Physiomics (LSE:PYC) — Interim Results

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the PHYSIOMICS PLC interim results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged, 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 set. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll.

0:32 And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, doctor Peter Sargent. Good afternoon to you. Thank you. Hello, and welcome, everybody, and welcome to our company update. As an introduction, my name is Peter Sargent. I'm the CEO here at PHYSIOMICS, and I'm joined here today by Jim Millen, is our nonexec chairman.

0:55 So as part of our presentation today, I will provide a short overview of the business, certainly for those of you who are less familiar with PHYSIOMICS. I'll then provide an update on this year's interim results we published last week from both a financial but also an operational perspective, before then going on and talking a bit more about our strategy and how we're progressing against that strategy. After the presentation, we'll be sure to leave plenty of time to answer as many of your questions you've posted to us. If you didn't have chance to post any questions ahead of this presentation, I think there's a functionality for you to ask questions as we go along in the presentation.

1:46 Jim and I can see those questions, so we'll try and get to those at the end of the presentation. So for those of you who are less familiar with PHYSIOMICS, PHYSIOMICS is a company based just South of Oxford, primarily providing consultancy services to support the development of new drugs. Over the years, we've built capabilities across these three main areas shown here in the Venn diagram. So that is quantitative pharmacology. So this has been able to look at how drugs behave within biological systems, such as within humans. Data science and biostatistics. So this is the ability to curate, analyse and interpret a wide range of data.

2:34 And then an understanding of disease biology. So this is understanding the mechanisms of disease, certainly in relation to what the drug is being targeted towards. So with these capabilities, we offer our clients a range of consultancy services to support their drug development efforts. And on the right of this slide you will see the three consultancy areas listed. So that is mathematical modeling and simulation, biostatistics, and data science and bioinformatics. And I'll provide a bit more detail to these in the coming slides. In addition to our consultancy services, we also are utilizing these capabilities we've developed to develop more kind of asset based products in the personalized medicine dosing space, which falls outside the consultancy services. But again, I will provide a bit more detail to how we've got on with those up until this point and I guess our strategy going forward.

3:36 So drilling down into the various services and explaining how we support our clients. Our core service is our mathematical modelling and simulation service. So up until recently, this has been our main focus as a business, and we've been able to establish a very strong brand around it. So in this service, we support our clients across the drug development continuum, so as far upstream as discovery through to the clinic, by developing mathematical models to help them better understand, firstly, the disease biology they're working in and then the behaviour of their drug in relation to that disease. So ultimately, kind of modelling helps our clients utilise their data, so whether that's the data they've generated as part of their R and D efforts or data in the public domain to make predictions about their research outcomes, which in turn enables them to kind of reduce the number of experimental permutations they need to explore, therefore ultimately accelerating and de risking their drug development.

4:38 So one example of this is an area we, I guess it falls within our wheelhouse, and that's in the translation of drugs from preclinical to clinical phases, helping our clients kind of predict what dose and dose schedule they should use. So the ability to make research outcome predictions is not only important to accelerate development and derisk development programs, But there's also an ethical element to this as well. And this is one of the reasons why regulators are kind of guiding biopharma companies to use modelling. So for example, within clinical trials, using some sort of kind of prediction kind of outcomes and modelling methodologies allows patients who are involved in those trials to be more likely to get an effective dose of therapy, Unlike what was perhaps before modelling was really well used within drug development, where patients could quite likely get ineffective doses of these drugs.

5:45 As well as helping our clients better understanding their drugs and potential effects, modelling is also an important tool in supporting our clients' investment decisions. So supporting them either internally, looking at which assets they should be focused at or investing in, or evidence in their drug when speaking to external investors themselves.

6:10 The second service line is is biostatistics. So this is a service the company has been building capabilities around over the last year, and it was officially launched, in October last year. So this service leverages much of our existing expertise in mathematics and applies it towards the design, conduct and reporting of clinical trials. So an example here could be helping our clients calculate how many patients they need within their trial, so that they can be sure that if their drug works, then this can be detected with statistical significance. So one major reason for building this service is the fact that biostatistics is essential across all clinical trials regardless of therapeutic areas.

6:57 And therefore, we see the opportunity of a much bigger market for PHYSIOMICS, making it a more scalable service and helping with our growth aspirations. The third service, which both stands on its own and also underpins modeling and biostatistics, is data science and bioinformatics. So this is actually a capability PHYSIOMICS has had for some time. However, as there is an increase in volume and complexity of data generated through R and D, the ability to select, curate, analyze, and visualize data, helping drive insights from that data, actually is becoming a much needed capability. So we, PHYSIOMICS, see this as more of a standalone opportunity going forward.

7:46 Another important point to make is that actually all these three services I've just described overlap. So, for example, the types of output we generate through our modeling and simulation are actually inputs into kind of our biostatistics service. So this, we hope, will actually help us offer our clients a more integrated solution and actually as a business allows us more chance for follow on work with those clients. So, as I mentioned early on in an earlier slide, in addition to consultancy services, we always have been developing software based assets in the form of personalized medicine dosing tools.

8:33 So this was initially conceived back in 2017, when we started developing a tool to support chemotherapy dosing decisions, so focused initially around docetaxel. The reason for this is that typically when patients undergo chemotherapy, they are often given the same dose of drug as everyone else. However, as patients, as we all know, are all very different, people end up with more or less of the same drug circulating in their body and therefore their treatment has varying levels of success. So the idea behind this tool, therefore, is to help determine personalized dose for each patient to optimize treatment and ultimately increase patient outcome. So as some of you may be aware, this kind of initial prototype was first evaluated as part of the trial based in Portsmouth, so the partner study, where we used data generated from the trial to help refine and further evaluate the prototype.

9:34 This trial did suffer a bit from delays due to the pandemic. But actually, off the back of this trial, we determined a second use case of the tool. And that's its use in supporting the dosing decisions of an expensive drug called G CSF, which is actually used to treat some of the side effects of chemotherapy in the sense of neutropenia. So this second use case is being trialled as part of the current INNOVATE grant in collaboration with Blackpool and Beyond Blood Diagnostics. Again, this trial which is being run at the moment will generate data to help us refine and further evaluate and validate the tool. So in parallel to these trials and continued development of the tool, we've always been thinking about how we ultimately commercialize this asset and what that looks like. So this is where our partnership with The US firm DoseMe comes in. So DoseMe has a software platform already in use across The US and parts of Europe that utilises algorithms such as the one we're developing and provides it to clinicians as a tool. So they work in a variety of different therapeutic areas from infectious disease, cardiovascular and oncology. So our drug will fit quite nicely into their kind of portfolio of tools.

10:56 One of our announcements late last year was the re engagement with dose m and commitment to upload our tool onto their platform, initially for for research only purposes, but with the ultimate aim to implement paid for functionality later at a later date. And again, I'll give an update on how we're tracking against this in the the coming slides. So I hope that gives a good background to the business and also how we've evolved over the years. The next few slides, I'd like to talk to our performance so far this year during the first half before moving on to how we're getting on this second half in the first two months, but also talk a bit more about our future strategy and how we're tracking against that.

11:49 So, as I hope you all have seen from our interim report posted last week, our revenue and total income were slightly down from the same period last year, with revenue being $3.29 ks and total income $3.54 ks. This slip in revenue did unfortunately impact our operating loss, with losses being 13 ks higher than the same period last year. So just to note, all revenue is currently being generated from our modelling and simulation service line at present, with grant income making up the difference between revenue and total income. So even though there was a slight reduction in total income, primarily due to client driven slippage in project timelines, You'll see in the next slide that some of this slippage has put us in a stronger position for the second half of this year.

12:44 Following the successful fundraise back in July, we ended up the first half with $2.69 ks worth of cash and cash equivalents and shareholder funds of $4.18 k. So post period, so this is for the in this this this second half, are seeing that we've had another successful fundraise generating 500 ks gross, really to help us continue this momentum, I'll again describe in a bit more detail, and help us with continuing to grow the business.

13:21 So looking forward, the board believes that even though the first half total income was lower than hoped due to project slippage, this revenue will have moved into the second half, putting us on a good footing to have a strong second half. So we therefore believe, as we announced earlier on in the year, that we, as a company, are tracking against market expectations. In addition to this, we already have revenue contracted into the year ending June 2026, so that's next year. And we also have several late stage positive opportunities in the BD pipeline, which, you know, if converted, will only add to this and and next year's income.

14:13 So from a operational perspective, much as certainly has happened in the in the first half of the year, we've won four sizable contracts with some in new areas for PHYSIOMICS. One of those contracts was in the immunology space, so outside oncology. Another was within discovery, so supporting candidate selection, so a bit further upstream than where we normally play as a business and support our clients. And then another was in oncology, which is our, I guess, historical strength as a business, but actually focusing around a combination therapy that includes a new kind of type of therapy called antibody drug conjugates which is a very exciting area in the oncology space.

15:04 With biostatistics, might have seen that we have been making progress with recruiting expertise from an operational standpoint, including bringing Doctor. Gebro on board, but also have been executing on our go to market strategy with creating materials, updating our websites, all accumulating into the official launch of this service back in October. We've also made good progress with our personalized medicine tool, firstly presenting the output of the PARTNER trial, so that was output of the trial we ran in Portsmouth, and we presented that at a prestigious oncology event called EORTCA ACR. And we also put a lot of effort into kind of progressing the setup of the new PREDICTON trial.

15:54 That's the trial which we're running out of of Blackpool NHS Trust. Finally, we also, as we announced, finalized an agreement with DoseMe early on in the year to implement our tool onto their DoseMe Rx platform, enabling us to eventually kind of get the tool into the hands of clinicians. From a leadership perspective, a people perspective, we are also delighted to announce the appointment of Doctor Mark Davies as our Head of Modelling and Data Science team. So Mark brings significant modelling and data science experience from a cross pharma, consultancy, but also from both a a technical and BD perspective.

16:41 And we're already seeing positive in impact in from him, helping us open up kind of opportunities with with companies we've never engaged with before. So following a, a busy first half, the momentum certainly in this second half and the first two months has continued. We've, as you have seen, we've published two fantastic papers with partners Astellas and Merck KGA. This ability to publish like this is really important for companies such as ourselves as it really credentializes our work. And these two papers specifically helps really evidence the power of our virtual tumour platform. So that's our own internal proprietary model, which we use to support oncology drug development companies.

17:38 We've also been awarded a contract extension by one of our clients. And then from a vast statistics perspective, since the launch of the service and the campaigns, the marketing campaign has been run off the back of it, back of that launch, we started to identify some of the first BD opportunities in the Biostat space with some really interesting conversations taking place. So hopefully these will start materializing into contracts, which would be great because these would be the, you know, the first contracts in the biostats for the biostats service line. As announced as part of our latest fundraise early on last month, we've also started efforts to explore strategic options to kind of accelerate growth. So not just in of BioSats, but across our consultancy services.

18:27 So far, we've kind of focused on growing the business organically, which hopefully you can see is starting to pick up momentum. But thinking about how we can really accelerate this growth needs to also consider kind of more inorganic options, so potential acquisitions of revenue generating businesses. So regarding this, discussions have already been happening with potential targets and potential partners. And as we make progress within this initiative, we will certainly update the market. For the personalized medicine initiative, after much back and forth with regulators and ethics bodies here in The UK, we're also pleased to announce the approval of the PREDICTONC trial and the start of, recruitment.

19:19 And even with, some delays in its start, the trial is now progressing at speed with over ten percent of patients already recruited onto the trial within, the first few weeks. So, you know, really good pace of recruitment. Regarding progress on DoseMe, our tool has now been implemented on their platform and we're just in the final testing cycle to finalize that implementation. So just to expand on that a tiny bit more, as you implement the the tool onto the platform, we've had to do a a number of reviews and and debugging cycles just to ensure that the the the the

20:04 tool is working effectively, both from a technical and also a user experience perspective on their platform before we can then hand it over and put it in the hands of clinicians. More broadly, so from a people perspective, we're also pleased to announce that so far this year, we've we've recruited two fantastic individuals into the team. So Emily, you see a picture on the left, has joined us as a junior modelling scientist. And then Mishbone on the right, who brings decades of experience in pharma, delivering clinical pharmacology and modelling projects. And, you know, even though they've only been within the company for just over a month, they're already, you know, getting stuck in and having a real impact.

21:00 So building on how we are currently progressing and kind of looking at BD and marketing things from a project delivery perspective. So as announced kind of previously, the business has been investing more in business development and marketing across the consultancy service lines, so, of course, modeling, biostats, and data science. We feel that these efforts are definitely paying off. We've got a a healthy pipeline of opportunities,

21:27 including over 90 what we call warm leads. So these are kind of active leads. 16 opportunities, these are of more late stage, and 19 of those nine nine of those opportunities, sorry, are in late stage kind of proposals, so kind of negotiating contracts with with clients. Obviously, there will be some level of attrition through that pipeline as there will always will be within sales pipeline pipeline. But hopefully, some of these late stage opportunities are gonna convert very soon, which will only help with both this year's income, but also thinking more about kind of the next next year, two years. From a project delivery perspective, the team are also super busy. We have nine active projects ongoing with a variety of clients, including both kind of mid and top tier biopharma and some projects working with research institutes and charities.

22:29 So, you know, the team are super busy and we're in a very strong position going into the rest of this year and next year.

22:42 So thinking more about the future, and I'm sure some of you will recognize this slide from previous presentations. I just wanted to repeat the main areas of focus for us as a business and how we're progressing, against those growth areas. So from a consultancy perspective, a big part of our focus has been on BD and marketing, and looking at how we can grow our pipeline whilst increasing that conversion rate of opportunities into contracts. We also set out, to broaden our offering, diversify our client base, including the launch of our biostatistics service. Then all of this is underpinned by building the operational capabilities, so we've set out to recruit the necessary expertise and developing or acquiring the necessary systems and processes to ensure that we can actually deliver on these new service areas.

23:38 Hopefully, with the updates I've given so far, you can see that we have maintained a focus on these growth areas and have taken steps to address each one. There's certainly been an increased focus and investment around media marketing, utilizing key sector conferences to engage with new and existing clients. Some of the team are are going to a a big oncology conference later on this week and have a presentation there and we're actually one of the conference sponsors. So utilizing events like that are key for us generating new leads and ultimately opportunities.

24:18 We've also recruited expertise to help us better develop impactful solutions for our clients. So this is not just recruiting, deep technical modelling expertise, but recruiting expertise of kind of more broadly across drug development. So from starting to shift from being a kind of more reactive cell in saying, you know, what models would you like us to develop to being able to better guide our clients to what they need to be doing themselves and what regulators are expecting from them.

24:53 I mentioned previously about our efforts, about how our efforts are already materialised into kind new types of projects, in some areas where PHYSIOMICS previously hasn't, supported before. And finally, have made progress in implementing a number of new processes and tools in our operations really to help drive operational excellence and efficiency in our project delivery.

25:22 Moving over to the kind of the right of the slide, so towards the kind of the personalized dosing tool perspective, the data has started to be generated from the PredictOnc trial, meaning that we can continue developing and refining our assets for the G CSF dosing use case. The project with DoseMe is progressing well, and now that tool is implemented on their platform, we're in the process of identifying clinicians in The US to conduct initial evaluations under research only purposes. But as we receive this feedback and following the data from the PredictOnc trial, we can then move closer to implementing paid for functionality and ultimately commercialization of the tool.

26:13 Across both, the consultancy consultant and personalized medicine initiatives, we're also, as I mentioned, exploring strategic options. So, you know, we've conducted market research to help expand our consultancy service with initial conversations with targets underway. But then from a personalized medicine initiative, we're also in talks with DoseMe around a deeper relationship beyond the current tool in development.

26:42 So I hope you can see that we're addressing and progressing all these growth areas and in this recent fundraise completed last month has been really pivotal in ensuring we can maintain this momentum and invest further in these key areas.

27:02 So before we move to the q and a, just to summarize the presentation today. We've had a solid first half of the year with total income tracking in line with market expectations for the year, which would be a significant growth on last year and actually the year previous to that. We've won four new contracts in the first half with a new one already, this half and momentum on the late stage BD pipeline.

27:33 We're delivering on our strategy to broaden our consultancy offering to new therapeutic areas, drug development phases and also through the launch of our biostatistics pipeline. We've recruited new expertise across modelling and biostats to help drive forward our pipeline and also deliver projects in new areas.

27:54 So far this half, we've published two papers with partners Stellus and Merck. We've obtained regulatory and ethical approval for our PREDICTONC trial and we're recruiting at speed. And finally, our tool has been implemented onto the DoseMeRx platform and we're starting to explore deeper relationships with DoseMe beyond our existing tool. So, I will stop there and I think we can now move to Q and A. Thank you very much. Peter, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Peter, Jim, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation.

28:41 And, Jim, 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.

28:47 Yep. Thank you very much. Hopefully, you can hear me okay. Yep. So we'll start off with the questions that were submitted prior to the meeting today, and then I can see there's just a couple that have come in during of the course of the meeting. I guess, actually, before we go into the questions, I'd just like to, you know, acknowledge that clearly,

29:09 you know, we had a lot of communications from shareholders expressing dissatisfaction with our performance following, you know, two fundraisers within twelve months. We'll talk about that in a bit more detail, I just want to, you know, acknowledge that the company's performance is is not what Pete or I or the board want and that we are working as hard as we can to to try and turn things around.

29:35 I think it's only fair to acknowledge that and and as, you know, that was the thrust of a a large number of questions that we received both by email over the last months and also, you know, immediately prior to this meeting. So with that having been said, you know, that is a great segue into a variety of questions. I won't read them all out, but on the theme of the fund fundraise, the timing, the the the value. Pete, would you like to to try and address these to the extent that we can, please? Yeah. So I think the the first question is around the reason why we've had to do do fundraisers in in quite short succession. So as as you all have seen with our annual report, last September and the interims we published last week, the business is operating at a loss and has been doing so for some time. So, in order to turn this around and scale the business so that we can ultimately cover our operating costs, which also includes the large costs of being a public company on on the alternative investment market, we we know as a as a business we need to scale.

30:53 Ultimately, though, you know, being able to do this is there's no real instance or or quick solution to this. And this is why in my first year of being a a CEO, I've been focused on making those necessary change, those key changes in the business, to position us for for growth. So that is, you know, new expertise, new ways of working, investment in BD and marketing, and and the other growth initiatives I've I I kinda touched upon in the the presentation. We knew things had to change. Unfortunately, change is just never as quick as you you hoped. There's there's no instant solution. But we, as a board, believe that we have made the the right changes. And, you know, we've seen we see the the kind of green shoots, the key metrics.

31:41 So, you know, we've we've reported on, last year having the having a was a record year for the the the total, value of new contracts won. And this these kind of metrics are showing that we are on the right path.

31:59 And then looking forward to this year and our our, announcements earlier, this year regarding meeting market expectations, you know, if we are to achieve market expectations, which we as a board believe we will be able to do, this would represent a, you know, a significant increase in income compared to the previous years.

32:22 However, you know, we do acknowledge that there's still a lot more to do, and this is why, you know, the two recent fundraisers has been been necessary. You know, I I hope I answered why we've had to do these two fundraisers in in my presentation. You know, we as a business need to invest to make the changes, to to unlock the growth potential, keep momentum going. And, you know, I guess the reason why, the reasons for this investment and the reasons why what we put in the RNS is as part of the, justification of these fundraisers, they haven't changed from, seven months ago to the to what they were, a month ago because this is still driving those key growth initiatives we, as a board, believe need to to be invested in and continued with.

33:16 Thank you, Pete. Then we have a set of questions. And, actually, you know, Pete, if you don't mind, maybe I'll I'll take this next block. The the the whole set of questions relating to to board participation, which, obviously, we we get asked every year. And

33:34 I apologize in advance if if the answer that we can give isn't fully satisfying to people. I will break it into two parts. In in terms of the the nonexecutive participation, you know, AIM and the the quoted companies alliance code that we adhere to basically encourages nonexecutives not to participate directly in in fundraisers in order to maintain their independence. It's not an absolute rule, but but it is something that that AIM strongly encourages. In terms of executive participation, we do what we feel we're able to do. Myself, my previous colleague Christophe,

34:17 and before Christmas to to a a minor extent, Pete as well have acquired shares on the open market and and sometimes in in previous years during fundraisers. But we only do what we feel we're in a position to do. None of the executive members of of of the company are are extremely wealthy individuals. You know, we we pay ourself reasonable salaries, mod very modest salaries by by public company standards. And, you know, we we work hard for those salaries, but we're not necessarily in a position to make the sort of purchases that that I I understand that shareholders would would like to see made. But, you know, we will continue to keep this under review. We we have made such purchases at various points in the past, both during fundraisers and in in in between times as well.

35:10 And, you know, where we can, we will continue to do so. So that's our our response. And, again, apologies if that's unsatisfying, but I'm trying to be as honest as as we can be in relation to that. Then maybe, Pete, if I push this next one back to you. Yeah. There was just a question in relation to would there be any more placings in the current calendar year? I think we can we we can hit that one on the head perhaps. Yeah. So look, as a board, our strategy, as I mentioned, is focused around scaling the business to the point whereby we no longer are making a loss and we can start reinvesting our income into driving our growth initiatives. If as we expect, we we manage to hit the kind of the the market expectations at the end of this this financial year, you know, we feel our cash runway will extend potentially beyond the the calendar year.

36:09 Exactly how far, you know, will depend on the degree of which, you know, we can convert our strong pipeline into new contracts, and also will depend on whether we can identify identify any any specific investment opportunities. As I mentioned in the presentation, we are undergoing an initiative for some research to identify potential targets such as potential acquisition targets of revenue generating business. So, there's a lot of ifs there, but it would really depend on whether we find some investment opportunities to focus on. Mhmm. Okay. Thank you, Pete. The next one, may maybe I'll I'll I'll take the next one as well. So it's just around, you know, why should new investors invest in p y c when there may be further placings ahead?

37:07 I mean, I can't give a definitive answer to to this question. All I can say is that if you look over the history of of the time that I've been with p PYC, then we have had periods where we've had strong growth. We've had periods where we've taken a step or two backwards, obviously. So, you know, that there are obviously there are clearly investors who have made some money and and and sold to take a profit. But, obviously, it depends on the timing of of when you invest relative to announcements that we may make in relation to the various initiatives that we have going on, which which Peter's has covered well during his presentation, and during subsequent questions. So I think that that's that that's all I can say to that. Obviously, I can't make any definitive statements, about when people should or should not invest in the company.

37:59 All I can do is say that, you know, we are working hard to try and create value through the various different verticals that that Pete has described during his presentation. There's a further question here around the process follow-up when arranging a placing and whether there's any government funding available that would eliminate the need for for dilutive placing. So I I guess that refers to the sorts of grants that that we have won in the past. Pete, I don't know if you wanna say a few words about that. Yeah. Look. We, as a business, are always kind of exploring new grants and areas or or ways of of funding, certainly, our our personalized medicine initiative. The business has won a number of grants over the years, both from Innovate and, the National Institute for Health Research.

38:48 The latest grant, which we were awarded back in November 2023 from Innovate is still funding the PredictOnc trial I mentioned, and we're under is underway with Blackpool NHS, and Beyond Blood. But, yeah, we are we'll always be looking at you know, what government funding or other funding opportunities are out there to support our our growth initiatives. Thanks, Pete. So the next one or maybe I'll take this, and maybe we'll alternate for the rest of the the q and a. So there's one relating to our guidance that was provided on on full year results at the end of January stating that we were trading in line with expectations.

39:40 There was a question asking why we weren't making any predictions for the interims. Yeah. So the the answer to that is is that, you know, we've made we're a small company. Our earnings are quite volatile even in comparable years where our revenues are similar. Sometimes they fall more heavily in the first half. Sometimes they fall more heavily in the second half of the year. And as a result, we we we we have never made predictions as to, you know, the relative levels of revenue in each half of the year, and and it's unlikely that we'll do so going forwards and and, you know, at least at this point in time. It is, however, quite normal for companies to provide updates on their full year numbers approximately halfway through the year, we wanted to do that in advance of of the fundraise that eventually happened to, you know, I guess, to reassure people that irrespective of of what our first year first half numbers look like that we are currently expecting to trade in line with market expectations for the full year, which as Pete has said on a couple of occasions, you know, would represent quite a big uplift around just over 30%, I believe, on the comparable full year total income from from the the the the last full financial year.

41:09 So that is is my response to that question. Next question perhaps to Pete since it relates to presentation that you made through proactive last November. There was just a question about whether or not you felt like the timing of that was appropriate given that, you know, we we've then completed placing later on. So if if you'd like to take that one, Pete. Yeah. I think so. We as a business have been looking at other ways of better, you know, better engagement with the market and we have the opportunity to present on the the proactive platform, just a very short, presentation as I hope some of you have have seen.

42:00 I think, you know, that, opportunity, it it it worked well. But I think at this point in time, you know, presenting through the IMC platform as as we're doing today, meets our our current needs. I think part of that question was around my my enthusiasm and do I, do I think that's I was supposed to be a bit too over enthusiastic, during the presentation? I I don't believe that. You know, I think that PHYSIOMICS has a lot of potential, and is is starting to turn a corner. I think, you know, there's still a lot of work to do, but we are getting in the right direction, and and I'm positive about the the future. Okay. So maybe I'll take the next one, Pete, which is around the share price, and it's kind of on the same theme as I mentioned at the beginning of the q and a session.

42:54 You know, do we consider the movement of the share price as a as a measure of our performance? And and what are we doing to reverse its its decline? So, you know, let me just restate again. You know, we we do consider that the decrease in the share price reflects on our on us personally. You know, we are, as you, not satisfied with the performance of the company, and and that is our responsibility. Some of the you know, some there are things that aren't outside our control, but at the end of the day, you know, we are the directors of the company, and and it's our job to try and create value for shareholders. So let me just take that one directly on the chin. You know, the initiatives that we have in play currently to create value and reverse the the the the longer term decline of the share price. I I won't go into again, but I think Pete's covered quite well over the course of this meeting, and we'll continue to provide updates on those over the the the, you know, the remainder of this current financial year and beyond.

44:00 So next question for you, Pete, addressed to you around, you know, what you know, how do you think you've done over the first twelve months as a CEO with PHYSIOMICS? Yeah. Look. I think we've made a lot of progress as as a business in the last twelve months. We've made, you know, some key changes to kind of starting to unlock that growth and and change our ways of working. I personally stand by by these changes we've made, and I can see that we're tracking in the right direction. Is, you know, is the job done? No. Definitely not. There's still a lot more to do. And hopefully, this presentation I just gave gives you a feel for the areas we're focusing on.

44:52 Okay. Thank you, Pete. Next one, since it relates to the nonexecutives, maybe again, I I'll take it. So, you know, what do the nonexecutive directors bring to the to the table, so to speak? I guess the implication there is also, you know, do we need all of the nonexecutive directors that we have? And and and, you know, the answer to that is that we do you know, we're mandated by AIM and the quoted company alliance code to have two independent nonexecutive directors. And and and therefore, we have we did manage with a smaller board for some years. But over the last three or four years, the guidelines and regulations which apply to all AIM companies regardless of their size have been tightened considerably.

45:44 I guess, you know, specifically to try and protect shareholders. However, you know, as a result of that, you know, we we have had to increase slightly the side of our size of our board. Having said that, you know, our two independent nonexecutive directors, Tim Korn and Shalab Kumar, both bring significant experience to their roles. And I believe that they, you know, they they do add a lot during discussions at board meetings and in between by leveraging their network. So, you know, we've had consulting engagement through referrals from from these directors. We have been connected to potential, you know, companies that that we may consider business combinations with through these directors.

46:31 And I would expect that they would continue to contribute in this way as well as just being a, you know, sensible business heads that can comment on our operational performance from month to month. So that would be my response to that question. Pete, there's a question here, a couple of questions about the the the value of the pipeline and the value of the dosing tool. I mean, it's always a tricky one to give forward looking statements, but I don't know if you wanna say a few words on those. Yeah. No. Well, just that really, Jim. So, yeah, I'm not not able to give any forward looking valuation of the the business or or our assets. But, you know, as a as a business, we are focused towards revenue generating activities and and growth of our revenues, so we can we can scale and and grow the, the business.

47:23 You know, I think one of the comments around, you know, the value next year, you know, obviously, I can't give you a value, but I I hope that, you know, this year is gonna end, you know, tracking in line with expectations. So it would be a a strong year for us, and I hope that growth continues on an upward trajectory going forward. Yeah. And I guess I would just add, we're we're coming up to some questions on on the relationship with DoseMe and the things that we're doing on the personalized medicine front. I would I guess, would just say as as that matures and we actually get our tool out and and being used by potential customers who are currently DoseMe customers, then there may be some metrics that we we can release in terms of, you know, the the size of that market, which is primarily in The US.

48:14 And as and when we we can do that, we we will do that. It won't be a sort of a dollar value, but it it may be that we can put out some information about, you know, the sort of scale of of of the opportunity over there that we see. Okay. So moving on to personalized medicine. We we may have to I think we we close at the top of the hour, Pete, so we we may have to speed up a little bit. My fault, probably. So there's some question about what, you know, the dose me relationship and how it's evolving. Perhaps you could you could cover that. Yeah, so I think I touched upon some of this in my presentation around, I think the word deeper relationship with DoseMe. So, as you all know, we are working with DoseMe around the implementation of our personalized dosing tool onto their platform so we can get it into the hands of, you know, clinicians in The US, you know, those ultimate end users of of that tool.

49:13 But in addition to that, we are exploring a kind of a deeper relationship with DoseMe around other tools, you know, outside the one we're currently developing. DoseMe works across a variety of different therapeutic areas including infectious disease, cardiovascular and oncology. And we as PHYSIOMICS obviously brings a unique expertise around mathematical modeling and development of these software algorithms. So that is what I mean by a a deeper relationship with DoseMe. So there's that question. Go jump into You go I mean Yeah. Go to the next one, which is around how much you know, what what else is happening with the dosing tool, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look. There's for for the dosing tool for the current dosing tool, there's two main kind of streams or work streams ongoing with with that tool at the moment.

50:08 Firstly, there's the the predict on trial, which, as said, has just been set up and is starting to generate data. And the second stream is with DoseMe around implementing the tool onto their platform. As we progress both streams, we can firstly finalize the the tool using the data from the PredictOnc trial side. And then once we've done that, we will already have it in a platform which can then help us commercialize that tool. So we're trying to progress things in parallel to get it to market as quick as possible. Okay. Fantastic. I think we'll we'll move on, Pete, now to the section about the consulting business.

50:54 There first, there's a question about turnover. You know, do we feel like our turnover is high? There have been some changes in the faces on our staff page. Do we think that we're paying people appropriately? Yeah. Could you comment on these things? Yeah. Look. I I I I don't actually think we do have a high turnover. You know, we are a small team. We've got individuals within the team who have been here for longer than fifteen years. We did lose two junior modelers late last year after a number of years working for us. It's this is always, you know, disappointing when people move on. I think, certainly, those at the earlier end of their their career typically do kinda move around a bit more frequently nowadays.

51:44 But as a business, we have always been able to kind of recruit high quality staff. And as I as I presented in the in the slides, we've already recruited two individuals into the business, each bringing significant expertise. You know, as we look to grow the business, we are looking at, you know, what expertise we need. So, you know, it also, you know, provides us with an opportunity to, you know, tweak our our expertise, to meet our our changing requirements. Thanks, Pete. So next block of questions, around how the company is being structured, the the separate divisions between traditional consulting and bio stats.

52:32 You know, how's that going? You know, how is the development of the bio stats progressing? And and how might those sorts of contracts differ from consultancy contracts? Yeah. So as I presented in the slides, we have the three service lines, so the modeling and simulation, biostatistics, and data science and bioinformatics. From a financial element, we do separate out the biostats and the core modeling. So we have our internal targets against each one and our own kind of budgets against each one. However, from an operational standpoint, there is a lot of overlap. So, for example, our head of business development is out there selling both service lines.

53:22 Our technical team, being mathematicians and data scientists, are flexible across both service lines. So there is a lot of kind of overlap and flex between the different service lines. Regarding how BioStats is performing, you know, as I mentioned in my presentation, we're starting to have some very interesting discussions with prospective clients, some of which I hope will convert into contracts very soon. At this point in time, though, all of our revenue has been focused around our modeling and simulation service line. But, you know, hopefully, that's gonna change. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. New contracts?

54:08 Or Well, let me just and there there was one question that came in during the during the presentation around on the same subject. So just to address that perhaps, you know, what has been the market reaction to the launch of of BioStats? And maybe if, you know, I I can just give a top level answer to that one, which is, you know, generally very positive, but, you know, expectation of of additional revenue and contracts. So really very much in line with what Pete just said. We're putting the building blocks in place, but, clearly, the market wants to see that convert into, you know, a strong a revenue growth in that separate service line, which which we are working on. Okay. So last question or two.

54:57 So there's a a question around the the the sort of spate of recent publications that we've had and, you know, whether that would create any new opportunities for us, Pete. Yeah. I think I think the two publications have been a a great success for the business. You know, publications scientific publications in reputable peer reviewed journals as as we've we've we've managed to do really helps credentialize us as a as a consultancy service. And those two papers we we published in the last couple of months actually did focus on our virtual tumor model and were publishing in partnership with two, respectable, you know, large pharma companies. So the the publications themselves have a lot of value for us, and are, you know, gonna be really useful in that kind of sales process in in evidencing, the impact of our service.

55:55 I guess regarding opening new doors, in addition to kind of mention, you know, talking about our virtual tumor model, the the two papers do focus around therapeutic or kind of new modalities in the oncology space, which are very hot topics, so the immuno oncology space and the DDR space. So as a business we are currently using those publications as part of wider marketing campaigns to target other companies working in that space. I hope that the papers will be able to open up more doors, certainly. Okay. So I think we've got just got time for one final question, which is actually going back to the dosing tool.

56:41 I don't know if you can answer this off the top of your head, Pete, but if not, then we will, provide an answer, later on when we publish the the q and a. But but just around the target recruitment number of patients that we're targeting to recruit for the dosing tool. It may be that we wanna give a range here. I don't know, Pete. Yeah. So we are we've we've currently recruited we've just exceeded 10% in the first few weeks of of getting approval from ethics and regulatory board. So that's ten percent. So we are targeting a range of between I think it's about 80 to a 120 patients recruited. Yeah. So it's it's pretty substantial pretty substantial trial, to be honest. Certainly, biggest one that we've been involved with. Listen. I think that I I think we've addressed most of the questions that that that came in or at least the themes.

57:39 If we didn't get to any of your questions, then we we apologize. Appreciate your continued support and your attention today. And I think that that concludes for now. Thank you. That's great, Peter. But before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, Peter, is there anything else you would like to close the meeting with? No. Just to thank you all for for listening and and those who submitted questions, and and thanks for, you know, remaining interested and and the business. You know, I hope by the presentations, some of our answers, you can see that we are making progress as as a business. I know the first half was a bit more disappointing than than what we had hoped for, but, you know, we do truly believe that we are on the the right trajectory.

58:28 Fantastic. Peter, Jim, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and with the the board can then try to 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 PHYSIOMICS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.