Eden Research (LSE:EDEN) — Preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2024

0:00 Good afternoon, and welcome to the EDEN RESEARCH PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and 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 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 your questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Sean

0:32 Smith. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon and thank you very much. And thanks to you all for joining us today and for your interest. The point of today is to present our preliminary results for 2024 and to take a few questions at the end. So we will begin without further ado. I'm Sean. I've been CEO of EDEN for a bit more than ten years. I come from a background in the chemical industry with a background prior to that in life science technology commercialization. Alex? I'm Alex Avery. I'm the CFO. I've been with the company just over fourteen years. I'm an audit auditor by trade. I led the AIM admission of the company in 2012, and I've been involved in various aspects of the company.

1:21 Moving right along. As a a high level overview for those of you who are not familiar with the story, EDEN is actually the only aim listed company based in The UK focused on sustainable crop protection products, in particular biopesticides

1:36 for sustainable agriculture. We are a company of about 25 people based in South Oxfordshire where we do everything from new product formulation discovery all the way through to marketing sales, product registration, and partnership management. We, at the moment, have two fully commercial products that are available primarily across Europe and in other key regions around the world, And we'll get into a bit more detail about what that looks like a bit later on in the presentation. Our our go to market strategy is basically partnering with some of our industry's well known and well respected leaders.

2:14 We enter into these partnership agreements on a local, regional, or global basis. Some of the industry leaders that we work with are Corteva, Eastman, and SIPCam Moxon Group. Some of the names you may recognize, some you may not, but rest assured they're all well known and well respected partners in our industry. These partners are our eyes, ears, and boots on the ground in each and every country in which we operate. So for example, in France, Corteva is selling our first product grapevine fungicide called Mevalon. In France, they are responsible for demand creation, product inventory management, relationship development with growers, marketing sales, and all aspects of our commercial presence in France.

3:03 And the same is true for every country in which we are partnered and are operating. What you will gather from this presentation and in any conversation you've ever had with any of us that regulatory is of the utmost importance in our industry. Regulatory defines the the pace with which we enter the market. It also determines the size of the market, the opportunities that we are able or not able to pursue, and ultimately, it is somewhat of a gatekeeper. At the same time, regulatory is a changer in our industry. Regulatory pressure is leading innovation in our industry, and it creates substantial opportunities for EDEN. EDEN lies on the right side of the fence when it comes to the direction of travel, when it comes to regulatory, and we are benefiting from that time and time again over the course of the past few years and certainly going into the future.

4:00 Moving right along, our business is very much around sustainable pesticides for professional agriculture. What is driving our industry is largely speaking consumer concern over food safety and in particular, concern over the use of pesticides on the products that consumers enjoy eating. That consumer concern is leading to regulatory change. Regulatory change is ultimately driving the removal of conventional synthetic pesticides from the market and this is what creates the opportunity for EDEN. At the same time, farmers are very much concerned about their ability to manage their land effectively, to drive their costs down and ultimately, in the interest of sustainable farming. Sustainable also means economically sustainable.

4:51 And as a consequence of that, farmers are looking for products that are highly efficacious, that work, that deliver solutions to the problems that they have and this is where EDEN fits in. In terms of the overall size of biopesticide industry, obviously, it's a it's a large industry and and growing at a very healthy compound annual growth rate. In addition to that, one of the key dynamics for us is this number of 36 pesticides being banned in the EU since April 2020 alone. So just over five years ago. That is a substantial number of products and a good number of those products were approaching about 1,000,000,000 in sales for some of them. This is a very, very big number. It's a huge impact on growers. And companies like EDEN are trying to step into the gap that's created by increasing regulatory pressure.

5:45 A key point for us is that although regulatory does significant investment of time and money, we are operating in a space within the industry which has a bit more latitude, a bit of a faster pace, and a bit less intensity required around the investment. So when we contrast the opportunities that we're looking at with bringing a conventional synthetic pesticide to market, we're looking at an investment of about $20,000,000 versus 300,000,000 and about five years or so versus ten to twelve years. So we we do have a significant advantage. And, of course, all of our partners recognize that that's the case, and it is a key driver for their partnerships with EDEN.

6:32 What we're going to do is walk through 2024, the results that we've obtained both from a financial perspective and also some of the commercial and operational highlights. We'll talk a little bit about what lies in front of us in terms of the current year and where some of the opportunities lie. This presentation very much assumes a certain fundamental understanding of the business. There is quite a lot written about us that we've published and others have published on the business historically if anyone is interested in some additional background context. So kicking off with 2024 highlights, of course, we began the year with regulatory clearance in the state of California. California, just to put this into a little bit of context for everyone, is the most important grape producing state in The US.

7:26 California, I think, accounts for roughly 87% of total grape production in The United States. I believe it totals its total production exceeds that of the next eight states combined. So, you know, when one focuses on The US market, one obviously focuses on California. And California, if ranked independently of the rest of The US, would count among the top producers of grapes and of course, producers of wine globally. We're very pleased to see that and some of you may have caught some very recent news earlier this week where we announced with with a great deal of of of happiness, the approval of mevalon for use on the treatment of powdery mildew in addition to the treatment of botrytis.

8:15 We continue to work to optimize the label in the state of California. We're always looking to grow the label that we have to to remind you or if you weren't aware. When we refer to the label for a product, what we're referring to essentially is the addressable market. And so by expanding the label, we expand the addressable market. What the label indications mean are, you know, this is a list of crops and disease targets that we are allowed to promote the use of a given product for. So this this is the important aspect of this. We also saw consisting of a a little bit of a theme here, the expanded use of Mevalon in Spain. This is the second major label expansion that we've had in Spain. That today, Mevalon is one of the most flexible, versatile fungicides available on the market. We have recently added some significant crops such as olives and almonds to the list of of crops in which we can target in Spain, and we are already seeing the benefit of that authorization in Spain even toward the end of last year.

9:29 Again, following the same theme as we continue to pursue our strategy of expanding the addressable market for existing products and introducing new products. Mevlin also received authorization in Germany and The Czech Republic. This is a part of our push to achieve approval across Europe, in particular in the Central Zone. You may recall that we relatively recently recently had authorization in Poland and a number of other Central European countries. Germany and The Czech Republic were added to the list very recently. Key among issues among this is that Germany is considered to be a very stringent and very challenging regulator and we're pleased to say that the German authorities granted us authorization without significant issues whatsoever.

10:15 And we are pleased to say that Sumiagra Germany, who is our distributor in Germany, is very busily at work growing the market for the product in Germany. Moving right along, we're happy to say that our next product in the pipeline which will ultimately be our fourth commercial product right behind our seed treatment product, EcoVelix. We were happy to say that one partner in particular ran north of a 140 different independent trials during the course of 2024. That particular partner has run very close to about 300 trials. In addition to that, there are a good number of trials who've been run by other potential partners and by EDEN ourselves. And we're happy to say that we are engaged with multiple partners to discuss potential distribution rights for that product in due course. And we'll elaborate a little bit more on the timing.

11:10 I've seen that some of the questions pertain particularly to this, so we'll we'll provide a little bit more detail as we move through the presentation. Also, importantly, we have worked and focused to strengthen our commercial team in 2024. We've made a few key appointments into the role of global commercial lead, product and marketing management, supply chain, and regulatory leads. These are all key roles for our commercial team. And we are all singularly focused on not only growing our existing products, but bringing new products to market as quickly as

11:48 humanly possible in our industry. And last but not least, we were very honored to be named ESG company of the year at the twenty twenty four small cap awards in recognition of the fact that the core of our business is very much around sustainability in the environment. You know, for us, it's not just how we do things as in replacing the light bulbs with low energy light bulbs. But more importantly, the core of our business and critically, I would argue, the core of our business is around sustainability in agriculture. And sustainability not only means that we're environmentally sustainable, but that we are developing a sustainable business with products that map onto the future direction of travel in a very favorable way.

12:38 So just in terms of the numbers, 2024 was a really good year. We saw revenue increase overall by 34% year on year. The key metric for us, as you'll probably all appreciate, is about product sales, and we saw a very nice increase of 38% compared to 2023. Operating losses slightly widened. That was partly off the back of the new team members that we took on in q two to q three last year. And we ended up the year with cash at bank of 3,700,000, which was in line with the forecast that we put into the market in mid twenty twenty three. And going forward, looking at 2025, we've got a revenue forecast in the market of £5,000,000, of which product sales are expected to be up by about 4,600,000.

13:25 There's a slight asterisk to that, which we will come back to, to explain a bit more as to what our approach has been in terms of our forecasting, and we'll look at that at the next slide. But the operating loss will narrow, we think, to 1,800,000,000, and we envisage cash being 2,200,000 at the year end, which again is the number that we've had there since the middle of twenty twenty three. And as we've explicitly said, the company doesn't currently expect to need to raise additional funds for our existing working capital requirements for the foreseeable future. So just to follow on from that asterisk, there are really three things which we think could and maybe should happen in 2025, which could see that revenue number increase. These are all potentially material events for us.

14:12 Two of these are outside of our control. One is within our control to an extent, but the first two are to do with regulatory approvals. And you'll appreciate, as Sean mentioned earlier, that really regulatory is key to what we do but also drives ultimately our addressable markets and the

14:27 revenue that we can derive from those addressable markets. So the first one is a label extension in France specifically for a disease called Downy Mildew. This is important because the potential value we see or peak sales that we foresee for this product is around €8,000,000, ultimately. Now we generally view peak sales at around three years from the first full year after registration, So it's as you might imagine, it's not necessarily a straight line from day one to peak sales year three, but in any event, should we get the approval through for Danny Mildew in good time, and currently we're envisaging q two, q three for this year, then we could see material upside to that revenue number. And separately, we've got full approval of EcoVelix.

15:13 So EcoVelix is our bird repellency treatment product that we've developed with Cortiva over the past few years. This is important because over the past two years in 2023 and 2024, we've sold EcoVelix to our partner Cortiva under an emergency use authorization in Italy. Now the overall market that we see and the overall potential revenue for that product is around four times the amount that we have sold on average over the past two years. So again, if the if the regulators play ball, if they come in in a good time before the year end, then it's feasible that we could see upside from that 5,000,000 that we forecast in the year. And the amount really could be quite material, but we shall see. And the last one is the commercial agreement for insecticide.

16:00 We have a number of different partners who are looking to take the rights to that product. And here, it's not about product sales, but very much about the potential for upfront milestone payments. This is a well trodden path. We've gone down that route with other agreements that we've done historically. It's not to say it will necessarily happen or definitely happen, but there is the potential there for us to see upside revenue in 2025 as well. Okay. And with that said, just to cover off a couple of the remaining points, emergency use applications for Cedros, the treatment of wireworm, and, of course, the emergency use application in Italy, and perhaps a few select other territories. We expect both of those to happen in the second half of twenty twenty five.

16:47 To remind those of you who've been following the story and to get everybody on the same page, we have been pursuing an expansion of the label for Cedros, which is our second product across Europe and in a few select other territories with our partner, Eastern Chemical. Cedros is a product that some of you will recognize. We had some challenges with in terms of manufacturing a couple of years ago. I'm very happy to say that we've overcome those challenges. The product is back to growth stage. We're seeing significant growth year over year last year, we anticipate the same this year. And most comfortingly, we see our partner, Eastman, now investing in new applications for the product. Wireworm is about one of those. And for those of you who are not familiar and you'd certainly be excused if you're not, wireworm is a major pest that affects a pretty wide range of crops but in particular potatoes and maize and they have had some very good results looking at the effect of wireworm or the impact that Cedros has on wireworm in particular, on potatoes, particularly across Southern Europe. So we're we're very much looking forward to the full submission request for app for authorization for Cedros on wireworm. And again, with EcoVelix set aside the full approval of EcoVelix in Europe by the Rapidore member state, we are also planning to submit an application

18:17 for emergency use in at least one country, if not several, by the end of the year. That assures that we have some continuity in sales year over year and use of the product and presence in the market where it's important as we await the regulatory process. And then last but not least, commercial agreements around the use of our products in home and garden applications. This is a relatively new set of opportunities for EDEN. We are talking to a number of potential partners, all of whom are major multinationals who are interested in developing our chemistry for use in this very important and high value segment. We are well into conversations and evaluations on efficacy and suitability for these kinds of applications.

19:05 And we are hoping that this will produce commercial agreements between the parties before year end. Moving right along just to remind everybody of our product development roadmap. And I I really wanna pause for one moment and and highlight that even if our product has been present in the market for a number of years such as the case with Medallone, in particular in Europe, All of these products have substantial headroom in terms of new opportunities. And a very good example of that that we've talked about already is what we're pursuing with Corteva in France with a label extension to treat downy mildew on grapes in France, which should ultimately grow the addressable market by about tenfold.

19:53 There are several of those opportunities across each and every one of these products. And so we are, as you will imagine, in alignment with the commercial opportunity and in partnership with our commercial partners bringing these products to the regulators, seeking authorization to expand the addressable market, and bringing those products to market as quickly as we can.

20:15 Spain is a very good example of that. A very recent example of that as of yesterday is the expansion of the label of mevalon for mevalon on powdery mildew in California. There's a lot of that work happening in the background and all of it is directed towards significant increases in the overall addressable market. For those of you who followed the story for a while, you'll be aware that we have over the years announced a series of label extensions over the years. And and one might say, if one were a bit a bit skeptical about it or one might say that, well, some of those haven't really moved the needle all that much or they may have helped, but they've not been that dramatic.

21:00 The truth of the matter is what we've pursued initially was the lower hanging fruit, Pardon the pun, please. Where we've looked at the easier minor use, minor crop label extensions, which were either available for free with an administrative process or for very limited cost. We've now moved into the realm where we are pursuing major use label extensions. For example, Downy Mildew on grapes in France. These require significant data submissions and we've been working with our partners to make those submissions. And so a number of these we've talked about already

21:37 will come to fruition over the course of the next six to twelve months. So so stay tuned for that. We very much look forward to updating you on that. Sentros are plenty of examples. Wireworm that I mentioned a moment ago is another good example. So the the point is that even older products in our portfolio have lots of new potential life available in them. Of course, EcoVelix, we've talked about that to to a great extent, but to continue with the theme, we also see opportunities for EcoVelix on other crop opportunities. For example, sunflower is an obvious opportunity where we are looking at how the product performs and assessing its impact overall and position in the market. The insecticide, we've talked a little bit about. We are well advanced in our conversations with multiple potential commercial partners. Those conversations are ongoing as you might imagine. They're fairly complicated.

22:30 There's a lot to play for. We see the insecticide as being one of our largest, if not our largest potential product in the portfolio today. And moving right along to fungicide two and insecticide two, which I will appreciate. We haven't particularly been all that creative when we've named them, but I assure you we have been creative in formulating those products and targeting some very significant commercial opportunities. Fungicide too is a product that is intended to target late blight in potatoes, but also similar pest targets when it comes to other crops such as tomatoes, grapes, etcetera. So far, we've seen some very strong interest in that product from a commercial perspective, and we've seen some very early but interesting lab and field results.

23:19 And I'm happy to say that very recently, we've put samples of this product, and I mean, quantities of this product in the hands of multiple potential commercial partners who have all expressed a strong interest in evaluating the product for themselves, which is very much the the course to commercialization that we follow in our industry. And last but not least, insecticide too, equally creatively named, also focused on insecticide activity, obviously. Here, we're targeting a completely different grouping of insect pests referred to here as Lepidoptera, more commonly known as moles. Moles are a major pest for a wide range of crops, particularly tree fruits. And here we've seen some very encouraging albeit early results that are very positive on that group of insect pests.

24:14 So having given an idea as to where we see the future in terms of our product development, we now wanna give an idea in terms of what that might translate into in terms of revenue. So if we look at the first two columns, EU, US, this is what we're heading to in the relatively short term, maybe in the next few years. We already have sales, of course, of mevalone for botrytis in both the EU and have started now in The US as well. To give a rough idea, we're at around two thirds of where we'd hope to be in the EU for mevalone for botrytis. But as I mentioned, The US, we're at the start of that journey. Mevalon Downy Mildew, this is why we're excited about the label extension in France. This is a big opportunity. And then Cedros, again, notwithstanding the the few issues we had a couple of years ago, which have now been resolved, We're now starting to head back towards the 2,000,000 that we would hope for in The EU.

25:05 The US is a big opportunity. The good news is we have regulatory approval for a wide range of targets in The US. So all nematodes are on the label, which is a really good start. We are in the process of finding a good distribution partner for that product, so we hope and expect to see sales of that product in 2026. EcoVelix, we've already talked about. Once we get our full EU approval, then we should be very close to that peak number of around €4,000,000. We obviously have our partner already lined up. We have one incumbent product in the market, which is due to be banned and which we are looking to replace as soon as possible. So generally, we work on three years to peak sales. EcoBellix is the exception, so we should see that come through much sooner.

25:55 Then the insecticide, as Sean mentioned, a really big opportunity for us. But overall, we're hoping to get to around €39,000,000 in relative terms in the not too distant future. Overall though, where we want to head towards is around €135,000,000 globally. That would mean taking on the key markets, the key disease targets and crops, but it's certainly a reasonable number given what we know and given where we expect that we should be able to go in the future. Right. And one one final point here is that our main focus today is very much around developing The EU and the market in The Americas as a whole, but North And South America. When we look at the overall global market, I'm I'm sort of cheered by looking at some of the opportunities that are emerging and that we are starting to get insight into.

26:48 So increasingly now with a, for the time being anyway, full and and complete commercial team, We are very much looking at opportunities in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and in other important territories around the world. You'll see that the potential there is substantial. I I like to give you a bit of an anecdotal story for a brief moment which is that the other day, about two weeks ago, I was in Tesco over the weekend shopping in the produce aisle and happened to notice that all of the grapes available for sale were produced in India. That was slightly eye opening for me because I had appreciated that India was a major producer of grapes. What I hadn't fully appreciated was that Indian produce is making its way to The US and is finding its way onto the shelves of Britain's largest retail offering.

27:41 I found that quite interesting. By the way, that was each and every variety that was available for sale on that day had been sourced from India. So this this represents for us a very significant and very exciting opportunity and one that we are beginning to explore now. So we've already talked a little bit about some of our partners. You know, we we are very fortunate and we have worked hard to to manage relationships with with these individual companies. As you'll see, you know, we have a good mix of regional and global players within the portfolio of partners that we have. We are working very hard to make the most of the existing opportunities in front of us and to explore new opportunities with these partners.

28:27 You may recognize that Sipcam Oxen Group is an important strategic shareholder with about 7%, just over 7% of the share capital in the company. They've proven to be a reliable and and exciting partner to work with and they they are extremely capable when it comes to bringing products to market. In addition to that, I'm also happy to say that that, you know, we are not a a one trick pony, so to speak. We are looking to expand the the list of partners that we have. We are looking to ensure that we have a lot of resiliency built into our business. We're

29:02 not over rely overly reliable on any one particular partner, and that we are looking to partner with the best potential partner in each and every territory, in each and every country in which we're operating. And we even look that on a on a product segment type basis. So when we look at the insecticide, we look at who the leaders are in insecticides, who has the best portfolio, who has the worst portfolio that we might help, and all these factors come into our consideration. Very quickly, this slide proves one thing, which is that we're not very good at using PowerPoint when it comes to these maps. So if you allow me to speak to this just very briefly. This map is intended to be a reflection of where we have current authorizations for one or both of our commercial products at the moment. The the key takeaway point here is that we are present and operating in North America, Europe, Central Europe increasingly, and in particular, in Australia and New Zealand where we're growing very actively. You also see some presence in North Africa and East Africa where we have authorizations in Morocco and also Kenya at the moment. We are working very hard to expand the list of countries in which we have authorizations.

30:21 One might reasonably expect to see new approvals happening in South America, North America, and also in Africa as we progress. And we will continue to focus on key markets. This is not about how many countries we can list. It's about how many important countries we can list from the perspective of the opportunities that we have in front of us for our products. Moving right along, this just provides you with a quick overview of what our current cap table looks like. Maybe to highlight the fact that you have seen some recent director buying.

30:56 Like many shareholders, we have had a a fairly concerned view over the share price and where we sit within within AIM. As as as an individual, I can say to you very comfortably that, you know, we've not been particularly satisfied with the price. I see it personally as a buying opportunity and I I think a number of my fellow directors see the same. We will continue to work as hard as we can to communicate effectively the value that we see in the company, the opportunities that we see in front of us. And I would only ask you to rest assured that we have an eye on this point and we're doing our best to improve the situation as well as we can within the framework of the market in which we operate at the moment.

31:43 Finally, just to move in a little bit of detail around EcoVelix, which will be our next fully commercial product

31:52 pending regulatory authorization in Europe. EcoVelix was developed over the course of about five years in very close collaboration with Corteva. And Corteva brought to us an opportunity that we had not really considered in a great deal of detail and that was in particular, bird repellent seed treatments. Although we had looked carefully at the seed treatment market previously. We aligned the opportunity that they saw with our capabilities. Developed a formulation using the team that we have in house in Milton Park in South Oxfordshire, and we have successfully brought that product to the regulators for authorization in about five years. So that's pre proof of concept to pending regulatory authorization and I mean full regulatory authorization in about five years time.

32:51 So that is moving at relatively fast speed in our industry. If you referenced an earlier slide about how long it takes to get products to market, we are both very pleased with the development of the product. And we actually see a very nice product development pathway in front of us in terms of expanding the uses of EcoVelix, optimizing the formulation, and moving down the road to always expand the overall opportunity available to both parties as we work very successfully in partnership with Corteva. What's been nice about this collaboration as well is it has uncovered a number of other opportunities leading ultimately to our distribution relationship in France and potentially all going to plan to further opportunities in the future as we we're both open to looking at those.

33:43 And so just to wrap things up, you know, we've we were relatively pleased with with the development over the course of 2024. The position of the company today is is much stronger than we have been in the past. We are very much focused on growth. We are very much focused on fully leveraging the capabilities that we have both in the team and in the two platform technologies that we develop our products from. At the moment, we don't really see any limitations to our ability to exploit this technology and to bring commercial value both to the company and to our shareholders. And what I will say is, we very much appreciate your support, and your understanding, your interest in the business.

34:28 And with that said, turn back over to you. That's great, Sean. Alex, if I may just jump back in. And thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the q and a tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to read those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via our investor dashboard. And, Sean, Alex, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And Sean, if I may now hand back to you and kindly ask you to read out the questions where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you both at the end. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. And for those of you, you might imagine there are good long list of questions here. We're gonna do our very best to get through as many of them as we possibly can. And we will do a bit of a review afterwards just to make sure that we've answered the most important questions as thoroughly as humanly possible. So you may stay tuned for some further elaboration on all these. The first question that we're looking at here is and I'll I'll paraphrase a bit here, but the company it says, the company mentioned in an article in the Times recently that we will quote clean up in Europe. Can we expand a little bit upon that? First of all, I'll just say that it wasn't our article. The Times wrote the article, but obviously we provided significant input into it. But I might have been guilty of using that expression clean up.

35:52 What we mean by that is that ultimately, the opportunities for Europe and with Mevalon are substantial. And as I mentioned a bit earlier, even though we've had Mevalon in the market since 2016, It's a product that still has quite a lot of headroom available to it. And in this particular context, what I was referring to is that the fact that some of the competitive products that are currently on offer in the market are facing significant amount of regulatory pressure. And so in a number of territories, we even see the number one grapevine fungicide under threat of removal from the market. We see Mevalon fitting in very, very nicely both from an efficacy perspective where we deliver roughly equivalent efficacy against the select disease targets but also from a commercial perspective where we're able to compete reasonably on price.

36:52 This is a dynamic that we see across the industry. We see a lot of the conventional products, right way or wrongly, under a significant amount of regulatory pressure. And what we are most focused on is not talking about the negatives associated with our our competitors' products, but more focused on the attributes of the products that we are bringing to market in terms of efficacy, in terms of resistance management, in terms of being price free and providing growers with an awful lot of flexibility. So we're we're very happy to highlight that for you. Thank you for your question. Sorry. Let's see. Just moving on to the next question.

37:38 The next question is that the company stated and I'll I'll turn this one over to you to answer, but I'll I'll go ahead and read it. The company stated in recent Times newspaper that we expect to be in profit in 2026. There was a bit of context around that question on my around that answer, I might add. But can we put some detail around that? And I'll turn that one over to Alex to handle.

37:59 Yeah. So it comes back to what I was saying earlier, really, that it slightly depends on how things pan out in the next, really, couple of months in terms of the three upside opportunities that we've discussed already. So the insect icide, the Downy Mildew label extension, and then full EU approval of EcoVelix. So should those things come through in good time, what does that mean? It means that there is really potentially some good upside to 2025, but moreover, that would set a new base, if you like, for 2026. So we we don't currently have '26 numbers

38:29 in the market. We have an idea as to what that would look like should those things come through. Equally, we have an answer as to if they don't come through in time. But we're gonna keep our powder dry to an extent for the next month or two, then we'll see how we get on. But is it feasible that we could be profitable next year? Sure. A number of things need to happen in order for that to be the case. Are they possible? Yes. They are. Right. Thank you. The next one is it mentions that the company had talked about 10 potential parties interested in and evaluating our insecticide. I actually think the total number was closer to well, I think it was 11, in fact. But how many of these parties are still interested and what do we look how do we see revenue developing in '25 and '26 for the insecticide?

39:21 So let let me answer the question this way because we are in the midst of commercial conversations with a number of parties. There is significantly more than one potential party interested in the product at this stage. We are having conversations with multiple parties, all of whom you you would recognize their name. The the timing of the conclusion of those commercial discussions is a a difficult one to estimate. As you might imagine, there are a lot of moving pieces in there. If I could just step back for a moment and recap really where we are with the insecticide. We've had about three years of very strong field trial work providing very strong support for the commercialization of the product, a very clear idea of where that product can be used and where it could be

40:10 valuable. And we have a number of parties who are interested in taking positions in the product. And those positions range anywhere from local distributorship of the product all the way to global exclusive rights and and everywhere in between. You might imagine that this is a slightly complex conversation. However and and there are a lot of important considerations for us. For example, the overall value of the deal, what we look at our gross margin as being in the short term and in the long term, and which partners are most likely to make the most of this product opportunity. We are in the process of parsing those items out, as I might mention. Do we see revenue opportunities in '25 and '26 for The US or for any other territory?

41:01 The answer is yes. Those would likely be associated with the terms of any particular deal that we wind up executing between ourselves and one or several other parties. The long and short of it is it's a little bit difficult to anticipate at this particular point. What I will say with absolute clarity is that this product has proven itself to be of substantial interest to significant parties and we are doing our very best to extract maximum value for the company, but ultimately also for our partners. So with that, I'll I'll wrap that question up. Let's see. I think I've answered the next question as well. So moving right along, how insulated is EDEN from the tariff wars?

41:52 Should they prolong or manifest themselves further? And that's a great question. I like that one. We are actually very well positioned to deal with the tariffs. I'm not particularly concerned about them. So we we should talk about this in a number of different ways. But the key point is that we are able to manufacture our products with relatively short notice at a good long list of potential contract manufacturers. So at the moment, we are manufacturing our product in I think it's about five different countries across the EU with a good long list of existing contract manufacturing partners. We have in the past qualified a US based contract manufacturing partner.

42:37 That is a partner that we could easily requalify, and there is no shortage of potential contract manufacturing partners in The US. So I would say to you, should the situation develop and should it come to it, we would be able to qualify a new manufacturing partner or the previous manufacturing partner in The US easily within three to six months time. So ultimately, that means that we're able to procure our raw materials in The US and secure contract manufacturing in The US, which would not expose us to any tariffs. So from from our perspective, the tariff question it's a great one and and lots of people ask that question, but it's not one that we're particularly concerned about at the moment. With that said, we are following the story very, very closely. We appreciate the the tariff related policies of the US administration.

43:31 Requires some further clarity if I can put it that way without fear for revocation of my passport. And, yeah, we'll we'll see how we get on with that one. But in any case, it's not something we're particularly concerned about at the moment. Moving on to number 10. There was a comment in the results about formulation of your products and added flexibility for having more in house staff. Can you elaborate on that? Not sure what that refers to. Well, just the fact that we've got more in house capacity now rather than relying on CROs or contract research organizations, which we've had to do in the past. We can be a lot more flexible. We can have a lot more throughput with having everything done internally. Also, over that same time, we're generating internal knowledge and know how. So, yeah, having our own lab over the past five years has been invaluable.

44:27 Right. Okay. Moving on, there's a question here about the label restrictions for mevalon in The US and elaborating a little bit on that. So one of the restrictions that we had on the label, was a bit disappointing for us, was the exclusion of powdery mildew from the label where we have powdery mildew on the label in the other states in which we have authorization and at The US federal level with the EPA. So the exclusion of powdery mildew in California was a bit of a surprise to us. We have subsequently engaged in conversations with the regulator, provided them with the information, the additional information that they required, and you'll see the results of those discussions announced yesterday with the inclusion now of powdery mildew.

45:13 There are a few other use restrictions. These tend to represent an inconvenience for the grower. They tend to be around personal protective equipment that might be required and limitations to the number of acres that can be treated in a day. These regulatory requirements were imposed by the regulators as a result of a change in the regulatory requirements that occurred between the time that we submitted our application for approval and ultimately being granted approval. And this is pretty consistent with what we see happening globally. In other words, regulators around the world who are concerned about plant protection products never lower the bar. They they're constantly raising the bar. And what that means is that there's an ongoing requirement to submit new studies addressing additional or sometimes new issues.

46:08 We have initiated the studies that are required to remove those restrictions. We are very confident that we will be able to remove those restrictions. And ultimately, what that means is that there'll be less inconvenience for growers that are desiring to use mevalone in the field. In the short term, I should assure you that we are selling in California and of course other states. We will continue to see strong growth year over year and the removal of those additional restrictions will take place. It's very difficult to give you a timeline, but we do expect to have results from those studies that are ongoing very soon. One of those studies, just to give you a bit of detail, had to do with what are called non target plants.

47:00 And that study had not been done prior to the submission because there wasn't a requirement for it previously. And it's slightly counterintuitive in the sense that Mevalon is used on a very wide variety of crops now in Europe and in other territories around the world. And so that that requirement we thought could be dealt with fairly simply by citing the the fact that there's a long history of of safe use on a range of crops. That that's not how the regulators see it and it's somewhat understandable. So we have conducted that study. The results are exactly what we anticipated. In other words, Mevalon is safe for use on a wide range of crops. And as a consequence, ultimately, that requirement will be removed from the restrictions that we have at the moment. And there is more to come in that in that regard.

47:50 Okay? Let's see here. Next question. Question number 12, I think it is. How long after the insecticide partner discussions have concluded do you expect to have regulatory approval for sales to start? So I'm gonna give you a fairly annoying answer to that question. And the answer is it depends upon the territory. So in The US, the route to authorization, given there are active substances that are in that product have already been approved, should be significantly shorter than it will be in several other countries around the world. In any case, we expect to have a nice portfolio of timelines that we're looking at from sooner as in The US to later which will be Europe.

48:36 But rest assured, we're moving that forward as quickly as we can. And we do have a substantial body of data supporting the registration of the insecticide product already, not the least of which is an extensive library of efficacy studies, which will certainly support relatively quick authorization in certain territories. K. Seeing here. Question. Yes. Shall I read that one? Yeah. Go ahead. From yeah. AC, there was a comment in the notes to the accounts about a performance condition in a contract that had not yet been met and revenue not yet recognized. Did this relate to EcoBellix and commercial sales? Can you say any more? Thanks. I'm quite pleased to see that somebody has fully read the accounts. I'm very impressed.

49:23 The answer is a short no. It doesn't relate to EcoVelix. It was to do with a data sharing agreement. We've we've started entering into a number of data share agreements. It's interesting over the years how many different companies have come to us looking to access data for very different purposes outside of AdChem certainly, but they all see the value of the IP that we've generated and are looking to access for their own purposes ultimately for commercial sales of their own developed products, and that's what that pertained to. I can't really tell you any more than that, but, yeah, well done for looking at that detail. And then I I think we'll wrap up with the final question. The question is that we sound a lot more excited than about our prospects today than we have perhaps in the past. So apologies if we've not seemed overly excited about the the prospects in the past. You know, it's not an exaggeration to say that we are in the best position we've been in in the history of the company in terms of the capabilities that we have in front of us, in terms of the portfolio, the products that we have that have been commercially launched, and in terms of our pipeline of products under development.

50:35 And I we'll take this moment just to highlight that it's just a bit more than five years ago. We engaged in and successfully closed our first significant round of fund of fundraising in early twenty twenty just before the lockdown where we were very happy to bring on board. I think it was 11 new institutional investors and to receive very strong support from a a a good long list of retail investors. With that said, we set about immediately building a team. So we've grown from two people and and some support to a team of just under 25 people with our own in house capabilities and our ability to accelerate the development pathway for each and every one of the products that we're undertaking.

51:24 In that period of just over five years, we have invented and developed and are just short of registering EcoVelix, our third product. We've expanded the label for Mevalon significantly. We are expanding the label for Cedros, and we are on the cusp of signing a commercial deal in the not too distant future. We believe for the insecticide, our fourth product, and beyond that, we have a very exciting pipeline of new products under development. I'll I'll quote a a fund manager that made a comment a good number of years ago to our chairman, which was to say that we're one of the few companies that he'd come across that had more opportunities than money.

52:11 You know, that very much remains the case. And as we stand, every turn of the crank presents new opportunities for us and new excitement. The key for us at the moment is to stay focused on the opportunities in front of us, not to to run off in different directions and chase every wild hair. We are very much focused on serious commercial opportunities that represent a shorter term potential for the company as humanly possible, working within a sea of what are effectively slow moving partners and slow moving regulatory processes. But I think we're doing reasonably well in bringing new things to market. So the level of excitement is genuine.

52:58 And again, I think the company's best days are very much in front of us, not behind us. That's great, Sean. Alex, if I may just jump back in there and thank you for addressing those questions for investors today. And of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform. But Sean, before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, could I please ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. I I just wanna close by saying thank you very much for your interest, for your attention, for following the com the company. I appreciate that investors have lots of opportunities in front of them today. Particularly, have lots of undervalued opportunities in front of them and and so it might be difficult to catch investors' attention.

53:44 Rest assured, we are doing our very best to bring the potential that this company has and what we've achieved so far to the attention of existing and and potential future shareholders. We are we share your enthusiasm. We appreciate your enthusiasm, and we will continue to pursue meaningful opportunities to the benefit of the company and its shareholders now and and in the future. Thank you. Fantastic. Sean, Alex, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as we will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and also that the board can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company.

54:30 On behalf of the management team of EDEN RESEARCH PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.