Earnings call transcript: Scientific Industries’ Q4 2024 results highlight innovation

Scientific Industries Inc. (SCND) reported its financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2024, showcasing significant operational improvements and product innovations. The stock, currently trading at $0.95, has experienced a challenging year with a 52% decline over the past 12 months. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears undervalued based on its Fair Value estimate, presenting a potential opportunity for value investors interested in the biotech sector.

Key Takeaways

• Operating expenses were reduced by $3 million, improving financial efficiency.
• Bioprocessing segment sales increased by 24% compared to the previous year.
• The company launched new components in its pharmacy automation and bioprocessing product lines.

Company Performance

Scientific Industries demonstrated robust growth in its bioprocessing segment, with a 24% increase in sales compared to 2023. The company also achieved a 23% quarter-over-quarter growth and a 31% year-over-year increase in Q4 2024. These results highlight the company’s ability to capitalize on industry trends in biopharma and synthetic biology.

Financial Highlights

• Total operating expenses: Reduced by $3 million.
• Cash used in operations: Decreased by $2.5 million.
• Gross margins: Adjusted to 58%, with operative gross margins at 70%.
• Net loss: Reduced by approximately $1 million.

Outlook & Guidance

Scientific Industries is preparing to launch a machine learning model by the end of fiscal 2025, targeting expansion in the mammalian cell culture market. The company anticipates a recovery in innovation-focused investments and has a robust starting pipeline of nearly $4 million for 2025. Analysts forecast revenue growth of 2.12% for FY2024, though profitability remains a challenge. For detailed analysis and comprehensive insights, consider accessing SCND’s Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Executive Commentary

Helena Santos, CEO, expressed optimism about the future, stating, "We are poised for an exciting year." John Moore, Chairman, emphasized the importance of innovation, quoting Tim Cook: "Innovation starts after the product launch." Daniel Donaghi, CEO of SBI, highlighted the strategic focus on engineering biology at scale to address global challenges.

Risks and Challenges

• Continued net losses, despite reductions, may pose financial sustainability challenges.
• Market recovery is anticipated in the latter half of 2025, which could delay immediate growth.
• Competition from large players like Merck and Sanofi may impact market share.

Scientific Industries’ focus on innovation and operational efficiency positions it well for future growth, despite current financial challenges and a neutral market reaction.

Full transcript - Scientific Industries Inc (SCND) Q4 2024:

Conference Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Scientific Industries Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year twenty twenty four Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Diaz, Lytham Partners. Please go ahead.

Joe Diaz, Investor Relations (Lytham Partners), Lytham Partners: Thank you. Good morning, and thank all of you for joining us today to review Scientific Industries’ financial results for the fiscal year 2024 ended 12/31/2024. With us today on the call are Helena Santos, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Donaghi, CEO of SBI and John Moore, Chairman. After the conclusion of today’s prepared remarks, we will open pardon me, before we begin

Unidentified Speaker: this call, I would like

Joe Diaz, Investor Relations (Lytham Partners), Lytham Partners: to remind all that except for the statements of historical fact, this conference may contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are detailed under Risk Factors in documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended 12/31/2024. Forward looking statements speak only as of the date the statements were made. The company can give no assurance that such forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Scientific Industries does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements, except as required by law. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Helena Santos, CEO of Scientific Industries.

Helena?

Helena Santos, Chief Executive Officer, Scientific Industries: Thank you, Joe, and thanks to our loyal shareholders for their continued support during this pivotal time for our company. Fiscal twenty twenty four was a transformative year for us in several ways. First, we welcome two valuable board members, Mr. John Nichols. He’s the former CEO of NASDAQ listed Codexis, a synthetic biology company.

And later, we welcome Mr. Michael Blackmon. He’s former president of a pharma process control provider named ACC Inc. Both John and Michael’s expertise are valuable as we position our company for significant growth. Second, we streamlined our organization and improved operational efficiency.

By doing that, we reduced operating expenses by nearly $3,000,000 and we kept cash used in operations by $2,500,000 Third, we launched the final hardware component of our vivid pharmacy automation product line, the Workstation. This state of the art pill counter integrates high precision counting with powerful PT capabilities, helping pharmacies improve workflow and system integration. Fourth, as Daniel Donadie will discuss shortly, right after me, SBI, or our bioprocessing segment, made significant strides in product development and commercialization, launching our DOTS MPS and the DL pills on time. And we entered fiscal twenty twenty five with a strong pipeline of opportunities. So, me give a brief summary of our financial results for calendar year ’twenty four.

Starting with benchtop laboratory equipment segment. Despite challenges in the lab equipment industry related to destocking from the COVID inventory, build out, and other economic factors, as we all know, our Genie product line sales were only 3.6% lower than the prior year. Then regarding our Torval and our Vivint pill counter, we are optimistic about the future of our Torval business, particularly after overcoming industry cash flow challenges related to PBM rule changes in the independent pharmacy market. Sales were down in the first half of twenty twenty four, but improved in the latter half. The recent launch of the Vivid workstation is a potential game changer.

Offering not only superior pill counting, but also pharmacy management functions in one space saving unit. It’s ideal for the growing telemarket, telepharmacy market, the remote pharmacy operations market, and fulfilling state imposed verification requirements. I’m happy to say that we’ve sold our first six workstations through our exclusive U. S. Distribution partner, Rx Systems, who is replacing the industry first mover ICONS product with our own Vivint pill counters.

Rx plans to replace the aging fleet about 13,000 ICON units and to upsell to the targeted nearly 20,000 independent pharmacies currently using outdated manual or mechanical counting methods. And this isn’t even touching upon the bigger chains of about another 45,000 pharmacies. We are very encouraged by the market reaction to the workstation at our first few pharmacy trade shows of the year. And then, regarding our bioprocessing segment, Daniel will provide an overview of our high growth bioprocessing operations right after me, which we are very excited about. As I look ahead for fiscal twenty twenty five, I believe we are poised for an exciting year.

Our Torval business expanding with multiple workstation units in place. And we are preparing for the launch of a machine learning model by the end of fiscal twenty twenty five, positioning us at the forefront of automated pill counting. And our bioprocessing segment has strong momentum, especially with our shift towards the large mammalian cell culture market, which Daniel is going to speak about. We will continue to be good stewards of our company’s finances and make good investments to position us as a world class bioprocessing company in years to come. And with that, I’m going to turn it over to Mr.

Donahdee to discuss our exciting bioprocessing business segment. Daniel?

Daniel Donaghi, CEO of SBI (Bioprocessing Segment), Scientific Industries: Thanks, Alina, and hi, everyone, the call. As we reflect on 2024, it’s clear that the bioprocessing industry continues to operate in a uniquely complex environment. The aftershocks of the post COVID inventory correction and a continued conservative capital allocation have led to slower than anticipated market recovery. Next to that, realities such as trade conflicts as well as geopolitical tensions and uncertainties have further disrupted supply chains, increased regulatory requirements and prolonged procurement time lines. In Europe, economic growth was slow, customers across the sector have remained cautious and budget constraints have extended decision cycles, while in The U.

S, many particularly research driven players are currently deferring investments due to federal budget and grant freezes as well as an unclear outlook for the scientific environment, whereby technology adoption has been somewhat slow and remains a bit difficult to predict. However, we are also seeing careful signs of an approaching rebound and resurging optimism amongst leading industry players. According to McKinsey and others, the global bioprocessing and biomanufacturing tools market is projected to soon get back to double digit annual growth, driven by biopharma markets like complex biologics or cell and gene therapies, synthetic biology expansions beyond into food, agriculture and sustainable materials as well as the emergence of R and D AI. In the recent earnings calls, giants like Satori and Danaher or Thermo Fisher shared that they expect demand to recover in the second half of twenty twenty five and into 2026, anticipate deferred investments to pick up and highlight the convergence of digital tools and biology as a major driver of industry growth in the coming years. At Scientific Bioprocessing, we share this view.

And while we recognize the current difficulties of the market environment in which we operate, we also know that as a scale up, we are uniquely positioned to navigate these complex dynamics with speed, focus and versatility and turn them into new opportunities as much as our technology platform will be able to quickly shift to addressing new demands as well as towards bullish markets. In 2024, we continue to use the transitional market to advance our own transformation. In 2025, we are delivering the first integrated version of our bioprocessing platform, and we are convinced that by 2026, the business will be positioned to capitalize on the projected market rebound and the growing demands for digital real time data and the next era of bioproduction. Let’s dive into the business. Looking at our Operative Bioprocessing financials, I’m happy to report that overall, 2024 came in close with our reforecasted projection.

Sales compared to 2023 were up 24% at relatively stable gross margins and lower expenditures, which resulted in a net loss reduction of around $1,000,000 Furthermore, to account for longer technology adoption cycles and resulting slower moving inventory, management conservatively decided to bid $285,000 in reserves, which brought reported gross margins down to 58%. But taking that into account, operative gross margins across commercial deals already improved to plus 70%, particularly driven by the new platform, which highlights the value generation potential of the technology and helped SBI hit the original 2024 target for cash requirements. As shared during the last earnings call, product demand in Europe was notably weaker than historically usual until Q3, but for an above average seasonal year end in Q4, whereby both the German entity and The U. S. Entity exceeded their 2023 sales by 2029%, respectively.

As such, Q4 twenty twenty four showed quarter over quarter growth of 23% and an increase of 31% compared to the same time frame last year. On the cost side, Q4 saw an 11% year over year reduction in operating expenses. And on a full year basis, SBI has reduced costs by a total of $800,000 mainly driven by the company wide cost efficiency program, which we executed during the first half of the year. Overall, 2024 was the continuation of the efforts that began with the change in leadership in 2022. During this time, SBI has developed into a much more productive organization, recording a 70% increase in sales and a reduction in operative expenses, almost 30%, which shows that the Bioprocessing division is on the right path to achieve profitability and drive value.

On the R and D side, we are on schedule with all major development tracks and have made significant advancements in key projects. Most notably, 2024 saw us launching the first two key components of the Dots platform with the market start of one second with the market start of sorry, I skipped that with the give me one second because my screen froze with my notes, and I will be back in a second. Most notably, 2024 saw us launching the first two key components of the DOLTS platform with the market start of the multi parameter sensor and the sensor pits for dissolved oxygen. In parallel, proof of concept was achieved for the new pH sensor technology that is set to launch by the end of twenty twenty five and the second generation liquid injection system, which was conceptualized, both of which will play an important role in fulfilling the value proposition of our integrated platform. At the same time, we have taken on projects beyond our original roadmap, most notably, a miniaturized sensor for parallel bioreactor systems after our DOTS platform drew strong interest from key customers, leading to joint development and testing with major partners for possible future roadmap addition.

Next to that, we have generated a first proof of concept for nanoparticles as an alternative path for chemo sensing in highly stress sensitive cultures as well as OTR vessels, so high oxygen transfer vessels. Hence, what we did is completed successful external studies confirming earlier than expected applicability of our technology for mammalian cell cultures with both leading academic and industrial partners, which claimed us to launch this technology into the study culture market beginning of January 2025. On the commercial side, we entered 2024 with high expectations for the launch of our Dots platform. And in May, when we launched it, I’m proud to say that those expectations were really well met. We closed the year with a twenty four year over year sales growth.

We recorded our strongest sales quarter to date with just below $600,000 revenue and had the strongest single month in sales with more than $300,000 in December. The newly launched Dots platform has already made a major impact. Since its launch in May 2024, the platform contributed around 50% of revenues and quickly became the best selling product group in the lineup. At the same time, we are extremely encouraged by the fact that 60% of orders came from industry customers as well as by the fact that large industry players like Merck and Sanofi are expanding their adoption of SBI’s technology. With revenue as a trailing indicator, we were particularly impressed by the strong and increasing market interest in our portfolio and then our vision as reflected in the pipeline as a leading indicator.

Throughout 2024, we generated 40% more leads than in the previous year and built a net new pipeline value of 2,600,000, representing a 94% year over year increase. As a result, we are entering 2025 with a robust starting pipeline of just below $4,000,000 which showcases the interest in the existing SBI portfolio, but also reinforces the demand for the products under development like pH and the next generation liquid injection system and which we will invest further into to drive pipeline growth. Looking ahead, we anticipate a continued recovery in innovation focused investment, while we remain mindful of the market volatility and short term challenges, which we obviously closely monitor. Early twenty twenty five may still reflect these pressures, particularly in grant driven environments, but this does not reflect and affect our confidence for a soon to come recovery and a continuation of SBI’s growth trajectory. We remain highly optimistic that Synthetic Biology will not just come back strong, but thrive.

The ability to design and engineer biology at scale will be central to solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges from medicine to climate to sustainable manufacturing, but it will only be possible with a drastic reduction of the cost of failure in the scale up from small scale R and D to production capacities. And this is precisely what SBI delivers. And with that, I hand the call back to John.

Joe Diaz, Investor Relations (Lytham Partners), Lytham Partners: Thank you so much, Daniel.

Unidentified Speaker: In conclusion, we’ve taken, Scientific Industries, a 70 year old mixing business with a great brand name, and we have built two businesses that are very poised right now to grow our sales, grow our margins, add substantial recurring revenue, and that are both going to hugely benefit from coming AI trends. So we’re excited to create new shareholder value. And as Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple says, innovation starts after the product launch. And, we think there’s going to be continuous efforts now that we’ve made the bulk of the investment in Torval and the Vivid product line as well as the scientific bioprocessing business where we’re going to be expanding, product market fit. We’re going to be finding new end uses for the products.

We’re going to be adding exciting, customers to our product line. And we’re going to be we think this is going to be a transformational year for creating shareholder value. Thank you so much for listening to our year end conference call. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Conference Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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