Good afternoon and welcome to the Arix Bioscience plc results for the six months ended 30th June 2022 investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply click Q&A, scroll to the bottom, type your question, and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself, but the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where appropriate to do so. I'd now like to hand you over to Robert Lyne, CEO, and Felix Breyer. Good afternoon. Many thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Arix's second Investor Meet Company presentation. Welcome back to those of us who joined us a few weeks ago and welcome to those who are meeting us for the first time. In a slight change to the previous billing, we're actually joined by Felix Breyer from our investment team. Our managing director, Mark Chin, has been involved in some pretty exciting portfolio company news, actually, which we can touch upon at the end of the presentation, which has come through today. Felix has very kindly stepped in to help us talk through some of the portfolio elements in the presentation today. We can start off with the financial results, highlights of what has come through in the first half of the year, moving through to portfolio update, a strategy recap for those who are new to the story at Arix, and then an outlook at the end. During the course of this year, we've begun printing a monthly NAV on a regular basis, and that has somewhat trailed the decline in NAV that we have seen over the six months to the end of June. That's come out an 11% decline in NAV per share to 176 pence. Clearly that's disappointing for us, and we're very conscious that that does feed through into the share price. Nonetheless, when we look through what's caused that decline, we'll see that it's almost entirely accounted for by a significant decline in some of our publicly held positions. This has mirrored broad declines that we've seen in markets. The XBI, which is the closest benchmark we track, has been extremely volatile in the first half of this year, and that is even more pronounced in some of the smaller cap companies in which we invest. While we have seen some significant movements in companies such as Harpoon, in other companies such as Aura, which were actually down at the half year over that six-month period, we've actually seen a significant rebound there. Aura was down to $14 a share at the half year, and it's back up to over $18 today. That perhaps gives some idea of the volatility that we do see at the moment, in the public markets, and that does feed through into our NAV. In the case of Harpoon, you'll see that there has been a significant decline in the value of that position over the period. Harpoon's a company we've been with for quite some time, and so we do feel we know it well, and Mark Chin is on the board there. We have very good insight into the programs at Harpoon. As with Aura and the other public companies in which we're maintaining investments, our priority is to look through some of the shorter term movements, which we do see in the share prices, and concentrate on the underlying value and potential in the clinical programs that we're running. In the case of Aura and Harpoon, they both have data which we're expecting to come out before the end of the year. For us, as a company that is focused on investing in drug development businesses, which are either late pre-clinical or already in clinical stage development, the real focus on value for us comes from this clinical data. When we get readouts from trials which are indicating whether the drugs that the companies we invest in, which they have under development, are hopefully safe and better than that, hopefully effective in treating illnesses. It's this clinical data which provides validation about the potential value of the drugs under development. This is what will ultimately drive value for these businesses and drive M&A opportunities. As we look through the year and towards the year-end now, we are looking at when this data is gonna come through, when it is gonna validate the companies that we've invested in, and when that can drive value inflection points. As we're looking at portfolio progress during the year, Harpoon and Aura, despite the price, the challenges we've had in terms of their share price volatility and the decline in Harpoon, both received Fast Track and orphan drug designations during the year. These designations aren't in themselves value creation points alone. However, what they do is validate the importance of the trials that these are running and also the robustness of the programs that these companies put in place, such that regulators are happy to award this special status to them. On the other financial side, as well as the NAV performance in terms of the portfolio, we have maintained a very significant capital pool during the period. This remains at over GBP 131 million at the half year. We've taken a deliberate decision there to maintain a significant capital pool at a time when we've seen significant volatility in public market valuations and something of a slow approach for private valuations to readjust to this new reality. Because of that, we've deliberately not wanted to deploy what was a very significant capital pool at the top of a valuation cycle. Whilst when we look for investments, we're looking at very significant returns, which to some extent mean that the entry price is less sensitive than you may be with other investment types. For us, nonetheless, we did see that the cycle really did look to be turning, so on that basis, when the private valuations were taking some time to adjust to new realities of the public markets, we took the decision to deliberately slow down on the private investments and to shift some of our focus into a Public Opportunities Portfolio which we put together. This was in response to many, we felt, heavily over-discounted opportunities on the NASDAQ in the U.S. of listed biotechs with strong clinical programs and development and strong management teams. Where we felt companies were well-funded, despite the challenges that we see elsewhere in the market, to deliver on those programs within a timescale that we believe will feed through into a good return for Arix as an investor in this portfolio. At the half year, that portfolio was slightly down. However, I'm pleased to confirm that it has now moved into positive territory post the half year, and we're looking forward and providing further updates on that portfolio as it matures. The other key change that we've had towards the end of the year has been an expansion in the investment team, strengthening with the hire of a venture partner in Europe, who's gonna help us source investment opportunities in the continent over the next few months. Also a significant expansion and deepening of the board's industry expertise with Andrew Smith, Benny Soffer, and Debra Barker joining us today. I'll speak more about those team and board changes later in the presentation. This slide gives a bit more of a breakdown over the movement in NAV that we've seen to the half year. We continue to invest during the period, GBP 16.3 million going into the portfolio. As I explained, we deliberately targeted this investment into public opportunities where we felt actually, compared to the private opportunities we were seeing, there was just much greater value to be had. That was a deliberate policy we took in the first half of the year, and in the second half of the year, we continue to see strong pipeline opportunities for private investments, which we will keep under review. We do at the moment have quite a high bar before we'll make such an investment, given the value opportunities we see in the public markets. During the period, we also have realizations of over GBP 12 million. This was very largely from legacy positions, which we exited over the period. While we have seen a lot of great value opportunities in the public markets, with some of the other companies which we've held in the portfolio, and these were the positions which were put in place before the reorganization of the company last year. These were positions which we no longer had confidence in their ability to deliver the 3-5x or more returns that we seek when making a new investment. On that basis, given our evergreen status, we look to make sure that we dynamically manage the portfolio and where we don't feel that these companies have the potential for the superior returns we're targeting, we've taken the sometimes difficult decisions to exit those positions entirely, return cash to the balance sheet, and refocus on where we see the opportunity. As we complete the transfer from the GBP 180 million at the year-end to the GBP 93.9 million gross portfolio value at the half year, you'll see here the net portfolio revaluation downwards of GBP 28.3 million. As I said, that was significantly driven by volatility and the reduction in the public company holdings that we have. Also we did have a private write down in the form of STipe Therapeutics. STipe Therapeutics is quite an early-stage company, and again, as with some of the legacy public positions, it's not necessarily an investment which we would have done now with the investment thesis we have going forward. Nonetheless, it's a company that we have looked to support on its journey, and we continue to support it on its development. However, when we look at this, and we do always take a very hard look at the valuations at the half year, we felt that it was appropriate to make a write-down based upon the progress the company's made to date and also the funding challenges which it will face as it looks to raise funds towards the end of the year. This slide sets out a breakdown in terms of the NAV at the half year and where it sits. As you'll see, nearly 60% of the NAV here is in cash. As I say, this is a deliberate result of realizations we've brought back to the balance sheet and also the maintenance of a significant cash pile as we wait for private valuations to readjust so that we can reinvest and refresh the portfolio at an attractive valuation. The proportion of the NAV, which is in listed companies, has reduced, and this reflects the change in public valuations. We've left there still a quarter of the NAV is held in private companies. Now, for us, the valuation policy on private companies is very important to ensure that it's transparent and robust. Our starting point under the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines is to look at what was the last round price that a third-party investor paid or what was our cost. On top of that, we also take a sense check approach in terms of has the company made positive or negative progress since that point. Is it on track, or are we concerned about it? We will also look at comparables to the extent they exist for these businesses to say, is the valuation that we hold here fair in respect of what the market's currently valuing elsewhere, be they private or public companies. Having applied all of those tests, we were confident to hold at cost or third-party value all of the private investments, save for STipe, as I indicated earlier, where we felt that a 50% reduction was prudent in the circumstances. We have here a chart setting out the NAV progression since Arix's inception in 2017. As you'll see, and as some of our longer-term shareholders will know, this has been volatile, and it's primarily been driven, as you'll see, in 2018, we had a very high run up, which was largely driven simply by one company, Autolus, which had a very significant, very strong performance when it first IPO'd in the market before coming down into 2019, which led to a deflation of the NAV. You'll see here also then the really quite spectacular increase in NAV per share and NAV overall between 2019 and 2020, which was driven primarily by our landmark exit, VelosBio, which returned $180 million plus to the balance sheet. However, that has since come down as we've seen the public markets readjust over the last 18 months, and that's resulted, at the moment, in only a slightly above flat NAV per share growth over the previous 36 months. We have here an update to show a bit of a breakdown by different metrics as to where the portfolio stands today. Starting from right to left, as you'll see, it is now dominated by value from unlisted companies. That is not surprising given the change we've seen in listed valuations. Also we are comfortable making sure that while we have, through the POP, reasonable exposure to the public markets and the opportunities there, as well as our legacy companies which were originally private but have since gone public. We also want to make sure that we're accessing unlisted companies which investors cannot access directly themselves and therefore providing this opportunity to our investors. You'll see in the middle that we've got a very strong bias towards clinical stage companies, and this is something which has changed quite significantly over the last 12 months. This has been a deliberate shift that we put in place since the reorganization of the company last summer. For us, clinical stage companies are in the right sweet spot in terms of de-risking, whereby they are already in the clinic and we can already have some confidence around the safety and ideally some expectation on the efficacy of the drugs that are under development. We have programs there that are gonna have data readouts, ideally within 12-24 months of our investment. By focusing on these slightly later stage clinical companies, we can ensure that we get data readouts, which to us translates into potential for value inflection, which ultimately translates into potential for M&A exits in a much nearer timescale than some of the earlier preclinical companies, where it might be three, four or five years before you realistically got the potential for an exit event. We're very pleased to see that the rebalancing towards clinical has taken place over the last 12 months. The final breakdown on the left shows a breakdown of the portfolio by value in terms of the therapeutic areas in which we operate. You will see there is a deliberate bias there as well towards oncology. This is an area in which we've had success in the past, but also it's an area that we think has got a lot of success in the future. It is quite a busy area. There are a lot of companies operating in this space and a lot of investors in this space. At the same time, it's a universe where we know there's an awful lot of buyers from Big Pharma who are acquisitive. Crucially, because of the enormous R&D effort that's gone into this area, we have a high degree of understanding of the diseases and the mechanisms of actions of the drugs that are under development to try and treat those diseases. For that reason, oncology is somewhere that we feel is a sweet spot for us, and so we are comfortable that there is a bias towards there. Nonetheless, we do also want to maintain a balance with the other therapeutic areas in which our portfolio companies are operating. We have here an overview in terms of the portfolio as to where it stood at the half year. This gives a helpful breakdown, and the slides will be available after the presentation for those who wish to study them further in terms of the nature of the businesses that we have, where they're listed, where they're private, what our ownership percentage is, and the valuation at the half year. I'll now turn it over to Felix, who can give us a bit of an update in terms of some of the clinical operational progress which the portfolio company's made during the first half of the year. Thank you, Rob. First, briefly on Harpoon Therapeutics. The company presented positive interim safety and efficacy data for one of their clinical-stage assets in a human clinical trial. The company continues this clinical trial and expects data over the next year. In addition to this, Harpoon Therapeutics announced a collaboration with the big pharmaceutical company, Roche, using one of their therapeutic agents combination with one of Harpoon's clinical-stage assets to assess the efficacy of that combination in a new cancer indication. Besides this, Harpoon Therapeutics has received the regulatory approval from the FDA to advance two of its clinical-stage assets into two additional oncology indications. This really highlights the strength of Harpoon's data package as well as the high unmet medical need that Harpoon is addressing in the clinic. Artios, after a transformative year in 2021 when the company advanced two of its assets into the clinic, first-in-human testing. The company announced in the first half of 2022 clinical data, which demonstrated first a favorable and encouraging safety profile, which is a major de-risking step in any clinical development path. On top of that, the company noted early signs of clinical efficacy, which, additionally to the favorable safety profile, de-risks the clinical program and gives us a lot of excitement for the clinical data that will be generated by Artios over the next year. Operationally, Artios further strengthened its already top class board of directors with Samantha Truex, who is a seasoned, biotech executive with serial CEO roles in the Boston biotech ecosystem. Disc Medicine is a company we added to the portfolio last year. After initially being a preclinical company, soon after we invested, Disc turned into a clinical stage company. In the first half, Disc presented positive clinical data from its first human study. That data showed a favorable safety profile as well as biomarker changes which really highlight the potential opportunity for the drug once it is moved into patients. In addition to this, based on this positive data readout, Disc advanced that drug into a phase 1b-2 trial, the first time moving this agent into patients with severe anemia. On top of that, we're very excited about this. The company today announced that they initiated a phase II trial with the second independent clinical candidate that is in the Disc Medicine portfolio. Aura Bioscience presented updated safety and efficacy data for its phase II in the first half of 2022. It follows on from the previous encouraging clinical data that Aura has generated. It further de-risks the clinical development path. We remain excited about the company as it matures over the course of 2022. On top of this, Aura was granted a regulatory approval to move its therapy into a new oncology indication. The FDA has given green lights for a new indication, and this really broadens Aura's pipeline as it prepares for pivotal studies later this year. Further mentioning Serca Pharmaceuticals, a company we added to our portfolio in December. The company is currently preparing for launching its first clinical-stage program within the next six months. I'm handing back to Rob. Many thanks, Felix. Here we set out, and again, for those who joined our recent IMC, inaugural presentation, that some of this will be familiar. A little bit of a summary here just in terms of thesis around our Public Opportunities Portfolio. This is one of the areas we were concentrating on in the first half of the year as we saw this opportunity in the public markets. We managed to deploy 6.3% of our NAV into this portfolio, as at the half year. We're looking to keep the portfolio at the moment to within 10% of NAV. That's where we're guiding to, depending on the opportunities we see. This is a way in which we can invest in companies, many of which we actually saw originally when they were private. These are businesses we've been following for some time, and where we know their management teams well, rather than just companies which we're selecting off a spreadsheet because of arbitrary metrics. They are businesses where we do have faith in the fundamentals of the company in the same way as we would when we're assessing private opportunities. Another crucial criterion that we've looked at with these businesses is to ensure that they are well-funded, because in the current markets, there's obviously some challenges with public company raising. It is still out there for the best opportunities, but other companies which are poorly funded are gonna find it, we think, a little bit tricky in the public markets going forward. We've really wanted to focus on those which have cash runway to take them through their data readouts. As I mentioned earlier at the top of the presentation, data readouts for us are absolutely critical because that really is the validation as to whether the companies we're investing in have potential drugs in their portfolios which will get bought by Big Pharma. It's a really useful indication. We found in the Public Opportunities Portfolio, since we invested in them, out of the six data readouts that have come across those companies, five of these have been positive. As many of you will know, clinical development is very high risk, and so negative data readouts, I'm afraid, are surprisingly common. We feel that a ratio, as at the half year of five to one in terms of positive to negative data readouts is something that we're pretty encouraged by. That's what we think will form the basis of the value of this portfolio and the potential for M&A activity going forward. Just a strategy recap for those who are new to the story here at Arix. Our goal for some time has been maintained as generating superior returns for our investors and making a tangible difference to patients' lives by investing in a focused portfolio of innovative biotech companies addressing areas of high unmet need in healthcare. We're doing this now with this reformed board that we're announcing today, which has been expanded with the addition of Debra Barker, Andrew Smith, and Benny Soffer. Each of Debra, Benny, and Andrew bring unique talents and experiences to Arix which really expand our capabilities. Deborah has had a very successful senior career as an industry executive in Big Pharma, which will really bring great insights into us as we help our companies with their drug development programs, and also crucially, as we look at acquisition strategies for some of these businesses as we seek to sell them into Big Pharma. Andrew Smith is a seasoned biotech CFO, and he's kindly joined and agreed to chair our audit committee, where he'll bring a wealth of knowledge and experience as we move the business forward. Benny Soffer is joining us, who's had a long career as a public markets investor in the U.S. in healthcare stocks. For us, as you can see with the Public Opportunities Portfolio and the public companies that we're managing, that is a really great experience that we're very lucky to have him join and bring to bear. We also have here our investment team, which is led by Mark Chin, Managing Director, who many of you will have met on our first IMC presentation. We've also got Felix here in London, who's with us today. We've also been joined this week by Emmanuel Lacroix, who has joined us from UCB Ventures. That's the venture arm of UCB Pharma, which is one of our actually strategic pharma partners. Emmanuel actually joined us as a secondee five years ago, so in many ways, it's a return to Arix for him, and he's gonna be helping us over the coming months as we search for opportunities both in Europe, but also potentially to take assets out of big pharma companies where there might be opportunities for us to reinvigorate programs and make investments that way. In terms of the broad market opportunity, the crucial thing as to what we're looking to tap into here is that healthcare spending generally is very significant and has been growing both in absolute terms, but also in relative to GDP terms. That isn't a trend that we see going away. Across this significant band of healthcare spending, we see an awful lot of it is focused on pharmaceuticals. These are the drugs that we primarily now focus on developing with the portfolio companies that we invest in. As we look at the spending in terms of drug development and where these drugs come from, we see that a very large proportion, just say over half, is actually originally sourced by independent biotechs, which is exactly the kind of companies that we invest in. In that sort of filter, as we look down at the global opportunity of healthcare spending, we look at the subset that goes into therapeutics, and then we look at the subset of that which is developed by the independent biotechs that we still invest in. This still leaves an enormous market opportunity, which typically has resulted in M&A activity of over $150 billion a year over the last 10 years. This is what we're targeting in terms of selling our businesses off the back of strong, positive clinical data into Big Pharma to generate multiple returns back onto our balance sheet. This slide just summarizes our investment strategy here as to how we then go and source those opportunities to try and access that Big Pharma M&A appetite. We have a transatlantic footprint with capabilities in Europe and North America. We search only for cutting edge, best in class or first in class therapeutics. We're not interested in me toos or similar drugs, which maybe just have a marginal improvement. Our experience and what we're chasing are the real high premiums that Big Pharma will pay when you've got really transformative therapies. As outlined earlier, we're very much now focused on making sure that the companies we're investing in are late pre-clinical, so with a clear pathway into the clinic, already in the clinic, so they're already dosing patients. For us, that's a sweet spot in terms of valuation, but also in terms of the return profile, as I'll explain on the next slide. Here we put this together to try and explain in a visual sense, the thesis for how we look and select companies in terms of their stage development for the return profile. For us, this ideal investment window is set out here, where the companies are starting to go into clinic or already starting to dose patients. We can have confidence that the drugs they're developing are at least safe, and we have some confidence that they are gonna be efficacious, that they are gonna actually have a positive effect on the indications that we're trialing them in. For us, that's a stage where still there is a high degree of risk and expertise that we feel we have a competitive advantage in when we're making that investment. The valuation isn't too high at that stage. If successful, you can still be looking at very much a multiple return on the original investment if the companies get bought. By coming in at this stage, we've got a reasonable window of two, maybe three years to where we're looking at when they're gonna be having significant data readouts, when they can access the IPO market to the extent that it's open, but also we can look at private M&A, which for us is always the preferred exit. As we move to outlook, I'll hand over to Felix, who can talk through some of the upcoming clinical trial readouts that we're looking at across the portfolio. I'd also like to flag some breaking news we've had today, which is very exciting, which is around Disc Medicine, which was the first investment that was made back in September last year, following the reorganization of the business. It's just been announced this morning that actually a merger has been agreed between Disc Medicine, which is currently a private company, and Gemini Therapeutics, which is a cash shell on the Nasdaq. This is going to create, if it closes, which we expect it will by the end of the year, this will create a combined company with $175 million of cash, and that's gonna be enough to fund Disc Medicine's programs through to 2025. In a market in which access in the public markets has been challenged, this is a real validation of the quality of the science and the team and the opportunity of Disc Medicine that they've managed to pull this merger off. We're very excited by that. That is what's gonna allow it to take these programs through to clinical trials as they progress, fully funded on the public markets. I'll hand over now to Felix, who can talk through the rest of the upcoming milestones within the portfolio. Great. Thank you, Rob. I will actually start off with Disc Medicine following on from the news that Rob just announced. As mentioned, the company had a positive phase I trial early in the year. It then started a phase I/II trial in patients. The company expects to generate phase I/II efficacy data over the next 12 months. Besides this, the company actually announced today as well that it started a phase II trial for its second clinical stage asset, and it will generate initial phase II efficacy data in the first half of next year. It's worth mentioning really that phase II efficacy data is a huge value inflection point for any biotech company, and in many cases, a driver or initiator for M&A discussions if the data is positive. Aura Bioscience has final phase II safety and efficacy data coming up over the next 12 months. In the second half of this year, it will finally get a readout on that data and subsequently select the optimal design for its pivotal clinical trial. Pivotal means that this is the clinical trial that will, if positive, lead to approval by the regulatory authorities. This is really a key moment for the company as it advances its program into late clinical stage development. Artios, we already touched on this company. It has two clinical stage assets. Within the next 12 months, the company will complete its first clinical study for one of the programs, and it will also generate interim phase I safety data for its second clinical stage asset. Besides that, Artios actually announced today that it's starting a phase II clinical trial in collaboration with Pfizer, which is a combination trial and data will be expected in 2024. That efficacy data will be very meaningful as it is centered around an important class of drugs that are looking for good combination partners, one of which Artios may provide in the future if those studies read out positive. Harpoon Therapeutics has currently three clinical-stage assets in phase I/II clinical development. Over the next 12 months, the company will announce further data on those three trials, and we're very encouraged by the earlier data that was released in 2022. Without going sort of through all the preclinical programs in much depth, I would like to highlight Serca Pharmaceuticals, a company that we invested in last December. The company is on track to enter the clinic with its first program within the next six months, and we're very excited about the portfolio of this company as it is, developing critical medicines in the autoimmune space, a space that's very attractive to M&A within the big pharma space. I'm handing over to Rob. Many thanks, Felix. Just in summary, we're setting out here our rolling 36 months goals, which we introduced last year. The key goal that we're focused on is double-digit NAV per share growth. When we're looking to make investments within the portfolio, what we're looking at is companies that are gonna return enough that we can look to see double-digit NAV per share growth going forward. We have two subsidiary targets beneath that, which is additional, two additional IPOs over the 36-month period and two successful exits. We see those as good indicators of us being on track towards delivering that double-digit NAV per share growth. Of course, those in themselves are not the targets we're focusing on. Singularly, it is that double-digit NAV per share growth that we are looking to achieve. Many thanks. We'll now move through to Q&A. Fantastic. Rob, Felix, thank you very much indeed for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions using the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd just like to remind you that recording the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Rob, Felix, we did have a couple of pre-submitted questions. Perhaps we can start off with those, and we move on. Yeah. To some of those that we've had through the meeting itself. The first one reads as follows: There seems to be a trend for the majors to co-invest with smaller biotech to finance drug developments, or at least to partner with them for longer rather than to buy them out. Is this correct? And what are the implications for the scale and timing of returns for Arix's portfolio? Many thanks, Paul. I think that's a very pertinent question. You know, for us, the way in which we partner and engage with big pharma is really critical. They can provide a lot of capital as these companies develop, and they can also provide assistance where they partner with the companies we invest in to develop their trials. Crucially for us, of course, we do look at them as exit opportunities, as these are the ultimate universe of buyers that our companies are gonna be targeting. As the questioner has indicated, there has been a trend where an awful lot of big pharma has wanted to invest a bit earlier and alongside biotech companies to sort of spread the risk there. For us, actually, we see that as a positive. What we will typically do is in our investment rounds, because we are looking to invest ideally at the clinical stage, we might come in just ahead of big pharma or perhaps even alongside big pharma in a funding round. Therefore, we're getting in at a similar time where we also think that the risk profile is attractive. The crucial advantage of us is because we might often have a big pharma around the table, sometimes even on the board, we know that there is a company there with the capital and the appetite to acquire the business who is looking very closely at the business, and is often, frankly, when they're private companies, under CDA and seeing data and seeing the progress of the development of the trials ahead of the rest of the market. For us, having the pharma alongside in that way, actually, we see as an accelerant of potential exits. Our ideal, of course, is that we have more than one pharma around the table such that we can create some deal tension, and certainly that if ever there are moves towards M&A, we try and ensure that we market the company as widely as possible such that it is not just being sold to the nearest pharma, but we are gonna get the ultimate price. It is something which does affect deal dynamics, but actually I think it doesn't slow down or retard the development of the company's clinical programs. Instead, it provides us with an exit opportunity. If I may just add, any pharma partnership or collaboration is also external validation, which is an excellent sign, since pharma companies conduct very thorough diligence on any partnership or collaboration that they do. That external validation by the pharmaceutical industry is invaluable for small biotechs. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you very much. The next question, I've seen a couple come through just during the event as well around the same thing, Rob. It'd be helpful if you could explain why the discount to NAV after deducting cash from the NAV and share prices is so massive. Yeah. Now, it's a very pertinent question. Look, you know, we're clearly in a situation in which we can't control the share price, but we are very, very conscious that the discount between NAV and share price directly impacts our shareholders and their ability to participate in the returns that we develop as a business. The discount is something we are acutely aware of. This is something that's moved very significantly over the history of Arix. We had actually traded a premium for quite some time when the company was initially floated, and that then transferred into a significant discount. We saw that really change a couple of years ago when we did really close the discount again, as we had very strong returns within the portfolio. Certainly from my perspective, I've spent nearly 10 years now in listed venture capital, and what has always driven share price and closing discounts has been performance within the portfolio. We clearly have had a difficult time in biotech over the last 18 months. You know, this is always a volatile business. It is a high-risk business. We aren't the sort of portfolio with the number of companies we've had where we're going to be having exits every six months. I'm afraid there isn't that regularity. But when we do have exits and they're successful, they have the potential to be really very significant indeed. We've seen that in the past, and when we've had that exit and when we've had that big cash return to the balance sheet, that really has transformed the performance of the share price and closed the discount. I'm very conscious that it is frustrating for shareholders when we have a significant discount here. Obviously, I think it represents a fantastic buying opportunity, and for those who are coming into this stock at the moment. People are buying in at not an awful lot above cash, and certainly at less than the value of cash and listed. Essentially, the private portfolio is being given entirely for free. We see it as a very attractive entry price. What we're looking at doing is ensuring we're communicating the value opportunity of Arix now, but also the potential going forward as best we can, and then delivering on the portfolio performance that we see the potential for. It's by doing that I am confident we will be able to close the discount over time and therefore deliver value for our shareholders. That's fantastic. Thank you very much indeed. If I may just ask you to click on that list there and just read out those questions, where appropriate to do so, and just give your responses, that'd be great. Thank you. Certainly, Paul. I think the first one we had is a question that said: Do you see the market dynamics as an opportunity or a threat for future progression of portfolio and new holdings? I think probably the answer, I mean, I'd be surprised to hear, is probably a little bit of both, to be honest with you. You know, we are conscious that for those companies that are underfunded, there is a bit of a challenge now in the markets. Capital simply isn't as easily available or as cheaply available as it was. A big comfort we have is that by the end of last year in 2021, our portfolio collectively raised over $775 million. We were very well-timed in that the portfolio took advantage of the capital markets when they were open and is now well-funded through 2024 in order that they can meet their clinical trial obligations and get data readouts, which will then position them well to continue to either be bought, ideally, or to raise future funds on an attractive valuation. For our portfolio, we do think it is pretty well-positioned to deal with the funding challenges that we have now seen in the markets compared to how they were. We also do see it as an opportunity, and that's been explicitly why we've looked at this Public Opportunities Portfolio, where we've decided that actually these are companies that when we compare them to the private companies that we're seeing, the quality and stage of development of these public companies is such and the valuation is so low that we think they're a compelling investment opportunity. It's definitely introduced a different dynamic for us. It has led us to shift the focus away from private investments at the first half of the year. It is something where we have to make sure that the portfolio is well-funded and defensively positioned. What we always come back to is the fundamental value of these businesses, which is that the drugs they have under development. Although we do look at potential for drug pricing pressure to be revised in the U.S., and there is some actions going through Congress at the moment that we are keeping under close review, fundamentally, reimbursement rates, what companies and what patients will pay for drugs in the U.S., which is the primary market, but also Europe, they haven't changed over the last 12, 18 months. The drugs which were once a billion-dollar drug potential 12, 18 months ago, still have the potential today to be a billion-dollar drug. That's the ultimate value of the businesses that we invest in. That we see as constant, regardless of the changed market environment we currently see. Yeah. I think it's also fair to say that today's news about this medicine being able to succeed in a very competitive reverse merger process to merge into Gemini really highlights the high caliber of the private companies that we have and their ability to still access a significant capital even in the challenging times we're in at the moment. Yeah. That's quite right, Felix. I think the highlight, as we said, around that transaction is that that company will now be fully funded. All of the funding requirements were met by insiders, and Arix is participating in that, such that the company will have $175 million of cash or cash equivalents, and that's gonna fund them through to 2025. You know, those are the kind of businesses we want to be in, where they've got very long cash runways. We don't have to worry about the accessibility of capital markets in order to get that company through to its critical data milestones. We've got another question here which is, how do you define superior to what? I think that may be in terms of the superior returns we're targeting. Our focus there, as I explained perhaps at the end of the presentation, is in terms of double-digit NAV per share growth. For that is what we determine to be a superior return. Obviously, we're conscious that the interest rate environment is now changing. The return profile from different assets is shifting. Still, we feel that double-digit NAV per share growth is achievable from the model we have and from the investments we make, and we believe and hope that will be attractive to investors. We have another question here of, do you intend to increase or decrease your allocation to already listed companies? If yes, have you or are you using the current market weakness to average down on existing portfolio companies? It's a very good question actually, and it is something we keep under constant review. We've actually been taking the opportunity recently to trim certain positions when they had periods of strength. We did sell down a little bit of Aura earlier in the year, and we did that when it was trading more strongly than it is now even, and certainly more strongly than it was at the half year. We've definitely taken an active approach to those positions, even ahead of data where we feel that they're showing a strong enough return that is prudent to take some money off the table. In terms of furthering investing in existing companies that we know well, we have considered that, and it's something we do keep under review. We've actually found some of the Public Opportunities Portfolio companies to be the most compelling opportunities that we've seen. While we want to make sure that we have a healthy balanced exposure to the public markets, in the context of a NAV that is already half cash, we want to make sure the portfolio is not too overbalanced to the public markets at this time. When we have put more capital to work there, it has actually been into the Public Opportunities Portfolio rather than into other public companies which are already in the core portfolio. We have another question here. What is your methodology for valuing non-listed companies? Is it the usual PE methodology, or are you using an in-house proprietary methodology? The valuation approach we take, we follow the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Guidelines. The challenge we have perhaps compared to standard PE methodologies is that because our businesses, they are very much pre-revenue, they're pre-approval businesses, we don't necessarily have revenue metrics or user metrics that might support, more traditional PE valuation methodologies that other investment companies might use. In line with the industry standard in biotech, what we look at is what was the last round price that we paid or that a third-party investor paid if they validated the valuation independently. We start at that, but then we also look at what progress the company's made, either positive or negative since that investment, to then judge whether or not it's still prudent to be using that valuation. On top of that, we also lay a general overview in terms of where's the market got to, where have the comparables got to. Even if we maybe invested at $1 a share, and even if the company's on track, if there's been a really substantial shift in what the market thinks these businesses are worth, we think it's important that we reflect that in fair value. To give a couple of examples as to how that translates in practice into the portfolio valuations, I mentioned earlier that we actually put a write-down on the valuation of STipe Therapeutics. That's a business which still has cash to the year-end. It will be cashed out at that point, which is not unusual for companies at that stage of development, and they have active development work ongoing. However, it is also a company where we recognize that it is in a challenging environment to raise money at the moment. It does have only runway until the end of the year, and while there is a supportive syndicate there, we think it's appropriate to reflect the challenges that company has and to take a prudent approach and write down the value by 50% at the year-end. Conversely, the largest private holding we have is Artios, which accounts for nearly half of our private valuations. That's a business that we currently hold at the Series C valuation, which was the funding round concluded last year. That was an independent third-party-led funding round, and so at the time, we felt that that was a reasonable, price point to use when we valued our own position there. We have taken a very close look at that because we're conscious that valuations have shifted over the last 12 months, albeit they started shifting even earlier than that. Nonetheless, we have seen continued change. In the example of Artios, what we look at, we say, "Well, actually, in terms of its clinical progress, it is very much on track," as Felix has been indicating, actually, we're frankly pleased with where Artios has got to over the last 12 months. It's gone as well as we could have hoped from the investment thesis that we had when we participated in the Series C last summer. Even more than that, when we then look at the public comps there, we feel that the closest comparable is actually a NASDAQ-listed company called Repare Therapeutics, which is in a similar space, although we feel that actually Artios' programs are superior and in some cases more advanced. Repare Therapeutics is currently trading, even despite all the challenges in the public markets, it is trading at a $500 million market cap. When we look at Artios, our current valuation is based on a post-money of about GBP 250 million. When we look at our post-money of GBP 250 million, we see a comparable market cap in a comparator at $500 million, which at the top of the market, you know, a year or more ago, that was actually valued at over $1 billion. It's come down a long way, but it's still at $500 million. When we look at that, we feel that does give us comfort that actually our holding value is very much a fair value and that we are reflecting the reality of the markets as they are now. There's another question here. The board has share buyback powers. Would buying the company's own shares back at a greater than 50% discount to NAV represent a good investment? This is a very good question, and very much buybacks are something which we keep under constant review. We did have a share buyback program in operation a year ago. In all honesty, at the time, we didn't see a great impact, for example, in terms of the discount from that share buyback program. We're conscious that for many shareholders, narrowing the discount is a key key item in terms of ensuring that shareholders actually benefit from the NAV growth that we can generate. We do look at the share buybacks. That is something we do keep under constant review because we have quite a lot of cash as we see. At the same time, while at the moment they are a significant discount to NAV, when we're making new investments, we're really looking at a 3-5x plus return potential. Now, given the inevitable uncertainty and risk in biotech, we're not going to obviously achieve that with every single business that we invest in. That's the potential that we look for. Where we see that, and we look at our capital use, even capital that we might use buying our own shares, and we do obviously have a lot of confidence in our NAV, and so we think the discount is real. Nonetheless, when we look at what that capital could do in a private investment, we see the potential for really significant multiple cash returns. As I indicated earlier, that's ultimately, in my experience, the experience of Arix in previous companies, that's what will drive the real growth in the share price. It is something that we keep under constant review, but at the same time it is something that we do balance in terms of what else we can be doing with the capital. Robert, thank you very much indeed. I think that covers off all those questions we can from investors today. Perhaps before redirecting investors to give you some feedback, if I just may ask you just for a few closing comments, that'd be fantastic. Certainly. Well, look, you know, thank you very much for everybody joining today. We are very grateful for people's interest in the business. It clearly has been a challenging period of performance over the last six months, and we hope that the new NAV updates which we've been introducing have been allowing people to follow that NAV progression more regularly so that these announcements that we make at the full year and half year aren't such a surprise. For us, it really is about the quality of the opportunities we've invested in and the potential within those businesses. We've certainly seen this in the past, where it can take really some time, in some cases, for these programs to really mature and for data to come out, for M&A to happen. when it does happen, we have the real potential to deliver really significant cash back onto the balance sheet. It's those returns that we're confident will drive NAV and close the discount, and the share price will increase commensurately. That's fantastic. Thank you both very much indeed for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session? You should be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and all the team 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. On behalf of the management team of Arix Bioscience plc, thank you for attending today's session. Good afternoon. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.