Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dr. Michael Finney, and I am Chair of the Board of Directors of Vaxart Incorporated. I'm very happy to welcome you to Vaxart Incorporated's 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'm pleased that you could join us today. The rules of conduct that will apply to this meeting are available on the web portal. To ensure an orderly meeting, we ask that all participants in the meeting abide by these rules. I will act as Chair of this meeting. Before I call the meeting to order, I would like to introduce you to Steven Lo, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Edward B. Berg, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the company. Mr. Berg will act as Secretary of the meeting.
Thank you, Michael. Also joining the meeting are Benjamin Russell of Thompson Hine LLP, our outside corporate counsel, and Robert Thomas of Withum Smith+Brown, PC, the company's independent public accounting firm.
The meeting will now officially come to order. We propose to proceed with the formal business of the meeting as set forth in our Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement. After the formal part of the meeting, we will proceed to answer questions from stockholders, time permitting. You may submit questions through the web portal. It is now 8:33 A.M., and I declare that the polls are open on the proposals being voted on here today. If you have already voted by mailing in your proxy, by telephone, or online, it is not necessary to vote again. Will the Secretary please report at this time with respect to the mailing of the Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials for the meeting and the list of stockholders?
I have at this meeting a complete list of the stockholders of record of the company's common stock as of the close of business on March 26, 2025, the record date for this meeting. I also have with me an affidavit certifying that commencing on April 11, 2025, Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials and paper copies of our proxy materials to stockholders who requested them were deposited in the United States Mail to all stockholders of record at the close of business on the record date. At this time, I'd like to introduce Jeroen Grasman, Vaxart's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have appointed Mr. Grasman to act as the Inspector of Election at this meeting. Mr. Grasman has taken and subscribed the customary oath of office to execute his duties with strict impartiality, which will be filed with the records of the meeting.
His function is to ascertain the number of outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote at the meeting, determine the shares present virtually or represented by proxy at the meeting, count the votes and ballots, and certify the final voting results. I will now report at this time with respect to the existence of a quorum. I have been informed by the Inspector of Election that proxies have been received for 156,203,122 of the 228,208,284 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote on the record date, which represents approximately 68.44% of the total number of shares of common stock entitled to vote at the meeting. This constitutes a quorum for the meeting today, and we may now carry out the official business of the meeting. All stockholders of record entitled to vote at this meeting have the ability to do so online.
If you are a stockholder of record who is entitled to vote and you have not yet voted by proxy, or if you are a stockholder of record and you would like to change the vote reflected in a previously submitted proxy, please do so via the Vote Now button on the meeting website. Please remember that if you have already submitted a proxy to vote your shares, whether by mailing in your proxy card or submitting your proxy by telephone or online, and you do not want to change your vote, it is not necessary to vote again. We will now proceed with the formal business of this meeting. There are four proposals to be considered by the stockholders at this meeting, each of which has been summarized in the proxy statement for the meeting. The first item of business today is the election of Michael J. Finney, Ph.D., Elaine J. Heron, Ph.D., Steven Lo, W. Mark Watson, CPA, David Wheadon, M.D., and Kevin P. Finney as directors of the company, each to serve until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until his or her successor is duly elected and qualified. We will refer to this proposal as the Director Election Proposal. The second item of business is the vote on the approval of an amendment to our restated Certificate of Incorporation to effect a reverse stock split of issued shares of the company's common stock into a lesser number of shares by a ratio of not less than one for 5 and not more than one for 50, with the exact ratio to be set within this range by the Board of Directors of the company and its sole discretion. We will refer to this proposal as the Reverse Stock Split Proposal.
The third item of business is the vote to ratify the appointment of WithumSmith+Brown, PC as the company's independent accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025. We will refer to this proposal as the Accountant Ratification Proposal. The fourth item of business is the vote on the approval, on a non-binding advisory basis, of the compensation of our named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement. We will refer to this proposal as a Say-on-Pay Proposal. That was the final proposal for today's meeting. I will now describe the voting procedure. We will now ask stockholders to vote on the Director Election Proposal, the Reverse Stock Split Proposal, the Accountant Ratification Proposal, and the Say-on-Pay Proposal. Voting is by proxy and by online ballot.
You do not need to vote at this meeting if you have already submitted your proxy card or submitted your proxy by telephone or online prior to the meeting. If there is anyone in attendance who wants to vote now, stockholders may cast their vote electronically as described in the proxy statement and in the rules of conduct. This is the last call to submit your ballot. Each share of Vaxart Common Stock is entitled to one vote. It is now 8:39 A.M., and I declare that the polls are closed on all of the proposals. The voting has been completed. I will now present the preliminary results of the voting. The report of the Inspector of Election covering the proposals presented at this meeting is as follows. The proposal to elect Dr. Michael J. Finney, Ph.D., Elaine J. Heron, Ph.D., Steven Lo, W. Mark Watson, CPA, David Wheadon, M.D., and Kevin P. Finney as directors has carried. The Reverse Stock Split Proposal did not pass. The Accountant Ratification Proposal is approved. The Say-on-Pay Proposal did not pass. We expect to report our preliminary voting results or, if available to us on a timely basis, our final voting results on a current report on Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC within four business days after the date of this meeting. If not earlier reported, we expect to report our final voting results in an amendment to our Form 8-K within four business days after the final results are known to us.
This concludes the formal portion of today's meeting. We will give any stockholders in attendance an opportunity to ask questions shortly. But first, is there any opposition to concluding this meeting? This meeting is concluded.
We will now entertain any questions you may have regarding the company, bearing in mind that we're not at liberty to share any material non-public information. So that everyone present may have an equal opportunity to be heard, we ask that each person wishing to raise questions or comments provide your full name and whether you are a stockholder of record or a proxy holder. We also request that you adhere to the rules of conduct regarding submitting your questions. Are there any questions? Okay. I'll give it a minute to allow for submission. Okay. I have Steve here, and I'll start with a question around next steps after the vote on the reverse stock split, given that the reverse stock split did not pass.
Great. Thank you, Ed, and good morning, everybody. Again, this is Steve Lo. I'm the CEO of Vaxart. I want to, first of all, acknowledge and thank our passionate shareholders for their continued commitment to the company, and more importantly, your continued comments to us. In terms of where we are, first of all, the shareholders have spoken, and we certainly accept those results. And because of that, the company is incorporating all the important feedback that we have received from shareholders regarding how the reverse split is structured, the ratios, etc. And at this point, management and the board will take those under consideration and discuss further what the proper next steps are. I do want to reiterate that all of us, the board and management, we are committed to growing the long-term value of this company, and we share that passion and commitment with the shareholders.
Thanks, Steve. We also have other questions about after the positive norovirus data. Are you doing a deal, and when can you announce that?
So again, this is Steve. We are, of course, extremely pleased with the positive phase I data on our new constructs. This is something that the company has been committed to and working on for quite some time. And obviously, we're very excited. The original constructs did very well, and now with the second-generation constructs, they're even better. That gives us a lot of hope and excitement for what we may be doing with both norovirus, but as well as what we're doing in the current COVID trial, which, again, we've done really well from an enrollment standpoint. As it relates to the partnership question, as I've stated before publicly, we have been engaged in many conversations with many companies. Every company is different that we speak to. Some have a more expanded timeline on how they evaluate partnerships. Some are faster.
Our objective is always to get the best partnership and, frankly, best economics for the company, so strategically, we're not going to accept the first offer because the first offer could be something that isn't company-friendly. We do have to take the time and work with multiple companies to allow them to put forward their best proposal. It doesn't happen overnight. It is a process that also must allow the other party to go through the proper diligence, and that includes looking at the scientific data that we have in the trial, etc., but please at least be assured that we are working very hard on those partnership opportunities. In fact, next week is the BIO meeting, and many companies that we're talking to are also in attendance, and it's safe to say that we have many meetings scheduled.
There are a number of questions about the company's determination to raise capital after the Project NextGen announcement last year. Can you comment on that?
Yes, sure thing. So I believe those questions are related to what we did a year ago. So this will be June of 2024. First and foremost, just as a reminder to our shareholders, back in 2024, we had two critical objectives for the company. Number one is to sign the Project NextGen agreement with BARDA to be able to fund our COVID trial. Number two is to extend our cash runway. In fact, extending the cash runway means the fact that with that financing, we're actually here to be able to speak to you today a year later. And again, just as also another reminder, the cash runway only took us out to the early part of 2025. And so these objectives were being worked on parallel paths. Again, they don't happen overnight.
They happen with a lot of discussion with BARDA and a lot of discussions with interested investors. Anytime a company announces a contract with BARDA, and usually anytime a company announces that their cash runway has been extended, those are generally good news stories. And from our standpoint, we were very confident that with both in mind, that announcing those would have obviously a positive impact on our stock price. In terms of timing, they both were happening at approximately the same time. Understand that we have a commitment to disclose material information. And so when both of those happened, essentially at the same time, we're obligated to disclose that. I know there have been comments from many of our passionate shareholders around the raise as well as the amount.
And again, I need to just state that our objective was to find the best way for us to extend the runway of the company into 2025, which we did. Also, from what we can track, when both of those announcements were made, and they were made after hours, after even the financing announcement, the stock price was after hours still above a dollar. Obviously, it's tough to predict what stock prices do. Even from what we saw from our norovirus announcement, the stock price was very high after hours. We did not announce a financing, and where it opened was lower than where it was after hours. So anyway, that's essentially our objective. So to summarize, our announcements coincided with the requirement to announce material information. And secondly, they both met the important objectives of the company: signing a large contract with BARDA and secondly, extending the cash runway.
I know there's another question that was just asked that, "Will an extension request for meeting the criteria for listing on NASDAQ be filed?" And as we have discussed, we are still determining next steps, but thank you for that question. Another question that was just submitted, "Was the ATM tapped on June 11th, the 90 million share volume day?" That was, of course, the day we announced the noro data.
Yes. Thank you for the question. To our shareholders, as a reminder, we do have an ATM that we can access as of this morning, and this is subsequent to what we stated at the last quarter call. We have not accessed that ATM. So the company, as of this morning, has not sold any shares on the ATM, so the answer to that question is no. The ATM was not used on the 90 million volume day.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, so I'd like to turn the meeting back over to our chair.
There being no further questions, this concludes the Q&A portion of the meeting. We would like to thank each of you for attending this stockholders' meeting.