SKAN Group AG (SWX:SKAN)
Switzerland flag Switzerland · Delayed Price · Currency is CHF
46.35
-0.30 (-0.64%)
May 13, 2026, 5:31 PM CET
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CMD 2025

May 15, 2025

Moderator

System, so yeah.

Burim Maraj
CFO, SKAN Group AG

That's a very good one, and it's not a complete system that we can sell off. With that, we show to our customer our skills of integrating. Of course, in an ideal world, we find a customer doing a greenfield project. That kind of customer could fully adapt also our digital landscape. The reality is our customer already has such kind of landscapes, but they need a good partner to get the new equipment nicely and fully integrated into that. It sounds so easy, but just integrating a small device may already cost several hundred thousand CHF, huh? Okay? Yeah, ideally, a greenfield customer, we say, "Copy paste, we are happy to help you with your full greenfield.

My team will come on your side. The majority of the customer, we expect they have a quality system, they have a digital system already in place, but then our digital power to integrate new technology into existing customer system is then a nice asset.

Moderator

Follow up here. Why do you not use then a more common system that is used, or does every customer have its own system?

Burim Maraj
CFO, SKAN Group AG

That's the funny point in our industry. In other industries like automotive or fast-moving consumer goods, you can buy whole landscapes from the shelf. In pharma, it's not there. There are established applications like the Historian from OSIsoft. That's a kind of application you see nearly in every big pharma. When it comes to the MES, you see the big players, okay? But there are 10 MES providers, and everyone may have a different one, okay? Also the SCADA or Master SCADA, Omni SCADA sounds easy, but it's not yet really standardized. This is why we see also business opportunity for us helping and shaping the progress also of digital integration and coming with better prepared solutions. You see, with the SKAN Sphere, we already have the adapter for digital integration built in into the isolator system.

It is an opportunity for us, but compared to other industries, pharma is really at the start only.

Hi, Beatrice Fairban with Burim Maraj. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, you mentioned earlier that the potential of order intake from GLP-1s, like how much was driven by ADCs, and how do you expect this split to kind of evolve going forward? Secondly, on your pre-approved services project, I think in full year 2024 results, there was mention of reaching CHF 50 million in sales volume and an EBITDA margin of up to 50% at kind of full capacity. What sort of timelines are you expecting around this, and how long will it take to reach this? Thank you.

To answer your second question about these numbers, right, the $50 million, 50%, this is what we still aim for. As you have seen, we have delayed the Swissmedic inspection into Q1 next year, basically because we had done an external assessment of, "Are we ready for this?" Right? And the feedback was, "You are on a good track. It's very good, but you never want to mess up your first impression." We said, "Okay, maybe let's go on the safe side." As you have seen, it's not only a machine that we're presenting, it's a whole digital facility that we're presenting. From that point of view, we expect to go live in half year two next year. We said it takes us a few years to ramp up to full capacity. Now, is it a few years, two years, is it three years?

That really depends on one hand, on what kind of customers are we able to get in first, right? I also said if tomorrow a customer would come and say, "Look, I would like to rent this machine because I need to fill my drug, and can you please..." If the price is right, I think we wouldn't say no there either. There is some variation in there. Currently, the business model, I think the business plan is pretty conservative and really considers this, what Thomas said, this ramp up, sorry, this stability batch production. That is really the base for today's calculation. Your first question about GLP-1, right, and ADCs, I don't have the exact numbers. To be frank, many times we know what the customer wants to fill, sometimes we don't know.

They just tell us it's a toxic drug, and that's the speed we need because it's also kind of, yeah, confidential from their side, and they don't want to expose themselves as a company, their competitors knowing that they are investing into this technology. Last year, GLP-1 related was 15.15%. ADCs is definitely much more, but I don't have the detailed numbers. Imagine, right, 75% of our turnover is equipment and solutions. I would say 10-15% is like smaller isolators going to quality control, which are maybe also quality controlling, GLP, sorry, ADCs or GLP-1s. When we talk about the split, we talk about the production machines. Again, ADCs count quickly at high numbers because typically those drugs are freeze-dried at the end of the filling process, and the freeze-dryer just needs more isolators, which is good for us. Therefore, these projects get bigger.

Any more questions?

For pre-approved services, can you give any update on your discussions with customers or commitments you have? Obviously, you haven't received approval yet, but any more color on this?

Yes, and Thomas and Thomas support me if I say something wrong, right? We do not have a written commitment yet because we do not want to have one, because if you go into a written commitment, you have to perform. Before we do not have a Swissmedic approval, we are not going to, yeah, expose ourselves to this. We have a lot of customers touring our facility, definitely the big pharma companies, but also the CDMOs, basically to promote the ideas, right? In the beginning, we said we are not going to say anything because we do not want to educate our competitors too early. Now we opened the window, now we are showing it to the world. The feedback, at least what these two guys tell me, is very positive.

I mean, obviously, the idea was not just born in the backyard of SKAN, it was born with customers five, six years ago. And from that point of view, it seems like that it's confirmed that this stability thing is a need. An interesting discussion I had with a U.S. customer actually at Interphex in New York, the FDA sells tickets for a quick approval for $100 million, and there is an auction about those tickets. If you have one, you might sell it to another customer for $300 million to get a four months faster approval. If you look at this opportunity, maybe the $50 million might even be conservative now. From that point of view, time to market is key.

What we also get confirmed, the first one on the market typically gets the majority of the market share because if the doctors are once used to a drug, they do not change the drug unless they have to or unless the drug does not perform. If you are in the race bringing a new drug to the market, you want to be first. If you can speed this up, you might take the opportunity. With pre-approved services, we are offering an opportunity there to help our customers go to market quicker. Any other questions? If not, I would like to wrap up and conclude, right? I think you have seen today, on one hand, a few more faces of SKAN. You have seen it is not only me and Burim here, it is a whole team.

You have just seen the tip of the iceberg of the team to make this happen. I think one of the unique selling propositions, and Philip had this in one of the slides, is the different know-how, the diverse know-how that we have throughout our company. I always say we have people that know how to weld, but we also have the PhDs to prove that the weld surface is good enough so microbiological germs cannot grow on it. It needs the blue-collar worker that does proper work and the PhD on the other side proving that this was right. We want to be eye-to-eye level with our customers. That is not only a new invention. We actually did this many years back already.

We had the former production responsible from Zylak Schaffhausen that started at SKAN some 20 years back, and we were on eye-to-eye level already then. I think that was one of the main differentiators between us and our competitors. When I was speaking to our competitor, right, and I mean, it's a small world, right? You travel in the same airplane to the same customer. I'm there in the morning, he's there in the afternoon. We fly back on the same airplane. It's a small world. He was always telling me, "You know, I invest in a new welding robot, and I will be able to weld faster and quicker, and my isolators look nicer." I think, and we said, "Oh, we are actually a service company, right?

SKAN was a trading company selling products and servicing products. Our focus was always, how can we improve the process and welding? We gave that 20 years ago to our sub-suppliers. Obviously, growing that fast, we had to source it in to, on one hand, save some margin, become more flexible, and become quicker. Today we have everything under one roof. In the end, you have to understand the process because a nice and shiny isolator is useless, is worthless if the documents are not good, if it does not work properly. If Swissmedic says, "Nice robotic solution, but you cannot monitor the air quality," and your answer is, "But there is no human in there, so no need to monitor the air quality." That would be the same if I would say, "Look, my car goes 200 kilometers an hour.

Why should I not be allowed to drive 200 kilometers an hour on the highway in Switzerland? Not in Germany. There are regulations that you have to fulfill. Those regulations, as we have heard from Richard, the benchmark is going up, and the pace they are changing is very slow, which is good for us. It allows us to adapt, but also if ever they would change back, it would be very slow as well. We have kind of a safe territory that what we are investing into quality will not be obsolete tomorrow. I think that's on one hand, when I see the growth drivers that I presented to you, that the market is growing. Unfortunately, the way we live, diseases are ramping up. On the other hand, we're getting older, right? Getting older means we're getting sicker, right?

The sicker we get, the more drugs we need. The good thing is also we get, I mean, population gets richer in the Western world. They can afford the drugs. Our market is really structurally growing, and I have to thank you all, you guys, because you are pushing that market as well. From that point of view, I would like to conclude here. I mean, we will have a lunch, we will have the tour. Most of you are probably only here because of the tour. I think we are on a very good way forward. I said in my presentation, the next five years will be boring. I hope you understood that was supposed to be a joke. It will be challenging. In a way, boring.

Maybe not that we will bring a next planet into our thing in the next five years, but making those two planets go live and making core where still we are not at the end of the cash cow phase, we are still in the beginning, make that planet stronger in the next five years. That will be the challenge. I think we're well equipped, and we're looking forward to see you and update you on our journey there. From that point of view, thank you very much for your attendance. I'm looking to the back row how we will organize now the next steps and hand over to Thomas.

Eyeing lunch. This means we have four groups. Each tour will take about 15- 20 minutes. We will start with the first group, which is group red. There is one person who needs to jump on the plane. Therefore, we said, "Okay, let's start with group red." The other three groups, please start with your flying lunch. When we are done with the first group, we will pick up the next group, okay?

Okay. Thank you very much. See you for lunch.

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