Milestone Scientific Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Milestone Scientific First Quarter 2022 Business Update Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, David Waldman, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Good morning and thank you for joining Milestone Scientific's first quarter 2022 financial results conference call. On the call with us today are Ariane Haverhals, Chief Executive Officer, and Keisha Harcum, Controller of Milestone Scientific. The company issued a press release this morning containing first quarter 2022 financial results which is also posted on the company's website. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at 212 Company's management will now provide prepared remarks reviewing the financial and operational results for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2022. Before we get started, we'd like to remind everyone that during this conference call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding timing and financial impact of Milestone's ability to implement its business plan, expected revenues, and future success. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are based on assumptions involving judgments with respect to future economic, competitive, and market conditions in future business decisions, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict accurately, and many of which are beyond milestones control. Some of the important factors that could cause actual results differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements are general economic conditions, failure to achieve expected revenue growth, changes in our operating expenses, adverse patent rulings, FDA or legal developments, competitive pressures, changes in customer market requirements and standards, and the risk factors detailed from time to time in milestones, periodic filings, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation Milestone's report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021, and Milestone's report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2022. The forward-looking statements made during this call are based upon management's reasonable beliefs as of today's date, May 17th, 2022. Milestone undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. With that, we'll now turn the call over to Ariane Haverhals, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, David, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'm pleased to report we have achieved revenue of more than 2.7 million, making it another solid quarter. Although sales were down slightly from the same period last year, this was primarily due to the pent-up demand and significant orders we received from distributors last year as dental offices were starting to reopen in the first quarter of last year. That said, we are very pleased with our results and believe we're gaining traction in the market. As a result of a decentralized multi-channel sales strategy, we are adding new domestic and global distribution partners, as well as large dental service organizations, or DSOs, which we believe will help accelerate our growth. First, we recently added Keystone Dental Group as a strategic channel partner for the SDA single tooth anesthesia system. And Keystone Dental Group brings a direct sales force of more than 60 sales representatives serving surgical specialists and general dental practices across the U.S. with a particular focus on implant and regenerative procedures. Implant dentistry is a natural fit for the STA since it allows for localized anesthesia across a wide range of dental procedures. Through the use of our STA, implant dentistry can be performed without the discomfort or potential risks and complications that could occur when numbing an entire quadrant of the patient's mouth. Keystone Dental Group has a proven track record of introducing new products including specialized instruments that require hands-on training and support. Second, as part of a broader initiative to target the DSO market, we established a partnership with the American Independent Dental Alliance, which is America's premier DSO network of private practice dentists. ADA is an ideal partner for us, and they support over 1,000 dental practices within their network. DSO play an increasingly important role within the domestic dental market. The current DSO market penetration of approximately 30 to 32% is expected to grow to 75 to 80% over the next 10 years. Thirdly, we enhanced our education activities. As an example, we entered an agreement with Aesthetic Professionals which provides continuing education classes that feature hands-on dental training. The SDA will be core to their curriculum. In parallel, we look forward to further expanding our international sales as we are adding new global distribution partners. Specifically, we are targeting independent distributors with existing relationship within their respective territories and dental networks. Our dental business continues to generate positive cash flow on a standalone basis. As we continue to grow our revenues, we expect to benefit from economies of scale due to the recurrent nature and high margins on our disposables. Turning to our medical segment, we continued to advance our commercial efforts around the CompuFlow epidural instrument and cath jack system. As a result of our combined sales and marketing activities, we have successfully trialed our CompreFlow Epidural System in key hospitals, healthcare systems, and pain management clinics. Last month, we were approved as a vendor to supply our CompreFlow Epidural and CasGex disposables in a major Northeast teaching hospital, which is part of one of the leading health systems in the United States. The addition of this hospital continues to expand our nationwide footprint in the labor and delivery market. This approval follows a thorough trial and evaluation which further validates the safety and efficacy of our technology. As a teaching hospital, our tools provide residents, fellows, and even seasoned physicians greater accuracy through real-time verification of epidural needle placement. as well as subsequent monitoring of catheter placement. Our sales strategy is initially focused on key regional markets such as Florida, Texas, and the New York metropolitan tri-state area. In addition to a growing regional presence, we're also targeting Tier 1 university teaching hospitals. Some of these hospitals are among the top 20 in the nation. We believe that as we begin to penetrate some of these larger, more recognized names, it will add greater credibility and reduce the sales cycle with smaller institutions. At the same time, we have expanded our focus beyond labor and delivery to target the pain management market, which not only includes hospitals, but also specialty centers, outpatient centers, and sports medicine centers. With over 11 million reported epidural procedures each year, the pain market segment is at least twice the size of the labor and delivery market segments. We recently commenced sales of the CompuFlow epidural disposables with the Cypress Surgery Center and the Galileo Surgery Center, California. Both these prominent pain management practices are owned by pain management specialists. In addition, We are receiving positive feedback among clinics and physicians based on our ability to achieve better outcomes at lower cost. Two major thought leaders, Dr. Harsh Govil and Dr. Miguel de la Garza, have begun incorporating the CompreFlow epidural instrument into their practice for pain management to utilize the instrument for both surgical cases and office-based procedures to access the epidural space safely and quickly. The adoption of the CompuFlow epidural instrument by Dr. Miguel de la Garza follows approval by Surgery Partners, one of the largest surgical services business in the country, for use across their network in pain management. So to wrap up, as we discussed on our year-end conference call, the latest pandemic spike of the Omicron variant had a disproportionate impact on the labor and delivery departments within hospitals as many pregnant women opted out of the vaccine. As a result, our sales team was unable to enter the operatories, which limited our ability to demo and trial the instruments. With the easing of the pandemic restrictions, we have resumed our sales activities As a result, I truly believe 2022 will be an important year for our medical business. Our sales pipeline is solid and growing, and we are advancing discussions with a number of hospitals and healthcare institutions. We will provide further updates as soon as we commence formal commercial sales with these respective institutions. Our CompreFlow Epidural System offers objective detection of pressure changes to verify true loss of resistance and confirm the epidural space within minutes. The clinical and safety benefits of the CompreFlow epidural system are backed by extensive published clinical data demonstrating significant reductions in epidural punctures and complication rates, as well as economic benefits for the institutions. For these reasons, we are as confident as ever that our technology will become the new standard of care for epidural procedures in labor and delivery as well as pain management by providing patients with effective pain relief while reducing the risk of complications. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Kisha Harkam, controller, to go over the financials in detail. Please go ahead, Kisha.