Aptamer Group (LSE:APTA) — Interim Results

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the APTAMER GROUP PLC results investor presentation. Throughout the recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted anytime by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received in the meeting itself. However, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll.

0:27 I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Aaron Tully. Good afternoon to you, sir. Good afternoon, and welcome to APTAMER GROUP's half year results for the six months to December 24. So we'll we'll kick off the presentation by doing a quick introduction to the presenting team, and the company, and then we'll take a look at the financials before digging into the operational update and taking some questions. So please feel free to submit some nice and easy questions as we as we go along. So a quick introduction to me. So I'm the cofounder and CEO of APTAMER GROUP. I've got a PhD in structural biology and biophysics, and I founded the company in 2008 when I realized there was a scientific and commercial opportunity in the technology platform. I've run the day to day activities of the company for the past twelve years. Essentially, the company was an early promoter of of Optima or APTAMER Technologies, a commercial offer offering.

1:20 And my role broadly has been the translation of science from bench to market ready, positioning the company for our AIM listing which took place in December 2021.

1:32 Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Andrew Rappson, CFO of APTAMER GROUP. I have over twenty years experience now as a chartered accountant. I joined APTAMER in August 22 and took on the role as CFO in August 23. And I've worked in the AIM environment now for the last ten years.

1:55 So what what is APTAMER GROUP? So we're a biotechnology company headquartered in York in the North Of England. And we we have a proprietary platform for the discovery of high value molecules called optimus, which are innovative, cost effective alternatives to traditional antibodies. So our business model is essentially around solving high value complex problems for pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies on a fee for service basis. Then we essentially license that technology for commercial exploitation. On that basis, we try to retain intellectual property rights wherever possible. And the the objective really is to generate more and more revenue from a passive income stream over time. So building this critical mass, on licensable products is a key strategy that runs in parallel to generating fee for service revenues.

2:47 So in order to do this, we focus in three key areas. So custom services where we support research tools, developing molecules that support research, quality control reagents, and bioprocessing solutions. We also develop reagents that can be used in diagnostic applications such as the reagents used in COVID tests and so on. And we also work in therapeutic areas developing molecules that can be used as delivery systems or molecules that support drug development processes for big pharma. So as a company, we have a global customer base, which includes 75% of the world's top 20 pharma companies and pretty much all of the top 10 companies. And we're recognized as a global player in a in a fast growing space forecasted to grow into a multibillion dollar industry over the next decade with annual growth rates estimated to be anywhere between around 2028%.

3:41 So this offers significant potential upside for investors.

3:47 So we have two commercially trading platforms. So one platform is based on DNA or RNA molecules, which is at the the top left hand side of the slide. And the second, which has been more recently launched, runs off a molecular scaffold that is essentially a hybrid of DNA and proteins, making these molecules more like a peptide, which essentially combines the benefits of an antibody and an optima. So using these these two platforms, we create these potentially high valuable molecules that bind specifically to targets with high affinity and are highly specific and serve as alternatives to antibodies. As a company, we've got a rich IP portfolio around 30 patents, and we've got several others that are currently being drafted. So there there's many technical advantages to this platform over antibodies such as optimists are faster to discover. They're smaller. They're more stable.

4:42 They're easier to produce once you have a binder. They offer essentially a lower cost, more scalable manufacturing solution. And also they're animal free, which is which is always good wherever possible. So because our our platform is in vitro, which means it it runs off essentially science done in test tubes and not based on animals, we can very precisely tailor the discovery process to generate binders for specific applications, such as rapidly discovering molecules that can serve as delivery vehicles for therapeutic applications like liver delivery tools or discovering molecules that serve as the main component in diagnostic applications, such as things like Alzheimer's tests or COVID tests.

5:25 So a good way really to think of the platform is a next generation solution designed to meet the current needs of pharma partners, giving them access to rapid discovery services with the final product having strong competitive advantages over existing platforms such as antibodies. This is why we have such a strong and growing interest in the services that we provide. So I'll pass on now to Andrew who will go through the finances for the past period. Thanks Aaron. We can just move on to the next slide. And I'll move on to the income statement. There we go. So if we look at the income statement firstly, revenue for the half year was naught 700,000.

6:14 That's an improvement over the naught 300,000 we'd reported in the in the prior period. We continued the rebuild of revenue and started the period with a more significant sales pipeline this time than we had in the previous period, and that allowed for the revenue growth versus versus last year. Pleasingly, the the revenue growth was sufficient to produce a gross profit of naught 400,000, a 56% gross margin to contribute towards overheads coverage. We had a number of contracts that progressed well during the period, resulting in us delivering working binders to customers for testing, and then potentially downstream licensing. We had a strong finish to the period in contract closing, and we've taken 500,000 of contract orders through to h two for FY '25.

7:01 And on that note, there's two key areas really that impact conversion of of the the order book to revenue, and it's worth explaining or just mentioning those briefly. Firstly, the likelihood that we'll be scientifically successful and thereby be able to complete the contract. Typically, we achieve circa 60 to 70% conversion of sales contract value to revenue. We refer to this as scientific attrition. And the second key area is understanding when target material will be delivered by the customer for us to begin work. It's not unusual for us to wait maybe six months for target materials to be manufactured and delivered to us for us to be able to raise an APTAMER against it. It's only then when we start working on the target material in the lab that we can start recognizing revenue.

7:47 So hopefully that helps to explain a little bit sometimes how we have a period of time between sales pipeline closing and then ultimately recognizing as revenue. Further to the order book, pleasingly, we've got 5,100,000 of potential deals that are currently working through the sales pipeline, and 3,200,000 of that is considered to be an advanced stage of negotiation now, where we've issued a proposal to the customer. We're either working through the proposal queries or we're working through the contracting process. Again, these stages of the pipeline can take little time to complete. As much as possible, we aim to retain the IP for future downstream commercialization of APTAMERs that we develop for customers. And this often means the contracting process becomes more involved than what you might typically expect. I mean, the benefits then from working through those IP discussions being the potential to generate future licensing revenues, which is ultimately the strategy that we've adopted, and it's pleasing to see the fruits of this in the period as the number of licensing opportunities has grown.

8:55 If we look at the admin expenses, reduced to 1,500,000 from 1,700,000 in the prior period. This reduction is a result of a leaner senior leadership cost base, and a further reduction in headcount from 34 at the end of June to 28 now at the end of December. We'll continue to monitor their operating costs, and have managed to reduce our overall operating cost to £3,000,000 per annum during this period. And like I say, most of this reduction is around the senior leadership changes, but that hasn't affected the scientific capabilities within the company. Next line then is the other operating income, which has jumped up in this period. There's two income streams in there. There's a grant income from partnering on a European EuroStar project, where we successfully delivered Optima binders for use in medical devices to detect placental disease.

9:50 And the other element in there is rental income. So we reported in the prior period that we sublet parts of the office space, which was part of our efforts to reduce our operational footprint, and we're seeing the benefits of that rental income with a full half year period reported here. Ultimately then, the adjusted EBITDA loss was 1,100,000 for the period versus 1,800,000 for the prior period, which is mostly a result of the improved pipeline and resultant revenues generated. If we look then at the cash flow, we can see that the net cash flow from operations improved to 1,300,000 versus 1,800,000 for the prior period, due to a reduction in the cost base and improved gross profit. 149 ks outflow from operations was really driven by the EBITDA loss, the difference in the EBITDA loss being director fees that were paid in shares rather than cash, and so benefiting us here on the cash flow statement.

10:47 There's $3.39 ks reported as changes in working capital, and that reflects the increase in debtors that we saw at the period end. A significant amount of our revenue recognized through November and December, and they were coming from large pharma contracts, who typically contract to us through platforms like scientist.com and Science Exchange, where the payment terms are a net seventy five days. So we had to wait until after the period end, and we've collected those debtors then in January and February after the period end.

11:19 We then had an inflow of 2,600,000, which was a net proceeds from the placing in August 24. And we finished the period with a £2,000,000 cash balance. If we move on to the balance sheet. The net assets at the period end were 2,600,000, versus 0.9 at the end of June. The increase in net assets really a result of the August placing where we raised the 2,600,000 that we just mentioned. This increase in net assets can largely be seen in the cash balance of 2,000,000 there at the end of December, which increased from 0.9 at the end of June. The trade and other receivables increased by 500,000 to 900,000 at the period end. As I've just covered in the cash flow statement, this was driven by a large proportion of revenue occurring through November and December, and we've collected these debtors after the period end.

12:15 Also notably though, the tax receivable of 300,000,200,000 of that related to FY '24. And we've collected those R and D tax credits paid by HMRC to us in February just last month. And so there's 100,000 of that debt to them being accrued for the following period. Most of the developments on the balance sheet were largely similar to what we reported in the prior period. So that concludes the financial review. I'll now pass you back over to Aaron to take us through the operational review. Thank you, Andrew. Can we just pop on to the next slide, please?

12:59 Yeah. So just just as a brief reminder, we we refreshed and restructured the board in August 24. So as I've introduced myself, I'm the CEO, having founded the company with doctor David Bunker, who who's the the fellow in the middle there. Andrew's already introduced himself. So that leaves Adam, who's our non exec chair. So Adam's a registered pathologist and an expert in preclinical drug development. So you can imagine where Adam's interest is in the business. Adam worked for AstraZeneca for over a decade before setting up his own pathology consultancy service. Tim, is the second, financial expert we have on the board and has broad experience in the AI environment having been both CFO and a CEO in that context. And the the board just essentially restructured with a focus on streamlining APTAMER both financially and to renew the focus on developing and exploiting licensable assets, and essentially to structure the business from generating passive income from that strategy.

13:57 And I have to say it's been a pleasure working with this team. They're fully aligned, fully focused, and I I'd like to think that we're making really, really good strides in the right direction. We've built building steady progress. And I think it's it's worth pointing out that we're a very hands on and incentivized team. We're in contact daily and are completely focused on returning shareholder value. So if we do change the slide, please. So this is an update on the fee for service development. So over the the past six months, we've signed four agreements with top 20 pharma companies, mainly around critical reagents, which effectively would be used to support drug development activities within within pharma companies. We've extended a past successful contract with another top 20 pharma partner to essentially optimize an existing project in the bioprocessing space, which will be used going forward as part of their their their kind of efforts.

14:54 We've also signed several of the smaller deals with biopharma and biotechnology companies in a range of different areas. The the project, which is quite interesting with the unnamed genetics medicine partner, progressed to the next stage following customer validation of the binders, which will be used for drug delivery. So in short, they tested our optimists in their own labs and and demonstrated functionality. We've also successfully completed our project developing binders for noninvasive prenatal screening for placental diseases. So this this binder or binders can form the basis of a diagnostic kit, and we now have significant interest from top biotech companies who are evaluating the technology in their own labs with good success, I might add, with a view to licensing.

15:42 Another successfully delivered crop of projects is around enzyme modulation, which we haven't really discussed before. And it's relatively tricky to explain, but I'll I'll I'll have a go. The the best way to think about enzymes is their workhorses for processes used routinely in life sciences, and they can be used for manufacturing of materials or as part of kits used to diagnose diseases. So they're very versatile molecules. And generating binders that can modify or modulate enzyme function can essentially program these enzymes to work more efficiently and to have better performance characteristics in certain applications. So so here, we've generated a suite of binders that essentially offer performance advantages for enzymes used for things like next generation sequencing and gene synthesis.

16:30 So these products have been evaluated externally. They've been shown to work by external partners and have very high performance, and so licensing discussions are underway in several areas. And and finally, we have a pipeline update. So I think while while pipelines can generally be seen as nebulous concepts, our pipeline, in my opinion, should be thought of as a window to these high value opportunities, not just necessarily a tool to assess fee for service revenue. So movement in the pipeline, specifically accumulation of deals in negotiations, Andrew touched on, is therefore a measure of progress. It's a critical measure of progress, actually. As discussed at the last update, we've restructured the sales team to focus on pipeline build. And I can report that we've added around a million to the pipeline since the last report, and it now stands at approximately one point, sorry, about 5,100,000 with, importantly, 15 or so opportunities in late stage discussions.

17:29 Most of them, as as Andrew pointed out, currently under contract review or moving towards signature. So can we move on to the next slide, please? So this is this slide really exemplifies the the high value assets that have been driven from the platform. So I've got a brief update on each of these areas. So these are opportunities that have turned into three potentially high value IP based licensing opportunities. So if you if you remember the opportunity to review Unilever, this was where we developed binders that can be used to treat malodor or body odor by essentially silencing the bacteria that live in the armpit from making bad smells. This obviously has huge transformational potential for the company. So in terms of an update, we've extended the contract in September 24.

18:18 Skin testing was initiated, which is the next phase of development in December 24. And we've we've shown the the optimists are stable over forty eight hours in skin samples, which is a great kind of time point for for from a deodorizing point of view. So, essentially, all the work is complete from our side, and we're currently waiting for the lab tests now at Unilever. So the project is currently under is working. It's on its way through their system. One one update here is and you can hear it from from from me here first. We're we're now working on our second contract with Unilever on a separate project. We're currently negotiating legals on, and I I I do look forward to updating you all on that in due course. So secondly, move on to neurobio.

19:05 So if you remember, this was around developing a diagnostic test for detecting early stage Alzheimer's, potentially ten to twenty years earlier than symptoms occur. So I'm I'm pleased here to report that our binders have now been validated in clinical samples to the highest level of validation possible, and we're now working, led by our partner company, NeuroBio and Baroness Greenfield, on a larger clinical study to validate the diagnostics as we speak. So internally, we've demonstrated successfully the first iteration of an immunoassay, which is designed to work on the type of clinical analyzers that are installed in most hospitals and test centers. The idea here is to work on a format that will obviously have the most market traction and penetration possible when developed and launched as a product.

19:52 I'm obviously looking forward to updating on that as progress unfolds. And then lastly, we come to the liver fibrosis. So this is an area where we're looking at using our technology for delivering drugs to specific cells. And one of the main challenges in drug development is is is that, in essence, delivering molecules very selectively to certain tissue types. And we focused here on fibrotic tissue and liver in particular to address an unmet need and essentially align our platform with current requirements in the in the drug discovery space. So I'm pleased here to update that the deal signed with AstraZeneca in July 24 has been successful scientifically with the in vitro, which is essentially the lab based portion of the work being complete.

20:40 And this links through to our in house data based on the delivery of s a siRNA molecules to the same cell type. And this time we've delivered we we've essentially coupled siRNA molecules that have the capability to silence molecules associated with fibrosis. And we've demonstrated that we can deliver those to the liver cells selectively. And these essentially show promise in reversing markers of fibrosis. So this when you combine with the recent success with the genetics medicines company, which was another delivery project that we've had externally validated, this gives us lots of confidence that we should now progress to what's called a pivotal animal study, which is where we would demonstrate the functionality in an animal model.

21:28 And this will essentially then give us the data to enable discussions to move towards more therapeutic type deals that you're used to seeing with companies that are engaging in this type of work with large pharma. So if we could just move on to the next slide, please. So as previously discussed, the business model is to generate fee for service revenue. So one of the the the important things to note here is this increased number of licensing opportunities. So the general the general model here is to is to do fee for service work and have that turn into

22:08 IP based licensing opportunities that can underpin essentially the cost base of the company. So on the last slide, I discussed at length these three prime assets that sit that sat alongside a smaller licensing opportunity in critical reagents, which is why the number is four, and not three. I'm pleased to report that since the last time we gave an update, we've now completed development of several other assets and started commercial discussions regarding their licensing. And I've touched on these earlier on previous slides. So three assets in

22:40 enzyme modulation. There's OPTIMA's for early stage fetal diagnostics, and two additional assets in the delivery space. The the important thing to note here is the expansion of the licensing opportunities over the past six months from four to 10. And this brings us closer to tipping the balance towards generating some form or generating passive income to supplement our fee for revenue stream. So in my mind, this is a portfolio based play with validated technologies, essentially waiting in line for negotiated licensing deals.

23:14 So if you look at the type of deals that we're we're, you know, that we're presenting here, any one of these could potentially be transformational to the business given our 3,000,000 cost base. Now I'd love to be able to give more clarity on the exact timelines for all of these, but that's obviously very challenging to do. But what I what I will say and and potentially go out on the limb is that we expect some of these to materialize before the year end. But if they don't and it takes a month or so extra, that's not necessarily to be seen as a bad thing because it it it literally makes no sense for the long term growth of the business to take a poor deal to force these agreements into a particular reporting period, and I personally don't think it's in the best interest of of the shareholders to do that.

24:02 So if we can move on to the next slide, please.

24:08 So this is really just a wrap up. And in summary, I'd like to leave you all with four key take home messages. So this is a platform that we've developed for growth. And the platform targets a $210,000,000,000 market for affinity ligands. We have the foundations, and we've got the relationships with all of the top 10 pharma companies, 75% of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies demonstrating the need. We're moving these through to, working products and through to licensing negotiated deals, and we've developed several additional assets, leading to six more licensing opportunities in our licensing pipeline. And we're really focused on the business models to secure IP and leverage these lucrative these potentially lucrative IP based licensing deals.

24:58 So the the board and the management team are working really hard to deliver these opportunities in news flow, and we look forward to updating shareholders as soon as possible with exciting news and more updates. So that essentially concludes the formal part of the presentation, and we will now move on to any questions that you may have.

25:18 Aaron, Andrew, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions, and you can do so just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. We have received a number of questions, and I want to start the q and a session off with this one here, which reads as follows. How do you see the company dealing with the added volume of work? Should loop to contracts materialize from your visit to The US? Yeah. That's a that's a good question. I don't mind taking that one. As you say, our visit to The US was extremely productive. We've met with existing customers. We met with potential partners, and we've essentially discussed everything from the potential application of the technology in proteomics based platforms all the way through to radioligand discovery and delivery.

26:06 So, essentially, we have the capability and capacity within our current team to deliver our current sales pipeline and any additional opportunities that may have come from that trip to The US. That's great. Thank you very much, Aaron. Turning to the next question. Given the strong opportunities of £5,100,000, does APTAMER have enough funding to deliver the potential revenue from this pipeline? I'll take that one, Aaron. In a word, yes. We think think we do have enough funding. The timing, as I as I mentioned when I was talking through this, the timing of the pipeline conversion is is hard for us to predict, and and contracts do take time to negotiate, particularly where we look to retain the IP. But as Aaron touched on, that's where we see the the value here in the business. So as much as possible, we'll continue to look to retain that IP.

27:01 The pleasing thing about that 5,100,000 pipeline is that 3,200,000 of it is advanced stage. So we're hopeful of of conversion of a of an element of that over the coming months. And the company has sufficient funding to allow that bit of the pipeline to be converted, and we'll we'll we'll look to do so. And any of that conversion then will just further extend the runway that we've got. And as I mentioned, you know, we've got £2,000,000 in the in the bank at the end of February, so we've got a good runway from from where we stand today. That's great. Thank you, Andrew. The next question here. Why is there a significant time frame between contract signing and the start of revenue recognition and cash flows? Do you want me to I don't mind taking that one. Yeah.

27:50 It it's generally down to the complex nature of the opportunities. So in in some situations, you can have several weeks of technical in-depth technical conversation with the customers to fully understand the the the the problems that they have, develop a solution to them, and then you effectively have to build a pitch deck. You have to present to the technical stakeholders within the business the solution, and then it has to go through the buying chain internally. And that, with bigger companies, can can just take a bit of time to agree. On top of that, because we we we look for cash, upfront cash on some on on our deals, and we look to maintain to maximize value long term with the IP. That can then have some impact on conversations with legal with the legal teams within those businesses. So things can just be a little bit protracted because we're we're aiming to get the best deals we can for the company.

28:52 And I think I think that's that's probably as much as I can add to that. It's just we could we could do shorter time frames on the deals, but then we just we wouldn't have we wouldn't be having the and getting the best deal for the business. Thanks for that, Aaron. The next question is really around cash, and I'll ask how long is the cash runway on the current position? Okay. I'll go into that in a bit more detail. So as we as we've mentioned, there was 2,000,000 in cash at the end of the period, and we've still got 2,000,000 in in cash at the end of February. Having collected on those year end debtors and having collected the R and D tax credit. The cost base now is circa £3,000,000 per annum, so £250,000 a month. So on that, just on that basis, that £2,000,000 will last eight months, so that would take us out to October time, and that's assuming no revenue. And and clearly, we're not in a position of no revenue as we stand today. We took naught 500,000 of contracts through going through the lab into this into this current period. And we've got, particularly, about 3,200,000 of of late stage negotiation pipeline that we're currently working on closing.

30:04 We'd expect a healthy element of that to be closed during this during this period towards the end of this financial year. So so there's lots of opportunity there to extend well beyond the end of October. So so that that's all the numbers, I guess, and that's that's as much as we can say. But we're we're we're confident in the in the runway that we've got. We've got sufficient to see us to the end of October with no revenue, but clearly, we've got revenue coming through and that'll all add to extend that runway further. Understood. Thanks very much, Andrew. The next question here. Have you managed to hit your cost reduction target? Yes. So, yeah, we we touched on this.

30:50 We did a significant cost reduction in FY twenty four, where we took all the quick wins, really. And we've we've managed to take a few further reductions around the time of the placing, restructuring the senior leadership team, and reducing the headcount ever so slightly. So we're now down to about £3,000,000 per annum cost base. And, you know, that provides us a lean cost base. It reduces pressure on the cash reserves as we've just talked about, and and helps to to maximize the runway there. Any further cutting of the costs, I think, would be potentially compromising the the skills base within the business, but the structure that we've got now has not compromised our scientific capabilities and will allow us to deliver that sales pipeline that we're looking to convert.

31:45 Turning to the next question. Have you managed to find any further opportunities in the consumer good space for APTAMER use? Yes. In short, and as I kind of alluded to in the presentation previously, and that we are currently in negotiations for a second project with Unilever in that space. And I'll update or we will update in due course on that. Perfect. Next question here. How far progressed licensing discussions for the enzyme modulating optimists with big pharma? They're pretty, pretty, pretty well pretty well discussed. There are there are different different stages of of of advancement. So we have some where we were heads of kind of agreement stage where we're we're kind of working on fleshing out the the terms of the deals in terms of royalties and and upfront payments.

32:38 And then we have others. Another one is undergoing technical evaluation in in the labs with that particular person. We're meeting fairly soon with their business development team to discuss to discuss potential licensing arrangements. Thank you very much. Next question is really around growth and ask what your strategy is for the next eighteen months in terms of growth. Yeah. I think we're gonna we're gonna we've we've recently hired two new business development executives or business development managers, one of whom started last week. So we're just gonna really focus on growing the sales pipeline and converting the sales pipeline into into revenue essentially to to underpin the kind of cost base.

33:27 We'll also continue to focus on progressing the liver fibrosis projects, the Alzheimer's disease, and as far as we can have influence on it, the work with Unilever for the deodorant project. But also these enzyme modulation opportunities there, that's something that we're gonna look into into a bit more detail. So we think we found a a really sweet spot essentially for the for the platform to to operate. Thanks very much, Aaron. And next question here, how will APTAMER deliver shareholder value? I think by keep doing what we're doing, plugging away, keeping the cost base as low as possible, and focusing on revenue generation and and and switching to get more and more income from these licensing streams, which will essentially be a 100% margin.

34:18 And they'll they'll, you know, they'll the the more licensing revenue we get, the less dependent on fee for service revenue the company becomes. And, you know, this whole concept of passive income generation is really where we're gonna focus to try and underpin the business and get as close to kind of breakeven as we can with that licensing revenue. Perfect. We have we have another question here. When will the fibrotic liver asset be tested in an animal model? And is there intention for AstraZeneca to take this forward? And in the future, could AstraZeneca pay for this? That's a very good question. So the the lab based part of that work has been successful, and we've shown selective delivery of AstraZeneca's siRNA to the fibrotic liver, and we've demonstrated what's called knockdown in that tissue.

35:07 The intention really will always be to move this into what's called preclinical studies. So we we really need to demonstrate functionality of these molecules as a as a delivery vehicle in an animal model. So we're we're currently discussing with multiple centers the best models and the best animal systems to use in order to get the best, most accurate results at this preclinical stage. But once once we found the best partner, we'll be focused on moving forward and we'll announce that as as we as we go along. But we're also progressing this asset, the the asset with further in house studies. So as I mentioned in the presentation, we have found some siRNAs that demonstrate ability to reverse markers of fibrosis. So again, this is in line with our business model and interestingly, we retain the IP wholly on this asset.

35:59 So we've multiple large pharma partners really interested actually, and a few small biopharma companies globally in the fibrotic liver delivery vehicle. But we have a few steps to go as a company. We need to prove the system at a preclinical stage. We need to get some evidence in animal models that it's functional. And once we've done that, we'll be in a much stronger position as a company to negotiate higher value deals and better quality deals with these big pharma companies who are interested. That's great. Thank you very much, Aaron. You have answered a number of questions, so maybe time for just a couple more. This question here on the APTAMER platform. How does the APTAMER platform compare to traditional antibody solutions, and how is this differentiation helping you win market share?

36:48 How does it compare? Well, we we like to think that it's a better a better system. As with all platform technologies, it has pluses and minuses. APTAMERs and OPTIMAs will be better at certain applications and vice versa with antibodies. The the key really is to find those niche application areas where the platforms excel, which is why you have platform technologies like macrocyclic peptides and other recombinant antibody formats all finding their kind of niche area. For for example, there's ranges of what are considered to be undruggable targets where you're looking which are natural nucleic acid binding proteins or RNA binding molecules where small molecules and antibodies really struggle to have a druggable effect on those on those molecules. So if you if you think about APTAMER or OPTEMER as being nucleic acids, they obviously form they're obviously a better kind of natural molecule to to serve as as drug compounds to to activate or inactivate those targets.

37:57 That's great. Thanks very much. And just a final question on the same theme. How is the APTAMER platform developing in terms of overall interest and and or for forward demand for prospective clients? I I think it's developing really well. It's the I mean, we've got three platforms or two platforms. So we've got a a DNA based platform and an RNA based platform, and then we have this platform called Optima Plus, which is essentially the hybrid molecule between DNA and and peptides. So it essentially has a DNA backbone, and it has amino acid side chains, which is a very technical answer, but ultimately, it kind of bridges a gap somewhere between a nucleic acid, APTAMER, and an antibody. So when we're offering these services to different customers, there's obviously different application areas that each of the the kind of platforms that we have speaks to. And we we're seeing pretty good interest in them because of the benefits over antibodies.

38:58 One of the key areas of interest at the moment is looking at the molecules as potential delivery systems for things called radioligands radionuclides. So that's targeted radiotherapy delivery. And I'm fairly confident that there'll be some updates in that space in due course. Perfect. Aaron, Andrew, thanks very much for answering those questions from investors. Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today, we will publish out the responses on the investor meet company platform. And before redirecting investors for any other feedback, final thing to do, Aaron, if I could just ask you for a few closing comments, that'd be great. Yeah. I think I've I've spoke quite a lot today, so I'll keep it very short. But as always, I I appreciate people taking the time to listen. Thank everyone for their time and their ongoing support in the company.

39:43 And we just all we all look forward to kind of working hard and producing news flow to to give you all updates and give you updated progress on all the different areas we're working on. That's great. Aaron and Andrew, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session? I should now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but some should be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of management team of APTAMER GROUP PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.