Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. My name is Dr. Sarah Howell, I'm the CEO of Arecor Therapeutics, and I'm joined today by David Ellam, our CFO, and we'll be talking you through the full year results to the 31st of December 2025. Our customary legal notice. At Arecor, we're very much focused, just as a quick recap, we're a clinical stage biotech company, as you know, and we're focused on developing superior therapeutics that can reduce treatment burden and improve outcomes specifically for people living with diabetes, obesity, and other cardiometabolic diseases. Our focus is very much on two core product areas, being in the diabetes space and the oral delivery of peptides. These are areas where there's significant unmet patient needs that we're aiming to address with our superior products in high multi-billion-dollar growth markets.
Our lead program is our best-in-class insulin, AT278. This is the only ultra-concentrated, ultra-rapid-acting insulin in development, and it's been specifically designed with this profile for use in next generation automated insulin delivery systems. I'll talk a little bit more just as a reminder around what we mean by an automated insulin delivery system, and I'll refer to them as AID systems. We're also exploring a next generation drug delivery platform for the oral delivery of peptides, where very poor bioavailability, less than 1%, is the drug delivery challenge that we're looking to overcome. For AT278, in terms of high-level status, we are very busy preparing for the phase II clinical study, which is all on track, and that's with our partner, Sequel Med Tech. Again, I'll talk about our partnership with Sequel Med Tech in much more detail.
Then for the oral delivery of peptides, our focus now is on generating that key non-clinical pharmacokinetic data, which is essentially assessing the bioavailability, which is the challenge that we're looking to overcome. Those studies are ongoing and through the course of the second half of this year. Both of these product areas, of course, are underpinned and leveraged. We're leveraging our innovative and proprietary Arestat formulation technology platform here. We also continue to partner with leading pharma and medtech companies. We have partnerships, a s you know, that we've previously announced with companies such as Eli Lilly, MiniMed, who are actually now the diabetes division that spun out of Medtronic. They IPO'd earlier this year. Also Ligand Pharmaceuticals, among others. They're the companies where we've been able to publicly announce their names.
Now I'm going to move on to talk a little bit more around our operational highlights here. Around AT278, obviously our lead program there, we signed a co-development partnership with Sequel Med Tech about last year, around September time last year, where both companies are co-funding all of the phase II-enabling development activities required for us to file for an IND, so to file for clinical trial approval with the FDA in the U.S. We also had a very positive, what's called a Type C advice meeting with the FDA, and this is where we presented our phase II clinical plans, our protocols for that study, and also the data package that we intend to submit under our IND.
We had very positive feedback from the FDA there, so we're very confident there around that clinical study design and its provability to be able to perform that study, which will be a U.S.-based studies. Importantly, as part of that co-development deal, both companies, so both Arecor and Sequel Med Tech, have confirmed their strategic intent to enter into a broader agreement that would be for phase II clinical development through to commercialization. The terms of that deal are at a very advanced stage now of negotiation. We're confident around moving forward and entering into that next phase of that deal, which is very important for us in terms of taking AT278 forward. On the oral delivery of peptides programs, we're initially focused in the GLP-1 space, and I'll talk a little bit more around why we've focused on GLP-1 there.
We've generated initial positive results stabilizing the GLP-1 or stabilizing that peptide under the very harsh conditions that it needs to survive and to have new IP in that area. That's a very positive first step. We've overcome that first challenge and obviously filed our IP so we can start to protect that space. As I mentioned earlier, we're now focused on improving bioavailability in those animal PK studies. On the financing side, we entered into a royalty financing agreement with Ligand Pharmaceuticals. It's raising $11 million of non-diluted funding, of which we received $7 million up front. We've subsequently this year received a further $500,000 , which is part of the $4 million in CDRs. We have an additional $3.5 million in CDRs related to that royalty financing agreement that are obviously related to certain commercial milestones. They all remain on track.
This has really strengthened the balance sheet for Arecor and allowed us the time, essentially, to negotiate the best deal that we can enter into that next phase of development for AT278. We're doing that from a position of strength, which is very much our focus now. We have a very strong corporate and financial position, and now I'll hand over to David to talk about that in a little bit more detail.
Good morning. The key message that we have today is that we have secured a cash runway to Q2 2027. It allows us to focus on two core areas, the AT278 insulin and the platform for the oral delivery of peptides. Specifically, to be able to close a co-development and commercialization deal for the insulin AT278. Starting with the income statement, revenues have increased by GBP 0.1 million, with that increase being down to formulation revenues. Obviously, the most sort of standout item on the P&L is the other income, GBP 5.5 million. GBP 5 million of that was the gain on the sale of royalty rights to Ligand. There was also GBP 0.3 million being RDEC, R&D tax credit income, and GBP 200,000 of recharging to Sequel Med Tech under our existing co-development agreement. Operating expenses decreased by approximately GBP 500,000.
We had a small decrease you can see in the G&A expenses on the corporate side, and then R&D expenses down GBP 0.4 million. Some of that is because within 2024, we had, at the beginning of that year, costs remaining on the ARE-278-104, phase I for AT278. None of that in 2025, but we have started the phase II pre-enabling costs for AT278 already. Profit or loss for the year, GBP 0.9 million. Then below that, the loss for the year discontinued operations. That is for the Tetris business where we ceased operations in September 2025. Within that, we had a gain of GBP 0.4 million when we sold the rights to the non-Ogluo products to Aspire Pharma. The numbers for last year were impacted by the GBP 3.3 million impairment overall on the Tetris business. Next page, please.
We finished with the year-end cash of just over GBP 6 million. Obviously, the largest element towards that was the sale of the royalty rights, where we received GBP 5.2 million of upfront proceeds from Ligand. We have received another $500,000 already this year, and we expect to receive another $500,000 before the end of the year. The net cash used in operating activities for continued operations was GBP 3.1 million, which was greatly decreased from GBP 5.7 million in the previous year. As mentioned, this all works towards extending the cash runway to the second quarter of 2027. Just lastly on the discontinued operations, we generated cash of GBP 0.7 million, whereas the prior year we used cash to GBP 3.6 million, and that all comes from no more purchases of inventory and collecting all the receivables on the Tetris side of the business.
Great. Thank you, David. I'm going to move now to talk in a little bit more detail around our lead product asset, AT278. I'll run through this relatively quickly because I would imagine a lot of people on the line today will be very familiar with AT278. Essentially, AT278, we've taken existing insulin, so insulin aspart, which is used in Novo Nordisk insulin, and we've developed the first and only ultra-concentrated, so it's a 5x concentrated insulin, 5x those standard concentrations for best-in-class insulins available today. And importantly, ultra rapid-acting insulin. We've demonstrated superiority in its pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile. This is essentially getting insulin on board post-injection very fast, and that translating into a very fast and greater glucose-lowering profile compared to those best-in-class insulins available today.
We've gone head-to-head in those studies, and we've demonstrated that in both Type 1 diabetic patients and also high BMI Type 2 patients. The whole of the addressable patient population, which of course, significantly clinically de-risks AT278. As I mentioned earlier, it's been specifically designed for use in these automated insulin delivery systems, which is essentially where a patient will wear a continuous blood glucose monitor, which measures their blood glucose levels and continuously in real time, those measurements fed to an algorithm which calculates how much insulin is needed to keep that individual inside their target blood glucose range. Then that's automatically delivered via the insulin pump. All this technology and systems, as you know, exists today and is on the market, including via our partner, Sequel Med Tech.
I think it's important now to talk around what are the needs, why are we developing this highly concentrated, rapid-acting insulin? Well, it's very clear from a patient perspective, patients are looking for. When we look at AID systems, there's a whole world of data out there, real-world, clinical, and outcomes data showing that people with diabetes that require insulin have better outcomes. They have better blood glucose control and outcomes if they're using an AID system. Despite this, there's still relatively low penetration. I'll talk about those penetration rates shortly. The question here is how can we reduce that burden and lower the barrier to use for these AID systems, which will then ultimately lead to improved outcomes for the patient population? What patients are looking for is they want to reduce burden. It's still relatively high burden to use these AID systems.
They want to be able to wear their insulin pumps for longer. Current standard of care is three-day wear, after which time they need to switch out their insulin. They might need to throw away a pump if it's a disposable patch pump, refill that, apply a new pump, which means lots of different infusion sites as well every three days. They want to be able to wear them for longer. They want to fit and forget, essentially. They would like them to be smaller. They're still a very visible indicator. They wear these pumps. A visible indicator that they're living with a chronic disease. Of course, if you want to have smaller pumps or you want to wear these pumps for longer, it means that you need to be able to get more insulin on board in a much smaller volume or a much smaller space.
AT278 is the only highly concentrated, rapid-acting insulin that can achieve this. There's also a subset of the patient population, and I'll talk today around some of the numbers here, that require high total daily doses of insulin. We characterize this patient population as needing more than 100 units of insulin a day to control their blood glucose. This means with the standard insulins that are available to them today and the current pumps that are available to them today, they can't achieve three-day wear time. They can't get to three-day wear, which is the standard of care, without running out of insulin, which means it's not practical for them to use AID systems. They're simply not using them, and they're using multiple daily injections.
In terms of improved outcomes, and I've talked about this a lot in the past, is that to improve outcomes, we need much faster-acting insulins that enable us to be more aggressive with those algorithms, which essentially means that we can drive and control higher time and range here. We can more tightly control blood glucose and improve that time in that healthy blood glucose target range, which ultimately leads to better outcomes. All of this needs to be delivered clearly in an ecosystem that's cost-effective for both payers and patients, which is where AT278 has an advantage because we're using existing insulins and existing infrastructure there. This is not a novel therapeutic in development. These are very much the needs that all can be addressed with AT278 with its profile. Just zooming in and looking a little bit more around this longer wear.
Very much the device industry and the insulin pump companies are moving towards longer wear. There are two insulin pumps that are approved for use for seve days, and the other insulin pump companies are performing studies and looking to achieve this seven-day label. The challenge that they have is with their existing pumps and the capacity for insulin, and only 100 units per ml, so low concentration insulin being available for use in these AID systems, is that a large proportion of the patient population can't get to seven-day wear. If we look at the Type 2 patient population, IIT is essentially intensive insulin therapy. These are candidates for AT278. Nearly 50% of that patient population can't achieve that current standard of care of three-day wear, so they're simply not using AID systems.
As we see these pumps moving to seven-day wear or even beyond that, almost all Type 2s would run out of insulin before they get to seven-day wear. Seven-day wear is simply not achievable today for that Type 2 patient population without a highly concentrated insulin. As you can see here on this heat map with AT278, which is U 500, almost all Type 2s would be able to achieve seven-day wear in the current AID systems. It's not just a Type 2 problem. If we look at the Type 1 patient population here, almost just over 50% of the Type 1 patient population cannot achieve that seven-day wear with those current insulins, U 100, that's NovoLog, Humalog, and all of them would get to seven-day wear with AT278 at a 500 units per ml concentration.
It really does allow us to open up that access to more people living with diabetes, regardless of their daily insulin requirements. Then if we look at this in terms of patient numbers and market size opportunity, this is looking at the U.S., and U.S. would very much be our first launch market here. In the U.S., there are around four million people with diabetes that are on intensive insulin therapy, so they're our addressable patient population. Of those, around one million require more than 100 units of insulin a day. This is the patient population that currently are not using AID systems. They're not practical for use for them, and they're also not reimbursable because they would simply go through too many pumps and too many consumables.
There is approximately one million further patients who are currently using AID systems, but they're looking for longer wear, they want smaller pumps, and they want better outcomes, of course, and control, all of which can be used with AT278 or achieved with AT278. If we look at that two million initial patient population, we'd see these as first adopters. Take the current net pricing of insulin in the U.S., and that's over a $3 billion market opportunity for AT278. There's additional growth opportunities as you look at further miniaturization. It pulls more of that two million patient population you see on the right-hand side here over to the left. If all of the patients in the U.S. were to switch to an AT278 or switch to AID therapy of insulin, it's around $5 billion TAM opportunity.
With AT278, we're looking to achieve significant market share within this multi-billion dollar market opportunity. Then if we zoom out and look at the AID growth, so this is actually the insulin pump market and insulin pump sales, not insulin revenue here. We can see, despite these challenges in terms of the requirement for a concentrated rapid-acting insulin, it is growing year-on-year. We're seeing more and more people moving over to AID systems, because they get those improved outcomes there. This is where we're really looking at in partnership with the AID companies, really to open up further access, because despite this growth in the U.S., AID systems are still used by only 40%, around 40% of the Type 1 patient population and only 5% of that Type 2 patient population.
The real challenge for the Type 2 patient population here is that they generally have higher total daily dose requirements, which means that these AID systems are not practical and accessible to them today. There's a real opportunity to open these up and open up the market using AT278 in combination with an AID system. On this front, as I mentioned earlier, we entered into an initial co-development partnership with Sequel Med Tech. Both companies have committed $1.3 million to conduct and complete those phase II-enabling activities that were required for us to file for approval, so to file an IND for approval for that phase II clinical study, with the FDA. Very much showing both companies' commitment there, and there's also financial commitments, of course, here. That strategic intent for us to enter into this phase II and beyond, co-development and commercialization deal.
As I mentioned earlier, this is at advanced stages of negotiation now, and we're very confident at entering into this next phase of the partnership, which will enable us to commence that phase II clinical trial during the second half of 2026. Just to take a zoom out and a little bit further around what's the regulatory and development pathway to market here. As I mentioned, the activities for the phase II clinical study are ongoing and on track here. We have very much confidence around that phase II clinical study design, where we would be comparing AT278 when delivered via an insulin pump and continuously over a six-week period using the twiist, so Sequel Med Tech's twiist pump, and comparing against NovoLog. This is Novo's best-in-class rapid-acting insulin, but it's only available at 100 units per ml, so AT278 is 5x concentrated.
There'd be around 90 subjects in that clinical study. We anticipate a requirement for a phase III clinical study. We have modeled this based on what our large pharma counterparts have done in the past for approvals of reformulation of insulin. A six-month crossover study, again comparing with AT278 to NovoLog, and then a six-month open label period. This is essentially where you continue to provide the drug for use for a further six-month period, and you can gather that data. This is a relatively conservative approach here, and we'll most certainly be looking to work with the FDA to see if there are any opportunities to further accelerate this phase III clinical study in terms of its duration and number of subjects, would be areas that we would focus on. As it stands, that would lead to potential for marketing authorization in 2030.
Just to really recap for AT278, obviously the non-diluted funding that we talked about earlier with Ligand to strengthen our balance sheet has enabled us the time and that balance sheet strength to support this next phase of strategic deal making with Sequel Med Tech. Our focus is very much in entering into the best deal that we can with Sequel in a timely manner. Obviously, pace here and timeframe to market is key already. All of those phase II- enabling studies are on track here, and we intend to initiate that phase II clinical study during the second half of 2026. Just moving on to the oral delivery of peptides. I want to talk a little bit around the challenge and why we see this as an ideal challenge for the expertise and the Arestat technology platform that we have here at Arecor.
Peptides generally are an important class of therapeutics. There are over 800 of them in development and clinical development now today, and many of those in this cardiometabolic space, and I'm sure everybody's seen those, particularly in the, for the obesity indication as well. Despite this, there are only a very small number of orally delivered peptides on the market today and t hat's because they suffer from very low oral bioavailability. The challenge here essentially is when you try to deliver a peptide orally, so you're looking at a capsule here, and it has to go through very harsh conditions, through the GI tract and into the stomach. It's harsh pH. It has a very low acidic pH.
We have all these digestive enzymes which essentially degrade the peptide itself, so they're degrading the active therapeutic ingredient that we require here to be delivered and to the cells and to be active here. That's challenge number one, and as I mentioned earlier, that's the first challenge that we've overcome is stabilizing and GLP-1, which is where we started this semaglutide in these very harsh conditions and we filed IP in that area. The second challenge here is then getting the peptide across the absorption barrier here and into the cells. The only thing that's worked there is, or the only area that's seen any success, and it's incorporated into those peptides that are oral peptides that are on the market today is these so-called permeation enhancers here.
The challenge here with the permeation enhancers are, again, under these very harsh conditions, these acidic pHs, that they're crashing out of solution, that they're not soluble. Again, you end up with very little of these permeation enhancers in solution and unable to cross these absorption barriers and essentially shuttle that peptide through into the cells. That's why it results in this very low bioavailability of less than 1% for these orally delivered peptides. That's where we're very much focusing now. We're using our Arestat formulation technology and expertise here to protect and stabilize the peptide. We've got some novel formulation approaches there. Also then to keep these permeation enhancers soluble as well so that they can encourage that uptake in the cells and improve that bioavailability.
There's some other clever formulation tricks that we've got within this matrix which, obviously, I won't talk about today, but will be within our IP filings here. In terms of where we're at, we're obviously starting with GLP-1 here. We've had those positive initial results. We've filed the IP, and now we're generating that non-clinical pharmacokinetic data. That bioavailability data here. If we can show success in the animal PK studies, this is very much can we show improved bioavailability when compared to Rybelsus. That's oral semaglutide that's on the market today, which has less than 1% bioavailability. That's really highly translatable to other peptides. From a business commercial strategy space here, this would then offer us the opportunity for more transformational partnering with pharma here. We know there is a high appetite for oral delivery technologies for peptides.
We know scientifically it's a challenge that nobody's really cracked to date here, and that would enable us to partner with pharma on proprietary peptide assets within their portfolio, which currently, without a delivery technology, will be developed as injectable therapies. We know there's a high patient preference for oral delivery there. That would enable and open up partnering within a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity for Arecor . I think as we can see in this space, and we update this slide as new deals come through, and there are new deals all the time, the most recent Novo Nordisk with Vivtex there and licensing some oral delivery technologies there. It's a really active space here. There's a huge number of efforts ongoing in terms of trying to develop technologies and improve bioavailability.
We are in a race here, of course, but this is a formulation drug delivery challenge, and this is Arecor's USP, where we've been able to demonstrate over the years and validate that we can deliver enhanced formulation and drug delivery technologies that even our large pharma partners have not been able to achieve themselves. There is high appetite in this space, clearly. I think if we look forward in terms of summary and outlook, clearly for AT278, we have a very unique and the only highly concentrated ultra-rapid-acting insulin in development. It's clinically de-risked as we demonstrated superiority to those best-in-class insulins available today in both Type 1 and Type 2 patient populations.
As we've spoken through today, there's an initial U.S. opportunity, market opportunity that translates to an over $3 billion insulin revenue opportunity with growth opportunities both within the U.S. but obviously upside ex-U.S. as well. It's really around catalyzing and opening up access to that next generation of AID systems, which will be longer wear, smaller, and really continuing to improve that time and range for those clinical outcomes for the patient population. Of course, we partnered with a commercial stage insulin pump company, our AID company, Sequel Med Tech, and confident in terms of entering into that next broader strategic deal for phase II and beyond. As I just mentioned, with the oral delivery of technology and peptide technology platform, we've overcome that first hurdle, stabilizing the peptide, now focused on that oral bioavailability and those PK studies, and significant upside potential there if we can be successful.
What I would note as well, in terms of investment here, it's very low capital investment and resource investment at this stage to get to that, a PK proof of concept point. These studies are not expensive to run. They just take time, unfortunately, and there's a series of iterative studies that we need to do there. It's the scientists at Arecor, in-house scientists, doing what they do best and being creative here around formulation and drug delivery technology. Low capital investment, but significant upside potential. In terms of what to look out for, obviously, the next phases of our strategic partnership and for AT278 for phase II and beyond, then leading into it, being in a position to initiate that phase II clinical study. That, of course, is subject to funding. We're looking at co-development, current commercialization.
Deal structures here with Sequel Med Tech, so Arecor of course needs to be in a position to be able to fund its proportion of that co-development and also that key pharmacokinetic data for the oral delivery of peptides platforms, which will inform our next development steps. Broadening out on success there, we build them out to other peptides and also partnering opportunities with pharmaceutical companies. That draws the formal part of the presentation to a close today, and I'd be happy to take any questions.
Thank you both for updating investors today. Could I please remind investors to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen? For your reference, a recording of today's presentation will be available on the Investor Meet Company company platform shortly after the meeting has ended. Sarah, David, as you can see, we received a number of questions during today's presentation. If I could just hand back to you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
Sure. Thank you. The first question is. I'm just going to read it out in full, as I always do, as you know. Given that the share price is around 29% of the IPO price, what fundraising options are being considered for the upcoming AT278 trial? Are any non-dilutive options on the table? I was especially pleased with the previous non-dilutive fund raise. Maybe I'll start on that, and I'm sure David will have some additional detail there. Obviously, in terms of amounts required here, ultimately depends on the final structure of our deal with Sequel Med Tech. I think as we've signaled, and certainly with the first deal that we've done with Sequel to allow us to conduct those phase II-enabling activities, it was on a co-development, so that was a 50/50 funding basis.
It's on that co-development code [audio distortion] basis that we're moving forward now in terms of those deal negotiations there. Options available to Arecor, of course, on funding would be traditional equity funding there. Obviously, all of our shareholders would be eligible to participate in that. I would note that with the changes to the VCT guidance, now we are able to take advantage of that. That increased cap now to GBP 40 million, where it's previously pounds, sorry. I've been talking to U.S. parties too much recently. GBP 40 million relative to the GBP 20 million previous cap. It is important to note that our entire shareholder base would have the opportunity to participate should they wish to there. That's obviously one opportunity. Of course, other areas such as non-dilutive funding, we continue to explore all areas and all opportunities there.
We obviously spent a lot of time on that last year, really understanding the landscape for non-dilutive royalty financing and have built relationships there across that ecosystem there. We'll consider all of those options. Our priorities here are to enter into the best deal with Sequel and to be cognizant and mindful of value share there and retention of value for Arecor and its shareholders. Lastly, of course, around that kind of fundraising, we're conscious of the current share price, of course, and any impacts or effects of dilution. Sorry, David, I actually said more than enough. If you've got anything to add.
Nothing to add.
I don't know why it's moving the slides as I'm moving. Done. The next question is, the recent patent application looked to include some very exciting looking graphs of bioavailability for the tested peptide. It looked like several %. Any comments? I mean, in terms of that first IP, where we're really focused is around stabilizing that peptide and also which was our first challenge, and that's IP around the composition amounts or formulations to protect that peptide. In terms of the bioavailability, we're still very much assessing that, because that's a combination of how do we improve bioavailability, and it's got to be in formulation matrices, of course, that are scalable within manufacturing as well.
We haven't at this stage filed specific IP around that bioavailability, but obviously, as we generate that data through the second half of the year, we'll be looking to assess that, where is our bioavailability compared to those commercial benchmarks, in this case, Rybelsus. It's a little bit of a watch this space for that one. Then there's a question around when would we expect to see the first data from the oral peptide delivery program. That's very much the data that we'll be generating through 2026, of course. It is iterative data, so it partly depends on the duration of these and when will we have an understanding on a go, no go point pivotally of are we improving bioavailability or not here, is really each study informs the next.
It's actually difficult to say and put an exact that we expect to be by this timeframe. We certainly expect through the course of the year, we'll be generating significant body of data here, so we'll be able to say much more about this as we go through the year and through the second half of the year. Then I think the next question is, how are you balancing early partnering to de-risk development versus advancing programs internally to capture greater longer-term value? I think if this is not really the question, then please add another comment. I think what this question is asking is around the balance of the tech partnering, which is fully funded by our partners.
Those three pre-licensed partnerships, such as the partnership we have with Eli Lilly and MiniMed, for example, where they are paying the development dollars to access Arecor's expertise with developing novel formulations of their proprietary assets under those agreements, which are fully paid for by their partners. Then there's the upside potential, of course, on licensing, should they then decide to take those forward in development. We very much have a small team internally focused on that. They're focused on both bringing in those programs but also obviously working on those and working on the development of those novel formulations under those programs. That's certainly ongoing, and it's still ongoing there. We have a number of programs already partnered and contracted that we're working on that have that upside opportunity as we go through that development, and we would expect to bring new programs in.
To be clear, the focus and certainly the senior focus within the business is quite rightly on those two core product areas because the value creation opportunities, particularly if we look at AT278 now being clinically de-risked and an opportunity in a very large market with a U.S. partner, really does offer the longest and the largest value creation opportunity for Arecor and our shareholders. Hang on. The next question is, how are discussions with Sequel progressing? When are we likely to see a deal for the phase II? Good question. They're progressing really well. We don't take it lightly to say that we're in advanced stages of negotiation and obviously these are areas that we discuss at the board as well. Are we all comfortable in keeping the ties on this, that it's right to stay advanced stages of negotiation?
That's a unanimous yes from both myself and David and the board here that we are genuinely in advanced stages of negotiation here with Sequel Med Tech. We are confident of moving forward on this deal. Really, it's around now it's fine-tuning. We're into the real detail around value share here and how do we have a fair value share where all parties are motivated and that we retain appropriate value for Arecor for the proprietary product that we're bringing to the table here. That's very much where we are now. It's really into the weeds of the detail, but we are confident of moving forward and confident of them being in a position to initiate phase II clinicals in the second half of this year. That gives you a sense of that timeframe.
We're not intending to be negotiating this deal through into 2027. There's a question here around, do we consider, because of the share price currently and certainly since the IPO, do we consider Arecor to be suitable for public markets? Obviously, the focus of Arecor is very much on these near-term value drivers. We've got significant opportunity here to drive value for the business. I believe that we'll be value-driven by entering into this next strategic co-development and commercialization. This also gives a route to market with a commercial-stage U.S. company who have a commercial sales force. I think that would create value and then enable us to go to that next value inflection point on phase II clinicals, as well as that upside potential from the oral delivery of peptides.
We obviously would always look at all strategic options for the business and make sure that we make the right decisions for the business at the right times to maximize the value and that opportunity to return for our shareholders. David, I don't know if there's anything you want to add on that one.
Only probably in relation to, you know, the last part of the question was about are companies such as Arecor suitable for public markets. I think that part of the discussion here is on the undervaluation. Obviously, the board, management, people we speak to externally see the large opportunity. The challenge there is reflecting that within the share price and obviously signing a commercial deal, starting phase II. Those are both very important value inflection points for us on that journey to effectively getting a reappraisal of what the valuation of the company is.
Thank you once again for answering questions from our investors today. Before we ask investors to share their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Sarah, perhaps I could ask you for some closing comments.
Yeah, I think hopefully what we've been able to communicate in the time that we have today, the company's very much focused. We're very much focused on those two core product areas. We have a clinically validated, best-in-class insulin with a large patient unmet need there, so hence leading into a large multi-billion dollar market opportunity. A commercial stage partner in Sequel Med Tech. So a real opportunity there to drive significant value from that unique profile of AT278, and also that upside potential then from the oral delivery of peptides. We know it's scientifically challenging, but if we can be successful there, that's a huge opportunity. As we talked around today, we still continue to leverage that Arestat technology platform in partnering with pharma as well, which obviously brings those revenues into the business, but also offers that upside potential in the future from licensing.
We're confident now moving forward. We've got a number of significant milestones through the course of 2026, entering into the deal with Sequel, generating the PK bioavailability data for the oral delivery of peptides. Real opportunities to add significant value to the business.
Thank you both for your presentation this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of Arecor Therapeutics plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.