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IMMURON LTD (IMC) - Travelan's Record-Breaking Success Puts Immuron on the Global Health Map

• Andrew Musgrave

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Steve Lydeamore, CEO of Immuron Limited, takes us behind the scenes of one of Australia's most innovative biopharmaceutical companies. What makes this Melbourne-based biotech unique is their dual focus—a thriving commercial product alongside a promising technology platform targeting infectious diseases.

The spotlight falls on Travelan, Immuron's preventative treatment for traveller's diarrhoea that has experienced phenomenal growth. After sales plummeted to near-zero during the pandemic, the company has ssen a remarkable turnaround from $145,000 to over $5.3 million in less than a year. This success story involved strengthening pharmacy distribution networks across Australia and Canada while leveraging Amazon as their primary channel in the US market. As international travel rebounds, particularly to high-risk regions like Bali and Vietnam, Travelan's unique preventative approach—"nobody wants to get it"—positions it perfectly for continued growth.


Andrew Musgrave Host

Welcome again to ASX Briefs, where we spotlight Australia's most dynamic listed companies and the leaders driving them forward. And today we're joined by Steve Lydeamore, the CEO of Immuron Limited, a biopharmaceutical innovator focused on developing and commercialising oral immunotherapies for gut-mediated diseases. Steve, thanks for joining me today and welcome to the ASX Briefs podcast. 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yeah, thank you, Andrew. Thank you for having me. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Okay, Steve, for listeners that may be unfamiliar with Immuron, can you just provide a brief overview of the company? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Sure, I can do that. So Immuron's listed on the Australian Stock Exchange under the ticker IMC and also on NASDAQ under IMRN. We're based in Melbourne. We're a small biotech company that is a little bit unusual in that we have a commercial product, Travelan, which we'll talk about during this call, but also a platform technology which is focused on developing prevention and treatments for infectious diseases. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And Steve, congratulations on Travelan reaching record-breaking sales. So, what were the key drivers behind this milestone and how do you plan to maintain that momentum? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

That's a very good question. It is a wonderful time for us, as you would imagine, with Travelan being a travel medicine. During the pandemic, sales went down to almost zero. In fact, in Australia they were negative because product was being sent back. So, I started with the company in June 2022 and at the end of that financial year, I think we had $145,000 in sales. 

So, to grow in three quarters of a year to 5.3 million is quite an achievement. A lot of that's come in Australia and the successes have come from relaunching a product, essentially getting good distribution in all the pharmacy banner groups and getting a lot of promotional activity going. So it would be fair to say in the past that Immuron focused more on the R&D side of the business and less on the commercial side. And with hiring a senior executive that's ex-Procter Gamble and GlaxoSmithKline that had experience with a Panadol franchise, amongst other brands, he knows what he's doing, and he's had great success in the Australian market, but not just there, also in our overseas markets. So, we have the product on the market in Canada and the US. In Canada it's a similar market to Australia in that it's largely a pharmacy-driven market, although we're also in grocery. We've had record sales in Canada this year on the back of getting distribution in not even all of them yet, but a large number of pharmacy banner groups and as well as grocery. 

And in the US, interestingly, pharmacy channel is not the largest market there and it tends to be the alternate providers of consumer health products, namely Amazon and Walmart, and we're in both of those. Most of our growth in the US is coming from Amazon and Amazon's the leading consumer health channel for products of our type and it's taking a little while to get brand recognition, mostly through social media advertising, both on platform with Amazon and also off platform. But we're starting to get to that point where we should see a significant leverage up from the past activities and ongoing activities in promoting the brand. 

The amazing thing is that Travelan is one of those products that prevents travellers' diarrhoea. We're competing in a market where people tend to take products with them that they use after they get it and, of course, nobody wants to get it. So, it's a great opportunity for the listeners not even just about Immuron at stock, but the product Travelan, if you're travelling to Bali or anywhere where you know that there's a risk of traveller's diarrhea, do have a look at Travelan. It can prevent it. Stop it from happening. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And Travelan is moving towards a Phase 3 trial. So how are you preparing for this next regulatory and clinical milestone? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yeah, we've had quite a journey with Travelan. So, the current label claims we have on-label claims in both Australia and Canada for prevention and relief of traveller's diarrhoea and that's on the back of studies that we did in Poland. We did challenge studies with enterotoxigenic E coli showing up to 90% effectiveness in preventing traveller's diarrhoea and that was dosed three times daily. Recently we completed a similar phase two trial with the US Department of Defence grant money. That was a once-a-day trial. They wanted to see whether did you need to take it three times a day, and so they took it once in the morning. We got some interesting results that they were very happy with, including some statistically significant results, which is a good outcome, but it still wasn't quite as good as the one today. 

So, in preparing for the end of phase two meeting with the FDA, which we're able to request at any time, we are going to wait for another study that's currently ongoing. It's being run and funded by the Uniformed Services University in Baltimore, Maryland in the US. It's a very large trial. So, it's a phase three type trial in 866 military personnel, mostly US, but also some UK that are traveling on deployments in their role to high-risk regions. And what's interesting about this trial is that it's phase three like, so it would give a good understanding as to whether our phase three plans are likely to succeed. 

But it's also dosed twice daily, so it's morning and evening, skipping that middle-of-the-day dose which is problematic for people that are in the field. So, before we request that end-of-phase two meeting, we originally planned to do that before the end of this financial year, but the results of this financial year, but the results of this uniformed services university trial, won't be available until the third quarter of this calendar year. So, we'll wait for that and see whether we go forward with a clinical protocol in our meeting with the FDA. It will be either twice a day, if the results of that study are good, or three times daily, not once daily because of the lower efficacy in the recent phase two trial. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And you've also just added ProIBS to your lineup through a distribution deal. So how does this complement your existing portfolio and what role do you see it playing in Immuron's broader strategy? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yes, ProIBS is a great opportunity for us. We've licensed it from a company in Sweden. They themselves don't sell it. They have distributors in a number of countries around the world. So, in their home market in Sweden, for example, it outsells Iberogast, which is the leading IBS brand in Australia. The good thing for us is that this brand sits in the same area of the pharmacy, within that gastrointestinal health section, as Travelan does. So, we'll be able to leverage our relationships with the pharmacy banner groups and our sales and marketing efforts to leverage that fixed cost across more than one product. 

So, we thought we've got this great team set up and great system for selling in Australia. Why not use it for selling another product? We've been looking for complementary products and this is the first one. We're looking for others as well. We've also included in this agreement rights for New Zealand and we're not selling Travelan in New Zealand at the moment, and that's because the regulatory regime in New Zealand is different than Australia so it's a little bit trickier to get travel land on the market. But because ProIBS is a registered medical device from Europe, that's much easier to get into the New Zealand market. 

So, we might use it as our first entry into New Zealand and follow that with travel land. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And, at a macro level, international travel has bounced back since COVID. So how is this affecting the demand for Travelan, and are there any other geographic markets you're eyeing for expansion? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yes, international travel has rebounded. If you go down and drill into the detail and these are available on the Australian Bureau of Statistics not only has travel increased in total, when you look at where people are traveling, you'll see that it's beneficial for us because there's less travel to the US, for example, but there's more travel to Bali, there's more travel to Fiji, to Vietnam, to other markets which are target markets for the travelers to take Travelan. So that bodes well for us going forward. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And you're working on new antimicrobial resistant collaborations, including with Monash University. So how do you see the company contributing to global AMR solutions? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yeah, so this is not our first collaboration with the Monash University. So, we have one other clinical asset, which is IMM 529 for Clostridioides difficile infection. We had successful pre-IND meeting with the FDA during the current financial year. We're currently planning on filing an IND, so that's an investigational new drug application with the FDA somewhere around June, maybe a little bit after, and that would allow us to move into phase two with that particular asset. 

So Clostridioides difficile infection is one of those infectious diseases that ironically, is both treated with and caused by antibiotics, so it's very much an AMR, so antimicrobial resistance issue. Our product is a non-antibiotic and doesn't have any resistance characteristics. So, if we can replace current antibiotic therapy with our product, it will become our contribution to antimicrobial resistance. And the new program that we announced during the year with Monash is to develop a new product for vancomycin-resistant enterococci and the name itself tells you that it's an AMR issue. So, this is people would ordinarily have been treated with vancomycin but it's not working and that's because of antimicrobial resistance and Monash are using our platform technology to come up with a non-antibiotic solution for treating it. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

Now the company operates across several fronts’ commercial products, clinical development and strategic partnerships. So how do you balance these streams from an operational and investment perspective? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yes, I have two key executives reporting to me. So, Flavio Palumbo is our chief commercial officer, and he focuses on the commercial side of the business selling Travelan in Australia, Canada and the US. And you asked before about other new market opportunities. So, New Zealand I mentioned that we'd be looking to move into, but also Europe. So probably first point of call would be UK. People listening may not be aware, but in terms of Amazon markets globally, the US is clearly the largest. Second largest is Germany, closely followed by the UK. UKs got some advantages for us because we'll be able to leverage all of the marketing materials that we've developed for the US market, which will be applicable for the UK market. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

And just to wrap things up, what should investors be watching for in the second half of 2025 in terms of news flow, trials and commercial developments? 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Yeah, so let me just quickly go through them. So, I've mentioned some of them already. We've just reported quarterly record sales. We do that every quarter. So, in the middle of July, we'll have an announcement on full-year results and the June quarter sales results. That investigational new drug filing for IMM529 for Clostridioid difficile infection should occur around that same period there. The Uniformed Services University study, that's the Travelan Phase 3-like trial. We should have results available from that trial in the third quarter of this calendar year as well, and shortly after that we'll be announcing end of Phase 2, meeting with the FDA and a number of other things. So, we got a number of milestones coming up, both commercial and clinical. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

All right, Steve. Well, it's been great to chat today, so thanks for your time and giving us an update on where the company is at, and we look forward to further updates in the upcoming months. 

Steve Lydeamore Guest

Very good. Thank you, Andrew. 

Andrew Musgrave Host

That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.