Aptamer Group PLC (APTA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Aptamer Group plc Full Year Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand over to Arron Tolley, CEO. Good afternoon, sir.

Hello. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Aptamer Group's full year results presentation for the financial year '23. I'd like to start off with the presentation overview. So today's presentation has three parts. So for those who are new to the story, we'll give an introduction to the team, an overview of the company and of the market and of the technology. The second part will be a review of last year's results. And finally, we will have a reflective look at the past year and look at post-period activities and explain what changes we're making to ensure success within the business. So I'll start out. I'm Arron, I'm co-founder and currently due to the restructure of the business CTO and CCO of Aptamer Group. I have a background in structural biology and biophysics, specifically related to optimal technology. I'm currently focused on working with the team on reshaping the commercial offering of Aptamer Group and converting these commercial offerings into a steady, predictable revenue stream with upside from licensing. David?

Hi, everyone. Yes, I'm David Bunka. I'm the Chief Scientific Officer and one of the other cofounders of Aptamer Group. As I said, my current role is Chief Scientific Officer. And in that position, I'll be focusing on process development, process improvements and efficiencies, as well as generation of marketing data to support our sales and marketing activities and supporting customers in their application integrations, so helping Aptamer get into their working platforms. Andrew?

Thanks, David. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Andrew Rapson. I'm the CFO of Aptamer. I'm a chartered accountant by training, and I've worked as an accountant now for 20 years. I joined Aptamer last year in August, and I've worked in the AIM listed environment since 2015.

Okay. Just a quick recap on Aptamer Group. So David and myself founded the company in 2008 based on the emerging need for alternative affinity ligands, which Dave will explain a bit more about in the next few slides. The company is a contract research-based company based in the north of England, and we solve complex problems for our life sciences partners. We do this using our proprietary automated platform supply molecules called Optimus. We started to trade in 2012 with a focus on lean business operation and revenue growth. We grew the business organically to a point at which we listed on the A market in December '21 with the change of Board of Directors. Currently, as a business, we are working with 15 of the top 20 pharma companies, and we have 36 staff, 70% of whom are masters and PhD qualified. We have 42 partners across 12 countries. So we have pretty much global reach in terms of the different territories and regions that we're working with. So I'll pass over to Dave now to talk a bit about the technology.

Thanks, Arron. Yes, as Arron said, over the next couple of slides, I'm just going to introduce any new people to the business, but I'll tell you a little bit about what it is that we do, how and why we do it and some of the USPs of the company before we hand over. So first of all, what is an Optimer. So an Optimer is an affinity ligand. Now Infinity ligand is just a pop scientific way of saying, [a binder] molecule. It's a molecule that sticks to another one. Now as you can imagine, with such a broad description of an affinity ligand, you can imagine that their applications are equally broad. And that's quite right. So affinity ligands are used right throughout the life sciences. So everything from diagnostics, the COVID test that everyone was familiar with, relied on an affinity ligand. Many other diagnostics do as well, therapeutics do, research tools do, they're absolutely everywhere in the life sciences. Now our offering is, as Arron said, an Optimer. That is a synthetic DNA-based affinity ligand. So that word synthetic is really, really important because it gives us a lot of control. So we isolate these in a laboratory environment, there's no plants or animals or anything like that involved at any stage of the process when we're developing them or characterizing them. So that gives us a lot of control over the conditions. So we can make our binders fit our customers' end application because we can control it. We have different processes that allow us to address several different target types. So that's everything from proteins and peptides, down to small molecules and all the way up to much more complicated systems like wholesales, tissues, viruses and so on and so forth. Our development process is, as I said, it's very tunable. So we can take either one of those three processes and then adapt it further to give the optimum development process to really make sure that we isolate binders that are fit for an end application. And as I mentioned, one of the advantages of our platform is the fact that they are totally synthetic. So this means that once you have your binder, it's much more cost effective and much more reliable to scale up and manufacture. So there's limited batch-to-batch variability. It's much more reliable to outsource the manufacture on very large scale. So up to kilogram scales, if you need it. One of the other advantages of Optimer over other affinity ligands is the stability and solubility of these molecules. So an Optimer can be stored dry, which means there's no need for cold chain storage, cold chain shipping or anything like that. Once you get it to the other side, they're very, very soluble. You don't lose any function through this drawing down and [resolubilizing] process. So they're a lot easier to handle. So that's a little bit about the platform itself. So where do we fit in. So we see ourselves as an enabler of technologies. And what I mean by that is we use our platform to solve intractable problems for our collaborators, customers, et cetera. So essentially, customers come to us with a target molecule, something that they're interested in. So you can see that on the left-hand side of the slide. Now as I said, that could fall into one of three broad categories. So it could be a small molecule, something like a food additive and environmental contaminant or drug of abuse, something of that nature. It could be a protein that could be something that's disease-associated, something they want to research, something they want to purify. So on and so forth, or it could be a more complicated system like a cell, a cancerous cell, for example, it could be a virus like COVID or it could be a tissue like IHC, for example, which is an example I'll come back to later. So they have a target on the left-hand side. They have an application on the right-hand side, something they want to do with that target. That could be to detect it, to purify it, to diagnose it, to deliver a drug to it. The applications are almost boundless. The issue here is customers generally come to us with this target, with this application, but no way of making the two sides marry up. So that's where we come in. We use our Optimer platform, through one of the three different processes to marry up their target and their application to give them an affinity ligand that helps them do their job. So some of the USPs of our process. So I personally worked with the Optimer technology for about 23 years now. So I've seen them apply to all sorts of things. So over that time frame, we've developed and adapted our process to the state that it's in today. And a lot of that is centered around the automation of this process. That may sound obvious, but automation obviously removes the human error that may be involved in any process. So we're the best one in the world, people make mistakes, whereas robots once you program them, don't do that. So we've got a more reliable process, but it also gives us a process that can handle a lot more targets at once. It gives us a lot bigger bandwidth and higher capacity. It also reduces project delivery times because robots are quite "happy" in inverted commerce to work 24 hours a day, where people can't do that. The platform and the process, as I said, is quite unique to Aptamer Group. It's difficult and would be very expensive for others to replicate. Because it's not just the automation, it's all the programs that go with that. It's all the background knowledge and the processes, all the developments that we've made over the years to fit into that. So it's very difficult for others to replicate, but it's very good and easy for us to replicate. So when the capacity requires it, we can replicate our automated platform, train up a new team to use that platform, which is obviously a lot easier than training them to do a whole process and then they can scale up and we can get going. So it allows us to scale up very, very rapidly. So that's a summary on the platform itself. So I'll hand over now to Arron to give you an operational overview.

Thank you, David. So key highlights for the year financial -- the financial year '23. So just as a brief reminder of the business model. It operates across three business units addressing three broad verticals: custom development, which is our fee-for-service arm, applications of Aptamer and [optimizing] diagnostics and applications in therapeutics. As a board, we're committed to increased investor transparency after this latest funding rate, and this is how we will move forward. Let's be honest, it's very clear that financial year '23 was not a good year for Aptamer Group with many learnings. We lost several important contracts that were won prior to IPO impacted our ability to hit the forecasted number, which I will address later. That said, the underlying fee-for-service business remains strong, and the opportunity for transformational licensing deals has not gone away. So in preparation for several high-volume contracts, we actually moved the business to a state-of-the-art purpose-built laboratory, and this move has given us a much better platform to deliver for our customers. The CRO engine has continued to provide solutions over the past 12 months to our customer base, and we have launched new platforms and new solutions for customers. Notable deals are things like deals with a top five pharma company in the immunohistochemistry space. We've signed multiple deals supporting vaccine manufacture in areas of quality control reagents and we signed multiple projects with a fast-moving consumer goods company, looking at the direct-to-consumer applications of Optimus. In the diagnostics arena, we've launched a novel immuno histochemistry reagent platform which received great interest this week at Bio Europe, which I personally attended. We've recently filed patents to protect the technology we developed for use in Alzheimer's diagnostics, such as the strength of the data that we got. There is also great interest in Optimer for therapeutic use with opportunities for deals and partnerships still on the table. We continue to sign deals spanning areas such as transplant rejection technology and siRNA therapeutic delivery. So there's plenty of opportunity within the space. So while '22, '23 was out of kilter with expectations, we still see a solid groundswell and need for the technology. So I'll pass on to Andrew now to discuss the finances.

So I'll now take you through the financial review for the year ended June '23. So firstly, running to the income statement, revenue reduced to GBP 1.8 million in FY '23 versus GBP 4 million for FY '22. FY '22 was quite a good year for Aptamer and included revenue from two large proteomics deals, which, unfortunately, we didn't see progress into FY '23. I think this combined with the weakening of the macroeconomic environment, resulting in revenue being lower than FY '22 and significantly short of our FY '23 target. There's also no revenue generated from licensing, which has proved more challenging to deliver within the time frames than we initially set at the IPO, and this has resulted in the board resetting these expectations for FY '24. The adjusted EBITDA was a loss of GBP 4.7 million for the year versus GBP 1.7 million in FY '22. That's largely coming from the decrease in revenue that we've just mentioned, but also as an increase in administrative costs of GBP 0.7 million, mostly coming from an increase in staffing costs as we scale up the business to meet our expectations for FY '23, but also a slight increase in premises costs as we move to larger purpose-built premises. The head count reduced slightly to 46 at the end of the year, so down three from the prior year and has since been reduced to 36 at the end of October, all without hindering our ability to meet our revenue expectations and our development expectations for the current year. So just moving on to the balance sheet. Cash at the end of the year was just GBP 0.2 million, down from GBP 6.7 million in the prior year. Cash, I should say, at the end of October was up to GBP 2.6 million following the fundraises and takes account of creditor payments that we had to catch up on post fundraise. The net assets at the end of the year were GBP 0.3 million. That's down from GBP 8.1 million, primarily driven by the operating losses that we incurred, but also a significant impairment recognized, and we can see that recognized across our nonmonetary assets. So the intangible assets, property, plant and equipment, right-of-use assets are all considerably down despite the spend on premises during the year, and that's because we required to make an impairment assessment at June as the conditions of the company were at the end of June before any fundraise was completed. So -- so in total, we recognized GBP 2.6 million in impairment on the cash-generating unit plus a further GBP 0.2 million impairment on inventories. So I'll take you now on to the cash flow. Total cash outflow for the year was GBP 6.5 million. The net cash outflow from operations was GBP 4.1 million, and that reflects the EBITDA loss that we've just seen. But on top of that, there is an R&D tax credit claim inflow of GBP 0.5 million. And we've got a further GBP 0.5 million -- just under GBP 0.5 million to receive in the coming year. After operations, there was spend as we've mentioned on the fit-out of the laboratory and office space, that totaled GBP 2 million. And further, there's another GBP 0.4 million of costs for leases, which predominantly relate to the new laboratory equipment. And that concludes the financial review. I'll pass back over to Arron to do the post-period update.

Thank you, Andrew. So I'd like to talk a bit about the plan to rebuild shareholder value. There's been a lot that's happened over the last 12 months and a lot of speculation circulating about our future as a company, in effect, and this clearly didn't help with securing contracts during that period. So we would like to set the record straight and set expectations going forward. So as I said previously, our IPO listing is due to the signing of several significant projects that supported our original revenue forecasts, but circumstances outside of our control resulted in one of the major contracts being discontinued after part payment, along with associated licensing revenue opportunities. As we scaled up to meet these contracts, this left the business with a high cost base, which admittedly was not rectified soon enough, but we fixed that, and we've reduced the cost base to GBP 3.5 million from GBP 6.4 million by removing all the unnecessary overheads associated with those scaled up operations. Andrew will talk a bit more about that later on in the presentation. We've also reset our revenue expectations. It's important to explain that the previous forecast were a mixture of fee-for-service, large project income and licensing revenue and we didn't differentiate the revenue streams for the market. So with the loss of the large project revenue and the licensing revenue, the number that was achievable, quickly dropped. And it was a mistake for us to have forecasted an unpredictable revenue stream like this and like licensing. So we've removed that from our forecast going forward. And any revenue that comes in from licensing will be treated as upside as we move on. After a difficult period for the company in raising funding, I have essentially returned with the pre-IPO Chairman, Steve, and we built a Board with financial acumen and experience with delivery and extensive experience in the end market to return the company to operating a lean business, driving profitability and breakeven. So to clarify the situation around this period of uncertainty, there was a lull clearly in customer confidence around the certainty of the future of the business, but since additional capital has been raised and the new Board has been engaged, we have seen the return of customer confidence with a rapid increase in pipeline activity. So what's our strategy for revenue generation. So we have three broad work streams within the business that we're going to focus on to position the company for success. We're going to diversify the service and product offering in order to drive higher value partnerships. We've focused on improving the platform, to decrease development costs and time frames for customers and we are focused on operating the business on an extremely tight cost base with good cost discipline. We ultimately believe that we can add huge value to the share price and that our focus will remain on fee-for-service as a window to transformative licensing deals with large pharma. But for clarity, this will be viewed as upside and not put into our revenue forecast moving forward. So we've focused over the last several months on developing a broader service offering. Previously, our service offering had four distinct phases for the development of the Optimer. However, this approach often left partners optimizing the product in the end assay format. So what we've decided to do, and we've made great progress with this over the few months that we've been in is to offer a more validated and thereby valuable service. So we've now instigated a fifth phase of validation, including validation for tools in immunohistochemistry, Optimer and Optimer pair screening and also cross-reactivity analysis. So with regards to the higher-end offering where the licensing deals and the transformative deals will come from and from the therapeutics, we're well on our way to producing a suite of services validating Optimer as delivery vehicles across a range of therapeutic areas for a range of therapeutic targets. So this kind of new approach allows us to offer a more complete service and a more validated and therefore, valuable product for our customer. So I'll pass on to Dave now to talk about the process improvements and give an example of the data that we're generating for marketing to improve the offering.

Thanks, Arron. Yes. So as Arron mentioned, one of the areas that we've focused on quite heavily in recent months is in the immunohistochemistry space. So those of you who have followed the company will have seen earlier in the year, we launched a new platform with the Optimer FC conjugates. And we've been developing that process and producing some simplification data. So just to give you a bit of background, immunohistochemistry or IHC, for short, is widely used in clinical pathology. So if you go to any hospital pathology lab, they will do this process. They will do IHC. Essentially, when you have a biopsy taken. That is sent to a pathology lab where it is extensively processed, cut into verifying slices and then the pathologists will look at that tissue sample, looking for signs of disease, typically cancers, things of that nature. So this process has really become the gold standard in clinical diagnosis for diseases such as cancer. To the extent that this is now approximately $2.3 billion market, and that's heavily dominated by antibodies. Now antibodies as the incumbent technology do have a number of serious drawbacks, one of which is all of the processing that's required to take that biopsy sample and get it to a workable state where a pathologist can look at it. Now all of that processing often means that antibodies no longer are able to recognize their target. And as you can imagine, if you don't have an antibody, you don't have a test. So there is an ongoing need within this IHC market space for alternative affinity ligands and this is something that we recognized, something as the power of the Optimer technology to address this need. Now as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, Optimer can be developed against tissue sections as they're presented in the final application. So that's perfect for this platform. And as you can see on the left-hand side, that's exactly what we've done. So we've developed a new process for generating our Optimer binders against these proteins as they're expressed on the surface of cells in these tissues, but have then gone a stage beyond that and shown that we can conjugate an antibody fragment to the end of the Optimer and allow it to function as a primary antibody replacement. So the rest of the workflow remains unchanged. Now that's really important for these to be readily integrated into these hospital pathology labs into research facilities all around the world, the big pharma who use these processes don't want to be changing their processes right down to the bare bones. They just want to switch out and get a good reagent that works, and that's what we've been developing. You can see an example of that on the images on the right-hand side of the slide there. The Optimer FC conjugate shown in brown against the background of the blue on stain cells. So this is showing that the Optimers are working. We've demonstrated this now with both fixed cells. We've shown it on frozen tissue sections, which is one type of material that they use in IHC. And we've also more recently developed the process and shown it working in fixed tissues as well. And this is now with various partners for additional external validation. We're also very grateful to [have had] Adam Harris, who's one of our investors, also joined the Board. Adam has been really helpful in getting this process moving forward. So Adam is a consultant pathologist and IHC expert. And it's with his help that we've managed to push this forward to the extent it is today. Just moving on to some of the process improvements that we've been focusing on as well. So as I said, this is an area of focus for me. And during the recent months, we have introduced a new Optimal library to help us develop new Optimer for additional customers. We've also streamlined a lot of our processes. This has allowed us to reduce the amount of protein that customers need to send us, so that's actually reduced one of the barriers to entry. So it's a lot easier for customers to engage with us now because they need less material. Simultaneously and happily for us, that's given us a further increase in capacity and has also allowed us to reduce some of the other expenses, so it's increased our potential margins. So there's a lot of good stuff that's come out of these process improvements, and we'll be continuing that over the coming months. So I'm just going to hand back to Andrew now to talk about some of the other improvements that we've made.

Thank you, Dave. So the third element here was to achieve an EBITDA and cash breakeven position. And there are two key elements to this. Firstly, as you can see from the graph in the bottom left-hand corner, there's a complete reset of the cost base. And we've now got the cost base down to 3.5 million per annum. They started prefund raise, but was completed in September. The previous cost base has been up as high as GBP 6.4 million, and it was key that we realigned this. Most of the decrease comes from board management and staff costs. All the board changes were completed in August. And as I mentioned earlier, the head count has been reduced to 36 of last count at the end of October, which is down from 46 at June. We did a complete review of the cost base, resulting in savings across all the operational areas and the commercial cost base. The second key element was fund growth. So we raised net proceeds of GBP 3.5 million during August and September. And as I mentioned at the end of October, that was down to GBP 2.6 million. So we spent GBP 0.9 million since the raise, much of that takes account of catching up on creditors that accumulated between June and August. The biggest element of which related to rent where we go into arrears, and we've now got that paid up to date, and also on material suppliers. In addition to that GBP 2.6 million, we're expecting another GBP 0.5 million of R&D tax credits to be received in the early part of the next calendar year. So with the GBP 2.6 million that we've already got, this gives us just over 10 months of cash runway without taking account of the margin that we'll achieve on conversion of the pipeline. And as we mentioned earlier this week, the pipeline now stands at GBP 3.3 million, and the number of leads has grown encouragingly since the fund raise. So although the timing at which the pipeline unwinds and leads convert is always quite uncertain. The current pipeline on lease does give us confidence of our cash runway and our outlook. As Dave has mentioned, we've made some good progress on process improvements and that will help to reduce our material requirements as well going forward and should help on our gross margin. And we've made some encouraging technical progress that we've seen on IHC and some of the gene therapy delivery and precision chemotherapy. So all combined, this gives us a reasonable outlook and will help us in our aim to achieve our EBITDA and cash breakeven position. So I'll hand back now to Arron to do the summary.

Okay. Thank you, Andrew. So -- if I could just leave us through the summary in an outlook and leave on a positive note, we've relocated to new premises with state-of-the-art laboratories. We've refreshed the Board and built a more shareholder reliant team with all members being shareholders and/or investors. And with the help of Steve Holt back in the chair, we are now refocused on delivery and profitability on a fully reset cost base and back to lean operational management. So since funding, we've seen strong underlying growth in the pipeline with revenue forecasting, being made more transparent and realistic in terms of fee-for-service and licensing expectations. And since being freed up to focus on process improvements, we've made massive increases and massive strides forward developing processes for faster delivery, lower sample requirement, lower cost. This will lead to improved margins and with increased capacity. We've also had a focus on the development of data for therapeutic applications, launch new products like the IHC tolls. So throughout all of our work, I would just like to leave you understanding and like to assure you that we're, first and foremost, and at the front of our mind is adding value to our loyal shareholder base. So that concludes the presentation, and we will now take any questions.

Perfect. Arron, Andrew, David. What I'll do is I'll just bring your cameras back up now for the Q&A. [Operator Instructions] I'd also like to remind you the recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed by your investor dashboard. We have received a number of questions, and I'll start off the Q&A session with the first one here, which reads as follows. How can you be so confident in the trading update, you're hitting targets of three [mill] this year with only GBP 700,000 [but] so far.

Okay. I'm happy to take that question. As I mentioned previously in the presentation, while the company was going through a pretty difficult period, and it was uncertain in terms of the future of the business, it was not going to be easy for us to close deals with the company that was looking likely to kind of hit the wall essentially. Now that we've refinanced the company and we've got a good runway, there's much more engagement by customers, and we're starting to see the pipeline build and things move through the pipeline. So we have visibility of the deals that are looking likely to close as we move forward.

Perfect. Next question here, read as follows. You've gone through a heavy cost cutting exercise. Do you still have the necessary skills and expertise in-house to manage the pipeline and anticipated increase in the pipeline to meet market expectations.

Yes. So I can take this question. So yes, we've been careful to ensure that we have retained the skills and the capacity to ensure we could meet our revenue expectations and deliver the pipeline. The previous staffing base was based on our previous expectations, which have been reduced significantly for the current year. We've been mindful to make sure that we've got cross-skilling initiatives put in place to make sure that we've got the skills in-house that we need and we've also been mindful of the skills that we need to develop -- to complete our development projects.

Perfect. The next question here. It was good to see adding the new nonexec by a decent amount of shares. Why didn't other directors buy except for token amounts? Happy with the option hurdles, but did the quantum provide a disincentive to not take any risk.

I don't mind taking that one. So why did we not buy in except for token amounts? Well, the simple answer for myself and David, if I can speak on his behalf, is that we haven't ever had an exit, and we don't have that level of cash to invest. We put in the amount of money that we could afford between the two of us.

It's probably worth mentioning as well that we did contribute in other ways by taking significant salary cuts.

Perfect. What is the biggest change or changes you have made apart from cost cuts that makes you think you'll be more successful than the last management team.

Again, I'm happy to take that one. The refocus as a business on driving revenue and essentially improving the systems and the processes within the business. There's a much more direct focus on that now with the new team. And if you consider most of the Board members currently now in the business are all independently successful entrepreneurs in their own right. And so we have a really good set of skills guiding us through the next phase of the business.

Perfect. I understand you're working on bread and butter deals to steer the ship back on course. The options kick in at 4P and post trading at or above 4p. This moving share price, one would think license deals are needed. I read this morning, still in the mix, but it seems like closing them isn't if and when or maybe. Are any of those expected to close in the near or midterm?

Okay. I can take that one again. We have several opportunities in the pipeline that could turn into licensing deals. But as we said earlier, we're not going to speculate on timing on that because essentially, the things can go wrong and they can take a long time, particularly when lawyers get involved. Some of the deals can take 12 months. Some of the deals can take 3 months. It all depends. So that's not something that I would be willing to kind of put a guide on at this stage.

No problem. Just turning to the next question. GBP 3.9 million was raised since August, but you mentioned your current cash is GBP 2.6 million. This is a significant cash burn. How long is the current runway and how has such significant spend occurred over just a few months.

Okay. I'm happy to take this one. So the GBP 3.9 million was the gross proceeds that we raised after fees, after expenses down to GBP 3.5 million. And I think I explained on one of my slides that we've now got GBP 2.6 million. So the GBP 0.9 million that we've spent of the proceeds that we received -- some of that was spent on catching up on creditors, particularly in the likes of rent arrears and materials from suppliers. And then since then, we've reduced the cost base, and that was completed in September this year. We're now consuming just under GBP 300,000 a month on our fixed cost base. So with our GBP 2.6 million in our R&D tax credits to receive in the early part of next year gives us at least 10 months, more than 10 months of runway without any margin from pipeline. So -- so that gives us confidence over the runway because we've got GBP 3.3 million in the pipeline now. And although the timing is always uncertain, we would expect to realize a significant chunk of that pipeline.

Perfect, Andrew. The next question here from peers. Following the low-end customer confidence over the summer, what are the impacts of this? And are you seeing improvements?

Okay. I'll take this one. So it's very clear that the Luling customer confidence was linked to the perception that the company would run out of money, though contracts and deals have been held off until people could see that the company was funded. So now that we've got funding and then we've got a good runway, we are seeing reengagement with customers and a massive increase in the kind of pipeline as we're building it.

Perfect. Another question here. What performance would trigger the share options for FY '24?

Yes, I'm happy to take this one. So the share options are split into several tranches over the next couple in each of the next 3 years. For FY '24, the share price trigger is [GBP 0.04] and the revenue needs to be in line with our market expectations. That doesn't mean that all options vest, only 16% of the options vest at that point. And like I say, there stays and entrenches for the years thereafter.

For the work on gene therapy, how fast will licensing deals arise from this?

Okay. So I would probably look -- by the time that we've developed a solution, and we've passed it to a customer for testing. I would probably look at around the 12-month mark for areas in gene therapy.

Perfect. Another question here. You mentioned IHC, when will this data be ready to launch to the market and how significant will the resulting deals be?

This is a 2-part question. So I think Dave can answer the first part, and then I'll take the second part.

Yes, sure. So as I mentioned, we actually launched the service offering around this earlier in the year. So we've actually launched this already, but as I showed in the presentation, we've made significant progress on this and improve the processes. So we actually have that out with selected partners being validated at the moment. And as soon as that data comes back, which we expect to be before the end of the year, that will be put out an announcement to the public.

So to answer the question on how significant the resulting deals will be, you have to consider the state of the immunohistochemistry market with a lot of all of the big players with their technologies coming off patent and they're looking to -- we're looking basically for patentable technologies to bring on board to give themselves new positions. So I think it's fair to say that there's good opportunity there in the immunohistochemistry space for companies with novel technologies that can enable the larger players to take a better intellectual property position.

Perfect. There were deals signed across the business units last year. When will you update the market on the progress of these?

Yes, I can take this one again. So these -- some of these projects can take several months and the -- essentially, the bigger the value of the project is usually linked to the complexity and the length of time that it takes to do the work through the labs and then obviously negotiate the kind of legal terms and conditions with any licensing fees or any transfer of intellectual property. So we would hope to update the market as and when the lab work completes and we've managed to move through those phases.

Perfect. Arron, Andrew, David, thank you very much. With that I think you've addressed those questions you can 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 knows particularly important to the company. Arron, could I just ask you for a few closing comments.

Yes. I would just like to say thank you all for coming and listening. We're very excited about the rest of the year, and we're looking forward to updating you on all the exciting things that we're currently working on as a business.

Perfect. Arron, Andrew, David, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order to the management team can better understand your views and expectations. So take a few minutes to complete, but I'm sure we'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Aptamer Group plc. we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.