Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (LGND) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. During the meeting, we'll have a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Mr. Charles Berkman, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. Mr. Berkman, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Welcome to Ligand's Annual Meeting. I am Charles Berkman, Ligand's General Counsel, and I will act as Chairman and Secretary for this meeting. Due to the public health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the health and well-being of our stockholders, employees and their families, we are hosting this meeting in a virtual-only format. I hope everyone attending today's meeting and your families are safe and healthy in these unprecedented times. If you encounter any technical difficulties accessing or participating in the meeting, please check your Internet connection. Computershare, represented by Mark Cano, will act as the inspector of elections. Also attending today's meeting is Chad Whitehead from Ernst & Young LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. All stockholders of record at the close of business on April 14, 2020, are entitled to vote at this meeting. A copy of the notice of meeting and proxy statement was mailed or otherwise made available to each stockholder of record on April 24, 2020. The secretary will incorporate the affidavits of mailing into the minutes of this meeting. A copy of the proxy statement and the company's annual report are available on the virtual meeting website. In addition, a copy of the agenda and the rules of conduct are available on the virtual meeting website. To ensure the conduct of an orderly meeting, we ask that participants abide by these rules. As stated in the rules of conduct, registered stockholders or anyone who holds a valid proxy, may submit comments or ask questions related to the business properly before the stockholders through the field provided in the virtual meeting website. No one attending via the webcast is permitted to use any audio recording device. Thank you for your cooperation with these rules. Our first order of business is to determine whether the shares represented at the meeting are sufficient to constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. The preliminary count of the shares represented in person or by proxy at the meeting, demonstrate that we have a quorum. The polls are now open. Most stockholders have already voted by proxy and the proxy votes have been tallied. Any stockholder who sent in a proxy or voted via telephone or Internet and does not want to change their vote, does not need to take any further action. If you want to vote now or change your vote, you can click on the cast your vote button on the left side of the virtual meeting website. The polls will stay open until the conclusion of the review of the matters to be voted on. There are 3 items to be considered and voted upon. The Board recommends you vote for each of these items as follows: Election of the Board of Directors; ratification of Ernst & Young LLP as our auditor; and an advisory vote on the compensation of executives. Each of these items has been covered in detail in the proxy statement previously sent to you and available on the virtual meeting website. If you have any questions related to these matters, you may type the question into the field provided on the virtual meeting website. Only questions related to the matters properly before the meeting will be considered. The polls will close following any discussion on these items. I will now pause to see if there are any questions. No questions have been submitted. The polls are closed. Each of the items has received sufficient votes to be approved and are approved. We will report the final vote results in a Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 4 business days. Our formal agenda has now completed, and the meeting is adjourned. We would like to thank you for attending this year's annual meeting. We hope you and your families are safe and healthy, and look forward to your participation again next year.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.