Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. Please note that the meeting is being recorded. I would like to introduce Kirk Look, Chief Financial Officer and Chair of today's meeting. Mr. Look, the floor is yours.
Good morning and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. My name is Kirk Look and I am the Chief Financial Officer of Oncolytics, and I will be serving as Chair of this meeting. Joining me today is Jared Kelly , CEO and Director, and each of the other Directors: Wayne Pisano, Deborah Brown, Pat Andrews, Angela Holtham, Bernd Seizinger , James Parsons, and Jonathan Rigby. Other members of management also joining us today are Allison Hagerman and Tom Heineman. For convenience, we have divided today's meeting into two parts. First, the formal business portion will address the legal requirements for a shareholders' meeting, including voting on the resolutions. After we conclude the formal part of the meeting, the second part will consist of a brief corporate update.
Before we begin with the formal business portion of the meeting, I will provide some comments on voting and questions at today's meeting. As with any technology, unexpected glitches may occur, and we appreciate your patience. Our service providers for this platform at TMX Trust are very experienced at running this type of meeting and will help us work through any challenges. The virtual platform we are using allows us to ensure that shareholder rights are protected, and our meeting offers shareholders the same opportunities to participate as in past in-person meetings. We will conduct a vote on the matters before us by a poll. On a poll, every registered shareholder and proxy holder who has obtained a control number in advance are entitled to vote on each matter. Voting during this meeting can only be done through our virtual voting platform on the webcast.
Once the polls are opened, registered shareholders and proxy holders who have obtained a control number will be able to cast their votes. The login information and login process was outlined in our notice, which was mailed out to shareholders and can also be found on our website. When logging into the meeting, if you have a control number, enter it in when prompted. If you do not have a control number, please log into the meeting as a guest. The password for everyone is onc2025, all in lowercase. The polls for all resolutions are now open. You may vote at any time during the meeting until the polls are closed after the last item of business has concluded. Thank you to those of you who have already voted. For those who have not yet voted, we encourage you to vote now.
I welcome all guests who are not registered shareholders or holding proxies of registered shareholders. As a reminder, as with any in-person meeting, only registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders are able to vote or ask questions during the formal part of today's call. Participants may submit questions at any time during the meeting. There will be opportunities for shareholders to ask questions specific to each resolution on the webcast. Again, as a reminder, only registered shareholders or proxy holders with a control number are entitled to ask questions on the matter at hand during the formal part of our ATM. If you have a question, click the Ask a Question tab at the top left of the webcast page. Please read the instructions in the text box before submitting your question.
In particular, we ask that you identify whether your question relates to a motion being considered as part of the formal business of this meeting or whether it is of a more general nature. We will address questions that directly relate to a particular motion at the appropriate time of the meeting. Once you have finished typing out your question, click the Submit button. The Secretary will receive the questions, and at the appropriate time, we'll read them out in order for everyone to be aware of the question being dealt with. Please note that due to time constraints, we may not be able to address all questions today. With that, I would like to call the annual meeting of the shareholders of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. to order. With the consent of this meeting, I will ask Jared Kelly to act as Secretary of the meeting and Ms.
Christine Colaso of TMX , our Transfer Agent, to act as Scrutineer of the meeting. I have received a declaration prepared by an Officer of TMX that the notice calling this meeting with accompanying management information circular and form of proxy were mailed on July 7th, 2025, to shareholders of record as of June 18th, 2025. Accordingly, with the consent of the meeting, the reading of the notice of meeting will be dispensed with, and I request the Secretary to keep a copy of the notice of meeting and proof of service with the minutes of this meeting. The preliminary Scrutineer's report has now been received, and it shows that the required threshold for quorum at this meeting has been met. I direct that a copy of the Scrutineer's report be kept with the minutes of the meeting.
Accordingly, I declare that the meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The formal business of this meeting consists of presenting the financial statements for fiscal 2024, fixing the number of directors, electing the directors, and appointing the auditors for the corporation for the ensuing year, and authorizing the directors to fix their remuneration. The first item of business is the presentation of the financial statements of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. for the period ended December 31st, 2024, together with a report of the auditors thereon. Copies of the financial statements have been mailed to registered shareholders. With the consent of the meeting, the reading of such statements and report will be dispensed with. I do wish to recognize and advise the meeting that the auditors of the corporation, EY LLP, are in attendance online, being represented by Steven Nelson.
I do not propose to ask shareholders to approve the financial statements tabled. However, I will be pleased to receive any questions concerning the financial statements after the termination of this meeting. The next item of business is to set the number of directors at eight. I request a motion that the number of directors be set at eight.
Mr. Chair, my name is Allison Hagerman, and I am a shareholder. I move that the number of directors be set at eight.
Mr. Chair, my name is Tom Heineman, and I'm a shareholder. I second the motion.
I would now ask the Secretary to please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted. If there are no questions, please cast your vote. We will now proceed with the election of directors. The information circular contains the names of management's proposed nominees to the Board of Directors, which are Pat Andrews, Deborah Brown, Jared Kelly , Angela Holtham, James Parsons, Wayne Pisano, Jonathan Rigby, and Bernd Seizinger . I understand that these nominees have consented to act as directors. The nominations which have been made are in order, and as there are no further nominations, I will declare the nominations closed.
Since the number of nominees do not exceed the number of directors to be elected by the shareholders, I request a motion that the nominees be elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.
Mr. Chair, my name is Tom Heineman. I'm a shareholder. I move that the nominees be elected as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.
Mr. Chair, my name is Allison Hagerman, and I am a shareholder. I second the motion.
I will now ask the Secretary to please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted. If there are no questions, please cast your votes. We will now proceed with our final item, the appointment and remuneration of EY LLP as our auditor, as outlined in the information circular. I request a motion with regards to the appointment of the auditor.
Mr. Chair, my name is Allison Hagerman, and I am a shareholder. I move that EY LLP be appointed as the auditors of the corporation until the next annual meeting or until a successor is appointed, and that their remuneration be fixed by the Board of Directors.
Mr. Chair, my name is Tom Heineman, and I'm a shareholder. I second the motion.
I will now ask the Secretary to please advise if any questions specific to this motion were submitted. If there are no questions, please cast your votes. Now, before announcing the voting results, is there any other business that anyone present wishes to bring to the attention of the meeting? If there is no further business, I would now declare the polls to be closed, and we will proceed to present the voting results. I now ask the Secretary to provide the preliminary results of the voting.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have received the preliminary voting results from the Scrutineer and can advise that each motion brought before the meeting has passed by a majority of the votes cast.
Thank you. I declare each of the resolutions considered at today's meeting in respect of those matters as carried. The exact number of votes cast in respect of each matter will be filed on SEDAR and made available on our website. Thank you again to all shareholders and proxy holders for your attendance today. If there is no further business to be brought before the meeting, I have a motion to terminate the formal part of the meeting.
Mr. Chair, my name is Allison Hagerman, and I am a shareholder. I move that the meeting be terminated.
Mr. Chair, my name is Tom Heineman, and I'm a shareholder. I second the motion.
I will now ask the Secretary to please advise if any questions specific. Thank you. If there have been no comments, I declare the motion carried and this portion of the meeting to be concluded. With the formal portion of the meeting terminated, we will now move to the second half of our meeting. I'll also note that various remarks made during this portion of the call may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to the company's business prospects, including statements regarding the company's focus, strategy, and objectives, statements regarding the state of the biopharmaceutical industry, and statements comparing or analyzing the results and prospects of Ambrx with results to the prospects of Oncolytics .
Final projections, including the risk with respect to Oncolytics 's cash needs and planned future capital raises, the development and commercialization of pelareorep, the company's belief as to the potential and mechanism of action of pelareorep as a cancer therapeutic, the design aims and anticipated benefits of the company's current pending clinical trials, and the anticipated timing of the release of additional data, the company's plans and expectations regarding a potential registration-enabled study, the company's plans and strategies, including business development plans and strategies with respect to intellectual property protection and regulatory matters, and statements related to anticipated developments in the company's business.
These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of factors which involve known and unknown risks, delays, uncertainties, and other factors not under the company's control that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the results, performance, or expectations implied by these forward-looking statements. In any forward-looking statement in which Oncolytics expresses an expectation or belief as to future results, such expectations or beliefs are expressed in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, but there can be no assurances that the statement or expectation or belief will be achieved. These factors include results of current or pending clinical trials, risks associated with intellectual property protection, financial projections, action by regulatory agencies, and those other factors detailed in the company's filings with SEDAR and the SEC.
Oncolytics does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by applicable laws. I'll now pass the call off to Jared . Please go ahead.
Thank you, Kirk. Quick moment here to thank you all for your continued support of Oncolytics. Today, we're very excited to share our sharpened strategic vision for our platform and our product, immunotherapy candidate pelareorep. We believe the best path forward and the best outcome for our investors is to stop spending dollars on exploratory proof-of-concept studies and instead focus entirely on unlocking the full commercial potential of pelareorep. We're pushing to accelerate pelareorep into a registration-enabled study in first-line pancreatic cancer and create the conditions for a transformational transaction that delivers real, lasting value to our shareholders. I believe we have something unique, an intravenous oncolytic virus that hits primary and metastatic tumors, avoids additional toxicity, and shows strong efficacy across multiple tumor types. It primes the immune system to fight cancer the way the immune system is designed to fight cancer.
Importantly, the industry is rapidly waking up to the need for an effective immunotherapy in pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers. Several high-profile companies are pursuing pancreatic cancer as an imitation, including Revolution Medicines and Arcus. There's also a revival in the oncolytic virus space, CG Oncology, Replimune, and others using the mechanism of action to attack various difficult-to-treat tumors. The momentum is happening, and we're well positioned to lead a breakthrough with an immunotherapy option that others do not have in pancreatic cancer and other GI tumors. We just need to capitalize on the momentum, similar to the way we did that at Ambrx. Just like Oncolytics, Ambrx was a scientifically credible, clinically advanced, but long-overlooked biotech with a sub-$100 million market cap and a stock price trading below $1 at one point.
In just 13 months, the company went from a $40 million valuation to a $2 billion sale to Johnson & Johnson. Oncolytics is a similar stage. We have a lot of data, an overlooked company, but we have more impressive data, a better platform opportunity. Oncolytics checks every box for a potential partner, from manufacturing to clinical data to IP. With the right strategic execution, we believe we can do exactly what Ambrx did, but I believe we have a higher ceiling and broader clinical opportunity. We're entering a new phase at Oncolytics, one driven by focus, urgency, and value creation. We've built a foundation of extensive safety data, and we've demonstrated repeated efficacy signals in multiple tumors. We have a new focus to be the only platform immunotherapy in gastrointestinal cancer.
Over the remainder of 2025, we expect to attain an additional patent and extend intellectual property protection, receive regulatory clarity on a registration-enabled study in first-line pancreatic cancer, allow our GOBLET data to mature in anal carcinoma and, again, first-line pancreatic cancer, and continue exploring the partnership landscape for pelareorep. Our existing cash takes us through these important milestones and into 2026, and we do not expect to raise additional dilutive capital until we have precise clarity on these milestones in our design and registration path and timelines. Going forward, please expect more regular updates from management instead of quarterly discussions around financial statements. We want to thank you again for supporting Oncolytics for all these years and for attending our shareholder meeting today.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. Thank you once again for your participation. You may now disconnect.