The Market Online recently spoke with Liz Viccars, CEO of AJA Health and Wellness Inc. (TSXV:AJA) a company transforming healthcare with its total health access service offering telemedicine, diagnostics and specialized care via proprietary tech. Additionally, AJA Health and Wellness provides natural products for pain relief and skincare.
The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Online has edited it for clarity.
TMO: AJA has three lines of business. Can you outline what they are and how they helped position AJA in the health and wellness market?
Viccars: We actually view AJA Health and Wellness as having two very distinct lines of business. One is in the medical services sector, and we are focused on access to medical care in the Canadian market. The second line of business is product focused. We feature natural health products that are addressing a growing demand in the market. Both lines focus on the needs of a very health-conscious market segment.
TMO: Tell me about the growth opportunities in North America and globally.
Viccars: The proprietary health platform, the GOeVisit platform is customizable, and it is scalable. We can basically license this platform in any country in the world that’s looking to expand into telehealth services and the consumer product market as you may have been noticing, it’s absolutely growing at phenomenal rates and our service products, the existing products and also the new products that we are developing and bringing to market have international possibilities as they address very specific needs.
TMO: On the product side, the global market for natural health products exceeded US$23 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to US$38.5 billion by 2033. What is behind the growing demand?
Viccars: There are a number of variables that are driving that demand. One of the main variables is that there is increasing consumer awareness about what is available in the market, what the long-term impact of chemicals might be. There’s a technological piece, the advancements in technology are driving this market as well because natural products are better than they’ve ever been and there’s a shift in consumers toward more sustainable practices and by that I don’t mean just in production but in terms of how they’re treating their bodies and how they’re maintaining their health. Now, I’d like to drive down into that just a little bit because that’s very general and if we drive down a little bit more and say, okay, well what does that mean? What does sustainability mean? What does consumer awareness mean? Consumers are looking for alternatives to prescription drugs. Many consumers are at a place where they’re very concerned about drug dependency. They’re very concerned about long-term damage to their system and organ damage. For some people, they have been on prescription drugs for so long that the drugs don’t really work for them anymore and they’re looking for something that is pure but that works, that would be a good alternative to that. We’re also looking at consumers and particularly the millennial market that tends to skew toward not putting chemicals in their bodies and looking for natural alternatives that will provide the same healing.
TMO: Let’s focus on AJA’s proprietary BioFlavin technology. What is it and what are the benefits?
Viccars: Flavonoids are photochemical, and they are what give fruits and vegetables, their colors, the beautiful greens and reds and oranges that you see in nature. BioFlavin and flavonoids have been proven to have many medicinal benefits, including antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer properties. They’ve also shown tremendous promise in reducing the incidence of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and have shown great promise in issues like cognitive decline. We say that flavonoids are nature’s miracles, nature’s gem and what we have done is take 20 very specific flavonoids and we have created an extract that we have termed BioFlavin. This BioFlavin extract not only has its own wonderful healing properties, but it also enhances whatever the other natural products, the other natural ingredients in a product are giving. It enhances that at least 20-fold.
TMO: How is it used in your product line?
Viccars: We use the extract in all of our product line because of its anti-inflammatory, anti-biotic, anti-parasitic properties and depending on what we are treating, we blend the bioflavonoids with other natural ingredients that also have proven healing properties.
TMO: What other unique offerings do you have coming up from your innovation hub?
Viccars: There are so many exciting things on the horizon. Maybe I’ll start on the service side. We are developing one of the first nurse-led family practice clinics in Alberta. A nurse practitioner who led this really addresses the access to care issue. There are over 6.5 million Canadians without a family doctor, and this helps to alleviate some of the strain that’s placed right now on emergency weight rooms. On any given day, 75% of the people that are there don’t need to be, but they don’t have anywhere else to go because they don’t have a family doctor. We have a number of new products that are about to hit the market that we’re very excited about. One is skin wipe that actually enhances the efficacy of any skincare products. So, what this does, not only does this have a lot of very important applications for the AJA products but any of the large skincare companies can actually adopt this technology as well because it increases the efficacy of their skincare products. So, you can imagine the scope there.
TMO: That’s going to have some huge implications for women are definitely going to flock to that.
Viccars: Two of the most, I think are the most exciting one is Nanofiber being infused with chronic pain relief medication that will absorb into the skin [the product actually penetrates through the skin layers and into the joints and muscles] in less than five seconds. We have already completed clinical trials with this and we’re about to go to market and what excites me the most is an ingestible repellent that we are in clinical trials with right now that has been designed to protect against vector-borne diseases. So, these are diseases that are caused by insects. These are diseases like Lyme disease caused by ticks, diseases like yellow fever, west Nile virus and diseases that not only impact humans but impact animals as well. Vector-borne diseases account for 17% of all infectious diseases around the globe every year and they have devastating impacts not only on human health but also on livestock health, which impacts food production. So, this is huge. The animal product is ready for the market. The human product is in clinical trial and the beauty of this Coreena is that the ingestible repellent lasts for up to seven days, almost a one and done. Which is very exciting. It is a game changer.
TMO: Moving to the financials, can you advise the audience on where the company stands and where the cash flow opportunities lie?
Viccars: Because AJA Health and Wellness is an amalgamation of three existing companies, we have existing revenue lines; we have existing partnerships. So, we’re not starting at ground level. We’re starting above ground level because we’ve had years of operating. We have brand awareness, we have partners. What’s really exciting though, is not where we’ve been, it’s where we’re going. So going forward as a new public company, we have new marketing programs and services, new partnerships in Canada and the US, new contracts that are kicking in 2025. When you look at the increased opportunities, the increased revenue streams, the increased distribution channels and the new products, we are positioned for growth.
You can find AJA Health and Wellness on the TSXV under the symbol AJA or head to its website at AJAHW.com or at Stockhouse.com.
Company shares were last trading at $0.03
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