Pressure BioSciences Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 18, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • After pivoting ~90% of resources into UltraShear technology in May 2022, the company delivered one of its best Q4 performances ever and guided Q1 2023 revenue to a record level, aiming for each quarter this year to outpace the prior one.
  • They booked a $130 K agrochemical order immediately after a year-end inventory write-down and believe 2023 will see substantial sales of previously reserved stock, turning “frozen” assets into cash.
  • Early human data for a THC nanoemulsion showed onset of effects in just 3–5 minutes (vs. 45–75 minutes for edibles), and a peer-reviewed CBD animal study is expected in 2–4 weeks to confirm industry-leading bioavailability.
  • Facing small-batch capacity and zoning limits at its HQ, the company partnered with Artisan for a scalable toll-manufacturing suite that should be up and running in 30–45 days to enable high-volume production.
  • To prepare for a planned uplisting to Nasdaq later this year, they have converted $10 M of debt to equity, are in talks for further debt-to-equity swaps, and are exploring strategic licensing partnerships to bolster the balance sheet.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Pressure BioSciences Q4 2022
00:00 / 00:00

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Pressure Biosciences Q4 and Fiscal Year twenty twenty two Financial Results and Business Update Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Richard Schumacher, President and CEO.

Operator

You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, John, and welcome everybody to our fourth quarter and fiscal year twenty twenty two review and business update. Before I begin, with the actual call, I need to read a cautionary statement. The following remarks may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Such factors include, among others, those detailed from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Speaker 1

We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaken to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which such statement or statements have been based. So before we begin, I am pleased once again to welcome back to the PBI Financial Review and Business Update two guys who are super important to the company and to the future success of PBI. John Hollister, our director of marketing and sales and Jeff Peterson, our board chairman. Welcome, gentlemen.

Speaker 2

My pleasure.

Speaker 3

Howdy. Glad to be here.

Speaker 1

So for today's meeting, we're gonna start with a brief discussion of the twenty twenty two fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2022 results, and we're gonna highlight some of the successes we achieved during the fourth quarter and the year to date in 2023 as well as some of the goals for the rest of 2023 as part of a general business update. Afterwards, we'll answer a handful of questions that have been sent to us, over the past, pretty much two weeks or so with a request, that that they be asked and answered on today's call. And, if there's time remaining, we will be pleased to open up the phone lines as always to take a few, extra questions that may not be among the ones that have been sent to us. So let's start with the financial review. Fiscal twenty two versus '21.

Speaker 1

We certainly know that '22 was not a good year for us. I'm not gonna go through all of the details. Everybody was sent that both in the k and in the press release. Our our revenue was down. Many things were down in 2022 versus 2021.

Speaker 1

We made a a bold move in May of twenty twenty two, and that was to pivot the company, and to, put about 8590% of our of our resources into ultra sheer technology, which is what we did. When you do something like that, you fully expect that there may be a a, an issue with, with the results. They come back as you're preparing for something that's gonna change this company going forward much for the better, and and it certainly did. But I am happy to say that in the fourth quarter, we started to feel some of that efficiency and effectiveness again, and we had a a a very good one of our five or six best fourth quarters that we've had ever as a company. Our our our revenue in the fourth quarter was was up.

Speaker 1

When we compare both to the previous quarter, the third quarter, or we compare it to the first three quarters of the year, or we compare it to even the same quarter, previous year, we we we just did very well in the fourth quarter. We did well for the for our overall revenue in q four. We did well for for sales of instruments, consumables, agrochem sell sales. Everything was was was quite good in the fourth quarter as we started to to work with this this new way of putting most of our efforts into into the UltraShear technology, getting ready for UltraShear and and learning a lot as you're about to hear. And so the fourth quarter was was quite quite good, and we've given guidance that the first quarter was even better.

Speaker 1

We've given guidance that that you should expect to see. Obviously, it needs to be reviewed by by our auditors, but we feel like we've had a a a record for first quarter. So we've not only had a good fourth quarter, but we beat it substantially with the first quarter. And our goal and we believe that we have a very good chance of meeting our goal is to have every quarter in 2023 beat the previous quarter. Not not the quarter from the previous year, but the previous quarter of that year.

Speaker 1

And so we started that off by having q one be substantially better in in in in in our guidance, in our release than q four of twenty twenty two. And we started second quarter off quite well. And the the exciting fact is that we've run into a lot of problems with just getting the operations going on UltraShear, and we think we're solving, solving all of these, and we'll talk about that. And, so we're gonna we're on top of having good core business, what used to be our core business, we expect to see a lot of UltraShear in the fourth in the in the second, third, and fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. So we are very much excited about what's what what's coming ahead.

Speaker 1

I know it's hard to do, but we're asking people, don't look back because it's a different company. When you look back to 2022 and 2021, look ahead and, and judge us on what we do this this, this year. And we believe that, we're gonna, do quite well this year. We're we're been spending a lot of time getting ready for what we think is gonna be a very exciting 2023. So, in addition, what I wanna talk about is, we did have a, an agrochem sale.

Speaker 1

That's very important because all of that material has been paid for. So we announced a hundred and $30,000 Agrochem sale that the revenue from that is due in next week, and that's it's nice when you have revenue coming in where where you it's not against any cost or it's against the cost that you've you've expensed to previous year. We also had a write down because the Agrochem sales have been very slow. And and based upon what the auditors and accountants have told us, we needed to write down our our reserves. So there was a big big write down in the fourth in in in in in the operating loss was was a bit high because of the write down in the fourth quarter of the inventory in Agrochem.

Speaker 1

And would you know it, you know, a a week or two after it was decided right now, we get a a hundred and $30,000 order. And we believe that we're gonna be getting other orders. We we we absolutely believe that this might be the year where we sell a lot of that inventory, and and that's all, like, frozen money to us. So it's gonna be great when it comes in. So we also had a very large sale in pressure cycling technology, PCT.

Speaker 1

I I need to make sure that that everybody understands that we did not have a a record first quarter of twenty twenty three because we booked 16 instruments. We only booked four. Because the the group that is that gave us and paid in advance for the instruments is wanting about four a quarter for the next for the first four quarters of the for all four quarters of this year. And so it it wasn't a record quarter because of of that sale. We had four, which is a usual four or five is a usual amount that we would sell in a quarter.

Speaker 1

But we have we have sales that we'll be booking for the rest of the year, probably about a hundred thousand hundred hundred to a hundred $50,000 a quarter just in PCT from instruments that are already sold. And John, who's gonna be talking a little bit after me, would is gonna tell you that that the sales in that area and our pressure systems are going up as they are anyway on top of the of the PCT. But everything to us is really an ultra sheer going forward. We're not forgetting all the 400 or so customers that we still have that have purchased the PCT instruments. We're still getting record numbers of of orders of PCT, so we'll continue in that area.

Speaker 1

But we're putting 90% of our effort into UltraShear. On the operational technical highlights, I'll talk about a few, and then and then we're gonna get into the questions that people sent us. And and then, again, afterwards, if there's time, we'll open up the phone lines. I've put down about six or seven things that are very, very important that have happened so far this year. We've made major progress in resolving a number of capacity limitations, that we ran into, and we'll talk about that.

Speaker 1

But we've made major progress culminating with today's press release, and we'll talk about that. The the early data that we released, which was extremely well received, that early data on THC marketing study showed that in an edible, usually, the first effects of THC are felt. Some people say in thirty to forty five. Most people say forty five minutes to maybe an hour and fifteen minutes, the first effects. We had 15 volunteers.

Speaker 1

They felt those first effects in the first three to five minutes on a tincture on a tincture underneath the tongue, and and the first effects were felt very, very quickly. So people taking THC or any type of of cannabinoid cannabinoid, maybe it's CBD or or or or c CVV or something. Or if they're taking another nutraceutical, our technology gets that material in their bloodstream very quickly. So we're very excited about the results, and we're doing a follow on study. Jeff may talk about that briefly, but we're doing a follow on study, and we're trying to bring in more than the 15 that we had in the first study.

Speaker 1

We hope to have that that study done in the next week or two. And I can say that so far so far, everything's great. We're the the data getting in generally are corroborating what we already presented in our earlier marketing study. So the effects of of UltraShear are profound in an edible. And, of course, we we we can tell it in THC, but we can extend that out to many, many other active ingredients that are in oil that we nanoemulsify, that they're gonna get into the bloodstream very, very quickly.

Speaker 1

We have started to talk about a a CBD study. We hired a terrific group in an academic a US based academic institution to do a study in animals, in small animals, in in rats, and to see how well our our CBD holds up compared to other, nanoemulsions that this group has worked with in the past. And we started to talk about it. We we expect that the data we had hoped that the data would be presented and and and public publicized in a published in a peer reviewed journal by the December. There's been delays, but we have reason to believe that the publication should be happening in the next, we think, two to four weeks.

Speaker 1

We have reason to believe that the data are are gonna be outstanding as they relate to our nanomulsification process compared to to anything in the world. So we now start to tell people we believe that we have the best in class process in the world. And we have reason to believe that. And we, like you, we can't wait for this study to be published. And we're working on other studies also.

Speaker 1

And we think that these, all of these studies are gonna profoundly show how how good our our process really is compared to anything on the market. We, we have received several more orders. We actually did a processing run today, and we hope to ship five or 600 vials, to a couple of companies. One that we've already, announced, a million and a half we think it's worth about a million and a half this year, still think it is. And another one that has the potential to be worth a million dollars, but they wanted to start with a small pilot run of two or 300 vials, and that's what we've done.

Speaker 1

So we finished that run. It went very well. But because of limitations in our current facility, it fits right in of being able to do a few hundred bottles. But our goal is to do thousands and tens of thousands and millions of bottles, or vials, whatever you wanna call them, and we can't do that in the facility that we're in now. But, again, John and Jeff and I will talk about that in just a minute.

Speaker 1

We think that, the, the opportunities are are quite big, not outside of, THC and CBD. We have, we've been working with one group that's a multibillion dollar multinational group in a in a in a in a, nutraceutical that is we believe this year will come to fruition where where we may be doing a strategic alliance with them in in in one or more areas. And, we've also talked about the fact of wanting to do some immune boosters, which are quite popular, but it it doesn't really work. If you take an immune booster that might have curcumin and astaxanthin and vitamin e three and you don't get very much of it into your body, we believe with our with our process, you'll get the vast majority into your body. So we're excited about we're talking to different groups about doing an immune booster, a nanoemulsion nutraceutical.

Speaker 1

And and as I said, in in the press release, we we still expect, we still plan. It is still our goal to look at a an uplift later this year, and we can talk about that. So at this point, that's the background. You know, we had a bad year. We apologize to everybody for that.

Speaker 1

But everybody, I I believe, will forgive us when we execute as we're going to execute the rest of this year because we made a very conscious decision that we need to put the vast majority, 90% of our efforts into UltraShear, and that's what we're doing. And we run into a little bit of a headwind. We fought our way through the headwind. So let's talk about that. So we have a handful of questions that we've been sent.

Speaker 1

I'm gonna read the first question, and then Jeff or or John, when they're more appropriate to answer it, you've heard enough of my voice, I'm gonna ask them to answer it. So I don't have I don't know who sent these in. I do know they were sent in, and I'm gonna read the question. I think we're gonna cover a lot of bases. And then if there's time, we'll we'll open up the phone lines.

Speaker 1

So the first question is it was made clear during, our PBI's twenty twenty two q three conference call, which is the last one we had last November, that we had three, separate CBD oil processing contracts, which we did, each potentially worth about a million dollars, for a year initially, and that we expected others to to follow on. And we also had one cosmetic partnership, and we've had a number of, press releases, news releases on that with doctor Dinesse Skin Science. Please summarize where we stand on these three CBD oil contracts, especially with respect to the tier one to three batch processing and the total revenue received, or expect to be received for your deliveries. It was made explicitly clear by the PBI team that your first contract was safer medical. Tier two run would be completed in January at the latest, and the tier three, and these are pilot runs as they test them out and do their test marketing, would be done by the first quarter's end.

Speaker 1

Also, please provide a summary of the developments with PBI's cosmetic partnership as appropriate. So I think some of this, Jeff, you can take, and then I think some of this, when you're done speaking to it, perhaps turn it over to John.

Speaker 3

Sure. So I think to begin with, it's helpful to remember that last year, we announced that we're working on meeting the demand for initial orders, ahead of our facility being prepared for full commercial launch. And, we announced an early access program that was targeted, to satisfy demand for early demonstrations, for product development, and and batches for test marketing. The advantage of this approach is that it also allows us to work out challenges encountered through the phases of product development and processing through some some scale up as well as any equipment or facilities issues. And these kinds of challenges arranged into several areas, some in materials.

Speaker 3

So for example, the spray bottles, that just weren't right, for our preservative free product, or they turned out to not be right, for our preservative free product. And and we were having some difficulty identifying bottlers that were willing to even accept and service small, and medium sized orders. With supply chain issues going on, there's just been a lot of challenges, and and some of these smaller test market size kind of requirements just weren't satisfactory on the supplier side. Or they didn't have the capability to provide clean sterile manufacturing and packaging that we required. So those were interesting initial challenges.

Speaker 3

We also had challenges on the customer side that that weren't used to getting liquid products shipped to some historically cold locations, which was interesting to work through. In addition, we had the plan to convert part of our warehouse space at our headquarters into an ultra sheer production suite and had done a lot of work in that direction. And we learned during the first quarter of this year that our local zoning has significant limitations regarding the volume of processed cooling water that we could return to the city. So, responding to these challenges, you know, we have a new innovative, spray bottle design and even alternatives to it and suppliers now, that are adding further value to our already game changing nanoemulsion solutions. And we've already begun receiving supply of the initial production lots for these new spray bottle designs, so we're very excited about that.

Speaker 3

And with the announcement we put out today, we have a leading process engineering and equipment manufacturer, Artisan, that has now begun working with us to provide appropriate and scalable facilities for our toll manufacturing capacity requirements to serve customers. To solve some challenging advanced material problems and and had a terrific experience in working with them. So I was just delighted to see this come together, and we now have both companies very excited to be working with each other. And we're already discussing our plans to meet long term needs for ultra sheer equipment production, that would serve our lease and license business model, for customers that get to appropriate scale and want to internalize, UltraShear into their in house manufacturing. So, you know, a lot of, you know, challenges and some great and exciting progress in in how we've learned, adapted, and addressed them.

Speaker 3

But maybe I'll turn it over to John and and ask him to give some further color on, how we're serving the contracts we talked about and and on the Cosmeceuticals partnership.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate that. And, obviously, the the commercialization of the early access program was a struggle. We've learned an awful lot. Having said that, our issue isn't that we can't get customers because people have been coming to us wherever we are.

Speaker 2

When we go to meetings like MJBiz conference, there's huge conference in Las Vegas, we were just inundated by people who are coming up and complaining that their, quote, unquote, nanoemulsion processes that they've been trying to do are just not working. They've sonication just has not been effective. The devices from, other companies in the market get clogged up and don't produce stable nanoemulsions like ours. Our issue has been we haven't had a proper facility to produce the materials, and that's why the news today is, really exciting so that we can get back to to fulfilling the contracts that we already have in place and the additional ones that we've been gathering since then. So, you know, it's it's not for a matter of not having the business.

Speaker 2

It's now we need to execute against the business. So over the next thirty to forty five days, we'll be in a position to, one, satisfy the first three customers that we were talking about, at the end of last year, but actually start, offering and announcing orders that we're working on right now and which will add to a considerable uptick in volume for the balance of not only this quarter, but for the year. There was also a question about doctor Dinesse, and, you know, it's been great working with her. She is literally a a phenomenon in the industry, both her knowledge, but also her professional presence in the the marketplace. It's no surprise that she's been successful.

Speaker 2

But we've been making progress over the last couple of months on her next generation antiaging skin serum, which is really gonna change the the market. In a couple of months, we, we will be on goal to have doctor then ask us to do a very formal process of testing rigorous testing of these products before they get released. But we still believe that this this product will be on QVC by the end of twenty twenty three, and that'll open our doors for a whole, market segment of, regenerative skin and and all sorts of, cosmeceutical business that we believe will be pounding at our doors after that goes out. So at this point, I'd like to turn it back over to Rip.

Speaker 1

So thanks, guys. And I will add one thing to it. One of those contracts was with John Westlake, who's really a guru in the in the cannabis area. He knows so many people and knows so much about the area. So one of the contracts was with John, and John thought that he could do 2 or $3,000,000 himself.

Speaker 1

But once we got to know John better, we realized that John could probably do much more than that if he were working with us and not just a customer. And so we talked to John, and we talked a little bit about this in previous, conference calls. We talked to John about maybe coming on board as a, an independent, but coming on board as a as a as a key master distributor. Somebody that would not only be able to satisfy local, but nationwide and even even North America and set up sub distributors. And because it's a there's a huge market out there for us.

Speaker 1

Huge market. And so it it would enable us to John, who's on the phone and and in particular, be able to set up as he builds his sales team to to look towards things like cosmeceuticals and and nutraceuticals and and let someone who's adept in the area, someone who knows the area inside out, John Westlake, handle the all of the hemp derived products that we're gonna be developing. And and John said, I'd like to do it. I'd very much like to do it. So we're working on a on a contract where we've agreed in principle.

Speaker 1

I believe we'll get that contract signed this, in the next week. And then John will be on his own, and he'll be out there. And I I believe he'll be closing a lot of contracts for us. So while we're moving into the space that's been been offered to us, from Artisan, which is only gonna take about thirty days, maybe forty five days, then, John's gonna be out there getting contracts. And we told him, don't hesitate because the the facilities that we're moving into will allow us to do, you know, multiples more of what we we can do here.

Speaker 1

We thought we could do it here, but as you that's why you do your pilot runs. You learn. And we learned everything from the town coming in and saying you can't put that much effluent out the water out that's cooling your system out into the septic system and to many other things. And so we've learned, and we act we reacted very quickly. We first looked at trying to find other space, and we found other space.

Speaker 1

But we said this is gonna take three to five months to to renovate. And then we talked to our our friends, which John Westlake introduced us to, at at Artisan Industries, 85, 90 year old company that's universal reputation, terrific around the world. And they they welcome us with open arms. We had that press release today. So the the impact of of of changing from working here to working six miles away is gonna be very short.

Speaker 1

And during that time, John Westlake is gonna get us, I believe, a lot of contracts. And we've talked to all of the people that we have contracts with now. Everybody is understanding. We are still doing the small pilot runs here. But forty five days, maybe maybe even sooner than that, we're gonna be doing a lot more business in our new facilities that have so much more than what we have here.

Speaker 1

It's to to be able to do that in in in in a thirty minute in in thirty days or less is terrific. So kudos to to my staff who who really were able to to to take what could be really a a bad downtime for four or five months to where it's not gonna be downtime at all because we're gonna be there in thirty days processing. Second question is with respect to publishing the CBD oil bioavailability study, and and I'll mention just what that is for those who haven't heard about it. The PVI team was hopeful it'd be released any week when when we discussed it in November, but was rather certain that it would be out by the first quarter, which we were. Any information as to why the delay?

Speaker 1

We're not gonna get into specifics other than to say that that the the principal investigator, a a world renowned scientist in the area of of of cannabis and cannabinoids, got got COVID and was in the hospital for over four weeks, most of the time on oxygen, and it it it caused, of course, a major delay. He's out. He's well. Thank goodness. And we received word today that that it's starting to move along quite well, which is why we feel that we could say within two to four weeks, we think this study will be out.

Speaker 1

We think this study is going to really shock a lot of people. We we think it'll prove the point that we actually have the best in class method of of making nanoemulsions in the world. We we really believe that. So we're as frustrated as everybody else because we know the impact that this study should have once it gets out. And and we're gonna follow it with other studies.

Speaker 1

But just to remind you, we did a small THC marketing study that Jeff actually ran out in the San Francisco area, and it proved our point. You know, three to five minutes on a on a on an edible, feeling the effects of THC when normally you'd be waiting thirty to sixty to seventy five minutes. So and that is is the holy grail. I've I was told early on, Rick, if you can reduce the window in THC on an edible, you have all these people that don't wanna smoke. They don't wanna vape, but they wanna take some because it helps them sleep.

Speaker 1

It it helps them with their appetite. It certainly helps them with their anxiety. Whatever it is that it helps them with, they don't wanna smoke or vape it, and they don't wanna take something and and and and wait thirty, sixty, ninety minutes to have an effect. So they said the holy grail here, Rick, is is try to get try to reduce that window. And, honestly, we've reduced the window.

Speaker 1

Our our processing UltraShear reduces the window. I feel very confident in saying that we've reduced the the window on edibles to where it's just a matter of minutes to start feeling the effects. So we're we're excited and and hoping that in the second quarter, maybe even before the end of maybe even before Memorial Day, we'll have those data, and they'll be published. The investigator has said he he plans to publish them in a peer reviewed journal to to give them the authenticity they need. So the third question talks about, I guess, we've been using the word bottle.

Speaker 1

We've been using the word spray bottle. We've been using the word vial. You know, exactly what are these things? And, John, this is best for you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Rick. Yeah. I was just listening to our presentations from the three of us, and we use these terms interchangeably. So, you know, we apologize for that. But, understand that when you hear the term vial and bottle, they typically are referring to the small one ounce or two ounce bottles with the cap or a spray on it.

Speaker 2

Some people and I was listening to Rick. He came out of the labs at Harvard. And so his his terminology for it is a vial. In the in the industry, we hear lots of different terms. I should also point out that while we are talking often about these little, what are called, final forms, the kind of presentation that you see that the consumer purchases that has a label on it and comes often in a box or or you buy at a store or over the Internet.

Speaker 2

That is one form, and we will certainly be in that business. And and that's where we've started because we were filling these first customers' requests sample bottles in these small spray bottles. Ultimately, our business is gonna be in processing larger volumes of product and shipping them in larger volume containers, which we will likely be referring to as totes, whether they are a liter bottle or tote or thousand liter totes, which is roughly 264 gallons, and weighs, you know, a ton. And so they're large and get moved around with pallet jacks, and that material will either be put into, as a final form, into a little vial or bottle or whatever you wanna call it, or it will actually be infused into a sport drink or into a gummy bear or into, other combinations of products. Like, nutraceuticals may be a combination of two or three different nutraceuticals that are in one caplet.

Speaker 2

It could be in a lot of different forms ultimately. Because it's highly concentrated product, it's more readily available for humans, which is, again, the upside to this material. It will take, you know, in in terms of many of these products, only a fraction of a milliliter will be the dose, if you will, in a sport drink. Literally, one twelve ounce bottle or eight ounce bottle of a a coffee drink would have literally a quarter of a milliliter or a half a milliliter of a of a CBD, nanoemulsion like our product. That's that's the One has to kind of wrap themselves around.

Speaker 2

A liter of material could be 4,000 or 5,000 or even more doses for the final form for customers. So I think, hopefully, that helps a little in your understanding of our mixed use of our different terms.

Speaker 3

You know, I might hop in here just to add a little more color to that. The the area of cannabinoid containing beverages, while still small route within the entire cannabis market, is far and away the fastest growing segment and is viewed as as something that will become extremely important in the product mix. And and that ranges from products that are intended to be fairly concentrated, down to what's probably the biggest growth end of it, which kind of mimics the way the, the market for alcoholic beverages has developed, where there's a lot of interest in things that can be consumed at relatively low dosages. Think of a so called session beer. And the cannabis products will likely have many different configurations that mimic that where there's, you know, literally, you know, maybe two, three milligrams of THC or small doses of CBD, you know, that are in the product.

Speaker 3

So that's gonna become a very important part of the mix, and and the industry is very focused on it. The the other commentary I'll provide on some of the cannabis studies and bioavailability and so on, you know, Rick was talking about, you know, the comparison to edibles, and I I'll just emphasize that in the work we've been doing here with, THC and with CBD, sprays, whether they're they're, they're oral or topical, these are basically transdermal delivery routes. So when we talk about an oral spray, the intention here is is not so much inedible, but the ability to spray into the cheek or under the tongue and use the faster transdermal absorption route that you get there, in order to beat the slower metabolic consumption pathway that you get in in the gastrointestinal tract from eating it. So I'll just make that point of clarification that what's so exciting here is is capturing the transdermal capability.

Speaker 1

So and I'll add one more thing to that, and then we'll go on to the next question. And what I'm adding is I realized that we have, looking at a list, that we have some new investors and stockholders on the call. And so I think I'm just gonna take thirty seconds and and just define why we're so excited about nanoemulsions. Not all nanoemulsions are the same. The reason people like nanoemulsions, which is basically just think about mixing oil with water, and the oil contains an active ingredient.

Speaker 1

So you wanna you your body wants to absorb the active ingredient out before the body excretes the oil because we don't we don't store oil. We get rid of oil, and it's a fight between the body pulling out the active ingredient. Maybe that active ingredient is a supplement, an antioxidant like vitamin d three or curcumin. Maybe it's a pharmaceutical like prednisone. Maybe it's a cosmetic going through the skin like retinol or a ten o eight.

Speaker 1

Maybe it's CBD or THC. So it could be maybe it's an agrochemical on a leaf. So there's that that the reason we we think so highly of nanoemulsions is that if you break the oil, we're not touching the active ingredient. If you break the oil down to a nano size, just call it a nano size, a true nano size, it has the ability to to basically look like it dissolves in water. So it goes into the water, gets transported through the body, and and it gets absorbed out very well.

Speaker 1

And so and it also becomes clear. So you know if you've got a really true nanoemulsion by spraying in the water, whatever you you you buy, and if it just turns oily, you don't have a nanoemulsion, which means it's not gonna be absorbed as well. It will not have the same long stability. It will not have the same bioavailability. So that's why.

Speaker 1

Because a true nanoemulsion gives you very long stability. It gives you great ability to absorb it out of the oil and make it available for the biology of your body, the bioavailability. So if you can prove as we are proving in our study, marketing studies, and in the animal studies that the CBD or THC or other active ingredient actually gets out, to a high level of bioavailability, you're onto something big. And, guys, we're onto something big here. Because we've we've looked at the data, and we're very excited about the data and can't wait to see more and more data published, and we're gonna continue to do studies.

Speaker 1

So I wanted to just explain why we're so excited about nanoemulsions. So the the next question is it it's really talking about how we're gonna manufacture. It's one thing to to manufacture 600 vials, but it says, you know, any how long any idea how long it's gonna take to to manufacture, like, the CBD supply, MD announcement we made where we think that contract and they think contract could be worth a million, a million and half dollars, or more to us in the course of a year. They are an active company selling a lot of CBD. They they have a a website.

Speaker 1

They sell all over The US. And when the this first pilot run gets done, which it's it's being run today, and when it's done and shipped and we send it to them, we're gonna put on on our website, their website. Because if there's one thing I get I probably have 25 investors who said, this really works. How do I get more? And they're gonna be able to get more to buy it through, through CBD SupplyMD or maybe in through Cape Ann.

Speaker 1

We haven't talked about Cape Ann. But Cape Ann is a is a small wonderful group here in Massachusetts that we're gonna make a couple hundred bottles for it at the same time we're making the bottles for CBD supply. And they'll both of these companies will put their label on it. It's not our product. It's their label.

Speaker 1

They will label it, and they'll put it for sale on their website. And we're gonna let everybody know where they're gonna be able to get it. So the the basic question was, you know, how are we gonna handle all this? And I'll I'll just take a stab at that. I I came from a a company that I founded many years ago called Boston Biomedica.

Speaker 1

We became the largest supplier of of controls and calibrators for infectious disease in the world. We were supplying 36 countries, about 3,500 different customers in 36 countries for all kinds of things in what I call vials, calibrators and controls for infectious disease testing. And we set up we started out just like we're doing here, doing these by hand, and we ended up having machines that did all of the viling, all of the capping, all of the filling of the vials and and bottles. Very sleek operation over the course of two or three years because we went from doing a few hundred as we're doing now to doing tens and hundreds of thousands, and we became the largest supplier in the world. That's exactly what we intend to do here.

Speaker 1

So this company will grow. And as we grow, we'll bring in the machinery that will help us do not 10 not not 600 not 6,000, but 60,000, six hundred thousand, and 6,000,000. We we're thinking big because we know the market is that big. So the next question is if PVI were to have multiple contracts, which we do have, and we think in the next forty five days, we will have multiple contracts with many clients, is production throughput capable of handling multiple customers at the same time? John, do want to take that?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Sure. Production of different products will definitely be done sequentially. I mean, we're going to have a a couple of different systems, but a major one will be the first setup to produce, you know, three or four liters per minute, and that's the processing. Yeah.

Speaker 2

But for each product you're running, you'll actually do the production run. You'll shut the production run down, then you'll do a cleaning and or we'll do a cleaning and sterilization process for that before you then enter into a new next product. Obviously, our intent will be to have, over the course of the year, not one system doing that, but multiple systems doing that so that you that we will ultimately have, in parallel, systems running, different products, or maybe the need is to do a product very quickly on multiple systems simultaneously, to to manage the needs. And and and this is just gonna be done in a stepwise fashion. You know, to do it all at once would be overwhelming.

Speaker 2

We just couldn't do it. But we will build into that, and we definitely will have the demand to keep these machines, operating. I'm convinced that I've just had too many customers from too diff too many too many different markets who have expressed, you know, their their intent to have product done quickly. And and that doesn't include, really, longer term products like the pharmaceutical area, where we already are getting inquiries, but that that always takes a little bit longer. And then, ultimately, you know, we're gonna have to and we've been talking about, the demand for small units that people want for formulations, for the devices themselves, and that presents a whole another, opportunity for us as a company.

Speaker 2

So, in answer to the question about multiple contracts with multiple clients, we're gonna have those, and, the process for production will be each machine will run a product line. It will be cleaned, probably at the end of one day, but, theoretically, you could do two runs in a day. It takes about an hour or so to, shut down the system, clean it, make certain it's operating, sterilize it, and then go again. And so if you're doing small runs, you could theoretically do two runs on the system in one day. But generally speaking, it's gonna be, one full day's run for about seven hours, and then clean.

Speaker 2

And then the next day, people will come in and use that machine for something else. Obviously, we do have the opportunity for considering multiple shifts, so the capacity could be as much as three full shifts in twenty four hours. I think that probably answers that.

Speaker 3

It does.

Speaker 2

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Thanks, John. I see the time is, as it always does, is clicking by. The next question, which is a very important one to me because I know the value of being on on a national exchange was, you know, how how are we gonna get listed? What are the requirements?

Speaker 1

And do we qualify at this point? No. We don't qualify at this point. Most companies that that try to go on NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange, many of them have to do certain things to to qualify. We have a lot of debt.

Speaker 1

We have too much debt We don't have enough cash on our on our balance sheet to qualify. We do qualify in many of the other areas. So I I can assure you that of the multiple areas that you need to qualify, which I'm I'm intimately aware of, we we qualify in many, many areas. We we certainly have the the the number of stockholders and and many we have audits every year going back, not just two or three years, but going back twenty years.

Speaker 1

We we hold conference calls like this after we do things under under full disclosure. It we we qualify in many ways. It is an absolute goal of ours to get on the Nasdaq. I've either founded or cofounded four companies. They all went on the Nasdaq.

Speaker 1

So I'm intimately involved with with how that works and how to run a a Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange company. And and we all know what we're gonna have to do to get there, and some of it will be a little painful and some of it but, you know, one thing is for sure, it's gonna come what's gonna help is what we're doing now, which is getting ready for multiple contracts for for for for ramping revenue because we have we believe we have the technology that that in in UltraShear that will will get us there. What I will say, though, is that, you know, I've talked to investors for thirty years running companies, and I can I can tell you that a lot of investors want you to have the money to succeed, but they don't want you to raise the money and dilute the company? So there are other things that can be done. And I am a member of the board.

Speaker 1

Jeff is chairman of the board. So, Jeff, we're running out of time. But can you just spend a minute or two about some interesting topics, discussions we've had at the board level in the last few months?

Speaker 3

Sure. So relative to the the halfway preparation to uplift, there's obviously challenges in improving the balance sheet and in how we capitalize company to finance growth, and and get to our stockholders' equity, targets and so on. We have a great deal of focus on the role of strategic partnerships, that can service those objectives. Obviously, strategic partnerships can bring classical, you know, equity financing components, but we also have multiple opportunities and and advanced discussions on nonproduct revenues through these partnerships in licensing and some other structures. So I would I would just emphasize that we're working on multiple fronts.

Speaker 3

Some nice progress that's already been reported on converting debt into equity, but we have a lot of focus on the strategic partnership component in the strategy for either equity financing or nonproduct revenue financing.

Speaker 1

So, Jeff, you mentioned debt to equity. We did have a major announcement a month ago where our largest investor who's been very, very supportive of us over the years continued to be support, and we thank him greatly to us by converting $10,000,000 of debt, some of which were promissory notes into equity. And we believe that that is going to be followed by others that will be converting debt into equity. So we have a lot of debt on the books because we haven't had the cash to do things. So we've used we've used the the cash through debt to get to where we are today, which is which is ready to pounce.

Speaker 1

And but there's a lot of debt on the books. When I look at the debt, I I and I know pretty much every single person we owe money to. And I'd say there's maybe 35 or 40 total, of which maybe 10 are large and the other 30 are small. We take, as you can see in the case, we we take investments from people at $25.50, hundred thousand dollars at a time and give them an opportunity to to invest in the company privately, which is some people believe is a better deal than in the market. So we have maybe 25 of those types of deals that we've done in the last two years.

Speaker 1

And almost everyone, when the year is up from their debt, they they roll it over again because they can get some more equity in the company. So what I'm saying is because we know these guys, if if we execute, and we're going to, if we execute as a company and we do what we believe we can do over the next three quarters, counting the second quarter, Our goal is to to is to uplift before the end of the year. And to do that, we need to get a lot of this debt off the books. One way to do it is to bring money in either through the sale of equity or through, as Jeff mentioned, strategic partnerships and deals that we're talking to people about. Very exciting.

Speaker 1

And that way, there isn't any dilution and have the cash to buy out the debt. The other way is to execute and have the investors who are holding the notes say, the last thing in the world I wanna do is have you buy me out. No. No. I wanna I wanna be able to convert this into equity and and ride it on the equity end.

Speaker 1

So if we execute, that's what we hope is gonna happen is that the the people holding these notes will will say, don't don't buy me out. Let me let me let me convert it into stock. And you keep your money. I'll convert it in stock, and I'll be happy to be even a bigger shareholder. And so all of this requires on us executing.

Speaker 1

And and believe me, we understand it, and it is high in our our list. We are going to execute. We had some problems in the first in the last three months or so. We think we've solved pretty much all these problems. We're ready to start, to show everybody what we can do.

Speaker 1

We thank you for your patience. It's it's awesome that many of you have stuck around, and we really appreciate it. We owe you big time for all the investors on the call who have not sold out on us but have kept your faith in us. And we need to prove to you that you did the right thing, and that's what our goal is over the next over the rest of this year for sure. We've just hit the one minute the one hour, one minute mark, so we're not gonna be able to take any questions, unfortunately.

Speaker 1

We will be back together in about a month, when we talk about what we believe will be a record of first quarter results. And by that time, I think we're gonna have a few, news events happening to to help support what Jeff and John and I have been saying for the last hour. So thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for keeping the faith.

Speaker 1

And we ask you to keep the faith a little bit longer because now it's gonna for us, it's gonna get to be an exciting time. We worked through some issues. Now it's time to execute and to prove to everybody you've done the right thing by sticking with us. Thanks, everybody.

Operator

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Powered by Quartr