Fusion Antibodies (LSE:FAB) — Company update

0:04 Good morning, and welcome to the FUSION ANTIBODIES PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and they can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on 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 during the meeting itself. However, the company can review your questions submitted today and publish responses, which is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Adrian Kincaid. Good

0:36 morning to you. Thank you very much, Alex. Thank you very much, everyone, for attending. Stephen and I will do our best to take you through the presentation. It's probably worth pointing out for anyone who doesn't already know that the financials that's for the the year ending 03/31/2025 are going through the audit process as you would expect. So we can't comment to him in any more depth than we've already said in the trading update on the financials themselves. So Steven will have an easier time of it today. But the company is going through a really exciting time, so we certainly wanted to expand on the points that we've put out in the trading update and explain more about what that means for the business going forward.

1:33 So much of the presentation today will be focused on on that side of things. So without any further ado, I will move us forward. There is, of course, the natural the usual disclaimer that I will take it that everybody has read. And for anybody who's not familiar with fusion antibodies, essentially, are a contract research organization or we sometimes prefer to call it collaborative research organization offering services to do with antibodies right the way across from their first being identified, in other words, discovery of the antibodies, making the best that they can be in what we would classify broadly as engineering them, so that's molecular biology to tweak the sequences and change the characteristics of the antibody themselves, and then supply.

2:26 And for us, supply is research quantities of antibodies for research purposes, so not to go into people. But we do develop stable cell lines, which can then be taken on through appropriately regulated manufacturing processes to produce the final antibody that goes into clinical trials, for example, and then that cell line becomes the production cell line if and when the the product is approved, for example, as a therapeutic. In addition to the therapeutics, which make up the vast majority of our client base and project areas, we are seeing much more traction particularly with diagnostics applications.

3:15 So we also do these these antibodies for diagnostic reasons, which changes the kind of things that people are interested and want to to see from the projects that we deliver. But it broadens our appeal in terms of the industry. It's not just therapeutics. It's increasingly being diagnostics as well. And in addition to that, there's even research antibody providers who have an interest in the kind of things that we can do. So as well as the integrated process going from discovery through engineering and into supply, we do allow clients to dip in to the different precise sort of sub projects that they they might want to to use. So it doesn't have to be the whole integrated process. Obviously, that's better for us. It's more work. It gives better for the client because it gives us that more collaborative approach and better results at the end of the day.

4:17 But we can allow, and we do a lot of smaller projects dipping in and doing one issue at a time. So I've mentioned diagnostics companies. Obviously, the therapeutics come in lots of different shapes and sizes. There's biotechs. There's large pharmaceutical companies. There's virtual companies who are just starting out. Research institutions might be interested in getting proof of principle on a on a particular target, a particular biological pathway, and they often spin out into other companies as well. Matched with that, academic center's much more focused on the educational side of things, but, again, a good source of spin outs, etcetera.

5:08 And then the final point on this slide that I'd like to point out is that it's not just humans. Obviously, human therapeutics are are very significant, but there's a huge industry also in veterinary medicine, particularly for companion animals. So I'll talk largely about things like humanization. We can do caninization, which makes antibodies suitable for dogs or felinization for cats as well. So the other things that we that we do and deliver for our our clients is essentially giving much less risk profiles, much reduced risk profile, and accelerate that project going through because we're ready to hit the ground running. We have an excellent team of scientists who really know what they're doing, being lots of experience developing these the processes that we use, which are very well documented

6:10 and very well adhered to so that we know that we can give them absolute best efforts rather than feeling our way as people might have to do for their first sort of projects. So we're experts ready to be brought to bear on anybody's objects in in the field of antibody discovery, engineering, or supply. We do use area of interest to a lot of people. We do use appropriate levels of AIML to help us in that, so we are very much at the cutting cutting edge and balance out the the advantages of machine learning and those rapid data manipulation techniques, but retain also the intuitive expertise that is built up over a lifetime of dealing with antibodies and getting the best possible antibody for the job at hand, be it therapeutic, diagnostic or a research antibody.

7:12 Stephen, would you like to introduce yourself and just go through the financial position? Thanks, Adrian. So by way of introduction, my name is Stephen Smith. I am the Interim, CFO of FUSION ANTIBODIES. And as Adrian commented at the start of the presentation, we are currently going through our annual audit process, so are somewhat limited in what we can talk about today, namely what we've previously released in our trading update. So a very quick presentation today. We will be back, I think, August with a much more robust financial presentation. But for today, the highlights are unaudited revenues for fiscal twenty twenty five of $196,000 so a hair under $2,000,000 That compares with $1,140,000 for fiscal 'twenty four, a 71% increase on the previous financial year.

8:16 The equity fundraise that was announced on the March 18 raised approximately $1,170,000 before costs. The cash position at the end of March was $400,000 that compared with March 2024, where it was 1,200,000 We do have some timing issues that sort of largely explain the delta between the two years. So of our $1,170,000 raise, 570,000 of it actually came in after the year end. And also our initial FMI grant payment was also received after year end. So they are not reflected in the GBP 400,000 figure.

9:11 Again, a very short presentation, but we will be back with more when clear to do so after our audit. Adrian? Thank you, Steven. So anyone who's not familiar with the FMI grant, I will expand on that a little earlier, but there's RNSs around it already. It's a brilliantly constructed grant that is of tremendous value to to the business. And as as Steven indicated, that was the cash position there was without that initial grant payment. I can confirm. I we have confirmed that that payment is sitting in the bank now.

9:58 So coming back to what we do and the the technical side of things and how we position ourselves to recognize these revenues from all of our customers. What we're trying to do particularly is drive the growth of the discovery services. So if you look at the column of moss in shapes in in the center, essentially, that's the journey that an antibody discovery program or a typical one might go through starting with the blue ones and the scientific evaluation, the antigen design, etcetera. And then you get to the meaty part of actually identifying an antibody, which is the platform selection and the antibody screening. So that's the the bulk the blue parts of the discovery process, and then we go into development, which is the engineering and indeed the supply elements of what we've got. So the first thing to get across here is that if we can capture a project, if we can capture a client's interest in working us with us at the discovery stage, we can then hold on to them into the development stages. And that's really the fundamental principle behind the integrated antibody services, be that for therapeutics or or diagnostics.

11:17 So what we want to do really is give a real reason why people would want to work with FUSION, not just that we're really good at what we do. We can do the same things as other people, but we wanna give them a USP, a unique selling proposition that differentiates us from from other people. And that's where the engines, the discovery engines come in. So we have an AIM lab approach using AIML algorithms combined with our antibody display mechanism, the mammalian display platform, which is one half of Optimal. So there's mammalian display, which puts a a fully intact antibody onto the surface of mammalian cells, and we screen against that. And it's really a significant advantage from scientific reasons because you're looking for what you want as the end product.

12:18 You're searching for a fully intact antibody, and you can screen by actually binding your antigen to those antibodies. They stick the best ones stick to it. The ones that you're not interested don't stick, and then you separate them out physically. So the mammalian display capability is really important and differentiates us in doing that. We're not the only people that have mammalian display, but so far as I'm aware, we're the only people that offer it at the scale that we do. And by having that scale, it means that we can bring our Opti design of library of antibodies, sequences of antibodies to bear. And the Opti part is the second part that makes Optimal so important and attractive.

13:08 Now if we put the mammalian display parts aside, you can use the Opti sequences and the rationale behind how those antibodies that antibody library is put together in a different format which is known as phage display. Phage display can only handle fragments of antibodies. It's just not capable of presenting the fully intact antibody. You need mammalian cells to do that. But phage display is widely used. So we've taken the Opti part to make Opti phage for those people who want to discover fragments. So they're kind of our engines that we're developing to differentiate the business to give a real hook to clients in the discovery phase and then hope and expect to keep those through the engineering and supply phases of what we offer.

14:02 So it's really important for the development of the business. Now Optimal, both the Opti library and the mammalian display is our flagship platform. And part of the trading update, we announced or updated you on the latest position with regard to an agreement that we have with the National Cancer Institute, which is in The United States, where we have an agreement for them to do validation work on OPTIMAL essentially using it against some targets of their choice and agreed number of agreed targets. And they will use it in anger, and then we will work together to basically validate that process. The NCI, National Cancer Institute, is part of the National Institutes of Health in The US.

14:53 Really, we couldn't ask for a more prestigious, more knowledgeable, more expert partners to be working through this process on. They're very keen to not only generate antibodies for use in cancer therapies and diagnostics as well, but also they are very keen to publish to just talk about best practice. And so they're excellent partners provided, of course, the validation process works. So just as a reminder, the Opti library design really closely models the natural human immunome, the way human beings make antibodies.

15:39 And it was that really the the initial design that intrigued the NCI when combined with the mammalian display. The design in the Opti library gives us an absolutely enormous, mind blowing, diverse repertoire. So it's one with 45 zeros after after it, which would take quite a long time to write out. So we call it 10 to the 45. Now when we sample from that, we're doing libraries of a 100,000,000 to a billion different antibodies at any one time. So that would be 10 to the eight to 10 to the nine. So far as I'm aware, no one comes even 1% close to offering that scale of mammalian display as as we do.

16:35 So the mammalian display, it's presenting multiple copies of that fully intact antibody on the surface of a mammalian cell. And one of the other important things for that is that it pre filters for what's known as manufacturability or developability where the antibody is required to be made in mammalian cells. So if there is a problem with a sequence that means that it's more difficult to express, we're essentially filtering that out. So we're combining the discovery elements with the developability. Is it really going to be a a manufacturable product upfront? And the feelings that we've got, the market intelligence that we've got out there are fully supportive that that is seen as added value to clients looking to get particularly therapeutic antibodies.

17:27 Now the NCI have identified so this is screens that they've run-in their lab showing that they have identified a significant number of positive cells against the various targets that they've looked at. And FUSION have reproduced those findings, so we've got this confirmed in two labs that cells indeed are are positive. Now another thing that that demonstrates is that our technology, the Optimal technology platform, can be moved into an independent lab, somebody else's lab where it can be run and run successfully. And that demonstrates that we have the propensity here to license out our technology to other companies, pharma companies, for example, and it shows that it works in that way. So it can be licensed out. It can be run-in other labs. It's not just something that only we can do, and therefore, we represent a a limit in terms of capacity for using it. It can be made much more widely available.

18:32 We're not going to constrain the uptake and therefore the commercial value of this platform by only running it in house at FUSION. So where we're up to with the NCI is that FUSION are sequencing the DNA from those positive HIT cells and subcloning those and then resynthesizing fresh antibodies made new and independent of the producing cells that are encoded by that antibody by that DNA. So that's quite an involved process. It's we've got a good number of hits that we want to process through that. So it's going to take a bit of work, and that's one of the the reasons the main reasons why we did the the fundraise in in March.

19:18 So where we are up to is that we have now demonstrated binding for a resynthesized antibody from Optimal de novo. It's a new sequence. It's a new antibody that has come out of the Opti library in the mammalian display platform that makes Optimal, and it works. So resynthesize means that it's not to do with the cell, the peculiarities of the cell. It is the antibody that is causing this. So we know now that Optimal does work, which is a tremendous technological step forward. To convert that into a commercial step forward, we have to do some more work. So the next steps are to demonstrate how well OPTIMAL works.

20:08 So you've got a significant number of hits resulting from the NCI run screens. That's enough material, we believe, to demonstrate that it's how well OPTIMAL is working. So this phase that we're going through now is really important. It works. We wanna show how well it works and see how much it's gonna be worth to to other potential clients. So the hits have to be ranked. Example, antibodies resynthesized and their affinities, how well they stick to the target evaluated. We've got enough hits, so we're going to have population characteristics for OPTIMAL, and it's across different targets. So you've got different screens. It's not gonna be something that's fully target restricted.

20:55 So, again, the scope of the the NCI validation is working very much in our favor. Excellent partners to do it with really looking, keeping the end in mind, which is to make this commercially viable and attractive to big pharma, big biotechs, small biotechs. So what we're looking for out of that and hoping to achieve from that is actually a quite wide dynamic range of affinities. So we want really strong binders if we can get them down to actually, we do want fairly low affinity, relatively modest binders to the targets. And that shows the diversity of the the platform, the versatility of the platform to pull out antibodies of different affinities so that we can best match those to a wide range of client needs and the marketplace therefore becomes higher.

21:51 Now we still have in our back pocket our ramp technology, which is rational affinity maturation, which means that we can increase the affinity for hit molecules. So even if the the antibody that comes out of OPTIMAL is not is not the end product, we, of course, have our processes to then develop it, to engineer it into the best product that it can be. So this platform, this Optimal validation is obviously going to position, if it all works, Optimal as a fully commercial viable platform for our customers to use. It is also because of the way it goes together providing proprietary platforms for other significant commercial development as well.

22:45 So if I just demonstrate that, we'll try to explain that a little bit. With from the mammalian display side of things, that's a remarkable technique and capability in its own right. There are probably I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there are probably pharmaceutical companies who are going through a similar process that we've done in terms of designing what we consider to be a viable, well designed antibody repertoire. In other words, the Opti library. Pharma companies may well have their own version of that. What we can do is combine that with mammalian display and put that into a platform for them. So it doesn't have to be just our library that we can use, and we can change this. We can manipulate this. We can adapt it according to clients' needs. So it's highly applicable to a very wide range of antibody needs across the marketplace.

23:49 We're also doing further market research, find out how many cases that might be, and, of course, the validation process to generate the scientific data. We are dealing with scientists. They are our clients. We need to have the scientific rationale to bring those over over the line. So this process that we're going through also includes us refining our business models in plural, whether that's the full Optimal library, the mammalian display, standalone, whichever, processes best match, different client needs That can include or has the opportunity to include royalties and milestones, or it may be more sort of upfront fee generation processed biased.

24:36 So a lot of this work is ongoing now, and we are working towards a formal launch of Optimal as a service, obviously dependent on the results coming through this validation and demonstrating quite how well Optimal works. We know it works. Trying to find out how well it works in the next few months.

25:00 Optiphage, just a a short update on this, and it is an example of multitude multiple list of platforms that we're generating from the Optimum program. It uses the same design of libraries as Optimum, but it's packaged into that more standard sort of phage display format limiting to just fragments of the antibody. So you then have to stitch those fragments together in engineering approaches, which obviously we can do as well. Phage is widely used in the industry. If that's what's widely used, if that's what people are looking for, then we need to offer it so that we can hook them in. If they can see the benefits and are willing to pay a premium price for the premium Optimal service, we will upgrade them to that.

25:51 If they want to stick with phage, then we wanna be able to offer that to them. Now one of the difficulties that FUSION has has had is that we haven't had in house the ability to do phage, what they call phage panning, the actual discovery process of that. We did look at doing so, but it was going to cost us quite a lot of money to do building

26:16 alterations in order to accommodate the bacteria numbers that are required to do phage display whilst keeping that separate from when we're doing cell line development, for example, where we need to make sure that there's no bacterial presence at all. So rather than doing that and throwing that money at building, the FMI grant allows us with the FMI as a whole to actually set up phage panning or the FMI to set up phage panning capability in the Future Medicines Institute building just down the road in Belfast. Our library, the Opti library, can then be put into that phage display and screened. It's only us that can use that library, but the commonality of the of the panning at the FMI is gonna be extremely valuable to us. And, of course, we don't have to sink the money into it.

27:15 So it's also worth pointing out, and we have had a contract that we have announced about this, the Opti design can closely mimic the immunomes not only of the human, which, of course, was the original design for the Optimal Opti library, but also standard host animals. So we can do it again for rabbit, mouse, sheep, goat, dog, etcetera. Which means that if you want to discover antibodies which are in those formats to fit into preexisting platforms, which have anti whichever species antibody to do detection, you now no longer need to use animals to do that. And that's particularly of relevance where the EU directive listed here applies.

28:02 There's a legal requirement to reduce the use of animals as well as, of course, scientists not wanting to use animal experiments if they can avoid it anyway. And, again, no two libraries, same as with Optimal where we're sampling 10 to the nine from 10 to the 45. No two libraries are actually the same, so we can license this out multiple times without the successive licensees seeing a decrease in the value of of what they're licensing. We're not having to take hit molecules out and then passing on what's left to the next client. Each library is untouched by what's gone gone before. They are different libraries, and therefore, if anything, you get an added value.

28:50 So the first Optiphage contract was announced in April 24. The library is with the client, and they have an option on exclusivity of that library going forward. So moving track to some of the other things that we've announced over the past few months, grant funding. The FMI, I'm a big fan of this as you well, it's patently obvious. The FMI is a wonderful grant the way it's been written. It's multimillion grant initiative that was announced on the December 4. FUSION is only one of many partners, several partners that are involved in the in the FMI, but we do play a central part in that consortium.

29:36 Essentially, a lot of the consortium want to use antibodies. So having fusion in the center of that helps tremendously, and it helps us. So there's non dilutive funding of around £1,000,000, which enables FUSION to develop our own platforms. There is also access to around £5,000,000 worth of capital equipment within the Future Medicines Institute. We're using some of that equipment already, and it's allowing us to leapfrog where we were in the past and really take a step forward technology wise to the most modern techniques of doing some of the things that our clients are asking us to do.

30:25 And, of course, that capital is being met by the institute from the grant, so it's not a cost for the company to bear. There's also the access to the FMI laboratories. There's facilities down there, meeting rooms down there as well, as well as around 20 expert FMI staff covering various aspects of what we do. And because antibodies are so central to life sciences, future medicines, that expertise is really compatible with what FUSION are doing as well. And there will be a similar number of PhD students starting across the next few years also funded by the FMI. So tremendous advantages that the FMI bring to the region and also to FUSION ourselves.

31:15 Another grant that we've announced is what we call the DR5 grant. So DR5 stands for the excellently named death receptor five, which is a cancer target. Antibodies to this have been difficult to generate in the past. Some of them have needed to be conjugated to nanoparticles or other ways of making them bigger and stretch across a larger, area. Some are are made with by sticking various antibodies together in a more complex structure. On a project which we had done previously with QUB, we've identified antibody format which had the effect but without needing the added complexity.

32:02 And this grant allows us to take that antibody further forward. So we have that antibody. We know that that antibody is a really good starting point, and it works. FUSION are going to humanize the antibody. QUEENs are going to test that humanized antibody in various models to show that it works and has the desired effects in the cancer setting and then comes back to fusion to generate the stable cell line to take that forward so that it's ready for partnering in a preclinical, ready to go into the clinic manner. So the therapeutic antibody that we're going to be working on that we're developing will be co owned by FUSION ANTIBODIES PLC, and it's a really nice example of us being able to generate an asset that can be partnered downstream to pharma biotech company, but at the same time generating case study data to show show off some of our capabilities and use it in the marketing capability.

33:08 So feeding this into how we're seeing grants now and in the future, we will continue to seek grant funding to exemplify our technological advantages, show us in the best possible light. And where possible, if the if it's appropriate to that grant, produce add assets, antibodies that we can subsequently partner with commercial partners to generate significant, hopefully, significant revenues off the back of that. So the outlook, we've certainly had improved traction from our commercial activities. The diversification strategy, particularly with diagnostics, and the push that we've had there is working, and that's evidenced by the, 71% year on year growth that we've had between

34:02 sorry. That's there's an error in that slide. That is year on year growth between f y twenty four and f y twenty five. Sorry. Sorry. The slides seem to be moving around somewhat. It wasn't me. If I could move them back to that. The revenue revenue expectations for the FY twenty five have been met. And a colleague who monitors our sector not to do with that with FUSION, not FUSION PARTNER, but he made an excellent observation that if you're hitting your market expectations this year, which obviously FUSION did, you're exceeding market expectations, which is a very nice accolade for us.

34:58 We are working on improving our margins, which will hopefully be coming through. I'm not going to say any more about that at the moment, but it will take time for those to come through. And particularly as the grants help us for a period of time that they apply, that will also help the margins. There are the restrictions that we've had because of budget ary constraints on r and d activities have been eased because of the additional funding which

35:30 we need to do to help the validation process of Optimal going through. And we have also from that funding some additional resources for commercial activities positioning us hopefully for the launch of Optimal itself. Optimal also allows us significantly enhanced market awareness. So other clients out there, prospective clients out there, hear about Optimal and the the things that it can do. It opens doors for us, and we see synergies from that feeding into the other things that we offer as well. So it's not just about It's really helping us to move that forward. And then grant funding to support development of platforms, which is the FMI grant, and potential assets, in this case, the d r five asset with QUB is a really good step forward.

36:27 So antibodies are really, really important for therapeutics, diagnostics, and life science research in general. And being at the forefront of that, it's an excellent place for FUSION to be. The market does appear to be recovering. We've made a 71% increase in revenues f y twenty five versus f y twenty four, which is the correct comparison to be making. And it may be said that we are recovering our revenues more rapidly than the market itself appears to be recovering, but that bears testimony to the excellence of the team within FUSION and the offerings that we that we have to to bring to the market.

37:16 So the expansion into adjacent markets is ongoing. We've made really good progress. We're seeing increased revenues, particularly from the diagnostic sector in terms of that diversification. It does reduce our dependence on the VC funded sector and therefore reduces that significant volatility that we see with VC funded clients. Optimal also helps with that because it opens the door to the big pharma, bigger biotechs, the less volatile clients as well. So, again, it's reinforcing that strategy that we've already outlined. Positive development of Optimal pro platform through the validation with the NCI really does position this company in a very enviable way for establishing commercial relationships, driving those those revenues up, taking taking things forward.

38:13 It will take time. These things in science always do, particularly in therapeutic research, but we are in an extremely good position to deliver on that. And I'll leave you with a small teaser before we go to the questions in that there is more to come. I have a few more things up my sleeve than just my arms. So on that note, we'll draw a line there. Alex? That's fantastic, Adrian. Stephen, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, 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 our investor dashboard.

39:05 Adrian, Stephen, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And Adrian, if I may now hand back to you to chair the Q and A and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Okay. So thank you very much for people who pre submit the questions as well. It does help us to get our answers better prepared maybe. So I'll take us through some of those. So question one, you spoke about the remarkable opportunities for growth from the placing. Can you explain expand on what these are and why you think the share share price isn't reflecting the same optimism? In my opinion, the most exciting opportunity for growth is the Optimal platform, and it's one of the reasons why I joined the business myself. So it's really encouraging, really satisfying to see it being demonstrated to to know that it works.

40:09 As described earlier, we can see that that platform does work, but we are in that stage now, as I mentioned, that we need to demonstrate how well it works and that it produces superior benefits to our clients. That's what's gonna really make it commercially a premium product. This will give us a very strong USP for discussions with a wide variety of clients and prospective new clients, some of whom we've struggled to secure meetings with in the past. It's it isn't the only route for growth. After all, the 71% year on year that we've reported on was managed really without having Optima already, albeit that we were talking about it to some extent.

41:03 Next question was, what's the latest with the Optiphage project, and how are you trying to secure the license option with that client? So I covered much of this in the presentation, but the Optiphage project was run ahead of offering Optiphage as a full service. And in some ways, that exemplifies the point that I just made in the first question that we see benefits from Optimal by virtue of being able to speak to clients about these new technologies as they're coming through. And in this particular case, the client has a pre agreed evaluation time to decide whether they want to take that license on an exclusive basis or not. We haven't disclosed how long that period of time is, and I don't want to because I don't want other client potential clients for to be demanding the same sort of windows.

41:57 So deciding to go forward and going for the exclusivity is within the client's gift, although we will provide them with all the information and materials they need to make that decision. Next question was in an investor video accompanying trading update. You spoke of the excellent work in progress and tremendous sales pipeline. Can you tell us more about this and also clarify the slippage from last year? It sounds as if you were on track to exceed expectations if a smaller number of projects hadn't been delayed or ended early. Tell us more about this, the current position. So I believe that the 71% growth that we've reported on, albeit unaudited, in revenues demonstrates that work in progress and sales pipeline that I referred to in the in the video statement.

42:55 As we are running research projects in our business, there is always a risk of slippage for technical or scientific reasons. One of the projects that we are working on sadly proved to be a case in point where the science threw up, the biology threw up some surprises for our client. And they decided initially to pause, and then we understand to stop altogether that project. It's worth keeping in mind that what our clients are trying to attempt is some of the most challenging endeavors I've ever undertaken by mankind in my view, in that they're attempting to harness biology to combat disease. So we should expect from time to time that despite all the efforts that go into trying to avoid it, occasionally, does throw up a surprise result.

43:48 So it's not something that we can really do much more about than that. Had it not happened, then, yes, we could well have been ahead of of forecast. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're not. Next question was, are we planning to do any further fundraising before we become profitable? So we are hopeful that the company can achieve breakeven without raising further equity for working capital purposes. So, no, there are no plans for further fundraise. The board will always seek to do what it believes is the best interest in the best interest of shareholders.

44:37 And if there was a strategic rationale seeking further funds to accelerate growth, then that would be taken into consideration. The next question is really quite a lengthy one, so I'll try to paraphrase a little bit. Fusion antibodies held around 14 investor focused public engagement. I haven't checked that, so I'll take you at your word. Between mid twenty three and late twenty twenty four, which was welcome. However, there's been a noticeable drop off since December, apart from one scheduled investor meets company session, which I assume is this one. Whilst these sessions are RNS in advanced other investor content such as your helpful videos, platform updates, or q and a responses isn't very well publicized, k, either via reach or email notification to investors.

45:39 Why has visibility reduced in terms of interviews, showcases, and investor sessions and what happened, and what steps does the company plan to take to reengage and attract new investors in support of a proper market cap and liquidity in the marketplace? I did warn you. It's a long question, and that's the short version. It's good to know that the videos are of interest for for one and of use to investors. So thank you for that confirmation. We'll continue to work on them and provide them. We will look into further methods to drive more people to those videos as we build critical mass in the video library that's there. So we should expect that we will be doing more for that.

46:27 It would have been less rewarding if we only had one video and really drove people to it. We wanted more before we were really going to undertake those exercises. It's fair to say that we did make a decision not to proceed with some other investor presentations during that period in part due to budget constraints, but also due to perceived returns from those presentations. But we do look forward to providing further invite information to new and prospective investors through a range of activities and presentations in the future. So, hopefully, this questioner will agree that things have picked up again. Next question was, could you give us a sense of how the FMI and Innovate grants are likely to impact on margins for the company generate revenues directly from work with other companies within the FMI?

47:28 So the FMI grant is one that can impact on margins and what we what we can do because the work that we would do to develop our own platforms is within our control. We have those timelines that we need to work to other than our own. So we can now allocate what you might call spare resource to that grant funded project during the more sort of quiet times. And we can claim back on the grant for the cost, most notably, of course, is labor that we've incurred in doing that. So in that way, the FMI grant in particular will help us achieve improved margins for a period of time. The Innovate grant or the d r five grant, however, is being carefully laid out with a project plan which includes timelines that we have to meet. And, therefore, there's somewhat less flexibility in that project.

48:32 So we'll have to allocate resource to it, and we may not be able to delay that until resource is spent, but we'll do do our best to juggle, which is an inherent part of our business anyway. So whilst it will help with with margins, that's the d r five one. It's really the FMI grant, which is gonna be more significant grant in that regard. And another sort of accolade to the FMI grant really is remarkable in the way it's been written that it actually really does help us to make the most of the resources we've got. Next question was, can you provide an update on the contracts for Mammalian Display and the 10 to 30 fold expression increase that we experienced?

49:28 How are you marketing this to the client, and do you see this technology as suitable for licensing? So whilst we can't comment on the details of individual projects or clients, we continue to be optimistic about the mammalian display technology for applications other than antibodies. Obviously, we're focused primarily on antibodies, so this is a little bit of a a side issue. But its application to other proteins is significant, and, yes, it is suitable for licensing. Next question. Can you set out your vision for FUSION in two years' time? What does success look like for the board, and what needs to change from today to achieve that?

50:14 So we are really planning for success. The two year time frame is is a little bit arbitrary perhaps. We'll be looking to continue to grow revenues the way we've just reported on, improve margins, and further develop our USPs, which is a really significant part of what we're doing. Enabling those USPs enable a higher return for the work that we undertake premium services. This will likely manifest itself in terms of direct fees, in other words, for service, but also milestones and royalty potential in the fullness of time. They will take quite a few years probably to to to come through.

51:02 And the consequence of this will hopefully be profitable, cash generative business, which is gonna be the envy of those in the field. So that's what success looks like, at least to me. Question nine, are you targeting a licensing deal with NCI once the Optimal partnership is over or before? And can you tell us more about the discussions you're in with several partners who've expressed an interest in Optimal? When do you expect revenues for Optimal start to come online? So we can't discuss specifics for individual clients, including the NCI, but I can remind you that the arrangement an arrangement would need to be made if the NCI wish to continue using Optimal beyond the current agreement, which was a two year period.

51:53 It's not something that we're banking on, and we're certainly not dependent on that coming to pass. The more likely licensees, I would say, are the commercial organizations. And one of the reasons we went for NCI was because they weren't a commercial organization, so we weren't denying ourselves a commercial opportunity by partnering with them on the goodwill basis that we we did to get the get the thing going in the first place. So the the commercial organizations are expected to offer better valuations, and there's a lot more of them as well to go after. So it's a much more larger and richer sort of target set.

52:43 Next question was, can you set out the journey and your anticipated timeline to cash generation following the raise and reduce forecast and also explain the cash position at the time of the raise? So I think, Steven's already explained what we can in the presentation. And as mentioned earlier, our plan sees us through to being cash generative, without necessarily requiring a further raise. Hopefully, everything will go to plan. What is the current position with optimal patent protection, and when do you anticipate hearing if it is granted? So the patent applications are under examination in several territories, including The USA, Canada, Europe, and for the European patent office, that does include The UK, China, Japan, etcetera.

53:45 Clearly, we believe there is an extremely strong case for the patent to be granted in these territories, and we will update people as and when they are granted. So just switching over to the other ones. One more I think that we can squeeze in is can you tell us about the the pattern? So I just sorry. That's basically a a repeat of the last question in terms of the patents. So I think that's already answered. Yes. Adrian and Steven, thank you very much indeed for addressing all those questions for investors today. And, of course, the company can view all questions submitted today. I will publish those responses on the investment company platform.

54:36 But, Adrian, before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, could I please ask you for a few closing comments? Sure. So this period that we're going through now and finding out now that we know that Optimal works, quite how well it works, puts us exactly on plan and on track for where we want it to be. The financial figures, the revenues that we've reported on here, albeit unaudited, are exactly on track for where we said that we would be in the analyst forecast as well. So it's an excellent time for the business. We need to keep it on track, keep moving things forward. And if we can do that, which we fully expect to do, the future for FUSION is extremely bright.

55:28 And we're looking at step changes, not just incremental advancements. It's going to be a significant inflection coming up, I hope, for the business. Fantastic. Asia and Stephen, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and also that the board can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of FUSION ANTIBODIES PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.