Company Interview / Botanix sweating on Sofdra launch

Key points:

FDA approval for hyperhidrosis treatment moves Botanix (ASX: BOT) closer to profitabilityThe company merges telemedicine with its pharmacy network for rapid product deliveryA $70 million raise addresses cash burn concerns, supporting strategic growth

Howie McKibbon from Botanix Pharmaceuticals (ASX: BOT) discusses the company's journey in developing treatments for skin infections and diseases, with a focus on their product for hyperhidrosis. Howie states that FDA approval this year brings them closer to profitability. The treatment will initially be offered to patients in the International Hyperhidrosis Foundation, followed by a broader launch and digital campaign.,Howie shares that acquiring the product for hyperhidrosis from another company eliminated much of the development risk. The urgency to bring the treatment to market is highlighted by the fact that 10 million people suffer from severe underarm sweating. Despite not providing specific forecasts, Howie expects significant success shortly after the launch.,Botanix plans to merge telemedicine with their pharmacy network, enabling rapid delivery of their products. Howie addresses concerns about cash burn by pointing out their $70 million raise and the strategic milestones achieved. The company aims to have a clear picture of the product's market impact by the end of the next calendar year.

Full unedited transcript below:

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Let's take a deep dive now into Botanics Pharmaceuticals, which develops treatments for skin infections and diseases. Its treatment for hyperhidrosis, or severe underarm sweating, is one development that is exciting, Investors Botanics CEO Howie MacGibbon joining me now in studio. So tell us how he since we last spoke where you're at with this. And I guess the softer treatment as well. Now thank you very much for having us today. We're very excited. We got FDA approval this year, as you probably already know. And with that approval came a flurry of activity as we focus toward a couple of key milestones. One is launching the product, of course, but that certainly puts us on the pathway to profitability. And along those lines, we're taking that in stages. So between now and the end of the year, we're going to offer a softer first to all the patients in the International Hyperhidrosis Foundation, followed by a quick launch from our sales force and ultimately our targeted digital campaign. So let's go back a couple of steps and talk about the acquisition and getting to this point. I guess, of Soft Drug, which as we mentioned, is to help with excessive underarm

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sweating. Yeah, you bet we had the opportunity to acquire this product from from a company, uh, a couple of years ago. And they had already finished their phase three trials, which took a lot of the risk out of the development. So put us in a good position to, uh, ready the NDA package and submit it to the FDA. So very excited to have it. We've been watching this product. I see we, the team at Botanics at various companies prior, watching this product for years, uh, wanting to get our hands on it. And ultimately we had the opportunity to do it. So when does it come to market? We know with the FDA approval there's a few more hurdles in place, but how do you think it could potentially change things for people that suffer from this condition? Yeah, we are we are rushing to market here because there are 10 million patients currently suffering from primary, axillary or underarm hyperhidrosis. With such a large uh, Tam there's a great opportunity here. So so yeah, you're talking about opportunity then for revenue generation and the path to

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profitability. What's your sort of forecasting for that. You know we haven't given a forecast to the street. But we can say this we've been efficiently moving the product along through approval, and we're taking this approach where we're having a very targeted launch, and we anticipate a post the sales force coming in and our digital campaign starting shortly after, to see very big success in a short time period. You must be, as the CEO, very happy with the share price. I mean, something like 160% over the past 12 months. There's obviously a lot of optimism in this space. Where do you see the trajectory? And I know that saying that without the fact that you cannot control the market. No. Understood. And I appreciate that. And we're grateful to our supporters along the way. You know, due to the inflection points that we've had, we've seen quite a good run. And now it becomes an execution story. And the good part about that is that the team at Botanics has launched over 30 products in the dermatology space alone. And that's not just launching them, that's taking them through development and commercializing them while building the organization. So we're very excited about

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that. And we we do believe there are great things ahead. So what are some of the other products if there's 30 on the market? We're talking about software in particular, but what else is Botanics Pharmaceuticals looking at? Oh, as far as products in the future. Yeah. You know, we will always be looking for new chemical entities in the dermatological space. And when I speak to those 30 products, those are products that we've launched in the past that give us experience to, to then move forward. But, but we are building a platform that combines telemedicine with our pharmacy network so that we can put an ad in front of a patient and they, in theory, could click on that ad, see a telemedicine provider, and have that product to their doorstep within four days. And that used to take almost four months. Now you talk about specifically with SoftLayer, the huge potential market opportunity. How many people suffer from this? Yes, 16 million with hyperhidrosis anywhere on their body, 10 million specifically with primary, axillary or underarm hyperhidrosis. And what's

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interesting is 3.7 million of those patients have seen a physician over the past year. And when we look back, even further, over the past ten years, uh, 7 million patients have already seen a physician, so 70% of the target market has already gone to the doctor. They're just not satisfied as to what the options are. So we do believe that software can certainly fill a great unmet need here. So how innovative do you see the overall healthcare space here in Australia? No, it's it's interesting. I think you take that in two parts. You know, first and foremost in Australia there's quite a bit of development and with development there's risk but there's also reward. So it's definitely innovative. When you think of the population of Australia of around 26 million people, to see as many products come out of the country is quite impressive. I also think our investors are pretty innovative because the questions that they ask, you know, are quite, quite specific in probing and they really do all their homework. So as a whole, I'd say I'd say the groups do

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pretty well. And in terms of I mean, your company, we mentioned the stock price has done very well. I was looking for sort of analyst recommendations, and because it's so small, there's not a lot of analyst targets out there just yet. But I did note that a few analysts say they're worried about your cash burn. What do you say to that? Oh, interesting. So? So we were. There were two main inflection points this year, you know, leading to our success. I believe number one was the approval. And number two was the $70 million raise that we had earlier this year, which puts us in a cash position, we believe, to get us through profitability. So our cash burn is always projected to increase as you get closer to launch. So it's not something that's a surprise and not something that we haven't signaled to and not something that's a negative necessarily. So what's the next step then as we look towards this product coming to market, hyper focus on the launch. We want to make sure we get this product first to those patients at the International Hyperhidrosis Society. Uh, we want to get our sales force in place in January, launch our, uh,

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widespread digital campaign. Shortly after that, focus on ensuring that the refills get to the patients and maximize those opportunities. And we believe that by the end of next calendar year, we'll have a very good idea of what this product actually could be. So very excited to see what's on the horizon.