Novacyt Sas (Euronext:ALNOV) — Interim Results Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the NOVACYT investor presentation. Throughout this quarter presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received in the meeting itself. However, the company can view all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to make the following poll. And for the benefit of those joining us from France, I'd now like to hand you over to Lynn Rees. Good good morning, sir.

1:02 Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. And, obviously, thank you for joining us and taking some time out to listen to our interim presentation this morning. I'm presenting to you today myself. I'm now the the CEO at NOVACYT. Been in situation since the May 1. Prior to that, I spent six years at. And prior to that, I was with BBI. So in the industry for twenty odd years plus, done a lot of acquisitions, and looking forward to presenting the results today. Alongside me, we have Steve. Hey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks, Lynn. So, yeah, Steve Gibson. I'm the CFO. I've been with NovaSight now for around seven and a half years. Prior to that, I spent just under twelve years at Hewlett Packard in a variety of different roles. Thank you, Steve. Okay. So just a quick introduction to what it is that we do here at NOVACYT. We're an international molecular group, diagnostics company with a growing portfolio of clinical assays, instrumentation, and research tools. And this is how we're basically structuring the business now as you can see on this slide. We've obviously got the NOVACYT group. On the left hand side, as as I look at it, we've got your GEORGINE Health, which is our clinical division.

2:08 You know, for long standing shareholders of NOVACYT, you'd have been aware of the the strategy to develop a clinical diagnostics business. Well, that is effectively what the group bought when it bought YourGene. So we got YourGene Health, which is clinical IVD assays, DNA size selection. We have primer design that sits in the middle, which is research use only p qPCR kits. And then we have our automate automation piece or our machinery piece, which is ITIS, our range of technology. As a business, we cover human health, predominantly reproductive health, precision medicine, and infectious disease. And in nonhumanal applications, we have veterinary, animal, food, water, agriculture, and plant genomics. In terms of where we're based, the picture you can see on the left is our facility in Manchester. We also have facilities in Southampton and Stokesley, and we have a small sales office in Miami, a sales and finance office in Singapore, manufacturing and r and d in Canada, and we have commercial presence in over 65 global territories either through direct sales or through our distribution network. We're headquartered in Vilise in France, and we're listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Euronext Growth Exchange.

3:21 Currently, NOVACYT employs about 240 people, and those those numbers were accurate towards the end of June. In terms of our business segments, we're gonna touch a lot more on this later. As I mentioned earlier, on the left hand side, we have our clinical products predominantly in reproductive health where we have an NIPT product, a cystic fibrosis product, and other rapid anapalloidy tests. That side of the business is growing really, really nicely. Steve's gonna explain a little bit more around those growth cycles when he goes through the numbers. We also have our precision medicine, which is a pharmacogenomic product, and that's where we put our clinically improved infectious disease products. So Winterplex is the COVID product that you would have known, and we have some additional multiplex PCR panels in there as well.

4:10 In the instrumentation side and DNA, this is our ranger technology for all of those YourGene shareholders. This is size selection technology that is used when you when you've got your sample and before you sequence your sample and and start looking for the DNA. So we got a next generation size selection. We've got our auto automated version of that, and we've got some target enrichment technology. And this is also where ITIS lives, which is the MyGo, the qPCR hardware capability sets. And then on the right hand side is our research use only products. This is the old primary design business. So this is the business that we've been focused on in the last six months, getting back to being more quick to respond, more feet afoot. You know, it's a it's a sort of, you know, £5,000,000 business at a high margin.

4:56 And in there, have products for human health, agriculture, animal health, environmental, as well as our pharmaceutical research services, whole genome sequencing, and whole exome sequencing. And it's this part of the business that responds to to pandemics and the like, and we'll touch on that a little bit later on. So I'm gonna hand over to Steve now who's gonna talk us through the integration process. Good morning, everyone. So, yeah, so we wanted to provide a bit of an update on how integration has progressed from a cost savings perspective. If you remember, one of the rationales for the acquisition was that we believe we could deliver savings around £5,000,000 across the two businesses by the end of year three. So we've completed actions that will deliver that annualized benefit by the end of f y twenty five. So around eighteen months quicker than we originally planned.

5:43 And those savings have been made across four key categories. So firstly, we refocused the primary design business back to its core DNA of being an RUO business, and that did sadly mean a number of people left the business. We also had two sets of management teams and leadership teams and two sets of boards, and we needed to consolidate them and pick the best of the both teams. We also had, a number of external advisers and consultants. And, again, where we had duplicates, we picked one, and for other services, we terminated them. And then finally, we saw general efficiencies and economies of scales across multiple areas, facilities costs, insurance costs, and recruitment fees. So we have made good progress, but there is still more to go after. Now if we turn to the financial highlights, and obviously, top of the list is the successful resolution of the DHSC dispute, and that resulted in a net cash inflow to the business of over £7,000,000.

6:39 Now this settlement also triggered a number of accounting adjustments that inflated our gross profit and also our OpEx number in h one, and I'll chat through them more in detail. So from a revenue perspective, we increased year on year by over £7,000,000 to over 10,000,000, and that's been driven by the inclusion of YourGene sales post acquisition. And YourGene has seen really strong growth from a pro form a perspective in its reproductive health range products of over 30% and also in its core and IP business of over 5% at the end of h one. It's worth noting that the f y twenty two revenue figure of 16,500,000 also includes around 13,000,000 of COVID sales. So you can see we've made good progress over the last three years of growing the top line. From a gross profit perspective, we delivered 26,500,000 or over 250%.

7:30 However, that's been inflated by the reversal of the £19,800,000 product warranty provision that's no longer required following the resolution of the DHSC dispute. Now if we remove the impact of this onetime entry, the underlying gross margin was 6,700,000 or 65%. Now we were targeting as a business to deliver a margin in the range of 60%, and we've done so. And that's been achieved through strong sales in our PCR range of products, and what we saw is our primary design business delivered a gross margin of over 80%. If you look at the f y twenty two and f y twenty three gross profit numbers, they were heavily impacted by COVID nineteen stock write offs that diluted margin that we haven't seen again in 2024.

8:16 And from an EBITDA perspective, we were broadly flat year on year at a loss of £5,600,000. Now the upside that we saw on gross profit was offset by the booking of a £20,000,000 bad debt provision as a result of the DHS invoice no longer being due. Now if we move on to look at revenue in a little bit more detail, if we kick off from a business unit perspective, what we're demonstrating here is that the mix has changed substantially year on year. So your gene now accounts for around three quarters of our total group revenue, and it delivered £7,800,000 of revenue in h one. Primary design delivered just over £2,000,000, but this is where you can really see the mix has changed year on year. Last year, primary design accounted for around 80% of the business, and this year, it's just over 20%.

9:05 If we also look at revenue from a geographic perspective, we remain well balanced, and we have a diversified income stream. And we're not reliant on any one region for our revenue. Our biggest region is Europe, and that delivered sales of over 5,500,000. And if we dig into it a little bit deeper, our domestic UK market, which is where we have our largest commercial present, continues to be a key player and delivered over £2,300,000 of revenue. Now France generated sales of over 1,300,000, and that's because of our long established NIPT customer base. And then the Asia Pacific region continues to grow and delivered over 25% of our group revenue. And we've seen there strong demand for our reproductive health range of products, and in particular, our cystic fibrosis tests.

9:55 Now if we move on to look at OpEx, this increased to over £32,000,000 as a result of booking a £20,000,000 bad debt provision following the settlement with the DHSC. Now if we remove the impact of this onetime entry, it means our underlying OpEx costs were 12,100,000 compared to 7,000,000 in the prior period. And this 5,000,000 increase was driven by the inclusion of the all chain costs. Now a better way to look at the OpEx cost is to look at h one twenty three on a pro form a basis. And the h one numbers on a pro form a basis for FY '23 totaled £14,700,000. So it means on a like for like basis, we delivered savings of around £2,600,000, or if you annualize them, it's over £5,000,000.

10:40 And that's what underpins the integration savings that I talked through earlier. So as I said, look. We've made really good progress on the cost base, but there's still more to go after, and we will still deliver further savings. From a profitability perspective, as I mentioned, EBITDA was broadly flat year on year. But in addition to that, we saw exceptional cost totalling just over £8,000,000, of which the majority related to the DHSE. So there's around £7,500,000 of exceptional costs specifically related to DHSE, and the biggest item by far was the DHSC settlement for £5,000,000. And then in addition to that, there's around 700 k of other costs that covered restructuring fees and Taiwan divestment fees.

11:26 So this meant, overall, the group reported a loss after tax attributable to the owners of £17,700,000 in h one. Now if we move to the balance sheet, where you'll see that there's been some big swings since year end, and that's all been driven predominantly by the DHSC assessment. So our trade and other receivables balance has decreased by around £20,000,000, and it's driven by two factors. Firstly, we wrote off the December 2020 DHS invoice for £24,000,000, including VAT, as it will no longer be paid. But we offset this by increasing our back receivable balance by around £4,000,000, and that increased to over 12,000,000. And as investors will know, we issued the RNS in August. That was the good news that the HMRC in The UK had repaid us to £12,000,000.

12:16 Current liabilities has decreased by around £16,000,000, and that was driven by two factors. Firstly, we released the product warranty provision for just under £20,000,000 as it's not required, but this was offset by the booking of the £5,000,000 DHSC settlement in June that we then subsequently paid in July. Now if we turn to the final slide that I'll be presenting, we'll talk through cash flow. So what this show slide is showing is that we consumed around £11,000,000 of cash in h one, and we closed the period with just under £33,000,000 in the bank. Now it should be noted that some of the cash outflows in h one are not repeated in that h two, such as the contingent consideration and also DHSC related payments.

13:02 This slide, though, does exclude the 5,000,000 payment to the DHSC that we made in July, and it also excludes the 12,000,000 VAT refund that we received in August because they're post period events. So if we roll forward a couple of months to the end of August, then our closing cash balance was just over £36,500,000. That's the brief financial summary. And if you'd like to see further details, they're on our company website, and I'll hand back to Lynn now. Thank you, Steve. Okay. So let's talk through some of the operational highlights. So I guess from a corporate perspective, you know, Steve has very nicely articulated the 7,000,000 swing in our favor from a cash perspective. It was just nice to get that overhang away from the business and the shares so we can start to focus now. So thank you to the team that was so instrumental in resolving that DHSC situation.

13:57 We've also completed the disposal of our Taiwanese facility as well. So as we've spoken about before, we've been positioning a lot of our APAC customers to direct customers rather than send out customers. So we saw the usage of our lab in Taiwan decrease, you know, month on month, and we successfully completed the the the disposal of that business last month or the month before. Again, you know, making sure that we've got a clear runway ahead of us as a business to execute our plans in the next three years. So pleased with the progress there. I think from a board position, obviously, you would have seen the announcement this morning, and I'd like to formally acknowledge and thank James Wakefield for nine years of really great service, you know, guiding the business through some real defining acquisitions and, know, guiding the business through the uncertainty and the unknown COVID explosion and then the post COVID cool down. You know? So thank you, James, for all your support and effort that you put into this organization over the last nine years.

14:59 With James leaving, John Brown steps into this, you know, chairman role. John, huge sector experience. You know, I've worked with John closely in the past. Really looking forward to him becoming chairman as we go through this next stage of our growth journey at NOVACYT. So really looking forward to work with John, and, obviously, myself, Steve, and and Joe are kind of still into our sort of first five or six months in this role. So pleased with the progress we're making. I'm looking forward to to sharing more around our plans in h one next year from myself, Joe, and Steve. IVDR certification, that that's a big one for me. The market is changing. You know, the the regulatory landscape in Europe is becoming far more challenging, you know, far bigger hurdles to achieve as an organization to be able to effectively sell a product with a with an IVDR certification.

15:52 We've invested heavily in that. I'd like to think we're ahead of of of the curve. We've already had our cystic fibrosis product, which is probably the fastest growing product in our portfolio right now, put through the the IVDR process. Next up is our prenatal anapalloid test, then our NIPT test will follow. My view on the IVDR certification, it's gonna make the market more challenging to operate in. So for quality organizations by oversight who have made that investment historically, it means that we're gonna be able to get through the IVDR process, but there's gonna be a lot of companies that won't be able to, single product companies, and companies that just simply can't afford the investment in IVDR. So I I see IVDR as a differentiator in the in the coming years, and I hope that it will lead to less competition and less price pressure in this space.

16:40 So delighted with the progress that our technical and quality teams have made already on our IVDR journey and and look forward to updating you with more news on that, you know, in the coming coming months. In terms of product development, this box looks a little bit empty. It's just got the norovirus and oysters test in there at the moment. It's this box that we'd expect to fill up significantly over the next three years. So the next time that Steve and myself are presenting would be accompanied by Joe Mason, our our CSO. And Joe's gonna lay out the product development timeline and new product innovation launch dates so you can see what content is coming to market when. Because I firmly believe that we've got to invest in r and d. We've got this base across the world. Now we've got this diversification on a geographic and product level that Steve has articulated.

17:26 We need to invest and get more products into that space. So look forward to sharing those plans with you in due course. I think in terms of our reproductive health core health care business, our core growth drivers are n a NIPT testing, our cystic fibrosis testing, and our rapid anapalloid. So let's start with NIPT. I mean, we're currently where we sit at the end of September. We're we're tracking at about we're double digit growth. I think we're 12% growth at the moment, Steve. We see that as a result of natural adoption for this technology. More and more parents to be want to use this technology. It's quicker. It's safer. It's a more accurate results. We see natural adoption. But, also, you know, we we we've seen quite a lot of competition come out of the marketplace in the last couple of years with favorable reimbursement policies from governments, routine national screening now sat in place, patient demand rising.

18:23 All of these things are are are leading to good growth for us there. I think the key for us moving forward is continuing to refresh our content in NIPT space. I'll share a little bit more about that with you later on. Cystic fibrosis is the biggest, fastest growing product in the portfolio at the moment. That's got a thirty percent plus CAGR year on year, particularly driven by increased prevalence and rising awareness for CF, approval of new drugs, which is mean means that more of the, you know, population is getting tested alongside gene therapies, and, you know, continuing health, you know, screening and reimbursement specifically in the APAC region. So so that product is growing really, really strongly. It'd be good to have some additional content around it. So we are looking at bringing additional assays alongside our our cystic fibrosis, not assays that we develop themselves, assays that we can outsource from other parties to take advantage of this market growth opportunity.

19:18 And and so when I look at this slide, this is the core of your gene. Your gene was a clinical business that was focused very much on reproductive health, and the and the two big products in that space are both growing at double digit at the moment. And we expect that and we hope that to continue with the general prevalence of of the use of this technology in the marketplace, but also some additional new products that we intend to bring to the market ourselves in coming years. In terms of other opportunities, well, we still got our range of technology, so we continue to see that grow. Revenue slightly down year on year. That's because we sold more hardware last year, and we're moving to a a reagent model this year. That certainly supports the margin improvement that we're seeing across the group compared to budget at present. And Ranger, you know, remains a key, you know, part of our our our growth strategy because it straddles multiple market segments. It's not just reproductive health care. It's synthetic biology or or fake DNA.

20:14 It's liquid biopsy, which are becoming more and more the go to kind of test for early diagnosis of cancers. And then there's there's a plant and animal genomics market as well, which is rapidly expanding. You know, this technology addresses the key industry channels challenges of sample prep and and high volume requirements for gene synthesis, and it's a proven, you know, technology now having been in the market for five years plus. So we now have dual manufacturing capability for Ranger we can make in The UK. We can make in in Vancouver. We just sold our first Nimbus product in Europe, which is the largest scale machine that we do, and we continue to see reagent pull through coming through from from that exciting range of instruments that we've taken to market.

21:01 Precision medicine continues to be a focus for us. I it it'd be good to have some new products alongside this. This is a bit of a product orphan in our portfolio at the moment. And when Georgine had some funding issues, it was the r and d around that product development that we had to put on hold. So really pleased that, you know, under Joe Mason's team, we've been able to, you know, reinvigorate our r and d efforts. And and I think we definitely need a new DPYT product because the market leading product that we launched kind of three years ago now, some of our competitors have added some additional markers that now make our product look a little bit a little little bit less punchy compared to some of the new guys in the market. So we we've got a new product development on working as we stand right now. Looking forward to launching that next year and and continuing the the growth in this exciting space as long as as well as putting some additional products and services around that as well to make more of a range sell to market.

21:55 And then the RUO, that that's primary design's old, you know, old straightforward business, you know, 1,200 assays. We can make an assay in a couple of days and get it out to the customer in their hands. We've got a growing pipeline of animal, agriculture, and this is the side of the business that will always be there to deal with things like, you know, infectious disease rises, you know, many pandemics, etcetera. It's a very, very high margin business. And, effectively, this this part of the business should be the cash cow that funds the rest of the business, funds the effort we wanna make in r and d and our our our commercial growth plans, etcetera. And, again, speak a little bit about more about that a bit later on. Oops. So if we go into those with a bit more detail, I think where we look at, you know, driving global sales, We're making really good progress there. You know?

22:47 Cystic fibrosis, thirty percent. NIPT, twelve percent. You know, our core products are all double digit growers. As I've already mentioned, we had the first European sale of our Nimbus product, our highest throughput on the range of technology. We have put new NIPT customers in Europe this year, in France, in Asia. We've just done the first NIPT system in Panama, in in in Bogota in Colombia, sorry, in Bogota. You know? So we still keep keep those that part of the business growing nicely, and this is why we're seeing the double digit growth there. We've launched MagBench, which is another one of our automated systems into APAC and Middle East. We've already made quite a lot of progress, I think, over the last six months there. Future milestones. Well, the future of NIPT is all about adding additional content.

23:33 It is my hope that sometime next year, we will have the only IVDR product in the market for NIPT that has microdeletions, the three trisomies, copy number copy number variations. And I think once we've got that product in the market and it's approved, it's very difficult for our potential customers to use lab developed products or an inferior product because once there's an IVDR approved product that ticks all the boxes, the customer base has to kinda use them. So I see the future growth of NIPT coming through that next generation of products that Joe and the team are developing right now. We're also upgrading our cystic fibrosis product. We're not resting on our laurels. It's market leading at the moment, so we're gonna be adding some additional content to that just to future proof that product as long as I alongside, as I said, the DPYT product investment.

24:25 And then as we move to more of a consumer model for Ranger, we'll probably see a dampening of the revenue, but an improvement of of the margin. And we're looking to add some functionality to the LightBench technology that looks at fragmentation as well as size analysis, which will significantly reduce the need for capital purchase at this essential stage of the of of the sequencing workflow. So our existing core products, we've got new product development plans coming out around them. We're already seeing really strong double digit growth. Really confident with the progress we're making and where the future of that those products and services are heading. In terms of IVDR and r and d, you know, I've tried to explain the importance I think of IVDR. I think that's a real differentiator for us as a business.

25:12 And and the way it works is if you have an IDR approved product in a region, you know, local labs, local hospitals, local research industries, institutes have to use that product rather than non approved or developed in house or lab developed tests or RUO or whatever you wanna call them. So I think that's gonna be game changing for us. So we're gonna continue to invest in that. We've already got our cystic fibrosis product through, and we're just about to go through with our QSTAR assay, which is our anapalloidy assay. And and I think in the future, more of that. So get our first accreditation, get the the DPUID updates planned and through the accreditation, and then make sure we get the NIPT product approved as in a timely manner as we possibly can. When we look at rebuilding the RUO business, as I said, that's predominantly the the the old primary design business. We've launched a norovirus product in oysters. Mean, who knew that it was oysters that spread norovirus every Christmas?

26:08 So we've got a great point of care product that sits, you know, literally by the sea where the the the product is harvested, brought in, and tested, you know, near the harbor's office, so to speak. We are in the process of updating our monkeypox assay, and I guess a lot of you on this call are only gonna know about monkeypox. So the reason we've been quiet about monkeypox is it's not really material. I mean, we've received orders through June and July and August. Our product is one of 50 probably products available in the market, so it's nowhere near like it was early COVID where primary design had the only product in the market. So we we've got more competition. Our product isn't approved. It's a research use only product. There are some approved products already out there. And because there's a vaccine already available in the marketplace for, you know, a $100, this isn't another COVID.

26:56 We will make revenue from it. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the winter season because that's typically where you see a higher numbers of of monkeypox cases. People staying indoors closer to one another. But, yeah, I mean, it showed what what primary design does. There was a problem. We reacted, put a product in there. We sweated all of our distributors and and historic COVID contacts contacts to see if anybody wanted product, and we sold some product off the back of it. But we're in the same position for for swine flu, for avian flu, for COVID when it start you know, if and when it starts again. That's what the business does. It sort of peaks and troughs around these sort of pandemics. But for anyone that's thinking that monkeypox is gonna be like COVID, you know, it it's not gonna be like COVID. We will make some revenue from it, but that is unlikely to be material revenue given the the size of the group revenue that that we sit today.

27:48 I think in terms of what the future for this business, you know, to continue to make it fleet of foot. You know, as I said, I want customers to ring up and being able to get a customer survey within two or three days. I wanna be able to ship product anywhere in the world really quickly because I haven't got a big clinical quality procedure around the business, and and I think we've made some really strong progress in those areas. We're gonna be looking at new aquaculture and veterinary products. I think there's a significant market opportunity there. We've got a very complete range. And having worked personally in those spaces historically, I think there's more we could be doing there. We've got a custom asset portfolio growth. I'm just supporting customer clinical trial bills and and bringing more products to market like the DNA extraction kit that works for bowel cancer that we will have rights then sell into the market. So, you know, the the real the research use only business or the old primary design, get it back to that sort of £5,000,000 sort of business, you know, spitting out high margin products and effectively becoming a cash cow so we can invest that money in further r and d and and further commercial expansion.

28:49 And to accelerate that, you know, the more more partnerships we have, the better. We're partnering with PacBio still for our range of technology. We've got ongoing collaborations with a number of key institutions, and that's around infectious diseases, around reproductive health care, you know, look looking at the core segments of our business. And I think longer term, you know, launching more functionality. So the work we've done with PacBio has showed that if we can get fragment analysis alongside our ranger technology, which is size analysis, you know, we've got a bit of a home run then because it's half the capital equipment purchase that you'd require to do your pre sequencing work on your sample. So so, again, when I look at the progress that we're currently making, I'm pleased with the progress. I think a lot of our time has been spent looking at the cost side of the business. You know, myself and Joe and Steve are only a couple of months in into this.

29:37 Next is, you know, once we got that cost base settled to then really focus on the growth drivers. But from my perspective, they're in really strong shape at the moment. So trying to pull all of that and summarize that together. We're an international business. You know, Steve has demonstrated our geographical dependence is is well diversified. We're strong across the world. We've built a really strong foundation, you know, 20,000,000 plus revenue that we need to now grow and kick off from. We have a range of reproductive health care products. We have a range of precision medicine products, and we have a range of infectious disease products, you know, so straddling three of the fastest growing markets within the molecular space. We're well ahead, I think, of the integration of Your Gene Health. I think we promised cost savings eighteen months down the line, and, you know, you'll see from the pro form a analysis that Steve's done today that we've already made £2,500,000 savings in the first six months of this year. You know, you extrapolate that out for the rest of the year, then there's your 5,000,000 savings.

30:33 And as a leadership team, we're still focused on delivering more savings. We think there is more synergy to be had over this business, and we're not gonna rest until all of that has been captured and executed. We've got a broader technology portfolio, stronger end to end offerings. So we've got the automation. We've got the machine capability. We've the product development and manufacturing, which is why, you know, we're looking forward to to to continued growth of those key product areas because we can make them in lots of different places, and we've got good flexibility there. As I said, we completed the actions that have delivered the annual cost reductions. The margin's up significantly on where we thought it would be because we're focusing and prioritizing on the high margin products and really pushing their our efforts to take them to market.

31:21 And and to really get the the future growth that that, you know, this team wants to deliver for our shareholders, for for our board, it's having that strategic investment in r and d. We need we need new new products. You know? When Eugene had these fundraising challenges, it was r and d that we cut, so some of those programs were were absolutely stopped in its tracks. I think when NOVACYT started going on a clinical journey, you know, that that is a long process, and they've absolutely expedited that by buying your gene and having all of that already existed in in one division, which makes it easier to have a clinical division, a research use only division, and then these analytical instruments divisions. So the business is is, I think, in a really strong place. We've got great cash in the bank. You know? And and if you look at some of the comparator companies of similar size in a similar market space, you know, we we we've got double digit growth in the in the key product areas. We've got a lot of cash in the bank, and we've got an experienced team to deliver this from a well funded manufacturing base. So our plan, I think, is to come out in another couple of months, sometime in h one with much more granularity around the numbers, much more around the costs because everyone wants to know how long is our cash gonna last for. I can say now we're we're comfortably confident that our cash will last long enough for us to reach profitability, but we're not resting on our laurels then.

32:44 We will go after additional savings to to further protect that cash. But we've got good cash in the bank. We've got good existing products. We've got a new pipeline of products coming through, and we're very, very excited about the future. So thank you for listening, everyone. I think I hand back now to the question and answer side. That's great. Thanks very much for your presentation. We we have received a number of questions both presubmitted and throughout today's presentation, so I'll just dive in with the first one here. I think you did touch on it in your presentation, but maybe some more color. If you can some more color, that'd be great. What is your opportunity for NOVACYT in monkeypox? Yeah. I mean, I still think it's early doors in monkeypox. There's a lot of talk. There's a lot of tenders out there at the moment.

33:30 So I think we'll we'll have a bit more news over the next couple of months. Existing research use only, Gensig, you know, generated some revenues in July and August. We're entering some tenders, but those numbers aren't material at at group level. The market is far more saturated, as I mentioned earlier, compared to the COVID nineteen pandemic. You know, lots of available products, you know, vaccines, etcetera. So it's not it's not like COVID. We are currently updating our assay to get this clade one b strain in it. That seems to be the most dangerous strain, the the strain that's more infectious than any other strains, and there's not a product on the market currently with that. So we do have an opportunity to differentiate them. We've got the r and d team working on that product as we speak, and we will continue to monitor and assess whether there's gonna be enough demand longer term to take this into a, you know, test for clinical use, get the IVDR approval in it, because as I said, at the moment, it's research use only. So we've reacted. We've seen some incremental sales. They're not material.

34:33 The the the the opportunity could develop more as we go into what is traditionally a, you know, a busier period for this type of of infectious disease, and we keep you updated. Thanks very much. Next question here. When will the integration of your team be complete? I think it's largely complete now. You know, Steve has very clearly articulated where we save money and how we got to those sort of £5,000,000 cost savings. We've refocused primary design back into the RUO market. You know, the cost base is down significantly there, but more importantly, the speed of which we respond to our customers is up significantly. Eliminated the duplicate corporate functions, integrated all key operational departments. We've gone through a big product rationalization, so that's where we maybe appear to be losing certain, you know, some revenues at the moment because there were certain products that we made that we just didn't make any money on or were unprofitable. So there's a big rationalization of products and services that has happened and and is continuing.

35:30 And we've also rationalized our distributor network. So I think we're ahead of the curve on the cost savings that we said. There is more to come. And, yeah, I'm really pleased with the the the way the integration is is is working out. By h '1 next year, we'll have all of this work done. So myself, Steve, and Joe will be presenting to you a very clean cost line, a very clean understanding of where these products are coming from in terms of new content and when they come into market, and some clarity on our future growth expectations as well. That's great. Thank you. The next question asks if you're evaluating future m and a opportunities. Not at the moment. I mean, our current focus is on the strategic things that we've mentioned today, you know, the the the rationalization or or or the integration of Georgine and NOVACYT.

36:22 We're investing in r and d. You know, we've seen organically that's where new products bring new revenue, so we're putting a chunk of money into r and d to to bring some new products to market. And with this and our combined commercial strength, we think that's more of enough of an organic story to to take to market. Obviously, if if things drop on our lap and of interest, we would consider them, but our focus at the moment is very much organic growth. Thank you very much. Turn to next question. Would you consider a trade sale to a larger company? Cool. I'll hand over to Steve for this. Yeah. So so similar answers, I think, really, Lynn gave gave from an m and a perspective. Right? Our our focus as a business is, you know, to continue to grow the new business, the combined most of your chain business, right, and making it success of it. But clearly, you know, if an opportunity comes along that's in the best interest of shareholders, then we would consider it absolutely.

37:16 Thanks, Steve. When can we expect a more detailed update or some more guidance? Yeah. I mean, I keep saying h one next year, guys, and that that's the date. Sorry. I'm not gonna be more specific around that at the moment because we're still working through our plans. I mean, this this new leadership team has been in place for just five months. We've integrated two complex businesses. We've demonstrated, you know, on a pro form a basis that we've got £5,000,000 cost savings already under our belt. We concluded the DHSC dispute. We sold the Taiwanese business. You know? So I think the the the team has done a good job. The foundations are certainly in place to accelerate growth around the product portfolio in the years to come. We look forward to updating the market with that and going back to more of a traditional market model of numbers in the market, you know, analysts reporting on us in h one next year.

38:06 Understood. Thank you. Can you provide an update on the progress of your RUO business, and can you provide an update on the multiplex infectious disease products? Yeah. So it's so, again, we've we've kinda touched on this in presentation. You know, that old primary design business sits at about 1,200 assays at the moment. I think we deliver close to 500 custom assays. In June, we launched a real time PCR workflow workflow for rapid on-site detection of norovirus. You know, it's not gonna be a massive market. There aren't that many oysters that are farmed, but it shows that you can put some point of care technology right in the field of use, get a clinical result. So that could be used in in animal farming, in crop farming, Just doesn't have to be in shellfish. So what we're going out and doing here is demonstrating that we've got a hardware and an assay that can be run next to the the the the place where you harvest the product or you source the product.

38:59 So it doesn't need to go to a central lab. Products aren't sent on the road at risk because they haven't had a, you know, a pass or fail result, you know, with regard to what you're testing. So I think that's all about proving the model, and we just chose chosen NOVACYT to do that. Additional aquaculture and veterinary products will be following very quickly from this team. But as part of this, you know, part of this product evaluation that we did, we decided not to continue with the clinical side of this business. It was slowing things down. It was very expensive. And effectively, NOVACYT bought that capability when they acquired your gene. So so the business is moving much back to the business that I remember primary design being. I used to be a customer of primary design. Quick, greater customer service, great quality product, but from a research perspective, not a big clinical product and easy to get your hands on.

39:50 And I'm pleased with the progress that we're making there so far. Thank you very much. Moving to the next question. What's the impact of your global demonstrations slash training events? Yeah. I mean, I think this is something we spoke about last time. This was around creating awareness fundamentally. You know, we are a relatively small brand compared to the likes of Illumina and PacBio, etcetera. So being able to partner with those guys created awareness for us. It's from these global demonstrations that actually the request came back from the customer base to add fragmentation analysis to the range of technology. So that's a product upgrade that was driven by market feedback. We're working on that now. And, yeah, I think the purpose of these events is fundamentally educate customers, make them aware of our product, and hopefully lead to better sales of our products.

40:36 And predominantly, it's NIPT and cystic fibrosis and Ranger that that that are going out and being promoted in these things at the moment, and we can see the results and the growth rates we're getting there. That's great. Thank you, Lynn. Next question. Why is there a lack of news flow? Okay. Well, I mean, the the way the stock market works is we can only announce news that's material, so we haven't had any material news. The new management team has been in place for just five months. You know, that's a relatively short period of time to bring together two quite complex businesses. You know, we've gotta protect the culture. We've gotta protect the product efficacy. We've gotta protect the existing customers. You don't rush those things. You you know, you only lose a customer once. It's very hard to win them back. So we we've taken our time with the integration and and working hard to combine the businesses and making sure that when we come out to market in h one next year, we have a very, very understood cost base, a very clear understanding of the growth opportunities of the business, and a very clear timeline on when we're gonna be launching our new products and what investment we're gonna be making into that. So I appreciate everyone's patience. I'm sure you'd all like to hear more news, but we we we will come to market, as I said, in h '1 next year with all of these stories refreshed and a very, very clear picture of where the business is heading and what milestones you should be evaluating our performance on.

42:01 Thank you very much. And maybe time just for one more question. Can you explain the reason for publishing the RNS for VAT reimbursement in the middle of the day? Oh, that's a steep question. Yeah. It's an interesting question. Let me take that then. I think I think the the key thing is, you know, we're fully aware of what our aim obligations are, alright, to announce without delay. But maybe let me put you a bit me on the bones in terms of how it works practically. Right? So we have multiple bank accounts as a business. So, obviously, the team come in in the morning, and once they are identified with a large cash payment that dropped into our bank, they then inform me, then we kick into gear and get the ball rolling on getting the announcement ready. Obviously, it has to go through a number of internal reviews and then external reviews. And, you know, I was really pleased that we announced it within about three hours of finding out. Right? So we announced it without delay.

42:52 Perfect. Thank you very much, and thanks for answering those questions you can for investors. Of course, the company can review all the questions that have been submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet company platform. Just before redirecting investors, provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to you both, Lynn, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yes. Certainly. And and, again, thank you shareholders for being supportive of our business and for being patient as we go through this transformational integration of of your gene into the NOVACYT group. I think the couple of things I'd just like to just remind you on before you leave is that our core products are growing really well. Cystic fibrosis up thirty percent, NIPT up twelve percent as we sit at the moment. You know, fantastic result, I think, with the DHHS DHSC dispute, you know, having a a net £7,000,000 swing in our favor puts us in a cash position of around about 36,000,000, you know, for this this time in in the business, which compared to many organizations in the same size and the same market for us, we are streets ahead from a a cash perspective.

43:53 So I I think that really, really strong for us. We're putting a lot of investment into new content, so we're we're, you know, reinvesting into r and d in in what I think are the right areas for r and d, you know, to put new products around existing products or to improve the existing products that are already taking market share in market. We've got the IVDR framework that's coming that I think will, you know, change the market space. It will reduce the number of competitors in there. It will make it harder for or make it easier for high quality companies like ourselves to take our products to market. So I'm really looking forward to to ride in that IVDR wave. And then this product rationalization that's going on in the background and more more, you know, looking for, you know, additional synergy opportunities means that, you know, Steve, myself, and Joe will work closely with the rest of the board to protect that £36,000,000 cash for as long as we can. We believe we've got more than enough to get us through to profitability.

44:48 And with the new products that we're gonna be bringing to the market and the existing products that we're gonna be bringing to the market, we expect to see, you know, some positive updates, you know, over the next couple of years. So we look forward to coming back in h one next year and presenting these stories for the first time to you and, you know, reimagining or or breathing life into our investment story, I think, is one of our next key milestones. But leave us up another couple of months just to finish off the rationalization work, finish off the synergy work, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year. That's great. Lynn, Steve, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you now be automatically redirected, provide your feedback in order the management team can better understand your views and expectations? This may 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 NOVACYT, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.