Abingdon Health (LSE:ABDX) — Final Results for the year ended 30th June 2023

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the ABDON HEALTH PLC final results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions at any time and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish any additional responses where it's appropriate to do so on the investment company platform. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. If you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be

0:31 most grateful. And I'd now like to hand over to CEO, Chris Yates. Good afternoon. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I'm Chris Yates, the CEO of ABINGDON HEALTH, and I'm pleased to present the financial results for the year ended 06/30/2023. So just turning to our agenda today. So I'll provide you with an overview of ABDON. I'll also provide an outline of our investment case and our strategy. We'll move through and look at the financial result highlights both operationally and financially before turning to the future, looking at our current activity and outlook and summarizing before opening up to questions. Okay. So just to give you an overview of ABINGDON, we were founded over ten years ago. We're and we're headquartered in York in The UK.

1:24 We are a well very well established lateral flow business focusing on contract research and contract development and manufacturing. We have just over 80 employees, and we we actually have two manufacturing sites. Our main site is in York, but we also have a secondary site in Doncaster, which is about 25 miles south of York. The board own just under a third of the equity of the business. And in terms of what we do, you can see from the from the kind of pie chart there, 90% of what we do is focus on our CRO and CDMO business, and 10% is our product business. And I'll come on and explain a bit more about that later. In terms of our contract development manufacturing and our contract research, our our aim really is to provide a holistic service offering to our customers and effectively support them in in bringing their products to market.

2:14 And as you can see from the numbers on the bottom right, we saw good revenue growth in in the last financial year, particularly when you strip out COVID revenues from the previous financial year. And I'll come and explain a bit more of that further on in the presentation. Okay. So in terms of our investment case, why invest in ABDON HEALTH? Well, I think on a on a macro level, we're really at the start of a paradigm shift in diagnostic testing. And and, really, what we're seeing is a move away from the laboratory and into and decentralizing that testing either into the home or the clinic, but also in terms of other sectors into, you know, the veterinary clinic or the farm or the field.

3:00 And and really lateral flow, whilst it's already a significant market in its own right, it's it is expected to grow significantly over the over the over the medium term. And, really, what COVID has done is it's reduced those barriers to adoption for lateral flow testing. Everybody, I would imagine, on the call has has undertaken multiple lateral flow tests. Everybody understands the technology, understands how it works. It's very simple. It's very cost effective and easy to use and very much supports that decentralization of testing. And importantly, it can be used across a whole range of different sectors. So a lot of focus obviously was during the pandemic was on infectious disease testing or COVID testing, but it can also be applied to a whole range of other areas, including outside of clinical. So internal health, plant pathogen, food testing, and environmental testing.

3:51 And ABDON is a is a well established knowledge leader in natural flow technology. And we we work with, you know, many of the leading innovators and entrepreneurs in the sector looking to bring their products to market. Our business model is is a is a contract service or fee or or fee for service business model. So effectively, we make a margin on working with our customers throughout the development process. And as I said previously, we we we look to offer a fully integrated service offering. So effectively, we can provide customers with the ability to take their idea all the way through to to commercial success. I think it's important to note that one of the things that we did during the course of the last financial year was we we we restructured the business and we refocused the business. So pretty much before the summer of twenty twenty two, the business was focused as with with many diagnostic businesses, we're focused on COVID, and we took a decision in the summer to to focus our activities on non COVID and effectively reset the business. And we've successfully done that.

4:57 So we've we've seen good solid growth in revenues, but also importantly, significant increases in the number of customers that we're working with. And that really augurs well for the future, and it creates a platform for growth for this financial year and also beyond.

5:17 Okay. So in terms of our strategy, it's it's twofold, really. So so firstly, if I cover the contract service side, so that's the CRO and CDMO side. So contract research is really the early stages of of of the development process. So it's it's feasibility and optimization and effectively getting yourself to what we we we class as a a sort of design frozen product. And then CDMO is the latter stages of of the development process, so that's moving through into scale up and then ultimately into technical transfer and manufacturing. And so we provide our customers with really that ability to take that project all the way through the process and ultimately offer them, you know, automated or manual manufacturing at the end. One of the important aspects of what we've been doing and an important aspect of our strategy is building a number of services around that core contract service offering. So you can see on the left hand side there, we've added a number of additional complementary services such as regulatory support and analytical testing really to support customers bringing their products through that regulatory process.

6:26 And also other areas such as packaging design and also providing a packaging service. And effectively, we want to be the customer's one stop shop and and provide them with the and and basically provide them with all the pieces of the jigsaw that they don't want to do themselves. And that is is resonating extremely well at the moment with with with customers And and really in terms of the strategy for our CRO and CDMO business, it's relatively straightforward. First and foremost, it's to continue to grow the customer base. Many of our you know, many of these projects tend to be relatively long term in terms of the development process of twelve to eighteen months. And, ultimately, we then want those customers or those products to move into manufacturing. Our manufacturing contracts tend to be, you know, three to five years, and effectively that provides an annuity income stream for us as customers require batches and hopefully grow the number of batches they require, you know, once they launch their products.

7:20 So the first thing is to grow the customer base. And then the second thing we'd like to do with our contract service business is to continue to broaden our service proposition. And, again, we will look to do that organically in the first instance and continue to build out the services and really listen to the customer and understand what are the pinch points, what are the key areas that they find challenging in that in bringing their products to market, and we will look to see how we can support those. The second element of the strategy is is really about our self testing platform. So this is a relatively small area of the business at the moment. So previous financial year, it was around 10% of revenues. And the reason we we launched our our our kind of range of self tests in in the in the previous financial year, so in July 2022, was for a number of reasons.

8:10 The first is we very much see it as complementary to our CRO and CDMO business. It is a commercial service that we are looking to offer to a subset of our contract customers and and really our self test customers. And, really, what we're looking to offer them is the ability to cascade their products into the market both in The UK and into Europe as well. But, also, secondly, we want to become really the the the trusted partner to the consumer, to the retailer, and the distributor. And I think it's fair to say it was it's a bit it's been a bit like the world west, quite frankly, in terms of flow tests on the market. And, actually, we want to become that trusted partner.

8:56 And and what we and if I if you look at it from a retailer's point of view, we can add an awful lot of value due to our actual flow expertise and experience that we've built up over, you know, over a decade and and more actually. And and that covers things like, you know, looking at looking at the validation of the tests, looking at the the the the kind of visuals within the packaging, looking at the instructions for use, the way through to auditing the the supplies themselves. So so whilst it whilst it's a relatively early days for the for the self testing part of the business, We've been pleased with the with the kind of growth and the number of tests that we've launched under our own brand, ABINGDON SIMPLYTEST. And, also, we're really pleased to launch the test, which is the first CDMO customer test that we've we've launched in The UK, and that is cobranded, ABINGD, ABINGD SIMPLYTEST, and we've been able to get that product into both Superdrug and also Tesco's.

9:54 It's also online at Amazon and also, on our own website, ABDON Simply Test as well. The strategy for the product side, is is twofold, really. It it's sec it's firstly to continue to build the distribution platform, and, that's both within The UK and direct with retailers, but also, distributors in Europe as well. And then secondly, it's to it's to build a more comprehensive range of self tests. And that is and and hopefully with a greater proportion of self tests that come through our CDMO platform. So as you can see, the the the the the strategy very much is is focused on supporting our customers, whether it's on developing their tests and certainly within the self test area of the market, also providing them with a commercialized commercial service as well.

10:46 Okay. So just just moving on to the financial results for the year ended June 2023 and just providing an overview of those. So as I mentioned previously, we reset the business in the summer of twenty twenty two, and we refocused on our core offering, which was our CRO CDMO business. And we saw significant growth in the customer base over the financial year, and that was really from a standing start in the in the summer of of twenty twenty two. Secondly, on the product side, we launched ABINGDON SIMPLYTEST in July 2022, and we also brought through the first CDMO self test Sally Stick at the back end of the of the last financial year in June 2023, launched in Superdrug, and then post year and launched in Tesco's.

11:35 In terms of this financial year, and we're coming to touch about on this a bit more later, but we've seen a good start to this financial year in terms of the number of CRO CDMO projects that we've secured as well. And I think it's also important to note that the the projects that we had in the previous financial year, they they don't go away. We tend you know, we work on those projects for for a long period of time supporting customers and bringing those products through to market. And, ultimately, those customers hopefully will turn into manufacturing customers over time as well. Couple of other point areas that we dealt with recently. So we resolved the COVID legal challenges back in actually October 2022. So in the previous financial year, you may recall we had a judicial review where we were a party to an action taken against the government, the high court found in favor on all counts of the government and also of ABDON as an interested party.

12:35 And then the final point is this was actually post year end, but we broke up the concert party, which was basically put in place at the time of IPO. It was around 35% of the shares were part of this concert party. And what that meant was really none of those shareholders were allowed to buy shares in the market because effectively, concert party held over 30%. And therefore, if you bought shares, you basically had to make an offer for the whole company. So that concert party has now been broken up, and, ultimately, what that means is all of those shareholders obviously still subject to certain rules and regulations such as close periods can now buy shares in the company. So just moving on to the financial highlights for the last financial year. So overall, we saw revenue growth of 43%.

13:29 When you actually strip out COVID revenues, which was a big driver of the previous financial year's revenue, we actually grew revenues by a 126%. So I think that really augurs well for the future in terms of our our kind of pipeline of business and and the platform that we're building. And, actually, if you look at h two, so January to June 2023 and compare that to the the the the first half of the financial year, we actually grew revenues by about two and a half times. And the reason for that was a a lot of projects came on board in the autumn and and sort of November, December time, and therefore, we started to generate the revenues from those projects in the second half of the year. We saw a significant reduction in our EBITDA loss compared to the previous financial year, really as a result of of of restructuring we did in in the summer of twenty twenty two and and and prior to that in terms of headcount reductions, but also, obviously, in terms of the revenue growth as well. And net cash was 3,200,000 at the end of end of June.

14:34 Headcount, as you can see, was 82 people following that restructure. And, also, just to note as well going forward, in terms of employee growth, we're really focused on on on increasing headcount in in areas where those people are actually gonna contribute to to revenue growth. So so one of the things that we have done in this financial year so far is we have increased the number of r and d scientists in the company because, effectively, we've got more r and d projects to work on. And, therefore, from you a revenue point of view, each of those new people will contribute to the top line going forward.

15:16 Okay. So just turning to current activity and outlook. So looking forward, our strategic focus will remain the same. So continuing to focus on our CRO and CDMO offering as I as I as I mentioned previously and also expanding our range and reach of our ambulance simply test products as well.

15:36 We ask we have seen good momentum across both divisions in this current financial year. We've won a number of additional CRO and CDMO contracts both on the development side and on the technical transfer side actually so far this year, which has been really encouraging. And I think that our our holistic or fully integrated service offering is is really resonating with customers. We're seeing a number of customers working with us that want us to work both on the development side, but also, for example, on the regulatory and on analytical side as well. And I think that's really that's really encouraging. So so so the service offering is very much resonating. As I mentioned, we have increased the development team this financial year to to to cope with the additional demand that we're seeing for our services. Post year end, we launched Sally Stick in Tesco's, which was which was which was which was fantastic to see. That started at the end of August and was basically rolled out during September. So that's in in 298 of the larger Tesco stores and also online.

16:35 And we continue to work to expand sales and distribution for Salistic and AST. And, you know, we we we, to that end, we were at the pharmacy show last weekend, and we were extremely busy actually. And we were really encouraged by the the the the level of interest both in the ABDON and Simply Test range, which we'd rebranded and relaunched at the show, and also in some of the other what we call category killer products. So Sally Stick and also Check Your Drink, which is a drink adulteration test as well. I think the final point to note, and we did put this into the financial results as well, is we don't have any requirement for additional funding. Our ongoing concern within our annual report is clean, and, therefore, we're confident of continuing to grow the business under our own kind of financial steam.

17:30 Okay. So in summary, we're very focused on the lateral flow market. That's our complete focus as a business. We have been working in this industry for many of us for for over twenty years. So we've built up an awful an awful lot of knowledge within that time, and we can apply that to supporting our customers in in in bringing their products to market. The lateral flow market is is large. You know, it's a it's a it's a $10,000,000,000 plus market in its own right, and it continues to grow. And one of the key factors there and one of the key kind of tailwinds, if you like, is is those reduced barriers to adoption. And I think many people now realizing that that lateral flow is a viable alternative to laboratory methods.

18:17 And, obviously, the benefits of lateral flow were evidenced during the COVID pandemic, but they can equally be applied to many other areas, whether it's additional tests for additional self tests, whether it's tests in the clinic or, you know, in in the in the quite literally in the farm or the field if you're talking about animal health and plant pathogen tests as well. If we look at the financial results and strip out our co the COVID revenues, you can see that the CRO and CDMO business grew extremely strongly last year as we brought more customers on and we broadened our service offering. And on the product side, we we saw a good double double digit growth, the focus this year now is really to increase that product range and also our sales and distribution reach.

19:04 We've started financially at 24 well. We're we're busy. We've taken on staff to to to to support the growth in in the number of contracts that we've won. And our and our key objective our key objectives remains the same. So continued revenue growth, continue to build the revenue platform, and also to to move the business towards cash flow breakeven as well. So so that's the that's the summary presentation. And I think I'll just now open it up to questions. That's great, Chris. Thank you so much for updating investors this afternoon, and I'll bring back your camera up for the Q and A. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. If I take while Chris takes a few moments to review those questions submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A, can be accessed via your investor meet company dashboard.

20:01 If I may, Chris, I'm gonna hand over to Paul who's going to moderate through the questions, and thank you to everybody for your engagement this afternoon. Paul, if I may hand back to you, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you, Mark. Chris, the first question is about the improvement in h two revenues over h one. Is this due to more business, or is there some seasonality to revenues? If it's the latter, what would you say would be a normal split? Thanks, Paul. So there are there are a number of different elements at play here. So I think the first thing to note is is that we saw we reset the business last summer. So, actually, from a standing start, we we grew the revenues. If you exclude COVID revenues, we grew the revenues from a standing start in the in the summer of twenty twenty two.

20:48 So, therefore, you can see that from November and December when we brought new projects on, we started to see the revenue contribution from those come through in the second half of the year. Is the seasonality? I think there is an element of seasonality in the business. I don't think we've got, you know, full information on that as of today. But but, certainly, if you look at the first quarter, which is, you know, July, August, and September in the summer months, there is definitely things definitely tend to quiet down. You know, we do work with a number of academic departments, for example, and and, frankly, there there is not a lot that goes on during during the, you know, July and August period. That said, I think if you're looking at our results going forward, and certainly, you know, our intention is, you know, the key thing for us going forward is to is to show really good like for like revenue growth both in terms of the first half of the year and the second half of the year.

21:42 Thanks, Chris. There's a couple of questions regarding sales and how they're going. Yeah. One of them was saying that what can you say regarding the sales that have been achieved in the first three months of the year? Approximate would be fine if you don't have the exact figures. And if you feel you can't give a number, can you say whether it's performing better or worse than expectations? Yeah. Thanks, Paul. So we we haven't disclosed the numbers as you probably noted in the financial results. It's too early for us to do that. I think we've been, you know, pleased with the progress that we've made with Sally Stick. I think, importantly, we've got it into some of the, you know, the largest retailers in The UK, and we we continue to have good conversations with other retailers both in The UK and also within other other territories within Europe.

22:31 So, I think from that point of view, we've been pleased with the progress made kind of operationally. I think it's also fair to say we we very much did this as a soft launch. So from a marketing point of view, we we have engaged with a marketing agency, and we did some work with them in in in the first quarter, particularly around Instagram. But it but I think it's fair to say going forward, we are we are looking to put more marketing effort both with supporting the retailers and also, supporting the product online at Amazon, for example. So it it's early days. I think we're we're we're happy where where it is at the moment. We're very pleased to have got it into two of the major retailers, and and we continue to look to expand the the reach of Sally Stick going forward. Thanks, Chris. I think that also answers one of another question later on that asks about how Sally Stick sales are going. If we stick on that, and you kind of have mentioned this already in your answer just then, one of the investors has asked that they're in the demographic that probably should know about Salistake.

23:34 They only know about it, though, through their investment in ABINGDON, yet none of their friends have heard of this. So the question is, has there been any advertising? And if so, has it failed to hit the target market? And if not, why not? Sure. So we've done as as a limited amount of advertising or marketing, I should say, of the first quarter. And, really, we wanted to kind of, work with the retailers, also, also work with our agency as well and and start to plan for kind of phase two. Phase one was a soft launch. We did some work, as I said, on with Instagram. Phase two is bit more is more rifle shot now. So, for example, we're just doing some work with Superdrug supporting the products both in store, so you'll start to see some in aisle marketing going forward for this next quarter and also online as well with some online banners. So, again, we we're looking to work closely with the with the retailers and support them. We've launched an Amazon campaign actually over the past couple of weeks. And, again, what we will do is we'll continue to roll these things out, but also we will evaluate them and test them and see what impact they have.

24:46 What we don't there is no blank checkbook here to to spend, you know, millions on marketing, I think we can do things in the rifle shot way and make a difference. And as long as we keep measuring the impact and keep adjusting what we do, I think that's that's gonna be good. The the the other aspect is actually Salgnostics themselves who are the the company that the partner that we work with. But, you know, we work with them as a CDMO. So we we make an element of the of the Salistic test as well as as obviously distributing it in the in The UK. And they are obviously working hard on on marketing the product, not just in The UK, but further afield. You may have noted today, for example, that the product was named as one of the best inventions of 2023 in Time Magazine.

25:34 And, again, we will obviously heavily market that and promote that within The UK as well. So I think it's a mix of our own activities, but also the support that Sal Agnostics can provide us as well. If we stick with Salistic and Sal Agnostics, there's a question from Oliver, which is, are you assisting Sal Agnostics with FDA approval for Salistic? If granted, would ABDON be involved with US distribution for sales in The US? So we are assisting Sal Agnostics in a range of different areas. I'm not gonna go into kind of commercially sensitive details, but what I would say is we have an excellent partnership and working relationship with SALGNOSTICS. Sorry. Sal yeah. SALGNOSTICS. And SALISTICS, I think, is a fantastic product. I think as a as a in an in in a segment of the lateral flow market that that really hasn't evolved enormously over thirty years, I think Sally Stick is is is something that provides the the user with a far better experience than than than the traditional urine tests.

26:35 Obviously, Sally Gnostics are very ambitious in terms of where this product you know, they want this product to be launched, we are supporting them in a in a number of different ways. I think the other aspect of this is the saliva technology that that Salgnostics have can also be applied to a number of different areas, and we're also talking to to Salgnostics about that. There are there are, I think, a number of areas that that saliva as a matrix can be used to, again, improve the user experience in in in mature markets. Thank you. A question quickly on funding. Do you have sufficient funding in place to meet your strategic ambitions? Yes. We do. So as I said previously, the going concern is clean. So we have we have the the the cash in place to meet our requirements from a from an organic point of view, and and that's really our key focus at the moment. We we understand that the equity markets are extremely challenging. We kind of we, you know, we we we are cutting our cloth accordingly, and our key intention is to get the, the the business to to cash flow, breakeven and cash flow positive.

27:45 Clearly, you know, there is the ability to accelerate some of our strategic initiatives going forward through acquisition. But but, you know, as I said, we're mindful as to where the market is at the moment and our our need to kind of focus on organic growth. Having just mentioned cash flow positivity, two questions regarding profitability. When do you expect to be EBITDA positive? And another question, same same lines. Do you have an expectation of becoming a profitable company soon? Yes. That's certainly the the the target. And I'm not gonna put a kind of a a date on that, but but, ultimately, you know, as a board, as you've seen from the from the kind of shareholdings that we have just under a third of the equity, we're very aligned with all of our shareholders. We have also we have seen, you know, a number of the the the raises that have been done in the market and have been on a discounts.

28:36 And, frankly, as a as a as a a reasonably large shareholder in the business, I do I do not want to be in a position where we have to do a discounted fundraise. So, therefore, we we will focus on getting ourselves to profitability as soon as we possibly can. I think from a revenue point of view, I think we're we're making great strides. And, you know, the other aspect of that is to keep our customer control. So it's those two focuses. So I'm not gonna put a a a time scan on it, Paul, but I think what I would say is we are very, very focused on that going forward. Chris, if we stick to the financials, look. One of the questions from an investor was by their calculations, gross margin improved to 60.9% in h two. Is it reasonable to expect a similar margin for the full year 2024? If not, could you explain the factors that might cause a difference?

29:24 Yeah. So our target margin for for any activities that we do, and I'll explain this, are between 4060%. So, you know, if you look at the financial year just gone up, you know, the margin actually was 50% headline headline rate. Why the why is the margin, you know, range 40 to 60? Well, I think from an r and d point of view, and those what I would class as more risky areas of the business in terms of, you know, development tends to be more risky than manufacturing. We we tend to to to have a higher margin in those. And then in terms of manufacturing, the margin may may be a little bit lower.

30:04 And and so what we what we really look to do is is is to look at each kind of project and opportunity on its own merits. It's also dependent on whether those project you know, we're in a competitive situation as well. So, ultimately, the the target is to get, you know, that sort of 50 to 60% level. That's the intention. It really you know, where we end up really depends on the business mix and and really depends on what the proportion of development, transfer, manufacturing, and product sales are. The next series of questions are regarding current projects and and partners projects that you've got coming up. So one investor observes that as investors, we get very little details on the current projects. Is it possible for you to update us on any current partner projects such as Senso Health's amplified LFT and Loop DX sepsis test?

30:55 Similarly, there's another question from Jason who's asking, you know, how is the development of the sepsis and the stroke test coming along? And then simply somebody else asking, you know, loop an upfront test look exciting. Do you agree? So I don't know whether you want to well, maybe explain whether or whether or reasons why you can't give details. If you can't, then maybe talk about those tests. Yeah. No problem. So I think we we're in a competitive environment as a business, therefore, we almost have a kind of a dilemma at some stages in terms of how much information we share with with investors. And, obviously, there is a clamor for for more and more information in terms of some of the partners that we're working with. But, also, on the flip side is we we we are under confidentiality with customers.

31:41 The work we're doing typically is commercially sensitive, but also we're in a competitive market. And, frankly, I don't always wanna give that information out in the public domain because the next thing is our customers will get half a dozen calls from from from from from various, you know, competitors. So it's it's a trade off, really. I think what I can say is we are really excited about the the projects that we're working working on. They're they're very broad in terms of application. You know, you've mentioned some of those already. We did this we did disclose within the financial results that we're working with LoopDX, which is a, you know, is a really exciting project in in the in the in the area of kind of early diagnosis of sepsis. We've also with the permission of some of our customers, we've put some information out at times on on LinkedIn. So, you know, SAL Diagnostics is you know, we're everyone's aware that we're working with with with with SAL Diagnostics on the saliva pregnancy test.

32:37 Last week, I put something out on Hormona, which is a a comp company that is is working on hormone testing for women. They just had an article in Vogue magazine, which we we shared on LinkedIn as well. So, yeah, we're working with, you know, I think some of the big you know, the best innovators in the sector on on areas on really cutting edge areas, and we're very excited about that. I do I am I do take it on board that, you you know, investors want us to share more information, but I would also, you know, also highlight the fact that in many cases, we are under under con confidentiality constraints or or commercial sensitivity constraints as well. Thanks, Chris. I think that also covers off the the same question from an investor called Mark who who's asked why aren't you more transparent about the projects you're working on. Just turning to the concert party, you mentioned these in your slides and the fact that you're, you know, no longer have that concert party.

33:34 With those agreed changes, could we expect further director purchases in the near future? And the same same question is, does that mean that members of the concert party actually want to buy more shares? Yes. So I can't I can't really talk for other members of the concert party on this call, but what I I can say was there was a drive from the board and and from the directors to remove the the constraints around the concert party. So just to be clear, there's no there was no constraint within the concert party on selling shares, but the constraint was on buying shares. So that constraint has now been removed, and that was something that was extremely challenging for us last year. You know, we we obviously saw where the share price had gone, and we had no opportunity to to purchase shares. I think we are, you know, we're really optimistic on on where the business is going. I think we've got a tremendous opportunity.

34:27 I'm not gonna talk for any of the directors, but all other directors, as you would say. But all I would say is, we now have the opportunity to do that, which I think is a real positive. Thanks, Chris. A question from Mandy. He says, hi, Chris. Perfect sense in focusing on a mass market testing product like pregnancy. But how do you see acceptance building for lateral flow testing in life threatening diseases, e. G, Lyme's disease? Yeah. So I think there is a number of different elements to that. So the the first is, if you look at something like Lyme's disease, it is a it is actually quite a quite an area of unmet need. You know, I I think I certainly had experiences of that in the in the past. You know, it's a it's a it's it's it's something that is very difficult to actually get a diagnosis of. So the first thing is is is an unmet need there. The second thing is is to support, product introduction, with clinical data. So I think one of the key things for for for many of these kind of clinical applications, whether it's as a self test or as a point of care test or an in clinic test, is is to provide sufficient data and information to support the the the product's use. And and and I and I think that's something that we can we can as a business, we can support on.

35:44 It's part of what we can offer as a regulatory service and analytical testing service. And it's also you know, it's an important element of marketing. So whether it's marketing to the consumer or marketing to the physician, basically, that, you know, those individuals will need to have confidence that those tests work. So so I think Lyme disease is a very interesting one because it is a major unmet need. But, you know, in order to get a product introduced onto the market, it needs to have the right level of clinical data to support it. Thank you. I'm not sure what more you might be able to say in response to this question given what's already been publicly announced. But the question has been asked whether you can explain the change of CFO that's taken place recently. Is there anything more that you can add beyond the r and s announcements?

36:34 Not really. I just like I just like to place on record my thanks to to to Melanie for for her, work here during, you know, during her time at ABDON. And, and you you may have also noted, we put out an r and s today, announcing, Andrew Feather joining us as an interim, finance director. He he's very much a nuts and bolts accountant, I would say. So he's he's very focused on, you know, the analytical side of of of of of the accounts. He's also very focused on cash flow, and I think he will he will fit in really well. But, no, there's not much more I can say apart from what's already been said in the r and s. Understood. And the final question is about your sort of partnership to introduce plastic free LFTs. The question from Oliver is that I noted that the founder of Marama, Joe Barnard, has hinted to expect big things in 2024 with the collaboration with ABINGDON. Can you elaborate on this?

37:30 Well, I think the first thing is it's a major a major what need, actually. There is a major need in the market for something that replaces plastic housings. There are billions of plastic housings produced every year within natural flow. I think everybody's seen what's happened in the food industry with the removal of of of the use of of of one use, you know, plastic packaging. And I think as an industry, it's important that we're on the front foot and and dealing with these challenges and and actually making a difference from an environmental point of view. So we're really delighted to work with with Joe and the team at Marama. They're they're very innovative. They they're very focused on design. And I think it's a really nice combination of skills and their expertise, our expertise in actually making these housings work.

38:22 So, yep, let's say there's there's there's huge opportunity there. We're working closely with them. My CEO, Mark Jones, has gone to the board of EcoFlow, which is the company that holds the the IP here, and he's working very closely with the team at Marama to to to to bring through prototypes. And and I think interestingly, you know, this is one of the kind of one of the areas that we're we're very much seeing from a consumer point of view is that drive towards more environmentally friendly solutions. And I think ABDON is a knowledge leader in this sector. We wanna be at the forefront of these changes. Chris, we have had one more question in, which is a a nice one to finish with. What excites you most about the future of ABDON? There is there is so much to be excited about. I think from a from a lateral flow point of view, the the the industry you know, know I've been in this industry for sort of twenty years. I've never seen the sort of level of activity that we've got in this industry across a whole range of different applications.

39:22 Now you can point to sepsis and and and stroke as some one of your one of the callers did in clinical, but you there are huge applications in animal health, in food testing, environmental testing. And and for me, I think lateral flow is now gonna have its day. It it is a it is a proven technology. It's been proven to be effective during the COVID pandemic. Everybody's aware of what it is, and I think I think there's huge ability to for the for this technology to really drive the decentralization of testing. And and really what excites me is the role that we can play at ABDON in that. I think we are, you know, perceived as knowledge leaders. I think we've got a great service proposition, and, we can support customers bringing products to market.

40:09 And our mission is improving life through making rapid tests accessible to all. And I think we can make great great strides really over the over the over the medium term in in in in really kind of achieving that mission. That's great, Chris. Paul, thank you very much. And as Paul said, you've taken all the questions from investors. So thank you once again for your engagement this afternoon. Chris, I know investor feedback will be important to you, and I'll shortly redirect those on the call to provide you with their thoughts and expectations. But I wonder before doing so, if I may, Chris, just ask you for a couple of closing comments, and then I'll redirect investors to give you their feedback. Yeah. Thank you. So it's really to reiterate what I've just said. So I think lateral flow has got a pivotal role to play in the decentralization of testing. I think ABDON HEALTH is very, very well positioned to to support a number of parties in in driving, you know, innovation and new product development and and commercialization.

41:04 And, really, we're starting to see the the the kind of benefits of that come through in terms of our financial results. And I think going forward, you know, it's it you know, it's an exciting time for the business. We have a platform for growth. We have a a a very straightforward strategy, and, ultimately, it's about execution and delivering customer growth and revenue growth and moving the business into cash flow positive territory. That's great. Chris, thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the company can better understand your views and expectations. This might take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of ABDON HEALTH PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending this afternoon's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.