Lexaria Bioscience says ‘never been more confident’ in IP portfolio

Lexaria Bioscience provided an annual letter from CEO Chris Bunka as a strategic update to all stakeholders, which read in part, “2023 was an “interesting” year: we successfully completed a number of important research projects and we were awarded more new patents than during any other year in our history. We had no choice but to raise capital and were severely punished because of it. That said, we have since received roughly $800,000 from the exercise of warrants associated with that financing, and the additional working capital is welcome. Our revenue generation is a welcome additional to our income statement but remains mostly insignificant and irrelevant to our much more ambitious goals of seeing DehydraTECH actively in use by a “Fortune-500”-type company. Late in 2023 we discovered that, against all odds, DehydraTECH seems to have a dramatic and positive effect on the oral delivery of a GLP-1 drug known as semaglutide. That drug, owned by Novo Nordisk and sold under the brand names Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy, has propelled Novo Nordisk to become the most highly valued public company in all of Europe. This was also our first-ever evidence that DehydraTECH could enhance delivery performance of so-called “large molecules”. I am more positive than ever before about our chances of establishing a commercial relationship with a significant pharmaceutical company in the year to come. Why? Because: we have never been more confident in our intellectual property portfolio; we have witnessed consistent drug delivery improvements with a variety of molecules; we have established a foundation for our studied molecules to better qualify them for commercial use and have learned what must be done in advance of gaining a corporate partnership; and we have now demonstrated DehydraTECH’s superiority with one of the most valuable molecule classes in the world. Our 2024 research program for GLP-1 drugs is ambitious but logical. It is well within our ability to execute. And, if it continues to deliver results similar to those we’ve already seen, together with our ever-advancing progress on DehydraTECH-related intellectual property, I’m just not aware of what else we would need to do in order to find a strong commercial partner. I have been a shareholder of Lexaria for a very long time: I know how our shareholders feel as you watch our progress because I feel most of the same things you do. I’ve always tried to be straight-up with you even as we’ve juggled some daunting challenges. We have new shareholders in 2023 who have enthusiastically supported our most recent corporate strategies – to you I offer a special “thank you” for your support and I pledge that I will do all that I can to turn 2024 into the year that Lexaria leaps forward.”