AGM 2020

Jun 19, 2020

Good day, and welcome to the Selecta Biosciences 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the conference over to Carsten Broom, President and Chief Executive Officer of Selective Biosciences. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Carsten Brunn, President and CEO of Selecta. I'd like to welcome you to our 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, and thank you for your ongoing support of Selecta Biosciences. I will act as Chairman of this meeting, and Ilona Cogan, our General Counsel, will act as Secretary. I'd like to first introduce to you the other members of the Board who are on the webcast today. On the Board are Carrie Cox, the Chair of the Board Yaron Ando, Tim Barabi, Scott Myers, Aymeric Salin, Tim Springer and Patrick Zenner. I'd like to also introduce Jason Gemmock and Maggie Yu of Ernst and Young, the company's independent auditor, who are available to respond to appropriate questions via the Ask a Question box found on the web portal. Before we get started with the official business of today's Annual Meeting, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on the state of the business during this pivotal moment in Selecta's history. 2 weeks ago, we announced a strategic licensing transaction for a late stage asset SEL-two twelve for the treatment of chronic refractory gout. Selecta will receive initial payments of $100,000,000 We're eligible to receive up to $630,000,000 in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments and double digit royalties on net sales. We believe we have found the optimum partner to take SAL-two twelve to the next phase and believe this transaction will generate the most value for shareholders. This transaction is expected to extend our cash position into the first half of twenty twenty three. In gene therapy, we're excited to have our methylmalonic acidemia or MMA program in the clinic by the Q1 of 2021 in collaboration with Astyle. We are further thrilled to have just recently signed a research license and option agreement with Sarepta for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and certain subtypes of limb girdle muscular dystrophies. Sarepta is the leader in the neuromuscular gene therapy space, and we're excited to work with them on this novel approach. As a reminder, our ImmTOR platform could provide patients with the ability to be retreated with AAV gene therapies, which is not currently possible. Finally, now that we have demonstrated the ability of ImmTOR to mitigate adverse immune responses in humans with the SEL-two twelve program, we're emboldened to develop antigen specific immunotherapies with a goal tolerance to self antigens in autoimmune diseases. The first two indications we intend to pursue under this approach are IgA nephropathy and primary biliary cholangitis. Both diseases have well defined target antigens, significant unmet medical lead and are well suited to the application of our ImmTOR platform. We look forward to continually unlock the full potential of the ImmTOR platform by optimizing the efficacy of biologic therapies, enabling redosing of life saving gene therapies and creating novel immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases. The meeting will now officially come to order. I will now turn the meeting over to Yolona Kogan, who will conduct the formal business of the meeting as set forth in the company's notice of annual meeting and proxy statement. Ilona? Good morning, and thank you, Carsten. We will now review a few formalities. The polls open today, June 19, 2020 at 9 am Eastern Time for voting on all matters before the meeting. If you have not already voted and wish to vote, the polls will remain open until we finish presenting the proposals and close the polls. You do not need to vote during the meeting if you have already voted and do not wish to change your vote. On the virtual meeting web page, you will find the agenda for the meeting. You will also find the rules of conduct for today's meeting. Please review these rules carefully. Note that only stockholders who are logged into the meeting using their 16 digit control number will be able to vote and submit questions at today's meeting. Only selected stockholders of record at the close of business on April 23, 2020, four holders of a valid proxy are entitled to vote at today's meeting. The Inspector of Election has a complete list of the holders of record of the company's common stock on the record date for the meeting and for stockholders who have entered a valid 16 digit control number. The stockholder list is also available during this meeting on the bottom panel of your screen. I have also received an affidavit from the company's mailing agent Broadridge Financial Solutions certifying that the delivery of records relating to the company's annual meeting scheduled for June 19, 2020 to all stockholders of record as of the record date was made by means of a mailing which commenced on April 28. I will file the affidavit with the records of the meeting. At this time, I'd like to introduce Joseph McClelland, a representative of Broadridge Financial Solutions, who the Board has appointed to serve as the Inspector of Election at today's meeting. Mr. McClelland has signed the customary oath of office to execute his duties with strict impartiality. We will file this oath with the records of the meeting. I have been informed by the Inspector of Election that a majority and voting power of our outstanding common stock is present by remote communication or represented by proxy and based on that information, I therefore declare that a quorum exists this meeting is duly constituted for the transaction of business. We will now proceed with the formal business of this meeting. The first item of business is the election of Scott D. Myers Timothy A. Springer, Ph. D. And Patrick Zenner to serve as Class 1 Directors of the company for a term of office expiring at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held in 2023. You can read a short biography of each of these Director nominees in our proxy statement. The Board unanimously recommends a vote for each of these Director nominees. The second item of business is the ratification of the Audit Committee's appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for the year ending December 31, 2020. You can read more about this proposal, including the audit fees and services and the audit committee's pre approval policies and procedures in the company's proxy statement. The Board recommends that shareholders vote for this proposal. That was the final item of business for today's meeting. If you wish to vote and you have not done so already, please vote now by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. You do not need to vote electronically if you have already sent in your signed proxy or if you have voted by telephone or Internet. We will pause for approximately 30 seconds before closing the polls. The time is now 9:0:9 am on June 19, 2020 and the polls are now closed for voting. The Inspector of Election will count the votes. Mr. McClellan has provided me with the preliminary report of the Inspector of Election. I will cause the final report of the Inspector of Election to be kept with the company's records of the Annual Meeting. Based on the preliminary report of the Inspector of Election, Scott D. Myers, Timothy A. Springer, Ph. D. And Patrick Zenner have been elected as Directors with at least 90% of the votes cast for their election. And the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2020 has been ratified with approximately 99% of the votes cast in favor. This concludes the preliminary voting results. The final tally of the votes will be published within 4 business days in a current report on Form 8 ks to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, I will turn the meeting back over to Carsten. Thank you, Lona. And again, thank you to our shareholders and our Board of Directors for your support of Selecta Biosciences. I now declare that the official portion of the meeting is adjourned. We will now answer appropriate questions from stockholders. Only validated stockholders will be able to ask questions by typing in their question in the Ask A Question box found on the web portal. Each stockholder is limited to no more than 3 questions or comments, no more than 2 of which may be on any single topic. At this point, we do not have any questions in the queue. With that, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Annual Meeting. I want to thank all of our stockholders and everyone on the line today for your continued support of Selecta Biosciences. Thank you.