GeoVax Labs, Inc. (GOVX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is John Heerdink, and welcome to our Tribe Public's CEO presentation and Q&A webinar event titled MPOX 2025: Navigating the Global Public Health Emergency featuring GeoVax Labs, NASDAQ: GOVX, and CEO, David Dodd. As many of you know, I am the managing member of Tribe Public. Our website is tribepublic.com, T-R-I-B-Epublic.com. Members from 31 plus countries in all 50 states have joined Tribe Public freely to gain direct corporate access to leaders and experts that they care about via our webinar events and now across 36 venue sites across the U.S., where we host in-person speak engagements, luncheons, dinner events with these -- many of these same leaders. Tribe Public members are furthermore requested to submit names via our free or complementary wish list process on our website, where they add names of companies and experts about -- and subjects that span across all sectors so that they can learn more. I hope that you'll continue to come to our webinars and that you'll -- we'll see you in one of the venue sites from San Francisco, where I'm based, to Philly and back across the country and look forward to see you in future events. Please also note that I'm also the Managing Director of Vista Partners LLC, a registered investment adviser in California, and its website is vistapglobal.com, V-I-S-T-A-P-G-LO-B-A-L.com. Please review both sets of disclaimers from each of these sites, Tribe Public and Vista Partners, and know that I'm a shareholder and adviser to GeoVax Labs currently. I'd also like to thank all of you for participating and for all of your questions that you submitted prior to the event and remind that all of you that you can send some additional questions via the Zoom chat feature today during the event, and we'll do our best to get them addressed during this approximate 30-minute event. If we don't get long, hopefully, we can maybe get David Dodd and GeoVax back on at some later date, but this is a very timely topic. And I'm excited to be able to have David back on. It's been quite some time, and the world continues to evolve. Now let's get started. David, if you wouldn't mind starting off with just tell us a little bit about yourself and give people some of the -- your impressive background and what brought you to being the CEO of GeoVax today.

Sure. Thank you, John, and I want to thank everyone for their interest, not only in GeoVax, but learning more about this incredibly dangerous outbreak of Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. So let me just go to -- I do have a slide here that gives you some comments on it. But I'm going to talk about GeoVax as we go through this, but I just want everyone to remember, to innovate, differentiate, accelerate and collaborate, those are the fundamentals that drive what we try to do in building our business. We were a Phase II clinical study focused on vaccines as well as immunotherapies against cancer. So infectious diseases from vaccines, immunotherapies from our product. We're not going to dwell on all those others. But who am I? So I've been in the industry, I've been fortunate to work at some outstanding companies during my career, starting with Abbott Laboratories when it was all together, what today is Abbott and AbbVie, et cetera, worked with Bristol Myers, which became Bristol-Myers Squibb while I was there. I had my first opportunity as a General Manager in that organization, thoroughly enjoyed it, benefited from tremendous mentors, had great opportunity to work at Wyeth, followed by Solvay Pharmaceuticals, where I was CEO, and then I went into the NASDAQ world. As you can see from this slide, I've had the fortune of overseeing the approval of over 10 NDAs or BLAs, have been involved with over 15 acquisitions or divestitures, have participated in excess of $2.5 billion in financial transactions and led over $5 billion in incremental enterprise growth. None of that could ever be done if it wasn't for those individuals with whom I've worked. And that certainly includes the team today at GeoVax because I have had the fortune of working with some of the most outstanding people I could have ever imagined to become -- to whom I might be associated with during my career. And so it's a great ride. I enjoy what I'm doing. I got involved with GeoVax initially in 2010 as a Board member, then as an investor, became their Chairman of the Board, while I was doing other things and in 2018, had the opportunity to come in full time as the CEO of GeoVax, maintaining the position of Chairman and President. We up listed on NASDAQ. It will be 5 years ago this September, right during the height of the pandemic. So that September 2020, a year that most people probably think is one of the worst year in modern history. For GeoVax, it was one of the most outstanding years that enabled us to successfully uplist on GeoVax and then move the company forward. So that's who I am, who the company is all about. I want to talk about, because this is central to what we're talking about today. And it's the base technology that we utilize. It's called Modified Vaccinia Ankara or MVA. Now what is that? It's what we use as the platform for all of our infectious disease vaccines. However, it's important to know that MVA came about because at the time it was developed, which was in the late '60s, and then put into use in the early '70s, we still had smallpox rampant throughout the world, and you may or may not, depending on your age, recall, but it just happened to be in October of 1977, WHO announced that the world had successfully eradicated smallpox. And so that was the end of that threat that came about. Now it was done because prior to that, we all used to get a vaccine called Vaccinia. We had little scratches on our shoulders for those of us who are from my generation. However, there were certain populations for whom that Vaccinia remains contraindicated today. Those are people with compromised immune systems, pregnant women and children. We never would have eradicated smallpox if we had just continued utilizing vaccinia. So what was done was vaccinia was taken and it was modified, that's where the M comes in, because the numerous passages through avian cell lines like chickens, chickens are avian, they are fowl, as are ducks and quail. And the work was done, believe it or not, Ankara. So we have Modified Vaccinia Ankara. Now what did that result in? It resulted in a new form of vaccinia known as Modified Vaccinia Ankara, MVA, but it no longer replicated in mammalian cells, which means human cells. So it's -- but only in avian cells. It's exquisitely safe for humans. So much so that it is recommended as the primary vaccine to be utilized certainly in populations that include immunocompromised individuals, pregnant women and children. And that was the basis of being able to eradicate the world of smallpox. So what's -- why are we talking about smallpox in that? Well, it then was repurposed both at NIH and elsewhere as an ideal vaccine platform or a vector to be able to carry other antigens targeted against things such as, let's think of it today, could be HIV, it could be Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, could be Zika virus, could be Marburg, all of which we have done at GeoVax utilizing MVA as our carrier or as our platform. So first and foremost, it's very well defined. It's been around since the early '70s. It's extremely safe. There are no question marks such as newer technologies might have. One of the most important features resulting in benefits is you can include -- you can what they call encode, if you're creating a vaccine, multiple antigens. This is not true when you talk about, for instance, mRNA. You can only include one antigen at a time or the technology that you might be utilizing if you're at Novavax or if you're at Merck and you're utilizing some type of adenovirus or GSK or Sanofi. MVA allows multiple antigens to go into it, which is -- which we have done, up to 5 antigens. In fact, we've done before. So we utilize it as our engine to create a stand-alone, it's the vaccine that prevents Mpox and smallpox, but it also is utilized as a platform and there are numerous features that have benefits from it because, one, you can encode a lot of different things, multiple insertion site, which means gives you a broader response to it. If you include certain antigens or genes out of a targeted pathogen, the membrane and the envelope, you also then start generating virus-like particles, which mimic the actual virus you're going after, but have no safety issues around. So you get a very broad response. It generates not only antibody responses, which most people do with the existing vaccine, but most existing vaccines do not induce a very strong T cell or cellular immunity. With MVA, you induce and elicit a very strong T cell and B cell response. And it can also be freeze-dried. So you don't have to deliver in a frozen state, which means you can then develop a vaccine that can actually be distributed and administered in parts of the world, for instance, throughout Africa, where you don't need extreme frozen state, for instance, as you do with mRNA vaccine. So -- and most of all, I want to underscore that vaccines such as COVID-19 that utilizes the MVA platform also carries with it the inherent benefit that it protects against Mpox and smallpox. Now what that means is if you're delivering a COVID-19 vaccine, for instance, in the -- let's just say, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I'm using that as an example because that's where the tremendous outbreak for Mpox is right now. That COVID-19 vaccine will also provide protection. And it's not a combination vaccine. It's not a dual vaccine. It's basically the value of utilizing MVA as the platform. It carries the protective immunity also against Mpox. That's been validated in a publication that utilized our COVID-19 vaccine that was published in fall -- late summer, early fall of 2022. And historically, in 2007, we demonstrated that our candidate for HIV also provided protection against Mpox, which at that time in 2007, most of us didn't even know what monkeypox was. So that's an inherent benefit. So one, you have a vaccine that you can incorporate additional antigens to give a broader response of the immune system, inducing both the antibodies and the T cells. And at the same time, where it's relevant, which are certain parts of the world where you may have endemic outbreaks, for instance, of Mpox, providing, for instance, a Zika virus vaccine in Brazil that is built upon MVA will also provide protection against Mpox. So we look at that as a very strong differentiator. We like working with this. And then ultimately, we're delivering a product that does not require extreme refrigeration, which means at the end of the day, we can deliver a product that actually can be administered to people where it needs to be administered without having to engage all these frozen state materials and management of it. So that's the MVA. I just mentioned that with some -- with a good bit of background because that helps you understand that our technology is well differentiated from not just a feature standpoint, but very important benefits. We have 3 key programs at GeoVax that are advancing. And I'm only going to focus on one today, but I want you to know that because I've talked about COVID-19, we have a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine. It shows much broader response in terms of against the different variants and what we've seen with the first-generation vaccines, which are the mRNA and the Novavax protein adjuvant. We also have shown that you don't have to reconfigure it as frequently. Our durability in the clinic thus far is demonstrating 8 to 12 months lasting power that's compared to 3 to 6 months for the mRNA. And most importantly, for populations who have various medical conditions that result in them being immunocompromised, not responding to the first-generation vaccine, these are people with various blood cancers, could be kidney disease, et cetera. Those people respond very well to our vaccine because we also induce a very strong T cell response. I'm going to touch on -- I'm going to talk a good bit. The rest of discussion is going to be on Mpox. But we also have a solid tumor therapy called Gedeptin. It's going to be entering a Phase II trial in the -- we hope for it to be yet this year. It may very well end up being because we're still manufacturing product to support that trial, but it's going to be first recurrent head and neck cancer patients evaluating Gedeptin in combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor, such as KEYTRUDA among these patients. We think it will show improved performance in the checkpoint inhibitor by itself. And I want to underscore, we have over 120 granted or pending patents across 24 patent families. For every product we have in development, we hold worldwide rights and we have protection against -- in support of those in exclusivity. So that's our story as a corporation. So let's talk about, what is this whole Mpox? Well, PHEIC. What the heck does that mean? It stands for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It is the highest level of an announcement of public health concern that WHO makes. And Mpox had its initial one this past year in August. It was reiterated in November. And then a week ago today, WHO came out and reminded the world that Mpox remains as a public health emergency of international concern. This is their highest level of concern. It means that from a public health support, they then are releasing funds. This is a big deal. This is somewhat unprecedented in such a 6-month period, they have reiterated this declaration 3 times now. It's not the first time that there have been 3 declarations of a public health emergency because think of the years with HIV and other conditions. But in a 6-month period, this is really a big deal, and it's because of the threat that we're seeing in the current strain that's under way that we're going to talk about, and we'll be explaining more about this. So there are multiple Mpox variants now circulating. In 2022, we had an outbreak. That one had an estimated mortality of about 1%. The current one is 5x to 7x that level of mortality. So it's much more virulent, higher mortality. It's also circulating much more casually. The one in 2022 was mostly through intersexual contact. That still is the case in terms of a form of contact. But the current strain is actually being transmitted primarily through casual contact. And most of all children are not protected by it because they have never been vaccinated against, for instance, smallpox. It is -- Mpox is a member of what's known as the poxvirus family. It's a very close cousin to smallpox, and the same vaccine that prevents smallpox is what is preventing Mpox. So if you have young children that never were vaccinated, then they're at high risk, and we're going to see some data on that. But the current outbreak is now in U.S. and North America. It's in Europe. It's increasingly in states in the United States. You see California, Georgia, New Hampshire, New York, who knows where it is, in Texas, et cetera. There is a global need for resources. This is a very big deal. The virus continues to mutate. It continues to evolve. It is not going away. Last fall, I had the pleasure to meet with a very senior person at WHO, who's overseeing the response to the current Mpox situation. And that physician underscored to me said, whatever you hear, unless you're being told that this is a really big deal, it's not going away, it's continuing to evolve, you need to stay focused on getting us another vaccine as soon as possible. And that's what we're working toward. There's increased media attention, and this is just an example, but it's all over the place about this. This is as true as it says here on MedPage Today. It's a wake-up call because we can't wait until we are in a global situation to start responding. We've got to be doing it as it before it starts spreading and gets worse and worse. What we're seeing right now is very ugly threatening symptoms. This can blind people. Someone said to me the other day, well, what's the big deal? You get a rash-like thing and it goes away. No, it doesn't go away. It scars for life. If it gets in the eyes, you're blinded. It can -- for children, it's a much higher risk of mortality. This is a really big deal, a very big concern. In Africa alone, there are now 9 countries reporting it. It's concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC. So far, there have been over 60,000 cases of the current strain, which they refer to as Clade, but let's just use the common word, strain. Over 1,300 deaths in 2024. The vast majority, almost 80% have been children. Africa alone has said -- the Africa CDC has been saying since last summer, we need 25 million doses of the vaccine. The vaccine is MVA. Currently today, there's a single source supplier worldwide that provides that and they have insufficient capacity and they can't move fast to add capacity. They can get maybe 2 million doses likely to Africa by the end of this year. Africa needs 25 million. What are people looking for? We need to get additional suppliers. And we're going to talk about what that really means now. So let me just show you if you're questioning, where is it, it's all over now. And it's spreading. More and more cases, the more intense the color is, the darker is, is where you have the intensity of cases and they're spreading. So you can see what's happening there. This is out of the CDC just a few weeks ago. So what's the solution? WHO is coordinating everything. The #1 solution is to get additional MVA vaccine out there. Currently, there's a single source supplier worldwide. They can't produce enough. They've got a monopoly. Their price, at least, what they're pricing in the United States is $300 a dose. They haven't shown much flexibility on that. Africa is at the back of the line for that. What is most needed is an MVA vaccine that is ready to go into the clinic. GeoVax recently announced because we've been working on this over the last year. Last year, we put our pedal to the metal to move forward with this in a much faster manner because of the need as well as the medical need, the opportunity for us. And we've now produced a clinical-grade material under the Current Good Manufacturing Process or Production, CGMP. It's now been released. We're actually having it being vialed. So we hope that by the end of this year, we will have product that can begin to make a dent towards what is needed worldwide. We also have underway a new manufacturing process that's not here today, won't be here next year. But over the next few years, we're transitioning to it. We're in process development now, and we expect to be the first company in the world to produce a suspension cell line moving away from the very slow process that utilizes chicken embryonic fibroblast or cells out of chicken eggs, which is the current process, very slow, very cumbersome, can at most maybe produce 7,000 doses a batch under the continuous process we're working on. We'll be able to garner. We estimate over 100,000 doses in a 200-liter batch. We'll be able to do 5x the number of batches on an ongoing basis, and it will reduce the cost by fivefold factors. So it will produce much more product faster at lower cost, which means that Africa can get what they need. And even more importantly, it will enable us to transfer our technology into Africa, where Africa can become self-sufficient. Right now, they are totally reliant on a single supplier delivering product to them. And the current technology is so cumbersome. It isn't practical to try and build those factories and put them in on the African continent. The new method that we're working on, we refer to as our MVA AGE1. The AGE1 is the name of the cell line we're using. Moving away from the traditional process is going to eventually be a big game changer. But again, right now, we're producing under the traditional way, just trying to add to the supply that is out there. So we, right now, are working towards getting the product vialed. We, last month, assigned the responsibility, hired the firm to do it. They're putting everything in place right now. That work will all be done here in the USA, which is different. The current supplier, it's all done overseas in Europe. We're in discussions with stakeholders for emergency use licensing as this becomes forward that we have product that's really vialed and ready to go. That will enable us to then deliver it beyond just clinical studies into use for people to be used. Those discussions are underway now. They'll continue into the second half. And we're also implementing the process development elements in the advanced MVA manufacturing process. So we have all of that ongoing. Our goal is to be delivering product that can be utilized in people to be able to evaluate it, but at the same time, under emergency use licensing, which could be granted by WHO. They look at that consideration once you actually have it filed and you have product that can be used in humans. So we're right there at the brink. We're not quite there yet. But we're hoping that by midyear, end of third quarter, we'll have completed the vialing of that. So we're looking at some near-term very important milestones behind the introduction of this product. If we're successful for going forward, as we hope to be able to, we could actually begin to generate revenues over the next few years as opposed to a much longer development process. We've been given an expedited pathway for moving forward for registration by regulatory authorities. So more information will be coming out yet this year on that. So let's see what we have is the last -- one of the last questions I'm always asked is what is all this potentially worth? It's a major medical need from a global health emergency that we're dealing with, but also in certain countries such as the U.S., we have strategic national stockpile. The same vaccine is used as stockpile against smallpox for bioterrorism, the potential threat. So when we look at the combined value, which we hope to penetrate as we go forward with this, it's a $10 billion opportunity, estimated revenue potential on a global basis is what we estimate. Now let me underscore. This is not a sales forecast, but I also have on this chart the other products I had touched on. Our COVID-19 value as a potential globally as well as our Gedeptin just for head and neck cancer alone. So -- but basically, for the Mpox area, we're talking about, on a global basis, a $10 billion revenue potential that as we go forward, initially manufacturing under the same chicken embryonic fibroblast method as today, the slow cumbersome type way. But as we transition into our advanced manufacturing, we will be able to increasingly garner and compete and, we think, capture more of that potential out there and build a very strong business, just around our Mpox vaccine, GEO-MVA alone. So let me lastly just give a little bit on the financial situation. The last time we reported was our results from third quarter. At that point in time, it is $8.6 million reported. Our next reporting for Q4 and full year 2024, we have not announced the specific day, that will be announced soon, but it will be in the last full week of this quarter, so of March. At the time, we had shown through Q3, this number is higher now. But during the year of $19 -- a little over $19 million gross proceeds from financing through third quarter. We have no debt. We did announce in June the receipt of an award from BARDA. That's approximately $400 million in value. It was $26.2 million direct to GeoVax to support our manufacturing and our regulatory. With the stipulation, it could increase up to $45 million. It's already higher than it was initially. And then there's a direct funding for our CRO of $343 million. Together, those 2 add up to $388 million in total award funding. That's to fund the 10,000-patient Phase IIb project NextGen study that will compare our vaccine against one of the mRNA, randomized 5,000 on our vaccine, 5,000 on theirs. And I'll just say that currently, all sites have been confirmed by the CRO. Not all contracts have been signed, some of them are still being finalized and negotiated by the CRO, but the product is in manufacturing. And so that's the process. You get the award. The CRO starts doing their bit and you're doing your bit. So we're all coming together. So I'm not going to dwell any more on that. And then the capital structure. About almost 12 million common shares currently outstanding with about 7.8 million dilutive securities with a $5.08 average exercise point from warrants and all. So that's our financial update and when we're going to be announcing the next report. So at this point, John, I'll stop. I think you have -- you want to go over some questions, and we'll go from there.

Yes. In next few minutes, this has covered a couple of questions at some of the Tribe members have sent it. And remind others that you can send in the -- any questions through the Zoom chat feature that come to mind. Can't promise you we'll get them all answered today because David has got a short period to do this. But note that this video of this event will be published later today at the Tribe YouTube -- Tribe Public YouTube channel. And then also, as you've signed in here, I'll be sending up the Tribe this week, which will include that video. So if you want to review it and/or share it with anyone, the information, it will be readily available. So the first question in no certain order is how long would the Mpox trial last?

Mpox trial, well, protocol is still being developed. It's going to be conducted in Africa, in the U.S. and in Europe. It will be a few hundred patients. We anticipate it will take -- it's probably about a 6-month trial. So it's not a long-term trial. It will focus on immunogenicity and safety. The efficacy, given that this is Mpox, can be conducted using the animal rule, so that will be done in an animal model. We have been given regulatory guidance from the authorities that we don't need to do a full Phase I, Phase II, Phase III program. We could do a Phase III program. It is the trial we're talking about. And the other studies, we'll be referencing what we've previously done with MVA. And because of its safety, we've been giving exemptions historically from not having to do animal toxicology studies on trials using MVA because it's so recognized for its safety. So we'll use the animal model rule for the efficacy, which was traditionally done in certain types of viruses, including the poxviruses. And then we will do the human safety as well as immunogenicity.

Okay. Led to that, it says, when is the approval of GEO-MVA anticipated and what regulatory hurdles exist?

Well, the main regulatory hurdle is what I just outlined on the clinical development program and then the animal rule type thing. When it would be approved, I would imagine under that regard, there's 2 ways to look at this. One, it could be as early as the end of 2026, which I think would be a little too presumptuous on our part, but early first half of 2027. So that's pretty fast. But a quicker route will be, as I alluded to, that there is the opportunity to receive emergency use licensing once you have it in clinical evaluation. So as soon as we have -- so we've been in discussions with the stakeholders, and that's usually driven by WHO. And so at that stage, as soon as we have this vialed product, we are producing excess material. We're producing enough material to do the clinical trial and additional material to be able to utilize under an EUL type thing to be able to move it forward because under emergency use licensing, that allows different entities, different countries, for instance, or the Africa CDC and all to be able to purchase product for us. So we could be beginning to see generation of revenues, which would be a big milestone, obviously, for a company such as GeoVax sooner than the traditional regulatory, but we are working with and have been in touch now for over a year with regulatory agencies that have discussed with us both verbally and as well as in writing. We're working to reconfirm those things right now, but they've given us this expedited pathway without having to go through the traditional Phase I, Phase II, Phase III.

Got it. Thank you, David. Let me see. You kind of covered a few of these. I guess switching to the financial side. You had the financial page there. But it says, do you have enough operating cash to last the remainder of 2025? What are you suggesting here?

We wish we did. As every microcap NASDAQ pre-revenue company would, all of whom probably don't have enough cash for the whole year. Last year, we were fortunate we raised $25-plus million. We did it in tranches. Our operating needs are -- we communicate this publicly, so it's not confidential information, are between $20 million and $25 million. We look to target around $30 million to add to our balance sheet on -- throughout this year, next year and the next year to drive our programs forward, our new manufacturing process and all. It won't necessarily all be raised at once, so we'd love to do that. We'd love to see the stock price and the activity supportive of doing a sufficient raise to raise all that at the beginning of the year and then drive during it. But we will continue to raise money. We'll focus on doing as we have, not only through the dilutive methods of equity, but also through nondilutive as we have with BARDA and as we have with other NIH brands in the past. And we have other proposals with -- in the HHS right now, some of which have been signed off on as qualifying for funding, but the money hasn't been allocated yet. So we're looking to continue to do a balance of nondilutive as well as the dilutive source of funding to be able to drive the balance sheet forward and be able to accelerate our path.

Yes. It sounds like the nondilutive route, which you've been able to successfully do in the past is a real possibility in the relative short term, and we'll be able to lookout for that. A quick question here that just came across is how quickly does the Mpox virus mutate? How quickly do new strains come about? And how does the impact -- how does this impact vaccine development? Can the MVA vaccine protect against all extent clades of Mpox?

Well, you never know until you look back. But what we do know is that currently, the MVA vaccine, so either our GEO-MVA or MVA-BN from Bavarian Nordic, who's currently the single-source supplier worldwide, prevents against the previous as well, which was known as Clade II or IIb, and now Clade Ib. So that's what we have. Some people have raised SIGA Technologies antiviral called TPOXX that is out there. But keep in mind, that is for treatment, and it is only indicated for smallpox. And last August, and then again, I believe, in September, there were 2 failed clinical trials reported by SIGA that they had hoped, as we all would hope, that it would work against Mpox. But so far, that product has failed to demonstrate efficacy in 2 well-conducted trials by SIGA itself. One was announced last August, I think the other failure was announced in September. So right now, there's not a treatment that has been demonstrated against Mpox, and we're relying on this, and that's why our vaccine in getting it vialed and getting it out there becomes so critically important because there's just not enough to go around. But in terms of -- you don't know. You never know how quickly something mutates. We never knew how SARS-CoV-2 would evolve as quickly. It started with the Wuhan strain. It then went to the Delta, then the Omicron, Omicron XBB.1.5, Omicron KP.1, now it just continues to evolve. That's the nature of a virus trying to survive. So they continue to find ways. You stop it at one and then it figures out a new way. And I would imagine that being the nature of the virus, there will be something beyond the current one. The guidance I was given from WHO recently from the individual that oversees their emergency programs was this is going to continue to evolve. Right now, what we have and what we need is more MVA, and they are really interested in what we're doing with our advanced manufacturing. And that's where, for us, additional capital could accelerate that process.

Okay. In regards to that, I guess, what is -- is there any available current production capability for immediate distribution? And what -- if not, what is sort of the time line that you have proposed for that?

Right now, the world is dependent, obviously, on what's coming out of a single supplier. We have produced material, which is being vialed that is largely enough to do our clinical trial and then to have thousands of vials to also be able to utilize in conjunction and more so to engage with the likes of WHO and UNICEF. So these are entities that facilitate. And in the case of UNICEF, actually help fund for us to be able to do even more. Under the current manufacturing process, we would probably be able to do 7,000 doses a batch. That's not a lot, but that's sort of the limitations of doing that. Under the new process, we're looking at an excess of 100,000 doses in a 200 liter, so we'd be doing suspension cell lines. And keep in mind -- and that would be per batch, we'd be able to do more frequent batches quicker. So we'd be able to accelerate from that. So that difference from less than 10,000 to over 100,000 suddenly becomes even bigger because you can do more quicker and also add a fivefold reduction in costs. So as we move forward, that will be a real game changer. What will drive the speed will be obviously the balance sheet we have to be able to accelerate. Right now, we're not trying to produce a lot of product because we're not qualified or licensed to be able to sell any product. But we're producing intentionally and have produced sufficient drug product to be able to interact primarily with WHO and with UNICEF and probably with CEPI to be able to get our product out there, and then that becomes our reference standard for when we go to the new manufacturing, then we would unleash much greater production capabilities.

Okay. David, I know we've gone over the time you had allotted for this, about 11 minutes, in fact, so I do appreciate you hanging on with us. And I know we didn't get through all of the questions today. But I think I wanted to thank everyone for participating, and thanks for everyone and for you, David, to jump on here in GeoVax. And I hope that you're completely successful in bringing this to the forefront and to the world and that we contained this through the vaccinations. Quick reminder to everybody that, again, this video of this event will be up at the Tribe Public YouTube channel as soon as possible today. And if you missed anything or want to review anything and/or share it with others that should be aware of this alarming situation and aware of the developments around it. Look forward to having you on future events. And remind everybody that, again, GeoVax is publicly traded on the NASDAQ, symbol GVOX (sic) [ GOVX ]. And thank you again for your participation, questions, interest, and I look forward to seeing you at future events. Thanks again, David.

Thank you. And let me just say, you didn't catch it. You said GVOX. It's GOVX.

Well, you're right. So sometimes...

But thank you, everyone. I appreciate it.

It's GOVX. Don't forget it. Thanks a lot.