to the competition on the market. I mean, we are, of course, quite far. We're in phase 2, but we still have a long way to go and the next 2-3 years will, of course, be very decisive for the future of us. So personally, I'm very engaged in supporting Dorte to get the time and energy to hopefully be able to execute on these goals that we have.
Is it a plan that you are looking to shift your corporate strategy with a new CEO or do you want to continue as you have done so far?
I would say we plan to continue. I mean, it's really not that big of a difference for us in terms of the way that we operate. I will come with some fresh eyes as for the way that we operate within the company and the way we handle financing, the way we handle finances and communication, etc. But lastly, there will be no changes to the corporate strategy. The strategy, of course, is still to conduct a phase 2a trial to determine what's the best dose within overweight diabetics. And we are very hopeful that if we can provide good results from this trial, there will be significant partnering interest. And if the partnering interest is, let's say, of less benefit to us, then we will hopefully also have very good cards in order to secure financing to continue the program ourselves if we need to.
But of course, what we're looking at right now is what are the key drivers for shareholder value. It's been a couple of tough years with the stock going down. So we focus a lot on creating awareness and especially getting more liquidity into the stock because we can see that it's very important for investors to know that if they engage with us, that they are able to sell their shares at any given time. So this is something that we've focused a lot on for the past six months and that will continue and be expanded in the future as well.
If you should put some points on that agenda, if you should set three main objectives for you, what would that be for you as the new CEO of the company?
I mean, I'm employed by the board to create shareholder value. So of course, that means getting the stock rise up. And I know a lot of the investors from the early days who came in prior to our IPO and they have been with us on the whole run, if you will, if you can say that, this roller coaster which it has been at times. And of course, they would like to at least know and see that they can recoup their investments as a minimum. Every one of us would like to make this a fantastic case as an investment as well, aside from making a difference. But I believe that you can drive the shareholder value by making a difference, for sure. So this is where the focus is.
We're looking at many different components as to how we can, of course, get the share price up. And the main ones for that include getting a high level of liquidity, high level of trading in the stock, but also just spreading awareness about the company. I mean, we see these huge trends in biotech and in pharma that anything that has even a resemblance of effect on cardiovascular disease or reduction of body weight, I mean, that generates a huge effect on the publicity and awareness of any company. So we, of course, want to tap into this and we have maybe not been completely straight about how we should position the drug until now. And of course, this is something that we will look very closely at in order to maximize the exposure of the company to gain better awareness and more name recognition among investors.
A shift in CEO can often give investors some uncertainties because we know what we had, we don't know what we get. So is it a good or bad sign for investors that you are now shifting CEO and is there anything that investors should be aware of here?
Well, you tell me. I mean, it's a bit hard for me to judge because I'm the new CEO. But I think generally speaking, sometimes a bit of fresh blood is good. And again, it's important to emphasize that Dorte is not disappearing or heading out of the door. She's very much still part of it and she's setting the direction for me to execute. So I would say from the few people I have met since Friday who are investors in the company, they have said that it's largely a positive sign because they know that Dorte's main strength lies in the scientific area. So if we can free up time for her to focus on that, that's great.
For a number of years, they have, of course, been talking to me and they know that I know Pila from inside and out and I maybe have a more in-depth view of what investors are looking to know and how our financial information should be presented to investors. Of course, for me going forward, that would be more of a focus area to have more adequate and updated timelines of when investors can expect to have inflection points from a different set of trials, of course, and other important happenings in the company.
With Dorte's increased focus on the scientific area, what will that mean for the development of the pipeline? Does it mean higher speed or just more focus on the pipeline development?
I think higher speed is determinant on funding. So of course, that kind of starts with me. I need to provide Dorte with the best possible conditions for conducting the trials as best as she can and as fast as she can. So that's, I would say, number one. But I would say Dorte is an expert within this particular target and how its role in regulating diabetes and potentially more complications could be of value to humanity. So I think it's very important that she is allowed time to really deep dive and execute on making the best possible protocols to get the best results. I mean, because we are also at a stage where we, of course, are late. But the further you get, the more important it is to have strong results on the efficacy, not just the safety.
This is pivotal for us that we need to look very closely at how do we best manage to design a study that can get us the results needed in order to be attractive for partnership.
If we look directly on 2024 as a year, what is the focus points for this year? What can we expect from you and from Dorte this year?
I mean, the focus point, of course, is to hopefully keep the upward trend that we see and the more positive winds blowing upon our company. We see that there's quite an increase in interest both from pharma and from investors. And we, of course, intend to continue this development. And I can say so much that we are in the final stages of designing the next clinical trial. And once that is started, of course, that will allow us to comment a little bit more on more specific dates and timelines for when we can expect to see some sort of important events happening for the company, of course. But generally speaking, we will have a very opportunistic and outgoing view on how to approach investors.
We are, of course, looking to make it a very successful case in the clinic, but equally so as a stock for shareholders to buy and sell.
Do you have anything specific here on the area for increasing the liquidity in the stock? Anything specific that you are looking at adding to your agenda or just continuing as you have done so far?
Well, I would like to say, I mean, liquidity is not always that easy. But I mean, I think it starts with having a project that is worth following and worth potentially getting involved with. And as I mentioned, the area that we work in, working with new medication that could possibly be of use for type 2 diabetic patients and potentially have more beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease and/or obesity, I think that would generate a lot of buzz. So for us especially, I think it's a lot about awareness. It is to make sure that we are put on the map and that investors know that we exist. And I mean, Johan, as you can tell me, I mean, most investors like to keep an eye on a company for a certain amount of time before they choose to maybe get involved and get invested.
I think that's very important that we create the awareness early on and that we're, of course, are consistent in delivering updates and, of course, on the clinical side as well that we follow through and we get the things done that we hopefully get investors' approval for at this stage. So I would say it's business as usual. We just need to increase our exposure and increase our efforts. I think that's a very natural step for us that we make this transition now and we will put the speeder down. Like I said, we're opportunistic and we want to make this happen. I think now is the time.
Maybe a final question here before we end this Q&A today. With the shift in roles, does that mean that going forward we get to talk to you and see you at these presentations or will Dorte also be presenting and participating going forward?
So going forward, there will be two spokespeople for the company and that will be me and Dorte. What has initially been the idea was that I would take most of the financial presentations and general communication. However, of course, it's very important that we let Dorte present every once in a while. I think it's important that she can handle the scientific sides and the scientific presentations because that will be of utmost importance as well in order to get a more in-depth view of the company. So I think previously it has solely been Dorte who was doing presentations. And I know that with as many events as I have planned in the last 6-12 months, I think that would tire everyone out if they had to be on stage every three days.
I look forward to take over a little bit of that and relieve her of the time consumption. Of course, then we still expect to have a couple of presentations a year where she can make more scientific deep dives for the benefit of investors who wish to understand the case even more in-depth.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you for your time today, Gustav. Do you have anything to end with here?
No. I mean, I just wanted to, of course, thank everyone who's viewing this and hopefully we can meet in person. We will have a lot of activities going forward here before the summer. Yeah, I mean, if there's any questions on the backside of this Q&A, you're more than welcome to send them to Anders and I'm sure that he will facilitate sending them forward to me. And then we will make another webinar at another time where we can hopefully, yeah, comment on the progress since this first webinar.
Yeah. Of course. Thank you, everyone, for listening in today. Thank you for submitting questions. Gustav, thank you for your time. See you at the next event.
Perfect. Thank you.