Aptamer Group PLC (APTA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and a warm welcome to the Aptamer Group webinar produced by Turner Pope Investments, which provides investment services to corporate and high-net worth private clients. Well, our hosts today are Dr. Arron Tolley, the Co-Founder and CEO of Aptamer Group; and Dr. David Bunka, who's the Chief Scientific Officer and also a Co-Founder. So a warm welcome to you all. Now today, we're going to be doing the webinar with you guys, of course. But also, a Q&A session with questions I've got in front of me from investors or potential investors on all sorts of topics from the revenues to the science part of the equation and much, much more. So we will get stuck into that. But first of all, let's take it away, guys, and let's get stuck in with the webinar.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's investor webinar. Just before we get started, there's a brief disclaimer there. So the presenting team today are myself, Dr. David Bunka. I'm the Chief Scientific Officer and one of the Co-Founders of Aptamer Group. And I'm joined by Dr. Arron Tolley, our Chief Executive Officer and the other Co-Founder. So in today's webinar, I'm going to take you through some of the technical highlights for 3 of our key strategic projects. So they are the projects with Unilever, where we're aiming to develop materials to go into a new deodorant project; the project with Neuro-Bio, where we're looking to create a diagnostic for Alzheimer's disease; and our flagship drug delivery project using Optimers as delivery systems for fibrotic liver disease. Arron will then give a more commercial slant on these projects and highlight why and what they mean for the business as a whole. And this will be followed by a Q&A session. So first off, the project with Unilever, where we're looking to -- looking at Optimer development for use in deodorant products. So as you may know, Unilever, a global leader in the $21 billion deodorant market. They own about 30% market share, so they're a big player, great people to be working with. Now we've worked with the team at Unilever to develop Optimer binders that inhibit a pathway that causes body odor. So we're looking to develop an additive to go into deodorant that will actually stop you forming that -- the foul smell associated with body order. So as you can see on the workflow across the middle of the slide here, we're progressing really well. We've got those Optimers isolated. They've been tested in our own labs here at Aptamer Group, and then those tests have been mirrored in the labs at Unilever. And we were really happy to say that they showed the same results. So that's great. We've then patented these. So a patent was filed for those in March of this year to protect the intellectual property in these aptamers. We've also trimmed these aptamers down to find the minimum functional fragment that's going to be important for downstream manufacturing. So a smaller molecule is easier to make on scale. And now we're at the actual exciting bit where we're doing some on-skin functionality tests. So that work is in progress. As the first part of this, we at Aptamer Group have carried out our stability study, and I'm going to show you the results for that on the next slide. So just to recap. First of all, we've developed multiple Optimer candidates. These are shown on the left-hand side. And these -- some of these have been shown to work really, really well. So what you can see on that graph is essentially how well these Optimer binders are reducing that enzyme activity, so how well they're blocking this pathway. And obviously, a bigger bar is a bigger effect. So we have 2 potential candidates there that work really well. And these again have been mirrored in Unilever's hands. So we're now moving on to the on-person functionality testing, and this is really split into 2 phases. The first of which is obviously demonstrating that the binders are stable and remain functional in samples from human skin. If they get degraded within 10 minutes, they're not going to be a very good product. And I'm happy to say that the data on the right-hand side of the slide here shows that, that isn't the case. These Optimers do survive for a good length of time. So what we're looking at here is we've picked a time frame that's associated with top line products. If you go into the supermarket and look at the deodorant cans on the shelves, you'll often see effective for 72 hours. So that was the time frame that we chose here. Now we've taken some of the -- from skin samples from Unilever, put our Optimers into them, and then measured the amount of that Optimer that's left after each of these time points. And as you can see from the blue line on the right-hand graph, the aptamers are surviving. So they're still pretty much all there after nearly 80 hours. So that means that the Optimers are very likely to be stable. Just as a control on that, so the other line that doesn't have the correct modifications in, you can see that gets degraded over the time frame. But importantly, our Optimer doesn't, so it's stable. So what's next? Well, the team at Unilever are doing their own version of this test. So we've shown that the Optimer survives, and the guys at Unilever have seen this data. We've had a chat about it and they agree that it's really good. So they're now doing their equivalent of this test where they make sure that the Optimer remains functional after that time. Once all of that's done, obviously, this is the first stage. The next stage then to move on to actual people-based testing, where they'll be putting this on to people and seeing if it has an effect. The project will then move on to a development stage, looking at manufacturability and product development. So can they make this at mass, can it go into a deodorant product, be that a roll-on, a cream, a deodorant spray, whatever that is. So we're making great progress in this project. Next, I'm going to talk about the Alzheimer's diagnostic that we're developing with the guys at Neuro-Bio. So as I'm sure everybody knows, Alzheimer's disease is absolutely devastating. So the sooner that, that disease can be caught, can be diagnosed, the better it can be managed. And obviously, that's going to lead to a better quality of life for patients, but also for their families. Now in order to achieve this, we obviously need better tests. We need faster tests that can be used to diagnose this condition earlier. The earlier you can catch it, the better. The team at Neuro-Bio, headed up by Baroness Susan Greenfield, have identified a protein, a marker, that's something produced in the body that has the potential to be used as a diagnostic to detect that disease much, much earlier than anything else, so before you start getting symptoms. So we're working with the team, again, as you can see in the flow diagram. We've developed some of these binders. We've patented some of those. So again, the whole theme there is protecting the assets, leading on to maximizing commercial value, making sure we get the most out of our inventions. Those first panel of binders have then been developed into a simple potential point-of-care diagnostic using a simple biosensor system. You can see a photo of that on the right-hand side of the slide here. This is a little device about the size of half a shoebox that could potentially fit in a doctor's surgery for a very simple test. So as I said, these binders have been isolated against this peptide. You can see a schematic of this on the left-hand side of the slide. So this protein essentially gets cut into 2 parts, and that's associated with Alzheimer's disease. Now our binder has been tested by the guys at Neuro-Bio in both saliva and in fluid from the central nervous system. But today, we'll just talk about the saliva data. Now what you can see in the graph in the middle of the slide here is a very stark result. So in control samples, so these are patients that don't have Alzheimer's, you can see a very clear response, a nice high blue bar. But really, really importantly, you can see a very clear drop in the amount of this protein in patients that have Alzheimer's disease. So when we spoke to Baroness Greenfield about this data, she's absolutely delighted with these results, and we're looking to extend this study and potentially publish these findings. But importantly, this drop in signal can form the basis of a very simple test. So the next stages of this are to continue this work to develop this sensor for a doctor's surgery. But we're also carrying on the project to look at identifying a pair of binders to develop a simple home-based lateral flow test like we were all used to doing for COVID. So next, I'll move on to the precision medicine project for liver fibrosis. So you may remember in previous updates, we showed some really exciting data from binders that we've developed for the treatment of fibrotic liver disease. So just as a reminder why we're looking at this, well, fibrotic liver disease is still a massive problem. As you may remember from previous updates, there are about 2 million deaths from liver disease annually. And there's only really one drug at the moment that's been shown to have a mild fibrosis reversal effect. So it's a disease that's also on the rise. There's a lot of diseases where it's starting to get under control. Liver disease, you can see from the graph on the right-hand side, is still rising dramatically. So this translates into a great opportunity for us to develop a product that could potentially give great shareholder return. But it's also a good differentiator for us as a business, and this sort of technology really plays to the strength of our platform, which I'll come back to in a minute. So our Optimer has been developed against cells that are associated with that fibrotic liver disease. And we've shown that they can bind to those cells and get into them so they can take a payload, a drug with them, but they don't bind to healthy cells. So this is really important as it reduces the potential for off-target effects or side effects associated with medicine. So you don't want them to go to healthy cells. You only want them to go to the diseased cells. We've also shown that we can attach a whole range of different drugs, including novel gene therapy payloads, without affecting the Optimer's performance. I'll come back to that in a minute. So we're currently identifying and then going to be patenting the biomarker. We've started the work on that, and we're doing lab-based tests at the moment, leading up to preclinical studies. So the ultimate goal here is to develop something that we can treat patients with liver fibrosis. So as you can see, we're well on the way to having what's called a lead candidate molecule ready for drug development. So we've previously shown the data on the left-hand side. This data basically shows that our Optimer delivers one of these gene therapies, in this case, a molecule called an siRNA, to the diseased cells but not to the healthy cells. So on the graph on the left-hand side of the slide there, what you can see on the left data set is for the fibrotic liver cells. As we put more of our Optimer-drug conjugate there, you can see this reduction in activity, so the bars get smaller. But in the normal liver cells, just to the right of that, there's no effect whatsoever. So the Optimer is not taking the drug to those healthy cells. So it's selective, it's going where it needs to be. So this is really important. It avoids these off-target effects. Now since we generated this data, we've actually attached a different siRNA, so a second one of these gene therapy payloads. This is a molecule that's been provided by AstraZeneca, and we're starting to see early signs of a similar effect. So again, on the left-hand side of the data set, on the right of the slide, you can see in the blue bars, our Optimer-siRNA conjugate is reducing, again, that signal. So the bar is a little bit lower. But in the normal liver cells, there's no real effect there at all. So it's having an effect in the cells that we want. So this demonstrates 2 separate, completely independent examples where we've used our Optimer delivery system to deliver 2 different payloads for 2 different pharma partners. So this really demonstrates that the Optimer is a universal delivery system for these gene therapies, and it could be used to target fibrotic liver disease cells and therefore deliver potential therapeutic payloads. So next, we want to see whether we can actually have a potential therapeutic effect. So here, we were looking to use our Optimers to deliver an siRNA molecule, again, that's been shown in the literature to potentially repair this fibrosis. Now the problem with the current therapy is, again, in this siRNA context, it doesn't get to these cells. So it could do with a delivery system like the one we've developed. So this slide is really, really exciting. And again, it's worth pointing out that this is now the third example of an siRNA that we've used and delivered with our Optimer delivery system. So here, first, let's look at the data showing that -- this shows the potential to reduce a protein that's been linked with fibrosis in a model system. So another group in the literature have developed an siRNA that's been shown to bind to the gene associated with this protein and reduce it. And that's been shown to have a therapeutic effect. So what we wanted to do here was take that siRNA that's been shown to have this potential therapeutic effect, attach it to our Optimer, and show that we can deliver it to the cells. So what you can see in the data on the slide here is in the cells on the left-hand side, so these are untreated cells, if you look at the marker on the -- in yellow, that's the basal level of this protein. Now when the cells are fibrotic, that level goes up about 50%. You can see that in the blue bar. So essentially, you can see that, that protein is greatly increased when the cells are fibrotic. Now as I said, the siRNA that this other group have developed has shown to reduce the amount of that protein. And indeed, when we attach that siRNA to our Optimer binder and deliver it to the cells, that's exactly what you see. So the blue bar comes back down when the cells are treated with our Optimer-siRNA conjugate. So essentially, we've turned the protein level from a disease state and reversed it back to a more healthy state. So this is really exciting because it's not only the third demonstration of using our Optimer as a delivery system, but it also demonstrates that we can deliver something of therapeutic potential so we can deliver a payload in an area showing potential reversal. So this suggests that we need to do additional work on this. This is a potential therapeutic that we want to take forward, develop it further, and potentially put it into an animal model system and see how it behaves there. So basically, in the summary, I've shown you 3 projects. Firstly, our Optimer project with Unilever, where we've developed these binders. We've streamlined them to make them more manufacturable. We've patented them, and then we've started on the on-skin functionality testing. The obvious goal of that is to develop a more effective deodorant. The project with Unilever -- sorry, with Neuro-Bio again is progressing really well. We've developed binders against this protein identified by their team. We've turned that into a simple diagnostic platform, and that's been tested on real-world clinical samples by the guys at Neuro-Bio and shown a real diagnostic effect. So we're continuing to evaluate that with them, and we're also continuing the side of the project looking to develop the lateral flow device. And finally, I've talked about the fibrotic liver delivery vehicle. Again, we've shown that, that binder targets the disease-associated cells and doesn't target the healthy cells. And we've attached 3 different payloads to that now, one of which has a potential to serve as an actual therapeutic, and we've shown a potential phenotypic reversion, so a reversal of that effect. So again, we're now looking to develop that further and take it into test models. So I'm now going to hand over to Arron, who's going to talk through some more of the commercial relevance behind these strategic assets.

Thank you, David. A great update. So I'm going to look at the kind of technical update from a different perspective here and how we plan to use this to add great value and good return on investment for investors. So what do all these technical bets mean for the company? Why are we focusing on presenting them if they don't have numbers associated with them? Why are we developing all of these strategic assets alongside our fee-for-service work? Why focus in this area? Why not all fee-for-service? These are all very relevant questions. And I suppose I would answer that by saying the fee-for-service revenue streams are great. They bring in revenue. They help keep the lights on. They minimize investment needs. But as a team, we have bigger ambitions for the company over being a company that is eventually valued on multiples of EBITDA from its service arm. The service arm of the business performs a specific function, it generates revenue. But more importantly, it opens doors for potentially game-changing licensing deals, and it gives much better options for the company to grow and give this return on investment. So to our strategic assets. Most of these have come from our fee-for-service work, but there's a few key take homes I would really like to push over and above what David has just explained. So the project with Unilever is going exceptionally well. We anticipate that project to be complete in around 18 months. The market size for this technology is huge. Unilever own around 30% of that market. It's expected to grow to around GBP 40 billion by 2032. And passing these on-person functionality studies is a key milestone, and we have fantastic data so far. And I would go as far as to say, it's highly possible, if not highly likely, that there will be more project-based work in different areas with Unilever over time as this is obviously just the start of our relationship. So moving on to the Alzheimer's test with Neuro-Bio. This is also progressing incredibly well. And remember, this has 2 potential revenue streams: number one, an at-home testing kit via an LFT test, which is similar to a COVID test; but also secondly, a more sensitive test, an at-clinic biosensor-type test. And our Optimers have been validated on clinical samples sourced by Baroness Greenfield and her team. And there are plenty of big names in this space. So for example, if you look, Eli Lilly teamed up with Roche a year ago. And in early 2024, the FDA granted Roche a breakthrough device designation for a test to support earlier disease diagnosis for Alzheimer's. And there's only one test in this market, and this test requires a blood sample. So we believe that we're closer than anyone has been in developing a simple, early-stage diagnostic test for Alzheimer's that can be detected in saliva and does not require a blood test or spinal fluid examples. So tests like this are anticipated to see the Alzheimer's diagnostic market rise to around GBP 7 billion by 2030. And given that there's only one test in the market, we could very well be an early entrant, potentially taking second-mover advantage in this case. So our internal programs on developing a drug delivery platform for gene therapies has now been demonstrated with 3 separate drug cargoes, and each one of them has worked. The project with AstraZeneca is going well, with demonstration of delivery of their cargo. The recent early data on reversal of fibrosis using our delivery system has the potential for us to have a wholly-owned therapeutic platform for exploitation. And I will draw people's attention, just over the past few days, 2 deals have been announced. One with GSK and Relation Therapeutics with a $55 million (sic) [ $45 million ] upfront payment and $15 million in equity investments, and this is around fibrosis and one other condition. With the second deal being released this morning with AbbVie acquiring Aliada Therapeutics for $1.4 billion for their delivery technology and potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease. So as a company, we believe that fibrosis-targeted delivery technology is a hot area in pharma, and we're doing our best to stay at the forefront of this and develop attractive assets that we aim to exploit down the line. So to touch on our additional opportunities, the fee-for-service side of the business, we currently have GBP 1.2 million of booked revenue. So what does that mean? Well, it means that we can see GBP 1.2 million of revenue now at this point in time. It means that if we do no more sales and just deliver what is in the lab, we could end up with around GBP 1.2 million in revenue. Obviously, that's not a realistic situation to be in because we're doing more sales and more deals as time goes on. We also have multiple ongoing licensing discussions at present across a range of different projects. So to give this some context and to set people's mind at rest, it means we have at least 5 projects that have successfully completed and are in the early stages of commercial negotiations. And we could hope to see some of the smaller deals here filtering through quite soon. And one interesting project that's at this stage, requires a slide of its own, essentially has further demonstrated us as a maturing delivery system company. So we believe essentially that we've developed a great business model, which allows us to generate revenue, access potential licensing deals and move towards passive income generation, while, at the same time, horizon scanning the market for high-value opportunities, giving us access to potentially game-changing deals. So can you just pop on to the next slide, please? So an interesting update is related to an ongoing project with a genetic medicine/gene therapy company, which we've released previous updates about. We can now say that we've successfully delivered this project for the customer, with data showing successful binding to the target cells of interest. The Optimers that we've developed is selective, which means they stick to the right cells. And they have no off-target effects, meaning they don't stick where they aren't supposed to. So the customer has demonstrated this in their own labs with the desired properties for animal studies being shown, which means we have independent external validation of our delivery technology. This is not just something unique to Unilever. All parties are happy. So what does this mean in practice? What are the next steps? In short, this means that we're closer to beginning negotiations against the indicative term sheet that was signed as part of the original deal with the genetics medicines company. The details of this have not been disclosed on signing due to the uncertainty of success of the project. But now that we've made significant progress on the technical front, partner permitting, we're in a good place to resume discussions. So can you just move on to the next slide, please? So here, I'd like to touch on a brief update on our Scientific Advisory Board. So we've recently refreshed the SAB, attracting some top talent in the field. So it's fair to say that sometimes, a lot of -- about the future direction of the company, upcoming opportunities and partnerships can be gleaned from how a company structures its Scientific Advisory Board, and we are no different. We've tried to build a board that has the skills and access to kind of contacts within the market that can help us grow our business, and the 2 newest members being Paloma and Louis. So Paloma is a world-leading expert in RNA therapeutics and gene therapy. Their focus has been on RNA aptamers, siRNAs, some messenger RNA. She was the Director at Moderna, the mRNA company; the Vice President of Platform and Discovery Sciences at Wave Life Sciences, which is currently a $2 billion market cap NASDAQ-listed business; and she's currently the Chief Technical Officer at Eleven Therapeutics. Louis, a lecturer in translational radiopharmaceuticals at Hull University Medical School and is the Head of Radiochemistry. And he has an interest in alternative radioligand delivery systems. So other members of the team are our Chairman, Adam, who is an expert in preclinical drug development; Paul Townsend, who is a world-leading expert in biomarker discovery; and Shozo, a chemist and the inventor of the chemistry behind our new platform, Optimer+. Ultimately, we feel that we've assembled a team with world-leading experts who all share the vision of the company and recognize where it can go and who will add enormous value to Aptamer as we move forward. So before handing over for questions, I'd like to finish on this point. How does a GBP 6 million market cap company work with all these top pharma businesses and form all of these collaborations? It seems to be a question that comes up fairly regularly. Well, we were able to do that as a private company prior to IPO. We continue to do that as a GBP 100 million market cap company after we initially listed. And we continue to do that now as a smaller, more lean GBP 6 million market cap company. Ultimately, the need and strength of our platform hasn't changed, and our platform and our ability to deliver has only got better over time. The fact is we can create highly valuable molecules for our customers. And the need for our problem-solving skills has not gone away. Food for thought, I hope. Right. So on to the questions.

Okay. Thank you to you both for that in-depth analysis of where you are and where you're going in terms of the pharma side of the equation in the numbers. We're going to kick start with the numbers then if we can because this particular investor wants to know what's going on in that department. So let's go. So in the November trading update, you stated booked revenue circa up to GBP 1.2 million and increased pipeline up to GBP 4 million. Do you expect a total revenue of GBP 1.2 million for the full year 2025?

I'll take this one, Dave. So this kind of builds on something I said previously. So the short answer is no. These numbers are indicative of progression of the work that's going through the lab. So at that point in November, we had visibility over GBP 1.2 million of revenue working its way through the lab. So obviously, we're delighted with having a GBP 4 million pipeline, and we're confident we can continue to win business from that pipeline. But the pipeline represents deals that are currently under negotiation. As we sign deals, they move out of the sales pipeline into the production pipeline, which, in November, was around GBP 1.2 million. So as work moves through the lab, we recognize that revenue. And as other work continues to enter the pipeline, we can start work in the lab and recognize that revenue also. So we can really only ever get a snapshot of the work in sales and production at any one point in time, but the pipeline continues to progress, it continues to grow, and we continue to deliver sales to the lab and revenue accordingly.

Okay. Should we move on? So this question here from one of your followers, and it's quite detailed so I'll take my time with this one. Following a GBP 0.98 million sales won in the last quarter of the financial year, resulting in a total of GBP 1.8 million in signed orders currently being processed or waiting process in the laboratory, can you explain why this GBP 1.8 million of signed orders has only crystallized into GBP 1.2 million revenue for the following full year?

Yes. That's fairly straightforward to answer. So this is in part due to what's referred to as scientific attrition. So not all of the TCV that we sign will be recognized as revenue as we typically expect to recognize between 60% and 70% of the TCV as revenue. This is due to various factors such as scientific failure, customers deciding to not move projects forward and so on and so forth. So the average amount of TCV that we kind of recognize as revenue, as I said, is around 60% to 70%. So this essentially is already accounted for in the GBP 1.2 million from the work that's ongoing in the lab.

Okay. Now we're going to move on because this one is in regards to more the science part of the equation. So what biomarkers are you using to assess the progression reversal of fibrosis?

I guess, that's a question for me. Yes, I actually -- I would love to be able to answer that question. But at the moment, I'm not able to disclose the nature of that specific biomarker as we're in the process of actually identifying it and then patenting it. So we mentioned that actually in the webinar. There's great interest in actual identification of new biomarkers, especially in the area of fibrosis. So some people may have seen a recent news article regarding GSK partnering with Relation this week. So that's in an attempt to discover new biomarkers for fibrotic diseases. So that deal actually has a $45 million upfront payment and a $15 million equity investment, plus additional milestone payments. So you can see there's massive value in biomarkers of that nature. So clearly, there's a lot of interest, but we need to protect our IP before we start making announcements. So unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to disclose that at this time.

It's also a very good indication of why we're following this strategy for developing our own in-house assets and strategic assets.

Okay. Well, we'll get to that on the next webinar maybe. You've released a new share option package with highly aggressive targets this week. What makes you confident that you can reach these targets?

So the strategic programs and our sales pipeline is all made up of top 10, top 20 pharmaceutical partners, major blue-chip companies. And we're all -- they're all mostly, except for the unsigned deals, in -- progressing successfully and showing excellent results. We -- our pipeline contains a number of really high-value deals, and any one of these potential projects coming through would be transformative to the business. We've recently restructured the management team. We've got a winning team of experts in their own fields in the company, both across the Board and the Scientific Advisory Board. So we're super excited by the technology. We can see the value in developing things within the company. We can see what's coming in the pipeline. So we can believe we can reach these targets.

All right. And this person wants to know, have you considered consolidating the shares or even look to flow on the NASDAQ, where the true value of IP assets would probably be more appreciated, they're saying?

Yes, that's a very, very good point. We're painfully aware of that. And NASDAQ may be the natural progression for us as a business, if you look at companies like Abcam, Silence Therapeutics and now Avacta all looking to move to NASDAQ. But that only happens once the company reaches a certain size. Obviously, NASDAQ allows for greater investment levels that can support faster scientific developments and advancements. But at the moment, we're happy to remain listed on the AIM market. Equally, and to touch on the question about consolidating the shares, we've got no intention to consolidate them at the moment. This is something that the Board is aware of and continuing to monitor. We're obviously mindful of the large number of shares available because of the last 2 fundraises. But right now, we don't have any plans to consolidate the shares.

All right. Okay. So this one, are there any specific health areas that are being targeted where Optimers have been used at a region? Or is the entire human health field open?

I guess that's another one for me. Yes. So as you've seen from the webinar, our strategic programs are really focused on liver fibrosis, Alzheimer's disease, and the development of the deodorant product with the guys at Unilever. But the fee-for-service work really gives us an opportunity to apply our technology to a broad range of conditions in different fields. So we're actively working across all sorts of areas of the life sciences, everything from cosmetics, a lot of areas in human health from neuroscience and immunity, through to sort of industrial chemistry, agriculture, aquaculture, personal care, you name it. The world is our oyster, as they say. But we've actually structured the business deliberately with that in mind. So it allows us to use the fee-for-service element of the business as a horizon scanning tool to identify the best applications that really fit our technology. So that allows us to maximize the potential of the platform, getting paid for the projects that we're doing, but also identify partnerships with experts in the field and really exploit those to the maximum potential.

Okay. In the Alzheimer's project with Neuro-Bio, what was the reason behind changing the diagnostic from an LFT to a biosensor?

Yes, I'll take that one. We haven't actually changed from a lateral flow device to a biosensor. We are continuing the work in both platforms. So the intention there is to deliver both the biosensor and the lateral flow. So the lateral flow will be for home use, where obviously you want something simple to use. The biosensor is more for a clinic-type application, so something a bit more sensitive, a bit more detailed. But obviously, you're not going to get a device in everybody's home. So it allows us to maximize the diagnostic use of those Optimer binders in different settings. So for example, you might do the lateral flows test to get an early indication. And then if that gives a positive result, you may then go and see your doctor who can provide the better accuracy test so you get a more solid conclusion. And then there's a lot of different ways that we can then test that. You could be using it as an at-home test to support the clinics, and then that could then recruit for an Alzheimer's drug development program. So there's a lot of different areas that we can use this. So it's not just biosensor or lateral flow. We see value in both.

All right. Okay. So this one says, Neuro-Bio is not a well-known name to most people. So can you provide some more depth as to why this is an important partnership?

I don't mind taking that one. So it's right, Neuro-Bio might not be so well known, but it is led by an eminent neuroscientist called Baroness Susan Greenfield. She's a global expert in Alzheimer's disease. And they've identified that this novel -- new biomarker that Dave described previously in the presentation, that might be able to allow the diagnosis of Alzheimer's development as far as 20 years before symptoms appear. So it's obviously incredibly powerful, if this is the case. And all current Alzheimer's drugs pretty much state that they're effective in the early stage of the disease, but there is currently no way to effectively detect it at these early stages. So obviously, if you combine the 2 things together, we have an opportunity to get in at the early stages of developing what could be a potentially transformational diagnostic to the Alzheimer's field. So there's huge market need for these diagnostics. We would be receiving royalties on all tests, meaning this could be, again, another transformational opportunity for Aptamer and also for Alzheimer's disease patients.

Okay. This person is asking about your staffing and what you're going to be doing in-house. So have you got an intention to extend your team of expert staff and develop your own drug programs in-house?

It's a great question. And I think if you were to speak to myself or Dave over the past 10 years, it's always been something that we'd really be keen to do, and we'd love to advance into the field of fibrotic liver delivery vehicles. But the early results that we have show we've got real potential to be able to do that and to develop and deliver new therapies in the field where there's high unmet need. However, there's a catch to this. The current market cap of the company is so low that there just isn't headroom to raise the funding needed to advance it. So it's not really an approach that we're able to follow with any level of enthusiasm at the moment. So what we're trying to do is to find partnered approaches, which is obviously a slower, more time-consuming approach than if we were able to raise the funding to push the development forward.

Okay. And this one is asking for you to elaborate on the liver fibrosis program with AstraZeneca and what this might mean for the company.

Dave, you want to take that?

Yes, can do. So yes, we've worked with AstraZeneca for a number of years. And in this particular program, AstraZeneca sent us some of their siRNA, so the gene therapy that I mentioned in the presentation. And we've essentially attached that as a proof-of-concept to our Optimer-based delivery system. And the results that we're starting to see in the lab show that that's -- Optimer again works. It delivers their cargo, and it has the anticipated effect. So personally, I'd love to see that progress and see how it actually works in an animal model. So if this is producing the results that we expect, that's where I would like to see it go. And then obviously, we'll look to advance it further if it's successful in those tests.

Yes. I mean there's -- from a commercial point of view, there's quite a lot of interest in this. I mean, despite the collaboration with AstraZeneca, we've reached out to multiple large pharma companies and all of them are interested. Some of them are looking to see what the technology does in an animal model. Others are looking to talk to us further once we've identified the biomarker. So obviously, we're going through this process of biomarker ID, looking to patent and protect our position in that field. And then we'll be exploring all avenues to maximize shareholder value in relation to this project. And whether that looks like licensing the binder to a partner for delivering their own drugs, whether it looks like out-licensing the biomarker if we discover a novel biomarker, really, we've got a plethora of different options once we've got better and stronger data for this particular asset.

Okay. We've got our very last one here. Quite an interesting one. To smell, actually. So this person says, it's been suggested that Aptamer's partnership development with Unilever for Optimers to inhibit odor-causing bacterial enzymes is in something of a race with Procter & Gamble, who's trying to produce a similar product. Do you know if this is true? Do you believe that Aptamer's platform is capable of developing a product with superior characteristics? Could such a product also have a range of alternative uses for more general suppression of malodor?

That's a very, very long question. My memory is probably good enough to answer all of that in one go. So I'll start out by saying in short, yes, it is a race and it's pretty exciting. It's not very often this kind of thing happens. But I'm sure Dave will be more than delighted to explain why our strategy is better than that being followed by Procter & Gamble.

Yes, sure. Yes, it is something that came to our attention when we picked this project up. I mean the guys at Procter & Gamble, they do have an aptamer that's been developed for deodorant purposes, but their binder is actually quite different. So their binder actually sticks to the small molecules that make the smell. So they are the smell. Essentially, what that's doing is binding it up, covering it up, masking it, and stopping it being released into the air. Now our strategy with Unilever is actually quite different. So we're targeting the enzyme that makes that small molecule. So we're actually a step earlier in that process and stopping that smelly molecule being produced in the first place. So I believe that the strategy that we're pursuing is obviously superior because we're stopping the smell being formed rather than just masking it. Obviously, you can imagine this enzyme could be constantly churning over and making these bad smell molecules. So if you've got a particularly sweaty day, you might need a lot more of their aptamer to cover all of those small molecules up, whereas ours would just stop it being produced in the first place. So yes, I think our approach is obviously better. Of course, I think this can be applied to things other than deodorants. You could see how this might be applied to anything in similar sort of fields. So you might have treatments for smelly feet, for example, or feminine hygiene products. So we're continuing to work on this. And hopefully, we'll see what else we can apply it to. But yes, I'm really interested to see what we can do because this could probably go into a lot of other product types within the Unilever range.

Okay. Well, guys, that is a wrap. Arron and David, thank you so very much indeed. And thank you for you as well for watching and sending in the questions. We very much appreciate that. And hopefully, you all got them answered as well because that's the main aim of all of this. So thank you very much for hosting us, guys. We appreciate that, and thank you as well to Turner Pope Investments too. This will remain on their website, so you can watch this at your leisure should you wish to do so. So thank you very much indeed to both of you, David and Arron, and for you for watching as always.

Thank you.