Today, Gubra released its Annual Report for 2024. Significant progress was made in 2024 across several R&D projects, not the least by advancement of the anti-obesity Amylin program where positive topline results from the Phase 1 Single Ascending Dose (SAD) study were released in November. For the CRO business, performance in 2024 was strong with organic revenue growth year-over-year of 31%.
Henrik Blou, CEO of Gubra said:
"I can again reiterate how pleased I am with the progress in 2024 - across the company. We continue to take important steps forward in our Discovery & Partnerships (D&P) business and at the same time we grow our CRO business at high pace.
For our most progressed internal assets, GUBamy, we released positive topline Phase 1a results back in November 2024. In this Single-Ascending-Dose (SAD) study, we showed that GUBamy was well tolerated, with adverse events being predominantly GI-related, mild, and transient. GUBamy had a long half-life of 11 days and showed a dose-dependent reduction in body weight, with the weight loss being sustained throughout the 6-week trial period after just a single dose of GUBamy. We are excited about these positive results, which support further development of GUBamy for a weight management indication. From the ongoing Multiple-Ascending-Dose (MAD) part of the trial, we are eagerly anticipating the interim results covering the first two cohorts, which we expect to release in April 2025.
We are equally excited about our next in line internal obesity program, UCN2, focused on high-quality weight loss. The compound holds great potential, and we have preclinical co-administration studies showing that UCN2 completely prevents the lean mass loss observed in diet-induced obese rats treated with other anti-obesity agents, such as a GLP-1, while improving fat mass loss. The non-clinical toxicity program is ongoing, and we are preparing for a clinical study to start in late 2025 or early 2026.
Our CRO business continued to perform ahead of expectations. In 2024, revenue grew by 31%, significantly ahead of the 10-15% growth outlook set at the beginning of the year. Particularly strong growth was seen in our obesity services. We also experienced strong growth in our kidney services, where we, over the last couple of years, have developed a large model catalogue.
We have now grown the revenue from our CRO business by 69% in just two years. While this is nothing less than fantastic, it does put our core research engine under pressure to deliver. In 2025, we want to focus on consolidating our way of working and further leveraging technology to drive efficiency. In our CRO revenue outlook for 2025, we expect to limit the growth to 10-20%. This is a strategic decision, as we want to divert more resources from our core research engine towards our D&P pipeline programs.
When we glance a few years out in the future, we want to expand our pipeline also outside obesity and bring more projects to the clinic. In our strategy toward 2030, we want to develop our pipeline further, both inside and outside obesity, and establish 1-2 new flagship areas, starting with efforts in women's health, which is a significantly underserved area today. In our new strategy, we are also stepping up our ambitions for clinical development and aspire to have 1-3 fully owned programs in the clinic. We will also build upon our scientific entrepreneurship by further expanding our efforts in non-classical peptides, tissue distribution, and dosing flexibility.
Key financial highlights for 2024
| Key ratio | CRO segment | D&P segment | Group | |||
| DKK million | 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 |
| Revenue | 220 | 169 | 46 | 36 | 266 | 205 |
| Organic revenue growth | 31% | 29% | 23% | -47% | 30% | 3% |
| Reported Cost of Sales & Opex | -158 | -130 | -158 | -122 | -316 | -253 |
| Adj. Cost of Sales & Opex* | -155 | -122 | -155 | -117 | -310 | -239 |
| Amylin costs | - | - | -40 | -24 | -40 | -24 |
| Total costs adjusted less costs for Amylin* | -155 | -122 | -115 | -93 | -270 | -216 |
| Reported EBIT | 62 | 39 | -112 | -86 | -50 | -48 |
| Adjusted EBIT* | 67 | 46 | -109 | -80 | -42 | -34 |
| Reported EBIT-margin | 28% | 23% | -246% | -236% | -19% | -23% |
| Adjusted EBIT-margin* | 30% | 27% | -239% | -215% | -16% | -17% |
*Adjusted for special items
Outlook for 2025
In 2025, we expect organic revenue growth in the CRO business of 10-20% building upon the record-high revenue level in 2024. In terms of CRO earnings, we expect an EBIT-margin of 25-31%. For D&P, we expect total costs, cost of sales and OPEX, to amount to DKK 230-250 million.
| Key ratio | Outlook 2025 | Mid-term guidance | Results 2024 |
| CRO Segment | |||
| Organic revenue growth | 10-20% | 10% annually | 31% |
| EBIT-margin | 25-31% | n/a | 30% |
| Discovery & Partnership Segment | |||
| Total costs* | DKK 230-250 million | n/a | DKK 155 million |
* Total costs are cost of sales and OPEX
Conference call
A presentation for analysts and investors will be held today 28 February at 10:00am CET. The event will be hosted by the company's CEO Henrik Blou, CSO Louise S. Dalbøge and CFO Kristian Borbos. The presentation will be held in English.
To participate in the telephone conference, please use the dial-in details shown below:
DK: +45 32 74 07 10
UK: +44 20 3481 4247
When dialing-in, please state the name of the call "Gubra Q4 2024 earnings release" or the conference ID: 9408564.
The presentation can also be followed live via the link:
https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/975975221
It will also be possible to take part of the audiocast afterwards at the same abovementioned link.
Contacts at Gubra
Media: Sofia Pitt Boserup, sbo@gubra.dk, +45 4188 9586
Investors: Kristian Borbos, kbo@gubra.dk, +45 3080 8035
About Gubra
Gubra, founded in 2008 in Denmark, listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen, is specialized in pre-clinical contract research services and peptide-based drug discovery within metabolic and fibrotic diseases. Gubra's activities are focused on the early stages of drug development and are organised in two business areas - CRO Services and Discovery & Partnerships (D&P). The two business areas are highly synergistic and create a unique entity capable of generating a steady cash flow from the CRO business while at the same time enjoying biotechnology upside in the form of potential development milestone payments and potential royalties from the D&P business. Gubra has approx. 260 employees and in 2024 revenue of DKK 266 million. See www.gubra.dk for more information.
