Lucid Diagnostics Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the Lucid Diagnostics First Quarter 2026 Business Update Conference Call. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Riley, Lucid Diagnostics Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's Business Update Call. Joining me today on the call are Dr. Leshawn Acklog, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucid Diagnostics, along with Dennis McGrath, Chief Financial Officer of Lucid Diagnostics. The press release announcing our business update and financial results is available on Lucid's website. Please take a moment to read the disclaimers and forward-looking statements in the press release. The business update, press release, and the conference call all include forward-looking statements, and these forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are described in the disclaimer and in our filings with the SEC. For a list and a description of these and other important risks and uncertainties that may affect future operations, see Part 1, Item 1A, entitled Risk Factors and Lucid from this recent annual report on Forms 10-K filed with the SEC. and any subsequent updates filed in the court reports on Forms 10-Q and subsequent Forms 8-K. Except as required by law, LUCID disclaims any intentions or obligations to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in expectations on events, conditions, or circumstances on which those expectations may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results would differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Dr. Leishan Aklag, Chairman and CEO of LUCID Diagnostics.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued engagement and support. Let's begin with some key highlights from the first quarter and from recent weeks. We performed 3,177 e-cigar tests in the first quarter of this year, and it's generated revenue at $1.3 million. The revenue was down slightly, but proportional to volume, which receded a bit, but remained above our target range of 2,500 to 3,000 tests and preserving our average sale price. We also, importantly, strengthened our balance sheet with an underwritten public offering of common stock that had approximately $16.8 million in proceeds. This significantly bolstered our balance sheet, as Dennis will describe in more detail, to approximately $45 million in pro forma cash at the end of Q1. This extends our runway well into 2027. We were encouraged by the participation of long-term institutional investors in submitting confidence in our strategic opportunities. This also mitigated a financing overhang and provides us with the resources that we'll need to accelerate commercial efforts after we receive Medicare approval. At each of these individual test and triage patients to endoscopy, the outcome of this will be peer-reviewed publications that demonstrate the health and economic value of Visa Card. Overall, in summary, a lot's going on, particularly on the market access and the commercial side. Obviously, all focuses on Medicare, and we acknowledge joint frustration with some of the delays within the Medicare LTD process overall. We believe this is really, at the end of the day, systematic, and we continue to have our confidence that this is a near-term result. It really hasn't wavered at all. But as we've discussed before, we're not idle. As we're awaiting Medicare, the commercial team continues to drive its activities, to drive patients, to increase the proportion of our patients that are Medicare. The VA activities are really off to a good start, strong engagements with our early targets of the VA centers, and we look to be starting testing to generate revenue from that in the very near future. And in addition, as I already outlined, lots of activity That allows us to aggressively build the infrastructure necessary to accelerate our healthcare system adoption, EHR, COVID, healthcare economics, and such, and our direct engagements with multiple health systems across the country. And it continues to accelerate, and we think we'll accelerate further once we secure Medicare coverage. So, with that, I'll let Dennis take over and provide an update on our financials. Thanks, Lee. John, and good morning. I've seen EGD only upon a positive ease of our test. It's very attractive, too. both the clinical team as well as the centers as a whole. And many VAs operate rural satellite VAs that are quite removed from the main centers, and e-Cigar is a very attractive option to avoid patients having to travel for EGP if they have a negative e-Cigar test. So overall, lots of activity here. We're seeing progress. We really look forward to further engagement across the entire VAs. major GI meeting, major annual meeting of gastroenterologists under the auspices of the American Gastroenterologic Association, the AGA. We had multiple abstractions in the near term following the successful public meeting that was held in September of last year. We continue to have ongoing engagement with leadership and other folks who are engaged in this space, and there clearly remain Logistical delays with regards to putting out local coverage determinations remain, and we have expectations that that will pick up in the near future.