Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Respiri Limited. Due to COVID-19, we are holding a virtual AGM again this year. My name is Nicholas Smedley. I'm Executive Chairman of Respiri, and will be in charge of the meeting today. I'd like to begin by introducing my fellow directors that are present today. Marjan Mikel, CEO and Managing Director. Thomas Duthy, Non-Executive Director. Also present is our company secretary, Alastair Beard. Peter Render from our share registry, Computershare, is in attendance also. Billy Chan from our auditors, RSM, is also in attendance. Billy is here today to answer any questions that you may have in relation to the audit. Please note that today's meeting will be recorded. Respiri has delivered a number of significant milestones during the FY 2021 year.
However, parts of Wheezo's rollout in Australia continue to face headwinds from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. I must acknowledge upfront that the board and management are disappointed with the current sales volume to date, along with the recent share price performance. However, with Australia and the rest of the world now appearing to be on a clearer path to normality, the board is encouraged by the current opportunities before Respiri in Australia and in the significantly larger American and European markets. Marjan will speak in further detail on the current developments and expected 2022 milestones. It is important to acknowledge the significant milestones that Marjan and the management team has delivered during the 2021 financial year.
These include sales agreement with Cipla secured in July 2020, with 5,541 Wheezos sold through this channel in the financial year. Appointment of Entech as manufacturing partner for Wheezo. Recapitalization obtained from the AUD 12.5 million capital raise. Reduction in Wheezo COGS by a further 30% with the introduction of Wheezo version 3.0. This has been further improved with the recent introduction of Wheezo 4.0. Significant pharmacy footprint delivered with key banner groups such as Pharmacy Platform, Amcal and TerryWhite. Specialist- Led Remote Patient Monitoring program, RAMP, developed following successful completion of the Patient Experiential Program. U.S. FDA clearance achieved for Wheezo. The last year has seen the company deliver key operational milestones, improving the overall value proposition to patients.
Recent months have shown that this has resulted in a significant improvement in patient engagement. These positive trends have helped accelerate ongoing discussions for Wheezo adoption by RPM or Remote Patient Monitoring and reimbursement providers in Europe and the United States. This is just one of the many reasons I'm optimistic about the performance of Respiri in 2022. On behalf of the board, I'd like to thank our shareholders, customers, and partners for their ongoing support, and also commend our team for their efforts this year, especially against the backdrop of COVID-19. Later in the meeting, our CEO, Marjan Mikel, will provide you more insight to our operational performance and current prospects for 2022 and beyond. It is now just past 2 P.M., the nominated time for the meeting, and I have been informed that a quorum is present.
I note that the meeting has been validly constituted, and I am pleased to declare the meeting open. The notice of meeting contains details of how to vote. These details are also shown on the screen now. Voting during the meeting is via the Lumi app. The voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions. At that time, if you're eligible to vote at this meeting, a new polling icon will appear. Selecting this icon will bring a list of the resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit a Submit or Enter button, as the vote is automatically recorded.
You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up until voting closes. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The polling icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time. I have instructed Computershare to keep the voting open until the conclusion of our CEO and Managing Director, Marjan Mikel's presentation, after which polls will close. Following the meeting, the votes will be compiled by Computershare and released to the ASX this evening. Each Respiri shareholder present in the virtual meeting or by proxy has one vote for each Respiri share they hold. I have been advised by our share registry that all proxies received have been checked, and I declare them valid for voting at this meeting.
I will disclose proxy votes on the screen, along with the corresponding resolutions put to shareholders in the notice of meeting issued on October 14 and included with the online meeting documents available through your Computershare investor portal or voting portal. These figures will be as at the closing time for receipt of proxies, which was 2 P.M., Saturday, the 13th November 2021. Where a valid proxy vote has been given to the chairman without voting instructions, please note that in all cases, I intend to vote in favor of the resolution. I am informed that the notice of meeting was sent to all registered shareholders and within the notice period required. I now table the notice of meeting, and unless there are any objections, I'll note convening this meeting as read.
All resolutions to be put to members today were contained in the notice of meeting, so I will not read out each proposed resolution in full. The poll will run from now until the end of the meeting. I now vote on all items of business. I can confirm that there will be an opportunity to ask questions of the board as they relate to the formal license of business of this meeting. If you wish to ask a question, please do so by typing a question into the chat function in Zoom. There are two ways you can do this, either in writing or verbally. If you submit your question in writing, we ask that when typing the question, shareholders include their names so the board can properly address the shareholder. All questions in the first instance are directed to myself as chairman.
Questions should be submitted to the participant called AGM Questions. If you wish to put your question to the board verbally, then please type, "I have a question", in the same Zoom chat text box, or even send a raise hand from the list of emojis available. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted in the Zoom and introduced by Respiri's company secretary. You will then be able to speak to the virtual meeting. Again, don't forget that written questions or requests to ask verbal questions must be submitted to the participant in the Zoom called AGM Questions, and this is done via the Zoom chat function.
Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will address all questions other than those relating to the financial statements after all of the items of business and proxy positions have been presented. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now progress to the formal business of the meeting. The first item of notified business is to receive and consider the financial report, the director's report, and the auditor's report for the year ending 30 June 2021. There is no formal resolution required for this item, but I invite questions and comments on this particular item now.
RSM is present at the meeting and is available to deal with any questions relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and context of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of the financial statements or the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit. Given there are no questions, I'll continue on to item two. The next item being item two, the remuneration report. The proxies received for this resolution are now displayed on the screen. As advised, voting on all resolutions will be via a poll. Are there any questions on this resolution? Questions will be answered on this and all remaining items of business at the end of the formal proceedings and before the CEO's presentation. As also mentioned at the start, the poll is already open.
If you haven't already voted on these resolutions, please do so now or before the poll closes at the end of this meeting. Next on the agenda is item three. The agenda item covers resolution two and involves the reselection of Director Marjan Mikel. The proxies received for these three resolutions are displayed on the screen. Are there any questions on these resolutions? Don't forget to submit them via the Zoom chat function on the meeting participant called AGM Questions. They will be answered at the end of the formal part of the presentation. I now come to item four, resolution number three, being the approval of 10% placement capacity. The proxies received for this special resolution are now displayed on the screen. Are there any questions on this resolution?
We will now respond to all questions submitted during the formal part of the presentation covering agenda items two, three, and four. No questions. Just a reminder that the results of the meeting will be released to the ASX later today, and that voting remains open until the conclusion of our CEO's presentation, at which time the poll will close. We have now completed the matters contained in the notice of annual general meeting of shareholders, and I declare the formal part of the meeting closed. Thank you for your attendance. Our CEO and Managing Director, Marjan Mikel, will now give an update on the business, and we will take general questions following that update after his presentation. Questions should again be submitted via the Zoom chat function to the participant called AGM Questions.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and once again, thank you very much for joining us today. Although everything hasn't gone to plan in what has been another very, very difficult year, I'm really excited for progress that we're making as an organization in the internationalization of our business and the broadening of our product portfolios to address a greater area of respiratory medicine to supplement Wheezo. It's been a hard year, but we've made some significant progress, and I wanna share that with you today. We're in the business for one reason, we exist for patients. Our goal is to make sure that we improve the lives of patients with asthma and help them live better lives as a result.
Wheezo provides them with a tool that they don't have at the moment, a tool that allows them to objectively understand how well their conditions are being controlled, and importantly, share that information with their physicians, other healthcare professionals, and their carer group. We know from the feedback that we've got from patients who have purchased Wheezo, that they find it a very, very useful tool, and in doing so, provide them with a better level of control and better health outcomes, which I'll go into in a little more detail as we go through this particular presentation. As I said, and Nick alluded to, there's quite a number of achievements that we've achieved in the last 12-18 months. We've mentioned the FDA approval in March. Importantly, the Patient Experiential Program was completed.
Outcomes are very, very encouraging, and I'll share those with you in this presentation. However, work needed to be done to improve patient engagement, which with the device, which we've addressed with the Specialist- Led Remote Patient Monitoring program, RAMP. What we found with that particular program is that there was a dramatic improvement in patient engagement with Wheezo. Patient outcomes are very, very positive. Their trends are early and a lot more needs to be done, but the initial results of the outcomes is very positive. Importantly, it also provides us with a model that we can use globally and locally as a new Wheezo channel, and the data will be available for us to interrogate in quarter one 2022, when we get about six months' worth of data from each of the patients.
Nick alluded to the fact that no one's satisfied with the sales results that we've got through pharmacy at the moment, and that hasn't been helped by what has been, as I said, a very, very difficult year with border closures, lockdowns, and whatever else. As a result, we have amended plans to get a better understanding of what we need to do to improve the sales performance in pharmacy. I'll go through a little bit more of that in the presentation. Wheezo 4.0 has been developed, and our COGS target will be achieved in 2022. We're very pleased about that, and we will have a product that's going to be manufactured at a COGS rate that is world-class.
Importantly, the Wheezo app is continually being upgraded, and now includes the Asthma Control Questionnaire, the ACT, which we believe is a world first, and it is a clinically proven questionnaire that provides additional information to the patient and their HCPs or healthcare professionals, to better understand how well their asthma is being controlled. You may have noted that we won the Good Design Gold Award for product design in the medical and scientific device areas. We've just also developed a new wearable product, Sorfeh, which is Persian for cough, and it's been developed to monitor nocturnal asthma and exercise-induced asthma.
These two areas are not very well-serviced at all at the moment, and the KOLs that we've been talking to are very excited at the prospect of being able to get a greater understanding of what's happening with patients with asthma when they're sleeping, and importantly for athletes, what's happening with their asthma as they are playing their sport. Importantly, the device will also be able to delineate between wheeze from asthma and also upper airway vocal cord dysfunction. We've proven that to be the case, and it's an exciting time as we move forward for this. It will provide us with an additional product that will supplement or complement, I should say, Wheezo. It will not replace Wheezo. Wheezo will still be the daytime version of the product that we have at the moment.
This is for a completely different set of patients. We're well on the way and well advanced in launching our international presence, and it's important to note that unlike Australia, the international market launch will be physician-led, and it'll be in reimbursed markets. That's really important to understand. I'm really excited about the progress that we're making in the U.S. We're in discussions with six potential telehealth, PE and chronic care partners. We've already secured two non-binding term sheets and are in the process of negotiating final distribution agreements with those two groups, sorry. Really exciting. Wheezo pre-marketing will commence to U.S. institutions, hospitals, and doctors next month. That is well ahead of schedule, and it's an exciting time for us as we gear up for the launch in the U.S.
Importantly, we're in discussions for a clinical partnership with a major pediatrics hospital, and we're in the process now of finalizing what that might look like. It's a very exciting time for us in the U.S. We were originally hoping to be in the U.S. in quarter three next calendar year. We're well ahead of schedule with the work that we've done. It's a pretty exciting time over there. The U.K., I mentioned in the 4C, the Birmingham university study, which is basically a study to try and correlate wheeze with lung function. We're finalizing those details now, although the protocol's already been finalized, and that study will kick off next quarter. Very exciting.
A major third-party funded asthma medical device study has also been secured in children, and reimbursement opportunity may result as a result of the outcomes of this particular study. Importantly, we are not paying for this study. It is being funded by a third party. I'll give you a little more detail about that when the final contracts are, T's are crossed and I's are dotted. That's an exciting time. It will be outcomes-based, and it'll trial for about 12-18 months. It'll kick off the first patient in May 2022. We're also obviously in discussions with potential partners and we're finalizing those agreements as I speak. Europe again, if you recall, we had hoped to launch in the European marketplace in 2023.
We're now in discussions with a potential partner. They have a strong presence in four markets with a total population of about 150 million people. Two of those markets are reimbursed, and there's a huge opportunity to be had by bringing Europe forward in our rollout plans. Just thought I'd remind us about what it is that we do. You know, we really do provide a world first to patients. It's an integrated ecosystem to support asthma management. Basically, we provide a tool and a back end that allows patients to objectively measure what is happening with them and their control of asthma and share that information with their doctor, healthcare professionals and carer teams.
Nothing like this exists today, and it is a big opportunity for us to take advantage of. I just thought I'd share that with you again. We are embarking upon upgrading all of our apps and the back ends to make sure that we have the latest and greatest when it comes to providing patients and their caring physicians with real-time data from the real world. Our algorithm. Now, the findings of the Patient Experiential Program or PEP and the clinical findings from our study are quite striking. We know that the algorithm detects wheeze as at least as well as an experienced respiratory physician. So that we know to be the case, and that's really important, particularly given that we are trying to extend care beyond the clinic.
Doctors need to be comfortable that what it is that we're providing them with is accurate. Importantly, from the real-world PEP program, we found a statistically significant difference in symptoms with those patients who had wheeze rates of greater than 3%. This is really important to note that when people were measured and had a wheeze rate of more than 3%, their other symptoms were statistically worse than wheeze rates under 3%. Now, that's a first. We've never had data like this before, and it's a very powerful tool for us, particularly when we were talking to our potential partners in the U.S., so it really went down well.
I did mention that the engagement rates in the PEP program weren't as up to where it is we'd like them to be, and this is where the Remote Asthma Management Program, RAMP, was developed, physician-led, and led to a significant improvement in patient engagement. The patients now in September are using the Wheezo more than once every single day, which is a number, a wonderful result. We know that this level of engagement also then provides the patients with a better understanding of their condition. The outcomes, as I said previously, for the patients at this moment are trending very, very positively. We're really pleased with that.
As I said, this is a model that we hope to be able to replicate in other parts of the world, particularly in the U.S., where reimbursement is had for this sort of work, and also in Europe. It also provides us with another channel for Wheezo sales here in Australia, which is important to note. That will be physician-led, and it also provides us with a program that we can offer to corporate Australia, and wellness programs for their staff that have asthma. I thought I'd take the opportunity just to remind us about how large the opportunity is in the U.S. One in 13 people in the U.S. have asthma. There are over 1.5 million ED visits because of asthma every single year.
The cost per inpatient medical event is over $8,000. COPD, the other respiratory area that we also have approval for in the U.S., 1 in 20 patients are living with COPD. There's almost 900,000 ED visits because of it, and each inpatient medical event is almost $28,000. Now, that basically means that respiratory disease places a significant burden on the U.S. healthcare system, much as it does everywhere else in the world. Huge opportunity for us. The number of patients with asthma in the U.S. is bigger than the total population of Australia. That's how big that opportunity is. Unfortunately, you know, respiratory illness continues to be very poorly managed. We've spoken about this many times. In clinic, spirometry is almost impossible for all patients.
In a community setting, in an ambulatory setting, that's just not gonna work. Healthcare literacy among patients and carers continues to contribute to poor outcomes. They don't know enough about their condition. They don't engage with their condition. Adherence to medications is pretty hopeless, to be quite honest. Now with RPM and RTM solutions, that's Remote Patient Monitoring and Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, allows physicians and healthcare networks to reduce inequity in access, while delivering ongoing medical care for patients. It's gonna be easier for patients to be able to actually get a tool like Wheezo in their hand to better manage their condition in the real world where problems occur. Patients don't typically have an asthma attack when they're sitting in front of their doctor. This is the opportunity for Wheezo. This is the opportunity for Respiri.
We report on a whole heap of other things in the app, as I've discussed many times previously. Pollen count, air quality, pollution, medication usage, other symptomology. All this basically provides the patient and their caring physician with a longitudinal snapshot of what that patient looks like on a good day and what they look like on a bad day, and be able to have that patient better forecast if they're going to have any problems with their condition moving forward. Effective management requires a partnership between patient, provider, and we catalyze that with our Wheezo device. As I said, we are an FDA-approved medical device, Class II. I'll just remind us again, we basically record breathing for about 30 seconds, and that's it. That recording is then Bluetoothed to the phone.
In the app is the algorithm that analyzes it for breath sounds and wheeze in this instance. The feedback that we've had from our American potential American partners has been extremely positive. As I said, so positive, in fact, that pre-marketing is going to commence in December. Just reminding us all that there is a very, very generous reimbursement program in the U.S. for RPM and RTM CPT codes. A physician providing Wheezo to a patient will make around about $1,350 per patient per annum. We would charge that patient through our partners a product-as-a-service fee. That will be between $30-$40 per month. The opportunity is quite big, and the average value of a patient in the U.S. is about three times what they are here in Australia.
There is a huge opportunity to be had. As I said, the discussions we've had to date with our partners in the U.S. have been extremely positive and it's extremely well-received. This is basically the value proposition that we go to partners in the U.S. with. We have an integrated model, so we can provide them with either our end-to-end solution, which includes the Wheezo app and also the portal, or we can integrate into third-party partner solutions. In fact, the two providers that we've got as potential partners with the non-binding agreements fall in both of those categories. One wants to use the end-to-end solution, and the other has their own platform that they'd like Wheezo integrated into, and we're actively working on that right now.
The technical approach we have, we sit there and there's a discovery phase. We work out what exactly the customer needs, how their platforms work, and what their business model is. 'Cause although they sort of work the same way, they have a different approach to the way that they deliver RPM solutions to their doctors. Needless to say that, we then look to implement working very closely with their team. In fact, the team's currently working with one of these organizations as I speak, and we will be supporting them during the deployment and also on an ongoing basis. Now, the benefits of partnering with Wheezo, of course, is we have in-house capabilities.
It's really important to understand that one of the decisions we made early in the piece was to in-house mission-critical competencies, and this is one of them. We're not gonna rely on our third parties to do this sort of stuff for us. We need to take control of this and make sure that it's perfect. We have the med tech respiratory domain knowledge, and importantly, we already are developing systems that'll integrate into our partner systems. Respiri's integrated solutions deliver value to all key stakeholders. For healthcare professionals, as I said, it's a completely new source of revenue for them because it's a device for asthma and COPD. Today, as far as we know, there is very, very little available to physicians to claim those CPT codes, particularly in children and the elderly.
They can get better quality of care because they no longer need to rely on patient's recall and self-assessment, which we know is hopeless. The better information is therefore better decisions to be made about how their patients are being managed. With the Remote Patient Monitoring, the Remote Therapeutic Monitoring providers, our partners, we know that we have the best-in-class FDA medical device, approved medical device. We can integrate into their systems if need be. Importantly, as I said previously, it opens up a completely new cohort of patients delivering a new revenue stream. We're not competing with stuff that they already have, which they're very excited about.
With patients, of course, having a better understanding of what their triggers are and how well they're being controlled provides them with a better level of health and compliance outcomes, reduced hospital admissions, and ultimately reduced healthcare costs and financial burdens. As I said, December, active Wheezo pre-marketing to U.S. customers commences. We're really excited about that, particularly given that it's so far ahead of schedule. A lot's been achieved. The team we have here at Respiri, I couldn't wish for a better team. They are committed to what it is we do, and as I said, they all have mission-critical competencies that we want to in-house as an organization. Leading forward, I just wanna make a couple comments on why 2022 excites me so much. Our international launch will be physician-led, as I said, rather than pharmacy.
The feedback we've had from physicians from the international markets has been very, very positive. As mentioned, the U.S. launch is ahead of schedule. We're gonna be doing a U.K. soft launch in quarter one 2022, and we're developing reimbursement strategies for that marketplace in conjunction with the two clinical studies that we will be undertaking in 2022. They're key linchpins in our strategy for that particular market. We're in advanced discussions with the EU partner and again, developing reimbursement strategies for two of the market stakes that they are operating. The wearable device will open up a completely new therapeutic opportunity for us in the areas of nocturnal asthma monitoring, but also exercise-induced asthma.
Now, as I said, we have a couple of local key opinion leaders here in Australia out of the Melbourne University who are very excited about pursuing this. Australia, I'm not gonna hide from the fact that we're not satisfied with the level of sales that we've achieved through the pharmacy channel. What we're doing is developing RAMP, the Remote Asthma Monitoring Program, to provide us with a new channel to market. Pharmacy targeting strategy is to continue to focus on finding out those pharmacies who are more actively engaged in delivering professional services to their customers, which will mean fewer pharmacies that we'll be friends with, and we're going for a depth of penetration rather than the breadth of penetration.
It's much more cost-effective working with those pharmacies who have a charter to deliver professional services, which not all pharmacies do, and be focused on helping them deliver to their customers. 2022 is an exciting time for all of us. I'm really looking forward to the challenges and the progress that we will make next year, and I wanna thank all of you for your support in 2021, and hope that you will continue to support us in 2022. Thank you.
Now, we have a few questions that have come in, everybody, so I might start at the top, questions submitted in writing. The first one is from Andrew Nash, asking for some feedback or update on the doctor medical professional engagement and the same with any key opinion leaders.
Yeah. Look, the engagement with the Key Opinion Leaders across the globe has been very, very positive. I mean, one of the big differences, for instance, in the development of the wearable device was ensuring that we had input from Key Opinion Leaders from Europe, U.K., U.S., Israel, and here in Australia. We are certainly a lot more active in that space now. The feedback that we've had from Key Opinion Leaders here in Australia has been very positive. We're currently working in cahoots with a specialist from the Melbourne University to look at whether or not to study the impacts of thunderstorm-based asthma. That Key Opinion Leader has chosen Wheezo as the device that she wants to use to measure and monitor how well patients are doing.
We're very much aware of the need to engage with physicians, particularly in the markets from abroad because they're a reimbursement-led market. The only way we can penetrate those markets is by having Key Opinion Leaders and doctors prescribe the product.
Thank you, Marjan. Now we have another one here from Henry Stevens, who's asking how else are we planning to sell the product in Australia if the existing distribution channel through pharmacies has not worked very well? I think, Marjan, you've touched on that at the end of your speech, but if you want to say anything else.
Yeah. No, I will. Henry, look, it's very difficult to say something hasn't worked. It hasn't worked as well as we thought it would or wanted it to. As I said, I'm not gonna harp on the fact that, you know, we've been locked down countless times in 2021. Borders have been closed. Foot traffic through pharmacy has been atrocious. Now they're completely infatuated with vaccinations. I guess it hasn't worked as well as we would have wanted it to. The two things that we are doing, I'll reinforce the Remote Asthma Monitoring program, physician-led. That will open up another channel for us here in Australia, both the specialist patient hospitals, so for the corporate area.
The other thing, as I said, is we are very much working on targeting those pharmacies that are much more engaged in delivering professional services to their customers. There's a major program that we are working on at the moment that will involve another pharmaceutical company. I won't say too much more than that, but it's certainly in the area of patient identification through pharmacy using Wheezo as the tool to do that. This particular pharmaceutical company has a vested interest in identifying patients or asthmatic patients who aren't controlled on current medications.
Thank you, Marjan. Now we have another question here from Jamie, who says, "They're a long-term Respiri shareholder who questioned delays of launches in the past. And specifically, am I right in saying that we are now not entering the U.K. market this calendar year?
Yes. There's little doubt that we made a commitment that we'd be quarter four. It's moved back a quarter because of COVID. There's nothing we can do about that. I mean, what I can say about all these things is anything that we're working on where we have direct control over what it is we're doing, we deliver. We've pulled the U.S. market launch forward nine months. We're in the position of pulling the European launch forward by a similar amount. The U.K. will slip a little, but that's because of the COVID restrictions that we've had and lining up all the ducks for the two clinical studies that we've put in place.
We are in very active discussions with partners, so that will, we hope to be able to finalize some of that moving forward in the coming months. I'd rather get it right than screw it up, to be quite honest with you. I mean, at the end of the day, we've made significant progress, not false starts. As I said, in the U.S. and Europe, well ahead of schedule. The U.K. is gonna lag by a few months. Yeah, that's the situation.
From the same shareholder, Jamie, can you provide an update on the Respiri's eligibility for reimbursement in the USA market?
Absolutely. The reason we're pretty popular with the RPM providers at the moment is because we do qualify. There's a wonderful opportunity to qualify for the Remote Patient Monitoring, Remote Therapeutic Monitoring CPT codes in the U.S. Importantly also is transitional care. Some of these partners of ours have large institutions, hospitals as partners. They say customers, sorry. It is in their interest to make sure that they keep patients out of their hospitals and keep them managed in lower cost areas such as the home. That's one of the reasons we're making such significant progress very, very quickly with our RPM partners.
Thank you, Marjan. Now we have a new question here from Andrew Nash. Andrew's asking, "Could you explain and describe the skill set of the non-market facing Respiri team, please? Specifically, what have they done to lower the cost of the device and deal with the worldwide chip shortage?
Yeah. I'll start. We're gonna focus on manufacturing. We have an internal team here which specializes in developing new product and designing new product. The fact that we've had four versions of Wheezo in just over 12 months is a phenomenal achievement. Basically, we've been able to secure, in a very difficult marketplace, the chips that we need to give us the stock that we need to manufacture Wheezos moving forward. The staff that we have here, particularly in the area of manufacturing and product design, are quite phenomenal. I mean, the fact that we have a proto-working prototype wearable after four months is a remarkable achievement.
As I said, these are the people who, I guess, provide us with the tools that we need to provide to patients. They are very much in line with what it is we're doing. We've employed a new CTO now who's revamped what it is that we're doing internally from an IT perspective, but I'll give you more information about that at a later date. Then there's hangers-on like me who don't really do too much, but I get to reap the benefits of everyone else's work.
Thank you, Marjan . Moving along, we have a few more questions. Jamie, I think we've addressed that one with regard to the plans for 2022, and Marjan touched on that in the presentation. Henry Stevens, he has asked, "What happened to the takeover offer that was made earlier in the year?
I think we all know what happened there. It didn't work. It didn't go to plan. Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but certainly the response that we got was quite surprising to us. You can imagine that the due diligence that we went through with Adherium spanned six months. It wasn't as though we pulled something out of our backsides and said, "Okay, here it is. We'll throw it over the fence, see what happens." Significant discussions were had about the merger of the two organizations. When it came to the rubber hitting the road, it just didn't work out. That's all I can say about that. As I said, I wish. Yeah, hindsight's a wonderful thing.
Thank you, Marjan. Now I'll just leave it open for another minute. That looks. That's the end of the questions that have been submitted so far. Unless there are any further questions, please again submit through the chat function to AGM Questions. No? I might hand back to the chairman on that note.
Well, I just wanna thank everyone again for their participation in today's AGM through Respiri, as well as your continued support in what is a very exciting position for Respiri for 2022 and beyond, to be able to launch in U.S. and U.K. markets in the coming months. Thank you all once again, and I'll officially draw the formalities to a close.