LENZ Therapeutics, Inc. (LENZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the LENZ Therapeutics Commercial Day. My name is Eef Schimmelpennink, President and CEO. Thanks all of you for being with us here today. We know it's hectic out there in the market. So I really appreciate everyone of you making the time to be here. So a special welcome to the 60-plus or so analysts and investors that are with us here in the room today at NASDAQ in New York as well as everyone dialing in through the webcast. We're really excited to share with you what we've been building at LENZ and, especially what's coming next. And I hope the video brought to life a little bit of what it's like to be a presbyopia and yes, I'm one of them. And most importantly, what we're poised to do to change that because we believe that even though presbyopia will affect almost everyone, it's not something that has to be a fact of life. And that's really what today is going to be about. It's about sharing our vision for our future with you. So you're going to hear from the team that's going to launch and commercialize our product with the same dedication and focus and commitment that we brought to the development of our products. And importantly, along the way, you'll hear from doctors and patients around their experience with LNZ-100, what they think about the product, what they're excited for. So I truly believe that we've built something really special with LENZ, and I'm really looking forward to sharing with you why we're more confident than ever about what's coming next. So by now, all of you will know that presbyopia is the inevitable losing of your near vision. It's the hardening of your lens that makes that you can no longer accommodate and look at something up close. It looks like the stuff on your left on the screen here. What used to be effortless no longer is, sending a quick text or looking at the menu or you look at your smartwatch like that. If that's you, no worries, you're not alone because it happens to pretty much everyone. There's 128 million presbyopes in the U.S. It's by far the largest market in ophthalmology. It's larger than any other ophthalmology indication combined, 4x the next largest market, which is dry eye. And frankly, the current solutions, they're just imperfect, whether it's your $2 reading glasses or I've seen some $800 ones out here, they just don't work well, whether it's your bifocal lenses or your progressive eyeglasses. None of them give you true seamless vision near to distance. They're just not good enough. And that's where LNZ100 comes in. [Presentation]

This is what it's going to be about. This is the real win. This is not near vision in a clinical setting, but in real life. This is about getting up in the morning, putting a drop in and getting your day going. You're on your way to work, you stop at your coffee shop, you grab your coffee, you're actually able to hit a pretty generous 22% tip without having to put your reading glasses on. That's generous coming from a guy from the Netherlands. So we got a different level here. But that's what this is all about. This is a drop in and move on solution that we're building here. But to be able to generate that, to be able to provide that to customers, it's really important to know what they want, to know what the target product profile is. And actually, that's really, really clear. What a consumer wants is a once-a-day eye drop that works quickly, that works for a full workday, and it works for pretty much everyone. That's that all eyes all-day mantra that we established 3, 4 years ago when we really took on the development of what's now LNZ-100. And if you look real briefly at our Phase III results, we've nailed that profile and then some. 71% of patients in our trial on their first day, first drop after 30 minutes, had at least 3 lines of near vision improvement. Can you imagine what that was like, you're being able to read your phone again after 30 minutes of putting a drop in. That's that wow effect that you'll hear us talk about. That's going to be really important as we start to launch the product. And then at our 10, which was the last time point that we measured in the study, still 40% of patients had at least 3 lines or more of near vision improvement. It's a very comfortable product. Most side effects were mild and transient and importantly, 0 serious AEs. So really a profile that people want. So when the consumers are excited, and you'll hear more about that later on. And we believe that what you just saw in that video was going to be the morning routine of millions of people. You wake up, do your thing, brush your teeth and put your drops in and off you go. A set it and forget it solution, really freedom, if you want it from your reading glasses, freedom from squinting, basically freedom to just see like you used to, again. And we know that people are waiting for that. When we did a big survey, 1,400 presbyopes, 60% of them said that they would seriously consider using an eye drop to treat that presbyopia. And then when we ask the people that were in our study, all the people that weren't active that they want to continue to use the product after the study, 75% of them said absolutely, definitely want to continue to use the product. And we ask them how often, 5 to 7 days a week. So basically, every day, that was what they were saying. That's great, great numbers. But it's just that in these are numbers. What's really important is how the consumers actually experience our products. So let me introduce you to Deanna. Deanna was in our Phase III trial. One of the patients of many that was on LNZ100. So we asked her to share with you what her real experience was when she was using a drop. [Presentation]

I love listening to Deanna' s story. I get so honest and so real. She starts out like many of us, we go, she was skeptical, like how can an I drop do this, like really an eye drop that's helping me see again. And as you put the drop in and she was surprised. That's what she said. I was surprised that it actually works because it does work, and we've seen that in the data. But I don't -- it goes beyond that. She says, "I was actually amazed, this works better than you could ever imagine. Okay, hearing that from consumers, from patients in our study hearing that makes us know that we're on to something. This works. Deanna was saying, it made me feel 20 years younger. That's an emotional connection. That's what we're after. That's the seeing better is feeling better component that will really drive in our launch. So here in Deanna say that there was a real life change. It had changed every aspect of my life. That's great. That's a personal story. That's an NF1. We know -- we believe that we can replicate that for hundreds of people. And with that, really built that blockbuster market that we know is out there. You've heard us talk about how big we think that market can be. I'm actually being, I think, pretty conservative about it. a $3 billion U.S. market based on a very modest 6% penetration at $8 million users ultimately. Even though we know that this product works for pretty much everyone, very much all of the $128 million price reps out there. And then rather than saying and following what people say that they're going to use this 5 to 7 days a week. We're actually haircutting then the half. We're saying, let's assume, it's only 3 days a week that to get to get you to the $3 billion U.S. market. There's a great opportunity ex U.S. that we haven't even spoken about yet, but we will be chasing that. So clearly a blockbuster opportunity. [Presentation]

So that's what we're going to go after, not just better vision but better living. That's really what we can do with this drop. So I've shown you and spoken about the problem, shown you the solution, taking you through the fact that we truly think that this can be a blockbuster market. But frankly, that's no longer where most of your questions are. The questions are no longer around, is that really a market there? That was 2 years ago. The question is no longer, well, is your product actually working? That was a year ago. We've ticked those boxes. I think we've convinced most people that the market is there and the product works. The key question that's on all of our minds is how are you going to sell a consumer-type product in a prescription-type market. So that's what we're really going to unpack what you hear today. So next, you're going to be hearing from Dr. Marc Bloomenstein, who's a lead KOL, who is a lead investigator in our studies, but frankly, also in many of the competitor products. And he's going to talk to you about his experience with the products. He's also spoken to many of his peers. And you'll hear them answering the key questions that are on our minds, whether they think about the products, how do they think it's going to fit into their practice and what can the adoption be? From there, we're really going into the commercial strategy and doing a deep dive on that. Our 3 key pillars, how we're going to get doctors to recommend us, patients to request us by name, and are making sure that they have a seamless journey to their use. Then we'll take you through what we're doing as we're actually nearing launch. We're in 4 months of our PDUFA date. So how are we getting ready to launch. And we'll talk to you about the foundation that we have built within lens that really sets us up for what we feel is going to be a very successful launch. And I will close out with something that I'm sure we're all looking forward to. We'll have an interview with Tiffani Thiessen, which I'm sure you know, actress, author and like me, a presbyope, with a much better and much more funny story around that. So with that, I'd like to welcome Dr. Marc Bloomenstein to the stage here. Marc, all yours.

Hi, everybody. Welcome. I am the face of presbyopia, but also I will tell you that I am the face of an optometrist. I graduated optometry school in 1990 and 1994, I got a little bit older. So I've been practicing for 31 years. My experience brought me into an ophthalmology practice where we did cataract and refractive surgery. But more importantly, we were innovators. Now 30 years ago, the technology and the opportunities that we have were not available. So I was fortunate enough to be involved in early clinical trials for corneal refractory procedures, which meant patients 30 years ago looking to get out of their glasses. I see a lot of young people here, so you don't realize that there is times when we actually would slash the cornea, we called it RK to get people to see and the beautiful thing about that procedure was they got about 6 to 7 months of good vision. And you know what, they loved it. These people loved it. And it's like after that, it just didn't work as well. So we're always looking for better solutions. Fortunately for me, I've been involved in about 25 different clinical trials. I've been the lead investigator, the principal investigator and about 8, which have to do with pharmaceuticals. And as Eef said, I've been involved in clinical trials around presbyopia. The interesting thing about presbyopia, it's kind of, Eef has said that you possibly are going to get it. No, the reality is you absolutely are going to get it. And so this is kind of the holy grail. How can you achieve an opportunity to help patients to be able to function without having to think about glasses or contacts. And so for me, in practice, I always kind of thought of myself as the giver. You're coming in, you want to be able to function, you want to be able to see. And as optometrists who are the primary care physicians for the eyes, we have to look for opportunities to help our patients. And when we started thinking about opportunities, we're looking for a better solution. Now some of you don't remember, but there was a time when it was just bifocals. Now can you imagine looking at your tablet or your iPhone with bifocals, you can't, driving in your cars where you have the dashboards, you can't. So we moved on to Progressive. And at that time, Progressive lenses you would get wavy distance vision. The stairs were 8 feet taller, people got nauseous, but you know what, they persevered because wearing bifocals is like the harbinger of old age. It's like you're looking at me right now thinking, he practiced 30 years ago, did look so young. But if these were bifocals, you'd be like, oh, oh, yes, he's old. No. okay? Progressive lenses gave our patients the opportunity to say, "No, I'm needing reading glasses. So that desire has been there. And so for us, as optometrist, when a patient comes in to see us, we have to meet their quality of life. We're looking to help them improve their quality of life, whether it be through glasses, contacts, or newer opportunities. But let's listen to Darryl, see what he has to say. [Presentation]

Darryl is 100% right. When I'm talking to patients, and I'm giving them an opportunity to be able to function, to be able to kind of think about not having to think about it. Contacts are great because you drop them in, you don't think about it, but contact lenses themselves become dry irritated, patients can't worry them as often. So we always prescribe glasses because of what happens if. To me, when we start thinking about practice building opportunities, if you're not recommending to patients other opportunities, then why are you practicing? I mean, you come to see me because you want to hear what's new, what's different, what's unique. But I also want to provide you an opportunity to do something that you don't have to think about. Now when I think about therapeutics to treat presbyopia, the challenge that Darryl had said is that it's kind of like having a battery on your iPhone that runs out after about 3 or 4 hours then you're scurrying around here, especially in New York City, trying to find a plug-in. Maybe you can find a clean bathroom where you're at it, none of those 2 things are going to happen. They're unicorns people. You want something that's going to last the whole day. So to me, when I think of opportunities, I think of the fact that we have the and, not the or. It's and a treatment. You want to go clubbing, put a drop in, okay? You want to go to work all day, put a drop in but you want it to be sustainable. When you think about other opportunities for primary care physicians, I think Dr. Pamela Lowe has some good thoughts on that as well. [Presentation]

The other challenge is that only about it showed $128 million up there. About 1/3 of those, if not a little bit more, strictly go to over-the-counter, the cheaters, magnifiers make things bigger, how many of you guys have been sitting by somebody in a plane and they have the font on their iPhone or on their Android as large as the phone and you're trying to send a secret message that you don't want people to see, but it is so large, everybody can read it or you're at a restaurant and somebody takes their camera and basically uses the light on there to illuminate and it's just like a beacon for, "Hey, I'm a boomer. I'm a presbyope, I've got my phone out." It's like, to me, I would do anything not to do that. But the interesting thing when you see that light is because there's a near triad that occurs when we have presbyopia or age-related loss of close vision. And the 3 things that happened is that your eyes turn in, they converge, your lens moves forward. And when your lens moves forward, it makes you more nearsighted. So people who are trying to see in the distance, if their lens is moving forward, it blurs their distance vision, but they can still magnify and see better. But the third thing that happens is that your people get smaller. Now the interesting thing about how small they get has been -- I guess, there's been a question out there. For me, it's not a question. The smaller the people size, the greater the depth of focus. And you can look at the data and the science is out there, that the smaller that people get the sub 2-millimeter people is going to improve that depth of focus. It's going to make better close vision but for somebody who is involved in the clinical trials for LNZ100, I can assure you that the one thing that it also does is it improves the distance vision. Because by improving depth of focus, you get both distance improvement as well as the closed vision. And I'm actually kind of proud here because Deanna actually was 1 of my subjects. And everything she said on there was what I got to hear her say for the 2, 10-hour visits that she was in there. Oh my God. Oh my God, this is amazing. I can't believe how amazing this is. So that sub 2-millimeter people to me is optimal to give our patients the absolute best opportunity to be able to see distance as well as, more importantly, their closed vision. Milton was another investigator in multiple clinical trials like I've been in, and he has his own take on this as well. [Presentation]

Now, I know Milton very well. So for him to admit that he was wrong, that took a lot. That took a lot. And I think you guys all know people just like that. So the question now boils down to, are people excited about treating presbyopia by using a therapeutic. Well, if you go back to the very first slide I showed you, there was about 6,000 prescriptions written a week when we first got the first taste of the possibilities of treating presbyopia therapeutically, and we were excited. Now what it lacked was the fact that it didn't last very long, but the lacked is they had a lot of side effects and more importantly, affected distance vision. The desire to give our patients the ability to function without glasses or contacts in a society where we do so much with our vision now that it makes it almost impossible to have to kind of think about how we're going to manage those. The desire is there. In a recent study, they found that 82% of doctors that were pulled showing the attributes of aceclidine said that they would prescribe it. Me, after seeing my subjects that were in this clinical study, I will tell you that as 100% of the time when a presbyope comes into my practice, I'm going to ask them, would you be interested in hearing about a drop that you can dose once a day and more importantly, it's going to last you the whole day to be able to function. And you know what the answer of the vast majority of my patients is, a resounding, yes. But Tasha, who's been in more clinical trials than I can even think about has even a different perspective as to what she thinks that our patients, your colleagues, maybe 1 or 2 of you that are sitting out, there is a very young audience and it will feel. I'm looking right at you buddy. Okay. Let's see what Tasha thinks. [Presentation]

I 100% concur with everything Tasha said, involved with 4 of the clinical trials for the presbyopia drops. This is the only trial where you knew the minute they were dosed at that first 30-minute mark, we could see something happening. But at that 1 hour mark, they knew as well. And the sad part is that if you were on the vehicle and you were sitting out there with other subjects and they were throwing their glasses away, there -- the people on the vehicle were sad. They were sad. And so at the end of the study, they're like, can we get some of that? Can you hook a brother up?" And I'm like, no, we can't. So you've got to wait until it becomes approved. So I'm going to hand off to Shawn, but I will be around later if anybody wants to chat with me about my clinical experience with an absolutely ridiculously phenomenal opportunity for patients. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Dr. Bloomenstein, So I'm Shawn Olsson. I'm the Chief Commercial Officer at LENZ Therapeutics. And today, I'm going to take you through the commercial strategy. So to be honest, just seeing what all the doctors shared with you as well as the Phase III participants, like I'm really excited for this product. And what we have as a company is we have a very clear strategy for commercialization. And we're going to dive into each one of the components of the strategy today. First, I'll take you through doctors recommend us. When we think about this product, we can look at the first product launch in this market. And what we see is roughly 15,000 eye care professionals represent over 85% of all those scripts. So our goal is to educate those 15,000 eye care professionals on not only the product that is potentially best-in-class, but to integrate it into their practice and offer it to their patients. After that, we'll go through consumers requesting us by name. So for that one, really, our goal is to make sure that we can show you how we're going to create an emotional connector to drive a DTC campaign that will lead to consumers requesting this product by name. And I'm really excited that our VP of Marketing, David Choromanski, is going to take you through that section, show you how he's built brands in the past and how he'll build this brand as well. And then lastly, we'll go through the seamless journey to use. This is a product when people hear about it. We want to take them from awareness to trial to usage as quick as possible and make it extremely seamless. Now, the great thing is this is a cash-pay product. So it allows a lot of opportunities to be extremely creative from this aspect. So we look forward to going to that side as well. So in terms of preparing for doctors to recommend us, this is really a multipronged strategy. And it's a strategy over time as well. So the 3 components we're going to dig in today is, first, the unbranded campaign. Then we're going to move into our medical team. Those MSLs are highly active, and they're getting a lot of questions already. And then lastly, we're going to give you an update on where we are with our field and all the materials and strategy to support that field. So jumping into the unbranded campaign. So here, we took a really unique strategy for unbranded campaigns. A lot of times with unbranded campaigns, and we saw this recently with Demodex blepharitis, what you had to do is make people aware of the problem, right? There's mites on your eyes. And by the way, there's a good reason to eradicate those mites. Here in presbyopia, it's a lot different. Now as you heard from Dr. Bloomenstein, these optometrists, these ophthalmologists, they deal with presbyopia every day, right? There's not a strategy to train them what is presbyopia? What we need to make sure we train them on is have them take another look at presbyopia eye drops after that first launch and be selective about their choices moving forward. So our goal here was to actually educate them on what to look for in an ideal presbyopia solution. Train them, you really need to be focused on an eye drop that's going to get your pupil down below 2 millimeters because that's what's going to drive depth of focus. Help them understand that you want a biotic that's going to be pupil selective, hit the muscle you want, avoid the muscle you want, right? So hit the pupil, avoid that ciliary muscle. And lastly, and what we saw in the first launch was there wasn't a lot of direction on who are your early adopters Who do I go for first? So this campaign also focused on sharing our research that we did. So we did an extremely large 1,400-person study to say who are their earliest adopters, and we found 3 key groups that stood out. The first group were those that are in contact today, over 45. They enjoy glasses-free vision, and they want to stay glasses. The second group are people that have had refractive surgery in the past. They've invested in glasses-free vision and now they're being forced to carry around the readers. And lastly, we found an extremely high correlation to those that have been to a med spa in the past 12 months. We call our med spa group. Now if you have been to a med spa, if you've gotten BOTOX, if you've gone and done plastic surgery, you over-index on interest. So our goal is to really educate this community. So let's take a look at how we approach that a little bit differently. [Presentation]

So we're really proud of what that's already accomplished and what it's going to continue to build on and accomplish as we work towards our PDUFA date. Now with this strategy, we really rewrote how you approach actually going after an unbranded campaign. This was not lens-led. This grew legs of its own and became ECP-led. Just to give an example of that this morning, some of these doctors were featured on the large NASDAQ sign outside of this building today. As we started shooting it off to those doctors, it was minutes and all of a sudden, they're popping up online, and we're on ODs on Facebooks within minutes of sending it off to Alan Glaser. So it's really working and it's getting that voice out there. We have over 50 KOLs that go -- went out there and shared their voice, and we're releasing those almost every week, and that's been going on for a year straight and it's going to keep continuing on up until launch. When we think of the advertising behind that, right, we already have over 2 million views across all those ads. I can't tell you how many times I met the booth the conventions and people come up and they're like, "I can't get away from your ads. I keep seeing your ads. It's working, and it's showing people what to look for in the ideal solution." Not only are they noticing it, they're internalizing it. They're coming and learning more. Over 1,200 people then going and digging into the site and looking at the additional information. And I think the other thing that's great about this campaign that I want you to notice is we didn't cut corners on this campaign, high-end visuals, high-end look and feel. Dave is going to talk to you about our product and is being a category of 1, we're going to integrate that into everything we do. We weren't just looking for a photographer. We worked with our ad agency to find the best photographer, right? We weren't okay with people sending in their own headshots like we brought the studios to them to make sure we had that brand continuity through it. So we're really excited about it. Not only that, it's also winning awards, right? We're seeing great uptake and great feedback from the community and how it wins and so we're really excited. More importantly, and most importantly, what did we get out of it? We actually surveyed and sampled our target users. These are people that are 80% optometry, 20% ophthalmology. They've prescribed VUITY multiple times like this is our target 15,000 ECPs and already 88% of them are excited about a nonpilocarpen solution, right? Our goal was to make sure we lay the foundation for the new non-pilo solution. Moving on from the unbranded campaign. What I'd like to highlight is actually that we have a very highly engaged MSL team, right? Again, learning from what's going on out there and what's working. And again, we saw this with Tarsus. They brought on a 100% optometric-based MSL team and worked very well. And we followed suit. What we learned was optometrists are looking for a peer-to-peer discussion. They're not looking for an academic-to-practitioner discussion, right? So where we're at now, we have a 12-person medical team on board already. Like I said, 100% optometrists led. When we look back at 2024, we really focused on national conventions, we've upped that game in 2025. Now they're targeting 60 conventions this year. So they're not only hitting the national conventions, now we're dropping down to regional conventions as well as state-level conventions in those markets where we saw the biggest uptake with VUITY. Not only are they attending, they're wrapping around it, medical events. And I think a great example of that is just a few weeks back, we're at CECO and we rented out the College Football Hall of Fame. It was literally attached to the convention center, right? Over 100 optometrists came, and they heard from a host of our clinical investigators just sharing the background of our -- the product and development and what they're already seeing with it. Lastly, they've had over 1,000 meaningful -- 1,000 meaningful medical interactions. And our goal is to continue to expand that. Our intent is to have that MSL team engage with the majority of our key target ECPs ahead of PDUFA and they're out there doing just that. Lastly, moving on to the highly talented sales team. So we have the benefit of looking back at the first launch. And when we did that, we looked at the landscape. Like I said before, 15,000 target ECPs represent over 80% of all the VUITY scripts. From there, we're going to build out all of our targeting and segmentation. We have each 1 of these doctors' names, addresses and they've all been fully decile. So we know exactly what we want to go after. It's 80% optometry 20% ophthalmology, and we built out the 88 territories that we want to go after. Again, very similar size to what you saw in recent launches. They were targeting 15,000 ECPs and 86 territories. Now when we look at the progress of building that team, we've made a lot of great progress. That leadership team is already in place. As we shared with you before, our VP of Sales has comes from Allergan as well as AbbVie with eye care experience. In Q4 of last year, we brought on our 2 regional directors, again, lots of experience. They come from both Alcon as well as AbbVie. Now, over the past couple of months, we brought on all of our 10 district managers. When we look at that leadership team, we have over 300 years of sales experience. And the interest to join LENZ is phenomenal. We posted our 88 rep positions. We had over 5,500 applicants in place. So our goal and expectation is that we're bringing on the sales team ahead of PDUFA and the goal is to have all 80 of them on by July 1. That team actually right now is in Phoenix today, they're doing final round interviews for about 20% of those territories already. So we're making great progress, and we're seeing very experienced great people coming into that process. Now that's just the team itself, right? And I can tell you, I'm seeing a great team come together. That team will be fully supported beyond that. So when you think about the right materials for that team. Internally, we set a target of pencils down by April 1. So we want to have all of our marketing materials ready, pending any last final feedback from the FDA ready to go on April 1. And I'm excited to share that we have those pieces ready for the field, so they're going to be ready to go. Now, we also want to make sure that they have the right multichannel support around them. So when they're going to the doctor, not only are they already aware of it from the unbranded campaign, but they're getting the top-level support from the advertising online as well. So we have a multi-marketing channel around that for Surround Sound. Again, those ads are developed and underway, and we'll hit them where it makes sense. And so that really covers how we're actually focused on making sure doctors can recommend us. I'm now going to bring up our VP of Marketing to take you through how we're going to make sure consumers request us by name.

Thank you, Shawn. As Shawn mentioned, I'm going to walk you through how we're going to effectively create a great brand that consumers will indeed ask for by name. And to build a strong brand, fundamentally begins by having a great product because I can do a wonderful advertising campaign that brings you in to try the brand. But if the product doesn't deliver on the promise of the advertising or if it doesn't meet your expectations, you're not going to repurchase it. So in my career, I've had the very good fortune of being able to work on all of these different brands as to build these brands, that at their core are great products. And as you can see, they are in a variety of categories, they had a variety of consumer target audience and the strength of the competition varied across the categories. But we did all the right consumer insight work. So we knew which target audiences to hone in on to grow the business. And then we built the right marketing mix. We've built the right messaging. And in some cases, we built the right consumer websites so that we delivered tremendous sales growth across all these brands. For Barq's Root Beer, we far exceeded the soft train category growth rates and grew it to be over a $600 million business within the Coca-Cola portfolio. And as a result, 2 consecutive years in the Coca-Cola annual report, it was called out for that success. At Red Bull, we grew the business from under $90 million to over $1.25 billion in 6 years. Then the CEO of Red Bull asked me to join him at Dermalogica so we could Red Bull this thing. And we built a compelling consumer-centric e-commerce site, which created a robust brand new sales channel for the company that continue to grow and augment the other sales channels. And then Dermalogica was acquired by Unilever. At STAAR Surgical, who makes EVO ICL, we began at the company when they were losing money. We then turned it into a very profitable company in 7 years. And over that 7-year time frame, the stock price went from $7 to over $150. But that was then and this is now. Now once again, I get to build a brand that's based on an exceptional product, LNZ100. And there's actually parallels to Red Bull with LNZ100. Namely, many people think of Red Bull as the energy drink category creator, but it wasn't, Lipovitan in Japan was. And Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull, would go to Japan on business, and he would try Lipovitan, and it was just okay. But he saw the large opportunity for the energy drink category. So he came back and created a new different formulation, and that's the formulation of Red Bull today. Then he provided us with the investments needed to build the marketing mix, to build the messaging, so that Red Bull is indeed seen as the energy drink category creator and understood the test of time. So now LNZ100 is not the category creator of presbyopic eyedrops, VUITY was. But VUITY didn't deliver on its advertising promise. It's pilocarpine formulation wasn't ideal for the category. And as such, the brand lost momentum and sales have dwindled. So we're also very much benefited by the fact that Dr. Gerry Horn said about making LNZ100 the right way, namely, he started with an independent peer-reviewed study that showed that you'll get dramatic improvement in near vision if you get the pupil size below 2 millimeters. And you heard that corroborated by not only Dr. Bloomenstein, but Dr. Milton Hom in his video. And then Dr. Hom also was trying to find a drug that not only would get the pupil size below 2 millimeters, but 1 that would be well tolerated for consumers and 1 that would work fast and last. And as you've heard from Dr. Heinemann, who's done hundreds of studies. She can count on 1 hand the products that she can see being successful. And LNZ100 is 1 of those. She's done 13 presbyopic studies, whereby patients have been in all 13 presbyoptic studies. This is the 1 that they love and LNZ100 is the 1 that they want to keep. So we are best-in-class. We have a fantastic product. So this is the foundation that myself and our team gets to work from to build a brand that consumers ask for by name. And we know how to do this. We've done it successfully in the past, and we're going to do it again. As Ed said, we'll build this brand around better vision and better living to get consumers to ask for it by name. Now to do that, that comes from engaging consumers effectively, reaching them where they consume their media. It also comes down to desirability creating a plan so that they see this brand and they want it. So I'm going to walk you through our plan. You're going to see a lot of the components that we use to build successfully those other brands on the prior slide, become a part of the plan for LNZ100. So let's start with the marketing mix. First thing we're going to do is we're going to sample. We sampled for Barq's, We sample for Dermalogica, we sample for Red Bull. In this category, roughly 60% of the people coming in are looking for a solution for presbyopia. When you have a great product, there is no better proof point than let a consumer try it. So we're going to have sales available for our doctors. They'll be able to, if they want, offer to the patient right then and there, they pass their eye exam to try LNZ100. And within 30 minutes, they're going to see the positive effects. So this will be how we begin our marketing mix with sampling through our doctors. We'll also advertise. All those brands that you saw on the prior page or prior slide, we advertise for all of those. We know how to build an effective media mix, so we'll reach the target audience, and we know how to create messaging that breaks through, and I'll share with you on some slides how we deliver that again for LNZ100. Advocacy. This comes down to celebrities and influencers. We use this effectively at Red Bull, where we use action sport athletes, and we did it effectively for EVO ICL, where we had celebrities in Japan, K-pop stars in Korea, athletes in Europe, athletes and celebrities in the U.S. It works when it's done right, and we'll walk you through how we're going to do it right again for LNZ100. Now the brand itself. This brand is going to live on a lot of bathroom sink counters. So as you saw from the packaging, it's going to be sleek, stylish. Everything we do from the packaging to the materials in the doctor's office through the messaging that we deliver to consumers will be sleek and stylish. And when we say simple, this comes down to the messaging itself. We are not going to make any consumers work to understand what we're offering. We'll take the approach that we did for Barq's and for Red Bull, namely for Barq's, it has this unique [indiscernible] formulation gives a little spiciness, kick. We didn't talk about [indiscernible] in our advertising. We said Barq's has bite. And for a young male that piqued their curiosity and the desirability to try Barq's. And of course, we could deliver on the advertising promise because Barq's did have a bold taste. Same thing with Red Bull. Red Bull gives you wings. We didn't talk about the glucaronalactone, the touring, the B vitamins, everything that's in Red Bull to give the energy. But Red Bull gives you wings was both an efficacy promise and an emotional promise, and we'll deliver that with LNZ100. And then when it comes to substance, that's the product itself. I've shared with you Dina's experience with it. You've heard all the doctors talk about it. And let me share with you another patient who was in the trial, Pamela and her experience with LNZ100. [Presentation]

So 2 things really stand out. You heard Dr. Glover talking about, he wants to help patients live their life on automatic. You heard from Pamela, she now lives her life she lives her life on automatic with LNZ100. She had her 8-hour day, mapped out. And the beauty of it then is I only need to know where my reading glasses are basically by my bedside table and perhaps at my island and I'm done. And then secondly, you heard how she's going to tell everyone. Well, Dr. Pamela [ Lo ] also commented on that. When you have a great product, word of mouth is the hidden unmeasurable part of the marketing mix. And we have a great product. We're going to have a great brand. People are going to tell other people. So that's going to be another component that we don't measure that's a part of our marketing mix. I want to share with you another consumer who is in the LNZ100 trial. And here, you're going to hear more of the Red Bull benefit, not only the efficacy, but the emotional benefit of LNZ100. [Presentation]

I mean how great is that? A prime example of better vision, better living. Chad talks about how that emotional benefit of confidence that brings him. So what we'll do on our behalf is we're going to create a vibrant YouTube channel where consumers can hear from Chad, they can hear from Pamela, Dina and many others. And then we'll also create advertising from these testimonials. We'll cut these into 10, 15 second segments. So when we place these ads, consumers can hear about Chad, not only the efficacy, but the emotional benefit. So they can look and go, "Oh, you know what, I'm looking for exactly that. And again, they're going to come in and ask for LNZ100 by name. A reference at the beginning that there's 128 million presbyopes out there. So the first thing you have to do is understand who your brand would over-index for who is most wanting your brand. And so we did quantitative consumer insight work, where we ask 45- to 55-year-old, who are suffering from presbyopia at the appropriate income levels. who most -- or who -- of these, who wants a presbyopic eye drop to use and put your life on automatic as it were. And so what we learned was, these are the 3 consumer groups that are highly over-indexed on looking for a presbyopic eye drop to live their life. As you can see, it's contact lens wears post-LASIC patients and medspa consumers. So we know exactly who we're going after in terms of our initial target audiences. And we'll let these people create the word of mouth ripple for the many others that are out there. And then we've built a plan where we're going to surround these consumers with our media, with our advertising. We will touch the vast majority of every single one of these target audiences, and we'll do it through their social sites. Not surprisingly, their favorites are Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest. And as I mentioned, in terms of online video, YouTube, 70% of our target audience uses YouTube. That's why we'll have a vibrant presence there, and that's why we'll do advertising there. And then connected TV. Again, we'll have a vibrant presence where we meet our target audience. And then we'll do display ads as well on the websites that they gravitate to for their activities. And then I talked about celebrity influencer marketing. Say what you will about the Kim Kardashians of the world, but celebrities get consumers to pick their head up and see what they're talking about. Now the best celebrity advertising is one where you have an authentic celebrity. You think about Michael Jordan, when he did Nike shoes. It's credited with turning around Nike. And an authentic celebrity is one that actually uses your product. So we have a great agency partner, and we'll find celebrities, celebrity or celebrities who again, appeal to our target audiences, and will be consumers of LNZ100. We'll let them use it for an extended period of time. So again, they can talk credibly about the benefits. And in the advertising, they'll be able to share their personal experiences both in terms of efficacy and relatable moments. And then we'll supplement that with influencers. As you can see these 2 lower levels of the pyramid, these mid-tier and micro influencers. These are people that have followers in the 250,000 or below range. And so here, once again, we'll let them be consumers of the brand, let them use it for a length of time and then with them, we'll let them do their own user-generated content. So they'll talk to the followers in their own voice. Again, the benefits of LNZ100, the relatable moments and why they love it. So in this way, we'll surround our target audience with messaging from celebrities and influencers. So they'll build that ripple effect, while everyone is talking about and using LNZ100. So that's half the battle, making sure that your brand or your messaging is in the right place to reach your target audience. A huge part of your success then to get consumers to ask for your brand by name is to have great messaging because our competition is clutter. And what I mean by that is there's $11 billion of health care advertising spent each quarter. Then you add to the fact that there's $100 billion of consumer advertising spend each quarter. So that can become a lot of white noise for consumers. And if you don't have a really good message, they're just going to roll right by it when they're on Instagram or they're not going to pay attention to it on their laptop or on their TV. So what we set out to do was make sure our ad would indeed resonate our ad campaign. And so we created a campaign and then we tested it against 45- to 55-year-old suffering from presbyopia at appropriate income levels, and we placed these ads in endemic sites. So we placed them in the Facebooks and the Instagrams so they would see it as a real ad. And then we measured its effectiveness. And so here's what we learned. When we then asked how likely does this add to affect your consideration, we had persuasion scores of 86%. 86%, so we far exceeded the category norms for health care advertising and for consumer packaged goods advertising. And the reason we're able to do that was because they were memorable. They were differentiated. When you think of being bombarded by $100 billion of advertising and they're just scrolling, they've stopped. It had stopping power because, again, it was memorable, it was differentiated. And then you think about, again, our target audience. It had huge relevance for them. So not only did they get them to stop again, a simple messaging, they got the relevance of it. And so what do they want to do? It drove them to want to purchase it. And we say drive to purchase in this case, that equals a click. They watch the ad, they click. And so where do they go? They go to a very relatable consumer website where they can see this is an everyday drop. This is something for me. It's sleek, it's stylish, it's modern. [Presentation]

So as you can see, it's highly relatable. This is exactly what they're looking for. And again, if they want to learn more, they can click on the About LNZ100 tab, real experiences, they can click on that. And again, they can watch videos. If they want to watch Chad, Dina, Pamela or any others. Then, any questions you may have, the FAQs are there. They can find out what the pricing is. And then again, click, find your doctor, go in and see them, get your eye exam, qualify, get your prescription. So circling back to our goal. Once again, very fortunate given a base that is an exceptional product, LNZ100. And we are poised and set up to deliver on the rest of it, creating the understanding that this brand is going to give you better vision and better living. We've got an outstanding marketing mix. We've got outstanding messaging. We have a great website. We have excellent agency partners. So just like Red Bull is now seen as the category creator for energy drinks, LNZ100 is going to be seen as the category creator for presbyopic eyedrops. And we, too, will stand the test of time. Thank you. I'll turn it back over to Sean Olsson.

Great. Thank you, David. So what you've seen today is we've gone through the commercial strategy, we hit our first pillar, doctors recommend us. And as you can see, we're already well on that journey. You heard from many of them today. The second one was consumer surprise us by name. And I think what you just saw with the horsepower of David and his team behind them, not only are we well on our way, you can see a lot of it's already put in place, right? And we talked about in April 1 pencils down date, you can see a lot of that's already pulled together and ready to go. And now lastly, what I want to take you through is that seamless journey to use, right? How do we take someone from I want this product to its trial and usage as quickly as possible. So we desire to create that seamless journey to use. And the 3 different areas I want to talk about today are that first 1 of visiting the ECP, the sample and script and then ultimately, the fill and refill. What you don't see on here are any PBMs or any of that background work that has to be done with insurance. We really like that this is a cash pay product. That allows us to very efficiently move people through this process. And we saw that with the first product launch, right? They were very quickly getting up to those 6,000 scripts per week because access could be streamlined. And when you think about the first one, visiting the ECP. So there's a couple of ways they're going to visit the ECP. Let's start with who the doctors are seeing today already. So when we did our survey, what we saw that, again, of our target eye care professionals, on average, they're already seeing 215 presbyopes every month, right? Now extrapolate that across 12 months a year and our 15,000 target ECPs. That's over -- that's nearly 40 million presbyopes already walking through those doctors' doors, visiting the ECP and that's before we turn on all this DTC, right? We turn on the direct consumer and we push even more into that doctor's office. Now when we turn on the DTC, some of those people may have an eye doctor, some might not. And that's where the find-a-doc really comes in, setting them up to get, quickly find a doctor and a doctor with sample so they can try it. After that, we'll go on to the sample and script. So let's talk about our sample pack. This is going to be a 5-day sample pack, and we put a lot of thought on this. This is the right size sample to try it and also bridge them until that product shows up at their door. This is very similar to what you see with contact lenses. When I get my new contacts every year, right, they set up my new prescription, they give me five-pack, so I'm good to go that day. And then when my contacts arrive at my door a few days later, I have that coverage until then. So a very similar strategy to contacts, also rightsized because this amazing WOW effect. You heard it from those patient testimonials in Phase III. It works and it works fast. This isn't like dry eye products where you have to build up any accumulation or use it for months on end until it shows up. This works day 1. Day 1, hour 1, 95% had a 2-line improvement, right? That's why this product really lends itself to sampling, and we're excited about that. And then this being a bridge pack is great. So just like contacts, this doesn't require going to a pharmacy to pick up your sample. Our reps will carry these samples to the eye doctor. Those eye doctors will be able to hand that sample directly to the patient so they can immediately have that sample to try. You won't have to worry about it getting caught up in the IQVIA scripts or any of that data because it's all dispensed at optometrist, not through the pharmacy setting, in addition to that, to make it very easy for both the doctor and the patient. So our strategy is 1 sample, 1 script, right? So in the doctor's office, when they're putting in that script, it will go right into their existing EHR system, right? And you probably often remember when you were talk to a doctor and they have a new prescription for you, the first thing -- or the last thing they say is, so where do you want your script sent, right? And then you usually give them your local pharmacy. Well, with the system the way we have it set up, they'll be able to send it to our partnered e-pharmacy or their local pharmacy if that's what the consumer prefers. So when we look at this, let's deep dive into our e-pharmacy a little bit. So we spent a lot of time selecting the right e-pharmacy partner. This has really taken off, I'd say, over the last 3 years, right? When you look at the backgrounds and developments of his and hers and rose, this is really become the common place, people like to get their product at their door, and we wanted to make sure we provide that option. So when we went through selecting this process, we made sure that we could find a partner that had that right consumer engagement that it has the ability for that auto refill, right? We really cared about the consumer experience and ease. We spent less time focusing on what a lot of them offer, which is the back-end services. Now how can I manage health care -- your different insurance? How can I manage prior authorizations? Again, we don't have anyone about that. The other thing we learned is people have app burnout. They're not looking for another app to download. Their phone is full of apps. They want a text message, they want to click the link. So you imagine you've just gotten -- you just talked to your doctor, he sent the e-pharmacy and your phone pops up. We've received your prescription from Dr. John Doe. And then you just go to the website and then you finish off that process. And that process is very simple. So in this example, you go to get LNZ100.com. You'll put in your last name and your birthday, it will match up your script from there on your checkout process, we made it simple, right? You go in, either check your payment method, right? Automatically, it's going to be set up for auto refill, but you have the option to take that off. And then once you click send, off you go. And now we have a constant communication with that consumer. We're meeting them in their element. So we're really excited about this. That being said, some patients do prefer to still go to retail pharmacy. So we didn't stop with only the e-pharmacy, we have the retail pharmacy as well. And again, our team has put the infrastructure in place to deliver this. So when you think about the infrastructure acquired, we've already contracted with our 3PL, right? We've already begun our contract negotiations and finished some of them for the wholesaler network that will then deliver this product to that final pharmacy so you can just show up and pick up the product and be ready to go. So when we think of that ease of access journey, right, first, getting them to the doctor office, a lot are there, our DTC will push more there. You saw the website from David that's going to quickly get them in that funnel, get them starting that actual journey. When they show up at the optometrist, they're going to be able to try the product day 1, experience, feel what it's like and they're going to leave not only with that sample, but that script. And then we're going to meet them where they want to be met, whether it's the e-pharmacy or it's their local retail pharmacy, both avenues we open. So with that, I'm excited to conclude the commercial strategy component of this discussion, which really focused on the doctors to recommend us, the consumers request us by name and that seamless journey to use. We're excited to share this insight. And now I'd like to hand it over to Dan, our Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Sean, and good afternoon, everybody. My name is Dan Chevallard, Chief Financial Officer, here at LENZ. I'm going to hit a couple of key points to really tie things together. I've just got a couple of slides and really I'm standing between you and an exciting conclusion of our program today. So I'll try to keep it brief. But One of the things that we talked about today and one of the things that Eves mentioned this morning is the question that we got 2 years ago was, is there going to be a market here. I'm going to talk about 2 of the questions that we're getting today, which is what does tariffs mean to you? And is there -- are there disruptions at the FDA that are going to be particularly impactful to you? But ultimately, I want to make sure that you walk away with a message that we are moving forward with the foundation, if not a track record of our own of execution, and we're doing that in a position of financial strength. So let's talk a little bit about the FDA and what's happening there. I'm sure this is something that's on your mind and you're wondering kind of where are we and how has the recent turbulence in the market affected our own NDA review. A couple of key points here. Importantly, there are no known or anticipated changes to our review team that we've seen as a result of what's gone on at a federal level. So excellent continuity in our review team, and we think that's important, and I wanted to emphasize that today. Secondly, and on the heels of our mid-cycle review that we talked about in our year-end call that was in late January, we have a late cycle review now that's coming up and has actually been pulled forward, and that is now scheduled for late May. And thirdly, and frankly, perhaps the most tangible thing that you can point to about the level of engagement from FDA is that we have clinical site inspections that are ongoing. And we think that's a very positive sign, and that continues to move right along on schedule. All of this is to say unless the now less than 4 months from now, we believe that we're well on track for our August 8 target action PDUFA date this summer. Now Sean and David both talked about the pillars of our commercial strategy, and I'm going to talk a little bit more tangibly about, well, what are we doing now and over this continuum over the next couple of months. And I'm going to really emphasize the first pillar, which is making sure that we're in a position for our doctors to recommend us. And then the third pillar, which is enabling that seamless access for patients. So let me just start with what are we doing today on the manufacturing side. We are working around the clock to manufacture bulk product. So clearly, we're not going to have final packaging done. That's going to come once FDA has approved our label and our package insert and our carton. That's not today. But what we're doing now is what we can control. which is making sure that we have as much product manufactured in bulk form as possible. On the sales and marketing team, this goes right to the first pillar. Sean has already talked about the 5,500 applicants and what we're doing literally today in Phoenix with many interviews that are ongoing. We are squarely focused on ensuring we get the highest and best talent into our sales force organization. That's what we control today. Now let's fast forward into the summer months, and now let's talk about what are we going to be doing in these 2 more tactical execution focused areas around the time of PDUFA? Well, at PDUFA, you'll have an approved carton, you'll have approved PI. So you can imagine the supply chain team is going to be fully focused on making sure that, that final product, drug product with all the approved carton PI and package is ready to go as rapidly as possible following PDUFA. On the commercial organization, this is really the launch. This is the rapid and immediate initiation of our -- all of our commercial efforts. So this is making sure that we are hitting the ground running on all activities with the sales force on the first day after we've got approval. That's the objective there. And now let's go to Q4. So how we've guided and what we've talked about is with an August 8 PDUFA date. We're going to have these activities that I've just outlined happening and then product in the market in the fourth quarter. So then let's talk about that. Well, what is going to be happening in the fourth quarter? What should you expect? You should expect our drug product and samples to be fully propagated through that retail or through that distribution channels and all of those channels, which there are 3. So the 2 product distribution channels are going to be the traditional wholesaler and retail pharmacy channels. And then clearly, our e-pharmacy, which is also an item that we've talked about. And then importantly, the third is to make sure samples are ready to go and make their way out and into the hands of ECPs. And then from a sales and marketing standpoint, really capitalizing on the availability of that product to make sure that our commercial product is going to be able to be -- those scripts are going to be able to be written and filled but also then hand carrying those samples and getting them to the ECPs and ultimately to consumers. So we've got a busy couple of months coming up. But from a supply chain and commercialization standpoint, I think we're in a good position. So this was not necessarily a topic when we drew out the agenda for this event today, but there might not be a more topical point of mention and I guess I'm very excited to be able to share the following key points with you. Everything that I'm going to step you through, I would just like to recognize our manufacturing operations team and our regulatory team that have proactively pursued these things for important import reasons, as we all know of our supply chain, we can talk about that, but these are definitive rulings that we've gotten, and I want to step you through both. So first of all, on November 7, we got a definitive ruling from the U.S. -- the Department of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol or border protection, I should say, that declared LNZ100 because of 2 things: where our API is manufactured and the substantial value of our product resides, LNZ100 will have the United States as a country of origin. That's super important, and those words are very specific, country of origin is the United States. Secondarily, on April 2, perhaps a bit serendipitous, we got a second definitive ruling from the U.S. department -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, confirming and using these words that LNZ100 will be duty free. So we think this is a very important delineation and frankly, rare air that we are in where all of the noise that's out there around tariffs and all of that distraction, frankly, about the pharmaceutical industry, even if the pharma exemption goes away, these supersede all of that, and we'll be very proud to be able to say that LNZ100 is made in the U.S.A. The third leg of that stool and something that's talked about less that I just want to make a very quick mention is around, as you think about our API manufacturer in the United States, our current full finish happens in Germany and round trips back to the U.S. Our intellectual property is domiciled in the U.S. That's important. I said why? It's important because when you go through customs, you have to assess the value of your product because that could trigger other costs associated with getting that product across the border, where that IP is domiciled is particularly important and effectively will obsolete any incremental cost to the company for bringing that product in. So definitively, LNZ100 is made in the U.S.A., and we're very proud of that fact. Now it would be odd for the CFO to have a couple of things to say and not give you some numbers. So let me give you 2. We'll start with 2. So first of all, you might have seen an 8-K that was filed this morning. We did that because we were making this disclosure to you here today. We ended the first quarter March 31, with $194 million in cash on the balance sheet. Now for many of you that know the company, well, you're probably doing some quick math, and you're saying, you ended the year with $209 million. Okay. So you burned $15 million in the first quarter. I just wanted to highlight for those taking specific notes that the first quarter included some nonrecurring onetime costs early in the year of about $3 million. So think about our operating burn in Q1 being something closer to $12 million. And secondarily, and we think this is really a point that ties directly into what we've been pounding the table on for 5 consecutive quarters that we believe that are cashless sufficient to get us to positive cash flow. We wanted to take this opportunity and illuminate for you the cash balance that we expect to have at PDUFA, which we believe is a very strong number, and we're now guiding to a balance over $170 million in cash at PDUFA, which we believe, again, will be sufficient to take us through to positive cash flow. So takeaways there, consistent track record quarter-on-quarter of execution on plan, and all of this is built on a foundation of financial strength. So without further ado, I will -- it's my pleasure to hand it back to Dr. Marc Blumenstein, who will be joined by our special guests today, Tiffani Thiessen for a live discussion about her experience with presbyopia.

I am back. Right. Everybody is excited that I'm here. No? Okay. I brought a guest.

Hey, guys. How are you and ladies, I see a few ladies back there.

So some of you are wondering why is the optometrist up here with our A-lister. Can I tell you, Tiffani?

Yes. My name is Tiffani. So you can call me Tiffani.

Call me, Marc. You can call me, Marc. So you are here on this Commercial Day for LENZ as I am. Neither of us work for LENZ, we just are both presbyopes. And it's pretty exciting. So I get to ask you some questions, but I'm going to be honest with you. This is what presbyope actually look like.

It's funny, it looks like my phone.

Yes. I don't even have to do that so. So what inspires you to become an actress?

Oh, gosh, you're going way back.

Well, you started, what, when you were 15.

Already even younger than that actually -- just a couple of years ago. No, I started very young. I actually started modeling and doing commercials first. I got involved because my uncle at the time was a photographer and actually was very good friends with some agents and was like, "Oh, she's a cute girl. Let's see if we can make some money with her," that kind of thing. It was very casual. And I absolutely loved it. So -- and that's kind of where it blossomed. And then I was super fortunate to land a pretty big job, a show that's, I'm sure maybe you guys have heard called Saved by the Bell, that was kind of one of my very first big sort of shows that I had done and...

You were like American sweetheart.

I guess so they only knew. Kidding.

I think most of these guys probably have seen it on TV land or wherever else those reruns are going.

It's been like -- it's been redone on so many different networks and streaming now and all that. It's kind of -- it's funny. I have 2 kids myself, I have a teenager who's a freshman in high school and a third grader, so very, very vastly different. But I always can tell the type of people and what generation they've seen, Saved by the Bell, by either at my son's grades or they're starting to see or maybe now it's Alexa & Katie or something like that, one of the shows that I've done recently.

So I have 3 kids that are in the mid- 20s and when I said, "Oh, you probably don't know she is like, are you kidding?" And then it's like you got all these memes and other things [indiscernible].

But it also keeps playing, and that's what's so funny. I will never escape it.

Well, as long as you're getting residuals, that's okay, right?

That's a whole another story. But anyway.

Any fun or memorable stories.

My gosh, I have so many. I mean I think the best part of it is that I'm still very close with a lot of my classmates from a lot of the shows that I have done in the past. But probably some of the best memories were either when we got to travel outside of our set and do some of the episodes like at the beach or we got to go to Vegas or those ones were always kind of fun for us.

Like the Brady Bunch [indiscernible].

I know. It was so -- we got to go Hawaii too. I forgot.

Did you really?

We did. Yes. It was fun. Super fun.

So you were super sweet lovable, Kelly, right? Saved by the Bell. And then what, something woke up in you one day and said I need to be the [indiscernible]?

I wish it was that easy. No, no, no, no. It was the creator of Beverly Hills 90210, Aaron Spelling, I guess, had seen me on Saved by the Bell and had asked to have me come in and test for this new role that was going to come and replace one of the characters on the show that was leaving, which was Shannon Doherty at the time. And so it was like a big sort of interview that I had with him and all the producers and writers and all that. And I got it. And history was made. I did another 5 seasons on that show. So I went right from Saved by the Bell right to 90210. So very lucky. I mean that is as pretty lucky to have [indiscernible] like that.

[indiscernible].

Yes, very much. very.

Spelling had that magic touch. I remember when we both were at 90210 because I actually lived in 90210.

You lived the 90210.

Yes, it was interesting times back then.

I worked on 90210, but I did not live in 90210.

But that obviously -- I mean, to me, it shows your range of acting. I mean because, yes, you go from this lovable person. Yes. To me, the way that you can always define a good actor is you hate them. It's like certain people that is like, if I ever solve them in your life, like I can't.

Well, I have to say as an actor, it's always more fun to play something different than you are, right? It's always more fun to have a character that is vastly different than yourselves.

Is there any 1 character you can think of that you love more than any others or.

Oh gosh, no, that's hard. I mean I think a lot of the shows that I've been on from those 2 to -- I did a show here in New York City for 7 years called White Collar that was such a wonderful show and super fun to live here in the city. And that character is probably the closest to myself, but they all have little pockets of time in my career that means something to me like living in New York, I had my daughter during that time. Like they all are very special in different ways. Hard to pick. It's like picking a favorite child. You really can't do it. On days you can, but.

So your career started about 5 or 10 years ago when you were 15 we'll just start with that. You hosted Dinner at Tiffany's.

Yes, I did. And that [indiscernible] was actually, when I was living here in New York, I was shooting the White Collar, and we were living and we were always going to the Chelsea market, and I'm such a foody and I love to cook and I love food and I just had this whim of an idea. I was like, what do they ever do like an actress cooking show, like they've never really done that. I wonder if they would ever do that. And I walked into Food Network without really like a solid sort of idea, but I was like I have this idea of literally about me cooking with my celebrity friends it's called Dinner at Tiffani's and they're like, "We like that." And so they bought it.

Did you have like a special genre of food that you like to cook.

No, I love it. I love it all. I mean I'm a total California girl.

It looks like you love food.

I do love food. I just have to work out really lot. Yes. I work out a lot and I play Pickleball. What can I say?

Okay. So that -- you've definitely told us that you've transitioned into presbyopia because you're playing Pickleball.

I'm 51 years old. Of course, I have.

For me, whenever a patient says to me, I play Pickleball like, okay, you're older. But it's like or better yet, when they say, "Oh, do you have Facebook, are you on Facebook?

I mean, it crosses with my Instagram. I'm more of an Instagram girl.

I'm not old enough to be on Facebook, right? You guys know what I'm talking about. Yes.

So it's like a pretty young crowd.

Was that when you started noticing some changes with your vision?

I noticed it -- I'm going to be really honest. I'm 51 years old. I do not lie about my age. I started noticing that in my very early like late 30s, early 40s. I think my glasses came on my face at 41. And it was definitely like really hard to read scripts, recipes, any of that kind of stuff, it was very difficult. It was getting blurry for sure. Yes, absolutely. And I was like, and then I remember calling my mom and I'm like, "mom, do you remember how old you were when you started to have readers?" Just, oh, I think it was in my early 40s. And I was like, okay, I think I'm there.

So I mean, obviously, the way I perceive that is like the things that you have to do, especially if you're cooking and you're looking at a monitor and you're trying to talk to a host or on a set I could see where that would add like a lot of challenges.

Well, it's just -- I'm at the place now where I've got glasses downstairs. I've got glasses in this room, I have glasses upstairs on by my bed. I have glasses in my purse. I have glasses in my car, like how many glasses do I have? A lot. I have a lot of glasses.

I think your optometrist is happy with that.

I'm sure. Probably. You're very true. You're very, very true. I go every year. I'm very good. I'm a good person when it comes to my doctor's appointments. Yes.

So definitely the presbyopia has started to affect your ability to read stuff.

It's very much. I can't even read books with my kid in bed. I'm like, "Oh, honey, let me go back to my bedroom, I got to get my glasses." Yes, very much.

So can you think of any moments like traveling or being on the set or any frustrating moments or funny moments?

Well just it's frustrating for sure, because it's not like I wear my glasses with a strap on them, right? So I guess I could, but I don't. And leaving them in their dressing room, leaving them in my purse and I got to go and I can't read my sides. I mean it's not like my phone where I can make my phone super big, and I can get by without my glasses. The scripts are printed in a certain way, and that's how they're printed for everybody. So you can always tell the actors that are over 45 because they're all the ones with glasses on.

It's interesting because we have the confidence monitor up here. And so a big challenge for speaking or standing here is that if you're looking in the distance, and then you want to look at the confidence monitor unless you're wearing progressive lens...

Which I don't.

Right? You can't see that. So you almost have like feel like, what's the point of having confidence monitor. I have no confidence. So I can imagine the teleprompter kind of...

For looking out and looking at your actor when you're talking. So right, they're usually the distance, right? It doesn't work. So I'm always doing, it's this. But you can't have your hands free when you're trying to act and a lot of times you're doing stuff in the scene, so it makes it a little hard. So all my actors are blurry.

That's okay, though, right?

Some of them look better, blurry. I'm just kidding. I won't name any names. You're not an actor. You're doing a great job there.

Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So any friends, colleagues, family members with some experiences with blurred vision?

Yes. So my husband came into glass wearing a little bit later than me. This is a very funny story, and he -- I got permission to tell it, so I'm going to tell it. So he started coming to me telling me that he was getting these headaches and that he was really worried and he feels like he needed to go to the doctor. Now right away, I was like, "Oh, he needs glasses." He's having a hard time his training. He's getting headaches from training. He's an artist. So he's always drawing and all that in writing. And right away, I know exactly what it was. And he goes, so I think I'm going to see if I can get my brain scanned. I'm worried that something is going on in my brain. And I said, "What do you mean something is wrong with your brain?" Because I'm getting these headaches when if I've got something growing in my brain. And I go honey, you don't have anything growing in your brain. I promise you, just go see the eye doctor. You need glasses, and that's exactly what it was.

So it's -- when you had told me that story before, I glad you repeated it because it's like we have so many patients that come in. And the reality is that there's a -- what's called a just noticeable difference. It's like they go to bed one night and then they wake up the next morning and it's like I can't see. I mean what happened to me. And so your husband's experience is actually really, really common.

It's common, right? Yes, I just think it's funny that he went all the way to that side.

Yes. I don't have a lot of patients where they're like...

Where they think it's brain cancer.

[indiscernible]. Brain scan, but...

Yes, that's my artistic overly -- my husband has lots of fun brain activity in there because he's an artist. So he's always got stories going on.

I would have sent him for a scan. But what's nice about presbyopia, though, is that when you have something in the lane for me to be able to just hand you and say, look, here, does that make it better? Oh, yes, so realistic. Because most people who are presbyopes, they don't even -- they're like I've never had to wear glasses. So such a shock. Did you wear glasses.

When I was a kid?

Yes.

No, never. Never, never, never. I never wore glasses.

Were you in denial like your husband? Did you just like...

No, I feel like I'm really good about embracing the aging process. I try to, right? I mean, it's definitely hard sometimes, but...

You are doing a great job.

You're very sweet.

Well, no. I mean I can't escape as much as I try.

I mean it's glasses is 1 thing and then there's lots of other things that happen to.

Well, we've talked about before to that, I mean wearing reading glass the ones at the end of the nose. So you see those people where they unclip it, here or the [indiscernible].

Yes. I always have a red mark right here, which sucks as an actor too. Because then the make a people aren't happy because then your makeup getting all messed.

I didn't really thought about that. Yes. It's like okay, can somebody get you need some more powder and then it gets on your glasses and they never see clean.

Annoying.

The struggle is real. So have you tried contacts? Did you try laser operation?

I've never tried contacts. I've worn contacts once for a movie when they had to have me have brown eyes before and I don't know...

Hold on. Why?

Because they wanted me to like it's like a silly movie. It was like one of those crazy horror movies where like, I'm 1 person with blue eyes, and then I'm another person with brown eyes. Yes, it was crazy, a long time ago, anyways. And so I had to work contacts for that. And I hated it. Now granted, I think they were sicker because they were just for color, maybe I don't know, you could tell me. No, they're not okay. I don't like contacts. I will not put those things in my eye. So that movie ruined it for me.

Yes, totally.

Yes. He said contacts, and I am like no.

I'm going to have to -- is somebody already Googling that. Brown eyes, blue eye movie.

I'll tell you the title later.

All right. I'm going to look that up. But to your point, though, is that we talk about solutions and opportunities and people think, "Oh, just put contacts in and don't worry about it." But contacts in themselves. I mean it's a piece of plastic sitting on your eyes, vital organ that kind of has its own environment and so...

You don't love pushing contacts on your patients.

I'm not a contact lens person because the problem with contacts is that we are a binocular animal. We need both of our eyes. We see better depth and other things. So when you do contacts either to a multifocal where you're kind of separating things out or you do a monovision, one eye I for distance, one eye for close.

Yes. That would annoy me, I feel like. Yes.

So how do you treat? I mean are you wearing progressive, over-the-counters or what are you?

Just the readers. That's all. I got right now until someone tells me I need something for driving.

Yes. So question, okay? You go to your optometrist?

I do, every year. I do. I do. I'm due for 1 again in October.

So my question to you is, if they were to say to you, hey, do they call you Tiffany also? I don't know. I mean, I probably wouldn't. I'd probably like...

Well, would you call me then?

I would say, hey girl, what up? Then you would be like nothing. Do you -- if I said to you, hey, we have an opportunity to use a drop. It's 1 day dosage. It should last year whole day, okay, it's going to make your pupil smaller so you have depth of focus, distance and close, would you be interested in trying that?

Why do you think I'm here. Yes. Absolutely. It's genius.

Well, I kept telling people you were here because you wanted to meet me. So -- but obviously, it's not.

And all these people yes. Yes, yes, yes.

So, yes, I mean...

Oh, yes. No. I'm all in. I cannot wait.

Does your optometrist provide you with different types of solutions as you trying to help you? Or is it a...

NO. He is like here's your new readers. That's it. Bye-bye. Move on.

Give me his number, and I'll be calling him. So Yes. I mean, hopefully, we will have a solution like that for you to be able to use in the very near future. that's what we're all here for. Yes.

It's very exciting.

Yes. Very exciting. So 1 last question for you. I had mentioned to you before about roles and such. You said that you embrace your age, people know how old you are because you've been around for so long.

You can't -- I've been doing it for so long, and it's been on like websites for so long. I really can't lie. I mean, they would all know I'm lying. So I have to embrace it. I really don't have a choice.

So do you feel, though, as an actor when you put on reading glasses on a show or when you're doing something, then it really does, it's demonstrative at your age?

Well, it's funny. When I was younger as an actor, I always thought, oh, they're putting glasses on me to make me look smarter. But now that I'm over 50, yes, I absolutely. I very much think it's more of my age for sure. Yes. I mean it is. I've been wearing them now for 10 years.

Very cool. Very Cool. Well I appreciate...

Should we see if there's any -- does anybody have questions. I sometimes like to open it up to them.

Well, they've got microphones out there somewhere. So anybody have any question?

I could hear them. I could hear them. It's not that far.

I'm willing to answer your questions too.

I knew there was going to be somebody.

[indiscernible].

Yes. Thanks for having me.

[indiscernible].

Yes. I mean, look, very much so, like even just as little as I told people what I was doing in New York for today, like even my glam, I'll just see just immediately, I glam that came into my hair makeup, right? They're like, "Well, what are you doing here in New York?" And I kind of give them a little too and they're like, it's what? And they were very excited about it, right? I mean it's very -- it's a cool thing. So -- and I do know part of what I do now as an influencer, which I hate using that word, but it's very much a universal word that everybody knows. But that it's very much a part of like what I do by kind of pushing a product that I believe in. And all these celebrities, whether they're actors, musicians or athletes or whatever, are starting to have a really big sort of social presence on social media. And it's sometimes I think a lot of advertisers are seeing that it's better than the actual commercial because no one's watching commercials anymore. They're on their socials. And so it's kind of the new way of advertising very much. Yes. I have. I have. I have. Yes.

To your question though, I mean, from a doctor perspective, it's very powerful when a patient comes in and says, "I heard about or I saw and then it really puts the owners on the doctor to either say why you're not a good candidate for that or that's a great option let's try it. So the fact that LENZ is considering sampling makes it even better because if you had somebody like Tiffany is saying, hey, talk to your doctor about see if you're a candidate. And then they come in to see me and I can sample it as opposed to having write a prescription rather they're waiting, they're going to sample after we give them an eye exam, makes a huge difference. So yes, DTC, word of mouth. I love the influence.

But that's what social media is word of mouth. I mean, really, that's what it is. And in a commercial form almost. And generally, you follow people that you have interest in or have common ground in. So my sort of audience on social is anywhere from 35 to 55 generally. That's like my biggest, and that's sort of this market. So -- and it's generally the other brand stuff that I have done in the past is very much in that.

We've got a question in the back there.

Oh, you got a microphone now. I can hear you, so.

How big of an issue is convenience to you thinking that works?

It's why I'm not in show business. How big of an issue is convenience and not choosing any of the other options available to you, even though having 10 pairs of readers sounds not convenient?

It's not convenient.

And then what even kind of consideration is there for compliance, if it's a once-a-day drop?

Yes. The once-a-day thing to me sounds pretty easy. I mean -- and I think what's nice about it is that you kind of get to pick and choose when that inconvenience might happen for you. So it allows you to use those drops on the days that you find, so you don't have to use them every day, right? I like that. I like kind of being in control of that and needing that. I think some of the places, and I've mentioned some that are most inconvenient is the sort of spot net of things reading to my kid or driving somewhere and then someone not that I use my phone while I'm driving people, but like if I pullover or whatever and check an e-mail that someone just texts me, you've got to read this, I need an answer now. And I don't have my glasses with me, it's stuff like that. Like, I have my phone pretty big, but it's getting to a point where it's not even working anymore sadly.

Even still like in your car, if you had like the phone holder and it's like you're not supposed to be on your phone but you can't see it.

No, I'm doing a lot of this.

Have you done stage? Have you done any broadway shows or...?

No, no. I mean when I was living here in New York, I was shooting the show and generally theaters here. We don't have a lot of theater in Los Angeles.

Well, it's contagious.

Yes. Contagious. That's very true.

But the reason why I was saying that is that I was just envisioning when you're on stage, and this is live, you don't have the opportunity, you're looking up at the conductor, if it's a musical, you're looking at the audience, you're looking at your actors. I mean I would see where that would be really challenging.

Yes. Well, it's kind of like that even on TV shows and movies sets, the same sort of thing, especially when you're in rehearsal and you're still on -- you don't have your stuff memorized yet, you're learning. You're blocking or whatever, and you need the script. So I have to have my glasses on.

No, this isn't relevant to the presbyopia stuff, but how do you memorize all that? I can't even remember my kids names. You remember the script.

I think it's a muscle. I do think it's a muscle that you have to exercise, yes for sure. Yes.

Any other questions before we hand this off to Dave to close it all down?

Yes. I just want to say thank you and you were wonderful. That was good.

He found it. That was one of them. And then there was another like Hunting of [indiscernible] or something like that. I don't know there's so many bad TV movies back in the day.

[indiscernible]

The show is at 7 tonight, down the street, take a soul in the whole way. Now this is a great couple of hours for us. And hopefully, it was helpful for you to give us -- to help you get an insight into what we're building and why we're so enthusiastic about it. It has taken you through the market opportunity and it's real. There is a huge, huge opportunity out there, and we've got the right product, we believe, to build that market, to build it as a category of 1 and really drive that launch. You've heard Marc in the first act, talk about the ECPs and how enthusiastic they are and that they really see the need and the opportunity to have a different, better solution for their patients. And then we've heard this time only of about 3 patients, but I think all of them were very convincing in how they were talking about their experience with the product. The stuff works. If I think again about what Dina was saying, she was skeptical initially, like how can it work? We've heard that many times. And then people use it and it goes, wow, you know what, this actually works. 95% of patients had at least 2 lines, 70%, 3 lines at half an hour, that works even better than what they imagined. So we have something real here. We have a very clear plan for commercialization with the right team and the right people and the right stuff behind it. And we can't wait for that PDUFA date that again, we have a lot of confidence it's going to come on August 8. So with that, I want to thank, first and foremost, because you usually see 4, 5 or 6 of us. There's obviously a whole team behind us. I think we're up to 60 or so now. We're hiring another 90. So you can do the math, we're going to be 150 plus in the next 3 or 4 months. Those are the people that are currently working with the FDA on our submission with the manufacturing, all the support functions, making sure that the company does what it is about to do. So a big thank you for that team that I know is watching. Thank you to all of you here for joining us. Again, really a pleasure to have you all here. We're going to be hanging around. I think we have an old-fashioned cocktail or something like that. So hopefully, you hang around, we're going to be here answering questions. Again, thank you all for being with us here today. Thanks.