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VolitionRx Limited (VNRX)

Q4 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 23, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to VolitionRx Limited's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference call will be opened for questions. [Operator Instructions]. This conference is being recorded today, March 23, 2021. I'd now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Scott Powell. Please go ahead, Scott.

Scott Powell

Analyst

Thank you, and welcome everyone to today's earnings conference call for VolitionRx Limited. This call will cover Volition's financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020, along with a discussion of our recent activities and key upcoming milestones. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the conference call to a question-and-answer session. Also on our call today are Mr. Cameron Reynolds, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Terig Hughes, our recently appointed Chief Financial Officer; and Dr. Jake Micallef, our Chief Scientific Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of the information discussed on this conference call will include forward-looking statements covered under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our beliefs, as well as assumptions we have used based upon information currently available to us. Because these statements reflect our current views concerning future events, these statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual future results may vary significantly based on a number of factors that may cause the actual results or events to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these statements. We have identified various risk factors associated with our operations in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the course of this call. I'd now like to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Cameron Reynolds. Cameron?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Thank you, everyone, for joining Volition's conference call today. I especially appreciate it, given the busy earnings call season. I'd like to start yet again by recognizing the amazing commitment and hard work done by all of our teams over the past few year, during these difficult times. I could not be prouder of their efforts. Despite the lockdown, we have managed to keep our main lab in the middle operational and opened the new Silver One production facility and indeed have made such ways of significant progress into many areas of the business throughout 2020 and into the first quarter of 2021,now that we have such a stable, reliable, reproducible platform technology that we think can and will be highly disruptive and influential worldwide in a wide range of areas. Before passing over the Terig, who will cover the financials, and then moving on to our product launches, this being our annual call, I will start today by briefly discussing our 2020 highlights and a reminder of all the progress we have made in the last year. We have traded this year strongly, especially by closing our acquisition of Optima in January and then by launching our first product the Nu.Q Vet Cancer Screening Test in Decemberand achieved lots of exciting milestones in between. As a reminder, the strategic acquisition of Optima helped secure the supply of one of the key components of our Nu.Q tests,the recombinant nucleosomes, which we use as the calibrants.The transfer of know how is now complete, and we now have the capability to manufacture a wide range of these key components in house. 2020 was a pivotal year for Nu.Q test. It is truly remarkable to reflect that we only reported the proof-of-concept data in April of last year. And yet by the Veterinary…

Terig Hughes

Analyst

Thanks very much, Cameron. And thank you, everyone, for joining our earnings call today. I look forward to meeting many of you in-person when possible. I will now provide a summary of the key financial results. For the year ended December 31, 2020, we reported a net loss of $20.4 million as compared to a net loss of $16.1 million in the prior year. This result was predominantly driven by higher research and development spending, which increased by $4.2 million over the prior year period to $14.5 million in 2020reflecting the investments we made in expanding our employee team and securing the supply and manufacture of key components through the Optima acquisition, as well as higher research spending directed at COVID-19 and NETosis. Despite this higher level of spending, we closed out 2020 with cash and cash equivalents of $19.4 million, compared with approximately $17 million at the end of 2019. And to act to this, during the first quarter of 2021, to-date, we have significantly strengthened our balance sheet by adding an aggregate of approximately $20.5 million in cash through an underwritten public offering of our common stock in February, as well as through our aftermarket equity distribution program. Furthermore, in January, we were delighted to announce the award of approximately $4 million in non-dilutive funding from the Walloon Region, and Namur Invest. We have a long history of support from the agencies of the Walloon Region, who to-date have awarded Volition approximately $13 million in non-dilutive funding, including this most recent award. We would like to publicly thank Willy Borsus, Vice President of the Walloon Government, the Walloon Minister for Economy, as well as Nicolas Delahaye and Renaud Hattiez from Namur Invest for the financial assistance and their continued support. So just to recap.Before taking into account the expenses we have incurred thus far in 2021, our cash and cash equivalents totalled approximately $40 million, which is by far the strongest cash position we have ever had in the Company's history. Nevertheless, we continue to manage our expenditures carefully. Our burn rate through the final quarter of 2020 was an average approximately $1.5 million per month. Overall, we would expect it to increase slightly as we make additional investments towards our product launches and expansion of our platform. And I will provide periodic updates on our future earning calls. In summary, we're in a strong financial position, providing us both a great runway to achieve our many milestones, and continuing flexibility to weather the pandemic. And with that, I will pass back to Cameron for further operational and product updates.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Thanks Terig, and I'm absolutely delighted to have the strongest balance sheet we've ever hadand great to have you on Board. In fact, while talking of the team members, I'd also like to publicly welcome Ms. Gael Forterre, our new Chief Commercial Officer, to our executive management team, as well as congratulate Gaetan Michel for his promotion to Chief Operating Officer and Dr. Mark Eccleston, one of our founding advisors for his promotion to the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer. As we are transitioning from a research and development company to a commercial company,we are proud to strengthen the leadership team with these key appointments. All four bring strong global expertise and experience to their respective roles and these appointments aim to provide a very strong product focus for our management team. Also, from an expansion point-of-view, we're absolutely thrilled to have opened Silver One, the production hub for our products and components close to our lab in Belgium. I'm very happy to announce today that we are now producing several of our key components and plan to achieve a full ISO certification later this year. As with our previous real estate transactions, the vast majority of the purchase and fit out costs were supported through non-dilutive grants and loans from the Namur Region, again helping to keep our burn rates relatively low. We are well into the process of producing at large scale, raw materials such as recombinant nucleosomes, which act as calibrantin our Nu.Q assays, in addition to antibodies that are key elements to our branded products. And indeed, we’ll manufacture our full diagnostic kits once finalized. We expect to offer all elements for both commercial sale and for clinical trial purposes, and CE-Marked products for sale in Europe and beyond. We're also installing a service…

Dr. Jake Micallef

Analyst

Good morning, Cameron, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here. While cancer remains our core disease focus, given the relatively recent understanding of the prominent role of both NETs and nucleosomes in the pathology of COVID-19, sepsis, and many other diseases,we are also researching the use of our proprietary technology in diseases with particular regard to NETs and NETosis. In terms of background science, white blood cells help protect the body against infection by engulfing invading viruses and bacteria, and producing antibodies against them. In addition, white cells also eject chromatin material out of the cell to form Neutrophil Extracellular Traps or NETs, which catch and trap invading viruses. In a respiratory infection like COVID-19, white cells migrate to the lungs where they produce NETs to trap and kill the virus. This protects the lungs and prevents the virus from spreading to the rest of the body. NET is therefore is a crucial part of the immune system. However, over production of NETs is pathological and elevated levels of NETs are a clinical complication of COVID-19 leading to poor patient outcomes, and can actually be fatal. NETsare similarly a complicating factor in a wide variety of other diseases, including respiratory infections, SARS and pneumonia, as well as metabolic diseases, autoimmune conditions, inflammatory conditions, cancer, thrombosis, stroke and sepsis. TheNETs material is made up of nucleosomes. I am bullish tohave spent 10 years developing antibodies and assays for nucleosomes. So we are well placed to take a leading role in much of this research.We can detect NETs in minute quantities using Volition’s Nu.Qnucleosome assays. Indeed I believe are assays are the only analytically validated quantitative nucleosomesassays currently available. We're investigating the use of the Nu.Q platform to monitor NETosis disease progression, and frequent response across a wide range of…

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Thanks a lot,Jake. Exciting times indeed and so to the future. I would like to reiterate our vision and what makes us satisfied with the progress and our sight. Volition is an epigenetics company focusing on advancing the science of epigenetics, and exploiting these advances in human and animal health. This has been our mission since our founding, and it is coming to fruition with our Nu.Q platform at the very heart of epigenetics. We believe the last decades of work at Volition with our ever expanding team in epigenetics puts us in an extremely strong position with our expansive IP portfolio, to bea significant player in this key field. Overall, on so many fronts, with our ever growing team and IP, I'm delighted with the progress we are making. And I'm excited by the momentum we have developed in the epigenetics field. Indeed, our whole team is incredibly excited about the Company's future opportunities. We aim to report throughout 2021 and beyond numerous key milestonesnow that we're in full swing in turning our platform into a range of products worldwide. We will focus on driving revenue in the coming quarters where possible during the pandemic in four key areas: One,vet products; two, disease monitoring tests, such as in COVID, and sepsis;three, using our new production facility to drive reagent sales; and four, licensing of our technology for others to commercialize worldwide in both the human and vet space.We also aim to publish data on multiple fronts, including Nu.Q Capture, which I’ve not discussed at length today, but is also making very strong progress;five, along with the rest of the Board, and indeed the whole company, look forward to sharing the results of case studies over the coming months and year with our optimized platform. Despite the pandemic, 2020proved to be a most exciting year, thanks to our fantastic hard working team. But we are hopeful 2021 can top it. Thanks again for joining the call today. I very much appreciate it given the busy earnings call season. We're happy to take questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. And our first question is from the line of Kyle Mikson with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Kyle Mikson

Analyst

Just regarding the NETosis trial that you're still negotiating, I just had a few questions around that. So first, is the intention to conduct a trial that kind of looks at all or maybe for some of those diseases like COVID, influenza, sepsis, or will just one be examined in the file? And then second, is it possible that the trial could assess treatment monitoring with NETosis based therapeutic antibody drugs? I know Jake mentioned this and there's a few that you guys are looking at. I was wondering if that's a [complication] in the trial. And then finally, when you say like a large trial, I noticed that in the press release,does that maybe mean like the size of the blood cancer study in the U.S.?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

And just some very good questions. I'll answer those briefly myself, and then see if Jake has anything to add. So, yes, of course,so the first question, really, I guess, pertains to whether we do a separate NETosis trial for COVID for influenza and sepsis. We've been in discussions on one for influenza and COVID. But I think, given where we are, we’re probably more focused now on having one for sepsisbecause it's a very, very -- because, it's what kills most people in hospitals.Obviously, would be applicable, if it works in sepsis, it will almost certainly work in the others. But influenza and COVID, the numbers obviously go up and down. And that's sort of overwhelmed hospitals at the moment. So while we are in the U.S., we're looking to do a large trial, which is the third question. It's -- probably it'll be about the same cost we'd expect as the other 510(k)s. But when you're doing longitudinal samples, which this would probably be,you have a probably the similar number of samples, but less patients, if that makes sense,because you're looking to get four or five samples from these patients. So it would be a very similar scale of trial, the exact numbers you need for longitudinal studies we're still working on. But I think we'll end up with a product for NETosis, which will work in sepsis we expect and hope, we'll see how it goes. But that's -- all the things we've seen now are extremely encouraging. So -- and that would be useful for all three. So we're just debating at the moment, whether -- the first half of the length if you will would go for a one on -- for influenza and the COVID, or whether we would look to do one in…

Dr. Jake Micallef

Analyst

I think you got it pretty much all of it there. The sort of background is that, the way that the NETs behave is similar in all of these diseases. So, you could in principle have a diagnostic for NETs. In the beginning, we are looking at separate disease all that is going very well, and probably as Cameron say, that beginning it will be sepsis or COVID, and later on we might be able to look actually at NETosis as an indication itself.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

And I think it's important to just reiterate, it has taken some time. We were hoping some data late last year. But as you just said a few times, it's very understandable that, some of the trials that longitudinal studies have been tough during the emergency ward is overwhelmed taking 10 samples from one patient is not their top priority, quite, quite naturally, and quite rightly. But I couldn't express strongly, too strongly how happy you are with the results and how collaborators are really appreciating not just how well the data is coming out, but also how well our assay has performed, all the work we've done and now it means we can ship kits to a range of places where they can be run and they're just working tremendously well. But in doing what they should be doing, and also just being robust and reproducible, reliable. So, I think we put ourselves in a really good position and we'll have a lot more updates on this throughout the next month or two and through the quarters. But, I think there's going to be a big part, and one of our four key pillars of the Company going forward. Because yes NETs is, only recently understood, but I think we can be really at the heart of the treatments as well as diagnostic, prognostic and disease progression for NETosis as well.

Kyle Mikson

Analyst

Okay. That was great. Thanks so much, Cameron. That was comprehensive answer there. And I just wanted to switch to the breast cancer screening products. On the beta launched in Asia and Europe, really encouraging to hear you guys kind of, one-on-one try to get obviously some pretty large. I know it's still pretty early on, honestly, what's the general plan looks like with marketing distribution? And do, you already have relationships with some sites I guess in Asia and Europe, maybe similar to what you have in the U.S. with Texas A&M, and then again another difficult question to kind of answer at this time, but when did the launch maybe occur? Is that more a 2022 events, or could that possibly happen in the back end of this year? Thank you.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

It's a very good question. So, yes, we've actually obviously got a strong footprint in Europe and in Asia. We're very hopeful, it will be this year and actually it could be reasonably soon because we're doing a lot of work on this. We'd like to do better. The same we're learning in the U.S. We can use a lot of them, obviously in different markets, but every market is a bit different. We're in quite the best discussing -- and restarting in Singapore because that's where we are. And you can learn a lot of lessons in a place like this. I like to Singapore and then use that for other markets. So, I'd expect that, in the short to medium-term. In Europe, we are actually very active as well and looking perhaps for a slightly different model. We've been shipping kits to Texas's GI lab, but we actually have our own lab in Belgium now still one, the famous. So, yes, one option where it's sprawling very seriously is actually that's becoming the equivalent of the lab to the GI lab in Texas. So, then we could be running the samples as well. And that's the way we can also do this right in the heart of Europe, it's easy place to ship to obviously Belgium drive is very well located and we are the best of running the test ourselves. So, I think that the three main ways of generating revenue from the Vet space, we're actively looking at activity. That's the kits sales, like we are with Texas, currently, then running it as a service, I think there's a very strong chance we'll have that running in kind of the medium-term of this year in Belgium, and we're looking in Singapore as well, having a lab…

Kyle Mikson

Analyst

Yes, I think that was great. Thanks a lot. Cameron. Just one last question for me similar line of thought, maybe on the expansion in the U.S. with the best test. So, I guess, how are you evaluating some of the markets that you want to expand into? Like, what you're evaluating marketing mix, I guess, right. So, what, what have you seen so far with respect to how different marketing channels are, how they're responding when the feedback has been to your efforts thus far and yes, just everything about the, the expansion in from the U.S. really, and what I don't know, what can we expect maybe over the next few months or so this? This broad, high level kind of comments would be awesome? Thank you.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Yes, absolutely. So, we're looking now, obviously, the, all those key lessons pertain to we wanted to get right before we launched nationally, they sound boring and things but logistics are very important whether we've had feedback that lead fastening is better. We're doing tests now to see if we can bring that down from eight hours to four hours. And it's not doesn't have to be overnight whether you can ship with testing also just overnight on rather than freezing. All these kind of things a bit for us what a marketing mix looks like actually, what I think depending on whether we do end up doing a deal with either or both of the major players, because it's part of doing a deal with one of the major players stick in the U.S. is they would really lean into the public awareness in the marketing. So, obviously, anything like that would be a much bigger market, we'd get a slightly smaller share, but of course or but you would you do that because it won't correctly. The only reason -- the only way we do it is if they're really leaning into the sales and marketing as well. So, we're working through all of that ourselves and obviously if we do not do a deal with a major player in the U.S., and we'll do a lot more marketing and facilities and the process, if we do, we'll end up doing less. And that will become obvious that mix as we finish off the visa launch, and then work out what licensing and or marketing we're going to be doing with the larger companies. So I'd expect to have that sorted out in the next quarter or two and then that mix was how we'll go forward.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Jason McCarthy with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.

Jason McCarthy

Analyst

Just on the size of those Texas A&M or is because you mentioned that there were three additional in 2021. Were those based on the demand they're seeing are really more expected as they build up their supply for the launch?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

It's completely based on demand. So they say from the accounts, it was a little over $7,000, which equates to four kits, which if they use every place, I would say they don't, because they have to do some repeats in humans, but that's about 160. We're making the revenue from 160, if that makes sense. And actually you probably noticed in the script, it was two and then I said three because they just reordered a few days ago and there's some time between recordings. So when they run out, they order more basically. So that's going I mean, this is about the revenue, of course, but it's about the learning from the beta launch as well. But it's very nice to have all these things been sorted out with, we thought the best way to really learn all these things is to actually have real paying customers, there's dozens of bits of auditors, Texas A&M have given us great feedback, it's on the actual running of the test themselves. And as I said, the actual test is working absolutely perfectly. This is all the marketing and the packaging, and all those kind of things. But yes, so the audit 7000, which is about 160 times and then we audit, it was three times last week, and that was three times. And they just keep reordering about let say, I guess really adjusting I'm ordering as they finished up the previous one. So that's exactly in line with where we thought they'd be. We haven't obviously done a lot of marketing where we've done a bits and pieces with the key opinion leaders and throughout Texas, but obviously nothing nationally. So this is the kind of the level we're expecting. And it's been absolutely great from the feedback point-of-view. And I think it's really helped us up enough headroom for the international and national launch. And also, again, I think it's really focused the mind on the big companies that the trains moving, if they want to get aboard, they've got to get aboard. I think if we'd not launched, I think there will be lots of wasn't a level of interest before we launched as there is now. Because at the moment we are the monopoly in the space, there is absolutely nothing else out there in the cancer space in the NETs market. So I think we're in an excellent position. But if we can work out a deal with one of the majors, I think that's would be very good pressing good for them. But if for any reason we don't, then we find the ability we can watch ourselves. So I think it's been an absolute win-win all around.

Jason McCarthy

Analyst

And then I also want to ask about NETosis, specifically NETosis outside of COVID-19, because I mean, you really need a bit of a crystal ball to determine where the pandemic is going. So as to look at the size of the opportunity or other NETosi diseases in terms of sepsis or influenza or any of the other one?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

I'll let Jake get to that from more technical point-of-view, but I think my non-technical word would be absolutely massive, bigger than cancer. Sepsis is the biggest killer in hospitals and it tends to kill you because you don't know what's coming and also there's very few actual therapies for it. So, we're working with a range of groups who have been working on therapies for a while and the spotlights from COVID from NETosis is certainly allowed them to really progress like NETosis the therapies. So I think it's potentially as big or bigger than the other things we do. Why is that? Sepsis is that it's very hard to actually know you have to measure the net and the investments as disease progression, it's very hard to know, prognostic and it's very hard to treat at the moment. And part of the treatment issue, if there's nothing good as a companion diagnostic, then it's very hard to have a treatment, because you can't monitor. The first thing you've got to know is if you have too many units, because as Jake point out a lot, the NETs are actually very good for you until they're not. So you don't want to be removing someone's primary defense mechanism unless it's really in excess. So I think for all those reasons, our assay has in the evidence we've shown recently, and in a range of different studies, ours works extremely well in the diagnostic disease monitoring and disease progression. And we're hopeful from what we've seen also from prognostic. So that's not a scientific method, but we're working through that now. But it could be something which you give a lot to everyone who comes into hospital, because if as you say creeps up on you, and you continue very, very quickly. Knowing that it's the net-net to building up would be incredibly useful. And I think we've certainly got a solution, and it's certainly low cost easy to use. And so I think we can be really proud of it. Jake, do you want to answer that if you want to scientifically, perhaps.

Dr. Jake Micallef

Analyst

Well, first of all, NET is a huge area. It's not just COVID. I think if you're talking to people working in intensive care in COVID, they're now completely talking about NETs all the time. And NETs is sort of exploded as a subject in medicine and talking to people in an intensive care. I've literally had conversations that go like, if you talk to people in a hospital, a year or two ago, nobody would have heard NET. This is clinicians and now everybody's talking about NETs. The COVID has really woken up the world to NET down there and their role in all sorts of diseases. And COVID has sort of created the path, but actually it's not just COVID. As Cameron mentioned, NETs are what drives the pathology in sepsis and sepsis is the biggest killer in hospitals worldwide. It's the biggest example it's active in all sorts of areas of diseases that have other names, but the underlying driving factor and one of the main driving factors is NET in every case. So a lot of people who tend to actually die from thrombosis and thrombosis is what actually [indiscernible] NETs drive thrombosis and micro thrombosis and NETs drives a lot of strokes and lung blockages. NETs drive a lot of the amputations that occur in very bad diabetes cases and all sorts of varieties of other autoimmune diseases. The actual very bad symptoms when these diseases flare are also related to NETs. So whilst COVID has shown life if you like on that simple and made them everybody aware actually they have a much wider role and COVID has shown a lot simply because it's such a high mortality rate and so clearly it shown a lot which is much wider than that. As we move to NETs division within the Company to take advantage in that situation and COVID has huge hopefully temporary opportunity, but the opportunity is much, much bigger than COVID.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Thank you, Jack.

Jason McCarthy

Analyst

Thanks sir. I was going to say, I really appreciate the thorough answer. One more, quick one, if you don't mind. Want to ask that the proof-of-concept study and DLBCL, how does the trial design compare to the large regulatory study at least for that DLBCL? And can this be used potentially as a read through for that first data read out in potential filings of blood cancers?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Yes. Actually, that's probably a question for Jason, who's our expert on this. Could I have him call in, if we have a call afterwards? He is an expert in a way that I want to make any answers, which perhaps could be incorrect, unless you would know that Jake or should we leave that to Jason?

Dr. Jake Micallef

Analyst

No, I think it's better Jason answer that.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Okay. All right. Jason has organized all these trials and he spent a huge amount of effort to studying all the different types of NHL. So, it's probably better if I don't go with that, if that's okay.

Jason McCarthy

Analyst

There is no problem. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Next question is coming from the line of Nathan Weinstein with Agesi Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Nathan Weinstein

Analyst

Hey. Good morning and thanks so much for taking my questions. So, maybe just looking back to the veterinary market and beta launch going on in Nu.Q Vet, you shared some of the feedback and obviously some of the revenue opportunities. But maybe you could just dive in a little more on the color here from the veterinarians and sort of any anecdotal feedback that you're getting?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Yes. I think, obviously, there's a lot of things we've been learning from of the feedback on the fasting, going for smaller fasting is very helpful. Shifting, we're looking to perhaps provide a packaging for them to make it easier for them. Also, while we're also talking to the big partners, if they could just drop it into an envelope with all the other blood tests that would be easy for them in shipping it to a separate lab. But I think as we talked about there absolutely nothing else out there so it's been a lot of education as well, and there's a lot of discussion, whether it's a cancer test, and a sick dog or what I think is more likely is that it's actually have the biggest market of all, is where you're testing patinas at part of the wellness test for dogs. I think a large percentage of dogs in U.S. get a wellness test every year. And I think that's where it will end up positioning ourselves, but that's all in the process now. And so, there's been a lot of work also. There's been a lot of interest in treatment monitoring. I think you remember Heather presented a small amount of data showing that, it worked very well for that as well. And there are millions of cases of these cancers every year and the current methods of monitoring treatment on average are best. So, there's been a lot of feedback that that would be very, very useful. We've also been working with everybody in discussions with some of the bigger companies, but it's stopping pricing quite heavily too, what would the discounting in price mean for extra sales? I mean, our ambition is to have millions of test sold per year, at what…

Nathan Weinstein

Analyst

Yes, that's great. Thank you, Cameron, for covering that. And, Melissa, overall, it's been a really nice engine of innovation across all the areas in human and NETs and the work that Jake and the rest of your team is doing was really quite exciting to watch. And then I guess just sticking with the theme of that here, when we think about like all the learning that you're getting from this beta, do you think you have will build out the product portfolio in that and have some more products in adjacent areas within the animal health space?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Oh, absolutely, undoubtedly. So, I think the easiest ones to launch NETs, and where the feedback would be listening is on the monitoring of disease or the treatment monitoring. And that's something which is quite easy to do with what we have. And we've had some very encouraging data, not enough to look for products. But that's something Heather is collecting now. So we're hopeful we can really broaden that out in the kind of in the next few quarters as well. Obviously, there are other cancers, and which we're working on. And, as we've discussed before, they're incredibly exciting thing about what we do is the nucleosomes are not just preserved between humans and dogs, but every species. So, the big NETs companies are trying to get cats, notoriously prickly in coming into NETs offices. So, they're trying to find reasons to get cat odors into the NETs as well. And so I think there's potentially a big market in the cat market for obviously, from all the things we've seen that the nucleosomes is not just cancer, there can be a lot of other things as well. So, I think this is the starting guns, not the finishing line, in the range of products we can launch. And I think, also I mentioned it briefly, but we're also looking to great interest from the team in the NETs side, too. We've been doing it with demolition team, but we really want to commercial focus from the Vet space. So, we expect to see in the short-term. Some key is to really drive vet as a separate entity within Volition but as a separate entity. And that would help us to really expand not only internationally I think the Asian and European launches, something we'll be doing in term as well. And I think we will not just go to dogs but a range of other species, not this year, but in the coming years because it is exactly the same platform. It just comes down to some slight adaptations, certainly between humans and dogs, and we'd expect the same for cats and then you can go into veterinary animals in the larger animals. So, I think it's going to be a very big story.

Operator

Operator

Our final question is coming from Bruce Jackson with Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.

Bruce Jackson

Analyst

You touched on the Nu.Q capture program. And I just wondered if you could maybe give us some highlights and if the next data reads can be on the circulating tumor cell program?

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Yes, we didn't put it in this call, because obviously, it's a lot happening. So again, we were focusing on the product launches and everything else we're doing. So, we've taken on a small team in the U.S. why in California, that's where the habit of a lot of epigenetics is to get the best people, we thought a small team they're doing a lot of this will be very helpful. So just a quick recap where we are, this is something also, we have the four pillars, we always talk about the Vet with pillar one and one of the pillars, the human cancers, and the basis are the three pillars apart from capture. So we saw last year that we could separate long from short Nu.Q zones. And what it is from just for everyone else's benefit is now that the antibodies are on a magnetic base. You can pull out the Nu.Q firms to be analyzed. So once you have the nucleosomes have the DNA and we showed we can separate the loan from the short DNA. Who cares, why is that interesting, the short DNA has been shown to be where the cancer DNA nucleosomes are so potentially a fantastic enabling technology for everything and liquid biopsy space. Once you also have the nucleosomes, you also can do mass spectrometry, and actually, that's gone very, very well. And we've been working with our collaborators. And there's a paper in the offering on the tray, how all that works as well. And that's also potentially a service where what the other group that can actually do or listen to the message from a tree. So again, out of the revenue, we're looking to do with things with everything from Silver One this is another source of it.…

Dr. Jake Micallef

Analyst

Yes, I think all of that spot on and the guys in California have made strides towards changing it from being something that clearly can work to something that does work every time.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Does that answer your question?

Bruce Jackson

Analyst

It does. Congratulations on all the progress and thanks for taking the question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, and gentlemen I wanted to briefly over to Scott. He has heard from an answer his answer for you. Go ahead Scott.

Scott Powell

Analyst

Hi, guys just regarding Michael's question earlier. I just heard back from Jason Terrell about the blood cancer study. So, Michael, came through your question from earlier, I'm going to quote from Jason. The VC, DC or PLC study, there is a treatment response monitoring test whereas the larger 1,500 study is an aid to diagnosis of the disease. So the readouts are not related. We also hope to have the treatment response data in the coming months, as the study has almost been completed. Hope that answers your question.

Operator

Operator

I'll turn the call back to Cameron for closing remarks.

Cameron Reynolds

Analyst

Thanks, everyone, obviously, a lot going on. It's been a very interesting year for everyone. I'm sure we're all working from home. But I think from everything we've done and everything we have been, we've had a fantastic year, not only on the capital raising side, but also the product side, development side, the team. It's all worked out incredibly well. And I think this is just going to be an absolute fabulous year. It's been a real pleasure of working with a team that we have we've managed to able to done with. And the next few quarters, I think we're just going to be picking up speed. And we're going to be focused as much as we can on making sure all the green shoots of revenue in all different areas. We continue to grow and we make the Company have a lot of varied revenue streams and also all very exciting research and development at the heart of epigenetics. So thank you for your time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and we thank you for your participation.