Good morning. My name is Andrew Goldberg, and I am the Chief Executive Officer of Achieve Life Sciences and Chairperson of this 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I welcome you to our virtual annual meeting. I now call the meeting to order. Erik Atkisson, our Chief Legal Officer, will act as Secretary and record the minutes of the meeting. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending the meeting via the webcast is permitted to use any audio recording device. The polls are open and will close shortly after the presentation of the proposals. Any stockholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on their web portal and following the instructions there.
Stockholders that have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet, and who do not want to change their vote, do not need to take any further action. Before turning to the formal items of business, I would first like to introduce our director nominees. In addition to myself, the director nominees up for election today are Mr. Jeffrey Farrow. Mr. Farrow serves as the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company. He has served as one of our directors since May 2026.
Dr. Lucian Iancovici. Dr. Iancovici is a partner of TPG, a global alternative asset manager. He has served as one of our directors since April 2026. Mr. Chris Martin. Mr. Martin served as Chief Commercial Officer for Verona Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company, until its acquisition by Merck & Co. in October of 2025. He has served as one of our directors since May 2026. Ms. Nancy Phelan. Ms. Phelan serves as the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Analytics for Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company. She has served as one of our directors since January 2025.
Dr. Aaron Royston. Dr. Royston serves as Managing Partner at venBio Partners, a life sciences investment firm. He has served as one of our directors since April 2026. Mr. Thomas Sellig. Mr. Sellig serves as Chief Executive Officer of Adare Pharma Solutions, Inc., a contract development and manufacturing organization. He has served as one of our directors since March 2023. Mr. Richard Stewart. Mr. Richard Stewart founded Achieve and, among other roles, served as our Chief Executive Officer from August 2024 to April 2026, and served as our Executive Chairman from September 2020 to August 2024.
Mr. Stewart has served as one of our directors since August 2017. Dr. Reid Waldman. Dr. Waldman serves as Chief Executive Officer of Veradermics, Inc., a late clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. He has served as one of our directors since May 2026. Also present is a representative of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, Achieve's independent auditor, and Leah Grant, a representative of CT Hagberg, LLC. By authority vested in me by the Board of Directors, I have appointed Ms. Grant to act as the Inspector of Elections for this meeting, and Ms. Grant has executed the Oath of Inspector of Elections.
I have a copy of the notice of this meeting, the proxy statement provided to all of Achieve's stockholders of record as of the close of business on May 15th, 2026, and a declaration by Broadridge Financial Solutions as to the mailing of the proxy statement, which took place on or about June 8th, 2026. As of the close of business on May 15th, 2026, the record date for the meeting, Achieve had 102,659,057 shares of common stock outstanding, each entitled to one vote at this meeting.
I am advised by the Inspector of Elections that the holders of a majority of the shares of voting stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting as of the record date are present or represented by proxy at this meeting and a quorum is therefore present. I declare this meeting duly and lawfully convened.
We will now proceed with the business items. The first item of business is to elect nine directors to serve until our next annual meeting of stockholders, or until each director's successor is duly elected and qualified. The candidates for director that have been nominated by our Board of Directors are Jeffrey Farrow, Lucian Iancovici, MD, Chris Martin, Nancy Phelan, Aaron Royston, MD, Thomas Sellig, Richard Stewart, Reid Waldman, MD, and myself, Andrew Goldberg, MD. Each director is elected by a plurality of votes properly cast at this meeting. The second item of business is to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, as Achieve's independent registered public accounting firm for the current fiscal year. The affirmative vote of at least a majority of shares of common stock properly cast at this meeting is required to ratify this appointment.
The third item of business is to approve, by a non-binding advisory vote, the compensation paid by us to our named executive officers. The affirmative vote of at least a majority of the shares of common stock properly cast at this meeting is required to approve the compensation paid to our named executive officers. The fourth item is to approve the amendment to our third amended and restated certificate of incorporation to increase the number of our authorized shares of common stock from 150 million shares to 300 million shares. The affirmative vote of at least a majority of the shares of common stock properly cast at this meeting is required to approve the amendment.
As a reminder, the polls will close shortly. If you have not yet voted, please do so now by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls for Achieve Life Sciences, Inc.'s 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders closed. The final vote results will be reported in a Form 8-K to be filed within four business days. There are no other formal items of business, our 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders is now adjourned. That concludes our meeting. We thank you for your attendance today and continued support of the company. We look forward to updating you on our continued progress in the future. Goodbye.
This concludes today's meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.