Well, welcome everyone to Cogstate's full year results for financial year 2026. I am pleased to introduce our presenters today, Brad O'Connor, Cogstate's CEO and Managing Director, Darren Watson, our CFO, and Rachel Colite, our Executive Vice President of Clinical Trials. Before we get started, a reminder that this webinar is being recorded and all participants are in listen only mode. We will be opening for questions at the end and invite you to submit those questions using the chat function below. We will try to get through as many of your questions in the allotted time and may aggregate similar questions. This webinar will be available later today on our Investor Center. Over to you, Brad.
Thank you, Rebecca. Today's presentation does include forward-looking statements. Therefore, I note our disclaimer stating this information in the presentation is general in nature. I encourage all investors to consider your own investment objectives and to review in detail our full year FY 2026 results that were lodged with the ASX earlier today. Look, I think FY 2026 is a landmark year for Cogstate and delivered on our strategy diversification and expansion of our offering. That delivered not just record financial results, but also an increase in the scale of the business. All at the same time we were investing in technology and planning the next phase of growth in our business. It is a really exciting time for everyone who is involved in the Cogstate business, from management to board to shareholders.
I think we all feel that real sense of momentum that exists within the business at the moment. As a management team, we feel that the strategies that we have put in place over probably more than the last five years are starting to really bear fruit. That is reflected in our FY 2026 numbers. Perhaps more importantly, is reflected in the number of sales opportunities that we are continuing to see each month, and the confidence in future revenue growth that comes from having almost AUD 120 million of contracted future revenue as at 30 June 2026. During the year, we delivered profitable growth. Revenue just shy of AUD 61 million and an EBIT margin 25%. Strong sales of AUD 89 million through financial year 2026 provide visibility to revenue growth into FY 2027 and beyond. We will talk about that as we get through the presentation.
The company is really well capitalized with almost AUD 35 million cash and no debt. We have declared our second annual dividend. We were active in the share buyback during the year. Our sales reflected the value that we were able to extract from our strategic partnerships, but also reflects an increase in trial starts in central nervous system diseases, as well as our expansion into new areas. As we get through the presentation today, Rachel is going to dig into that a little bit further. Our combination of neuroscience expertise and scalable technology really position us well within our market. Looking forward, we have a generational opportunity, I think, to use technology and AI to enhance our business and expand our margins in the future. Darren is going to talk to that as we get through the presentation.
A quick look at the metrics that shows a really high-performing business. Sales contracts of AUD 89 million that we disclosed last month were up 116%. Those sales were across a record number of trials with 90 new trials initiated during the year, which was up from just 35 last year, and that gives you a real sense of the momentum inside the business. At the end of the year, the Cogstate team is managing 171 clinical trials, which is up from 110 at the same time last year, again, showing that is just change in dynamics inside the business. We begin the FY 2027 year with record revenue under contract.
Of the AUD 118.5 million of contracted future revenue, AUD 48.3 million of that is expected to be recognized in FY 2027, which is up 54% on the same time last year. Revenue for the FY 2026 year was up 15% and profit before tax up 16%.
The results showed a bias to the second half of the year, with second half revenue up 27% on the first half. Given that additional revenue, margins increased through the second half of the year where we recorded a gross margin of 62% and our EBIT margin pushed out to 30% in that second half of the year. Capital allocation was again disciplined, including investment in technology as well as our active share buyback, and as I mentioned, the declaration of second annual dividend today. As we continue to grow revenue, we are able to both invest in technology and also maintain profit margins. Profit before tax margin was maintained at 26%, despite a slight decrease in gross margins over the year. That decrease in gross margins from 61% - 58% was flagged this time last year.
As we were investing in substantial increase in trials that we saw coming through the year, we needed to make sure we had the resources in place to deliver on that. As mentioned, we recorded a really strong second half of the 2026 financial year, with second half revenue up 27% compared to the first half and up 17% compared to the same June half last year. That revenue increase allowed us to increase second half gross margins to 62%, which was up from 53% in the first half, and EBITDA margins in the second half of 35%, up from 24% in the first half. That just demonstrates the leverage that exists in our business, and that really reflects that the cost base, the cost of sales that we report is really just people.
As we can see that revenue growth, we can really get that leverage over those people. The strong sales performance recorded in FY 2026 has set up Cogstate for future revenue growth. Of the AUD 118.5 million of contracted future revenue, AUD 48.3 million is expected to be recognized in FY 2027. That is up 54% on the prior year. Of that AUD 48.3 million, AUD 46.1 million of that is clinical trials revenue. The other AUD 2.2 million is our healthcare revenue that relates to our agreement with Eisai that will roll off over the coming years. That AUD 46.1 million of clinical trials revenue is expected to be recognized in FY 2027, and that is up 58% on the same time last year.
The table to the bottom right of screen here gives you really good visibility in terms of how that contracted clinical trials revenue will roll off.
I think what's really important to call out here is the growth, not just in the first year revenue roll-off, but second and third year as well. As you can see that year two revenue growing from AUD 19.1 million to AUD 29.1 million, and year three from AUD 10.8 million to AUD 18.4 million of revenue locked in. That gives you a sense that as we grow those contract sales and we grow that contracted revenue base going forward, how we're going to be able to grow revenue from not just 2026 to 2027, but 2027 to 2028. I think that's really important for investors to understand. Of course, our revenue growth in FY 2027 is going to depend on our in-period conversion of sales contracts executed within this 2027 year, but our starting position is materially stronger.
With that, I'm going to hand over to Rachel to really dig into some of these numbers and how the business is operating. Thank you, Rachel.
Thanks, Brad. Over the next few slides, I'll share a bit about our Clinical Trials business and how it's evolving, both in terms of scale and in diversity. As Brad mentioned, we initiated 90 new trials in the year. This is up from 35 in financial year 2025. So growth of more than 150%. As the chart shows, this wasn't driven by a single quarter or a small number of studies. We saw strong performance across both halves of the year, resulting in the highest level of trial starts in our history. Just as importantly, those new trials came from a much broader range of therapeutic areas. While Alzheimer's disease remains an important focus for Cogstate, nearly half of new trial starts were in mood, sleep, and other neurological conditions, with a further third coming from rare disease trials.
This diversification reflects the success of our strategy to expand beyond our traditional strengths. Behind these results is a significant operational achievement as well. Over the past year, we've successfully scaled our teams, added expertise in new therapeutic areas, and expanded our services and capabilities while also maintaining our delivery across a much larger volume of work. The growth in mood, sleep, and other neuro studies is particularly encouraging, increasing from 13 trial starts in financial year 2025 to 41 in financial year 2026. This demonstrates that our investment in capital, or in capabilities and in talent is really translating to meaningful adoption. This slide highlights the growing scale of our active trial portfolio. At 30 June 2026, we were supporting 171 ongoing trials. That's up 55% from the prior year.
Consistent with what we saw in new trial starts, much of this growth is coming from mood, sleep, and other neuro, demonstrating the success of that expansion strategy. What is particularly encouraging is the number of new active phase II trials, which increased 73% to 78 studies. These programs represent an important source of future revenue. While not every study will progress to phase III, a large number of them will, and these are really where we see the trial sizes and revenue potential increase. We have already seen the revenue increase at a group level, but looking at clinical trials revenue, the aspect that I wanted to call out here is the second half revenue performance, where we recorded clinical trials revenue of AUD 32.7 million, up 17% on the prior corresponding period, and 27% versus the first half of financial year 2026.
It is also worth noting that license fee revenue was not an abnormal factor in the second half revenue growth. That is to say, second half revenue was not distorted by any one-off license fee revenue. We also saw a significant contribution from our central rating programs in the second half of the year, and these are important because they have a different revenue profile, with revenue recognized more closely in line with patient activity. As a result, they typically generate less revenue in the first few quarters following contract award, before revenue accelerates as the recruitment and study activity build. This makes the second half result particularly encouraging as it reflects the underlying strength of the portfolio today while also creating additional revenue opportunity as these newer studies mature. A natural question, what is driving this increase in activity that has led to revenue and profit growth?
First, our strategy to expand beyond Alzheimer's disease into psychiatry and sleep and broader neuro. It is gaining real traction. These are the areas attracting significant biopharma investment, including psychedelics and the incretin-based therapies for mood disorders. In addition, the industry is investing heavily in orexin programs, specifically associated with type 1 narcolepsy, but we are also seeing these orexin programs going into new indications. Cogstate digital tests are serving as a key endpoint in these trials. That interest by pharma in orexin compounds, and the value that they attribute to these programs, that was highlighted in Lilly's $7.8 billion acquisition of Centessa Pharmaceuticals that happened earlier in the year. We have also continued to expand our presence in rare disease clinical trials.
This is an area where Cogstate has historically established a really strong reputation, and this is supported by our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Pam Ventola, who is a key opinion leader in CNS endpoints in these types of trials. Beyond just indication expansion, we have also broadened the services that we are providing to customers. Our global network, about 400 neuropsychologists strong in over 50 languages, it is increasing the value of the contracts that we win and strengthening our position within studies through services like rater training and monitoring, but also telehealth style central rating assessments. Finally, market conditions have been generally favorable. Trial activity across CNS has remained strong, and our strategic partner model continues to expand our reach and introduce Cogstate to new sponsors and new programs. Of these, Medidata is the largest of those strategic partners, and integrations is measured by revenue.
Since launching that partnership in October of 2024, we are seeing a growing pipeline of opportunities emerge. More broadly, our CRO and technology partnerships are expanding our market reach and embedding Cogstate solutions into additional clinical trial programs. As Darren will detail in the next few slides, approximately 40% of the value of new sales contracts have been signed in FY 2026 through our channel partnerships. I think this really demonstrates the increased impact that these relationships are having on our growth trajectory. Darren, maybe I will hand it over to you for this financial summary.
Thanks, Rachel. Turning to the financial results for the FY 2026 year. As you can see here, revenue has grown 15% year-on-year to just shy of AUD 61 million. The growth coming largely from the clinical trials business. Three key factors are driving that growth, which we have largely discussed. First, the expansion into new indications. We can see that through mood, sleep, and other neurological disorders growing 148% year-on-year and now representing 30% of the revenue in FY 2026, up from 14% in FY 2025. So that expansion into new indications really is driving the revenue growth. Second, our market expansion through our partner model, which as Rachel just mentioned, 40% of our AUD 89 million of new contract sales in FY 2026 coming through our strategic partners, a large part of that being the Medidata relationship.
Third, our strength in other offerings, with central rating growing 31% year to year and scale management growing 186% year to year. The growth in central rating is particularly pleasing for us as it expands our wallet share of a trial with Cogstate performing work that would otherwise be done at the sites. As previously mentioned, we also saw revenue grow substantially in the second half from the first half. The first half of AUD 27 million growing to almost AUD 34 million in the second half. While our gross profit margin was down three points year to year, this is something that we called out a year ago and reflected our intentional investment into capabilities ahead of the expansion into new indications to show that we could deliver on those customer commitments.
The benefit of this investment is evident though in the second half, with gross profit margins improving from the first half to the second half from 53% -6 2%. So strong margin improvement from first half into second half. While that was largely driven by the revenue increase, it does reflect our investment in technology that supports our offerings, where we see offerings such as our algorithmic monitoring offering as part of central monitoring becoming more of a SaaS-style offering, and those offerings now accounting for close to 14% of our revenue. Our operating costs have seen a moderate growth year to year, but importantly, have declined on a cost to revenue ratio, reflecting the leverage that we see in the business.
As you can tell from the chart, our operating expenses declined from 31% of revenue in FY 2025 down to 28% in FY 2026, again highlighting that leverage that we see in the business. The strong revenue performance, the growth into new indications, the technology that we see, have all contributed to an EBITDA margin of 30% and an EBIT margin of 25%. But really importantly within this is the growth that we see from first half into second. Our EBITDA margin was 24% in the first half and grew to 35% in the second. Likewise, our EBIT margin was 18% in the first half and grew to 30% in the second half, which really illustrates the operational leverage that exists in the business.
Finally, that strong revenue growth and the margin performance, you can see that our net profit before tax and net profit after tax have grown 16% and 17% respectively. From a technology perspective, and we're just waiting for the chart to catch up here, but you'll see on the chart that our focus over the last 12 months has been completing our AI-enabled rater training and our AI-enabled central monitoring, which pleased to say both have now completed full development, and are ready now for use. We have our AI-enabled rater training product already contracted with a customer and about to commence use, and we're in discussions with a number of customers around AI-enabled central monitoring. Significant progress on those AI-enabled products. On the right-hand side of the illustration here is our plan through FY 2027 and FY 2028.
We're now at a point in the business where we've reached a scale, as Brad O'Connor mentioned before, managing 171 trials and expecting that to grow further in the coming years. We see a significant opportunity for us to bring automation to the Cogstate systems and processes. Our next phase will be to build out an AI operations-based automation tool for workflow automation and orchestration within our clinical trials business, which we believe will significantly reduce manual processes and improve both our delivery quality and our delivery efficiency.
It will be a two-year build-out, but over that two-year period, we're phasing it so that there are regular releases that deliver value to the business over that two-year period and will enable us to limit the amount of growth in our FTEs as the business grows, and allow us to deliver growth in our gross margins in the clinical trials business over the medium term. We expect expenditure in here to be predominantly capital in nature. There will be some increase to operating expense as we invest in the AI operations tool that supports the workflow automation and orchestration. But outside of that, it will be largely capital investment. Turning to our capital management plans, we continue to take a very disciplined approach in FY 2027 to our capital strategy.
We will continue to keep the share buyback open, and we will continue, as we have in the past, to be very opportunistic around that, where we see a misprice in the price of the share, but we will only be opportunistic and exercise that at the appropriate times. As Brad mentioned before, we have announced our second annual dividend at AUD 0.04 per share, up from AUD 0.02 per share last year. That hits a payout ratio of 40% of our net profit after tax and sits comfortably within our stated target of 20%-50% of our net profit after tax.
Finally, as I mentioned before, we will continue to target our capital expenditure into technology where we consider it appropriate, with a particular focus in the coming couple of years around building out an AI-powered operating platform that will enable us, over the medium term, to limit our growth in employees and therefore expand our gross profit margins.
Thank you, Darren. Time to give that voice a rest. Poor Darren is not feeling the best, suffering from the Melbourne winter at the moment. So, thanks for struggling through that. But look, as we look forward to FY 2027, we start FY 2027 with a record level of revenue under contract, and we continue to see a really high number of sales opportunities that we are seeking to execute. So the market conditions are really favorable and we have talked about those sales opportunities previously, but we continue to see that. So from that record starting point, the revenue growth in FY 2027 is really going to depend on that in-period revenue yield from the contracts we execute during the FY 2027 year, with sales prospects and the broader market conditions remaining positive, as I said.
So we are confident of that growth, but the amount of growth will vary depending on what those contracts look like.
I think it is important for investors to understand that we started FY 2026 with about AUD 31 million worth of revenue under contract, 31.5 to be exact, and ended up with just shy of AUD 61 million revenue. So added, in the order of almost AUD 30 million of revenue during the year from execution of sales contracts. We are investing really purposefully in technology and AI-enabled workflows and accelerating the development of a technology-driven operating system that Darren has just talked to automate what is some very manual processes that exist behind the scenes within Cogstate and improve the delivery quality, increase operating leverage as we grow volumes of clinical trials.
Subject to timing, value, and conversion of new contract wins, as a management team, we expect to be able to maintain those EBITDA margins that we recorded in FY 2026, so that 30% EBITDA margin, notwithstanding the increased investment and operating platform enhancements that we will deliver through the year. That outlook is underpinned by our track record of consistently executing new contracts and converting pipeline into revenue while investing in capabilities that are required for scalable growth. I think we feel very confident about that, and we think it is a really exciting time to be investing in that technology. To be frank, any business that is not looking to technology, just how do we improve margins over the medium term, really needs to think about what they are doing. We believe in that really strongly.
From a timing perspective, I think consistent with the last couple of years, it is expected FY 2027 will probably show a second half bias in terms of financial results, with the second half, the June 2027 half, we expect to be stronger than the December 2026 half year. Part of that is just growth, right? As we are growing half on half, you would expect that second half to continue to grow and it also reflects a sort of a bias in terms of the revenue that is under contract to that second half of the year. Notwithstanding that, still expecting a good first half of the year. Sorry, going the wrong way there.
As we wrap up this part of the formal presentation before we get to Q and A, I think it is important to point out for this management team that our FY 2026 performance, whilst I think we are really proud of it is just the start of what we want to do. We start FY 2027 in a really strong position with growth coming from expansion into new areas, expanded solutions, and more shots on goal from a broader go-to-market strategy. The scale of our business has changed over the last year, and we now have a generational opportunity to apply technology to automate as we scale our business, which provides the opportunity for margin expansion over the medium term as we continue to grow revenue.
We are really looking to grow those sort of 58%-60% gross margins and see how we can automate the business and limit headcount growth that allows us to grow those margins beyond that 60%. As we look forward, we see multiple avenues for growth from the expansion of indications, the expansion of our new offerings within those indications, improved market penetration through our channel partners, and the potential scale that comes from 73% increase in phase II studies that Rachel called out earlier, and the opportunity for growth if those studies move into phase III trials in the future. Of course, like every business, we have got that focus on technology, and we invest in AI to achieve the benefits of both our new products as well as the efficiency of delivery.
But we firmly believe that our origin as a digital disruptor has us really well-placed in the long term to benefit from that investment. And so with that, I'd like to now open up to questions, Rebecca.
Thanks, Brad, Rachel, and Darren. We have got quite a lot of questions that have come in, and a reminder to everyone else that you can pose a question in the chat function. So let's get started. You've talked about the technology spend. How much of that is really quantifiable? What do you expect to see in the coming years, and what's the business case for this investment?
Darren, if your voice is up to it, I'll let you take that one.
Yeah, I can take that. Brad, thanks. Thanks, Rebecca. So look, a substantial amount of work has gone into this over the last eight weeks or so. We actually first explored this in the early part of last calendar year, where we engaged our technology partner to do a bit of work around our central rating business and looked at that from a process perspective and what we could do to enable that with technology. We held off on that while we focused on the AI products that I talked about in terms of central monitoring and rater training. And then over the last eight weeks or so, we've refocused back what we can do from an internal perspective across the whole business rather than just on one segment.
As part of that, we have gone through and mapped out all our current processes, mapped out an end state process, and looked at the technology that can essentially bridge that gap between where we are today from a largely manual process to how we could be from a fully automated process. Looking to attack that essentially in two ways. The first is through workflow automation and orchestration, so using a third-party AI operations tool that will remove a lot of the manual processes that we do and replace those with automated and orchestrated process. Removing things like email, using Jira for workflow management, spreadsheets, PowerPoint charts, et cetera, and really driving that through an automated workflow process.
How do we equip both our business, our customers, our clinicians, and our site people with access to data and portals that give them a lot of visibility into the progress and conduct of our trials. That forms the second part of what we are going to do around how we build out those portals, the user experience, the user interface, the technology that underpins that. So it is a very well-defined scope. We have got a very detailed focus on how we make sure that we deliver value to not only the business but also our customers, again, clinicians and raters as we progress over that two-year period. So there will be regular drops of technology and value throughout that two-year period.
So we have got a very clear view of how this will roll out, what the cost will be, how that splits between capital and operating expense, and how we make sure that we get value to all parties through that two-year period.
Thank you for that very comprehensive response, Darren. Appreciated. We have got a couple of questions around Alzheimer's, so I am going to group them a bit. Firstly, what visibility do you have on any Alzheimer's work that may arise over the next 6-12 months from the major pharmaceutical companies?
I think, yeah, I'll start by answering that, and then I'll hand over to Rachel. I think the starting point is we've certainly seen less work in Alzheimer's disease over the last, in terms of new trial starts over the last 12 months. We're still very bullish in respect of Alzheimer's disease, and we expect that you will continue to see large investment in Alzheimer's disease. Really probably waiting on the readout of some data in terms of some pretty important studies that are taking place in pre-symptomatic disease. I think the challenge for Cogstate is to make sure that we continue to add new names in terms of new customers to our customer base there. Rachel, I don't know if you want to add some comments there.
Yeah, I think that's right. We can't speak to specific programs, but because we have such longstanding relationships with so many of the large pharma players in the space. We do have line of sight to late-phase pipeline there. I think biotechs, we're also seeing just an increased number of players with attacking new mechanisms. I share your enthusiasm, Brad, for what will happen in the AD space in the coming 12 months.
Thank you. Your mention of pre-symptomatic is a good link to the next question, which is, we've seen an industry shift towards prevention and pre-symptomatic Alzheimer's programs. How is Cogstate positioned to capture that demand?
This is a really interesting one. I think Cogstate is really well positioned in terms of our position in terms of running the ongoing trials in that sort of pre-symptomatic patient population. We're certainly the market leader amongst our competitive set in terms of running those pre-symptomatic trials is the first point. I think the second point is that the role that our digital endpoints play in that really early-stage patient population is important. We've recently conducted some analysis, and we'll be presenting that at the upcoming Clinical Trials on Alzheimer's Disease conference, that shows the combination of biomarker with specific Cogstate digital assessments provides for something like a fivefold increase in the predictability of rate of decline in patients who have abnormal levels of amyloid plaques in their brain. I think there's a two-planned approach there.
It's that we are the incumbent in that area, but also that we have these unique digital endpoints that are really showing impressive sensitivity in that patient population.
Terrific. Thank you. With increasing pipeline from channel partners and build up outside of Alzheimer trials, has the win rate stabilized? Could you update us on that trend?
Rachel mentioned that Medidata is the most substantial, or at least the largest of those channel partners. We started with Medidata, and we announced that partnership in October of 2024. Through the FY 2025 financial year, it was really a learning process for all of us as we started to go to market there. In the order of around AUD 1 million worth of sales contracts executed in that 2025 financial year. As we push forward to the 2026 financial year, we mentioned that about 40% of new sales contracts were through channel partners. About half of that is through Medidata. We saw a really important uplift in that. I think what's really interesting is that, again, there's a second-half skew to that number in terms of sales contracts through Medidata, and that's really as that win rate started to improve.
I think as we push forward into the September quarter, we're seeing even a higher sort of win rate in terms of those proposals from Medidata. I think that's continuing as we would expect it to. I think, as you take new product to market, it takes a while to gain the confidence and the commercial validation in the market. Then you see that mature over time, and that's what we're seeing with these channel partners, and I think it's really encouraging. I think there's substantial upside from what we've delivered in FY 2026.
What are the key risks in converting future contracts into revenue?
I don't know that there's a risk in terms of converting contracts into revenue. The risks are the same as the risks have always been for anyone selling into clinical trial services, and that is that there can be a degree of volatility from a sales perspective from quarter to quarter, from half to half. I think if you step back from that, and you look at our revenue profile, it's actually relatively consistent in terms of the revenue growth, notwithstanding some lumpiness in terms of sales contracts. Obviously through FY 2026, we saw actually really consistent sales contracts quarter to quarter. So between AUD 20 million and AUD 25 million worth of sales contracts executed every quarter through FY 2026.
I don't think it's reasonable to assume that you will see that consistency on an ongoing basis because you don't see that through any companies, whether it be the really large CROs down to smaller providers who work in this space. That's okay. We're completely comfortable working in that space. I think the point is for investors to step back from that sort of quarterly sales number and understand the bigger picture in terms of clinical trial starts, particularly clinical trial starts in central nervous system disease, the increase in investment in things like psychedelics and incretin into mood disorders, the sleep, the increase in investment into rare disease, particularly around the gene therapy. The bullishness we feel in relation to Alzheimer's disease.
I think, over an extended period, we feel really comfortable that we can grow those sales, particularly given this go-to-market strategy that's really only just starting to bear fruit now. Certainly I don't feel any hesitation in relation to sales contract growth. But the question was around what is the risk? The risk is you're just going to see quarters, or some quarters that won't be as strong. We haven't seen that for some time, but I'm sure we'll see it again. I'm not suggesting that we're looking at that right now, but I'm sure that we will.
Thanks, Brad. In terms of expansion of the portfolio, there is a specific question here around whether any pharmaceutical companies are looking at the effect of anesthesia in cancer treatment, particularly blood cancers on brain function.
Rachel, I am going to turn that one to you, but that is not something that I can talk to in depth.
Yeah, we have seen those trials in particular in an academic setting. Oftentimes those are investigator-led trials that we support through our academic research group. We have seen a few in the pharmaceutical sponsored space.
Okay, thank you. We are down to the last couple of questions, so if anyone has any final burning questions, please put them into the chat now. Foreign exchange gain was high at just under 1% of revenue and gave a small boost to EBITDA percentage. With the guidance of financial year 2027 maintaining EBITDA percentage, are you indicating the actual operating margin without impact from foreign exchange actually lifts?
That's a really good point. It's a really detailed question. We did benefit from, Darren and the finance team did a great job of taking advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act t ariff announcement that we saw at the time, saw the Aussie dollar come under pressure, and Darren and the finance team were able to put in place some forward hedging at really beneficial rates through FY 2026. If you pull that out to achieve a maintenance of that EBITDA margin as rightly pointed out, or profit margin overall I suppose, as you rightly pointed out, you do need to see some margin improvement because as we look forward, you never know what happens. But we certainly can't rely on an ability to see a substantial drop in the Aussie dollar that allows us to put in place that same kind of hedging again.
Okay, and just the final question is what is the typical clinical trials contract duration?
Rachel, do you want to take this one?
Yeah, there's not a typical. I would say in Alzheimer's disease, if it's a symptomatic trial, we could see phase II go from 12 -1 8 months. If it's a disease modifying, it's much longer, so typically five, eight- year trials. If we are talking about sleep, we see those trials, especially the earlier phase and even phase II and III go very quickly. A matter of months. They also enroll very quickly, so the total duration can be quite driven by that enrollment period. It's similar with psychiatric trials. If it's depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder, we can see those enroll fairly quickly and the duration to see a treatment effect can be quite quick as well. So it really ranges by indication. But even across CNS indications, there's a very wide range.
Terrific. Well, that concludes today's investor call. Brad, over to you for concluding remarks.
Look, we just want to thank everybody for your interest in our business. As I said in summary before, we really think that these FY 2026 results are just the start for our business. We're just really getting started on the expansion into these mood disorders. We're seeing a really substantial increase in the expansion of activities, particularly the use of that central rating that Rachel referred to. Our go-to market strategy is really just starting to bear fruit, again, with the June half bias to sort of those sales contracts, and an expectation that will continue to grow as we push into FY 2027. Finally, with this ability to apply technology to really expand those gross margins beyond that sort of 58%-60% margins that we've seen historically.
With the goal of, as we grow revenue, to really push those gross margins up, and which will provide exceptional operating leverage over operating costs. We think the business is really well-placed, and we look forward to delivering for all our shareholders over the next couple of years. Again, thank you for your interest.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you