Optibiotix Health (LSE:OPTI) — Investor update

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the OPTIBIOTIX HEALTH PLC investor update presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted any time via the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself due to the number of investors attending today's meeting. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via your investor meet company dashboard. I'd also like to remind you this presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Steven O'Hara, CEO of OPTIBIOTIX HEALTH PLC. Good afternoon, Steven.

0:47 Good afternoon, Paul, and good afternoon to all our investors and hopefully some new investors. So just to introduce myself, I'm the founder of OPTIBIOTIX and also the CEO. And today's presentation is really designed to update existing investors but also to set the scene for any new investors. And we're using a new platform on this occasion using IMC, so welcome feedback from investors on how it worked. So before we move on, I'll move my face off the screen because you've seen it many times before. And we'll move on to tell you a little bit about the promise of the human microbiome,

1:28 which is what OPTIBIOTIX is all about. If you are an investor, you should really look at this space whether you're investing in OPTIBIOTIX or not. It really is an exciting area and is seen as the future of healthcare. And why is that? If you look at this slide in front of you, on the left hand side there's a picture of a young lady and there's a picture of a tower block. That tower block is the number of cells in the human body. More importantly the black cells of the tower block are the number of human cells and the grey cells are the number of microbial cells. So immediately you can see there are more microbial cells than human cells. And why is that important? That's important because if you move across the sphere just by the young lady's left hand you can see the big sphere in the sense there's a dot. And the dot is the number of human genes and the sphere is the number of microbial genes.

2:25 So you have far more microbial genes than human genes. And this is important because if you are going to impact upon human physiology, you're going to impact upon metabolism, impact on a range of diseases ranging from autism to cancer to weight management, then you need to be able to manipulate those microbes, manipulate those the proportioned different bacteria, manipulate those genes and as a consequence their enzymes and proteins to have an effect. So that's the central premise behind everything around the microbiome. Changing those microbes and doing so changing their genes and changing their bioactors, they're short in fatty acids, their enzymes and their proteins, their impact upon health. A lot of the work initially came from work in animals, but more subsequently in humans. A lot more of the work is taking place in humans and we've been leading a lot of that work across the world. And we are seen as one of the key players in this particular space. But I'll just use a very quick example and this is an example of what I call this Gordon twins. So these are twins who are genetically identical but one's obese and one's lean.

3:31 Now what's particularly interesting, if you take the feces from an obese twin and give it to a mouse, that mouse goes fat. If you take the feces from a lean twin and give it to a fat mouse, that mouse goes thin or if it's a fat mouse or if it's lean it will stay thin. So this is a really exciting area of the microbiome because what it shows is that by transferring faeces you can transfer what is called a phenotype, you can transfer the effect. So typically it is very difficult to sell faeces, right? Although a number of companies aren't basing their business models around that. So what we've developed is different approaches to modify the microbiome. And in essence, there's two approaches. One is to add live organisms and where they create a health benefit, that's called a probiotic.

4:20 And the other is to add ingredients a chain of the microbes in the gut and on the skin to create a health benefit and they're called prebiotic. So you have two approaches, so keep those in mind as we go forward. And as I built the company, I decided not to build it on one platform but multiple platforms. So for example, subject in 2016, 2017, I bought some IP from Manchester University and also created a skin platform. I subsequently went on to become skin biotherapeutic. But we bought the IP, but then OPTIBIOTIX, created the team and put that on the stock market. And we've also, on the prebiotic side, rather than just create SlimBio, we created a whole range of other products and we'll come to those later in terms of sweepbiotics and what we call our microbiome modulators.

5:06 So that's sort of a very high level overview in terms of the microbiome. People don't buy the technology, don't buy the microbiome. What they buy is a health effect. And very simply, this particular slide just shows the areas of health that we're working in. So when you create a company, you want to look at those areas where you have a large unmet need. And the slide on the left hand side shows you the number of deaths caused worldwide by either communicable or non communicable diseases or by injuries. So, communicable diseases are infections and non communicable diseases are your lifestyle diseases. And so what you can see that over the last thirty years or so, that the number of deaths due to non chemical diseases, these are cancers, your heart disease, etc, have increased, whilst the number of disease due to infections have decreased. That may change, well that will change in 2020 and also in 2021.

6:02 But it gives you an insight in terms of the way disease patterns are going. You want to be in that space where everything is growing. And probably more importantly, the slide on the right hand side shows you those areas where you have the most problems, okay? So cardiovascular disease kills more people than any other disease. Second is cancer than respiratory diseases. So it's a big killer. That's with statins. Okay, so statins work, but they have a consequence in terms of side effects. As a consequence, they have poor tolerance. You have lots of deaths. We're working in a space, the microbiome, which is really, really exciting since the future of healthcare. But we're also working in a space where the impact of the technology that we're creating impacts upon those serious illnesses that cause deaths globally.

6:50 Okay? So moving on to the next slide. So what I just want to do here is summarize us as a company. This is very much a company snapshot. So we're developing products and commercialising products that are clinically proven by studies, are patented and they prevent and manage disease by changing the microbiome. We're selling products to food, supplement and pharma industries. Just to set the scene there, initially, we sell products in terms of food ingredients because they're the lower barriers to entry. Then we sell products in terms of supplements, so these are tablets or capsules because they have a higher barrier to entry. Then as you move up, then you wanna sell to pharma industry. So what you saw in the last year or so, a lot more companies like OPTIO, like Alpha Sigma are buying into our particular products and building and launching products containing our particular ingredients.

7:46 But the reason that's important is that as you go up that chain from food to supplement and to pharma, you get higher margins. It's higher margins but it's a larger barrier to entry because you have to prove by the scientific evidence so that people can sell into hospitals and sell into GPs and can sell into pharmacies. So that's the process we're following. Food, additional ingredients, supplements, then pharma. And our current products, we have three current products, our two major ones LPLGR, which is a probiotic that produces cholesterol and this is really an astounding product. We got some fabulous results with this particular product and we'll come to more of that later. SlimBiome summary, some great results in terms of how it impacts on hunger and food cravings and it really works in people to help them to manage their weight. And WellBiome is a really slim biome but delivered in a lower quantity so as a consequence it impacts upon the microbiome.

8:43 Then even more importantly we have a pipeline of products coming through. So these are called Sweetbiotics, which in its own right should be a company worth 50,000,016 million dollars It really is an innovative science and we'll come to that more later. The microbiome modulators, going back to what I said earlier, if you think the microbiome is important in the future of healthcare, you need to create a way of changing the microbiome, manipulating the microbiome, and that's what we've done. We've got microbiome modulators. And again, taking what I said earlier in terms of extending the pharma industries, we've got so much data now in terms of LPL, DLR probiotic, extended that into the pharma industry. And a natural extension of that, but far more complex is to set it as a live drug biotherapeutic.

9:29 Now, the other important point I'll bring out, we've got lots of patents. This is really unusual for this industry. And that does two things. It protects our commercial interest, but it also is a land grab of the microbiome space. So that in its own right is a really valuable asset because it stops other people from entering the space. And and finally, just in terms of the the model, what you want to do is create a model that the longer it goes on, the more the revenues grow. But as revenues grow, you don't want to, you know, increase your cost in line with your revenues. You don't get a an increase in profit. I built the the the company around what's called a scalable business model. So as we grow the business, all the investments is in the early stages in terms of the patterns, in terms of the in terms of the studies, we'll get more and more sales at a less and less relative cost. We'll be an increasing cost but not such a big increase.

10:26 And as you saw this year in the trading update, we'll get a reduction in terms of our overall cost and therefore greater opportunity to increase your profitability. And as I said earlier, we've built a number of products, and these are winning awards in terms of their science and also winning awards in terms of the products themselves across industry. We've got a big network of partners. Probably even more importantly, as you saw over the last couple of years, we changed our board We changed our executive team. And this will be it's an ongoing process because we're evolving quite quickly as a company with a different skill set. But what's important to me is that as these people have joined the board, a lot of them have invested into the into the company, whether that's our chairman, Neil, whether Sean Christie, whether it's all our executive team members, Steve Riley Fred and Mikhail, they've all invested in the company, which is a good sign for investors if your own team members invest in the business.

11:30 So just moving on to the next slide. Is just a I just want to remind people what we're trying to achieve here. Okay? This is what we're trying to achieve strategically. And so the the key thing here, if I go back to when I formed the business, we're entering a a space share which is an evolving space. So, you know, we didn't know things were gonna work out. So So I developed a strategy where we'd launch early products, our slim bio mail PLDL, which will lower risk, okay, which will get us early revenues. And then in parallel, we'd develop the more innovative products, your sweet biotics, microbiome modulators and the LP drug development. So this is not a single play. Now we, in essence, have five technology platforms here, okay?

12:17 And each one of those will deliver on revenues going forward. The first two, and that proves if you like, we can commercialize products, LIMBIOTIM and LPLDL are delivering now. Sweetbiotics, microbiome modulators and LPLDL, they are the future. And these are big, big opportunities. I mentioned already in terms of the IP And also just to reemphasize, we're just trying to create these multiple opportunities across multiple platforms. I try to avoid, and I'm investing myself, single at single technology platform companies. And as we go along this process, just touching back on what I said earlier. Now initially, sell a lot of ingredients as the intelligence side. We bring we develop the brand awareness of our of our technology.

13:05 And then we move then on to selling the products. Okay? The final products. The final products give you higher revenue, bigger margin. So you move up the value chain if you like to be kept from an ingredient to a final product solution. And the more you can make those final products pharmaceutical like products with clinical evidence based, with IP around them, then the higher the margins you will get. And finally, you know, you have to grow the business and you have to bring in experienced people who've got industry expertise, who've got a track record of growing sales. So the idea is we build the business, we develop it into two trading platforms, a prebiotic and a probiotic side, and we bring in industry leaders. So we've done that over the last year or so. It didn't really work out with Steve Prescott, but we will be doing that as we go forward in the weeks and months ahead. So lots of things going on in the background in terms of building the team for the next stage of our development.

14:00 And finally, just in terms of graphic, just want to bring out a couple of things in terms of the graphic. These are a couple of examples of companies that are in the the same arena. Okay? Which may be of interest to you. A couple of things to bring out. The first thing is that if you look at public and private, there's quite a number on on Nasdaq. If you look at the market cap, you tend to get higher market caps for those companies in this space that are on Nasdaq. The second thing I'd to bring out, number of patterns. Now we've got a relative large amount of patterns compared to a number of these companies that are in the same field. And many of these companies are pharmaceutical companies. 40 are quite exceptional, they have an awful lot of patents due to their acquisitions. But many these other companies who are developing therapeutic products have got less protection than we have. Okay? So we want to keep that in mind. And also to bring out now look at the amount of money that's been raised, by these companies and the fact that many of them are pre revenue. We've raised very little and, in fact, interest enough, we've raised less money than Skin Bio Therapeutics when the companies we started.

15:02 But we've got these five technology platforms with these products coming coming through, and we got to a stage where we're generating revenues while divisions are now profitable. So we think this is a a great opportunity. And just keep an eye on this company here, Experian. I suggest you look those up. So they're very similar to us in that they are a in some respects, okay, or similar to us, may be in the future. They're a company that has a a non statin cholesterol product. It's an an enzymic based solution, based similar to LPLDL. But whereas with LPLDL are probiotic developing the enzyme solution and presenting it with a probiotic, they develop and present the enzyme solution as a tablet. So and that's a big market cap and big revenues. But it's a really interesting company that we're speaking to. Another one to mention maybe is Proby. This is a typical probiotic company, not great in terms of number of patents. We have twice as many of those. They've raised over 70,000,000 plus.

15:57 They've got a decent market cap and decent revenues. But that's the idea of this slide and it just really taken from public information is just to give you a view in terms of other opportunities and what other people are doing, okay? And maybe an idea of where we're going in the future. So just moving on to the next slide. And so I just want to go through some of the products. I will start with the current products and I will move on to the next generation products. These are all following similar pattern. The first thing to bring out is that with SlimBiome we have an ingredient, we have our own product, go figure, we have a number of other products that are other people's brands. So for example, Holland and Barrel PLC. Slim Biome and also OPTIX And then we have a medical device and that's a theme you will see.

16:46 And it goes back to what I said earlier. What we're trying to develop is the ingredient. Sell a lot of ingredients first of all, establish yourself, then you sell products, either your own product and other people's products, and then you sell the the higher pharma products. And we're on that path. Okay? But currently, most of our you'll see later, I'll go to bit more detail. Most of our of our sales are the ingredient side, but you can see the path that we're following. And again, know, we're trying to build up the scientific evidence base because we're trying to have the patents in place because you can't really sell into pharma unless you have those in place. You're not talking of one study, you're talking about multiple studies by different groups to actually one study is interesting to pharma, two is pretty convincing, three gets you beyond just them talking and get you into deals.

17:35 And that's what we're trying to achieve over time. So good product, works well, Slim Biome, sold by HEALTH by PLC PLC launched their products in Australia, which is as part of the OPTIX HEALTH range, which is one of the Australia's number one weight management brand. They they launched that at the end of last year, and they are a great partner. They're really investing up to £500,000 in terms of marketing. That's grown very, very quickly. We can see that really working well across that part of the ward, extending to other territories as we go forward. Holmabat did well in a difficult environment last year in terms of lockdown, many shops being closed and footfall also dropping off. But you'll see as we go forward this year, extending range as they've already launched they've indicated on their website. So they have more and more products on their website incorporating SlimBiome.

18:32 And you see those coming through into the shops and online over the next couple of weeks. So really good opportunity with those two companies and more to follow. I won't go into any great detail, but go figure all the great detail in terms of Slimbion Medical. But it's important we extend Slimbion Medical beyond its current market. And you'll see more of that happening this year. And just to touch on the future plans. So we're looking to expand SlimBio as an ingredient into many more products. Remember that trend, moving more towards products, into cereals, where everyday products into bread, into yogurts, into protein crisps, snacks. We're also then looking to extend the product range and territories with existing partners. I've indicated what we see with some existing partners like Colton and Barrett and OPTIX HEALTH tend to do, but you see that happening with others. We need to have more retailers, particularly international retailers who sell swim by medical, that's very much on the agenda.

19:33 Then we just build our Snackwise and SnackSmart brands. So lots of things going on, lots of opportunities which are really starting to come through, slightly skewed a little bit last year, particularly with the second half of the year where because there were no exhibitions, we couldn't launch or our partners couldn't launch products, because of COVID, because, you know, pump companies were very concerned over the the the situation, many cut back on their balance sheet and didn't restock. So a difficult second half of the year, but really promising as we look at the company going forward. This is just the other product in terms of when the publications and I think most of you have seen that. If you haven't, there's a reference, you can look it up in your own time, but looking pretty good.

20:21 And if I come then to LPLDR, which is our second product, this really is an exciting product. It's a probiotic which we felt like a pharmaceutical strain and it's been shown to reduce total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and that's been published. We've now got two publications are out on that. We've got a third that is in press. And that really is quite an exciting publication. Remember what I said earlier in terms of you need to have one is interesting, two, stars to be convinced and three, you need to get the pharmaceutical partners across the line. So lots of things going on there but our new study that we published shortly, massive reductions not just in total cholesterol but in LDL cholesterol, bad cholesterol.

21:09 And this then puts it into a different category. This puts it to a category where you don't want to compare it to the statins, but of course, it hasn't got any of the side effects of statins. So really big opportunity. And also as I mentioned earlier, again, lots of patterns around this particular product. And just to reemphasize the trend, so you first fully sell the ingredient, then you create your own brand, then other partners come in and take that brand and use it in different ways. Good example being, Alpha Sigma, launched in in January last year, had really great sales initially. It sells into hospitals, into pharmacies, into GPs. Clearly, with COVID, it was, it was, impacted because its representatives couldn't go into pharmacies, couldn't go into hospitals because they're focused on COVID.

21:57 But their forecast for this year looked really, really, really good. And as you're well aware, on the right hand side, the green part, that's seed. What we'd also see, I wouldn't underestimate this, so VSL is one of the world's best known probiotic brands. We've been working with them for five years on this particular project and they're taking LPLDL and incorporating it into VSL three Cardio. It's an extension of an existing brand. They're such a well known brand, VSR, a bit like taking Coca Cola and adding something to Coca Cola. They are so well known in the industry. I'm not exaggerating that in terms of their but with the industry, their recognition. And we've got LPLDL within that. And you'll see that coming through in the probably the second quarter of this year in terms of a launch of a whole range of products around the world with OPTIL, who have the BSLTH PLC brand. And finally, I touched on this, we built up over the last couple of years all our data in terms of the LPLDL.

22:58 We built up our pharmaceutical approval processes. Now we're just finishing off in terms of publication of the studies. That will really be used to take forward our LPLDL as a drug biotherapeutic. And as people are well aware, I've brought in a consultant to explore the opportunity in that particular area, and he reported back and that is looking really, really quite exciting. And we'd anticipate some real movement on that, hopefully, this year in 2021. If not this year, be at the start of that of next year. But an awful lot of them have market interest in that particular product in terms of using LPLDL as a drug biotherapeutic. Moving on, so this is just a study and as I say, this is the published study and you'll see the new study coming out in the next month or so all being well.

23:54 What I just want to do now is just capture what we've been trying to achieve, which many investors have and understand but not all. And so what we've been trying to do is build up a company that has multiple platforms, okay? So not just a single platform. So what you have is our existing products, our SlimBiome and our LPLDL. Then we have our Sweetbiotics, we have our microbiome modulators and then we have, as I mentioned earlier, we have our skin biotherapeutics. So you have multiple shots at them and goals. And this is really important when I I I formed the company because, you know, I didn't know it was gonna work out. I want to protect investors' interest. On the downside to that is that I felt that out of these five, one or two would fail. Unfortunately, unfortunately for investors, they've all succeeded. Okay? And that all the process of taking them forward has succeeded. So it's meant we spent a lot of investment upfront in getting, first of all LPLDL and StimbioM to market and secondly building up the sweetbiotics and microbiome modulators and LPLDLTH Pred Biotherapeutic to position we can take it to market. So you've got something for now and something for the future. Because when many people look at a company and they base it on its either either on its its sales or on the the potential going forward. Okay?

25:17 So as I touched on earlier, a number of those companies had massive market capitalizations that was based on the potential of the the opportunity. What we've got here, if you've got something for now in terms of sales going forward that continue to grow, we've got something for the future in terms of sleepiotics and microbiome modulators and LPLTL as a drug by therapeutic. So lots of things going on. So multiple shots of goals with products for now and products coming through quickly in terms of the pipeline. I just want to go through some of those now because these are really exciting areas. Okay. So the first one is Sweetbartic which is really a it's unique, right? You'll see others that talk about different products but this is really unique.

26:02 And we know that because we've been around the world. We've spoken to the large corporates. We've spoken to the DuPont. We've spoken to Nestle's. We've spoken to the Kellogg's. We've spoken to the Coca Cola's and the Pepsi's and we know this is unique. And also as you file patents, it goes through a process of assessment and you know what's close to yours and what's not. So we know this is unique. That's probably the first point to get across. What we try to do is create a range of projects, initially started off with one but as we work with a number of partners around the world they have different needs. So just to be open, so if you're developing a product, let me give for example for a yogurt, then you're going to put your sweetbiotics into a yogurt that has other bacteria within it that can break it down. And whilst it's normally cold chain, you can't guarantee that cold chain will be sustained. So it breaks down or cause spoilage. You then have to develop a different type of product that's more resistant to bacteria within the daily products. The same if you look at beverage, so if you take Coca Cola, Pepsi, Fanta etc, they are very acidic. So if you put our sweetbiotics into those, the initial sweetbiotics, then they deposited because it was so acidic. So they had to create different types and make certain changes to it to develop our particular sweetbartics for that particular application.

27:27 So we've been working on that with a number of partners over the last two, in some cases three years. And what that means is that many of us, and you know that we've had a number of heads of terms, we've got a number of what are called open innovation agreements with partners. They say to us, well, you share with us what you've got, we'll take it, we'll sign an MTA, we've got a number of MTAs, or material transfer agreements with partners, we give you the product, you test it out and you help us then develop it to your application need. And I think this will be a central year for SweetBartics. I think you'll see hopefully, there's no guarantees of this, but I think you will see a number of our global partners that will be recognizable names to you coming through this year with Sweetbartix because the industry has really got a need for something which is a fibre and is sweet.

28:21 It's got no calories or we have to record low calories because some of the Sweetbiotics are broken down in the gut so they expand some calories and we've shown that they modify the microbiome. And the whole idea behind this is that on a product, let's take a Mars bar or KitKat rather than saying red for sugar and red for fibre, you'll say green for sugar and you'll say green for fibre because I have no sugar in it and I have high fibre. So this is a really big opportunity and I'm well aware of Cambridge Glycosciences who've now formed a company which is called Supplant and they raised $24,000,000 in a recent agreement. And if I look at what they've got and I look at where they are because we know them well, we are years ahead of them. So if they can raise $24,000,000, that gives you an indication of potential valuation of this, the Sweetbartix, it is alright. So this is a big opportunity with lots of things coming forward.

29:20 And I think the future is bright and the future is nearer than people imagine this particular area. So we're pretty pleased with this, the way this is going. So what is basically going forward? Then if you then go to the next area, which is our microbiome modulators. So going back to what I said earlier, you know, if you're going to change the microbiome then you need to be able to create products that can manipulate certain aspects of the microbiome to prevent, manage and treat disease. Now this in many respects was a product before its time two, three years or so ago because there wasn't an association between particular microbial groups and certain diseases. Now, you've got quite a strong association between

30:05 the microbiome and cancers, so metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes, brain disorders particularly autism and increasingly stress, anxiety which you know we're doing some work on and Parkinson's. A lot of the chronic respiratory diseases particularly cystic fibrosis, asthma and the allergic response and the skin diseases and the gut diseases. So as that association becomes clearer, the value of these particular products, microbiome modulators, which constructively enhance the microbiome to move the shift of microbial groups within the gut to target those particular diseases becomes more and more valuable. As I touched on earlier, what we've done is built a lot of IP around this particular space and that prevents others from the space. So we think this is a great opportunity.

30:59 We've got some really good core IP in this area that protects what we're doing. And we see this as behind Speedbartics but there's a lot of science in this area that has really come to before. Again, I think you'll probably see more on this, more announcements on this this year but more likely at the end of this year or the start of next year but certainly in terms of sweetbiotics more in the near to medium term. So again, quite exciting opportunity. I just want to go through a couple of things that need clarified in investors' minds because people think, well, you sign an agreement with your revenues. Okay?

31:43 But they don't understand, right? Our strategy was, we could take a different strategy. We could have built our team. We could have tried to manufacture our own products. And, for example, taking a forty pharma approach, but you can see with forty pharma, they've had to raise 180 plus million. So we've taken a partner model. What that means, we strike a deal with a partner to manufacture the product. Typically the ingredient on the product. They then have to work with other partners to identify them who are interested in taking on that particular agreement to actually formulate it into a product and that product could be a tablet, it could be a capsule, could be a sachet, could it be taking it and putting it into shakes, into bars, into bread, etc. So all that has to take place. And so those partners who are formulating have to go out and try to assess whether there's a market opportunity for it. They then have to take it to distributors.

32:39 And those distributors again have to take a market assessment. Those distributors will typically look at what the market need is and will often have to tweak things. So we'll have to tweak things the Indian market, have different flavors to the the The UK or European market, etcetera. And if you take, for example, our strategy, not to go for a single you could have just stuck to The UK and go on into Europe. But what we try to do, because it takes a long time to build up agreements in these areas, try to parallel track an awful lot of these agreements. So to give India as an example, besides the agreement a couple of years or so ago with two companies, Xeon to produce SlimBiome and ACAMS to produce LPLDL. So they have to first of all get regular approval for that particular country. That might take three to six months. Other parts of the world like Brazil can take twelve to eighteen months, okay? So you have to go through that process. They then have to produce the product. So for example, in Aecum's case, assay a tablet. They couldn't produce a three layer tablet like CORBAMX-three, couldn't produce a two layer tablet because three

33:42 layer tablet is very unique. They have to make that. Once you make it, you're going have to test it to make sure it still works compared to our existing product. You then have to carry out stability studies which are typically twelve months long. So you can't really go to a partner and say I've got this really great product but I've only got stability for three months because that won't work in the supply chain. Use India as an example because that's in a different zone, that's in a temperature zone, zone four b, where the temp high humidity, you know, greater than 65% at high temperatures. So you have to test your products in particular areas. So the idea of having all these agreements is is just to be clear, is not to make sure we get revenues immediately because these will build up over over time, but to make sure we have the supply chain across many, many different countries. I'll show you slides later which relates to the number of agreements that we signed and numbers that are delivering revenues.

34:36 But typically, just to give you an idea in terms of where we are, we have a large number of distribution partners. And just to point out, as you go forward, initially we had very few distribution partners. It wasn't until '19. So just only a couple of years or so ago, when we had distribution partners who actually sell the product. Manufacturers and companies don't sell the product, okay? And so twenty nineteen-twenty twenty will be built upon distributors. Currently we have about 75% distribution partners, about 17% formulation partners, so these are people who produce the tablets, the capsules, the sachets, etcetera. And about 8% that are producing ingredient. Okay? So that's why it takes time to build up your revenues. As I said, now we could have just built up a single supply chain and just focused on one or two countries. We probably would have got more sales, but it'd be a greater level of risk. If something went wrong in that country or with that particular

35:28 partner, then that would be a challenge. But this reduces the investment risk. Remember, these are being parallel tracked, not then sequentially. So these will start to come forward and build revenues as we go forward into 2021, 2022, etcetera. So I'll just give you a second look at this slide while I have a glass of water. Many of you have seen these figures. I just want to pick up a couple of points. These are figures which are based on our trading update, which is preliminary. It may change because we haven't got all the royalty information. If we had all the royalty information in, we'd give it to you. Okay? Just be clear on that. The reason for that is our partners will have their own distributors who maybe have teams of 20 or 30 selling around. They have to collect that data, give it to the distributors, they have to then check it, give it to our partners and then they have to calculate it and they often don't release the royalty figures to us until they've been paid themselves.

36:30 So it takes a little bit of time but I thought it's best to release some of the initial figures, okay? So just in terms of as it goes through it incrementally,

36:40 just in terms of revenue, so we've doubled our revenues in the last year, okay? Had a big increase in our revenues. And just to remind people, this is an industry, if you take the food and beverage industry, that typically had a seven to 8% increase in revenues last year, okay? So this is a big increase in revenues. That was a COVID year. And as I touched on earlier, many of our partners didn't restock because they wanted to protect their balance sheet. Many of them didn't launch new products or push products because they couldn't access hospitals, GPs, etcetera. So we doubled our revenues last year, that was across both divisions. But even more importantly, when you think of a model which is a scalable model, we actually reduced our costs. So this is all about, you invest upfront, you reduce your risk, then you grow the commercial side of the business. So a lot of the investment in terms of the IP, in terms of the human studies, that's all passed now. There'll be other investments, but most of that is in par.

37:40 That's what we're seeing our admin expenses dropping down. So you've got a perfect situation where revenues are increasing and your admin expenses are dropping down. And also because some of the work we did last year, our margins are starting to increase. And as we go further up that value chain, remember I said ingredient, final product, pharmaceutical, should increase even further as we go back that value chain. So we're in a pretty good position in terms of having a company that is covering its costs, growing its sales, reducing its admin expenses

38:16 and now looking to focus very much on the second generation products. I know some of these things have been remarkable. If you look at the divisions, they've turned down losses of over £400,000 in 2019 into profit in a twelve month period. But as I said earlier, it's been quite a difficult period internationally in terms of COVID. So looking pretty good across the board. And I know some investors were disappointed, but I think in reality, definitely when I speak to industry partners around the the world, they are absolutely staggered and and and impressed by what we've done in the in the last twelve months. And you'll And to be fair, so are a high proportion of our investors. It's only a group of investors who maybe haven't been disappointed.

39:06 But we think it's looking good going forward, and we think there's a lot of potential as we further build our second generation products. Just a little bit more detail, okay, pick up a few things here. So in terms of sales growth, you can see that between 2018, 2019, 2020, you can see what I discussed earlier that we had a big increase in sales this particular year compared to 2019. Okay, so good sales growth and that's across the board in terms of the functional files in probiotic. Now we had a lapse in probiotics between twenty eighteen-twenty nineteen. We brought in what we felt was a

39:51 commercial CEO but it didn't work because he wants to take the company down a different route into gut health. We didn't have any science in that particular area. So it's important that you build a business around an area where you have real differentiation. So this is looking it's a good picture to show doubling sales growth between 2019 and 2020. But as I mentioned earlier, sales growth increasing and our costs going down. And this is just some of the revenues that I touched on earlier in terms of how what agreements are generating the revenues. So this gives you a breakdown in terms of LPLDL and in terms of Oxelin Biome. So we've got about 45, 46 agreements generating revenues. Remember, not all our agreements will generate revenues because a proportion of them will be from our manufacturers and a portion of them will be from our formulators.

40:53 So if you go back to the figures that I mentioned earlier, in terms of the manufacturers, we had just checking my figures we had about 17% so we had 75% distribution partners, 70% were formulation partners, and 8% were ingredient partners. So 25% of your partners immediately into manufacturers and formulators won't directly generate revenues. They will generate revenue via distributors, but the only revenue via distributors as that ballot chain is complete. Although some of our a small number of our formation partners do pay us royalties. And this is the breakdown to the revenue source. Again, as I touched on earlier, the majority of our sales currently are ingredient sales. We have a number of final product sales and the focus is moving those ingredient sales into product sales. Because what that means, we get higher greater revenues because the final product sells for more.

41:53 We get a higher margin particularly if we sell them to those areas like the pharmacies that I mentioned earlier. But also, those final products also generate some ingredient sales. We have to sell the ingredient to form later to produce the final product. And we have a large number of royalties built up from various sources. So that's looking quite a good mix for now. But as I said, the focus will be moving ingredient sales into product sales as we go forward. And finally, just to close off, this really is an exciting area. I invest in a lot of companies. And what I look for is a an area where you have high growth. I look for an area where as a a company, you have a a differentiation in terms of your technology and your products.

42:41 I I look for an area where those products are targeted at growth markets and we meet all those particular criteria. We are young in our development. Our strategy was not to raise large amounts of capital, but to build up the company to a point where we've proven the science, proven the model, and we can invest as we go forward in the future in our second generation products. And the belief that we are now a sustainable company in terms of our divisions being profitable, they will continue to grow as we go forward. Those products really are doing particularly well in terms of the awards and uptake in terms of partners.

43:28 We now have more interest than capacity, so we have to build our capacity to really leverage the opportunity because otherwise we'll miss that particular opportunity. So as I touched on earlier, we'll be adding to our teams as we go forward and bringing different skill sets as we've done right the way across the board, both in terms of our non executive directors, but also in terms of our executive directors. We really are, I believe, commercial at inflection point where we're in a strong position. And if you look across the right hand side, I mentioned this earlier, in yellow are our sales and in blue are in agreements. Okay? So we have a number of sales but you also have a large number of agreements that will come through. So we have agreements in place that will start to generate revenues in 2021 and 2022 if you go forward.

44:23 In addition PLC, to those existing sales and those partners who are continuing, as I touched on earlier with, for example, HEALTH PLC OPTIX grew their own sales in a particular year and also expand both the product range into new territories. So we think it's a great opportunity and we hope you also feel the same. So thank you very much. I hope you found it an interesting presentation. I hope it answered some of the questions that people were asking and I'm sure there'll be other questions that we can go through in terms of investors that have sent questions in beforehand or during the presentation. Stephen, thank you very much for the presentation.

45:10 Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those investor questions submitted already, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard on the investor.me company platform. I'd also like to remind you your feedback is important to the company, and immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company could better understand your views and expectations. Steven, we had, had received a large number of pre submitted questions from investors, and we do actually apologize for this if your question is not directly read out. However, to make best use of the meeting, the pre submitted questions have been grouped into categories. And perhaps we could start off the the q and a session with those, there, Steven.

45:57 Yeah. Sure. Great. The first one we've had, we have a number of questions really sort of focusing around skin biotherapeutics PLC and a dividend. An example of one of those questions we received is why is OPTIBIOTIX shareholder not benefited via shares or in specie dividend from the spin off of one of our most valuable assets, Skin Biotics, and when will they? Yes. Well, thank you for that question. Thank you to all the investors in our submitted questions. It really gives me the opportunity to deal with some of these issues that I know are on investors' minds. So first thing I would say is if you look at the value of skin biotherapeutics now, around about 55,000,000, 60,000,000, then it's appreciated from the 500,000 when I first acquired the IP from Manchester University.

46:47 So the first point is that shareholders have benefited because it's appreciated from an asset when I acquired the IP of 500,000 to an asset worth in terms of Skin Biotherapeutics, 16,000,000 and we of course own 25% of that. So about £15,000,000 in terms of the increase in the asset value. So investors have benefited. In terms of what I think the question is trying to get to is when will they realize that particular asset in terms of when will OPTIBIOTIX give either a dividend in specie or dividend to their shareholders in Skin Biotherapeutics. This is something we stated from the very beginning, that's part of our strategy, not just for Skin Biotherapeutics, but if we spin off other companies, it's likely that we'll do the same.

47:40 But we'll do that at the right time when we think that the value in Skin Biotherapeutics has reached the right level. We don't think it's reached that level yet. We think when they've launched products, they've built up commercial traction, I think that would be the right time. And also just to be, you know, invest indeed to realise this, as a company we work very closely with Skin Biotherapeutics. Now I appointed with Martin Stuart and I speak to him on a regular basis. We work our best to make sure we don't damage skin biotherapeutic shares, okay? And if we said, well look, next week we're going to give a dividend in skin shares, that would decimate the Skin Biotherapeutics share price. So strategically, that's our aim. In terms of timings, I clearly can't release that because that would be inside information. But it would be some point in the future when we believe and investors will get an idea of this that Skin Biotherapeutics have reached a value which we think it will get a good return for our investment in OPTIBIOTIX for selling shares or giving them a dividend in the specie.

48:59 That's great. Thank you, Stephen. The next area of question we had was around forecasts, and I've seen we've had a few come through in the live events as well. One of the questions we had on the topics was, revenue forecasts. Does OPTIVIOTIX accept the fact it raised funding on the public markets and has a duty to report on the business and its revenue potential, open brackets forecast? The more OPTI avoids this, the more it creates suspicion amongst investors, many of which have supported OPTI from IPO. Please provide guidance for twenty twenty one twenty two. The answer last year with OPTI, had only been commercial for two years and partner forecasts run reliable. This can no longer be the case as you report on renegotiating contracts with higher forecast commitments built in. Also, you must now have a forward projection based on the run rate.

49:45 Yeah. So we get this question virtually every month and it's usually from the same person, but I recognize it's a an area of concern for, for investors. First of all, I will deal with the statutory point. Okay? That the the question was that, you know, we have a a duty report to on the business and give a forecast. Our duty is and the statutory duty is to report half yearly and and annually. Okay? But in addition to that, I typically supply trading updates. I think I supplied them three last year. I'll provide a commercial update. So in total, you're looking at six trading updates in terms of progress of the of the of the company. So so an indication as to where we are and how we're growing every two months, which is actually far more than than than most AIM companies.

50:43 But just to reassure people, what we'll do with our new broker who we've been working with closely over the last two to three months is we'll issue a forecast as part of a a note which will go to introduce it but also can be accessed by by retailers. So our plan is to issue a a a forecast. But just be be careful. Right? Look at the data across all the LSE last year, I think 45% of of forecasts were on an annual basis, not just last year, but previous years were out by more than 10%. So there there's quite the forecast are not the panacea. Everyone wants to know the future and wants to make it definite, but you can't know the future. And last year should have told you that. Now who could have who could have forecast what was gonna happen in in in March in terms of COVID? So there's always uncertainty, and we have to be open with investors on that. But we will be issuing forecasts as part of our note with SENCOSS.

51:47 But touch of caution, you know, there's no guarantees with with with with forecast. But we recognize that there's a need and that's what we'll do. Thanks, Steven. Investors submitted a number of questions as well asking for updates on deals. One of the questions we had reads, how many partners are delivering against your original estimates of 30% in highest revenue, circa £1,000,000, 30% in mid tier, circa £250,000, and 30% that fail? Last year, you indicated having 65 partners that were active. How many of these partners are active in 2021? And this is really proof that your business model is actually working. Looking at 2020 revenues of 1,500,000 and 65 partners, they've indicated they have 78. Are you averaging £23,000 per partner?

52:33 Yeah. It's a it's a good question. I've covered a lot of it actually, I believe, in the the presentation by indicating two things. Okay? The the first thing is not all our partners, okay, will generate revenues. I gave you the breakdown in terms of the number of distribution, in terms of manufacturing, and in terms of formulation partners. So just to remind you, 75% distribution partners, 70% formulation, 8% ingredient manufacturers. So the majority of the revenues will come from the distributor because they'll be selling the product. We do have some revenues from our ingredient and our formulation partners, but they tend to be royalties or payments for you that are based on profit share. But as investors will know, what I tried to do last year was move a lot of those profit share and royalty based partnerships to a purchase or a sales agreement. So we started that particular process last year and that will with our manufacturing ingredients, and we'll continue that as we as we go forward.

53:46 So this is more to do with us going back to point another point I made earlier, rather than selling ingredient, selling final products, we'll buy from the manufacturer of ingredient or of which is largely achieved. But as we go further up the value chain, we'll buy from the manufacturer of the final product and sell ourselves rather than them selling on to partners and us gaining royalty. So that's the first point to make that not all our agreements will actually generate revenues. The second thing to bring out is that it does take time And you've seen on the last slide that we have agreements in place and then we have sales. And going back to the strategy, we've entered multiple markets at the at the same time.

54:35 And the idea behind that is to parallel track a number of products in different markets rather than do it serially. Okay? And these I went to the example of of India, but now Brazil, Japan, equally difficult markets to launch products in. You have to go through regulatory process and you have to do stability studies, etcetera. So it takes time. And the sooner the key point here is the sooner you start, then the more likely you will build up a presence in those particular countries. And as soon you build up a presence, the sooner you can build your barriers to to entry and start to build revenues in those in those in those countries. So in in terms of our partners, the majority of our partners are doing I mean, a number of our partners doing very well and I've alluded to those already and we'll continue to grow. We'll continue to add new territories and we'll continue to add new products.

55:32 A number of our partners are doing okay. A number of partners, we've moved them from either exclusivity for a particular territory to exclusivity for one or two customers. Okay? So it's called a commercial protection agreement. So we've narrowed the exclusivity to give us opportunity to bring other partners in. That's happened over the last year or so and continue to happen. Because managing partners is a is a key aspect. And again, going back to the point I mentioned earlier, it's not just about growing sales. And I said we've got more interest from partners than we have capacity. We also need more capacity at a high level to deal with partners to make sure they deliver on them on their promises. So lots of things to do.

56:18 Promising in terms of our our partner network. But we need to work harder certainly on a number of partners to make sure they launch this year. Thank you, Steven. The next topic was around your recent trading update with questions highlighting it was a disappointment. One such question received is, do you acknowledge that the shareholders were extremely disappointed in the results slash update? And can you explain how you, the company, plans to do much, much better this year? Yeah. It's, interesting one, this, and I I think it comes from quite a, an interesting perspective. I haven't found that. I've got equal number of people who were disappointed. So they were disappointed, just to remind you, in a a company that doubled its its sales growth in the last year, had increased its margins by by 5%.

57:10 It done so on a reduction in cost from the the the preceding year. And so a number of investors felt disappointed in that when it was really way above industry averages. Other investors, which maybe not part of the same group, felt it was an astounding year. And certainly, it's been really encouraging getting all the feedback from our our our partners who have been, again, touching on what we said earlier, looking to grow the sales of their existing products, looking to bring more products to to market and expand their their territories. So while some investors may have been disappointed, an equal, if not the majority view, seem to be pretty pleased with what we've done. But we do realize that it's about expectation in this particular marketplace.

58:09 And what we try to do with these sort of presentations and with the reports that we we produce is try to make sure that people are informed. And if people look at what we set out as opposed to what others set out, we're very clear on what we wanted to achieve last last year. We want to achieve our objectives, reaching profitability, which we've achieved. We want you to grow sales, which we've achieved. We want to renegotiate contracts to improve margins and also to look at the cost of goods to, again, to to improve margins. All those things have been achieved. So what we set out has been we've been comfortable with, and we believe we've achieved. What many of our partners and many of our investors, they've come they they've informed us that they're really pleased. A number of them, they've sent me their their buys, bought into this. And I think you saw this on a Friday form the release where you had some big buys going going through. They've been pleased, but I do recognize there are a a group of investors who who felt that maybe we should have more than doubled sales and maybe more no.

59:21 Decreased our costs more, but that's really maybe down to, setting expectations better as we go forward. Thanks, Steven. We've got literally, yeah, two more and then we'll go into the live one. Just kind of conscious of time, but we can happily ever run. That's no problem at all. The next topic of questioning was around a Nasdaq dual list and something that I can see has come through on the live, questioning as well. One such example of the question is what are the pros and cons for the company listing in The US market? Is this something which is actively being pursued? Yes. So it's a very good question again and we've indicated our interest in looking at those markets, international markets where we could, one, increase liquidity in terms of our stock. Because what happens with low liquidity is that you get one or two investors who might sell 20,030 thousand pounds worth of stock and have an undue influence on the share price where you have low volumes. That can enduredly influence some sentiment.

1:00:18 You get high volatility. So we want to increase our liquidity to try to reduce the impact of that. We also want to access those markets, international markets, where there's a greater investor interest and appetite for the microbiome and a greater realization of some of the products that we're launching can have a particular benefit. So that's very much on the agenda. In terms of the downside, the biggest downside quite frankly is the cost. But just to remind people, NASDAQ a bit like LSE has all three levels to it, which you need to look at where you're going to target. So we're looking at those opportunities.

1:01:07 And also there's a risk in terms of and it's not just the listing cost, it's the the cost also for insurance and liability because, you know, America's quite a litigious society. But we think on balance, the potential upside in terms of looking at international market versus Nasdaq or other markets in terms of the the greater recognition of the microbiome, the great liquidity is on balance better than the downside risk. But just to make people aware, this is quite a complex area and you have to be careful. You don't fall foul of US securities laws. For example, if you talk about Nasdaq because if you talk about Nasdaq as a potential listing, then that can be classified.

1:01:55 And I've been to this before with a number of people, condition the market. If you condition the market in The US for an IPO, that's illegal and we can be fined or at the very least they can stop a company from listing in The US or they can delay it by six or twelve months. So whilst we can't talk about NASDAQ, certainly we are exploring all the potential options in terms of an international listing and we will update our investors as we go through that process. But it looks a good opportunity in terms of the upside compared to potential downside, but it's not risk free. Thanks Steve. The final area to cover off, and I think you've pretty much have covered this off to be fair in the presentation, was questioning around SweetBartix.

1:02:48 We received the following: Is there any update in regards to SweetBartix and can we expect a product we sell and generating revenues? Yeah. I think I have covered it off in the the presentation, but just to reiterate, know, we've got a lot of interest in this particular group of products, portfolio of products. I know we have been working with investors. I've been telling investors about this for a long, long time. But this is a highly innovative product. It's a bit like bringing a hydrogen fuel car into a a petrol and diesel industry. It's a big step change and that requires a an awful lot of convincing. And as people know, the larger the the corporate, the more slowly they move and the more convincing they need.

1:03:36 And as part of that process best to be aware of this, they are very focused on the science and the convention on the science. So we published a number of publications in this area over the last couple of months than just before Christmas and we'll publish more and all those publications will show how our particular range, our portfolio of Sweetbiotics differentiate our particular Sweetbiotics from other products in marketplace. And this will, we hope, really add a lot to our discussions with global partners. But rest assured, there's an awful lot going on in the background. And I've told you that we've got material transfer agreements in place.

1:04:24 I've told I've told investors that we're sharing ingredients with a whole range of companies. And these are all big brand names. These are companies that you will be well aware of. And we've got a lot of interest in this product with these OPTIX innovation agreements. And the key now is to convert that interest into commercial agreements and to get our product out there in the market on it in a whole range of particular products. And that's what we're looking to do. And we'll announce as I said earlier hopefully this year or early next year but watch your space. Thanks indeed, Steve and that concludes the pre submitted questions and as I say we've had a number of questions submitted during presentation today.

1:05:13 And due to the number of attendees and, honestly, the time, I'm sure investors will appreciate that you won't be able to answer every single question in today's session. However, all the questions submitted today will, of course, be reviewed by the company and responses published where it's appropriate to do so on the investor meet company platform. Steven, perhaps if I could just address you to that q and a tab, and if I could hand back and just where appropriate to do so, read out the question and who it's from. And, as I say, we've got a got a bit more time on the clock to go for you. We can just cut through some of these questions. Yes. So some really interesting questions actually. The first one, Res H, a micro pharma industry driven by clinical R and D is coming in scale. Is it not an argument that companies such as four d will blow away non pharma businesses such as OPTIBIOTIX whose IP can't compete?

1:06:02 So get the premise. Think part of it is incorrect. You don't compete in terms of IP. We created IP that covers a whole range of areas. It covers the production, so the manufacturer, it covers the composition, so what you can combine your particular ingredients or strains with. So four d pharma very much in the probiotic area. So we have a range of strains and composition and also application areas which exclude companies such as M4D from entering that particular area. I think the central premise in terms of having products that would just be pharma is wrong. I think it's a path we considered very closely when I first started the company.

1:06:54 And it's an area where you need high investment as you've seen with number of with the raises that have been made by companies forward in series. I think I looked at series therapeutics and the last quarterly spend was 20,000,000. Okay? So we've got no. We spent 8,000,000 in or is it five five five, six years. So it requires an awful lot of in in investment. And also it's quite high risk because the regulatory framework for pharma for live drug biotherapeutic which is based out four years in, is not set up yet, it's not established. So when you enter an environment where you don't know the regular environment, that's too much risk. So our strategy was to develop a product that proved itself in terms of use and then extended then into pharma. Well that pharma will be an OTC which means over the counter as we're growing more and more with as I said in terms of alpha sigma or in terms of Actial or be a live drug biotherapeutic.

1:07:59 You've got to come to that conclusion next couple of months. As I said earlier, it's looking particularly promising. But I so in essence, I the guys from four Pharma. I like the guys from four d Pharma. I've known them since they established it. They've done well, raised a lot of money, and I wish them all the best of luck because it can only help the microbiome industry. But it's not I think there's room for many companies in the microbiome space. It's down to investors where they want to invest in a bio based strategy whereby you will get a big upside very little or nothing at all. Or with OPTIBIOTIX, what I try to create is an investment opportunity where you have a range of shots at goals which initially start with ingredients, then go to final products, extends next generation products as I've alluded to, but also drug therapeutics.

1:08:50 So yes, thank you very much Russ for that. Another question here on the debtors figures from Andrew Kay. Are you able to provide any figures on the debtors figures for the firm and how the debtors' days changed in the last year? We're actually quite aggressive on debtors. So every month at the board, we report creditors and the debtors. And we have a software system that flags up partners that are overdue and we have in terms of payment and we chase those down fairly aggressively. And for example, if a partner doesn't pay, then we won't then continue to work with that partner until he's they set that debt. Typically, though, it never it never gets to that. Usually, if I give the the c the CEO of the company a a a it's usually addressed within a a matter of days, if not at at the very least weeks.

1:09:49 So we don't really have a great deal of debtors. At the very worst. Contract the creditors. We're in pretty good situation in terms of debtors. So I'll go to the next one now, Andrew Kay. So Andrew, sorry, you're dominating this now, which is about, given that the number of competitors seem to be infringing our IP around SlimBiome, can you reassure investors that actions have been taken to enforce our IP? This is a really excellent question and thank you Andrew for raising it. Let me just take you through the process. So you go through a process of filing your IP. As I said earlier, you tend to file it in a core area and you add to it your combinations, your applications.

1:10:34 Then you then expand it into other territories. So you go through what's called a patent cooperation route, a PCT route, that takes eighteen months to work through. Then you extend it into other territories like The US, like Canada, and so typically five other countries around world or typically we also extend it into India beyond that. But they're the main markets. If you get a competitor that's actually infringing your IP, there are a couple of things you have to take into account. Well, first of all, do you have the protection in all those markets? You don't want to take out infringement notes against them. Win it, for example, in The UK, but still because your patent hasn't granted, allow them to continue in that particular territory whilst you're going through that process of grant.

1:11:24 It also signals to them what your tactics are, so it gives them the opportunity to look at ways of challenging your pattern before it's granted. So once it's granted, there's less of a an opportunity for a competitor to challenge. And it's there's actually a period, I think, about thirty days where they can challenge, but there's less opportunity to challenge. So it gives them less opportunity to create an opportunity to deflect your ability to enforce an infringement notice. The other aspect to it is that you don't want to go through a process and typically these will cost between 25 to £50,000, maybe a £100,000 if you go globally, particularly once you go into The US market. You don't want to spend a £100,000 when the infringement is only going cost you, you you're only going get £10,000 in terms of refund from what the competition has incurred in terms of sales from the particular product. So it's those two things. It's the timing to make sure that all your patents are in place globally rather than just one market and making sure that you weigh up the actual cost of the process of challenging an Infraedent going through the legal process against what you like to get in return. So I hope that answers that question.

1:12:52 I know it's nearly quarter past, so if I do one more, I'll try to take somebody other than Andrew and Russ who are dominating the questions. You mentioned so Neil asked about Nasdaq. I'll cover that one. We've got a oh, we got a nice one actually, a very up to date one. It's from Phil P. He asked two questions, really. One about Stephen Hammond, who's a new non executive direction, how you see him adding value? And then the other one, P again Phil, who asked about could sleep paralysis be developed as a simple sugar replacement in tea and coffee? We'll answer both of those. So Stephen, now he's an ex health minister. I give this credibility as we particularly if we look to international markets, and I think he'll add value there. He's also very well connected in the city, so I think he will add add value there.

1:13:45 And then it talks about another mouthful feed. So I just gotta remind people that we're a company. We have five employees. So we're company of five employees with sales of 1,500,000. Okay? So we're we're not excessive in terms of our costs. And Steven is a nonexecutive director, and nonexecutive directors don't get large amounts of money. So he gets quite a there's quite a low fee for nonexecutive directors across all all of AIM. So I think the value he will bring will be greater than the the cost that will incur. And then the point on sweet biotics, could it be developed as a single, a simple sugar replacement in tea and coffee? Well the answer is yes, that's our strategy. But we have to test it in tea and coffee. We have to test it in drinks. We have to test it in daily products.

1:14:33 And so the idea is to develop a the reason we got the portfolio is that we have a range of different sweet barbecue products that have been used across a range of different applications. And I know it takes longer. I know we could have really tried to wing it and taken a product out there and tried to get something on the marketplace early, but which was partly successful. But if you're going to do it, let's do it properly. Let's work with our partners, get the application right and then launch. And we think that will be an absolutely brilliant opportunity to go forward. And I think that should close it off really. And apologies for those I couldn't cover off but I think most of them had a very similar theme and to be honest most of the questions online were from the three that I went through.

1:15:25 Stephen, thank you for addressing those questions. And of course, you'll be able to review all the questions submitted, from investors today and we'll publish responses, on the Investor Me company platform. Just as we we do close off, Stephen, perhaps just a a final couple of words from you before I, redirect investors to give you some feedback, please. Yeah. It's just really a a thank you to all all our investors. I know this has been a difficult time in terms of when you look at the the SP. It has built up quite quickly over the initial years and has held in the same position for the last few years and there's quite a lot of volatility. But I would disconnect that from progress of the company. I wouldn't let sentiment and emotion influence your rational view of how we're building the company. It has been built with a lot of thought. You've got an awful lot of experience, non executive directors in in place. We've added to those with not just Steve Hammond, but with Chris Chris Brinsmead on the pharma side. So you can see the sense, you can see the general direction we're going in, in terms of non executive directors and you'll also see as we build the team more appointments which will also show that general direction.

1:16:45 We bring in expertise that will support the growth of the business into those second generation products. We think there's a big opportunity here and we hope you also agree and will join us. Stephen, thank you again for updating investors today. Could I ask investors not to close the session as we automatically redirect it for the opportunity to provide your feedback? If you've accessed the meeting from our website, the feedback page will appear in front of you. If you have accessed the meeting from the email, just simply ask you to log back in and just give your feedback. Takes just a few minutes, so it'd be greatly appreciated by the company. On behalf of OPTIBIOTIX HEALTH PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. Thank you very much, and good afternoon.