Physiomics Plc (PYC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Physiomics plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] And I'd now like to hand you over to Jim Millen, CEO. Good afternoon sir.

Thank you very much, and thanks, everyone, for your attendance. So this is an update following the RNS that we published earlier in the week to discuss our trading position, but also to give a more material update on some of the other initiatives that were discussed earlier in the year. We have the usual disclaimer, which I will leave you guys to read for yourself. I'm assuming that the majority of people on the call are shareholders -- existing shareholders and therefore, I won't spend too much time on these slides that you will have seen before. But just to remind you that Physiomics' core capabilities are around cancer, around quantitative pharmacology and PK/PD modeling, around data and around coding, and that remains unchanged. Again and again, I don't think you need any reminders here, but there are 2 parts to our business. Currently, there's the commercial part, the consulting piece, which is on the left-hand side here, where we work with companies of all sizes in the life-science space from small start-ups up to large companies like Merck Serono. And then on the other hand, there is our in-house initiatives centered around personalized oncology, which up to this point in time, I will remind you guys, has been pretty much entirely funded by grants. So 2, 3 grants, I think, from Innovate U.K. and one from NIHR which we've used to develop the tool up to where it is today and also funded the PARTNER study, which ended just at the end of last year. And I'll come back to talk about that in a lot more detail a little bit later on in the presentation. Just to say, perhaps before we dive into the content of the RNS that we've now completed over 100 projects with a variety of clients. We continue to pick up clients, especially in the small and midsized space, and we do see this as our sweet spot going forward. There's a number listed there, all of which have been subject of previous RNSs, so I won't read them all out but we do continue to develop that part of our client base. And again, I have a specific slide on that, which I think is quite interesting, and I'll come back to later. In terms of what we do with clients, again, I won't read it all out, but essentially, it's about supporting the companies that are developing drugs, mainly companies that are developing cancer drugs, to understand their product so that they can optimally design their trials and in particular, around dosing and scheduling in order that they can have the best chance of success and also develop their drugs in the most cost-effective fashion. So coming on to the meat of the presentation. The main reason for our RNS update on Tuesday was to provide updated guidance. Obviously, there was previously a market expectation of around about GBP 1 million in revenue, and we've now guided to GBP 750,000. As mentioned in the RNS, the main reasons for this were twofold. One was a significant reduction in revenue from our largest client as -- directly as a result of some significant reorganizations that have gone on and which are in the public domain so I could speak about them to that extent. Not in any way connected with our relationship with the company, which, by the way, remains very good but have unfortunately had the effect of reducing the amount of revenue from that client that we believe we'll be able to recognize in the current financial period. The other thing which has happened just very recently, and I know that there was a couple of shareholder questions relating to the timing of our notification on this, but honestly, this has just happened in the last few weeks, that there are 2 projects that we had penciled in as basically committed projects for this financial year, which now at the very least have been delayed and therefore, has left a gap. Now obviously, we have a good pipeline, and we're doing our best to backfill that but there is a lead time on developing new projects, and we felt it was appropriately conservative to say that revenue might therefore be missing during the current financial period. So that leaves us with the picture that you see there. And I have to say that I apologize to shareholders that we're not going to meet what were originally the market expectations for this period. It's clearly the Board's responsibility and ultimately, mainly my responsibility to make that happen. It looks like I'm not going to get there and therefore, my apologies to shareholders for -- even though these things are largely out of my control, it's my job to try and generate that revenue and it looks like we won't get to where we were expecting to get to. On the other hand, there are actually a couple of positive things that are happening behind the scenes that might not be completely obvious to you guys. And I want to talk through those in the next couple of slides. So the first thing is that behind the scenes, under the water, so to speak. We've been working really, really hard over the last couple of years in order to diversify our client base away from a single large source of revenue, which as many of you have observed over the last few years, it has always been a risk. It's nice to have a big client, it's nice to have a committed client, but of course, if that client starts to throttle back or experiences its own headwinds, as has been the case with Merck, then it's nice to have a mitigation strategy. And what you see here is really just what I set out in the RNS, which is just a simple comparison between the financial years ending 30th of June 2019 and 30th of June 2023, which is our projected figures based on the most recent guidance. And what you can see is -- for me, quite interesting, which is that going back to 2019, which wasn't so very long ago, at that point, actually over 80% of our revenues were dependent on a single large client whereas for this year, even with the new figures as they stand the new projections, less than 40% of our total revenues will depend on that client. Another way to look at this, which I certainly find very encouraging is if you look just at the non-Merck revenue then between 2019 and 2023, it's increased over 4x which is equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of just under 45%. So what this tells me is that there is an opportunity for growth and that opportunity, we believe, may primarily come from the small and medium-sized sector of our client base. The other thing I just wanted to emphasize is our pipeline. Obviously, I can't go into a lot of detail, and it is changing constantly, but I wanted to just make a couple of points. One is that we have invested in business development, as you know, over the last year or so, not much more than that. And with our BD lead, we've developed a much more professional sales process than we had previously, obviously, prior to the involvement of our BD lead, it was primarily my responsibility to do all of the selling and business development. Obviously, I'm still very much involved in that side of the business. However, I think we now have a much more solid and professional process, which should help to drive sales going forward. We do have over 25 potential new projects in the pipeline at different stages of development in the sales process. I'm not going to quantify the value of the pipeline because, obviously, the projects that are earlier on have a lower chance of making it to the finish post. And I don't think we have enough projects in the pipeline to be able to properly risk adjust the value but what I can say is that in the current financial period, our average project size is approximately GBP 50,000. And actually, if you look back over the last few years, then that's been relatively consistent. Obviously, that masks the detail that we do, do a number of smaller projects, especially repeat business projects. The clients, where we've worked with them before. And on the other hand, with some of our larger clients like Merck Serono still, but in the recent past, Servier and a little bit longer ago Astellas, for example, those projects have been larger, more in the GBP 100,000 to GBP 200,000 range. But obviously, last -- spread over a longer period of time also. So we do believe that there is still a solid pipeline of clients and new projects. And the majority of those 25, I think it's fair to say are potential new clients rather than repeat business, and they're also mainly companies that are in the small and medium-sized sector. So brief comment on Board structure and cost controls and also recruiting. So a number of you noted that we're currently actively recruiting for a senior management position. The idea is that individual should we be successful in identifying an appropriately qualified person and retaining them would start to take on significant responsibilities from myself. Clearly, since the departure of our previous Chairman, we have a governance structure, which is not ideal, and we would like to move back towards a more traditional governance structure with a Nonexecutive Chairman and a CEO and I think if we can retain this individual, then that will start to move us along that path, which is obviously desirable, I think, from everyone's perspective. The second point I wanted to make here is just to reassure you that we're keeping the cost of our Board as flat as possible. We had one commitment to one individual that we have to honor, which means that the average increase across the total Board payroll will be just a couple of percent this year -- this calendar year. And in addition, obviously, I won't take a pay raise and in fact, haven't in the vast majority of the years that I've been working for this company. I think there was just one -- small one in -- 2 or 3 years ago. I think I can undertake that I will not take a pay raise until we significantly increase the performance of the company, which is obviously my job and my stated aim. In addition, in parallel, we are looking at our cost base. I think that in the years that I've been here, we have always kept within our budgeted cost base. So we do not spend unnecessarily or profligately in any way, shape or form. Nevertheless, there are always areas that you can look at to potentially streamline or reduce your costs. And we are actively looking at various different elements of our cost base at the moment. A large part of our cost base is on personnel. And obviously, that -- we do not want to reduce our investment in any area, which is going to actually impact the business. But there are other areas of spend where there may be savings to make, and we're looking very actively at those right now. So a couple of slides and comments on more strategic initiatives that are running in parallel with our current core consulting offering. The first is this, and that's simply that we've been through an exercise to identify the different service areas that exist within pharmaceutical R&D which is essentially our core consulting business. And to try and assess whether any of our capabilities would be relevant in those other areas and also to try and assess whether there are other areas that it might be sensible for us to look to expand in either with our current capabilities or with capabilities that we could recruit in-house. There are 2 initiatives in this area that we're very actively looking at. I can't be more specific at this point in time because I don't know if they're going to come to fruition or not. But I will say that we are looking at them very actively and that the objective of both of these initiatives should they move forward, should they be triggered, would be to generate additional revenue in the next financial year. So these are things that would make a difference in the relatively near term. These aren't things that are sort of ephemeral and won't happen for until some indeterminate point in the future. These are very definitely areas that we believe could be revenue generating in financial year '24, i.e., from July this year through to June 2024. The second slide here on strategic initiatives focuses more on the personalized medicine initiative. And I know there have been many questions on this. And I apologize for missing by 1 week, our original deadline that we set ourselves of providing an update on this by the end of Q1. Part of the reason for that was that we had these headwinds in relation to revenues, and we wanted to be in a position to give a comprehensive update on that. And this, at the same time, we didn't think it was appropriate to give a positive update on the strategic initiatives while we were still waiting to disclose the situation around our guidance. However, having now done that, I can give you a little bit more flavor on the things that were first announced at the beginning of this year. I think the first thing to say, we were really pleased to enter into a collaboration with Beyond Blood, which as you recall, is developing a device that can actually count cells. So it can potentially at least do full blood counts, counts of red cells and separately white cells in the blood. Currently, the devices, which do this are typically quite bulky and sit in central laboratories, either in hospitals or in third-party pathology labs. The idea of Beyond Blood using their technology is that they can have a small device that could be used in a point-of-care setting. So potentially in an outpatient setting or a GP surgery or even potentially in a patient's own home. It is still in development. Obviously, there's no guarantee it will get to market. However, the technology looks interesting based on what I've seen, it looks like it has potential and it could really be helpful in relation to our personalized dosing tool. In that -- one of the challenges for our tool is that it does require these cell counts in order to calibrate the tool for individual patients. And if there was a device on the market such as that being developed by Beyond Blood, then I think there could be some real synergies there. So we're looking very closely at that. And as part of that initiative, we're looking at whether there are grants that we can apply for -- significant grants that we can apply for together in order to develop something that would work hand-in-hand with their technology. The second thing to say is in terms of the evolution of our dosing tool, one of the areas that we're quite interested in is looking at the tool's ability to predict whether there would be benefit in using this expensive biological drug, GCSF. I think we've talked about it on a couple of occasions over the last couple of updates that we provided in this area but we are very actively at the moment looking at whether or not our tool could be useful in this area and I will give you a further update as and when we make progress on that. We did test the idea of being able to provide this guidance with -- anecdotally with a couple of clinicians in the U.S. And there was initial positive feedback. And to be honest, I think it's a bit of a no-brainer. If you had some sort of a tool that could give a risk score that would help clinicians decide whether or not GCSF was an appropriate drug to use for any individual patient, then that would be certainly something that could be quite interesting, both from a clinician and from a payer perspective. The third thing here in this list is the collaboration with DoseMe. Again, lots of shareholder questions on this. I'm able to say less on this front and for the simple reason that DoseMe is no longer a public company. You're all aware that they announced, I think, in February this year, their acquisition by a private equity group. And whereas public companies generally want to talk about what they're doing as much as possible. Now that DoseMe is in private hands. It really is entirely up to them what they want to publicize and what they don't. All I can tell you guys at the moment is that we are in touch with their new management, there is an ongoing dialogue. And as and when I can make a further announcement, I will certainly do so. I think if there is, for example, some progress on the GCSF initiative, then that, in principle, could be something that could fit well with the relationship that we envisaged we would have with DoseMe prior to its acquisition and therefore, could potentially fit with their new organization also. I think I've mentioned the point about grant funding, so I won't repeat that. Okay. So just to summarize before we go to the Q&A. We have amended our guidance for this financial year. I've explained the reasons. But I have also explained that I think that the -- the slight silver lining in that cloud is that we have achieved a really material increase in revenues from our smaller- and medium-sized clients. And obviously, that's something that we would hope to continue going forward. The other thing that I've also stressed is that we do have a significant pipeline. It's more professionally managed, and I think that increases the chance of success for individual potential projects compared with what we were doing 2 or 3 years ago, let's say. I've touched on the ongoing moves we have at Board level to try and return to a more traditional and, I would say, appropriate governance model. And I've also touched on the fact that although we don't anticipate exceeding our budgeted costs, we're nevertheless, looking at any way that we can reduce those that might be possible without affecting the business clearly. And then in terms of strategic initiatives, we have both expansion beyond core consulting business. And in addition, all of the activities that are happening on the personalized medicine front. So I am now going to move on to Q&A. I apologize that you guys didn't have a lot of time to submit questions prior to this meeting because we set the meeting up at quite short notice. I will spend perhaps a little bit longer than I have done in recent updates to try and work through as many of the questions that were put to me prior to the meeting as possible. And I can see that quite a few have come through on the Q&A over the course of the last half an hour as well. I will do my best to get through as many of those as well. I think we'll find that there's quite a lot of overlap and where there is, then we will deal with that appropriately. So -- and again, I will try and address all of the questions, even the ones that perhaps you guys know I can't answer directly or frankly, very difficult for me to answer directly, but I will do my best. And let's see where we get to.

So I have a question here which simply says, please make the case for investing in Physiomics. I still believe that we sit at the confluence of big data, of huge unmet need in cancer, of massively increased computational power over the last decade and of a continued and even increasing focus by regulators on making sure that modeling is fully incorporated into the approval of pharmaceutical products. We have capabilities in all of those areas. And they can also -- those same capabilities, they're also perfect for the personalized oncology initiatives that we have going. So I remain optimistic that we can develop both our core business but also expand through some of these strategic initiatives. Second question here, on strategic initiatives. Do we believe that the company can still transform itself into a profit-making operation? The short answer is yes. We are actively investing to grow at the moment. We reached the stage a couple of years ago where we were very close to -- at least on a cash basis, we were very close to breakeven but our observation was that we were just not growing quickly enough. So we have invested to grow over the last couple of years. And at least with the small- and medium-sized client base, as you saw in my presentation, I think that has paid dividends. It's unfortunate that this year, we're going to take a bit of a hit in terms of our larger client revenue but I think that the increase in small- and medium-sized client businesses is a real reason to believe that we can continue to grow that business going forward. But of course, the other strategic initiatives are really important as well for us. Further question here on Project Optimus. The question basically says, we didn't mention Project Optimus in the press release. Okay. I guess we couldn't cover everything in that release. But Project Optimus is interesting. Just to remind you, this is an FDA initiative relating to the development of cancer drugs and it's essentially -- it's a push to try and incorporate modeling into the design of trials for cancer drugs. So clearly, that is exactly the area in which we work, and we'll continue to do so, which is why we organized a webinar recently on that subject. And there were a couple of questions about the webinar, which -- actually later on in this Q&A list, but I'll try and address some of them now. First of all, we had extremely positive feedback from the webinar. And despite the fact that some of you may have got the impression because of the individuals who comment on Twitter that a lot of the attendees were shareholders that, that simply wasn't the case. I checked the list just before this presentation, we actually had 80, 8-0 attendees, of which I counted maybe 10 to 15 individuals who were shareholders or employees or advisers, now don't take those figures as set in stone because it's not always possible for me to distinguish. But it seems to me that the vast majority of attendees at that webinar were, in fact, small or large companies who could be potential clients of the company. We've had positive feedback. I think there was also a question around the geography of those individual attendees. Again, it's not always possible for us to tell. But I think with the follow-up that's ongoing, it looks like, in fact, perhaps the majority of them were U.S.-based with a slight minority being based in Europe and other geographies. So that's my best understanding of that. Okay. So there's a question here, which basically says, why didn't we tell you sooner about the projects being delayed? Frankly, we're telling you pretty much as soon as we realized it was going to have a significant impact. Obviously, on the one hand, we always have new projects coming in. And on the other hand, sometimes we have projects that get delayed. So it's always a balance. And where we got to the point where it was clear that unfortunately, in this case, some of these delays were going to be material, and were not going to be offset by significant new revenue in the period. That's when we pretty much immediately decided to provide you guys with an update. Another question here. With hindsight, do we feel that we are trying to grow the company at the wrong time? That's a tough one. I mean I can't really answer hypothetical questions that require me to kind of put myself back in a position that we were in a couple of years ago looking forward. What I can say is that we are a small company, we're quoted on AIM. That comes with a lot of oversight and some additional costs compared with a similar sized private company. And therefore, we need to grow, we need to get bigger and that's as clear as day to us and I'm sure to you. We do see an opportunity for continued growth in our core business. But as I've explained on a couple of occasions and reiterated during the presentation today, we need to do more than we've been doing recently. And that's why we're looking both to expand our consulting business beyond its current borders and also looking at these other strategic initiatives. There is a question around providing an update on discussions with Tabula Rasa. Obviously, Tabula Rasa is now no longer a partner, Tabula Rasa sold the DoseMe business to Fairlong Capital. And unfortunately, I can't say more than I've said already, which is that we are in contact with the new DoseMe management, and we will provide an update as soon as we can. There are -- there was a couple of questions about staff members. I won't mention any specific names, although the question did include the name of a specific member of staff just wondering whether they were still working with us or not. We do have some turnover. I mean, in general, I would say that our turnover is extremely low, and our retention rates are incredibly high. We also have people who swap between being employees and being consultants. We will have -- also have people who will change between being part-time and full-time in both directions, right? So this is an ongoing sort of jigsaw puzzle. All I can really say, and I won't mention any specific names is that we will try and keep the website up to date. And also that not only do we have a very high retention rate, we've also had great success in recruiting new team members when we've needed to do so. We have always attracted really high-caliber individuals, and I don't see that changing going forward. There's a question on the timing of the update that we said we would provide an update before the end of Q1. And I think I've already explained that the reason that we didn't was that we felt like we needed to get this guidance out, at least in parallel with any material update that we provided on the personalized medicine front. So again, my apologies for missing that deadline by a week, and I will endeavor not to do that again or perhaps to give myself a bit more wriggle room if we think there's any possibility that the timing of such updates is not going to be certain. Okay. There's another question on DoseMe, but I think we've really covered that to the extent that I can. There's a question on VAL201. So the question is, VAL201 seems to be waiting for funding itself. Would we have structured the deal with ValiRx differently had we known what we know now? Again, that's a challenging hypothetical question. All I can really say is that, that work was done quite a long time ago under a previous management of this company. So and it wasn't even me at the time that struck that deal, but we do have it. It is an asset potentially. We are dependent for additional remuneration through that arrangement with ValiRx on them licensing VAL201. And as you guys know that, that's dependent on their potential licensing partner securing funding. So we wish them every success in securing that funding, and we really hope that, that still moves forward, but I don't have more information on that than you do. A question on the webinar. Okay, I think I've answered that. That's in relation to whether the people attending the webinar were investors or potential clients? And it's definitely the latter, in the majority. There's a question on Twitter. So listen, we're a small company, and we haven't chosen to employ a full-time social media person to monitor Twitter and to comment. I apologize, I think 1 or 2 of you may have had difficulty accessing the webinar. I'm not sure why that was. We didn't get any feedback from clients that they had been unable to access the webinar or hear what's going on. The webinar in full is now available on our website. So anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to listen to it is very welcome to go and do so now. There is a question about -- and I won't be specific as to the names, but I have a small number of nonexecutive positions, which I have had more or less since I've been -- and even before I was taken on as CEO of Physiomics. The question is around whether there's a relationship between these companies and Physiomics? And the answer is no. There is not. I would also reassure you by saying that this is a very, very small timed commitment on my part. So I don't think there's anything else to say about that. Someone has asked, some people say that Physiomics is a lifestyle company. Can you refute those claims? Well, to be honest, I'm really not sure what that means. All I can say is that every day, myself and my colleagues, get out of bed, we go to work with the sole intention of trying to help companies that are trying to cure cancer. And I think that's a very well worthwhile cause. And in doing so, we're also trying very hard to increase the revenues and therefore, the value of the company. So I'm not sure I can say more than that in answer to that question. There's a question about cash and whether we -- can I dispel any rumors that we may need to do a fundraise. Obviously -- and I can't make any forward-looking statements. I can only reiterate what's already in the public domain, which is that our projections show that our cash position is sufficient to cover our needs based on our planned income and expense rate. So there's a question around the COO role again, just asking whether this means that I'm going to be suddenly stepping back from the company in any way, shape or form? The answer is I'm planning to remain closely involved in Physiomics. So no immediate plans to change that. But as I mentioned earlier, we do need to look at our governance model. And so we do want to return over time to a more traditional governance model and having another senior individual on board who can share some of those responsibilities, I think, is the right direction of travel for us. There's a question about cutting costs and whether any jobs are at risk? So I think I mentioned earlier that in focusing on costs, we will focus primarily on costs that are non-people related in the -- at the end of the day, our business is driven by our people and the amount of revenue that we can generate is really a function of how many professionals we have working for us or with us. So the short answer is that our intention is not to reduce any headcount, but rather to focus on other non-headcount related costs. There's a question on feedback from Project Optimus, which I think I've covered already. There is a question on academic dissemination following the results from the PARTNER study. So yes, this was one of the things in January that we said we were going to be working on over the course of this year. So what we have actually prioritized in this quarter is a presentation at AACR. So some of you may have spotted already. We're going to AACR, which is in Orlando in 2 weeks' time. We're actually presenting a project that we did with Merck Serono in a presentation, which is co-authored with Merck Serono. That was going to be a poster presentation, but it actually got upgraded to a podium presentation, which, as many of you will know, basically means that one of our scientists will make a live presentation to a big hall full of people. That's generally considered to be a positive thing. And I'm really pleased that one of my colleagues is going to be up there with hundreds and hundreds of oncologists and biotech executives telling them all about the work that we've done, the great work that we've done on DNA damage repair agents with our long-term client Merck Serono. So that -- we did prioritize the creation of that content during this first 3 months of the year, but we are still planning to do a full publication based on the results of the PARTNER study over the course of this calendar year at some point. And I will provide a further update on that once our plans have firmed up. There's a question here around the pipeline, asking for the scope and size of the pipeline, the 25 potential new projects in the pipeline. Unfortunately, I can't really say more than I've already said in relation to that. Obviously, those opportunities, which are at an early stage of development at the top of that pyramid. They've got a relatively lower POS than the ones that are closer to the bottom. Becomes quite a difficult calculation. And I don't think there's enough statistical certainty in it for me to be able to put a number on the total pipeline value. But just for your orientation, I will just repeat that the average size of our projects is around about GBP 50,000 at the moment, some are significantly bigger and some are slightly smaller. And I think that's all I can realistically say on that at this point. There is a question here about the feedback that we had on the personalized dosing app. Yes, I think I covered that already. And really, that was specific to its use in guiding a clinician prescribing of GCSF. It was done earlier this year. And it was anecdotal, talking to doctors at a conference. So I wouldn't make more of it than that, but it is positive feedback from people who would actually potentially be using the tool, and we find that very encouraging. Okay. I'm now going to go to the questions that came in during the presentation, hopefully, there's still some of you out there. I will keep going until I get to the end of this list unless I run out of breath or run out of questions or run out of audience. Okay. So one of them is the same question around the pipeline size and value. So I think I can't cover that more than -- more than I have already. There's another one here. So some of these, I think, are basically repeating some of the questions that were previously submitted and by the way, these questions that I already covered, they were a combination of questions which were submitted via the platform and questions that were e-mailed to me directly by people who may have missed the deadline. I think it's a default on IMC that there's a deadline of 9 a.m. the day before the presentation, but I do appreciate, that didn't leave you guys much time to -- create -- to submit questions prior to the meeting. So I will just pass over the questions that I think I've already covered, and I will go to other ones that I might be able to answer. Okay. So there's another question about cash position. I can only answer it in the same way that I have answered it previously, which is according to our current projections, our cash position is good, given the revenues that we're expecting and given our projected expenses. Could I give more color on adjacent services, we're -- expected to be new revenue streams. So I'll just go back to the slide. Hopefully, you can still see my slides that outline some of these different areas of pharmaceutical R&D. So here, you've got modeling and simulation, so that's us essentially. And at the moment, of these things, we do a little tiny bit of statistical analysis hand-in-hand with the modeling and simulation. But at the end of the day, that's what we restrict ourselves to. There are companies which do experimental PK/PD study. So these are laboratory-based companies, which actually generate the sort of data, which we can then use in our models. One thing that we are looking at, which I think we have also looked at in the past, but we think there's reason to look again is whether there are any partnerships that we could form with companies that are generating that sort of data. I mean, I guess it's kind of obvious that if we were working hand-in-hand with a company that generated the data, perhaps we could offer some sort of value add beyond them just reporting the raw data by doing some sort of analysis visualization or even modeling on that data. So that's one example. And there are other areas here, which are a little bit more of a step change from where we are at the moment, where we are just assessing whether or not it would make sense for us to explore one in particular, but I won't say which one at this point in time. Okay. Okay. So there's a question here around why despite the investment in business development, we haven't more materially grown the revenues? And again, I think it comes back to this slide that I detailed in the presentation. So I guess, to some extent, we're a little bit like a duck that seems to be moving forward very slowly over the water, but under the water, it's feet are paddling extremely rapidly in order to fight a current. So for me, it's quite striking that we've managed to increase our smaller- and medium-sized client revenues by really quite a significant extent over -- pretty much over the period of time that the individual who asked me this question was interested in, so between 2019 and 2023. Had we not had the headwinds of restructuring going on at Merck and some slippage in a couple of projects? We would have been looking at revenues, which were in line with projections. And obviously, that is our goal to try and deliver growth. But for me, this is at least a little bit of a silver lining, which encourages me to believe that there is a real opportunity to still grow the business that we're in here. So I think that's all I'll say at that point. There is a corollary to that question around Board restructuring. I mean, to some extent, we are -- we're required to -- even though we're a small company, because we're AIM quoted, we're required to meet AIM standards and AIM doesn't care how big or small you are and those standards include requirements around independent nonexecutive directors and also Board governance. And so we simply have to do those things. We do not have a choice and therefore, we're going to do our best to comply in the most cost-effective way that we can identify to do so. So there is a specific question around whether we could support another company that is currently doing a dose-finding trial? I won't mention the specific name of the company, but it is actually one with which we have had previous discussions. GB, whoever you might be. And if you have any influence with them and would like to recommend that they speak to us, then by all means, that would be entirely welcome. So there's another question about the pipeline here. And essentially, it's the same question, which is asking for a quantification of the value of the pipeline. I just can't do that. We won't make forward-looking statements about revenue other than guidance around our total revenue. I think if we had 200 companies and potential new projects in our pipeline, then maybe we could start to look at that. But frankly, even much bigger companies tend not to provide that sort of detail. I did just want to be clear on the fact that there is a large absolute number of opportunities there. This is not something that I'm making up. I have a spreadsheet with the names of those different companies on them and depending on which stage of that pipeline there. In fact actually, I can say that all of those companies -- the companies where we have at least identified a potential project and the majority of them, we've had an initial discussion with. So these are real opportunities, what their likelihood of coming to final fruition to actually the point where we signed a contract with them, that's much harder to call, and I won't try and do so on this call. There's a question about tax credits. I mean, all I can say is that -- and I'm not an expert on R&D tax credits, but as many of you know, there are government -- there is a government scheme whereby companies, which are spending money on research can benefit from basically cash back on -- in tax. Physiomics, as you know, I mean, you just have to look at our P&L and analyst projections, you know that we benefit from this every year, year in, year out. And so this is definitely helpful for us as a small company, which is working towards a breakeven and ultimately a position of profitability. But in the meantime, we are buoyed somewhat by these tax rebates in which we would anticipate will continue going forward. So there's a question here about the dosing tool. So really, I mean, the next steps relate to us finding a -- the best commercial route to market here. So we identified a number of different potential disease areas and applications, including the GCSF application for the tool, I think once we have confirmed that one or more of those areas is sufficiently commercially attractive, that we want to make an investment to -- in our time at least, to complete the development of the tool in that area, then we'll be able to give you more detail about what the path to that looks like. I think I've mentioned before, however, that the regulatory situation in Europe and the U.S. is somewhat different. We think that the regulatory hurdles in the U.S. are a little bit lower and so far as there are some carve-outs from medical device legislation, which personalized dosing companies that exist in the U.S. already have taken advantage of. And that was one of the reasons why we were very interested to secure a U.S. partner. Doesn't mean we will never do anything in Europe, but it's very likely that the hurdle will be higher in Europe and therefore, the path to market would be somewhat longer and more expensive for us to implement. There's a question about whether we might be acquired by a big pharma company as an exit strategy? I guess that's -- I can't really comment on that. So I mean it's always possible. We have had approaches in the past of that nature. Obviously, they have not come to fruition up to this point in time. We would always be open to any approach that we felt delivered the value for shareholders, which is at the end of the day, what we should all be interested in. Okay. So I think we're very close to actually being out of time. And I think I'm at the bottom of the list of questions. If there were any specific questions, which I didn't manage to get to, I apologize. I have tried to go through as many of the questions that were submitted as possible. And I think all of the ones that I felt were answerable in a meaningful way. So I will hand back to the IMC moderator at this point. Thank you.

Jim, thank you very much and certainly, I think you addressed all those questions you could from investors. And of course, the company will review all the questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company. Jim, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?

Yes, sure. So I mean, clearly, the guidance is down and there's no sugarcoating that. But I think for me that -- the positives to focus on are the huge growth in the small- and medium-sized client sector, the fact that we still have a strong pipeline in my view and the 2 areas for strategic development beyond our current core consulting business that we're going to work really hard to develop over the balance of this financial and indeed calendar year. So I thank you very much for your attention.

Jim, thanks once again for updating investors today. Could 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 will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Physiomics plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.