Aurora Cannabis Inc.

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Aurora Cannabis Inc second quarter 2024 results conference call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference call please press star and then zero on the telephone keypad. As a reminder this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Anant Krishnan. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chris. We appreciate you all joining us this afternoon. On the line with me today are CEO Miguel Martin and CFO Glenn Ibbitt. After the market closed, Aurora issued a news release announcing our fiscal 2024 second quarter financial results. This news release Accompanying financial statements and MD&A are available on our IR website and can also be accessed via CDAR and EDGAR. In addition, you will find the supplemental information deck on our IR website. Listeners are reminded that certain matters discussed on today's conference call could constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties related to our future financial or business performance. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. The risk factors that may affect actual results are detailed in our annual information form and other periodic filings and registration statements. These documents may similarly be accessed via CDAR and EDGAR. Following prepared remarks by Miguel and Glenn, we will conduct a question and answer session with our covering analysts. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and then return to the queue. With that, I will turn the call over to Miguel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Anand. Glenn and I are hosting this call today from the Sky Facility in Edmonton, Alberta, the home province of Aurora, and where our story began. We are very pleased to be here at this 800,000 square foot facility that is being repurposed by Bebo Farms, where orchid cultivation is part of their expansion plans. More importantly, we're here today to discuss our quarterly results, which demonstrate the strength of Aurora's business model. This quarter, we achieved strong revenue growth, record positive adjusted EBITDA, and maintained our leadership in key markets, all of which will help us achieve our target of positive free cash flow in calendar 2024. Starting with the top line, we grew total net revenue by 30% in Q2, but the real story was the 42% growth in our medical cannabis segment, which included 122% growth in medical cannabis outside of Canada. Adjusted gross margin was 51% and increased across three of our four business segments, While adjusted EBITDA grew to 3.4 million, a 9.6 million improvement year over year and our highest result on record. Q2 also marked our fourth consecutive quarter generating positive adjusted EBITDA. Our balance sheet is similarly in great shape and one of the strongest of Canadian LPs with a cash position of over 200 million. Our convertible senior notes are down to about 5.3 U.S. million and will be settled at maturity in February 2024. Following this repayment, Aurora's only remaining debt will be approximately $40 million of non-recourse financing at Bevo. This healthy balance sheet is going to allow us to play offense going forward without the weight of a heavy debt load. It is truly an exciting time for Aurora, our shareholders, and our employees. Let's now take a deeper dive into our business. In Canada, where Aurora already has the number one position in the medical market, we grew our medical cannabis net revenue compared to the year-ago quarter by through our broad and attractive product assortment, positive sales mix, and innovation. With our leadership position in medical, we believe we can find opportunities for growth due to the ongoing disruption in the Canadian marketplace. We view investment in innovation as critical to our long-term success, which is why we are committing to launching a steady stream of exciting new products to the Canadian market. Innovation in Canada provides a roadmap for new product launches in our international markets. We've seen great success launching cultivars in Europe and Australia that first found success in Canada. Next generation cultivars launched in Canada in spring 2022 are now available to patients globally. In Europe and Australia, these strains provide patients with some of the highest potency and most appealing offerings in those markets. Domestically, our latest launches are now available in our medical channel and set to launch in the Canadian consumer channel in the coming quarters. Aurora made a conscious decision to focus our production network on indoor EUGMP-certified facilities managed by teams who have deep experience in pharmaceutical production. We view ourselves as a medical company providing a pharma-grade product to our global patients. This focus on pharma-grade EUGMP production is a clear competitive advantage in the highly regulated medical markets evolving across the globe. In September, we introduced Honor, A new cannabis cultivar designed for Veteran Aurora medical patients by Veterans as part of our Strain for Heroes portfolio. 5% of net profits from the sale of Strain for Heroes products support Veteran organizations across Canada. Internationally, through recent enhancements to our supply chain, we've been able to meet the increased patient demand for our pharma-grade medical cannabis across Europe and Australia while driving our per gram and per unit costs lower. In Germany, we've been operating since 2017 and are one of only three companies with a German production facility. This is our largest European market, and we are gratified that the country is moving in the right direction with the potential for descheduling of cannabis from the narcotics list in the near future. We are very supportive of this effort and believe that with its passage, the German medical market could expand significantly. In Poland, our second largest European market, our regulatory expertise sets us apart, allowing us to benefit from high barriers to entry and regulatory challenges to serve our patients. Aurora held the number one market position by volume in Poland in Q2, and we are confident in our ability to meet increasing demand in the country. In Australia, which we believe is becoming the largest medical market in the world outside of the U.S., we are encouraged by our significantly higher sales volumes as our local partners invested in clinician education, and is leveraging Aurora's vast product portfolio to provide best-in-class medicine and support for this rapidly growing patient base. Aurora's model, Australia's model, led primarily by clinician engagement, represents a more traditional pharmaceutical approach to new medication rollouts for clinicians, and one we expect will be exported to other new medical cannabis markets globally. Turning back briefly to Canada, and more specifically Canadian adult use, We are benefiting from our historical investment in efficient cultivation and manufacturing and see opportunities for our Canadian adult use business to move to profitability as other market participants exit. During Q2, we introduced a bold new brand, Tasty's, designed to deliver on taste, potency, and price to the Canadian adult market. Tasty's launched in two primary formats, vapes and infused pre-rolls, which is now ranked second behind the flower category and expected to deliver further growth. Early interest from cannabis retailers across Canada has been strong, and Tasty's represents a format with crossover appeal between channels. Leveraging an omnichannel global innovation portfolio with appeal to multiple end user groups is yet another way Aurora's model is expected to drive profitability in the cannabis segment. Finally, our business model is starting to show the financial benefits of diversification as Bevo's vegetable and plant propagation business continues to generate steady, predictable revenue and earnings, albeit on a seasonal cadence. By leveraging purpose-built but underutilized cannabis facilities, Bevo's team of cultivation experts is undertaking a transformational product line extension, moving into the profitable cultivated orchids market, while continuing to grow the geographic reach of their base business. By expanding our reach in the controlled environment agricultural industry, Aurora shareholders can expect to benefit from the compelling long-term value creation attributes of this sector. Over the next two to three years, we expect the acceleration of Bevo's business plan to potentially double their current revenue and EBITDA. In short, our business model focused on global medical cannabis is succeeding across multiple categories and geographies, and we're just getting started. I'm very proud of our team and what we are accomplishing. I look forward to fulfilling our commitments with respects to top line growth, cost savings, EBITDA generation, convertible debt retirement, and importantly, positive free cash flow. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Glenn for a detailed financial overview.