Burcon Nutrascience Corporation

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Bercon NutriScience Corporation's fiscal year 2024 third quarter results ended December 31st, 2023. Joining us today are Kip Underwood, Bercon's chief executive officer, and Jade Cheng, the company's chief financial officer. Following their remarks, we will open up the call for your questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. Then, before we conclude today's call, I'll provide the company's safe harbor statement with important cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made during this call. Now, I would like to turn the conference over to the CEO of Bercon, Mr. Kip Underwood. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We are excited to report that during fiscal 2024 third quarter and year-to-date, we showcased robust execution and value creation for Bercon, marked by the achievement of three key milestones. First, we entered into a production agreement with our partner manufacturer, establishing commercial capability by integrating Bercon's proprietary process into their production facilities. Second, we were able to validate the hemp protein process through water trials. Third, we have validated customer interest in both our hemp seed isolate product as well as our pea and canola offerings. We will review these milestones in more detail on the call today. We continue to see opportunities for Berkons proteins in the market today. The growth of the plant-based beverage segment is strong. with consumers demanding plant-based foods that they both enjoy and are planet-friendly. Consumers are seeking better plant-based products that we believe will drive the need for new, improved plant-based protein offerings. We expect Bercon's new-to-the-world hemp seed and sunflower proteins to meet this demand and support the next generation of innovative food and beverage products. We have made significant strides in the execution of our Bercon 2.0 business plan. We have validated potential customer demand with both former Merit customers and new prospects. We have established a supply chain capable of bringing our products to market, and we have reaffirmed the differentiation of our products compared to competitive alternatives. Bercon is in an excellent position to accelerate our plan to bring our best-in-class protein ingredients to market. We firmly believe that 2024 will be a transformative year for Bercon, and I look forward to sharing Bercon's plan with you on the call today. Before that, I'd first like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jay Ching, to provide a brief overview of the financial results for the quarter. after which I will return to provide my remarks and discuss our bullish business outlook for the fiscal year. We will open the call to questions following our remarks. Jade, please go ahead.

Thanks, Kip. Earlier today, our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2024 were issued in a news release and filed with CDAR, as well as posted to the investor relations section of our website. We reported a net loss of $2 million, or $0.02 per basic and diluted share for the current quarter, as compared to $16.3 million, or $0.15 per basic and diluted share in the same year-ago quarter. The decrease is due almost entirely to the impairment losses and share of loss and merit recorded in the third quarter of last year. Growth R&D expenditures went down by $200,000 from $1.2 million in the third quarter of last year to $1 million in the current quarter. The decrease is due to a reduction of intellectual property expenses as a result of Berkon's patent portfolio optimization efforts, as well as to lower stock-based compensation expense. DNA expenses this quarter did not change significantly from the same year-ago quarter. While there were reductions in expenses due to our cash conservation efforts, such as investor relations and costs related to the former US listing, professional fees increased due to consulting costs incurred for our strategic plan that have contributed to uncovering additional value and identifying further opportunities for our technologies. At December 31st, 2023, Our cash resources were $675,000 compared to $1.5 million at March 31, 2023. During this quarter, Bercon met the conditions for the second tranche of the large-scale loan facility. After December 31, Bercon drew down $1 million from the loan facility. We expect our current cash resources to fund our operations to April 2024 and further to January 2025 if the loan facility is fully drawn. These dates may potentially be extended if the company receives funding or generates revenues from other sources, including, but not limited to, hemp protein sales, government funding, pilot time processing, and scale-up validation services. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to our CEO, Kip Underwood. Kip?