NRX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the NRX Pharmaceuticals Inc. first quarter of 2024 results conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Matthew Duffy, the company's chief business officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jonah, and welcome, everyone. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this call are forward-looking statements under U.S. federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical experience or present expectations. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from statements made on this call is contained in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. The forward-looking statements made during this call speak only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements. Information presented on this call is contained in the press release issued earlier today and in the company's Form 10-Q filed today, which may be accessed from the Investors page of the NRX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. website. Joining us today on the call are Stephen Willard, our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Jonathan Javitt, our founder, chairman, and chief scientist, and Richard Norito, our chief financial officer and treasurer. Stephen and Jonathan will provide a summary of our company's progress. Rich will review the company's financial results, and then Stephen will review upcoming milestones before making quick comments. Following their prepared remarks, we will address investor questions. Now I'll turn the call over to Stephen. Steve?

Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. NRX has had an incredibly productive and eventful start to 2024, with a great deal more to come through the remainder of the year. We are accelerating our work to bring hope to life. The past quarter, culminating with our clinical trial results last week, has been enormously productive. Jonathan will be discussing our scientific progress. Let me begin by addressing our progress as a company. You will notice that at the end of March, we had a lower cash balance than had been typical for us because we used available cash to pay down debt to Street Available LLC. During the quarter, we signed and announced a $5.1 million advance against milestones from Alvagen and Lotus Pharmaceuticals and have used those funds to support our clinical operations. Those funds do not appear on our balance sheet because they are paid directly to clinical trial partners. As you saw last week, our corporate debt was accelerated by Streeterville, whose principal is publicly charged by the SEC on various matters. That development, combined with our recent clinical developments, generated enthusiasm from a number of well-regarded funding sources. In addition to the support of EF Hutton on the equity side, we have now signed a $30 million non-binding term sheet that will eliminate our current corporate debt and provide growth capital for revenue-generating approved drugs to add to our pipeline, while substantially lowering our borrowing costs. We anticipate that separating ourselves completely from a lender who has not been supportive of our growth will be beneficial to shareholders and will substantially reduce our cost of debt service. Jonathan will talk more about the science behind NRX 101 in a moment, but I'm also excited to point out that our new clinical data for NRX 101 support a product profile that could potentially be superior to the current standard of care in bipolar depression. We and our regulatory council believe that these data support the filing of a new drug application for NRX 101 in bipolar depression, a market of more than $20 billion. Investors have approximately and appropriately asked us about the planned Hope Therapeutics dividend that we anticipate to achieve in March. We have been advised that the HOPE shares are best distributed after they are already registered in compliance with the 1934 Securities Act, and we are in the process of effecting that registration. The required audits on HOPE are near completion, and we expect to file the required SEC registration this quarter. We appreciate our investors' patience as we work through these processes. I'm incredibly proud of the progress our team has made this year and I'm grateful to our partners and investors, as well as to all of the patients who have participated in our clinical trials. We look forward to continuing to build value for our shareholders and delivering life-saving treatment to patients. Most importantly, we continue to believe that 2024 will represent our transition from a purely research and development company to a revenue-generating pharmaceutical company. Now I would like to invite Dr. Jonathan Javid, our chief scientist, to review our clinical development program.