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However in the preso last week it said they will announce end of Sept after the raise so expecting results imminently

They have 6 months to report FY from June 30th (Dec31st) and 3 months at HY

But how are they buying and selling 30m shares in the space of a few days when that’s much more than daily volumes. Makes no sense at all

Can anyone explain how UBS were buying 16m shares before the Tempus RNS when volumes significantly rose to 10m+ each day after. Before this volumes were rarely hitting 100k each day so can’t see how they have been trading this in such volume before Tempus RNS.

I would take any company revenue figures online with a pinch of salt as getting correct private US co's revenue figures is almost impossible.

Speaking to a friend who just moved back from US says Hydroxcut are extremely well known over there. They are listed in most of the big retail chains so they certainly shift volume. On Hydroxcut site they are pushing this product with it being front and centre so looks very encouraging.

Well we knew this was coming. Great news today, hopefully this results in good sales in future months / years. On the back of YOY sales since the management restructure and increasing margin and sales from H1, plus another bigger well known partner they seem to be just getting on with business. Some on here think its a walk in the park developing and and commercialising new products in a new space. Likely those who bough at zero revenue generating company at a £50 milion+ market cap and lost money on this share. CEO has a good track record in business selling his last company to 3M and certainly has the confidence of the partners they're working with to get in with these big names. On top of that negotiating 6 figure milestone payments for Sweetbiotix before its even on the market. In reality other than the SP down on recent sentiment they are doing quite well in building momentum internationally.

Friedman see PBX accounts PBX are paying Opti (not him) for his services. It is a cut from his Opti salary making it a factually correct statement.

Completely agree with current share price however asset value has certainly been created. Let’s not forget he is the biggest shareholder by some way and most incentivised to increase shareholder value.

Sales growth is building across channels and internationally and second gen could provide a catalysts to significantly increase value here. Did Croda for SBTX pay 6 figure royalties annually? There is good tech in this company which should eventually come to fruition like the other company’s (PBX & SBTX) which the CEO also set up.

The continued discussion on these silly accusations will only serve to damage sentiment by putting off new buyers and will benefit nobody.

Aqua ceo salary was £254k in 2021 before PBX arrangement. In 2023 it was £191k. Does that mean it’s actually a 25% decrease from full salary? Or are you arguing he deceived us all into taking another secret slimy pay cut somewhere along the line?

PBX has nothing to do with it other than paying some of the OPTI salary. Opti recharge Probiotix for directors fees (Opti director fees as stated in accounts). This means the reduction is the Opti salary supplemented by PBX for that period of time.

What a desperately stupid discussion and misrepresentation of facts once again.

Lords how strange. I did briefly scan Obs’s psycho analysis. In answer to what I remember he wrote I tend to ignore TW’s ‘gotchas’ as there’s often more behind it, such as personal attacks and agendas.

Another recent ‘Gotcha’ example here was the board called liars over a supposedly fake RNS stating a US Insti bought shares and instead did a bucket shop placing. It was proven wrong via Opti website naming a US Insti. It was not apologised for but span into another narrative.

The current is the CEO pay. I’ve had a look at the detail on this which was also answered on IMC. It tells a different story. In 2021 the Opti full ceo salary was £254k. In 2022 some of his Opti salary was charged to PBX for allocated time there. In 2022 his total pay was £241k. In 2023 his total salary was £191k. A total 20% reduction in his Opti salary (some being anpportioned out as a shared service to PBX).

The fact the ceo is being berated and called a liar for voluntarily reducing his own salary is irrational, again suggesting a personally driven agenda and using factual complexities to deceive people. The only argument is it’s not a like for like 20% reduction YOY, however, thats not a true representation as his whole Opti salary was being apportioned based on working time to PBX temporarily.

In fact, if the ceo reduced just his share paid by Opti by 20% he would have been paid more in whole. What CEO lies to pay themselves less? This accusation is even more stupid than the last and gives you an insight into the dishonest actions of a man you simply do not want near business, as highlighted by his history. He never apologises and will only create more scandals to suit his agenda. Best to completely ignore.

Lords - Q&A out on IMC - They address this very point and looks like they do have a sensible commercial strategy to build customer base and sales before using 'techniques' to migrate customers from Amazon to their own site:

"When you sell on Amazon/EBAY etc etc what is your net profit % to OPTI selling on these platforms and what are you doing to navigate these customers away in future from paying platforms on repeat orders which is very costly way of selling product/s rather than your own website, what is your current % on moving away on all orders and what will be your % goal by end of 2025 to increase this rate going forward and how?

See earlier answer on Amazon profitability. You make a very important point. We are using Amazon to build our customer base targeting their 5bn+ visitors per year with ads. More than 90% of UK shoppers use Amazon and its one of the most popular market places in the world. Its the best place to build a customer base. We have built up a strong subscription service with Amazon and more than 20% of our sales are from Amazon subscribers. However, we cannot access these customer details which means we cant target with offers, reminders, etc so are gradually using techniques to move customers to our own website. These are commercially sensitive but typically include offers, QR codes etc"

Mol the last time a CEO was brought in sales halved and cost the co a lot of money. I think he left in 2023 which isn't really that long ago. Its a big risk bringing new people into a company and knowing how they fit in, more so with such a small company. If that had gone well I think that would have been the succession plan and SOH would have taken a bit more of a backseat. If they bring in a top CEO now for £200k+ it may or may not work out again and they make take it down a completely different route (rightly or wrongly) which is a risk at a sensitive time in the business. My impression is they are completely focussed on sales and trying to push this to profitability asap so the company is on much surer footing. Yesterdays preso was more on sales growth than I've ever seen with Opti which was very reassuring.

Lords get your point - think they are doing this to quickly build customer following and bring awareness to the brands whilst diversifying their ecom channels. Once a customer has bought a product & associated to a brand they will likely look further online and eventually come direct killing two birds with one stone effectively. Amazon tends to be a major channel for many businesses but you do pay a cost for that privilege like you say.

Lords - one of the first few slides says 'sales growth continuing at an increased momentum with sales for H1 2025 substantially higher than H1 2024'. We already know Q1 2025 was higher than H1 2024 so hopefully Q2 is the same or more. Recent 6 ton order from Brenntag was mentioned as boosting H1. As H2 is always the strongest here looks like its set up for a good year.

Amazon account manager pay – not sure thats correct and didn't see that in the preso unless you can refer this? That would be more or less what they pay the MD. They did say the investment funds are being used for building their customer base on Amazon which across platforms has grown to over 10K from 2k over the past couple of years which isn't bad at all. Also to attract new customers to their own website than to target existing Amazon customers costs way more with an unknown brand so does make sense commercially. Its a similar concept as getting people to come to your shop in the middle of nowhere who may or may not buy anything or trying to get the attention of active buyers in a busy shopping centre.

Fried - SOH has been to TW events and done many interviews where nothing was off limits. I think the recent constant accusations and repeated attacks has crossed a line and he’s now not giving it the time of day. There will just be more of it unless Opti do as he wants as TW is a bully. Its disrupting them getting on with business. By TW’s own admission he has a personal interest in trying to put his wife on the board. I’ve said before its no coincidence that the same board members at Opti have 'suddenly' become terrible at governance after all these years. These are ex FTSE experienced board members, one with a CBE for exceptional service to industry so not dishonourable or ‘crooked’ people. In fact corporate governance on FTSE is a whole different ball game to AIM.

Does seem to be progress and momentum building across the main areas. Would have liked to have seen more on sweet but did say we’d get an update over the summer. Let’s see. 2025 H1 well ahead of H1 2024 which sounds promising.

Q&A short but get the impression TW brigade were hounding the same rubbish and he avoided giving it any airtime. Interested to see the Q&A when it’s uploaded.

Apparently TW wants to put his wife on the board according to his own recent post which is bizarre.

I think if you look at the time it took Croda to get Skinbiotix (Zenkanine) to market and then look at the deal with DSM Firminech in 2022, which is a similiar type of deal, then you can probably get an idea of timescales it takes to translate new tech to market. It’s not a simple process. Throw in the DSM / Firminech merger post deal with the internal chaos that would cause & having to get first gen on track after sales fell off a cliff. They’re also still being paid a £100k a year royalty from a US company so I’d imagine it’s far from over unless the US co is paying/ have paid nearly £500k for nothing.

They either need multiple smaller studies to show consistency or do a massive study which would cost £ms. This study seems to be more specific on glycemic and insulin levels which is not something i believe they've looked at before. To have it published in European Journal of Nutrition will also be significant in their commercial discussions. They are selling to big brands with scientific teams who do a lot of due diligence and will want solid data to support their own marketing investments. Companies will be 'tougher' to convince when considering adding SlimBiome to their products than your everyday consumer.

Lords you need to read further down 'The study was carried out to support health claims for appetite regulation and hunger control in products of one of the USA's leading weight management brands (see announcement on 15 April 2025).'

This isnt just another study for the sake of studies and waste of money. There is commercial purpose behind it.... going back to the March 15th RNS 'OptiBiotix has been working with this brand for over 18 months to carry out human studies which allows the brand to make health claims of hunger control on its products in the USA.'

Science is key in the weight loss supplement industry to cut through fads with supported claims. In the US they also usually want a lot of data so that if they get sued, which is always likely over there, they have the evidence to support themselves.

I think we are going to be in for a good surprise with this US brand.

I personally think the likes of Elrico / TW do not help these types of companies at all. They pump price in the short term with speculation and 'snippets', supposedly from CEO's which can not be verified and set unrealistic expectations which leads to disappointment when they are not met. Take recently the hype on Axisbiotix product at SBTX which they were ramping 25,000 units per week from launch. You wouldn't expect that from a corporate launch, let alone a small cap which was shown to be comical as proven by the numbers.

Im hoping this will now result in this company stopping all communications completely with these types of bloggers, who, lets face it, have no real track records in business, let alone successful ones and certainly have no sector specific expertise in this space to offer any valuable insight. They do however have a following of like minded people, hence the echo chamber whether it negative or positive which is really the only thing that gives them any sort of standing. That's why we keep seeing these tiring comments from those who sing off EXACTLY the same hymn sheet instead of objectively engaging their own minds.

Fried, being misled by a CEO of a public company is quite a serious accusation. This is all conveniently repeated and insinuated at a time TW is attempting to be an ‘activist’, which, lets be honest, has absolutely no chance and is only serving a purpose to cast a dark cloud worrying people into selling their stock and overshadowing the return to YOY growth, increasing 2025 sales and outlook, order book, large partners onboarded (Nouri, NHT, Morpen and soon a major US weight loss partner.)

Lets look at the facts surrounding the CEO which tend to speak far louder than the gossip, speculation and ‘scraps’. I often find it shows a more accurate representation of whether a CEO has genuine shareholder interest in mind or looking to send us up the garden path:

1. He has ‘skin in the game’ and by far the biggest shareholder with 10m+ shares and has the most incentive of anyone to the success of the business.

2. He has another 6m+ shares under option which recently expired. Instead of renewing at 8p or even 0p they were reissued at double the price at 16p, meaning less for him but more cash for the business when exercised

3. He’s never sold a single share, in fact I can only find that he’s increased his position on numerous occasions at much higher prices. I’ve seen many questionable CEO’s sell large amounts during speculative hype.

4. In 2022 when management made changes and appointed a new CEO it resulted in a 50% reduction in sales, a massive hike in costs and nearly 50% increase in losses. The current CEO came back in, restructured management and without any external pressure cut all directors salaries by 20%, including his own. We’re now back to growth.

5. When SBTX was listed, from memory I do not believe he gave himself any shares or options even though he set the whole thing up.

I don’t really understand who benefits or what purpose there is to ‘mislead’. In fact, as was proven yesterday a lot of this distrust is based on hearsay and speculation from others. If people don’t believe in a CEO and things haven’t turned out as you may have hoped why would you stick around? As shareholders we all have the choice to stick or move on at any time. 60% of new start-ups fail in the first 3 years in the UK so the fact they’ve got to this stage at all and built-up tangible assets from ideas and concepts in a new field is respectable.

Now the great Elrico has morphed into a TW disciple. How has anyone been deceived or been dishonest. They raised £750k which included a new US investor, now named and exactly how it was put in the RNS. Now it’s been proven as fact after other speculation it’s spun in a new direction. You could not make it up.

If this investor has taken any off the top, or sells some in short term, but then holds a large chunk of their holding for some time would you then classify that as a ‘strategic’ investor? You’re talking as if your speculation on this investor is fact. Elrico do you know this investors plans or are you just repeating TW new theory now his old has been proven false. Everything now hanging on the word ‘strategic investor’ and how that would be defined.

Maybe SOH should now ask the investor to give a public statement to confirm he is actually a US investor, is a real person, and his exact timeframe for investing in Opti. This stupidity is getting a bit boring now.