Ann: 2023 Annual Report to shareholders, page-132

Yikes... five years and a million HC comments since, I’m struggling to remember!

I can’t recall a great deal of debate on this issue as I think the Company had stated very early on that it was planning to run the trials itself. However there was one poster who offered free advice to management to just take A$1bn and run!

But that said, there was never accurate guidance provided as to how much it would actually cost (I missed a further A$50m cap raise in late 2019, so with more funding still needed, it will probably take A$750m to get it to registration). Also, the actual time to Phase 3 results has stretched 2 years beyond what the Company originally guided.

Put it this way, had shareholders been aware of just how much money would be needed and how long the Phase 3 trials would take, I'm sure there would have been a great deal more debate.

My own view at the time was that it made sense that Opthea would proceed with getting the Phase 3 trials up and running but that a T/O would likely happen not long after.

Whoops!!