MindWalk Holdings Corp. Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. We appreciate your time and interest in IPA. Today's call will be led by our CEO, Dr. Jennifer Bath; and Interim CFO, Joe Scheffler. They will provide a review of our financial performance, strategic initiatives and key operational highlights for the quarter. Please note that a copy of today's presentation, along with our financial statements will be available on our company website for your reference. We encourage you to review these materials to gain a deeper understanding of our performance and strategic direction. Once again, thank you for joining us today. Before we proceed, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to various factors, including, but not limited to global political and economic factors, changes in market conditions, regulatory changes and other unforeseen business risks. Please note that these forward-looking statements are made as of today and we undertake no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events unless required by law. We strongly advise all participants to refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Form 20-F, and other periodic reports. For a more detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties and for a more complete understanding of the risks inherent in our business operations and the potential impact on our future performance. We appreciate your continued interest in ImmunoPrecise Antibodies. I will now turn the call over to IPA's President and CEO, Dr. Jennifer Bath.

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss IPA's third quarter results for our fiscal year 2025. This quarter has seen significant positive momentum for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies. We've secured a strategic partnership valued at US$8 million to US$10 million with a leading biotech company, leveraging our proprietary B-cell select technology and AI-driven capabilities to enhance development and optimization processes. Our collaborations with key technology partners like Vultr, AMD, and other leading providers of advanced GPU technology are enhancing our lab-in-a-loop drug discovery capabilities, driving cost effectiveness, and competitiveness. We've officially relocated our corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas, expanding our US footprint in a thriving AI and biotech ecosystem. Additionally, we've entered a strategic partnership with RIBOPRO to integrate messenger RNA and LNP technologies and pioneered AI-designed GLP-1 therapeutics for diabetes. Our pipeline strategy has been realigned with a new therapeutic development pipeline, and we revealed multiple ADC lead candidates with tumor-killing capabilities. Furthermore, we strengthened our financial position with an US$8.8 million equity raise and the full conversion of the Yorkville debenture. Notably, we've made significant progress on the potential divestiture of our EU lab, which will enhance our operational efficiency and focus. The demand for our therapeutic applications is rapidly growing, with the percentage of antibody discovery projects aimed at therapeutic ends increasing from 19% to 48% year-over-year at our main wet lab discovery site in Canada. This shift underscores the high revenue potential of our services. Additionally, BioStrand has achieved a remarkable 131.8% year-over-year revenue increase with an average gross profit margin of 97% year-to-date. This extraordinary combination of rapid growth and exceptionally high profitability is fundamentally reshaping our financial trajectory. As our AI-driven platforms continue to scale, we anticipate a dramatic enhancement in our path to profitability, positioning us for sustainable long-term growth and significantly increased shareholder value. The implications are significant. Our AI segment is emerging as a powerful engine, driving our transition to a more scalable and lucrative business model, bolstering our competitive edge. Moving into the more detailed analysis of this quarter's activities, I want to start by first addressing our recent capital raise and financial strategy. This quarter, we successfully raised US$7 million through our At-the-Market facility, completing a consolidated $8.8 million equity raise. This capital was secured at a low cost, and the execution has been positively received by the financial community. Investors and analysts have recognized that the way we managed this raise was not only efficient but highly strategic. We closed the quarter with approximately CAD12.9 million, significantly extending our run rate and offsetting short-term financial risk. To provide some operational context, the use of our ATM is first discussed and approved at the board level. Once a decision is made, our entire executive team works closely with our bank, Clear Street, to ensure smooth and effective execution within very specific market parameters. This ensures an orderly execution while minimizing market disruption. Simultaneously with our capital raise, Yorkville opted to convert the remaining balance of their debenture. Importantly, this conversion occurred at a significant premium to our share price, marking a meaningful milestone for IPA as we are now fully debt-free, strengthening our capital structure, enhancing investor clarity, and positioning us to scale growth initiatives from a clean financial foundation. The biotech industry has faced significant capital constraints for the past few years. In 2023 alone, 41 biotech companies filed for bankruptcy, significantly more than in 2022. And this trend has continued in 2024. Even larger organizations such as Charles River Laboratories have recently reported declining revenues due to reduced pharma client demand, and companies like GSK have faced skepticism about their pipeline execution. We have strategically positioned IPA to avoid the financial pitfalls that have affected many companies in our sector. We have maintained a contingency funding model for years, making difficult but necessary decisions, such as reducing management and staff. This proactive strategy has allowed us to maintain stability during a challenging market environment and provided us with the necessary resources today to realign the company with greater precision, streamline our structure, introduce new leadership, and prepare to launch a series of strategic initiatives in the first quarter that enhance our commercial focus and accelerate our growth trajectory. We are pleased to announce key leadership updates that strengthen our strategic direction and operational capabilities. We're happy to welcome Dr. Kamil Isaev to the Board of Directors. With over 30 years of experience in AI, semiconductor technologies, and global R&D operations, Dr. Isaev brings invaluable expertise to our team. His impressive career includes leadership roles at Intel, Dell EMC, Align Technology, and ABRT VC, where he has driven AI innovation and commercialization across multiple industries. Currently, he leads the ABRT AI Lab and Venture Capital Score Project, focusing on AI research and commercialization strategies. His deep understanding of AI and strategic innovation will be instrumental in advancing our AI-driven biologics platform, particularly in enhancing our LENSai strategy. Dr. Isaev's track record in developing go-to-market strategies aligns perfectly with our mission to accelerate innovation in AI-driven biologics. Joseph Scheffler joins IPA as Interim Chief Financial Officer, bringing a wealth of financial leadership experience in both publicly traded and multinational companies. His extensive background in financial reporting, forecasting, and business strategy will be invaluable in guiding IPA's next phase of growth. Most recently, at Nidec - Kinetek, Scheffler managed consolidated financial reporting for a $400 million global manufacturing firm with 40 subsidiaries worldwide. His expertise in corporate strategy development will enhance IPA's financial operations and strategic decision-making. With an MBA in finance and a bachelor's degree in accounting from Loyola University Chicago, Scheffler combines analytical expertise with strong stakeholder engagement, making him well-equipped to strengthen IPA's financial strategy and support the company's continued growth. We are also excited to announce Dr. Li Hui as Senior Director of Client Relations to our Boston team. Li brings over 15 years of experience in antibody development, including driving discovery services at ABclonal and Biocytogen. Her scientific knowledge and business development experience add new dimensions to our sales team, enhancing outreach strategies and collaborating with our marketing team. With a focus on understanding client needs and delivering state-of-the-art solutions, including BioStrand's LENSai capabilities, Li has already made a significant impact by improving sales outreach effectiveness and strengthening BioStrand's brand awareness. We are pleased to report a major commercial milestone this quarter, a strategic partnership with a global multibillion-dollar bioscience company to advance the discovery and development of next-generation cancer therapeutics. The agreement valued between US$8 million and US$10 million represents a transformational validation of IPA's business model and the commercial readiness of our integrated AI and wet lab platform. Although we cannot disclose certain details, this deal is structured as an all-cash contract with an initial purchase order already issued. This initial purchase order alone equates to approximately half of our annual revenue, and a second purchase order may follow. This partnership combines IPA's proprietary LENSai platform with advanced B-cell discovery capabilities to target precision-engineered cancer therapies efficiently over the next 18 months. This deal signals the growing demand for AI-powered drug discovery and demonstrates IPA's ability to convert platform innovation into significant recurring commercial revenue. Concurrently, we have made notable progress on our AI-designed GLP-1 program. Following the successful design of my therapeutic candidates using our LENSai platform, the program has now entered parallel tracks with partners for manufacturing, testing, and formulation planning. These activities mark a significant milestone as we translate next-generation AI designs into tangible therapeutic assets. We have added de novo antibody design to our portfolio, allowing antibodies to be designed from scratch, representing a major step forward in precision biologics. Recently, a large pharma approached us to initiate a de novo program using this method, highlighting immediate demand for this innovation. To support our AI-driven initiatives, particularly the de novo antibody design program, we are expanding our scalable cloud infrastructure in collaboration with Vultr, a leading provider of high-performance GPU clusters. This strategic partnership enhances our computational capability and ensures the execution of sophisticated AI tests. A detailed case study highlighting this collaboration is available on our Investor Relations website, offering insights into how our advancements are empowering projects like de novo antibody discovery. This infrastructure enables us to execute complex processes with greater speed and efficiency, directly powering initiatives like our GLP-1 program where rapid iteration and refinement are essential. By leveraging Vultr's deployment of advanced GPUs, we've achieved significant cost savings, which can impact our profit margin and client pricing positively. Innovation remains a cornerstone of our growth strategy. I want to provide an update on the AWS Marketplace integration, a major step in expanding access. We completed our technical review submission in December 2024 and received positive feedback in early February 2025. We await the remaining review results and will finalize our invoicing strategy to ensure efficient transactions upon launch, expanding our market reach significantly. We are pleased to update on our ongoing EU potential divestiture initiatives. The process has progressed significantly, engaging 77 strategic and financial partners, resulting in highly encouraging responses and nearly a dozen formal bids. After due diligence evaluations, we hosted the highest potential buyers on-site for discussions. We aim to conclude by the end of this fiscal year, providing updates as they emerge. Our rebrand signifies a meaningful evolution in IPA's journey, unifying our identity and better reflecting our integrated capabilities across AI and biologics. By bringing all IPA entities under a single brand, we create a stronger platform for commercial growth. Central to this transformation is our HIP technology, foundational to our LENSai platform. HIP unlocks new insights in therapeutic discovery. Our unified brand embodies a commitment to accelerating innovation in medicine. This is more than a visual refresh; it's a strategic alignment reflecting our direction. We look forward to sharing more as we prepare for a public rollout soon. I'll now turn things over to Joe Scheffler for our financial updates for the quarter.

Thank you, Jennifer. I'll now provide a summary of our financial results for the third quarter of our fiscal year 2025 ending January 31st, 2025. As a reminder, all the numbers referenced are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. For the third quarter, IPA generated $6.2 million in revenue compared to $6.2 million in the same quarter last year, a consistent quarter-over-quarter strength across our wet lab operations. On the AI side, BioStrand generated $0.6 million in third quarter revenue, bringing us to a year-to-date revenue in excess of $1 million and year-to-date gross profit margin of 97%, demonstrating the financial leverage potential of this business segment as we scale. Operating expenses for the third quarter totaled $27.8 million, driven largely by a non-cash impairment charge of $21.2 million related to the impairment of BioStrand's intangible assets as part of our internal strategic review and repositioning. Excluding impairment, operating expenses were CAD6.6 million compared to CAD6.5 million in Q3 of the prior year. Further breaking this down, R&D expenses remained constant at $1.1 million compared to $1 million in Q3 last year. Sales and marketing expenses increased to $1.3 million compared to $0.6 million in Q3 last year and G&A expenses decreased to $3.6 million as compared to $4.2 million reported in Q3 of the prior year. We continue to tightly manage cost while aligning spending with our highest growth, strategic priorities, particularly with LENSai and platform expansion. The net loss for the third quarter was $21.5 million or $0.66 per share. However, the net loss pre-impairment net of tax was $2.9 million or $0.09 per share compared to a net loss of $2.6 million or $0.10 per share in Q3 of last year. As of January 31st, 2025, we held $12.9 million in cash compared to $3.5 million at the fiscal year-end 2024. This increase was driven by the successful execution of our ATM program, through which we raised $12.2 million as well as the full conversion of the Yorkville debenture, which is now retired and no longer a source of dilution risk. We are evaluating additional nondilutive funding mechanisms and strategic asset realignment, including a potential divestiture of select European operations to further streamline costs and focus our capital on technology-led growth initiatives. With a leaner structure, validated AI economics and strong partner momentum, we believe we're entering the next quarter in a more focused and financially disciplined position.

Thank you, Joseph. Before Dr. Bath provides concluding remarks, we would like to open the lines to questions from investors and analysts.

This is RK from H.C. Wainwright. Good morning, Jennifer and Frederic.

Hello.

A few questions from me. The first one is on the deal that you recently announced, the $8 million to $10 million deal. And as you said, your initial purchase order was in the order of $8 million. And you were also saying that we could expect a second PO. And two questions there. So should we expect something of that nature in this year? And the other piece is, since the deal is structured as $8 million to $10 million. Does that mean the second year is going to be less than $2 million or it could be of the similar nature as the first one?

Yes. So the first purchase order was at that initial $8 million. The purpose for potentially expanding that to $10 million is leaving additional room for $2 million for the projects that are going on successfully that might need some additional engineering and optimization prior to preclinical studies? With regard to the initial part of the question. So over the period of time that we expect this to be spent, I think the 18 months is the timeline that's been put forward when we look at the statement of work. So that's what we issue, what we're going to do, and when those deliverables can be expected. And that's the anticipated period of time for the $8 million. The purchase order itself was received in February with an initial US$500,000 already dedicated to launching the program. And then the way that works over time in terms of how that capital is allocated and the timing of the revenue is that we draw down weekly. So as we conduct the work, then at the end of the week, we draw down what work we've done based on a percent of completion and then that determines how much revenue is drawn off of that purchase order each week. So it definitely will be hitting this quarter, for fourth quarter, which is great because it's already happening at a site in Canada where we not only see this increase in therapeutic, but even year-to-date, we're already 25% higher in revenue at that location. And so this drawdown will happen like very consistently at that Canadian site on a regular basis. And then again, we expect that to conclude that first $8 million tranche in an 18 month period.

Okay. Thanks for the details on that one. So based on this particular deal, should we expect additional such partnerships or collaborations? And also is this a sort of structure that you anticipate to have going forward in terms of like how you draw down revenue based on the work you do rather than a milestone payment?

Yes, that's, I really like this question for a couple of reasons. One of the things that's occurring in our laboratories within this quarter that we're in right now is the integration of AI into the wet lab capabilities in Canada. For those therapeutic programs, where I mentioned that the number of them are very rapidly increasing, which is good because they are higher revenue programs for us. The AI portion of that now actually becomes mandatory. And it really is changing not only what we offer in terms of the services and also, obviously, the price tag and the profit margin on that. But it genuinely turns over a much more sophisticated product that has an advanced thought of potential failures downstream. So the reason why I mentioned that is it really is a realignment of how we look at our offerings and how we look at the people, the partners we're working with. We still offer very customized programs, but not the ability for people to kind of pick and choose what they want to do. And so along the lines of that, when we get these multi-site multi-target programs, this one that we've just closed is for up to 12 different oncology programs. Those are the programs that are now absolutely being targeted for partnership. We have actually incentivized our team out of Boston specifically to be focused on those partnerships. And there's a number of reasons for that, not only it's a large amount of capital upfront, but we also have a lot more flexibility and control over those programs and how they're allocated which is better for the program and better for us. So one of the things that internally we made sure that we did was we created a template that we could actively use to structure additional collaboration. And so with this type of deal architecture where it's cash-based, it's execution-focused, it's very innovation-driven. It really does bring us a repeatable model that enables us to scale commercial efforts as we really do take a shift in how we're displaying these offerings to the market. And we're very proud of that because we're one of the few companies in the industry that can has clearly demonstrated we can land that type of partnership without having to offer our capabilities for free or at cost upfront like people are willing to pay for it because we produce good results.

Okay. Thank you for that. So this is a question coming from a non-technical person and I don't understand too good. In terms of your collaboration with Vultr, and you were saying that it does help on your margins. Can you help me understand how this collaboration with Vultr is going to work if I want to segment it by project? Does it improve margins across the board or only in certain projects would it help the margins? And what I'm trying to ask is, is this going to be a company-wide margin improvement or is this going to be dependent on what sort of projects are being worked on?

Yes, that's a great question. So with regard to the projects that are impacted, it is specifically for the moment, programs being run through BioStrand, AI programs that require a significant amount of GPU usage. And I would encourage people to download the case study that we uploaded this morning. I think it is pretty I think it will be very digestible for people to take a look at. There's a few things about this that I think are important. One is the fact that it also enables us to do our work much faster. And the importance with that, of course, is that it increases our bandwidth and it enables us to cycle programs through more rapidly. But then the cost efficiencies too Vultr has been a great partner for us so far and they've enabled us to do some of this work and some of this program with free access to GPUs to be able to demonstrate that they can take on the type of very, very significantly heavy loads for GPU for things like de novo antibody design. And then, again, to really do this much faster and much cheaper than the standard cloud usage. So that brings a whole host of, I think, very tangible benefits primarily for the AI work, but that AI work is very rapidly increasing and expanding and pushing into our wet lab work. So we will see an effect also in wet lab works for that reason. Another thing we didn't really touch on, but I think is really interesting about these partnerships and I'll speak primarily about Vultr here. But as we mentioned, we also have been collaborating with AMD as well and then some other prominent GPU providers is that we're also co-marketing with these groups. We see a lot of synergies in leveraging the capabilities from each group. For us, of course, faster compute time, faster more or less expensive compute time, higher profit margins, benefits for our clients, but for them also access to pharmaceutical partners where we've already been through the onboarding process and they come an accepted vendor, which is not an easy process, and it's right time-consuming. And so we also have been leveraging not only through the marketing materials like you'll see in the download on our IR site this morning, but also through conferences that people will have noticed at NVIDIA last week. And the intent is to move forward with these companies in that same manner where we co-share marketing events, we co-share booths and marketing events. We promote each other's companies. And that not only expands our reach into different industries and different clients and different conferences specifically, but it also does not increase our cost per se because we're sharing the burden of that. So that's another aspect of those collaborations, we're quite excited about.

Thank you for that. The last question from me is, how should we think about ImmunoPrecise post-European divestiture. In the sense, it's going to be just Vancouver facility and the Austin facility. And then when Boston comes on board in full stream, would the cost kind of end up being the same place where they were when you had the EU or would it be comparatively less?

Yes, that's a great question. The company’s costs will be significantly reduced. European operations are more expensive than those in North America, partly due to necessary expansions. For example, one expansion involved moving from a building slated for demolition and the other site was no longer viewed as a startup by the local community. As a result, there have been extended expenses. Additionally, that site has become quite repetitive for us and is no longer a primary focus, as much of the work can be accomplished with our digital applications using LENSai. Maintaining two sites that provide similar services doesn't align with our strategic focus on software. Specifically, our overall operating costs will decrease, and the costs associated with the offerings in the Cambridge and Boston area are significantly lower due to a well-considered and creative effort. The operating costs and cost of goods sold related to those areas are considerably less. We plan to fill any gaps in our end-to-end capability service, which has always been beneficial for us. We hope that any revenue impact is temporary and that we can quickly restore those revenues while also benefiting from a strong cash influx, which we see as strategic at this point. While the timing of any improvement in the biotech market remains uncertain, our primary goal is to maintain the growth we're currently experiencing in our BioStrand unit.

Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer for taking all my questions.

Of course. Yes. Thank you, RK.

Hi, Team. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Joe.

Hi, Daby. Good to hear from you.

It's really awesome. Really great update in Puerto Rico. It's very rare that I get so excited for an amazing company doing tremendous guidance after the stock price lower than the earnings loss burn. Great recovery from BioStrand. I love hearing about this guidance. I mean already seeing 60% guidance already there. So I know it's going to get stronger. I just want to hear a little bit more about the rest of the GLP from AI because you're really becoming a really strong story for AI. So anything more towards that would be really helpful.

Yes. So just to reiterate the question is around the GLP from AI?

Correct. GLP from AI. You could talk about GLP in fact really GLP at AI.

Yes, absolutely. Yes. So the way that we looked at the GLP product from the AI is, first of all, we wanted to demonstrate to people some of those capabilities within LENSai. In particular, the ability to see insights that might not otherwise be uncovered. We are working on a white paper that demonstrates some of those insights that we saw with regard to the evolution and selective pressures on that molecule, the way it's related to things outside of just what we understand its role to be in diabetes and weight loss. And those insights have also helped us to pinpoint why some adverse events happen. But also why the molecules evolve the way they did. We feel that some of the benefits to that program that were offered by LENSai where our ability to really look at what the challenges are currently in the healthcare space, what are the resistance to use from the patient community and what are some of those adverse events. So some of the things that we tackled using LENSai were the stability of the molecule itself just at the sequence level. We looked at also because of that stability, increasing the longevity at which this is then also produced. We looked at differentiating it from other molecules to keep it free and clear from the patent space as well. Other things that we did was we looked at how we can align this with a formulation manner that overcomes some of the obstacles in the space, such as the need to inject oneself every day or once a week. If you're lucky enough to be on such a precise timeline. And the formulation and also the route of administration play a very big role in that. And so we have partnered with a number of companies. We really haven't named most of those companies, but we will, as we are able as more formal portions of the partnerships are signed, but those involve not only the manufacturing for the preclinical trials, but also a partnership for the preclinical work itself with a group that's very experienced in the diabetes and metabolic disease space. Also partnering with a group that has a delivery method where we believe that our drug product is specifically well-aligned to. So our drug product isn't like the same type of drug product in terms of its construction or its formulation that we see out there in the market for any other GLP product. It's extremely small in size. It's a unique way to deliver and it does have the potential to be delivered transdermally. And so one of the partners we're working with has a very unique already clinically proven transdermal application that enables not only the package of the material through the skin by the wearing of a patch, but also to more depth levels for broader distribution of the drug product into the bloodstream as well as slow release of that drug product, which again means that the person can be dosed on a less frequent basis, and that aligns really well with the way we have produced the drug product or the way the drug product is currently being produced because it already is being manufactured in a construct that is made for long-term sustainability with inside the cell. So there are a few of the things that we've been working on here lately. I think one of the most significant things is we've brought partners in and we've also been working with groups who want to partner to cover the cost of that program. So we aren't looking at thinking a lot of money in. We're really looking at, hey, how can we just collectively bring a better product forward. And for us, our main goal is demonstrating what LENSai is capable of, but without the risk of carrying the cost of the program.

Really, really excellent. I mean I'm having a lot of things to walk away with AI, this GLP patch, the 50% guidance move up and also the non-dilutive feature is really awesome. Thank you so much, Jen. Thank you, Frederic, and Joe welcome aboard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your insightful questions. I will now hand the call to Dr. Jennifer Bath, our CEO to conclude the call.

All right. Thank you very much, Frederic. All right. So as we conclude this quarter, ImmunoPrecise antibodies have achieved significant milestones. Notably, as we've discussed, we've secured a strategic partnership at the US$8 million to US$10 million range leveraging our B-cell select technology and our AI-driven capabilities. Our collaborations with leading partners like Vultr and AMD are enhancing our drug discovery capabilities, driving cost effectiveness and competitiveness. We've strengthened our financial position with an $8.8 million equity raise and relocated our headquarters to Austin, Texas, expanding our US footprint. The demand for therapeutic applications is growing rapidly with a notable increase in projects aimed at therapeutic ends. BioStrand has achieved a remarkable 131.8% year-over-year revenue increase just year-to-date with a 97% gross profit margin year-to-date, positioning us for sustainable long-term growth and increased shareholder value. As our AI-driven platforms continue to scale, we anticipate enhanced profitability and competitive edge in the evolving AI landscape healthcare landscape. Thank you for your attention and we look forward to sharing further updates our progress.

Ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining and you may now disconnect.