Physiomics (LSE:PYC) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the PHYSIOMICS PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Jim Millen, CEO. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you very much, and, thanks everyone for, for your attendance. So this is an update, following the RNS that we published earlier in the week, to, discuss, you know, our trading position, but also to give a a more material update on on some of the other initiatives that were discussed earlier in the year.

0:53 We have the usual disclaimer, which I will leave you guys to read for yourself. I I'm assuming that the majority of people on the call, you know, are are are shareholders existing shareholders, and and, therefore, I won't spend too much time on these slides that you will have seen before. But just to remind you that PHYSIOMICS core capabilities are around cancer, around quantitative pharmacology, and and PKPD modeling, around data, and around coding, and that remains unchanged.

1:27 Again and and, again, I don't think you you need any reminders here, but there are two parts to our business currently. There's the commercial part, the consulting piece, which is on the left hand side here, where we work with companies of of all size in the life science space from small startups up to large companies like Merck Serono. And then on the other hand, there is our in house initiatives centered around personalized oncology, which up to this point in time, you know, we'll remind you guys, has been pretty much entirely funded by by grants. So two, three grants, I think, from Innovate UK and one from NIHR, which we've used to develop the the tool up to up to where it is today and also funded the the partner study, which ended just at the end of last year.

2:17 And I'll come back to talk about that in in a lot more detail a little bit later on in the presentation. Just to say, perhaps, before we we we dive into the content of the r and s that we've now completed over a 100 projects with, you know, a variety of clients. We continue to pick up clients, especially in the small and mid sized space, and and we do see this as our as our sweet spot going forwards. You know, there there's a number listed there, all of which have been subject of of previous RNSs, so I won't read them all out. But we do continue to develop that part of our our our client base. And, again, you know, I have a specific slide on that, which I think is quite interesting, and and I'll come back to you later.

3:09 In terms of what we do with clients, again, I I won't read it all out, but, essentially, it's about supporting companies that are developing drugs, mainly companies that are developing cancer drugs to understand their products so that they can optimally design their trials and in particular around dosing and scheduling in order that in order that they can have the best chance of success and also develop their drugs in the most cost effective fashion. So coming on to the the the meat of the presentation, the main reason for our r and s update on Tuesday was to provide updated guidance. Obviously, there was previously a market expectation, of around about, £1,000,000 in revenue, and we've now guided to to $7.50.

3:59 As mentioned in the r and s, the main reasons for this were were twofold. One was a a significant reduction in revenue from our largest client as directly as a result of of some significant reorganizations that that have gone on and which are in the public domain. So, you know, I I could speak about them to that extent. Not in any way connected with our relationship with the company, which, by the way, remains very good, but have unfortunately had the effect of reducing the amount of revenue from that client that that we believe we'll be able to recognize in in the the current financial period. The other thing which has happened just very recently, and and I know that there was a couple of shareholder questions relating to, you know, the timing of our notification on this, but but, honestly, the this has just happened in the last few weeks that there were two projects that, you know, we had penciled in as as as basically committed projects for for this financial year, which which now, you know, at the very least have been delayed and therefore has left a gap. Now, obviously, we have a good pipeline, and we're doing our best to backfill that.

5:12 But there is a lead time on developing new projects, and, you know, we felt it was appropriately conservative to to say that that revenue might therefore be missing during the current financial period. So that leaves us with the, you know, with the picture that you see there. And, yeah, I I I have to say that I apologize to shareholders that we're not gonna meet what were originally the market expectations for this period. You know, it's clearly the board's responsibility and, ultimately, mainly my responsibility to to make that happen. Looks like I'm not gonna get there and and therefore, you know, my apologies to shareholders for, you know, for even though these things are largely out of my control, you know, it's my job to try and and generate that revenue, and it looks like we we won't get to where we were expecting to get to.

6:04 On the other hand, there are actually a a couple of, you know, positive things that that that are happening behind the scenes that might not be, you know, completely obvious to you guys, I wanna talk through those in the next couple of slides. So the first thing is that, you know, behind the scenes, under the water, so to speak, we've been working really, really hard over the last couple of years in order to diversify our client base away from a single large source of revenue, which as many of you have observed over the last few years, you know, it has always been a risk. It's nice to have a big client. It's nice to have a committed client, but, of course, if that client starts to throttle back or experiences its own headwinds as has been the case with with Merck, then it's nice to have a a mitigation strategy.

7:01 And what you see here is is really just what I set out in the r and s, which is just a simple comparison between the financial years ending 06/30/2019 and 06/30/2023, which is our projected figures based on on the the most recent guidance. And what you can see is, you know, for me quite interesting, which is that, you know, going back to 2019, which wasn't so very long ago, at that point, you know, actually over 80% of our revenues were dependent on on a single large client. Whereas for this year, even with the new figures as they stand, the new projections, you know, less than 40% of our total revenues will depend on that client. Another way to look at this, which which I certainly find very encouraging, is if you look just at the non Merck revenue, then between 2019 and 2023, it's increased over four times, which is equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of just under 45%.

8:11 So what this tells me is that there is, you know, there is an opportunity for growth and that that opportunity, we believe, may primarily come from the the small and medium sized sector of of our client base.

8:28 The other thing I just wanted to emphasize is is our pipeline. Obviously, I can't go into a lot of detail, and it is changing constantly, but I wanted to just make a a couple of points. One is that, you know, we have invested in in business development, as you know, over the last year or so, not much more than that. And with our BD lead, we've developed a much more professional sales process than than we had previously. Obviously, prior to the involvement of our BD lead, it was primarily my responsibility to do all of the the selling and business development. Obviously, I'm still very much involved in that side of the business. However, you know, I think we we we now have a a much more solid and and professional process, which should help to to to drive sales going forwards.

9:22 You know, we do have over 25 potential new projects in that pipeline at different stages of of development in the sales process. You know, I'm not gonna quantify the value of the pipeline because, obviously, you know, the the the projects that are earlier on have a lower chance of of making it to the finish post. And, you know, I don't think we have enough projects in the pipeline to be able to, you know, properly risk adjust the value. But what I can say is that, you know, in the current financial period, our average project size is approximately 50,000. And and, actually, if you look back over the last few years, then that's been relatively consistent. Obviously, that that that masks the detail that that we do do a number of smaller projects, especially repeat business projects for clients where we've worked with them before.

10:14 And on the other hand, with some of our larger clients like Merck Serono still, but, you know, in the recent past, Servier and a little bit longer ago, Astellas, for example, those projects have been larger, more in the 100 to to 200,000 range, but, obviously, you know, last spread over a longer period of time also. So, you know, we we we do believe that there is, you know, still a solid pipeline of of clients and and new projects. And, you know, the majority of those 25, I think it's fair to say, are are potential new clients rather than repeat business, and they're also mainly companies that are in the small and medium sized sector.

11:03 So brief comment on on board structure and cost controls and also recruiting. So a number of you, you know, noted that we're currently actively recruiting for a a senior management position. The idea is that that individual, should we be successful in identifying an appropriately qualified person and and retaining them, would start to take on, you know, significant responsibilities from from myself. Clearly, since the departure of of our previous chairman, you know, we're we have a governance structure which is which is not ideal, and we would like to move back towards a more traditional governance structure with a, you know, non executive chairman and a CEO. And I think, you know, if we can retain retain this individual, then that will start to move us along that path, which is obviously desirable, I think, from everyone's perspective.

11:59 The second point I wanted to make here is just to reassure you that that, you know, we're keeping the the cost of of our board as as, you know, as flat as possible. You know, we have one commitment to one individual that we have to honor, which means that, you know, that the average increase across the total board payroll will will be, you know, just a couple of percent this year this calendar year. And in addition, obviously, you know, I won't take a pay rise and and, in fact, haven't in the vast majority of the years that that I've been working for this company. I think there was just one small one in two or three years ago. You know, I I'm think I can undertake that I won't will not take a pay rise until, you know, we significantly increase the performance of the company, which is obviously my job and and my, you know, my my my stated aim.

12:54 In addition, in parallel, we are looking at our cost base. You know, I I think that in the years that I've been here, we have always kept within our budgeted cost base. So, you know, we do not spend unnecessarily or or profligately in any way, shape, or form. Nevertheless, you know, that there are always areas that you can look at to potentially streamline or or reduce your costs, and we are actively looking at at various different elements of our cost base at the moment. A large part of our cost base is on personnel, and, obviously, that you know, we we do not wanna reduce our our investment in any area which is gonna actually impact the business, but there are other areas of spend where there may be savings to make, and we're looking very actively at those right now.

13:47 So a couple of a couple of slides and and comments on on more strategic initiatives that are running in parallel with our current core consulting offering. The first is is is this, and that's simply the you know, we've been through an exercise to, identify the different service areas that that exist within pharmaceutical r and d, which is, you know, essentially our our our core consulting business, and to try and assess, whether any of our capabilities would be relevant in those other areas and also to try and assess whether there are other areas that it might be sensible for us to, you know, to look to expand in, either with our our current capabilities or with capabilities that we could, you know, that we could recruit in house.

14:34 There are two initiatives in this area that that we're very actively looking at. I can't be more specific at this point in time because I don't know if they're gonna come to fruition or not, But I will say that that we are looking at them very actively and that the objective of of both of these initiatives, should they move forward, should they be triggered, would be to generate additional revenue in in the next financial year. So these are things that would make a difference in the relatively near term. These aren't things that are, you know, sort of ephemeral and and won't happen for us until some indeterminate point in the future. You know, these are are very definitely, areas that, that we believe could be revenue generating in financial year '24, I e, from from July this year through to June 2024.

15:32 The the the second slide here on strategic initiatives focuses more on on the personalized mention initiative. And I know, you know, there've been many questions on this, And I apologize for missing by, you know, one week our original deadline that we set ourselves of of providing an update on this by the end of q one. You know, part of the reason for that was that, you know, we we had these headwinds in relation to revenues, and we wanted to be in a position to give a comprehensive update on on that and this at the same time. We didn't think it was appropriate to give a, you know, a positive update on on strategic initiatives, you know, while we were still waiting to to disclose, you know, the the situation around our guidance.

16:19 However, you know, having now done that, you know, I I can give you a little bit more flavor on the things that were first announced at the beginning of this year. I think the first thing to say, you know, we were really pleased to enter into a collaboration with Beyond Blood, which as you recall is developing a device that can actually count cells. So it can it can, potentially at least do, you know, full blood counts, counts of, red cells and separately white cells in the blood. Currently, the devices which, do this are typically quite bulky and sit in central laboratories either in hospitals or in third party pathology labs. The idea of Beyond Blood using their their technology is that they can have a small device that could be used in a in a in a a point of care setting. So, you know, potentially in an outpatient setting or a GP surgery or even potentially in a patient's own home.

17:20 It is still in development. Obviously, there's no guarantee it will get to market. However, you know, the technology looks interesting. Based on what I've seen, it looks like it has potential. And, you know, it could really be helpful in relation to our personalized dosing tool in that, you know, one of the the challenges for our tool is that it does require these cell counts in order to calibrate the tool for individual patients. And, you know, if there was a device on the market such as that being developed by Beyond Blood, then I think there could be some real synergies there. So we're looking very closely at that. And, you know, as part of that initiative, we're we're we're looking at whether there are grants that we can apply for significant grants that we can apply for together in order to develop something that would that would work hand in hand with their technology.

18:16 The second thing to say is, in terms of the, the the the evolution of our dosing tool, you know, one of the areas that we're quite interested in is looking at the tool's ability to predict whether there'd be benefit in using this expensive biological drug, G CSF. Yeah. I think, you know, we've talked about it on a couple of occasions over the last couple of updates that we provided in this area. But, you know, we are very actively at the moment looking at whether or not our tool could be useful in this area, and, you know, I will give you a further update as and when we make progress on that. We did test the idea of being able to provide this guidance with, you know, anecdotally with a a couple of clinicians in The US.

19:09 And, you know, there was initial positive feedback. And and to be honest, I think it's a bit of a no brainer. If you had some sort of a tool that could give a a risk score that would help clinicians decide whether or not G CSF was an appropriate drug drug to use for any individual patient, then, you know, that would be certainly something that that that could be quite interesting both from a a clinician and and from a payer perspective. The third thing here in this list is a collaboration with DoseMe. Again, you know, lots of of shareholder questions on this. I I'm able to say less on this front and and for the simple reason that, you know, DoseMe is no longer a public company. You're all aware that they announced, I think, in in February this year, their acquisition by a private equity group.

19:57 And, you know, whereas public companies generally wanna talk about what they're doing as much as possible. Now that DoseMe is in private hands, you you know, it really is entirely up to them, you know, what they want to publicize and and what they don't. All I can tell you guys at the moment is that, you know, we are in in touch with their new management. There is an ongoing dialogue. And, you know, as and when I can make a further announcement, you know, I I will certainly do so. You know, I think if there is, for example, some progress on the the G CSF initiative, then that in in principle could be something that could fit well with the the relationship that we envisaged we would have with with DoseMe prior to its acquisition, and therefore, could potentially fit with the with the the new organization also.

20:49 I think I've mentioned the point about grant funding, so I won't repeat that. Okay. So just to summarize before we go to the q and a, you know, we have amended our guidance for this financial year. I've explained the reasons, but I have also explained the you know, I think that the the the slight silver lining in that cloud is is that, you know, we have achieved a really material increase in revenues from our smaller and medium sized clients. And, obviously, that's something that we would hope to continue going forwards. The other thing that I've also stressed is that, you know, we we do have a significant pipeline. It's more professionally managed, and and I think that increases the chance of of of success for individual potential projects compared with what we were doing two or three years ago, let's say.

21:39 I've touched on the ongoing moves we have at board level to try and return to a more traditional and and, I would say, appropriate governance model. And I've also touched on the fact that although we don't anticipate exceeding our budgeted costs, we're we're nevertheless looking at any way that we can we can reduce those that that that might be possible without affecting the business, clearly. And then in terms of strategic initiatives, you know, we have both expansion beyond core consulting business and in addition, you know, all of the activities that are happening on the personalized medicine front. So I am now gonna move on to q and a. I apologize that you guys didn't have a lot of time to submit questions prior to this meeting because we set the meeting up, you know, at at quite short notice.

22:32 I will spend perhaps a little bit longer than than I have done in recent updates to try and work through as many of the questions that were put to me prior to the meeting as possible. And I can see that quite a few have come through on the q and a over the course of the last half an hour as well. I will do my best to get through as many of those as well. I think we'll find that there's quite a lot of of overlap and and where there is, then we will, you know, we we will deal with that appropriately. So, you know, that and, again, I will try and address all of the questions even the ones that perhaps, you know, you guys know I can't answer directly or, you know, are frankly very difficult for me to answer directly, but I will do my best. And let's see where we get to. So I have a question here which simply says, you know, please make the case for investing in PHYSIOMICS.

23:26 You know, I still believe that we sit at the confluence of of big data, of huge unmet need in cancer, of massively increased computational power over the last decade, and of a, you know, a continued and even increasing focus by regulators on making sure that modeling is fully incorporated into the approval of of of pharmaceutical products. You know, we have capabilities in all of those areas, and, you know, they can also those same capabilities are also, you know, perfect for the personalized oncology initiatives that we have going. So, you know, I remain optimistic that we can develop both our core business, but also expand through some of these strategic initiatives.

24:14 Second question here on strategic initiatives, do we believe that the company can still transform itself into a profit making operation? You know, the short answer is yes. You know, we are actively investing to grow at the moment. You know, we reached a stage a couple of years ago where we were, you know, very close to to to well, at least on a cash basis, we were very close to breakeven. But our observation was that we were just not growing quickly enough. So, you know, we have invested to grow over the last couple of years. And at least with the small and medium sized client base, as you saw in my presentation, you know, I think that has paid dividends. It's unfortunate that, you know, this year, we're gonna take a a bit of a hit in terms of our larger client revenue.

25:02 But, you know, I think that the increase in small and medium sized client business is is a real reason to, you know, to believe that that we can continue to grow that business going forwards. But, of course, the other strategic initiatives are really important as well for us. Further question here on Project Optimus. The question basically says, you know, we didn't mention Project Optimus in the press release. Okay. You know, I guess we couldn't cover everything in that release, but Project Optimus, you know, is interesting. Just to remind you, this is an FDA initiative relating to development of cancer drugs, and it's essentially it it's a push to try and incorporate modeling into the design of trials for cancer drugs. So, clearly, that is exactly the area in which we work, and we'll continue to do so, which is why, you know, we organized a webinar recently on that subject.

26:01 There were a couple of questions about the webinar, which actually later on in this q and a list, but I'll try and address some of them now. First of all, you know, we had extremely positive feedback from the webinar. And despite the fact that that some of you may have got the impression because of the individuals who comment on Twitter that that a lot of the attendees were shareholders that that simply wasn't the case. I checked the list just before this presentation. We actually had eighty, eight zero attendees of which, you know, I I counted maybe 10 to 15 individuals who were shareholders or employees or advisers. Now don't take those figures as set in stone because, you know, it's not always possible for me to distinguish.

26:49 But it seems to me that the vast majority of attendees at that at that webinar were in fact, you know, small or large, companies who could be potential clients of the company. We've had positive feedback. I think there was also a question, around the geography, of those individual attendees. Again, it's not always possible for us to tell, but I think with the the follow-up that's ongoing, it looks like, in fact, perhaps the majority of them were were US based with, you know, with a slight minority being based in Europe and and other geographies. So that's that's my best understanding of that.

27:29 Okay. So there's a question here which basically says, why didn't we tell you sooner about the the projects being delayed? You know, frankly, we're telling you pretty much as as soon as we realized it was gonna have a significant impact. Obviously, you know, on the one hand, we always have new projects coming in. And on the other hand, you know, sometimes we have projects that get delayed. So it's always a balance. And where we got to the point where it was clear that, unfortunately, in, in this case, you know, some of these delays were gonna be material, and we're not gonna be offset by significant new revenue in in the period. That's when we pretty much immediately decided to provide you guys with an update. Another question here.

28:17 With hindsight, do we feel that we we are trying to grow the company at the wrong time? That's a tough one. I mean, I can't really answer hypothetical questions that require me to kind of, you know, put myself back in a position that we were in a couple of years ago looking forwards. What I can say is that, you know, we are a small company. We're quoted on AIM. You know, that comes with a lot of oversight and some additional costs compared with a a similar sized private company. And therefore, we need to grow. We need to get bigger, and and that's, you know, as clear as day to to us and and I'm sure to you. You know, we do see an opportunity for continued growth in our core business. But as I've, you know, explained on a couple of occasions and reiterated during the presentation today, you know, we need to we need to do more than than we've been doing recently, and that's why we're looking both to expand our consulting business beyond its current borders and also looking at these other strategic initiatives.

29:20 There is a question around providing an update on discussions with Tabula Rasa. Obviously, Tabula Rasa is is now, you know, no longer a partner. Tabula Rasa sold the DoseMe business to to Fairlong Capital. And I, unfortunately, can't say more than I've said already, which is that we are in contact with with the new DoseMe management, and we will provide an update as soon as as soon as we can.

29:53 There are there was a couple of questions about staff members. I I won't mention any specific names, although the question did include the name of a specific member of staff. Just just wondering whether they were still working with us or not. You know, we do have some turnover. I mean, in general, I would say that our turnover is extremely low, and our retention rates are incredibly high. We also have people who swap between being employees and being consultants. We will have also have people who, you know, will change between being part time and full time in both directions. Right? So this is an ongoing sort of jigsaw puzzle. All I can really say, and I won't mention any specific names, is that we will try and keep the website up to date And also that, you know, not only do we have a a very high retention rate, we've also had, you know, great success in recruiting new team members when when we've needed to do so.

30:51 You know, we have always attracted really high caliber individuals,

30:56 and I don't see that changing going forwards. There's a question on the timing of the update that we said we would provide an update before the end of q one, and I think I've already explained that, you know, that the reason that we didn't was that we, you know, we felt like we needed to get this guidance out, at least in parallel with any material update that we provided on on the personalized medicine front. So, again, my apologies for missing that deadline by by a week, and I will endeavor not to do that again, or perhaps to give myself a bit more wiggle room if we think there's any possibility that, the timing of such updates is not gonna be certain. Okay. There's another question on DoseMe, but I think we've really covered that to the extent that I can.

31:45 There's a question on, valve two zero one. So the question is, valve two zero one seems to be awaiting for funding itself. Would we have structured the deal with ValorX differently had we known what we know now? Again, that's a challenging hypothetical question. All I can really say is that, you know, that work was done quite a long time ago, you know, under a a previous management of this company. So and it wasn't even me at the time that struck that deal, But we, you know, we do have it. It is an asset potentially. You know, we are dependent for additional remuneration on on through that arrangement with ValorX on them licensing val two zero one. And as you guys know, that that's dependent on their potential licensing partner securing funding.

32:35 So we wish them every success in securing that funding, and, you know, we we really hope that that still moves forwards. But I don't have more information on that than you do. Question on the webinar. Okay. I think I've I've answered that. That's in relation to whether the people attending the webinar were investors or potential clients, and it's definitely the latter in the majority. There's a question on on on on Twitter. So listen. We're we're a small company, and and we you know, I we haven't chosen to employ a full time social media person to to monitor Twitter and to to comment. You know, I apologize. I I think one or two of you may have had difficulty accessing the webinar.

33:23 I'm not sure why that was. We we didn't get any feedback from clients that they had been unable to to access the webinar or hear what's going on. The webinar in in full is now available on our website. So anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to listen to it is very welcome to to to go and do so now. There is a question about and I won't be specific as to the names, but, you know, I have a small number of nonexecutive positions, which, you know, I have had, you know, more or less since I've been and even before I was taken on as as CEO of PHYSIOMICS. The question is around whether there's a relationship between these companies and PHYSIOMICS, and the answer is no. There is not.

34:11 I I would also reassure you by saying that, you know, that this is a a very, very small time commitment on my part. So I don't think there's anything else to say about that. Someone has asked some people say that PHYSIOMICS is a lifestyle company. Can you refute those claims? Well, to be honest, I I'm really not sure what that means. All I can say is that, you know, every day myself and my colleagues get out of bed. You know, we we we go to work with the sole intention of of trying to help companies that are trying to cure cancer. And and I think that's a very well worthwhile cause. And in doing so, you know, we're we're also trying very hard to increase the revenues and therefore the value of the company. So I'm not sure I can say more than that in answer to that question.

35:05 There's a question about cash and whether we you know, can I dispel any rumors that we may need to do a a a a fundraise? You know, obviously and I can't make any forward looking statements. I can only reiterate what's already in the public domain, which is that, you know, our projections show that that our cash position is is sufficient to cover our needs, you know, based on our our planned income and and expense rate. So there's a question around the the the COO role again. Just asking whether this means that I'm gonna be suddenly stepping back from the company in any way, shape, or form. You know, the answer is that, you know, I'm planning to remain closely involved in PHYSIOMICS, so no immediate plans to to to to change that. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we do need to look at our governance model.

36:01 And so we we do want to return over time to a more traditional governance model and having another senior individual on board who can, you know, share some of those responsibilities, I think, you know, is is is the right direction of travel for us. There's a question about cutting costs and and whether any jobs are at risk. So I think I mentioned earlier that, you know, in focusing on costs, you know, we will focus primarily on costs that are non people related in the you know, at the end of the day, our business is driven by, you know, our people. And, you know, the amount of revenue that we can generate is is really a function of how many professionals we have working for us or with us.

36:50 So the short answer is that, you know, our intention is is not to to reduce any headcount, but rather to focus on on other nonheadcount related costs. There's a question on feedback from project optimus, which I think I've covered already. There is a question on academic dissemination following the results from the partner study. So, yes, that this was one of the things in January that we said we were gonna be working on over the course of this year. So what we have actually prioritized in this quarter is is a a a presentation at AACR. So some of you may have spotted already. We're going to AACR, which is in Orlando in in two weeks' time. We're actually presenting a project that we did with Merck Serono in a a presentation, which is coauthored with with Merck Serono.

37:43 That was gonna be a poster presentation, but it actually got upgraded to a podium presentation, which as many of you will know, basically means that, you know, that one of our our scientists will will make a live presentation to a big hall full of people. That's generally considered to be a, you know, a positive thing, and I'm I'm really pleased that one of my colleagues is gonna be up there with hundreds and hundreds of oncologists and and biotech executives telling them all about the work that we've done, the great work that we've done on DNA damage repair agents with with our long term client Merck Sirono. So, you know, that we we we did prioritize the creation of that content during during this first three months of the year, but we are still planning to do a a full publication based on the results of the partner study over the course of of this calendar year at some point. I will provide a a further update on that once our plans have firmed up.

38:48 There's a a question a here around the pipeline asking for the scope and size of the pipeline that that, you know, the 25 potential new projects in the pipeline. Unfortunately, I can't really say more than I've already said in relation to that. Obviously, those opportunities which at an early stage of development at the top of that pyramid, they've got a, you know, relatively lower POS than the ones that are closer to the bottom. You know, it becomes quite a a difficult calculation, and I don't think there's enough statistical certainty in it for me to be able to to put a number on the total pipeline value. But, you know, just for your orientation, I will just repeat that, you know, the average size of our our projects is around about 50,000 sterling at the moment. Some are significantly bigger and some are slightly smaller.

39:41 And I I think that's all I can realistically say on that at this point. There is a question here about the feedback that we had on on the personalized dosing app. Yeah. I think I covered that already. Really, that that was specific to its use in guiding a clinician prescribing of G CSF. It was done earlier this year, and and, you know, it was anecdotal talking to doctors at a at a conference. So I I wouldn't, you know, make more of it than that, but it is positive feedback from people who would actually potentially be using the tool, and and we find that very encouraging. Okay. I'm now gonna go to the questions that came in during the presentation.

40:33 Hopefully, there's still some of you out there. I will keep going until I get to the end of this list unless I run out of breath or or or run out of questions or run out of audience. Okay. So one of them is is the same question around the pipeline size and value. So I think I can't cover that more than more than I have already. There's another one here. So some of these, I think, are basically repeating some of the questions that were previously submitted. And by the way, these questions that I already covered, they were a combination of questions which were submitted by the platform and questions that were emailed to me directly by people who may have missed the deadline. I think, you know, it's a default on IMC that there's a deadline of 9AM the day before the presentation, but I do appreciate that didn't leave you guys much time to to create to to submit questions prior to the meeting.

41:29 So I will just pass over the questions that I think I've already covered, and I will go to what other ones that that I might be able to answer. Okay. So there's another question about a cash position. I can only answer it in the same way that that that I've that that I have answered it previously, which is, you know, according to our current projections, you know, our cash position is is is good given the the revenues that we're expecting and given the given our our projected expenses. Could I give more color on adjacent services? We're expected expected to be new revenue streams. So I'm I I I'll just go back to the slide. Hopefully, you can still see my slides that outline some of these different areas of pharmaceutical r and d. So here you've got modeling and simulation. So that that's us essentially. And and at the moment, you know, of of these things, you know, we do a little tiny bit of statistical analysis hand in hand with the modeling and stimulation.

42:37 But at the end of the day, that that's that that's what we restrict ourselves to. There are companies which do experimental PKPD studies. So these are laboratory based companies which which actually generate the sort of data which which we can then use in our models. You know, one thing that we are looking at, which, you know, I think we we we have also looked at in the past, but we think there's there's there's reason to look again, is whether there are any partnerships that we could form with companies that are generating that sort of data. I mean, it it I guess it's kind of obvious that, you know, if we were working hand in hand with a company that generated the data, you know, perhaps we could offer some sort of value add beyond them just reporting the the raw data by doing some sort of analysis visualization or or even, you know, modeling on that data.

43:29 So that that that's one example. And there are other areas here which are a little bit more of a of a step change from from where we are at the moment where we are just, you know, assessing whether or not it would make sense for us to explore explore one in particular, but I won't say which one at this point in time. Okay. Okay. So so there's a question here around, you know, why despite the investment in business development, you know, we haven't more materially grown the revenues. And and, again, I think it comes back to this slide that, you know, that that I I I detailed in the presentation. So I guess to some extent, we're a little bit like a, you know, a duck that seems to be, you know, moving forwards very slowly over the water, but but under the water, its feet are paddling, you know, extremely rapidly in order to to to to fight a current.

44:37 So, you know, for me, it's quite striking that we've managed to increase our our, you know, smaller and medium sized client revenues by, you know, really quite a significant extent over pretty much over the period of time that the that that the individual who asked me this question was interested in, so between 2019 and 2023. You know, had we not had the headwinds of, you know, restructuring going on at Merck and and, you know, some slippage in a couple of projects, you know, we we would have been looking at revenues which, you know, were were in line with projections. And, obviously, that is our, you know, our goal to to try and deliver growth. But, you know, for me, this is at least a little bit of a silver lining, which which encourages me to believe that there is a real opportunity to still grow the business that we're in here.

45:29 So I think that that's all I'll say at that point. There is a a corollary to that question around board restructuring. I mean, to some extent, we are you know, we're we're required to even though we're a small company because we're AIM quoted, you know, we're required to meet AIM standards. And and AIM doesn't care how big or small you are, and those standards include requirements around independent non executive directors and also, you know, board governance. And so, you know, we simply have to do those things. We we we do not have a choice, And therefore, you know, we we're we're gonna do our best to to comply in the most cost effective way that we can identify to do so. So there is a specific question around whether we could support another company that that is currently doing a dose finding trial. You know, I I I won't mention the specific name of the company, but it is actually one with which we have had previous discussions, GB, whoever you might be.

46:43 And, you know, if you have any influence with them and and would like to recommend that they speak to us, then, yeah, by all means, that that would be entirely welcome. So there's another question about the pipeline here. And, essentially, it's the same question, which is asking for a quantification of the value of the pipeline. Now I I I I just can't do that. You know, we we won't make forward looking statements about revenue other than guidance around our total revenue. I think if if, you know, if we had 200 companies and potential new projects in our pipeline, then, you know, maybe we could start to look at that. But, frankly, even much bigger companies tend tend not to provide that sort of detail.

47:30 I did just want to, you know, be clear on the fact that there is a large absolute number of opportunities there. You know, this is not something that I'm making up. You know, I have a spreadsheet with the names of those different companies on them and, you know, depending on which stage of that pipeline there. In fact, you know, I actually, I can say that all of those companies are companies where we have at least identified a potential project, and the majority of them, you know, we've had an initial discussion with. So, you know, these are real opportunities. What their likelihood of coming to final fruition to to, you know, to actually the point where we signed a contract with them, that's much harder to call, and and I won't try and do so on this call. There's a question about tax credits.

48:17 I mean, all I can say is that and and I'm not an expert on r and d tax credits, but as as, you know, many of you know, there are government there is a government scheme whereby companies which which are spending money on research can benefit from basically cash back on on in a in in in in PHYSIOMICS, as you know, I mean, you just have to look at our our our p and l and, you know, analyst projections. You know, you know that we benefit from this every year, year in, year out. And and so this is definitely helpful for us as a small company, which is, you know, working towards, you know, a breakeven and and ultimately position of profitability. But in the meantime, we we ask you know, we are buoyed somewhat by these these tax rebates and which, you know, we would anticipate would will continue going forwards.

49:16 So there's a question here about the dosing tool. So, really, I mean, the the the the next steps relate to us finding a you know, the best commercial route to market here. So, you know, we identified a number of different potential disease areas and applications, including the G CSF application for the tool. I think once we have confirmed that that one or more of those areas is, you know, sufficiently commercially attractive that that we want to make an investment to to you know, in our time at least to, you know, to to complete the development of the tool in that area, then we'll be able to give you more detail about what the path to that looks like.

50:05 I think I've mentioned before, however, that the the the regulatory situation in Europe and The US is somewhat different. We think that the regulatory hurdles in The US are a little bit lower in insofar as there are some carve outs from medical device legislation, which personalized dosing companies that exist in The US already have taken advantage of, and that was one of the reasons why we were very interested to secure a US partner. Doesn't mean we will never do anything in Europe, but it's you know, it's very likely that the hurdle would be higher in Europe, and therefore, the the path to market would be somewhat longer and more expensive for us to implement. There's a question about whether we might be acquired by a big pharma company as an exit strategy.

50:58 You know? I I I guess that's you know, I I can't really comment on that. So, I mean, it it it it's it's always possible. You know, we have had approaches in the past of that nature. Obviously, you know, they have not come to fruition up to this point in time. You know, we would always be open to any approach that we felt, you know, delivered value for shareholders, which is at the end of the day what what we should all be interested in. Okay. So I think we're we're we're very close to actually being out of time, and I think I'm at the bottom of the list of questions. If if there were any specific questions, which I didn't manage to get to, I apologize. I have tried to go through as many of the questions that were submitted as possible, and I think all of the ones that I felt were were answerable in a in a in a meaningful way.

51:50 So I will hand back to to the IMC moderator at this point. Thank you. Jim, thanks very much. And certainly, I think you you addressed all those questions you you could from investors. And, of course, the company will review all the questions submitted today and we'll publish those responses on the investor meet company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which you know is particularly important to the company, Jim, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. Sure. So, I mean, clearly, you know, the guidance is down and and there's no, you know, there's no sugarcoating that. But I think for me, the the positives to focus on are the huge growth in the small and medium sized client sector, the fact that we still have a, you know, a strong pipeline in my view, and, you know, the two areas for strategic development beyond our current core consulting business that that we're gonna work really hard to to develop over over the balance of this financial and indeed calendar year. So I thank you very much for your attention.

52:51 Jim, thanks once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at PHYSIOMICS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.