Longeveron Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, greetings and welcome to the Longevron 2026 first quarter financial results and business update call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone requires operator assistance during the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Derek Cole, from Investor Relations at Y3 Solutions. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to review Longevron's 2026 First Quarter Financial Results and Business Update. After the U.S. markets today, we issued a press release with financial results for the first quarter, which can be found under the Investor section of the Longevron website. On the call today are Stephen Willard, Chief Executive Officer, Joshua Herr, Co-Founder, Chief Science Officer and Executive Chairman of the Board, Natalia Agafonova, Chief Medical Officer, and Lisa Locklear, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our press releases and risk factors. discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review. Following the company's prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions from covering research analysts. With that, let me hand over the call to Stephen Willard, Chief Executive Officer. Steve?

Thank you, Derek, and thank you all for joining us today. We have had an extremely productive start to this year. After I took on the role as CEO in February, we embarked on two immediate critical tasks, a comprehensive review of the company's assets, development, and strategic plan, and attracting new investment capital. Following this review, we have taken decisive steps to reposition the company for long-term value creation, sharpen our strategic focus, and align our development and capital strategy with the most impactful near-term catalyst. With this reorientation, we were able to successfully attract new investment capital from several of the premier investment funds in the life sciences space, including Coastlands Capital, Janus Henderson Investors, Logos Capital, and Kalahua Capital. Our strategic repositioning is designed to maximize shareholder value while maintaining disciplined capital allocation. We are transitioning toward a more capital-efficient asset-light operating model with an increasing focus on securing strategic licensing partnerships for our stem cell product, LaramastroCell, across all our development programs. hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, Alzheimer's disease. pediatric dilated cardiomyopathy, or PDCM, and aging-related frailty. This evolution reflects both the strength of our client data and clinical data and the growing external validation of our programs. We believe that leveraging the commercial infrastructure, capital resources, and global reach of established pharmaceutical partners represents the most efficient pathway to unlock the full value of our assets. Longevron will be participating in the Bio International Convention taking place June 22nd through 25th of 2026 at the San Diego Convention Center. We will be hosting meetings with global pharmaceutical company executives to explore potential partnership and strategic opportunities for the company's four stem cell development programs. We are focused on our development activities to prioritize our most important near-term catalyst, the data readout of ELPAS-2, our phase 2b clinical trial evaluating laramestrocyl and HLHS expected in August. This disciplined prioritization has enabled us to extend our operating runway while maintaining focus on value-driven milestones. In 2026, we believe we are approaching a series of potentially transformative milestones that have the potential to redefine the trajectory of our business. It is an exciting time for Laramestrasil, the patients we serve, Longeviron, and our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Dr. Agafogana, our Chief Medical Officer, to touch on our clinical development programs. Natalia?