Thalia Therapeutics Plc (THAT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and thank you for coming along this morning to hear a little bit more about the progress of the company and the interims that we've released this morning. I just want to talk you through a few key highlights and explain really what we're now doing and how we're embarking on a new revised strategy to really improve the commercialization of the business. So 2024, first half of the year has been very good for us. We've really accelerated the R&D program working with SRI and also University of Queensland with the work we're doing on oral delivery. And the results there have been really good. And we had a raise during the year. So we're now in a very strong cash position in the interim position for the year, which allows us now to push on and do the work that we want to do to evolve our strategy. But before I explain that a little bit more, let me just go through some of the key things that we've learned so far about our Nuvec system. So the Nuvec is our core delivery system. We did recently acquire another one. I'll talk about that a little bit in a minute. But the Nuvec system, it's a silica-based nanoparticle delivery system. And we've been doing the work over the years and shown some real key highlights of what differentiates it versus things like lipid nanoparticles and viral vectors. So it's an inert system. It doesn't have any cytotoxic side effects that we've seen. It's really, really good at tracking the payload in its spiky structure. It protects it once it's put into the body. And that means we've been able to develop oral delivery systems using our Nuvec system. And recently, we've made a real breakthrough with SRI, where we've shown that we can add ligands and other elements to the Nuvec system, and that means we can target specific cells and greatly increase the cellular uptake. So this puts the Nuvec system in a really strong position. And one of the things that we have done, as we mentioned last -- at the end of last year, we acquired this company called Nanogenics, we acquired a 75% stake in it. And that was primarily to get access to their delivery system. But the reason we acquired it is because they're already developing a product using their proprietary platform, the LipTide. That product is for postsurgical treatment for scarring after people who have had surgery -- eye surgery for glaucoma patients. And that really is why we want -- because we want to do the same thing with Nuvec. So what we're looking to do is looking to transition N4 away from just being a platform company. We're still looking at platform technology opportunities, especially with the work with SRI where we can show that with the targeting nature, we can reach out through their network of contacts and try and get commercial partnerships looking at the targeting nature of Nuvec and SRI MGS system. But we wanted to actually evolve from, say, just being a delivery platform where we only offer that to having -- actually having products that we can develop ourselves into preclinical and ultimately into Phase I clinical trial with partners. And that's not just the ECP-105 glaucoma product, but also using the Nuvec system. And we've announced that the work we've started is on an oral IBD product. So we're looking at launching an oral siRNA anti-TNF inhibitor. So the oral IBD market is growing. The IBD market itself is massive. It's a very, very big market. And it's dominated by these things called TNF alpha inhibitors, which are injectables. So they work. They're very good at reducing the inflammation in the body. The people don't know what causes IBD, but what they're really looking to try and do is to treat the inflammation that's caused by the IBD. Problem with these products, though, is that they are injectables, so they're very painful and they do have some nasty associated side effects. And [ what ] better for an IBD system than having an oral treatment. So we're looking to have a TNF inhibition product, an anti-inflammatory product that you can take orally for IBD. And this is the work that we're doing at the moment with the University of Queensland down in Australia. And we're looking to take that preclinical work to a point where we can partner with somebody to then take it on into Phase I clinical trials. And that's a real change in the strategy. So it's a move away, say, from just being delivery platform but developing our own product concepts using our unique delivery platforms. And particularly in a market like this where the oral sector is growing, but even the oral products in this space are even worse than the TNF alpha inhibitors [ and ] the kinase inhibitors that are even more toxic than the injectables. So it gives a product like ours a real opportunity to take a major inroad into that. And there's only a few people working in this space. So it's a targeted group of people that we're looking to have commercial discussions with to take this into clinic. So that's what our strong cash position and the reason we raised the money in the year does. It allows us to look at evolving our strategy, still doing the work with companies like SRI to actually reach out to partners, but looking to actually develop 2 products ourselves through preclinical work to get partners. One is the glaucoma product and the other is an oral IBD product. So I think it's going to be really exciting times ahead for N4, and we look forward to updating you on these programs as they progress. Thank you.