Hello, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience's company webcast. My name is Ben Shamsian , Vice President of Lytham Partners, and today we have Rob Fried, CEO of Niagen, who will be taking us through a brief slide presentation followed by a fireside chat moderated by me. Niagen trades under the ticker NAGE on the Nasdaq. With that, let's get started. Rob, welcome.
Thank you, Ben. I understand from Ben that the majority of those watching or listening are new to Niagen Bioscience. So to those of you that are new, I welcome you, and to those of you who are familiar with the company, have been tracking the company, it's nice to be speaking with you again. Niagen Bioscience, as the screen suggests, is a company that used to be called ChromaDex. We changed the name of the company last year to align with our primary product, which is an ingredient also known as nicotinamide riboside, and we call it Niagen. We have many patents around it, and it is the best precursor to a coenzyme called NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which you're about to hear a bit about.
NAD, this coenzyme, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, has been in the press quite a bit of late because scores of research, clinical studies, preclinical studies, have shown that most conditions, their disease state or just symptoms related to aging, are also associated with the decline of NAD, and we've shown that by elevating NAD, we make cells more resilient in all organs, all cell types, and better equip those cells to deal with those age-related stressors. Millions of people at this point have endeavored to elevate their NAD, and there are several ways to do it right now, and have experienced benefits when they do it over a long period of time. Essentially, their body ages better. In some cases, it actually ameliorates conditions associated with aging, particularly things that are inflammation-related. Niagen Bioscience is the leading company in this NAD space.
We have over 100 patents on a handful of precursors that elevate NAD. They all do it slightly differently. We have studied on Niagen, published 41 clinical studies and over 100 preclinical studies. There are no other companies in this NAD supplement space that have done even any studies that we are aware of. But we are very committed to R&D and very committed to understanding what works and what doesn't work about Niagen and, frankly, all NAD-related products. So we can really focus in on how to improve people's health, particularly as they're aging or recovering from certain conditions, mostly physical stressors. The company has been doing this for many years. We've been around for 25 years, but we've been specifically dedicated to NAD for about 10 years. We've built the company to a place where we have very conservative and safe and strong financials. There's plenty of cash.
We're a net income-positive company, cash flow-positive company. We don't have any debt. And we've diversified the company. We not only sell Niagen as a dietary supplement, we also have a robust B2B business where we supply it as an ingredient to a handful of reputable dietary supplement brands. And we also now offer it as an IV or an injection product. As I say, it's somewhat become mainstream. Perhaps many of you listening have heard about NAD or have read about NAD, or you've heard about celebrities or athletes that are getting NAD-related either injections or infusions or taking the dietary supplements to become popular. And it's become popular mostly because it works. And that's a rare thing in the ingredient or dietary supplement business. Also, it's safe. Let me quickly explain to you what it is. NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is a coenzyme.
Stating the obvious, but that means it's an enzyme that works in conjunction with other enzymes inside all living cells, plant and animal. So all living cells have NAD, and it's vital to all the key metabolic processes inside that cell. But most notably, energy metabolism and cell repair. So we create energy inside our cells. There are organelles called mitochondria, which you may remember from high school biology are the powerhouse of the cell. Mitochondria, which are fascinating organelles, they have their own separate DNA, and they work within cells. Take the nutrients from food and the oxygen from air and convert it via something that's been called the Krebs cycle or the citric acid cycle into actual energy. What is actual energy? We don't really know what energy is.
We just know that it exists and that it gets transported in molecules called ATP molecules, adenosine triphosphate molecules from the mitochondria throughout the rest of the cell to enable the cell to function. What we have shown is that by elevating NAD with Niagen, you increase not only the number of mitochondria that you have, mitogenesis, if you will, but also the yield of ATP per mitochondria. So if that were considered a biometric, it actually increases energy without increasing calories. Every step of the way in the Krebs cycle or the citric acid cycle, mitochondria rely on NAD. Absent NAD, you cannot produce energy. But also, there are enzymes inside the cell called PARP enzymes, which identify and repair when there are certain types of damage, like most notably genetic disorders or mutations. NAD is also involved in PARP functionality.
Anything repair-related inside the cell, if there's inflammation, if there's oxidative stress, if there's DNA damage, if there's the presence of a virus, the cell's ability to repair that damage is dependent on NAD. So when the cell is saturated with NAD, you've got a stronger, more resilient cell that's better equipped to handle these metabolic stressors in addition to producing energy. What is aging? Aging is the accumulation of damage at the cellular and molecular level. So what elevating NAD does is better equip the cell to correct the damage. When you're a kid and you go out in the sun, you get a sunburn. But a week later, you're back in the beach. But when you're older and you go out in the sun and you get a sunburn, it's a much more serious condition. It could quickly turn into some kind of a skin cancer or something.
Older people have very little NAD. Young people are rich in NAD. So if we could elevate NAD in those cells that are most stressed and do it safely, we have an opportunity to help the body to age better. The thesis of Niagen Bioscience is to help people age better. Improve not necessarily lifespan, the amount of years that they live, but the number of years they live young and healthy, what we call healthspan. There are a number of ways to do it. Obviously, exercising every day, trying to stay as thin as you can, sleeping really well. We think maintaining elevated NAD levels is also an important component to aging well and aging better. It's a significant lifespan. We have many studies that validate that thesis. Just quickly, how does NR work?
You know, there are other molecules that people promote that they say also elevate NAD, and they do, but none do it as well as NR. Some people actually sell NAD itself. You could go online and look up NAD, and you see now dozens of companies selling NAD. NAD doesn't work to elevate NAD, as ironic as that sounds, for two reasons. One is the molecule is large, and the other, it's what's called a nucleotide, meaning there's a phosphate on the perimeter of the cell, which blocks entry into the cell. So if you're taking NAD, you're not helping yourself. In fact, there are several studies that show that it increases inflammation in its failed attempt to get into the cell and other side effects as well. A lot of people go in and get these NAD infusions.
They find that it takes hours to ingest and that they break out in sweats and headaches. Why? Because NAD doesn't work for penetrating the cell. You take Niagen, and it's very quick without the side effects and has much higher levels of NAD elevation. Similarly, there's a thing called NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. The way nature has designed it is NR, which is found in nature. You can find it in milk. You can find it in certain other protein-based products. It floats around the cell. When a cell is under distress, it calls out. It opens up a pathway, the NR kinase pathway. It calls out for NR, floating in trace amounts in the bloodstream, and the NR finds that stress cell, penetrates the cell quickly through that pathway, converts into NMN, and then converts into NAD.
Some people sell NMN, claiming, "Well, why not bypass the NR system?" Same problem as NAD. NMN does not have the ability to penetrate the cell. It just doesn't work. What happens in the case of both NMN and NAD is it fails to get into the cell, floats around the bloodstream, and eventually breaks apart as a molecule and converts into NR, into Niagen, and then gets into the cell. So they end up just being inefficient delivery mechanisms for NR. The best way to do it, the way nature is designed to do it, is to just start with NR. And again, NR, nicotinamide riboside, and Niagen are the same thing. Start with Niagen. It's the safest, best, most efficient way to elevate NAD. We built the company around this concept of NAD because we think that it has a fairly big future and helps general public health.
We've built the business primarily on dietary supplements. As you know, our consumer brand is called Tru Niagen. It's one of the leading sellers of dietary supplements of any type on Amazon and in the U.S. in general. We also distribute it internationally in several countries. We also supply it as an ingredient to certain brands. But a year ago, a little more than a year ago, we also began offering it as an injectable and as an IV in clinics. It took us many years to get there. We had to get on the approved list by the FDA because once you're putting something directly into your vein, it's no longer a dietary supplement, which we did. We proved its safety and its importance, but also it's pharmaceutical-grade material.
The supplement is food-grade material, but if you're going to put it directly into the veins, it's got to reach FDA standards as a pharmaceutical product. And so we developed that process too. We make both pharmaceutical-grade Niagen as well as food-grade Niagen, and we sell it as both an IV, an injection, and a dietary supplement. Obviously, this vertical, what we call Niagen Plus, is a B2B business. We sell it to the compound pharmacies who compound it, and they then sell it to the clinics or the physicians' offices who then sell it to the consumers. Later in 2026, we will be offering our own telehealth business where we will be selling directly from our own website. One can go on there, get a doctor's prescription. We will send directly to your home a home injection kit.
We don't have that yet, but we will have that, I'm hoping, in the next six months. In America, what we've seen lately is the popularity of people self-injecting at home to stay thin, and we think that people will be interested in injecting at home to also stay young, so we expect that product to be available later this year. We also will make it available to existing telehealth companies that are presently selling these GLP-1s and other peptide-type products directly to people at their home. We also are interested in the pharmaceutical business because we think some of our other precursors to NAD might be useful in pharmaceutical applications. The ones that are of particular use to us, interest to us, are these orphan diseases where children age very rapidly, and there are a handful of them.
The one that we've chosen to focus on initially is called Ataxia-telangiectasia. But there are others as well. There's Cockayne syndrome. There are other forms of ataxia. But in all these, children age much more rapidly than they would otherwise. And what's also interesting is in almost all these cases, they have either greatly diminished or even non-detectable levels of NAD. So we see a direct relationship between the way the body ages and the levels of NAD found in their blood cells. And we've published already clinical studies, phase one or phase two clinical studies on several of these orphan diseases with very, in some cases, remarkable results. So we also like the economic construct around orphan diseases. It's fewer studies to get to drug approval. It's less expensive because there are so few participants and patients out there.
And we think there's a reasonable chance for success there. So we're very, very excited about that. And then, of course, there's the skincare business. There's a related ingredient called niacinamide, which is also categorized as a B3, as nicotinamide riboside is, which is very, very popular in the skincare space and does elevate NAD. But it doesn't elevate NAD as well as nicotinamide riboside and has other side effects that are not found in Niagen, nicotinamide riboside. So we think the skincare business is a big opportunity for us. And we've been talking to a number of very large global skincare cosmetics companies. And we've also been doing some studies on our own and testing our own consumer products for the space. The skincare market is very high, very large. And so we think it's a very big vertical for us to pursue.
We're going to be much more aggressive about that in 2026. We expect some announcement in the skincare space this year. It's a very science-based company. Everything we do is heavily vetted with our own internal scientists. There's nobody that we know of in this business that invests what we invest in R&D and understanding our products and testing our products and developing patents around our products and researching, understanding what doesn't work and what does work. But we get the advice of some of the best related scientists in the world in the space. Everybody on this list here is working on Niagen or NAD. These are not just names on a piece of paper. I'm very honored myself to be working with them and to have friendships with each and every one of these people.
I think one of the great things that I myself am not a scientist is that it somehow has made it a lot easier to work with some of these great scientists. And of course, we have the famous, what was called, the company was called ChromaDex. We held on to the name for this, the ChromaDex External Research Program, CERP, where we've already published hundreds of studies, preclinical and clinical, in collaboration with some of the best research institutions in the world. Over 300 agreements have been signed with some of these collaborators. And of course, we license any intellectual property that comes out of it. We supply the agreement. We give advice based on our knowledge of NAD. This is a real indication of how popular NAD is and how our company is so committed to quality science and research. As I said, the company is conservatively run.
We've grown steadily every year. Certainly, since I've been here, I've been the CEO seven and a half years. Last 12 months, approximately $125 million of revenue, $20 million of net income. Some of that in net income is paper net income, one-time net income. But the vast majority of it, of course, is real organic growth, net income with concurrent cash, positive cash flow. We have a very strong balance sheet, just under $65 million of cash with no debt. As most of you guys know, the stock has been very volatile. We don't really understand why that is. We just operate a very steady, consistent business. We build great intellectual property. We protect the intellectual property. There are, in this industry, many infringers, many people who really couldn't care less about the law, about patents, or even about public health.
Many of these players don't come from the U.S. They just remotely form a website, build a website, make claims, and wait to get a letter from the FDA or the FTC. Then they change the name of the company and redo it all over again. This is the whack-a-mole that we have to play with constantly. I do think that when these things happen, it can have a short-term impact on sales sometimes and also can sometimes have an impact on perception of the business. So the stock tends to be very, very volatile. We don't really understand the roots of that. You guys understand that a lot better than we do. We just have run a very steady, reliable, conservative, strong business, and we expect to continue to do that.
All right. Well, thank you. We have some time for questions. Let's talk about Niagen Plus. You have the IVs, the at-home injections. How do you see the evolution of this segment going forward?
The NAD IV market has gotten very large. It might even be larger than the supplement NAD market at this point. It's become quite popular that people either inject at home NAD like they inject peptides, or they go to clinics and get IV infusions or injections of NAD. It started with the Hollywood celebrities trying it. And now it's very, very, very popular in professional sports, particularly the NFL. They use it for recovery. But what we've shown is that Niagen injections and Niagen IV is superior in virtually every way to NAD. And there have been a couple of published studies on that. I read another published study even this morning, another yet-to-be-published study this morning. We had nothing to do with it.
It was a third party that did it, but again, consistent results. In fact, even indeed some surprising results of benefits of Niagen IV that we didn't even know about, so we expect it to grow rapidly. In the first year of operation, at a consumer level, we think Niagen IV fell somewhere between $50 million -$100 million of retail sales. That's in the first year. Now, our percentage of that is low because we sell it to the compound pharmacies who then resell it to the clinics who then sell it to the consumers, and it's become this sort of popular hot product that's in demand, so they charge very, very high prices for it. And this is why we've chosen to develop our own direct-to-consumer telehealth business so that we can capture a higher percentage of that retail dollar, but we expect that business in the coming years.
We don't expect it to all of a sudden grow dramatically overnight, but it has already steadily grown. And we expect it to continue to grow. And it's hard to know, but it may actually, in the next few years, overtake the supplement business itself.
Okay. In the past, you've talked about a new strategic partnership with access to a network of about 8,000 medical and healthcare practitioners. Can you elaborate a bit on this and where do you see this heading in the near term?
Well, we understand that the best way to market Niagen is through knowledgeable, informed customers and consumers. And most consumers of dietary supplements or injection products or IV products or skincare products rely on influencers. And so we think that the best influencers are your local doctors.
There are some great podcasters that we also talk to who we've educated and have gotten informed about it. Unfortunately, there are all these other "influencers" that we see on TikTok or Instagram who really don't know their ass from their elbow, but they have a following, and they'll promote whatever you throw a few bucks at them. And so this is an issue that we always have to face. But this one company that you're talking about that we made a deal with, and we may make other similar deals, is a company that has a network of 7,000 or 8,000 physicians to whom they sell mostly hormone-related products. And we spent a lot of time educating them on the value of NAD and Niagen in particular and made a deal with them to market a co-branded product to their network.
And there are other networks out there like them whom we might make deals. This is really like a, it's a way to make some money, but it's also a way for us to educate. The educated consumer is our best customer. So we're always looking for avenues to explain to people there's real science behind this, and it's a way to distinguish us from everybody else.
We're almost out of time. One of the last questions, I want to talk about the financial performance. Really strong in the last few quarters, especially the third quarter. Growth has been exceptional. You have growth prospects ahead of you. How do you think about what is your philosophy on capital usage, growth spending, buybacks, and sort of the overall balance sheet management?
Well, as you probably know, Ben, because we've known you for years, we tend to operate very conservatively. Cash is king.
You don't want to be operating a business that's thin on cash. You just don't know the way the markets are going to turn. We like our cash position right now. We wouldn't consider it excessive in any way. It is possible that we will use some of it to launch a brand type of campaign to just increase awareness. NAD has reached that level where it might be justified to maybe expand our distribution a bit and increase our brand marketing efforts. We do look at acquisition opportunities all the time. We haven't seen one that we find completely compelling yet, but we think we have an important place at the table in the longevity space. So we are always looking at other longevity or healthspan type companies and see if there's a business that we think is complementary and works.
I could see an application of some of the cash for that. We did announce a buyback a few months back. One of the things with a public company is there's always restrictions on when you can actually use a buyback. We do not put in a program where there's a regular purchase of the share. So whenever there's any element of confidential information like the quarterly financials, we're blacked out and we can't use that buyback. But it is in place, and we intend to—we intend and will use it under the parameters that we've previously set.
All right. Well, thank you, Rob, and thank you, everyone, for watching. If you have any questions or would like to schedule a meeting with Niagen, please send me an email at shamsian@lythampartners.com, shamsian@lythampartners.com. We have additional presentations and fireside chats coming up next. So please stick around for more. And thank you, and have a great rest of the day.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Ben.
Thank you, Rob, for the presentation. Certainly, tremendous progress has been made over the past couple of years at the company. Quick reminder, all of our webcasts will be available to watch on demand after the summit. Okay, for the second year in a row here, we are excited to welcome back Allen Klee, research analyst with Maxim, as he sits down with our own Adam Lowensteiner to discuss the trends taking place in healthcare IT.
Hello and welcome to a special segment we like to include in our events called Analyst Insights. My name is Adam Lowensteiner, Vice President of Lytham Partners. And today, I'll be moderating a discussion on the healthcare IT sector and where we are in the cycle. Joining us for this discussion is Allen Klee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Maxim Group. Allen comes with a wealth of knowledge in the healthcare space, and we're very excited to have him back for another one of these conversations. Allen, welcome.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It's an honor.