Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. (AQST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the 2020 Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. I will now turn the meeting over to the Chair of the Board of Directors of Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc., Sandy Costa.

Good morning. My name is Sandy Costa. I am the Chair of the Board of Directors of Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. I welcome you to our Annual Stockholder Meeting and call the meeting to order. This year, we are meeting virtually due to the health and safety concerns related to COVID-19. The agenda for this meeting and the rules of conduct are available on the virtual meeting site. We ask that you please abide by these rules of conduct. Due to the unusual circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, limitations of the virtual meeting. There will be no separate management presentation following the conclusion of the formal portion of the annual meeting. Following the formal portion of the meeting, we will offer a general question-and-answer session. Stockholders of record may submit comments or questions at any time during the meeting by clicking on the message icon located at the top of the page of the virtual meeting site. In addition to submitting questions during the auto cast of our annual meeting, stockholders are reminded that they are welcome at any time to contact our investor relations team for any questions, concerns or comments they may have. Contact information for our investor relations team may be accessed by clicking on the investor relations link on the virtual meeting site or by visiting investors.aquestive.com. Attending today's virtual meeting in addition to myself are each of our directors. There are 2 director nominees for reelection at this meeting. Our directors participating in today's annual meeting are Douglas Bratton; Dr. Gregory Brown; John Cochran; Keith Kendall, who's also our Chief Executive Officer; Nancy Lurker and Jim Scibetta. Also participating, in addition to Mr. Kendall, are several other members of our senior leadership team: Dan Barber, our Chief Operating Officer; Peter Boyd, our Senior Vice President, Business Processor and Information Technology; Lori Braender, our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Ken Marshall, our Chief Commercial Officer; John Maxwell, our Chief Financial Officer; Mark Schobel, our Chief Innovation and Technology Officer; Dr. Gary Slatko, our Chief Medical Officer; and Theresa Wood, our Senior Vice President of Human Resources. Also in attendance at this annual meeting are representatives from KPMG LLP, our independent auditors, Brendan Dunn and Sean Murray; as well as Monique Hughes and Matt Wendler from our stock transfer agent, Computershare Investor Services. Matt will be acting as the Inspector of Elections. I would now like to turn the meeting over to our CEO, Keith Kendall.

Thank you, Sandy. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our Board members, our officers and all of our other colleagues for their continued dedication, commitment and leadership throughout this past year, particularly during the last several months in light of the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our key priorities as a company always start with the safety of our colleagues, the people we do business with and the patients and caregivers, who interact with our products. During this extraordinary period, as leaders and managers of our business, we also have a responsibility to ensure that the -- to the best of our ability, while taking all steps to keep people safe, we continue to advance the important work of the company. We're quickly approaching our second year as a public company, and we're proud of what we have accomplished in that short time, including the FDA's approval and license of our products, Exservan riluzole oral film, for the treatment of ALS; and SYMPAZAN clobazam, for the treatment of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome; the filing of our NDA with the FDA for our product candidate, Libervant diazepam, for the treatment of breakthrough cluster seizures; and the advancement of our pipeline, including AQST-108 epinephrine. Today's meeting is being hosted by Computershare on their virtual meeting platform, which allows real-time voting during the meeting. During today's meeting, stockholders of record and registered beneficial stockholders have the opportunity to vote their shares until we announce that the polls have closed. Most of you will have already voted online or by telephone or submitted your proxy card, and we thank you for doing so. Stockholders who have already voted do not need to vote again today at this meeting. However, if you are attending this meeting as a record stockholder or as a registered beneficial stockholder and you have not yet voted, your shares was submitted -- not yet voted your shares or submitted your proxy or if you wish to change your previous vote or submitted proxy, you may do so by clicking the Cast Your Vote link and submitting your vote. A representative of Computershare has been appointed as the inspector of election and vote tabulator for today's meeting. I would now like to ask Lori Braender as Corporate Secretary of the company to please proceed with the order of business and agenda for this meeting.

Thank you, Keith. Computershare, the company's transfer agent, has confirmed that notice of this meeting and notice of Internet availability of proxy materials was sent to each stockholder of record as of April 20, 2020. The inspector of election reports that at least 23 million shares or approximately 70% of the outstanding stock of the company are represented at this meeting by proxy. A quorum is therefore present, and the meeting is properly convened. I will outline our agenda of today's meeting. First, we will vote on the 2 matters presented to stockholders, as detailed in the proxy statement. After the voting and announcement of the preliminary results of the voting, we will close the formal meeting, and we will address any questions which have been submitted by stockholders to this meeting in accordance with the rules of conduct. We will now proceed with the business of this meeting. Each of the 2 proposals to be acted on today is discussed in the proxy statement. They are, first, the election of the 2 Class II Directors; and second, ratification of the appointment of KPMG, the company's independent public accounting firm for the current fiscal year. If there are any questions on either of these 2 proposals, please submit them now on the virtual screen by clicking on the messages icon. At this time, we ask that you confine your questions to 2 specific proposals included in the proxy statement and subject to vote at this meeting. A general question-and-answer period will follow the formal part of this meeting. There being no questions submitted on the proposals to be voted on, we will now proceed to take the vote on these matters. If you have already submitted a ballot proxy, you need not vote now at this meeting. Your votes will be cast as indicated on your proxy card. The proxies have already cast their vote with the inspector of election. You may now vote your shares if you wish and have not already done so during this meeting. [Voting]

The voting has now concluded, and the polls are now closed. The inspector of election has provided a preliminary report on the voting. First, the inspector of election reports that each of the persons nominated for director has received at least 13 million votes, representing at least 94% of the votes cast in the election and has been elected as a director. The second proposal relating to ratification of the appointment of KPMG as the company's independent public accounting firm for the current fiscal year has received the favorable vote of not less than 97% of the votes cast on this proposal, and, therefore, this proposal has been approved. We will report the final tally of all votes on a Form 8-K, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 4 business days of this meeting. That concludes our agenda, and I will turn the meeting back over to Keith.

Thank you, Lori. All formal business has concluded, and we therefore close and adjourn the formal part of the meeting.

At this time, we'll hold a general question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you are a stockholder of record or a registered beneficial holder, you may submit a question by clicking the messages icon on your screen. Also, because this annual meeting is not being publicly webcast, nothing discussed today is intended to or should be understood to provide any material nonpublic information over and above or different from what we have previously publicly disclosed or to update any previous publicly disclosed material information. As a consequence, any questions submitted in today's meeting that request or would require a response disclosing material nonpublic information or an update of any previously publicly disclosed material information will not be answered today, but we look forward to providing you an update during our next earnings call in August. Since there are no questions, on behalf of the members of our Board of Directors and officers of the company, I would like to thank you all for attending today's meeting, and we look forward to having you participate in next year's annual meeting.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.