A fresh face: Avenir, formerly CURE, embraces rebrand
In a continued effort to rebuild its image and set a new standard for the company, CURE Pharmaceutical has rebranded to Avenir Wellness, the company announced on Jan. 17.
Formerly located in Oxnard, Avenir’s new headquarters is now in Sherman Oaks, as the company’s decision to rebrand is also the result of its selling of some of its intellectual property back on July 28.
During that sale, Nancy Duitch was also elevated to the company’s CEO role. She was formerly the CEO of Sera Labs, which CURE purchased in 2020.
She told the Business Times though the name change was a result of that deal, it also reflects the company’s renewed focus as being more of a wellness and beauty brand as opposed to its previous iteration.
“We are going to be the future of wellness solutions and for us, that was really important,” Duitch said.
CURE Pharmaceutical was a company focused on its drug delivery platform and its CBD products. Sera Labs is a CBD wellness and beauty brand.
Given that, CURE’s purchase of Sera was critical as it helped the company generate revenue to hopefully fund future expenses into its drug delivery platform.
The problem, Duitch noted, was that it was still going to take millions of more dollars to truly create something innovative.
“Rob Davidson, the former CEO, and the whole team spent all this time and energy and really made great technology, great delivery systems, but the drug portion was going to take another multi-millions of dollars before it ever started generating any revenue,” Duitch said.
“That’s how the pharmaceutical and the drug portion of that particular industry is, whereas a wellness company, we can generate revenue pretty quickly.”
As such, the board of directors and Davidson agreed to sell off that portion of the company and on July 28 CURE announced it had sold off a portion of its intellectual property and related assets for $20 million.
Those assets included the pharmaceutical side of the business and the name, CURE Pharmaceutical.
The people who purchased the assets have rebranded that to Cure PharmaTech, which is why the name was sold.
But, Avenir still has a great relationship with that side of the business and the manufacturing facility in Oxnard Duitch said their Nutra-Strips product line is still being produced out in Ventura County.
The reason the company’s headquarters is now in Sherman Oaks is that Sera Labs’ headquarters was located there.
Now with Duitch heading the company, it made sense to set that as the company’s HQ.
“It’s a tough drive, an hour each way, but it’s a beautiful place,” she said.
Duitch said that Avenir still owns 15 patents in the cannabis psychedelic and delivery part of the business.
The goal for the company now is to continue innovating that wellness space by leveraging the patents it has in its portfolio while also continually adding more.
“Our goal is to be an incubator. Our strategy is monetizing our own products with great delivery systems that make us unique and different, as well as creating new patents and monetizing those either through licensing and royalty deals as well as selling some of those other assets like the psychedelics that we don’t need but are worth a lot of money to a lot of companies,” Duitch said.
“I want to replace those patents with ones that have to do with topical delivery systems and delivery systems for our for the wellness side of the business.”
The company is still public and will continue to be going forward, but for now, it will still be under the symbol ticker CURR. Once approved, the new ticker symbol and effective date of the changes will be publicly announced.
Avenir’s stock is only worth 20 cents as of Jan. 18, but with a new direction that could change.
An expert in the wellness industry, Duitch is ready and excited for this new chapter in Avenir’s history.
“I made a decision that I wasn’t going to worry about the stock, I was going to worry about building the foundation of the company and the fundamentals of the company and we put together a phenomenal team once I got money in from the sale,” Duitch said.
“I’m very frugal with money but I brought in some great people on the team that have really been so phenomenal. It took us four or five months to find the right people and get the right team together and really get things going but I am excited and optimistic about 2023.”
