Global cannabis opportunities. Alvaro Torres is CEO of Khiron Life Science (KHRN: CA) a company with operations in Columbia, Peru, Germany, and the UK is back for Part 2 of his interview with Dan Humiston. He discusses their plans to capitalize on the upcoming opportunities in Mexico. He also shares an overview of their 2021 year-end results and 2023 projections. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Khiron Investors - https://investors.khiron.ca/corporate-information Khiron - https://khiron.ca/ Alvaro Torres - https://podconx.com/guests/alvaro-torres
Global cannabis opportunities.
Alvaro Torres is CEO of Khiron Life Science (KHRN: CA) a company with operations in Columbia, Peru, Germany, and the UK is back for Part 2 of his interview with Dan Humiston. He discusses their plans to capitalize on the upcoming opportunities in Mexico. He also shares an overview of their 2021 year-end results and 2023 projections.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Khiron Investors - https://investors.khiron.ca/corporate-information
Khiron - https://khiron.ca/
Alvaro Torres - https://podconx.com/guests/alvaro-torres
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] today.
And I'm Jay bulls. We are joined by Alvaro. Tara's the CEO of Kyron life sciences Alvaro. Welcome back to the.
Alvaro Torres: Thank you so much for having me.
Dan Humiston: Well, I normally don't have guests back this frequently. You were out a couple months ago and , we used to really scratch the surface about that , your organization. And there was just a lot of things that I didn't have a chance to talk about that I wanted to, but we just ran out of time.
So I said, let's get you back on. Sure enough, you had so much exciting news happening . The beginning of this year that I said we definitely have to get young, sooner than later for the people that haven't heard. Alvaro has previous interview, Kira and life sciences is publicly traded with operations in south America, central America, Europe.
And in our last interview, we spent a lot of time talking about Colombia in the UK. And today we're going to continue on those conversations. I also want to talk a little bit about Mexico. , maybe we even to kick things off, what is the status of.
The cannabis [00:01:00] industry in Mexico.
Alvaro Torres: Dan. Thank you so much. The cabbage industry, Mexico is it's waiting for minor regulatory approvals on being able to start deportation of product. That's usually the toughest pain point when you're trying to enter a new industry I, we were the first company to sell in Columbia ever first compared to selling Peru first company the first companies in Brazil.
So I understand those painful quite well. So it's now a matter of a waiting game. What matters at the same time is what happens the day after and what happens the day after you get all these permits and you're allowed to do these, how fast can you dominate the market, which is what the company is focused on right now.
We're going to be taking. The model that works in Columbia, we own the category in this country. We're going to take that model and replicate it in Mexico.
very fast, very agile and partnering with very good partners that understand how to, bring out demand. So it's not just going to be a matter of when that happens, but when [00:02:00] that happens, how fast can you deploy that?
I think sometimes as I say to my team, sometimes the more you wait on these types of regulations the more we have ability to. Come up with a much bigger and dominating plan. we've been doing this for two years. There are companies in Columbia that are now getting out of the Colombian business because it's not easy.
It's not something anybody can do, but we are now owning this market and we have the biggest market share. And because we have a very unique approach. And now it's a matter of replicating the Mexico soul. It's a way to game a bit, but after that waiting game is over, I think there'll be able to be a very large player there.
Dan Humiston: Well, you mentioned that you're the largest player. And I think in all of south America you have the biggest market share and , your growth is just. Exponential. , and I think that having all that knowledge and experience and infrastructure should be really helpful when you roll into Mexico.
I I'm assuming that you'll be able to apply a lot of those things that you've learned in these markets into the Mexican market.[00:03:00]
Alvaro Torres: wouldn't be inaccurate. We have the largest brand. You let them just looking at how much we sell in Columbia, how many patients we have, how many returning people, the price points that we sell, the margins that we make. I wouldn't be inaccurate when I say that as well.
The entire thing, when we think about what Caitlin does very well I think we do better than anybody's. We know how to get doctors to prescribe. We know how to get that done. And sometimes you go with countries like Mexico, with huge hospitals, huge infrastructure, huge pharmacies. And the proposition we're making is you do have all these demand.
You have all these farmers, but you don't know how to do is to get doctor comfort prescribing. And we can get that done because behind everything we do is 30,000 patients.
Dan Humiston: Yeah.
Alvaro Torres: shows the efficacy of the product, not just any candidate. And if I can take my kind of plugged into your pharmacy and I can train your doctors and show them [00:04:00] the evidence and take them to Columbia and show them that in a day like today, for instance, then if we were in my clinic here in Columbia, it would be 600 people living with a prescription today. And when you see that level of experience and expertise, you talk to our doctors, you talk to our processes and you realize that. What this company does is they know how to train doctors. They know how to get them to convinced. And they also focus so much on that access that they raise the barriers of entry.
So Ohio, we do that. It's very difficult for anybody else to come in. And I think that's a conversation and that conversation is having a lot of followers because everybody thinks about cannabis, but it's always very difficult to get that doctor to prescribe it and not feel good about it.
Dan Humiston: Yeah,
Alvaro Torres: But you have all that real world evidence that becomes of course, a lot easier.
Dan Humiston: well, in one thing that you've done, which I just blows my mind is your help. You were able to get. Columbia to correct me if I'm wrong, [00:05:00] but include, this in their health insurance program. Do you intend to hopefully push in that same direction in some of your other markets?
Alvaro Torres: That I think the holy grail of cannabis, it's got to be about medical coverage because the competition is not with low cost cultivating competitions against opiates, morphine, morphine. That's the competition we're talking about. Latin America, Europe or United States in general, those medications are. You have patients that don't want to be hooked on morphine pumps, but they have no other choice because that is for free.
Dan Humiston: Yeah.
Alvaro Torres: I think what we did in Columbia, which is still very amazing because the fact that any patient Columbia can get cannabis for free, which is very unique. It did take us two years. And I said this two years ago and people were probably thinking that's crazy, but in the end, it's all about the evidence.
Now, today we have all these patient data. It's easier for us to go to the Mexican government, Brazilian government. They tell them, look how much money [00:06:00] you can say. And from a economic standpoint and from a health perspective, if you start looking at cannabis and look at this amount of data that we collect on, switch patients from morphine pumps.
And look at the medical outcomes we're going to have to do in this country is not going to be fast. It's going to take us a year, year and a half, but you can imagine that whoever reaches that summit first, like we do in Colombia is going to probably be the key player in those markets. It's easier now than before, because now we have the data, but when we started in Colombia, We started with one patient.
But today, it's just a matter of convincing and thinking about the access drugstore. So all of these logistics, which are less complex than getting the governments to cover, but the equation is all about health and economics. It's about a chronic pain patient that would cost, whatever is 6,000 us dollars a year.
How can you reduce that to [00:07:00] 3,500 and improve the quality of life of that person? And that equation takes time to discuss, but it's very, very palatable. It's very appealing.
Dan Humiston: Without a doubt, without a doubt. The last time you were on , you hadn't finished your year end from 2021. , and I don't know that , you're ready to release those numbers yet, but , can you give our listeners their preview? How did you end off the year in 2020?
Alvaro Torres: Well then Yeah.
we are proposing are resulting meet April. So I cannot give you , all the detail. I'll tell you what the highlights are. Basically we grew more than 1200% in our medical cannabis sales. And I know, it starts from a low point. It's amazing that we're able to do this in the middle of the pandemic.
We have gross profits, more candidates, more than 85%. We saw four and a half million dollars in Canada. A third of that was done in Europe, which we started all in March. The rest is mostly in Columbia, where we make these fantastic [00:08:00] profits. And if I take what we're doing on in February of this year, I know we can triple that number at the very minimum if we don't go anymore. And that's because, the entire philosophy of the company is about acquiring, educating doctors, acquiring patients and retaining them with good quality, with good access and that obsession, which is costly. It's costly to develop all of these. I was going to get us to be able to get the cash from neutrality by the end of this year, of course, we're still , in the growth side of our business.
I think the future is going to be very bright. We're very focused on medical this year. We are they're getting out of the ideas of cultivation in other countries. We want to be very focused with that access to the patient. We were doing CPG CBD cosmetics a year and a half ago where stopping down and just focus on what's really making , our markets grow.
And I think the focus that these companies having is helping us to get to that point. The fact that.[00:09:00] We are sailing last year, we sold four and a half million Canadian off of cannabis with 85% gross margins. You have to look at that bottom line, right? Because it's not just about selling millions.
It's about how profitable those are and that profitability is going to get us to cash neutrality. And now it's very exciting. I still have to work out all the details of financial status. I look at February the end of February, driven by Germany, UK, and color. And it's very exciting. I still have Mexico to go.
So
Dan Humiston: Yeah.
Alvaro Torres: know it's a very good time for the company.
Dan Humiston: Yeah. You said in the last interview that we were in the first inning of the first game of the world series, are we in the, still in the first inning or we have moved to the second inning or are we still at early?
Alvaro Torres: I think we're in the second name, but we want the first.
Dan Humiston: Obviously you won the first, before we go. , you talked about Mexico and Brazil that you want to get your foot in the door in Mexico, get it all set up. Looking forward. Any opportunities in Europe or any other [00:10:00] places where you have your eye on or are just going to try to get those markets that you already have?
Alvaro Torres: Then I think uh, we are going to be focused on these six markets, Mexico, Colombia, Germany, but this company is going to evolve this year in a way that. It's going to be a lot more globalized and a lot more diverse when you think of what kind of people think of. Okay. We think about Columbia a lot. I'm calling you from Columbia.
It's a beautiful weather here in Brooklyn. But we build this company to be truly global. And I think for this year, what we'll see is that our strategy, which takes time and effort, it's going to show that Europe is going to become a very big showcase for our top line and our bottom line. it's very exciting for us because that helps us to diversify revenue base now and diversify how we can get our investors and shareholders more at peace with.
I work in different countries with different strategies. Then the thing that really matters, educate doctors and ensure access, and we can do it anywhere. [00:11:00] There will be a time once we are cashflow neutral, that was, but we can look at beyond or markets. Once you have?
the Spanish president of Cairo, we can go into Ecuador, Costa Rica, Poland.
That will happen later. Let's focus right now on the markets that we know we can read the word. Let's go on out there and get more patients with a better quality of life. And then the rest of the world, it's going to be easier.
Dan Humiston: Oh, you got it. You're doing, you're doing great. Just to keep up doing what you're doing is, and I mentioned Kira and life sciences is a publicly traded company and I'll have all their stock information in the show notes, along with links if you're interested in investing and definitely check out Kyra on life sciences.
Cause , there's a lot of opportunity. It's not all in the United States and this isn't a good example of a company that's doing it outside of our borders. You don't want to forget that this is a global economy right now, and cannabis is happening everywhere. Kira and life sciences is a perfect example of that.
Avara we always run out of time with you. So I have to plan to have you back on again. Thanks for being [00:12:00] on the show today.
Alvaro Torres: have a great day. Thank you then.