Hello and welcome to this webcast. Today we have with us SoftOx Solutions in connection with an investor update. My name is Obaid Salem and I'm the founder of InvestorRep. From SoftOx Solutions, we have with us the Chairman, CEO, and CFO. The format of the presentation will be a slide presentation, approximately 30 minutes. From there, we will have a Q&A. We already have pre-submitted questions, but you will be able to submit questions at ir@investorrep.no. Remember that during the live webcast, you can submit questions at ir@investorrep.no. If you are watching this webcast on YouTube or Facebook or InvestorRep, you can use the comment section to submit questions. From there, I give the floor to Ulrik Spork and Thomas.
Thank you. Welcome, everyone. We are very excited to be able to present to you. We are also very thrilled that so many have signed up to be listening in to our presentation. We're very excited to present to our owners. Some of you have seen our presentation, which is now close to a year ago, just after I joined. We have made a lot of good progress over the last year. Some of it has been spent removing stones out of our own shoes. As we have worked with our plans and getting to further understand the technology, we've become even more convinced that this technology has huge potential to substantially impact the way physicians in the future will treat lung infections. This technology has potential to tangibly change clinical practice and impact lives.
Reality is, however, that only by clinical adaption at scale comes commercial value and thereby reward to shareholders. We need to get to a point where a product is being decided by a physician, prescribed for allocation to a patient, until we really have commercial value. We think we can catalyze this needed change. We hope today to convey that enthusiasm to you and convince you that we are taking the right steps forward on that path. As you all know, the key reason for our call today is to share with you the results of a process that company leadership in SoftOx AS have had with the board and external experts. We are about to take our first step into patients with this in our first proof-of-concept study.
It was crucial for us to ensure that this step provided us the best possible foundation for the advancement of the technology while being executed on the timeline and budget, which is viable for a company our size. As you may know, we're basically five people on the payroll. We are a small organization. We're looking forward to this. Let the show begin. I think the first slide we get, if you advance one step, Obaid. Will you take the next slide, please? Yes, there you go. Thank you. The first slide is really boring. This one is nice pictures of Thomas and myself. As I said, the whole team in SoftOx AS is behind this. Thomas and I will be presenting the initial part of this today, and Ingrid will join us for the Q&A at the end. Currently, we're in three different locations. Ingrid is in Oslo.
Thomas is at his office at the campus at the University of Copenhagen, where he's a professor, and I work from my home office. With the help of the technology, I'm sure that it will be seamless and efficient. If we advance one more step, this next slide describes really very simply the three main pillars behind our refinement of the clinical trial priorities which we are talking about today. Thomas will put a lot more detail into this, but let me just highlight a few. Clinical feasibility. A key question that we realized and we had to ask ourselves is, how do we get the evidence for the efficacy we think is possible while maintaining the best balance of risk, cost, and time as we progress? What is clinically feasible? What is the right way to start? That was a key question that we asked ourselves.
Technology maximization is another one. We need to understand the boundaries of our technology. How wide can we push the therapeutic window? It's very essential that understanding this early creates value down the road or saves us time or ensures that as we unfold the technology, we really can devolve it into its boundaries. Of course, this is an early start and we are early in the evolvement of our technology. Starting the right foot forward is extremely important. The market potential is super important as well. There are huge unmet needs within treatment of infections and many, many challenges. Thomas will point to a few of those challenges that in general are and what we might be able to do differently. As I said already, only by clinical adoption at scale comes commercial value and thereby rewards to shareholders.
We need to be smart in assessing what market segments can we address, and we together with hardness can we address, and what should be the first step in that path. Due to the unique mode of action of SoftOx Inhalation Solution, we believe it may be applied effectively in several pulmonary indications. Therefore, the stronger and broader applicable proof-of-concept foundation that we can generate, the better. This will be, without comparison, the major value inflection point for us. As Thomas will explain, our plan is to prove the platform in a small patient population, which has a structure that increases the likelihood that we can get robust data on very key aspects of our technology, which is bacterial load reduction. Good data there will enable us to leverage the foundation to advance into further and larger indications as we will go through.
That was sort of the opening remark from me, and I will pass on the word to Thomas.
Thank you, Obaid. Next slide, please. Many of you have followed the company for some time now and also heard about the technology. I think it's important just to summarize what's the backbone of SoftOx. The backbone of SoftOx Inhalation Solution is hypochlorous acid, which is also being produced by our white blood cells in the body, fighting microorganisms and invading pathogens. Hypochlorous acid is a very unstable molecule. We have stabilized it with acetic acid, and that makes a stable solution which can keep its strength on the shelf and not be degraded, not oxidized before it hits a target in the airways. The last few years, we have spent preparing for what we tell you today.
We have tested and verified that the SoftOx Inhalation Solution has a strong, broad-spectrum, pan-antimicrobial effect. We can eradicate or inactivate virus. We can kill bacteria and fungi. We also observed that we can kill dormant, non-growing bacteria, so the bacteria in biofilms, the bacteria in chronic infections. We haven't been able to induce any resistance towards hypochlorous acid or other cross-resistance to antibiotics. We have this stable formulation, which ensures that we hit the target, but when it hits the target, it oxidizes. It doesn't really affect the rest of the body, so we don't see any systemic effects. Very important for also what we will tell you about today is when we completed all clinical or preclinical studies. We've been in humans before in 2022, so we know we do not see any serious adverse events at our starting point.
I think that really, really makes or gives SoftOx a unique ability to eradicate infections. Also, this is what we'll tell you about today. The proof-of-concept study I will present is the start of a great venture. Next slide, please. When we talk about antibiotic resistance, we also talk about a silent pandemic in the landscape. Last year, it was estimated that in 2050, antibiotic resistance will kill 39 million people in the world. The WHO has been out and saying there's a critical shortage of innovative antibiotics, probably due to the lack of financial incentives for pharma companies to produce and to invent new antibiotics. If you invent a new antibiotic, then it will just be put on the top shelf due to being afraid of creating resistance. It will be a last resort drug.
New classes of antimicrobial drugs are needed, not a new antibiotic, but a new class which has different effects. The SoftOx Inhalation Solution is actually such a drug. I think we present here today also that it's a future of antimicrobial therapy. We can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We can eliminate dormant bacteria. We can eliminate bacteria in biofilms. We do not really see this resistance development. We have a new mode of action, not new to nature, but new to how we target bacteria in infections because we eradicate bacteria independent of the metabolism. Especially in chronic infections, where we both see resistance and tolerance, that is really, really important. Next slide, please. We have chosen cystic fibrosis as our proof-of-concept population. Cystic fibrosis is a model disease for chronic airway infections. It's also a lung infection, which I've been working with for the last 25 years or so.
Cystic fibrosis is caused by mutations in the CFTR gene, and that mutation causes the mucus in the lungs to become extremely viscous, and that gives the bacteria a stronghold to build biofilms and protect them against antibiotics. There has been a tremendous improvement in treatment of cystic fibrosis patients or people with CF, and that's with the introduction of CFTR modulators, a drug which can update the function of the CFTR mutation. Despite that, there's still a need for antimicrobial therapy and also anti-inflammatories and so on. I'll come back to that in the next slide. I think we can show proof of concept in cystic fibrosis. We can help a lot of patients. As Ulrik will come back to, there's also a very attractive addressable market. Next slide, please.
When we talk about these CFTR corrector drugs, it's important to state that despite their really improved CF treatment, there's still a need for the antimicrobial agents. You see here in the top graph that Tricaftan, the first corrector drug, was launched in 2019. There have been other corrector drugs on the market. Two years ago, it was estimated that 89% of people with CF were actually prescribed a CFTR modulator. You would think that that would have then stopped the lung infection of people with CF. From the two bottom graphs, you can see, yes, pulmonary exacerbation has dropped, and also it has dropped the number of days with IV antibiotics at home. Despite the CFTR drugs, antibiotics are still needed. Very peculiar pathogens like Pseudomonas aeruginosa still persist in the lungs despite the corrector drugs.
Antibiotics are still needed, and that gives us a window of opportunity both to test and to treat. Next slide, please. When we talk about chronic airway infections, doing a study in cystic fibrosis opens up doors to other chronic lung infections. One of these is non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis disease. This is not hereditary as CF. It's caused by a serious vicious cycle of chronic infections causing abnormal airways. You have this excessive sputum production. It's very, very similar to what we see in cystic fibrosis. The treatments are also similar, and the pathogens are similar. NCFB has been really an indication with no approved drugs, but there was one drug approved last month in August 2025 from Incimet, an anti-inflammatory drug. Despite that on the market, there will still be a need for symptomatic management, antibiotics, or a new antimicrobial agent, and also an inflammatory agent and so on.
If a drug works in cystic fibrosis, it will probably also work here. As Ulrik will come back to, there's even a larger addressable market in NCFB. Next slide, please. I've already mentioned the word biofilms a few times. Biofilms is what I have been working with the last 20 years- 30 years. I'm a Professor in biofilms here at the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital. Biofilms is this fortress of bacteria. In this fortress of bacteria, the bacteria are slow-growing and cannot be eradicated by traditional antibiotics. I'll broaden an example here. It's a study we finalized in 2008, where we examined explanted lungs from people with cystic fibrosis. An example from this paper is this explanted lung.
After 28 years, this male had to receive a double-sided lung transplantation due to the buildup of bacteria and thick mucus in the lungs, as you can see from the two pictures here below. In those 28 years, this male had received more than 1 kilo of tobramycin, more than 10 kilos of beta-lactam antibiotics, and more than 1 kilo of colistin. Huge amounts of antibiotics. As you see in the picture in the upper right corner, it's a microscopic picture of what is inside the lungs. We use some special staining techniques and advanced microscopy. In red, you see Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a huge biofilm surrounded by these here in blue, white blood cells. Despite this massive antibiotic treatment and despite the heavy inflammation, the bacteria still persist. What we have done in SoftOx is we have tested the SoftOx Inhalation Solution against bacterial biofilms.
We've only done it in the laboratory so far, but we can see we can kill bacteria, both Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, and the other CF and NCFB pathogens. We can kill them if they're formed biofilms, which cannot be eradicated by antibiotics. We can kill them. This is why we also think this could be the solution. SoftOx Inhalation Solution could be the solution to chronic airway infections. Next slide, please. This led us also to, with the new board and so on, we need to do this proof-of-concept study the smartest way. We need to optimize our clinical path. First of all, in our trial that we will initiate early next year, we'll go higher in dosage than we were in our first in-man study two years ago or three years ago.
We'll escalate dosages in healthy volunteers, and then we'll switch to cystic fibrosis, people with cystic fibrosis, and we'll do a Phase 2a study with non-control, but change from baseline. Each patient will be their own control. People with cystic fibrosis live with the infection. There are 10 hospitals that are used to hospital, and they have the same condition. It's a very homogeneous group of patients. Especially, they cough up this thick mucus, sputum. We can enumerate, we can count the bacteria. If we can eradicate bacteria by our inhalation, we can directly see it in the sputum. That was maybe one of the disadvantages of doing a BARP study, that they could not all deliver direct airway samples, and it was a much more heterogeneous patient population.
We think we're generating a robust and convincing, or we will generate robust and convincing proof-of-concept data within the timelines that we already announced last year. We do it with our old collaborator, DanTrials. They ran our first in-man study. We are reusing the protocol. We're using everything, both in dose escalation and then moving into the patients. We'll do the quantitative microbiology, and that's also something I have optimized for the last 10 year- 20 years. We do it together with the University of Copenhagen's Infectious Medicine Department. It's a specialized CF center, so they know all the patients. Our endpoints in the proof-of-concept study will be reduction in the bacterial load of the expectorated sputum. We think if we have a successful study, if we can see a reduction of two log compared to baseline.
Basically, teaming up with the partners we have, looking into a homogeneous patient setting, and also being able to directly measure the killing of bacteria makes this a very, very strong proof-of-concept study. Next slide, please. The timelines and also budget are the same as we have announced. Right now, we are preparing the clinical trial application. It will be submitted at the end of this month. We have used the protocol and also the synopsis based on our previous experience. That's also why we do not see any delays. The trial, the first healthy volunteer will be treated or will get inhalation by face mask Q1 next year. The reason also why we can do that is because we haven't changed the formulation. Charlotte Petterholt, our CMC Director, all the work she has done in our previous BARP indication is the same.
We are ready to move into healthy volunteer patients early next year. We estimate the study will take 12 months. We'll have the readout in mid-2027. After that, it depends on strategic partners. We will have to do a dose range finding study and a Phase 3 study and so on. There are several indications we can go into. We can continue in CF and NCFB, but also we can take up again the BARP indication and Incept that we used to team up with. We will talk to them, and they're also ready to team up with us again, depending on the partner afterwards. Next slide, please. Again, just to really pinpoint that we'll keep the timeframe and budget. We have almost completed the trial application. It will be submitted at the end of this month. We'll again use the same setup. We'll team up with DanTrials.
They have experience delivering our inhalation solution, and so their experience worked with us. We have this very well-defined homogeneous group of patients. We know at least from the starting doses, it's safe to inhale. We know we can eradicate all the CF and NCFB relevant microorganisms. We've seen from our in vivo data that animals infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa here, we can also kill the bacteria. The reason why we can still also keep the budget is we do it at a single center site with our partners, and we have all the CMC pipeline is the same. I think we are in a very, very good place to do this. Next slide, please. Actually, back to you, Ulrik.
Thank you very much, Thomas, for this run-through. This really sums up some of the things that Thomas has said already.
I'll not go through it in detail, but hopefully, you can see that what we're articulating is that we are de-risking the clinical pathway. We believe that a clear proof of concept on that key bacterial load reduction is the number one value inflection point that we need to address. From there, we think various substantial market opportunities are available to us. Basically, this is the foundation we want to step at. We have mentioned throughout the presentation some numbers on markets, and we felt that it was appropriate to give you a little more sort of pedestrian walkthrough where these numbers come from. Perhaps I should say that if we can go to the next slide, you will see that we are making a reference. We made a reference to Back Bay Life Science Advisors.
This is a consulting group in Boston that I have worked with on a number of projects actually over the last 20, 25, more than 25 years. They have helped us get our arms around the market opportunities and the industry appetite. This has been a very helpful backdrop for us with an extensive analysis that they had made on our behalf. Some of the numbers that we're putting as a background for these assumptions come from there. This is on CF, and there's a follow-up on NCFB. It starts with the key numbers. How many patients are there out there? We have been specific on the five, six big markets in the world, which is the U.S., the four big largest countries in E.U. and U.K. If you sum that out, it's about 68,000 patients.
That doesn't include Scandinavia, doesn't include the rest of the world, but it's a tangible number. Of those, we know, or the data knows, that about 25% of these patients are struggling with Pseudomonas, which will make them sort of eligible for antibacterial treatment. If we take those numbers, we get to about 13,000 patients. You go from 68, take the 25, then you take the 84, which are the patients who are more than six years old and are likely to be adapted for treatment for at least 90 days per year. You get sort of a tangible number of patients. If you then multiply that with an assumption on price, and the prices for the similar treatments in the U.S. and U.K., in the U.S. and Europe is about $75,000 in the U.S. and EUR 20,000 in Europe, of course.
That sums up to a market potential of about $600 million. This is the amount of money being spent for this kind of treatment that we are hoping to just be part of. You know, how much of a share will we take? This is early days, of course. We haven't seen our data yet. Arguing that we should be able, with the data we hope to see, that we should be able to get a 15%, or our product should be able to master a 15% share of that is very realistic. That will give an annual turnover of about $90 million. Of course, it doesn't mean $90 million in income, but this is the kind of key number that makes this attractive, not only for the current shareholders, but also for other partners who are willing and interested in entering into this.
With additional geographic expansion and the fact that the other treatments can only go for Pseudomonas, while we'll be able to go for several bacterial species, that should be very attractive. A little prediction on the size of the market. Let's go to the next slide. This is on the NCFB. As Thomas said already, it's a huge population. It's an early indication because there really haven't been any significant treatments in this. We start with north of a million patients. We get to about half of these, or 39% of these, if you say 50% of the diagnosed will actually seek treatment. Of these, 78% will have bacterial colonization. These data are sort of, they're not drawn out of the air. They are based on data. If you do that and do the math, you get to a very, very high number.
As Thomas also mentioned, Incimet has just launched a product. The analyst around Incimet says this could be a $5 billion market once it reaches peak sales. A huge business, a high number of patients, very high pricing potential for this. If we're all more conservative, and just to give us a range, if we say we're perhaps, if it's not 39%, which is the total addressable market, but if we say the range is between 20% and 35%, and if we say realistic market share gets us between 5% and 12%, that gives us a bracket of between $500 million and $2.5 billion in annual turnover. Very, very substantial market opportunities that we believe we can open up for. Obviously, for this to be successful, we have to do it with strong partners, but that's the whole point of this.
If we advance to the next slide, this is basically the key takeaways from our presentation. We are in a position, we've concluded our restructuring. Our sole focus is on inhaled perennial antimicrobial pharmaceuticals. We will continue to do what I think a year ago said, a venture-style approach, to use of receipts and conducting mission-critical activities only until we get to value inflection points. This sounds very sort of fancy, but the bottom line, we will spend money very wisely and only on the things that really create value until we get to the next valuation step. We can only advance this company by issuing equity to raise the money. We need to pay for our own involvement there. Of course, spending money too early on things that doesn't really move the needle doesn't make any sense because it would just be more costly to us.
We have to be very cognizant of how we spend the money and get, and I think the refinement of our clinical focus now, getting to the proof of concept that we just talked about, is exactly supporting that. What we said is that we will pursue, I skipped a point here. We haven't talked about the EDF, the European Defense Fund sponsored Carnomeses project today. It is extremely important for us because the activities there have been ongoing throughout the difficult period the company has been in under the restructuring. The advancement of technology has gone on there. There are very strong synergies because eventually, we will have inhaled pharmaceuticals in both of these potential applications. All the work that has been done within the team has taken us forward on both of these projects.
That's why we are able to go into patients already in the very near future. We have a plan. We will be pursuing a well-defined, promising, very cost-efficient clinical development plan, which is optimal for getting us robust data within a viable timeline, as Thomas has clearly explained to us. We have also ensured that we can execute uninterrupted because we have, as you've seen a couple of weeks ago, we announced that we've put in place a funding vehicle, which allows us to issue equity to a partner and turn that into cash so we can run our operations. It will not be the only way for us to fund development, but it's an important one because it's an option we now have to ensure that we can make plans because we know that we can raise the capital as we go forward. We have a near-term target.
We will do a proof-of-concept study in CF, as you know. This will be completed within 18 months. Come March next year, the last patient is out, and we'll be seeing the data very soon from the proof-of-concept study. That, as I said several times now, will be a really important value inflection point for SoftOx AS. We talked about CF. It's a very tangible and commercially attractive initial indication in its own right, but even more so, it allows us to go into significantly larger indications. If we have good safety and efficacy data from the proof-of-concept data, it will really prove the value of the platform as an inhaled antimicrobial pharmaceutical. From there, we will be able to go into both chronic and active airway infection opportunities.
All in all, we believe that the path we are now starting up with will make us extremely well positioned for partnership dialogues with global pharma companies by 2027. That is the way we intend to generate value on the SoftOx technology within inhaled pan-antimicrobial pharmaceuticals. Going forward, we need the strength of strong partners, and we think the results that we are now about to generate will get them interested and around the table and to be able to strike partnership deals for taking the technology further on. That was the conclusion of our initial presentation. If you take the next slide, I will leave the word to Ingrid, who will sort of help us try to address the question that has been raised from the crowd in advance of the meeting and also during our discussions today. Ingrid, on to you.
Thank you, thank you, Ulrik. Thank you, Ulrik and Thomas, for the updates to the investors. You can continue to ask questions now during this Q&A session by mailing the ir@investorweb.no if you have questions. As Ulrik is saying, we have received some questions before this call, and we have decided to make some slides to clarify some of the questions that might not be covered in the presentation. Therefore, we will do that now. We have divided it into the questions regarding the proof-of-concept study, and we have some questions also regarding the equity placement facility. Thomas, could you take the questions now regarding the proof-of-concept on the next slide, please?
Thank you, Ingrid. We really thought the questions that we received were extremely spot on. I think I've been through most of it. Just to clarify, BARP was a good indication. For us, it's important to show proof of concept the easiest and the best way. We have shown we can eradicate bacteria in vitro and in animal models, but we really need to show it in a patient. That's why we now choose people with cystic fibrosis. As I said, it's a homogeneous group of patients. Very, very important, we can get this direct efficacy endpoint, which makes it superior to a proof-of-concept study in ventilator-associated pneumonia. There were questions about if we'll start to dig into other indications and so on. Right now, as Ulrik said, for the next 18 months, this will be our sole purpose to do this proof-of-concept study.
All our finances will be spent on that until we're finalized because that is the most important thing to show we can kill bacteria in a human being. Ulrik also mentioned the European Defense Fund project. That is very, very much on track. There are extremely strong synergies between the civilian part and this defense-related part of SoftOx. SoftOx, the counteract project, the biological threat itself received approximately EUR 96 million. SoftOx only got less than half of that. That has been spent on developing technology and a lot on CMC. Really strong synergies. The EDF project is on track. This proof-of-concept study we're conducting here to show that we can eradicate bacteria in the lungs of human beings will also pave the way for defense-related trials. We need to show this before we can initiate more defense and dual-purpose related trials. Yes, we have obtained scientific advice from EMA.
We will obtain scientific advice from EMA regarding orphan drug designation and path. We have also been in contact with both EMA and FDA within the last years on scientific advices on how to proceed with our clinical trials. I think this, and together with rest, summarizes and answers most of the questions. Of course, if there are still open questions, we'll be happy to answer anything, whether or not the limits, of course, of confidentiality. Ulrik, then you can.
No, it's over to me, Thomas. Thank you, Thomas.
Oh.
Yeah. Next slide, please. Yes. The rest of the questions have been regarding this equity placement facility. We have actually informed quite well regarding this facility, but we want to use this opportunity to clarify and highlight some of the aspects of the facility. As you know, we are in a position to raise up to NOK 50 million within 24 months with this agreement. We also have the option to extend it to NOK 80 million if we think that is appropriate within a 36-month period of time. This aligns very well with the need of the cash of the company in this period. I would like to stress some key aspects here because it's important that you have the correct information regarding the facility. This is an equity line of credit. It's not a convertible loan, and this is very important to understand.
That means that we have full control over the timing and the terms of each of the drawdowns that the company chooses to do. It's also important to note that the pricing is at market conditions. New shares will be based on market conditions, and the company is setting a pricing floor with a minimum price for each drawdown that we choose to take from this facility. It's also important to note that we have no obligation to use the facility. It's up to the company to decide if we want to use the facility, and that does not prevent us from pursuing other funding alternatives. That's very important to understand. The company will continuously consider other funding sources if they become available. Actually, this facility gives us financial security, but it also gives us strategic flexibility. Next slide, please.
We have also got some questions regarding clarification of the aligned interest between Longstate and SoftOx Solutions . It's important to note that Longstate is a company focusing on supporting emerging companies with flexible capital provision. Their primary role is to provide the financial flexibility that the type of company we are actually needs. It's very important to emphasize that there are no incentives in this facility that would encourage activities that will undermine shareholder value. We have got some questions regarding the loan shares, and it's important for us to stress that this is a technical settlement. For each drawdown, it's important for Longstate to have a security regarding the delivery versus payment settlement, and therefore, we have those loan shares loaned out by key shareholders. It's no permanent transfer of the ownership, and the shares must be returned.
As you also have been informed about, we have a one-time grant of warrants to Longstate that gives them the right to purchase some shares at a predetermined price. This, we feel, aligns the interest of Longstate closely to the interest of SoftOx. Actually, the gains for Longstate lie in the success of our company. Lastly, I want to stress that engaging in short-selling for Longstate is not prohibited with this agreement. That would only harm the value of their investment in SoftOx, and it will also harm the long-term reputation of Longstate as a company. Overall, this structure actually builds upon a supporting partnership. We get the financial flexibility, and Longstate will benefit from our success. Next slide, please. This is a slide repeating the implementation terms and compensation of the agreement. I will not repeat this now.
It will be part of the slide deck because we have informed the market about the terms. Ulrik, then I'll leave the next slide to you because that is some of the pre-asked questions that you can try to clarify.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that, Ingrid. One of the questions is, what happens to BARP? Thomas has talked to that already. It remains an unmet need. We have truly believed that CIS could have an impact. It is one of several indications, acute indications, that we think should be explored with partners. Our current activities do not include trials in BARP patients. It is not because we do not think it would be attractive. As Thomas said already, we are raising expensive equity to take us to the next value inflection point, which is the CF resource. What happens from there on, we will discuss based on what caps that we can raise, what interest we have from partners. We need to be very focused on the key things that take us to the next step where value can be generated.
Second, we expect that good proof-of-concept-based data will make CIS an attractive partnering target for pharma. The background for this question is, do we intend to take it to the market ourselves? What are our thoughts on partners? We will build this gradually by having a platform. We have data in CF. We think they can be applied in NCFB. We are not intending, and since the new leadership was around the company, we have not said that we will go all the way through to commercialization. We are flexible regarding the formal partnerships and risk sharing. We expect that we will have dialogues which will evolve as we get data and as we generate external interest. Of course, we do what we can to keep dialogues, to open dialogues and get dialogues open.
In reality, until we have data, we are unlikely to have the full attention of outside partners. It would not be a right time for us to strike a deal. This will be evolving as we go along. The good rule is that we cannot and we will not comment on partnership discussions until they are firm and we know that they have become reality. That was on partnership. The next one is on equity issue and dilution. We need to state something that is a fact. That is that we would advance this company. We need cash to advance this company. We can only do it by issuing equity. Of course, we will be looking at sole funding. Of course, we will be looking at other aspects. It is not likely that it will be possible without further dilution for us.
The committed equity facility is a very important tool because it ensures that we can operate. It will happen. It will issue equity at market, as Ingrid explained already. Of course, it's not free, but it's an efficient way for us to take this forward. It can provide the majority of the funding that we need until through 2027. Obviously, as we have written in the previous slides, we will also be looking at other funding modalities in due time. If they are more attractive, obviously, we would do that. We have that flexibility to pursue many options should they become reality. As Thomas has said already, the funds we will raise will be dedicated to execution of Phase 2a clinical trial. Currently, we are not. There was a question as to how does our budget look in the short term.
We haven't, at the current time, decided to, we decided not at the current time to make public more specific cost budgets. This was an attempt to sum up on some of the questions. Again, to the extent there are further questions from the web, we'd be happy to answer those. We have another 11 minutes open for us. We'd be happy to do an answer to that. Back to you, Ingrid, if you can see some of the questions that may have been raised.
Thank you. Thank you. Actually, I cannot see that we have got any more questions during the call. Obaid, can you see any questions?
No, no questions.
Okay. Let's wait a few seconds to see if something pops up. If that is not the case, I'd like to take permission to thank the shareholders for being supportive of what we do. We all appreciate it. It's been a bumpy ride to be a shareholder. We are, in the current management team and the Board, really enthusiastic about the future of SoftOx . We think we have something that the world needs in terms of a new tool to solve some very significant health problems for thousands and thousands of patients. We're very keen to take the responsibility for driving that forward with the support of shareholders, all of you. Again, thanks for the trust that you commit to us in taking this forward. We hope to be able to come back to you with additional news as we progress.
I think having quarterly investor meetings doesn't really make that much sense for where we are because there will not be news on a quarterly basis, but there will be news when we have clinical data. We're eager to come back and tell you how well we're doing on this small, small path that we've told you that we'll be pursuing. Thanks again for joining us today. Of course, we still have the IR email that you can post questions to, but we'll be cautious about too detailed information through that route. This is an excellent way to do. I think this will sum up the presentation today. Thanks again, everyone, for being available and listening.