We did eight 12s of that, so three quarters increase in the installed base in the last two years. The Assisi product line, it’s been going pretty steady and that’s — it’s doing what we expected it to do. We expected to grow going forward, especially with the launch of this year. VetGuardian was on the market when we acquired it. The TRUFORMA product clearly is not something we acquired from anyone and that product is growing and the same thing with the microscope, rather those products were in development, we completed development and as we sell them that’s all brand new revenue. The thing we pride ourselves is not on selecting good companies or good product lines to acquire, but rather to select product lines and that are not only good to acquire, but also with some effort put into them, with some development put into them and with the right sales force selling them, can significantly increase the revenue.
We’ve done that with each of the products that we’ve acquired. So you can — it might not necessarily be an accomplishment, but it is something that we’re very proud of. Let’s see what else we got here. Some comments with respect to fibrotic myopathy in working dogs. What is the strategy for this market? I mean, I think it’s almost implied by the — by how we talk about it, right. So what Dr. Alvarez and her colleague from the Animal Medical Center in New York, which is sort of one of the preeminent animal health hospitals in the country, what her study showed was that she was able to extend the working life of working dogs by on average 32 months. These are dogs that are super expensive and are trained. It takes a long time to train them and so that’s a very big significant impact.
Needless to say, our team is out contacting various groups that utilize working dogs. I’ve seen some leads come in and say, in fact, another question was what about Canada. I saw a lead the other day from a pet owner in Canada that said my dog, my German Shepherd has fibrotic myopathy. Can you hook me up with a veterinarian that has PulseVet here in Canada and we did just that very thing. Are we adding more products? Yeah. So this year, we’re adding five new assays for the TRUFORMA product line. We are adding equine version of the VetGuardian product, which will come out later this year. We’re adding an AI component to the TRUVIEW microscope, which will come out later this year. So — and that’s not counting any products that we might acquire as we move forward.
Let’s see. Any acquisitions, we talked about that already. Is VetGuardian equine compatible? Not yet. It’s one thing when you have the VetGuardian hanging outside a cage, pointing at a cage where you have a dog or a cat and they have restricted movement. But with a horse, it’s different. They’re in a stall. They move around. And so as a result, there are some differences in how you need to be able to continuously hone in or focus in on the part of the animal that will give you the vital signs that you’re needing to get. That work is ongoing. And as I mentioned earlier, we expect it to have to come out a little bit later this year. We know that it works. In other words, if you had a horse and you stood him still and pointed the thing at him and he didn’t move or she didn’t move, that works.
So we need, we now just are adjusting it so that it’ll work when they move. At the current burn rate, how long before we are in trouble, and are you guys happy with the Zomedica team performance? Pete, you want to take that one?
Peter Donato: Yeah. I think we’ve answered that a couple of times. 12% to 18% is the burn for this year and the cash flow watermark we’ve guided to 65 to 70. So not running out of money anytime soon and yeah.
Larry Heaton: Yeah. Does upper management intend on repurchasing shares in the near future? I think that question might be purchasing shares as opposed to repurchasing shares. But if it’s with respect to individuals, the management team, the Board of Directors, people that are privy to inside information here, aren’t able to purchase shares in the open market until we have what we call an open window. And the window opens to 48 hours after this call. And then, it stays open until two weeks before the next one of these calls, the next earnings call. And during that time then people are free to purchase shares and some may. It’d be a personal decision, just like it is for every potential shareholder out there. Having said that, the window hasn’t been open for months or many, many months.
Peter Donato: Six months or more.
Larry Heaton: Yeah. It’s been six months because of the way that the fourth quarter works. And I see some questions and comments on here about the timing of the fourth quarter results. Peter you want to comment on that.
Peter Donato: Yeah. So what we are up against SEC deadlines, so I can — you can tell by some of my prepared remarks that it was a complicated year, right? We had some very big acquisitions that were complicated in nature. And we have a pretty small staff here. I think there’s 3 degree to accountants or something in the building. So that’s what we’re working on. And it just took us a little longer this year to close the books.
Larry Heaton: Yeah. There’s a question about would there be any ways to have a vote on the Board of Directors. I would refer you to if you’re a shareholder, then you certainly have a right to vote on that. If not, well buy some shares and then you will be. If you’re a shareholder, there is a proxy statement that is going around now and you’ll be asked to vote on a number of things. So you’ll be asked to vote on the Directors, you’ll be asked to provide your advisory say on pay and the auditors approve it. So some of you may have already received your proxy cards, but if not, you’ll receive it in the very near term and I encourage you to exercise your right to vote, which vote will be held on the annual meeting, which will be held on June 6.
this year. Will there be a cancer assay developed? We’ll continue to look at assays. Assays don’t — for TRUFORMA assays don’t generally work like that in terms of trying to decide if it’s cancer or not. There have been a number of companies out there that have gone down that road. And as some of you know, we had a collaboration early, early on Zomedica, trying to develop a blood test for cancer. It wouldn’t have been the TRUFORMA platform, it would have been something a little different. As it turns out that technology wasn’t too promising. And by the time, we looked at it and it would get to somewhere else, there were a number of other companies on the market. And I think I commented on that a couple of calls ago or maybe three or four calls ago, whatever it was that we looked at it and decided that it wasn’t opportune at this time for us to get into that business.
Now that question, of course, and that was a matter of judgment at the time. The largest company in that business, PetDx, which was also a public company, right, were they public? Private. No, they were a private company called PetDx. And they offered a blood test for cancer. And they just went under because as it turns out, the market for pet parents to do a diagnostic assay for cancer didn’t seem to be what they were looking for. And so as a result, we think that we stand by that decision and we kind of wait and see how that market fleshes out in the future. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity for us, but that’ll be based on a lot of factors. Okay. So pretty much most of these questions — here’s one Pete that’s definitely for you, right? Congrats on a good R&D spend.
Thank you. With regards to your CapEx spend, are you using any accelerated depreciation? Would you regret your — would you regard your position as conservative?
Peter Donato: Yeah, I don’t know. All of that’s disclosed in the K, in the Q, all the methods we used for that. There’s definitely straight line method for book purposes and we use variety of accelerated methods for tax purposes. That said, we’re in a NOL position. So there’s not a lot of effort being, it doesn’t benefit us right now to accelerate any of our deductions because we’re non cash paying at this point in time.
Larry Heaton: Okay. There’s a question here, is the reverse split off the table moving forward?
Peter Donato: So what we’ve said and continue to say is, we explore all options. There’s many, many options on the table. What I’ve said publicly multiple times, Larry is, we looked at probably two dozen or more potential remedies to get us into compliance and remain compliance. We narrowed that down probably to six, seven, eight maybe a couple of derivatives within those and the reverse split was one of them. You and I spoke very clearly in April that we’ve heard our shareholders loud and clear. They didn’t want it. There were about 35% of the shares were voted, of those 35% that were voted just over 60% said no. So you and I spoke in April. We accept those results. We’ll always think about those things and clearly having less shares out there would benefit us for all the reasons that I’ve cited over and over.
In fact, I just sat in on a call yesterday, we would have likely have been included in the Russell 2,000. We met most, if not all the criteria and likely would have been selected had our share been trading at over $1. So the reverse split would have helped us in that regard and being in an industry, but we are not putting — we didn’t put a reverse split on the annual meeting ballot and but we’re not doing have no plans at this time.
Larry Heaton: Okay. And then I think maybe we’ll take one more, which is, what is — what are the future plans on the human version of TRUFORMA? With respect to that, as we’ve talked about before, the product was developed for the human market, the Omnia version of the instrument and all of the assets for the human business, whether it be the intellectual property, the clinical trial data, the FDA approval, emergency use authorization for COVID testing, many parts and some finished goods. All of those have been preserved in a sort of a pristine way. We expect that as time goes on, we will seek to monetize that asset either in some way. Most likely it would be a licensing or sale of the assets to a startup that wanted to or a strategic that wanted to take that product into the human market.
We expect that the more — the bigger foundation we lay in the animal health market with assays across the board and there are dozens of assays that we are contemplating launching that that will enhance the value for people to potentially want to take that into the human market. We can pair that, we can combine that if appropriate with our TrueView device because again, we own all of the human rights to that market as well. And so the only other thing I would say is that, and this would just be a message to Rami (ph), I’d be happy to talk to you personally. You have my email address. So give me a — get in touch with me if you like directly, and I’d be happy to address some of your comments just one on one. Other than that, if there are any other questions on the phone bank, operator?
If not, I would thank you all very much for your participation today and your support of Zomedica and feel free to reach out anytime with questions. Thank you. Operator?
Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect.
