Welcome to the Australian Investment Summit Podcast, your gateway to insights from industry leaders shaping the future of global investment. In partnership with the prestigious London Stock Exchange, we bring you engaging conversations with visionaries and innovators from Australian companies poised for international success.

Interviewed by Jack Colreavy, CFA, Wellnex Life (ASX: WNX) CEO George Karafotias takes the mic to discuss their rapid growth in the Australian market, collaboration with Haleon (LON: HLN) and plans for the company moving forward. 

For further information on the investment opportunity or if you’re interested in attending the summit, please register via our website: https://australianinvestmentsummit.com/

Join us as we interview the strategic minds driving market advancements and explore why the UK-based investor landscape is a pivotal opportunity for growth-oriented enterprises. From discussions with representatives of the London Stock Exchange to exclusive interviews with CEOs of companies participating in the Australian Investment Summit, this podcast unveils the strategies, aspirations, and market insights that define success in today’s dynamic investment ecosystem. 

Tune in to gain first hand knowledge and discover investment opportunities with the Australian Investment Summit Podcast.

Read the Conversation:

Welcome, my name is Jack Colreavy, Associate Director at Barclay Pierce Capital and today I'm hosting on behalf of the Australian Investment Summit, a London-based event which will be held on July 10 at the London Stock Exchange, showcasing the best in Aussie innovation and business. Wellnex Life is an Australian healthcare company which will be headlining the event and today I am joined by its CEO, George Karafotias. Thanks for joining me, George.

Thanks, Jack. Let's dive straight into it and let's start quite simply, who is Wellnex and what is the vision for the company? Yeah, hi, Jack. Thanks for having me today and thanks for the question.

At Wellnex, we're a health and pharmaceutical company. We're a young company but a growing company. Our vision is to take advantage of the opportunities that the health and pharmaceutical market is bringing.

It's an industry that continues to grow both here in Australia and internationally and it's an industry market that gives us a lot of opportunities to bring some innovative brands and products to market. Yeah, that's great. Now, I mean, when people think about healthcare, it can be very sort of wide-ranging.

What's the specific sort of markets that you guys play in and what are sort of the historical growth rates and sort of the future growth rates? Yeah, it's a good question, Jack. So, we are a consumer healthcare business, so we specialise in bringing, you know, pharmaceutical type products to market but our products are both distributed both in grocery and pharmacy channels here in Australia. Historically, you know, the company continues to grow month on month, year on year.

We are a young company. We have got young brands. What we did last year was acquire a brand called PainAway, which is a brand that's over, you know, over 20 years old here in Australia and what that's done is given us the financial foundations and turned us into a profitable company to really give us the opportunities to continue to grow both the PainAway brand but also the other brands that we're bringing to market and what's exciting for us is the innovation that we're bringing to the market is actually giving us opportunities with the likes of Haleon and Chemist Warehouse, which I'll explain a bit later who Chemist Warehouse is, but put it all together, we have a very exciting company that's just ripe for growth to continue moving forward.

Yeah, I mean, you touched on that on the channel strategy of being able to just distribute some of your products both in pharmacies but also retail, grocery. I think that's extremely important and I think it touches on the success that you've had in Australia to date. Let's dive in a little bit deeper and start with some of these 100% owned brands.

Do you want to just touch on some of the being offered and maybe highlight one or two of the star performers? Yeah, so our brands touch a wide range of categories. You look at PainAway, 20-year-old brand here in Australia, it's in the topical pain relief category. It's the number two brand in Australia, all natural, all Australian made.

Revenue over $15 million a year, high margins and highly profitable. Then you look at a brand called Wakey Wakey, it's a caffeine energy-based effervescent brand. Been launched two years ago, achieved some significant distribution in sales in its first two years, so much so now that we've expanded that brand into the vitamin segment as well.

So it's a caffeine energy plus vitamins. From that, we launched another brand called Nighty Night. Again, another list of medicine, a sleep-aid effervescent product that, again, only 12 months in the market, got range both in pharmacy and grocery channels, and again, achieving some phenomenal sales.

And then you look at the Iron Company, Australia's first slow-releasing iron supplement in a gummy form. Again, a pharmaceutical brand, but both available in pharmacy and grocery channels. Again, a 12-month-old brand, achieving some good results.

So what you're seeing here is got a wide variety of brands in a wide variety of segments within the health and pharmaceuticals market that are achieving some significant sales and achieve some significant distribution. So we're really excited to hear what is where our brands are going. Yeah, it sounds like they're performing really well.

What do you attribute to that performance? Innovation, Jack, being a bit different, not copying what the others are doing. So if you look at our Wakey Wakey, for instance, it's Australia's first listed medicine, caffeine energy-based effervescent, not available in the market. So you go on the shelf, it's something different, something that will arouse a consumer's interest to try and buy it.

You look at the, again, our listed medicines, the first natural or sleep-aid product in an effervescent form. So again, it's something different, something we're not trying to compete against the big boys in the health and pharmaceutical segment. There are some big players.

We want to be a company that's different, that's innovative and gives a consumer the reason to purchase our product because it's different compared to some of our competitors. And what that's done, Jack, is given us opportunities now to work with some of the biggest players in the health and pharmaceutical markets in the likes of Haleon, where they've taken some of our innovative products that we've developed here at Wellnex and put it into Australia's most, or the world's most trusted pain relief brand being Panadol. So that innovation is key here at Wellnex and that's what we do so well and that's why we're achieving some great results at Wellnex.

Yeah, I mean, you touched on that partnership with Haleon. Now that's in conjunction with, I mean, you talk about innovation in brands, but there's also innovation in terms of being able to license and create some intellectual property. Do you want to just touch on the IP that Wellnex Life owns and how that fits into Panadol, a brand that's very well recognized globally? Yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah, I will, Jack. So here at Wellnex, probably about two or three years ago, we identified a gap in the market. We saw there was a liquid ibuprofen pain relief product in market through Nurofen, but we could not understand why there was no one producing a liquid paracetamol in a soft gel product.

So after using our internal resources here at Wellnex in our internal R&D department, we produced a liquid paracetamol in a soft gel and got that registered with the TGA under a dossier. A dossier is your secret herbs and spices that shows that your product is both safe and it does what it's meant to do, i.e. provide pain relief. We launched that product with Australia's largest pharmaceutical retailer, Chemist Warehouse, which have over 500 stores here in Australia in a joint venture.

When Haleon saw that product in market, they actually approached us to say, well, hang on, this product is not, you know, where did you get this product from and can we have it? So after extensive D&D done by Halion over 12 months, we went into a supply agreement with Halion to supply that liquid paracetamol product for their Panadol brand. They launched that in July 2022. Such was the success of that launch, they were about 40% to 50% over forecasted budgets of what they were going to sell to the market.

They have now since expanded that product globally, so that product will be available in the UK and United Arab Emirates under the Panadol brand. And Haleon now have put us as a trusted partner. They've actually not only expanded the liquid paracetamol product into those new territories, they're actually taking additional products that we've developed under a dossier for the Panadol brand.

So not only will you see distribution increase globally, but you'll also see the product offering increasing as well, which puts Wellnex in a really, really strong position in the market. And when you think about it, when you partner up with the likes of Haleon, it means you're providing something unique, something innovative, and something that's really going to financially move the dial for them. So it's really exciting what we're doing there.

And again, it all goes back to innovation, which is what we do well here at Wellnex. It sounds like one of the keys to Wellnex's success is their ability to work with others. Now, another part of your strategy is JV on some brands.

Can you touch on the JVs and who the partners are, and also what are some of the products? Yeah, I can, Jack. So obviously, a lot of people on this webinar will not be aware of who Chemists Warehouse is. Chemists Warehouse is a juggernaut here in the pharmaceutical market.

It has over 500 stores here in Australia. It has stores in China and also has stores in Ireland, and they're looking at further expanding globally. An interesting fact is that they are the highest-grossing retailer on a square-foot basis in the world.

So they're a juggernaut. When we approached them for that innovative product in the liquid paracetamol product, they actually wanted that product for themselves. What we did in turn was enter into a joint venture with them.

We launched a brand called Wagner Health Liquigesic. Wagner Health is owned by Chemists Warehouse, Liquigesic is owned by Wellnex. And we brought that product into market in 2022.

And again, we've had some phenomenal results with that product. So much so that, again, we're expanding the product offering under that brand with Chemists Warehouse. And that is a really lucrative arrangement for us because Chemists Warehouse actually contributes for all the selling and marketing costs associated with that brand.

So we supply the product, we make our margin, and Chemists Warehouse are responsible for all the other costs to sell that brand. So it's a really lucrative arrangement. Such are, we classes, that are really reliable and a good partner of Chemists Warehouse, we've entered into a second JV with them, being a brand called Wellnex Life for the medicinal cannabis market under the SASB scheme here in Australia.

That market's worth over $600 million annually. And we've entered into a joint venture with One Life Labs, which is our manufacturing partner, Chemists Warehouse, which we are a retail partner, and obviously Wellnex. What we've put together is probably the best team in the cannabis market to take advantage of the opportunities that cannabis brings us.

And again, this is all prescription medicine. So it's a high value, high barriers to entry sort of medicine, all that medicinal cannabis market. Like I said, the market is worth $600 million.

And I think we've put ourselves in a very, very good position to take advantage of those opportunities. So, I mean, you just mentioned SASB there. So is that prescription only? Yeah, it is prescription only.

It can only be prescribed by a doctor, an authorised prescriber, to be precise, and can only be dispensed at a pharmacy. Okay, that's interesting and very exciting as well. So it sounds like there's a lot going on with Wellnex, and it's a very exciting time to be a part of the company.

Where do you see the company in, say, five years? We'll be a global health and pharmaceutical company. We'll have our brands globally. We're going to continue to expand our product offering.

And we're going to take advantage of the significant and unique relations we have with some of the biggest players in this market. You know, when you talk to the likes of Haleon, when you talk to the likes of Chemist Warehouse, the platform and the foundation those sort of companies give you to really expand cannot be beaten. So where do I see myself? Wellnex in five years, like I said, our brands available across the world, i.e. products available across the globe, a highly, highly profitable business, a business that continues to innovate, a business that continues to bring some unique products to market.

So it's a really exciting time for the company. And then just sort of finally on that point, Wellnex is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange under the ticker WNX. But you recently announced a dual listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Does that tie into that future growth opportunity and expansion? Yeah, 100 percent, Jack. And, you know, the feedback we've had from the London investment community, from some of the meetings that we've had, just signifies to us we are in the right direction. We are going, you know, we're certainly on the right path moving forward.

The interest we've had from the investors in London about Wellnex confirms to us the process to get listed in London is the right process for Wellnex and its evolution, to have access to a different kind of investor that's available in Australia, a deeper pool of capital and also the opportunities to be closer to some of our, to our biggest customer in Haleon, who is obviously listed in London, just shows that strategy is right for the company. Yes, well, as I've mentioned before, very exciting times ahead for Wellnex life. And I look forward to seeing you guys execute on your international growth strategy.

Now, as mentioned, Wellnex trades on the ASX under the WNX, so if investors can trade on international exchanges, you can invest today. For those London-based investors, Wellnex is heading to the Australian Investment Summit on July 10. So you can catch George there and speak to him in more details about their impending London listing.

George, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks, Jack. To learn more about the Australian Investment Summit and Wellnex life, please click the link in the description.