iSpecimen Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to iSpecimen's first quarter 2024 results conference call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow management's remarks. This conference call is being recorded. A replay of today's call will be available on the investor relations section of iSpecimen's website and will remain posted for the next 30 days. I will now hand the call over to Phil Carlson, Investor Relations, for introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor Statement. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to iSpecimen's first quarter 2024 conference call. With us on today's call is Tracy Curley, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Leslie Hoyt, our Senior Vice President of Operations. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's call contains certain forward-looking statements from our management made within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended concerning future events. Words such as may, should, projects, expects, intends, plans, believes, anticipates, hopes, estimates, Variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the company, including those set forth in the risk factor section of the company's 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC. Copies of this document is available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this call, except as required by law. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Tracy Curley, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Tracy, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. In the first quarter of 2024, we focused largely on leveraging our streamlined operational infrastructure to advance the specific initiatives we undertook in the second half of 2023. On today's call, I will provide an update on our success in advancing these initiatives to create a runway for continued growth and scale for our business. I will then turn the call over to our Senior Vice President of Operations, Leslie Hoyt, who will speak specifically about how these operational achievements are enhancing the way in which iSpecimen interacts with and provides value to our supplier partners and researcher customers, thereby continuing to transform the biospecimen procurement process. Finally, I will review our financial results for the first quarter and open the call for questions. As we noted during our fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call, we have undertaken a measured and disciplined strategy to ensure our long-term financial success By strategically reducing our capital and operational expenditures and realigning our resources to focus on key market opportunities, we are setting the stage for revenue growth in the second half of 2024 and beyond. Strategically reducing our spending in various operational areas to focus on our core capabilities has resulted in a reduction in our quarterly cash burn. Compared to the first quarter of 2023, We reduced compensation costs by 41% and technology costs by 66%. In addition, of the $2.5 million cash used in the first quarter of 2024, $1.2 million was attributable to one-time events, which included consulting and legal expenses, franchise tax compliance, and fees associated with our ATM offering. Without these one-time charges, our burn rate for the quarter would have been approximately $1.2 million, or a little over $400,000 per month, which is significantly improved from where we were a year ago. Now that we have secured a strong foundation to scale our business, we are diligently focused on maximizing the potential of our online marketplace and uncovering additional value in our supplier network to strengthen our competitive position and drive increased top-line growth opportunities. In the fourth quarter of 2023, we share the success of our Next Day Quotes program, which significantly reduces the amount of time from opportunity to quote and improves our quote to purchase order conversion ratio. Given the incredible impact this program has had on strengthening our sales flow and the benefit it is providing to our customers to successfully advance their scientific research, we are diligently working with many of our suppliers to participate in the Next Day Quote Program and to advance this program throughout 2024. Leslie Hoyt, our Senior Vice President of Operations, has played an integral role in developing the Next Day Quote Program, reshaping our entire supplier network to better engage with the suppliers that offer the strongest capabilities. This effort aligns with our goal of improving the quality of our supplier network as opposed to simply expanding it in size, and in the process, creating the highest quality supplier network in the market. I would now like to turn the call over to Leslie to review the operational achievements we have made in the first quarter and how they are reshaping the biospecimen procurement process with the goal of delivering the most highly sought after biospecimen in real time and produce greater financial returns for iSpecimen. Leslie, please go ahead.