MedinCell S.A. ($MEDCL)

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our online R&D Day. If you wish to follow along the presentation, the slides are available on our website. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to Slide 2, which contains important information regarding forward-looking statements. Please note that today's discussion may include projections and assumptions, and we therefore encourage you to review this information carefully. After the presentations, we will open the floor for a Q&A session. And with that, I am very pleased to invite Christophe Douat, our Chief Executive Officer, to open today's meeting. Christophe?

Thank you, David. This is a very special moment for us. Good morning, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today for our R&D Day. Today is about one fundamental idea: how we turn science into long-term value creation. At MedinCell, innovation is not an abstract concept. It is something very tangible, something that reaches patients, supports physicians and ultimately transforms lives. And what we are building here is much bigger than individual products. We are building a platform, a model, a company designed to create value over the long term. We are deeply proud of what our teams have achieved, from a strong foundation in polymer science rooted in world-class research to a company that now operates at a global level. We have built an exceptional R&D organization, bringing together talent from more than 30 countries, creating one of the highest concentrations of expertise into the world in our field. And what excites us even more than what we have done is what is now ahead of us. At the core of everything we do, there is a very clear ambition: unlock the full potential of long-acting injectables, improve adherence, enhance treatment efficiency and ultimately transform patients' lives. This is what drives our R&D teams every day. Because in our space, success is not measured by technical achievement alone it is measured by real-world impact. Now let me step back and remind you of our strategy. We are executing what we call our shift-to-growth strategy, built around 3 engines operating in parallel. First, UZEDY, our risperidone LAI already demonstrating very strong adoption in a very competitive market. Second, olanzapine LAI, waiting for regulatory approval with the potential to unlock a very significant market opportunity. And third, Innovation and R&D, which is the focus of today because this third engine is what will define our future. This third engine is about disciplined and focused investment. We invest in R&D to broaden our innovation platform, to expand our portfolio and extend our network of partners. Approximately two-thirds of our operating expenses today go into R&D because we see innovation not as a cost, but as the core driver of long-term value creation. And most importantly, we do this with discipline, allocating capital where we can create real differentiation. Our approach to value creation is very clear. We are building a long-term royalty engine. Each successful program adds a new layer, what we call a string of pearls, stacking revenue streams over time. UZEDY is the first validation. Olanzapine will be the next one, and more will follow. This is how we build sustainable, scalable growth. Now to explain how we execute this third engine, how we turn science into products and products into long-term value, I'm joined today by 3 key leaders of MedinCell: Adolfo, Head of R&D; David, Head of Intellectual Property; Sebastian, Chief Business Officer. Together, they will walk you through our technology platform, our innovation strategy and our IP and partnering model. With that, I will now hand over to Adolfo, who will take you deeper into the evolution of our technology.

Thank you, Christophe, and hello, everyone. My name is Adolfo Lopez-Noriega, and I am the Head of Research and Development at MedinCell. Over the next few minutes, I'd like to share how we are building our R&D roadmap for long-acting injectables and how it supports MedinCell's growth, future products, partnerships and long-term value. My objective today is not to go into organizational details or scientific depth. I would like to explain how our R&D choices reduce risk, open up new opportunities and support sustainable value creation. Let me start with 3 clear takeaways, which will structure everything I will show you today. First, adoption drives value in long-acting injectables, not duration alone, and adoption is something we intentionally design for. Second, our platform strategy enables us to scale innovation across products and indications rather than depend on individual assets. And third, beyond the platform, we invest selectively in focused internal and external R&D to accelerate development and solve product-specific challenges. These three points form the backbone of our R&D roadmap. I will come back to this message through the presentation. As Christophe said, our R&D is built around a world-class team in polymer science and drug delivery. However, expertise alone is not enough. What matters most is how R&D connects to value-creating functions across the company. We work hand-in-hand with our IP team to ensure that innovation is protected at the right level and at the right time. David Martin will provide details around this after me. We also work closely with business development to ensure that R&D priorities are aligned with real market needs and partner expectations. This tight integration reduces downstream development risk and ensures that innovation translates into commercially relevant, partner-ready products. This slide is especially important because it explains why some long-acting products succeed while others do not. When long-acting injectables are discussed, attention is often focused on duration: one, two or three months or even longer. Our experience shows that duration alone does not drive adoption. In practice, adoption has two dimensions. First, physician adoption, driven by ease of initiation, safety, predictability and integration into clinical workflows. And second, patient adoption, which is driven by comfort, confidence, convenience and adherence. If a product is difficult to initiate, if it's challenging to administer or uncomfortable for the patient, adoption will remain limited no matter how long it lasts. That is why adoption and not duration alone is the true commercial differentiator. Let me illustrate this with a concrete example. We have demonstrated the critical importance of adoption through the outstanding success of UZEDY. UZEDY offers several differentiating features beyond controlled release over one or two months. One key example is immediate onset of action, which is a very tangible illustration of adoption-driven design. Immediate onset means that therapeutic concentrations are reached shortly after administration, as shown in the graph illustrating risperidone concentration over time. For physicians, this simplifies initiation protocols because no oral supplementation is required. And for patients, it provides early confidence that the treatment is working. Beyond onset of action, UZEDY integrates additional features that remove common hesitation points in real-world use. Subcutaneous administration under the skin rather than intramuscular enables thinner needles and easier injections, which improves patient comfort. No need for loading dose or oral supplementation simplifies treatment initiation for both clinicians and patients, and ready-to-use formulations reduce preparation errors and make administration more straightforward in care settings. Consistent performance regardless of injection site increases flexibility and predictability. Individually, each of these features may appear incremental. But taken together, they have a minimum meaningful impact on prescribing behavior by reducing complexity and building confidence. Another essential factor for adoption is trust in safety. With olanzapine long-acting injectable, our objective was to address the safety limitations that constrained earlier products. As you may know, a previous olanzapine LAI developed by Eli Lilly was associated with rare but serious overdose light reactions following injection, which are known as PDSS. These reactions were likely due to the unintended intravascular administration of the product, and this resulted into heavy regulatory restrictions and ultimately limited commercial adoption. Using BEPO, we demonstrated a fundamentally different safety profile. In clinical studies conducted by our partner, Teva, approximately 4,000 injections were administered with no overdose like events observed or suspected. This outcome is not only technical. It can translate directly into physician confidence, regulatory credibility and real-world usability. But how did we manage to avoid the PDSSs? There are 2 main reasons. First, the product is administered under the skin rather than into the muscle, and this reduces the risk of unintended intravascular exposure. Second, we precisely control the release of olanzapine from BEPO, thereby avoiding high initial plasma concentration, as you can see on the image. This is what we refer to as burst control. A successful long-acting injectable must deliver the right duration, the right dose across patient populations and critically robust and predictable release behavior. And this is exactly what we have achieved with olanzapine. I often say that the profile that you are seeing here is a dream profile for anyone working in drug delivery. Now designing a single successful product is very important as sustainable value creation requires platforms. Our strategy is to continuously extend our innovation platform so that knowledge, data and development effort can be leveraged across multiple products, indications and partnerships. This platform-driven logic has been the foundation of our R&D activities over recent years. Okay. I will now take you through our innovation road map, and we should start by the foundation, which is BEPO. Let me briefly remind you how it works. BEPO is an in situ forming depot technology based on solvent exchange. When a solution of our proprietary copolymers in a biocompatible solvent containing the drug is injected under the skin, solvent diffusion causes the polymers to precipitate and form a depot that drops the drug and injection site. Drug release occurs through diffusion and polymer degradation, both of which we can precisely control. What you see on the video is exactly what happens with UZEDY under the skin. One of BEPO's strengths is its simplicity from a manufacturing perspective. The drug product is composed of just 3 elements: the API, a biocompatible solvent that ensures injectability and proprietary copolymers that control the release. This simplicity supports robustness, reproducibility and scalability, which are key requirements for development and partnering. But what makes BEPO powerful is not the chemistry itself, but the level of control it gives us over long-acting product performance. I mentioned that BEPO is simple from a manufacturing standpoint, but it's highly complex from a formulation perspective. The API, solvent and polymer components can be finely tuned, allowing us to control release profiles, injection volume, viscosity, stability and storage conditions. As we have discussed earlier, all these parameters directly affect patient and clinician adoption. This flexibility strengthens reliability and builds partner confidence across our portfolio. BEPO enables the development of first and best-in-class products such as UZEDY and olanzapine long-acting injectable. However, we wanted to achieve similar outcomes with more challenging molecules, and we wanted to do so by building on the strong foundation of BEPO, and this is how BEPO STAR was developed. BEPO STAR is based on the same proven chemistry as BEPO. But instead of linear polymers, such as the ones that you see on the left of the screen, it uses branched copolymers, which are polymers with more than 2 arms, which are also known as star-shaped polymers. Our final goal using these polymers was to achieve improved control of drug release, but not only. One immediate benefit of using BEPO STAR is lower injection force and viscosity compared with BEPO. This is what you are seeing on this slide, which compares easiness of injection and viscosity of formulations with either BEPO or BEPO STAR formulations. Lower viscosity and injection force directly improve patient comfort and usability and open the door to the use of auto-injectors. As we have discussed earlier, this strongly enhances adoption. Another improvement with BEPO STAR relates to depot degradation. Let me explain this graph. This graph shows the rate at which depots made either from BEPO or BEPO STAR resorb after injection, and you can see clear differences. Compared with BEPO, BEPO STAR shows faster resorption at later stages, resulting in more rapid complete degradation. This feature is particularly important for regulators for very long-acting products where rapid BEPO resorption after drug delivery is expected. However, the most striking improvement with BEPO STAR is release control. I will share some remarkable results on this with you. This graph shows plasma concentrations in rats for a small hydrophilic molecule delivered using BEPO or BEPO STAR. BEPO exhibits a hill, a high initial burst followed by a rapid decline, whereas bipolar achieves minimal burst and sustained exposure. At the end of this study, we recovered the BEPO and approximately 60% of the payload has not yet been released from BEPO STAR whereas BEPO was exhausted. This suggests that delivery could have continued for several additional weeks. These results illustrate how release can be precisely controlled for molecules with narrow therapeutic windows, which may cause side effects if delivery is not carefully managed. It also demonstrates that BEPO STAR can support ultra-long duration. One class of molecules with narrow therapeutic windows requiring precise control of plasma exposure and duration is GLP-1 analogs. These are typically large peptides that are very difficult to formulate as long as the injectables. On this graph, you can see what we can achieve with BEPO STAR, a very low burst and sustained exposure over 1 month. As you may imagine, this opens significant opportunities for MedinCell, opportunities that could not be addressed with BEPO. And what makes BEPO STAR particularly valuable is that this platform was developed using the same underlying chemistry as BEPO. The polymers are also based on PEG and PLA building blocks. And why does this matter? Because manufacturing relies on the same synthetic procedures, we can use the same formulation processes, and we have a derisked regulatory foundation. In other words, BEPO STAR enabled immediate internal implementation at MedinCell based on our existing know-how and expertise while significantly expanding value creation potential. This is why BEPO STAR is currently being used across all our development programs at MedinCell. But we do not stop here. Beyond BEPO STAR, we continue to expand our formulation toolbox and push the boundaries of what is possible in long-acting injectables. Platform innovation may allow us to address narrow therapeutic window APIs, highly soluble molecules, ultra-long-acting indications, higher doses and simplified administration. We are currently developing new families of long-acting injectables and the results so far are outstanding. The direction remains the same. How can we further improve adoption for patients and clinicians. This slide illustrates why we are so excited. This new technology shows further improvements in ease of injection compared to BEPO STAR. And as we have said several times, this parameter is fundamental for product acceptability. Our platform innovation also demonstrates excellent release control for highly soluble molecules, something that could not be achieved neither with BEPO nor with BEPO STAR. Compared with BEPO STAR, sustained exposure is significantly extended, as shown in this graph depicting plasma concentrations in rats. We are really excited. This new platform opens the door to indications that were previously out of our reach. This innovation is already being tested in several of our programs. Okay. I have delivered quite a lot of information, but I would like one message to be clear. Our platform expansion strategy is about expanding reach, not about replacing existing platforms. BEPO, BEPO STAR and newer platforms are complementary. And together, they form a robust toolbox for portfolio expansion. This summary slide illustrates that each platform extension expands our capabilities to formulate. The idea is to build a toolbox from which we can select the technology that best fits a given API. As a final point on platforms, let me give you some visibility on applicability and time lines. The time lines shown here illustrate how these platforms translate into clinical and commercial value over time. BEPO STAR may enter clinical trials in 2028 with a potential commercial launch around 2033. And regarding next platform expansion, we are ready to accelerate development to reach the market as quickly as possible. So far, I have focused on platform expansion. However, we know that platforms alone do not solve all our challenges. We have complementary R&D initiatives to provide further value. We pursue complementary innovation along 3 dimensions: API optimization, delivery devices and external technology scouting. Over the recent years, we have developed significant capabilities in API optimization with the objective of making difficult to formulate molecules compatible with BEPO. This can be achieved through approaches such as API engineering or the development of new products or salts. We are also exploring advanced delivery devices. As discussed several times, adoption by clinicians and patients is critical and one key moment for longer-acting injectables is the injection procedure itself. Our goal is to make injections as comfortable as possible for patients and as simple as possible for clinicians. Finally, we have built strong capabilities in scouting external technologies. We closely monitor developments in our field and pay particular attention to academic groups and small companies developing technologies that may complement our platforms. These initiatives are not isolated. They are deliberately combined to expand the opportunity space and accelerate value creation. Before closing, I would like to spend a couple of minutes on time, which is a key structural challenge in long-acting injectables. Because of the longer duration of action, development inherently takes longer, which is why we focus on generating decision-enabling data earlier, reducing uncertainty sooner and shortening time lines wherever scientifically possible. Through automation, parallel workflows and data-driven approaches, we have reduced formulation time lines by approximately 50%. The objective of this acceleration is to improve capital efficiency, enable earlier partnering and drive earlier value inflection. So that was it. I conclude here. And I hope that I made it clear that R&D at MedinCell is fundamentally about execution and value creation. We design long-acting injectables for real-world adoption, extend scalable platforms to fuel growth and accelerate development through targeted investments that reduce risk and expand opportunity. This R&D road map is a key enabler of MedinCell shift to growth. I will now hand over to David Martin, who will explain how we protect this value through intellectual property and know-how.

So firstly, thank you very much Adolfo for his review of R&D topics. My name is Dave Martin. I'm a patent attorney with 25 years' experience in the life science and pharmaceutical industries, and I'm Head of Intellectual Property here at MedinCell. So, I'll start with this first slide. This shows a top-level review of what we'll be talking about today. And there's 3 main takeaway messages from my talk. Firstly, IP is central to MedinCell's value creation model. This is because the primary revenue for MedinCell in the future will be royalties from patent rights. In this context then, the longer the duration of patent protection that we get for products, the longer we get the royalties. And I'll give you some examples of what this means in reality. I'll then discuss how MedinCell has a proven strategy to build multilayered patent protection for products incorporating our formulation technology. This gives extended patent protection to our partners, and like I said, is a revenue driver for MedinCell. I'll then highlight our patent portfolio and explain how patents and know-how are important to support partnerships, royalties and build long-term value creation. And this topic will be picked up again by Sebastian, who follows after my presentation. So firstly, I'll start with UZEDY. As you know, this was the first commercialized product, which incorporates our BEPO formulation technology. UZEDY was launched in 2023 in partnership with Teva. Now on launch, UZEDY had over 19 years of patent protection. And this length of patent protection when launched is very rare for a pharmaceutical product. We achieved this by obtaining multiple layers of patent protection. As you see here, the first layer is our BEPO platform technology patent protection. This expires in the U.S. in 2033. Then we added 2 more layers. One layer protected the combination of the drug product with our BEPO formulation, and then we added another layer of protection to the use of the drug product. And together, these patent rights extend protection and royalties to 2042. So, our IP protection is not just one patent right, it's a stack of layer protections, each reinforcing the other. This provided value to our partners since there's an opportunity to extend patent protection long beyond our core technology, and it means to have a benefit of exclusivity for the formulation. And as I mentioned before, it creates value for MedinCell by generating revenues over an increased time. Now UZEDY is not just a one-off. In this slide, we consider olanzapine. This will be the next product to be launched that incorporates BEPO formulation technology. This product will again be launched in partnership with Teva in the near future. And on launch, it will have around 17 years of patent protection. Again, we have different layers of patent rights. One layer protects the formulation and the other layers protect the combination of the drug product with the BEPO formulation and the use of the drug product to treat specific patients. Together, these rights will generate revenue until 2044. Again, this length of time is very rare for pharmaceutical products. And again, it provides value to the partners since they've got exclusivity on the formulation to them. And again, it provides royalties to revenues to revenue in the future. So how do we achieve this long protection for our products and the partners? Our patent strategy delivers layers patent rights. Each layer adds longer patent protection, which means longer royalty revenue. First, we have the platform technology protection. And importantly, our platform patent rights are granted in all major territories. Then we have the product layer. This protects the drug product through the combination of API with BEPO formulation. And through UZEDY, the product is patented to 2040 and olanzapine 2044, like what I just said. And there's other examples in different programs. So, for example, our pain management program has formulation protection. Our female contraception program has pending formulation protection rights. So, we have a proven strategy for obtaining product protection. Then we have additional lifespan layers, which extend the lifetime of patent rights. These additional rights relate to different innovations. So, for example, methods of treatment or specific patient populations using our formulations. We patent other opportunities as they arise. So, you can see our IP protection is not just a single patent right, it's a stack of protections reinforcing each other and the stack of protections means a stack of royalty generation. It also optimizes patent duration to protect the commercial life cycle of the product. Now why is this important? Because partners don't want to just access our platform patent rights. Our IP strategy provides revenue to -- value to partners since there's an opportunity to extend patent protection long beyond corporate technology protection. And this provides revenue to MedinCell long in the future. Now the olanzapine and UZEDY patent rights are excellent examples of the strategy, and we have others in our pipeline. So, this strategy is not theoretical, it's proven. And as Sebastian will explain shortly, the success of our IP strategy is an important part of our business development strategy. I'll now discuss how our patent rights for platform formulation protection has expanded over time. Here, we see the multiple versions of the BEPO technology. And for each innovation, we restart the clock, meaning the 20 years protection begins again for each of these new formulation innovations. For BEPO Linea, we have first-generation protection to 2033 in the U.S. In what we call internally, BEPO [indiscernible], we have protection to 2038. For BEPO STAR, we have protection to 2040, and we have patents granted in all major territories for all these formulation technologies. Then for the ongoing platform improvements, which Adolfo was talking about. For each new innovation arising, we'll file for new patent protection, which will run for another 20 years. So, you can see these improvements create additional patent rights and these additional patent rights are opportunities to generate revenue for MedinCell. That by ensuring our IP strategy is placed right at the center of our research activities, we monitor ongoing improvements, and we file patent applications only when we're confident we have the right data to make a strong patent. Now I want to show you how MedinCell continuously invests in its IP. On the left, you'll see the strong growth in the number of patent families over the years. Now you may see the number can pause or even reduce from time to time, and I don't hide this. This is really important. It shows active management of the IP portfolio. We do this by reviewing the portfolio, and we limit investments in IP rights, which will not provide value to MedinCell, and we instead prioritize investment in innovations that translate into real market value. In this way, we ensure IP decisions are business-driven decisions. But you can see the growth is one direction. You can also see the chart on the right. This is also important. It shows the balance between granted and pending patent rights. The rise in granted patents indicates the success we have in obtaining these rights. And the rise in number of pending patent rights indicates the vibrancy of the patent portfolio. These IP rights are key revenue drivers to the company. They grow as we grow in our success. And I want to emphasize another crucial component of our IP strategy, know-how. While patent rights provide strong legal protection, they are published and expire up to 20 years. These are the visible rights. In contrast, know-how does not publish and it does not expire. It's hidden. This is a secret glue that holds our strategy together. We deliberately keep this know-how secret to create an extra barrier to market for competitors. So, for example, what's the best way to make the polymers, secret know-how. What's the best quality of polymers to use? Secret know-how. How are the formulations developed? Know-how. How do we select the best formulations? Know-how. This know-how is confidential to MedinCell. Like with biologics, how do you make something that is as important as what you make. This know-how and our success in using it commercially is a crucial component to MedinCell's financial future. It's important as we know-how is a barrier to the entry for competitors and it's a control point in our relationship with partners. So, what does all this matter? It matters because our IP rights are essential for our business development activities, as Sebastian will explain shortly. Partners want to access our patent rights. They're impressed with our multilayer patent strategy. They need to access know-how to make formulations. Together with our expertise in developing successfully commercial products, our IP position is one of the reasons partners choose to work with MedinCell. And that's the end for me today. I'll hand over now to Sebastian, who will explain how central partners maximize to MedinCell and value creation model.

Thank you, Dave. Hello, everyone. As Chief Business Officer, my objective today is simple to explain how MedinCell creates long-term value from its technology platforms and why partnerships and alliances are central to maximizing that value over time. You've just heard about the evolution of our technologies with Adolfo and the strength of our intellectual property and know-how with Dave. What I would like to do now is to connect the dots, how technology, IP, medical marketing, business insight, business development and alliance management translate into a sustainable long-term value creation. So today, I have 3 main takeaway. First, MedinCell as a key player in the LAI ecosystem. Second, how we selectively build a portfolio of blockbuster potential LAIs. And third, how we focus on maximizing long-term value through partnerships with big pharma companies and innovative biotech companies. Before talking about strategic road maps that we have deployed to build our portfolio and come up with transformative partnerships, it's important to understand the overall market we are addressing today and the one that we will be addressing in the long-term. The LAI market is not new. The first LAI was approved in the '60s, but this is really with the introduction of the first antipsychotic LAI in 2003 that the market value significantly increased. Last year, the market was roughly $20 billion, with still the biggest piece of the cake for antipsychotics. And clearly, MedinCell is in a great position with UZEDY and olanzapine approved in 2023 and single crossed 2026, that will ensure accumulated market shares for MedinCell in the long-term. Adherence issue across chronic diseases is really a structural driver. LAIs directly address nonadherence, which is a major issue in psychiatry, but not only it's also the case in oncology, infectious diseases, endocrinology and other therapeutic areas. Poor adherence leads to relapse, hospitalization, treatment discontinuation. This is a huge economic burden. So, there is a strong incentive for patients, payers and pharma companies to adopt long-acting injectables. In this industry, time lines are pretty long. To develop LAI takes time. So, it's critical to carefully understand the market and its evolution over time. If we look at the LAI market in the coming 20 years, the good news, it will be still growing and even better much faster. One of the major inflection points in the LAI market is the entry of GLP-1 for type 2 diabetes and obesity, it was a couple of years ago, for which the growth will be the most important from 10%, 15% market share to 30%, 35%. And the need is there. As I said, adherence is a key for chronic diseases. And GLP-1 today show probably the highest discontinuation rate. There was a big analysis last year that revealed that roughly 65% of patients under injectable GLP-1 therapy stopped the treatment after one year and 85% after two years. This knowledge of the LAI ecosystem is very critical to build the long-term strategy of the company and define where to go to maximize the biggest value. Talking about value, let me start with what I believe is one of meaningful, most powerful and sometimes underestimated assets, our position in the industry. Over the last 2 decades, we put significant efforts to increase the visibility of the company. The best way to do that is to prove to the industry that we are capable to deliver. And this is what we did. Over the last 2, 3 years, only a few LAIs were approved, and none of them show better product features than UZEDY. Everybody agrees on this. Pharma companies, not only Teva, but our existing and new partners, all the analysts and the medical community. Two companies, [Ravi] and Indivior that had risperidone LAI left because of UZEDY. The industry knows how challenging it is to formulate olanzapine. IVD failed. Zyprexa Relprevv is a clinical and commercial flop. Teva had zero PDSS in Phase III after 3,600 injections. It's unbelievable, and the industry is aware of that. MedinCell is not an early-stage drug delivery company anymore. Our technology is used in products that are given to patients. Companies such as AbbVie has no doubt about our technology and our ability to deliver. This is the reason why in this strategic alliance with AbbVie, MedinCell has full responsibilities for all of the preclinical activities until the IND. No doubt as well in terms of our capability to supply the required quantity of GMP-grade copolymers, thanks to our joint venture with Corbion. Something that I can witness as well is how the industry and competitors perceive MedinCell as a model to follow in terms of innovation and IP know-how strategies. Great. So MedinCell is a company with real credibility and reputation. Now the question is how we are going to use this position to create value for the company long-term. Whether we're talking about internal or external programs at MedinCell, we deploy our technologies on applications where we see the biggest impact. Our objective is to develop best-in-class products and be much better than the other LAIs. We have a strong mindset not to just develop a different formulation, but a different treatment paradigm, not only to address treatment adherence. Drug delivery is a powerful tool to improve the performance of a molecule. It can be when a drug cannot be given orally, when pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics can really be improved or when local delivery matters, allowing high concentration at the target site while limiting systemic toxicity. Life cycle management. I guess you heard about the patent cliff. Patent cliff is when a company has a blockbuster product that is losing its IP protection. This loss of exclusivity allows generics to come, and it can be dramatic for the originator of the product. Usually, for small molecules, revenues can drop by 80%, 90% in a year, slower with biologics, but still a major erosion of 30% to 70% in a year. A big wave of patent cliff is coming, the largest since 2010. Between 2025 and 2035, the pharma patent cliff will represent roughly $400 billion to $600 billion of revenues at risk globally for big pharma companies. Merck & Co. with KEYTRUDA, Bristol Myers Squibb-Pfizer with Eliquis, Johnson & Johnson with STELARA, Novo Nordisk with Ozempic, even AbbVie will be impacted on two major products, except if there is a long-term life cycle management strategy in place. This is one of our pillars in our portfolio strategy, not only with approved molecules, but also with assets in late-stage clinical development. So now let's dig into our pipeline. Today, not necessarily about our late-stage assets, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to learn more about what is behind all the blue boxes for which we have never disclosed much information. We are very cautious to have a good balance in our portfolio and the ratio between internal and external programs and also the level of risk associated with the stage of development for identified molecule candidates, as you can see on the slide. In terms of therapeutic area, clearly, there is no question. We have firmly established MedinCell as a long-acting injectable leader for schizophrenia. We have not only maintained this position, but expanded it, launching new internal and external programs that reinforce our leadership position. But our ambition doesn't stop there. MedinCell has never been confined to a single therapeutic area or indication. Our motivation is to advance long-acting injectables across a broad range of therapeutic areas and indications. This commitment to being therapeutic-area agnostic empowers us to pursue new horizons and deliver transformative solutions in the future. To develop best-in-class LAIs, choosing the right molecule is still important, but not sufficient. What truly determines long-term success is having the right partner on board. This is our business model. It works. And our selection criteria are clear. We have to find the right partner that is convinced by the LAI strategy and that will follow this strategy for the coming 10, 15, 20 years. So, I have two main questions: the first one, when to partner; and the second, which partners. We know that we want to generate maximum value long term. Big pharma and innovative biotech companies are ideal partners and they are greatly complementary. Number one, big pharma. They cover a lot of therapeutic areas and indications. They have the financial strength and all the expertise to reach the market. And post approval, they can deploy significant commercial capabilities. AbbVie was clearly one of our top priorities. The company invested more than $60 billion in terms of R&D over the last 10 years. We are talking about 12 blockbusters in AbbVie's product pipeline. And AbbVie is certainly one of the best companies to protect key assets. Let's take the example of HUMIRA. HUMIRA is 9 indications, 130 patents and cumulative total sales of $220 billion. Number two, innovative biotech companies. To me, they ensure a new wave of innovative products and new treatment modalities. Some of them could be the future big pharma of tomorrow. I met for the first time Gilead, a biotech company of less than 2,000 employees in 2007. And now the company has a market cap of $165 billion. Similar story for Regeneron, Moderna and many others. Some of our biotech partners have strong financial capabilities and can be the big pharma of tomorrow. One of them recently raised more than $150 million and another one went public, raising almost $300 million. We know and we already anticipate that potentially some of our biotech partners will be acquired by big pharma.They have already put in place some types of business arrangements with big pharma. This is what we see regularly in the industry. In CNS, I'm thinking about the acquisition of Karuna by Bristol Myers Squibb for $14 billion, Intra-Cellular Therapies by Johnson & Johnson for $14 billion as well; Cerevel by AbbVie for $9 billion. But not only in CNS -- in other therapeutic areas as well. Let's take oncology with the acquisition of Seagen by Pfizer for $43 billion, Horizon by Amgen in immunology for $28 billion. Also, being at MedinCell for the long-term, it was very important to take into consideration lessons learned from the past. History has told us that pure generic makers are not our ideal partners, with the exception of Teva that deployed the new therapeutic entity strategy in 2010, and now Teva is a great innovative company. Pure generic companies only focus on replicating something that works. They are not originators of the products. Therefore, they do not project themselves in the long-term. So, to recap, big pharma and innovative biotech companies are target partners. There are 2 different ways to work with them. It can be from scratch when we join our forces since the beginning -- as was the case with Teva on olanzapine LAI. In this configuration, the partner pays for the overall development. After the formulation stage, if we have successfully identified the lead formulation, we execute a licensing agreement where MedinCell will receive an upfront payment and later on development and commercial milestones plus royalties. Today, our financial standing and our ability to form partnerships are stronger than ever before. It was part of our shift-to-growth strategy that we applied a couple of years ago. This enhanced position allows us to explore a variety of these structures tailored to each asset and potential partner. Our partnering strategy can be deployed in 2 manners. It answers the second question: when to partner. Now we can invest and initiate internal programs when we believe that formulating a given molecule as a long-acting injectable will create substantial long-term value. And our objective is pretty clear: to generate high-value data that position MedinCell optimally to engage partners and negotiate from a strong position. Our objective is not necessarily to sign partnerships as quickly as possible. Our objective is to sign partnerships at the right time when the data package is strong enough to maximize the value of the deal. This can take time. But over the long term, it is absolutely worth it. Generating this level of data represents an investment of a few million per program. This is not a cost. This is a strategic investment. And the proof is very clear. This is exactly what we did with the first AbbVie program. To make a long story short, we screened the entire AbbVie product pipeline: 247 molecules, 200 molecules approved, 47 molecules in clinical development, 36 molecules were selected as potential candidates for an LAI, 14 were selected based on their physicochemical properties. Finally, we came up with a preselection of 6 molecules. We decided to take the most promising opportunity that we put in the lab as top priority to generate a data package proving that we can formulate the molecule. At the same time, we started building a robust business case internally with the inputs of physicians, key opinion leaders and payers to validate the pricing and reimbursement strategies. And we initiated first discussions with AbbVie, first positive signals so we kept going. At a certain level of maturity in terms of data, negotiations and due diligence processes started. And finally, not only on this specific opportunity, we were also proactive enough to have AbbVie committed on 6 programs, whatever the stage of development of the assets or the therapeutic areas. I'll let you think about the real potential of having 6 blockbuster LAIs approved for this collaboration with AbbVie and the long-term value it may represent for MedinCell. By generating substantial derisking data upfront, we were able to secure an upfront payment of $35 million, development and commercial milestones up to $315 million per program and royalty streams in the low double-digit range. Compared to earlier partnerships with Teva, this represented a step change in value capture. And we intend to keep deploying this strategy for very specific assets and identified partners. Today, all of our internal programs clearly fit with this strategy. The objective is to invest ourselves or alongside our partners to push a little bit further the timing for licensing from early formulation stage to beyond. Going back to Christophe's slide in terms of long-term objectives, as I said, with more data, we are in a stronger position and we can afford to change the financial terms. I am personally convinced that the key driver for the long-term revenue growth of the company is to counterbalance the ratio: early payments versus back-loaded deals with higher royalty payments. Based on previous and ongoing partnering discussions, we know what can be envisioned or not depending on the partners. I'll let you just imagine the impact that an additional 1% royalty could have on a multibillion-dollar product for MedinCell. Let's do quickly a math exercise. For a $5 billion product, pushing royalties from 7% to 10%, it's $150 million that can be added every year as revenue just for one product without zero expenses on our side, that I would like to remind you. And if this product is above $5 billion for 10 years, it represents $1.5 billion for MedinCell.And again, just for one product. So just to conclude, let me go back to my 3 main takeaway messages. The first one now: MedinCell is clearly a partner of choice in this LAI ecosystem. We have and we are continuing to build a strong portfolio of blockbuster-potential LAIs. And we focus really on maximizing this long-term value through transformative partnerships, as I said, with big pharma companies and innovative biotech companies. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you all for the presentation. We will now move on to the Q&A session with questions from analysts that joined us from the United States and Europe. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ram Selvaraju from H.C. Wainwright.

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Very interesting presentations and congratulations on all the progress, first of all. And I have 4 quick ones. Firstly, maybe you can comment on when you expect approximately in the development of the candidates being advanced under the AbbVie collaboration, you and AbbVie would be in a position to disclose the identities of the APIs in question. That's question number one. Number two is with respect to the overall approach in neuroscience, could you maybe elaborate on the specific areas within neuroscience beyond schizophrenia where you expect there to be the most significant potential for applicability of your LAI platform technology? Thirdly, this is a patent question. As you look at the difference between BEPO STAR and BEPO platform technologies specifically, what might make BEPO STAR more defensible, more likely to produce more difficult-to-challenge patent claims versus BEPO? And are there, in fact, more layers of protection available because BEPO STAR is a more, let's call it, sophisticated technology platform? And then lastly, this is a business development question. You pointed out the potential for MedinCell to seek partners among both big pharma and innovative biotechs. And I was wondering, in the case of innovative biotechs, you may partner with a company that is developing the next blockbuster, but it itself does not wish to directly commercialize such a product. Maybe its ultimate goal is to sell itself. So, what strategies can you undertake to optimize MedinCell's intrinsic value in such a partnership when potentially your partner might itself want to be bought by someone else? How do you, for example, ensure that your royalty stream is protected and taken off the top, as it were, from whatever product might ultimately be commercialized even if your original partner undergoes a change of control?

What I suggest is maybe Sebastian, you take questions one and two. David, question three, and I will answer question four.

Yes. So, thanks, Ram. Actually, very, very good questions. Just going back to AbbVie about actually when we can expect the first AbbVie program going to Phase I. And as you know, this is one of our top priorities at MedinCell, but also for AbbVie. The deal that we have, AbbVie has secured rights actually to be committed to 6 LAI programs total, but the top priority is really to move with the first one in clinical studies. So, this is actually our key objective and is going to be the case in the coming months. About the disclosure of the molecule that is part of this first program, this is not public information. And for confidentiality reasons, AbbVie does not wish – sorry, doesn't want to disclose this information publicly because, as you know, actually, the competition is quite important in the pharma industry. About where to go in beyond schizophrenia. Over the last year, we really wanted to focus on schizophrenia and the development of LAIs in schizophrenia. And this is what we have done. We have this clear position with UZEDY and olanzapine LAI, but there is also a big wave of a lot of different products for the specific indication. And this is what we have executed. We signed actually new programs for this specific indication. We have also integrated a new internal program for this. And there was also a new wave of new drugs covering new mechanism of actions. I can mention actually muscarinic agonist. And today, there are probably 7 companies working on it. This is not only in schizophrenia. Some of the companies are also focusing on additional indications, focusing on muscarinic agonist. I'm thinking about psychosis in Alzheimer's disease patients, bipolar I mania and a few other indications. So, this is a way to improve our leadership position in this field. But I would say that MedinCell is really a kind of therapeutic area agnostic company. So, we obviously we want to extend the scope of LAIs where there are already existing LAIs, but we also want to develop LAIs in therapeutic area or indications where there is no existing LAI yet. It was actually about beyond schizophrenia.

Thank you very much for your question. It's very interesting to compare the options for patentability between different technology platforms which we have. If I'm right in remembering, you asked about the potential and dependability of the BEPO Linea and the BEPO STAR patent rights. Firstly, to make it clear that we have patents granted on Linea and STAR, the platform technologies in all major jurisdictions. They're good, strong defendable patent rights. When it comes to building further formulation patents on top of that existing protection, patent strategies really rely on really 2 things, I would say. It's the data that you generate when you're using the formulations, and it's the way in which you build the story behind what's innovative about it. And these options are available for both Linea and STAR. And we see success, as we've seen before in the Linea. And I think for the STAR, we adopt a similar strategy, we should have a success again in the future.

Thanks a lot, David. So, on question four Ram, of course, all the large biotechs have for objective to be acquired. And even it's very rare that they would go commercial. And even when they do, they end up getting acquired. The last example, of course, is Intracellular Therapeutics, which took lumateperone to market to about $700 million in sales and was acquired by J&J for $14 billion. We know the case well. As you know, Sharon Mates, its CEO and Founder, is on our Board. So, as it's a very likely scenario, we build this scenario in our contracts, legal agreements, of course, from the beginning and to make sure that all the rights get transferred to the big pharma company, which is a good scenario because they are the ones that have the resources and power to commercialize. However, we always, in all our contracts, regardless of the partner, build reversion rights as well in case of a stoppage of the program.

Thank you, Christophe. Next question is from Matt Ersen from Oppenheimer.

Yes, you can hear me?

Yes. We can hear you.

Okay. Perfect. Congratulations on all the progress. So, I wanted to also ask about the potential to apply your LAI technology to the muscarinic compounds. Just considering Cobenfy and the current limitations there with side effects that drive patient discontinuations. How do you envision your LAI formulation overcoming those limitations? And how feasible would an LAI version be for Cobenfy, which obviously combines 2 drugs from a release engineering standpoint, especially when you involve more than one active agent and you to coordinate the release kinetics. And separately, I was wondering, as you alluded to, there are studies ongoing for Cobenfy and muscarinic beyond just schizophrenia, such as psychosis associated with Alzheimer's dementia. Just curious, especially considering an LAI technology for those patients where adherence might be a little more difficult within the elderly population and the safety that goes along with that. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. It's a great question because it's in a space we know well. And I think Sebastian, you're best placed to answer this one.

Yes. Probably I can start with the business component. I will let Adolfo answer on the technology. You're right, Matt, actually about Cobenfy. This is a very good product in schizophrenia. But this drug also presents some drawbacks. And as you said, actually GI side effects, this is very quite common and even actually a physician, they have to prescribe antiemetic in combination with Cobenfy. Plus we address this question about treatment adherence. And this one for schizophrenia is given twice a day. So, this isn't really optimal for both patients and physicians. So, in terms of how we can use our drug delivery tool or long-acting injectable platform, well, obviously, there is really something to do. And I know that BMS is thinking about a long-term life cycle management strategy with Cobenfy. They have several Phase III studies for additional indication in addition to schizophrenia, like you said, actually psychosis in Alzheimer's disease patients. BEPO I think also another indication, pediatric indication for autism. But I think in terms of life cycle management strategy, thinking about LAI could really represent a greatest value if BMS wants to keep its position as #1 with muscarinic agonist.

Is it an easy one to formulate? It's not an easy one, but we have demonstrated in the past with different proof of feasibility that we can co-formulate 2 different APIs within the same formulation and achieve the same exposure for both. So, this is something definitely we can do. So, the platform is compatible with the release of several APIs at the same time. And in case of difficulties, as I was explaining during the presentation, we have developed a series of tools that can allow us to tune the APIs for making them more compatible with each other. So, this is definitely something that is not easy, but it's something that we can do.

Next question comes from Shan Hama from Jefferies.

Three questions, if I may. So, in terms of the patents, so for each innovation sort of restarting the clock, what really matters here in terms of preventing generic entrants? Is it the tech protection? Is it the formulation protection? That's my first question. And then my second question, please, is when it comes to business development, how are you thinking about licensing agreements and acquisitions in terms of the tech, therapeutic area as well as urgency timeline to execute? And then my final question, if I may, sort of given the expectation that endocrinology is set to take the largest share of the LAI market by 2045, plus the efforts made with BEPO STAR in terms of incorporating peptides, is this a therapeutic area you're assessing or interested in entering?

Thanks a lot. Dave the first question is for you.

Shan, thank you for your questions. It's a very good one. You asked about the different generations of BEPO and how the patent rights expiry would impact on the entry to generics. So, there's a couple of topics to pick up on here. Firstly, I think looking upon the expiry of the Linea platform technology patent rights, that's one angle. That's one aspect. But you have to remember, like what I talked about in my presentation that our IP rights are a mixture of that and also the know-how. So how do you actually go ahead and prepare these different copolymers that are needed in the formulations and how do you actually know what the formulations are ultimately. In addition to that, there is, of course, our formulation patent protection, which broadly claims the specific APIs in combination with the BEPO formulations. So, a generic maybe would have difficulty in circumventing that more specifically formulation patent protection as well. When it comes to, I've forgotten the rest of this. What was the next first part of the question?

So, the 2 other questions were for Sebastian.

It was just on the BD side about our licensing strategy. But just to be clear, actually, talking about the licensing out strategy of the company or about licensing in terms of new technology or assets?

Yes, exactly. In-licensing technologies.

In-licensing technology. This is something that Adolfo actually explained actually in this presentation. To me, honestly, we have made a significant progress in the -- in all of the generations of technologies. And I can say that I can witness that now we can formulate molecules. And for us, it was science fiction a couple of years ago. So, this is great. But I think we have also to be pragmatic. And in all of our analysis, I mentioned the patent cliff analysis or sometimes we are in a close relationship with big pharma companies when they give us wishing list in terms of drug delivery needs or molecules to formulate, we know that some of them will be still challenging even if we are going to make additional improvements with our technologies. So we have deployed internally a kind of scooting strategy road map where we have initiated some close relationship with academic research institutes and biotech companies to complement BEPO, but also to use new technologies as a stand-alone technology that can do things that can really ensure long-term value creation for the company and to address big therapeutic area, big indication and also new treatment modalities.

Sebastian, the third question is about peptides.

Peptides, yes. I think when we talk about peptides, probably 2 categories, I would say, small peptides and medium-size is already committed with a couple of partnerships and also internal programs with small peptides. And when we are switching to, let's say, more than 30 amino acid peptides, thinking about GLP-1, the field actually is growing and it will be actually quite massive. So, the great news that Adolfo has shown actually great data with GLP-1 agonist. And there are plenty of companies in the field. And we know that now we're talking about dual agonist, triple agonist. There are plenty of even not only approved GLP-1 agonists, but late-stage compounds that have recently shown in clinical studies, great data. I'm thinking about obesity data in terms of weight loss, so what we have done in schizophrenia with the Hali waves, and this is something that we can anticipate in a bunch of new indications, new therapeutic areas, and we don't want to miss this GLP-1 wave for sure.

Adolfo, maybe for some of our audience, which is not as knowledgeable about APIs, could you explain what the peptide is? And why is it different from small molecules?

A peptide is a chain of different amino acids. So that means that typically, a peptide is going to be of a larger molecular weight than amino acid. So, if you keep growing a peptide and you keep adding amino acids, you will reach a protein. So, a peptide -- large peptides is in the border line between a peptide and a protein. They are small peptides typically are hydrophilic, which make them difficult to formulate. And that's why I think that explains why we are so happy with the results we have shown. And then large peptides can be even more complex because they can have sometimes confirmations that are related to their activity. So, they are not easy molecules to formulate at all, which makes, again, which gives additional value to the results that we have shown today.

Next question is from Nicolas Pauillac of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Maybe 3 questions on my end. The first one is just a follow-up on the discussions on GLP-1. Given the fact that we already have some products that are in late-stage development for like 1 month getting version of GLP-1. Don't you think that the market might already be there when it comes to long-acting? So maybe just a follow-up on that. And then the 2 other question is more big picture question, but you mentioned during the slides that you intend to maximize the deal value. Are we to understand that there is a world in which in the future because you have, let's say, stronger cash flow that are going to happen, you'd be willing to fund the Phase I or the Phase II of the study to make sure that you get to, as you mentioned, this 10%, 15% royalties rate. And then lastly, just to understand the decision-making process when it comes to this licensing. Is it more you that are looking at the pipeline of company and say, okay, maybe we can plug the technology there. And once you see that it's working, you are kind of knocking on the pharma door or it's more the other way around of people coming to you and knocking on the door?

Maybe I will get Sebastian to answer the first and last question, and I will answer the next one.

Thank you, Nicolas. I'm sorry, I was taking notes at the same time, just not to forget something. About GLP-1, yes, you're right. And going back to schizophrenia and LAIs for this indication, this is what we have seen at the very beginning, a daily, weekly, monthly, 3-month, 6-month product. And this is something that it will be reproduced actually with GLP-1. It was actually daily. It's now weekly, monthly with some products, including also the acquisition of Metsera by Pfizer. But we know the need. And again, we are pretty close to the big pharma company and innovative biotech companies in the field. And we know that the trend will be more quarterly injection rather than monthly in the future. As I said, actually, the discontinuation rate is pretty long. We are talking about chronic diseases. So, 3 months will be better than 1 month. And we know that MedinCell is well positioned in the field. I don't know if we will have questions about competitors, but one of them actually signed a deal with a company, but we know that with this technology to go beyond 1 month is impossible. So, they cannot actually develop long-acting formulation of a big peptide above 1 month. So MedinCell will be in a strong position to do that. Going back to the question about how we can maximize the value long term. And if we go a little bit beyond actually where we are, we have 2 strategies. And again, we have a strong BD team at MedinCell is now actually based in France, but not only we reinforced actually our BD team. Now we have people in Asia, people in the U.S. They are super active. We screen probably 2,000, 3,000 companies every year to find actually the future great candidates to be integrated within our platform. And we have some partnering requests and more and more. So, this is actually a great thing because now we have a pretty good position in the LAI field. So, we spend time to look at each opportunity. Sometimes we take the -- I would say, the opportunity, but the risk to invest ourselves and to generate data. This is what happened with the first AbbVie case. And this is often question internally, if we can go further. I think, yes, we can generate more value long term and switching about from, I would say, single-digit was the case previously to low double digits. I think we can expect higher royalties if we spend more money in some key programs in the future. And about the process, about decision-making, we usually do a very exhaustive long exercise. Clearly, with big pharma, we have taken probably 25 big pharma companies, and we screen our entire pipeline, all of the big pharma companies to really from hundreds and hundreds of molecules, we identify only a few. And we have now internally a great expertise. We have medical marketing business insight. We are in connections with key opinion leaders, payers, physicians. We can know, anticipate what can be the pricing reimbursement strategies. We can invest. We can discuss with partners, and then we can select and pick up the right opportunity, both for the company, but also for MedinCell.

Next question is from Leszek Sulewski from Truist.

So, first, Christophe, maybe you can address the milestone timing perspective. I guess, can you speak to the quantum and expected time lines of the commercial milestones from Teva on the UZEDY and olanzapine LAI programs? Second question is, how many active feasibility studies are ongoing today versus a year ago? And have you shifted to BEPO STAR for all these studies? Or is there still a valid use for the future formulations with the original BEPO technology? Or is the shift mostly because of the longer IP protection? And then lastly, you briefly mentioned the ability for BEPO STAR use with auto-injectors. Could you comment around the progress with this administration method?

So, I'll answer the first one, and maybe Adolfo, you can answer the other ones. So, I remind everybody that on Teva, we have $115 million of milestones due along the commercial life of the product and based on sales levels. On AbbVie, the total amount of milestones development plus commercial is 315 million. The split is not known, but if you use the same ratio as Teva, which is an NPV ratio, you would end up around 60 and maybe 250 million for commercial milestones. and which are built, obviously, on levels that we thought would be attainable. On Teva, in particular, those milestones were negotiated in 2013 when the lead program in long-acting injectable in schizophrenia had just above the $1 billion mark in sales. Adolfo?

Yes. So, first question was about the number of programs that we have nowadays compared to one year ago. I honestly don't have a figure in mind. What I can tell you is that we are much, much busier in the lab. And there I think we are much -- I don't want to give a number. But this is -- I think this is related to two facts. First, and I've been in MedinCell for some time now. The success it uses.

How many years?

11 years now, 11.5. Not as old as you guys but getting there. So, I witnessed that with UZEDY and the success of UZEDY, the doors are opening much easier. And second, as Sebastian just said that BD efforts are multiplying and we see the results of this. And we are really, really busy in the lab, I can say this. Now you mentioned you were wondering about the utilization of STAR versus BEPO. So just to be clear, as I was saying during the presentation, our politics is not about excluding one of the technologies. It's about using the technology that fits the best. However, of course, every new program that enters the lab today is tested both with BEPO and BEPO STAR. This is our strategy and the product that works the best is the product that is moved forward. I think that answered the question. The second question.

Question about injectors.

Autoinjectors, yes. There was a question about STAR being more compatible with autoinjectors. And this is an active research line that I mentioned before. We are actively working on evaluating different types of injectors that can answer different needs. Obviously, autoinjectors is one of them, making the injection process easier for the patient is one of our focuses. And obviously, STAR, since they present lower viscosity and a lower force to inject are better suited for this type of device than BEPO.

Maybe if you can give us an idea of how much less viscous are STARs versus BEPO Linea?

You have seen figures on the presentation. But I mean, first, we have to convert things that can be compared. And I'm sorry, I'm going to be a little bit technical here. Polymers are large molecules. So, we do have to compare polymers that have the same molecular weight, okay, the same size. And this is what we are comparing because otherwise, we would just be cheap. So, when we compare BEPO and BEPO STAR formulations with polymers with the same molecular weight and the same content, I think the figures show that we can lower the viscosity by a factor of 4 or 5, which is huge.

Next question comes from Marc Goodman of Leerink.

This is Basma on for Marc. I would like to follow-up further on the indications beyond schizophrenia. And more specifically within neuroscience. We were just wondering if you can provide some color on why the LAI hasn't entered a market like depression, for instance, or epilepsy. Does it have something to do with the chemical structure of the standard molecules used in this indication or basically the unmet need was not as pressing as it was for schizophrenia? The second question we have is on the sweet spot for the duration for the LAI. So, I heard that the quarterly injection seems to be the optimal for the GLP-1. Is it the same across all the indications? Is it 3 months seems to be like a nice sweet spot? That's it for us.

Sebastian, I think these 2 questions are for you.

Yes. In neuroscience, what have you seen actually our obviously is to extend the applications of BEPO and all of the new generations of BEPO outside schizophrenia. So, schizophrenia Bipolar Disorder, but there are a bunch of indications that we can target with LAIs because we're talking about chronic diseases, adjuvant is a key pre. Also, that we want to do, and this is also the case with some biotech companies, it's not necessarily about this question about treatment adherence. There are some drugs that we are working on. They have to be improved in terms of PK and PD profile. And there are some --many other aspects for which we can apply our technology. About epilepsy, this is an indication that we are looking at like many of us. Every time we are looking at about the treatment regimen for specific indications, and for some indications like epilepsy, sometimes we are talking about not a monotherapy, but patients that are epileptic, they have to take several drugs at the same time. So, we can actually argue about having LAI could be really beneficial on that compared to poly medications. About sweet spot in terms of duration for LAI, it's very important to anticipate what will be the market need for GLP-1 from weekly to monthly and potentially in the future with quarterly injection. But this is not the case for all of the indications and even for all of our partners. We have partners today. They have NCEs in clinical development, but we're considering life cycle management. It can be from daily sub cut injection to weekly and as a second life cycle management layer, a monthly injections. So sometimes it's not necessary to go very far in terms of extended durations, because development of LAIs takes time. And sometimeslooking at the competitive landscape of our partners, it's not necessarily a good fit to develop 3 or 6 months because we know that with the one month knowing the loss of exclusivity of the molecule, knowing the advancement of competition, we have to reach the market as soon as possible. So, there are several components and sometimes longer duration doesn't mean this is something that we'll have to follow.

Maybe you could elaborate a bit on the peptide case, which is a bit different in terms of duration.

Yes, because peptides by definition, actually, they have very short half-life. And sometimes some companies we are working with for them, it's really a nightmare actually because they really have to inject even actually twice daily the peptide that can really show great efficacy. But now there is something to do with the formulation. And this is something we want to insist today, BEPO and BEPO generations are great drug delivery tools to maximize performance of molecules and not only just to extend duration between injection.

Next question comes from Mike DiFiore of Evercore.

A few questions for me. Just to clarify BEPO STAR exactly how large of a peptide can this platform formulate in terms of amino acids versus, I guess, your next-gen platform innovation? And when would platform innovation be ready for the clinic? I recognize it's pretty early. Second question, in terms of GLP-1s and incretin therapies, will the BEPO STAR platform be applicable to the entire class, including amylin? And how might a product's lipidation technology interfere with your technology? And the last question is kind of a general legal question. I know that you emphasized the know-how as kind of being unpublished. But I'm not a patent lawyer, but in the event of litigation, how might your unpublished know-how work against you in terms of providing adequate description, which is often kind of required in patent litigation?

So maybe Adolfo you take question one and two and Dave, question three.

Yes. So, if I understand correctly, your first question was around how large the peptides are that we can formulate with BEPO STAR. With the results that you have seen on the screen, it's a BEPO. It's a peptide that is beyond 30 amino acids. So that's already quite a large peptide. We have experience in the past with peptides larger than 40 amino acids. We have worked, and we are actively working with some others. You were wondering about the arrival to the market for the next generation that we have introduced today. And the answer there is that we will get there as soon as necessary. So, we have the capabilities today and the knowledge and experience from BEPO and BEPO STAR to accelerate if we need. So, as I mentioned during the presentation, we are already evaluating this new generation in the market, in the lab with molecules with the market potential. So, if results are positive, we are ready to push the accelerator and move as quickly as possible.

Adolfo, maybe give us some color about the excitement that this new generation is creating in the house.

I mean, it's not only internal. I think that I'm sure that in the audience, there are many people that have worked in drug delivery that know how extremely difficult it is to control the delivery of a small hydrophilic molecule. And for those that are not familiar, this is very, very difficult with our type of formulations, with polymer-based formulations, especially when we're speaking about injectables and active formulations. This is extremely, extremely positive. I mean in the time I have been in MedinCell, obviously, we have not seen anything like this.

Yes. It's probably the more excitement you've seen in-house.

Absolutely.

On internal innovation.

Absolutely. It is.

Just for some of the audience, can you explain what is a hydrophilic molecule and why it is difficult to formulate versus hydrophobic molecules like risperidone and all of that?

Exactly. And actually, just to be more precise, I say hydrophilic, but we should actually be speaking about aqueous solubility. So a product that is very soluble is very difficult to control the release. You can imagine that you will have the molecule inside the depot or inside the reservoir. And then diffusion will happen from the depot. If the molecule is very soluble in the environment, the diffusion is going to happen very, very easily. So this s -- I think this is easy to understand. So, what we have managed to do is to make networks or depots that actually hinder this diffusion. That's really difficult, and we are very proud of what we have.

Big achievement. Congratulations.

There was a second question around the fact of GLP-1 peptides being lipidated. And definitely, this is something that complexifies the formulation of this type of molecules. And once again, that's why I just keep saying it, but it's reality. That's why we are so happy and so proud with the results that we have shared with you today. The fact that despite the lipidation and despite the fact that these molecules are very easy to disperse and dissolve in water, we have managed to achieve sustained exposure for 1 month and even more importantly, with a very reduced burst at the beginning, with a really reduced peak of concentration just after administration, which is a must for this type of molecule.

So exciting things, as we said in the presentation, more to come. And Dave, please, question number 3.

Okay. This is a question about know-how and how it can be used in litigation and enforcement procedures basically. So there's a couple of points to make about this. Know-how can be things like unpublished best ways to manufacture copolymers, for example. And in this sort of situation, the barrier to market would be primarily how is the best way and most optimal way to make the copolymers in sufficient quantities of commercial grade to be used commercially. The second thing to remember about know-how, it's more about experience and selection criteria. How do we know which is the best sort of candidate to go forward from the feasibility study into lead formulation selection. This is really where our experience just really comes to the fore. As far as the fact that these are unpublished know-hows, we do have internally catalogs of what the know-hows are. So, if we were needed to be used in any sort of litigation or enforcement procedures, we can rely on the fact we know what our know-hows are and recorded internally to support that.

And I should say, David, that one of the reasons you joined us is to do just that, is to prepare for potential future litigations in the future. We all know that it happens regularly in pharma companies, and you work with the best litigation lawyers worldwide.

Indeed.

We have time for last question. Seems Nicolas Pauillac of Kepler Cheuvreux, you have another question?

Sorry for making you over time. You had this slide about the expected LAIs and the patent cliff over the next 10 years. They're interesting. But it would be interesting to know as of today in your portfolio, how much of the development is focused on kind of the life cycle management that might happen on these drugs? And how much will be really focused on innovative drugs in which you are starting from 0 with the companies? And just on the timeline when it comes to this kind of life cycle management product, do you think that you have the right commercial opportunity when we know that, for instance, Gilead that you mentioned, they have the long-acting capabilities in HIV already. So, is it really finding what they are missing and knocking on the door?

Thank you. Just this table of the loss of exclusivity with a lot of drugs from big pharma companies, this is exhaustive list because it goes until, I think, 2035. Internally at MedinCell, we are looking at actually molecules that will be losing IP protection beyond that. So today, actually, we are looking at drugs, future blockbuster drugs that will be off patent in 2038, '39. So just to give you the big picture. This is a very long exercise, but at the end, it works because we know that we can win out into a real opportunity for the company that really want to protect the assets. And this is also very important to have clear timelines in mind. If we develop 1-month product, how long it is going to take, when we can expect the approval. And we can also make sure that the company will still have the commercial teams, the sales force to have a clear strategy in terms of life cycle management. And the proportion about innovative drugs versus approved drugs for which we apply life cycle management -- this is very important to have a good equilibrium. There are plenty of opportunities to take approved drugs and to do life cycle management. The risk is much lower. The drug has been already approved. We use the 505(b)(2) procedures through the FDA. So, we can go fast and the risk is lower, as I said. But we see that there are great molecules even in late-stage clinical development, even with new mechanisms of action that can really be blockbusters of tomorrow. So, this is something that we want to keep controlling and to have the good balance between really innovative and approved assets. And then the other question was about Gilead HIV. Yes, for HIV prophylaxis, yes, you're right. We are talking about cabotegravir and many other products that are already super long acting. And this question about timelines of development, this is also something key. That can be internal or a program that we may have with a partner, we know it's going to take time. So, should we be very relevant with a 12-month product for HIV prophylaxis in many, many years? This is a challenging question that we are actually asking internally, I would say.

And the last question, in fact, is from Martial Descoutures of ODDO.

Sorry, very, very short question. Do you see maybe any changes on the production of the next BEPO generation? So, is it possible to have an update on your capacity of production and where we could expect on the next step? Plus in parallel, could we have maybe a new strategy with the new BEPO generation such as maybe to be more focused on the new molecular entities, for example?

Yes. Thank you very much, Martial. That's a very, very interesting question. So, regarding the development of new generations of BEPO, BEPO STAR, we can consider it derisked. We are there. We are already implementing it in our development programs. So, I don't see any risk on this one. As I explained before, we built on the same chemistry as BEPO just to be able to move forward as quickly as possible, and that's exactly what is happening. And regarding the future generations or any generations to come, as I was explaining during the presentation, what matters for us is adoption. And that comes from the very beginning of any kind of platform development that we do. So, this means that we are using building blocks for future generations that are already derisked, that are going to be simple or easy to move forward. So, we foresee -- and that's why we are being so optimistic that there will be no issues for moving forward any of these new platforms to come when we decide to do so.

And about the use of new generations of BEPO with NCEs versus approved molecules, I would say it depends. It depends on the molecule. It depends also on the partners. Sometimes there are some partners that we have, big pharma companies, because of this pressure of the competitive landscape and loss of exclusivity where they're going to lose the patent protection. Some of them, they prefer to use actually the first generation of BEPO because there was already this kind of stamp approved by the FDA. It's already in UZEDY, and will be soon with olanzapine LAI. But we have some partners today that are applying life cycle management strategy even quite early in the development. And sometimes they have a drug just in Phase II, but they are already anticipating life cycle management strategy with a long-acting injectable formulation. So, in that case, we prefer to use actually the next generation of BEPO and not necessarily the first generation. So again, this is really a proportion and something that we discuss with our partners, what is the best strategy to follow.

Thank you. We come to the end of the meeting. A replay of the webcast will be available on our website just right after this meeting. As a reminder, our next scheduled update will be the publication of our financial results on Tuesday, June 16. And one more time, thank you again, guys, for the presentation. Thank you all for your interest in MedinCell, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you all. Bye.