With everything going on in the share market, we want to keep you as connected and informed as possible. To do this, we’ve launched Lunch Money webinars to help bring Sharesies to you!
Hosted by Sharesies’ co-founders Sonya Williams and Leighton Roberts, these webinars cover:
Sonya and Leighton’s views on what’s happening in the news, and what it means for investors
Questions from the crowd about money, investing, and Sharesies as a business
In our latest webinar, Sonya and Leighton were joined by Victoria Potarina, CEO of TruScreen, an NZX listed company that develops, manufactures, and sells cancer detection devices and systems.
Watch the replay over on Crowdcast, or listen to/download the audio file below:
Since we didn’t get around to everyone’s questions today, Victoria’s picked a few of the top-rated questions to answer here.
"Since you've recently joined TruScreen, can you please explain why you left Johnson & Johnson just less than five months after your appointment as Director there?"—Paul
Hi Paul, thank you for the question. Actually I became Director of Johnson & Johnson 10 years ago in 2010 as a Marketing Director for Eastern Europe for Diabetes Care (please refer to my Linkedin profile). The information you are referring to is likely to be the change of my contract jurisdiction from the Moscow office to the London office of Johnson & Johnson. I started working as a Business Unit Director in the UK & Ireland in 2014 while still being an employee of the Russian office of Johnson & Johnson. Later in 2018, my contract was transferred to the UK office. It was just a technical contract transfer planned well in advance and it has no connection whatsoever to my departure from the company.
"As a TRU investor, I already took part in your first capital raise earlier this month. I am quite upset you’re offering now a second round of shares for the same share price as in the first round to new investors. What is the reason for this move? I don’t mind you’re raising more money but I would’ve expected to be treated differently as someone who invested in your company already."—Mai
Hi Mai, thank you for your question and I can see where you are coming from. Actually the existing shareholders were treated differently, as within the share purchase plan they could invest up to 50,000 NZD. While this placement is capped in the number of shares available and there is no guarantee that the new investor will get the amount of shares they have applied for. As a company, we are raising capital to ensure we can deliver growth of the business and subsequent value growth to our shareholders.
"Can you please give a broad view of the IP protections you have in place for your product/technology, and the potential to apply these in other applications going forward?"—Byron
Hi Byron, this is a very good question. Unfortunately, I am not in the position to disclose this highly sensitive information at the moment.
"Since your revenue is around 57% from the Chinese market, do you have a plan to distribute your sales across more countries and thus be less vulnerable to just one market?"—Hani
Hi Hani, thank you for the valid question. We do plan to distribute our sales across more countries, mostly Russia and Vietnam in the near future with some other opportunities being under consideration. Having said that, China will remain our key focus market as it has immense potential and unmet need in a reliable real time cervical cancer screening product.
"Hi, what are the company's plans to increase diversity in the executive team and board of directors? (especially given the type of product)"—K
Hi K, thank you for your interest in diversity. We hire and value our team members on their merit, i.e. qualifications, working experience and what they can bring to the company. Diversity is a broad concept and can be viewed as a cumulative level of differences within a group of people. From this perspective in TruScreen we have a highly diverse team—we have team members born in Russia, Australia, Ireland, USA, China, Argentina and Czech Republic, men and women, aged 20+ to 60+, coming from different industries and belonging to different religions. As diversity is a journey and always can be improved, we will be paying close attention to it as we develop further.
"What is your greatest risk presenting towards your future vision?"—David
Hi David, thank you for your question and interest in TruScreen. Our vision as a company is to assist in getting to A World Without Cervical Cancer. It’s a bold and ambitious vision and we believe that every little step in this direction is a valuable contribution. The main challenge as I see it is to stay focussed, persevere and deliver on our promises to our patients, doctors and shareholders.
Thanks for joining us Victoria!
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