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Current Technology’s
CosmeticTrichoGenesis product is being
introduced in the U.S. while their ElectroTrichoGenesis
solution for hair loss is gaining acceptance in Asia and Europe having received a CE
Medical Mark
Healthcare
SPA Industry
(CRTCF.OB)
Current Technology Corporation
800 West Pender Street, Suite 1430
Vancouver B.C. V6C2V6
Phone: 604-684-2727
Robert Kramer
President and CEO
Interview conducted by:
Walter Banks, Publisher
CEOCFOinterviews.com
September 22, 2005
BIO:
ROBERT KRAMER is the co-founder of Current Technology Corporation along with his
wife Anne Kramer. The company was formed in 1987 to research, develop and commercialize
electrotherapeutic products for the treatment of hair loss. An entrepreneur by nature,
with a particular interest in the financial sector, he has been a founder/principal of a
number of private companies offering commercial mortgages, venture capital and tax driven
investments. Prior to co-founding Current Technology, he was a joint venture partner in an
enterprise that raised funding for approximately 20 public mining companies conducting
exploration activities in Western Canada. A graduate of the University of California at
Berkeley with a degree in economics, Mr. Kramer has been a member of the Canadian
Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British
Columbia for over 30 years. In 2000, he earned his designation as a Certified Public
Accountant in the State of Illinois. In 2005 he was admitted as a Fellow to The
Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Company Profile:
Current Technology Corporation, founded in 1987, remains committed to developing its
non-invasive pulsed electro-stimulation technology. This technology has enabled the
company to develop two separate and distinct products emanating from the TrichoGenesis
platform, thus far, that offer help for those concerned with their hair:
ElectroTrichoGenesis (ETG) and CosmeticTrichoGenesis (CTG). Current Technology holds
patents throughout the world and has spent over US $15 million in research and development
of its TrichoGenesis platform and systems. The patents encompass the technology,
methodology and design of the company’s products.
CEOCFO: Mr. Kramer,
could you start by describing your technology platform and why you are excited about its
potential in the U.S. as well as other places?
Mr. Kramer: “Current technology has developed an
electro-therapeutic platform that we call TrichoGenesis. It is patented, proprietary and
unique and it has been developed into two product streams. The first product we call
ElectroTrichoGenesis or ETG, standing for the regrowth of hair by means of electrical
stimulation. ETG is not available in the United States. We have spent a considerable
amount of time and money subjecting this technology to independently controlled clinical
trials, and the results have been published in peer reviewed medical journals. The results
have demonstrated that our process is very effective, that in clinical trials, over 90% of
the people that take our treatment have no further excessive hair loss or actually re-grow
hair that has been lost. Those trials demonstrated an average increase over the 36-week
clinical trial period of 66%. It is rather significant and very interesting from a
commercial standpoint. That product recently received medical approval of what is called a
CE medical mark in Europe; that mark is good all around the world outside of the United
States.
We have developed a second product that we call CosmeticTrichoGenesis and we are just
starting to market it in the US as a cosmetic product without making any medical claims.
This was recently introduced at the spa show in NYC at the end of May and a Yale-trained
Board Certified Dermatologist, Dr. Morris Westfried, is our distributor in NYC. He has
opened a center on West 57th that features CosmeticTrichoGenesis. He is
starting to develop that market by placing units in salon and spa centers as well as in
the purpose built center that he has developed in NYC. We are at a point as a company,
where our products are being introduced to market places around the world - outside the
U.S. it’s our medical product ETG and within the U.S. our cosmetic product CTG.”
CEOCFO: What
differentiates the ElectroTrichoGenesis from the cosmetic?
Mr. Kramer: “The technology platform is the same but the
regimen is different; that is there is a distinction in the treatment regimen that exists
for the ETG product vs. the session schedule that exists for the CTG. If I can use an
analogy that is not 100% accurate, but I think that will be understood, and that is the
distinction between a prescription product on the one hand and an OTC strength on the
other.”
CEOCFO: Is there a
similar cost between the two methods?
Mr. Kramer: “We do not attempt to control the cost to
the individual consumer. On average, we are looking at something in the order of $25-$35
per session for the CTG or per treatment for ETG. Generally, the CTG sessions last
approximately fifteen minutes once a week. It is a simple process and I think it is
important that someone can come into a location, sit down, have a hood lowered over the
head with nothing touching the scalp, no sensation and no side-effects. You have the
session, you are in and out in fifteen minutes and you just have to do it once a
week.”
CEOCFO: Do you have any
patents on your product?
Mr. Kramer: “We have a number of patents that have been
issued in the U.S. and other areas of the world and have done considerable searches on an
ongoing basis of the literature both from a scientific standpoint and a commercial
standpoint. There are other agents out there that claim to do things from a hair
standpoint, but we are unaware of anything that uses the type of technology that we do to
affect the result that we achieve.”
CEOCFO: How long have
you been around?
Mr. Kramer: "We started working on the technology at the
end of the nineteen eighties.”
CEOCFO: How do you get
your product to the market?
Mr. Kramer: “This is a product that has been designed
for commercial application, that is, it is not a home-use or individual-use kind of
product. It is designed so that depending on the setting, it could go into a spa or into a
high-end beauty salon or into a dermatologist’s office. It is designed so that
individuals will come in on a regular basis to that center and avail themselves of the
service. It provides for the owner/operator of the equipment a revenue stream that can be
substantial. If the equipment is booked just a little more than once an hour, you are
going to end up with something like eighty sessions per week and over the course of a
fifty-week year, you are looking at four thousand sessions. Over the course of a year at a
figure of $25, that is incremental revenue of $100,000 that would apply to this particular
piece of equipment, so from a commercial standpoint it is very interesting for the
operator.”
CEOCFO: So you sell to
salons and doctor’s offices; are there any other places?
Mr. Kramer: “Some of the locations are designed
specifically for the equipment, that is the location is built around the equipment and in
some instances, it is an add-on to some existing locations where people normally go to
deal with hair related or cosmetic related issues. For example, in Singapore, our
distributor there is a company called Gromark Consumers Enterprise Pte. Ltd., a very
successful company that has marketed in Southeast Asia both for Moet Hennessy and for
British American Tobacco. Gromark has moved away from alcohol and tobacco and into
anti-aging and health related products and that is where we come in. They have opened a
center in the most prestigious medical building in Singapore called the Camden Medical
Center and are featuring our ETG product there. They are assisting us in opening up that
particular part of the world; we have shipped or will be shipping shortly into Korea,
Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and of course Singapore, working directly with
Gromark in all instances except Korea.”
CEOCFO: Do you work
through strictly distributorship or do you have your own sales staff?
Mr. Kramer: “We would typically work through a
distributor or sub-distributor. Sometimes those relationships are based on geography.
For example, Gromark is the exclusive distributor for Singapore. We work with them
and they go out into the marketplaces. In Hong Kong, they have made an agreement with a
firm that is going to be entering the market on our behalf. Gromark will be our
distributor and they will bring the sub-distributor to the table. It varies depending upon
circumstances but we generally work through distributors.”
CEOCFO: In how many
countries are you active presently?
Mr. Kramer: “We are in about sixteen countries at this
point, with particular focus in the Asian Pacific region. The United States is very
important as far as our CTG product is concerned. We have limited presence in Europe
(Cypress, Greece and Ireland) but are looking at enhancing that situation over the course
of the coming year.”
CEOCFO: Will future
growth come from deeper penetration into current markets or expansion?
Mr. Kramer: “It will come from both. Our expansion in
the Asia Pacific region is relatively new so we are at the front-end of it. We can see an
increased footprint in particular markets but also an increase in the number of markets in
the Asia Pacific region. In Europe, it will be a matter of introducing into new markets,
that is we do not have a presence in a number of countries that we feel have very
significant potential for us such as Germany, France, Italy etc., and we will be focusing
on those areas as we move forward.”
CEOCFO: Is your product
more effective for people who have lost their hair through illness, or is it just as
effective for those with male pattern baldness?
Mr. Kramer: “We originally developed the product to deal
from a medical standpoint, with male or female pattern baldness. The initial clinical work
that we did was supportive of that effort so the statistics that I quoted earlier, related
specifically to the use of our product in treating individuals who had a particular level
of hair loss that would be generally qualified or described as common baldness. We have
also with our ETG product done some interesting work with women undergoing chemotherapy
for breast cancer where we have used our ETG technology to treat the women before they
start taking their chemotherapy regimens, staying with them all the way through the
regimen and subsequent to it. We have found with a particular chemo cocktail, the acronym
is CMF, that the individuals who participated in a pilot study at a breast cancer clinic
in New Zealand were able to keep their hair even though they were undergoing chemo. It is
a dramatic result that we are very pleased about.”
CEOCFO: How does that
compare with other products on the market such as drugs?
Mr. Kramer: “There are a number of other products on the
marketplace. We have not done head-to-head clinical comparisons as an example between our
ETG product and either Rogaine or Propecia. We have received anecdotal evidence from
individuals that have used or worked with our ETG product and their view is that it is a
superior solution. It might be useful to look at the modality, which I think is of
interest, because people today are interested in drugless solutions and non invasive
solutions and our product qualifies in that regard. Particularly for women, we feel that
we have a product that is quite superior in terms of its design. Our TrichoGenesis
solution for hair loss does not require any lotions or potions to be put on the head. Such
an application can be difficult when a woman is attempting to maintain a particular
hairstyle. Some products require even twice daily applications, and ours is just once a
week for fifteen minutes. We think that from a no-fuss no-muss standpoint in terms of how
the product is delivered, that it is very superior and easier to deal with.”
CEOCFO: Do you have the
funds to go forward or do you need to raise more capital?
Mr. Kramer: “We have been supported over time by a group of very loyal
shareholders. We have never done a secondary public offering. Everything we have done has
been by way of private placement with restricted stock and we continue to work in that
area. We believe that with the support we have had in the past and which we hope will
continue, it will put us in a position to roll out our business plan.”
CEOCFO: In closing, do
you have any float available for investors and why do you think investors should be
interested?
Mr. Kramer: “Our stock is CRTCF. We trade on the OTC:
BB. As I indicated earlier, we have a loyal following and about 2,200 shareholders at this
point based on our last annual general meeting explanation. Probably fifty names would
give you about 75% of the stock that is outstanding. Yes there is a float, although it is
relatively tight. I think the shareholders who are involved with us have a vision of this
company delivering a technology both in the medical space and the cosmetic space around
the world that has significant potential. One of the reasons for this is because we have
developed a unique communication piece that allows us to communicate with our equipment
all over the world and by doing so we control quality assurance and quality control to
make sure the equipment is working properly, but very importantly earn a downstream
revenue. Every time the equipment is used we earn a click fee or a per use fee that varies
somewhat but is potentially quite significant, and I believe that is why our shareholders
are interested in us. The stock is trading at a relatively tight range in and around the
20-cent mark and I think most people who are looking at us now believe that as we enter
the market in Asia and look at significant potential in Europe and start to develop the
market in the U.S., and if they get in at these levels, they are getting involved in a
company with some significant potential growth.”
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