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This enthusiasm and interest in securing a partner and advancing into Phase 3 and toward commercialization is also shared by infectious disease physicians and KOLs who continue to provide very positive feedback and encouragement on how MAT2203 could become an essential part of the treatment regimen for patients facing these deadly infections, especially for those who currently have limited or no treatment options. These discussions involve complex negotiations on everything from territory to overall development strategy and indication stacking, to commercial manufacturing, to regulatory and commercial positioning. Securing one or more development and commercialization partners for this life-changing asset who share our sense of urgency to maximize MAT2203's value in multiple geographies continues to be our objective.

We are focused on consummating a transaction that is in the best interest of our company, supports our strategic focus, brings value to our stockholders, and physicians MAT2203 to become an important solution for patients in need. Our confidence in the success of oral MAT2203 in the ORALTO trial, as well as our positive outlook in other invasive fungal infections more broadly, continues to build as we see mounting evidence of favorable outcomes in extremely ill patients from our compassionate expanded use access program. To date, we have enrolled 22 patients with additional patients under evaluation. This program highlights the ability of MAT2203 to safely target and effectively eradicate a variety of severe and potentially deadly invasive fungal infections, even in the most challenging clinical circumstances, including some infections deemed more difficult to treat than aspergillosis.

We are pleased that supportive data with MAT-2203 were recently published in a manuscript in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. The in vivo study data there demonstrated prolonged and enhanced survival, reduced fungal burden, and improvement in lung infection with MAT2203 compared with placebo in treating the pulmonary mucormycosis fungal infections in immunosuppressed mice. Invasive mucormycosis infection is noteworthy for being very difficult to treat. With a mortality rate that often exceeds 50% and the most severe circumstances have brain involvement, persistent neutropenia, and a hematogenously disseminated disease with mortality rates above 90%. Although these were preclinical data, MAT2203 has already been used to successfully treat multiple patients suffering from mucormycosis with impressive clinical resolution in the absence of nephrotoxicity.

The body of evidence that MAT2203 as a life-changing therapy continues to grow, and we look forward to moving it into the ORALTO Phase 3 global clinical trial later this year. With MAT2203 partnering discussions ongoing, we have shifted our focus toward our other LNC platform programs. We have already generated foundational data through in vivo animal studies in oncology and inflammation, where we see significant unmet medical need, and the opportunity for the unique LNC mechanism of action to play a meaningful role in combination with effective treatments suffering from inefficient or non-specific delivery and/or significant safety and toxicity concerns. We have continued to generate highly encouraging results from in vivo studies with our LNC formulation of docetaxel, a well-known chemotherapeutic agent administered intravenously that's routinely used in the management of various metastatic and unresectable tumors, but with well-recognized side effects and toxicities.

Our studies have shown that oral LNCs can deliver docetaxel directly to tumor cells and with longer treatment durations than IV docetaxel, while also reducing tumor volumes to an extent comparable to IV docetaxel, all with no indications of toxicities. The ability to improve the therapeutic index of docetaxel could improve patient outcomes with less toxicity and potentially broaden the scope of use of LNC docetaxel in treating tumors previously considered unresponsive to IV docetaxel treatment. Building off the LNC docetaxel data, we have also recently successfully formulated miriplatin, an insoluble platinum chemotherapeutic approved in Japan for hepatocellular carcinoma. In vitro testing demonstrated strong cellular uptake and tumor cell killing capabilities.

Next steps are to assess this formulation in vivo with the results expected later this quarter. We continue to believe that the attributes of our LNC platform create unique opportunities to orally deliver antitumor agents with preferential uptake by certain tumor cells. More work is ongoing to enhance and optimize our oncology LNCs, with particular focus on optimizing dosing strategies, evaluating impact of tumor cell surface phosphatidylserine, and ultimate selection of preferential tumor targets. We expect to have more updates on our oncology programs in the second half of this year. Turning now to our small oligonucleotide program, we have successfully orally delivered biologically active small oligonucleotides in several inflammatory disease models.

We are continuing to explore the delivery of cytokine inhibiting small oligonucleotides for inflammation, with additional work in other animal models with other cytokine targets. We expect additional data from this work in the third quarter. Our highly promising data from ex vivo, in vitro, and in vivo studies showcasing our LNC platform for the uptake and targeted delivery of small oligonucleotides is being shared this week by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Terry Ferguson, in two separate presentations at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy's 27th Annual Meeting. As perhaps the only company successfully orally encapsulating and delivering small oligonucleotides with meaningful biological activity, our work here has been generating a lot of interest.

In addition, our Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Hui Liu, will be presenting new in vitro and ex vivo data from our small oligonucleotide programs at the Tide USA 2024 Conference next week in Boston. As we look to capitalize on our unique LNC drug delivery platform, which has been clinically validated by MAT2203 in infectious disease, we see a bright future in continuing to expand applications for the LNC platform into areas of significant unmet medical need. While early, these data in oncology and inflammation are part of our strategy to establish LNCs as a preferred next-generation orally available and targeted intracellular drug delivery technology. Before I turn the call over to Keith Kucinski, I'd like to mention that we completed a financing last month that strengthened our balance sheet and extended our cash runway into the second quarter of 2025, which better positions us to advance studies with our LNC platform programs while we work to secure MAT2203's future.

We are grateful to our new investors for their support. Keith?

Keith Kucinski: Thank you, Jerry, and good afternoon. In reviewing our financial performance, we reported no revenue for the first quarter of 2024 versus $1.1 million of revenue for the first quarter of 2023, which was generated from our research collaborations with BioNTech and Genentech. Total costs and expenses for the first quarter of 2024 were $5.9 million, compared with $6.7 million for the first quarter of 2023. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower clinical development expenses, personnel costs, and administrative expenses. Our net loss for the first quarter of 2024 was $5.8 million, or $0.03 per share. This compares with a net loss for the first quarter of 2023 of $5.5 million, which was also $0.03 per share.

Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as of March 31st, 2024 were $8.1 million. As Jerry mentioned, subsequent to the close of the quarter in April, we raised gross proceeds of $10 million through a registered direct financing. Based on our current projections, we believe our current cash resources are sufficient to fund planned operations into the second quarter of 2025. With that, I'll turn the call back to Jerry.

Jerome Jabbour: Thanks, Keith. In summary, we are intently focused on our partnership discussions for MAT2203. Advancing this important product into Phase 3 and closer to commercialization is a key objective for our company. Securing the right partner or partners to maximize value in multiple territories in a coordinated manner is paramount. We continue to believe, supported by KOL feedback and patient clinical experience and data that MAT2203, if approved, could represent a new treatment paradigm addressing the significant challenges and unmet medical need in the treatment of invasive fungal infections with significant implications for patients who have limited or no current treatment options. The evolution of our strategy over the past six months to focus on expanding the LNC platform has yielded initial highly promising data in oncology and inflammation as we continue to learn about the capabilities of our unique and proprietary delivery technology.

The potential for chemotherapeutics that are orally delivered and less toxic would be a big step forward for patients, and our demonstrated ability to deliver small oligonucleotides with biological activity and therapeutic effects orally could be transformative in the inflammation space, where many companies are looking for oral, targeted, and extrahepatic delivery of nucleic acids. The data we've accumulated to date serve to reinforce our belief in the substantial potential of LNCs for the intracellular delivery of complex therapeutics in multiple therapeutic areas as we work toward the goal of creating a portfolio of internal and external drug candidates. We expect to be able to review and discuss additional data generated in these areas in the coming quarters.

With that review, I'll now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Joe?

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