Widecells Group PLC (LON:WDC) Chief Executive Officer João Andrade and Chairman Peter Presland caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the recent Board changes, the launch of the WideAcademy platform and an update on their strategy
Q1: João, as pointed out, there have been a few changes to the Board recently, Peter Presland, who’s on the call today with us, has become Chairman and a few non-executive directors have joined the team including David Henriques whose appointment was announced yesterday. What was the reason for behind these changes?
A1: Well, since we floated we have been in development stage to get our licences and our products ready to start generating revenues and we started to do that at then end of last year. We came to this, what we call, inflection point where we are moving away from a development stage to a commercialisation stage so there was a need to strengthen the Board to look into appointing new advisors as well to strengthen our operational teams. These are the first steps we are taking to prepare the company for the next stages of development really.
Q2: Peter, can you tell us about your background and what attracted you to Widecells Group?
A2: I’ve spent 45 years in and around the city, I’m a Chartered Accountant by background but from 1980, I went into public company life as a Group Accountant of a large insurance broking group called CE Heath where I became a Group Accountant, CFO and then lastly CEO. I’ve done a number of major corporate transactions, I’ve been involved in a reasonably successful executive and now non-executive career.
The reason the company wanted someone like me to come on board was as part of the company growing up, they’re getting bigger and they’re now becoming more revenue-generative. We need to strengthen corporate governance, we need to strengthen the experience around the table, we need to have a Board that is more investor-facing I think, more city functional.
So, the first thing that attracted me was that there was clearly a job to be done here to help João build this business.
The second thing of course in CellPlan we have a very innovative insurance product and I’ve spent a lot of my career in the insurance market, so I can spot an innovative product when I see one and it really is quite an exciting proposition.
Thirdly, the strategic build of the Group is a very clever one, it has 3 divisions, all of their goals is to help the other divisions to succeed. So, for example, in the stem cell business the 2 things that would be an impediment to growth would be lack of knowledge in the public domain and in the medical profession about stem cell technology and the second thing would be the cost of delivering that to the general public. Now, CellPlan deals with the cost aspects and WideAcademy deals with the public and professional knowledge aspects, it’s been cleverly put together I think.
Q3: Board changes aren’t the only things that have been keeping you busy, there have been a number of corporate developments including yesterday’s launch of WideAcademy. João, what is this platform and why have you built it?
A3: Well, as Peter was mentioning, as we understand it, most doctors have not been trained in stem cell technology in medicals schools, that’s one of the arguments. Also expecting parents, when they are facing the decision of whether they should or should not store their baby’s umbilical cord blood stem cells and take out the insurance plans to cover for future costs associated with future treatments, it’s important that expecting parents have a platform which is trustworthy, which has content that they can digest. At the same time, medical professionals are able to find information on what diseases can be treated, what are the success rates for each of them and if they want to dig deep into the research and find the articles behind the content we’ll be placing in the platform.
Now, it’s a trustworthy platform for information on stem cell technology and we think it’s going to help drive uptake for stem cell storage services and also for insurance. What we’re doing as an exercise now is building the first set of courseware for medical professionals, so they can get CPD, Continuous Professional Development accreditation, for their knowledge and the modules that we’ll be placing in the platform. At the same, a group of hospitals might offer a subscription to their doctors if they have 1,000 doctors, 500 doctors for example, to access the professional platform that we are developing.
So, it’s not only a source for information on stem cells but also, for the company, a way of monetising those efforts and that’s, I’d say, accurate, scientific and medical information that we’re bringing to the public and to healthcare professionals.
Q4: Finally, looking ahead, with a strengthened Board and 3 active divisions, I understand the Group’s primary focus is on building its global profile increasing, client reach and driving sales. How do you intend to achieve all of this?
A4: We have a clear path on how to generate revenue and profit moving forwards. The more immediate steps are to launch the CellPlan insurance in Spain which is one of the best, if not the best markets in Europe where we have more clients and more families that have stored their baby’s umbilical cord blood and currently do not have insurance for treatment. So, that’s one of the big developments that we can have in the foreseeable future.
At the same time, we have established our own laboratory in the University of Manchester Innovation Centre and we are waiting for the license from the Human Tissue Authority at any moment now, we expect. The minute we receive that licence we’ll be able to start offering families in the UK, followed other countries in Europe, the stem cell storage service so families will be able to store their stem cells with us and take the insurance policy as well.
Now, with CellPlan, we are preparing more towards the second half of this year to launch the products in Brazil and also start to sign up other bigger cord blood banks to start offering the insurance policy to their clients.
