Coiled Therapeutics (LSE:COIL) — Proposed Oncogeni acquisition and placing

0:00 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Rockford Therapeutics PLC 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. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted today and publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you give that your kind attention, I'm sure the

0:31 company would be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand over to Executive Chairman, Steve West. Good morning, sir. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today to talk about Rockford and specifically our acquisition of Oncogene and the placing, which we announced on Wednesday this week. So we're very excited about it and relishing the opportunity to talk it through with you today. Joining me today is Adjan Reginald, who is gonna be joining the company's CEO. Adjan will be introducing himself a bit later on the presentation, and we'll be talking about Oncogene and the exciting programs Oncogene has. So if we move on just quickly to we'll skip over the disclaimer.

1:17 Move on to the summary slide. So this sets out I'm not gonna go through this line by line, but it sets out why we're so excited about this acquisition of Oncogene. Essentially, what Oncogene is bringing to us is it's letting us expand our existing portfolio. So we have two drug candidates at the moment. We have an antibody program and oligo RNA program. And Oncogene is bringing in two additional novel programs, which is an MK cell therapy and an si siRNA therapy. And will go through those programs in a minute. It also brings a world class leadership team, and we'll go through that as well. I think you'll see the credentials of of the individuals coming on and joining us. You know, it's hard to beat. You you need individuals like this to be able to deliver on the programs that we have as a small company.

2:09 It also gives us access to a laboratory in Stratford Upon Avon so we can do our own clinical studies in house. So that saves cost and speeds up the work as well, so we're not relying on third parties. And and, yeah, I think the last good point to make is it also introduces industry specific shareholders as well, including big pharma, Jachi Senko. It has a we have a a VC fund, CH Health, that's joined us, and there's some other industry specific shareholders as well. So all in all, I think it's it's a it's a great marriage of companies here. I think it's it's fair to say that some of the parts here is greater than just adding them back adding them together. There's lots of synergies here, and I hope we can highlight those synergies as we go through this presentation today.

3:01 So we just skip over. I'm I'm gonna come back to this slide, but if we come over to the summary summary of of the the transaction, it's it is a very simple transaction. We are acquiring Oncogeny for an all share transaction. So we're issuing 50,000,000 shares to the Oncogeny shareholders to acquire a 100% of Oncogeny. As part of the transaction, as I alluded to, Adjan is coming on as CEO, which we're very, very excited about. We've got professor Sir Martin Evans joining as chief group chief science officer, and he's a Nobel laureate, so highly experienced scientist. We're doing a fundraiser of just over £1,000,000, and we have access to the facilities that Oncogene has as well. So I've spoken to talking about the consideration, and I've spoken about the placing. I think the only other thing to mention as well is we are going through some regulatory processes at the moment. So we need to publish a prospectus, which is in pretty good shape, and we're looking at hopefully publishing that by the end of the month. And once we do that, we can complete the transaction, and we can move forward.

4:04 So if I just just flick back to this slide here, which is the proposed board leadership team. So this is for the emerged company after after the transaction. So myself, Simon, Michael, and Jean will be remaining with the company. And then we have Adjan and and others joining us. And I think this is a good opportunity to pass the pass the pen over to Adjan here, and Adjan can introduce himself. He's better qualified than me. Over to you, Adjan. Thanks very much, Steve. Good good morning, everyone. I'm Ajay. I'm Reginald. And, yeah, we're equally excited to be joining Rock four. I mean, I I think I'd just like to state the beginning that we we were very excited when we looked at the science. So Martin, Armen Keating, and myself in particular, and Darren Dizzley, who got twenty years plus experience each in biotech and particularly in in looking at these advanced therapies. And it was through our process that we we we believe Rock is very well positioned for the future and very pleased to be joining Rock four.

5:08 So I'll through, as Steve suggested, the additional people that will be joining the board. And and Martin Evans is the Nobel laureate. He won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2007 for his work in the discovery of of stem cells, which underpins all cell therapy. Martin's an exceptionally eminent scientist. He's also been awarded the COPI medal of the Royal Society and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Professor Armen Keating is a a physician scientist based in in Toronto. Armen's got over forty years of experience in cancer medicines and in particular, the sort of medicines that we're developing. He was one of the pioneers of cell and gene therapies and has worked for many, many large pharmaceutical companies as well as taken products like ours from early ideas, from early concepts into clinical trials. So he's really got the a wealth of very practical experience as well as a, you know, a stellar network and and reputation.

6:12 Darren Disley has been a CEO of a public company, Horizon Discovery, which he led for for eleven years, increasing value enormously for shareholders. Has PhD from the University of Cambridge. And, again, is someone who has a a deep knowledge of both the science and the business and particularly the markets in The UK. And and then myself. So I've I've been in biotech and pharma for about twenty years. I was the global head of emerging technologies at Roche where I had responsibility for novel technologies, including these sort of cell and gene therapies, and also looked at a number of antibodies programs both as head of technologies, but also as an m and a director. So I've got experience of buying antibodies and and how you evaluate and and think about antibodies in terms of their development.

7:07 Most recently, I was the chief operating officer and chief technical officer at NovaSite during the pandemic. So I took a sabbatical and and joined NovaSite to try to help during the pandemic and was very proud of the way we were able to contribute to The UK's pandemic response, including launching a number of new products and generating nearly a €150,000,000 in in revenue between 2020 and 2021. My formal training is experimental medicine at the University of Oxford and then business at Harvard Business School, Northwestern Kellogg. And then following that, I worked at the Boston Consulting Group. So I'm gonna take you through some of these slides now, which describe a little bit of the history of Oncogene.

7:57 So Oncogene was founded by Sir Martin Evans and myself. Martin and I have worked together in this field for about thirteen years, and we we focused on COILED THERAPEUTICS, ON COILED, TRYING TO LOOK AT THE PATIENTS THAT ARE NOT well treated with existing cancer drugs. So, you know, modern medicine has progressed enormously. Our our ability to help patients over the last twenty years and extend their lives is remarkable. But there are still small groups of patients, subgroups of patients who have very, very poor outcomes. And what we tried to do with Oncogeneity, we and and, again, this aligns very closely with Rock four's philosophy, hence, you know, we were keen to join Rock four, is that those patients that don't respond to existing therapies have very, very poor outcomes. They have very high mortality and high very high morbidity.

8:47 So what we pioneered is two different types of technologies which generate two novel types of medicines. One is called a a mesodermal killer cell. It's a cellular medicine. So it's a cell which is able to kill cancer both directly, but also by supercharging or or superpowering the body's own immune system. And another one and the other type of cell is a so the other type of therapy is a an siRNA, which is an oligo, which is like a gene therapy which inhibits a specific protein, again, will kill cancer. And we'll go through those in a bit more detail. We've already talked about the leadership team in person, but just a just a a few minutes about their specific experience. So this group has taken a number of medicines through preclinical development as we're doing at the moment in Rockfall through to getting clinical trial approvals in The US with the FDA in Europe and in The UK.

9:47 We've got a state of art state of the art laboratory and manufacturing facility, which means we can do all of the the key preclinical studies in house, which, you know, will be much more efficient, much more effective, and much more cost effective as well. Therefore, in summary, we thought this is a great complementary, you know, combination. We have two companies that share a philosophy in trying to help patients particularly trying to help those patients that are probably the least likely to be helped with existing medicines. And we believe this focus on trying to extend life and trying to help the patients that have the worst prognosis is both compatible with with, you know, doing good, but also making a highly sustainably commercially viable company.

10:36 We looked through the results very quickly. I'm not gonna walk you through this slide in in great detail. But just to reiterate, this is the the mesoderm mesoderm killer cell, the MK cell. And what you're seeing here in the two graphs is the ability of the cell to directly kill, which is here,

11:02 and the ability to enhance the immune system. So priming of natural killer cells is a measure of how much you can enhance the immune system, your body's own immune system to kill cancer, and direct cytotoxicity is a measure of how much these cells on their own can kill cancer. So you've got two mechanisms which allow you to target cancers. And here, specifically, we're looking at leukemia and myelomas. Very differently, STAT6 sRNA is a is a gene therapy or an oligo. And the way this works is there is a protein which is called STAT6, which the cancer uses to enhance its ability to evade the body's own immune system.

11:54 And so what we're able to do using this oligo is to block the cell's production of STAT six, so the cancer's production of stat six, which results in a massive reduction, a very significant reduction in the the size and proliferation of cancer. What these two graphs are showing you is without treatment, which is the the red and the yellow and the green, this this tumor, this cancer weighed about three grams. And then what we're able to do by treating is you see we're able to shrink that down to one gram. And, similarly, if we look at the volume of the cancer, if you look at the untreated, it's around seven above 750. And if you look at where we treated with sRNA, it's around 300. So they're very significant reductions, and these are invalidated animal models. So these are the models that we can show, which in the past have been very predictive how a medicine might perform going forward into human trials.

12:59 We were very, very excited when we looked at the the mid kind data. I mean, that's really what's drawn us to this transaction and drawn us to joining Workforce. You know, there's been over ten years work, over 40,000,000 Australian dollars, a thousand papers published on on the Midkind programs. And in particular, we're very excited about the antibody and oligonuclei programs, which we looked at in some detail, and the ability for the company to be able to fund fully fund these programs and also the Oncogene portfolio going forward.

13:32 What particularly excited us about the antibody program is, you know, very simply, these antibodies have great data that shows that they can reduce metastases. So, again, what you're able to see here is without treatment, you see the average metastatic load is is up here. And then with treatment, you're almost getting to a point where you you've got almost no metastases. And very similarly here, you see your metabolic your met metastatic load is quite high. And then when you treat with an antibody, you it drops down very significantly. And, again, this is in a validated animal model. So the best we can we can say to predict how this might perform in the future. No guarantees. This is drug discovery, so everything is everything is dependent on following the right processes, and we were very pleased to see that Rock four had done these very high quality experiments.

14:28 This is probably a little bit more graphic and a bit easier to see, but when we looked at the oligo program, what we saw what we see here is this is what the tumors look like. This is what the actual cancers look like in the animal model without treatment. So if you don't treat them, that's how big they become. And when you do treat them, what you're seeing is a very dramatic reduction in the size of tumors. And what you see in particular here at day 25 is in this particular

14:57 tumor type, You can see this is getting down to a very, very small tumor, which again, me this is very closely correlated with prognosis for the patients. So if the tumors get smaller, if the cancer spreads less, the patients have a much better outcome. This is much more likely to be a very good medicine. This is a summary of our portfolio. And I suppose a couple of things to say here. First of all, this is a, you know, a very broad portfolio for a small company. You know, typically, you would expect to see a much smaller portfolio in a company of this size. And, you know, the fact that we've got sufficient funding to take all of these products through to the key value milestones is fantastic.

15:43 So the ability to have so many shots on goal and to have all of them fully funded with a team that I would respectfully say to you has the right experience to implement what's required to get this to a point where regulators will look at it, I think, puts us in a very strong position to reach these milestones. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for the time this morning, and I'm gonna hand you back to Steve who can take you through the transaction. Thanks, Adrian. So just setting out here is what we need to do to complete this transaction. So, essentially, we've we've already announced the transaction. We've announced that we've signed the SPA, which was signed earlier this week. We're now, as I mentioned earlier, finalizing a prospectus, which we need to lodge and have approved by the FCA.

16:32 Having been through this process as you know, back in December, this is all quite fresh, and we can get this done very quickly. There's a couple of resolutions in our upcoming AGM, which is being held at the end of next week on the June 30, which we just need to have passed in order so in order to give us authority to be able to issue the shares. The placing, is conditionally done already. So subject to no material adverse changes in us as a company, That placing is done and the funds are in the bank already, and that's important. And we're looking at issuing the shares, completing the transaction, and moving forward with Adjan and and his team of experts by the end of the month. So that that's the timeline there.

17:21 And I think it's also important to to note as well. In the meantime, I am working with Adjan on a daily basis to progress our existing programs as well. So things are not on hold as we as we work on this transaction. So I think in summary, this sets out some some very sort of personal points on on why we think this is such a great transaction for us as a as a business, but also I think for our shareholders as well. You know, I think, you know, the the main statements to make here is it actually transforms us into a material oncology focused biotech company with with the right team in place, the right funding in place, and and a and multiple shots shots on goal, as Adjan mentioned earlier, with four fully funded drug programs in in place.

18:15 The oncology market is a high value, high growth market, so we're definitely in the hot in the right market then in terms of, you know, the commercially, but also, I think, you know, trying to trying to cure cancer, I think, is also obviously, not cure, but treat and and and reduce tumor sizes is is one of our obviously, one of our focuses as well. You know, we've already talked about the key valuation or inflection point in terms of value, and that's IND application, which was on the last slide that Adjane went through. We're looking at doing that next year. So this is gonna be a very exciting twelve to eighteen months where we have four drug programs progressing with the end goal of IND application for at least probably more than one of those next year.

19:09 So it's gonna be a very exciting twelve to eighteen months. We've expanded our investor base as well. So we traditionally have had a a very retail generalist investor base. We've now expanded that into industry specific investors. So they know the industry. And I think by virtue of knowing the industry, they're also long term holders. So they're not in their day trading. They they see the they see the business that we have here, and they can see what we can deliver in the next twelve to eighteen months. So that's the horizon. They have an eighteen month to two year horizon here, so it's very, very important for us. And as a board and management team, we're fully supportive of this. I I'm incredibly excited about this transaction. And I think, you know, we're gonna deliver some very exciting results over the next twelve to eighteen months.

19:59 So that concludes our presentation. Thanks for your attention. We've tried to cover it in a in a in a relatively short period of time. And now I open open the floor up to to questions. That that's great, Steve. Adjan, thank you very much indeed for updating investors this morning. 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. Steve But just while and take a few moments to review those questions submitted already. I'd like to remind you that the 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. Steve, Adjane, you very kindly have addressed the pre submitted questions, which received quite a few pre submitted questions, and we will publish those type responses shortly after this morning's meeting. But there have been a couple of questions from investors throughout today's presentation. I wonder if I may just ask you to read out the questions and give a response where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Sure. So, Jane, I'll take the first one, if you don't mind taking the second one. So the first question is, will the company be suspended for the acquisition?

21:06 No. We won't be. So this is one of first things we looked at when we were looking at doing this transaction. In order to be suspended, it needs to be classified as a reverse takeover, and there's certain thresholds including the size of the transaction, the revenue of the target company, the assets of the target company, where you need to hit those thresholds in order to trigger an RTO. And if you trigger that RTO, then you're suspended. So we don't trigger any of those thresholds. So we're not doing an RTO, and, accordingly, we won't be suspended during this period. Thanks, Steve. So the the other question was, what are the potential side effects to patients of your therapies compared to other treatments? It's a great question, and it and it's a material question that we'll be thinking about going forward.

21:56 Our studies are currently preclinical, so we're looking at preclinical laboratory experiments, and we're looking at animal experiments. In the experiments that we've done, particularly the antibody studies that Rock four have done, we see a good side effect profile. It's it's what you would expect to see in with antibodies. There is no comparative data, though. It doesn't say, you know, we we weren't able to or you would not be expected to to compare them to other antibodies. So so I think I think that's where we are with the the existing ROC four programs. With the OncoGV program, the the mesodermal kill killer cell is specifically designed to have a much softer side effect profile, a much more because the cell type in question, the mesodermal cell, is actually a a much well more tolerated cell.

22:51 So in theory, we're expecting that cell type to have much a much better side effect profile. But again, we'll have to wait and do the experiments to be able to demonstrate that to the satisfaction of the regulators. Adjane, thank you very much indeed. As I said, we'll publish all those pre submitted questions that you've given very kindly given those written responses along with the transcriptions of the two questions that we've just had. If any further questions do come through Jan and Steve, I'll make those available to you. But perhaps, if I may, I know investor feedback is important and I'll redirect investors to give you their thoughts and expectations. But perhaps if I may, Steve, just ask you for a few closing comments before I redirect investors to give you their feedback. Sure. Thank you. And thanks, Jan, as well, and thanks, everyone, for your attention this morning.

23:41 I think I would just like to highlight the fundamentals of of us as a company, as a business. I think it's important to note that we're fully funded for the programs that we've outlined here today. We don't need to go back to the market to raise any money until at least twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty four. So that's important. We have the an excellent management team, a management team that has a history of delivering on these type of drug programs. So that's very important as well. I think most importantly, we have a portfolio of drug programs here, which gives us a very high chance of hitting one of those valuation inflection points next year as well. So I think we've got a very strong business here.

24:29 As I said, number of times, very excited about this transaction. And we certainly look forward to keeping the market updated over the next twelve to eighteen months as we progress these four fully funded drug programs. So thank you very much. That's great. Steve, Ajan, thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Rockford Therapeutics PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. May I wish you all a very pleasant morning. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.