Opko Health, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Opco Health Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in 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 touchtone phone. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Yvonne Briggs. 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 third quarter of 2023. 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. Those 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, 2022, and its subsequently filed SEC reports. This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast, November 6, 2023. 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. Dr. Philip Frost, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will open the call. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Vice Chairman and President of OPCO, will then provide an overview of OPCO's pharmaceutical business as well as bioreference health. After that, Adam Logel, Opco's CFO, will review the company's third quarter financial results, and then we'll open up the call to questions. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Dr. Frost.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. The third quarter was quite active at Opco with several key accomplishments. In September, we announced that MODEX was awarded a contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, to develop novel multispecific antibodies against viral infectious diseases that are deemed to be public health threats. The BARDA contract provides $59 million of initial funding for the development of multispecific antibodies against known variants of SARS-CoV-2, and another $109 million in funding may be available to develop multispecific antibodies targeting other viral antigens. pathogens, that is, such as influenza. This non-dilutive funding provides MODX with significant financial support to advance its extremely promising pipeline with the potential to provide benefits for patients worldwide. This BARDA award represents a second major collaboration for MODX in 2023 and is further validation of its differentiated and valuable technology platform. You may recall that earlier this year, Modix entered into an exclusive worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Merck to develop its nanoparticle vaccine candidate for Epstein-Barr virus. As for Angenla, our once-weekly injectable growth hormone therapy, it is now approved in over 48 countries, including the US, as we announced in June. Pfizer, our global commercial partner, launched Angela in the U.S. in August. In addition to launches today in over 23 major markets, including Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and all other priority global markets. We expect to see a material ramp up in sales for Angela as Pfizer increases its market penetration globally. At our Apco biologics unit in Israel, where Angela was developed, Work has continued on other long-acting peptides utilizing new technology. One, GLP-2, to treat short bowel syndrome, is being developed into a once-daily oral form jointly with Entera, whose oral peptide delivery system containing parathyroid hormone recently successfully completed a Phase II trial. We're also considering working with Entera on one of our oxyntamodulin peptides for weight loss. Our profitable Apco Ibero America unit continues to perform well, as does Finetec, our small specialty API company in Israel. Ergen, our pharmaceutical development and manufacturing company in Waterford, Ireland, is also doing well and is about to embark on a growth program. At BioReference Health, our cost-cutting initiatives continue. as we are focused on returning this segment to profitability in the near term. In addition, we are working to increase revenue by enhancing our test menu offering and expanding our customer base. With that overview, I'll turn the call over to Elias to provide further discussion and commentary on our pharmaceutical and diagnostic businesses.