All right, and hi, everyone. Good morning. Next up, we've got the team from Cipher Pharmaceuticals. Cipher trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol CPH. It also trades on the OTC under CPHRF. We've got the CEO with us, Craig Mull, and the CFO, Ryan Milling. Come on up, guys.
Good morning, and thanks for attending our little speech here today. I'm here with Bryan Jacobs, our CFO. Sorry, not our CFO, the president of our U.S. division. So I'm gonna run through the presentation here, and then I'll leave about ten minutes at the end for questions. And my presentation is gonna take this form. I'm gonna talk to you about the Cipher business pre-acquisition. I'll talk to you about the acquisition itself, and then lastly, I'll talk to you about the combined business. So moving on to Cipher's base business or pre-acquisition business. We do business both in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, we have a portfolio of products that we sell directly. That portfolio generates about $13 million per year.
All the numbers I'm gonna give you, and unless I indicate otherwise, are in US dollars. So the Canadian portfolio is about $13 million. We have a number of derm-focused products. The main product in our portfolio in Canada is a product called Epuris, and that's for severe acne. Epuris is the market share leader in this category, with 46% of the market. That product competes against another product called Accutane, and Accutane is a well-known product. It's been around for decades. It has had over its history issues with some safety. Epuris does not have those same safety issues. For example, you don't have to take food with it, which is a big benefit when you're dealing with teenagers. So that product continues to grow. The Canadian portfolio continues to grow at about 20% a year.
It generates a great deal of cash for us, and is one that we expect will continue to grow into the future. Our U.S. product portfolio is made up of three products: Absorica, which is the U.S. version of Epuris for acne. Lipofen, which is a lipid-lowering product, and then ConZip, which is a pain control product. In the U.S., we sell these products all through commercial partners, meaning that we have a partnership with pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. that will sell that product and pay us a royalty. That portfolio of royalty products generates about $8.5 million a year. It is a stable, low-growth portfolio of products that have helped us build a war chest, in order to activate our acquisitions.
This is the pre-acquisition business of Cipher, very stable, and this slide will indicate that, you know, over the years, the revenue and the EBITDA have been stable. We produce EBITDA margins in the range of 60%, which is quite high for the pharmaceutical business. It has been an excellent business for us to be able to focus on growth. Speaking about growth, at the end of July of this year, we acquired a product line called Natroba, and that business is based in the U.S. Along with the product line, we also acquired a commercial infrastructure, which includes 35 reps and management behind that group. Natroba is a product for the indication of head lice and scabies, which is a big issue throughout the world, not only in the U.S.
Currently, Natroba has about 23% of what we term the antiparasitic market. That market is made up of mainly head lice and scabies. The product has been sold in the U.S. since 2011, and since then, has had steady growth in sales and a EBITDA margin similar to Cipher's. The business had been run by a family that, you know, watched, you know, every nickel they spent. They were quite risk-averse. They were making sure that every year that they produced income, and similar to the way that Cipher has been run. As I indicated, Natroba has an FDA approval. It's a prescription drug, and it has an FDA approval for head lice. And in 2021, it was given an approval for scabies as well.
Importantly to note here is that it received a complete cure rate designation by the FDA, which is quite unusual. With this product, all you have to do is use it once for head lice or scabies, and the problem will go away, which is uncommon and not something that any other product on the market has. In addition to our FDA exclusivity, we also have a fifteen-year exclusivity on the API of the product, and the API stands for Active Product Ingredient. It is the key to the product, and it is called spinosad. We have a lock on that supply for fifteen years, and you know, we do not expect a competitor will come in with a similar type product. So we have got a great deal of protection with the product. Again, Natroba has about 23% of this market.
The main product on the market is a product called permethrin, and that holds 75% of the market, and I'll come to my next slide with more detail on that. But the issue with permethrin is that because it has been so widely used, not only in humans, but also for agricultural and other uses, that is so prevalent that scabies and lice have genetically modified themselves to be resistant against permethrin. And in other words, the product does not work. If you did a Google search of permethrin, or any type of literature search, you'll see that resistance is a big issue with the product, and it's known worldwide. You can use it as many times as you want, and it will not be effective, which we see as a real opportunity for Natroba in the U.S.
Looking at the Natroba business itself, you know, we think that we've got a great deal of growth potential in gaining share against Permethrin. We'll also be bringing this product to Canada for Health Canada approval, and we'll commercialize it with our own sales force, and then we have the ability to out-license this product to the rest of the world. We own the product, and we're in discussions with commercial partners in Europe and Asia that will be able to market and commercialize the products in their countries, and Cipher will earn a royalty from that, from those arrangements, and as you can see from my earlier slide with the base Cipher business, those royalties fall to the bottom line, meaning that Cipher doesn't have much expense or capital required in order to enter into these agreements.
Those expenses are held by the commercial partners. This slide, you know, talks about the market share. Again, Natroba with 23% and permethrin with 75% of a $165 million market. Again, Natroba has no resistance against lice or scabies. The other products on the market do. Scabies is the where Natroba is the only product that has a complete cure rate for scabies. Scabies is a much bigger section of the market than head lice. About 80% of the antiparasitic market is scabies, and the remainder is head lice. Again, it's a single-dose product. You use it once, and the head lice or scabies will go away. There's no combing required for head lice.
The other products, you have to comb the dead lice and eggs out of the hair, which is a time-consuming, annoying thing to have to do, particularly with a kid that doesn't want to be sitting there at the time. So I think that, you know, our first call to business is to gain share against Permethrin in the U.S. market. Looking at the combined businesses, this acquisition has now doubled Cipher's sales and doubled Cipher's EBITDA. The acquisition closed at the end of July. We are now the owners of that business, and you should expect that the revenues will grow, as I'm indicating here. Again, first order of business is to gain share against Permethrin. We have the 35 sales reps and the infrastructure along with that.
We're going to be adding complementary products to their bag, and when I say complementary products, particularly with the same call point. The reps going in to call on the same physicians, not only selling Natroba, but other products that pediatricians and dermatologists are looking for. We're gonna launch Natroba in Canada once we receive Health Canada approval. Health Canada approval usually takes about 12 months. We're gonna out-license the product to the rest of the world. We're in discussions with commercial partners in Europe at the moment about that product, and then lastly, we also have MOB-015, which is a nail fungus product, that we have the Canadian rights for, that I will speak more about in a few slides here.
Again, looking at building our dermatology platform, we now have a U.S. platform or an infrastructure that we want to optimize. We plan, as I indicated before, to bring in these complementary products, which will make that sales force much more efficient. We have the ability to take the product to Canada and the rest of the world, and the efficiencies and synergies that go along with that. We also have the ability to, with the U.S. platform, to look at bringing in those three products I originally talked about, and instead of going through commercial partners, we will sell those products ourselves, in which case, the margins on those products will go up substantially for Cipher. Moving back to the MOB-015, as we call it, or the nail fungus product. The Canadian market for this product is about 92 million.
There is one product on the market that has 90% of that market, called Jublia, that is sold by Bausch. The product has gone through a number of clinical trials, two, phase III trials in the U.S. The first trial came back showing, results that indicated that the mycological cure rate, and the mycological cure rate is how well does the product, kill nail fungus. The product came back with a mycological cure rate of 76%, which is very, very high. It's actually higher than the oral terbinafine, which is at 70%. The cosmetic cure rate of the product in the first phase III trial was relatively low, and when I say cosmetic, it's basically what does the nail look like at the end of the treatment period?
With this trial, the first trial, phase III trial, the nail was left a little cloudy and white, and therefore, didn't score well on the cosmetic cure rate. When you look at these two cure rates and put them together for a complete cure rate, the product scored lower than Jublia. The company decided to do a second phase III trial and change the dosing. In other words, they reduced the dosing from daily to once a week after an eight-week period, with the thought that it would improve the cosmetic cure rate of the product.
We heard two weeks ago, surprisingly, that Moberg had received a small set of data, subset of data from this current ongoing phase III trial that indicated that the complete cure rate endpoints would not be met, meaning that they had not been successful in improving the cosmetic cure rate. And so we're looking at that and, you know, regrouping on how we are going to commercialize the product. Cipher does not have any financial commitments, ongoing financial commitments related to this product for Canada, but we believe that the mycological cure rate being so high, that there could be still an opportunity to take significant share against Jublia. We're going to wait for the readout of the current phase III trial, which we expect in January, where we'll get the results from that trial.
So it's still a big opportunity. The news coming out of Moberg, who's the developer of the product two weeks ago, is a little negative and, one that we are contemplating what our next steps are. But again, still a big opportunity for Cipher Canada. Looking back to the acquisition, of which we paid $90 million for, we had $45 million in cash at the time. We used $40 million of that. We entered into a credit facility with National Bank for $65 million, of which we used and have utilized $40 million of that. The remainder of the purchase price, the $10 million, was taken back in stock by the vendor of the seller of Natroba.
In addition to the CAD 65 million-dollar credit facility, Brian here also negotiated a CAD 45 million-dollar accordion option. So at the moment, we have about CAD 50 million dollars that we can access for a different additional acquisitions and further growth in the business. Now, with our current debt position, we have low leverage. We've got an excellent rate from the National Bank. We're very disciplined with the amount of debt that we're prepared to take on, and I think our history shows that. But we're in a very comfortable position right now with the current debt level, and we also have access to the CAD 50 million when the right opportunity comes along.
Looking at the cap structure of the business, there's about 25.6 million shares outstanding, with a market cap of around 370 million, and again, CAD 40 million in outstanding debt. The next, the pie chart there shows you a breakdown of the ownership of the business. I'm a large shareholder. The seller of Natroba, or the vendor of Natroba, is also a significant shareholder now. We've got 30% institutional shareholders and then approximately 20% retail. Looking at our management team, myself, Brian Jacobs, again, the President of Cipher US, who has done an excellent job for the company. We recently promoted Ryan Milling to CFO, to replace Brian's position as CFO.
Our Chairman of the Board, and the other directors are there, all, you know, well experienced pharma people, other than Harold Wolkin, who comes from an investment banking background. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to questions.
[audio distortion]
That data is not readily available, but I think that if you extrapolate what the U.S. market size is, considering also pricing, it's a very significant market. But I don't have that exact number.
I didn't. How large is the [audio distortion] or how long has been?
In Europe, you'd require an EU approval, and that's quicker than Health Canada. I think that it averages around nine months, particularly if you've got a product that is needed. Natroba is needed because there's nothing else on the market that works.
Do you know how big the market is?
No, I'd have to extrapolate that. You'd almost have to do it by country.
Yeah.
So... Sure.
Our Canadian business, that's about 60%. The Natroba business might explain how, but we expect it to go up, saying that I would have found it right. But the revenue seems to be based on but we expect it to go up in the mid-teens.
Yeah, and the other revenue operations.
Now, that's the combined business.
I believe you take care of the-
July twenty.
Yeah, that's in June.
We've added the two businesses together, and I've only done it. I have promised to project the revenue, the total revenue for 2024. Sure, sure have. Yeah.
We have a closed quarter, our post-acquisition, and that will give you
That's when we just had the base Cipher business. Yeah. Ryan, what's-
What was our revenue?
At the end of the second quarter.
Revenue last year.
Go back.
Yeah, just one second here.
Thank you. Quarterly revenue and earnings for the base business is what you asked for Q1 and Q2 is, the bar charts on the left.
I've got three minutes left. Is there any other questions? Yes, sir.
Elaborate a little bit more about the market share, maintaining your control. You said the product having 5% market share in that 2023. Yeah, and I guess, like, do you know where about a year or two years, where the market share is from?
They're gaining market share. I think that they're going to... They're probably gaining around 5% market share.
On the toe fungus product that had the disappointing cosmetic results, if the fungus is actually killed off or highly suppressed, would the cosmetic result, which I can see being quite a negative, looks ugly after it's done this? If the infection, the fungus is gone, it doesn't take forever to grow back. Will the new nail come in clear? It might take a year, but it would be clear.
That is exactly what we're talking about here. That nail is going to grow out anyway, so you may have to put up with a nail that doesn't look perfect for a while, but you don't have nail fungus anymore. And that, and that's the trade-off.
That's the reason why the product is so successful.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right, Brian. The product's been launched in Sweden and the Scandinavian countries, and at the launch in Sweden, within three months, they were the market leader with this product, and they actually expanded the market by 52%. So we think this thing has legs still, even though the cosmetic cure numbers are not favorable. Kelly?
Can you talk about what you're looking after something in license opportunity in the U.S. and like on the time some of the sales force dynamics that you alluded to-
Yeah.
And there being activity there? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. These products, which I call complementary products, would have the same physicians ordering them. So that our salespeople going into the doctor's office would be able to promote Natroba and this other product, which you know, is again, a pediatric derm type of focus product.
I read from previous interviews that you don't actually need the U.S. results to submit for Canadian health approval. And we know that it's an effective product to grow market share. I'm curious why waiting needs to be the-
That was, you know, contemplated and thought out, and our thoughts were, let's wait for that, the readout on the current phase three trial, so that we could have a better claim on the product than as if we try to apply with the EU dossier on the product. We could already have an approved product, but we decided that we would wait.
Said there was no more financial, where did you take that, right?
That was before Bryan and my time. They paid about $550,000 initially. The rest of the payments are linked to milestones, and one of the milestones is that they deliver a complete cure rate higher than Jublia, which they're telling us that they're unlikely to do now. There's no more money to be spent on this product unless we want to, you know, commercialize it. Thanks, everybody. Really appreciate your interest.