Filed
by Aytu BioScience, Inc.
Pursuant
to Rule 425 under the Securities Act of 1933
and
deemed filed pursuant to Rule 14a-12
under
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Subject
Company:
Aytu
BioScience, Inc. (SEC File No. 001-38247)
Aytu Team:
I’m pleased to share with you some exciting, transformational
news about Aytu BioScience that we announced publicly this
morning.
This morning, the company announced Aytu BioScience’s plan to
acquire a publicly-traded, specialty pharmaceutical company,
Innovus Pharmaceuticals. Through this acquisition of Innovus,
Aytu will expand into the $40 billion consumer healthcare market
and acquire a rapidly-growing, specialty pharmaceutical company in
this consumer segment. This is a bold and timely step for the
company to transform and expand our commercial platform and
substantially increase the breadth of our product line and revenue.
The management team, Board, and I are very excited about the
diversification and growth prospects this acquisition adds to our
already strong and growing Rx business!
A little background on Innovus:
Innovus markets novel over-the-counter (OTC) medicines as well as
proprietary supplements and other healthcare products via
direct-to-consumer advertising and online marketing. They have over
30 unique consumer products in their
portfolio. Innovus generated
approximately $24 million in revenue over the last four quarters
and have grown revenue over 100% since 2017. Innovus sells several of their products
worldwide, but they primarily focus on North America and have grown
revenues here quite rapidly recently. Innovus, like Aytu,
focuses on bringing novel products to market in large therapeutic
areas, but Innovus focuses specifically on consumer segments.
These segments include diabetes, sexual medicine, men’s
health, and respiratory health (among others), and they continually
evaluate new product opportunities to bring to
market.
Innovus is based in San Diego and has a small ~20-person
infrastructure, but they do not have a sales force. They
market their products via direct-to-consumer marketing channels
(online, direct mail, etc.) and have a small internal team and
group of consultants who perform their core marketing
functions. They are an efficient, lean team that has
expertise in consumer healthcare marketing and distribution, so
this consumer-focused approach complements our direct selling to
physician customers.
Why we’re excited about this acquisition:
It is well documented that the consumer healthcare market is large
and growing, and we are making a timely, opportunistic play to
enter this attractive market. Further, when we combine with
Innovus the new Aytu BioScience will show trailing 12-month revenue
of approximately $31 million – more than four times our
current annual revenue! Additionally, we diversify our
revenue base, reduce seasonality (particularly with Tuzistra),
increase our scale, and bolster our management team. In
short, this acquisition takes Aytu to a much higher level.
What does this mean to you?
If you’re in the sales force, or working outside of the
finance, legal, and executive functions, the short answer is
– this planned acquisition doesn’t change anything for
you day-to-day. You will, however, be working within a larger
enterprise with more resources and a much larger addressable
market. If you’re in the sales force, there is no
change as, of course, we have Rx products to sell, and the growth
of those products is just beginning.
As we stated in today’s press release, the prescription
product portfolio will continue to be commercialized through the
existing Aytu sales force, while the consumer health products will
continue to be primarily commercialized via Innovus’
proprietary “Beyond Human®” marketing
platform. However, and potentially at some point in the
future, both lines of business may benefit from opportunistic
cross-selling such that some consumer products may be marketed in
the physician office setting by Aytu’s sales force, while the
marketing of the prescription products may be bolstered through
various online and direct-to-consumer marketing initiatives.
This said, none of this cross-selling is imminent as regulatory and
other strategic alignment would be needed to begin such an
initiative. Across the company’s functions it is
expected that the two segments will leverage administrative and
operational efficiencies following the integration of the two
companies. We expect several operational functions to migrate
to Denver over time.
In the immediate term, nothing changes for anyone until we close
this transaction around the end of this year. As is the case
with all mergers and acquisitions involving public companies, there
are processes to follow including a shareholder vote – and
this will take several months to complete.
So, with that, it remains ‘business as usual’ but is
certainly a day to celebrate this exciting time and what lies
ahead. Please join me in celebrating this exciting milestone
for Aytu BioScience!
Feel free to contact me with questions.
Best,
Josh
Josh
Disbrow
Chairman
& Chief Executive Officer