Arbutus Biopharma Corporation (NASDAQ:ABUS) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 29, 2024 8:45 AM ET

Company Participants

Lisa Caperelli - VP, IR

Michael McElhaugh - Interim President and CEO

David Hastings - CFO and CAO

Karen Sims - CMO

Michael Sofia - CSO

Conference Call Participants

Dennis Ding - Jefferies

Brian Skorney - Baird

Roy Buchanan - Citizens JMP

Thomas Yip - H.C. Wainwright

Keay Nakae - Chardan

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Arbutus Biopharma Fourth Quarter and Year End 2023 Financial Results and Corporate Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Lisa Caperelli, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lisa Caperelli

Thank you, Stephen. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Arbutus' fourth quarter and year end 2023 financial results and corporate update call. Joining me today from the Arbutus executive team are Mike McElhaugh, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Karen Sims, Chief Medical Officer; David Hastings, Chief Financial Officer; and Dr. Mike Sofia, Chief Scientific Officer.

Mike McElhaugh will begin with a corporate update, followed by Karen, who will review our ongoing clinical programs. Dave will then provide a review of the company's fourth quarter and year end 2023 financial results. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that some of the statements made during the call today are forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially including those described in our annual report on Form 10-K and from time-to-time in our other documents filed with the SEC.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Michael McElhaugh. Mike?

Michael McElhaugh

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. In 2023, we made several important strategic choices to best position Arbutus for long-term success. In addition to streamlining our focus and resources on HBV, which extended our cash runway into the first quarter of January 2026, we also announced my appointment as Interim President and CEO.

As a Co-Founder of Arbutus, I am honored to have this opportunity to lead my colleagues in our mission to develop a functional cure for the millions of people chronically infected with hepatitis B virus.