This afternoon, almost every round has been a full seat.
Not an early morning crowd.
I don't know if everybody went out last night. I had to be here early. It is interesting listening to all the different companies that come from. They were always straddling late.
Yeah, yeah. They'll be coming in after I started.
Good afternoon. The next microcap presentation is BioSyent. I want to introduce René Goehrum.
Thank you. Thank you to all of you for sitting in on this session. I'm the President and CEO of BioSyent. We do have a disclaimer slide. I will likely make some forward-looking statements. All of our financials' historical disclosures are on our corporate website. We make it easy so that you don't have to navigate through the clumsy SEDAR Plus. I'll look at some of our brands, and let me tell you a little bit about our company. We are a growth stage, a commercial Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company. We do about 90% of our revenue in the Canadian market, about 10% ex-Canada, in that range, plus or minus. We've been a cash generator for a long period of time. We're not a cash consumer. We look for unique and differentiated products around the world, essentially, is where we find them. We license or acquire those assets.
We take them through the approval process in Canada, get them approved by Health Canada, equivalent to the US FDA. We commercialize with, at present, we have two sales teams, one larger team and one smaller team more focused on specialists. Our products are distributed or used in hospitals across Canada. One of our products is in about 250 hospitals. I'm going to compete with the garbage man. I won't pause. I'm going to push through. We're in about 250 hospitals. Our salespeople are making calls on doctors, either in family practice or in obstetrics and gynecology. Across Canada, we've got about 300 interactions a day with healthcare professionals, including pharmacists. I would say our products are found in 98% of Canadian pharmacies. We look primarily at products that are late in the development stage. We're not an R&D company.
We do some development on assets that we own, particularly on the FeraMAX brand. I'll speak about that in a few moments. We do some development, but we're not a research company. The lifeblood of a business like ours is really going out and finding innovation globally and licensing that and commercializing it in Canada. We typically do 8-15-year deals. That's normally what you see us do. We have, in the last couple of years, done essentially brand extensions or extensions with our partners that have taken us out to relationships that are run in excess of 20 years. If there's one slide to draw your attention to, the kind of the one to focus on, it's this one. These six boxes really tell the story. If this doesn't pique your interest, the rest of what I have to say probably won't.
We're a profitable company. We've been profitable for 15 years. Our revenue last year, everything in today's presentation is expressed in CAD unless I happen to say otherwise. I should add that we do business in CAD, euro, and US dollars. We move that around and report in CAD. CAD 35 million on the top line, a little over CAD 9 million of EBITDA, CAD 0.62 EPS, and 21% return on equity. A couple of things there over the last, if you use 2019 as a base year, we grew revenue by about two-thirds, and we grew our profit by a little bit better than that. We grew our EPS by almost, well, by 100%. I think we were CAD 0.31 in the base year in that calculation. We've been launching products. I've got a slide later in the deck to show you that.
We've launched products in 2023. They're still launch stage at this point. We acquired an asset in Q3 last year. I'm going to talk a little bit about that in a moment. We've also licensed a new asset in some of the existing portfolio products on market, and that we still have to shepherd through the Health Canada approval process. We think peak penetration revenue of that group of assets is around CAD 65 million, plus or minus. You can see that compares favorably. We've got a lot of fuel compared to the CAD 35 million base that we just achieved. We have a strong balance sheet. We have no debt in the business. The last time we raised any equity financing, so dilution in that regard, was in 2002.
We essentially have bootstrapped and now built the business through cash generation and have CAD 26 million in cash on the balance sheet. December 31 is our last reported quarter. I talked about two sales teams. More than half of the employees in our company are in the field interacting with customers every day. We have 11 products approved in Canada, and then we have a number of products that are approved ex-Canada. We do have the assets where we own outright. We do commercialize outside of Canada. We have a very shareholder-friendly approach to our business on our cap table. We have been buying back shares now since late 2018. We started paying dividends in Q4 of 2022, and we have been increasing those dividends and essentially reducing the number of shares that we have outstanding. We have taken that even to the next step.
We have not issued a dilutive share option since March of 2019. We've replaced share options as equity incentives for management and employees and directors with an RSU program. We, in essence, go out into the open market, buy shares, hold those in trust to finalize our obligations under our RSU plan. There's been no dilution since March of 2019. We've got a committed long-term management team that's been together a while. Obviously, we've got some new blood that's joined us of late, but it's solid. We're a no-drama company, I think, is the best way to describe us. If you're looking for a special situation, you probably aren't going to be too happy with today's presentation. I'm the largest shareholder of the company, and together, management and directors or insiders own 26%.
Seventy-five percent of our employees are shareholders, and they're buying shares in our company every two weeks. I talked about being profitable for 15 years. This is the revenue growth in the green bars. When we became profitable mid-year of 2010, we had two products on market, our legacy product and FeraMAX 150. On the right-hand side, you see now the brands that are on market. You see the evolution of our revenue to CAD 35 million. You can see bottom left corner, bottom right corner, you can see the fully diluted shares outstanding. That number down significantly when we became profitable. This is a three-year look. The green bar is revenue. The next bar, the lighter blue, is EBITDA and net income after tax. Last year, 11% on the top, 18% EBITDA growth, and 13% net income after tax.
We report in IFRS, for those not familiar. Our EBITDA margin runs in the kind of mid-20s, and our net income after tax margin in around 20%. This is a look at our earnings per share. You can see that kind of moving more sharply than revenue. That is because we have been buying back our shares. Not only are we cash generating and strong on a net income basis, but we have been buying back shares. You can see the strong effect that that has, growing from CAD 0.44 in 2022 to CAD 0.62 last year. I know that we are deep into 2025. I have got a couple of things to mention in terms of highlights for last year. We were named one of the top performers on the TSX Venture, 1,700 companies or so. That was essentially in volume, trading volume, value, and value appreciation.
I mentioned we've been a dividend payer. We paid CAD 0.045 a share per quarter. That was an increase of 12.5% versus the prior year. FeraMAX is our lead product. It is the number one recommended oral iron supplement in Canada amongst pharmacists and doctors. It has been now, I'll take the drama out of a slide in one or two moments, now for the 10th consecutive year so named. It's a competitive market. We've built that brand. We own the brand outright, and we are commercializing it in Canada and some markets outside of Canada. I've already mentioned an example of where we extended the agreement for commercialization with assets that we don't own outright that we have long-term supply agreements to. In this case, it was for RepaGyn and Proktis. In 2023, we extended our Cathogel arrangement very similarly.
Mid last year, we licensed a new endocrinology product that we're getting that asset ready to submit to Health Canada for marketing approval. This one's significant for us. It represents a higher revenue potential than pretty well everything that's in our portfolio at the moment other than FeraMAX. It'll be a prescription medication. We're pretty excited about the potential for this asset. It will be a late 2026 launch, or it may slip over into 2027. We're working hard to get the file submitted to Health Canada for approval. I mentioned an acquisition. We bought Tibella. I'll speak a little bit in more detail on that. That acquisition was made in September last year. We've been active on our NCIB. I've mentioned that. We bought just under 500,000 shares last year and had our program reapproved by the exchange late in the year.
Tibelia Global had no impact on our revenue. We acquired the asset in September. We've been essentially taking the steps to get our manufacturing lined up and also taking the necessary steps for regulatory, kind of marketing authorizations and getting that all shifted over to BioSyent. There will be no, in the results that you see, there were no shipments of that asset. That started in the first quarter. $800,000 worth of shipments have gone out the door. In fact, we're building our order book. There will be Q2 shipments. If you've been following us for any period of time, you'll know that we've had some lumpiness to our international business. That is trending to smoothing out, at least having revenue for our international sales quarterly, I think, including Q1, six out of the last seven quarters, we've got revenue internationally for international customers.
We have been continuing to buy back shares. You can see we're active year to date. The Tibella acquisition. This was an acquisition we made, an in-market asset. We had licensed the asset for Canada and had started commercializing it in 2020. The asset's been growing nicely in Canada. It's a hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women or post-menopausal women. We acquired the asset from our partner who ran into some financial difficulty. Essentially, with intellectual property came relationships with 20 customers worldwide. We paid about five times EBITDA when we calculate that based on our own internal purchases of Tibella in 2023. We have been growing that brand. I would say that it's going to probably turn out to be a better payback for us than five times implies. This has given us access to new international markets.
We own the FeraMAX brand outright. We now have new relationships that we're doing business with on a regular basis that allows us to potentially plug in FeraMAX into those relationships or vice versa to Tibella into relationships that we've got pre-existing with FeraMAX. A big driver of the value in this deal is that we essentially in buying the IP and the distribution globally as we bought our own contract back. It had a finite life. I talked about 8 to 15 years. It was more on the shorter end of that. We bought back those rights. We have significantly, dramatically is a little bit too much, significantly enhanced our margins on that product just in Canada and essentially the operating margin for that asset for us. Tibella in Canada, Tibella outside of Canada.
In Canada, it's been growing at 30% or better now for several years. It represents, if you work off that CAD 35 million base last year, a 7-8% lift in revenue and just less than 10% lift in EBITDA. I talked about FeraMAX as the number one recommended oral iron supplement in Canada. We've used that as a foundation to innovate and essentially drive a life cycle strategy. We are well respected by healthcare professionals. We are known amongst consumers or people that have iron deficiency or have had iron deficiency. We've been innovating essentially with a product portfolio that satisfies the needs across the life spectrum. If you use iron, you're typically a woman. That is true in Canada. The United States or pretty well everywhere, iron is consumed about 80% by women. We've got three offerings in market now.
We've got a fourth one that's been developed and is coming and look for that in 2026. What drives the business here going forward? We've got the endocrinology asset kind of working its way through the process, the FeraMAX life cycle strategy. I've talked about Tibella and Tibella together. When you are not an R&D company, the lifeblood is going to find new assets. We're working on acquisitions. We are working on in-licensing. That's an active thing. We've got a team of people. That's their job. That's all they do. That's what they focus on. We've got several ongoing discussions now. Our experience tells us they're never done until they're done. That's just the way it works. I talked about our cash balance. You can see the last three years we finished in the kind of CAD 26 million-CAD 28 million range.
That's by design. Last year, we generated just under CAD 9 million of cash from operations and returned over CAD 7 million of it to shareholders through NCIB and dividends. That's a strong position to be in. I do get asked about, okay, how do you intend to deploy the capital and the business? I would say, you know, take a step back and look at the last five years and take a look at all of the innovation that we've brought to the market, product launches, product acquisitions. Then look at our OPEX. You can see that we're investing by a greater sales presence in the market. Launching products takes a high ratio of the revenue in terms of marketing and promotional spend. We keep going in that direction. However, we are a cash generator. What are we doing?
We're applying our cash position, our balance sheet against our strategy. We think the best way to create value for shareholders is to build a strong business. Grow revenue, grow profit. It's kind of like a motherhood statement. Diversify our portfolio so that we're less reliant on one single asset or brand. FeraMAX is our lead brand and still represents a high ratio of revenue. Kind of yellow flag for risk. We're working doggedly day and night, week to week, month to month on diversification. That's important. We're deploying capital into acquisition. Yet, not making any excuses for it, we find ourselves in a strong position with cash generation. We'll continue to buy back shares and obviously continue to pay a dividend. We never set out to pay a dividend without continuing that program.
In all, between dividends and NCIB, we've returned just under CAD 28 million to shareholders, bless you. It's a quick look at the stock chart. I know there's a lot of volatility in the market. It's kind of a week old. These things are always dated the minute that you put them in there. To give you an idea, about CAD 125 million market cap, trading just over 10 times enterprise value, EBITDA. I think I've left some time for questions. Yep. Seventy-five launches since 2020.
Expect a similar cadence going forward? I'm just curious why the decision, I guess, in 2022 to 2022?
I'll deal with the first one. You know, we've already identified at least two product launches that are coming.
If I look out, you know, the five years start now and go out five years, you know, it depends on what we in-license or acquire. Start now and go out five years, you know, it depends on what we in-license or acquire. There's at least two. We still have growth in the existing portfolio. Why? I don't know if that satisfies the what do we think is coming forward. I would say the timelines on licensed assets are longer. They take some time to, you know, you go through the process, then you got to get them. Typically, we have in-licensed assets that were approved, but sometimes that's unusual that we'll get them approved. We have to take them through the Health Canada process. You have visibility now going out probably two and a half years to what our launch activity is.
That does not include acquisitions. That is, you know, that is an active thing. It is very high on our list of priorities. With respect to a dividend, if I may just answer part two. The dividend was simply, you know, there have been limitations on what we could get through our NCIB. You know, there had been arguments that we are over-capitalized. We had a really strong, at one point in time, more cash than revenue in some. We just thought it was just wise management of the balance sheet and to return some additional capital to shareholders. Yep.
Are you sure you are not cannibalizing FeraMAX?
These are not just different strengths. They are literally positioned differently and approved for different purposes. The indication is different. We can see, you know, it is like a top of mind.
It was even before we even decided to go in that direction. We are trying to clearly differentiate them. We provide a treatment algorithm to the healthcare professional to give guidance on how to use our products. For us, the evidence is, you know, our FeraMAX 45 is gaining momentum at a pretty good pace. I would, you know, the growth rate has been strong. Our FeraMAX 150 has continued to grow. You will pretty well never replace the powder version, the 15, with either of the first two. The evidence is that we have so far been doing a good job with it.
Thanks for coming to the pod. Respect you guys and your discipline. One question I have is that you have done a bunch of small deals that have mostly worked out very well. Have you ever seen opportunities that have been attractive to do a larger deal?
Yeah. Yes. We've looked at things that would be really large. You know, hit me in the head with a two by four if you ever hear me use the word transformational. I think you hear that from companies that have kind of, they're out of ideas with an existing strategy. We have looked though at big deals, much bigger. You know, your big and my big might be significantly different. Yes, bigger than what we've done and with significant deployment of capital. You know, we're working on things that would be defined to meet my definition of bigger right now. Yeah. Any other questions? Yep. Yes. Yep. Both in Canada and outside of Canada. Yeah. Yep. We'll have another one over here. Go ahead.
I could tell you then I'd have to kill you. We don't kind of get out in front and message market. It's really just competitive. It's a competitive mentality. You know, as opposed to big pharma and biotech, they get out there and message along like years and years. We don't. Partly some of the assets we get our hands on, the innovation is, you know, maybe not as dramatic as somebody that's invested a billion dollars in a new asset. I would say this gives us sufficient innovation, but we do not want to message the market so that they can prepare for it or our competition can prepare. There was one over here. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Differences between Canada and US. I mean, you know, a number. Pricing is one for sure. For us, the US is not a market for us right now.
There are some things that we're looking at to kind of maybe potentially put a toe in the water in a very measured way, in a very BioSyent belt and suspenders way, I would describe it. Yeah, just it's a different market for our assets. Many of the assets that we've in-licensed, we don't own the commercialization rights ex-Canada anyways. For those that we do, there would have to be significant investment, for example, for Tibella in some further data for the FDA. You know, maybe we'll find somebody that's willing to make that investment. We won't. I know that. In terms of kind of how we think about our portfolio over the long term, our, you know, the good and the bad. I told you that we're highly concentrated. We got one minute. Highly concentrated in FeraMAX, we own the asset. So we own that.
It's, you know, in pharma, companies build revenue on an asset and then they kind of go over here and they focus on something else. We have spent more and invested more in that asset every year in absolute dollar amounts since we launched it every single year. We have continued to build momentum in the brand and we will continue to do so. I don't think of that as a sunset risk. There's competitive risk, but not a sunset risk. With the other assets, like we've, you know, we've extended deals that started out as being kind of eight to ten year arrangements and we've added, you know, we kicked out six-seven years on a few of them. Some of these assets are of a nature that they just won't, you know, the partner's not going to come to Canada.
do not, I am not, I do not stay awake at night about the portfolio itself. What keeps me awake is growing the business. Yeah. I think we are done with time. Thank you very much.