Yield10 Bioscience, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results and business update conference call for Yield 10 Bioscience. During the call, participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presenters will address questions from analysts today. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to your host, YIELD 10 Vice President of Planning and Corporate Communications, Lynn Brum.

Thank you, Hector, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the YIELD 10 Bioscience Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are President and CEO, Dr. Oliver Peoples, Vice President of Research and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Christy Snell, and Chief Accounting Officer, Chuck Hazzard. Earlier this afternoon, Yield10 issued our fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results. This press release, as well as slides that accompany today's presentation, are available on the investor relations events section of our website at yield10bio.com. Please turn to slide two. Please note that as part of our discussion today, management will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not place undue reliance on them. Investors are also cautioned that statements that are not strictly historical constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include risks and uncertainties detailed in Yield 10's filings with the SEC. In fact, I'll note that we filed our 10-K for 2020 this afternoon. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this conference call. Now, I'll turn the call over to Ali.

Thanks, Lynn. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our call. Throughout 2020 and into early 2021, we have made strong progress advancing Yieldtown's business. Today, I'll provide an update on this progress. Christy will highlight our recent R&D accomplishments and activities planned for 2021. After which I'll review the financials and summarize our key milestones for 2021 and beyond. We will then open the call to questions. We got a lot done in 2020, despite the uncertain outlook at this time last year due to COVID-19. But thanks to our team, we proceeded with purpose, adapting to the situation as it unfolded throughout the year. Now let's turn to slide three, advancing yield terms business. I will focus here on several key accomplishments that set us up on the path to crystallize our strategic vision for Yield 10 and defined our targets for product development aimed at markets with significant revenue potential. We diversified the board of directors with the addition of ag industry veteran Sherry Brown. We significantly strengthened our balance sheet to extend the cash runway to achieve value building milestones. We raised 5.3 million in offerings completed in August 2020. We ended federal year 2020 with $9.7 million in cash. This was followed in January by $12 million raised in public offering, which included investments by institutions, retail investors, and Jack Shuler. There was also $3.9 million in warrant exercises in early 2021. We engaged our first major ag player base in South America by signing a research license with GDM for testing traits in soybeans. We advanced the Camelina business by securing exclusive commercialization rights through signing a collaboration agreement with Rothamsted Research for development of DHA plus EPA omega-3 oil technology. The technology aimed at sustainable aquaculture feed is well advanced, with multiple years of field trials and salmon feeding studies completed. This platform provides further differentiation for yield 10 in Camelina and has high product revenue potential. filling a gap in our product portfolio between current Camelina seed products and our PHA bioplastic platform currently in development. We obtained a positive response to an AMI regulated letter from USD APHIS for CRISPR-C3007 in Camelina and Canola. In January, we reported the proof of concept milestone for producing PHA bioplastic in field-grown Camelina. Having secured an option on the Omega-3 technology and achieved proof of concept for PHA production, Yoten believes it is now in control of two high-value, sustainable Camelina product technologies, providing strong market differentiation. And we are now positioned to advance our business forward, utilizing Camelina as a platform crop to produce fuel, food, and PHA bioplastic. Now let's turn to slide four, Camelina as an emerging crop. We're very excited about camelina. Camelina is an oilseed crop similar to canola. Today it is a source of oil and meal for food and feed uses. It has potential both as a rotation crop with wheat, pulses, and canola, and as a relayer cover crop with corn and soybean in double cropping systems to decrease nutrient runoff and restore soil carbon. Camelina oil is used as a nutritional oil. It also has potential as a low carbon index oil for renewable diesel. Going forward, Camelina has high potential as a platform for producing a drop in replacement for omega-3 fish oils, and it's a disruptive technology for producing PHA bioplastics at low cost. Now let's start to slide five, the market opportunity for Camelina products. We estimate that there is 4.2 billion in annual revenue potential for producing oil, meal, and PHA bioplastics in Camelina by 2030. For elite camelina used to produce oil and meal, we see the potential for $300 to $500 in product revenue per acre and a market in the hundreds of millions by 2030. Although the potential here may be greater than what we are indicating, we believe the higher value omega-3 and PHA bioplastic varieties will eventually be used to supply these current markets. For omega-3 oils, we see a doubling of the value per acre, or about $600 to $900 in product revenue, depending on seed yields. because of the value in sustainably produced omega-3 oils. I'll note that it takes a rather small commercial acreage of 300,000 to 700,000 acres to get to a level of revenue that would be extremely attractive for Yield 10, making it right-sized as a foundation for Yield 10's growth. For BHA bioplastic, we would aim to produce oil, meal, and PHA for a high-value product mix and at the scale of 2 to 4 million acres annually and 2030 revenue potential in excess of $1 billion. We believe that this is a unique opportunity for agriculture, as it directly links farming with the market. There will likely always be product and strain, given the scale of the current petroleum plastic materials it will replace. Now let's turn to slide six, trade licensing opportunities. With our increased internal focus on camelina, we believe the best way for EOTAN to capture value from our performance trade discoveries, from our grain platform, in the large acre commercial crops like soybean, corn, and canola, is through licensing to leading seed companies who dominate this space. We currently have four non-exclusive research license agreements with ag majors to progress their trades in specific crops with the option to negotiate a commercial license. The arrows in the slide indicate the term of the research license agreements. In 2020, we completed CERN early development work in canola and corn, but in reviewing our priorities for 2021, We decided to defer further work in these crops and plan to seek partners for development of performance traits in those crops. I'll now turn the call over to Christy.