- Lexaria Bioscience, a global innovator in drug delivery platforms, recently announced partnerships with Premier Wellness Science Co., BevNology, AnodGen Bioceuticals, and Valcon Medical A/S
- According to coverage by Zacks Small-Cap Research, who value Lexaria at $15 per share, the most impactful of these partnerships is with Premier because the company is expected to start paying license fees in early September
- In a June 7 Fireside Chat, Lexaria Chair and CEO Chris Bunka disclosed that the company is capitalizing on partnerships with “national players in different areas of the world” to improve its “revenue picture” and offset its cash burn
- In the longer term, the company is targeting milestone payments from large national and international consumer companies and pharmaceutical organizations
In a June 7 Fireside Chat hosted by John D. Vandermosten, CFA, of Zacks Small-Cap Research (“SCR”), Lexaria Bioscience (NASDAQ: LEXX) Chair and CEO Chris Bunka expressed hope that the then-ongoing negotiations with “national players in different areas of the world” would yield contracts that would significantly improve its revenue (https://nnw.fm/RRVb2). The negotiations led to separate announcements that form the basis of Zacks SCR’s latest coverage of the company, who value Lexaria at $15 per share (https://nnw.fm/ES2aF).
“Lexaria experienced a substantial amount of activity on both the drug development front and in closing agreements with partners since the end of the fiscal second quarter,” Zacks notes in its coverage (https://nnw.fm/yKigI). “The company announced four material partnerships in June that will provide a variety of upfront, milestone, and royalty opportunities over the next quarters and years to come.”
Lexaria announced partnerships with Premier Wellness Science Co., BevNology, AnodGen Bioceuticals, and Valcon Medical A/S. The most impactful of these, the Zacks report notes, is with Premier because the company is expected to start paying license fees and launch its products using Lexaria’s patented DehydraTECH(TM) technology in Japan. The agreements with AnodGen and Valcon, on the other hand, are longer-term in nature.
As detailed in a June 3 press release, Lexaria granted an exclusive license to Premier authorizing the latter’s use of its DehydraTECH technology in various cannabidiol (“CBD”) products that may be in oral liquid or non-liquid form. In addition, per the terms of the agreement, DehydraTECH may also be used in topical, hair-care, lip-care, and cosmetics segments (https://nnw.fm/nuMvw).
“The arrangement includes minimum payments of $4.5 million to be paid over the first five years of the deal to maintain exclusivity,” Zacks SCR explains. “The license payments will start from a small base and grow as the arrangement moves into its final years. First payments will be made to Lexaria on September 1. Royalty percentages were not disclosed, nor were Premier sales forecasts; however, the press release noted that under the worst-case sales projection by Premier, Lexaria could receive annual royalties of over $5 million.”
The license and royalty payments are part of a short-to-medium-term revenue-generation strategy, with the company eventually targeting milestone payments from companies primarily in the pharmaceutical sector as part of its longer-term strategy. And to make its DehydraTECH technology more attractive for large national and international consumer companies and pharmaceutical organizations, Lexaria has invested a lot of time and resources in validating its R&D programs (https://nnw.fm/hwkDN).
“If people are unaware, for small pharma companies like ourselves, our most likely path to commercial success comes through milestone payments with pharma where you elevate, through Phase I, into Phase II, and so on, a drug or delivery system. And usually, those payments are quite large, usually, tens of millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, [and can cover our R&D programs]. And I want to assure our shareholders that we want to be able to cover these programs without issuing any more equity,” Chris Bunka said during the Fireside Chat.
In the interim, Lexaria has maintained tremendous fiscal prudency while supporting its R&D programs. According to Bunka, the company’s spending is within its projected budgetary expectations, having raised $15 million in 2021. Currently, the company has between $7-8 million in its bank accounts, which it projects will support its operations through the third quarter of 2023. But by partnering with the companies such as Premier, Lexaria is making strides to improve its “revenue picture” and offset “more of our cash burn.”
Lexaria is a global innovator in drug delivery platforms that has developed DehydraTECH, shown to improve the bioavailability, speed of onset, and brain absorption of pharmaceuticals and therapeutics.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.LexariaBioscience.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to LEXX are available in the company’s newsroom at https://nnw.fm/LEXX
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