Hello and welcome to the Life Science Investment Forum. On behalf of OTC Markets and our co-host, Zacks Small Cap Research, we are very pleased you have joined us for the next presentation of the day. Avicanna. Please note you may submit questions for the presenter in the box to the left of the slides. You can also view a company's availability for a one-on-one meeting by clicking Book a Meeting.
At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Aras Azadian, Chief Executive Officer of Avicanna, which trades on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol AVCNF and on the TSX under the symbol AVCN. Welcome, Aras.
Thanks for having me. Hi, everybody. Good morning, I guess for those of you in the Eastern Coast. My name is Aras Azadian, founder, CEO of the company. I've been in this seat for almost 10 years now. The company started off originally as a drug development company with a vision to treat unmet medical needs with cannabinoids. By cannabinoids, I mean evidence-based, standardized cannabinoid-based products being medical and pharmaceutical.
In our first five years of our journey, we spent that time dedicated strictly to R&D, preclinical, and clinical development, taking a very serious biotech biopharma approach. We were initially part of a Johnson & Johnson incubator called JLABS here in Toronto, where our head office and our labs are.
We were able to get into very exciting collaborations with leading academic and clinical institutions here in Canada. For our American friends, that's very important to note that in Canada, since it's federally legal, we were able to conduct such research, clinical development. That really led to our pharmaceutical pipeline.
It also led to our intellectual property portfolio. It led to us learning and understanding where cannabinoid-based products, standardized and evidence-based fashion, can be utilized across healthcare. Our target markets are pain, sleep, anxiety, dermatology, oncology, and other neurological disorders. We're not targeting your typical cannabis consumer, we're targeting medical indications of the medical needs. Today, I'm proud to say that we have four commercial divisions. One is our medical cannabis products.
Again, these are standardized evidence-based products that are designed to provide a toolkit or a formulary to the medical community to then prescribe very specific dosing and very specific products for very specific clinical indications or symptoms. Second is our medical cannabis platform, which I will speak about. This is really an online pharmacy/telemedicine platform where we provide patient support, treatment planning, and medical affairs here in Canada.
This platform is nationwide and has become what I believe is the gold standard on a complete medical cannabis care program. The combination of the first two pillars, being the medical products and the medical care, is the gold standard, in my opinion, in terms of how medical cannabis can be commercialized. So far, we've been able to successfully implement this sort of gold standard here in Canada and look to do so internationally over time.
Our third business pillar is our pharmaceutical pipeline. This is really taking the learnings and the winners from our medical cannabis platform, learning what works for what disease, and then investing in those and advancing the pharmaceutical pipeline. I believe this is ultimately where a significant amount of value creation will take place, and this is something that we're quite excited to expand south of the border in the United States with the recent rescheduling potential.
Finally, our fourth division is our raw material division. This is based out of Colombia, where we are producing active pharmaceutical ingredients, what we call API, and these active ingredients are being utilized for our medical and pharmaceutical products, but also being sold to our pharmaceutical and CPG partners around the world. This is where the company stands today, from a concept to what is now an international biopharma company.
We have stayed truly and strictly focused on medical and pharmaceutical applications on cannabinoid-based medicine, and we'll take a look at what that entails. This is RHO Phyto, our medical brand. This is really our flagship brand in terms of non-inhaled evidence-based products that are designed to provide a specific delivery and a specific dose and ratio of cannabinoids.
As an example, for a sleep patient, we're targeting slow-release THC products. As an example, we're using a transdermal gel or what we call a deep tissue gel to deliver cannabinoids into the deeper parts of the joints and muscles if we're targeting localized pain or osteoarthritis pain. These products are very, very much designed to, again, deliver but also target particular symptoms or clinical indications.
What we do with the RHO Phyto brand in Canada is not only we made it available on MyMedi, it's available in other channels as well, but also we provide the medical community with the accurate dosing, titration, clinical guidelines, treatment planning that allows them then to incorporate it into the patient's journey. This is something that we also support with MyMedi.
RHO Phyto and our medical products, which is the first business pillar, is now commercial across several other medical platforms. We're not only selling these products on MyMedi, which is our business unit, but we're also delivering this to several channels within the retail space in the Canadian market and also other medical platforms across the industry in Canada. MyMedi was originally the medical cannabis by Shoppers Drug Mart business unit.
For those of you that have traveled to Canada or are Canadians, you would know Shoppers Drug Mart is sort of our Walgreens or CVS. It's the major pharmacy chain. They had established a medical cannabis pharmacy platform for prescribing and for dispensing medical cannabis to patients with medical authorization. We were a big partner. RHO Phyto was a major brand within that platform.
A couple of years ago, we acquired that division from Shoppers Drug Mart, and we converted it to what is now called MyMedi.ca to provide a continuation of care for the patients and something that we've since then built into, as I mentioned, what I believe is the gold standard. In my opinion, medical cannabis is a service. It's not a product. Recreational cannabis, walking into a dispensary is a product.
Medical cannabis is a service. I believe in addition to standardized products that are of higher quality, that are reproducible, medical cannabis requires patient support, meaning treatment planning, clinical guidelines, drug-to-drug interaction review. It requires personalized patient care, insurance adjudication. We're very happy to see most of our patients are covered by insurance on the MyMedi platform. It also requires education and training of the medical community.
This is something that we do strongly focus on. MyMedi today really does operate in four major pillars, which is of course, the actual marketplace being an online pharmacy/telemedicine platform, patient support, which again ranges from insurance adjudication to clinical guidelines and treatment planning, medical affairs, which is education and training of the medical community and collaborations with various stakeholders within the medical community. Finally, clinical development.
We're able to generate significant insights and clinical data from our patient behavior, from actual observational real-world evidence studies all the way through randomized controlled trials that can be conducted in support of MyMedi. As I mentioned, we're covered by insurance. About 80% of the MyMedi patients are benefiting from insurance adjudication.
These are private and public payers. We're a preferred vendor with some of the public payers here in Canada, including Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, WorkSafeBC. We're also working very closely with private payers such as Medavie Blue Cross and the Johnston Group. This allows us to then complete a formulary and adjudicated platform for patients. Something I really look forward to helping some of our American peers to conduct one day in the United States. Finally, the Avicenna Academy and our medical affairs efforts.
We believe that incorporating cannabinoid-based medicine into standard of care into the healthcare system requires education and training of the medical community. I believe we've become global leaders within this realm. Not only are we conducting studies and collaborations with leading academic and clinical institutions, but we're providing the tools, the assets, the training, symposiums, webinars, conferences.
We have a major symposium that's going to take place June 11 and 12 here in Canada. It's our seventh or sixth annual conference, and it's one that will attract key opinion leaders, top researchers, and clinicians in the industry. Now, we're gonna move on to pharma. What I believe is taking the learnings from RHO Phyto, our branded products, plus MyMedi.ca, our medical cannabis platform, is really a massive opportunity for us to then build our pharmaceutical pipeline.
The company really began with a pharmaceutical pipeline, and we have not neglected this opportunity. Today, we're focused on four major drug candidates, but we are also looking at five major clinical pathways or clinical indications that range from sleep, rare skin diseases such as epidermolysis bullosa, of course, pain management, where we've had incredible early signals to anxiety and depression, and then finally epilepsy and other neurological disorders.
Trunerox is our first pharmaceutical that's been approved. This product has been approved and has obtained marketing authorization so far in Colombia for Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, same catastrophic epilepsy indications that GW Pharmaceuticals' Epidiolex was approved for. Our three other candidates are ranging from osteoarthritic pain. This is an oral capsule formulation that is also expanding into other indications.
We have two topicals, one for rare skin diseases such as epidermolysis bullosa and another transdermal gel that's targeted for local inflammatory pain, almost like a Voltaren. These are our most advanced drug candidates. However, the more we learn from our medical cannabis platform, our advanced drug delivery systems, and of course, the insights that are being generated from the clinical studies, the more this pharmaceutical pipeline will be expanded.
Trunerox, I mentioned, this is our first drug, or it's our first pharmaceutical drug that's been approved. This product launched this month in Colombia under the Trunerox label with the marketing authorizations and the claims associated to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. I believe it will be utilized for other epileptic conditions, and this is the first launch of a pharmaceutical for us, so we're quite excited about that.
Our osteoarthritic pain study, this is something that I alluded to earlier. This was our first randomized controlled trial. This is a phase II clinical study that's being conducted by Toronto General Hospital and UHN. UHN, for those of you that don't know, is the second most important medical institution in the world. It's the largest here in Canada.
This study was funded by grants. Avicanna is actually not funding this particular phase II trial. We are sponsoring it in terms of products, but of course, the data and intellectual property resides with Avicanna. Very excited to have announced at the end of last year, that we have commenced our first phase II clinical trial.
Getting into our raw material division, I think it's quite important as you're building a medical platform, as you're building a pharmaceutical pipeline to control the quality of the active ingredients that go into these products. Traditionally, in pharmaceuticals, companies like us that are in the life sciences biotech world are outsourcing our API or active pharmaceutical ingredients.
In our world, given that the cannabis industry is relatively new and the gray area sort of gap between medical and pharma to recreational, we've decided to build our own R&D version of a pharmaceutical, active ingredient supply chain. This has now become an eight-year-old business called Aureus out of the Santa Marta Golden Hemp division in Colombia. Our products here range from active ingredients, including CBD, CBG, THC.
Three different molecules that are then offered in various formats or fractionations, including full spectrum, distillate, and purified molecules. These molecules are being used around the world today by pharma, cosmetic, and medical companies. There are three pharmaceuticals that are approved today in South America, including our own Trunerox that are leveraging our API as a Drug Master File API. We are, as I mentioned, supplying many other companies.
We're very proud of what we've accomplished here in Colombia because we're producing organic and sustainable biomass or flower that is then extracted and purified for active ingredients. We're doing this at a fraction of the cost, so a substantial economic benefit and competitive advantages versus some of our peers that might be producing the plant in indoor facilities in markets like Canada and United States.
This is part of a long-term vision of connecting advanced drug delivery systems backed by evidence and supplying your own organic and sustainable active ingredients to deliver that. We've been able to export these products into 22 international markets. We're quite past the R&D stage.
We're sort of in the proof-of-concept stage in terms of exports into various markets, and we're very happy to finally see some of our own input materials go into some of our own finished products as we're entering new markets. This is something that we're quite excited about this year. Avicanna around the world. Because we only operate with federal legislation, we're not involved in recreational or state-level legislation in the United States. We're not active on the recreational side really anywhere.
We're able to operate under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that allows us to work under medical, R&D, or pharmaceutical applications of cannabinoid-based products. So far, as I mentioned earlier, we've been able to conduct business in over 20 countries. Some of these are very small proof-of-concept exports or pilot commercial launches.
Our vision is always to be able to then deliver these products globally, and this is something that will be a major priority for Avicanna during 2026. To take our learnings from Canada, to take our proof of concepts from Canada and expand them internationally now that we're in a position to do so. Our scientific platform, I touched on a little bit. I'm gonna go fast, so I can allow some time for some of the questions that I see are accumulating here.
We are, I believe, industry leaders when it comes to cannabinoid-based drug delivery and development. We own all of our intellectual property, several USPTO patents that have been issued, a significant number of pipeline products that have been submitted for patent approval. This is all done in-house, but in collaboration with major academic and clinical institutions.
For the Canadian folks, you guys would know some of these are some of the top major hospitals within the Canadian geography. For our U.S. friends, these are your Harvard equivalent, your Cleveland Clinic equivalent. Because in Canada, we have been able to conduct such R&D clinical development because of the regulatory framework, that has given us a massive advantage in terms of the United States.
Something that we hope that we can then translate into the U.S. market and conduct not only commercialization efforts, but also, cross-border clinical development and research opportunities. In terms of corporate, we are in the TSX Senior Board. We did a full IPO as a pharmaceutical issuer. We're technically not a cannabis company. We're not a licensed producer in Canada.
Pretty excited about what we've accomplished so far in Canada. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that get reflected on our stock price. While the company continues to grow, expand, improve in terms of financial performance, we've seen the inverse of that take place in the stock market.
We believe that has a lot to do with the fact that we're on the TSX, and we're being sort of affected by the stigma of cannabinoid-based products, but also being misunderstood as a recreational cannabis company, which is not what we are.
This is something that we're working on improving and ultimately building a pathway for the company to list in the United States, where there are more healthcare investors, institutions, and opportunities for co-development and expansion, especially related to our pharmaceutical pipeline. This is nine-month results. We will be presenting our 12-month results in two weeks, which will demonstrate, in my opinion, progress. As you see here within the nine-month report, the company is now very much self-sufficient.
Not only are we self-sufficient, but we are funding our own R&D, our own clinical development with some grant support, but also our internationalization and scale efforts. This is something that's very exciting. We've sort of in my opinion, we've turned a corner, and we're in a very exciting period in the company's growth that allows us to do this on our own two feet.
Quite excited about that. Tightly held. As I mentioned earlier as well, like the company is very tightly held in terms of shareholders, management, and board that have been together for a very long time. I won't go through the bios of the board and management. That's all available online. I can tell you from just simple overview, we all come from different professional walks of life, mainly from biotech and pharmaceutical.
This is just a glimpse of our sort of pipeline from where we started to where we are today. It's been an exciting journey. I'll pause there, leave a little bit of time. If I can figure out how this thing works, then answer some of your questions. Okay. First question.
Canadian government research grants, 20 collaborations. How does this translate into sustainable competitive advantage versus other cannabinoid companies. Very, very good question. I think in terms of our formulations and products, the research we've been able to conduct has been quite translational. It's allowed us to then launch what is 50-something products in the Canadian market.
For example, if we've developed a nano-emulsion technology that bypasses the problems of cannabinoids as a molecule being hydrophobic, then nano-emulsion technology is now being utilized in a number of different products, from fast-acting capsules, to fast-acting gummies, to beverage infusers that have utility within the medical cannabis space and is going into our pharmaceutical pipeline.
That's one thing, is the actual translation into finished products that are now in the commercial realm of the world. Second is the data that's being generated is also being utilized for patent submissions. We're protecting our intellectual property as we further develop it. As this industry evolves and matures and medical becomes a global sort of realm for cannabinoid-based products, we believe that our intellectual property alone is worth substantially more than our current market cap.
Third, the fact that we're conducting such research and generating a much-needed evidence, not only legitimizing cannabinoid-based medicine and advancing it within the medical community, but it is giving Avicanna the credibility that it has. This is why several companies around the world are working with Avicanna, ranging from Fortune 100 to Fortune 500 companies in terms of that credibility, evidence, access to patients, access to the medical community.
I think it's become a very important source as to why we've been able to survive, succeed, and attract not only physicians, but pharmaceutical companies and other Fortune 100 companies as well. There's a question about our proprietary topical products that have been exported to a pharmaceutical company. This is a meaningful relationship, but as anyone can imagine, working with large pharma companies is a very slow process.
What's exciting for me about that particular announcement is that it's our proprietary formulations that have gone through clinical development, but it's also our own ingredients being produced in Colombia that has resulted in a finished product that not only is quite efficacious, also produced at a substantially competitively advantaged price.
That allows for our partners around the world that we're supplying these products, whether it be under Avicanna's labels or white label, to really compete in these emerging markets. That was an interesting proof of concept for us to be able to work with a large pharma company, but also deliver to them, you know, and to be able to deliver, again, proprietary products with our own input materials. George asks, "You've talked about strategic shift from cultivation to clinical validation.
How do you see this transformation changing Avicanna's valuation?" We were never a cultivation company. Actually, we began cultivation in 2018. The company was incepted in 2015. The reason why we began cultivation was to ensure the quality and consistency of our own active pharmaceutical ingredients. Really, we've always been a clinical company and a pharmaceutical company, and our cultivation is just a small division that is supplying us. What's exciting about that is that we're supplying others.
I believe the cultivation or the API division out of Colombia, because of its organic, sustainable, and cost advantages, is going to allow us to turn that into a near-term cash cow, a near-term positive business unit, P&L positive business unit that's going to allow us to then fund and further scale not only that business unit, but also our international expansion and clinical development.
"Your exclusive license supply agreements in South America show big pharma-style interest. What is an ideal global licensing network look like for Avicanna in three to five years?" I love this question, Leslie. We believe that we deserve to be sort of the Intel inside of the industry, whether that's our input materials, but more exciting, whether that is our intellectual property.
The amount of work we've done in terms of drug delivery, standardizing, ensuring products are stable, ensuring products are delivering accurate, reproducible cannabinoids in a particular ratio and in a particular delivery format is unlike what anyone else has done in the industry. We have over 70 different matrixes that have been designed to be versatile in cannabinoid drug load, but also ratios.
This is something that we will be licensing to several international companies around the world as early as this year. I think that's quite important because Avicanna does not have the scale, the size, the commercial platform that some of the larger companies around the world do. Whether it be a cosmetic company, a medical company, a pharma company, or even a large cannabis company.
We're able to license our technology and get access to high-margin royalty payments while still focusing on what we're really good at, which is the R&D and the clinical development. Tom asks, "What are the two top areas where you plan to deploy incremental capital to drive the biggest uplift in earnings over the next 24 months?" That's a great question, Tom.
My initial focus, I would say my priority focus is going to be internationalization. Taking everything that we've learned, everything that we've successfully implemented in Canada in terms of MyMedi and RHO Phyto, take that combination and expand that internationally into the emerging markets, including European Union, which is now a $1.3 billion market, but also the United States.
The rescheduling in the United States is going to allow Avicanna to operate on the medical front from a federal perspective if this is to take place. I believe that we're best suited for such a legislation or such a medical cannabis infrastructure in terms of what we've done with insurance adjudication, clinical data, treatment plans, and of course, the portfolio products. That will be my priority market. My priority focus is internationalization of the RHO Phyto MyMedi combination. Then second, it's going to be the focus on the raw material opportunity.
As the industry is emerging, whether we are, again, going to be supplying these companies with the input materials being their API and/or our licensing, I believe the opportunity to be the intel inside of many of these companies around the world is a lucrative one, is one that is faster in terms of 2026 realization. I think it's one that's going to give us the margins and the positive cash flow that allows us to continue to fulfill our business model.
There's a lot more questions. Nick asks, "You've initiated a phase II osteoarthritic pain trial with UHN. If the data is positive, how big could this opportunity be compared to Trunerox?" Nick, that's a fantastic question. This is why I love presenting to American audience because we get into the pharma.
Trunerox is essentially a generic in a form. It's our first entrance into a pharmaceutical application or pharmaceutical approval. It was a relatively faster pathway to obtain that drug approval in Colombia, but it's also registered for Colombia with some opportunity to expand in other South American markets.
For me, while that's exciting and it's a good proof of concept, what we can do on a pharmaceutical pathway with the osteoarthritic drug candidate or some of the other drug candidates during an FDA Health Canada pathway is substantially more exciting. I believe the phase II data from that study and some of the other studies that we have upcoming, if they are positive, that can generate a lot of value for shareholders and a lot of opportunity for co-development.
We're not seeking to establish and continue to clinically develop these products into final FDA-level drugs ourselves, but we are looking to collaborate with, you know, mid to large pharmaceutical companies in the United States and around the world to do so, and we have had interest on that. I think that can easily open up a massive opportunity for the company and for shareholders as we go down a more serious pharmaceutical pathway from a strategic perspective.
One thing worth noting on these products going into the later stage clinical is that we have conducted similar studies on the observational real world evidence level. We've learned a lot. We've learned which cohorts of patients actually respond better to what doses, ratios, and drug delivery systems.
I would say we go in with a higher level of confidence than a new IND or a new molecule would. Of course, from a safety perspective, these are much more safe products than a completely new molecule. Victor asks, "Your collaboration with Vectura Fertin Pharma in growing your medical affairs footprint suggests larger pharmaceutical interests. How should investors think about the future strategic partnership or out-licensing opportunities?"
Fantastic question as well, Victor. Vectura Fertin Pharma has now been renamed to Aspeya. This is a subsidiary of Philip Morris International. While they're the world's largest tobacco company, they have established a meaningful division with focus on wellness and health. We work with them on several different projects. The medical affairs one specifically here is about improving access for patients through MyMedi, improving education, training.
We've done a lot of collaborations on that front with them. We are further legitimizing medical cannabis in the Canadian market and something that we expect to do internationally. Your second question around, you know, are we getting larger company interest? Absolutely. This is the part that's remarkable. If you look at our market cap, it's tiny, yet we've been able to attract from the Johnson & Johnsons' of the world, the Shoppers Drug Mart and the companies just named.
We're able to work with Fortune 100, 500 companies because of the quality of the company's intellectual property, infrastructure, support systems, and really our leadership position on a serious medical approach. I think while the retail market, specifically on the TSX, hasn't really appreciated the value of the company, the people that have looked under the hood do.
I always invite investors to look deeper into the company, and I generally believe you're going to be surprised in terms of how well this company is operating. Eric asks, "MyMedi now has roughly 20,000 active patients, about 1,500 HCPs. What's your vision of platform scale in Canada for the next two to three years?" Another fantastic question. MyMedi was picked up from Shoppers Drug Mart.
We took over and provided continuation of care to the patients from that platform. Our focus is really on insurance patients and on converting more and more the patients and physicians that are not part of the already existing cannabis audience or medical cannabis patient population.
We're trying to educate patient advocacy groups, prescribers, hospitals, clinical institutions, the role of cannabinoid-based medicine, but also to do that the right way, with treatment planning, with education, with clinical guidelines. What we're trying to avoid is for patients that have real clinical indications or issues or symptoms that they're suffering from or unmet medical needs to walk into dispensaries. We believe, again, medical cannabis is a service.
I think we've just scratched the surface of that opportunity in Canada and haven't even began internationalization yet. This is something that we're quite excited about. Joseph asks, "Do you leverage Trunerox platform and new Colombian approvals for other markets?" Absolutely. There's some reciprocal approvals within the Central and South American countries. We just launched in Colombia.
We're going to learn from that, and we're going to look to expand that into some of those neighboring countries. Trunerox does use our own CBD, so we have something about a 25-50 times price discount versus Epidiolex. That allows us to actually target such developing markets as an epilepsy drug. Jim asks, "President Trump's executive order to reclassify cannabis to support medical cannabis use, how are you positioned to capture upside of this regulatory change?"
Fantastic, and I would say final question. I believe this will open the gateway for healthcare biotech investors. I think this will open access to capital and improvement, hopefully, of our market cap. I also believe it's going to allow for entrance of biotech and pharma companies that have been sidelined.
Once they enter, I think it's very easy for many of them to see that Avicanna is best positioned for this. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to then emerge into the U.S. We're excited about cross-border clinical development, research collaborations as well. Then finally, we're quite excited to bring the RHO Phyto and MyMedi.ca platform into the United States, which would be the most complete package for that market since they want to take a serious medical approach.
That's the last question I had. I had to rush through the last ones, but appreciate everyone's time. Thank you for your interest. If anybody has any questions, I'm easy to reach, and we're available to dig further if the shareholder or investor group is interested. Thank you, everyone.