Admedus Limited (ASX:AHZ) President and CEO Wayne Paterson talks life-changing outcomes for patients worldwide.Rachael Jones: Hello I'm Rachel Jones with the Finance News Network. Joining me from Admedus is CEO Wayne Paterson. Welcome to the network Wayne.
Wayne Paterson: Thank you for having me Rachael.
Rachael Jones: So first up, could we start with a brief introduction to your company?
Wayne Paterson: So Admedus is a medical tech company, medical technologies. Predominantly focused in the cardiac device space. Obviously an ASX listed company with commercial operations headquartered in Minneapolis in the US, and we have operations in Europe and of course down here in Australia.
Rachael Jones: So now to your financial year results, what were the highlights?
Wayne Paterson: The financial year 2017, profit was up 110 per cent, revenues were up 58 per cent and costs were down 25 per cent. Translating that we've moved into a calendar year for 2018, and the forecast projection for calendar year is about 60 per cent growth. Moving us from 21 to 34 million.
Rachael Jones: Excellent, and now to your products. Can we start with the cardiovascular technologies?
Wayne Paterson: We've a portfolio of products built around the ADAPT technology process. ADAPT is very unique, it creates an unassailable moat around the company based on the clinical data and published data that we have supporting our claims of clinical superiority. The portfolio is made up of flat scaffold products for surgical use in the cardiac area and more recently we've gone into 3D shaped products and they are unique in the world, no one's been able to product these the 3D molded products for surgical applications in the cardiac space.
Rachael Jones: And can you tell me about your infusion pump?
Wayne Paterson: So we have an infusion business based here in Australia, it's a distribution business. We distribute major pumps for a supplier in Zurich in Switzerland called Acromed, and personal pumps for patients who have patient controlled analgesia from a company out of Utah in the US, and it's doing good revenue, it'll hit about 16 million this year.
Rachael Jones: Can you tell me about your transcatheter aortic valve replacement (Tavr)?
Wayne Paterson: So we're really excited about this project. The Tavr space is worth about 3.5 billion dollars, US dollars at the moment. It's heading to be about five billion in two years and by 2024 it'll be seven and a half. There are two major players in there, very large companies, but we have reasons to believe that we have a good opportunity to enter this market. We published yesterday some information showing that the first part of our first stage development on that project has been approved. We did cycle tests on some valves that went out to 200 million cycle tests. So I'm very bullish about our opportunity there, we have clinical superiority, we have a lot of IP that we're piling up at the moment on that project. We're a ways from getting to market, but it's definitely some blue sky on that one.
Rachael Jones: And now to more a general question, what is the instance of cardiovascular disease, and how can it be better managed?
Wayne Paterson: That's a great question. I think we have a global phenomenon going on right now, both in the western world and the emerging markets. Lifestyle changes have led to serious and chronic cardiac conditions and they are affecting younger and younger patients. They are lifestyle based, so when you question about how to manage this, I think first and foremost it's passive management, which is just live a better lifestyle. Of course the other mega trend we have going on in the background is that the global population is getting a lot older than previously, so the number of patients requiring cardiac intervention is dramatic. China, India particularly driving that as well as the US and Australia and other markets.
Rachael Jones: The last question Wayne, what are the priorities for the next six months and longer term?
Wayne Paterson: The key priority for us is to really make sure that we drive forward the portfolio commercially in the US and Europe particularly. That we continue to develop our pipeline, we have a very rich pipeline, 16 projects, predominately as 3D products and then we continued to progress the Tavr project forward during this year and take that to the experimental stage in animal models before the end of this year.
Rachael Jones: That's fantastic. Wayne Paterson, thank you very much for the update.
Wayne Paterson: Thank you very much Rachael, I appreciate your time.
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