4basebio (LSE:4BB) — Post AGM update

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. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just 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 can review all questions submitted today we'll publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the investor meeting company platform. Before we begin, we would just like to

0:32 submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from 4BASEBIO PLC. Hi, Keith. Good morning, sir. Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to our annual investor update. So glad to see many people have joined us today. So let's start off. And as usual, we start off with a a little disclaimer. So I'll give you a couple of seconds to read this.

1:01 So today with me are the usual team. So we have myself, and I think most of you are very familiar with me. I'm with David and Amy now. We've been leading the company for quite a few years, so I I don't think that it needs much introduction. So I'm heading into the business and market overview. So this slide here kinda gives us a company overview of where we are as a as an entity. We've grown quite a bit in terms of FTEs compared to where we were last year, so we now reached over a 120 FTEs. I suspect that the year end will be close to a 140, so we continue to build the capabilities and and the infrastructure to enable us to expand commercially. In terms of facilities, not much has happened since last year. So twenty three thousand square feet, however, we we do see the need to expand on our facilities as well, and and we we're we're looking at projects to increase space, particularly in the client onboarding teams and the ability to to bring more projects online simultaneously, and that's a project that we hope to complete within the next six to nine months.

2:09 Overall, in terms of the clean rooms, they have now been licensed, of course, so the seven clean rooms are there. In terms of DNA designs, we've added a few DNA designs this year as well, which we'll talk to more in later slides. And, of course, we still manufacture our own enzymes, which is a key differentiator with some of our competitors as well, which we'll touch on in in later slides as well. Commercially, things have gone reasonably well in 2024. We've continued to grow our customer base.

2:37 We'll talk a lot more about kind of the go to market strategy and, you know, client acquisition and where the client sits and and the type of clients that we acquire in later slides. But I think, you know, as you will have known from our announcements earlier in the year as well, we we really are investing quite heavily in our commercial infrastructure, and we are recruiting a lot of people to help us drive the commercial growth this year and into 2026, of course, as well. So in terms of recent achievements, this year, if we look at 2024 and then into this year as well, I think the big milestone last year early last year was, entering into the clinic, with our partner Helix Nano. They have now dosed, quite a few patients with, their mRNA vaccine.

3:22 That's all gone very well, and we're now looking with them into the next phase of work, where they are looking to plan another clinical trial in The US, and and we will be supplying them materials to do so. Another big moment for us, was July last year where we kind of announced our capital raise, and brought M and G and PSC into the capital of the company. That took a little while to close those, fund funding round, and David will talk a little more, to that in later slides as well. But it you know, that kind of capital raise enabled us to really, drive forward the business now and invest in the commercial infrastructure and drive the growth, into, the next, years to come. Revenue, DNA revenue doubled again in 2024. It's a trend that we like, and it's a trend that we want to continue into 2025 and well beyond. So we we're pretty pleased on on how that's going and the client and the quality of the clients that we're attracting as well. So we're very enthusiastic about the growth prospects of the company and the drive and and and commercial traction.

4:23 As mentioned in the previous slide, you know, we're expanding the commercial team. In in January, we hired quite a few salespeople and a a marketing team to help us with that kind of commercial expansion. We'll talk a little more about that in in later slides as well. And then I think for me, at least, the the biggest milestone that we've achieved this year is that GMP license that we got on our facility to which Amy will talk a little more in the next slide. All in all, you can see that we're delivering on the milestones that we set ourselves. And as a result of that, we feel we we we really are poised for growth and success, in the near and midterm, future.

5:03 So maybe I could expand a little bit more on our recent MHRA certification. So as many of you will be familiar with, achieving this certification has been a real milestone for 4BASEBIO really since its inception and when we began to build out our our clean room facilities also based here in Cambridge. So I think that some of you will also know that we were able to submit our license application mid last year. And whilst we had to wait a little bit of time until the the MHRA were in a position to come and visit us, that audit actually took place earlier this year in March. So we have two inspectors here for a two day visit, a very successful two day visit, I may add, which culminated in the certification certification of of our our facility, both for critical starting materials, which are the DNA products our clients use to make mRNA therapies and viral vector therapies, but also critically for drug substance capabilities, which enables us to feed into DNA vaccines and

5:57 also gene editing applications. So we really believe that this GMP certificate provides the regulatory validation that our clients need, and will will enable us to serve our client base from preclinical studies through clinical applications and beyond.

6:19 Right. So let me start with the state of the nation then. So, you know, there's a few headwinds and a few tailwinds that we see in the markets. So I'll start off with the the headwinds. You know, we we do see that the investment kind of climate in biotech is still quite tight and and and quite difficult, which means the funding of some of our client project can be delayed or, in some cases, can also be at risk. So, you know, we we kinda last year, middle of last year, saw some green shoots. I think this year, the investment climate has has toughened a little bit again as well. So but we we do hope that, you know, the the overall investment climate will will get better again towards the second half of the year and then particularly into 2026, but it's something to to be mindful of.

7:06 Additionally, I think I think we also see some political drivers that, you know, make things a little a little tougher in the market. The geopolitical climate is definitely hardening the the the with the risk of these import tariffs and people onboarding and onshoring supply chains in The US. So that's something that we need to be mindful of. We don't think it's an imminent threat to our business, but it's something that we're just keeping a good eye on. But more importantly, I think the the the the stance of the US administration against the vaccine policies and and how they see cell and gene. I think there's some uncertainty around that, and there's definitely some uncertainty around NIH funding, which then, of course, trickles into into the private sector as well. So those are kind of, you know, points that we need to be mindful of, and and that will make it somewhat tougher in the market, for the foreseeable future.

7:58 Now there's, of course, a lot of tailwinds as well, and I think the there's some clear opportunity drivers for us. I mean, we see definitely pharma companies, you know, moving towards a larger scale adoption of synthetic DNA, which brings opportunity for us, and people in synthetic DNA. We see a lot of interest in CDMO partnerships in the different application areas, you know, where we can see synergistic opportunities to to widen our sales channels and and enhance our reach. And particularly in APAC, we see a lot of good traction. I think APAC is is different to The US at this point in time. We can see a lot of investment going into APAC and particularly in Korea and Japan. We see a lot of investment in the CGT space, which we welcome and which we think is a good opportunity for us. Now we've expanded our commercial team, and, of course, we've also started looking towards APAC as a result of that, and we now have dedicated personnel looking at penetration into into that region.

8:54 Other, points are the kind of milestones that we've hit along the way as well that drive credibility. So as Amy mentioned, the MHRA GMP certification is a is a massive credibility driver towards our clients, and it kind of moves the conversation away from that regulatory risk just towards client needs and and and client programs. And, of course, having patients dose this you know, having the product clinically validated takes away a lot of concerns and risks around switching over from plasma to synthetic DNA, and that really helps us with engaging with clients and and driving that kind of client entry point closer to the clinic as well, which I'll touch on in in future slides. Another important point, and I believe Amy will talk to that a little more in in in subsequent slides as well, is that we can see the big kind of players in this space, the strategic players in this space like the Aldevrons and the Thymus of the world entering into synthetic DNA, albeit with an IUO offering at this point. But you can see that they are, clearly accepting that the market is moving towards synthetic, modalities, and they they want to,

9:57 position themselves, within that space as well, which we think is you know, adds credibility to the switch to synthetic DNA given that the big players are now moving in that moving towards that space as well. So all in all, there's some some some kind of headwinds ahead of us, but we think the innovation that we bring trumps the toughening market conditions and and feel that we are poised to to continue growing the business commercially in a in a very successful, fashion.

10:25 So you may remember this slide, from previous investor presentations, but we really think it's an important marketing positioning slide that really denotes how our synthetic DNA products can feed into a range of different application areas, which means that we're a little bit, you know, independent to market trends or market sentiment on any given modality. So as you can see here, we have the different product range that 4BASEBIO offers and the different therapeutic indications that that feeds into. You'll all remember that we have generated a lot of traction in the mRNA space with our o p DNA molecule, and that really continues. You know, this is where we are clinically derisked. We have patients dosed with this sort of molecule, and we really do see significant traction remaining, in this in this therapeutic area.

11:11 But over the course of '24 and into '25, there has been growth and uptake both in the gene editing and viral vector applications, where we've also offered a a new DNA molecule onto the market, which is our single stranded DNA molecule. This is a little bit different to our double stranded DNA offerings, and we believe that this facilitates our clients to to progress forward in gene editing applications. And then finally, on the the the kind of last column on this slide, we can see our DNA vaccines as well where we have a growing number of clients that are heading towards the clinic, and we hope that we can show some positive news flow of IMPD and IND filings in in very near term.

11:51 So if we look at the the DNA competitive landscape, I think that Heikki has already alluded to the fact that the the the competitive landscape is changing. We we remain convinced that the real competition in this space is plasma DNA. So here, you can really see the players like Aldabra, Liv Donaher. We can see the Thermo Fisher's and the Charles Rivers of the world. This plasma DNA really is the DNA source to feed into cell and gene therapy and vaccine applications. If we look to the left hand side of this slide, we're looking at the synthetic DNA players in this space. Down in the bottom bubble, we can see de novo platforms. These are the twists of the world, the DNA scripts of the world that are really more focused on kind of high throughput, small scale quantities of sequences and really play in those discovery phases of development.

12:39 And we really believe that the only competition to plasma DNA is amplification based based platforms where really ourselves and TouchLite are at the forefront of of this innovation. And you can see on the right hand side that we really believe that 4BASEBIO is well positioned to lead in the synthetic DNA space, not limited to the cost effectiveness of the platform, the flexibility of the scale, and the complexity of sequences we can deal with. And I'll talk a little bit more to those points, in the next couple of slides as well. So we can see here that, as Heidi mentioned, the Aldebarons and the Thermofs of the world are starting to dabble in synthetic DNA, and we really take this as a good market sentiment that some of these big plasma providers in the world are recognizing the benefits

13:21 of synthetic DNA to the point that they're able to play there. So, of course, when we position ourselves against plasmid DNA, we really believe that we're well differentiated to facilitate adoption of synthetic DNA. And you can see, on the top left hand side, one of those points is the cost effectiveness of the platform. So, of course, we mix synthetic DNA enzymatically, which facilitates low labor and capital demands. And, really, this, necessitates a much smaller footprint and a smaller manufacturing suite than is required for plasma DNA, which also reduces our labor, and our process volumes and our waste streams.

13:59 I think something that's, really, really important to a lot of our clients is actually the flexibility of scale. So some of our clients, at least in early stage clinical trials, do not require multi gram batches of GMP grade DNA in the first instance. And the fact that we can be a little bit more nimble and offer those much smaller quantities can really enable and facilitate cost reductions for the client and make the the output of our DNA processes fit for purpose.

14:25 I think this is particularly important in the in the personalized cancer vaccine setting where we're seeing significant traction, and I think Heidi will talk about a little bit more later in the presentation. At 4BASEBIO, we really pride ourselves with the flexibility of our synthetic DNA platform. We do not make one molecule. We make several molecules with application specific benefits depending on what our clients want to use the DNA for. And I think that this is really exemplified primarily by our o pDNA offering, where we really believe we're at the forefront of of those using synthetic DNA in mRNA manufacture.

15:00 I don't think the the safety benefits are often talked about enough, but essentially, we do not have any bacterial backbone. The way we make synthetic DNA is in a bug free fashion, so there's no antibiotic resistance genes. There's no contamination from bacteria. And essentially, regulators are starting to to kind of click that synthetic DNA is a safer DNA molecule than than that of the incumbent plasma DNA.

15:25 Efficiency and speed remains a real driver for client conversion, and essentially, the fact that we don't need to have a master cell bank and that we can make our synthetic DNA much more quickly than plasma DNA drives customers to us where they simply cannot wait the six to nine months required for GMP plasmid. And finally, the sequence flexibility that the platform confers means that we can deal with the really complex sequences that some of our clients' projects have and enable them to progress towards clinic much more quickly than they could with plasma DNA.

15:58 We talked about the changing competitive landscape, and so we've decided to think how we position ourselves against some of these emerging players in this space. I would mention that some of the emerging players in the synthetic DNA space are primarily focusing on mRNA applications, so that's probably a primary differentiator. We can feed our product into a range of different, downstream applications, including viral vectors, DNA vaccines, or gene editing. So on the top left hand side, I think a really important differentiator against all of our peers is the fact that we do not amplify plasma DNA.

16:29 So this really drives the quality of our product, but also allows us to have a significant reduction in the cost of goods associated with making a synthetic DNA. We've talked a lot about the the purity of the DNA that we offer, and we really believe that unlike some of these emergent players, our process can generate a downstream products of exceptional purity owing to the way that we make our our our DNA.

16:54 We're we're very proud of the fact that we make our enzymes internally. There are a number of reasons for that, but essentially, it allows us to control the call quality and also the cost of the manufacture of those enzymes. And also, we have proprietary enzymes used in our process to drive fidelity and to drive process ivity. And finally, you can see that our products can provide enhanced stability, and this allows homogeneity benefits independent of the application that that our DNA is being fed into. So, really, you know, we're keeping an eye on on the changing competitive landscape, and we remain bullish that we are really at the forefront and leading the synthetic DNA innovation. Thank you, Amy. So now we'll dive into some of the the commercial kind of trends and progress that we've made on that space as well.

17:43 So

17:48 the so this slide here kind of highlights the commercial highlights, of 2024 into 2025. So the client base has increased, to now well over 90 clients. And I think that kind of client, recruitment, I think, will accelerate as we invest further into our commercial infrastructure. Now, of course, it takes a little a little time for for the new team to become fully trained up and effective, etcetera, etcetera. But, you know, definitely towards the second half of the year and into 2026, we expect to to be attracting a lot a lot more new clients across the the different jurisdictions that we now have have a presence in. And so we we we see good things happening there already and and and some green shoots. Another very important point, of course, is repeat business. And there within our client base, we see over 25% of the client base is is repeat buying. I think within this young client base, this is pretty, impressive from from our perspective. You gotta bear in mind the sales cycles are are reasonably long.

18:48 And then when clients purchase, the evaluation cycles are reasonably long too. So already seeing a strong repeat kind of by within that client base that is growing rapidly as well, gives us, you know, a lot of, kind of confidence into the future as well. One important aspect on the repeat as well that we now are seeing more and more demands and requests for high quality grade DNA and and and GMP grade DNA coming through as well. And, of course, if you're thinking about revenue, acceleration, that's where the revenue acceleration really kinda comes through when you are, you know, getting that uplift into, the higher quality and the and the more lucrative kind of, grades, of product that we we sell. We also see the pipeline, growing nicely with new opportunities that will drive growth, into 2026.

19:36 Again, those are opportunities within the existing client base, but also opportunities with new clients that, you know new potential clients, I should say, that haven't signed up just yet, but we see see good, signs of of of progress there. And then what I'm really excited about is that engagement from pharma, you know, because that that kind of you know, pharma is inherently fairly conservative, and and and seeing pharma engage with synthetic DNA means that, you know, wider stream adoption of of synthetic synthetic DNA is coming through, and we're really enthused about, the potential that that brings, for us. And then as I mentioned, you know, in Asia as well, we see we see clear acceleration. So, you know, you can see, you know, GMP value, this is the PO values that we got from GMP. We're up fourfold this year. Of course, that has has a big impact on the average PO value as well. That was, up more than a 132% compared to last year as well. So we expect these trends to continue as we bring more clients into these higher grades, and and feel very enthused about what 2025 and particularly 2026, will bring, for the company.

20:42 This is a slide that was also presented last year. I thought it was useful to kind of, bring it back and and highlights, the kind of the go to market strategy and and that kind of the shifts that we are starting to see in that kind of entry point as well. As we mentioned last year, you know, we have, a lot of people, that want to evaluate, synthetic DNA at IUA stage, with off the shelf sequences and sometimes even custom sequences as well. You know, those kind of, evaluation studies are still going, but, you know, what we see where the shift is and whether, I guess, also where the commercial team is doing more kind of sales qualification around, the potential clients is that most of those clients already have programs lined up where they want to bring synthetic DNA into. So the product eval is really more like with the view of entry in that kind of, early to late preclinical stage, and we wanna move that entry point, as close as we can towards that that high quality grade GLP and tox grade demand that our clients will have and and get baked in into the into the workflows at that point in time.

21:48 I think there is also some some thought now to think about potentially entry at a at a later stage and particularly in the in the AAV market space. We believe that there's opportunity to potentially switch people at a very late late stage as well, given some of the the difficulties that people have. But on the one hand, the safety aspects of of the products, I mean, you know, some of the the leading AAV companies have suffered some patient deaths recently as well. And, you know, that's again, you know, opens up the the question around the safety aspect of the product and using a synthetic form where you can prevent incorporation of foreign DNA sequences into your viruses could be a significant change in in how the industry sees synthetic DNA for that application. But additionally, with AAV, the cost and the production costs are still a very significant talking point as well. And using synthetic DNA, being able to dose much less DNA into the the manufacture of an AAV, batch means that the cost comes down, of course, significantly as well.

22:49 So, you know, we think, you know, that there is opportunity given where the market is out of AAV in late stage, late clinical, or even commercial stage to to think about switching clients over at that point as well, which we are, of course, very excited about. So if we're thinking about the the drivers for success, the key near term drivers, of course, for us is to, you know, drive our client base into clinical contracts and and get more GMP and HQ contracts into into the business. And and those are, of course, significant revenue accelerators. We have a a clear commercial strategy in place to facilitate this. So on the one hand, we are now also driving lead generation through marketing, and you'll see the new website coming online, next week, as well as, of course, the the tools that we've put in place around that to to help us drive that lead gen through web based and and marketing based approaches.

23:48 But alongside that, of course, we're investing quite heavily in our BD activities as well, across the different jurisdiction and and make that more targeted and more qualified so that we are picking up the clients at the right stage with the financing behind that to drive that that program, into the clinic. We're also investing in the onboarding processes, trying to streamline this as much as possible. We are building, more capability to bring more projects on at the same time as well, as mentioned earlier. And I think for us, you know, seeing that kind of good amount of repeat business means that clients are satisfied with the product quality and the service that they're receiving from the company, and that's something that we wanna keep a very clear eye on, making sure that client satisfaction remains high and that we drive that kind of repeat business off the back of that.

24:37 Now these credibility drivers like the GMP license and the regulate regulatory approval and and and clinical usage in the in the different jurisdictions are are key drivers that will lower the burden to conversion, and and we, of course, keep a very clear focus on on making sure that that happens as well. So overall, you know, we we see some some good significant commercial momentum, and that that, of course, will underpin the growth trajectory that the the market is expecting from us and that we want to deliver against. If we now look at the kind of client base, this is a slide that is updated from last year, you'll see some differences for those who remember what it looked like year. I think in terms of the, kind of type of client that we have, the biotechs, of course, you know, form the the big chunk of our client base. Within that biotech base, we actually are seeing a little bit of a shift as well where if we look at the kind of smaller biotechs, they take a smaller chunk now of our client base compared to the bigger biotechs like the the biotechs of the world, etcetera, etcetera.

25:38 You know, we we are getting some some some good penetration within within those organizations as well as well as well as pharma where we can see that pharma becomes a more significant part of our kind of client base. The CDMO part is, again, where we are looking for expanding our sales channels and really, you know, using specific CDMOs who are very synergistic with with 4BASEBIO as ways to leverage sales and and drive commercial traction. And then you have the other pieces as well, academics and and startups, which form a a smaller part of our client base. If we look at the region, again, you can see some changes there as well. Last year, US was well over 50% of our client base, and you can see that's changing now with EU and UK taking up nearly 50% of of our client base. And then APAC, you can see a notable difference as well where we are now, you know, nearly at double digits. I suspect, you know, by the end of the year, we will be at double digits because we see a good amount of track traction within that that region.

26:42 And then finally, in terms of the kind of application base, of course, mRNA is still a very important section for us, but it's less dominant than it was last year. I think we were more closely to 65% last year. Whereas now you can see the different kind of application areas that we have been focusing on, be it gene editing, DNA vaccines, and particularly AAV. We can see some some good opportunities emerging in these different application areas. Now if we look at, how things are trending and how we can see, the company evolving from, you know, what was in 2022 sole research grade opportunities into kind of that clinical grade. You can see that in in terms of percentages, particularly in 2024, we made a big shift in terms of where the revenue was coming from.

27:33 This is PO value and won't necessarily line up with revenue recognized, but still you can see that in terms of GMP and HQ. We can see a good amount of uptake, in terms of value, in 2024. Now if you look at, of course, in terms of numbers of projects, most of our clients come to us initially with a a research grade project, and the the count in research grade projects is much higher compared to what we have in HQ and GMP. Now, of course, over time, we expect HQ and GMP to become also in count more significant compared to where we are now, that and ultimately will drive, revenue generation, going forward, an acceleration of revenue generation going forward. And then, of course, in the in terms of repeats, you can see as well that that's had a big uptake in 2024 in terms of the repeats that we saw within the client base as well, and that's a trend that we would expect to to continue as well into 2025 and 2026, in particular.

28:29 So overall, you know, we, have, some some good trends in terms of where the business is going, in terms of grade, in terms of counts, and in terms of repeat businesses. We, of course, have to focus on making sure that we continue those trends, accelerate client onboarding, make sure that we get the most efficient and valuable use of our clean rooms, and, of course, hire the BD team and and the the commercial support that we need to to drive commercial success. Now this slide, I think, is more of an overview slide in terms of where we sit in the AT and P manufacturing manufacturing value chain and and where opportunity lies for us as well outside of our core core focus. So if you look at the this slide, like, DNA clearly takes the center stage in in this kind of value chain.

29:17 All these modalities, whether it's cell therapy or AAVs or mRNA based therapies or vaccines, they need DNA and the manufacturing workflow. So, you know, we can kind of feed into all of those opportunities. The option for us, you know, there's, you know, of course, a template that we need. We we amplify a template, and, you know, there's opportunity for us to to partner with template providers who do de novo synthesis, you know, like, as you saw from Amy's slide, you know, there's these two balls, de novo synthesis and then amplification based, kind of technologies. And we think there's good opportunity to to partner with those DNA templates to, on the one hand, provide access to the IUO market or the high throughput I IUO market, I should say. But on the other hand, to kind of solidify workflows and solidify workflows and streamline turnaround times and and and and cost structures around our our our overall workflow.

30:18 Now if we look at it on the downstream side, there's two different types of downstream opportunities. On the one hand, you have the AT and T developers. We do not wanna be an AT and T developers, so that's something where we we just supply into really. So genome editing and DNA vaccines, you know, is something that, you know, we we wanna supply the the DNA materials into or the mRNA materials, but we we don't really want to become and take the the the clinical risk on on projects. When you look at the viral vector and mRNA opportunities, most AT and T developers will not manufacture these themselves, and they will outsource that to CDMOs. So there, that there, that becomes an opportunity for us again to to partner with mRNA CDMOs, overall vector CDMOs, and really feed into those sales channels and potentially also consider thinking about bringing some of those opportunities in house and go further down into the value value chain.

31:20 So, with that said, we'll now head to the financial overview, which will be led by David. Thanks, Haki. Good morning, everyone. So it's my job to try and make these slides exciting. I think I've probably failed with that. But I I guess there are two, real features to highlight. I think, really, financially, 2024 was a bit of a transitional year for us. Clearly, that's not the case operationally. You know, on the one hand, we've managed to, strongly improve our revenues, but, also, we have the milestone of MHRA certification. So that combination of things means there's been a lot of, activity here in, in 4BASEBIO, but, essentially, how it manifests in the financials is, as you might expect, that we continue to invest in the business, and we have, top line revenue.

32:13 I think the other main feature to highlight is, of course, the investment by Elevage and M and G, which came in in November 2024. We see this in two ways. On the one hand, it's it powers our future development, but also we see it as significant validation of the platform and the commercial opportunity that we're seeking to deliver here at 4BASEBIO. So then on to the financials. I guess the key features on looking at the on the left hand side of the income statement is where we see the revenue. We have, as always, some legacy revenue in there from the old Spanish business. So the core underlying revenue in terms of DNA and Hermes had doubled over the course of the year.

33:01 But you also see a significant investment in our overheads as we continue to build out our capabilities. The net effect of that, as you can see, is a fairly substantial increase in the loss for the year. That loss for the year has been funded in part by loans in the early part of the year from to invest, something that you'll be familiar with from from years gone by. And then once the funding came in from and M and G off of our balance sheet with that cash. Turning to the right hand side and on the cash flows, inevitably, this reflects the overall levels of increased activity in in terms of our in our operating expenditure and and investments.

33:48 So you can see net cash flows from operating activities has increased to 10.7 from 6.2 in the previous year. And alongside that, we also continue to invest in both our fixed asset base, but also intangibles. And notably, continued investment and development of our intellectual property portfolio, which we continue to do during the course of 2025 as well. The key feature of this cash flow is, as I'm sure everyone can appreciate, is shares issued and where we are in terms of financing inflows for the year. The net effect is that we have a net change in the year of 31,500,000 on cash resources, and we closed the year at 34,600,000 of cash on the balance sheet.

34:35 I think probably the final point to highlight here is how far is this cash gonna take us. We are pretty comfortable with where we are in terms of commercial activity, and we expect the cash runway well into 2027. In terms of the balance sheet, there's not a huge amount here to comment on. I suppose there are two points to highlight. Total assets on the left hand side, you can see a significant step change in that, inevitably driven by where we are in terms of cash balances. And on the right hand side, we have total equity and liabilities, but just to highlight where we are on on total liabilities and particularly particularly noncurrent noncurrent liabilities. So those financial liabilities there include funds received from to Invest. So those are loan amounts due for repayment in October 2028 to to Invest AG.

35:34 So looking forward to 2025, what can we expect? Well, first and foremost, a focus on revenues. So we're focused on driving our revenue growth significantly during the course of 2025 and particularly putting ourselves in a good position with the development of the commercial team for a focus on on the pipeline into 2026 in particular. As always, it's it's difficult to to expect to predict the timing of some of these revenues. Clearly, there's a there's a a cycle from customer acquisition through to the eventual dispatch and recognition of revenues. But it's fair to say that we we've we're happy with the start of the year, and we think we're in good shape to deliver on on that revenue growth that we're expecting.

36:23 We continue to strengthen all aspects of the business. So the the fact that we now have the additional funding, I suppose, has led us to recalibrate our thinking a little bit in terms of where we are in headcount and also the commercial manufacturing platform teams. So I think last year, we expected to go kinda flatten out around a 120. I think we are now aiming for around a 145 as we see opportunities across the board. Inevitably, there's a lot of investment to go into commercial. There's also some further investments in manufacturing. But, also, in terms of the platform, in terms of r and d, and development of various modalities, we continue to focus on that as a as a key objective of the business. And as you might expect, these activities will be funded through cash balances following the November 24 investment, and I think we're in pretty good shape to deliver on the objective during the course of 2025.

37:18 Thank you, David. So that kind of brings us nearly to the end of our presentation for today. So I'll just finish off with a summary and and and a bit of an outlook into the future. So for 2025, we have some key objectives and and deliverables we wanna head. So I think, obviously, we want to to build and strengthen our GMP order book. And and and in order to do that, we want to advance and accelerate the the lead generation with the marketing driven driven approaches that we we've identified, but, of course, expand the commercial footprint and the BD efforts, particularly in The US. You know, whilst there's some headwinds in The US, we also see a lot of opportunity in The US, and we wanna be able to make sure that we can capitalize on that. And having boots on the ground is is the way to do that as well as as, of course, capitalize on the momentum that we're seeing in APAC and and the partners that we're engaging there to to help us capitalize on that.

38:12 Alongside the commercial, momentum that we wanna build on, we wanna continue investing, investing in our capacity build out. I mentioned, that we want to, enhance our client onboarding capabilities into 2026. And, of course, you know, mRNA, we we do see as a as a great opportunity to feed into, in terms of downstream value, opportunities. So, you know, making small upgrades to our facility to to enable mRNA and and thinking about, you know, expanding into mRNA into 2026 is something that we we want to, take a good look at and and and deliver on. But, you know, alongside that, of course, we want to continue, developing our platforms and commercializing new DNA modalities whilst we're strengthening our IP position.

38:59 So I think all in all, we we feel that we're in a pretty good position here. Right? So the company has built some some really exciting, platforms, you know, both our DNA platform, but also our nonviral delivery platform. They're they're really coming to their own. And what we see is that market trends are are moving towards us. You know, synthetic DNA adoption of synthetic DNA is becoming more more and more prevalent. And we have the application specific DNA products that set us aside from from our competitors within that space and will allow us to become leaders, in in in this field. Alongside that, of course, you know, we also have the infrastructure. We have our licensing on our facilities, and we have the infrastructure and the capabilities to to cap capitalize on the trends that we see in the market and drive forward strong commercial growth into the near future that we can protect with our our patent portfolio, which is now moving into grant on on many of our patents. So we feel we're very well positioned to to drive forward into the future for success and accelerate our revenue generation.

40:07 And with that, I'll, end this talk, and thank you for your attention. Perfect, guys. That's great. If I may just, jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a, can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. Guys, you can see that we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning, and thank you to everyone on the call for their engagement. But, guys, at this point, if I may just hand over to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Shall we start? Other questions?

40:59 Okay. So, the first question was around circular DNA and circular RNA, sorry, and are kind of feeding into that space. I think, Amy, you probably have a few words to say about that. Yeah. Sure. I can take this one. So, I mean, like like the askers this question, we remain very excited about the prospects of circular RNA, and we're working with a growing number of clients that are utilizing our o p DNA molecule to enable their circular RNA therapeutic modalities. I would say watch this space, and we are you know, remain very, very keen on this on this application area. Good. So then the next question was around the the capital raise and a breakdown of allocation of capital between r and d manufacturing, scale up, and commercial efforts.

41:50 David, do you mind taking that? I can give you a rough overview of this. I I guess, as we mentioned, we're looking for a cash runway into 2027, and we expect this 40,000,000 to fund that along with growth in our overall revenues. So the split of this, it's went out up to a 100% because it's kind of done on the hoof. We have about a third going into a combination of capital expenditure in our in our commercial team, and that kind of splits roughly two thirds capital expenditure and one third in terms of our commercial. Alongside that, we have roughly around 30% going into our operating expenditures, so particularly the quality assurance and operating teams that we have here and also the facility here in The UK.

42:46 There's around 25% in terms of discretionary r and d spend, which as I highlighted on the previous slide is important to us, and we think there's huge future value in continuing to invest in that. And the balance is essentially going into a combination of transaction fees and contingencies. So there's a there's a a modest element of transaction fees, but there's also a a portion set aside for contingency depending on how things unfold. Good. Thank you, David. So the next question was more around the pricing of DNA and whether it held up over the last couple of years and whether there's some overcapacity as a result of COVID investment wave, which is then subsequently receding.

43:31 I mean, I'll I'll I'll take that question. So from from a synthetic point of view, like, we haven't really seen any kind of pricing pressure on onto our DNA offering. I suspect because there's very few players within that space, you know, we we we have, some protection against, price pressures. That said, of course, we compete against plasmid. And what we do see in the plasmid space that there has been more entrants, since 2021, 2022 into this market. But I think quality is a is a key driver within that space, and I think, you know, a lot of players, younger players within that space, probably are struggling to compete on, quality and and are using pricing as a way to to to get market share. However, how sustainable that is, is a big question mark because I think, you know, from our perspective, at least when we engage with our client, quality is a key driver in in in decision making processes, whereas pricing isn't necessarily the main driver. It's there, but I think the quality and and actually the the the the service provision around the delivery of the the the DNA products are the main drivers around this.

44:41 So, you know, definitely, there's some some headwinds in the in the kind of traditional CDMO space, and we see that in the market. And I mentioned this as well as as some of the the headwinds that we're seeing within the market. But, you know, from a synthetic point of view, we we do think we're we're fairly shielded from from that. Amy? Yeah. So I can take the next question, from Jonathan. He said last year, we presented a case study of a global pharma company working on an mRNA flu vaccine, and our timeline indicated a q four twenty four IND submission. So the question is, did this occur, and what is the latest on the project? So I'm pleased to say that that IND has been filed. That was filed earlier this year, so it slipped into 2025 at three reasons beyond our control. But we're very happy that this client has filed their IND and that we're now in front of the FDA as a regulator.

45:31 With respect to next steps, we're actively working on a new project with that same tier one pharma client. Yeah. So the next question was more around the share of plasmid versus synthetic DNA in the different geographical markets. I mean, to be fair, we we don't really have a clear view on this. Right? So synthetic DNA is is still at its early stages of of conversion. You know? So I suspect our market share is still, you know, single digit kind of percentages and compared to the plasma DNA at this point of time. But what we are seeing is a significant, you know, kind of change in sentiment, in the different types of organizations and particularly in pharma as well that towards synthetic DNA. And I think it's driven really by the fact that, you know, if you want to hit certain time timelines in manufacturing of of new drugs, whether that's a seasonal seasonal vaccine or whether that's a, kind of other therapeutic, people need products rapidly at high quality. And in many of those cases, plasma DNA simply isn't the right modality for that. So I think that's kind of where where we're seeing big trends and shifts in trends towards synthetic DNA and and where we feel that we're we're well positioned to to to ride that kind of wave of synthetic given the position we currently have within the space.

46:51 Okay. So in terms of the split of the headcount across r and d manufacturing and and commercial teams and how this is expected to evolve over the next one to two years. So, I mean, Amy, you wanna give an overview of the current split, to start off with? Yeah. Absolutely, Cam. So I think over the last twelve to eighteen months, the majority of our workforce is now directly or indirectly related to our commercial development. So this may mean our BD and our sales teams, our marketing teams. It could also mean the client onboarding teams that Heikki previously mentioned who are responsible for onboarding a client at research grade and providing some material for their initial evaluations. And then, of course, we've had a lot of growth in both of both our quality teams and our manufacturing teams ahead of our kind of GMP certification and the maintenance of a GMP certified facility.

47:46 With respect to growth over the next one to two years, I mean, I can comment and then maybe David can add can add his commentary as well. But I think that with respect to kind of r and d and platform development, we're probably at a a fairly fixed head point of this at this point, And really, the growth will remain in in the teams involved with client projects and manufacturing as demand increases in addition to expanding our commercial efforts both here and across different geographies. Yeah. I think that's right. So I I think we put out in the previous slide that we we think we're gonna land around a 145, and I think that's that is a steady state. We don't really see much growth from there, and that focus is really on and to the extent there's any growth in those numbers, that's really around our focus on commercial activities. So we see the investment going into the commercial teams and the back office supporting those commercial teams, such as project management, onboarding teams, and what have you.

48:43 And so as Amy's mentioned, we we've already seen a transition over the last couple of years in in in the balance of our r and d and application teams on the one hand, which have remained relatively static, and then the focus particularly on our manufacturing and commercial teams, which is what's really driving the growth. Perfect. Guys, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in for investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended. But, Heikki, perhaps before now, just really looking to redirect 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 just to wrap up with, that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. So just wanna thank everybody who who dialed in. And and as you mentioned, we'd be very grateful if you fill in the the feedback form. It it means a lot to us.

49:38 As you can tell probably from the presentation, we're very enthused about the the future. The future is synthetic, and we are believing, very strongly that we are there to to lead that wave, into, the future. Thank you very much for your attention. Perfect. Hi, Keith. That's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this morning. 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 really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll 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.