Amir London, CEO of Kamada Pharmaceuticals, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access.
Kamada is a global biopharmaceutical company with a portfolio of assets indicated for rare and serious conditions. The company reports it is a leader in the specialty plasma-derived field, focused on diseases with limited treatment alternatives.
Mr. London was on the program to discuss exciting developments in the company's development pipeline as well as Mr. London's strategy for M&A.
Kamada is a global biopharmaceutical company with a portfolio of assets indicated for rare and serious conditions. The company reports it is a leader in the specialty plasma-derived field, focused on diseases with limited treatment alternatives.
Mr. London was on the program to discuss exciting developments in the company's development pipeline as well as Mr. London's strategy for M&A.
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00:00And it is my pleasure to welcome in the CEO of Kamada Pharmaceuticals, Amir London.
00:08It's fantastic to be with you today, Amir.
00:12Thank you, Dan.
00:12Thank you for having me.
00:14The pleasure and honor is all mine.
00:15Well, let's just start off here and give everyone an overview of your company, if you want.
00:19Yes, absolutely.
00:21Kamada is a publicly traded commercial stage biopharmaceutical company focused on a specialty
00:27plasma-derived product, a very unique biopharmaceutical field of activity.
00:33We are global leaders in that field with six FDA-approved products.
00:37Everything we do is life-saving therapeutics.
00:41We are vertically integrated from plasma collection through R&D development, clinical trials,
00:47production, all the way to commercializing our products in over 35 countries across the globe.
00:54That's amazing stuff.
00:55And let's dive a little deeper, Amir.
00:57What are plasma-derived therapeutics?
00:59And why is this approach especially powerful?
01:02Okay.
01:03Thank you very much.
01:04So plasma-derived therapeutics are basically products, therapeutics, drugs, which are made
01:09from human plasma.
01:11So we collect human plasma in plasma collection centers, mainly based in the U.S.
01:16We have the ability to collect plasma from people that have high titer, high antibody level
01:22against specific viruses.
01:23We know how to quantify the potency of those antibodies.
01:30And we know how to purify them into drugs, into pharmaceuticals that are used in all kinds
01:35of acute cases.
01:37I'll give maybe just two examples.
01:38One product called KEDRAB, or outside of the U.S., CAMRAB, which is anti-rabis hemoglobulin,
01:44which means anti-rabis antibodies for people that were exposed to potentially rabid animal, which
01:50is a deadly disease.
01:51The second type of product is our cytogun, which is an anti-CMV.
01:56CMV is a type of virus which is the number one reason for rejection or failure of solid
02:03organ transplantation.
02:05Patients that are exposed to this virus may lose their new organ.
02:09And we give them a boost of those specific antibodies as part of the procedure.
02:14So these are really acute cases, you know, acute care, transplantation, very unique products.
02:25And we've developed a significant know-how.
02:27We've been around for 35 years.
02:29We've been public on NASDAQ since 2013.
02:33And we're making great progress in our unique field of activity.
02:38Now, it's absolutely fascinating stuff.
02:40And I know, Amir, you had a positive year on report.
02:42Revenue was up 13% year over year.
02:45What were the main drivers of this growth, as well as your 2025 guidance?
02:48And what will contribute to this year's growth?
02:51Excellent.
02:51So, yes, we had a very good year.
02:542024 was a record year for Kamada.
02:55By the way, just yesterday, on the 7th, so two days ago,
03:00it was the first time that we actually paid dividend based on the very strong results of 2024.
03:06Yeah, it's good to be a CEO of a company that had just paid dividend for the first time.
03:10I'm sure that the shareholders like me today.
03:14In any case, yeah, we had a very strong year.
03:17We've grown based on multiple products.
03:20We opened plasma collection centers.
03:21We grew significantly our anti-revis product in the U.S. market.
03:25From a $32 million in the year prior to $50 million sales in 2024.
03:31We've grown our CytoGum, the CMV product, which I mentioned earlier, from $17 million to around $23 million.
03:39So this was a very good year for us in terms of significant growth drivers.
03:43Moving between 2024 to 2025, I'm happy to say that we're basically growing in all our lines of business, in all products.
03:52So it's a really well-balanced growth, not just focused on one product, one territory, but across multiple pillars of growth that we have.
04:00And we guided the market, we'll be selling in 2025 between $178 to $182 million, with EBITDA between $38 to $42 million.
04:12We're running at around 22%, 23% of EBITDA from top line.
04:16We've been improving our bottom line and top line every year, double digits, in the last few years.
04:22And we've improved the rate of EBITDA from top line, which means that we are growing in a very profitable way.
04:29Those are great numbers.
04:30And listen, they always love you as CEO, Amer, but definitely love you even more when there's a dividend.
04:34So that's great stuff.
04:36I know you mentioned your target to expand commercial operations through M&A.
04:40Could you elaborate on what types of M&A you're looking to secure right now?
04:43Yeah, so we're trying, of course, to look for target opportunities, and we're screening for opportunities in areas as synergetic as possible to our current business.
04:54So we are, as I mentioned, a commercial stage.
04:56We have products all in the U.S.
04:57We have our commercial team focused on plasma-derived and transplantation centers.
05:03We're covering all major transplants in the U.S.
05:06We're looking even broader than that.
05:08You know, we have activities also in the Middle East where we have our own commercial team distributing our products.
05:14So it's an area of multiple areas that we're looking at, and we're very optimistic that we'll be able to execute at least one transaction in licensing or M&A this year.
05:25We finished the year with over $78 million, and we plan that this money will mainly be used in order to accelerate the growth through acquisitions.
05:34Of course. And I know you also, you've expanded your plasma collection capabilities.
05:39What is the strategic goal around this activity?
05:42Right. So we are opening plasma collection centers.
05:44We opened one in Houston in September of last year, just recently opened another one in San Antonio.
05:49These are very large, automated, highly advanced plasma centers.
05:54We focus on specialty plasma for our needs, anti-rabies, anti-epithitis, anti-D,
06:00and we're also using the balance capacity in each one of those centers to collect what's called normal source plasma, regular plasma,
06:06which is being used basically for other purposes, making more like generic type of immunoglobulins.
06:12And this is something that we're going to sell out to our external partners.
06:16So it's both being more vertically integrated, more independent, reducing our cost of goods,
06:20and being able to increase our top line by selling plasma to external partners.
06:26That's fantastic. And I wanted to get you to tell me a little bit about your lead product that hailed AAT and what the next milestone is.
06:34Correct. So this is a lead product in development.
06:36So as I said, we have six FDA-approved products.
06:38We have multiple clinical programs.
06:41The most advanced one is a next-generation investigational treatment for a disease called alpha-ondeficiency.
06:47We are selling through an agreement with Takeda in the U.S., the kind of third-generation product, which is an IV treatment, infused treatment.
06:56We will be able, using our advanced technology, to also develop it as an inhaled, nebulized, non-invasive treatment done by patients at home without need to go to the clinic.
07:07It's in the middle of the phase three study.
07:09The next milestone will be towards the end of this year.
07:11We're going to have an interim data based on statistical analysis that we're going to do using an external kind of unblinded committee,
07:21which is going to look into our – have a peek into our data and give us feedback on the data-to-date.
07:29Yes. So this will be by the end of the year.
07:31As mentioned, we are on midway into the phase three pivotal study.
07:36This area is already around $1.2, $1.3 billion, growing significantly.
07:42We expect that if we are successful in the current study and we bring the product to the market, we will be a major player in the $2 billion market.
07:49So this can be a really very nice add-on to our existing growing business.
07:53I love it.
07:54Very exciting times that come out of pharmaceuticals.
07:56Listen, it was an absolute pleasure talking with you, Amir.
07:58Thank you so much for your time.
08:00Thank you very much, Dan, and good luck.
08:02Bye-bye.