Goodbody Health share price, company news, analysis and interviews

Goodbody Health Inc. (LON:GDBY) Executive Chairman Geremy Thomas caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss why it’s a Canadian listed company, the move back to London, why they’ll be based in Guernsey, Canadian shareholders and the current share price.

Q1: Goodbody Health, it’s currently a Canadian listed company with dominant UK trading activities. Why is that?

A1: Well, historically we started out on the NEX exchange, which morphed into Aquis but just prior to the pandemic, we were looking to raise further funds and it became very clear to us that that was going to be very difficult in the UK markets.

We were presented an opportunity to do a reverse takeover of a Canadian business called StillCanna. StillCanna had some complimentary CBD assets, which we were interested in, but also had a pile of cash, which we were very interested in. So, we concluded that merger and that’s the historic reason why we are a Canadian listed and principally Canadian business.

Q2: You’ve announced a return to London, delisting from the CSE in Canada, what’s the thinking behind that move?

A2: I’ve been in Vancouver for the last few months assessing the viability of our listing there, our prospects for future growth in our stock value. I’ve met with shareholders, with advisors, I’ve met with marketing specialists and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no value for us to be there.

There’s a lot of cost associated with multiple listings around the world and in the current climate, there is no benefit. So, whilst we’ve done really well in the last 18 months to generate cash, we don’t want to spend it willy-nilly and now is the time to conserve cash., to use to promote our corporate strategy as a training business and I’m very keen now to cut unnecessary costs since I see that these foreign listings are unnecessary.

Q3: So, why are you choosing to base the business in Guernsey?

A3: We were able to go from the UK to Canada with shareholder approvals and through the process of the reverse takeover, but to come back to the UK, we had a number of options and the least expensive option was to come back via Guernsey. We could come back straight to London but it would cost three times the amount of money and, as I’ve said, our current focus is to reduce the amount of money we’re spending on professional fees and all the associated costs of being listed around the world.

So we chose the Guernsey option, there are very many Guernsey-based businesses listed on both AIM and the London Stock Exchange, let alone Aquis, so we are in good company and it’s the most sensible way to go.

Q4: The Canadian shareholders, will they be able to trade their shares once the move has been completed?

A4: Absolutely. In the same way that when we morphed from being a UK business to a Canadian business, none of our UK shareholders were disadvantaged and in the same way, we are very confident that our Canadian shares will be able to trade. It depends on how they’re holding their shares, whether they’re electronic or in another form but the principle is absolutely they can trade their shares and we are available as a team to advise on how they can do that. So, there is no disadvantage for them.

Q5: Finally, what’s your view on Goodbody Health’s current share price?

A5: It’s embarrassing. In the latest full year results, we finished the year with £6 million worth of cash, at the end of Q1 we reported that cash remain robust and our current market cap is £6 million. We did an internal review the other day, about where we are in terms of the value of our business and we believe our CBD alone are worth £7.5 million and we have this new and exciting strategy in blood and wellness testing based in our 200 facilities out there in the UK, clinics, which is not factor in at all.

So, I, as the biggest shareholder, am very conscious of the share price, but I equally recognise that there are circumstances out there beyond our control, a war raging in Europe, small market cap businesses inevitably are going to suffer. Our business has suffered more than most because of our connection to cannabis, which has not been a popular investment topic.

Really, the business fundamentals have never been better and I, as a shareholder and Executive of the business, am very confident so the share price is an embarrassment but it doesn’t relate to what’s going on in the business.

Goodbody Health Inc. (AQSE:GDBY) Chief Executive Officer Marc Howells caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the under-resourced and overburden NHS, the change in how people are managing their health, how they are meeting the massive growing demand for services and continuing to grow at speed.

Q1: COVID has created this perfect storm of rising health-related risks in the UK population at a time when the NHS is under-resourced and overburdened. What’s your view on this?

A1: Firstly, I’d say that I think we all as a nation applaud the employees of the NHS for the amazing work that they do and for what they’ve been able to do over such an unprecedented pandemic.

However, if we go back a couple of years, even before the pandemic, it was very clear the excessive backlogs were building up in the NHS and its ability to meet the demand with the capacity it had. Add into that what happened on Brexit and post-Brexit, a significant number of people being repatriating to their own countries. You then layer the pandemic on top of that which has significantly changed people’s attitude towards their health and position on their health. It’s just created a perfect storm for the NHS where it’s struggling to keep up with the backlog and it’s even forecasting those backlogs will increase over the next five years so it’s a very challenging time for the NHS.

One of the results of the pandemic as well is that people are far more inquisitive on their health and want to take more control of their health, not just on diagnostics and treatment but also on prevention. People are now used to going into the pharmacist and going into their doctors to enquire about their health without waiting for symptoms or without waiting to feel poorly. So, there’s a huge increase in customer awareness, customer desire to know more about their health and that’s impacting on an already over-stretched NHS.

Q2: Given that dismal backdrop, are we really seeing a change in how people manage their health?

A2: We are, and you can see that with the incredible increase of people requesting blood tests, requesting allergy tests, requesting intolerance tests. Just to put it into perspective, the vitamin business alone in the UK is a £1.5 billion business and that’s grown exponentially during the pandemic and since the pandemic.

So, you can see that people are taking more control over their health, over feeling well as you know, in Goodbody Health we use the phrase ‘Know More, Live Better’, that it’s know more about your health, know more about what your blood is telling you and be able to manage and control the outcomes and manage your lifestyle. We believe wellness I very much a lifestyle choice. If you look at the millennials today, they’re actually called ‘the wellness generation’ and that is managing and taking control of their wellness rather than just relying purely on the NHS.

If you look at the situation we have in the country and how it’s historically developed, you never check your blood, you go to the doctor when you’re feeling unwell and the doctor will take a blood test or instruct a blood test and then determine the results of that. You check your car on a regular basis, you check your boiler on a regular basis and you go to the dentist at least twice if not more a year to check your teeth but there’s not a culture in place of checking your blood which is probably the biggest commodity that you have, it determines how healthy you are.

So, we’re seeing a significant increase now in people wanting to check their blood to determine their wellness and determine their health and have more access to that information so that they can control and manage it as they move forward.

Q3: How is the company meeting the massive growing demand for your services?

A3: As fast as we can. We’re bringing innovative technology into the industry, we now operate through over 200 pharmacies, we have devices that will mean that you do not have to go into the doctor, have your blood taken at the doctors, go through a courier, go to the lab and experience the huge time delays doing that. You can go into one of our pharmacy’s and have a blood test with the results in several minutes, not five plus weeks.

The devices we’re using are Abbott devices which are NHS-approved devices and we have those in 111 pharmacies today and we’ve grown that network as fast as we can. We’re trying to achieve that through bringing in the technology into the local pharmacies because the pharmacies are in the position of offering these services outside of the general NHS.

Q4: It looks as though Goodbody Health is developing into an impressive health provider. Can you continue to grow at speed?

A4: Absolutely. I’m acquiring these devices as fast as I can, we are signing up pharmacies as  fast as we can, there’s more innovative technology coming into the market which we’ll announce in the near future, that’s very exciting and enables to continue to disrupt the existing market. There are 11,700 pharmacies out there and we’re currently in 200 so there’s a huge opportunity to extend our services over the existing market and experience in the UK to allow people on a national basis to have access to their blood and to what their blood is telling them.

So, we’re very exciting about our growth plan and how we’re executing that growth.

Goodbody Health Inc. (AQSE:GDBY) Director George Thomas caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the Novel Foods submission process, what the FSA public list means to the company and the implications to the consumer.

Q1: George, can you just explain for us the Novel Foods submission process?

A1: Back in the end of 2019/early 2020, Goodbody Health put together a Novel Food application and submitted it to the FSA, and within that application, there are certain dossiers.

The dossiers detailed our raw materials that we use and also our final products and as part of that, we had to do a stability study to ensure that the products were stable and safe over time. We’ve also combined efforts with a consortium, with our local body that we work with called the ACI and we’ve been doing genotox and toxicology studies, which again, ensure that the products are safe over a period of time.

Within that dossier as well, we have to submit a range of additional data and it’s a very long process but we are at a great first step as of today, with the announcement of this new list.

Q2: What does the FSA public list announcement mean?

A2: It’s a three stage approach so you essentially put your application together and then what today is that they’ve recognised all the applications and they’ve essentially put together a list of permitted products that can remain available for sale.

So, there’s thousands of companies or products that have been submitted and we are luckily enough to have our continued listings or now permission to continue to sell them.

As part of original application, we had to demonstrate that those products were available for sale and show evidence that they’re available for sale prior to February 2019. So, they are quite strict with new entries of products into the market and they’re only really permitting those that have been around for sale prior to that date.

So it’s great news for us. It allows us to continue to sell and continue to make new batches of our existing products that we’ve had now permitted for, it’s going to have a bit of a shake up in the market because those products that aren’t on that list are now subject to potential enforcement from trading standards.

We’ve been actually welcoming this regulation and this change for a while now because there is a lot of brands on the market and not a lot of people are doing it correctly. This is a real step forward to hopefully kick out some of the cowboys in the market and allow the people that are actually putting their standpoint on quality and compliance to strive forward.

Q3: What does this mean then to Goodbody Health?

A3: It’s brilliant news. It demonstrates that we have a true regulatory and compliant standpoint with our products and it gives us definitely a commercial edge with any negotiations moving forward. There’s a reduction of other competitors in the market and, like I said, we very much welcome it.

It shows that there is a new quality standard in the market that we are working towards.

Q4: What’s the implication for a consumer?

A4: Well, I think it’s great for the consumer, there is now reassurance that products are safe. Although this Novel Foods application process is not finished, the first step is an identification of products that are permitted to continue to be sold, which have an understanding of safety around them.

So, it’s great for us, there’s a greater acceptance of products on the market now and for us, hopefully it will lead to wider use of CBD and with wider use comes more, hopefully, supply and then demand on the market. The price of products may come down and also, now the big buyers and the supermarkets will suddenly be less scared to put these products on their shelves.

So it’s a really, really good time for the CBD industry with this new list being published.

Goodbody Health Inc (AQSE:GDBY) Managing Director George Thomas caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss heart health, proactive management of personal health, what the blood MOT offers and what experience the company has in blood testing.

Q1: George, are people taking heart health seriously enough, do you think?

A1: Well, yes. I think over a number of years, the UK population has definitely shifted towards more of a health conscious nation, obviously with the COVID pandemic and recent national lockdowns I think that’s definitely brought that into a sharper focus.

According to the British Heart Foundation, that we all know, there are around 7.6 million people living with a heart or circulatory disease here in the UK. Unfortunately heart and circulatory diseases cause a quarter of all deaths in the UK so that’s more than 160,000 deaths each year, average of 460 deaths each day. In the US alone, cardiovascular disease, which causes things like heart attacks and strokes, is the leading cause of death in both men and women.

So, it tells us that there’s an enormous amount of important work that can be done in educating the population around the dangers of heart disease, but also to give some practical steps so that we can pick up the problems early enough so that they can do something about it.

Q2: So, are you saying that people need to be more proactive managing their heart health?

A2: Exactly. We are now seeing that people want to take their health a lot more seriously and take personal responsibility for it. In addition to a healthy lifestyle, it’s important that people are also checking their heart and overall health regularly through blood screening. I think, as we know through working with our Chief Medical Officer who has 29 years’ experience being a GP, doctors are very much in agreement on this point and the early screening and treatment really can save lives.

So, taking blood tests is probably one of the easiest ways of assessing current condition of people’s heart and overall health. We call it the blood MOT.

Think about it, you regularly MOT your car, you get your boiler serviced annually, you get your teeth checked annually so why don’t people MOT their blood? It could probably have the single biggest impact on everyday lives and friends and family around them.

We’re now moving into a period where people would like to have their health MOT, and we are offering this blood MOT, which would be a common place we feel as Goodbody Health helps start that cultural shift.

Q3: What does a blood MOT consist of then?

A3: We take your blood and we can take your blood from either your arm venously as it’s called, or we can do a finger prick test. Our best test that we do is called the Well Man or Well Woman profile, we look at over 38 different biomarkers which gives you a great indication of your general health right now.

So, within that, and also our additional products, we’re looking at not just heart health but diabetes testing, cholesterol information, and other markers that we are constantly developing. For example, elevated cholesterol is one of the major risk factors of pulmonary heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.

So, we have a range of different tests that you can do, they’re all available via our clinics and via our website, and in many instances, we can give immediate results. We’ve worked with a brilliant medical device company that has allowed us to do real time testing for lipids, which is cholesterol and also pre-diabetes, so you don’t have to wait for days on end until you get your results. Some of the real key ones we can deliver and get the results there and then.

Q4: What experience has Goodbody Health built up in blood testing?

A4: So, through the COVID pandemic, we’ve opened over 100 clinics so with that you have a whole range of certain protocols and service levels that those clinics are delivering and pushing the business and pivoting it towards blood testing has been really a natural fit for us.

We have the level of talent and service agreements in place, we’ve got the correct staff who can take blood and we’ve built up a brilliant website that does a great job of taking private sector customers from the internet, from their different appetites of search, and then we can put them into different tests.

We’ve got certified technology that we are using, it’s also being used by the NHS, we’ve got a Scientific Advisory Board that we’ve built up that is, like I said, headed up by certain professors and also those in a GP world.

So, we’re really helping to push the different product sets in the best, most educated fashion and we’ve got a Pharmacy Focus Group so a lot of our clinics that we use are pharmacies and bring together all of their intelligence and insight to help guide the product shift and we’re very excited about that.

We’ve also through the last few months developed a phlebotomy school so the phlebotomy school takes those members of staff within our clinics who are not trained in taking blood from the arm. It takes them on that programme to get to a position where they’re competent because venous draw blood, you can see a lot more through venous blood than just finger prick test conducted at home.