GBS Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the GBS Inc. First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tim McCarthy of LifeSciAdvisors.com. Investor Relations for GBS, Inc. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. Joining us today from the company are Dr. Stephen Boyages, Interim CEO and Chairman of the Board, and Spiro Sekiris, Chief Financial Officer. Press release announcing the results and the update was issued this afternoon and is available now on the GBS website. If you haven't received this news release or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor.relations at gbs.inc. I will now read the company's safe harbor statement. Some of the statements on this conference call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements on this call include, without limitation, GBS Inc.' 's ability to develop and commercialize its diagnostic tests, realize commercial benefit from its partnerships and collaborations, and secure regulatory approvals, among others. Although GBS Inc. believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable as of the date made, expectations may prove to have been materially different from the results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. GBS Inc. has attempted to identify forward-looking statements by terminology including believes, estimates, anticipates, expects, plans, projects, intends, potential, may, could, might, will, should, approximately, or other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors included in the company's public filings filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of its date. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release to reflect events or circumstances occurring after its date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. During this conference call, the company may refer to EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure. EBITDA is not and should not be considered an alternative to net income loss, income loss from operations, or any other measure for determining operating performance. EBITDA is normally calculated by adding back income tax, depreciation, and amortization to net income loss. I would like now to turn the floor over to Dr. Stephen Boyages, interim CEO of GBS, Inc. Stephen, please go ahead.

Thank you, Tim. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on our quarterly business and financial update call today. We issued our first financial year quarter 2022 preliminary financial and operating results after the close of the market today, and I hope you've been able to review them. On today's call, I'll begin with an update on our leadership changes and highlight GBS achievements to date that were announced last week. I'll then turn the call over to Spiro for a more detailed review of our financials, including our preliminary first quarter results and our forecasted cash burn as gbs announced last week we've accelerated and prioritized product development and manufacturing which have resulted in changes to our organization and leadership structures which i'd like to walk you through now the board strongly believes a key element to ensuring that we set up for long-term success is to have the best possible leadership By ensuring that we have the best team to execute our strategic, product and operational plans, we can continue to drive shareholder value in the long run. As such, and in order to bolster the company's existing management capabilities, the Board announced that Harry Simionidis has transitioned his role over to President of Asia-PAC Sales and Marketing to focus on the emerging Asia-Pac markets due to his vast experience and skill set developed over his 25 years tenure in the region. Harry's been instrumental in this planned transition and will remain supportive as the board finalises the transition. The board is initiating a search process with leading executive search firms to identify a permanent CEO. Until that time, I'm committed to working with our management team as chief executive and chairman to drive GBS forward. On behalf of the board and management team, I want to thank Harry for his work in advancing our company and we appreciate his continued support. Now in a brief business overview before getting into the quarter's performance. GBS is committed to developing, commercialising innovative biosensors for point of care monitoring and diagnostic tests. Our proprietary technologies revolve around saliva-based testing approaches, which we intend to demonstrate are as accurate as other fluid-based methods such as serum, blood and urine. We believe by offering patients an affordable, convenient and disposable test strips, we can drive increased compliance and frequency of testing to drive better outcomes among people living with diabetes. One of the key differentiating factors of GBS's biosensor is that this platform technology uses a proprietary organic thin film transistor technology, or abbreviated OTFT, which can be applied across different testing modalities. As such, we have identified approximately 130 additional diagnostic tests and evaluated the commercial potential in multiple geographic areas around the world. GBS holds exclusive rights and the OTFT is patented protected till the year 2033. As we look out into 2022 and analyze our forward-looking portfolio, GBS is prioritizing two lead product candidates towards commercialization. Firstly, our flagship product candidate is the novel saliva glucose biosensor, a convenient point of care test expected to substitute for the invasive finger-pricking blood glucose monitoring for patients living with diabetes. Secondly, our saliva SARS-CoV-2 antibody test candidate, which will provide real-time quantitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus antibodies. I want to turn my attention now to reviewing some of our key highlights on these two candidates over the last quarter. Firstly, the saliva glucose biosensor. In the first quarter, we made significant advancements in the development of the clinical action plan. At a very high level, this three-step prospective clinical action plan comprises the following. Firstly, to define the relationship between the library and plasma glucose, as well as the time course between the two. Secondly, the development of the algorithm between plasma and saliva glucose. and thirdly, to validate the algorithm and generate prospective data for full regulatory approval. This clinical action plan was included in a pre-submission package by the group with the FDA to confirm the approach and provide a forum for feedback on these clinical studies as regulatory approval is pursued. The second exciting development is the awarding of a manufacturing grant to GBS. GBS was recently identified for a competitive grant award by the Australian government under its Modern Manufacturing Strategy, MMS. This $4.7 million US grant awarded by the Australian federal government is specifically to fund the build-out of a high-tech biosensor manufacturing facility. This non-dilutive capital is incredibly important to the next phase of manufacturing development in which GBS can accelerate product development through the purchase of several important technical machinery and equipment. The third area that I want to highlight is the engagement of LEK Consulting in Hong Kong, who will deliver a short list of suitable commercial partners for distribution in China as we prepare for initial discussions with potential collaborators in this region. We look forward to progressing this in the next quarter. Finally, I want to return to our second key biosensor strategy, which is the saliva SARS-CoV-2 antibody test. A preliminary clinical study conducted at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University demonstrated important confirmatory findings. The plasma SARS-CoV-2 antibody biosensor assay demonstrated comparable specificity and sensitivity to well-known commercially available tests using positive and negative SARS-CoV-2 patient plasma samples. Sample to answer time to obtain test results was less than 10 minutes. This study is a key milestone towards validating a rapid point-of-care diagnostic intended to quantify the measurement of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 in saliva. Turning to GBS's financial year, first quarter financial results, which our CFO, Spiro Securus, will discuss in greater detail shortly. I just want to highlight that we continue to exercise fiscal restraint and responsibility as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Spiro Securus, for a more detailed review of our Q1 financials. Spiro.