Enzo Biochem, Inc.

Renzo Biochem's Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results and Business Update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jeremy Pfeffer, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Hillary, and good afternoon. Joining us today from the company are Barry Weiner, co-founder and president, and David Bench, chief financial officer. A press release announcing the results and the update was issued this afternoon and is now available on the ENZO website. I will now read the company's safe harbor statement. Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this news release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such statements include declarations regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of the company and its management, including those related to cash flow, gross margins, revenues, and expenses, which are dependent on a number of factors outside of the control of the company, including the markets for the company's products and services, costs of goods and services, other expenses, government regulations, litigation, and general business conditions. Police see risk factors in the company's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2020. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could materially affect actual results. The company disclaims any obligations to update any forward-looking statement as a result of developments occurring after the date of this conference call. During this conference call, the company may refer to EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, EBITDA is not and should not be considered an alternative to net income or loss, income or loss from operations, or any other measure for determining operating performance. The company has provided a reconciliation of the difference to GAAP on its website, www.enzo.com, and in its press release issued this afternoon. I would now like to turn the floor over to Barry Weiner, co-founder and president of Enzo Biochem. Barry, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jeremy. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on our quarterly update call today. We issued our second quarter fiscal 2021 financial and operating results after the close of the market today. I hope you've had a chance to look at them. As the report indicates, our second quarter represented a solid period of financial and operational growth in an environment of multiple challenges and difficulties. Our ability to help alleviate COVID-19 And also to maintain our growth equilibrium is a direct consequence of our investment in time, money, and scientific expertise we have determinedly made over the past years. It is also a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our employees who have shown uncommon commitment despite many personal difficulties to helping others over the course of the past year. This was a unique quarter for the company as we closed out 2020 with alarmingly high rates of infection in the United States, and in late January as well. We finally saw emergence in February of a decrease in infection rates with the rollout of vaccines in the United States. As a backdrop, it's important to keep in mind the overall market during this pandemic. On the services side, doctor visits declined approximately 40% during the first six weeks of the pandemic. they still haven't fully recovered. Though we see the gradual return to regular doctor visits, there is still some movement to take place. On the product side, the academic institutions were initially closed and remain partially closed throughout the country and internationally. While we expect COVID-19 testing to continue due to schools, camps, workplaces, and travel, we are fully implementing our post-COVID business strategy. On the product side, we have a shift in emphasis from academia to industry. On the services side, we are expanding from primarily doctors to include lab to lab opportunities. We have also demonstrated that our vertically integrated approach works. With 50% blended gross margins, I should note 70% on our own platforms, versus mid-teens margins pre-pandemic. These margins compare favorably with those of our competitors who have margins below 40%, even though they have higher COVID-19 testing percentages. We are expanding the use of our proprietary platforms for molecular testing to include women's health and sexually transmitted diseases and offer both products and services for each. Furthermore, We will expand it to immunohistochemistry, cytology, and immunodiagnostics to encompass at least four areas where demand for margin improvement is necessary in the clinical lab marketplace. I'm very proud of what we've accomplished during the past 12 months of the pandemic and remain thoroughly optimistic with our execution strategy for the year ahead. I would like to reiterate our appreciation and thanks to all of our employees for their hard work, determination, and execution during this quarter. They have provided continued operations while serving the needs of people who rely on ENSO for diagnostic testing services. Our employees' health and safety has always been of paramount importance, and we sincerely appreciate their contributions to keep our business running safely. ENSO's implemented measures to safeguard our employees have been effective while allowing us to maintain full operations and expanding them so that we may continue providing the healthcare community. We made notable achievements at the end of 2020, and I am confident our strategy, our vision, and our ability to execute on it in the year ahead. Our second quarter was another exceptional quarter, evidenced by the results we announced earlier today. We are pleased to be in such a strong position this early in 2021. Our results for the quarter demonstrated solid achievements. Total revenue was $31.5 million, a year-over-year improvement of 62% in revenue. Gross margins increased to 50%, improving 2,000 basis points year-over-year. GAAP earnings per share was a positive $0.05 for the quarter versus an earnings per share loss of $0.16 in Q2 2020. An adjusted EBITDA of 4.3 million compared favorably versus an adjusted loss a year ago of 5.4 million, an improvement of almost $10 million. These are just representative highlights of the quarter's financial accomplishments, which David will shortly share with you in a bit of greater detail. However, it also highlights the message I would like to convey regarding ENSO and its direction. Before elaborating further on the quarter, it is important to highlight the company's core objectives as we have outlined before. It is critical to stress management's commitment to these objectives as they are fundamental to the continued success and development of Enzo. First, we are transforming into an integrated end-to-end diagnostic products and solutions company. We are building and investing in the infrastructure for growth. Third, we are implementing efficiency measures to better bring in line our cost structure with the market needs. And fourth, we are building out our four key platforms and technologies to address enhanced value in the diagnostics sector. These objectives have helped solidify ENSO's position As a vertically integrated end to end diagnostic company. Despite the pandemic pandemic headwinds, we continued to mobilize our operational resources to adapt to the expanding demands of the market by servicing opportunities in areas we expect to be most impactful, such as point of care and direct to consumer offerings. I'd like to now cover some highlights of the quarter. I will start with the introduction in November of a small portable microplate reader for use with ENSO immunoassays, providing new opportunities in point-of-care medicine. We expect to expand this reader to be available for research use in the back half of 2021. This device enables ENSO to offer a compact plate reader that features an open design for quick plate loading and USB connection, ideal for our academic CRO, and industrial customers. In January, ENSO received an expansion of its emergency use authorization from the FDA, authorizing the use of pooled samples containing up to five individual swab specimens with the company's AmpiProbe SARS-CoV-2 test system, utilizing tests on three different platforms, including ENSO's proprietary GenFlex automated high-throughput platform. Testing capacity remains challenging for many states with high population density, such as we have in the Northeast area, and the introduction of several more easily transmissible variants of COVID-19 have increased demand for our testing services. As we recently announced at the beginning of March, A recent analysis demonstrated that test process on ENZO's proprietary GenFlex molecular platform are successfully able to detect the presence of currently known variants of COVID-19. While our PCR testing does not distinguish between different variants, positive samples can be further analyzed for variant identification. This is another important differentiator for ENZO. as the rapid antigen test currently available on the market may not have this capability. Patients, providers, and physicians are now understanding the nuances around infectious disease testing, which has greatly benefited ENZO as it builds its reputation outside of the medical lab community and expands testing access on the GoToTestMeNow online platform. Go Test Me Now online portal is our first direct to consumer offering that brings quick, convenient COVID testing to individuals overseen by licensed physicians. We plan to extend this online offering to sexually transmitted diseases and other types of testing. We launched this online platform at the end of October and we continue to roll out the offering as it moves forward over the next few quarters. We finished the second quarter with strong momentum across the businesses and are on track to launch multiple products in a post-COVID environment. We look forward to updating our investors on these initiatives in the near future. I would like to turn the call over to David Bench, our CFO, who will provide you a more detailed look at the financial performance for the quarter. David.