Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (ESPR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the 2021 Esperion Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I'm Kaitlyn Brosco, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Sheldon Koenig, President and Chief Executive Officer of Esperion to lead today's events. Mr. Koenig, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kate, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the 8th Annual Esperion's Stockholders Meeting, which is now called to order. We are excited to be hosting our sixth annual virtual meeting of stockholders, and my first as President and CEO of Esperion. I would just like to say I am honored to be here and confident in the future of this organization. I am incredibly optimistic for the future of our commercial medicines, NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET, and their ability to address a large unmet need within the cardiovascular and LDL-cholesterol lowering space. Even more, I am optimistic for the long-term potential of Esperion as a company, especially as the company, country and world reemerge from this pandemic. Today, I will be acting as Chairman and inspector of elections of this meeting. Rick Bartram, our Chief Financial Officer, will act as secretary for this meeting. As noted in the notice of annual meeting and the proxy statement previously made available to stockholders via the Internet, the record date for voting at this meeting was the close of business on March 29, 2021. A list of stockholders on the record date has been available for review by our stockholders at our corporate offices for at least the 10 days prior to this meeting. We have stockholders attending this meeting through the web portal that we have provided. And following this meeting, we will answer any questions that you may have. We are joined today by representatives from Goodwin Procter, our external legal counsel; and Ernst & Young, our independent auditors, who will also be available during the questions-and-answer session following the meeting to respond to appropriate questions. The list of stockholders of record of Esperion as of March 29, 2021, shows, as of that date, there were 28,155,998 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at the meeting. On or about April 15, 2021, Esperion announced its important notice regarding the availability of proxy materials for the Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held on May 27, 2021, to all stockholders of record as of March 29, 2021. And we posted our notice of annual meeting, proxy materials and 2020 annual report via the Internet accessible at www.proxyvote.com. A preliminary count of the shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting indicates holders of at least a majority of the shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote as of the record date are present at the meeting in person or by proxy. Should any stockholder desire to vote in person, please click on the Voting button on the web portal and follow the instructions provided. If you have already delivered your proxy and you do not wish to change your vote, you need not take any further action. A quorum exists. Therefore, the meeting is duly convened and open for business. It is now 8:03 a.m. on May 27, 2021, and the polls for each matter to be voted upon this annual meeting are now open. The first item to be voted upon is the election of 3 Class II directors. Our Board has nominated Jeffrey Berkowitz, J.D.; Antonio M. Gotto Jr., MD, Doctor of Philosophy; and Nicole Vitullo for election as directors to each serve for a 3-year term ending at the 2024 annual meeting or until their successors are elected and qualified. Each of the nominees is a current member of our Board and has consented to serve, if elected. The second item to be voted upon is the advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers. We have developed a compensation program that is designed to attract and retain key executives responsible for our success, reward short-term and long-term performance and align the financial interest of our executive officers with the interest of our stockholders. Our Board is committed to excellence in governance and, as part of this commitment, is providing our stockholders with an opportunity to cast a nonbinding advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers. This vote is not intended to address any specific item of compensation, but rather the overall compensation of our named executive officers and the policies and practices described in this proxy statement. Our Board unanimously recommends that our stockholders vote in favor of the resolution to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of our named executive officers as disclosed in the company's proxy statement. The third item to be voted upon is the ratification of this appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Since no other matters have been properly brought before the meeting, we will now finalize voting. You must submit your votes now in order for them to be counted. [Voting]

It is now 8:06 a.m. on May 27, 2021, and the polls for each matter to be voted on at this meeting are now closed. As inspector of elections, I will now report on the results of the voting. With regard to Proposal 1, the 3 nominees received the plurality of votes entitled to vote and cast. With regard to Proposal 2, a majority of the votes properly cast have been voted in favor of the proposed advisory resolution on the compensation of our named executive officers. With regard to Proposal 3, a majority of the votes properly cast have been voted in favor of the ratification of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Accordingly, I declare that all of the proposals presented at the meeting have been ratified or approved by the stockholders. The final results of voting will be set forth in the report of the inspector of elections and will be included in the minutes of the meeting. The final results will also be included in our reports filed with the SEC. There being no other matters for consideration at this meeting, I hereby adjourn this meeting. Now we would like to allow time for appropriate stockholder questions and comments. We will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows. Only validated stockholders will be able to ask questions in the designated field on the web portal.

There are no stockholder questions received within the web portal of today's meeting.

With that, I would like to thank our stockholders for their continued support of Esperion, our mission and our people. And we'll turn the meeting back over to Kate for closing remarks.

The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for attending the 2021 Esperion Annual meeting of Stockholders.