Greetings and welcome to the Kamada Ltd. First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. . As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Brian Ritchie with LifeSci Advisors. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you. This is Brian Ritchie with LifeSci Advisors. Thank you all for participating in today's call. Joining me from Kamada is Amir London, Chief Executive Officer. Earlier today, Kamada announced its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2023. If you have not received this news release, please go to the Investors page of the company's website at www.kamada.com. Before we begin, I would like to caution that comments made during this conference called by management will contain forward-looking statements that involves risks and uncertainties regarding the operations and future results of Kamada. I encourage you to review the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the company's Forms 20-F and 6-K, which identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Furthermore, the content of this conference call contains time sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast, Wednesday, May 24, 2023. Kamada undertakes no obligation to revise or update any statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call. With that said, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Amir London, CEO. Amir?

Thank you, Brian. Thanks also to our investors and analysts for their interest in Kamada and for participating in today's call. We are off to an excellent start in 2023, both financially and operationally. Earlier today, we announced a $60 million strategic private placement with FIMI Opportunity Funds, a leading private equity firm in Israel and an existing significant Kamada shareholder. I will discuss this financing in further detail shortly, but we'll say upfront that we are thrilled with this additional substantial investment from FIMI and we view it as indicative of the confidence this high quality investor has in Kamada's significant growth potential. Let us just begin though with our impressive first quarter financial results, with total revenue in the first quarter of $30.7 million, which represented year-over-year growth of 9% and EBITDA of $3.8 million, an increase of 16% as compared to the first quarter of 2022. We achieved the top and bottom line growth anticipated in our business to begin the year with. Importantly, we continue to effectively leverage multiple growth drivers, including KEDRAB sales in the US, the portfolio of the full FDA approved Immune Globulin acquired in late 2021, CYTOGAM, HEPAGAM, VARIZIG and WINRHO, which are marketed internationally, and our Israeli distribution business. Looking ahead, we expect the momentum from the first quarter to extend throughout 2023, with profitability to be further meaningfully enhanced compared to last year. As such, we are reiterating our full-year 2023 revenue guidance of $138 million to $146 million and EBITDA of $22 million to $26 million. The midpoint of that range will represent profitability growth of approximately 35% over 2022. Beyond 2023, we continue to anticipate annual double-digit revenue and profitability growth in the foreseeable years ahead of us, with significant upside potential and limited downside risk. Our prospects…

. Our first question comes from the line of David Bautz with Zacks Small Cap Research.

First one I'll start out with, were there any surprises, either positive or negative, that occurred during the quarter? Or do you think everything kind of played out as you thought it would?

The quarter played out according to our plan, according to budget. We are progressing exactly as we'd anticipated, both top line and bottom line. And based on that, we've reiterated our annual guidance.

For your guidance for the year, it looks like revenues are going to kind of ramp up as the year goes along in order to hit that number. So I'm just kind of curious, where do you think that growth is going to come from?

. As I said, we started it strong, many aspect. We're reiterating the forecast for the whole year. And as you've seen in previous years, the first half of the year is usually lower than the second part of the year. A lot has to do with inventories at the distributors. So the growth will come from all aspects of the business, from KEDRAB, from the new IgG portfolio, from the distribution business in Israel, from royalties paid by Takeda for GLASSIA sales in the US, for GLASSIA sales ex-US, all our growth catalysts, all our lines of business are operating according to our plan, according to our budget, and we will continue that pace. And as I said, we are reiterating our guidance based on everything that we've seen .

Now, in regards to the InnovAATe trial, are you happy with the with the pace of enrollment that's going on there? Is there anything else that can happen to maybe kind of speed up enrollment in that trial?

Of course, we were not happy with the pace of enrollment during the pandemic, which delayed the ability to open new sites. The sites were opened in the second part of 2022 and recruitment has been since then accelerated. In order to speed up recruitment, we need to open additional sites. We are in the process of identifying those additional sites internationally. And that's our plan moving forward, to expedite recruitment by opening additional sites in other countries.

Congrats on the progress this quarter.

. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Ritchie for any additional questions from the web.

A couple of questions here from the web, Amir. Can you please provide a bit more color on FIMI?

Yes, of course. So, FIMI was established in 1996. private equity firm with excellent international reach, international success. It has acquired control in, I believe, around close to 100 companies, over the years has made over 60 exits. The total transaction value is over $7 billion. They are known to be a long-term investor with superb return on investment. Between 2016 and 2022, over the course of those seven years, they've deployed over $1.8 billion in acquiring equity in its portfolio companies. They've been a major investor in Kamada since end of 2019, early 2020. And as I said, we are very happy with additional funding and the private placement and we believe that basically – big trust in Kamada. The company was interested in the investment offered by FIMI as well as our board, and a special committee was established by the board to accelerate growth, both organically and by identifying and realizing new business development opportunities. And I believe that this kind of shared interest is something that will drive Kamada and value for shareholders significantly.

Can you expand more on the potential use of proceeds from the financing and are there any near term business development opportunities on the horizon?

As I said, the company is interested in funding to accelerate growth, both organically with our existing business, but also by identifying and realizing new business development opportunities. We are constantly examining opportunities for cooperation in licensing, acquisition, M&A, areas of expertise. If we were to rely only on organic profitability, it would have significantly delay the ability to execute on such transactions and, of course, will delay the company's ability to accelerate growth. So the combination of our organic growth, which you see in our guidance for the year, with this additional funding, give us basically the ability to benefit or enjoy both worlds, organic growth and external growth, basically, by examining opportunities for in-licensing or acquisition of additional assets.

At this time, we've got no further questions. So I'll hand the call back over to you for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you, Brian. In closing, we are very pleased with our performance to begin the year. And we're excited about the potential opportunities that lie ahead following the $60 million financing by FIMI. We look forward to continuing to support physicians and patients with important lifesaving therapeutics that we develop, manufacture and commercialize. We thank all of our investors for the support and we remain committed to create long-term shareholder value. Thank you, everyone. And we hope you all stay healthy and safe.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.