Bactiguard Holding AB (publ)

Thank you, operator, and welcome to the presentation of Backdoors Q4 and for the 2023 report. On my side, I have Patrick Bach, our CFO since November last year. Welcome to the team and to the financial markets, Patrick. Together, we will go through the presentation and as usual, be available for questions afterwards. But firstly, as I'm sure as you have seen, we announced some really exciting news yesterday evening. Back to God has appointed Christine Lind as its new CEO. With her international background, extensive experience from our industry combined with her modern collaborative and executional leadership style, Christine perfectly fits the bill for Back to God and our strategy ahead. In addition, being an American, having lived in Sweden since 2015, she can easily maneuver in both cultures. I cannot overestimate the value the US will have for BackGuard's future.

Christine will assume the role as CEO on May 14th in connection with the Annual General Meeting.

The headline of the report summarizes Q4 and the year in an excellent manner, a stable fourth quarter marking the end of a challenging year. 2023 was also characterized by fundamental change. Entering 2024, we have full focus on the licensed business, where the biggest potential for Back to Guard lies, both from a profitability and impact perspective. We will enable leading global medtech companies to bring their medical devices with backwards unique infection prevention coping technology to the market. It's our new strategy in a nutshell. And I'm confident that we are now putting the challenges of non profitability behind us. So what's happened since we announced the Sharpen strategy in October last year? The transformational transformation is well underway and I want to revisit this slide which I showed in connection with the Q3 report and give you an update. On licensing, as stated, we are doubling down and are working closer than ever with our current partners. The most important development during the fourth quarter was the strengthened relationship with Beck & Dickinson, our longest and strongest partnership. In fact, This both deepens our partner collaboration and we deliver the first of the three deliverables we promised to you, the market, to find partners for the three products within the bacterial infection prevention portfolio. I will revert to the latest agreement with BD in a minute. Look at the rest of the BIP medical devices, the yellow box. We are gradually terminating production and have discontinued our sales force. We're also in dialogue with both current and potential partners to license out back to us technology for the central venous catheters, the CVCs, and the endotracheal tubes, the ETTs. The conversations are positive and the interest is underpinned by the strong clinical data we have across the BIT portfolio gained over the last 10 years. As mentioned in my CEO statement, Back2Go has invested hundreds of millions of kroner in our coated medical devices over the past decade. This has not been in vain. It's the bedrock that we build upon when forming the future partnerships. And finally, the box in the middle, the backbone of our business, namely our infection prevention technology. most important asset. In the course of 2023, we have increased the focus on R&D, strengthened the Coating Development Organization, and institutionalized processes further. Following the strategic review, we decided to perform all coating and development activities in Sweden, and consequently, we have started building a new lab facility in Markary. Marker will be a complementary site for R&D and host training and technology certification activities. It will also be used to set up demo production lines for licensed partners.