ReShape Lifesciences, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Reshape Life Sciences second quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Michael Miller, RX Communications. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the second quarter 2024 Reshape Life Sciences earnings call. I'm pleased to be joined today by Paul Hickey, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Stankovich, Chief Financial Officer. Management will also be joined by Krishna Gupta, a current director of IOM Therapeutics, who will be appointed chairman of the combined company upon the completion of the previously announced merger agreement between the two companies. As we do each quarter, Paul will provide an overview and update on the company's activities, and Tom will review the financial results for the period, after which Paul will introduce Krishna for his remarks. As a reminder, this conference call, as well as Reshape Life Sciences SEC filings and website, including the investor information section of the website, contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. These and additional risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those factors identified as risk factors in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K. As an additional reminder, reshaped stock is listed on NASDAQ, trading under the ticker symbol RSLS. I'll now turn the call over to Paul Hickey, President and CEO of Reshape Life Sciences. Paul?

Thank you, Mike, and thanks to all of you for joining us this afternoon for our earnings call for the second quarter of 2024. As Mike noted, after I provide an overview and update on Reshape's activities and Tom reviews the financial performance, Krishna Gupta will take a few moments to share some background and outline the strategy and vision of the NUCO to be called Byam Holdings following the closing of our announced merger agreement. Let's begin with an overview of our activities during the second quarter and subsequent period. We've remained laser focused on stabilizing revenues and maintaining our disciplined approach to continually leveraging resources in order to execute on our 2024 cost reduction plan, which has led to approximately 45% lower operating expenses for the first half of the year compared to last year. As a result, we have stabilized our growth profit margin, even with lower sales resulting from the widespread adoption of GLP-1s. Tom will detail these cost reductions later in this call. In addition to these reductions, we continue to fine-tune our lead generation activities and invest in our growth drivers, including the commercial launch of our physician-led redesign, LapBand 2.0 Flex. We are currently in the last phase of our limited market release and gathering data and metrics that will be used to support an anticipated widespread commercial launch. Most notably in July, we coordinated both the merger agreement with Biome Therapeutics and the concurrent asset purchase agreement with BiRAD, as well as successfully negotiated with our Series C shareholders to substantially lower their liquidation preference. All things considered, we feel we are successfully maximizing stockholder value and earnings potential. I will detail the transaction a little bit later in this call. Before I do that, I'd like to touch on the obesity market. Obesity is a complex, lifelong disease that requires individualized treatment strategies to achieve sustainable weight loss. GLP-1 receptor agonists have provided considerable advantages for individuals with type 2 diabetes, and has also benefited individuals dealing with obesity. However, real-world long-term tolerability for GLP-1s is low, and based on this evidence, we believe that the market opportunity for the lap band will increase over time, especially with the newly launched next-generation lap band 2.0 Flex. As most of you are aware, the stigma around obesity and medical intervention has been normalized by the adoption of GLP-1 receptor agonist usage, and we continue to believe that the number of people seeking the help of medical professionals, especially bariatric surgeons, over time will increase. In the interim, our cost reductions have allowed us to focus on and optimize the commercialization of our left band 2.0 flex, which was created to improve the patient experience. while continuing to market our current lap band. The limited market release of the Lap Band 2.0 Flex is nearing completion and is going exceptionally well, and initial surgeon feedback has been very positive. Added to this, our patient federally website is receiving meaningful traffic, while our co-op marketing program has proven effective and scalable with key lap band centers. As it relates to the recent merger agreement, As most of you know, beginning in December of last year, we conducted a high-priority search for synergistic merger and acquisition opportunities, having engaged Maxim Group LLC on an exclusive basis to assist in this process. To that end, following an extensive evaluation of multiple strategic options and engaging discussions with a number of other potential merger and acquisition candidates, our Board of Directors unanimously recommended the merger with Biome, along with a concurrent asset sale to Bioreb. We believe this presents a significant opportunity for our shareholders to capitalize on the potential of the newly formed entity post-merger. As previously reported, Bio-Rad has an exclusive license for our Obalon gastric balloon system. We believe they are the most synergistic partner to sell our assets to, including our lap band system, Obalon gastric balloon system, and the diabetes block stem neuromodulation system. This asset purchase agreement for $5.16 million in cash will allow us to pay down the costs associated with the volume transaction. Notably, our disciplined cost reduction plan facilitated the value we are able to bring to our shareholders. Additionally, I would like to express our gratitude to our Series C preferred stockholders for their willingness to substantially lower their liquidation preference. thereby enabling our common stockholders to recognize the potential value of the merger. Krishna will detail more information on the volume transaction later on this call. I'm very excited about the shareholder value and growth potential resulting from these transactions. I would now like to turn the call over to Tom Stankiewicz to provide a recap of our financial performance. Tom?