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spk00: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the MetaFarm Labs 2023 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Before we begin, please note that remarks today may contain forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This includes, without limitation, statements about MetaFarm Labs, and its current and future plans, expectations, intentions, financial results, levels of activity, performance, goals or achievements, and other future events, trends, or developments. Statements about MetaFarm's acquisition of Vivo Cannabis Incorporated, the combined company's future financial and operational performance, the combined company's key business segments, product offerings, pro forma, and overall financial performance. Potential revenue and cost synergies resulting from the transaction and statements about combined companies profitability and ability to grow the business going forward. forward looking statements are made as of the date here of based on information currently available to management of Meta farm. And on estimates and assumptions made based on factors that Meta farm believes are appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances. However, there can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Certain material factors or assumptions were implied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusions, forecasts, or projections in the forward-looking information, pardon me, and the material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information are contained in MetaFarm Labs filings with the Canadian and provincial security regulators, which are available on CDAR at CDAR.com. The company's remarks may also contain references to certain non-IFRS financial measures, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, gross profit, and adjusted gross profit. These measures do not have any standardized meaning according to the International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. MediPharm believes that the non-IFRS measures referenced provide information useful to shareholders and investors in understanding our performance and may assist in the evaluation of the combined company's business relative to that of its peers. For more information, please see the section titled Reconciliation of Non-IFRS Measures, the most recent MD&A of MetaFarm, which is available on CDAR. MetaFarm's actual financial position and results of operations may differ materially from management's current expectations. As a result, we cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statements or financial outlooks will materialize, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and except as may be required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I will now pass the call to David Piduck. CEO of MetaFarm. Please go ahead, sir.
spk05: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for MetaFarm Labs' second quarter results conference call. Joining me on the call today are Keith Straughan, MetaFarm's president, and Greg Hunter, the company's chief financial officer. I will address some of our strategic initiatives and then hand the call over to Keith and Greg to provide more detail on the quarterly results. This is our first full quarter conference call following the veto acquisition, so I would like to welcome legacy Vivo shareholders, stakeholders, and employees to this call. In Q2, Metafarm was focused on the integration of Vivo Cannabis, which closed on April 1st. The acquisition of Vivo was a transformative transaction for Metafarm Labs and has essentially doubled our revenue. In addition to doubling our revenue, we have reduced our combined OpEx by over $3 million per quarter and improved our combined adjusted EBITDA by over $4 million per quarter. That's over 16 million annualized. With the integration of Beacon Medical Australia, our international footprint is even stronger, and the combined company's annualized international revenue will represent over one-third of our total sales. In 2022, the separate companies had negative adjusted EBITDA of almost $30 million. We have dramatically improved these results by bringing the two companies together. Our current quarterly adjusted EBITDA was negative 3.2 million. This represents a very substantial improvement of approximately 50%. While we are very proud of this progress and our trajectory, the team continues to work on further cost reduction and driving more growth in our profitable revenue stream. I'm happy to report that we are ahead of schedule with our integration and cost savings targets. Thanks to the efforts of our newly combined team members, We were ready on day one with detailed communication for all employees regarding their roles, reporting, and how any changes affected each individual. Thanks to this early communication, all personnel changes have now been fully implemented. We've now reduced the combined non-direct labor workforce by approximately 30% since the announcement of the transaction. This is in addition to previously announced restructuring efforts made separately by both companies in 2022. As a result of all of these efforts, total non-direct labor headcount between both companies will have been reduced by approximately 45% compared to January 2022. Restructuring has been implemented at all levels, including the C-suite. Senior level executive positions have now been reduced by 50%. These senior level changes represent a large portion of the employee-related cost savings. We had previously shared a synergy goal of annualized $7 to $9 million between cost savings and revenue. We are well ahead of all cost-related energy targets by both dollar and timeline measures and on track for some of the key revenue synergies that Keith will address in our medical international channels. Revenue is up approximately 120% over Q2 2022. Adjusted EBITDA has improved 50% over Q2 2022. Combined OPEX of VEVO and MPL has been decreased approximately $7 million versus 2022 first half. Combined adjusted EBITDA losses have been reduced $7 to $8 million versus the first half of 2022. As mentioned, our Q2 adjusted EBITDA was negative $3.2 million. This EBITDA improvement, combined with our strong balance sheet, gives us a solid runway to pursue our growth initiative, including M&A opportunities. Post-transaction, we continue to have a strong balance sheet with limited debt and a solid cash position relative to our peers. We have less than $3 million in debt, and we have unencumbered ownership of all of our major assets. This strong balance sheet with about $15 million in cash is expected to provide confidence in NPL's ability to execute on our strategic growth roadmap. In addition, as Greg will address, we have various potentially sizable cash inflows in the next few quarters. There's been a lot of discussion in the industry about CRA excise tax liabilities that many companies have been running up. For clarity, MPL has always been and remains fully up to date in any CRA excise tax obligations. We often questioned how some of our peers were able to sell products seemingly below cost, as the government has reported $200 million in uncollected excise exposure, and several CCAA filings have now made clear there are a number of companies that have enjoyed a significant cost advantage simply by not paying their excise obligations. As an industry, we have asked for a reduction, standardization, and simplification of excise taxes, and also for potentially excluding medical patients from taxes. But in the short term, just ensuring that all companies are actually paying the existing taxes would be one good step towards market stabilization. A few other key firsts that Keith will highlight were our successful FDA inspection, first for a Canadian cannabis company, and the first shipment of cannabis pharmaceutical products to the U.S. by Canadian LP for an NIH-funded clinical trial. While Greg will share more details later in the call to summarize, revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA all dramatically improved versus prior year, versus prior quarter, and versus trailing 12 months. largely driven by the successful Vivo integration and cost reduction initiatives. All key metrics, both financial and non-financial, are going in the right direction. We're exactly where we plan to be. This includes focusing on profitable revenue streams and addressing low-margin products through price increases, cost decreases, and skew rationalization. Our experience with Vivo integration has shown that we can quickly and profitably integrate and drive synergies with like-sized organizations and we are confident that this approach can be repeated. In 2023, we will continue to focus on reducing costs, driving revenue growth in selected profitable segments, progressing our pharmaceutical milestones, and pursuing synergistic M&A. We will remain focused on executing our strategy, and as discussed, we're on track to driving $7 to $9 million in annualized EBITDA improvement from the VO transaction and driving towards positive adjusted EBITDA. I will now pass the call over to Keith.
spk04: Thanks, David. Q2 was busy and exciting as we integrated Vivo. In many cases, digging in and intimately learning their business reminded me of when we started operations at Medifarm in 2018. The fun and hard work involved with drinking from the fire hose of new information in a still very new sector. I would like to personally thank the Vivo and Medifarm team, current and past, for supporting this transition. I was confident in our Synergy savings estimates, but impressed on how quickly we were able to achieve them. Our focus commercially in Q2 was reviewing the new and legacy business lines to ensure we were focusing efforts on high growth and high margin areas. These would include things like new partnerships in Brazil, adding Medifarm products to our medical e-commerce site, and expanding the established Beacon Medical Australia business to include non-flour products. The approach is to go deeper with good customers and products versus going wider and stretching resources into unknown outcomes. This focused approach allowed us to expand gross profit by the biggest quarter over quarter jump in company history. The best Medifarm adjusted gross profit since Q4 2019 and reduced OPEX, all while maintaining revenue. Even as we made material progress in right-sizing the business, we completed some major milestones in new areas of growth. In Q2, we completed important regulatory steps to optimize our German supply chain to drastically improve margins by the end of this year. And subsequent to the quarter, we hit the major milestone of our first commercial shipment of clinical trial material to the US. The US shipment followed a process where the clinical trial required endorsement via the FDA investigational new drug approval and DEA import approval. In order for Medifarm to even be considered by our NIH-funded research partner, we required an extensive list of qualifications and licenses, including our Health Canada Drug Establishment License and US FDA Foreign Site Registration. both which came after millions of dollars in investment, years of work on our quality management system, and in-depth audits. These attributes have created a competitive moat for us in the pharmaceutical cannabis sector. This sector growth timeline is long by nature, but we have seen progress. The latest cycle of funding grants by the Canadian Institute of Health Research provided funding to three of our clinical research partners. And in the US, the possible rescheduling of cannabis could open the floodgates on new research opportunities. At Medifarm, we are ready with the qualifications and capacity to take on these high margin projects. These quality and GMP attributes also contributed to international progress in Q2, the largest recent impact being in Australia. As of July 1st, 2023, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Association mandated that all cannabis imports must meet GMP requirements. This limited some of the non-GMP products that were currently entering the market under the guise of a special access program. In Q2, we delivered contract manufactured GMP vapes to Australia and prepared for a launch of Beacon Medical oil and vapes. Beacon Medical's new products will be comprised of the first GMP line in Australia where a patient can choose a flour, full-spectrum oil, or full-spectrum vape, all from the same strain, allowing patients to access a consistent therapeutic benefit across all three delivery methods. This line will launch in Q3. The Beacon Medical Flour Portfolio is currently the number three flour brand by sales, and we anticipate these high-margin products to have the same success. Before turning to Greg to discuss financials, I'd like to point out and briefly explain a new business channel in our financial statements and disclosures. The channel of Canadian medical cannabis has been added post-vivo acquisition. This includes our direct-to-patient medical platform, known as CannaFarms, sales to other LPs medical channels, and our patient clinics, Harvest Medicines. CannaFarms is a top 10 revenue generating direct to patient medical platform in Canada. Patients with a prescription register with CannaFarms e-commerce site where they can select from over a hundred SKUs in all cannabis formats and be directly shipped to their home. Harvest Medicine is an education focused patient centric cannabis discovery clinic operating in three locations and via telemedicine Harvest Medicine has conducted more than 150,000 registered patient visits through its clinics, making it one of the top clinic networks in Canada. With the addition of Vivo, we are now in every major cannabis channel, as well as meaningful revenue in every major federally legal market, including Canada, Australia, Germany, UK, Brazil, and even dipping our toes into the U.S. with clinical trial material. This diversification gives us the foundation to support further growth both organically and through M&A. I'll now pass the call to Greg to discuss Medifarm's financials.
spk03: Thanks Keith and good morning everyone. As David and Keith discussed, we continue to focus on growing our revenue base through organic and inorganic initiatives. reducing cash burn and driving towards profitability as key priorities. Before reviewing the results for the quarter, let me add some additional commentary on the progress we made on these priorities. On April 1st, 2023, we closed the acquisition of Vivo Cannabis in an all equity business combination. In aggregate, Medifarm issued 107.9 million shares valued at approximately 8.1 million. As discussed last quarter, we're committed to delivering synergies of $7 to $9 million on an annualized basis. In the first week post-closing the transaction, we implemented plans to reduce the combined Medifarm and Vivo non-direct labor workforce by approximately 30% and undertook steps to reduce public company costs as well. We have now achieved approximately $7 million in savings on an annualized basis. This is in addition to the $3 million of annualized savings from restructuring we completed in late 2022. Turning to the P&L performance for the second quarter. Revenue for the second quarter of $9.6 million increased approximately 120% versus Q2 2022 and 64% versus Q1 2023 as we integrated the Bevo acquisition. Revenue in our new Canadian medical channel of 3.8 million increased exponentially versus just 0.2 million in Q2 2022 and 0.6 million in Q1 2023 as we integrated the vivo medical business. Revenue in the international medical channel was 3.0 million versus 0.9 million in Q2 2022 and 1.8 million in Q1 2023. representing a 249% and 66% growth respectively. The growth of the international medical channel was largely driven by the integration of Vivo's Australian business, Beacon Medical. The international business represented approximately 33% of total revenue in the quarter. Revenue in the Canadian adult use and wellness channel was 2.4 million, which declined versus Q2 2022 and Q1 2023 as we selectively increased prices and rationalize products as we prioritize profitability over volume. Pharmaceutical and B2B revenue in Q2 23 was 0.3 million. As Keith discussed previously, pharmaceutical revenue is a longer-term strategy and will take time to pay off as the market continues to develop. However, we hit some major milestones with the successful FDA inspection and the first U.S. pharmaceutical shipment. Gross profit for Q2 was positive 0.8 million, or approximately 8%, which is the third consecutive quarter with positive gross margins. Gross profit in the quarter was impacted by several discrete items, including fair value adjustments for biological assets, inventory write-downs for some older international flour, and severance for restructuring. Adjusting for these items, gross margin was approximately 21%. Gross margin continues to improve driven by product mix, production efficiencies, price increases, and cost reduction initiatives. Our management team continues to aggressively prioritize driving gross margin improvements. General and administrative expense in the second quarter of $5.8 million increased versus prior year and sequentially as we incorporated $2.1 million of VivoG&A into Medifarm. Our G&A expense for the quarter was impacted by $1.4 million of severance expense for restructuring. Adjusting for severance, G&A expense was $4.4 million, which increased sequentially and increased versus prior year, driven by the incorporation of VEVO. Retrospectively, if VEVO were included in our Q2 2022 results, G&A expense in the quarter declined approximately 35%, reflecting our combined cost reduction initiatives. Marketing and selling expense of $1.6 million was consistent with Q2 2022 and Q1 2023, despite the incorporation of VEVO and doubling our revenue. Total OpEx, which includes G&A, marketing and selling, and R&D expenses was $7.5 million in the quarter. Adjusting for severance and some other discrete items, normalized OpEx was approximately $6.5 million and includes $2.3 million from the incorporation of Vivo. Retrospectively, if Vivo were included in our Q2 2022 results, OpEx in Q2 2023 is approximately 35% or $3.7 million lower, reflecting our combined cost reduction initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 of negative $3.2 million improved $3.2 million or 50% versus Q2 2022, and year-to-date adjusted EBITDA was negative $6.3 million, which improved $5.7 million, or 47% versus prior year. This improvement is driven by both expansion of gross margins and the reduction of operating expenses. Retrospectively, if VEBO were included in our Q2 2022 results, adjusted EBITDA in Q2 2023 has improved approximately $6.7 million, or 68% reflecting our combined cost reduction and margin improvement initiatives. Said another way, in 2022, Medifarm adjusted EBITDA averaged negative 5 to 6 million per quarter, and Vivo averaged negative 2 million per quarter. Combined, the two companies averaged negative adjusted EBITDA of 7 to 8 million per quarter in 2022. In addition, Medifarm's Q1 2023 adjusted EBITDA was negative 3.1 million. This means in Q2 2023, we were able to incorporate VEVO without impacting profitability relative to Q1 2023, largely driven by our cost reduction initiatives. Moving to a few notable items on the balance sheet. Trade and other receivables of $14.7 million includes one large customer owing a total of approximately $8.5 million at the end of Q2, which is subject to legal proceedings. Excluding this item, trade and other receivables is $6.2 million. In 2022, we received a favorable summary judgment ruling with respect to this legal proceeding, awarding Medifarm $9.8 million. Subsequent to the summary judgment ruling, the customer appealed the decision, and a hearing at the Court of Appeal has been scheduled for October 12, 2023. Our cash balance at the end of Q2 was $14.7 million, and the company has less than $3 million of debt and opportunity for additional cash generation pending a favorable resolution of the $9.8 million summary judgment ruling. In addition, the company has assets held for sale with the ability to generate cash of approximately $2 to $3 million in the near term. The company has signed an offer for the sale of one parcel of land and expect the transaction to close in Q3. We believe this gives Medifarm a very strong position relative to our peer group to continue to execute on our strategy, including selective M&A. Assuming a favorable legal ruling and the successful real estate transaction, Medifarm could have an additional 10 to 13 million in cash in the near term. Combined with our reduced burn rate, we believe that we are positioned to pursue additional investments for growth, including participating in industry consolidation activities. Although we still have work to do to get to profitability and become cash flow positive, Q2 was another step in the right direction. We successfully integrated the VIVO acquisition, including executing the restructuring and cost savings program that will save approximately $7 million on an annualized basis as we progress towards our previously communicated synergy target of $7 to $9 million. Sales doubled versus prior year with the incorporation of VIVO. gross profit was positive for the third consecutive quarter adjusted ebitda remained consistent with q1 2023 despite the incorporation of evo which historically had an adjusted ebitda of negative 2 million per quarter and finally we have a strong balance sheet relative to our peers with 14.7 million of cash less than 3 million of debt and a plan to generate cash in the near term with that i'll turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions
spk00: Thank you, if you would like to ask a question at this time simply press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question press star one a second time and we will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. And we will take our first question from Scott Fortune with Roth MKM your line is open.
spk01: Yes, good morning and thank you for the questions. Just want to highlight a little bit on the revenue segments. Obviously, you added Devo for the quarter, but I just want to kind of focus on kind of the Canadian medical side of things and then international medical. Obviously, focus on international medical of the Australian market. You mentioned the new rule changes and what type of kind of boost will you see from your side as GMP, others aren't able to qualify for the GMP side. But just kind of a quarter of a quarter from the vivo business revenue side, especially on the Canadian medical side and the international medical side as a comparison would be helpful if you guys can break that out a little bit.
spk05: Thanks, Scott. So I'll ask Keith to take the question. As we mentioned on Australia, we are in the process of launching a number of MPL products through the Beacon Medical brand, and I think those are going to launch soon. So I'll turn it over to Keith, and Keith, maybe you can address some of the Canadian medical and Australia opportunities.
spk02: Great, Scott. Good morning. Yeah, it's a great question.
spk04: I think we're really happy with the integration of Vivo and what we're seeing there and its effect on the medical market especially. So in Canada, Medifarm participated in the medical market by selling to other licensed producers. So we'd sell to someone like Shoppers Drug Mart or Canopy, and they'd sell it on to their patients. Now with Vivo, we have our own platform called Canafarms. It's been around since 2013, so it does have a lot of really good patient base. Quarter over quarter, looking at the Vivo business of Canadian medical and really year over year for the same period is relatively flat. It's a good business. We're looking at ways to take that flat and increase it. One of the ways that we're doing that is just adding selection. It was always known as kind of a flower platform. So veterans and Canadian patients who used it really were looking at CannaFarms as kind of that go-to flower spot. We want to be that go-to flower spot for that CannaFarms product, but what we've done is added in all those cool Medifarm products like our CBN oil and high-potency CBD, and we've already launched those on that platform, and we're seeing sales pick up for that. So we expect to see small growth in that segment as those base of 10,000 patients look at our platform to have more selection. And we'll continue to support other licensed producers with product as well. In Australia, same thing as far as performance goes. We work with one distributor in Australia. So quarter over quarter, we see like flat to slight decline in the Vivo business. And that's mostly because the distributor has right sized their inventory. But when we look at the actual pharmacy sales, we actually are up year over year and month over month. So the pull through from patients in Australia is actually growing, which is a great sign. So that distributor will catch up. And then as Dave mentioned, we've got some new products that we're launching into that market. So again, it's been for Devo, the brand there is called Beacon Medical, well-established brand, top three in the country for flour by dollars. And so what we've done is we've added in new products. So with the new rules there being GMP only, there's less probably concentrate products available. And so what we've done is we've worked with our distributor and our pharmacy partners, and we'll be launching three new oils and three vapes into that market as well. And those should deliver probably around the end of the month. And that should give us a nice quarter over quarter increase going into the rest of the year.
spk01: I appreciate that, Colin. Just a quick follow-on there. In the Canadian adult use, obviously, a little bit of seasonality. You guys are rationalizing SKUs there. You increased the prices there. What is the focus, or how do you view the Canadian adult use for your portfolio going forward here?
spk04: Canadian adult use will continue to be the premium supplier of non-smokable formats. We do have some smokeable formats such as wildlife. And then obviously Vivo with their growing background, we're able to use some of that expertise to also put in a better product mix. It is a little bit of a tough market right now. There's a lot of other LPs that are struggling. So they are selling things below cost. They're not, as Dave mentioned in his remarks, they're not keeping up with their excise taxes. So we do find that when the price of a vape goes below the cost of what one person could make it for, it's just not a place that we want to compete. So we focus on where those large margins are. So we'll continue to be in that market. Our salespeople are still on the street educating bud tenders on the wellness products that we have. But there was a slight decline in that business because we're not going to chase it and we're not going to sell anything at a loss.
spk01: Okay, I appreciate that. And then one last follow-on probably for Greg. You guys mentioned congrats on the quickening of the integration or the combined. You're looking for $7 to $9 million kind of in cost savings and synergies here. But can you provide ongoing, you've done a really good job on the cost side that kind of gives sense for additional synergies or if they need to be fully integrated in the second half, how should we look at kind of the OPEX from outside on the second half going forward here?
spk03: Yeah, thanks for the question. So yeah, as we said in our prepared remarks, so we've already, you know, our target as we communicated was seven to nine million in annualized synergies and thus far with the cost reductions that we've already executed on restructuring, and public company costs we've already achieved about seven million on an annualized basis the one that that obviously takes a little bit longer is within the sales um synergies um but you know right now we we're approximately million and a half annualized is what we've achieved on sales synergies in our first quarter of integration and expect to um to continue to evolve that Obviously, that doesn't mean we're done. As we've said in our prepared remarks, we're aggressively pursuing further cost-cutting initiatives and margin expansion to bring us to positive EBITDA and positive cash flow.
spk05: And maybe just to build on that, maybe just to build on that thought on Greg's comments, tying Keith and Greg's comments together, The revenue synergies, two of the big buckets are putting MetaFarm products through the Beacon Channel in Australia. And as Keith says, that's launching later this month. And the other one was putting MetaFarm products through the medical channel. And that has already occurred. So we've planted the seeds of everything that needs to happen. And now we have to actually make it happen in the marketplace. But we're feeling good in terms of the, I guess, the buckets of synergy on revenue we were chasing. We've kind of started.
spk01: Great. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks for the call.
spk00: And as a reminder, it is Star 1 if you would like to ask a question. And we will take our next question from Aaron Gray with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, good morning, and thanks for the questions. So I want to piggyback off that question on profitability and just, you know, just really simply, you know, how do we think about that path to get into, you know, positive EBITDA? what type of top line growth do you think you'll be needed and what do you think will be a normalized, you know, gross margin, you know, after you get some of these initiatives through in the next six months to kind of like help to paint a picture of how we get to that EBITDA profitability. Do you think there is going to be some top line growth or do you think you can get there at the current revenue levels that you have on a combined basis? So, anyhow, that would be appreciated. Thanks.
spk05: Okay, maybe both Keith and Greg will want to talk to this, but just at 60,000 feet, you know, I think it's a combination of executing really well on what we've already talked about, right? So feeling great on the cost side, but that doesn't mean there's not more cost opportunity. So we're going to do even more cost opportunities on top of what we said. And now we have to make happen the revenue synergies of putting our products through the other channels and vice versa. And we have to make those happen. I think Greg can give some, I think we're reporting adjusted gross margin of 21%. And I think that we're doing pretty good about that going forward. And we want to build on that and make that better. Again, through the same things we've talked about, everything from skew rationalization to not selling things below cost to focusing on our profitable products. to some of the international and international pharmaceutical opportunities that Keith discussed, which generally have higher margins. So, maybe I'll turn it over to Keith and then Greg for just a little more color.
spk03: Yeah, thanks. I think Dave covered that quite well. Yeah, just, you know, our adjusted gross margin, as we discussed, was roughly 21%. know we're we're targeting uh that or or better uh as we go forward here obviously there's a lot of variables in in play with the gross margin particularly on on mix and and within the international margin you know keep touched on with some of the new uh new product launches in the international markets which come with a little bit uh better margin obviously uh as dave said we need to continue to focus on driving the sales synergy with the integration We're pleased thus far with how we've done on the cost synergy, as I said, to get to the $7 million, and sales is really a focus to driving that as well. And then, as I said on the OpEx and the prepared remarks, our OpEx was higher within the quarter, given some of the restructuring items and getting to an adjusted about $6.5 million. which obviously, as Dave and Keith have touched on, we need to do more on that. We'll continue to focus on driving that down to get to profitability as we move forward.
spk04: Yeah, thanks. Aaron, the only thing I would add, Keith, is that normalized margin of 20% is a good target, but we are looking at some really good places to improve that Probably the most would be our supply chain for international for Medifarm Legacy was quite complex. In some cases, especially on flour that we delivered to Stata. And with the addition of Vivo, they actually have a license in Germany called Beacon Medical GmbH. And what that does is it gives us an opportunity to tighten up that supply chain. Some of the packaging that we're outsourcing will now do ourselves in our GMP facility that we acquired in Napanee, Ontario. So some of those will actually give us a good opportunity to, you know, boost revenue in some of those segments that were a bit of a drag on our – boost revenue and boost gross margin, some of those segments where the margin might have been a bit of a drag in the past. And some of those, it takes new licensing. So some of the applications would have went into, you know, the German Health Authority in the last month post-acquisition, and we expect another three or four months to get through that approval process. So really start humming on that new supply chain, kind of end the year, beginning of next year.
spk06: Okay, great. Thanks, Jack. It's a question for me. You mentioned status. So any updates in terms of, you know, the progress of that initiative? You know, looking at Germany sales, it looks like it was about, you know, flat year over year. So, you know, how has that progressed with you guys with that relationship? And then any expectations specifically for the German market with potential for it to be removed, cannabis from the narcotics list? and the expectation for that market to grow and how that relationship with Stata might help you take advantage of that. Thanks.
spk04: Yeah, we're really excited about Stata continuing to invest. We've seen other large international players kind of come into Germany and then leave when they didn't work as happy with the commercialization opportunities with the new pilot program for legalization. And Stata continues to be invested with a large team, especially large on the sales and marketing side. A little bit flat as you mentioned on sales, but what we really like is the change in mix. So what you don't see in the financials is what products are going out the door. And we're really getting more oil, what they call extract there. So our cannabis oil is increasing while we're seeing a slight decrease in flour. On the flour side, there's some competition in what they call the patient pay market. where patients are, you know, kind of a bit more promiscuous and looking for, you know, something like high THC or what's the cool new cultivar. Whereas in the oil, it's a lot more sticky with those prescriptions. So really happy with the progress. They're number two in market share. And I think every month, you know, is a new record for them in oil sales. You know, still small compared to a market like Canada, but it's growing and we're really happy with that growth and We'll continue to grow with that customer.
spk06: Okay, great. Thanks for the call. I'll drive back down to the queue.
spk00: And ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. David Pittup for closing remarks.
spk05: Thanks, everyone, for joining us, including our legacy Vivo shareholders, and we look forward to our Q3 call. Have a good week, everyone.
spk00: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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