Ion Beam Applications SA

Welcome to the IBA Half Year 2021 Resource Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A live question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Full instruction on how to take part will be provided at the end of the presentation. You can access a copy of the presentation as usual in the investor section on the IBA website. I would now like to turn the conference over to IBA's Chief Executive Officer, Olivier Legrand.

Thank you, Leco. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on our half-year results call. I'm Olivier. I'm the CEO of IBA. And with me today is Soumya Chandramouli, our CFO. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the company's disclaimer on forward-looking statements. First of all, I would like to start today by thanking the entire IBA team and our customers for their hard work and understanding in what has been a very challenging environment for all of us. While challenges from COVID-19 remain, we are pleased to see that hard work paying off and the strong resilience of our businesses. And I'm delighted to report on our positive progress over the first part of the year. As always, I will give an overview of our business and run through our outlook for the future. Soumya and I will then summarize our financial statements, and we will then be happy to take any questions. As you know, the group is founded on our world leading expertise in particle beam technology. which falls across four core business lines, proton therapy, radiopharma, industrial solutions, and dosimetry. Each of these business lines has seen good momentum over the period with increased activity and backlog conversion as compared to the previous year. Diving into the key statistics, you'll see our many years of experience reflected in the number of accelerators in operation, as well as our market leading position across our four business units. I draw your attention particularly to the increasing importance of radiopharma solution business, which includes nuclear medicine, a market that has grown almost 6% yearly over the last seven years. IBA is firmly committed to impactful environmental, social and governance goals. And our first major step towards a new sustainable stakeholder approach began this year with the company receiving the B Corp certification in June. We focus on being a force for good, reconciling profit with social purpose and contributing to a more sustainable and inclusive economy and society. I'll now run through the key operational highlights for 2021 so far. In terms of order intake, we've seen one five-room Proteus Plus deal agreed in China, with a Proteus One deal currently being negotiated in the United States. Elsewhere, 14 machines have been ordered with other accelerators in the period, with four Further post-period end, the latest toll today, almost as we speak. Dosimetry has also seen a solid order intake on par with H1 2020. A total of 14 installations began in the period, comprising one in proton therapy and the remainder with other accelerators. Backlog is high at €1.1 billion. While several projects have been delayed, we should see an increased rate of installation in the second half of the year. All of this is underpinned by a very strong balance sheet. Net cash at the end of H1 was 69 million euros and has since increased to more than 110 million euros. On the broader corporate side, we have been pleased to achieve a number of milestones. On the technology side, our high-energy cyclotron, the Cyclone ICON, was launched, which should open up options for theranostic applications. We have also been pleased to launch a number of collaborations, which include an expanded collaboration with Northstar to increase the availability of the diagnostic radioisotope technicium-99. More recently, IBA announced its participation in a European-wide proton therapy trial in oesophageal cancer, which includes six IBA centers. You see a snapshot here on the financial highlights. As announced this morning, a few points to pick up are there. Group revenue of 137 million represents an increase of 25%. on H1 2020, which is linked to increased activity across the business lines and better backlog conversion. We've already highlighted the record equipment and service backlog, but do also note the significant increase in proton therapy and other accelerator equipment revenue up 86%. Proton therapy services continue to perform well, with a total of 55 contracts now signed globally. I will now hand you over to Soumya, who will take you through the financial highlights.

Thank you, Olivier. The slide really highlights the strong financial progress that we made over the year. And as you can see, although we have continued to be affected by the pandemic, sales in the first half were still up 25% from the same period last year. And we ended the period with a rebate profit of 0.7 million, which is up 10.6 million from last year. And finally, our total group loss also decreased to 1.9 million, representing an improvement of more than 10 million euros on last year's loss. Furthermore, I'm pleased to say that our equipment and service backlog has stayed really high at 1.1 billion, thanks to an equipment backlog of 429 million and a service backlog of 687 million, both fed by the sales that we've made over the first half of 2021. Now, moving on to proton therapy and other accelerators. Sales were up 29.5% versus last year, which reflects the improvement in backlog conversion, despite persistent difficulties, as I mentioned earlier, with the pandemic, especially for travel. There was also one new sale in proton therapy and 14 others for other accelerators at end of the period, encouraging pipeline, ensuring that we are in a strong position for the remainder of the year and beyond. The strong improvements in Revit reflects this improved backlog conversion alongside the ongoing cost control. As mentioned, we were quite pleased to see that our equipment revenues went up so strongly versus 2020, 129% actually, with 21 projects currently either in production or under installation, including eight Proteus Plus and 13 Proteus One machines. Other accelerators were up 62%, reflecting the strong order intake. and backlog conversion and continued stability in services as all of our proton therapy centers remained open and treated patients. I now hand back to Olivier to take you through a more detailed business update.