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Advitech and its partners have
introduced their Dermylex™ nutraceutical
product for the management of psoriasis symptoms to clinics, drug stores and
dermatologists throughout the United States and Canada.
France will follow at the end of 2006.
Healthcare
Biotechnology
(AVI-TSXV)
Advitech Inc.
1165, boulevard Lebourgneuf, Suite 140
Quebec Canada G2K 2C9
Phone: 418-686-7498
Renaud Beauchesne
President and CEO
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
May 18, 2006
BIO:
Mr. Renaud Beauchesne, President and CEO
Mr. Beauchesne has held the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of Advitech
since the Company’s inception. Before founding Advitech, Mr. Beauchesne was an
associate of a major Canadian consulting firm specializing in marketing and strategic
planning with offices in Québec, Montreal, Ottawa and Paris (France). During this part of
his professional career, Mr. Beauchesne developed a strong expertise in the development of
bio-food and biotech companies, as well as strong ties with companies such as Ingredia,
Agropur, Nestlé, Novartis and others companies active in nutraceutical markets. Mr.
Beauchesne has an M.B.A. degree from Université Laval (Québec, Canada).
Company Profile:
CEOCFO: Mr. Beauchesne, what was your vision when you founded
Advitech?
Mr. Beauchesne: “The vision was quite simple; it was to
develop new health ingredients from dairy proteins, with good science and good clinical
results.”
CEOCFO: Where are you today in the process?
Mr. Beauchesne: “Right now we have our first product
(Dermylex) that has currently started to be marketed to in the U.S., Canada and Europe. We
are looking to expand the network to 3 or 4 additional partners in the next few
months.”
CEOCFO: Tell us about your XP-828L; what is the technology
there?
Mr. Beauchesne: “The XP-828L is branded as Dermylex and
is a mix of growth factors derived from whey protein, which is a dairy protein. We are
targeting 2 immune disorders, one of which is psoriasis and the other is inflammatory
bowel diseases.”
CEOCFO: What are growth factors?
Mr. Beauchesne: “The easiest way to illustrate growth
factors is when a mother gives natural milk to her baby, basically she is transferring her
own immune system to the baby and part of it is mainly a source of growth factor. With our
technology, we are concentrating the growth factor found in the milk in a product that is
targeting immune disorders. These are disorders that are related to the disregulation of
the immune system.”
CEOCFO: Why did you choose to start with psoriasis?
Mr. Beauchesne: “There are four major disorders that are
linked to the autoimmune disorders: psoriasis, irritable bowel disease, Type I diabetes
and rheumatoid arthritis. We have started to investigate the potential use to treat
autoimmune disorders. Stating in 2002, we have worked with a French company called Jouan
Biotech, they had already product, which is a bit different than the one that we are
marketing now, but they had results on a limited number of patients with psoriasis. After
securing a license with them to use their patent, we began investigating the psoriasis
application, did two clinical studies on this application and last year (2005), we did
some preclinical work on the second indication, which is the irritable bowel
disease.”
CEOCFO: Coming from a dairy product; does it have to go
through the approval FDA approval process?
Mr. Beauchesne: “Yes but we have chosen to go with a
more rapid path to sales and marketing; so we have chosen to go the nutraceutical path
rather than the pharmaceutical one. We are a natural product, compared to a pharma
product; this product has demonstrated its efficacy and its safety profile. We have done 2
clinical studies one was done in 2004, which was an open label study, meaning that there
were no placebos involved in the study. In 2005, we did a double blind placebo controlled
study, a randomized study on 84 patients. That means that we compared our product with a
placebo and with this study we have shown that the product was having efficacy for light
to moderate psoriasis. There were no side effects and because it was an oral product and
not a topical product, the patients were interested because most of the products out there
fore psoriasis is topical.”
CEOCFO: How are you marketing your product?
Mr. Beauchesne: “Advitech is a B2B company, which means
that we have partners on the manufacturing side and we are partners on the marketing side.
Our partners are targeting dermatologist and they are selling the product mostly in
clinics and drug stores.”
CEOCFO: You have entered several locations around the world;
do you have particular areas that you are targeting?
Mr. Beauchesne: “The biggest market is the U.S. market;
50% of all of sales worldwide are in the United States. Right now we have a partnership
with PhotoMedex (NASDAQ: PHMD), based in Montgomeryville, New York, and they provide
coverage of most of the mainland United States. In addition, we have introduced the
product in 5 different areas; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, New York and Dallas.”
CEOCFO: Is the medical community receptive to nutraceuticals
in this area?
Mr. Beauchesne: “More and more we get the feeling that
the medical community sees nutraceuticals as something that they would work with and
certainly 10 years after starting our business, the wave has increased. However, it does
still remain an effort to convince them although there is a percentage of doctors and
health professionals that are interested in natural products.”
CEOCFO: Tell us about the financial position of Advitech, as
it is always expensive getting a new product off the ground.
Mr. Beauchesne: “We were considered a start-up company
using Laval University expertise in 1997, and we’ve gone through 4 different terms of
private financing. We went public in 2004, but we’ll have to refinance the company be
the end of this year (2006).”
CEOCFO: What is ahead in terms of additional products coming
from your R&D efforts?
Mr. Beauchesne: “It is two-fold in that we think that
with our technology, we can bring a couple of new products to the dermatology area and
also with the irritable bowel disease product in which we will be targeting the gasteral
intestinal market. We also have access to other technologies that are revolving around
various proteins and growth factors, but we will need to raise more money to acquire other
technologies.”
CEOCFO: Why should potential investors be interested and what
do people often miss when they look at Advitech?
Mr. Beauchesne: “First of all, I think that we are a
good opportunity at this time because we are not on the radar of the major investors or in
the early stages of evaluation. In addition, we have access to sales opportunities, so
that we should be able to grow the company pretty rapidly be the end of 2006, the
beginning of 2007.”
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