Aptamer Group PLC ($APTA)

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Aptamer Group plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions]. I'd now like to hand you over to Dr. Arron Tolley, CEO. Good afternoon, sir.

Good afternoon. Thank you. So thank you for taking the time to listen to our results for the 6 months to the 31st of December 2025. I'll just skip through the obligatory disclaimer slides before coming on to an introduction. So I'll just introduce myself first. So I'm Arron. I'm Co-Founder of Aptamer Group. Founded the company in 2008. I have a PhD in structural biology and biophysics. And for my sins, I've run the company for the past 15 or 16 years.

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Andrew Rapson, CFO of Aptamer Group. I have over 20 years' experience now as a chartered accountant, joined Aptamer in August '22, and I have been CFO since August '23. And I've worked in the AIM environment now for just over 10 years.

Okay. So I thought we'd start with a quick brief overview for those people who are not familiar with the company. So we're a small biotech based in the U.K. We have a global reputation for developing our version of aptamers, which are Optimers, through our proprietary high-throughput automated selection platform. The founders, David Bunka and myself, we've spent the last 15 years building this automated platform, which we believe outperforms other similar platforms in the market. We essentially provide a service, making what's referred to as affinity ligands that can be used in a variety of different areas in the life sciences market, particularly where antibodies are not suitable or cannot interact with certain challenging targets, and that will become important a bit later in the presentation. We have a leading position in this alternative affinity ligand market, meaning that we have worked with almost all of the top 20 pharma companies, providing solutions with our antibody alternative platform. So as a company, we've built this high throughput, high-capacity discovery engine. We've also integrated in-house assay development, so that we can increase validation and also on-site manufacturing that helps us support our customers, particularly important when we license products and we need to manufacture them for that purpose. As I said, as a company, we deliver binders for challenging targets where customers have previously failed with antibodies, generally speaking. And our platform has many key technical advantages compared to antibodies for several high-value niche areas. We're recognized as a key player in the industry. We've got relationships with 85% of the top 20 pharma companies as well as with other blue-chip companies like Unilever. Many of the businesses that we work with have run multiple discovery projects with us, showing the need for the technology and an interest in hitting these targets that are beyond those that are possible with antibodies and small molecules or other similar formats. We've continued to grow the platform from a reset basis a few years ago with fee-for-service revenue increased 40% on last year, and we've managed to increase revenue over the last half year by 27%. The model for the business is to essentially retain intellectual property on the Discovered Optimers and build recurring revenues through the layering on of licensing. And this year, I'm pleased to report that we've received our first royalty income from commercially launched products. And I think on this slide, I'd really like to emphasize 3 main points. Firstly, the technology advantages that the platform has, things like intracellular delivery, low immunogenicity, which is important if the molecules were to be used as a therapeutic; scalable manufacturing, which is obviously important if you need to make lots of the molecule to fulfill orders. And it just makes the platform attractive to pharma for several different reasons and in particular, in several high-value areas. We've got good commercial traction, 85% of the top 20 pharma companies, multiple repeat business contracts. And we have multiple revenue streams from fee-for-service all the way through to licensing, giving us clear visibility of revenues moving forward over the next few years. So at this point, I'll pass over to Andrew to cover the financials and to give you an operational update.

Thanks, Arron. Yes, so I'll now take us through the financial review, and we'll start with the income statement and cash flow. So revenue for the period was GBP 0.83 million, that was up 27% on the prior period. This was all fee-for-service revenue, driven by some strong contract signing through October and November, where we had several notable contract signings with top pharma customers. The strength of the contract closing has resulted in a GBP 2 million signed deals in fee-for-service order book for the period. From this, we've recognized GBP 0.83 million in revenue, and we usually expect about 70% of this to ultimately come through from the pipeline to be recognized in the P&L as revenue, and we'd expect that to be through before the end of this financial year. Further to this, as we updated in the trading update, we closed the period with a sales pipeline of GBP 3.1 million. And certainly, we'd expect some of that to close and add to our revenue before the end of this financial year. We executed 2 licensing deals in December '25, but these didn't contribute revenue during the period. These licenses will start generating revenue in the second half of the financial year. We've continued to keep the admin expenses under control and have reported GBP 1.5 million, which is on par with the GBP 1.5 million reported in the prior period. The headcount remained relatively stable at 30 employees versus 31 at the start of the period. Contained within admin expenses are R&D costs of GBP 0.2 million, which again is consistent with the prior period. These costs include costs associated with progression of our internal fibrotic liver delivery program, where we have generated excellent preclinical data being nontoxic, stable and non-immunogenic. This gives us good data to continue discussions with pharma partners with regards to licensing, although progression through animal work should be the real value inflection point with this asset. There's a small amount of other operating income, which relates to subletting of some office space. The comparative is slightly higher, because it includes grant income for a project undertaken with Eurostars, which finished in the last financial year. So overall, this gave us an EBITDA loss of GBP 1 million for the period, so a slight improvement over the GBP 1.1 million reported in the prior period. On to the cash flow. The net cash outflow from operations was GBP 1.2 million, which largely reflects the GBP 1 million EBITDA loss for the period. The working capital outflow was GBP 0.2 million, and this was caused by increased debtors from contracts signing late in the period, work being commenced and then not paid until after the period end. And we have the same scenario in the prior results to December '24 as well. So often, when we're contracting with large pharma, we take extended credit periods, which can be anything up to 90 days in the longest cases. During this financial period, we had one contract with a large pharma on 90 days and the other large pharma contracts were on 75-day terms. Smaller customers are typically on 30-day terms. In July, we raised GBP 1.8 million net of expenses, and in August, GBP 0.1 million was raised from the exercise of warrants. This resulted in GBP 0.5 million increase in cash in the period and a balance of GBP 1.5 million at the end of the period. So if we move on to the balance sheet, the net assets at the period end were GBP 2.3 million compared to GBP 1.4 million. The strengthening of the balance sheet being a result of the equity raise in July, contributing that GBP 1.8 million net of expenses. The placing took place at 0.3p, being a 50% uplift from the placing 12 months earlier, which was done at 0.2. Cash at the end of the period, as I mentioned, is GBP 1.5 million. That provides a working capital runway through to the second quarter of 2027. This working capital runway being a function of continued fee-for-service work and starting to generate cash receipts from the 2 licensing deals that were signed in December '25. Notable items on the balance sheet are mainly the debtors, which are significantly higher than June. As mentioned, we signed several contracts through October, November and into December on 75-day and 90-day payment terms. So the work commenced in the period, we recognized revenue in the period, but payments on many of those fell into January, February, March following the period end. The tax receivable of GBP 0.2 million of that GBP 0.15 million relates to prior financial year R&D tax credit, and we received the cash on that in February post period end. If we look then on to the operational review. So in terms of fee-for-service contracts, we had a number of important fee-for-service contract wins during the period. The first of those was a top 3 pharma partner contract in the radioligand therapy market, totaling GBP 360,000. This contract has significant potential and is an area of need where our technology appears to be well suited. This top 3 partner has already significantly invested into this therapeutic program, making it a critical project for them and one that we believe could progress quickly as a valuable therapeutic asset. We also signed GBP 769,000 worth of new contracts with the same top 5 pharma partner, mostly across November and December. This gave us a strong finish to the period, put us in a good position for H2. And we received the target proteins during December, so we're able to recognize revenue in respect to the first phase of that project in the period. This top 5 pharma partner has now conducted several projects with us over the last few years and exceeds GBP 1 million in total contract value. So great validation of the value that they see in the technology. Other contract mentions, there's more repeat business with one top 10 and one top 20 pharmaceutical company, again, following successful projects that we delivered in the prior financial year. And then just 2 other projects that are worth mentioning on this list here. Invizius, that's a potential therapeutic complement for autoimmune diseases and plays on the fact Optimers are nonimmunogenic. And then announcement we made with Metir. So that platform has proved to work with Optimers with high detection levels, which is ideally suited for detection of Cryptosporidium in water. This one is an important environmental testing platform, and that's potential to reduce huge outbreaks as we all saw widely reported in the Southwest last September. And then we look forward to updating on these and any of the other projects here as they start to pass through the lab. If I just move on to the strategic process and start with the licensing. This was probably the real highlight for us in the period. We signed 2 licensing deals in December '25, one with Twist Bioscience and one with Alphazyme, Alphazyme being a subsidiary of Maravai LifeSciences, so 2 large U.S. customers. These contracts include a mix of upfront royalties and supply revenues. So we see this as a significant step forward for us. This is the first time that we've licensed products that have been developed for a customer and they're going into an end-use application in a commercial setting almost immediately. So since the period end, both customers have submitted orders for these products, and we look forward to seeing how they perform. We've also got a second project with Alphazyme that's also progressing very well, having delivered working binders to the customer for testing during the period and having received positive results following those tests in their hands. And then we've also, in this same space, got a global enzyme manufacturer assessing several of our inhibitor binders with a view to licensing. So a real step forward on the licensing front for us during these 6 months. In terms of development, the fibrotic liver delivery showed excellent preclinical characteristics. So that's derisking its therapeutic potential. From here, we're looking to complete animal work, which is the major barrier really to unlocking licensing opportunities with this asset. The project with Unilever continued to progress. It's now passed through safety stability, and it's currently post period now moved to the on-skin testing phase. We supplied a large batch of material to Unilever just last month in February, and that's for them to be able to conduct their on-skin trials. And we have an IHC reagent with a global life science conglomerate. We've developed a working binder for this project and agreed licensing terms early. This asset is in the process of being passed over to the customer for further development and validation with a view to reaching market towards the end of this calendar year. And then finally, just on investment in manufacturing. In order to be able to meet the needs of the global partners for the enzyme modulators that we've licensed, we've needed to develop our internal processes in terms of capability and quality. We're now in a position where we have the processes in place and we would like to be able to increase the capacity as those licensing opportunities grow. So I'll just move on to the next slide. So here, we have a selection of the assets that we've developed over the last 18 months. So laid out in order of value verticals across the top -- sorry, laid out in value verticals across the top and with the stage of progression laid out down the left-hand side. At the top, we have the fee-for-service pool of opportunities, and from that successful projects, feed down into one of the verticals shown here as reagents, diagnostics, vaccines, cosmetics and therapeutics. To date, we primarily generated assets in the reagent space, as I've just been touching on with Twist and Alphazyme, and we've licensed assets that are starting to generate passive income. So we're focused in these areas and really the areas of the technology lends itself to and now it's proving that it can be adopted in a commercial setting. So these reagents, combined with our existing fee-for-service work, have the potential to cover our operating costs alone. As a team, we're focused on passive income, because it allows us to generate more predictable revenues and then layer on with new assets. Some of the higher-value assets take longer to get to market. And so it's important for us to have a mix of asset opportunities, so that we can start generating passive income to contribute to those costs. And so 18 months ago, we shifted the focus of the company from that fee-for-service work to asset generation. And in that time, we've now tripled the size of the asset portfolio. And those assets are beginning to shift from customer validation to licensing agreements as we've seen with Alphazyme and Twist. So with both of them signing in December, both now submitting orders and have launched products on the market, they've both got them on their websites. And based on those orders and forecasts that they provided to us, we can see potential on each individual asset of circa GBP 400,000 per annum in revenue contribution to help go towards covering our costs. We've now got a second project that's moved well with Alphazyme. I expect that to be a similar scale in nature, and that's approaching a point where it's very close to licensing. And indeed, Alphazyme have confirmed they would like to take it forward. And we've got 2 further companies at the top of the list listed as global enzyme manufacturer and a U.K.-based company now, both evaluating this technology with a view to licensing. So overall, this vertical appears to be developing very well. And while we focus broadly in line with our fee-for-service work, our highest value assets lie within the therapeutic sector. And this is what we want to double down on to increase shareholder value for the future. So the opportunity with the top 3 pharma, they have an urgent need. And as they progress with their current projects and our technology could provide a solution, this could give us a relatively near-term access to a therapeutic offering and will be taken forward at pace, we believe, with the top 3 pharma partner. The radioligand therapy market is particularly high value and top 3 partner is heavily invested in this particular project. So we see this as a really key opportunity for us and opportunity for real value. Also in that therapeutic space, I mentioned the fibrotic liver delivery. So that's progressed really well. But the critical need here is to get the animal work. We've got a number of partners who are wanting to see that as a proof point to be able to take this forward and really unlock the value that's in that technology. In between those 2 verticals, we've got the diagnostics. The really interesting one here for us is the fetal diagnostic test. So that was developed in previous financial year. This is currently at the evaluation stage with a global partner. Again, this could unlock some real value. The technology here prevents the need for an amniocentesis test during pregnancy by testing the pregnant mother's blood. This technology would allow diagnosis of genetic conditions at an earlier stage with less risk than under the current process. So this technology has received good feedback so far. Like I said, it's currently under evaluation, and we look forward to seeing how that progresses. The other major one now on the cosmetics, as we've mentioned, is Unilever, which is progressing well. It's got to the on-skin testing phase. We've supplied a large batch of material and they're currently conducting their trials. So the asset portfolio has more than tripled to 14 assets in the last 18 months. And so we feel there's a real good opportunity here to unlock more shareholder value. With any of these coming through outside of the reagents that we've already been licensing, it could really add transformational value to the company. So in summary, there's a number of assets we have developed and are increasing. The passive revenue-generating licensing has started, and we're predicting that to grow. And the success with any of the larger assets could be transformational for us and include upfront and significant recurring royalties. So yes, the portfolio is built really well, and we're excited by the opportunities that we see in it. I'll now pass over to Arron to take us through the post-period highlights.

Thank you, Andrew. Just let me move the slides on to the post period end. So I'd like to start really with a recap on what we set out to do with the GBP 2 million that we raised in July '25. So this was to support asset negotiation, invest in manufacturing, begin the development of AI/ML development program and advance our liver fibrosis siRNA delivery platform. So in order, what have we actually done? So we've completed 2 licensing deals that could generate over GBP 1 million in passive income over the next few years based on supply forecasts of 3 nonexclusive licensing deals. We're in the process of closing that third one, as Andrew just alluded to. We have 2 other companies evaluating this technology under MTA with a view to generating further passive income. It's not beyond the wit of man to see that these could potentially cover all overheads in due course for us as a business. And this is just a handful of the potential assets that we've got. We've invested in manufacturing capability to fulfill these orders, and we've delivered against them. And when you contextualize all of these numbers with our growing fee-for-service pipeline, it paints a more derisked picture and real progress for the company. So we've also undertaken more work in the siRNA delivery space, extending the work that we've done on liver fibrosis to fibrosis in general, looking at applications in kidney and lung and other potential areas. And we're ready to put these conjugates into animal models. And this work will be started shortly after the fundraise completion and does not use any of the new funds for the liver work. This is still largely funded out of the GBP 2 million set out in July 2025. We've planned our AI/ML model and started collecting the data. We've evaluated and done extensive due diligence on how to enter this space. It's taken almost a year to build the plan and recruit the right person. And I'm pleased to report that he will be starting with us in a couple of days and has a PhD in machine learning in DNA protein interactions, which is the underpinning technology of our platform. We've also built on the radiopharmaceutical deal with a top 3 pharma company, and we started to build our own data packs in this space to demonstrate and derisk the technology platform that we're developing. And the first data pack we alluded to in an RNS previously shows better payload stability than peptides or protein comparators that we've evaluated. And this is a key differentiator for this technology. We've also built around this concept of relationship with an expert, Louis, who's recently been featured in a BBC report, and he will be managing our development of our radioligand program and the animal model work. So this brings me on to the fundraise. How much? Why now? You had funding until 2027? I know there will be many questions, which we'll come on to later. But before we get to that, I'd really like to cover what we raised and why we raised it. So the company announced that we'd raised approximately GBP 4.275 million before expenses, and we still have a retail offering that's going that could raise up to GBP 0.5 million at 0.6p per share. The proceeds will provide the necessary capital for the company to, one, strengthen the market position and protect revenue through strategic AI and ML adoption. And I'm going to read these out for a particular reason. We're looking to derisk the platform for therapeutic development by accelerating multiple assets through preclinical programs. We're going to increase the chance of getting transformational upfront by entering 3 distinct therapeutic areas. The first one is the gene therapy delivery, which is the siRNA liver delivery area, the radiopharmaceutical delivery programs that I've just mentioned and we're already partnered with the top 3 pharma company, and looking at these areas of undruggable targets, which I'll come on to later. We will establish a presence in this high-value space and capture larger deal values and drive expansion of the company. And in principle, we are looking to accelerate production workflows to maximize all the passive income through the licensing, which essentially means we're going to invest a little bit more in manufacturing capacity, so that we can meet the tight deadlines that we're under as a company. So I'd like to start out with giving some context in this. So Aptamers are essentially molecules called oligonucleotides, and oligonucleotide medicines are gaining momentum. There are 30-plus approved therapies, 300 clinical programs, billions in capital outlay by big pharma. And our platform, which is an optimized version of an oligonucleotide, is showing potential for precision targeting in this space. And we obviously, as a company, for our shareholders, want to get access to that market. So about 85% of potential targets are not easy for existing technologies such as antibodies or small molecules for various reasons, which I could do an hour presentation on, but I won't do that now. But there's a subset of those targets that are amenable to Optimer technology. And it's important to explain that Optimers, as I've just said, are oligonucleotides, and they're designed and have natural properties that allow them to directly interact with some of these challenging molecules. So it's also important to explain that we use, as standard, all of the modifications used in modern siRNA and antisense oligo platforms, which is one way how we differentiate our product from a traditional aptamer, which is why we've referred to our platform technology as Optimers. And we've demonstrated the ability of our platform to deliver gene therapies to challenging cell targets in our liver siRNA platform. We've also created multiple examples of molecules that bind to targets and antibodies cannot bind to. All of our results in all of these different areas for the last 15 years are held as data, tons and tons of data files, all amenable for AI and machine learning. So it makes logical sense to combine our existing data into an AI/ML model to enable us to compress time lines, generate highly valuable tools more quickly to high levels of precision, particularly in high-value niche areas. So what does that actually mean? So as we alluded to, only 15% of proteins are currently targeted, which is represented by the little yellow circle there. The remainder of the targets are essentially undrugged proteins or undruggable targets. And 2 of those areas, if you think of it like the next layer of value out, if this was an onion, are RNA binding proteins and transcription factors. And these 2 molecule classes naturally bind to oligonucleotides. But currently, pharma are trying to drug them with small molecules and antibodies, which are not the natural binding partner for this type of molecule. So we have 2 areas of unmet need, undeliverables and undruggables. So undeliverables is where there is a medicine, but no way of targeting that medicine to the site of interest, and an undruggable is where there is a target, but current molecules can't bind to it particularly well, if at all. And in this case, we're looking at RNA binding proteins and transcription factors where Optimers can and will excel. So to put that into context, 2 examples of deals in these areas and why we're targeting these areas as a company. So pharma are paying large amounts of money to hit these 2 different target areas and develop new medicines. So we've currently got active projects in the undeliverable space targeting siRNA medicines and also radiopharmaceuticals. Both of these are high-growth, multibillion-dollar markets with large pharma showing increasing interest in high-value deals over recent years. For the undruggables, which are on the right-hand side, we aim to focus on 2 target classes of transcription factors and RNA binding proteins, where pharma is showing increasing interest with multiple high-value deals. And effectively, they're trying to unlock access to molecules that can target this space. The key point is, there's large amounts of capital flowing into this area and big pharma is signing multibillion-dollar collaborations, hundreds of millions of dollars of acquisitions around platform technologies that their standard chemistries can't reach. And I suppose as an investor and from an investor point, I'd like to leave you with the message from this slide that there is clear precedent for large upfronts and milestones when a platform opens up hard-to-drug targets like transcription factors even before a single asset reaches clinic. But to balance, we must get there, and animal model studies are a key component in that journey. So where does AI and machine learning fit? So it's very clear, AI is fast becoming standard across all areas of life. And it's really critical in data-heavy areas such as life sciences. And we already stated 12 months ago, the need to combine our data into an AI/ML model, and we've been working towards that goal. So over the past 12 months, we've noticed increasing competition in the fee-for-service space from new start-ups claiming AI competency, which means for us, building this model is a defensive position that needs to be taken immediately. We've evaluated several options, including in-licensing, partly developed AI/ML platforms. And in doing so, what we have found is that some of the current models available are trained on a handful of target proteins. And the best one that we've come across through our due diligence was we have just over 20 targets at a cost in excess of GBP 5 million with what we could see. And the GBP 5 million was for access to that platform with what we could see was a relatively basic level of training data sets on around 20 proteins. It would appear, and on the left-hand side of the slide you can see under the competitor's approach, that competitors are essentially using free online generic data. Some of them are now racing to backfill these models by creating wet labs to get more data to make their models more accurate and more usable. And this is another reason why we need to act more swiftly. So what's our advantage and why we're so confident or why am I so confident? Well, we've already spent 15 years operating a wet lab, collecting all of this data that is my own ready to feed into an AI model. So we don't need to backfill with wet lab data. We've already got it. And rather than 2 to 4 targets or 20 targets, we've worked on over 400 targets across a range of different areas. So we believe that we have a massive advantage over existing companies. And we also have a ready-made high-throughput liquid handling lab unparalleled worldwide for generating training data. So how does this tie into RNA binding proteins and transcription factors? But if you look on the diagram, you can see that we have wet lab data that talks about 400 targets. We're planning to add around 60 specialist targets to this in the area of RNA binding proteins and transcription factors, which is color coded by the pink and the green kind of data piles within that diagram. And we'll take all of the online data, and we'll bring the weight of our 15 years' worth of wet lab data across 400 targets to provide accuracy and feed it all together into one big model. This will be supported by the development of an additional minimum 60 targets across the focus area of RNA binding proteins and transcription factors with the view to building highly valuable and needed assets. We will further refine this model by adding output to the animal data that we plan to do and also detailed structural biology studies that we're currently building a consortium in order to do that. And the output of this really is looking to be a world-leading engine that can be speedily built and outcompete others in the market. And at the same time, fee-for-service platform will continue to generate revenue and supply data from ongoing discovery projects. To move on, so what does it do essentially? What does this actually mean? So the output of this, as generated by this kind of flywheel diagram, is AI-powered Optimer engine at the top generates molecules and generates data that can produce candidate molecules and so on and so forth, and it feeds back into itself. So effectively, it will increase our fee-for-service revenue, because the addition of AI services is a chargeable add-on. It will essentially speed up what's referred to as hit ID and development time lines. And interestingly, from the data that we've got, we would expect that it will take about half the time it takes to deliver an asset or develop an asset. And if we take half of the time to develop the asset, it will cost us half of the amount of money, both in reagents and also FTE time. So that will increase our margins on a per project basis. The data that we get will be fed into the model, and it will focus the model on pharma's next challenging areas, as I've just explained in the past few slides. The outputs effectively of this will be licensable assets aligned with these high-value markets, almost ready for out-licensing with the addition of the animal studies. Ultimately, this model effectively feeds itself. It can act as a stand-alone asset once developed, available for pharma to license to explore key themes in RNA protein interactions across these different target types. So the 4 kind of key take-homes of value layers effectively is enhanced fee-for-service, accelerated time lines, improved hit rates, premium pricing, stand-alone AI licensing, the out-licensing of the molecules we generated, therapeutic pipeline, it derisks candidate discovery for undruggables and makes that more quick. And effectively, the compounding effect of the data advantage. And what I mean by that is every project that we do is a fee-for-service basis and every therapeutic R&D program that we do feeds into the model and improves AI predictability and accuracy. So AI really it's not a key, it isn't a pivot, it's essentially a multiplier on our proven platform and a necessary immediate addition, or we would get left behind essentially by other companies that are doing this. So it's something that we must and absolutely have to do now. So how does this finally link through into animal studies and data proof points? Well, you might be asking yourself, why no massive upfront GBP 10 million deals for Aptamer Group. How did some of the companies on Slide 19 reach hundreds of millions in value and be bought by pharma? And the short answer to this is strong preclinical data packs with animal proof of concept in areas of unmet need that effectively position those companies for an acquisition or a purchase from pharma to get access to that data. So following the eighth rejection in a row from big pharma based on no animal data and the radioligand program with the top 3 pharma, we decided just to take the power into our own hands and build our own differentiated set of data packs to derisk and enable our BD team to compete for higher-value deals. And the only way that we can do that is in animal data and to focus on areas of unmet need to add this kind of layer of value where pharma has, as I've referred to earlier, a blind spot. So we currently have 5 active programs and plan to rapidly build others. In oligo delivery, we've got our liver fibrosis program, which is the most advanced. This is ready to go into animal models immediately and will represent a major milestone for the platform that will support out-licensing. We've got some assets in chronic kidney disease. That's very close to being ready to go into animal models and just requires a couple of extra months' worth of development work, and that will shortly be then placed into animal models. In the radiopharma area, we have partnered with a top 3 pharma company already on an undisclosed cancer target, which could potentially progress on to a clinical molecule, but almost certainly will progress into animal models within the next 12 to 18 months. We've also identified 3 further radiopharma targets, which we believe are of very high value. In the undruggable class at the bottom of the slide, we've identified multiple targets across transcription factors and RNA binding proteins that are one, an ideal fit for our technology; and two, enable a pathway to clinic and potential deals. So the team are ready to move these into the discovery phase and then move them through into animal studies. And finally, we have a molecule that we've progressed to lead optimization stage for leukemia in partnership with CRUK. This project is several years old, but we will now endeavor to work with them to move this towards preclinical animal studies and potentially further in due course. So this approach effectively gives us multiple shots on goal, multiple attempts to animal studies and derisks the whole platform essentially or derisks the chance of failure in any single asset program. And this is where we believe the big value add will come for the company. So what does this look like? So this slide essentially shows how we intend to deliver value with the major inflection points that this raise funds, and these are all highlighted in yellow. So in the first year, we will build on the foundations. We'll integrate our data into AI. We'll advance our pipeline. By 18 months, we expect in vivo proof of concept. So this is the animal studies coming out across 2 programs outside of those ones that were mentioned within the liver, unlocking licensing conversations in high-value areas. And beyond that, we're targeting our first out-licensing of these technologies as significant milestones that will define the company as a platform company alongside other areas such as the AI model being launched for access and AI launch of enhanced fee-for-service revenues. So just to move on, in summary. Financial performance, a 27% uplift in revenue for the period, GBP 1.5 million in cash at the end of December that does provide runway to quarter 2 2027. Operational performance, significant contract wins in high-value, high-growth radiopharmaceutical areas with a top 3 pharma partner, nearly 800,000 in new contracts secured from 1 top 5 pharma company and with good success in the lab, 2 royalty-bearing licenses signed in December generating revenues. Licensing revenues expected there for H2 financial year '26, but we have generated some revenue from that from upfront payments and supply contract. Further assets are now under evaluation with a view to licensing. We've invested in manufacturing and our quality processes to meet the demands, which was no insignificant feat, and I do have to congratulate the team for being able to do that on such short notice. Post period, significant new fundraise announced in March, providing capital to be able to generate these AI models that I've just explained, take advantage of the company's 15 years of discovery data to ideally become a global leader in this particular area and generate this in vivo proof-of-concept data that we believe will unlock significant kind of value inflection points for the company moving forward. So that, I believe, concludes the formal part of the presentation, and I will be happy to take any questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions] As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And if I may just start off with the first question here, which reads as follows. Do you anticipate definitely needing further funding in 2028? Or is the runway length referred to a conservative base case that assumes no material royalty/licensing revenues or upfront payments from potential pharma partners, et cetera, such that additional funding may not be required if things go well?

I'm happy to take that one. So this really is a base case scenario. We've made this prediction on the basis that we continue with our fee-for-service growing at roughly 10% per annum. We've included our anticipated licensing revenues from Alphazyme and from Twist. But this doesn't include any of the upside from any of those other assets that we talked about through the presentation. So there's a wide breadth of assets we've discussed, Unilever, the fetal diagnostic, the liver fibrosis, the top 3 pharma. There's lots of other assets. Any one of those could add material amounts of revenue and extend that runway further. So yes, I think it's right to say that we would consider this as a base case scenario, and there is a reasonable chance that additional funding wouldn't be required should any of those other assets materialize with any upside value.

The next question we have here reads, there are some who feel that the latest options are a giveaway with no stretch element to it. It would be helpful to understand the motivation/drivers about the latest options package for the Board. Why has it ended up the way it has? And why should I vote for it?

Okay. That's a tough question and I fully understand where that's come from. I know that the fund raise and the new option schemes raised some questions on the Board. We do read them from time to time to keep up to date with sentiment, particularly around Tranche 1 and the 25% cap. So I'll try to address these directly and transparently. Firstly, I would point out all the cornerstone investors saw the scheme and rationale before agreeing to invest. We disclosed the full details to prospective placee, so everyone invested on an eyes open basis. The structure of the options package was designed and cleared by SPARK and AIM under Rule 13 before the final placing price was fixed. And I can guarantee that there has been no bucket shop, stitch up, return the pope, or anyone else. And to be honest, and this is probably unprofessional in this forum, but I'm really quite offended by the comments effectively being put out there. It's just not necessary. To be clear, all existing options have been canceled and replaced. The new package is essentially designed to reward our sacrifice to retain the team for the next 3 years, the critical years and align incentives with the growth, the new capital that we've just raised is going to fund. So Tranche 1 in order, that's essentially deferred compensation for 2023 to 2025. During that period, myself, the Board, all took below-market salaries, 0 bonuses to preserve every pound for the business. At the 0.6p price, it delivers an aggregate value equivalent to around 60% of annual salaries. It saves the company cash. It's tax efficient, and it recognizes the personal GBP 40 million paper loss for the founders, myself and Dave. We lost when we had to refinance the company. Between the both of us, GBP 40 million. So we lost 99% of all of our value. And this gives us some opportunity to recover some of that for the last 15 or 16 years of hard work that we've put in. The old scheme at this point has become a disincentive after the dilution and the business model pivot. So we've pivoted the business model, and we now shoulder more early-stage risk and cost towards these bigger licensing deals. And we've replaced the entire old package. It's the same 25% policy as before, but with newer, more realistic hurdles that start from today's placing price. Net new options after cancellation are materially lower than the headline figure. And I think Andrew will probably come on to explain that if there's a question on it at some point later. But overall, why is it fair to the shareholders and why vote for it? Well, because it's a full reset after genuine sacrifice. We lost 99% of the original IPO value, took 60% pay cuts, delivered the commercial pivot. We've now secured the runway to '28 minimum. The formal appraisal was fair and reasonable. AIM agreed with that. And the scheme only pays out meaningfully if the share price rises, which is exactly what I feel the alignment is with the long-term shareholders. And I think that's what people want ultimately, although I do understand the pushback and the comments. So a rather long answer, but I hope that's explained the context.

That's great. Just turning to the next question. In light of the fund raise announced today on the 25th of March, is the Board of Directors' intention to lower the target set previously for directors to receive share options? Or are they confident that the current and future contracts will deliver shareholder value and meet the existing target set?

Do you want to take that? Or do you want me to do that?

Yes, I can take that. So no, we won't change the targets. They're more achievable from today's base because the old ones were 7x to 12.5x the 0.2p placing price under the old scheme or the '24 scheme. Tranche 3 of this new scheme still requires the share price to be 3.25x higher than the 0.6p placing price. And none of that tranche 3 kicks in until we're at least 1.5x the 0.6p issue price. So for full vesting, we require market cap to be north of GBP 65 million. And then we made sure under this scheme that the total quantum, the value earned, if you like, through that scheme was on par with what we've done previously. I think you could argue that the dilution, I guess, is certainly based on the 25% that we took before. As Arron touched on, there's a lot of sacrifice, particularly from the founder side, which is why there was wanting to be some meaningful acknowledge of that and the reduced salaries that were taken, but that was all done within the 25% option pool. It could have been that, like Arron touched on, some of it to be paid out in cash, but that wasn't really seen as the best way forward, neither was it to issue shares, which would crystallize a tax charge immediately and would require some selling of the shares in the market, and that certainly wasn't what anybody at the Board wanted to see happen. So that really explains why it took that form. Ultimately, with the warrants that we've offered with this latest placing to investors, it means the dilution is between 11% and 14% on a fully diluted basis. So yes, that's a summary of where we've ended up.

That's great. Why all the raising of capital when you inform us that you have enough to run to Q2 2027?

So yes, the Q2 2027 still holds and was fine purely from a working capital perspective. But as Arron has touched on, there were far greater reasons, I guess, for this raise, primarily driven by the need for animal model data and for the AI enhancement of our current offering. Also, we're signing a couple of these licensing deals as a manufacturing requirement. And we've laid all that out in the circular. That's just been published as well. So yes, that we've allocated a little bit more. GBP 1 million (sic) [ GBP 0.75 million ] of this we've allocated to working capital, and that will see us through well into 2028, and that's to give us the time frame to execute on these R&D programs that Arron has just outlined.

Which 2 assets will you progress through animal studies? Why only 2?

Well, there won't only be 2. So if investors go back and look at the slide, which I can't pull up now, we have the siRNA liver delivery technology, which we will put through. We also have the radiopharmaceutical program that we will put through, but that's in partnership with a pharma company. We also have another 2 or 3 molecules that we're looking to put through the radiopharmaceutical in collaboration with a nondisclosable party at this current time, because it's being negotiated. But we have access to animal models through Lilly through our new onboarded Director of Radiochemistry for that area. And then the other areas will be the RNA binding proteins and transcription factors. So in reality, over time, we will have way more than 2 animal proof points, which is what I alluded to earlier.

Which of your current assets will out-license and contribute to revenue over the next year?

So yes, if we think back to that slide with the table of assets, the grid of assets on it, I think they're the ones that are most likely to progress in the short term. Certainly, on the enzyme modulating space, we've made really good progress there. We've got 2 other companies, as I mentioned, one is a global enzyme provider and one a U.K.-based company, both assessing these binders, and we've had early positive feedback on both those assessments. So I think they're some of the more likely. Unilever is at fairly late stages now on skin testing. We've got the fetal diagnostic under an MTA with a global partner as well. So I think all of those have really good prospects of adding to our licensing portfolio in the near future.

Yes. And I think I would just like to add to that, that having had a quick read-through and people's genuine kind of concerns about the likes of Unilever and other projects, there won't be necessarily weekly updates on these programs, because they take time internally within these big companies to move through. That does not mean though that they are not moving forward or something has gone wrong with them. That's not necessarily the case. There is just time needed for updates to come through and filter through to RNSs.

That's great. Just turning to the next question. Is the GBP 400,000 allocated to manufacturing enough to scale up to the levels needed to supply customers?

Yes, certainly. We've done a lot of work during the period. So we've got the processes in place and all the capabilities are there. We can manufacture to a certain level with the equipment that we've got. This would allow us to go the next scale up. Of that GBP 400,000, it likely costed GBP 150,000 just to go into that manufacturing space. We've got 2 pieces of equipment that we've already scoped out that we need to allow us to manufacture on the scale that these licenses would -- well, it will see us well within capacity then for these licenses that we've already negotiated.

And sorry to interrupt there. There's also another critical point with this equipment is that it enables us to manufacture the molecules for animal trials to the sufficient quantity and purity, which is really, really important in protecting our intellectual property. The last thing that we want to do is send the sequences for these molecules that could have massive value to us as a company to external parties for manufacture before we have patents filed to protect the technology. So there's another reason for why we're investing in the scale-up for the oligo synthesis.

That's great. When will the AI consortium launch? And who is involved in this? What would it bring to the AI models that you sell?

So I don't think it's appropriate to comment on who will be in the AI consortium other than to say it's highly likely to be academic institutions that have access to structural biology data. And what it will bring to the AI models? Effectively, it will enable much higher levels of predictability of how the nucleic acids and proteins interact on a structural level. So for those sciencey-type people, if you think of it a bit like AlphaFold, but in the oligonucleotide space, that's what we're aiming to do. So we've got expertise that's been offered from planned consortium members. But ultimately, when it's signed off, we will say who it is, but it's likely to be across a couple, 2, 3, maybe 4 different university groups around the country, and that's being worked on at the moment.

That's great. Thank you. And I think the last question we've got here reads, how are discussions progressing around the fibrotic liver delivery vehicle? At what stage would you foresee out-licensing this asset to pharma buyers?

So I can take that one. We've had multiple conversations, and I referred to it earlier, we've had 8 kind of rejections, I suppose, if you want to look at it that way, from big pharma on the basis that we don't have the animal data. As soon as we have the animal data, we will immediately be back in touch with those people at the earliest opportunity to present the data and try to move things forward. We have been very close to a deal on a couple of occasions with this particular asset. But unfortunately, we have no luck because of the fact that we didn't have the animal data. So ultimately, as a Board, we decided to bite the bullet and raise the funding in order to do that, so that we can add value in the long term for the shareholders.

That's great. Thank you for answering all those questions you can from investors. And of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, Arron, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments?

Yes. I would just really like to say that I do recognize the dilution is frustrating for many people. And I've felt the pain of being diluted myself previously. The fundamentals of the business, however, haven't changed. The raise gives us a stronger platform to rebuild from. The scheme, I suppose, is the commitment from the team to stay fully aligned with the upside we're now planning to and position to deliver. And we do look forward to updating you on the platform, the radiopharmaceuticals progress, the siRNA progress and all the other things that we're doing in coming months.

That's great. Thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This may take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you.