Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
You can also sign up for email alerts. I have found that any PR's sent out by the company land promptly in my account.
https://elite.irpass.com/email_alerts
w
This is nothing but conjectural nonsense. . .FUD crapola at its finest.
Transcript for August 15/2024 Conference Call:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175122247
For the new eyes visiting this board:
Seeking Alpha Transcript from August 15/2024 Conference Call in its entirety:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174928441
Amended transcript by NASDAQ2020 to include additional highlighted info; re: IQVIA values
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175100328
Well. . .with his board activity today, he should at least be able to afford a Mickey D meal. 😂
The very nature and scope of your posts goes beyond your dissatisfaction of the share price and, as such, have attacked just about every aspect of the Elite business. Real shareholders don't do this.
It's very clear (by the nature of your posts) that you do NOT want the share price to appreciate. I can think of a few reasons why this would be. Yes. . .your posts are your opinions but they are, by design, used to cast a negative light on Elite. Again, real shareholders who are confident and happy with their shares do not bash their investments. I find it hard to believe that you are a bona fide shareholder. . .a short position or a flipper would make more sense given the negative "opinions" constantly being spewed on the board.
You really don't want to post anything remotely positive about Elite Pharma. . .to do so would be contrary to your agenda. The answer to my earlier question is
0465 cents. . . a 410 % increase YOY and this isn't enough for you? With the upcoming catalysts cited in todays conference call, I can see the share price appreciating even more. The majority (99 %) of your posts have a negative slant to them. You say you own shares but you constantly bash your investment. Does this make sense to you? I have been investing in the stock market for over thirty years and I can tell you that I have had some stinkers to contend with. But I have never bashed any of my investments. . . I merely sold and moved on. To bash one's own investment is the epitome of idiocy.
What was the closing share price on August 15, 2023. . .one year ago today?
Seeking Alpha Transcript from August 15/2024 Conference Call in its entirety:
Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB:ELTP) Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call August 15, 2024 11:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Nasrat Hakim – President and Chief Executive Officer
Carter Ward – Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Elite Pharmaceuticals First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all lines have been placed on a listen-only mode. Before management begins speaking, the conference has the following statement. Elite would like to remind their listeners that remarks made during this call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change at any time, including, but not limited to, statements about Elite's expectations regarding forward operating results.
Forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the federal securities laws and represent management's current expectations. Actual results may differ materially. Elite disclaims any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, except as required by law. More complete information regarding forward-looking statements, risks and uncertainties can be found in the reports Elite Files, with the SEC, which is available on Elite’s website at elitepharma.com under the Investor Relations section. Elite encourages you to review these documents carefully.
With that covered, it is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Nasrat Hakim, President and Chief Executive Officer of Elite Pharmaceuticals. Sir, the floor is yours.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Nasrat Hakim. I am Elite's Chairman and CEO. This is our earnings call. Our CFO, Carter Ward, will give us a summary of the company's financials, after which I'll give an update and answer some of the questions you’ve submitted to Dianne.
Mr. Ward, you have the floor.
Carter Ward
Thank you, Nasrat. Good morning, everybody. Thank you to everybody calling in today. Really appreciate your interest in Elite. Yesterday, we filed our 10-Q. It's the quarterly report for the first quarter of our fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. So the June 30th quarter is the first quarter of our fiscal year. If you haven't seen it yet, it's available at our website, elitepharma.com, under the Investor Relations section. As usual, we're going to go through the financials, provide some context, some color to the financial statements and also answer the finance questions that we received overnight. And once again, thank you so much for asking those questions. Appreciate it.
So let's start with the P&L. Our total revenues for the quarter this year were $18.8 million. You compare that to the June 2023 prior year quarter, and it was $8.9 million then, so it's a $9.8 million increase, more than 100%, more than doubled, 109% increase. And that's really outstanding results on a year-to-year basis. But just as important is the trend, let's look at the trend here. We'll just take you back to June 2023 and then roll forward quarterly from there. So in June 2023, we had $9.8 million in revenues, September 2023, $14.1 million, December 2023 $15.5 million then March 2024 was $17.9 million, and this quarter, June 2024, $18.8 million. So a very nice trend there. Operating income was $3.9 million on a year-to-year basis compared to June of 2023. The prior quarter was $1.6 million, $3.9 million this year, $1.6 million last year, so it's a $2.3 million increase, 141%.
Once again, let's look at the trends. Going back to June 2023, it was $2.3 million, September 2023, a little down $1.9 million but then in December 2023, it was 3.5. March 2024, 3.7, and June 2024, 3.9. Once again, very nice trend there. So the increases year-to-year, the positive trends, it's mostly due – it's definitely due to the success of the Elite label in the market. We launched the Elite label during the June 2023 quarter last year.
Now we have five quarters under our belt, and it's very clear Elite has established itself as a reliable and valued supplier, P&L evidence is that.
So the upward trajectory, it has been impressive. I've always enjoyed physics, so I'm going to give you a physics analogy. So, when an object is on such a trajectory, physics wise, eventually things level off, unless additional fuel, additional thrust is added to maintain that trajectory. In our case, that fuel providing the thrust is our pipeline, and we're well positioned with regards to that.
During this quarter, we had Methotrexate approved. We acquired three ANDAs, approved ANDAs during the quarter: oxy/apap, hydro/apap and methadone. We're bringing a previously approved product, Codeine and apap, back into a commercial stage. And behind that, we have other products that are also moving through the pipeline on schedule and as expected. So there is plenty of fuel in the tank to provide that thrust and to maintain that trajectory.
I got a few questions on the P&L. Might as well address them now. First, there was a question on our licensing revenue and where it came from. And the licensing really comes from the TAGI agreement. That's the agreement that we signed back in 2010. So we do generate license revenues out of that. But clearly, our focus is more on the Elite label. That's where the licensing revenue come from.
Got another question that they notice are customer concentration, revenue, concentration, two customers accounted for 75% of our revenues. They want to know who those customers were. Well, we don't disclose that type of information or customer names, but needless to say, these are some of the very largest players in the generic marketplace.
Then I did get a question. First time, I got a question with a little map and everything about flood insurance and the floodplain. And the answer is yes, of course, we do have flood insurance, but no, we have never been flooded and we've never had a flood insurance claim. We have backup generators for critical systems, and those came in handy during Hurricane Sandy when we weren't flooded. But we did lose power, just like pretty much everybody else in New Jersey lost power, but those generators were there, kept us going, our critical systems going. So that worked well.
Let's move on to the cash flow statement. Our operating cash flow was positive, $3.1 million. Now, you compare that to the prior year 2023 quarter, and there was a cash burn of $2.7 million. So that's a $5.8 million swing in the right direction. It's a big swing, but it's due to two factors, two main factors. First is the revenues and the profits achieved this year. I mean, when you have – when you're that profitable and you're beyond the launch stage, which we are, we're a little more mature now, positive cash flows will result, and they have. The second factor has to do with the fact that last year we were in a cash burn. The June 2023 quarter was the first quarter of the Elite label launch. So we were in launch phase last year. So when you have a new product launch that requires quite a bit of working capital on the front-end in the form of inventories and receivables.
In June 2023, we used working capital to finance inventories and receivables of almost $5 million. So that creates a cash burn. It's a textbook example of what happens when you launch a new product line or a new product, so it's just very understandable. But you put those two together, the launch phase, cash burn, plus the more mature phase of positive cash flow, and you get a $5.8 million swing like we had.
Also note that while I say, we're in a more mature phase, but our receivables and inventories, they are still growing this year as well, almost $2 million during the June 2024 quarter. That means we're still in growth phase. So we're still in growth, we're still investing working capital, but the underlying revenue streams are more mature and they're very strong as compared to the last year. So there's still enough to generate more than $3 million in positive cash flow while we continue to invest in future growth.
So looking down the cash flow statement, let's look at the investing section. These are the things I just mentioned before we had purchase of the ANDAs. Those are these approved ANDAs for $900,000. Those are ANDAs, I mentioned just a little while ago, the property and equipment, we had purchases of $800,000. That was a use of cash. These are investments for future growth. The ANDAs are the three products that we're going to be launching. And the property and equipment, they're part of the new facility that's under construction currently underway. So again, forward-looking, setting ourselves up for more growth and to be able to support that growth.
So onto the balance sheet, cash as of June 30, this year was $8.4 million and that's up $1.3 million – $8.4 million, up $1.3 million since the beginning of the year or the end of the last fiscal year, March 31, 2024. So in three months, we're up $1.3 million, more than that, I also look at working capital. Working capital as of June 30 was $29.1 million. That's an increase of $2.2 million since March 31.
I said this before in many calls, I hate to sound like a broken record, but profits drive working capital, and our financials continue to clearly demonstrate this. Our balance sheet is continuing to strengthen quarter-on-quarter. While I'm on the balance sheet, I guess this is a good place to answer that question. I got a question on the net operating loss, what they are, what's the value? The balance sheet is the best place to find the answer on that. We have on our balance sheet a deferred income tax asset of $22.1 million as of June 30. And that is the value of the remaining NOLs. And this is all with regards to federal income tax.
So basically, we had losses from the prior years, which are essentially tax deductions going forward. So as we generate profits, we use up these losses from prior years, and the value of that today is $22.1 million to us. It’s all federal income taxes. We don’t have any state NOLs. So whatever we’re making now, whatever taxes we owe at a state level, we have to pay.
So to sum things up, number one, our financials, they continue to grow and we continue to stay on a growth trajectory. Revenues and profits are trending up. Working capital is increasing. Debt is low. The balance sheet is strengthening. All things you want to see and behind that, the pipeline is progressing and positioned to provide that fuel, provide that trust to us to maintain upward trajectory.
So now our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nasrat Hakim will give his comments. Nasrat?
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Carter. I wasn’t aware you are a physics student and you should add that to your resume because you may be getting a call from SpaceX or NASA. Okay. I appreciate that. That was a very good example.
Carter Ward
I am a rocket scientist. Yes.
Nasrat Hakim
All right. I’ll say a couple thoughts about financials. Carter did an excellent job covering everything. And then I’ll talk about sales and distribution. Definitely the new product launches, that’s very exciting. Research and development and the facility infrastructure, okay. First, a couple of comments about financials. Let’s see, we got $18.8 million, as Carter said, and revenues for this quarter, compared to $8.9 million the same quarter last year. That’s over 100% increase, 109% in revenues.
That is in line with our goals, and it is on target for us to have another record year of earnings. The second factor to increasing from quarter-to-quarter as Carter was outlining is also the second factor is looking at the year. Because when you move from one quarter to the next, numbers could be deceiving by way, for example, men’s colognes sell 80% of their revenues, get 80% of their revenues for sales on Christmas and Father’s Day.
The rest of the year, it’s only 20%. So if you compare quarter-to-quarter, that would not be fair. You have to compare the year before of that quarter to the year after, okay? And that’s what we do in here. And this is why we reflect that quarter on the quarter before. We are very much similar to that, because in academia, in the summer, for example, school supplies are not sold. But then in the fall, everybody buys school supplies.
Well, in our case, we’re similar, bariatrics, people don’t go on a diet around Thanksgiving, but they start in January usually, and then in the spring again, they want to get in their swimming suits. Attention deficit, older medications, people lacks off a little in the summer, but they take more during the school year because it’s obviously a necessity. So this is why it’s critical to look at one quarter of one year to the previous quarter, equivalent quarter of the year before.
The second factor is you look at the totality over the whole year. Why? Because sometimes during the quarter, there is timing. If you ship on one day, at the end of the quarter, beginning of the other, that shifts some of the money from one quarter to the next. So you look at the year and you look at the totality of it.
In 2019, our revenues for the entire year were $7.5 million. In 2022, it’s $17.9 million. It doesn’t matter what the quarter says, this is undeniable, that the increase is monumental. In 2021, we earned $25.3 million in revenues. In 2022, $32 million in revenues. In 2023, $34 million in revenues. And in 2024, which closed the March of this year, $56.6 million in revenues. Obviously, the trend is not over a day or quarter or a month or a year. This is several years. For the past five years, every year our revenues have been better than the year before and therefore every year has been our best year. So, ladies and gentlemen, we are on target this year to make it our best year again. And I will expect this trend to continue into the foreseeable future through 2025 and 2026.
Sales and distribution is what's really leading our increase in revenues. Elite's transition to direct sales with our Elite label has been a great success. The revenue and profit growth demonstrates that success. A testament to our great team, especially Doug Plassche in the operation team, and Kirko Kirkov and his sales organization and the rest of my senior staff. Everybody is doing an excellent job coming together to get us to where we're at.
The highest revenue generating products for Elite label continue to be the mixed Amphetamines, IR and ER. We see strong market demand for these products. The sales are limited only by how much quota we can get. Managing the quota for these products is very important and our team has done an excellent job managing the quarter. Our other products, Phendimetrazine, Isradipine, Trimipramine have achieved smaller revenues than Amphetamine, but they have strong market shares and they are contributing to their revenues substantially.
In addition, to sales for the Elite label, we also have two licensees, Prasco. Prasco has a non-exclusive license for the Amphetamine ER and sells under the Burel label. This product was launched the first quarter of this year and is doing well. Precision Dose has a license for Naltrexone Amphetamine tablets and capsules and they sell under the tagging name label and Precision Dose label.
Naltrexone continues to be on the FDA shortage list. Elite has other products that will enhance our pipeline, substantially increase our revenues that will be launched soon. The first product is generic Methotrexate. Methotrexate was recently approved by the FDA and will be launched this quarter. The second product is generic APAP with Codeine. The brand name is Tylenol and Codeine. APAP with Codeine was approved a few years ago, but we waited until we saw a market need before launching it. We believe the time is now. We expect the launch of APAP with Codeine to be shortly after Methotrexate, six to eight weeks.
The third product is Oxy APAP, which is Generic Percocet. We expect to launch Oxy APAP six to eight weeks after APAP with codeine. The fourth product is Hydro APAP, which is the generic for Norco and that will follow Oxy APAP. The fifth product is methadone, and we will launch that after Oxy, Hydro APAP. Of the five products that I mentioned, Elite would launch at least three within the next four months.
The sixth product to be launched is the central nervous system attention deficit disorder product, pending FDA approval. This is the most important of all the products I spoke of. This product will have launch priority over all other products once approved. Now we can only plan for what’s in the queue and what we have. We have everything we need to launch the central nervous system attention deficit disorder medication. Once the FDA gives us approval, we reprioritize everybody else and this will go next.
Elite maintained a strong cash position during our transition to sales. We have supported working capital needs as well as R&D pipeline cost, while maintaining our cash levels. The new product launches will substantially increase our profits and revenues. We will see incremental increases over the next two to three quarters.
Nothing’s going to happen overnight. You launch the first product, you’re going to go through the growing pains that Carter described and then starts to become viable. You launch the second, you go through the same thing. So it’s all coming, and it’s coming quarter-after-quarter.
Regarding the research and development pipeline, Elite has three ANDA filed that are under review by FDA. Generic dopamine agonist ANDA for the treatment of Parkinson’s, and ANDA for the treatment of pain management, and the central nervous system stimulus ANDA used for ADHD. FDA reviews continue for these products and Elite continues to provide support to any FDA request. Elite will issue a PR upon approval.
Now, two of the three products that I mentioned are needle movers. So let me say a few more words about that. Regarding the CMS application, the FDA asked us to make a couple of minor adjustment. Tighten the spec, move this over here and there, nothing of relevance. But the FDA did request an extra month to review the DMF for the API supplier.
So our PDUFA date is November. That was very nice of FDA to do that, because they found that our application itself doesn’t have any issues or all the issues we had, we resolved them over the past year. They had a question to the DMF supplier, and instead of saying, take this back and call us back in a year or in six months or whatever, they actually said, we need another month to resolve some issues, which is really very promising. And we will update you in November once we hear – if we hear from FDA and what their verdict is.
Regarding the pain management and generic oxyContin, it’s one of the common outcomes of a paragraph IV ANDA filing is a lawsuit by the brand company, and we have updated you on that. We’re going through that right now. We agreed with Purdue to renew the litigation hold for six more months. It does not make any sense for us to get engaged with lawsuits with Purdue at this time, because they have enough people suing them and trying to invalidate their patents. So we stepped back and agreed that we will take six months where we don't go through discovery, we don't have to spend the money, they don't have to come after us till we see what's happening in the landscape. If a judge says patents are invalidated, will move in. If they say they are not, we're in the same boat as everybody else.
Elite has other products in the formulation development stage that have not reached a reportable milestone yet. Elite continues to make R&D a priority. Regarding the facility and infrastructure, as you know, to keep up with our growth, we needed additional space. So we have taken on an additional 34,000 square feet to support expanding packaging, inventory and warehouse holding.
We closed the deal and took possession of the facility last January. The permits were obtained for construction because it's a part, 34,000 square feet is a part of a building that's about 85,000 square feet. We have to seal it and close it to make it into pharmaceutical. We build the IT infrastructure, the servers, the cameras, ADT security, all of them are ready. A state of the art packaging line that's already been qualified and ready. Department of Health got approval, then the CDS approval. The two remaining things were DEA and FDA.
The vault and all the security already. We invited the FDA last week. They showed up Monday, and I am happy to report that the inspection went very well. In my opinion, the DEA takes, usually regulatory agencies in general take 45 days to write the report. I expect approval by the DEA within that time. Before we meet in November for sure, but I believe within 45 days we'll receive approval from the DEA.
The next step is FDA – next and final step is the FDA approval. To get the FDA approval, we have to manufacture or package lots at the facility, put them on three months stability, and then file with the FDA for them to come in and inspect and give us approval. The lots are being packaged right now. The lines are qualified, including serialization, all of that. They are being made right now placed on stability by next week or the week after. Three months should be about November, I expect that we’ll file towards the end of November, and then it’s a matter of when the FDA can approve it and we’ll update you on that once we know. At the end of the day, once this facility is approved, we should have and be covered from the expansion standpoint for at least five years for manufacturing and longer than that for packaging.
In summary, Elite has shown strong growth this quarter. We are executing the company’s strategies for commercial, sales and distribution and research and development. Elite has the best commercial product line it has ever had an excellent pipeline of approved and soon-to-be approved products, and the best financial position in the company’s history.
This puts Elite in a strong position for an M&A or a move to NASDAQ when the time is right.
Let’s go to Q&A.
Question-and-Answer Session
A - Nasrat Hakim
Dianne was kind enough to group your questions. A lot of them were similar, somewhat different, such as what Carter answered. So I’ll start with the production pipeline. Has there had been any feedback or request for information from FDA for the Oxy or central nervous system generic? Oxy is a little overdue, and CNS should be closed. Do you think we have a 50/50 chance of getting approval before November call?
Oxy will not be approved until the patent issues are resolved, frankly. And what we are hoping for right now is approvable, okay? If they say it’s approved, it means you can launch. Because of the patent issues, you can’t launch. So what we’re waiting for the FDA to decide on is when they’ll give us approvable unless the court rules first and they’ll change everybody into approve. What is the expected time line launch for the recently acquired ANDAs is the goal to have all our approved ANDAs from Nordstrom’s [ph] plus methotrexate and APAP with codeine launched within the current fiscal year. That’s a tall order. Product launches, especially ones that involve control substances and most of ours do take time. And frankly, spacing them over to six to eight weeks apart makes a lot of sense because any time you make the product commercially for the first time. The first batch of each strength has to go on stability for three years and it will be on controlled room temperature stability and accelerated.
This is a massive amount of work for the lab, and it is in our best interest to space it out. In addition to Codeine and DEA controls and making the stuff and limitations and all of that stuff, but six to eight weeks is a reasonable assumption that you should look at when we launch a product. Any time we launch a product, six to eight weeks later and other products should follow. As I said earlier, I expect to have at least three products launched within the coming four months.
Carter Ward
Do you have recent IQVIA annual sales for any of the opioids pending launch, Percocet, Norco, Methadone, et cetera?
Nasrat Hakim
Yes, we do. We publish them when we issue the press releases when the products are launched or when the product is approved.
Carter Ward
Will Elite have enough working capital to buy all the API needed when the three new drug repurchases are launched? Or do we have to get more loans?
Nasrat Hakim
I believe we do, but you wouldn't know for sure until you actually go through the sales. So you see whether we have enough cash will depend on how much we sell initially. A lot of money gets held up in inventory and chargebacks. For example, regarding chargebacks, if a bottle cost a dollar and my customer says, our WAC price is $4 or we set the WAC price at $4. It means that we give them $3 and they give us $4, and that's how we get the dollar. But the problem with that is that the demand we give them the $3 within 30 days or so, and they give us the $4 in three months so you end up carrying them for 90 days, basically and that's how they operate until they go distribute it to pharmacies and collect their money and come back to you with it.
So that part, the more you sell, the larger the working capital you need. As of now, we're fine, but if we are not fine we definitely know where to raise money and how to get it. And the board and I are always willing to help if we cannot get it from a bank, which by now we are in a very good financial position, most likely we'll be able to get a loan. And by the way, spacing the launches that I spoke of earlier, reduces the burden of working capital because you spread it over time.
Another interesting question is, what is REMS [ph] and how does it work? REMS is the risk evaluation and mitigation strategy. As a manufacturer of opioid medication, Elite must be part of the opioid analgesic risk evaluation and mitigation strategy of REMS. Under the requirement of REMS, we, the industry, if you have an opioid application, have to pull in and educate the doctors that prescribe opioids, the pharmacists and the patients on our dime and time about the risk versus benefit of opioids. And it is a requirement by FDA. You cannot allow to sell an opioid unless you are part of this team. And once you are part of this team, you have to pay a lot of money in order to do all of this.
This is separate and distinct from all the fees we pay to states. Some states charge for an opioid license of more than $250,000. Okay, so there are a lot of fees that goes with this. But RIMs is really meant to educate people on the abuse and anti-abuse phenomena of the drug and what can you do to protect yourself and to make sure that nobody else is using it when they don't need to, risk benefit analysis.
New facility, please provide an update regarding the commercialization status of the new facility. Okay, has the additional facility received full certification from FDA? I just explained that we will be filing in November and hope they'll come in and inspect then. Is the new warehouse operational and approved by the deFDA? The new warehouse is a little operational and that we can put cartons and things that are non-GMP in it. And it is DEA inspected and verbally told us have no issues. So it will be DEA approved soon.
Is there a timeframe concerning the operation of the new facility? Well, as I said, the three things that remain is the DEA approval, which I expect to get in six weeks. The packaging line is done. We just need to make the finish making the lots. We're making them right now, put them on stability, get the FDA to come in and inspect us after we file in November and get FDA approval. Once we get FDA approval, as I said, this will be a fantastic thing for us because our capacity will be fulfilled for the next five plus years.
That concludes our conference call. We'll talk again in November. And thank you, Matthew.
Operator
Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Makes me wonder if you have listened to any of the conference call audio replays. I can understand Nasrat perfectly.
I could hear Carter Ward laughing in the background as if Nasrat's statement of a minimum 70 mil was a sure thing to happen. The tone of Nasrat's words were spoken as if he had a huge smile on his face.
Oh yes, I get that Nasrat does not want to be embarrassed again for understating revenues and to be blown out of the water when the actual revenue numbers showed a higher amount. I think this is why he kept it simple and merely stated that the annual 2025 rev number will be a minimum of 70 mil and left it at that.
Nasrat said a MINIMUM of 70 million. Does not leave room for the revenues to be higher than 70 mil? SMH
"I'm predicting that we're going to hit a minimum of $70 million for the fiscal year ending March 2025."
Elite Pharma is in number two position on the IHub Most Read board. . .over 600,000 hits so far in the last 24 hours.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/most_read.aspx
Well, let me put it this way. . .until I see proof, these statements are speculative FUD designed to negatively manipulate the share price. So. . .is there proof of such events occurring?
OMG!!! A repeat of of 2016 (eight years ago). . .please say it isn't so. LAMO
Is it possible this is pure crapola FUD deserving of a good toilet flush?
For the new eyes on the message board.
Seeking Alpha Transcript from February 15/2024 Conference Call in its entirety:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173856451
Seeking Alpha Transcript from February 15/2024 Conference Call in its entirety:
Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB:ELTP) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call February 15, 2023 11:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Nasrat Hakim - President and Chief Executive Officer
Carter Ward - Chief Financial Officer, Secretary, and Treasurer
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Elite Pharmaceuticals Conference Call. At this time, all lines have been placed on a listen-only mode. Before management begins speaking, the company has the following statement.
Elite would like to remind their listeners that remarks made during this call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change at any time, including, but not limited to, statements about Elite's expectations regarding future operating results.
Forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the federal securities laws and represent management's current expectations. Actual results may differ materially. Elite disclaims any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
More complete information regarding forward-looking statements, risks and uncertainties can be found in the reports Elite Files, with the SEC, which are available on Elite's website at elitepharma.com under the Investor Relations section. Elite encourages you to review these documents carefully.
With that covered, it is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Nasrat Hakim, President and Chief Executive Officer of Elite Pharmaceuticals. Sir, the floor is yours.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Nasrat Hakim. I am Elite's Chairman and CEO. This is our earnings call. Our CFO, Carter Ward, will give us a summary of the company's financials, after which I'll give a brief update and answer some of the questions you've submitted to Dianne.
Carter, you have the floor.
Carter Ward
Thank you, Nasrat, and good morning, everybody. Thank you to everybody calling in today. Yesterday, we filed our 10-Q for the third quarter of our 2024 fiscal year. We have a fiscal year ending March 31st.
So December 31st, 2023, is the third quarter of our 2024 fiscal year. It is available on elitepharma.com, sec.gov and any place else, you get your SEC filings. So please, if you haven't seen it yet, I would appreciate you taking a look at that. I'm going to give you a little context and go over some of the more relevant areas of the financial statements.
And along the way, we received a lot of questions. Thank you so much for all the questions. We really did get a lot last night, and I'll do my best to answer all of them, as I go through. So let's start with the P&L. Total revenues for the quarter were $15.5 million. You can compare that to $9.3 million for December 2022 last year for that quarter and $14.2 million for the September 2023 quarter, the last quarter.
Percentage-wise, that's a 67% year-on-year increase, and it's a 9% increase since the last quarter. And I got a lot of questions, and the answer to the question is, yes, Prasco shipment made in December is included in the revenue numbers. For the full nine months on our P&L, the revenues were $38.7 million for this year.
You can compare that to $25.5 million last year. That is a 52% year-on-year increase. Our operating income for the quarter ended December 31st, 2023, was $3.5 million, compare that to $2 million for last year. And -- the last quarter, the September quarter was $1.9 million. So percentage-wise, it's 75% year-on-year increase and 84% increase over September 2023 quarter.
For the full nine months, our operating income was $7.1 million and that's compared to $4.1 million for the full nine months ended last year, December 31st, 2022, percentage-wise, 73% year-on-year increase. Now whichever way you look at, our operating revenues, our operating profits, you're only going to see significant year-on-year increases. The biggest change this year, as compared to last year, was obviously the successful launch of our Elite label in April of 2023. So 2022 numbers didn't have this, 2023 does. It's been very, very successful.
And our P&L clearly demonstrates just how successful the Elite label has been. The Elite label has boosted our growth. But even before that, our revenue streams were expanding, they were solidifying and growing before we even launched the Elite labels. Just to give you a little history, in 2019, our revenues were $7.6 million for full year, full 12 months. In 2020 -- fiscal year 2020, it was $18 million. And then 2021, it was $25 million. 2022, it was $32 million and last fiscal year ended March 31st, 2023, it was $34 million.
So that's nice growth. And this year, with only nine months into our fiscal year, only three quarters there, we've already booked almost $39 million in revenues. And last year was a good year and for the whole 12 months, it was $34 million. So we're already above last year's full year results.
No, there's no doubting the importance of the Elite Label launch, but that's -- it's just added more steam to the company that had already been moving steadily in a positive direction for more than four years.
Moving down the P&L. I want to talk about R&D and research and development and G&A, which is general and administrative expenses because both of them -- they both give some insight into what we're putting together. R&D, as I've said over and over again, R&D is the lifeblood of any pharmaceutical company, and we are no exception.
We spent $1.4 million this quarter and $5.2 million up nine months on R&D, on Product Development. Nasrat, as he usually does, will speak more on Product Development. But from a finance perspective, we're continuing to fund development of new products and more importantly, we're doing it from cash flows generated by current commercial operations. I always like to see that.
G&A expenses, general and admin expenses, they were up around $500,000, from last year's December 2022 quarter. This year was $1.7 million for the quarter versus $1.2 million last year, December quarter, now the increase is mostly due to hiring more people. The Elite Label operations, the launch, the operations and our expansion plans require a larger HR footprint, we need more people and more infrastructure. And it's a good result because there's more opportunities. There's more jobs available here. So that's always nice.
As the growth continues, we expect to have better utilization of the infrastructure. So our utilization rates are going to increase, and we're looking for improved efficiency of these costs, as compared to top line revenues. So you look at that in a proportion standpoint.
I did get a question on the income tax benefit, down below the line, of $18.3 million for the nine months ended December 31st, 2023. This is also going to answer, I had a similar question on the future tax benefits going forward, of our NOL, our net operating loss carryforwards. So I'm going to answer both of those together because they're both related.
Elite in the past was not profitable for many years, and we have built up large net operating losses, NOLs carry forwards on our tax returns that we filed with the IRS. Either tax deductions that we can take going forward as we become profitable or as we are profitable. Prior to this year, the tax effect of these tax deductions were fully reserved, meaning it was in our balance sheet, but we didn't meet the criteria to demonstrate that we were going to be reasonably and consistently profitable in order to realize the benefit of these tax deductions, to be able to take these tax deductions.
Prior to this year, that was the case, so they weren't there. Now we've been profitable for several years, and we meet the criteria demonstrating a reasonable expectation of profits going forward. So now these NOL carry forwards have a value to us, a real value in the form of tax deductions against real profits. So there was a partial release of this reserve in March 31st, the small amount, but the big release was this year in September of this year, the release was -- the reserve was fully released.
So now we're showing that we have a future tax benefit, that we will be able to use going forward. So when that happens, you have to book an asset, which we have, we have a deferred tax asset on our balance sheet of $20.2 million. So there was a question about -- what is the value going forward of these tax deductions. There it is. It's on our balance sheet. It will be there every reporting period, every quarter. You'll see that. We do an evaluation every quarter on what's the value there.
Income tax wise as the tax rate changes, so will this. But as of December 31st, the value going forward is $20.2 million. And that's a real deduction. We expect to be able to take in the years going forward. The flip side is when we release the reserve, we record essentially, it's a tax benefit, it's like a negative income tax, and that was $18.3 million, onetime benefit on our P&L statement.
So moving to the cash flow. Our operating burn for the nine months ended this year, December 31st, '23, was $5.3 million. Strong revenues, strong profits coupled with cash burn may not make sense at first, but it's quite normal for companies with rapid growth. And we are a textbook example of the importance of working capital, during the initial phase of rapid growth, which is what we're going through.
Sales are strong, profits are increasing, but also on the flip side, inventory and receivables are also growing. Those two together grew almost $18 million for us. Whenever you have this type of growth, it takes in our industry, approximately nine to 12 months for these receivables and inventories to start rotating into positive cash flow. We have to buy the inventory, manufacture, sell it, ship it, collect our accounts receivable. So there's a whole process.
And roughly, it takes nine to 12 months, before what I call rotations happening, and we start achieving positive cash flows. And we are now nine months into that, and we're just entering that phase. So as we continue to grow, I look for the inventory and the receivables from the prior period, things that we already booked to start generating working capital, and that working capital will support the ongoing revenue expansion.
So as long as we keep going up, there's always going to be working capital demands, as you go up until you hit a steady state and then things level off. Now on to the balance sheet. Our working capital that's current assets minus current liabilities has increased by $4.3 million, approximately 32% over the past nine months, since March 31st.
Profits drive working capital and our financials, they clearly demonstrate this. So I had some questions on total liabilities increasing at a rate that is faster than the rate that total assets have been increasing. So this is a question on the rates of increase.
Now to answer that question, really, I want to point you to three lines on our financial statements. On the balance sheet, there's the warrant derivative liability, and there's the accrued expenses on the liability side. And then also on our P&L statement, there are two lines there, change in fair value of stock-based liabilities and change in value of derivatives that are on our P&L.
On the accrued expenses, approximately $7 million of $11.9 million, in accrued expenses are for stock-based liabilities. If you look at Note 4, in our financial statements, give you a little more details of that. And the warrant derivatives are obviously 100% stock-based. Now these liabilities are essentially valued as our stock price moves down.
So if the stock price goes up and it has gone up quite a bit over the past few months, so then we have to adjust the liability. We have to make the liability higher. So it's not really any new liabilities. It's just that accounting rules, they require that we have to revalue existing liabilities, which is what we did.
And the net effect of all of these revaluations is recorded on our P&L. Whenever we adjust the liability, there's a P&L expense. And, for the quarter, the change in fair value, so the increase in these liabilities is $5.3 million for the quarter. That's on our P&L statement. And for the nine months, it was $10 million. So, we booked change in value of liabilities of $5.3 million for the quarter and $10 million for the nine months.
I also got a question on our inventory level. And our inventory levels has increased from the beginning of the fiscal year from $9.6 million to $14.3 million at December 31st. But our inventory as of September 30th, was $15.2 million. So that's a $900,000 decrease from September to December. This is all pretty standard supply chain metrics going on here. We're always challenged.
We're trying to achieve just-in-time inventory, but we also have to make sure we have enough stock level support. There's lead times and regulatory and all the things that we have to do to support our manufacturing operations. So we're always trying to -- we're always monitoring our inventory levels. There's really nothing more than just ordinary supply chain metrics going on here. We continue to look at that, but there are no issues.
So to sum things up, when you look at 2022, December compared to December 2023, Elite Pharmaceuticals, we are looking at a very different company than from one year ago. Revenues are up 67%. Operating profits are up 77%. Nine months revenue are already more than last year's 12 months revenue.
Our working capital is increasing, our debt is low, and our balance sheet is strong and continues to strengthen. So a very different company, all of which is for the better when compared to the last year. So very happy to see all of the things that have been going on lately.
So that concludes my presentation. Now our CEO, Mr. Nasrat Hakim will provide his comments.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Carter. Most of the questions this time were about financials. So I asked Carter to handle them and he was kind enough to embed them in his presentation. I'll say a couple of words about financials before I talk about the sales and distribution, research and development facility and infrastructure and then go to Q&A.
$15.5 million in revenue is what makes this our best quarter ever. For the past four to five years, as you heard from Carter, every year, our revenue have been better than the year before. And therefore, every year has been our best year until the next year. Last year's revenues were $34 million. Within nine months, okay, of this year, we've achieved $39 million, and we still have a quarter to go.
Our goal for the current fiscal year was $40 million, and we modified it to north of $40 million. It is safe to say that we'll achieve our goal for the current fiscal year, and will surpass it, the following year. As Carter outlined, our income four or five years ago was in the single digits, we made $7 million.
Then we jump to the teens and then the 20s and then the 30s, $30 million, $34 million last year. We're skipping the 40s and we're jumping straight to the 50s this year, and we will continue to grow the year after and the year after.
We are not flattening in sales. We are actually growing, and I see all the signs for us to continue to grow, as if I just have reported to you. Elite, successfully transitioned from a CMO private label model to a national distribution with the Elite Label.
We created an organizational structure to support our new business model and increased production, revenues and profits for all of Elite products, not just Amphetamine IR and ER, which are the stars of the show, but also for the rest of our commercial products. The bariatric products, Phentermine and Phendimetrazine. Our hypertension drug Isradipine. Our antidepressant and nerve pain drug Trimipramine.
Our schizophrenia and eustachian drug Loxapine. All of them have increased and have been sold under Elite's label since April 1st, 2023, and they are all growing. Elite's transition to direct sales is complete and has been a tremendous success. A major credit goes to Kirko, Doug and their teams.
Our partner, Prasco, that has a nonexclusive license for selling Amphetamine ER, launched their product in January. We shipped inventory to them in December of 2023, but the actual launch just happened last month, January 2024. Our other partner Precision Dose, they have a license for naltrexone and phentermine tablets and capsules. Naltrexone is in short supply and is doing particularly well.
Elite maintained a strong cash position during our transition to sales. We have supported working capital needs as well as R&D pipeline costs, while maintaining our cash levels. Regarding the research and development pipeline, Elite has four ANDAs, filed under FDA reviews. And antimetabolite ANDA used to treat arthritis, inflammatory arthritis, a generic dopamine agonist, ANDA for the treatment of Parkinson's. An ANDA for treatment of pain management, a CNS stimulus ANDA used for attention deficit disorder. And all of them are under FDA review.
Elite continues to provide support to whatever FDA requests they make and they make a lot of requests. And Elite will issue a PR upon approval. Regarding the pain management ANDA generic OxyContin. One of the common outcomes of ANDA filing is a lawsuit by the Brand company. Most generic companies contend with such lawsuits in the standard course of business. Elite too has a complaint filed as a part of the Paragraph IV filing. This is an expected event, and Elite expects to manage this as a normal course of business.
Elite has other products in the formulation development stage that has not reached a reportable milestone yet. We will update you on them upon reaching these milestones. Regarding the facility and infrastructure, with our success in moving to direct sales, Elite is expanding our inventory and packaging space to meet the growing demands.
We have taken an additional 34,000 square feet to support expanded packaging inventory and warehouse. We closed the deal and took possession of the facility, literally right across from our manufacturing facility in January.
Now the hard work begins. You first need permits for construction, to modify the inside of the facility and separate it into two parts and what have you. We are working with IT and servers and installing cameras and ADV security.
We're working on setting up the Vault and working with the DEA of what else do they need, the form of securities Vault in order for them to come in and approve the facility. We purchased the packaging line. Now we need to deliver it and install it, qualify it, make batches on it, put these patches on stability and file or ask FDA for approval.
Have the FDA come in and inspect the facility. At the end of the day, we'll have duplicate equipment for manufacturing and packaging. We already have validated and qualified our Niro. So now we can make pellets. We have three times the capacity of making what we used to. We have bought a new encapsulators and a new packaging line.
On the packaging line alone, once this packaging line is qualified and operational, we will have two packaging lines and the capacity actually will increase by three to four times because the new packaging line is a lot faster and more modern than the old one, which was really a very good packaging line.
In summary, Elite has shown strong growth this quarter and is executing its strategy of commercial, sales and distribution and research and development growth. We look forward to talking to you again about more success in June when we filed the 10-K. Let's go through Q&A.
As I said before, Carter handled all the financial questions and there were a lot of them and many of them came in late last night or early this morning. I will be addressing the nonfinancial parts with a couple of comments in gengralities about financials.
First question is on drug development pipeline. We know SequestOx was shelfed due to cost. Do you anticipate resuming any NDA type R&D in the future? Or do you think Elite will stick to mainly filing for large market and as generics? Is it possible to improve upon an existing generic drug with our control release or abuse the TeranTech and still is filed as ANDA? Or is that -- is it necessary to file NDA?
A comprehensive question that have a lot of parts, so let me answer it this way. A few years ago, we shifted the company's focus and we created a three-pronged approach. The three basket approach. One is the NDAs and the AR technology. Two is partnerships in order to elevate cost and bring in ideas and three is our own product. And all three are active at any moment if the circumstances are right, to move forward with NDA requires a lot of money, okay? And it's because it's the company. So will we do it now? No. Will we do it in the future when we have money? Of course, okay?
Everything needs to be done in context. You got to figure out what do you have, what are you risking and what do you want to do, to protect the company. Can we use our technology? Our technology is definitely usable and a lot of things, including something like Pfizer's technology. We have the same technology as they do. So if there was a way for us to make a generic out of their OxyER, then that will be an ANDA Okay.
Still keep in mind, we are still targeting a high-level generics because they are the most lucrative, lease cost and the best and fastest to the market. Has the BE trial started yet for the third needle mover, that is expected to be filed sometime in calendar year 2024? We do a lot of pilot studies that, of course, we do not announce because most of them are for you to learn, on how to modify their formulation. And once we are comfortable and go to a BE, we only announced that the BE passes. So we will definitely do that in this case if there is a BE trial and if it does pass, then we will announce it at that time.
A question on legal for OxyContin, I see this question a lot on investment message boards regarding the generic Oxycontin. My question for the next conference call is -- is there a lawsuit pending regarding OxyContin? And if so, what are the details and circumstances that can be shared?
As I said before, okay, Elite filed the Paragraph IV certificate with the -- with its ANDA generic OxyContin and as that Elite got accepted by the FDA, after the ANDA, got accepted by the FDA, Elite sent the patentee, as we're required by law, and the NDA holder, a notice letter. And that's required by Hatch Waxman, okay. This was followed by a Patent Infringement Lawsuit, filed in the District Court of New Jersey by Purdue Pharma, standard procedure.
Elite obtained an agreement with Purdue, to stay the litigation for six months. Elite's launch of the generic Oxycontin will depend on the approval by the FDA and the outcome of the various litigations involved with Purdue, okay? Or if the patent expired and especially those that are listed in the orange book, okay?
A question about our partner, TAGI Precision Dose. I noticed in November 2023 that our three products with TAGI were changed from the TAGI label to Precision Dose label. What was the reason for the label change? Well, the honest reason is that because our partner/client requested it, said, we want to call ourselves Precision Dose, only from now on.
And then they changed their mind, they want to keep some on the TAGI. But the -- that's really as far as we're concerned. They asked us to do this to selling it, we'll do it. But the rest of the story is that the gentleman who started TAGI retired and sold his share to Precision Dosing. And now it's a Precision Dose that owns both companies, and I think they are transitioning to one name only. There is no impact on Elite [indiscernible] server.
Prasco Burel, are you still happy with the Prasco Burel agreement now that we have officially launched with them so far, are they selling our Adderall, as well as you hope? Look, they are a good partner. Prasco has been a very good partner. They have just started transition to us as a supplier, and they are doing very well. We have no complaints.
Dexcel and international opportunities, any update on potential foreign market opportunities such as Dexcel. I'll make a broad statement about Dexcel and any country outside of the United States. All we can do okay, to support our partners with our FDA-approved data that we have.
The rest is up to them, they have to take it to their country, work with the dossier, what's required there, what's their Ministry of Health. And every time their Minister of Health ask him a question, they come back and ask us to do more testing. And we'll be happy to do it for them. And sometimes they ask you for stability. So you have to do certain things that are different than we do for FDA, we cannot interfere with that. That's not our specialty. Our specialty is FDA.
They handle their part, they're successful, we launched and not successful, we don't. We've been partners with Dexcel for a couple of years now, and we are looking forward to them getting some day and approval so we can launch. But as of today, I have not heard them say, hey, let's go ahead and launch.
All right. Corporate update, let me scroll down, I believe, -- not mentioned an ETA of being moved into the new packaging storing facilities around June. Is everything still progressing as expected with this? Are we still running the same number of shifts as previously mentioned, at our main manufacturing facility?
The answer is yes and yes. We are on target. We are on target to finish on June or hopefully before. And we're still running the same shift as before. And once the new facility is commissioned. We continue to operate under the same shift because now we have multiple equipment. We don't have to go a second shift. We'll have more people running 1 or 1.5 shifts.
My question is in regard to manufacturing capacity, currently and growth in the near future at our existing headquarters in New Jersey. Also, how is the new Vault construction going? Thank you for all you do. The new packaging and warehousing sites will be of tremendous help. Once finished, we will be covered for the next five years, okay? That really helped cover our growth for the next five years. And the construction of the vault is going on time, and we're working with the DEA to make sure that every step we take is approved by them before we implement it.
How would you rate the growth brought by the sales and distribution team compared to before April 1st. The sale and distribution team, Kirko and his team are doing excellent. The fact is Kirko and Doug. I mean, don't forget operations because the Kirko and Doug and the sales and operations team go hand-in-hand.
In addition to the quality team and regulatory team and the entire supporting structure for the organization. They are all doing an excellent job to date. And notice that we went through this whole transition without a dip or interruption in supply. And that's really a testament to Kirko's leadership and his great communication skills and Doug and the operation team and our quality and regulatory team.
Financial questions, we moved most of them to Carter, but somebody asked about the stock buyback, okay, it's the same issue. We're not buying stock back right now. We have better use for our money, stock manipulation. We are on the OTC. I cannot say much about that.
An interesting question about employees but purchase from a gentleman that said in the past, I have worked for companies that allowed employees to the option to have a fixed amount of money, deducted from their pay-check to buy company stocks at a slight discount.
It gave all of the employees the opportunity to have a stake in the company, does the lead offer such a program? I have worked for companies that offer similar programs, and I really enjoyed that and they give us 15% discount to buy it. Elite does not have such a program. As a matter of fact, we've had approach from the stockholders, when we pay people in shares before even the Board. So to do this is not feasible at this time.
Now if we go to NASDAQ, it will be more possible. It's a very good idea. And someday, we'll implement it, but right now, it can't be done. Last question, let's see, company's futures, what would Mr. Hakim say is the likelihood that Elite will uplift to NASDAQ within the next five years? What would Mr. Hakim say is the likelihood that Elite will get bought out by a large arrival within the next five years?
Two things I'll say to that. One, cut that prediction in half or more than half. Five years is a very long time to do either. We are at a point where our fundamentals are solid, and we are in a growth stage, as I said earlier. We're not flattening out at $30 million and $40 million. We skip the 40s, went to 50s. And we'll talk in June once I have a little more data, what I expect for the future. But definitely, the year after, we're going to beat that. And the year after, we're going to be that.
So we're at a growth stage. So the fundamentals are looking great, a buyout is looking great. And five years is way too long for that. So I would say either of this will happen in a couple of years.
All right. That was the last question. It's been a great quarter. We're looking forward to a great year, ending in June. So we'll talk to you after we file the 10-K in June. Have a wonderful day, and thank you, Matthew.
Operator
Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Yes. . .Nasrat has loaned Elite money on more than one occasion back when times were tough and you still found a way to bash him. You do what you want with your money (if you have any to speak of) and allow Nasrat the same consideration.
No he is not lying. What actually happened was that Elite did not have sufficient cash to purchase Sungen's share of Adderall so they offered shares instead. Sungen or its parent company declined the offer; they wanted cash. Elite did not want to risk being associated with an unknown/uncooperative partner so Mikah purchased Sungen's share.
No homicide involved. . .it's for causing undue stress and suffering for those who read his messages. 😀
He is in IHub jail until May 5/2024
One more time. . .for the new eyes visiting this message board:
Seeking Alpha Transcript from November 15/2023 Conference Call in its entirety:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173248865
Seeking Alpha Transcript from November 15/2023 Conference Call in its entirety:
Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB:ELTP) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript November 15, 2023 11:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Nasrat Hakim - President and Chief Executive Officer
Carter Ward - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Elite Pharmaceuticals Conference Call. At this time all lines have been placed on a listen-only moder.
Before management begins speaking, the conference has the following statement. Elite would like to remind the listeners that remarks made during this call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change at any time, including, but not limited to, statements about Elite's expectations regarding forward operating results.
Forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Laws and represent management's current expectations. Actual results may differ materially. Elite disclaims any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, except as required by law. More complete information regarding forward-looking statements, risks and uncertainties can be found in the reports Elite files with the SEC, which is available on Elite's website at elitepharma.com under the Investor Relations section. Elite encourage you to review these documents carefully.
With that covered, it is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Nasrat Hakim, President and Chief Executive Officer of Elite Pharmaceuticals. Sir, the floor is yours.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Matthew. And good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Nasrat Hakim. I am Elite's Chairman and CEO. This is our earnings call, our CFO, Carter, the Boomerang Ward will give you a summary of the company financials, after which, I'll give you an update and answer some of the questions that you've submitted to Diane. Carter, welcome back, and you have the floor.
Carter Ward
Thank you, Nasrat. Good morning, everybody. Let me just start by, I guess, reintroducing myself. My name is Carter Ward, and this is my second sort of duty here at Elite. Some of you, longer-term investors may remember me. But I was the CFO here from 2009 to 2021. For 12-years, and I rejoined Elite about two months ago and very, very happy to be back home with [Miante] (ph) here at Elite and hoping that I can do my best to contribute to future success at Elite.
So yesterday, we filed our 10-Q. It's the second quarter of our 2020 fiscal year. Our fiscal year, as always, they end March 31. So March 31, 2024, is our 2024 fiscal year and September 30, this quarter is the second quarter of that year. As I've done -- before I'm going to provide some context, some color to the financial statements. And as I go through my comments here, I'll be -- I received a bunch of questions overnight and I'll do my best to answer those as well.
Let's start with the P&L. And total revenues for the quarter were $14.2 million, and you can compare that to $8.6 million for September ‘22 quarter -- 2022 quarter and also $9 million for the June 2023 quarter. So that's a year-on-year increase of 65% and a 58% increase since our last quarter, the June 2023 quarter. Our operating income was $1.9 million profit. We compare that to a profit of $1.1 million last year and $1.6 million for the last quarter. That's a 73% year-on-year increase and a 19% increase since the last quarter.
It's pretty clear that the increases are the result of one very big event that happened actually in April of this year, the beginning of our fiscal year, and that's the launch of the Elite label. Nasrat is going to talk a lot about the products, the pipeline and all of those things. I'm not going to go into that type of detail here.
But from the finance side, it's pretty clear that this launch, the Elite label being in the market has made a significant positive contribution to our financial condition. There's no doubt about that. Going back, pulled up the history books and I looked at the last five years of revenue, 2019 -- fiscal 2019, for the entire year, we didn't even have $8 million in revenue, $7.6 million for that year. And then it went $18 million, $25 million, $32 million and last year, March 2023, we were at $34 million, and that's for the entire year, for the full 12 months. We are already halfway -- only halfway through the year, six months, we're already at $23 million. So that run rate should continue, but we will far exceed last year's revenues by the time this year ends.
Let me see. So going down the P&L, there's a large number. And I did get a question on that, so I might as well answer that question. And I got a question says, what is the income tax benefit income? And why was it recorded in this quarter? So if you look down the P&L, there is a $17.7 million income tax benefit. So that means there's an income item. It's a noncash revenue item and this relates to net operating losses, NOLs that we've been accumulating for the past 20 or so years. There are tax deductions on future tax returns. When we file it, we can deduct prior year losses and offset against any income taxes that we would owe currently. This is what's known as the deferred tax asset on the balance sheet. It's always been there, except up until now, we had to make a reserve against it. So we had to bring that asset down to zero.
The definition on asset is a right to a future benefit, but accounting rules required that since we were in a loss position since the metrics were not showing enough profits to be able to use this benefit going forward, we had to make a reserve against that bringing it down to zero. Things are different now, however, we're now profitable. We have metrics that are showing profits going forward. And now those same accounting rules require that we remove that reserve, we released the reserve is what it's called. And we record this differed tax asset, meaning, we're going to get a future benefit from these prior year losses. Within the terms of the internal revenue co.
So, now this is a technical onetime entry and results in a large noncash below the line income item on our P&L. So that's exactly what it is. It's not going to repeat. It's a onetime thing, technical accounting stuff. But the take away hear really is that, our metrics have changed. They changed from in the past, ongoing losses to now profits. And now, that tax deduction does have value to Elite going forward. So it's showing up as a balance sheet item.
And I did get one more question before I more away from the P&L statement, and it was, increased revenues were fantastic. However, I see gross profit margins experience a small dip compared to previous quarters. And then mentioning the fiscal 2023, we had a 49% gross profit margin. And this quarter, we had 46% -- actually for the six months, we have 48%. So we really didn't have much of a drop in profit margin. And -- but the only thing is, we have much higher volumes. We're selling our label now to a lot of wholesalers who are getting these volumes to a significant margins, and there's discounts and chargebacks and things like that, which have a negative effect on our margins. But really, we're holding on to the margin pretty well and increasing our volumes significantly.
So, it's a good thing. It's a good thing. So now moving away from the P&L, we go to cash flow. We had an operating burn for the six months ended September 30 of this year of $2.9 million. And I did get a question on that and they were talking about, we have strong revenues, we have profits, why the cash burn? And – strong revenues, profits, a growing company and cash burn is quite normal when you're in rapid growth phases.
If you look at the cash flow statement, the answer jumps right off the page and you look at our increase in accounts receivable and our increase in inventory. Together, that was around $13.1 million increases. And this is causing a cash burn. This is a classic example of growth requiring increased working capital, all successful launches require upfront working capital, we're no exception. We have to buy inventory in advance, a lot of time months in advance to be able to manufacture on time. We're giving terms -- payment terms, so we're collecting over 60 days or so. So it takes a while for the money to start coming back in, very standard stuff here. We've primed our operations with increased inventory, receivables went up, but the cash flow will catch up as those assets turn over. And that's what's happening. So, all of this is nothing to -- it's very much expected.
Then let's move on to the balance sheet. I got a few questions there. And first, I just wanted to say on the balance sheet, our working capital has increased by almost $2 million in the past six months. So working capital is current assets minus current liabilities. It's a major metric as far as liquidity is concerned. That's a more than 14% increase just in these six months. The profits drive working capital, our financials clearly demonstrate this.
Got a couple of questions. It says, all tough sales were very strong, accounts receivable quite high at almost 70%. Please comment? And again, this kind of goes hand-in-hand with what I just said about the cash burn, the cash flow statement. Generally, we're selling now to a lot of wholesalers, generally terms are roughly 60 days, 45 days to 60 days or so. So, whereas in the past, we were selling -- we were licensing out and the terms were 30 days. So that's going to lead an increase in your receivables. Again, the number to look at is really the turn of the receivables, and that's happening.
Got another question here on the balance sheet. Is there a plan to pay down debt? And what is the plan or expectation for paying down debt? And -- well, we don't really have that as much debt as it may seem. If you go into the balance sheet and you look, first of all, we have accounts payable, which is just trade payables and we turn that over every 30 days to 45 days. So that's normal operations. But then you look at the accrued expenses, which are $11.1 million. And I think it's note four in the financial statements. More than half of that, $6.4 million is noncash and really the amount that's showing on the balance sheet is based on the stock price. So this stock price has gone up a lot for this quarter and thankfully, it's still going up. So that makes that liability number higher, because it will be -- this is stock salaries and stock for the directors -- for the director fees, which have ended by the way. So as of April 1, we are no longer doing that, but we still have that to be accrued until we issue those shares, which we expect to do this year.
So there's a lot of noncash there. There's a profit split, which is due to Mikah, which I got another question that. I'll talk to you about in a second. That's $3.4 million, that’s about 90% of our accruals. Then the other part of our debt is a loan from Nasrat and David Caskey, one of our directors of $4 million, which helped us provide the working capital for the launch. So that's going to be paid within terms. And then the other two items on debt is, we have a bank -- a term loan with a bank, East West Bank we're going to pay that within terms. I think that expires in 2027. And then we have our bonds way back from 20 -- 2005. That we're paying within terms. And I think the last payment is 2030. So when you look at it, we really don't have much debt at all. We are very strong. Our balance sheet is very strong. We are very unusual in this segment, just because how low the debt is.
So then another question, it's kind of related to the balance sheet. So I might as well get to on that. And it says, talking about what makes up the $3.4 million accrued expense to Mikah. That has to do with the agreement originally with SunGen back in, I believe, 2017-2018. It was a co-development, essentially of our mixed Amphetamine products. Half of the profits earned are shared with, at that time, SunGen. In the last few years, Mikah had bought out SunGen rights to these profit split. So this is -- we would either have to pay it to SunGen or we would have to pay it to Mikah. Mikah gives us a little better payment terms. So we haven't paid as of the balance sheet date, we haven't paid yet that amount, but it's accrued. It would have to be paid anyway and the plans are to get current with Mikah and on these profit splits by the end of this fiscal year.
Let me see it -- I think I'm guiding to all the questions that I was asked. So let me just sum things up. Elite is a much different company than it was when I left and it's much different when -- even from a year ago. And this is thanks to the successful launch of Elite label last April. Our revenues are up 65%. Our operating profits are up 73%, our six months revenue are more than triple where we were five years ago for a full year. Our working capital is increasing. Our debt is low. Our balance sheet is strong and strengthening. Much has changed for the better -- for the much better over the past year.
So, now our CEO, Mr. Nasrat Hakim, will provide his comments.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Carter. Carter covered the financials very thoroughly. So I'll only say a couple of high-level words about financials before I talk about the sales and distribution, the commercial product facility, R&D and then we'll go to Q&A. Our revenues are growing. Our investment in R&D and the R&D pipeline is growing. Our fundamentals are strong and more stable than ever and we are getting closer to NASDAQ merger or acquisition.
Last year was our best year in revenues ever. We generated $34 million. That was when multiple companies were selling Elite's products, including Lannett. The sales and distribution agreement between Elite and Lannett was terminated two quarters ago. In the last two quarters, we generated $23 million in revenues. This is at the time where most experts thought we were going to have a major dip by switching between companies because the DEA did not give us enough quota to launch both. We had to finish one to start the other and still we came up with $23 million in revenues.
We are on target to achieve another record-breaking year in revenues, definitely north of $40 million. And today, we command a larger market share of the Amphetamine IR and ER market than Lannett. That is a serious noteworthy achievement. With the implementation of Prasco agreement as of January 1, 2024, and the R&D needle mover products expected to be approved in 2024, it is my expectation that this trend will continue in calendar year 2024 and 2025 and beyond. Our business model is looking great for 2024 and 2025.
If you look at just 2023, January through December, that alone will be way north of $45 million. The next two years are going to be a lot better than that. The products that are currently bringing in the revenues are the mixed Amphetamine IR and ER, these were Elite's largest products last year and we expect them to continue to be our largest product this year under Elite label.
We have contracts in place, and we expect to maintain our double-digit market share. Managing the DEA quota has been a challenge. However, Elite has been able to manage through this challenge very well to date. Amphetamine IR remains on the FDA shortage list and both products are in demand. The rest of our commercial portfolio contains the bariatric products, Phentermine and Phendimetrazine weight loss products, Isradipine, a hypertension product, Trimipramine, antidepressant and nerve pain product, Loxapine is for schizophrenia and agitation and Dantrolene as a muscle relaxant. All are being sold under Elite's label as of April 1, 2023. And frankly, Prasco is doing a better job at selling our product than any of our partners has ever done.
We have also two products that are not being sold at this time, an antibiotic, Doxycycline and in pain management, [indiscernible]. We do not have any plans to sell these products in the near future. One, because we have a partnership with Praxgen and Doxycycline and we haven't resolved the issues with Doxycycline. And two, [indiscernible] opioid and there are a lot of problems associated with that at this time. With opioid, not the product.
As far as the manufacturing, packaging, holding and testing facility is concerned, and increase in sales and distribution requires more testing, more employees and more storage space and more equipment. So we have upgraded and purchased several pieces of equipment to keep up with the sales demands and also to have backup units. As I have discussed with you before, the capacity and size of our facility have been on my mind for a while now. Even though we can supply our customers' demands today by running the facility every day on shift and a half or five days a week. We don't have the space to store the finished product, because most of it is a controlled substance.
So let me explain that. When you buy the API and IPI, the active pharmaceutical ingredients and the inactive pharmaceutical ingredients, they come in buckets, and you mix them and blend them, and you make your tablets and capsules. And then you put them in bottles, and you package them. The bottling and packaging takes massive amount of space compared to the raw materials and the tablets and capsules in the bottle. Now because these are controlled substances, you have to put them in vaults. So the more you make, the more vault space you need, and that is becoming an issue. Before we were making them and shipping them to Lannett and others, now it's our distribution, it's our facility, and we need to resolve that problem very soon.
So we have been exploring options for manufacturing and storage capacity as I've updated you on before. One option is to rent or buy a warehouse that we can retrofit into a manufacturing facility. There'll be a duplicate of the current facility where you have equipment and personnel and packaging lines and blending and leverages and what have you. And that has tremendous advantage in that if there is a catastrophe on one site, you have business continuity where you have another site to continue your business.
But it has the disadvantage of being very expensive to duplicate the equipment. And it also is very expensive to run clinical trials to transfer the extended-release products. So another option would be to do something similar, get another facility, retrofitted, but only transfer the IR products, instant release, because the instant release products do not require clinical trials, they just require that you manufacture the lot, place it on stability, so that it's equivalent to where you manufacture somewhere else, file a CBE30 and transfer it. The process takes a few months, and it doesn't cost much. It's all internal.
But it still costs a lot of money to buy a plant, duplicate equipment and all of that. So for option one and option two, the cost estimate is between $25 million to $35 million. Option three was what we decided to do. So let me walk you through that since it is going to be a part of the company. Our current facility is about -- the manufacturing facility is 36,000 square feet. But you are facing the facility on one side, you enter the APIs and IPIG, enter all the components from there, the trucks come in and that's where you put them. The middle of the facility is where you do all of your manufacturing. And the right side of the facility is where you package and get the product out.
So what I thought will be inexpensive for us to do and help release the company is, if we take the final part out where all the finished product which has to be in the vaults and the package, take that out and move it to a packaging facility and a storage facility that will give us enough space for expanding manufacturing for the future. And now we have a new facility where we have two packaging lines instead of one, so we have unlimited capacity. We have a much larger vault and we have stories for the non-controlled substances.
So that was the option we decided to go with, and we were lucky enough to find a facility within a mile from North Whale, which means our staff can actually -- they don't have to quit and will have somebody else to work in Philadelphia and Long Island, they are next door, so we can retain the current staff. They just moved next door and continue working for Elite. Managements gets to keep an eye on the staff. And the cost is only about 10th of starting a manufacturing facility, about $2.5 million. I am happy to report that I got the approval of the Board of Directors and signed the letter of intent on Monday. We are in the middle of negotiating the details, and I expect that by mid next year, we will move into the new facility.
So we have our products, we have our sales and marketing that's selling the products and generating today's revenues, we have set up the facility to be good to go for the next five years, at least. Now we need the pipeline in order to keep the business growing and in case if anything happened where somebody enters the market and our share gets reduced, that does not affect the company. In fact, we want to increase our share in sales and marketing by introducing other products, and that's where R&D comes in.
We will definitely continue to invest in product development. Our goal is to commercialize a new competitive products and diversify our portfolio. Commercial product line is nothing but an R&D line that made it to the market. So I'm always thinking R&D is an extension to the market because that's all it is. They are the commercial product today, they are the ones who are bringing the revenues and the R&D is the one that's going to bring the revenues in the future. So investing all the profits we have into R&D is the right thing to do.
So let me walk you through what happens when we file an ANDA, so I can update you on the ANDA as that are in the queue. After everything is done and we compile an ANDA, and you do the clinical trials and the recession, get to the point where you have filed with the FDA, you have to send it through FDA's gateway. It's an electronic means for them to receive it from you. Once we do that, the FDA will look at all the sequences and say, okay, you got all the parts in here, so we acknowledge that we received it. Then they give themselves 45 days in order to look at the components of the ANDA and make sure that you covered everything that it's linked properly, that all the parts of it that are critical are there. And ANDA have 5 parts, module 1 through 5.
Module 2 is for the clinical trials. Module 5 is also for the clinical trials. Module 3 is for the chemistry manufacturing and controls, that’s where you have the drug substance and drug product. So they look at all these components and they say, fine, now it's accepted for review. That's when we will make an announcement that this ANDA has been accepted by FDA, and this will be the PDUFA date or at least the filing days, okay? So last time we waited and did announce the opioid till about 30 days, 45 days after we filed it because we did not receive the approval from FDA till then. The same thing is going to happen with the second needle mover.
As soon as we hear from the FDA in December that it has been accepted for review, we will issue an announcement, right? So what the FDA does when they receive it and accept it for review, then they start the examination and evaluation process of ANDA, prosecution of ANDA. Every time we found something wrong they sent you a letter called [indiscernible] review letter that says, fix this, do more testing here, sent me all documents, this is not eligible. You do that throughout the entire 10 months. So when we file we don't go into vacuum for 10 months and then tell you guys, hey, we received a response from FDA or not. We are actually communicating with them on a regular basis, right?
So today, we have three ANDAs that have been accepted for review and under prosecution by the FDA. And the fourth one that I will let you know next month that it has been accepted for review so that will make for this year. One of the ANDAs is dopamine agonist. And that ANDA that we submitted, the FDA has been corresponding back and forth with us. During the evaluation of the ANDA, they found that the microbiological lab that did micro testing on the ANDA was not adequate. So they sent us a note. Now while the ANDA has been prosecuted, you cannot go ahead and change things in it. That's it. You have to wait till the end of the [indiscernible]. So they had to wait until October, which was our PDUFA date, tell us, go ahead and change the lab, we are in the process of doing that, and we will refile probably within two weeks.
The second ANDA, the antimetabolite ANDA, the FDA is very interested in that because that product is on product shortage. So the FDA is working very closely with us to ensure that it does get approved by the PDUFA date, which is February or before.
The third ANDA is the one we received the acceptance for, it’s the opioid. We haven't gotten much response from them yet. It's only been a couple of months. I expect next month or the month after they start asking questions. And while we're at the fourth ANDA, which is the largest of them, I am expecting that the PDUFA date will be September of 2024. And we will focus on that and the opioid ended the most because they are the ones that are going to be game changers. These two products are going to be bigger than Amphetamine IR and ER in my opinion, okay?
Other than what we have in the market, which is three and one, the total of four that are pending for FDA, we have one more product that we did a pilot study for, that's another needle mover. And the pilots certainly give us guidance on what to do. And I expect that we're going to run the DV study in 2024 and hopefully file that product then.
Next after that is the preliminary work, and I've made the decision for the company that going forward, we are no longer going to work on small products. And what I mean by that is, like the product I was alluding to earlier, the dopamine agonist, it is a very small product. It takes a lot of effort to work on small products. It takes a lot more effort to work on larger products, but larger products really pay. In way of an example [indiscernible] we had about 250 products at the Elizabeth facility. Out of the 250, 12 of them were bringing in 80% of the money and the rest were fillers. Well, we are a small company. So going forward, every single product you are going to select is going to be a large billion-dollar product.
So the three products we have in development right now are at the early stage. All of them are product that we have selected that fits within our technology, either tablets, capsules, extended release, instant release. And they need to be either going to be off patent soon or have a very good market. And we have three of these products identified that we will be working on for the next generation. And I'll keep you updated on that. These three products that are -- we're starting on other than the five I updated you on are all products that are still on patent for a couple of more years, and each and every one of them is a $1 billion market or above.
To wrap it up, this is extremely exciting. The company is turning around finally. We are becoming a fully functional pharmaceutical company with having our own sales and distribution. We are executing on our growth plans, filing new ANDAs, obtaining product approvals and expanding our sales and distribution organization and increasing our revenues.
With that, I'll go to Q&A. As always, I know that you've submitted questions to Dian, some of them she called out, other she grouped for me to look at and answer. And I did incorporate quite a bit of the answer to my presentation, but I'll address some of the questions that you sent me, read them out loud and answer when needed.
All right. So the first question, can you provide PDUFA date insights for opioid analgesic and other filings. It's GDUFA not PDUFA. And the general rule is that you'll get a response in 10 months. The response could be, hey, you need more work, which is called complete response letter, or hey, you're approved. But the FDA is obligated to give you a response in 10 month, okay? What that response is going to be? We don't know. We'll wait until the FDA says that, but the general rule for everybody in the industry, 10 months, and you will get an answer. Now after the 10 months, if the answer is that, I still need you to do something doesn't mean it's rejected. All that means is go do that, and I'll approve you later, but now you're not under a PDUFA fee. The FDA doesn't have to take it up and give it priority over anybody else.
Any update on the dopamine agonist? Any update on the central nervous system stimulus that recently had a positive bioequivalence study? Yes. As I stated, we will issue a PR once we have an acceptance for review by FDA. We haven't seen that a CNS product filed yet. This one seems to be taken longer to file as per positive DEA results that -- than usual. Are we still tracking to file soon? And if so, when?
Let me take a minute to tell you that the assumption is not true. Pharma company is manufactured an exhibit batch, just a single batch out of the set of dosages that you have. So if a product has five different strains. They'll pick the one that's supposed to go into the clinical trial and make one batch and run the clinical trial. If they pass the clinical trial, then they go ahead and make the rest of the lots, because it costs a lot of money. So if you have five dosages and you run a clinical trial with one and you pass, then you have to go back and make three batches of each strains. That's 15 lots. Plus, if you want a second, somebody have to do five more. So 20 lots have to be made after you pass the clinical trial and put on stability.
Mandatory six month stability for accelerated and control room temperature. So manufacturing the lots take a couple of months. The stability is six months. That's eight units tested, that's nine and regulatory affairs needs to compile the ANDA, that’s at least another month or two, that’s 10 or 11 months. So we made announcement at the end of August. If I can remember correctly, August 28 of 2023, that we passed the BE. 10 months from then will be June 2024. And this is -- the filing is happening now. So I think that we're moving at lightning speed. And that's because we took chances and we made the lots at risk because this was an important product and our data was solid when we're going to pass. But under normal circumstances in the future, look at 10 months after the clinical trial testing for filing. That would be reasonable anywhere in the industry.
Can you provide insight into pipeline progress? What our filings expectations for 2024? I expect that we file at least two more in 2024 and hopefully get approval for four. That includes the two needle movers.
When does Elite plan to diversify away from CNS and opioids? I'm not sure why would we do that. We will add to it. And I just went through the list we have, high blood pressure medications, we have bariatrics, we have massive relaxants. We have a lot of other products. And as long as the product is popular, serves a purpose and it creates revenues and profits, we'll stick with it.
When do you anticipate filing the third needle mover product, assuming trial time line goes according to plan? Next year, 2024 will be the time.
Some questions about Presco. Details you can share on Presco agreement? Well, Presco is the authorized generic -- they'll be buying the product now from Elite instead of the brand. It hasn't been easy, because we had to obtain quota just for them, supported by their data. But we are making lots, and they expect to launch in January of 2024, and we're going to be there right with them. They were received what we promised them in December. It's a win-win for both companies. It's a very exciting opportunity, and that's going to add quite a bit to our revenues and profits.
Does Presco get to keep their prior Adderall quota for us to manufacture? No, that's not the way it works out. As a matter of fact, according to Presco, they never had to deal or think about quota. It was the brand company. Brand companies get all the quota they want. So they were selling the product to Presco, putting it on the label and Prasco was selling it, but the quota does not come with it.
Has Elite been able to increase their quota for API for Adderall generic? The DEA has been signed, they have giving us what we need to stay in business. Corporate operation, when will fiscal calendar year -- fiscal and calendar year align? This is a Carter project, I definitely want us to go to a calendar year and he is resisting. So we'll figure it out. He seems to think we'll go to NASDAQ faster, but I'm working on him. It's the first thing I asked Carter to do when he joined the company and he is previously working on a lot of things that he hasn't done before, the charge backs and [indiscernible]. There are a lot of things for them to work on. So I'm not pushing on this, but I really would like to do that. And we'll see what happens over time.
Does Mr. Nasrat have an idea of what price point would start looking at -- to do a reverse split? We are not going to have a reverse split unless we're going to NASDAQ. Otherwise, it would be meaningless to stay on the bulletin board and do any kind of reverse split. If we stay on the bulletin board, which we're not, then we'll grow organically. But if we're going to go to NASDAQ, we have to comply with certain rules. And the only thing really that we don't comply with to the best of my knowledge now is the share price. It needs to be above $5, I think, to enter. My primary focus right now is to continue to strengthen the fundamentals and everything else will take care of itself.
A few questions on manufacturing. And then one more on financials. A few questions on manufacturing. First, please provide an update on additional manufacturing and/or storage space utilization and anticipated needs? I already did that. So as I said, we're going to start a new facility and do the packaging there, and a huge vault in it and the warehousing.
So with expanding in-house sales and marketing, can investors get an update on manufacturing capacity? Yes, that's exactly what I gave you. Does Elite have a time line for when will it max out on our current manufacturing facility? Really, the manufacturing facility can manufacture a lot more than it is and we can package more. It's a matter of capacity for storage, and that's why we came up with a solution of starting a new warehouse that we will house the finished product at.
Will we be able to get more manufacturing space before that happened? Yes. How long will it take to expand our manufacturing capability? I would imagine when we finish negotiating the contract and we need them to build a few things for us and we will be moving in -- between April 1, will take charge and all in probably by June. Okay.
Can you provide a Q4 and 2024 sales and profitability outlook? Okay. We usually don't do that, and profits side we don't do that, and I agree with it. But I'm going to be brave today and tell you this. Let's look at 2023. In the last three quarters from January till September, we've made more than $30 million. By the end of this quarter, this -- by December, we would be north of $40 million. Next year is going to be a bigger year, because we will have Presco in the mix. And later on in the year, we will have some of the needle movers as well. So next year, calendar year 2024 will be even bigger than that.
And for 2025, will it be even bigger than that, too, because most of the needle movers will get approval for will be toward the end of the year. So what I'm looking at is an extremely positive outlook for Elite. The increase we have seen from $7.5 million to $23 million is only the beginning. I think the next three, four years are going to be fantastic for us and for the stockholders.
With that, thank you all for coming. I really appreciate it. And thank you, Matthew, and we will talk to you soon.
Operator
Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Question-and-Answer Session
End of Q&A
Looking at the past filing history, my guess would be the 2024 Q2 report would be filed sometime between November 14 to 16 with the Conference Call following the next day on one of those dates.
Here are some links for any newcomers to the message board who wish to do some DD on Elite Pharmaceuticals:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172638459
Nasdaq is alright by me. Hey. . .we've both made
wise decisions by investing in Elite Pharmaceuticals.
Oh for crying out loud. . .did you not recognize the sarcasm and tongue in cheek humor in Nasdaq's post. Geez SMH
I do believe 2024 will be a monster year for us!!
Ah. . .it looks like Concerta is in short supply.
Thanks for the info. The Vyvanse generics are coming, including ELTP. I can hardly wait for this to happen!!
At 2.53 billion in annual US sales, I'd say there is plenty of room for the generic players to compete, including ELTP, when the time comes.
I don't now if there are any generic versions of Concerta but as of August 9,2023 there was no generic availability of Vyvanse.
Make like the birds and flock off.
Here are some links for any newcomers visiting this board who wish to do some DD on Elite Pharmaceuticals:
The latest Conference Call transcript for the Q1 2024 results:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172606343
For those who wish to listen to the latest Conference Call audio track:
https://elite.irpass.com/events_presentations
Q1 2024 Financial Report:
https://dd7pmep5szm19.cloudfront.net/2258/0001493152-23-028434.pdf
Seeking Alpha Transcript from today's Conference Call in its entirety:
Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB:ELTP) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call August 15, 2023 11:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Nasrat Hakim - President and Chief Executive Officer
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Elite Pharmaceuticals First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024 Conference Call. At this time, all lines have been placed on a listen-only mode.
Before management begins speaking, the Company has the following statements. Elite would like to remind their listeners that remarks made during this call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to changes at any time, including, but not limited to, statements about Elite's expectations regarding future operating results.
Forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the federal securities laws and represent management's current expectation. Actual results may differ materially. Elite disclaims any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
More complete information regarding forward-looking statements, risks and uncertainties can be found in the reports Elite files with the SEC, which are available on Elite's website at elitepharma.com under the Investor Relations section. Elite encourages you to review these documents carefully.
With that covered, it is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Nasrat Hakim, President and Chief Executive Officer of Elite Pharmaceuticals. Sir, the floor is yours.
Nasrat Hakim
Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Nasrat Hakim. I am Elite's Chairman and CEO. This is our earnings call. I will give you a summary of the Company's financials, an update on Elite's R&D, manufacturing, sale and distribution, and answer some of the questions that you have submitted to Diane.
Yesterday, we filed our 10-Q for the quarter ending June 30, 2023. We are on March fiscal year and the June quarter is the first quarter of our 2024 fiscal year. A copy of the 10-Q is available in the Investor Relations section of elitepharma.com, as well as on the sec.gov and many other websites that provide links to filings of public companies. If you haven't done so already, please get a copy of the Q and read it.
As I said, you can obtain that from elite pharma.com or many of the other websites that I mentioned. Today, I review with you some of the key points of the financials starting with the P&L statement. We just had another solid quarterly revenues achieving $9 million during the June 2023 quarter. A $1.3 million increase from June 2022 or approximately 17% increase. Increased revenues have been driven by the successful launch of the Elite label product line during this quarter.
This is our first quarter we go with the Elite label. The Elite label is now being sold to more than 25 of the largest wholesalers and retailer pharmacy distributors in the country. During our products to market our own label, we have encountered some difficulties, but overall the financial the success that we've had during our first quarter.
Over the years, Elite has made a name for itself as a reliable manufacturer of quality, niche, generic product, which other licensees have enjoyed the partnering with us. We have now achieved the criticalness that allows us to offer our products under our own label and Elite has begun establishing a name for itself with most of the companies serving the United States wholesale and retail market.
As with any new business segment, there have been learning curves but overall the launch has been a success with record revenues achieved. Moving down the P&L, R&D costs are up by almost 20% from last year. Pipeline development is the most critical aspect of a generic company. Our pipeline is our bloodline.
All growth is related to the pipeline. We continue to invest in our future as demonstrated by the R&D expenses and our P&L statement. Finally, our operating income was $1.6 million this year, a 60% increase as compared to the June 2022 quarter.
Moving to the balance sheet, biggest takeaway on the balance sheet is the increase in working capital. Working capital was up $1.7 million or 12% since the beginning of the fiscal year. Profitable businesses create working capital and our balance sheet reflects that as well. We see a large increase in inventory and accounts receivable, approximately $4.7 million overall, that is all in line with growth achieved from the Elite label launch.
Typical indicator of a growing business is the continued growth of working capital as our receivables and inventory turnover. To summarize the financial statement for you, for P&L statement shows record revenues, increased profits, increased R&D investment and decrease in the G&A cost.
And our balance sheet indicates an increase in working capital, low debt, and a clean capital to capital structure, all our metrics that we want to see. It is only been six weeks since our last investor call, so a lot of the things that have to do with the site have not changed. So let me start with R&D first.
Elite recently filed two ANDAs, a generic anti-metabolite ANDA and a genetic dopamine agonist ANDA. These products are under review by FDA. The Company also submitted partial ANDA for pain management for FDA review. The partial application contained the recently concluded insufflation study. Elite received correspondence from FDA requesting certain information.
The information has been gathered and the response will be out to FDA this week. This is one of the three needle mover products that I spoke of six weeks ago. Elite has another product that is undergoing a pivotal DE clinical trial. If we pass then we expect to file this ANDA this year. Just to make sure that everybody understands me, two of the three needle mover ANDAs as I spoke of will be filed this year.
Elite continues to invest in product development. Our goal is to commercialize a new competitive product as we grow and diversify our portfolio. We will update you on other developing products when we reach certain milestones such as filing or approval. Regarding the facility, manufacturing and products, not much has changed since six weeks ago. The products that bring in the revenues are by far first the mixed amphetamine, IR and ER.
These are Elite's largest products. We expect them to continue to be our largest products this year under the Elite label. We have contracts in place and we expect to maintain our double-digit market shares. Management of the DEA quota is always a challenge. However, Elite has been able to manage through this challenge to-date. Amphetamine IR remains on the FDA shortage list on both products are and demand.
Isradipine and Trimipramine are being sold under the Elite label as of April 1st. Although these products are modest on volume, they only have one other competitor. Isradipine is in particularly of particular interest to us. It's a great opportunity for us and hopefully under Kirko we will capitalize on that.
We had Isradipine being sold by another company first Glenmark and then Epic. The revenues from Isradipine for the entire year last year when the product was under another company are less than what we got in one month under Kirko. When you have your own product and you care, then you invest more time and effort into selling your product and in their profitability.
Loxapine and Dantrolene are also of interest to us. These two products have each two competitors in the market. Pricing has been a challenge though despite a few competitors. We expect that we will capture a modest part of the market and hopefully they will do also better under us than they did under our licensees.
We will continue to sell selected products under licenses as well. For example, our long-term partner TAGI continues to Phentermine and Naltrexone. Elite owns multiple genetic products, some of which are licensed to Prasco and TAGI, and others that we are selling ourselves. Elite has developed a new customer relationship with at least 27 companies including Cardinal Health, CVS, Walgreens, Myers, Publix, and McKesson.
Product shipments started on April 1st without a hitch. We grew revenues from direct sales each month this quarter. Revenues grew by 17% over last year's first quarter. We maintain a strong cash position, working capital increased as expected. Further growth potential will come from new sales, increased margins and the Prasco license.
Prasco has been given a non-exclusive license for two years to sell Amphetamine ER under their Burel label and those sales are expected to begin in January, 2024. In addition, the TAGI license continues through 2025 and they will continue to sell Phentermine and Naltrexone.
To wrap up, Elite is executing its growth plans by filing new ANDAs, obtaining product approvals, and creating our own sales and distribution organization. We look forward to reporting on our second quarter of direct sales when we talk again in November.
Now, we've got some questions and answers. Some of the questions that you sent to Diane, we did what we always do, we group them all together and try to address each segment by itself.
Question-and-Answer Session
A - Nasrat Hakim
If we get approval, then yes, you can launch. Usually that's not how it happens, okay. With a product that's a brand that, that's being transferred to a generic. But the premise is if we get approval, how we launch the answer is yes. You can launch the day. You get approval. Now, if you got tentative approval or approval, you'll have to wait till certain things are satisfied.
Do any other company have generic exclusivity rights? We have to wait out first.
We don't know that yet. If there's somebody else that have filed and they're going to beat us to the market. If the FDA gives somebody exclusivity then they will have 180 days a head start on all of us. But as of now, we do not know that anybody has done all the testing required by FDA and filed as well. We know a lot of people have filed, but we don't know if they're all satisfied the FDA requirements.
Does Elite expect any lawsuits from Purdue over this product?
It would be difficult to imagine Purdue not suing anybody over this product. Okay. They'll always find the place. It's their biggest product. Of course, they're going to find the, the triumph, find something to sue for. That's not to be unexpected. That doesn't hinder us from launching though. You got to assess the risk and see if they have a valid point.
Does in tests challenging the OxyContin patent and winning effect Elite? It does in a positive manner.
When somebody has a patent and somebody else invalidate it, they don't invalidate it only for themselves. They invalidated for everybody in the industry. So when in test challenged Purdue and invalidated some of their patents, these patents are no longer valid on us either and we can go ahead on file without the restrictions on these attributes. So in test challenge did have an effect on Elite and it was a positive one as they did on everybody else in the industry.
Does in tests get 180-day head start? Only if, there are the first to file or satisfy all of FDA requirements. The fact that they won a case in court is irrelevant. So you could sue somebody and invalidate all of their patent, but if you don't have a pending application on your first to file, you're not going to get anything out of it. So, are they going to get the 180 days only if they are the first to file and to the best of my knowledge I haven't heard that they filed an application yet.
General pipeline, what are the expected IMS numbers, market size for the needle movers ANDAs in the pipeline that are the closest to being filed with the FDA? The IMS or IQIA numbers will be announced when we make a press release about these products when the time comes. Are any of these already pending with FDA? We will definitely make a statement about that when the time comes.
All the needle movers recently discussed in what category of undisclosed and as does Elite for foresee the largest opportunity. Opioid stimulus are cardiovascular. Well, we're in the stimulus and opioid category. We don't have a cardiovascular one yet, but the products are in the other two categories.
Does Elite instead any of these outperforming our Adderall IR and ER? The answer is yes, but we really don't know because we don't know how many other players are in there and how we going to have an Indian company that makes the API cheap and undercut everybody. But all evidence right now shows that these products will be as big, if not bigger than Adderall IR and ER at least two of the three.
Are any new BE studies expected to be completed this calendar year? We've done quite a few BE and insufflation and pilot studies this year. One, we will get the results for tomorrow, and I expect it to be positive and it's one of the needle movers. Whether we are going to do anything let's say in Q4 of this year remains a question mark. After the meeting with the CRO and the scientists tomorrow regarding a few products.
We'll determine if we are going to run a pilot or a BE and whether we are running it in the fall or next year depending on several factors including availability of beds at the clinical site. Have any products been submitted to FDA that haven't already been disclosed to shareholders? I like that question.
Okay. If we did not disclose it, we obviously are not telling you about it. So, the question is not going to open up that door except to tell you when the time comes, we will update you and I will speak to that in a couple of minutes. We always issue press releases when we submit an ANDA with the FDA.
DEA and Adderall, has Elite had any future conversations with the FDA, DEA on additional API quota for Adderall? Given the recent FDA letter about unused quota and shortages?
We have conversations with the DEA, not the FDA with the DEA regularly, because they do give us quota, but they do give us quota hand to mouth. We do have current quota that they just approved, but it's only for a couple of months, and we go back immediately and submit and show them all the sales and show them all the contracts and ask that we get more quota in order to give us some time to order the API bring it in, the process it, test it, make the finished product and so on.
Does Elite anticipate being granted any additional quota for this year and the next?
Of course, if they do not give us quota number one, they'll put us out of business. And number two a more importantly, they'll have a huge shortage. We command a respectable portion of the market as a small company. So, the DEA does operate with us, does work with us, but as I said, they are not super liberal in issuing quota. They granted a little at time. There has been recent presses I guess that's press release. The FDA and DEA are urging drug matters to boost output to address the Adderall shortage, not quite.
Okay. Can you comment on how this will impact Elite and the Company's Adderall products? Will the DEA make it easier to increase the Company's quota to increase output?
The DEA and FDA issued a combined statement that we received copies of before they made it public. And the gist of it were really, they're asking you if you have at extra quota that you ask for a 100 kilos and you only need 50 to give them back to 50. Did not say, hey, you have 50, but you need a hundred. Would you like us to give you the other 50? It wasn't volunteering quota, it was actually asking everybody that has extra quota to give it back. If you haven't read it, please read it. And if you read it, treat it carefully.
The FDA but then because the shortage does impact the FDA and the DEA is starting to work with the FDA to try and manage the situation?
We've done a great job at managing it to-date, but it has not been easy. It's not really, an easy process. It requires a lot for us to get a couple of months, worth of quota.
Partnership, Prasco and Burel during the CC also as I mention the new Prasco and Burel agreement to distribute Adderall ER beginning January 1st or the date of the first commercial sales. Can you expand on that? I thought Elite was going 100% alone after we ended our agreement with Lannett and Epic.
I never go 100% on everything. My motto is very simple. If anything makes Elite money, we will do it and we're open-minded to it. The deal with Burel with Prasco is excellent. It'll materialize and go into effect January 1st for you who do not know. Prasco/Burel are the sales force for the authorized generic and they asked us if we would supply them instead of the authorized generic as of January 1, 2024, and we said, yes.
Once that materialize and see the amount of sales that becomes a material event and we'll discuss it more. But I am hysteric about the contract and about Prasco and Burel doing this on their own label, because that helps us also in other financial points in that there are no charge backs and rebates and very complicated financials. This is an easier transaction and it's always nice to protect the Company by having multiple sources of income and not consuming all the working capital into charge backs and rebates.
Corporate operation has already decided to operate with the temporary CFO from [indiscernible], the new auditor. I don't know where this came from. How is the permanent CFO search going? Are you using accounting contracts and consultants in the interim?
We frankly have the necessary qualified personnel in place while we identify a permanent CFO. In no way has this business activity has been hammered by having a CFO. And the fact is we do have two consultants working as CFOs that have helped us put the entire 10-K the last time before and the Q and helping us with internal controls and finances.
So, when we find a permanent CFO, we'll make an announcement. In the meantime, we have a lot of help and we're doing very well. In addition to the fact that the last time, I gave this presentation without a CFO, the stock actually went up. So I may not hire one for awhile. We'll see how that goes.
Alright, about what point in time in production, it's expected to max out the current facility, when the sales are enough that we cannot make anymore and go to the second and third shift. We still have capacity in there, but really it really is difficult to run it land at 24x7. So, before we get to that point where we are having to go to second shift in all departments and a third shift or weekends, I definitely as I mentioned the last time thinking about the solution for that.
Are we nearing the need for any new shifts to be created at our facility? Anytime we do, we go ahead and accommodate for example in packaging that got to be way too much for people to come in early in the morning and stay late. We were running extended shifts. So, we ran two shifts till we caught up. Same thing in the lab, we staggered people in the morning and then the afternoon to do the same thing as well as manufacturing.
Couple of questions that Diane does not recommend that I address, gossip from the message board, but I'll entertain them because they were entertaining. Alright, so, the first, I was going to say gentleman, I apologize, the first person, it could be a lady, I don't know. Says some naysayers constantly allege that intentionally over the years have been to purposefully put out bare minimum press releases and continue accumulating enough shares at the low price via salary and dilution.
To ultimately take over the Company, serious conspiracy theories, take it private at a very low price. To be clear, I do not personally believe this. I think it is a smear designed to harm the stock. Please consider refuting this publicly. First I have addressed this before, and I stated before that I have no interest in taking Elite private. If I want to take over the Company, I would've done it long time ago via selling them assets I have for shares or something else or would not have done what I've done to get the Company to be profitable and value so much more.
Okay, so, I've already settled this issue, but when people don't want to listen, they don't listen, and they keep repeating the same lies over and over again till somebody believes it. But let's take what you said step-by-step. First, regarding the press releases that we purposefully issue bare minimum press releases, take a moment and think about that.
When we issue, profound press releases, about great achievements of the Company's financials and moving to profitability and contracts with other companies, all the great stuff that we have done in the past five years when we've been every year creating more revenues and more profit than the year before.
When we do all of that and the stock doesn't even move. Do you think, making a stupid, superficial statement like, oh, we're thinking about filing this product or it is going to move anything? No, it'll make us into a joke. When somebody wants to invest in lead and look at all the press releases and the press releases are all Mickey Mouse press releases, they can see through that.
So yes, we only issue press releases that are relevant. We do this at least four times a year for our financials and anytime there is a material event, other than that, we're not going to change our practices, okay. I have already addressed the issue with the taken over the Company. I have no interest in doing that personally.
Now, if a company like my old activist company wanted to buy Elite, they are private, that's fine. If a human will, which bought epic, wanted to buy a Elite, I'm fine with it. But for me personally, to take the Company private, I have and I've stated before, few months back and few months before that, I have zero interest in doing that.
Second question is really long. So I'm not, but I'll read the gist of it. Since many investors are very frustrated with the stock price, the business fundamentals have greatly improved over the years, but that has not translated into a stock price success. The person goes on and on about analyzing the Company and says, I honestly do want the Company and the stock to both do well.
The gist of the full page commentary is two things. One is, I am asking that Elite consider paying all salaries in cash ASAP and that's the first one. And second, and consider even a 500,000 to a million dollars stock buyback plan. A 1 million would currently be anywhere from 23 million to 25 million to 33 million shares. We will talk about buybacks and all of that at the future date.
Investing $1 million to get 25 million shares when you have one plus billion shares outstanding is not going to do anything to the Company or the stockholders. And it's going to take away $1 million that can be spent on multiple clinical trials that could bring us an Amphetamine IR or ER and have a huge impact on the Company. So,, this is to the second one, but as to your first inquiry that ask that Elite consider paying all salaries in cash ASAP. I hereby issued the decree immediately we're going to do that.
For two reasons, number one, because you asked and number two because really the Board have already voted that we do that last week. So the Board actually about a year ago approved us doing that. But it approved it with the caveat as the Company can afford it. Well, we couldn't afford it because it is hypocritical for me, for example, and the board to take money in cash and then turn around and loan the Company money.
So that's why we didn't do it even though the board has been thinking along the same line we're thinking. Let's start paying everybody in cash. But also there is the other side, if we pay you in cash, then we have less money to do clinical trials and we're paying you less in cash and then asking you to loan us money. It didn't make any sense. So in the last meeting, last annual meeting one before this one, we talked about that.
In this one they said the same thing. You still have a green light to consider doing this and that's what we're going to work on. So both your ideas are viable. One, we're going to work on paying everybody in cash and the second this stock buyback is on the table, but there is a matter of whether you can afford it or not.
And there'll be a time where Elite will be profitable enough for us to split the money into a buyback program and supporting the clinical trials, but that will be after we pay our loans as you all know, I've loaned the Company money, one of our great Board of Directors members loan the Company money as well. When that is paid an Elite can live within its means then it'll make a lot of sense for us to spend money on R&D and spend it also on buying back stocks.
With that being said, looking forward to talking to you in November and reporting on the second quarter's results. Thank you Matthews and everybody have a great day.
Operator
Thank you everyone. This concludes today's event.
Yes, it's true. I own a sizeable seven figure share count with an average buy-in price of 8.5 cents but you know what, I haven't lost a dime because I haven't sold any shares yet. I am not a day trader so I don't need to flip stocks to fund my Mickey D allowance. All I have to do is wait (and I have plenty of time) for the fundamentals of ELTP to support a higher share price. So. . .to say my investment I got massacred and buried is pure BS.
Well look at that. . .another FUD inspired crapola conspiracy theory brought to you by one of our imaginative bashers on this board. I will give a 7 our of 10 for your BS skills though.