Opko Health, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to Opco Health's first quarter 2022 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Yvonne Briggs with LHA. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon. This is Yvonne Briggs with LHA. Thank you all for joining today's call to discuss Opco Health's financial results for the first quarter of 2022, as well as the recently announced MODEX therapeutics acquisition. I'd like to remind you that any statements made during this call by management other than statements of historical fact will be considered forward-looking, and as such, will be subject to risks and uncertainties that can materially affect the company's expected results. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the various risks described in the company's SEC filings, including the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and in subsequently filed SEC reports. This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast, May 9, 2022. Except as required by law, OPCO undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call. Before we begin, let me review the format for today's call which will be a bit different given the exciting announcement about MODX. Dr. Philip Frost, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will open up the call. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the incoming President and Vice Chairman of Opco, will then provide an overview of MODX therapeutics. Then, Dr. John Cohen will discuss bioreference laboratories. After that, Adam Logel, Opco's CFO, will review the company's first quarter financial results. Following, we'll open the call to questions. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dr. Philip Frost.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's call to discuss our first quarter financial results and business progress. Earlier today, we made an important announcement, and that is that Opco has acquired Modex Therapeutics. Modex is a privately held biotechnology company focused on developing innovative, multi-specific immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, co-founder and chairman of Modex, has been appointed president of Opco Health and has joined our board of directors as vice chairman. Dr. Zerhouni is not only a leading authority on emerging trends and issues in medical care Biomedical Research and Development, but he also has a long entrepreneurial and distinguished academic, government, and industry career. He served under President George W. Bush for six years as Director of the National Institutes of Health, after which he became President of Global Research and Development for Sanofi for nine years. Elias will provide some detail about the rest of the team, but I'd like to also welcome Dr. Gary Nabel, and Alexis Borisi to our board of directors, both of whom have impressive scientific and business backgrounds. Dr. Nabel will become our chief innovation officer, and his wife Betsy, our chief medical officer. You'll have the opportunity to hear directly from Dr. Zarhoni shortly, and Adam will provide further detail on the transaction. I want to highlight the significant progress we and our partner Pfizer have made with Naglena. Pfizer recently launched Naglena in the major markets of Germany and Japan, as well as in Canada and Australia. In the U.S., Pfizer is continuing to work with the FDA to resolve any remaining issues to bring Naglena to patients in the U.S. as soon as possible. On May 2nd, Semaphore Holdings Corporation announced the completion of their acquisition of GeneDx. We believe this is another step towards unlocking the inherent value of OPCO assets while providing our shareholders the opportunity to continue to participate in the growing genomics market without a significant investment of capital. John will go into more detail on bioreference, another OPCO asset which we consider to be of great value. And with that, I will turn the call over to Elias.