Altamira Therapeutics - Earnings Call - H1 2025

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good morning and welcome to the Altamira Therapeutics half-year 2025 financial results and business update call. On today's call are Thomas Meyer, Altamira's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Covadonga Pañeda, Altamira's Chief Operating Officer. Earlier today, Altamira issued a news release with the first half 2025 financial results as well as a business update. The release is available on the company's website at www.altamiratherapeutics.com and has been filed with the SEC. During today's call, the company will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements that address future operating, financial, or business performance, or its strategies or expectations. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, developments, and business decisions to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements.

These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the timing and conduct of our clinical trials, the clinical utility of our product candidates, the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals, our intellectual property position, and our financial position, as well as those described in the risk factor section in our annual report on Form 20-F and future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent the company's views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. While it may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so even when its views change. With that, I will hand the call over to Altamira Therapeutics CEO Thomas Meyer.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining our first half 2025 financial results and business update call. I will kick off the call by providing an update on our corporate strategy. Our Chief Operating Officer, Covadonga Pañeda, will then discuss the progress in our RNA delivery business. Finally, I will discuss our first half 2025 financials and provide some outlook. As we mentioned during our 2024 business update call a few months ago, we concluded that raising funding for the expected growth of the RNA delivery business from public markets was no longer a viable option for Altamira Therapeutics. Rather, the board decided to prepare the involvement of private equity investors at the level of the company's Swiss subsidiary, Altamira Therapeutics AG, in short, ATAG, which operates Altamira's RNA delivery business.

For this, the publicly traded Altamira Therapeutics Ltd aims to spin off a majority of ATAG's share capital, becoming even more of a holding company. The company would then own minority stakes in ATAG and Altamira Medica AG, the manufacturer of the Bentrio nasal spray, and participating in their expected growth and value appreciation. In addition, it would own our other legacy assets, notably AM-125, a nasal spray for vertigo treatment, and AM-111, a treatment for acute hearing loss, with the objective of monetizing them. We used the past few months to work out the details of the spin-off concept, initiate the process for the legal and organizational carve-out of ATAG, and start reaching out to potential investors. The preparations included the reorganization and adaptation of certain intercompany relationships, as well as modifications to ATAG's capital structure.

Having completed these preparations, we are now ready to shift the focus to investor outreach. We anticipate executing on the partial spin-off over the coming months. Following this strategy update, I'm handing the call over to Covadonga Pañeda, our Chief Operating Officer, who will provide you with a more detailed update on our RNA delivery business. Cova?

Speaker 0

Thanks, Thomas, and good morning, everyone. RNA therapeutics continues to be an interesting space with increasing scientific innovation and business transactions. Research and development activities in X4, Altamira's peptide-based nanoparticle platform, continue to progress. The key focus during 2025 is set on nanoparticle formulation and process development around our platforms: OligoPhore for siRNA, SemaPhore for mRNA, and CycloPhore for circular RNA. In addition, significant effort has been allocated into customization of nanoparticle batches of specific RNA payloads for our four partners. Important progress has been achieved with the development and refinement of production methods, reproducibility of manufacturing, with particular focus on lyophilization and extension of our stability data. Our efforts have led to customized batches of nanoparticles that have greater stability and can be shipped and stored while maintaining their physicochemical properties. We have continued to put effort into CycloPhore, the newest member of the X4 family.

In vitro experiments demonstrated successful cell transfection leading to higher protein expression compared with linear mRNA. In addition, we also observed that CycloPhore leads to prolonged expression in comparison with linear mRNA. This feature will be essential for the treatment of chronic diseases. Circular RNA has attracted substantial interest in drug development in recent months, and CycloPhore has already shown itself to be an excellent addition to our portfolio, leading to our fourth partnership. Additional efforts are being made in R&D activities to expand the application of the X4 platform to other modalities, and we hope soon to announce new additions to the growing X4 technology. Altamira is pursuing a picks-and-shovels strategy with the RNA business. This strategy is based on the licensing of our platform technology to partners in the biotech and pharma industry for use with their own RNA payload.

To the already established collaborations with Hackett Therapeutics for regeneration of damaged heart tissue following myocardial infarction, with Universal Group for mRNA vaccines, and with an undisclosed company for the use in combination with radiopharmaceuticals, we have now added a fourth collaboration. This agreement made with an undisclosed company working on circular RNA will be focused on the evaluation of Altamira's CycloPhore in combination with the company's proprietary circular RNA cargoes. Circular RNA has emerged as one of the most promising next-generation modalities with the prospect of overcoming some of the limitations of linear mRNA, namely increased stability, reduced immunogenicity, more efficient protein expression, and improved manufacturing potential. With one drug awaiting clinical trials, the circular RNA market is one of the fastest growing segments within RNA therapeutics, with an expected growth rate of 15.2% from 2026 to 2033, with the potential of reaching $5.2 billion in 2033.

Under the terms of the agreement, Altamira and its project collaboration partner intend to test in vitro and in vivo the use of nanoparticles with an undisclosed RNA payload. Upon successful conclusion of the experiments, the partner will, under certain conditions, have the option to negotiate with Altamira a license and supply agreement to develop and commercialize the RNA nanoparticles for use in one specific indication. I will now turn the call back to Thomas.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Cova. I will now discuss briefly our two main legacy assets: the Bentrio drug-free nasal spray for allergy and our AM-125 betahistine nasal spray for vertigo and other disorders of the central nervous system. Our associate, Altamira Medica AG, short Medica, has been making good progress on key projects. In the second quarter, Medica completed the transfer of manufacturing from a site in France to an alternate production site located in Germany. This move will allow for ramping up supplies to our partners. In parallel, the company started a process of transitioning Bentrio from a Class I to a Class IIa medical device under the European Union's new medical device regulation, MDR. We expect to complete this project, which is a prerequisite for continuing Bentrio's commercialization in Europe in late 2025 or early 2026.

In parallel, together with our partner Nuance Pharma, we have been able to advance the approval process for Bentrio in China. We expect the marketing approval in China to provide a very substantial boost to Medica. As for our AM-125 nasal spray, we were very pleased to obtain a patent in Japan, expanding intellectual property protection to all major pharma markets worldwide except China. For the latter, the prosecution phase is still ongoing. Now, turning to our financials. Our financial results for the first half of 2025 reflect the continued optimization of our cost structure and the switch to a different business model. With Altamira's new focus on RNA delivery, we have become a platform company that is providing, as mentioned, picks and shovels for biotech and pharma companies rather than developing our own drug products. As a result, spending levels are generally decreasing.

Turning to some key figures from our income statement: total operating loss decreased from $3.9 million in the first half of 2024 to $2.6 million in the first six months of 2025. The decrease of 32.9% was primarily driven by lower general and administrative expenses, minus 37.4% to $1.2 million, and reduced expenditure on research and development, minus 25.3% to $1.5 million. Other operating income increased from $34,000 to $81,000. Net loss decreased by 64.6% to $1.5 million in the first half of 2025, compared to $4.3 million in the first half of 2024, primarily due to finance income of $1.7 million arising from the appreciation of intercompany loans denominated in foreign currencies, especially the Swiss franc, and lower finance expense, which were $37,000 versus $0.2 million. This was partly compensated by a higher prorata loss recorded for the company's associate, Altamira Medica AG, of $0.5 million.

In the first half of 2024, we had $0.2 million. Cash used in operations decreased by 56.8% from $3.2 million in the first half of 2024 to $1.4 million in the first half of 2025. Financing activities provided $0.4 million in the first six months of 2025 versus $2.5 million in the first six months of 2024. Shareholders' equity amounted to $4.1 million as of June 30, 2025, which compares with $6.6 million at year-end 2024. Cash and cash equivalents on June 30, 2025, amounted to $4,000 compared with $1 million on December 31, 2024. In the current quarter, we raised so far more than $0.4 million through subordinated loans. Upon completion of the planned partial spin-off of Altamira Therapeutics AG (ATAG), our subsidiary for RNA delivery, we expect operating expenses to decrease significantly.

The parent company will become, as mentioned earlier, more of a classic holding company, managing and monetizing its participations and assets. Altamira Therapeutics expects to fund its operations from its cash position, proceeds from the sale of ATAG shares to private equity investors, the partnering or divestiture of legacy assets, as well as from the provision of services for associate companies. Altamira Therapeutics intends to update its financial guidance as and when material new information will become available, notably on the planned partial spin-off of ATAG. With this, let me conclude with some comments and perspectives. It is great to see the significant progress that we keep making in the RNA delivery business and also with some of our legacy assets. For this momentum to continue or even accelerate further, it will be essential to have the business funded appropriately.

Public markets, unfortunately, don't seem to offer substantial amounts of capital on reasonable terms to us. As announced a few months ago, we have decided to take a different route. With the planned partial spin-off of the RNA delivery activities and the involvement of private equity investors, we believe to have found a reasonable and beneficial alternative approach. It will help to position Altamira Therapeutics well for building the business on the strengths of our RNA platforms and addressing the strong potential for RNA therapeutics. Also, shareholders of the listed parent company will control less of the RNA delivery business as a result of the spin-off. That business itself will be better capitalized and in a stronger position to grow. We look forward to advancing this important spin-off project, as well as our other projects towards the next milestones, and to updating you with further reports about our progress.

I thank everyone for attending this morning's call and wish you a great and successful day ahead. I would now like to turn the call back to the operator.

Speaker 0

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