Well, it seems like most people are with us now. So welcome, my name is Tim Metcalfe. And with me today, I've got Stephen Stamp, who's CEO and CFO of Midatech Pharma. Unfortunately, Stephen is traveling on business at the moment, and where he is, the internet connection is not great. So unfortunately, we won't have video for Stephen today. But he will run you through the presentation following the release of the company's interim results on Friday. And then, following the presentation, we'll have the opportunity for a question-and-answer session. Thank you very much to everybody who submitted questions in advance of the session, that's really appreciated. But we do welcome questions during it. Unfortunately, given the number of people who are attending, it's not possible to go to individuals directly and ask them to unmute and put their questions to Stephen. But if you would like to ask the question, please use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen, type your question in, and I will go through those with Stephen at the end of the presentation, and we'll endeavor to answer as much as we can. So without further ado, I'll hand over to Stephen, to run you through the presentation. Stephen?

Thank you, Tim, and good afternoon, everybody. Let's start if we move Tim with Slide 2, and with your permission, I will take Slide 2 as read, other than to recommend that you read our public filings which can be accessed through website. So, jumping to Slide 3, we have in front of us our summary profit and loss for the first-half of 2021, compared with the first-half of 2020. We had a nice bump in revenues. This was a result of our collaboration partnership, working on our Q-Sphera programs, more of that in a second. But the most striking thing was that despite working on eight more projects in this half, actually our costs are pretty much half. And the reason for that is that the first-half of this year no longer reflects the costs of closing down Spain nor the operating costs of the Spanish operation. So R&D was just about £2 million, admin costs £1.6 million for a total net loss of just over £3 million pounds or about £0.5 million a month, and that kind of reflects our ongoing run rate. So moving on to balance sheet, the balance sheet was similarly cleaned up this half year. All of the Spanish loans have now been repaid. We took an impairment, if you may recall last year, about £11.3 million, I think it was for intangible assets. The only addition to the balance sheet is a new lease for our new headquarters and lab space in Cardiff, which has been capitalized in accordance with IFRS-16. Cash on the balance sheet of the half year was £4.5 million, but we've raised another £9 million in July. So actually our current cash is more closer to £12 million, and that gives us a runway into the first quarter of…

Well, thank you very much, Stephen. I have had a number of questions coming in as you've been presenting, I'm just going through those. A number of people have obviously focused on Q-Sphera and its use with large molecules, particularly proteins and monoclonal antibodies. Could you talk a little bit more detail about some of the technical challenges that have been overcome in recent times, and some of those that you'll be looking to address in the next sort of 12-months?

Sure. That's a very pertinent question. So the major challenge we think we have overcome, and that is to demonstrate that we can encapsulate the protein in Q-Sphera microspheres without denaturing it. The problem in most manufacturing processes is that the protein itself gets denatured. The molecule gets smashed up, and then it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. So we've overcome that technical hurdle. So we can put a checkmark there. The next technical hurdle is to get the drug loading up to an appropriate level. Obviously, if you can't deliver much drug in the Q-Sphera microsphere, then you're not going to have a three month product, you're going to have a three day product. And all I can tell you is that we're well on the way there, the team in Cardiff, as I said have increased that 3x. So I'm going to give that a sort of a small checkmark, that piece is done. The next piece of challenge is dissolution, and specifically, coming up with an essay that we can measure the dissolution profile of the product over a period of time. And the challenge here is that as the microspheres release drug into the dissolution medium, so the medium actually has the effect of denaturing the protein, so you can't measure it anymore. So we are working feverishly to come up with an assay that we can measure the dissolution of the product over a period of time in vitro. We want to do that in vitro, because we can do much faster turnaround, and it's much quicker, obviously, much cheaper than doing it in vivo. And then the last thing that we need to work on is inject ability. We don't see any problems with that right now. So we need a product which is sufficiently liquid and not this too viscous that it can go down a syringe needle, and into a patient without causing undue pain. So the four things that we've done, I think we've got sort of two and a half, maybe three done. And the one big thing to work on now as I say, the dissolution essay. So does that cover the question you think?

I think it does. And, yeah, I've had some questions that are sort of adjacent to that. And one we should ask is, the question was, were you disappointed with the termination of the Dr. Reddy partnership? And was this due to the fact that their molecules weren't suitable for Q-Sphera? Or were there other reasons for the termination?

You broke up there, but I think I got the gist of the question. So the Dr. Reddy molecule that gave us the work on was challenging from the get go, it’s the nature of the beast. And our suspicion is that they'd already tried to formulate it themselves, actually. They have a subsidiary company called OctoPlus. And my belief anyway, is that they tried and OctoPlus tried to formulate it, it couldn't. So they shipped it off to us and lo and behold, we couldn't either. It's just the nature of the molecule itself, it wasn't well suited to PLGA microsphere formulation. So disappointing, yes, but it happens.

Absolutely. So the read across from that shouldn't be that it's putting a particular limitation on the use of Q-Sphera. This was just one particular use case that was challenging and it's not suitable for.

Yes.

Yeah. Obviously, there's potentially a huge market here with proteins, monoclonal antibodies and big pharma. You've got, obviously a focus on certain in-house programs and certain partnerships at the moment. Is there a strategic desire to widen those number of partnerships to enter into sort of wider licensing deals, to try and get this technology to market potentially, in a far wider and quicker way?

Sorry, you broke up again, there. That's alright, Tim. So our goal here is to maintain a balanced portfolio if we can. What we'd like to do is to have a small number of internal programs we work on. The reason for that is that we can determine the timelines ourselves within our available resources. And ideally, we have the opportunity to create an auction, or some competitive pricing tension, at least, when we've delivered proof-of-concept. Having said that, it's also nice to have some partnered programs, because the partner pays for the development costs, but you're stuck with one customer. So you don't have the opportunity to create an auction. And you're basically marching to that customer's timelines, and his resource capabilities. Now, most of the companies we talk to have more resources than we do. So that part isn't a problem. But, what big pharmas like, they switch up their strategies, they go to different places it happens. So hence, we'd like to keep a balance.

No, that's absolutely understood. And obviously, with the recent funding, there are the funds there to do the in-house programs, as well as those that are financed by third parties.

Absolutely. And so the first quarter ‘23 cash runway number assumes a number of in-house programs.

Yes, and doesn't assume presumably significant license fees from third parties.

It assumes zero. Our advisors, we should always tread on the conservative side there.

Okay. Well, thank you for clarifying that. I've had a couple of questions relating to history and MTD201. And whether that program is still something that you look at it, whether it has any value, other than really as a proof-of-concept for Q-Sphera? Or, have we genuinely moved on and the focus is now on this much wider and potentially significantly larger opportunity?

So the data that we accumulated for entity 201, is good. And we have two Phase I trials. One was a PK trial compared with the Novartis product, and the other one compared intramuscular versus subcutaneous administration. And both gave us very nice data. And we tried long and hard to find a licensee for that product. The reason for that was we couldn't take it any further ourselves. Because the product clearly was not going to be by equivalent to Novartis’s is Sandostatin. In my opinion, it was a much better product, much less into patient variability and inter batch variability associated with the Novartis product. But I'm not even sure that product would be approved by today's standards. But the fact of the matter is Tim, we went far away to find a licensee, and we couldn't generate any interest. So we had to stop the program. If somebody wants to come forward, great. But we have to move on.

Yeah, absolutely. As you might expect on a session like this, obviously a number of existing shareholders here. I think I'm right in saying that I'm personally a shareholder. But everybody's a little disappointed at the moment with where the share price is. And could you just share with us some of the things that you've been doing, and I'm obviously aware of, to generate further interest in the stock and the meetings that you've been having with institutions, for example, which while they're not yet reflected in the share price, hopefully will be in the future, just to reassure people that there is quite a lot going on behind the scenes that they don't see.

Yeah. So I have done many roadshows in the UK and the U.S. I've got more coming up. There's obviously a high interest in advance of announcing results. But I've got more coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm planning on doing some investor conferences this autumn. And I've been working with Edison to publish research on the company, which was also published, actually, on the day of the results on the last Friday. So, those are the things that have been happening. Obviously, that doesn't appear to have been a whole lot of positive reaction in share price.

No, not yet. But one's reassure everybody that there are a lot of efforts ongoing. You mentioned the Edison notes attendees have in…

Yes, and you're aware of some of those, Tim.

Personally, absolutely, I am. But I just want to get the message out too, because we're getting a number of questions on it. But if you haven't, any of the attendees haven't read the Edison research, it is readily available on their website. So we'd encourage you to go to the Edison Research website and read that piece, because it's quite comprehensive, and hopefully fill in a little bit more of information. And I'm getting to the end of the questions that the people have been typing in. We do have a few more minutes. We wanted to keep this session two a half an hour quick update, after the interims. But if anybody has got anything else, please try and type quickly. But if you do think of anything post the session, please do not hesitate to get in touch it at any time. I can be contacted on midatech@investor-focus.co.uk. And we'll put any questions that you ask to Stephen and his colleagues and we'll endeavor to answer them. But rest assured, we are very keen to engage as much as we can with our current shareholders, and attract as many new ones as we possibly can. I can't see anybody typing rapidly on my screen at the moment. So, Stephen, I think, your internet has managed to stay stable long enough. So, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much to everybody who's joined us today. Much appreciated and really appreciate your support. So, thank you.

Absolutely. Thanks, all. And thanks, Tim.

Thank you.