Shield Therapeutics (LSE:STX) — Q3 Trading Update

0:00 Good afternoon, and welcome to the SHIELD THERAPEUTICS PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time by 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 it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll, And I'd now like to hand you over to the management team from SHIELD THERAPEUTICS PLC. Anders, good afternoon, sir.

0:33 Good afternoon, and thank you so much, and welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us, for today's presentation about SHIELD THERAPEUTICS. Santos, who is our CFO, and I Anders will present. The first part is a general part about the company. And for those of you who have followed us before, it is maybe a repetition. And then Santos will follow me with the recent q three trading update after a little while. So we can go to the next slide. This is the disclaimer, and I'll move into the actual presentation. So we at SHIELD THERAPEUTICS, we have one commercial product. It's called AccraFer in North America and Feracru in in rest of the world. And it is the only FDA, EMA, UK, and the Health Canada approved oral iron that's broadly indicated for adults suffering from iron deficiency or iron deficiency with anemia.

1:30 This market is a is a large market because traditional oral irons is typically discontinued because of GI side effects such as stomach pain or constipation leading that patient stop therapy. I'll come back to that a little bit more in detail in a little bit. We have a very experienced executive team, with extensive US commercialization expertise. And in The US, we do co commercialization with, our partner, Viatris. In rest of the world, there are our partners who are doing the commercialization alone. We estimate our peak revenue potential for AccraFair to be around $450,000,000 US dollars, and we have very strong IP through 2035.

2:21 So this is the management team. So to the right, you see David Childs and Jackie Mitchell. They are in our Newcastle office responsible for development, quality, regulatory affairs, and manufacturing. And the four to the left are the people we have in our Boston office who are focusing more on the commercialization in The US. So what's the problem here? What is it that we're trying to solve? So in general, health care professionals are struggling to treat iron deficiency because most patients cannot tolerate the normal oral preparations. And that is because the oral ferrous salts, they dissociate in the stomach.

3:07 And unabsorbed iron

3:10 leads to causing irritation and damage to the intestinal lining, and thereby you see these gastrointestinal side effects. As I mentioned, like stomach pain, it could be bloating, it could be constipation, and thereby, a large portion of the patient stop therapy, which, of course, leads to lack of effectiveness.

3:44 So thereby we don't, we avoid many of the side effects and people tolerate this treatment much better so they can stay on it and thereby we see very good results with our treatment. So these are our global partnership we have. So as I said, in The US, we're a very strong partner in Viatris and here we co commercialize. So we have together a 100% sales team in place in the market. So we have about 30,000,000 in available sales milestones with Viatris. In the rest of the world, we completely rely on our partners. So Norgene is our partner for Europe and a few more countries. And there we get straight royalties, and we have milestones payments coming up for the yes. We just announced we finished the pediatric studies in the in the EU. So we foresee getting milestones for that.

4:40 In Canada, which was the latest market to get approved in August of this year, we worked with Kai Pharmaceuticals. We anticipate they launch early next year. Here, we have revenue based milestones and double digit royalties on net sales. In

4:55 Korea, we are under review as we speak right now. We work with Korea Pharma. We anticipate to get an approval in 2025 and the launch following that. Here, we have mid teens royalties on net sales. In China, we work with ASK, and we are doing a bridging phase three study in the Chinese population to sort of link that back to the Caucasian population where we've done our previous studies. We hope to finish the study this year, submit the file next year, and looking at an approval in the second half of twenty twenty six. Again, we have approval milestones. We have double digit royalties on net sales from from China. And we continue to evaluate other geographies in the world as well constantly to see if we can find other partners who can sell our products in those regions.

5:48 So this is The US market. So what you see the total market, which we call the addressable market, is about 12,000,000 prescriptions annually prescribed by about half a million health care professionals. We are in the current market. So that's the market we are focusing on right now. That's where we have our 100 salespeople.

6:09 As you can see, it's about 1,800,000 prescriptions annually prescribed by about 12,500 health care professionals. And we have today, a a small market is 3%. And this and we of course, as Santos will show you very soon, we keep growing in this marketplace, but there's so much more growth to be had, and and we're constantly driving awareness in this in this marketplace. The expanded market is the is the sort of half is is half of the total market where we have about 50,000 health care professionals doing that. That would, for us, be our expansion step. But that is something we would look to do maybe in two to three years.

6:54 So in summary, there is, as I explained, a large unmet need due to that traditional irons typically leads to gastrointestinal side effects leading to the the patients who are taking the therapy. It's a rather concentrated prescriber base in in The US, and we have a we have a 100 people sales force that can cover that market that we are addressing at the moment. So and then as I explained, so Accrify FairQuest you uniquely positioned to address the unmet need. Thanks to that we are not dissociated in the stomach, but rather so we can avoid the gastrointestinal

7:34 side effects to a much larger extent, leading to a very good treatment result. It's a promotional sensitive market as well. We know that. We know that both patients and health care professionals are highly engaged. They are looking for solutions, and we see very

7:54 good response on the marketing campaigns we do. And finally, we have very minimal branded competition. So that's the general part of the presentation, and now I will leave it to Santos who will go through our recent quarter three results. Santos?

8:11 Thank you, Anders, and hello, everyone. Let me walk you through our q three twenty twenty four business highlights. As you can see on this slide, slide number 10, our 2024 business priorities are threefold. Growth in aquifer in The US, which includes revenue, price, and prescription, strengthening our balance sheet to support both our near term as well as our long term growth ambitions, and number three, access to our innovative products globally. As you may have read in our press release on Tuesday this week, we have made significant progress on all three fronts in q three twenty twenty four. During

8:49 the third quarter of twenty twenty four, we reported net revenues of 7,200,000 from approximately 43,500 prescriptions of AcreFER with an average net selling price or what we call NSP of a $167 per prescription. I will speak more to this in the next slide.

9:08 From a balance sheet perspective, we ended this quarter with 7,700,000 cash on hand compared to 8,100,000 in q two twenty twenty four. Post the end of the quarter, we also added and take took multiple steps to strengthen our balance sheet and extend our cash runway. This includes a 10% reduction to our cost base, expanding our accounts receivable financing from 10,000,000 to $15,000,000, and entering into a nonbinding term sheet with AOP Health, our largest shareholder, for a minimum of 10,000,000 of new equity based financing. I'll speak to this in the next couple

9:46 of slides as well. And lastly, in q three, we also reported that our pivotal trial in the pediatric population with AccraFER showed highly clinically relevant effectiveness with no patient discontinuations due to adverse events. We plan to file these results with the FDA and EMA in the first half of next year.

10:05 Note that we expect to receive development milestones totaling a million euros from Nargene as we go through the regulatory process. As you will see on slide 11, let me move to the next slide. As you will see on Slide 11, we reported approximately 43,500 prescriptions of Acre for Dispense in q three twenty twenty four. This represents another quarter of growth with nearly 20% increase in prescriptions compared to the second quarter of this year. Keep in mind that we recognize revenue when the units are sold to wholesalers and pharmacies and not when the prescriptions are dispensed to patients. We reported $7,200,000 in AccraFare revenues in q three twenty twenty four. That represents a 4% growth compared to the second quarter of this year. The difference in the growth rate between revenues and prescriptions was due to the wholesalers buying ahead of the July 4 weekend during the last week of June. If we adjust for this buying pattern, the sequential growth rate in revenue would be identical to the prescription growth rate of 20%.

11:10 Similarly, on pricing, adjusting for July, the net selling price was a $192 per prescription compared to a 171 in q two. Our expectations are that the are that the net selling price can be maintained at similar levels or even higher throughout throughout q four twenty twenty four. Once again, the fundamentals of the business with Aquifer in The United States are very strong, and it is a testament to the collaborative work by both SHIELD and our U. Commercial partner, Beatrice. On the next slide, Slide number 12, we have outlined the details of the key elements of our balance sheet. We continue to maintain the strong relationship with SWK and the $20,000,000 debt facility we have in place with them. Earlier this week, we also reported total group revenues of $20,000,000 year to date through q three twenty twenty four. This includes royalties and milestones from our global partners.

12:07 Based on our internal estimates, we expect to meet the total revenue covenant target of $31,500,000 for full year 2024 under the debt facility agreement with SWP. Now post quarter, upon evaluating our internal projections and our current burn rate, the board has concluded that we will need to, a, lower our operating base and, b, access additional capital to help achieve our goal of becoming cash flow positive by the end of twenty twenty five. We have hence prioritized three key initiatives. Number one, we are implementing a cost reduction of approximately 10% to our operating cost base across the company.

12:48 Number two, we are implementing an expansion of our current working capital financing with Sally Port from 10,000,000 to $15,000,000. Now keep in mind, this is not new money. It is our own money that we collect faster. Both these initiatives will help us extend our cash runway into the second quarter of next year. And number three, we have also entered into a nonbinding term sheet with AOP Health, our largest shareholder, for a minimum of $10,000,000 of new equity based financing. The details of this term sheet are outlined on the right hand side of the slide. Now keep in mind that the closing of this financing is conditional upon approval by the takeover panel and a shareholder vote. We are working diligently to close this process successfully and

13:33 as quickly as possible. We believe that these initiatives can help us achieve our aim of becoming cash flow positive by the end of twenty twenty five. This should allow us to have enough capital to help us get there. Now, obviously, our rate of cash burn remains highly dependent on Accra for achieving our internal forecast, and we are looking forward to it. With that, I will hand it back to Anders to to conclude. Thank you, Santosh. So as you have heard, there's it's a very big market opportunity in The US alone with a very significant revenue potential. And as I described so far, we have a rather low market share in the addressable market. But as Santos has outlined, we see very nice growth quarter over quarter.

14:23 We, of course, are looking to the other parts of the world as well, and we keep expanding. I mean, we or is approved by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and in The UK, and we're looking forward to new approvals after reviews in markets like Korea and China as the years go by. We have a very strong partnership in The US. We have a very strong partner with Viatris that helps us, you know, reaching our goals. And we see a good growth in prescriptions, net revenue, and net selling price in The US market. As as Santos also explained, we have increased our balance sheet and our operation, like, flexibility. And we believe now that we have enough, resources to get to cash flow positivity by end of twenty twenty five.

15:16 So that concludes the presentation part of this meeting, and we'll now move on to questions. And, Santosh, thank you very much for your presentation. If I may just bring back up your cameras. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed by our investor dashboard. Alice, could I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so? And I'll pick up from you at the end. Fantastic. Thanks, Lily. So the first question is, the most important issue for SHIELD is sales volume and revenue growth. Will SHIELD present quarter by quarter sales volume and revenue growth projections as anticipated by the SHIELD executives?

16:08 Santoshiya, go ahead. Yeah. Sure. We have we have set a standard where we report out quarterly numbers on as soon as we wrap up the quarter, and we continue to plan to do that. So we will keep the shareholders and investors up to date on on our performance every quarter. We at this point, we do not plan to provide projections. It is a it is a bit too early for us to provide any quarterly projections into next year. What we have said, though, is based on our internal projections, both AgriFer's projections, our ex US revenues, potentials, and managing our operating expenses, we expect to be cash flow positive by the end of next year.

16:56 Thank you, Santosh. Next question. Have you had any discussions with the EU partner regarding reimbursement resubmission for France, Italy, and Spain, and are you also to able to provide any further information on Korea? So let me take that question. So the short answer is yes. That there's been quite a little work going into trying to get to those three markets in Europe, France, Italy, and Spain. In in the end, the decision lies with Norgine. So that you have you would actually have to ask them, you know, what the their decision will be. But I repeat it again. Yeah. There's been a lot of work looking into those three markets because there are three really significant markets in The US. For Korea, we know that our they are actively reviewing our file as we speak. We have gotten we've gotten questions from the authorities, and we are answering those questions.

17:51 So we are looking if everything goes well, which we anticipated we'll do, we were looking at them approval sometimes during next year. Thank you, Anders. How much of your business is repeat prescription? If If people need the product, are they on it for life? Do you want me to take that, Amos? Yeah. You yeah. Let me talk the second. No. I mean, it of course, it depends on the condition if the patient is a chronic patient or not. Right? So if a patient has a a, for instance, a a chronic kidney disease, yes, they could be on for life. If the patient has different, for instance, IBD, yes, they could be on for life. But most of our patients are taking the the treatment for three to four months.

18:45 So the it's not a chronic you should not view this as a chronic treatment because the focus we have in the marketplace is typically also in the OBDYN space, the women's health. And they are not they are not chronic patients. The focus we have with the with the primary care physicians is different because they do see what I mentioned, all of those type of patients. But I I paused that, and I let Santos get get us a little bit more into the numbers. Sure, Anderson. Absolutely right. When you think about the prescriptions and the refills from a patient perspective, it really depends on the type of patient. But on average, we have seen somewhere in the three to four refills per patient, and that differs based on whether it is a patient who is covered by commercial insurance, whether it's a patient covered by Medicaid insurance, or if it's a patient that is paying cash out of pocket. So it varies, but we we have typically seen somewhere in the three to four. I would also add that in terms of q three, you know, when you think about the contributions of refills to the prescriptions versus new prescriptions to the to the total prescriptions, it's about half and half. It's it's doing a little bit favoring the new prescriptions when it comes to contributions to total prescriptions.

20:04 And then in terms of contributions of existing prescribers versus new prescribers, The split the split varies quarter to quarter, but q three, it it was about seventy thirty. So 70% of our prescribers were existing prescribers from prior quarters, and 30% were new prescribers. So across the board, you know, I think there's strong support from both physicians as well as patients. Those who who continue to write continue to write in the future as well. The word-of -mouth is spreading, and and physicians are new physicians are coming into the foray as well as patients continue to believe in the product and continue to take product, you know, for for the duration of the course. So excited about what we're seeing.

20:54 Thank you, Santosh. How many tablets days do you get for the a $192 average price? Is it one tablet for ninety days? Also, this seems quite a high price. Is this covered by people's insurance companies in The US? So what they so our so AccraFair in The US, Ferru in the rest of the world, it's it's it's two dosing two doses per day. So two tablets per day. That is what it is. And the $192 is the price per prescription, which is the month. So that is the pricing in The US. Yes. Typically, prices in The US are higher than in the rest of the world. And, yes, in in general, we are we have good commercial coverage for patients who are getting their their health insurance from their employers. We have good very good coverage with Medicaid, and we do not have very good coverage with Medicare.

21:53 So it depends on what type of plan the patients have, if if the if the $192 are cap covered or not. That's a factor we actually also weigh in coverage when we, how we focus our salespeople. So because if a physician has no coverage, we have a solution for that. Sometimes we give away drug for free. Sometimes they there's an out of pocket that varies depending on what type of insurance they have. So this is an average price we see, but that is everything from zero up to 200 and something dollars, you know, per per prescription. So it's it's yeah. This is just an average price. Fantastic. Thank you, Anders. I think your microphone just might be knocking on the to provide a bit of feedback. That's okay. Thank you.

22:48 The next question, SHIELD has entered into agreement to raise 10,000,000 equity with AOP Health. Could you provide a little more explanation on the reasoning behind this? They've got a you've got a long term loan of $20,000,000, so I'm unsure the reasons for the equity raise, especially when you're on track to meet orders. You you want me to take that, Andres? Yes. Please do. Yeah. I I think as as I said in my prepared remarks, you know, the board and management, we looked at our internal projections. We looked at our growth projections. We do expect that preferred to continue to grow. And we have seen that over the last few quarters, and we expect the same over the next over the next year. However, when you look at our balance sheet strength and and what we need to help us to get to cash flow positive, we have had to make multiple decisions.

23:40 And one of them was making sure that we reduce our cost base, and we've taken we've taken steps doing that. So 10%. That's in our control. Number two, we have expanded our, you know, financing with Sally Port to from 10 to 15,000,000. That's not new money. That's our own money that we collect faster. But just those two elements really helps us get, extend our cash runway into q two twenty twenty five. We need more to help us get to cash flow breakeven, which we expect to be in the second half of right? And so when we looked at the different options, we looked we evaluated all the different options, and we ended up with the AOP health 10,000,000 a minimum of 10,000,000 by an equity financing. And it is a nonbinding term sheet that is contingent on a on a few things that need to take place between now and hopefully by the end of the year. But we believe that the the 10,000,000 helps us get there, helps us get to the cash being cash flow breakeven by the end of next year.

24:40 And so I would say those are the three pieces that we have put in place to help us get to to that goal of cash flow positive by the end of next year. Thank you. Let's have a look. The q three trading update described increased buying from wholesalers around the July 4 weekend. How might these volumes have affected the average net selling price for q three? And we might expect some destocking in these channels in q four, but see an associated rise in the average net selling price. Okay. So no. No. Good question. I mean, I think Santos tried to explain that in the prepared remarks. Basically, the math is like this. So July 4 this year was on a Thursday in The United States, and a lot of people take this week off. So our wholesaler, Cardinal, decided to buy that week of of of goods the week earlier, so it ended up in June.

25:43 So now we have an extra week of sales in June and one week less of sales in July. If you take the average sales over 13 in the third quarter and you take one week out of the second quarter, add it to the third quarter instead, you get a 20% revenue growth. That is how we get to the 20% instead of the 4%. So that matches the prescription growth. Likewise, when we do the average price per prescription, as I tried to explain earlier, some of those prescription we get $0 for or even we lose money on them depending on how and some of we get way more than a $192 for. If you take out one week of paid product from the third quarter, the app in July, the average price goes down rather dramatically.

26:38 So that's why that that in that month, it was just over $100 per prescription because we lost the week of sales. Then when it goes back to normal in August and September, that's why we see a number that is over 190. I think it was 192 or 194 on average, which is the level of of revenue we get per prescriptions as we enter into the fourth quarter. So that's the that's the math. That's the explanation. These things happen. And as as also, you explained know, clearly, there's no direct correlation in a short period of time between prescriptions and our wholesaler buying.

27:24 Of course, in the in the longer run, like over a quarter, it it should correlate correlate pretty pretty equally. Fantastic. Thank you, Anders. Given the recent wider backdrop of inflationary cost pressures and the existing focus from the company on cash runway, how easy will it be for you to implement average 10% reduction in operating costs from this point? Yeah. I I can take that, Andy. Yeah. I I mean, it these decisions are never easy to make. They are tough decisions, but they need to be made. We evaluated cost across the business, every single every single part of the business, and we we tried to define what part of that spend directly impacts our aquifer sales. And so we have had to make some tough decisions.

28:21 We are scaling back on a few initiatives, that would be ideal for us to have. But, at this point, we need to reduce our cost basis. And so we've taken steps across the board. This includes, this includes personnel. This includes any initiatives, like, you know, that are activities that could help potentially drive business growth that are not directly impacting Acrefer. We have we have reduced those as well. So is it easy? No. But it is a is it a decision we have taken? Yes. And we believe that these are the right decisions to help SHIELD grow. K. Great. Thank you, Santosh. How are repeat prescription rates progressing? Are physicians continuing to champion slash repeat prescribe at Crifa?

29:11 In short, yeah, in short, yes. So so for instance, you you see that. So the way we work is that each salesperson have a target of 25 physicians, which would be their highest potential customers. So, yes, we see continued penetration in that group. We see we see continued growth. And as Santo just explained, the split between repeat prescribing health care professionals is 70%, whereas the new are 30. So we always welcome, of course, new prescribers because we that also could be continue to drive our business. But I think as we go, we will see that the new prescribers decrease and the repeat prescribers increase. And this is typically what you would like to see because it's it's easier for a for a for a health care professional to continue to prescribe. It takes less time for the salesperson to get to that point than to chase the new customers. That takes one much more time. And we're trying to be very, very efficient, and that's how we measure them as well. So we're very, very efficient on how our salespeople spend their time. And there's a lot of data to support these things, and we can follow them pretty closely to do that.

30:26 Santosh, do wanna add anything there? No. I think I think you hit it. I I think we I unrelated a couple of metrics to an earlier question as well. I mean, we we see, you know, in q three, seventy thirty split existing versus new. So the existing continue to believe while we have newer prescribers coming in. So there's continued continued belief in the physician space, with with an AcroFer. Our challenge, I think, like, is awareness. We we just need to we need to increase awareness, and that'll that'll only help us. Yeah. Thank you. And following on from kind of awareness, someone has asked, is there anything that can be done to get user reviews on online forums to help build confidence in the consumer community even though it's a prescription drug?

31:14 Yeah. It is. I mean, so from so our head of marketing, she's closely following a lot of forums where these treatments are discussed. So, typically, as a company, you never interact in that. This is just what we hear is really called it's called social listening. We do that. We see what their reactions are. Could we, for instance, have a patient ambassadors? Yes. That's an initiative we're thinking about, which then you you could put on in other digital channels. Typically, what the company does is that then it's very obvious that the person is, you know, supporting the product and is done that with support from us. So, yes, that's an initiative we are considering to do for next year. Thank you. Can you provide any update on the recent performance of Viatris?

32:09 Yeah. What you have heard includes Viatris. This is a co commercialization. The total number of prescriptions is divided between us. So all of what we do is the combined effort of both companies. Thank you. Another question. Even though The US and EU markets are roughly comparable, why are sales in The EU not showing growth as seen in The US? It it basically, I think two factors. It's the number of countries that Norgine are present in and the pricing as well. And and US US is very different. It's more dynamic from a pricing point of view versus Europe.

32:57 So so that's it. And in in Europe, and coming back to previous questions, what is happening with Italy, Spain, and France? And here, a lot of work has been has been done to to make sure see if we could launch there. And I think the biggest difference really is pricing. That is so we are compared typically in Europe in pricing versus the OTC or alliance you can buy, which put us at a disadvantage. And the prices are in some markets just way too low. That is, of course, also influenced by reference pricing in in Europe. In The US, it's very different. You you present your case to payers. They can say, yes. They will. They can say, you know, if they think this is a therapy that is viable and that they think they their patients would benefit from, and thereby they would cover you. And that's basically how it is. And there the The US market is in one way much more complex, but there's so many different plans in in the end, but there's no between plans on pricing like there is in Europe between countries or in where you use between states that it as it is in Europe between countries. So you don't you don't have reference pricing in the same way. So So that, that, I would say, is is the main explanation why the difference is the the differences between the two markets.

34:22 Thank you, Anders. I've just got a few more questions. Sure. Are the board purely focused on high GDP per capita countries, or are you looking at developing countries too? India has a high addressable market but low GDP compared to The US. We are happy to go to any market where a typically, if if you take India as an example, if there is a distributor who wants to take the product to India, we're happy to support that. So, yeah, I know I can understand why you asked the question because of the markets we are active in right now, but we are talking to other potential distributing companies about many undermarkets in the world, Middle East, Africa, Latin America, so forth. It all comes down to if they see, you know, see that it will be viable to launch in those markets. So we are completely open to go to any market in the world.

35:24 Thank you. Do you expect buying by wholesalers ahead of Christmas and New Year to mimic what's happened with the fourth of the July weekend? And will this help you hit your target of 31,500,000 for 2024 to satisfy the covenant? It's a very good question, and I think if we of course, we don't we don't have an exact answer. What happens in The US is that many patients reach out of pocket max, meaning that they paid out of pocket, so now their prescriptions will basically be for free. And that, of course, many reach at towards the end of the year. So what typically happens in the fourth quarter is that patients are gonna take out the medication. So, yes, you may see some of that in the fourth quarter and then see a little bit less in the first quarter because then it restarts and and you would have to pay, you know, a little bit more to get the prescription. So so will that happen?

36:21 Yeah. Typically, the second and the fourth quarter for most products are the strongest quarters. For us, it's a little bit different of of because of two things. One, we are not a chronic treatment, as we And and and two, we are still on a very strong growth trajectory. So we we anticipate to see good growth in the fourth quarter, but we also anticipate to continue to see good growth, you know, over the quarters of next year. So that would be my part of the answer. I don't know, Santos, if you wanna add something to the quarterly difference you might see. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I think I mean, I think I wouldn't add anything more to what you just said, Anders, from a trend perspective. But just to be crystal clear to everyone on the call, we do not force people to buy or not buy at any point in the quarter. That it is their decision to buy, and that that is their final call whether they wanna buy during this for a certain period of time or not.

37:20 So I just wanna make be crystal clear on that. It is not my decision. It is the buyer's decision. Great. There were there were several questions submitted by investors about the the timing of the of the raise, but we'd just like to remind investors that we can't disclose any further information that's already in the r and s at this point, but the company will be providing updates in due course. Yep. And I think that's it, and I'll hand over back to Lily. There were a lot of lot of questions that kind of had the same message. So we've tried to condense those, and, hopefully, that's answered most. And does and and, Santosh, thank you for answering all those questions you can from investors.

38:06 And, of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Anders, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? We'd just like to thank you for interest, and thank you for listening to us today and and also for all your insightful questions. They all, all make perfect sense. And if I was on in your shoes, I would ask the same questions, and we try to answer them in in the best way possible. So if you ever have more questions, you know, you can actually contact us directly or or via our company, but we're happy to address any questions that you may have. So thank you all so much. Thank you, all. And, Santosh, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations?

38:55 This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of SHIELD THERAPEUTICS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.