Good day, and welcome to the Liminal BioSciences third quarter 2022 results conference call. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Shrinal. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm the Associate Director of Investor Relations and Communications at Liminal BioSciences, and I'd like to welcome you to our third quarter results conference call. This recorded webcast will be accessible from the investor resources page on the Liminal BioSciences website and will be available for replay later on today. For those of you dialing in, you can find a copy of our presentation slides on the webcast section of the website or via the conference call portal. Moving on to slide two. I'd like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements during today's webcast, including remarks or current expectations concerning future developments of the pipeline, the properties of our product candidates, the timing of initiation or nature of preclinical and clinical trials and potential therapeutic areas. Regulatory plans, financing plans, our ability to resolve the Nasdaq listing deficiency and regain compliance with the Nasdaq listing rules. The successful and timely integration of the new members of the executive leadership teams and expected benefits to the company, its financial position, the impact of COVID-19 on our business, and possible changes in the industry and competitive environment. Given the ongoing unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic for our future operational objectives, we may need to amend guidance on the expected progress or nature of our business going forward with an improved understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic may impact our future operations, research and development activities, including future clinical trials. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and beliefs and on information currently available to us. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those contained in our updated reports that we file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC and Canadian Securities Administrators from time to time, including our annual report on Form 20-F and our 6-K containing our press release of the results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2022. Each of which we have filed with the SEC and on SEDAR, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Please note that these forward-looking statements made during this webcast speak only of our expectations as of today's date and Liminal BioSciences undertakes no obligation to update these statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except to the extent required by law. As stated on slide three, during this morning's webcast, Liminal BioSciences Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bruce Pritchard will provide a brief summary of our key announcements this quarter. Ms. Nicole Rusaw, Chief Financial Officer, will present the financial and operational highlights for the third quarter ended September 30, 2022. We will then follow with closing comments on the expected near-term milestones and a short question and answer period for financial analysts only. I'd now like to welcome Liminal BioSciences Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bruce Pritchard. Bruce, over to you. Thanks, Sonal, and good morning, everyone. If I could now ask you all to move to slide four in the presentation, and I'd like to highlight some of our key achievements for this quarter. Earlier this quarter, we updated the market on the outcome of our phase I-A single ascending dose study in fezagepras within our disclosed timelines, and provided an update on the resulting impact on our earlier stage development programs. Following on from this announcement, we look forward to nominating a preclinical candidate for our GPR84 program and announce a potential indication for clinical development within the coming months, potentially by the end of 2022. We also acquired 100% of the outstanding preferred and common shares of our non-core subsidiary, Pathogen Removal Diagnostic Technologies Inc., PRDT, resulting in the company now having 100% control of PRDT. PRDT itself owns certain prion reduction technology, and despite this being considered non-core assets of the company, having full control of PRDT presents us with the possibility to monetize this asset. In an ongoing bid to reduce our cash burn and streamline our business, we're pleased to have entered into a termination agreement terminating a legacy CDMO agreement relating to our previously held plasma-derived therapeutics products. The termination of this agreement results in total go forward cash savings of approximately CAD 33.1 million. In the third quarter, we also received approval to transfer our common shares from the Nasdaq Global Market to begin trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market. In connection with this transfer, Nasdaq granted us a second period of 180 calendar days or until February 27th 2023, to regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing by achieving a closing bid price on Nasdaq of at least $1 U.S. per share for a minimum of 10 consecutive trading days. We provided Nasdaq with a written intent to cure the minimum bid price deficiency during the additional compliance period by implementing a reverse stock split, if necessary, prior to the expiration of the second compliance period. We intend to hold a shareholders' meeting to proceed with this reverse stock split in the first quarter of 2023. We're also pleased to be announcing some changes to our executive leadership team. Nicole Rusaw, who has been serving us as Interim Chief Financial Officer since March 2nd, 2022, has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. In her role as Chief Financial Officer, Nicole will continue to lead the finance function and implement progressive financial operating and technical processes as a permanent member of our team. In addition to the appointment of Nicole as Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Gary Bridger, a current member of the Board of Directors and strategic advisor to the company, has been named as Interim Chief Scientific Officer, effective immediately. Dr. Bridger will oversee the research and development function and assume responsibility for leading all aspects of the company's research and development programs. Dr. Bridger continues to serve as a board member of the company. Her leadership qualities, extensive experience in drug development, and demonstrated track record of leading teams at large organizations comes at an important time as we prepare for key milestones for our small molecule pipeline. These changes will strengthen our capabilities to develop novel therapies for patients in need, and I look forward to working collectively as one team to execute on the company's priorities. The achievements made this quarter have contributed to the non-dilutive extension of our cash runway. This, in turn, results in us being able to provide guidance that we've anticipated cash and cash equivalents to fund our near-term development goals into the fourth quarter of 2023, with the possibility to further extend that runway into 2024 with the sale of non-core real estate assets. In summary, once again this quarter, we've continued to build on our proven track record of delivering on our commitments, and we look forward to building on these key milestones in the months to come. At this point, I'll hand over to Nicole Rusaw, who will talk through our financial and operating results for the third quarter ended September 30th, 2022. Nicole, over to you. Thank you, Bruce. Slide six is a quick reminder that this part of today's webcast is based on the interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the third quarter ended September 30th, 2022. All figures are prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, and the full annual information and other important information can be found online at sec.gov and sedar.com. Our financial information is presented in Canadian dollars, and all references during the webcast to dollars means Canadian dollars, unless otherwise specified. For simplicity, some numbers being discussed have been rounded. Now if we move on to slide seven, given the company's divestment of its former plasma-derived therapeutics segment, the company has presented results from discontinued operations in the current and comparative periods. These comprise the revenues and expenses of most of the former plasma-derived therapeutics segment activities and net assets divested in 2021, with the exception of some remaining non-core assets and liabilities which the company intends to sell or extinguish. Research and development, or R&D, expenses from continuing operations decreased CAD 1.5 million from CAD 5 million in the comparative period to CAD 3.5 million for the three-month period ended September 30th, 2022, due to decreases in intangible asset depreciation expense, royalty expenses, and clinical trial costs of CAD 0.4 million, CAD 0.3 million, and CAD 0.2 million respectively, and a general reduction in operating expenses. Admin expenses from continuing operations decreased CAD 5 million from CAD 9.4 million in the comparative period to CAD 4.4 million during the current three-month period ended September 30th, 2022. The decrease was mainly attributable to a decrease of CAD 2.5 million in D&O insurance premiums resulting from the change in the company's registered office from Quebec to Ontario in the latter part of 2021, as well as a CAD 1.2 million reduction in both share-based payments expense in salaries and other benefits. Finance costs from continuing operations decreased by CAD 2.8 million from CAD 1.8 million in the comparative period compared to a CAD 0.9 million gain for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022. Decrease in finance costs resulted from the repayment of our long-term debt earlier in the year. The net loss from continuing operations, net of taxes, decreased by CAD 5.2 million during the quarter ended September 30th, 2022, compared to the corresponding period in 2021. This was mainly driven by reductions in R&D expenses of CAD 1.5 million, admin expenses of CAD 5 million, reflecting the reduction in the D&O premiums, coupled with the company continuing to streamline the business and improve operating efficiencies, as well as a reduction in finance costs of CAD 2.8 million due to the repayment of all long-term debts and an increase in foreign exchange gains of CAD 0.9 million given increased cash balances and favorable FX variances in global currencies. Income from discontinued operations, net of taxes, decreased by CAD 57.4 million during the quarter ended September 30th, 2022, compared to the corresponding period in 2021. This decrease was mainly due to the fact that the quarter ended September 30, 2021, included the results of the sale of the operations of the plasma collection activities and the sale of the priority review voucher. The income from discontinued operations in the quarter ended September 30, 2022, was impacted by the termination of our legacy CDMO agreement entered into in August 2022. The termination agreement resulted in the extinguishment of the entire CDMO lease liability and the recognition of a gain on modification of a liability included in finance costs from discontinued operations of CAD 16 million, and a reversal in the CDMO owner's provision of CAD 10.7 million included in R&D expenses from discontinued operations. Moving to slide eight, I'd like to walk through the major elements that impacted our cash and cash equivalents throughout the quarter. These cash flows include cash flows from both continuing operations as well as discontinued operations. We started 2022 with CAD 108.5 million in cash and cash equivalents. During the first quarter, the company repaid its secured first and second-term loans of CAD 39.6 million, thereby terminating both the consolidated loan agreement and royalty stream agreement with Structured Alpha LP or SALP, canceling the outstanding warrants held by SALP issued pursuant to the 2019 restructuring agreement and releasing the security granted in favor of SALP over the company's assets, including intellectual property. During the third quarter, the company paid CAD 11.2 million for the termination of the CDMO agreement, leaving two remaining payments of CAD 3.4 million each to be made in the first quarter of 2023 and 2024 respectively. The company has used CAD 25.5 million of cash on operating activities during the nine months, all of which were incurred to support the small molecules business segment. At September 30th, the company had CAD 40.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. I will now turn the call back to Bruce for some closing comments. Thanks, Nicole. On slide nine, our near-term program milestones include our expectation to nominate a preclinical candidate for our GPR84 antagonist program in the coming months and potentially before the end of this year, along with guidance on potential target disease areas. Shortly after nominating a preclinical candidate, we plan to commence IND or CTA enabling studies for regulatory approval for a phase I clinical trial. We aim to follow on with nominating a preclinical candidate for our OXER1 antagonist program in 2023, along with guidance on potential target disease areas. We look forward to providing further updates on these potential opportunities as our data becomes available. Moving on to Slide 10 to wrap up. In addition to these programs, we plan to have the ability to explore other development opportunities to add to our pipeline from our in-house discovery engine, as well as potential opportunities to acquire early clinical stage compounds in current therapeutic areas of focus. We continue to work towards opportunities both to reduce costs and for the disposition of our remaining non-core assets to provide additional funding for our ongoing operations and programs beyond 2022, and are focused on delivering our highest priorities for 2022 and 2023. We'd now like to take this opportunity to address any questions that any of our financial analysts may have. Operator, can I hand over to you, please, for the question and answer session? Thank you. If any analysts would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Again, that is star one to ask a question. It appears there is no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks. Thanks very much, operator, and thanks to everyone who's listened in on the phone this morning. We look forward to providing further updates on the company's progress over the coming months. Thank you and good morning. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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