4basebio (LSE:4BB) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 4BASEBIO PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab which is situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all of the questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. These will be available via your investor meet company

0:32 dashboard, and we will notify you by email when these are ready for your review. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Heikki Langkruitt, and CFO, David Roth. Good morning. Thank you, Jake. And welcome everybody to our annual update meeting following on from the AGM and recent publication of our results. So today in the room, can see David and myself. I'd just like to give you a quick heads up that we are traveling today. So we're we're doing this from a rented WeWork space. So if there's some background noise, I do apologize, but I hope it'll be okay. So before we continue, we have the usual disclaimer. So I'll just pause for a second or two, to give you, some time to read this,

1:20 and then we can move on to, the agenda for today. So in the next hour, David and I will take you through some some of these points here. So we'll start off with with a business overview. You know, we're a technology company, so we have to, kind of address our technologies. We'll try and make it as as little scientific as possible, but we wanna kind of position our platforms and and show you how to fit into the commercial landscape and what the unique selling points of our products are. Following on from that, we will continue with some some of our progress and and our future objectives, highlight some of our achievements, and touch base with what we said in 2021 and what our what our objectives then were were were and how we have reached those milestones. Finally, I'll then hand over to David who will take you through the financial positions, and then he will also do the closing statements in the summary.

2:11 So first of all, the business overview. So in the last two years, the company has really shaped up very nicely. So if we look at where we were in 2020 and and the objectives we set ourselves in in terms of developing our our synthetic DNA platform, you can now see really two strong platforms emerging from the business. So on the one hand, in DNA synthesis, where we make, you know, synthetic DNA that we wanna sell in gene gene therapies and and gene vaccines. But also a nonviral delivery platform is is really taking shape, and, you know, we're excited about both of those platforms feeding into very high rapid growth sectors in in the 12,000,000,000 synthetic biology market that continues to show very high growth rates. Currently, the projections are about twenty one percent five year forward compound annual growth rate. So very exciting spaces to be in with very exciting platforms.

2:58 And today, we'd like to show you a little bit more about how we see that all materializing. So if we look at our DNA synthesis platform, our our main objective there is to alleviate the bottlenecks, associated with plasma DNA manufacturing. So we wanna have a fast turnaround time and and create a product that is ready readily available to our customers. But we also have an eye on safety and and providing more flexible DNA products that are more suitable for the applications that people are are trying to develop. On the nonviral delivery side, I think, you know, the main issues there that we we see with viral delivery is the immunogenicity and hence the the the the lack of repeat dosing, but also the the issues with flexibility in terms of the payloads people can use. So using a non viral target delivery system, that has much more flexibility in terms of size and and type of payload is what we're what we're developing, and we see lots of opportunity, at packaging our DNA payloads into those, delivery systems.

3:57 So from a commercial perspective, you know, how does this all fit together? And and this slide is really just highlighting a little bit on how this works for synthetic DNA. As I mentioned, the the market is dominated by plasma DNA. Plasma DNA is manufactured through a process called, fermentation. So you you take bacteria, and the bacteria essentially grow and produce the DNA for you whilst they grow and expand. This is quite a difficult process. It's quite a bulky process as well. So DNA is manufactured at very low concentrations, and and it leads to fairly long manufacturing times, and typically customers may may may need to book, manufacturing slots eighteen months in advance to to get the product at a time when they need it. There's also some safety concerns with with bacteria, making your DNA products. In particular, bacteria make products called endotoxins.

4:49 They're they're contaminants, they're toxic to people, so they need to be removed. But plasmids also contain bacterial DNA sequences, which, of course, have some concern in terms of, you know, introducing these those into into humans. So overall, you know, plasmid is is working and, you know, it's a it's it's a good product and is currently being used, but synthetic alternatives clearly have have many benefits and advantages over these, plasmids, and we see that's what where the market will be, will will be going to over over the next few years. In terms of market participants and and and competition, there's still few around at at this point in time. You know? You're all familiar with our our main competitor, based in The UK. And and from our perspective, really, that's kind of where the market sits at this point in time. There's there's TouchLight and and there's ourselves, and there's other companies probably, emerging around us as well, but those are the front runners in in the in the kind of synthetic DNA space.

5:44 Underneath this, there there's also a few pharma companies who are developing therapies, and and whilst they're develop developing therapies, they're also looking at, you know, ways of making synthetic DNA. But those companies are are really not looking to commercialize that technology, and it's really much more for internal use that they are looking at developing, DNA synthesis methods. And then finally, there's the de novo synthesis, companies as well, you know, more like the gene printers. Again, these companies, you know, there are quite a few around that are are trying this approach. It's really focused much more on early stage, and and smaller scale products and and rapid gene synthesis rather than large bulk scale GMP manufacturing. So we don't really see this as a direct competition for for our, market segments.

6:30 And then, you know, ultimately, what's driving the market is, you know, the the the the COVID pandemic has really opened up the opportunity for us even further. I mean, there was already a lot of, activity in in the gene therapy space, but currently over three and a half thousand therapies in development. But the demand for mRNA driven by, the COVID vaccine, kinda effort has really driven, the demand for DNA as well. And it's kind of put putting the the plasma supply chain even under even further pressure as well. So it kinda shows that we're we're in a space that will continue to grow rapidly. And as more, products move from clinical trials into commercial use, the demand will only scale up, exponentially as well. So we we see a continued strong growth in in our sector for the foreseeable time. On the delivery side, I guess, a somewhat similar story where, you know, we have a dominant technology out in market at this point in time, and this is the viral vectors.

7:22 In particular, AAV is is the dominant, vector being used at the clinic at this point in time. And AAV has some some really good, benefits as well. Right? So AAV work works well as as infectious and can can deliver the therapy quite quite well to, different tissue types. However, it's an immunogenic, compound, and hence, it can only be dosed once. And and that often leads to therapy developers using very high doses, which then in in internally to toxicity effects. So there's some limitations in terms of not being able to repeat those driving, you know, the application to higher doses than what would really be desirable, and and that that comes with some problems. There's also some payload capability issues with viral vectors, particularly with AAVs. You cannot really deliver much more than four and a half Kb.

8:11 And, of course, many genes are much larger than this, so then you you have to make compromises and start cutting genes back, which then, of course, leads to, problems with efficacy, etcetera, etcetera. So as you can see, whilst the viral vectors have a lot of benefits, there are some drawbacks that need to be addressed. And this is kinda where the COVID pandemic again has opened up opportunity because it validated clinically validated these novel nonviral based technologies, LMPs, they're called, for delivery of mRNA payloads. And this is kinda where 4BASEBIO wants to position itself as well. We don't make LNPs, but we make a nonviral based nanoparticle, which has LNP type properties, but it you know, unlike LNPs, we we impart an active targeting mechanism into our particles, which allows us to drive the uptake of the payloads to the cell type of choice.

9:02 This is quite important if you want to avoid off target off target effects. And particularly with LMPs, one of the issues is that they're they're very good at targeting into the liver, because that's kind of where they naturally have a tropism for, and they end up being uptaken by a lot of liver cells. But if you want to target other cell types, that's a lot more challenging, with the kind the of conventional LMPs as being used in the COVID vaccine. The other issue in this space, of course, is the IP landscape and particularly in the LMP space. You you probably would have seen the kind of litigations going on between the the big players in this space. The the landscape is quite crowded, and and having a a clear, unique, identified IP position as we do with our Hermes Nano platform gives gives us opportunity to offer customers an alternative approach without having to be looking at the the conventional, very expensive licensing technologies.

9:56 So our platforms lead to a a lot of different products, and this is kind of a pictorial view of how we see this. So we have our DNA synthetic DNA platform. And what kinda sets us apart is that we have a lot of flexibility in how we make DNA. So we have the opportunity to really customize our products and optimize our products for for different applications. And this is kind of what this slide is supposed to show you. Right? So if you if you look at the the platform, at this point in time, we're we're offering four products from this platform. And each of these products has slight differences in how it's made and and, hence, how its functionality is. So and so for instance, for for making mRNA and and an IVT process, so this is an in vitro transcription process, you really need the DNA to be open at the back end of the of the construct. So, you know, the DNA at the three prime end needs to be open ended so that the RNA polymerase, you know, falls off the the construct and doesn't go back on itself.

10:54 Likewise, if you wanna use a vaccine, a DNA for a vaccine application, you want to kind of tune in the immune immunostimulatory properties of the DNA so that you can make a product that has an enhanced, immune response and a and a better vaccine result as a result of this. So this is something what we're trying to achieve at o s DNA. And so you can see with h p DNA, we're targeting, viral vectors, and with o e DNA, we're targeting gene editing applications. And there's still a lot of development going on within the company to really develop novel DNA products that will really provide, at enhanced enhanced, functional benefits to our customers and, hence, will drive uptake into the market.

11:31 Now, ultimately, when when we have made our DNA products, we then want to package them into our nanoparticle, platform, our Hermes platform. I have to stress our DNA products are suitable for other platforms too, so they they don't have to be used, of course, with our our Hermes nanoparticles. But, know, being able to offer a solution on how we deliver the payload is very helpful to many of our customers, and we see a lot of cross population between both the platform and the DNA synthesis platform, when we speak to customers. So once the particles are packaged, we can then use them for a a lot of different applications, ranging from gene therapy, cell therapy, and and gene vaccines. Again, you know, we're all ranges in in in this space, be that gene replacement, gene editing, ex vivo gene editing, such as CAR T cells or stem cells. And also in the vaccine space, you know, we we're more focusing on the cancer vaccines, you infectious know, diseases, the LMPs, and mRNAs. You know, they they have a a very strong selling point, and they have been clinically validated. So but we see a lot of opportunity in the in the personalized cancer vaccine space.

12:37 So nearly there with the technical slides. Maybe just a few of the USPs of our DNA products. So to to help you understand why people buy our products, over plasma DNA. So for us, we see in the market, in particular, the speed at which we can produce product is is a is a dominant driver. As mentioned, you know, plasma DNA requires months, to get a batch, going, and that's really driven by the fact that, you know, master cell banking needs to be done. Fermentation optimization is required. Often for each plasmid, a downstream processing optimization is required as well. So this takes time work. So for us, process is very strict very strict and very, very locked in. You know? It doesn't really matter what type of sequence we've made, whether that's a sequence with a lot of ITRs or a lot of poly a sequences or even toxic sequences to to bacteria, essentially, it goes into our platform. Nothing changes.

13:28 Our parameters stay fixed, and, you know, whole process is finished in in a in a matter of a few days, and this is basically from sequence to purified product. Now it's also a very scalable process, and we've started off, of course, with this seven microgram scale, but we've now scaled this up into, multigram batches. So, you know, for our customers, again, that's important. They need to understand that we have the capabilities to really feed into the early clinical trials where, you know, high milligram, low gram quantities are are going to be required. Also important for us is the safety and compliance. You know? So we see a trend, you know, a long term trend towards synthetic DNA simply because there is no bacterial sequences within within the the the final product. So there's no antibiotic resistance genes. And particularly in the plasmid space, you know, there seems to be quite a more and more important antibiotic free plasmids, which can be produced, but, of course, the yields are even more affected when antibiotic selection is is suppressed. So it it puts us in a position where we can offer this all in our standard prices at at high, yield and and low cost to to our customers.

14:40 From a delivery point of view, a similar kind of picture where, you know, for us, the the main drivers really are the the the enabling of repeat dosing due to low immunogenicity, the flexibility in terms of the payloads that we can package into our particles, be that DNA, RNA, or protein, and we have done all three of them already to date, and the ability to dose those through various routes of administration. So we we we can do IV. We can do an intramuscular IP. Lots of options are available to us. In terms of manufacturing, compared to viral vectors, of course, this is a lot more cost effective. You you don't have to worry about, you know, growing these viruses and purifying viruses and containing viruses. It's a self assembly process, which is extremely cost effective. And what sets us apart as well, in terms of imparting the targeting is that we do not conjugate targeting mechanisms onto our particles post manufacturing, but this is essentially all part and parcel of the same self assembly process that allows us to, position these targeting mechanisms at the surface of the particle.

15:42 All this gives us the specificity that we require to deliver the payloads to where we want them delivered and hence reduce off target effects as and when we deploy these into animal models. So that's it from the technology perspective. So our progress today so this this might look like a bit of a busy slide, but I thought it'd be useful to kinda map out the the different areas, and what we've achieved in achieved in the different areas. And I'll start off in the middle with the resourcing part because that's kind of what's enabled us to, deliver on on the technology and the commercial side of of the equation. So from a resourcing perspective, you know, we've done a lot of building in in 2021, and actually continuing in 2022 where we've built out our research use pilot scale lab, and seven g and p suites have now been built as well. And we've continued to expand our discovery labs as well. So, you know, really, we've been putting in the infrastructure that will allow us to continue developing, but also manufacturing our products in 2022 and beyond.

16:43 Of course, to do that, we also needed to hire a lot more workforce, and we've essentially doubled in size over the last twelve months. And all of this has been done from our existing cash resources, and and to date, we still have in excess of 30,000,000 of cash and debt available to continue financing our growth perspectives. So all of this resourcing has led to good progress on the technology side, so we've continued filing intellectual property. But, you know, from a a more functional point of view, you know, we scaled up our DNA manufacturing to really commercial levels and

17:15 and now are ready to put this into a GMP environment. And we validated our products, our DNA products in particular, for, use in viral vector manufacturing and and production as, you know, other, of course, with the the Hermes platform as well. But if we look at the the the key commercial objectives, those would take. From a commercial point of view, we've now reached, the point where we actively are looking to sell product and and sell services, and and we've been successful and and have announced our first sale of DNA product. In fact, we have had repeat sales of DNA products as well. And likewise, on the, service side of things, we've, got our first service work in to develop nanoparticles, but also develop viral vectors, for our customers. So all of this has really been driven through, you know, focusing more and more on the on the commercial development of the company. And in particular, you know, we we we now go to a lot of conferences, and we we we are really driving and and picking up the the building up the pipeline of of opportunities that ultimately will lead to to customer contracts.

18:21 As I mentioned in my opening slide, I wanted to revisit what we said in July 2021 and and, you know, how we fed against that. And and you can see, you know, this is kind of a recap from what we kind of, set out to do then, in terms of the three kind of main objectives as well, synthetic DNA particles and manufacturing. And on the synthetic DNA side, we've kinda hit all our milestones there. Right? So we filed electric property. We've scaled scaled commercial levels, and we have done a lot of validation, in these key applications that we wanna sell product into. On the non viral particle side as well, again, filed IP and optimize our particles and and achieve a lot of validation for our products. When it comes to manufacturing, I think we've we've done very well, but that's prob it's probably fair to say that maybe we are a little bit behind there in terms of what we set out in 2021 to achieve. I mean, having said this, we have completed our build out of our GMP suites in the second half in the first half of this year, and we have been implementing our quality control systems as well. So I think, you know, all in all, we we're very much on track to where, you know, we want to be, and and and we're happy with position that we're in. Having said this, I think last year, we mentioned something about licensing in 2022, and I think that that clearly was too too optimistic. And, you know, we we now are looking to, get to a GMP accreditation in 2023, as and when the kind of GMP compliance status has been achieved.

19:44 So this is kind of mapping out our journey to g m GMP. And and underneath, you can also see a few pictures of of our GMP suites, so nice clean white rooms essentially. So you can see q two twenty twenty two, we've finished our our build out and and complete our qualifications, and we're now looking to run make our first DNA production runs in our clean rooms in in q three, and then really, running into high quality production runs in in in q four and and getting ready for that, audit, that mock audit for for compliance towards the end of, of the year, early next year, maybe even. And then in q one twenty twenty three, we wanna be in a position to release our first GMP compliant batches. And as as I mentioned, you know, ultimately, we wanna get our facility certified as well, which is something that we aspire to achieve in in the second half of twenty twenty three.

20:34 Now what what does all of this mean?

20:36 IUO, HQ, GP compliant, G inquiry accredited. So I think in this slide, I I just wanted to kind of show you the differences between the different grades that we aspire to make. And you can see I mean, the product essentially is is the same. Right? And and it's made with the same process and and virtually the same conditions. The difference between high quality and GMP compliant with IUO is, of course, that, you know, HQ and GMP compliant is made in the clean rooms. And as in as in when we add more compliancy, you know, we we essentially, you know, have more paperwork that comes with the the product that we sell. So HQ materials, for instance, are not made with GMP certified materials. GMP compliant is made with fully certified GMP materials, and it's fully compliant to EU GMP part two regulation.

21:26 Ultimately, the difference between GMP compliant and GMP certified will be very little. The only difference will be that we will have official licensing from the MHRA, which kind of puts this onto the the next level.

21:43 So plans and objectives for 2023. I guess an even more busier slide compared to my first one, with this kind of, tiled map, aspect.

21:53 You can see here there's actually an an extra section that came into it now. Right? So we now have the production section as well where we we have objectives that we would like to achieve. From a resourcing perspective, it's similar to to what we did this year. You know, we wanna use our our financial resources, which will essentially mean that we need to continue expanding our team. But from an infrastructure point of view, I think we we more or less there now in terms of what we need to deliver our production and technology milestones. On the production side, you know, it's about reaching g g GMP compliance towards the end of this year and then accreditation in in 2023. But also important to understand is that, you know, we we need to continue bringing and transferring products into our GMP environment. You know? We, of course, started off with HP DNA, and that's the leading product that is going into this GMP transfer process. But as and when we develop additional products such as o eDNA, such as, o sDNA, all of these products need to be transferred to the to a g m p GMP environment, and that takes a little bit of time. Of course, the first one takes the most time, but, you know, we need to be realistic that that these products all all will require a little bit of time to transfer to a GMP environment.

23:02 From a technology perspective, it's very much the same as what we were doing before, continue to to innovate and and to continue to validate our products in in a in in in further applications and and drive that forward. From a Hermes perspective as well, we really wanna get into in vivo data now and start generating a lot more of that. But we like I said in in my earlier slides as well, we see a lot of opportunity of developing even newer DNA products as well, and and that will continue going as we shape up our technology base and and see opportunities in the market for to sell DNA products into that space. So finally then on the commercial side, a lot of expansion is required there now as well. Our our commercial team is very very lean. From a a direct sell sales perspective, it it will continue to be lean, of course, but, you know, we will need to build out a a kind of customer support, team underneath that. So more like an aftersales project management support team, which we're looking to build out, in the second half of this year, which will help us really, underpin, the growth of projects that we wanna bring in and, of course, drive the revenue going forward.

24:09 So, you know, from a revenue generation point of view, you know, we see this really coming from validation programs. So early validation programs with customers, getting customers comfortable with the products that we make and how to use our products in their in their in their own hands. And that will ultimately then build up a a growing pipeline of strong commercial opportunity that will will drive our revenue. So that's just overall what we're trying to achieve. So putting this back into a timeline, you know, what that means near term, midterm, and long term, you you'll see if you compare this with our notes from from last year as well from 2021, longer term, nothing has changed. We we see an opportunity to generate a a DNA manufacturing business, and, you know, we we continue building that business, but we also see the opportunity of the delivery platform to really by bringing these indications through to IND, that will enable licensing of our our nanoparticle platform as well.

25:04 In the midterm, you know, it's about the certification, for our DNA products, so the the the licensing that we're trying to achieve and progressing our our products into the clinics. Those are really two main value inflection points that we can see in the midterm. And then short term, it's, of course, you know, advancing ourselves, progressing with the collaborations with our with our customers, and really driving that that manufacturing process forward and and and releasing our first GOP compliant batches as soon as, practically possible.

25:32 With that said, I think that's the end of my slides, and I'll hand over now to David who will take you through the financials. Thank you, Heikki. Good morning, everyone. So just three slides, really, in terms of the financial position and and the position. So I'll just take you through briefly the results for '21, where we are, and how we enter '22, and then just give you an overview of share structure. And then I'll take you through, finally, just summary slide just to recap on on on what's been said today. So in in terms of financial results for '21, I I I suppose the the immediate thing anyone who reads our annual report will see is that the comparators to 2020 are are quite unusual. And and if you recall, 2020 is really quite a transfer formative year in terms of the spin out from 4BASEBIO AG, which is now to Invest AG, bringing it to The UK, and then also the accounting for that. So, really, the the 2020 comparators for 2021 aren't aren't hugely meaningful, and and the focus really is around the '21 results.

26:42 So during the course of '21, we reported an operating loss of 3,500,000, and that compares to an operating cash burn of 2,700,000. Part of that is just done naturally to depreciation, but also an an uptick in working capital. And that uptick in working capital really just reflects the growth in the business. Inevitably, it'll go up and down a bit, but that's that's not really a timing difference that we expect to to reverse going forward. We expect it to kinda hit the equilibrium position over the next six to twelve months and and and and and roughly bubble around that. The overall cash burn for '21 was 4.7, which obviously comprises that 2.7 operational cash burn. But we we've also, as I could alluded to, invested significantly in in in the business.

27:30 So during the course of '21, we had tangible additions of close to £1,000,000. And we also have some capitalized development costs, which just reflect historic accounting for capitalization of development costs for the r and d platform in Spain. And the final element of our cash burn is around financing. So with the Spanish business, as has been the case for some time now, there are soft loans, so effectively cheap government backed Spanish loans that that, to some extent, a legacy issue, but they continue to to be paid down with around £1,200,000 remaining at the end of twenty twenty one.

28:17 That all then brings us to where we ended 2021, which is a cash burn which is a cash balance of 9,600,000. As I'm sure readers of our accounts will also be aware, as a result of the spin out, much of our cash balances reside in in euros. And so in arriving at that 9,600,000, there was a fairly meaningful FX impact during the course of 2021 with approximately 7% deterioration in the in the rate between the euro and sterling. Turning then to 2022. So the team has grown substantially from 2020 into 2021, and we continue that to expect to continue that into 2022.

29:10 So, really, if you reference the the the average numbers for for '20, we were stood around 13 staff overall. The average for '21 was around 27. It's hard to say quite what it'll be at the moment, but there is significant increase in headcount. And we currently sit at around 50 staff across the group. So inevitably, that and the continued development that that we're doing is is gonna lead to an an increased cash burn during 2022. And, really, there are two drivers. One is the ongoing r and d, but also the scaling of the operational team. And we sit today now with approximately 12 staff across our QA and and manufacturing team validating clean rooms, implementing q and a, and also undertaking manufacture of of DNA.

30:06 Alongside that, we will expect to incur some additional capital expenditure just in terms of the timing of of the clean rooms and also the build out of the labs to which Haiky alluded to. However, in terms of our cash resources, we expect those to support us throughout the course of the year and and and into 2023. And if at some point in the future, we we're looking for for future funding, I think at this point in time, we're expecting to draw on the facility that that we have with to invest AG as opposed to a capital increase. So, again, as you will be aware, we retain a €25,000,000 loan facility with to invest. That is a a plain vanilla debt structure.

30:54 It's reasonably favorable terms and and something that we're happy to draw on if needed. And and really at this point in time, we don't foresee a a capital increase. We're certainly not averse to capital increase. It clearly has some benefits. It it may improve the liquidity in the share. And and there's there's clearly a benefit in being able to bring on a knowledgeable institutional investor to support the business. But, really, we feel that in in order for us to to go down that path, it really needs to be at a share price and market capitalization that's meaningfully higher than than than what we set up today. Before I go to the summary slide, just very briefly touching on shareholder structure. So you'll see that we have two cornerstone investors being two Invest AG and Deutsche Balaton.

31:46 Both are are very supportive, both supportive of the management team and supportive of of the strategy that that that we're undertaking. But, clearly, I I think it would benefit us and benefit the company to have some specialist life science investors along along the way if if that's something that we're able to bring in at a at a at a sensible point in time. You'll also see on the left that there's some of the other shareholders. So High Key It's a meaningful shareholder, and and I also have have a stake in the business. And, clearly, we have topped up on our shares from time to time. And I think that demonstrates our belief in what we are delivering and and what we're doing. So thank you for listening. What I was gonna do very briefly is just summarize the presentation and and hopefully the the points we've made today.

32:40 We really see during the course of '21 and actually now into 2022 as well significant progress in terms of building this business. Clearly, the spin out in at the end of twenty twenty was a challenge, and we came from a relatively small base. But we now really have a company with with very significant structure. And and perhaps an interesting KPI for the business is that 80% of the workforce are scientists. So, really, in terms of the back office functions and those who are not adding value to the the r and d and the manufacturing platforms, that that's a very small part of the business, and that's really a a a key focus and consideration for us. But, really, I think where we've reached now is that we've built a strong team.

33:28 We are commercializing the product, commercializing a range of products, and, actually, we are now into commercial revenue generation. So we really have taken some very big steps over the last twelve to eighteen months. And if I look at the table, really starting at the top, we have some very clear disruptive technologies in a rapidly growing market, and we see some real growth opportunities both for the DNA and also for the Hermes platform. And as I've said, we really have made some significant progress since 2020. During the course of 2022, we have secured our first commercial sales, and we expect to be GMP compliant in 2022. And we're pushing very hard to achieve GMP certification during the course of 2023 and all of this in in a well funded platform.

34:21 So I I think we're very pleased with what we've achieved to date. We believe that this is very much it goes towards shareholder value, and we look very forward look forward to presenting to you again in the near future. So thank you for listening, and that concludes the presentation. That's great. Hi, Keith. David, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. If I may, I will just bring back up your cameras. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Over just while David and Heikki take a few moments to review those questions submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Hi, Keith. David, as you can see, we have received a number of questions, throughout today's presentation, and thank you to all the investors for submitting their questions. If I could please just hand back to you to run through that q and a tab and where appropriate to do so, if you could please just read out the questions and give your response, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So and the first question was from Mark A.

35:26 He was asking us what criteria do you look for in terms of partnerships? And and to some extent, Mark, this has changed over the the past few years. So when we started off, you know, we were looking really more for early stage collaborations, you know, often with academics who could help us with some access to some some models and and help us with some validation of our early products. Of course, as we build up more confidence and and we we we build up more expertise in making larger quantities and and pure DNA as well. We're now looking more towards commercial applications and, you know, really what we wanna work with now is more early stage, just discovery companies who are looking to switch over to synthetic DNA and and really see this as a as a viable commercial opportunity or pharma companies who are who are looking, to validate our products and and really, get get comfortable and familiar with with our with our products. The the partnerships shifts are changing where, you know, in the past, we were looking more for help from our collaborators.

36:25 Now we really wanna help our our partners with delivering their endpoints. So it's it's kinda changed somewhat from that perspective. I hope that answered the question. Okay. So the next question was from Ryan, and I know you've invested heavily into the business last year. What is the company's headcount currently, and how do you see the cost base moving forward? It's probably for both for David and me, this one. I mean, headcount currently stands around 50. And as I mentioned in one of my slides, you know, we see this growth to around 70. You know, both the manufacturing, commercial, and the r and d teams as well, we we see still need some expansion. We've identified some some gaps. For instance, in on the IP side, you know, we wanna bring in a head of IP who can who can help us with really managing our our our IP portfolio and make sure that we capture everything and drive everything forward at the right pace.

37:20 But also on the manufacturing side and the QA quality side as well, we we see some gaps that we want to fill. And on the r and d sides, as we take on more opportunities and more products, you know, of course, we we we got to support these as well and some further expansion is required there as well. David, any comments? I think you've answered the whole question. Okay. Good. Alright. Next one. From Ryan as well, asking us how big the addressable market is for synthetic DNA and RNA products. Well, I mean, DNA and RNA products are slightly different there. Right? So the market for RNA products is driven by the COVID pandemic, of course, huge. I mean, if you just look at the numbers there, I think in 2021, the the synthesis market RNA synthesis market was about 50,000,000,000 or something like that. So that probably will come off a little bit as the the pandemic calms down and and demand for vaccines drops off a little bit. Having said that, there's there's there's a lot of mRNA therapeutics in the market as well, so it'll be interesting to see where that market goes. But in any event, it's a it's a huge market.

38:22 DNA, of course, feeds that market, and DNA also feeds direct, other markets as well. It's substantially smaller than the mRNA market, of course, but it's still in the billions of of pounds as well. David, I'll definitely do let you do that one. So Matthew's asked, do you think raising additional capital could accelerate your growth and improve liquidity in the market? In honesty, we can always spend more. There's there's no there's no doubt about that. But clearly, you you also need to control that expenditure and make sure it's it's it's put to good use. And and I think we're we're very focused on making sure that we we deliver and we invest appropriately. So I think we're making really excellent progress.

39:10 Inevitably, you can spend more to do it, but I I think the progress that that we're delivering now is something we're we're very comfortable with, and I don't think it's an impediment to to to our success. So so that's that's fine. In terms of, liquidity in the market, it's it's it's something I have to say we've we've debated, for a while. I think the working assumption is that, raising some additional capital could certainly improve liquidity. I guess it really depends how that how that manifests itself. So, you know, what what what we see if if we bring in institutional investors, I'm not sure how that's gonna do it. And if and if we offer a slice a retail slice, it it really depends how that then churns because we are aware that there are quite a large number of longer term holders.

40:00 And those those holders in in turn will I expect will will buy up in in in the event that there is liquidity and and, you know, you'll have a situation where where where you're back to square one again. So it's certainly something we're considering. I have to say we're not a 100% certain that it's gonna have the desired effect. The key issue for us is is the points and valuation at at which we we proceed with the capital increase. And and and, honestly, I don't think we're quite there. And then another question from Matthew was what do we see as our greatest challenge to the business moving forward? I think this question was asked to me last last year as well, and I think at that point, I mentioned that for us, recruitment of staff and the the pace at which we want to recruit was was a big challenge in making sure we have the right people coming through was was very important.

40:48 Now, clearly, this year, we've achieved this. You know, we've expanded and we've doubled up. We've filled in positions of leadership and and really strengthened the the width and the breadth of the team as well. So going forward now, I think the challenge we still have the recruitment challenge, of course, but I think the this the the main challenges I see going forward now is really how we get our product into the clinic. Okay? So GP compliant, I think, will be fine, but, like, getting our product into the clinic and getting to that next valuation inflection point, understanding, you know, the the regulatory environment around the product a little better, you know, those are the the the next big challenges that the company needs to overcome and, you know, that that we, you know, really gearing ourselves up for to to to hit in in 2022 and 2023. And then a question from Jonathan. When the company attends trade shows like ASGCT, what sort of reception does the company get?

41:45 Do potential customers understand the attractions of 4BASEBIO product offering? Yeah. I mean, that's a very good question. And and and, yes, they do. I mean, we we went to ASGCT about a month ago, and we didn't actually have a booth there. So we I'm not about whether was right for us to have a booth there or not, and we thought it was just a little bit too early to to go and do that. However, we presented three or four posters at the conference. And I have to say, like, I mean, I've done this quite a few times, and I was there at the conference as well with with with the the wider team. The feedback and the response we got from the posters was phenomenal. I mean, we were we we always had a crowd around our posters. We had so much leads that came off that as well. And people get it. You know? People understand the benefits of the technology, how it can speed up their research, how, you know, the safety profiles, the functionality benefits that we can offer, the the ability to customize our products to to customers' needs. I mean, it's it's a massive selling point. So yeah. I mean, definitely, these conferences, and they're a great way to reach out to customers, and and we continue doing this. And in fact, today, I jumped on a plane to San Diego to go to another conference as well and and and meet even more potential customers.

42:56 And we see this as a way to really expand the first twenty in twenty quarter And questions that came in from investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions of submitted we today, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for your review. And ladies and gentlemen, we'll publish all those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Heikki, perhaps we're redirecting those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great. Yeah. So I'd I'd just like to thank everybody who dialed in today or who who will actually watch this presentation, on on demand later on as well.

43:48 You know, it's, as you can see, the company is is shaping up very well. The opportunity is there. The markets are there, and and we're excited about the progress that we're making, and we look forward to updating in in due course again, with with further progress. Thank you. That's great. Hi, Keith. David, thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time and updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can better understand your views and expectations. It's only to take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of management team of 4BASEBIO PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.