Asensus Surgical, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Ascensus Surgical Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star and zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mark Klausner of Westwood. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Ascensus Second Quarter 2021 Conference Call. On the call with me today are Anthony Fernando, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Shamiz Rampertab, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to caution listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call, including any guidance provided, are forward-looking statements covered under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by our forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business, including any impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information provided on this call. For discussion of risks and uncertainties associated with the Ascensus Surgicals business, I encourage you to review the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the 2020 Form 10-K filed in March 2021 and the Form 10-Q expected to be filed later today and other filings we make with the SEC. During this call, we will also present certain non-GAAP financial information related to adjusted net loss attributable to common stockholders and adjusted net loss for common share attributable to common stockholders. Management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures, taken in conjunction with U.S. GAAP financial measures, provide useful information for both management and investors by excluding certain non-cash and other expenses that are not indicative of the company's core operating results. Management uses non-GAAP measures to compare our performance relative to forecast and strategic plans to benchmark our performance externally against competitors and for certain compensation decisions. Reconciliations from U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP results are presented in the tables accompanying our earnings release, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ascensus Surgical's President and Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Fernando.

Thanks, Mark, and thank you all for joining us today. On today's call, I will provide a brief summary of our recent accomplishments and then ask Shamiz to review our financial performance, after which I will discuss our performance during the second quarter as well as our priorities for the rest of 2021 before turning to Q&A. Before turning the call over to Shamiz, I would like to provide an overview of our recent performance. Since our last call, we have made significant progress towards a number of our goals for 2021. We signed lease agreements with two hospitals, both previously announced, one of which has already begun performing cases with tests enhanced during the quarter. We reached two key regulatory milestones with the filing of our FDA 510 submission and subsequent clearance for five millimeter articulating instruments and filing our FDA 510 submission for the expanded capabilities of the Intelligent Surgical Unit, or ISU. In addition, we continue to see strong global procedure volume trends during the quarter, with particularly strong growth in the US. We also strengthened the organization's leadership with the introduction of two new board members, Dr. Elizabeth Kuo and Kevin Hobart. Both Liz and Kevin have significant experience bringing innovative digital technologies that leverage AI to the market. Liz has highly specialized expertise in utilizing predictive analytics and big data to improve patient outcomes through digital solutions. And Kevin was an integral part in the early development of innovative digital imaging technology that leveraged AI and proprietary algorithms. We look forward to tapping into their combined talents as they continue to work to realize the vision of performance-guided surgery. We are very proud of what we were able to accomplish and look forward to continuing this momentum throughout 2021. With that, I will turn the call over to Shamif for a financial update.