AFT Pharmaceuticals (ASX:AFP) has highlighted new growth opportunities across its research and development portfolio and business hubs.

The company told shareholders it expects to extend its two-decade record of 17% compound annual revenue growth.

Managing director Dr Hartley Atkinson said the portfolio now includes eight patented projects, 24 off-patent injectables and a range of other projects in the early stages of commercialisation, giving the company access to multi-billion-dollar addressable markets.

He said AFT is also developing and strengthening its business hubs in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the US, Canada and the UK. For selected parts of the R&D portfolio, that network would allow AFT to cover up to 50% of the global market directly.

“The strength, depth and potential of our development portfolio, our record of successfully developing and commercialising innovative medicines, and the returns they have delivered for shareholders to date are a story we are keen to outline more fully,” Dr Atkinson said.

“It is for this reason we are today taking investors on a deeper dive into the portfolio so they can better understand the excitement we have for the significant current and future upside it offers us.”

At a gathering in Auckland, AFT outlined how research and development projects have already contributed significant shareholder value.

The company pointed to the development of the intravenous form of its patented Maxigesic pain relief medicine and said the investment has already delivered multi-million-dollar returns, including:

• NZ$21 million from licensing the intellectual property to markets where it does not operate.
• NZ$5.5 million in royalties from sales by those licensees.
• Multiple millions in margin from sales in other markets.

AFT’s long-standing and unbroken record of growth is founded on a highly successful record of identifying unmet clinical needs and then in licensing or developing the right medicines to meet that need. We are now successfully taking these products to multiple markets around the world,” Dr Atkinson said.

“Few pharmaceutical companies in New Zealand or Australia straddle both the development of intellectual property and the commercialisation of speciality medicines. Fewer still fund this growth largely from internally generated cashflows. AFT does both. We are proud of our record, and excited by the growing potential.”

AFP was steady at $3.57, with a market capitalisation of $374.4 million, before markets opened.