Niagen Bioscience Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience Inc.'s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Karina, and I will be the conference operator today.

[Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Earlier today, Niagen Bioscience issued a press release announcing its financial results for the first quarter of 2026. If you have not reviewed this information, it is available within the Investor Relations section of Niagen Bioscience's website at www.niagenbioscience.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Lauren Borzansky, Assistant Controller. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience Inc.'s First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Joining me today are our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried; Chief Financial Officer, Ozan Pamir; and Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Andrew Shao. Dr. Shao will be joining the call for Q&A.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements. These statements relate to, among other things, our research and development activities, clinical trial plans and timing, regulatory filings, expansion into new markets, business development opportunities and our expected financial and operating performance. These statements are based on our current expectations as of today and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

For a discussion of these risks, please refer to our most recent Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update these statements, except as required by law. In addition, we may reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today's earnings release and presentation, both available in the Investor Relations section of our website.

With that, it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to our CEO, Rob Fried.

Thank you, Lauren. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's investor call. In the first quarter, we delivered $31.5 million in revenue, a 5% year-over-year growth, excluding revenue from the recently divested reference standard business. We generated net income of $6.3 million and ended the quarter with $66.5 million in cash and no debt.

We had an increase in working capital of about $5.4 million from the prior quarter, leaving a total of $82.3 million. The core e-commerce business grew 14% year-over-year. The direct-to-consumer website grew twice as fast as Amazon.

As anticipated, two of our customers did not order this quarter as much as they did a year ago, which impacted overall growth, but we do see promising indicators to start the year. The awareness around Niagen and the benefits of NAD supplementation continues to gain media attention.

Over the last year, we've garnered many features with major media outlets, including a cover feature in the business by L.A. Times Studios and additional digital features on L.A. Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Business Insider, People Magazine, GQ, Vogue, Vanity Fair, BioTuesdays, The New York Post, U.S. News and World Report, Everyday Health, L, Allure and others.

These features serve as a powerful validation that overall awareness of the importance of NAD is growing stronger and major media outlets are recognizing the strength of our science and the quality of our products and our leadership in the industry. An example of why experts and industry journalists understand Niagen to be unique in this space is our recent launch of the Niagen+ at-home injection kit and our telehealth capability. There are numerous federal and state requirements that had to be met in order to offer a product such as this.

And the ingredient itself must be pharmaceutical grade. It must conform to very high purity and sterilization standards. And it has taken many years and countless hours from the exceptional Niagen Bioscience team to get here. I am very proud of this achievement. It is the first product launched through our very owned telehealth platform and places us firmly in the heart of a growing and important longevity trend. Of course, as we do with most things, we're approaching this new endeavor carefully and methodically, and I expect it to iterate and improve with time.

Niagen+ is not our only new development in our product pipeline. In March, we pilot launched the Niagen Nanocloud, our first skin care topical product. Early demand has been extremely strong, and we're already nearly sold out. The wide launch will be in October. Surveys of the early adopters of Nanocloud has yielded enthusiastic results. They see visibly more youthful, smoother and more moisturized skin and improved skin texture. These results are consistent with the recently completed independent study.

In addition to our own Tru Niagen consumer products, we expect to supply Niagen as an ingredient to reputable and trustworthy skin care brands. Last month, we announced that NR chloride patented as Niagen, has achieved a published USP dietary supplement ingredient monograph. The USP monograph is usually reserved for approved drugs and rarely dietary supplements.

There is now a global benchmark for what high quality NR chloride should look like in dietary supplements and that benchmark is Niagen. Niagen is the only ingredient among the NAD and NMN companies to reach this standard.

This is merely one of many examples of our dedication to investing in science and innovation and in high quality and makes our company truly unique in the NAD space. NAD science continues to evolve. And as the leader in NAD science, we take pride in contributing to research that advances the understanding of NAD and its implications for human health.

In March, we were the lead sponsor of the inaugural NAD for Health Scientific meeting hosted by the University of Copenhagen. This brought together world-renowned researchers, clinicians and industry partners. A prominent discussion at this conference was a new development in the understanding how, when and where different NAD precursors exhibit their effects. We learned that while whole blood NAD remains an important biomarker, tissue NAD may be the key determinant of functional outcomes.

Emerging evidence suggests that NR administered through IV or injection can support more rapid, direct and substantial NAD augmentation in peripheral tissues such as the liver, kidney, brain, skeletal muscle and skin.

Additionally, recent evidence suggests that combining NAD boosting supplementation with exercise may produce additive or potentially synergistic effects on certain functional outcomes such as blood flow and aerobic capacity. These learnings will require further validation in human clinical trials, and we look forward to this next phase of research.

We continue to make steady, but deliberate progress towards pharmaceutical applications of our NAD precursor portfolio in orphan indications, particularly ataxia telangiectasia. We are working with CROs to design and execute key IND-enabling preclinical studies, a portion of which were initiated earlier this year, and I hope to have more updates or key developments on future calls.

Niagen Bioscience continues to set an example in the industry. We are dedicated to doing things the right way, to advancing the science and to promoting the understanding of how Niagen plays a critical role in improving health. This is what sets us apart from all other NAD companies.

I would now like to hand the call over to Ozan to run through the quarter's financials, and then on to Q&A and closing remarks. Ozan?

Thanks, Rob. It is a pleasure to once again address our investors, partners and team members today. We had a solid start to the year with strong e-commerce growth, coupled with exceptional net income. In the first quarter of 2026, we delivered $31.5 million in revenue or $31.1 million, excluding the reference standard segment, an increase of 5% year-over-year. Tru Niagen revenue grew by 4% to $22.4 million, a $900,000 year-over-year increase driven primarily by e-commerce revenue of $19.2 million, which was up by 14% or $2.4 million.

Our Niagen ingredient revenue was $8.2 million, up 2% or $185,000 year-over-year. Within the ingredients business, we delivered $7.3 million in food-grade Niagen sales to key partners and $850,000 in pharma-grade Niagen sales. Tru Niagen international and domestic distribution is an area of opportunity for the company.

Sales to Watsons and other B2B partners were down by $1.5 million year-over-year due to timing of orders and changes to inventory management. We can continue to expect quarterly fluctuations in sales to Watsons, a valued partner and an important component of our international distribution strategy.

We do expect sales to Watsons to increase during the year based on their forecasts. Gross margin improved to 63.5% in the first quarter, up 10 basis points compared to 63.4% a year ago. This improvement was driven primarily by changes in product mix and business mix.

Selling and marketing expense as a percentage of net sales was 30.7% compared to 26.6% in the first quarter of 2025. The increase in selling and marketing expenses reflects investments in marketing and advertising to drive e-commerce growth, brand awareness and to support commercial launches of new products.

Research and development expense was $1.5 million, $220,000 higher year-over-year. The driver of the increase is continued investment into clinical studies for new product launches and providing materials and resources to support external research.

General and administrative expenses totaled $7.2 million, a $2.1 million increase compared to the previous year. The increase in G&A expenses is driven by the absence of a $1.3 million recovery of credit losses related to our legal settlement with Elysium and higher share-based compensation. And finally, our net income for the quarter was $6.3 million or $0.08 per share, an improvement compared to $0.07 per share for the first quarter of 2025.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Our balance sheet remains strong. We ended the quarter with $66.5 million in cash and no debt. For the 3 months ended March 31, 2026, net cash used by operations was $1.2 million compared to net cash provided by operations of $7.9 million in the same period last year. Cash used by operations was driven primarily by investments in inventory of $3.6 million and timing of customer orders and collections and a larger outstanding balance from a partner, which was subsequently collected in April.

Trade receivables was also impacted by an updated Amazon policy where a 7-day hold on sales proceeds is implemented, which was a onetime impact on operating cash flows. We expect inventory levels to decrease throughout the remainder of the year.

Cash from investing activities is primarily comprised of the sale of the Reference Standards business for proceeds of $5.8 million, while cash used in financing activities include $2.4 million of common stock repurchases during the first quarter as part of our increased share repurchase program of $20 million.

Regarding our full year 2026 outlook, detailed information on key financial metrics can be found in our earnings press release and presentation. For our top line growth, we are reaffirming our guidance of 10% to 15% growth year-over-year. Awareness around NAD+ is yet to reach its peak, and we remain confident in our opportunities for growth in this year and beyond.

We anticipate that our e-commerce channel will be a consistent growth engine, and we expect that our innovative launches will provide upside. While sales to certain distribution or ingredient partners may fluctuate quarter-to-quarter, we remain confident in the year ahead.

We're also revising our outlook for selling and marketing expenses to increase in absolute dollars and increase as a percentage of net sales compared to our previous expectation of remaining stable as a percentage of net sales and increasing in absolute dollars.

While we're not ready to commit to a broader brand initiative or investment, we are expecting to invest in marketing to generate refreshed creative assets to push brand awareness on all channels. Finally, we are revising our outlook for general and administrative expenses. We now expect expenses to be up $3 million to $4 million in absolute dollars year-over-year compared to the previous expectation of $4 million to $5 million. This change in outlook is primarily driven by shifting our investments from infrastructure to supporting brand awareness efforts.

With the first quarter behind us, we are focused on building on the momentum we have established. We have the right operational foundation and focus to position the company for a strong year and for longer-term success. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalman.

I guess, big picture, could you talk about the FDA and the last motion and the ramifications of NMN as far as its sales as well as its sales through Amazon? And what's the impact there upon your business? What's the outlook there as well?

Well, we think NMN is a good ingredient and it does effectively elevate NAD. It doesn't do it nearly as well as Niagen. In fact, there was a study published this quarter out of Norway that showed that NR increased blood NAD levels 2.3x of the equivalent amount of NMN. Also, every NMN product that we have tested infringes on existing patents for NMN. We've also done studies and others have done studies that show that percentage of NMN products in the market that meet what's on the label is very low. We think that the reversal of the drug preclusion ruling by the FDA in September was a bad decision and a questionable decision.

And we think it has a very good chance of being reversed yet again. So for all those reasons, we're not bullish long term on NMN. But unquestionably, we are seeing an increase in NMN sellers and NMN sales on Amazon and elsewhere, and it is impacting our sales. In fact, there's more than 300 SKUs now on Amazon, whereas in September, there were 0.

So Rob, what would you speculate the ramifications to Niagen have been over the first quarter?

Well, I can't give you a precise number. But we see an increase in bidding costs for keyword searches on Amazon and elsewhere. And we see more difficulty getting new-to-brand customers. Many of the NMN sellers are selling at a very, very cheap price, which probably coincides with the fact that look, some of these companies have come out of the Belarus or China, they don't have any scientific research. They don't meet label claims and they charge a very small amount. So for those buyers that are basically price influenced, I think we're -- a lot of those are going to NMN. But as I say, I don't think it's a long-term thing, but it has affected us and it is -- I can't give you a precise amount or a number, but it is creating some headwinds for us that did not exist a few months ago.

Okay. That's super helpful. And as a follow-up, could you talk about the IV locations out there? I know you were in approximately 1,200 locations last quarter. Could you talk about any trends there as far as placements, utilization, pricing, demographics? Anything there you can give us some color on?

Yes. As you say, it's in 1,200 clinics now. We're seeing the order rate is very strong and the repeat rate is strong. It tends to be a more affluent consumer and they're in the major cities. Most of them, it's very well represented in the larger cities. We're also in these cruise ships and seems to do very well in these cruise ships.

They still charge a great deal for it. The average price is still between $800 and $1,000 per IV, but people do experience a benefit and they're very enthusiastic about it. We have some partners like Restore that are doing an excellent job of educating the consumer when they come in of the benefits of Niagen IV over NAD IV, and they tell us that they're having great success and great repeat purchasers.

Your next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity.

I know it's early days. Any initial thoughts on the Niagen+ IV injectable launch, I guess, any initial consumer response. And then also do you have plans in place yet to roll it out to other telehealth platforms? And I guess if so, like what would the timing of that be?

Very good questions. So as you know, we launched over the weekend of our Niagen at-home injection kit, it's taken us many years that they are very, very excited to be there. It's only so, it's only 4 or 5 days, but it's been, I would say, outstanding those first 4 or 5 days. And in terms of traffic and conversions, but our expectations, obviously, are low. There's no marketing yet. The only marketing that we're doing is some e-mail campaigns and some media, press releases and it's been picked up in some media. We haven't done any paid ads at all as of yet, but the response is right out of the gate quite enthusiastic. So we're extremely encouraged.

We're not yet available in California, which represents a very, very disproportionately large percentage of the consumers of products such as these. And that's because our primary 503B pharmacy, Wells, is not licensed to supply in California, but they believe that this problem will be resolved in the next few weeks. So we're hopeful for that.

Okay. Great. That sounds good. And then I guess, just thinking about the distribution of the consumer products, so Niagen supplements, et cetera, I guess how are you thinking about just the channels as we look forward? I guess, will you eventually maybe go into retail with things like the core Niagen supplement? Or are there other channels that you're looking?

Yes, we do expect to broaden the footprint, the distribution footprint, in other countries and also in retail in the United States. There are a few new companies in the dietary supplement space brands to whom we will be supplying Niagen as an ingredient. So we will be expanding the distribution. Additionally, we will be rolling out additional products. As you know, we launched the Nanocloud product recently, and that's done extremely well. We expect to do a wide release of that in October. But similarly, we expect to supply Niagen as an ingredient to other skin care companies. As always, we'll be very careful about the companies to whom we supply Niagen as an ingredient. They will be reputable, trustworthy companies with existing brands. So we see an expansion in that regard as well.

I guess what's the demand been from other skin care or beauty companies for the ingredient, I guess, especially after you rolled out your own Nanocloud, have you seen any of those companies like kind of something you are interested in also adding the ingredient to their products?

Yes. And we've been in discussions with two major skin care brands.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean McGowan with ROTH Capital Partners.

I wanted quick-picture questions for Rob, and then a couple of clarifications for Ozan. Rob, what do you expect is going to be the impact kind of in the near and midterm of adding a new compounding pharmacy? And when do you think we'll see that impact?

We're hopeful for two things. One is a wider distribution of sales to clinics. So we're in 1,200 clinics at this point, but there are some thousand addressable clinics. So we're hoping to expand the number of clinics to whom we're selling. But also we're hoping that the ultimate price point to the end consumer comes down. We think $800 is a lot to pay for many people. But we think if we can get that price down through more clinics, more competition and more pharmacies, that we can expand the addressable market.

Okay. And do you expect to increase beyond these two as well as Olympia, right? And will you be expanding beyond those? And when do you think we'll see that impact?

I think we'll see the impact of Olympia in the summer, the end of the summer. It's possible we would talk to other pharmacies. There are 503B pharmacies and 503A pharmacies. But at this point, we don't know.

Okay. It takes a while to ramp them up anyway, okay. A couple of points of clarification for you, Ozan. One, was the increase in the inventory number was -- what drove that? Is that any indication of an acceleration in your expectation of sales? Or was there something else going on there?

And then in your commentary on G&A and sales and marketing and the outlook, would you expect the reduced outlook for spending in G&A to be kind of offset by the increase in sales and marketing, so we wind up effectively with the same operating income level.

Sean, regarding the inventory level, the main driver is that we have made commitments to make these purchases from our primary supplier, W.R. Grace about 6 months ago. So this was all scheduled inventory that was coming in to support us for the year. We do expect that throughout the remainder of the year, the inventory levels will come down. And I think you were asking -- can you repeat the other 2 questions?

In the outlook piece, it will be -- have you effectively raised the outlook for sales and marketing spending, right, by saying it's going to be increasing as a percentage of revenue. Do you think that's going to offset the savings or are you spending outlook for G&A?

Yes. That's a fair assumption.

Your next question comes from the line of Raghuram Selvaraju with H.C. Wainwright.

[indiscernible] sitting in for Ram. To start, how have recent developments on the compounded GLP-1 front affected demand for Niagen+ IV?

We only know in the sense that we get many calls and inquiries from these clinics and these compound pharmacies, especially the compound pharmacies who often are saying, what's the next big thing after GLP-1. And it seems like NAD is teed up for that.

Got it. And so how do you think the telehealth indicative impact -- will impact operating efficiency? And what emerging promotional strategies do you expect to deploy under the scope of this approach?

We're going to market it similarly to the way we market Tru Niagen. It's mostly in the e-commerce business. So it's the use of social media, paid ads, free media, use of influencers, and we do studies, and we publish these studies and these studies tend to get picked up by people who pay attention. So we've already put out 2 studies, and there are several more ongoing. And as we learn them, we put them out, there's a network of people that absorb this information because they're very curious about how they can improve the way their body ages.

Got it. Okay. And lastly, would you be able to go into what the status of the complaint aimed at removing NMN product from the U.S. market is?

So we sued the FDA to -- because we think that their ruling reversing the drug preclusion of ruling was incorrect. The FDA replied to that lawsuit recently like last week. And we're awaiting hearings on that reply, and then the judge's decision. We think his final decision will be within a year.

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital.

Great. Relative to the Nanocloud skincare product, would you walk us through how you are marketing that and how you ended up getting such great traction so early on? And then secondarily, what you are learning from having that product in the market?

We're marketing very little at this point. It's mostly existing Tru Niagen consumers that are also purchasing Nanocloud as a bundle. So they're seeing it on the website when they order Tru Niagen. There is some social media discussion about Nanoclouds. But the amount of our actual paid advertising is very small at this point. We've done surveys of these consumers because it's now been on the market almost 2 months. So the people that purchase once, we send out a survey, and we've gotten some extremely positive responses from these early consumers on the impact that it's had on their skin.

And Rob, as you see the consumer behavior, has that led to -- has that led to any learnings in terms of how when you do your commercial launch in October, how you want to approach it? And what are you seeing or learning from any of the social media that's taking place?

Yes, we're learning that it's predominantly a female product, at least, thus far. It seems like there's a very high repurchase rate. We've also -- we also realized that we could probably charge a bit -- we can change the pricing a bit. We'll probably increase the pricing a bit for the product. There's been some interest from retail on Nanoclouds and skincare products, and we're considering that. And yes, in terms of the effectiveness of the advertising, yes, of course, we buy these ads, and we track their performance, and we optimize it. Those winnings will inform the larger ad campaign that happens in October.

And just following up on the retail stores, how Niagen has had a couple of, I'll just call them, fits and starts in, I think, it was Walgreens many, many years ago in Walmart many years ago. How would this launch be different if you were to go that route? And how would you convert that to a greater level of success than you were able to have the first couple of times?

We weren't the first couple of times. We did probably once in Walmart. We were never in Walgreens. And that was just about timing. It actually sold quite well in Walmart, extremely well in Walmart. It's just that it took us a year to get our TV campaign going in conjunction with the launch of Walmart took too long.

What we learned from that experience is that there needs to be marketing in connection with the retail launch. And you need to have that marketing campaign ready to coincide with the retail launch.

We don't -- there's not going to be a wide retail launch. It will be slow. I mean, we're in certain retail locations now. And outside the U.S., we're in Watson's locations, in Hong Kong, Singapore. We are in vitamin shop presently, and we're in a few specialty shops as well. I expect that it will be -- there won't be a broad wide retail launch. It will be a partner by partner and regional.

Our last question comes from JP Mark with Farmhouse Equity Research.

Quick question for you about Niagen+ and really about the 3 customer segments. You a meaningful overlap between the oral supplement user, the high-end IV user and this newer at-home injectable user? Are they completely distinct populations? Or do the overlap do you think. I know, it's early for them. What's your thought on that?

It's a bit early to know that, but we think that the Niagen injection product is more of an acute product. In other words, we understand the NR pathway that Dr. Charles Brenner discovered, which we call the NR kinase pathway is located mostly in certain types of cells, that skeletal muscle cells, brain cells, spleen, kidney and skin cells. So people that are interested in some sort of acute therapy are perhaps more likely to go with the injection. And the oral would be more of a maintenance product. And then we -- but we do think that some people will use both intermittently, but we don't yet know because the at-home kit is only recently on the market, and we will see how it plays out.

And in terms of the marketing to different segments, have you already identified what you think are the most promising social media tests or specific opportunities you think that you can sort of tap into? I think you mentioned influencers. Are there certain kinds of influencers or certain influencers specifically who are more likely to reach your target market?

Well, in the early stages, we know that the Biohacker community, the strong anti-aging community, the Peptide community, if you will, are more inclined to try the Niagen at-home injection product. Indeed, even the IV product, although to a lesser extent. So we think that's our early stage primary addressable market. In the longer run, though, we think that elevating NAD with Niagen IV or injection or Tru Niagen has a beneficial impact on things like fatigue or muscle repair or even inflammation in general across many cell types and organ types.

And overall, we think it serves well as a anti-aging product. So we think it's complementary to GLP-1s. So we're hopeful that in the long run, the at-home pit becomes addressable and as a complement to people who are presently self-injecting a GLP-1 agonist.

And Rob, last question. I just wonder are you teed up on a bunch of podcast because that would be -- that's the best marketing you can possibly do, I think?

We've done a few, and I think we've signed up a few more. There are many podcasters that have requested an IV or an injection that we're supplying to them, and we'll hear back from them and see if they want to follow it up with an interview.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Lauren Borzansky for closing remarks.

Thank you, Karina. There will be a replay of this call beginning at 07:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. The replay number is 1 (833) 461-5787 and the replay ID is 828848803. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to updating you again next quarter.

This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience, Inc. Fourth Quarter of 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Tiffany, and I will be the conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

This afternoon, Niagen Bioscience issued a news release announcing the company's financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025. If you have not reviewed this information, both are available within the Investor Relations section of Niagen Bioscience website at www.niagenscience.com.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Kendall Knysch, Senior Director of Publicity and Public Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Knysch.

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience Inc.'s Fourth Quarter of 2025 Results Investor Call. With us today are Niagen Biosciences' Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried; Chief Financial Officer, Ozan Pamir; and Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Andrew Shao.

Today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, including statements related to the company's research and development and clinical trial plans and the timing and results of such trials, the timing of future regulatory filings, the expansion of the sale of Niagen products and ingredients in new markets, business development opportunities, future financial results, cash needs, operating performance, investor interest and business prospects and opportunities as well as anticipated results of operations.

Forward-looking statements represent only the company's estimates on the date of this conference call and are not intended to give any assurance as to actual future results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause Niagen Biosciences actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements.

These risk factors include those contained in Niagen Biosciences' annual report on Form 10-K most recently filed with the SEC, including results of operations, financial condition, cash flows as well as global market and economic conditions on our business. Please note that the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform with the forward-looking statements' actual results or to changes in its expectations.

In addition, certain financial information presented in this call references non-GAAP financial measures. The company's earnings presentation and earnings press release, which were issued this afternoon and are available on the company's website, present reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures.

Finally, this conference call is being recorded via webcast. The webcast will be available at the Investor Relations section of our website at www.niagenscience.com.

With that, it is now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried.

Thank you, Kendall. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's investor call. We delivered another quarter of strong financial performance. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $33.8 million, growing 16% year-over-year with net income of $4.1 million. So for the full year of 2025, we delivered $129.4 million in net revenue, representing 30% growth year-over-year and net income for the year of $17.4 million. We ended the year with $64.8 million in cash and no debt.

I'm very proud of what the Niagen Bio team accomplished in 2025. We began the year with an initial top line guidance of 18% growth and finished the year at 30%, and we dramatically exceeded expectations on the bottom line as well. But most importantly, we're well positioned to deliver a great 2026. There are some challenges. There's increased competition in this fast-growing NAD space, a space that is only hitting the tip of the spear, but we have spent many years laying a strong foundation. We have the expertise. We have the intellectual property. We have the relationships and we have the trusted brand. We're ready to build on this foundation.

The most critical element of this foundation is our science. Niagen Bioscience continues to be the undisputed global leader in NAD science. Since our last earnings call, a total of 29 studies involving nicotinamide riboside were published, and these studies were clinical studies. So I've asked Dr. Andrew Shao, Senior VP of Global Scientific and Regulatory Affairs to summarize some of these studies on this call.

Of note, is a study out of Finland that showed NR supplementation slowed biological aging according to several epigenetic clocks. Also a comparison study from Dr. Tazulis in Norway between NR and NMN that showed significant superiority of NR. We're seeing some consistent trends in these studies that show fatigue to be a consistent positive functional benefit from NR, as was displayed in the recent Harvard long COVID study. Some of these studies did not show a clear benefit such as the no Park Parkinson's study, but still provide great learnings for future research. We can see how elevating NAD with Niagen improves people's lives. And we will continue to further our understanding of how it works, when it works and how to best deliver it.

Another important component of our foundation is Niagen Plus. Last week, we announced that the company secured a patent that covers the methods of use of NR and derivatives in intravenous and injectable formulations. There is great opportunity for Niagen Plus. We're now present in over 1,200 health clinics and will be adding doctors' offices and med spas this year.

Now those locations mostly offer Niagen IV, but we plan to launch our Niagen Plus brand at-home injection kits through our own telehealth platform during the first half of 2026. And we hope to partner with other telehealth providers to distribute our at-home Niagen Plus injection kits later in the year.

We also plan to expand our presence in the beauty, cosmetics market this year. Following the successful launch of Tru Niagen Beauty in late 2025, we've developed topical products featuring Niagen. In addition to our own Tru Niagen branded topical products, we're in discussions with large cosmetics companies for Niagen ingredient partnerships. And I hope to share more about these partnerships in the near future.

As mentioned on the previous earnings call, last September, the FDA reversed its prior determination that NMN could not be lawfully marketed as a dietary supplement. This decision by the FDA has been met with confusion within the industry as the agency did not provide a clear rationale for its seemingly arbitrary reversal. Earlier this year, we commenced litigation in federal court in Washington, D.C., challenging the FDA's reversal. We believe we have a strong case. And as a reminder, all NMN sellers in the market are at their own risk as they are all infringing on existing patents that cover the commercially available forms of NMN.

Last December, we announced the acquisition of existing patents for multiple NR salt forms, including NR and NR tartrate and other NR derivatives. This consolidation of core intellectual property not only provides protection to Niagen in the marketplace, but also provides the company with enhanced flexibility and control over our portfolio to advance innovation in NAD science. And we continue to work with our NAD precursor portfolio for pharmaceutical applications in orphan indications, particularly ataxia to lunactasia. We've identified NB4168 as our lead development small molecule candidate for AT. We intend to continue to make strategic R&D investments to further characterize NB4168 with the long-term objective of advancing towards regulatory approval. Potential value creation pathways for this asset include a spinout transaction or an out-licensing partnership. We'll continue to update shareholders as we achieve key development milestones.

And last month, we announced the sale of the ChromaDex Reference Standards business. This divestiture further streamlines Niagen's operations, advances the company's strategy to exit non-core activities and focuses resources on NAD science, intellectual property and commercial growth. NAD+ remains at the forefront of health and longevity discussions with continued coverage across mainstream press, health care practitioner channels and general discourse with consumers from social media platforms. NAD is not just a trend or a fad, it is a fundamental component to cellular health and overall healthy aging.

While awareness of the benefits of NAD is expanding, we believe that the category has not yet reached its tipping point. As I repeated in the past, NAD itself, the molecule NAD, in any form of administration has not proven to directly and effectively boost NAD levels. Individuals require an NAD precursor to properly boost NAD levels, and Niagen remains the gold standard for NAD precursors and remains the most trusted and clinically and scientifically validated solution to effectively raise NAD levels.

As the leader in this space, we will continue to stand by our scientific research to drive innovation and I look forward to future announcements of new ways and new products for Niagen to benefit everyone's lives.

I would now like to hand the call over to Andrew to provide an update on the scientific research, Ozan will then run through the financial performance in greater detail, our outlook and we will then end on Q&A and closing remarks. Andrew?

Thank you, Rob. It is my pleasure to address our investors, partners and employees and provide an update on the state of NAD science. As the leader in NAD science, Niagen Bioscience is committed to remaining the global scientific authority on NR and NAD research. I'm pleased to share some of the exciting results from newly published studies since our last update.

On our last earnings call, Bob briefly touched on the completion of a study involving individuals with long COVID conducted by Mass General Hospital. The study published in the November issue of the Lancet clinical medicine, demonstrated NR supplementation resulted in significant within group improvements in executive functioning, fatigue severity, sleep quality and depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the therapeutic potential for those that are impacted by long COVID, but also reflect promising benefits of NR supplementation for general challenges such as fatigue, sleep and depression.

Regarding Parkinson's disease, as Rob mentioned in his remarks, the NOPARK study did not achieve its primary end point. We've been close contact with the investigators from Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, led by Dr. Shaalampos, Suzulis, we, together with Dr. Suzulis, believe when it comes to Parkinson's, the benefit of NAD augmentation with NR may be best applied prior to disease and treatment onset. In other words, as a preventative. We plan to collaborate with Dr. Suzulis to examine the preventative effects of NR and its mechanism related to Parkinson's, through a new partnership we will announce soon. In the meantime, Dr. Suzulis is continuing his research on the therapeutic effects of NR in Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative conditions, including ALS and MS.

In January, a clinical study published in the prestigious journal cell assess the pharmacokinetics and systemic and brain impact of oral supplementation of NAD precursors, including a head-to-head comparison of Niagen and NMN. One of the key findings was that Niagen produced approximately a twofold greater increase in blood NAD levels compared to NMN even after accounting for the molecular way difference, underscoring the superiority of Niagen. Another study released in January assessed the impact of NR supplementation and high-intensity interval exercise training on epigenetic age acceleration in human blood and skeletal muscle using a collection of different biological clocks.

Interestingly, results showed that Niagen reduced epigenetic aging while high-intensity interval training resulted in increased Epigenetic age metrics. The findings suggest that NR supplementation and exercise may differentially modulate the aging at the genome and that metabolic interventions and intense physical activity may have distinct impact on muscle aging biology. Two recent preclinical publications highlighted NR's positive effect on brain health.

First, in November, a preclinical study investigated the impact of NR supplementation on cognition, neuroinflammation and microglial cell metabolism in groups of young and old mice. Results showed NR supplementation in the old mice prevented cognitive decline, improved memory, produced neuroinflammation and shifted microglial metabolism toward that of a young mice. A second preclinical study published in February in the Journal brain used both nematode and mouse Alzheimer's models to assess the upregulation and activation of an important transcription factor linked to Alzheimer's disease progression known as REST. The study found that increasing NAD levels through NR administration, increased rest expression and activity, which led to improved mitophagy and synaptic function and in the case of the nematode models, extended lifespan. Collectively, these preclinical studies help to elucidate the mechanisms behind the therapeutic effect of boosting NAD through NR in the brain.

In February, a study demonstrated that maternal supplementation improved gestation, litter weaning weight, weight gain and improved milk yield and composition among other beneficial effects in These findings are remarkably consistent with those first published in 2019 by Dr. Brenner, our Chief Science Adviser, who showed similar effects in rats. We eagerly await the results of an ongoing clinical study being conducted at UC Davis examining the effect of Niagen supplementation on and mothers who have given premature births.

In preparation for the launch of Niagen injection, we've just completed a clinical trial investigating the safety and efficacy of intramuscular and subcutaneous injection. Both modes of administration were demonstrated to be safe and were associated with reduced fatigue improved quality of life, trends toward improved sleep and lower oxidative stress. Another recent clinical study conducted by our partners at ReSTOR Hyperwallet compared Niagen IV and NAD IV in a head-to-head study to assess infusion time, tolerability, safety markers, in metabolic outcomes. The study published in the Journal front tiers in aging, the deal that Niagen IV was far better tolerated and required only 1/3 of the infusion time versus NDIC, findings consistent with our own Niagen IV versus NAD IV clinical study.

Furthermore, Niagen IV resulted in a small but statistically significant reduction in HbA1c, the biomarker of diabetes, whereas the NAD IV group showed a small but significant reduction in HDL or good cholesterol. With now two independent head-to-head studies, the results are clear. Niagen IV is far superior to NAD IV. Nonetheless, we will continue to expand the evidence base around Niagen Plus and plan to conduct larger, longer-term studies to replicate and expand upon these results.

In summary, Biogen Bioscience continues to advance NR and NAD research, and doing so with responsibility and integrity. The growing body of clinical research supports the potential therapeutic benefits of NR administration, and I look forward to potentially sharing more results in future updates.

With that, I'll pass the call over to Ozan. Ozan?

Thank you, Andrew, and thank you to our investors, partners and team members for joining us today. It is a pleasure to speak with you and to present yet another quarter of outstanding results. As Rob highlighted, 2025 was another strong year for Niagen Bioscience, as the company delivered on its latest financial outlook across all metrics. The results of the fourth quarter and the full year is a reflection of our team's dedication to delivering shareholder value by advancing strategic initiatives, and maintaining Niagen Bioscience's position as the gold standard in NAD science. .

For the full year, we delivered $129.4 million in net sales, up 30% year-over-year, which is well ahead of the 18% growth we guided to at the start of the year. Gross margin came in at 64.3%, reflecting improvements in operational efficiency. On the expense side, we continue to scale with discipline. Selling and marketing expense improved by approximately 220 basis points as a percentage of net sales year-over-year, while R&D investments increased by $300,000.

General and administrative expense was up $8.7 million year-over-year, primarily driven by an increase in employee-related expense and stock-based compensation of $3.8 million, increase in consulting fees of $1.5 million and higher royalty expense of $2.9 million due to the absence of a $3.5 million reversal of previously accrued royalties and license maintenance fees which occurred in the prior year.

Under operating income, we also recognized a $2 million gain on settlement of royalty obligations in connection with our agreement with Queen's University Belfast. Net income for the year was $17.4 million compared to $8.6 million in fiscal year 2024, and we generated $13.5 million of cash from operations.

Lastly, adjusted EBITDA for the year was $20.4 million, an $11.9 million improvement compared to fiscal year 2024. Our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2025 were $33.8 million, a $4.7 million or a 16% increase from the same period last year. That growth was led by Tru Niagen where revenue grew by 21% to $27.5 million, a $4.8 million increase. The primary driver was e-commerce, which generated $20.2 million, up 17% or $2.9 million.

On the ingredient side, Niagen ingredient revenue was $5.6 million, up 5% or $300,000 year-over-year. And within that, we delivered $4.7 million in food grade NIAGEN sales along with $900,000 in pharma grade Niagen sales. In the fourth quarter of 2025, revenue from our B2B distribution partners totaled $7.3 million, driven by contributions from existing and newly established strategic partnerships such as the one Rob mentioned earlier.

Although we continue to anticipate quarterly fluctuations in sales to Watsons, we expect the partnership to remain an important component of our broader distribution network as we partner closely with Watson on strengthening Tru Niagen's brand presence in Hong Kong and expanding into additional Asia Pacific markets.

Gross margin improved to 64.1% in the fourth quarter, up 160 basis points compared to 62.5% a year ago. That expansion was driven mainly by a more favorable product mix, along with the benefit of selling through lower cost inventory.

Selling and marketing expense was 30.8% of sales in the fourth quarter compared to 29.9% in Q4 2024. This reflects our continued targeted investments to build global brand awareness while staying disciplined and focused on operational efficiency.

Research and development expense was $1.7 million, up $400,000 year-over-year. Scientific integrity remains the cornerstone of our company, and we continue to invest strategically to deepen the clinical evidence behind Niagen and support innovation in the NAD industry.

General and administrative expense was $7.5 million, an increase of $6.4 million versus last year. The primary drivers were the absence of a $3.5 million reversal of previously accrued royalties and license maintenance fees, along with higher share-based compensation expense.

And finally, our net income for the quarter was $4.1 million or $0.05 per share, another profitable quarter to close out the year and a clear reflection of our continued focus on disciplined execution.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen. On the back of this year's growth, we ended the year with $64.8 million in cash and no debt, reinforcing the financial flexibility and stability of our business. For full year 2025, net cash provided by operations was $13.5 million compared to $12.1 million in the prior year. The year-over-year improvement was mostly driven by an $8.8 million improvement in net income along with several favorable shifts in operating activities compared to the prior year period. Specifically, we saw higher accounts payable and prepaid expenses, improved collections on trade receivables, higher share-based compensation and the absence of last year's reversal of previously accrued royalties and license maintenance fees.

Those benefits were largely offset by growing inventory levels to support the scaling of our business. which were significantly depleted at the beginning of 2025. As Rob mentioned earlier, last week, we announced the sale of the ChromaDex reference standard business in a $6 million all-cash transaction adjusted for working capital. This was a non-core legacy business that generated approximately $3 million in 2025 and was not a profit center. This divestiture is a meaningful step for Niagen Bioscience to streamline and focus operations on advancing NAV science, which should result in efficiencies in our resources and capital allocation and a boost in our cash reserves.

Finally, I will close with our full year 2026 outlook. Detailed information on key financial metrics can be found in our earnings press release and presentation. Starting with net sales, for full year 2026, we're projecting between 10% to 15% growth year-over-year, excluding revenue attributable to the Analytical Reference Standards & Services segment. This outlook reflects continued scaling of our e-commerce business, growth from our established partnerships and additional upside from new partnerships and sales channels.

We anticipate a slight improvement in gross margin as we continue to benefit from improvements in our supply chain and product mix.

Selling and marketing expenses are expected to increase in absolute dollars but remained stable as a percentage of net sales, which was 27.4% in 2025. This demonstrates our continued focus on strategic investments to drive brand awareness and support the launch of new channels and verticals while maintaining optimized and efficient spend in customer acquisition.

R&D expenses are also expected to increase in absolute dollars driven by incremental investments in pharmaceutical development and external and research initiatives to advance product development and innovation.

And lastly, general and administrative expenses are expected to increase by approximately $4 million to $5 million in absolute dollars year-over-year. This increase is primarily driven by investments in infrastructure to support scalable growth and increased share-based compensation expense.

To conclude, 2025 marked another year of disciplined execution and meaningful progress. I am proud of the focus and dedication our team showed in delivering on key initiatives, work that continues to strengthen Niagen Biosciences position as the leader in the rapidly expanding global NAD market. Their efforts reinforced our operational foundation advanced strategic priorities and positioned us for long-term success. With this momentum, we're entering 2026 with confidence as we continue executing our vision and deliver lasting value to our stakeholders.

Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann.

As you I guess, firstly, to jump into the injections. So I think you have one SKU now for the IV bags and injections to come. What are you expecting on number of SKUs? Or would that be just one? And initially on your own telehealth platform? And then on the back half of the year, you're expecting to get on to other platforms? And talk about the audience there as well, be the overlap with the current clinics?

We will initially have just one SKU. We think that the market, the audience, as you -- as it were, for the product will initially be the biohacker community, the people that are especially excited about longevity interventions, people that are presently doing peptides. We think it will grow to expand to include some people who are doing presently GLP-1 agonists. We think there's a market out there for people who are interested in self-injecting for -- to stay thinner mill be interested in self-injecting to stay younger. The initial product will be a syringe and we'd be separating the powder from the liquid. So it's a slightly complicated process. So the more sophisticated people that are more used to this process will be the early adopters. Eventually, it will be in a pure liquid form and will be a much simpler process. And even after that will be a pen that looks much more like the GLP-1.

In terms of the overlap with the clinics, well, the price point is significantly different and the dosage is significantly different. The clinics are mostly giving 500 milligrams to a full gram in one session. These will be 100-milligram injections initially and people will do it a few days or 3 days per week. So we think it's slightly different audience in terms of dosage. And then in terms of price point, we expect that the injections, the shops will be less than half the price as the current -- than the IV.

Now on the other hand, the IVs in some ways, because it doesn't -- because it's not subcu, it's directly into the blood stream are even more effective. So that's how we differentiate those two products. Andrew, is there anything else you want to add to that?

I think you covered it, Rob.

And then just one follow-up. Could you talk about your guidance, I guess, briefly, right, you did call out last year that your guidance started out in the high teens and literally double as the year went on. So is this kind of cautionary guidance to get started on the year subject to revisions down the road? Or is this something that you feel pretty strong about the full year?

I would say the former more than the latter. I think we've been pretty consistent over the years. We don't want -- the company or high to stock. We want to be conservative in our approach and circle revenue that we have a high degree of confidence in. Remember, a big part of our business also is B2B, where we supply the ingredients, and that's far less predictable than the e-commerce business as it was.

Your next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity.

Maybe if you could kind of parse out, I guess, what you're seeing as the growth drivers for this year between, I guess, the original in our supplement and also the IV and then also the new products that you're rolling out, but just like the beauty supplement?

In terms of growth?

Correct. Yes. And then also just any new channel distribution you're expecting to go into?

Yes. We do the latter portion first. We do expect to expand the distribution channels. We will be expanding into certain selective retail channels and even by the end of the year, we might even broaden that further. We are expanding also internationally into some territories, particularly in Asia and perhaps in the EU. In terms of the growth products, of course, awareness for Niagen and Tru Niagen continues to grow. So we think there's just basic organic growth. As more and more people write about Niagen Bioscience as a company in Tru Niagen as the products and we continue to conduct these studies and go on podcasts. And there seems to be a general acceptance amongst those that do the research that we are the reliable brand, the reliable company and the experts in the space. So we do see just steady consistent growth in our exits with the existing Tru Niagen products in the existing channels. But it's difficult to know how much the cosmetics products and the IV and the injection products will grow, so we're endeavoring to give conservative assumptions there. Until we're out there and we see how the market reacts to it, we don't really know yet. But of course, the upside potential is fairly significant, we think. And we just don't really yet know how it's going to break down.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then maybe you mentioned just increased competition in the space with NMN now I guess, what do you guys -- you talked about getting out there on podcast and stuff. I guess what are you guys doing this year to kind of get the message out there to consumers, maybe getting them to switch over to your product versus a different product that they're taking right now?

Well, of course, we have the best product. I mean, the ingredient that we sell is the most effective. Our quality team is the best quality team, the way we operate the business, and we have a high degree of confidence as do most people in the industry know that the best way safest way, the most tested way, the most informed company to elevate NAD levels is to take Niagen or Tru Niagen. We do see increased competition. NMN did get reversed by the FDA, the ruling. We think there's a good chance they're going to re-reversed that decision in the year. And of course, all those NMN products are infringing on patents. So the only companies you're seeing selling NN are companies who never really cared about the FDA ruling in the first place and now don't really care much about the patent rules. But it is increased advertising that you're seeing. Most of that element is cannibalizing NAD itself. These are companies that were selling NAD as a molecule in a bottle, which doesn't work at all. It's not bioavailable, doesn't elevate NAD. So what we're seeing is transfers from NAD selling over to NMN zone. But our view on it is pretty much the same as it was when NAD was growing, which is it only helps increase the market. We'd rather have 20% of $10 billion than 50% of $500 million. They're advertising it. Many of them get it wrong, they make false claims, but many of them get it right, and they're explaining to people that elevating NAD is good for your health, especially as you age or as you heal. And the more you research, the more you realize that the best way to manage it is with Niagen or Tru Niagen.

Yes. We think what we've seen is that when people sometimes they'll start out by taking NAD or NMN or NMNH or something that the low price version of a product that markets NAD. And if eventually they come around to read in the science or reading our market materials, they come around to Tru Niagen.

And then the first part of your question. Yes, it's -- there's a very good chance that sometime during 2026, we will launch a more aggressive awareness brands type campaign for the company. especially if we expand into certain retail outlets to increase awareness and brand familiarity. We're working on that presence.

Your next question comes from the line of Ram Selvaraju with H.C. Wainwright.

I was just wondering if you could comment at this point regarding what you anticipate the next steps to be in the lawsuit filed against the FDA and the associated parties regarding the influx of NMN products? And also, if you could give us a sense of what percentage of prosecution of that legal initiatives is represented in your overall legal expenses anticipated for 2026? Also, if you could please comment on how you are thinking about future evolution of your share repurchase strategy?

Ram, we don't think it's going to be a significant expense. We think that this is going to be a summary judgment case. We think both the FDA and we would prefer a summary judgment. So it's likely to go that way. They've selected a judge they will have a chance to respond to our claim, and then we will respond to that. There will be a hearing or two, we think will take a year, maybe slightly more than a year for a judge to make his decision. We think the case is pretty good. I think that the decision that the FDA made was hard to substantiate why they made it. We don't know what the factors were that led to that decision, but we think it was harmful to the general public. So we think there's a good chance that, that decision will be reversed once again. And no, I don't think it will have a meaningful impact on our costs or expenses for the year. The other one again?

I just wanted to ask about share repurchases, what's kind of impacting the evolution of your strategy there?

Right. So as you know, we announced a $10 million buyback. We use $250,000 of it to date. We expect -- we will be using the rest of it under the guidelines that we set forth in that buyback provision. We would have used more of it before, but we got blocked out because of the timing of the announcement to earnings, among other material inside information. But we do expect to be using it more and buying back as we think it's a great investment at this price.

And then just very quickly, can you comment on any near-term plans you have to advance clinical exploration of NR in Parkinson's disease at this time?

Well, we're waiting for the final manuscript and discussion with azoles. He's very bullish on this idea that it's a preventative before the standard care of L-dopa and the diagnosis of Parkinson's and he has a fair amount of data to support that idea. But at this point, we're waiting to hear from him on that. Andrew, is there anything more you want to contribute to that?

Just like you said, Rob, the manuscript be submitted for publication shortly here. And so we can't divulge any of those details. But we will be collaborating with Dr. Gazulis, as I mentioned in my remarks, with a focus more toward looking at prevention.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean McGowan with ROTH Capital.

In terms of looking for a little bit more color on the guidance, can you give us a sense of whether the phasing of the revenue growth in '26 is expected to be materially different from what we saw last year? Is it more front half or back half? And also a little bit more color on the gross margin guidance, where would you see that gross margin uptick coming from the slight increase? Is it -- are we going to see slight improvements in Consumer & Ingredients? Or is it going to be more focused in 1 or the other of those segments?

Sean, Ozan here. So with regards to the pacing of the sales, we're expecting it to be more back loaded compared to previous years. And with regards to gross margin, we expect a slight improvement, but it's not -- it's driven by supply chain efficiencies and also the changing of the product mix. We're seeing our 1,000 milligram SKU perform well, and e-commerce is also performing well.

Okay. And similarly, looking for color, the -- does your sales and marketing guidance anticipate the kind of step-up in brand marketing that you referred to earlier? Is that -- would that be additional -- I think at you might see some additional promotion -- I mean, advertising around. Is that anticipated in that already?

It's not anticipated in that. It would be an addition.

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to for closing remarks.

Thank you, Tiffany. There will be a replay of this call beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. The replay number is 1 (800) 770 2030, and the replay ID is 8584242. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued support of Niagen Bioscience.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Niagen Biosciences, Inc. Third Quarter of 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Tamika, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

This afternoon, Niagen Biosciences issued a news release announcing the company's financial results for the third quarter of 2025. If you have not reviewed this information, both are available within the Investor Relations section of Niagen Biosciences website at www.niagenscience.com.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Kendall Knysch, Senior Director of Publicity and Public Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Knysch.

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience, Inc. Third Quarter of 2025 Conference Call. With us today are Niagen Biosciences' Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried; Chief Financial Officer, Ozan Pamir; and Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Andrew Shao. Dr. Shao will join the call for Q&A.

Today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, including statements related to the company's research and development and clinical trial plans and the timing and results of such trials, the timing of future regulatory filings, the expansion of the sale of Niagen products and ingredients in new markets, business development opportunities future financial results, cash needs, operating performance, investor interest and business prospects and opportunities as well as anticipated results of operations.

Forward-looking statements represent only the company's estimates on the date of this conference call and are not intended to give any assurance to the actual future results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties.

Many factors could cause Niagen Biosciences' actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements. These risk factors include those contained in Niagen Biosciences' quarterly report on Form 10-Q most recently filed with the SEC, including results of operations, financial condition, cash flows as well as global market and economic conditions on our business.

Please note that the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform with the forward-looking statements, actual results or to changes in its expectations. In addition, certain financial information presented in this call references non-GAAP financial measures. The company's earnings presentation and earnings press release, which were issued this afternoon are available on the company's website, present reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures.

Finally, this conference call is being recorded via webcast. The webcast will be available at the Investor Relations section of our website at www.niagenbioscience.com.

With that, it is now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried.

Thank you, Kendall. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's investor call. For the third quarter, I am quite pleased to share that we delivered yet another record performance with $34 million in revenue, a 33% increase year-over-year and net income of $4.6 million compared to net income of $1.9 million last year. We ended the quarter with $64.3 million in cash and no debt.

Our e-commerce business continues to anchor our growth, delivering net sales of $19 million, a 29% increase year-over-year. The distribution business grew 109% year-over-year with $7 million in revenue, while our Niagen ingredient business remained steady, bringing in $6.9 million.

During the third quarter, we onboarded a new strategic partner with access to a network of over 8,000 medical and health care practitioners, strengthening the Tru Niagen distributor revenues. This partnership supports our ongoing mission to educate health care practitioners, patients and consumers that Niagen is the most efficient, effective and only legal and highest quality NAD booster available. It also expands our communications engine to amplify awareness of Niagen's 40 peer-reviewed published clinical studies, our new study results and the healthy aging benefits of Niagen.

Niagen Plus remains a key strategic focus for the company. In August, Niagen us at-home injection kits were launched, now only available to patients with a prescription from their practitioner, but we plan to expand distribution of the at-home injection kits via our own telehealth platform and leverage our e-commerce expertise to reach more patients. Last month, we announced that we added iCRYO to our clinic network and are currently in over 50 of their clinics nationwide. As of today, we have now onboarded more than 1,000 wellness and health care clinics across the United States to offer our Niagen Plus product line.

As most of you may have noticed, the NAD market, in general, continues to expand quite rapidly. Yet it is still only met a fraction of its potential. The supplement and injection markets are still at early stages, but there also remain considerable opportunity for NAD boosting innovations in skin care, cosmetics, food, beverage and, of course, in drug applications. But it is critically important for everyone to understand that the NAD molecule itself is very large and is a nucleotide meaning it cannot enter cells directly. It is, therefore, ineffective at directly boosting NAD levels.

One needs a precursor to enter the cell and then convert into NAD. And of course, the best precursor by quite a lot is Niagen NR. This is likely the reason why NAD IVs take hours to ingest and they have significant unpleasant side effects. There are no studies that show that oral NAD supplementation increases cellular NAD yet as you know, we have over 40 published peer-reviewed clinical studies in NR.

Indeed, last month, the National Advertising division, an independent advertising review arm of the Better Business Bureau agreed with this position. Niagen Bio made a formal challenge against 1 particular company that was making false claims about its products that feature the NAD molecule. The National Advertising division found that this company lacked human clinical evidence to support claims that NAD itself elevates NAD levels in the body.

Since NAD itself is not bioavailable and there are no published human studies oral or otherwise, demonstrating that it elevates cellular or tissue NAD. The National Advertising division's decision of firms, the importance of scientific substantiation for safety and benefit claims in an industry quite crowded with brands seeking to capitalize on this big trend.

At the end of September, the FDA reversed a prior determination that nicotinamide mononucleotide, NMN could not be lawfully marketed as a dietary supplement. We believe this decision will face quite strong our position, and we expect further challenges. But even when NMN was prohibited from being on the market, the companies that are selling it presently were selling it, they were ignoring the previous FDA decision anyway. And what we see in the month since the decision is the same companies are continuing to sell at a comparable pace.

We also will note that we and others have tested many MMN products in the market and most do not meet product label claims. It's important to highlight that the businesses that have been and continue to sell NMN are likely infringing on existing NMN patents that are owned by Niagen Bioscience and another company throughout the global market. So technically, NMN continues to be illegal. While MMN as an NAD precursor does elevate NAD levels, Niagen is the superior scientifically validated, safe and most efficient and effective way to elevate NAD levels.

Last quarter, I discussed 2 studies investigating the effects of NR supplementation on patients experiencing symptoms of long COVID. One study conducted by Harvard University examined the effect of NR supplementation on fatigue, depressive symptoms, sleep quality and cognition. This study will be published later this month. There's also another study conducted in Norway that is undergoing peer review. We continue to make steady progress toward the Parkinson's disease and ataxia-telangiectasia or AT indications.

As mentioned last quarter, the Phase III NOPARK clinical trial was completed in June, and we expect the results of that study to be published in early 2026. We are incorporating the FDA's feedback into our strategy for AT and continue to engage with the agency to prepare for an investigational new drug application.

In an industry often marked by unverified claims and inconsistent quality, Niagen BioScience stands apart for its scientific river, authenticity, integrity, transparency and innovation. While we maintain a portfolio of several NAD precursors, nicotinamide riboside patented as Niagen is the most efficient, effective and extensively researched NAD precursor as we have said, supported by over 40 year reviewed clinical studies with more than 50 patents and used in over 300 research collaborations.

I am, and I remain proud of the team's commitment to the company's initiatives and of the progress we have made over the years. Our 25-plus year mission is rooted in one goal, delivering scientifically proven solutions to address one of life's greatest challenges, aging.

I would like to hand the call over to Ozan to run through the quarter's financials and then on to Q&A and closing remarks. Ozan?

Thanks, Rob. It is a pleasure to once again address our investors, partners and team members today and present another quarter of exceptional results. As Rob highlighted, we delivered another quarter of record revenues and continued profitability. This performance we're seeing is a testament to our team's commitment to operational discipline and delivering on our key initiatives and to the growing general awareness of Niagen as the premier solution to boost NAD levels.

In the third quarter of 2025, we brought in $34 million in revenue, an increase of 33% or $8.4 million from the same period last year. Tru Niagen revenue grew by 44% to $26 million, a $7.9 million year-over-year increase driven primarily by e-commerce revenue of $19 million, which was 29% or $4.3 million higher. Our Niagen ingredient revenue was $6.9 million, up 4% or $300,000 year-over-year. Within the Ingredients business, we delivered $6.4 million in food-grade Niagen sales to key partners and $0.5 million in pharma grade Niagen sales.

Tru Niagen distribution remains a key growth opportunity, both domestically and internationally. While we anticipate quarterly fluctuations with Watsons, we continue to work closely with them to strengthen Tru Niagen's brand presence in Hong Kong and to launch Tru Niagen in additional Asia Pacific markets. Domestically, we're focused on expanding our distribution through partners with access to health care practitioners and other key channels, which contributed to the growth in the third quarter.

As Rob mentioned, our new partner will give us access to thousands of medical and health care practitioners, a key part of our efforts to reinforce that Niagen is the most effective, efficient and clinically validated NAD booster while amplifying awareness of the growing body of clinical research supporting it.

Our gross margin improved to 64.5% in the third quarter, up 100 basis points compared to 63.5% a year ago. This improvement was driven primarily by changes in product mix, improvements in labor and overhead utilization and the use of lower-cost inventory purchases in production. While we expect that gross margins will improve year-over-year on a full year basis compared to 61.8% in 2024, we expect that gross margins will normalize on a quarterly basis moving forward.

Selling and marketing expense as a percentage of net sales improved to 25.8% compared to 27.5% in the third quarter of 2024, reflecting our continued investments in growing global brand awareness of Niagen and doing so efficiently. Research and development expense was $1.8 million, $0.5 million higher year-over-year. Science continues to be the cornerstone of our company as we continue to invest in research and innovation to further our studies and R&D projects.

General and administrative expenses totaled $7.1 million, an $800,000 increase compared to the previous year. This increase is primarily driven by increased share-based compensation expense. And finally, our net income for the third quarter of 2025 was $4.6 million or $0.06 per share, a significant improvement compared to $1.9 million or $0.02 per share for the third quarter of 2024.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen. We ended the quarter with $64.3 million in cash and no debt. For the 9 months ended September 30, 2025, net cash provided by operations was $12.8 million compared to $3.5 million in the same period last year.

This year-over-year increase was mostly driven by an $11.9 million increase in net income, along with other positive shifts in working capital, such as higher accounts payable, significantly improved collections on trade receivables, and increased share-based compensation expense compared to the prior year period. These were offset by increased inventory levels to support operational expansion.

Regarding our full year 2025 outlook, detailed information on key financial metrics can be found in our earnings press release and presentation. Building on the strong momentum year-to-date, we recently revised our revenue growth guidance from 22% to 27%, to 25% to 30% year-over-year. We remain confident in our updated full year guidance, supported by our strong e-commerce business and existing and new partnerships in the rapidly expanding in Ag market.

We're also revising our outlook for research and development expenses to decline as a percentage of net sales while still increasing in absolute dollars compared to our previous expectation of remaining stable as a percentage of net sales and increasing in absolute dollars. This adjustment reflects changes in timing of studies and projects.

Finally, we are revising our outlook for general and administrative expenses. We now expect expenses to be up $8 million to $9 million in absolute dollars year-over-year compared to the previous expectation of a $7 million to $8 million increase. This change in G&A expectations is primarily driven by increased share-based compensation expense.

One year into my tenure as CFO of Niagen Bioscience, I want to express how proud I am to be part of an organization that not only leads and defines the NAD category, but does so with integrity and professionalism. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, I'm confident in our ability to deliver significant returns to our shareholders.

Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Jeff Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann & Company.

This is Destiny on for Jeff. I'm curious with the new partnership for IV, I'm curious to know what the uptake is looking like, any feedback you've received from those clinics? And if you're getting any sense which potentially now, but if you're getting any sense of what the -- the number of patients they're treating per week or month, whatever clarity you have there is great.

It's a little early destiny for that. They just made the purchase towards the end of the quarter. And so they've only just begun the process. of reselling the material to their physician network and presenting it. So we don't have any direct feedback from them yet.

Okay. Got it. And then I'm curious with AboutNAD, where does this fit in your marketing funnel? Is this something that a potential consumer would see early on? Or is this something that would maybe fall a little later further down the funnel prior to purchase? Just curious.

With regard to NAD?

You're -- AboutNAD site.

AboutNAD, sorry. The AboutNAD website is something that we maintain, but it's an objective website. There are no -- it's not -- it's actually not in any way connected to or part of the purchasing funnel. It's just an information resource for journalists, investors, researchers, people who are generally interested in the true up-to-date science of NAD, what are the actual published studies, clinical and preclinical.

As you know, as a dietary supplement company, the rules are clear, and we stick to the rules that one cannot imply a claim for a disease state, even if your product cures disease. So if one conducts a study on a disease and it's actually therapeutic or prophylactic, they are very limited in what they can do with the information.

So AboutNAD is a great resource where we can publish all the studies, not just the Niagen studies, but all NAD-related studies. So people can go, go to the search bar type in any disease indication that they are concerned about or want to know about and we'll see the studies that have been published to date without any noise of commerce or any attempt to try to push a product.

Your next question is from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity.

I guess maybe just a follow-up on the at-home injection. So it sounds like they're at position offices. Are they at all of the offices, I guess, where you can also go to get the injection in office. And then also, how should we think about that rollout? Will they -- will you go into other distribution?

And then I think you mentioned you're going to put them on your own telehealth platform. So maybe if you could talk about that a little bit. How should we think about that getting up and running? And will this be in conjunction with your own DTC platform as well?

Yes, that's an important series of questions. Thank you, Susan. We do believe that the at-home kits are important for our future. But we are doing it like most things that we do carefully and slowly. And although there is an at-home kit available in the market, one needs to go to a clinic to purchase it at this point in time and we're still working on the user experience to make sure that it's optimized.

So it will be several months at least before it is available on our website. We are developing our own telehealth capability where one could go to truniagen.com or niagenplus.com and get a prescription from a physician online, much like classic telehealth companies, and it would be delivered to their home via a pharmacy. But that -- we don't expect that functionality to be available for maybe 2 quarters probably middle of next year.

We do expect that some of the existing telehealth companies that are out there right now will be making it available to their customers. There are studies being done presently on Niagen injection as a potential complement to GLP-1. As we -- as you know, one of the leading side effects for these GLP-1s are muscle loss. And we believe that there is a benefit to [indiscernible] NAD with Tru Niagen or with Niagen Plus to a muscle density.

So we hope that the results indicate that. And if that's the case, we expect to see some of the existing telehealth companies to offer it either in addition or as a complement to their GLP-1 products. or the separate stand-alone anti-aging at-home injection product. We expect that also to be somewhere in the middle of next year.

Okay. Great. That was actually going to be my next question. So I assume you're already in conversations with them. And I guess, are there multiple other telehealth platforms that you're talking to?

Yes.

Okay. Great. I guess just looking at Tru Niagen. I'm curious since the FDA's announcement on NMN, have you any change in purchasing behavior by consumers, I guess, in your own products, whether that's high or lower or just changed behavior at all since the announcement? Or do you think it was really kind of a nonevent?

Yes. It's only been 5 or 6 weeks, and we haven't noticed anything yet. We've seen basically the name sellers that never stop selling it, continuing to sell it, maybe 1 or 2 new brands that we never heard of. None of the existing established reputable play by the rules brands have entered the space, probably mostly because they know that there's a very good chance that the FDA will reverse this reversal again and because there are patents. And most of the well-managed reputable companies in dietary supplements don't blatantly go against existing patents.

The ones that play in this space, the main beneficiaries of that rule of these Chinese manufacturing companies, it's all coming out of China. And the smaller, earlier-stage dietary supplement companies that generally don't really care much about the rules anyway. And as you know, we've tested many of the existing NMN products on the market and very few of them actually met label claims. Some of them had actually no NMN at all.

We think NMN has in its purest form, an ability to elevate NAD, not as well as Niagen, obviously, but it still does it. It's still an effective way to elevate NAD. But at this point in time, we're not seeing any meaningful impact from the change in that rule.

Your next question is from the line of Raj Selvaraju with H.C. Wainwright.

Just wanted to ask about 2 aspects here. Firstly, I wanted to see if you would be in a position at this juncture to elaborate on the possibility of establishing a stand-alone entity to pursue pharmaceutical Rx applications of nicotinamide [indiscernible] side, particularly in the context of Parkinson's disease, but not limited to Parkinson's disease.

And if you could maybe talk through some of the key decision-making factors that are likely to influence the timing and the nature of the manner in which you might go about establishing a stand-alone entity your venture to pursue those initiatives.

Thank you. It is likely that we will set up a stand-alone entity to manage the pharmaceutical pursuits. As you know, the 2 primary indications at this point are Parkinson's disease and ataxia AT, telangiectasia. There are other disease indications for which we've been doing studies. Some have been early [indiscernible] have been published. Others are ongoing.

But at this point, we're waiting for some of these studies to be completed so that we can see the results and we've had conversations with a number of pharma companies. And I think that the results of those studies and the results of those discussions we'll dictate when we exactly set up that separate entity and put all those rights into that entity. We might begin segment reporting in the next quarter or 2.

That's very helpful. Also I wanted to ask about, more broadly speaking, how you are thinking about, in particular, the Niagen, the Niagen applicability in the context of, for example, broader access for GLP-1 medications, the continued prevalence of compounded versions of those drugs. And in particular, if you could perhaps quantify for us.

Now you've indicated through your press release that this manifestation of the product is available in over 1,000 clinics. Maybe you could give us a sense of how large that segment actually is in terms of the total number of clinics in which the product could be positioned and how long it might take for you to reach sort of steady-state maximal penetration in this segment, please?

The way we view that segment is in 2 groups and then there are subgroups of those 2 groups. There's the injection market and then there's the IV market and they're distinct markets. The IV product itself will deliver a much higher dose. The injection does still go straight into the bloodstream, but it's injected at much smaller doses and generally takes place over a period of time.

Within the injection -- both injections and IVs are available in the clinics. And we think there are 2,000 to 3,000 of these IV clinics or wellness clinics in the U.S. But there are also several thousand physicians that administer NAD IVs or injections in office. So part of the reason we did this deal with this third-party company is to begin accessing actual physicians' offices to administer some of these IVs and injections. So we think between the 2 markets, then there is even a potential third market, these Botox clinics it could be as much as 10,000 individual offices in terms of the clinic market.

Again, the clinic market is both IVs and injection. When we endeavor to pursue this business, which is quite different than the dietary supplement business, although it's a similar molecule, but it's a molecule pharmaceutical grade, very, very different supply chain and manufacturing process and approval process.

And Ron, as you know, we also -- everything we do, we also apply for support patents, which we've done in the Niagen business in addition to all of our ingredient and supplement businesses as well. but it's a very, very different vertical with different operations, although the molecule is quite similar. But when we endeavor to get into this business, we didn't contemplate the at-home injection market GLP-1. It took us several years, 5 years or so to get to where we are now in that business.

Now we realize that there are tens of millions of people who are willing to self-inject in order to stay in or get them. And we're hopeful that there will be many people that are interested in self-injecting in order to stay young or to complement the GLP-1 products that they're injecting with. So the injection market as we look at it today appears to be significantly larger as an addressable market than the clinic market or the straight IV market.

The other thing we didn't know about at the time when we first entered this was the telehealth market in general. We started this process prior to COVID. So now we see the telehealth market is expanding quite rapidly and it provides a fascinating service to the average consumer, integrating physicians' prescriptions as well as very convenient and well-priced medications delivered straight to the home.

So we see that as a very significant opportunity for Niagen. And from what we see in that telehealth market and in the clinic market, the players in that space seem to so far agree with as well.

One headwind that we've noticed so far is we have one very good partner in the compound pharmacy space who compounds Niagen and productizes it, they sell at a fairly high price and then they sell it to the clinics who then sell at an extremely high price. So the price to consumers of getting these IVs at this point is quite high. They've positioned it very much like a Rolls-Royce in this space. We think that until those prices come down to a more manageable level, the volume is not going to reach its potential.

So right now, it's not a huge business for us, this pharmaceutical ingredient business that's catering to Niagen Plus. And we don't think it's going to really take off in a significant way until those 2 things happen. Those 2 things being: number one, the injection market, particularly the telehealth market embraces it. And number two, the overall pricing at the clinics and physicians' offices comes down fairly dramatically.

Your next question is from the line of Sean McGowan with ROTH Capital Partners.

A couple of questions. Maybe first, circling back on the impact of the FDA decision. You've talked a little bit about it not apparently having much impact. But has there been any discussion with customers about pricing in any way? Is it having any impact on your price ability to hold price where it is.

So do you mean the FDA decision on NMN.

Yes. Yes.

You mean with our ingredient partners. Yes. most of them understand that the -- those companies are not really that interested in anything other than Niagen. They're always asking us to cut our prices, though regardless if there's FDA or not. So...

Why waste a good crisis, right?

Exactly.

Okay. Got it. And then maybe for Ozan. The gross margin overall was higher than I thought, and it was especially higher in consumer where I thought we would see kind of things drift down a little bit. Can you drill down a little bit more on how, I guess, unnormal the margin in the consumer segment might have been in the quarter when you said that you expect it to normalize? How far above normal do you think those factors that you cited have to put that margin? So what should we expect in terms of normalization?

Yes. So the gross margin in the quarter was driven -- a lot of it was driven by still some of the leftover inventory to lower cost than worry we had and also improved product mix. But once we are through that lower cost inventory, it will it will normalize, but we have also increased our outlook to be previously with slight improvement. We are now seeing an improvement. We're not able to put a percentage on it. But it will be better than last year, that's what we could say.

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now hand the call back over to our presenters for closing remarks.

Thank you, Tamika. A replay of this call will be available beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. The replay number is 1 (800) 770-2030 and the replay ID is (858)-4242. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued support of Niagen Bioscience.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience, Inc.'s Second Quarter of 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is JL, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

This afternoon, Niagen Bioscience issued a news release announcing the company's financial results for the second quarter of 2025. If you have not reviewed this information, both are available within the Investor Relations section of Niagen Bioscience's website at www.niagenbioscience.com.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Kendall, Senior Director of Publicity & Public Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience, Inc.'s Second Quarter of 2025 Conference Call. With us today are Niagen Bioscience's Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried; Chief Financial Officer, Ozan Pamir; and Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Andrew Shao. Dr. Shao will join the call for Q&A.

Today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, including statements related to the company's research and development and clinical trial plans and the timing and results of such trials, the timing of future regulatory filings, the expansion of the sale of Niagen products and ingredients in new markets, business development opportunities, future financial results, cash needs, operating performance, investor interest and business prospects and opportunities as well as anticipated results of operations.

Forward-looking statements represent only the company's estimates on the date of this conference call and are not intended to give any assurance as to actual future results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause Niagen Bioscience's actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements.

These risk factors include those contained in Niagen Bioscience's quarterly report on Form 10-Q most recently filed with the SEC, including results of operations, financial condition, cash flows as well as global market and economic conditions on our business. Please note that the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform with the forward-looking statements, actual results or to changes in its expectations.

In addition, certain financial information presented in this call references non-GAAP financial measures. The company's earnings presentation and earnings press release, which were issued this afternoon are available on the company's website present reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures. Finally, this conference call is being recorded via webcast. The webcast will be available at the Investor Relations section of our website at www.niagenbioscience.com.

With that, it is now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried.

Thank you, Kendall. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's investor call. For the second quarter, I'm pleased to share that we delivered yet another record performance with $31.1 million in revenue, a 37% increase year-over-year and net income of $3.6 million compared to virtually breakeven a year ago.

We ended the quarter with $60.5 million in cash and no debt. Our e-commerce business remains the largest component of our business with net sales of $18.1 million, a 39% increase year-over-year. Our food-grade and pharmaceutical-grade Niagen ingredient business grew 135% year-over-year with $7.4 million in revenue in the second quarter.

Since launching last August, Niagen Plus continues to be a strategic focus of the company. As of today, we've onboarded over 800 wellness clinics nationwide to offer our Niagen Plus product line, which includes Niagen intravenous and Niagen injections. As the clinics' adoption continues to grow, we are seeing increased interest in the Niagen Plus injections. To build on this trend, Wells Pharmacy Network, our compound pharmacy partner, is launching an at-home injection kit by the end of the year.

We are exploring adding telehealth functionality to our website as a way for our valued customers to access Niagen Plus from our website. While the demand for Niagen Plus continues to grow, we are seeing increased scrutiny from the state of California around 503B outsourcing facility practices. Wells Pharmacy Network remains a partner for us to maintain a network nationwide, and we expect that to continue as our partnership grows the Niagen Plus business.

The buzz around Niagen is strong and growing. We've been featured in the last quarter in major media outlets, including Business Insider, PEOPLE Magazine, Vogue, L.A. Times, New York Post, U.S. News & World Report, Everyday Health, ELLE, Allure. We've been featured in top podcasts, including the All-In Podcast, Call Her Daddy podcast and just This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von. People are starting to realize that NAD is important for their health, especially as they age. But that, by far, the best, most tested, most trusted legal patented way to elevate NAD is with Niagen and that Niagen Bioscience is the gold standard in the NAD space. If it doesn't say Niagen, I would recommend you save your money.

Niagen has also had a strong presence at major events and with some important influencers. We partner with some of our clinics to administer Niagen Plus IVs and injections. We attended the Miami Grand Prix Formula 1 event, and we gave out in partnership with our friends at the All-In Podcast to many attendees of F1 as well as the NFL training camp in Miami and the sports Front Office Forum in Santa Monica. We attended Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, where we were featured on the panel discussion, and we did an interview with the L.A. Times.

We also administered IV and injections at an event hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk to attendees at Cannes. We attended the Longevity Leadership Conference, which is a gathering of leaders and innovators in the longevity space and gave out some IVs and injections. We attended the Athletech Innovation Summit, an event featuring wellness and fitness leaders. And periodically, we go to the Alo Gym events in partnership with Alo Yoga and gave out IDs and injections to influencers.

We also have visited the homes and offices of numerous athletes and celebrities and rock musicians before they go on tour or before they perform or before they play. People are becoming very aware of Niagen in general, not just Tru Niagen, but also the efficacy of injections and IV, and it is growing in popularity. And the reason for that is because we have the best product in the market. And we continue to represent the highest standard in NAD science, and we represent authenticity, transparency and scientific innovation in the dietary supplement industry in general. We are consistently recognized by the industry, by trade associations, by third-party testers as the gold standard in the space and one of the very, very few truly trusted brands that does the research, does the science, goes through the proper channels with the FDA and the FTC and deliver something that actually works.

We also do many, many actual clinical high-impact factor, peer-reviewed published studies. For example, in the United States, it is estimated that between 10 and 15 people are actively experiencing symptoms from what is known as long COVID, with a subset of this population reporting that symptoms significantly limit their daily activities. These are symptoms like fatigue and sleep problems and depression. A study conducted by Harvard University examined the effect of NR supplementation on reducing fatigue, addressing these depressive symptoms, sleep quality, cognition. This study was completed recently and is currently going through the peer review publication process. There's also another long COVID study conducted in Norway as well, a slightly larger study, but the participants in that are slightly different. Their definition of long COVID differ slightly from the one at Harvard and here in the U.S. But we're looking forward to the results of those studies, and we will make them known to you when they are published.

A notable article recently discussed the potential benefits of NAD supplementation and cellular health on fertility. While there is limited research on the effects of NAD modulation for fertility to date, we recognize that this is an important area of opportunity, and we're currently working with independent investigators through our external research program on a study looking at the potential for NR to support fertility and reproductive health. We understand that these egg cells, oocytes have NAD as well and that at a certain point in the life cycle of these cells, the NAD becomes depleted and the cells become less fertile, less healthy and there might be an opportunity to elongate, lengthen the fertility clock by elevating NAD levels in these cells.

Last month, we announced that the company entered into a worldwide exclusive license agreement with the Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway. This arrangement grants the company exclusive rights to develop and commercialize its patented nicotinamide riboside molecule as a potential pharmaceutical therapy for Parkinson's disease or to sublicense the program to a strategic pharmaceutical partner.

Partnership also provides the company exclusive access to the data resulting from this NOPARK clinical trial and data from previous related studies as well. This marks a meaningful step forward in Niagen Bioscience's pursuit of pharmaceutical applications of NR to benefit patients with Parkinson's disease and potentially other neurodegenerative disorders. This Phase III NOPARK clinical trial was completed in June, and we expect the study to be submitted to peer review sometime in October.

As it relates to NR for the treatment of ataxia-telangiectasia, AT, we're actively engaging with the FDA to get our program ready for an investigational new drug application for the use of NR in the treatment of AT. We continue to have ongoing dialogue with the agency to address its comments and feedback. We hope to have an update later this year.

In last quarter's call, I discussed the FDA's pending response to the litigation and citizen's petition related to its determination that NMN is not a lawful dietary ingredient under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. While the FDA's response has now been delayed until the end of September 2025 due to administrative disruptions, we continue to reaffirm our support of the agency's position, and we believe that the FDA must maintain its stance to ensure consumer safety and regulatory integrity.

As I reflect on the progress we've made so far this year, I remain confident that we are well positioned to continue our growth trajectory and advance toward our key strategic goals. I am grateful for the dedication of our leadership and our team and their unwavering commitment to the company's mission, to benefit the health and lives of every individual. As the global leader in NAD science, we will continue to reinforce Niagen as the gold standard and the premier solution to age better.

I'd now like to hand the call over to Ozan to run through the quarter's financials and then on to Q&A and closing remarks. Ozan?

Thanks, Rob, and thank you to our investors, partners and team members for joining us today. I want to echo Rob's sentiment that the company's performance in the first half of this year has been exceptional and is attributable to our consistent focus, dedication and discipline. While we still have much of the year left, I have trust in our team to continue to execute on our key initiatives to drive results.

Turning to our second quarter financial performance. In the second quarter of 2025, we brought in $31.1 million in revenue, up 37% or $8.4 million from the same period last year. Our Tru Niagen revenue grew by 22% to $22.7 million, a $4.1 million year-over-year increase. This was driven primarily by e-commerce revenues of $18.1 million, which was up 39%, adding $5 million year-over-year. Our Niagen ingredient business was up 135% year-over-year and brought in $7.4 million, a $4.2 million year-over-year increase. Within the ingredients business, we delivered $6 million in food-grade Niagen sales and $1.4 million in pharma-grade Niagen sales. Tru Niagen distribution continues to be an area of opportunity for our company.

Watsons remains a reliable partner, contributing steady and recurring revenues with occasional quarterly fluctuations. In the first half of this year, we saw that Watsons sell-through has improved year-over-year, and we are actively working with their team to grow Tru Niagen's brand presence in Hong Kong through joint marketing efforts and exploring expansion into additional markets across the Asia Pacific region.

Our gross margin improved to 65% in the second quarter, up 480 basis points compared to 60.2% a year ago. This improvement was driven primarily by sales of lower cost inventory, along with changes in our product and business mix, including the benefit of higher e-commerce sales and continued sales of pharmaceutical-grade Niagen. We expect gross margins for the full year to improve slightly compared to the previous year.

Selling and marketing expense as a percentage of net sales improved to 26.4% compared to 30.6% in the second quarter of 2024. This improvement reflects our continued focus on scaling efficiently through measured high-return investments. Research and development expense was $1.6 million, $300,000 higher year-over-year. The driver for this was the increased investment in continued NAD precursor development as we continue to invest in future innovation and IP portfolio expansion.

G&A expenses were $7.3 million, a $1.6 million increase compared to the previous year. This increase is driven by increased share-based compensation expense and increased spend to support the overall scaling of our business. For the second quarter of 2025, our net income was $3.6 million or earnings of $0.05 per share, a significant improvement compared to approximately breakeven per share for the second quarter of 2024.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen. We ended the quarter with $60.5 million in cash and no debt. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2025, net cash provided by operations was $9.1 million compared to breakeven in the same period last year. The year-over-year improvement was largely driven by a $9.2 million improvement in net income, along with other positive shifts in working capital, notably improved collections on trade receivables and higher accounts payable compared to the prior year period. These were partially offset by increased inventory levels to support operational expansion.

As it relates to our 2025 full year P&L outlook, detailed information on the key financial metrics can be found in our earnings press release and the accompanying slide presentation. Following a strong start to the year, we are raising our revenue growth expectation from 20% to 25% year-over-year to a range of 22% to 27% year-over-year. This update reflects our continued execution and leadership in the expanding NAD market as well as our confidence in the momentum across both our e-commerce and Niagen ingredients business.

We anticipate e-commerce to remain a steady growth engine, and we also anticipate growth in Niagen ingredient and broader B2B sales. While revenue from certain Tru Niagen distribution channels as well as our pharmaceutical-grade Niagen ingredient channel may fluctuate quarter-to-quarter, we remain confident in our full year outlook. We're also improving our outlook for selling, marketing and advertising expenses. We now expect these expenses to be up in absolute dollars but down as a percentage of net sales year-over-year compared to the previous expectation of up in absolute dollars and stable as a percentage of net sales year-over-year. This change in outlook is primarily driven by our continued efforts to scale efficiently as our e-commerce business steadily grows. .

Our results to date reflect both the strength of our foundation and the consistent execution by the members of our teams. While we have work to do to continue the performance and momentum thus far, I have strong belief in the company's ability to execute efficiently and effectively. As Rob discussed earlier, there are many initiatives and strategic goals we are collectively working towards, and I look forward to joining him to share more positive news in the quarters ahead.

Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Ram Selvaraju of H.C. Wainright.

Congrats on all the progress. I just wanted to ask about the initiative with respect to Parkinson's disease, and assuming positive data from the NOPARK trial, how you expect to proceed? And if indeed you would look at advancing nicotinamide riboside chloride or a different nicotinamide riboside analog?

Thank you, Ram. It's a very important and good question. Of course, as you know, we don't know the results. It's a double-blinded study. We expect or hope to hear the results before the end of the year. Of course, we probably wouldn't have an opportunity to make those results public until it's published, which would be probably sometime next year. We have analogs for nicotinamide riboside, most specifically nicotinamide riboside triacetate, NRT. And we've done studies that show that it's bioequivalent, actually slightly biosuperior to NRC in certain ways.

Our expectation is if we are pursuing FDA approval for Parkinson's in the U.S., we would likely pivot to NRT. And we would likely do so with a partner. And we've had some preliminary conversations with certain partners, but nothing to report at this point. In the EU, however, we may pursue provisional drug approval for NRC depending on how these results play out. As you know, also, we set up a separate subsidiary just for optionality purposes. Obviously, it's a wholly owned subsidiary, and we might, at some point, put the Parkinson's rights and other drug rights into that subsidiary just to maintain optionality for us corporately.

Your next question comes from the line of Destiny Hance of Ladenburg Thalmann.

I'm curious, for Niagen IV, you've been able to grow the number of clinics so quickly. I'm wondering what kind of volume you're seeing in the more established clinics for those that came on earlier? And is there any opportunity for you to justify increasing pricing? I mean is that something that you consider going forward?

Actually, that's a very good question, Destiny. The awareness level of NAD has gotten quite high and quickly, people are understanding that if you take NAD, especially orally, there's no reason to believe that it will have any impact on your cellular NAD levels. These NAD IV experiences are also extremely unpleasant. But Niagen, which is the best precursor to NAD, we've shown is a much more pleasant IV experience and injection experience. It's much quicker and has much higher level of NAD afterward.

So the clinics and the people who work in these clinics are very interested and very excited, I would say, about getting a supply of Niagen as opposed to NAD because they know these facts. And this is why we've been able to expand the number of clinics that have signed on so quickly. But what we also noticed, and this has been a constraint for the real serious growth, is that these clinics are charging a very, very high number for these IV experiences. They also charge a high number for NAD. But in many cases, even higher for Niagen because it's such a better experience than NAD and such a better product.

We think quite the opposite. We need to see clinics dramatically reduce the price to make it generally accessible to people. We think it's a great product. We think it had a meaningful impact on people's health and how they feel and even in many cases, how they look. There's this thing called the [ Niagen Glow ]. People go into these clinics and they get Niagen IV, and we keep hearing these reports of they experience within a day or 2, this skin glow. We're going to investigate that further. There might be something to that. But no, we'd like to see the prices come down significantly, and we expect them to come down significantly in order to see dramatic volume increases in the Niagen Plus category.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean McGowan of ROTH Capital Partners.

Just back on the Parkinson's trial. I was wondering if you could comment on this. So if the results are encouraging, I know you don't have them yet and you can't really talk about them, but if it's -- let's say it's good enough to really light up a lot of ideas in the FDA, could this get fast tracked? I mean is that a possibility?

In the U.S. ?

Yes. In the U.S.

I don't think so. I think that in order for it to be approved as a Parkinson's drug in the U.S., we're going to have to do a series of bridging human clinical bridging studies to show the bioequivalence between NRT and NRC. Most of the drug companies and insurance companies with whom we've talked said that they would prefer to see NRT be the molecule used for drug approval as distinct from NRC, which we sell as a dietary supplement.

So there would be likely in the U.S. a series of studies that need -- that would need to take place before it saw drug approval. That's not to say that we wouldn't create some sort of a relationship with more established pharmaceutical company as a partner to pursue, which could have economic benefits to our shareholders here in the interim. In the U.S. -- in the EU, though, it's slightly different. There might be a way for us to fast track even potentially provisional approval for NRC as an approved drug.

Your next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson of Canaccord Genuity.

Nice job on the quarter. I was wondering if you can maybe just talk a little bit about kind of the drivers of the accelerated growth you saw in the e-comm business. I guess are you starting to see a few of the new products that you rolled out really start to kind of drive growth? Or is it new platforms or geographies or anything else driving that business? And then also, have you shared at all what percent of customers are using the Subscribe & Save feature of your online site?

Actually, no. The growth in the e-commerce business is just basic blocking and tackling of our existing customers selling our existing product line. We are seeing growth in the 1,000-milligram SKU. Most of our studies that we published are at 1,000 milligrams, and most people who take it email us about the impacts that they're experiencing, say they notice the difference more dramatically with 1,000 milligrams. So we see that as our fastest-growing SKU. But it's not the new products that we've begun rolling out. It's basically still Tru Niagen as awareness of Niagen increases, awareness of NAD increases and customers returning.

We actually don't have detailed demographic information on the Subscribe & Save customers on Amazon. We know that they are an extremely educated group. We saw one study that showed that over 40% of them had graduate degrees, and that is also a very high average income consumer. But obviously, we understand that elevating NAD with Niagen has health benefits for everybody. So we need to make sure that it's not just the wealthy and highly educated that are taking advantage of the product.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean McGowan of ROTH Capital Partners.

I was wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on what you think the series of steps are going to be for treatment of long COVID. Is there any -- are there any milestones on that, that we should be looking for, studies or product releases or something specific?

The main thing to look out for is the publication of the Harvard study. They've written the manuscript and they've submitted for peer review presently. If it gets accepted for peer review and gets published, we will then be able to make the results public to everybody.

There are no known treatments for this condition and there are many people that believe that they suffer. So it's a strange condition because it's a disease that you test negative for. If you have the symptoms and you have long COVID, it means you tested negative for COVID. So it's an odd situation here. But there are many people, if you go on ChatGPT or any AI platform, you say how many people in the United States are suffering from long COVID, the numbers, I've seen as high as 15 million people, 10 million to 15 million people.

But there are other indications that have comparable type of symptoms like Epstein-Barr or fibromyalgia or Lyme disease or mononucleosis where people are just living with fatigue and depression and sleeplessness and they're just finding sluggishness getting through the day. And of course, we understand the mechanisms of action of Niagen. One of the things that it does, obviously, is it increases mitogenesis, mitochondrial biogenesis as well as the output from mitochondrial function. So there is more actual energy in the body by elevating NAD levels with Niagen. So it is logical that these people are experiencing fatigue would benefit from taking Tru Niagen.

In that Harvard study, they took very high doses of it. I think the key arm was 2 grams a day for 12 weeks of that study. That's a significant dose. As I say, most of us here at the company take a gram a day, 1,000 milligrams per day. But the thing to watch out for would be that publication. And of course, the hope is that it's positive for those symptoms. And then the marketing team at ChromaDex, in fact, in the event that it gets published and it's positive to make sure that we legally and responsibly communicate that, that study was done and make sure that health care practitioners are aware of it and influencers are aware of it. And people who are generally suffering from this fatigue-related condition know that there's a legal, safe dietary supplement on the market that may benefit you based on this Harvard study, if that's what the data shows. So number one would be the publication; number two would be the marketing campaign that comes from, Niagen Bioscience.

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Lauren Borzansky for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jean-Louis. There will be a replay of this call beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. The replay number is 1 (800) 770-2030, and the replay ID is 8584242. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued support of Niagen Bioscience.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.