Individual investors, analysts and investment fund managers were strongly represented during the Investor Day at Adiuvo Investments. After all, it was a great opportunity to get familiar with the company’s business model as well as its managers and scientists who create innovative technologies available in the Adiuvo’s portfolio.
- Today’s meeting aims at getting to know our projects. No one will present them better than those who develop them on daily basis – said Dr Marek Orłowski, the Founder and the President of the Management Board at Adiuvo Investments S.A.
- The health market is undergoing a huge change. It is entered by the Y generation of people for whom health means preventing diseases, managing health and healthy lifestyle. The change also takes place on doctors’ side. For example, in the USA medics make money from prescribing drugs less and less often and the whole model moves towards managing health and analysing the treatment. Contemporary clinical trials with constant monitoring of parameters will prove that some drugs do not work and those so called innovative and more expensive ones work exactly in the same way as the standard ones. Consumers also start to manage their health and they buy products that support health – stressed Dr Marek Orłowski.
He also noted that the digital medicine market (monitoring, wearables) is growing very dynamically and it refers both to healthy people (lifestyle) as well as sick people (process of treatment). At the same time, the possibilities connected with big data also change medicine. Moreover, doctors, especially in the USA, become actively interested in new products and new distribution channels.
- In the pro-health FMCG we are most interested in e-commerce – building online authorities, selling through influencers. The best doctors become celebrities and authorities on the level of blogs and vlogs. This is the area we invest in in the nutraceutical part – said Dr Marek Orłowski.
He stressed that in the medical part the main recipients of Adiuvo technologies are companies that deal with clinical trials. If patients can be examined every day and not every 3 months these clinical trials can be designed in a completely different way to find out if a specific drug works or not. On the other hand, research companies open their doors to pharmaceutical companies which are going to be final users of devices from the Adiuvo’s portfolio. Healthy people also start to monitor their health more and more often.
- We should also have interesting things to announce on this subject as well – said Dr Marek Orłowski.
On this occasion he drew attention to the fact that in the case of selling medical technologies validation of devices is sufficient while with functional foods consumers have to be visible because companies from this sector are not used to buying technologies. On the other hand, with dietary supplements the situation looks different – here it seems that Adiuvo will soon be able to brag about commercialising technologies with its strategic partners.
- The digital medicine market only is currently worth more than 200 billion USD. The two most important categories for us, mobile health and wearables, grow fastest (by 40% in 5 years). By 2021 the wearables market is to double and have 200 million users – said Anna Aranowska-Bablok, a Board Member at Adiuvo Investments S.A.
- The wellbeing market, which is worth 900 billion USD and will soon exceed the threshold of one milliard, looks even more interesting. The absolute leader as far as this increase is concerned is Asia, particularly China. The functional foods market is also growing dynamically. The same can be said about the supplements market – added Anna Aranowska-Bablok.
She stressed that these trends go hand in hand with capital transactions. Nutricial Capital Network defines functional foods as the most increasing segment. Only in the first half of this year the institution recorded 172 M&A transactions, excluding project financing, investing in companies and co-development.
- Transactions in the digital medicine segment look similar. There are transactions worth billions of dollars, which we treat as a distant benchmark, but there are also transactions comparable with what we do. A few days ago Kellogs bought protein bars for 600 million USD and Apple invested in an application improving the quality of sleep – noted a manager from Adiuvo.
The Adiuvo Group focuses on what can be called “new health”. It’s a market of products worth more than 270 billion USD with 230 M&A transactions recorded in the last 6 months.
- We answer the needs and we provide products dedicated to a new consumer – X and Y generation. We do it on a global scale and we concentrate on the most important markets, such as China, Japan, the USA and the Persian Gulf. When Adiuvo started in 2013 it identified market megatrends that were to come and by the end of 2015 it built its portfolio, made a public offering and signed an important contract with NCBiR – JPIF (digital medicine related fund) – reminded Anna Aranowska-Bablok.
Currently Adiuvo focuses on the monetisation of the existing technologies portfolio. Most of these technologies are on the advanced commercialisation stage and one transaction was closed in August at 12 million USD (CSS Airway Medix technology). Three technologies are being seriously negotiated, which means that in a few or several months the company may inform about further transactions. Additionally, three technologies started their pilot sale on the biggest markets.
15 innovative technologies from the Adiuvo’s portfolio translates into 33 products, which allows the company to broadly penetrate the market. All the technologies exist in the companies controlled by Adiuvo where inventors also work. Half of the technologies come from abroad – Great Britain, the USA and Israel – and investments are financed with tranches according to the agreed milestones.
- We believe that developing technologies requires everyday work. This is Adiuvo’s engagement on the operational and strategic level that makes our projects move forward so well – stressed a representative of the Management Board at Adiuvo.
The Adiuvo’s technologies portfolio is divided into functional snacks, preventive dietary supplements, sensors and algorithms as well as the segment of monitoring patient and those for laboratory use. Such a choice of portfolio makes every product work on its own market that can be worth even hundreds billions of dollars.
- Our business model is clear. In the wellbeing segment, thanks to organic sale on the biggest markets and distribution in many other countries, we show demand and business scalability. In digital medicine we focus on clinical trials and protected intellectual property. We demonstrate market advantages and superiority of our technologies – for most of the technologies we have already proven that. More than 50% of our technologies are already in the process of monetisation – we either have the sale of products started or we are in the middle of advanced negotiations with our strategic partners – announced Anna Aranowska-Bablok.
During the Investment Day at Adiuvo investors had an opportunity to talk with the Adiuvo Investments Management Board and other speakers. Meetings in smaller groups were devoted to: (1) functional chocolate by Cambridge Chocolate Technology and Carocell supplements, (2) MySpiroo – HealthUp personal spirometer, SmartMedics printed electrodes and image tracing/sound digitisation – Sound Objects, (3) technologies connected with immobilised/mechanically ventilated patients – Airway Medix, (4) selling products from the Adiuvo portfolio in the USA and United Kingdom, (5) MarMar dietary supplements as well as (6) pH Phase2Micro innovative sensor and application improving the quality of sleep, Nightly – DreamJay.
The Adiuvo Group is planning to organise such events as today’s Adiuvo Investor Day on regular basis and in various formats.
