Welcome to the 2024 Annual Meeting for Avenue Therapeutics, Inc. Our host for today's conference is Dr. Alexandra MacLean, CEO. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. I will now turn the call over to your host, Dr. MacLean. You may begin.
Good morning. I'm Alexandra MacLean, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Avenue Therapeutics, Inc., and I will be presiding over today's virtual meeting of stockholders. On behalf of our company, I want to welcome you to our 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which is now formally called to order. We are very pleased to have each of you in attendance at today's virtual meeting. Let me begin by introducing the other directors of the company in attendance via remote communication. With us today are Jay Kranzler , MD, PhD, Chairman of our Board; Faith Charles; Neil Herskowitz; Curtis Oltmans; and Lindsay A. Rosenwald, MD.
Also present here today is Joseph Epstein of KPMG LLP, our independent auditors for the year ending December 31st, 2023. David Wolpa of Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP, our legal counsel. David Jin, our Corporate Secretary, Chief Operating Officer, and Interim Chief CFO, who will serve as Secretary of the Meeting. And Tony Carideo, who will serve as Inspector of Elections of the Meeting. Our order of business this morning will be to accept the motions to be considered, collect the votes, and then receive a report from the Inspector of Elections about the results. If you have any questions, please submit them using the online application on the virtual meeting website or email them to info@avenuetx.com, and we will address them after the meeting. This brings us to the first item on the agenda, which is the determination of a quorum.
The bylaws provide that the presence, in person or by proxy, of a majority of the outstanding vote power of the company, calculated in accordance with the company's certificate of incorporation on the record date, constitutes a quorum. Mr. Carideo, do we have a quorum?
Yes, we do. A majority of the outstanding voting power of the company, calculated in accordance with the company's Certificate of Incorporation as of the Record date, April 30th, 2024, is represented at the meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Carideo. There are three motions to be voted on by the stockholders. Number one, the first motion is the election of Jay Kranzler, Faith Charles, Neil Herskowitz, Alexandra MacLean, Curtis Oltmans, and Lindsay A. Rosenwald as directors to hold office until the annual meeting in 2025 or until their respective successors have been elected and qualified. The second motion is to ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2024 fiscal year.
The third motion is to approve an amendment to the Avenue Therapeutics, Inc., 2015 Incentive Plan as amended to increase the number of authorized shares issuable thereunder by 5 million shares, which will extend the term of the 2015 Incentive Plan as amended to June 24th, 2034, increase the limit of shares that may be issued upon the exercise of incentive stock options by 5 million shares, and increase the annual share limit for awards granted to non-employee directors to 500,000. All stockholders of record as of April 30th, 2024, are entitled to vote at this virtual meeting and have the ability to do so online.
If there is any stockholder of record as of April 30th, 2024, who has not voted by proxy and now wants to vote, or who has previously voted by proxy but now wants to change that vote, you may now vote online by the following instructions available on the virtual meeting website. If you have already sent in your proxy card or otherwise voted over the internet or by phone and do not want to change your vote, you do not need to do anything now. Okay. Then I'll call the question on the following resolutions. Resolved that the following persons hereby are elected as directors of the company to serve until the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders or until their respective successors are elected and qualified: Lindsay A. Rosenwald, Faith Charles, Neil Herskowitz, Jay Kranzler, Alexandra MacLean, and Curtis Oltmans.
Resolved that the appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2024 fiscal year is hereby ratified. Resolved that the company's 2015 Incentive Plan as amended is hereby amended to increase the number of authorized shares issuable thereby by 5 million shares in the term of the 2015 Incentive Plan as amended, which hereby extends the term of the 2015 Incentive Plan to June 24th, 2034, to increase the limit of shares that may be issued upon exercise of incentive stock options by 5 million shares and to increase the annual share limit for awards to non-employees to 500,000. At this moment, I'm going to officially close the polls. I want to thank everyone for your participation. I'll now ask the Inspector of Elections to report on the vote.
Dr. MacLean, based on the preliminary results, all of the nominees for directors have been elected. The motion to ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2024 fiscal year has been approved, and the amendment to the company's 2015 Incentive Plan as amended to increase the number of authorized shares issuable thereunder by 5 million shares, which will extend the term of the 2015 Incentive Plan as amended to June 24th, 2034, to increase the limit of shares that may be based upon the exercise of incentive stock options by 5 million shares and to increase the annual share limit for awards to non-employee directors to 500,000 is approved.
Thank you, Mr. Carideo. That completes our formal business for today and concludes the 2024 Annual Stockholders' Meeting. Thank you for joining today and for your support of Avenue Therapeutics. Let me now formally close this meeting. I will now open the floor to any questions to us or the representative from KPMG LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm. If you have any questions, please submit them using the online application on the virtual meeting's website or email them to info@avenuetx.com, and we will address them after the meeting. We will now end this meeting. Thank you.