Operator
Hello, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to VolitionRx Limited's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference call will be open for questions. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star key followed by the number two. If you're using speaker equipment, please lift the handset before making your selections. This conference is being recorded today, May 15, 2026. I'd now like to turn the conference call over to Louise Batchelor, Group Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you and welcome everyone to today's earnings conference call for VolitionRx Limited. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of the information discussed on this conference call will include forward-looking statements covered under the Safe Harbour provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions we have used based upon information currently available to us. Because these statements reflect our current views concerning future events, these statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions Actual results may vary significantly based on a number of factors that may cause the actual results or events to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these statements We have identified various risk factors associated with our operations in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake an obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the course of this call. Terig Hughes, Group Chief Financial Officer, will open the call providing a financial report before handing over to Cameron Reynolds, Group Chief Executive Officer, who will provide a summary of recent key achievements and upcoming milestones. We will then open the conference call to a question and answer session. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Terig.
Thanks very much, Lou, and hello everyone. I am delighted to provide a financial report for the first quarter ending 31st of March 2026. From a revenue perspective, we recorded approximately $1 million in the first quarter, compared to approximately $0.2 million in the same period of 2025. This increase was primarily driven by an $0.7 million increase in deferred revenue recognition related to our new QVET agreement with Heska, the result of a periodic review and consistent with our accounting policies. As we have stated previously, at this stage of commercialization, revenues remain fairly lumpy and difficult to predict from one quarter to the next. And so, while we remain confident of continuing to see solid growth year over year, we will not be providing revenue guidance for 2026 at this point in time. From an expenditure perspective, the operating expenses for the quarter were $6.3 million compared to $5.8 million in the same period last year. This increase partly reflected severance costs related to cost reduction actions, which will result in future savings, as well as higher R&D costs related to work on our CAPTCHA-SEQ and completion of certain lung cancer studies. As we reported in the recent 10K, looking at the trend over the last two years, we now operate at significantly lower levels of expenditure. Furthermore, we have and will continue to take measures to reduce costs further in 2026. Net cash used in operating activities was $5.3 million compared with $4.3 million in Q1 2025, partly reflecting the timing of supplier payments. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter totaled approximately $3.1 million compared to $1.1 million at the end of December 2025. Receipts in the first quarter included approximately $5.4 million in net proceeds from our at-the-market or ATM facility and $1.9 million in net proceeds from issuance of a convertible note to Lind Global Asset Management LLC. We also continue to receive significant support from agencies of the Walloon region in Belgium with non-dilutive funding of approximately $1 million received and an additional approximate $0.9 million expected to be received in tranches based on certain time and event milestones over the next 12 months. This takes the non-dilutive funding support from all sources from inception to date to well over $25 million. So to summarise the finance report, revenue was up 300% year on year, operating loss was 3% lower year on year, we continue to work on reducing our underlying operating expenses, and as reported, we have made progress to secure a $5 million milestone payment from an existing agreement in the VET space. Last but not least, licensing discussions are progressing well and to provide further detail, I will pass over to Cameron.
Thank you everyone for joining Volition's Earnings Call today. As always, we very much appreciate your time given the busy earnings season. The first quarter call always comes hot on the heels of the K. so I will try and be brief today. We have made some strong progress across all of our product pillars this year so taking each in turn. NewQVet, the first quarter is always a busy conference season for the vet team and this year was no different with a booth and sponsored symposium at both VMX and WVC, the two largest veterinary conferences in the world. In March of this year we announced the completion of all validation and verification of the chemiluminescent immunoassay clear version of the new q vet cancer test with fuji vet systems in japan allowing use of full automation rather than manual plates in central labs for dogs this is a world first for us and will significantly enhance turnaround times and throughput to meet increasing demand we believe that central lab automation is crucial for scaling our vet business and integrating our test into routine pet wellness panels. Importantly this automation platform is the same technology utilized for our human diagnostic products NuQ Cancer, NuQ Nets and NuQ Discover, highlighting the inherent synergy and efficiency of our core NuQ platform. From a product expansion perspective, we have also made great progress with our research into the use of NuQ in cats. Subsequent to quarter end, we announced the submission for peer review of a clinical manuscript reporting the high accuracy of our NuQVet feline prototype assay in detecting lymphoma in cats, the most common cancer in the species. At 97% specificity, the assay detected 86% of feline lymphomas this breakthrough marks the development of what we expect to be the world's first simple affordable blood-based liquid biopsy test for feline cancer a significant unmet need in vet medicine this opens up the potential for cancer screening and monitoring in cats there are more than 60 million cats in the us alone 25 of which are senior cats and therefore suitable for an annual check. This represents a tremendous commercial opportunity for volition. The publication of this study in a peer-reviewed journal is expected to subsequently unlock a $5 million contractual milestone payment, and we also expect it will generate ongoing revenue in this large and growing market where our technology meets an unmet need. Incredibly quick progress from a product development perspective given was only May of last year that we reported detecting nucleosomes in cats, the third species for NuQ. Next up, NuQ Nets. Natosis really is an area of increasing scientific interest with a significant number of research articles published in recent years. I've spoken before about a number of manuscripts relating to the use of our NuQ-Nets assay in sepsis and this quarter we reported findings in two further clinical indications. Firstly, in January, we shared a new clinical study demonstrating the use of NuQ-Nets in patient management of a chronic disease, HS, a lifelong disease which affects approximately 1% of the world's population. HS is a complex immune mediated disorder with multiple pro-inflammatory cytokines contributing to its pathogenesis. The clinical presentation may also vary from person to person, making it challenging to manage. The findings described in the manuscript demonstrate that for the first time in an easy-to-measure blood test, NuQ-Nets can be used to classify patients and to surrogate response to treatment. In February, we sponsored a well-attended satellite symposium with key opinion leader, Professor Evangelos, and are continuing further work in the field. We look forward to sharing further data as it becomes available, from a chronic disease use case to very much an acute use case. Secondly, at the end of the quarter, we were delighted to announce the publication of a study at the Mayo Clinic in the Shock Journal. The Mayo Clinic study of 674 trauma patients demonstrated that nucleosome levels as measured by Volition's Nuq-H3.1 and Nuq-H3R8 citrulline are elevated in people that have experienced a traumatic event and are even higher in those patients that go on to have complications from the trauma. The numbers and data are quite stark, and some of the most compelling data I have ever seen. H3.1 levels in healthy people were low at 22.3 nanograms per mil. Those with trauma were elevated to 359.7. And those that went on to get venous thromboembolism, VTE, were 828.4 on average, over 37 times the level in healthies. The identification of reliable biomarkers in trauma patients is a clinical challenge and remains an unmet need in the emergency and surgical setting. Professor Park, the principal investigator and senior author from the Mayo Clinic said, these biomarkers could aid in the early risk identification and may inform targeted preventative strategies in trauma care. For my part, I believe this is a significant study with clear data, not only for the clinicians, patients and their families, but also for Volition. A peer-reviewed publication with the Mayo Clinic research team can only support our efforts to commercialize our NuQ-Nets products. The Mayo Clinic team have continued their work with NuQ and are very much looking forward to sharing further updates in the coming months. Next up for NuQ-Nets, a quick update on the DetectSeps program. As a reminder, DetectSeps is a French government-sponsored real-world evaluation of the early detection of sepsis and Volition's NuQ-Nets assay is the sole biomarker. The DetectSeps program provides an opportunity to receive individualized and personalized care adjusted to the risk of deterioration and progression to sepsis. I'm very pleased to be able to say the program is on track and we hope the first patient will be recruited in the third quarter of this year, likely September. It is a privilege to be involved in such a program and we hope that through the earlier identification of sepsis, lives can be saved. The quality of life of survivors can be improved and importantly, the burden on the healthcare system can be reduced. Also, subsequent to quarter end, we were delighted to report the breakthrough finger-prick detection of nucleosomes, thereby expanding global market potential for sepsis testing. This was a major technical milestone, the successful detection of nucleosomes in capillary blood from critically ill sepsis patients using our lateral flow prototype. This finger-prick test sample could be used at the bedside, in the emergency room, or even at home with a self-test lateral flow kit similar to COVID-19 or pregnancy testing thereby greatly expanding the potential market beyond centralized lab testing. The ability to rapidly identify high-risk patients at the point of care by quantifying their nucleosome levels using a finger prick sample and simple lateral flow device could enable quicker clinical decision making and consequently better patient outcomes we believe this is a potential game changer not only in diseases where time is critical such as sepsis but also in significantly expanding potential use cases beyond traditional hospital infrastructure it also creates a compelling pathway into underserved low-income countries where lab infrastructure may be weak or non-existent An exciting development and one to keep an eye out for the future updates. Next, I'd like to talk about our NuQ Discover pillar, where we are commercializing our service offering for nucleosome-based biomarkers to drug developers and researchers. The first quarter, we were excited to expand our collaborator network and extend the access to NuQ Discover through a non-exclusive agreement with Medical and Biological Labs Co. MBL. MBL is a leading provider of clinical research tools in Japan with a particularly focus and track record in autoimmune diseases. Through our new to Discover Pillar, we are now serving close to 100 clients worldwide including many top pharma and diagnostic companies accelerating disease research and drug development across multiple therapeutic areas. Some of these pharma companies are progressing to late stage clinical trials using our assays as pharmacodynamic biomarkers. Subsequent to quarter-end, we launched our R-NUQ web shop offering a range of reliable, ready-to-use recombinant nucleosomes that we have developed over the past 10 years. Manufactured in our ISO 13485 certified facility, delivering reliable, reproducibility and quality control. Volition's nucleosomes are stored and shipped at plus 4 degrees in glycerol-free buffer. simplifying handling while preserving structural integrity and experimental performance, thereby providing rapid access to high-quality nucleosomes for epi-drug researchers worldwide. This is a potential new source of revenue on our path to commercialising our very large IP portfolio. Moving on to NuQ cancer, and specifically NuQ lung cancer, where the first clinical use of NuQ is now imminent. NuQ Cancer represents a significant advancement in lung cancer patient management, offering clinicians an additional tool to enhance precision in treatment selection and monitoring. Research conducted by our long-term collaborators in Taiwan and Lyon demonstrates that our NuQ Cancer technology empowers clinicians to make more informed treatment decisions and provides valuable new monitoring capabilities throughout the patient journey. Several manuscripts and conference posters and presentations have already been published and several more clinical papers have either recently been submitted for peer review or will be in the coming weeks. Together, this evidence provides the basis of our reimbursement submission supported by our long-term collaborators at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, one of Europe's leading cancer centres. Reimbursement is the next step on the path to the first use of Muq in clinical practice. an exciting prospect which is core to Volition's mission, using our tests to save lives. This submission is a significant undertaking and we hope to participate in pre-submission meetings with the authorities in the coming weeks. Reimbursement will be a major milestone for Volition in the commercialisation and licensing of NuQ in the human cancer field and once achieved, we anticipate the introduction into clinical routine use in France late this year. The final pillar, which has generated a tremendous amount of interest this quarter, is CaptureSeq, which we have had several announcements about. Volition is, I believe, the first company to demonstrate the isolation and analysis of greater than 99% pure circulating tumor-derived DNA, CT-DNA. To set the scene, the biggest problem facing liquid biopsy worldwide is that the vast majority of circulating DNA in the blood plasma samples comes from healthy cells, not cancer cells. In a world-first new technology, Volition has overcome this hurdle and produced greater than 99% pure cancer-derived plasma DNA sequencing sets for liquid biopsy. We resubmitted our manuscript in March, available to view on ResearchSquare. Our continuing work on CTCF-bound DNA has revealed what we believe to be an unprecedented new discovery, that there is almost no CTCF-bound DNA in healthy plasma and almost all CTCF-bound in the blood of a cancer patient is derived from cancer cells, i.e. it is virtually pure circulating tumor-derived DNA. Removal of background normal cell-free DNA from the blood to reveal this level of tumor-derived DNA has been a long-term goal of liquid biopsy. In the updated manuscript, we report a new two-step method for preparing virtually pure circulating tumor DNA sets for cancer patients. Firstly, physical enrichment of the samples, and secondly, bioinformatic removal of virtually all remaining non-tumor cell-free DNA sequences from the DNA sequences data set. This new method produces greater than 99% pure tumor DNA sequencing data sets for blood samples from cancer patients. And, whilst we capture a subset of the tumour DNA, i.e. not all the tumour DNA in a sample, it is virtually pure cancer DNA. These methodological and technological breakthroughs represent a novel liquid biopsy method for a novel class of potentially thousands of liquid biopsy sequence biomarkers, representing, in our chief scientist's opinion, the biggest scientific breakthrough in cancer testing and monitoring in recent years. In addition to the manuscript, we also released data this quarter from a blinded validation cohort of 81 subjects, colorectal and lung cancer patients, being 59, and healthy controls, being 22. And we are extremely encouraged by the results, particularly in early stage cancer detection, where we detected over 95% of stage 1 and 2 cancers. For patients, the potential significance is huge. If further validated in larger cohorts, CTCF CAPTCHA-Seq could contribute to multi-cancer early detection, fulfilling a significant unmet clinical need. We also believe CAPTCHA-Seq has the potential to play a role in cancer management, including, but not limited to, minimal residual disease detection, including tumor-naive MRD, and treatment monitoring either alone or in potentially in combination with other technologies. Foolition is, I believe, the first liquid biopsy company to focus on circulating cell-free nuclear proteins and we have filed a number of new patents to protect this technology. Our goal is to secure a wide range of licensing agreements in the human diagnostic space mirroring our successful strategy in the vets market and we anticipate diverse deal structures with potential for upfront and milestone payments and future recurring revenue we have developed a truly remarkable versatile platform and we are now working with governments and some of the biggest diagnostic and liquid biopsy companies to make our technology available worldwide as quickly as possible we have continued to make good progress indeed i would say that we We are delighted to have grown the commercial interest in CTCF in the first quarter with an increase in discussions including for technical evaluations. We set out 15 years ago to help save lives and improve outcomes for millions of patients worldwide and we are making huge progress towards that goal. With the first clinical use now imminent in both early sepsis and lung cancer management, we are about to be part of the solution through simple, easy to use, low cost tests. Our vision is for our technology to be incorporated into tests that will be used by first millions and ultimately hundreds of millions of people and animals a year, with our platform licensed to a range of large diagnostic and liquid biopsy companies and governments worldwide. Combining our groundbreaking technology with their installed base of labs, analysed machines and sales forces around the world, we aim to achieve the optimal outcome for us. Large companies have the resources to realise the opportunities better than Volition. The total addressable market, TAMS, for our technologies on an annualised basis are multi-billion dollar opportunities, not only for Volition, but for our licensing partners too. Volition has made strong progress, both clinically and commercially. We are very active with a range of potential partners, and we are continuing our discussions with more than a dozen of the world's leading diagnostic and liquid biopsy companies to license and commercialize our very broad IP and product portfolio. These discussions are at various stages of the negotiation process across all of our different pillars. Our laser focus is on executing licensing agreements and we will update you as they progress. Thank you for joining the call today. We very much appreciate it. We will now take your questions. Operator?
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the hand tip before pressing these star keys.
Speaker 2
One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Justin Walsh with Jones Trading.
Operator
Your line is now live.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I was curious if you could expand on the potential clinical utility of new QNets in HS. I'm wondering how physicians might use the additional information
to inform treatment decisions. Yes. Thank you. A lot of that work has been done by Professor Evangelos, who's one of the world's leading experts in HS. And as we said on the call, we've had a satellite symposium. We're actually working with a lot of other groups getting further data. I won't go through the technical side. HS is a tricky, complicated condition. But what I do know is some of the world's best people are very keen on how it can be used to help. It is 1% of the world's population, which honestly was news to me. I'm not familiar with the condition myself. But it's supposed to be an extremely painful, extremely debilitating condition for a lot of the world's people. And Patricia Evangelos' paper, and now I believe other groups are working on it as well, are very convinced that it could be a very big part of the solution. But yeah, I'm not the scientist involved. I'll put you over to Louise.
I can add a little bit of colour just in. So the way that Professor Evangelos has used it thus far is really in helping identify patients that might be having a flare-up, So it's a chronic condition that is kind of often lifelong, and it can be under control with treatment. And then people can unfortunately experience flare-ups. And so really, they're using the Nucle-Nex assay to help monitor patients on an ongoing basis. His hope is actually to then to utilize it within clinical studies of new therapeutics that are coming through. So that's kind of the direction of travel for HF. So I think it's definitely one to keep an eye on. I think we'll have more news out about it throughout the year.
And the current diagnosis is, I've actually spoken to Angelo a few times, is a very complicated process. So they're really hoping to simplify it. And he believes that's possible with our tests. And just as a background, I guess, obviously, in the NET space, there are so many potential uses, you know obviously working with work and on APS another autoimmune disease obviously with the French government that's doing this large interventional study in sepsis so that's all looking process and of course I mentioned we're incredibly excited with the Mayo Clinic data trauma is I believe the biggest cause of the emergency intensive emergency visits in the US I think 40 million a year and obviously it's something tough to diagnose whether you have trauma or not so I don't know if you had a chance to look at the data but it was quite yeah it was fantastic with 20 to 360 to over 800 and actually one of the most important parts of that was the VTE section whether you go on to having a blood clot which is obviously incredibly important to know so I think overall as you know the NETS platform is extremely stable now works on the revenue machine the point of care which is fantastic on the pinprick with capillary blood and I think now we have a very wide range of really potentially large uses for it beyond sepsis and actually we're working on another with a group in the US which is exceptionally renowned as well. We could have a fourth very big use for it as well coming up in the short term as well. So overall, the picture on NETS is really coming together between all those different conditions and we're hoping that will lead to the big companies putting on their platforms and really trying to finish those discussions off with all these different uses.
Speaker 10
Great, thanks for taking the question.
Operator
thank you thank you our next question comes from the line of yi chen with hc wainwright
please proceed with your question hey good morning this is katie on for yi um you guys have kind of described discussions with a good number of companies at various stages can you give us an idea of what how far those have progressed um have they reached a contract negotiation stage, term sheet, and what's kind of a realistic deal structure for those? And I guess, what should we really be expecting from the next agreement?
Yeah, very good question. So yes, we do have a lot of discussions going, and I think in the last quarter, it's actually expanded because of a very large number we had. So I think it's fair to say a very large percentage of the large diagnostic companies and the liquid biopsy companies and a range of other companies. As you know, we have signed some deals already with Hologic, with Wurfen, and with Revity, Revity being the machine platform for the IVDR launch in Europe and the IVDD. And so that's gone extremely well. The Nintosa stage, I think it hinges on getting the big agreements with the big diagnostic companies. These very large use cases really well flushed out. And I think, as I said, I think we're getting there definitely on sepsis. Trauma has been a fantastic new entrant in the last quarter with the Mayo Clinic and then HS, as was mentioned. And as I said, we're also working on another very large use with a fantastic institution in the US. And then, of course, we have the nuclear capture side, which interest has gone up tremendously since the paper was actually in preprint. And on the preprint side, just as a background, it's now been downloaded 2,700 times, which is quite obviously a huge amount of interest, and very fair to say a large amount of interest from a lot of groups on the CAPTCHA side. So yeah, where we are with the different groups, all of them obviously we're having discussions The more advanced ones are going to the stage of technical validation and their own trials on our different technologies and their own processes, and that's progressing well. And so we're very happy with how they're progressing. We're doing a lot of work with quite a few of them. The actual terms and the processes is confidential until we finish, but what we've said, and if you look at deals that have been done in this space, they typically involve upfront payments or milestones and a share of the revenue going forward, either through royalty or through some other process like the sale of key components. So we don't update on each one individually. Obviously, there's confidentiality issues. But, yeah, we're very happy with how they're advancing. There's a lot of discussions going on. And we'll continue to update as they come through. But certainly in the Natosis space and the Capture space and groups like Revity, Logic, and WERFIN, we've made fantastic progress. And we'll update you as they come through.
Great. If there's time, I'd like to have a quick follow-up on Orphan and Hologic.
Could you quantify what revenue has come in from those two so far this year? What kind of format it came in as, and kind of give us an idea of what conditions or triggers might produce more revenue from those deals for the rest of 2026-27?
Yeah, good question. So, we're working on APS. So, basically, the NETS platform, as you know, as you can tell from everything, can be used in a very, very wide range of areas, from all the autoimmune diseases, sepsis, COVID, trauma, as we now know, and, of course, things like sepsis, an extremely wide range of uses. So what we've been working with different groups is getting them to either sign up for a big license for things like sepsis or for smaller uses, which then we hope to expand through other processes. So groups like WERFIN, they're in the process of showing how well it works in that autoimmune disease. We also have HS on top of that, as you know. So there was a small upfront payment, which we've made. Part of the contract, we don't disclose that, but they have paid an upright payment and there are further payments being made from them. Not of a large scale yet because they're still in the process of reviewing it in APS, but we are working with them and other groups to broaden it beyond those first beachheads, if you will. Hologic has been working on a few agreements. We don't break down the different individual revenues, but they are working with us on selling some of the Discover portfolio. but also with them we're looking at these as the first beachheads to expand it to other processes and other products. Companies like Logic and Werfen and Revity where we have existing agreements we are looking to really grow them through the process. So the bigger agreements which we're working on we expect to be coming with larger upfront payments and larger milestone payments But the first ones were kind of working through those early projects, working through with Revity, the launch in Europe, working with Hologix so they can sell our range of Discover products. And the revenue from Discover, as you can probably tell us, has gone extremely well and is growing strongly. We don't break out what comes from them, but it's going strongly as a group. And they're working through APS now, and it was that initial payment. So they're all kind of starter agreements. We're working to get big agreements with them and working on a very wide range of big agreements with the other companies. And we'll update the other ones and the upgrades as they come through.
Great. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Take care.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Roustan with Zaxx. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 9
Good morning or good afternoon for you. My first question concerns the progress of the prospective clinical study at the Hospital de Lyon. They placed their first commercial order for their internal validation process. How is that process going, and does Volition need to wait for the reimbursed dossier to be completed for an additional order, or is there a possibility it could be in order through, I understand there's funding through the Mary G03 allocation process.
Well, Stephen, I've not heard of the Mary G, but we can come back to that. So there's a couple of things that are still going on with the Leon team. So firstly, from a clinical study point of view, they have a final clinical validation study that is called Ulysses MAP, and that is ongoing. The recruitment has been completed, and that study now just plays out because it's a longitudinal study. We hope to report that study later this year at ESMO 2026. So that's the clinical study. In terms of the certification of the product for use at the hospital, that has been completed. So that work has been completed, so there's no issues there. In terms of the reimbursement, then from a reimbursement perspective, we have compiled and sent in to the relevant authorities a clinical compendium for their review, so that we've requested a pre-submission meeting. So we're now just awaiting, with the team at Lyon and indeed a couple of other hospitals in France that are supporting us, the pre-submitting for reimbursement. to a lot of work going on in the background, but we're kind of on track, I would say, at the moment for NUQ lung cancer.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Could you talk about the documentation that's being used to support the NUQ test in the new in vitro diagnostic requirements for the CE mark?
So I don't have a lot of detail on that to hand, but just suffice to say that there is a team, they worked on the IVDR submission, all of the documentation that's gone alongside that. We haven't yet published some of that information that's going to be used to support the IVDR application because I myself had sight of it today. But the submission for IVDR status is ahead of schedule in terms of our IVDR application. And we'll update you later in the year as that
progresses. And that's something which is obviously going to be very important for us, Steven, moving from IVD to IVDR. As we've talked about, there's a dozen hospital networks now reviewing it for more than 20 different uses. Beyond those very big ones that we've mentioned many times, trauma, sepsis, HS, APS, they're working on a very wide range of different uses. So having that regulated product move from IVDD to IVDR is a very big point for us. And as Lou said, we're very happy with how it's going. And if anything, it's ahead of schedule. So expect to
Speaker 9
see a lot more on that this year as well. And lastly, I see the number of potential licensees, the discussions with them has gone up from 10 to 12, according to your latest press release. Could you talk about in general the pathway that leads these companies to initiate discussions with Volition? Is it the clinical papers or is it the semi-posiums or the conferences that you attend with your posters and presentations or are there some other avenues or is it just a mixed bag?
It's interesting, yeah, it's a mixed bag. Some are inbound requests, obviously let's just talk about the CAPTCHA paper for example, you know, it's been downloaded 2,700 times now, so we've had some inbound interests. We've been in discussions with pretty much everyone for a while on different things so they often go back to us but now they've seen the new data that's come through on the UQ net side as we've come through with things like the Mayo paper we've had a lot of discussions progressing obviously contact them with such a great Institute having such great data in such a key area we've had some very high level reactive discussions for a while and as the negotiations going on so it's a mixture of people we know from you've been around a long time that we've worked with partners which have followed us in the space some have come through key opinion leaders like in Evangelos this case in the HS field so some inbound some outbound some long-term relationships actually it's 12 but there's actually a bunch more that have kind of semi-active that we've been working through there become active so yeah we're very happy there's been a pick up in all of that. And I think also, I mean, the CAT paper is getting close to removing through the review process. So some vet people we've spoken to have contacted us again because of that. Sometimes, and beyond the human space, back into the vet space, obviously some of our groups we're currently working with become interested in something new. So they ask, You know, can this capture work in cats or dogs? So we get renewed interest, like that kind of thing as well. So a bit of everything. All the things you said, we've got interest. I think it's actually, if you add up all the big players, it's pretty much everyone that's interested at some level in liquid biopsy companies and large diagnostic companies and all the vet companies. So we're getting a lot of interest. We know now our job is not to get interest but close deals. So we're working on that very hard. But I have to say there's a big wave of interest coming as the publications get close. And, for example, Capture the Paper is also working through the system. So that could be something which is out as well. And that's another reason to reinvigorate discussions when you actually have a published paper. So, yeah, we're happy with how it's going. And we'll have a lot more to talk about this year, we think.
Speaker 2
Thank you for taking my questions.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ilya Zubkov with Freedom Broker. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question related to the launch of the RNE Cube App Shop. Could you provide more detail on your plans for developing this online channel going forward? And how should we think about the revenue contribution of the channel?
Yeah, good question. I mean, so obviously we have, I think there's no doubt now we have a remarkable platform that's robust, reproducible, reliable. We have a lot of intellectual property. So that's all fascinating, but people want to see money. So how does that make revenue? So obviously we spend all the time thinking beyond you can discover, which is growing very well, and VET, which is also growing, and all the licensing deals. How can we make money with what we have? we've become the experts at chromatin fragments and what we do to get those chromatin fragments on an ELISA you need a control as you know we've been making recombinant nucleosomes for a long period of time and we're working also on nucleosomes for sequencing so we've become very very good at making them so we do actually it's like a lot of things it's usually worth making quite a a large amount of them in one batch, but so beyond what we need them for. So we've had some inbound interest in the past for groups that need recombinant things for a whole lot of uses. They're useful in a very wide range of, like in Discover, we have 100 clients. People have said, oh, you know, we are making extremely good recombinant nucleosames now. So we did a bit of a market analysis, and it's potentially quite a big market. So we thought let's make it available and easy for people who want to order it. On the revenue side, I guess Terry can say, short answer is we're not sure exactly how much the take-up is going to be. They're extremely useful to us, and I think potentially extremely useful to other groups. So in the interest of getting all the revenue you can, wherever we can, we thought it was worth setting up. The cost obviously was quite low on setting up a recombinant shop, and we'll be adding other things to it as well as we see how these go. we make a lot of different recombinant nucleosomes for our own research and processes. And I said what we call mustangs, which are recombinants for sequencing as well, which is potentially a really big market. So we'll see how it goes in the next few months. And I think there will be an interest, but we're not releasing projections now. And quite honestly, we're not exactly sure what the take-up is going to be, but we're hopeful because it is very useful. And it wasn't a lot of effort to make it out of the process. So in the interest of making as much chance of revenue as possible we put it on the market so we can update you over the coming quarters all right thank you
Operator
very much thank you thank you our next question comes from the line of bruce jackson with stone
Speaker 10
x please proceed with your question uh hi good morning a couple of questions on the um the vet space so with the the feline milestone that goes to deferred revenue correct and have you um have Have you received the $5 million payment yet?
That will, when we receive it, go to deferred revenue. We haven't received it yet. What we have done is we've submitted the paper, which is part of the milestone. And when that paper gets published, that's the completion from our end, at least, of our milestone deliverables. And so after that, it would be a matter of time before we collect that milestone payment. But you're right, when we initially collect it, it would go to deferred revenue.
Speaker 10
Okay. And then a question about the product revenue for the quarter. What portion of that was from the vet business?
We don't split out the individual pillars at this point. But what I can say is that we've continued to make progress in the product revenue sales. So we did see underlying growth there. As I mentioned in the earnings call itself, the big bump did come from deferred revenue, which we recognized $0.7 million of, and that was a result of us reviewing, in line with our accounting policies, the revenue recognition and deciding that we would recognize that a bit faster.
Speaker 10
And then with that, is that kind of the rate going forward, or is that kind of like a catch-up
type of recognition yes so it's it's partly um partly a catch-up and but the rate going forward
Speaker 2
will be a bit faster as well okay um that's it for me thank you thank you thank you thank you
Operator
and we have reached the end of the question and answer session i would like to turn the floor back to cameron reynolds for closing remarks so thank you all for coming on the call today i
hope it was a good review and just to reiterate we are working very hard on the commercialization side. We're in a lot of discussions and we hope to have a lot of news on that throughout the year as well as on all the product developments and particularly in the capture and the net space. So thank you very much for all your interest and we look forward to catching up with you next
Operator
quarter. Thanks for your time. Thank you and this concludes City's conference and you may disconnect your line at this time. We thank you for your participation.