Proteome Sciences (LSE:PRM) — Annual General Meeting

0:00 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Proteum Sciences PLC Annual General Meeting. I'd now like to hand over to Chairman, Christopher Pierce. Good afternoon. Thank you very much indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming here today to attend our Annual General Meeting. I'm Christopher Pierce, Chairman, and I shall be chairing the meeting today. I'd like to introduce, those members of the board to whom you are addressing this meeting. We have Mariela Songan, our chief executive officer, Ian Pike, our chief scientific officer, Abdul, Amari, the chief financial officer, Richard Dennis, who in fact is overseas at the moment, is attending virtually our chief commercial officer, and our nonexecutive directors Ursula Ney, Roger McDowell, and Martin Diggle.

1:02 The quorum for this annual general meeting is two members. As there are two members present, I declare the meeting open. I'll read you a short AGM statement that will be released on RNS. Questions relating to the AGM statement may be asked before moving to the formal business of the meeting. The annual general meeting statement. Since the start of 2024, we've seen significant customer engagement and interest in proteomic services reflected by the considerable increase in customer contact quote and quotations provided, including the substantial contract win from a US biopharmaceutical company announced on the 04/26/2024. The company is confident and well positioned to see the business return to growth in 2024 following the launch of single cell proteomics, the introduction of new next generation tags in isobaric and isotopic fields and the opening of the new facility in The USA during 2023 to provide services locally there.

2:10 That is the end of the AGM statement. To the former part of the business, from the proxies received totaling a 112,000,000 shares, 99% of the votes cast are in favor of all of the resolutions one to eight. For this reason, I do not intend to read out the proxy results after each resolution. Unless the poll is demanded, each of the resolutions be voted on a show of hands. This being the case, can I just remind those present on a show of hands, each member and appointed proxy has one vote? The notice convening the meeting has been in your hands for the statutory period. With your permission, I will take the notice as read. Resolution one. The first resolution in the notice is to receive the financial statements and the reports of the directors and auditor for the year ended 12/31/2023.

3:05 If you'll turn to pages 25 to 27 of the financial statements, you'll find the director's report and the audit's report auditor's report is on pages 28 to 33. With your permission, I'll take these reports as read. Before I propose the first resolution formally, are there any questions? There being no questions, I now propose as an ordinary resolution receipt of the financial statements and reports. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against? Thank you. I now declare the resolution carried. As the second resolution in the notice concerns the reappointment of myself as a director, I will ask Ian Pike to take over the chair of the of the meeting while the resolution is being dealt with.

4:00 Thank you, Christopher. Christopher Pierce retires in accordance with article one zero nine b of the company's articles of association, which requires one third of the directors to retire at each AGM. Christopher Pierce has stated his willingness to continue

4:15 in office. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions?

4:23 There being none, I now propose as an ordinary resolution, resolution two as set out in the notice to reappoint Christopher Pierce as a director. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against? Thank you. I now declare the resolution carried and now hand the chairing of the meeting back to Christopher Pierce. Ian, thank you very much for doing that. The third resolution in the notice is to reappoint Ursula Ney as the director. Ursula Ney retires in accordance with article one zero nine b of the company's articles of association, which requires one third of the directors to retire at each AGM.

5:09 Ursula Ney has stated her willingness to continue in office. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions? May I show you sorry. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate the first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against? Thank you. I now declare the resolution passed. The fourth resolution of the notice is to reappoint Mariola Songhen as the director. Mariola retires in accordance with article one a nine b of the company's articles of association, which requires one third of the directors to retire at each AGM. Mariola Songhen has stated her willingness to continue in office. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions?

6:00 I now propose as an ordinary resolution, resolution four is set out in the notice to reappoint Mariella and Songhen as a director. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against? Thank you. I now declare the resolution carried. The fifth resolution in the notice is to reappoint Richard Dennis as a director. Richard Dennis retires in accordance with article one zero nine b of the company's articles association, which requires one third of the directors to retire at each AGM. Richard Dennis stated his willingness to continue in office. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions? I now propose as an ordinary resolution, resolution five, as set out in the notice to reappoint Richard Dennis as the director.

6:53 May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against, I now declare the resolution carried. I'd just like to say thank you to the director who has stood and particularly to welcome them back onto the board again before we move on to the sixth resolution in the notice, which is to reappoint Cooper Perry Group Limited as the company's auditors and to authorize the directors to fix the auditors' remuneration. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions? I now propose, as an ordinary resolution, the reappointment of Cooper Parry Group Limited as auditors of the company until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration.

7:44 May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against, I now declare the resolution carried. The seventh resolution in the notice of the meeting is the ordinary resolution to authorize the directors to allot shares in terms of five five one of the Companies Act 2,006 up to the limit as set out in resolution seven of the notice. Before the resolution is put to the vote, are there any questions? I now propose as an ordinary resolution, resolution seven, as set out in the notice of the meeting. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you.

8:30 Those against? I now declare that resolution carried. Resolution eight, in the notice of the general of the meeting is a special resolution to disupply shareholders' statutory preemption rights in relation to the issue of shares subject to certain defined limits as set out in the notice. The full text of this resolution and the applicable limits are set out in resolution eight of the notice. I now propose as a special resolution resolution eight set out in the notice of the meeting. May I call upon you by a show of hands to indicate first those in support of the resolution? Thank you. Those against? I now declare the resolution carried.

9:19 This completes the formal business of the meeting. Are there any questions? We have one in the room. We're delighted. Yeah. Sure. That was a couple of fairly simple, I hope not to my questions. There's been a lot in the accounts relating to the strategy of the company and the governance of the company, but nothing relating to your own personal strategy in relation to the company. Given your very substantial financial involvement, is it possible to get you to say something about what your plans for the company are? A difficult question to to answer in the sense that I have been highly supportive of the business, when times have been difficult in the past and have been thoroughly committed to see it moving into success, and I continue to be so.

10:22 I think the important thing that has changed is we now have, with the expansion into overseas facilities where we can generate revenue with a new generation of tags coming through, and then equally the development with, SCP single cell proteomics that we have a new variety of different streams of income coming through. And I'm very committed to continue to support the company to see the evolution of the business to its next levels.

10:54 And just to say, as we set out in the, AGM statement, we are seeing very good indications, from the uptick that there is going to be return to growth for us in the PROTEOME SCIENCES field in 2024. So from my perspective, very much the board runs the business. I am a shareholder in it. I'm very supportive to it, and I think we're confident that we see good growth and good times ahead of us. Right. Okay. Just picking up on one of those things you said, indications. There seems an awful lot of reference to contacts, indications, no contracts, bar one.

11:46 We have a responsibility, under the rules, to notify shareholders when there are substantial significant contracts. We don't actually list day by day, contracts that are coming through, but clearly, see very much a movement in the right direction from what was a very difficult second half for the whole industry, not just ourselves. I think probably it'd be best if, Richard Dennis, who is available from The US by, telephone, maybe answers this because he's he's our chief commercial officer, and maybe a few words from him in terms of the volume of contracts we're identifying prospectively and what's going on will be very helpful.

12:32 Richard, can you pick up from here? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. That's loud and clear. Excellent. Thanks. So yes, as Christopher said, we have an obligation to announce significant contracts that have won. We made an announcement in April this year from a U. S. Biopharmaceutical company. And I think in 2022, we announced an even larger project that we won from a European company. So they were significant orders, and our expectation is these will continue. But we win orders on a weekly basis, and that's part of our more bread and butter services that we offer.

13:20 But clearly, we don't want to announce an RNS for every one of those independent of the value of them. But, you know, we we we get orders coming in from from mainly The US, you know, which is not surprising since that's where most of the biopharmaceutical research and development is performed. But similarly, we get orders from The UK and The European Union as well. If I may just complement that actually, Richard, I think what we're seeing in as we put in the report and accounts, the volume of interest and statements of work, which are where you're in detailed discussions to conclude longer term contracts and of substance, clearly, the numbers have actually grown most encouragingly in 2024 as certainly the start of the year and where we are today.

14:19 And we have confidence that a number of those will convert into new contracts. We're really wanting to focus as well in parallel to the volume of contracts we have coming through. We want to concentrate on the larger contracts, which maybe will have clinical commitments as well because that is where we're going to be able to generate really good long, substantial revenue streams. So very much we're focusing the business to that. And when I addressed my personal position earlier, I was very much saying what we didn't want to do was just have a very simple, straightforward services business, but we had other parallel revenue streams, all of which we compile to impact and to grow the business. So for a small company, we've invested substantially in the facility in The US. We're delighted to have it operating now.

15:11 That's where, as Richard said, we see a lot of the future and certainly one of the largest markets is probably 50% of the global space as a whole. And equally, we think some of the new technologies we're developing in higher tag flexing numbers, prospective licenses we'll get from those, as we said in both isobaric and isotopic labeling, will actually give us further outreach. And we are looking

15:37 across the board saying that there's lots of opportunities. It was a very difficult year in 2023 for all of the industry. We think it is coming out of those those difficult times, and, you know, we're planning to to achieve growth from our own business in each of those avenues. Fine. Okay. That's very reassuring. But just going back to the strategic review, what I read very clearly is that some the company has some critical mass. And if not now, the perfect time, just as we sort of got some interesting things, as as you say, engaging with much larger companies, is not now the time to find a buyer? Or could I just say, the terms of your loan indicate that if someone shows interest, your loans become immediately repayable or at seven days' notice, We travel for something that constituted poisoning pill.

16:38 Well, it was a reflection of the time and circumstance in two thousand seven, eight when those loans were initiated in the first time, and in such a time where institutional investment just didn't exist in what I call the biotechnology smaller pharma space, and where market circumstances were impossible. At at that time, those were what I call the the terms or the basis of how, such loans because clearly, I had to look at I had to protect my my own position in what I did. And, clearly, I will be very supportive, should the right opportunities come in any which way to actually make sure we're gonna do best for what will be shareholders, and I include myself as a very substantial shareholder in that.

17:31 And, it is very difficult in a small company of our size because of inside information to really, as a chairman, where you have got a big stake, to actually do or say anything that much publicly because you you're actually putting yourself in a in a difficult position. So I come back to, my commitment. The business has moved from being in one single small avenue, which was really doing our own proprietary research, developing tags. We've taken the tags from being the minnow that was a dominant player with over 90% of the market when we introduced TMT tags. We've taken in a in a totally different direction, which means we have a very substantial position with long term IP running out into the mid two thousand and thirties on our on our core patents, which gives us a very sustainable platform, which has allowed the business from its cash flow to finance the development of these other activities without having to have recourse really to shareholders because we know it's very difficult for small companies. So we're doing everything to, think, contain and to increase shareholder value. And I, for one, as a substantial shareholder, believe that we should be able to achieve, hopefully, much greater valuations, in the future.

18:55 I want to talk. I hope sorry, Mario. As it was very personal, I would have, deferred to you. But with with all these things, I think it's important that I'm here. I can talk in in this way, and and why not?

19:08 So thank you very much for your question. I don't know if there are no other questions. We have some pre submitted questions, Chris. I've got them. Yes. Deep joy. Sorry. And I'm Many thanks to those shareholders who did engage with the platform over the last week or so and pre submitted questions to that. So I will work through those. We have one submitted question as well, so we'll get to that once we've done the pre submitted ones. So there were a couple of questions from different people that really addressing the same topic, which is the inevitable excitement around a new biomarker for Alzheimer's disease called phospho tau two one seven And whether, any of the tests that are being announced virtually every day, you hear of a new company offering testing for two one seven, whether this infringes any of our intellectual property.

20:02 And, unfortunately, none of the tests that are in the market do infringe, the allowed claims that we have, at least as we interpret them, and I think we're pretty good at understanding that. We do have IP that does cover, the use of phospho tau two one seven in certain contexts, but that's in combination with other proteins. So if someone wishes to introduce a test which uses, that combination of proteins, they will fall within the scope of our IP. The enthusiasm around two one seven, is

20:39 real. It does seem to be a useful biomarker in blood, but it's not perfect. And there have been some examples more recently of the more traditional markers like, a beta 42, which are improved if you consider the levels of other proteins to normalize that a beta 42 level. So it's entirely

21:01 possible and it might well be probable that the combination of proteins that we have alongside two one seven in our claimed patents will be more useful, more powerful as biomarkers. And it's certainly something we're aware of the value in that IP, and we need to, continually define our, investment strategy for internal development of things like this versus our attraction of commercial partners to license the IP out to develop. So it is a very dynamic space in in the AD diagnostic space at the moment. But, yeah, we, we don't have any claims that are specifically only for measuring also tau, two one seven. And therefore, we we will review the situation as it evolves.

21:49 So I think that addresses those two questions.

21:54 We also have more generally questions about, our biomarker portfolio. So, obviously, we, spend money on, investments, to maintain our patents across a selected

22:13 range of territories. We're not experiencing that. It doesn't need to be. We cover all of the major economically important ones, but it is a cost. And we do that because we we see latent value in this intellectual property. We do see from time to time people looking to develop diagnostic tests that may use one or other of the biomarkers that we have in our IP. And if they fall within the scope, we will certainly address that through appropriate methods. But also, we do we do monitor the progress of certain developments and, know, timing when you approach people to let them know you have some IP is also critical to the point where they have some products that's pretty mature in development.

23:00 So, yes, we do see residual value, quite good value indeed in our IP portfolio. We will, when able, invest further in developing that IP as we have done across the TMT portfolio for for, you know, two decades now. And we will continue to look at the biomarker space. If we see new biomarkers from our internal studies or with our partners, then we'll certainly engage in in patenting around those. I don't know if, Mariola, you want to say anything else around that, but the IP is an important part of our Absolutely. Value proposition. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. As as a slightly, I guess, related, question to the one we had earlier from from the floor, Has PROTEOME SCIENCES ever been approached for a takeover from another company? Maria, I'll I'll send over to you. Yes. Thank you very much, Ian.

23:54 Well, of course, we can assure the audience that if there would have been something that falls under the as an a listed company under the disclosure rules, we would have complied. So as you didn't read anything, you can take from that that nothing at least materialized to agree a degree that would have been announced. However, as you can always appreciate, and we are we are talking to the market. We are in in touch with many clients, customers, etcetera, so it's quite natural. So talking about a project that you always also talk, it's would it make sense to, you know, work closer? I'm not talking about m and a, just to work closer together. And so that is a that is a constant It's coming up every week, every month, but most of it, it's doesn't proceed really, further.

24:53 Thank you, Mary Ann. Very good. So moving on, we have the perennial question. It it it does crop up every year, think, for about the last seven or eight years quite reasonably. Do you think Randox will release their stroke test this year? Thank you. Well, we certainly hope so.

25:14 We are not in the driving seat of that. Of course, it's for them to develop the technology and release it when they believe it's market ready. I would fully expect them not to release anything until it is market ready. But based on what they've been saying at different meetings over the last twelve months or so, it sounds like they believe it's getting there. And I would entirely hope that we'll see that entering the market in some form later this year. But we have no specific knowledge around that. And, of course, people that are able to go and ask Randolph's the same question, they're not not quite as visible as we are. So unless you go to the Grand National, of course, you can see them everywhere. Me. I was I'll tell you that. Yeah. Yeah. Very good.

26:05 Thank you. Okay. So I'm hogging all these questions at the moment. Let's go to to to this one. Do you expect to increase the size of the workforce in your San Diego Laboratory this year?

26:19 Maybe, Abdul, you want to comment on operations side? Yes. Happy to do so, Ian. So, I mean, we've set up the lab, have a team there. It's functioning, has already worked through first projects. What we can say, it's scalable. So when we set it up, we wanted it to be scalable, but this will depend on, you know, how the business further develops. And,

26:49 certainly, if if the demand is there, we'll be able to to scale it up, and I think that's as much as we can say at the moment. Thank thanks thanks, Abdul. And, yeah, I I mean, the the California market is vibrant,

27:03 and, you know, we will make sure we're right sized for that market as and when we need to. It's also very dynamic from a recruitment point of view. So if we need to add people, it's it's a relatively straightforward process to do so. Next question. Does the company plan to offer commercial DIA biomarker services? For those who are not familiar, DIA is a different way of doing mass spectrometry to the way we do it with TMT. It's popular with with a lot of academic groups. There are some companies doing that. Richard, do you want to make some comments on that?

27:41 And you're on mute at the moment. Thank you, Ian. Yes, we continue to look at the marketplace. I think the majority of the clients who come to us, basically, they're just coming to us for our expertise to be able to perform proteomic analysis.

28:00 They're probably unaware that there are different ways of performing that analysis. We believe that there are strong arguments for using tandem mass tags from a technical perspective. But we continue to monitor both the markets there, and, we'll we'll act accordingly in the future. Yeah. Thanks, Richard. And I would just add to that that the introduction of our extended TMT PRO range, which will actually go to 35 plex. So we we keep pulling it 32 because you can do 32 samples and use the other three channels for for internal controls. That's going to make, TMT much more competitive in the throughput area compared to DIA. So we'll be able to do more samples in the same amount of time.

28:50 We also have better quantitative performance, particularly at the lower abundance range for for, you know, proteins that are really rare, but they're actually the ones that are most interesting from a biomarker perspective and from understanding how drugs work. So we do think that the 32 plex is going to drive a a lot more

29:09 business our way, from DIA, But we're not sitting in ignorance, so we've done some development work around DIA. We have some workflows that we can use if customers need it, and there are certain study designs where DIA would be more sensible. We're now in a position that we'll be able to offer that.

29:28 It's not something we want to make that big of a song and dance about because we can do that when we talk to customers individually. We would rather they come to us as proteomics experts and get us to design the right experiment for them. I think we're we're doing well with our strategy. So, yes, we will be doing DIA, biomarker services undoubtedly. And, you know, I think it'll be interesting to see how that space pans out now that 32 slash 35 plex comes into the market and dramatically increases the throughput you can you can do with with one mass spec. Which leads us nicely into the next question of, do your new 32 plex TMG PRO reagents improve workflow sensitivity, proteome depth, and accuracy, and can we give examples?

30:14 Well, I can't give you specific examples, because a lot of what we've been doing is quite proprietary in that space, but the answer is, we get exactly the same levels of sensitivity, proteome depth, and quantitative precision and accuracy with the new tags compared to the old tags. The new tags are an addition set. So the 18 flex that's already out is part of 32 or 35. So we won't be losing sales from the 18. While people buy 32. They'll be buying the complete set. And because we can do 32 samples in one experiment, that now means if we do a 100 samples or just short 96 samples, we can do that in just three experiments now. Whereas before, it would have taken us five or six.

31:01 And with DIA, to do a 100 samples is gonna take you, well over a hundred hours of mass spec acquisition time. We'll be doing that in in 72 for a deep dive or 36 for a a not quite so deep dive. So we have better choices of the depth we go to based on whether the customer wants speed or depth, But we will be competitive on all numbers with any other mass spec process. And actually, I think for for the quantitative side, we will be much better than most of the other application areas in that lower abundance range where it really matters. I don't know if anyone else wants to chip in. I think it's fairly technical question, that one. Okay.

31:49 Next oh, sorry. That's another question about technology. When do we expect to offer our PROTEO genomic searches? That means looking at genetic analysis and protein expression in the same experiments. So we're still not interested in developing genetic or genomic data because that's uncompetitive price wise. It it's very difficult to make money doing that. But what we focus instead is in our data science team, the ability to process other people's genomic data alongside the proteomics data we generate for them or that they've also had generated within their internal resources. And that combination of looking at how genes, how the intermediary states, the messenger RNA, and then the proteins themselves play together is really important in truly understanding how to treat many diseases.

32:48 And there is a fourth dimension, which is the metabolome, which we haven't talked about. We mentioned in the, report in accounts, think that, we're we're looking into metabolomics as a as a partner technology as well. And there, we're much we're much better positioned to offer combined proteomics and metabolomics, and and we'll certainly say more about that in the interims. But yeah. Proteogenomics, we're pretty much ready to start announcing that from a data analysis point of view. It it's not quite fully developed yet, but at some of the conferences later in the year, we'll we'll we'll be moving towards Okay. Next question is related to director investment into the company and questioning why only, some of the executive directors have invested relatively small amounts of money in buying the shares and shouldn't we all be, piling in? Mariola, do you want to address that question?

33:52 Of course. Thank you, Ian. Yeah. It's, well, a question that is, frequently being discussed and, with regard to shareholding of, the c suite in the company. I think you have to take really two groups of companies. If you consider bigger companies, it's much more medium sized to bigger companies. It's much more prevalent that c suite directors invest in the company or even get shares, not only stock options, but really share packages as part of your package. In smaller companies, it's not so prevalent, really. And, I mean, obviously, we are all individuals that have our own investment behaviors, procedures, preferences.

34:43 So we as a company cannot impose this on on our directors. And so, therefore, I need to ask you for your understanding that this is really very much a personal decision from all directors whether they invest in the company or not. That's great. Thanks. Mhmm. And maybe following up on that, I guess, this question directly for you, Christopher. Will the chairman make a commitment to not converting any of his outstanding convertible loan to shares in the future? Given that I have the right which goes back, as I said earlier on, replying to the question from the floor, now since two thousand seven, eight. Basically, I will determine to do what I think is in the best interest, firstly, in this case, for myself because I've got to look after my own and my family's positions.

35:38 But equally, I reiterate, when I make any decisions, it's really on behalf of all shareholders, and therefore, I hope to be acting in the best interest of all shareholders. And so, clearly, I wouldn't want at this point in time to go and determine what I'm going to do because it's not a current situation I'm thinking about. Thank you, Christian. Next question. As we now have a physical presence in The US, it'd be useful for shareholders to understand the contribution by region. I presume that's to the service revenues. Will we provide this information by geographic region in 2024? Absolutely. Yes. Thank you, Ian. Yes. I can confirm that we will split out revenue per region, but we'll we'll leave it at revenue. We'll not go beyond that. I mean, we also need to protect our position with our competitors.

36:38 But revenue, we will split out. Thanks, Abdul. And I think probably staying with you or maybe Richard can answer this one. It's about the projects. We so we announced that the number of projects from 2023 were being, delayed, somewhat into 2024. The question is, are we going to be doing that work in 2024? And I think the implication is or has it disappeared? So, Abdul or Richard maybe Richard, I think you I think yes, Ian. I think, obviously, there was a general industry slowdown through last year. This was seen by a lot of life science providers of capital equipment and services like ourselves.

37:27 It's well documented, you know, in the financial news sheets that certain companies found it hard to get refinancing and so obviously have to look at internal costs in both headcount and what they spend outside. The early indications are that those headwinds are definitely slowing down, and we're certainly seeing that ourselves. You know, obviously, we have made an investment in The US, and that was primarily to satisfy The US customers by having goods on the soil, so to speak. It also means it means they don't have an excessive cost of shipping those samples over to Europe and to the Frankfurt Laboratory. And it also means that we're able to work with US academics who have US government money to spend. And as in most governments, there's a restriction that that research fund has to be spent in their in their own own country.

38:24 So projects some projects have slipped by. Others are are being performed at the moment. And as I said, the presence of having a footprint in California has brought more companies and more institutions that we're able to talk to and do business with. So it's rather a long winded way to say, yes, we we and and, you know, as as Christoph has already mentioned, you know, we're seeing a significant increase in the number of inquiries coming through the organization right now, which kind of backs up what I've said in the past few few minutes. Yeah. And thanks, Richard. And I I would also reiterate that no one has taken a look at their circumstances and then canceled orders that they've placed with us. We still retain all of those.

39:11 We've received samples for the majority of them. The other samples are still scheduled to come to us, and we fully expect to complete all of those those projects during 2024, all being well. Just touching also on The US, lab, question about how much we're saving through logistics, by not having to ship, samples, and then how how much did it cost to open the site? Well, I would say the saving is more on our customer side. So our customers pay shipping to get samples to us. So we haven't saved any money on logistics there, but we have made it much more attractive for people to work with us because they don't have to incur those costs. So, as Richard said, before, we were definitely out of the reach of of US academic groups.

40:02 So they might have a project that that they can they can spend $1,020,000 dollars on. But when you stick another 6 to $7,000 for shipping, suddenly, that's that's not viable. So we're we're benefiting. And because we're US Inc, we can receive US government funds from NIH grants and and other grant schemes that that have to be spent in The US. So so that's a good thing. In terms of our cost of opening and operating US sites at all. I mean, it's not something that we'll go into great detail on. But Yeah. I mean, I can I can refer to the cash flow statement in the accounts? So you see that the investing cash flow was 424,000 for the full year.

40:52 And, of course, the US lab was in in our focus last year, so a big chunk of that was related to the US lab. I think that's as much as we can say at this stage. Thank you, Abdul. That's very fair. Right. We've got one last question, and I think it touches on, something that's already been discussed there that, you know, if really, if we're if we're that good, why is no one knocking on the door to buy us out? And, you know, I think we've had that discussion. And I I would just add a philosophical piece and and invite my colleagues to to share their views. But, you know, if you wanted to sell out at the bottom of your valuation when you believe you have something better, that wouldn't necessarily be in the best interest of all shareholders.

41:41 And, you know, my personal view is our valuation doesn't reflect what we have. It certainly reflects how the the the investor community views us, and we can't argue with that. That's how they view us. But, you know, we we are very active. We have lots of engagements. We have great technologies. And I just don't think now would be the time for us to respond to any cheeky offers. Thank you very much, Ian, for a, that response and b, for posting the questions, which, we hope we've addressed fair and reasonably to everybody. Just to go and say to everybody, thank you very much indeed for actually attending this meeting.

42:30 And I think now it's time to say we formally declare the meeting closed. So thank you very much for being here, and we look forward to seeing you in the future. That's great. Thank you very much to the board of PROTEOME SCIENCES. Can I please ask attendees online not to close the sessions? We'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations. This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the board of PROTEOME SCIENCES PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's annual general meeting, and wish you all a very pleasant afternoon. Thank you. Thank you.