Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Cibus Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] And please note, today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Carlo Broos, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon. I would like to thank you for taking time to join us for Cibus' Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call and Webcast. Presenting with me today is Peter Beetham, Co-Founder, Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and COO; and Greg Gocal, Co-Founder and our Chief Scientific Officer. Before we begin the call, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made on the call and webcast, including those regarding future financial results and future operational goals and industry prospects are forward-looking and may be subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the call. Please refer to Cibus' SEC filings for a list of associated risks. This conference call is being webcast. The webcast link along with our press release and corporate presentation are available on the Investor Relations section of cibus.com to assist you in your analysis of our business. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Peter.

Thanks, Carlo, and good afternoon, everyone. This past quarter has further focused our commercialization and production activities. I clearly see our company as a coiled spring, ready to deliver gene-edited traits for years to come. Today, I am excited to share the significant commercialization momentum we have generated since implementing our streamlined strategic focus. The progress we have made in just the past few months validates our decision to focus on our highest value near-term revenue opportunities. As we've discussed previously, we are primarily focused on our weed management traits, bringing herbicide-tolerant crops to new markets and providing great options for farmers, while we also achieved early revenue for our biofragrance business. The progress that our talented team has been able to make within our focused strategic framework is remarkable, and I believe the results speak for themselves. What you'll hear today demonstrates our drive toward our commercial goals. When we announced our streamlined focus in July this year, we committed to you that this would help solidify our path to our near-term revenue opportunities. Today, I'm pleased to report that we're delivering on that commitment. But before diving into our results, I want to take a moment to emphasize some recent exciting news about our Board. We strengthened our Board with 2 appointments this quarter. In September, we welcomed Kimberly Box as a new Board member. Kim brings exactly the kind of leadership we need as we move into this commercialization phase. She has deep experience in technology operations, strategic transformation and scaling innovation into global markets. Experience gained while employed at Hewlett-Packard in executive roles over 30 years. And, just last week, we appointed Craig Wichner. Craig's deep expertise as a recognized leader in regenerative and sustainable agriculture, including farmland investment management as the Founder and Managing Partner…

Thank you, Peter. I'll keep my remarks focused on the key technical milestones we achieved this quarter that support both our priority programs and our broader opportunity pipeline. On the Rice platform, I'd emphasize that the enhanced editing efficiency we've achieved is directly enabling the customer expansion Peter described. We're not only signing agreements, we're actually delivering edited, elite germplasm back to customers on predictable timelines. That technical execution is what's driving the partner interest we're seeing, and it's validating our industrialized breeding approach. Using our RTDS, we are changing the way plant breeders think about the future of trait development. The unprecedented speed of our technologies to edit elite genetics will only accelerate with our continued improvement and strategic use of AI/ML technologies. Turning briefly to our opportunity pipeline. I want to highlight 2 significant technical validations this quarter. First, in our North American field trials, our HT2 herbicide tolerance trait validates the path for developing not only for that chemistry, but for any chemistry in this family. For sclerotinia resistance in canola, bioassays for plants bearing 2 of our modes of action demonstrate enhanced resistance. It's important to remember that both HT2 and Sclerotinia resistance have broader potential application to crops like soybean. Further, these results position both traits well for potential partner development. Our HT2 trait is being offered to seed licensing partners for funded, continued development opportunity. Second, we completed our second year of field trials for our Pod Shatter Reduction trait in Winter Oilseed Rape, showing promising performance in several customers' elite germplasm. For the 2026 field season, we're pleased to see implementation of the U.K. legislation, enabling our gene-edited trait germplasm to be growing like conventional germplasm as we seek funded partnerships for continued development. Finally, the soybean platform continues to generate partnership interest as we seek to access a 125-million-acre opportunity. The key message I want to leave you with is this. Our RTDS platform is proving its value across multiple crops and increasingly complex traits, whether it's delivering Rice traits to 7 different customers, scaling up biofragrance production or validating next-generation herbicide tolerance traits in canola, we're demonstrating the versatility and commercial potential of our technologies. This technical foundation, combined with our growing regulatory track record, positions us exceptionally well to advance high-value traits through partnerships while maintaining focused execution on our priority revenue drivers. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Carlo for a financial update. Carlo?

Thank you, Greg. Looking at our financials for the third quarter. Our cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2025, were $23.9 million. Taking into account the impact of implemented cost-saving initiatives and without giving effect to potential financing transactions that Cibus is pursuing, we expect that existing cash and cash equivalents is sufficient to fund planned operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into early in the second quarter of 2026. I'd note that our commercialization focus has enabled us to streamline our expenses and operations significantly. We have reduced operating expenses by almost $5 million in the first 9 months of 2025 across our SG&A and R&D spending. Moving to our operating results for the third quarter. Revenue for Q3 was $615,000 compared to $1.7 million in the year ago period. This decrease reflects timing of partner-funded program activities. Research and development expense was $10.8 million for Q3 compared to $13 million in the year ago period. This $2.2 million decrease is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives that we have implemented as part of our streamlined operational focus. Selling, general and administrative expense was $5.2 million for Q3 compared to $7.7 million in the year ago period. The $2.5 million decrease is primarily due to cost reduction initiatives. Royalty liability interest expense was $9 million for Q3 and in the year ago period. This is due to the recognition of interest expense on the royalty liability. Nonoperating income net was nominal for Q3 compared to income of $7.7 million in the year ago period. The decrease in income is driven by the fair value adjustment of the company's liability classified common warrants in 2024. Net loss was $24.3 million for Q3 compared to $201.5 million in the year ago period. The significant year-over-year improvement reflects the $181.4 million noncash goodwill impairment charge taken in Q3 2024. As Peter mentioned, we successfully completed consolidation of our Oberlin facility during Q3 2025, and our Roseville facility consolidation remains on track. These actions, along with the reduction in force completed in July, demonstrate tangible progress toward our goal of reducing annual net cash usage to approximately $30 million by 2026. This disciplined approach to capital allocation extends our cash runway while positioning us to capture the significant revenue opportunity ahead with initial revenues beginning in 2026 and meaningful commercial expansion thereafter. With that financial overview, let me turn it back to Peter for closing remarks.

Thank you, Carlo. Let me close with the key message I want you to take away today. The gene editing revolution in agriculture is happening now, and Cibus is positioned like a coiled spring at the forefront of this transformation. As I have mentioned previously, crop seed genetics are the engine room of the world's food and feed production. The fact that we are prioritizing Rice is exciting, not only as an extraordinarily large potential annual royalty for shareholders, but a much needed advancement for helping to improve productivity of a major crop that helps to feed billions of people. When we look at what we've accomplished just so far in 2025, 7 Rice customer agreements spanning 3 continents, successful biofragrance scale-up with an initial payment for our pre-commercial product, and we believe a clear path to approximately $200 million in potential annual royalty revenue from Rice traits alone. Our commercial traction is tangible. We have traits moving into customer germplasm, and we continue to see positive field trial results. We're operating in an increasingly favorable global regulatory environment. And we have commercial launches beginning in 2027 with initial revenue starting in 2026 with biofragrances. This isn't a distant aspiration. This is the reality of our near-term commercial opportunity. Our streamlined business focus is working. We remain laser-focused on executing our right commercialization timeline, scaling our sustainable ingredients revenues and building the foundation for sustainable cash flow generation. We're displaying disciplined capital management, extending our runway and positioning Cibus to capture significant value as gene editing becomes one of the standards for agricultural innovation. I'd like to thank you for your support, and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress next quarter. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first this afternoon to Laurence Alexander of Jefferies.

This is Kevin Estok on for Laurence. I guess my first question is around, I guess, what the chances were for potential R&D sharing or bespoke R&D projects in 2026?

Thanks for the question, Kevin. This is Peter. I'm going to start this -- answer this question, then quickly hand it over to Greg because I think there's some wonderful opportunities in this space. I think the key message here is that, as I just mentioned in my closing remarks, the gene editing is happening now. It's not about the technology coming of age, it's actually come of age. And what we're finding now is the real catalyst behind getting to commercial products is regulatory with tailwinds from a regulatory standpoint. And so, we're seeing a lot of inbound interest in regarding partnerships on expanding beyond our current focus, which is rice, canola and soybean and our productivity traits. So, I believe there is significant opportunity in 2026 to expand some of our R&D collaborations. Greg?

Thanks, Peter. I think we have, as Peter said, a lot of opportunity. The opportunity is not only in the platforms that we're focused on today, but also well beyond that. We've developed really, I think, a unique approach within the industry of starting with single cells that we edit and regenerate to whole plants. We have that capability for a broad variety of crops, and we've developed many platforms in our past. Further, we've also got multiple traits that we believe are primed for development. For instance, our HT2 trait as well as various modes of action for Sclerotinia resistance that show really great promise in controlled environments and we're working through validating those in the field. So, thanks for the question, Kevin.

Understood. And I guess my second question, you guys -- I read your commentary about sort of the EU regulations. And I guess I was just -- obviously, we're kind of getting towards the end there, but things have moved a little bit slower than originally expected. And I guess I was wondering what your thoughts were on sort of when you think that will finally be finalized.

Thank you, Kevin, for the question. This is Peter. I like the fact that you think it's a little bit slower because for people in the industry, this last year has been accelerated beyond what we expected. It's exciting for us in that the fact that Europe for many years -- for literally over 2 decades has been recalcitrant to understanding how to get regulatory through for genetically-modified organisms. What's been exciting for us on the gene editing front, which is different is that from 2018, they've made a concerted effort to bring forward legislation. And that legislation was voted on last year in 2024. And this 2025 has been the year where they've been working on the final text. And we believe, based on our understanding through industry groups in Europe as also some of our seed company partners is that by year-end, they'll have completed that text. And so that final text will start the process of implementation across Europe. And that's a really exciting moment, not just for us, but the whole industry.

Can I fill in like a few seconds, Peter? Kevin, sorry, this is Carlo. I'm from Europe. So, I always like these questions, of course. I was not at Euroseeds this time, but we had a few colleagues over there. And it was quite remarkable. I think almost all the seed companies were realizing that new breeding technologies and gene editing is to come. So, I think it was a theme #1 at Euroseeds this year just a few months ago. So that makes me super excited just realizing what that will mean for us.

We'll go next now to Matthew Venezia of AGP, Alliance Global Partners.

So, firstly, when we look at the major rice markets that you guys are going to be selling in Latin America, U.S. and India, how should we be looking at the acres that you have accessible, the total addressable market and kind of what is put into the calculation of your total addressable market in these markets?

Matt, thank you for the question. This is Peter. Yes, look, we're super excited about the AgVaya collaboration. I think that this is a group that has years of executive experience in large multinationals and building businesses in the seed and trait business in India. And I think we've been very fortunate to work with these guys to really map out our opportunity in India. India has over 120 million acres of rice. It is the second largest exporter of rice in the world. It's a market that we believe we can access through this sort of collaboration with AgVaya. Again, we're looking at this in the -- to build relationships with seed companies, bring in material and get it back to them so that we can launch towards 2030, 2032. As you understand, we do collect royalties. So, our estimated trade fees around this will be in alignment with what we've seen and talked about in Asia, which can be $1 to $2 per acre, a little bit more. That's exciting for us because I think there's an opportunity to really expand that. And I'm going to hand it to Greg because he's just actually come back from India where he talked to a number of seed companies.

Yes. Matt, I'm really, really excited about what -- I mean, we're on the beginning of a path with our -- with Indian seed companies, working with AgVaya, who's helping us with those relationships and helping us develop our presence within India. There is massive demand for rice, but also massive demand for potentially other crops there. In some areas in India, you're rotating rice twice a year. So, it becomes like some of the markets within Latin America. So excellent question. Yes.

And in Latin America and the U.S., how many acres are addressable through the current customers that you have right now for Rice?

So, Matt, thank you for the question. As we mentioned in our remarks, this last quarter, we've signed on some additional seed companies in Latin America. We're up to 7 total, 2 in the U.S. and 5 now in Latin America. And that allows us to really address that market. What we're saying right now is between 5 million to 7 million. So we've increased it by a couple of million acres from where we were last quarter in Latin America. And that takes us again over this $200 million annual royalty goal and objective we have.

Got it. And then lastly from me, obviously, canola Pod Shatter Reduction, that was not a trait that panned out right away the way that you thought. Why are HT traits different from PSR? And why are they easier to fit into breeding programs for seed distributors and seed companies?

Thanks, Matt. That's a great question. What we've known in this industry for many years is that weed management or herbicide tolerant traits are really like the operating system for many crops. So when a farmer plants seed every year, they need to control their weeds, and they either use selective herbicides or non-selective herbicides. And what is really well known now is that that business model is really well understood. In fact, on the GMO side of the business, they're still collecting about $4 billion of annual royalties on a trait that was developed in the '90s. What we're able to do is bring novel traits to the marketplace to give farmers options to control their weeds. And so I believe that herbicide tolerance or weed management solutions have a lot of traction quickly into the market. And that is one of the reasons we're signing up a number of companies in both U.S. and Latin America. And as we mentioned in our remarks, HT2, another herbicide tolerance trait, we had great field trials this year. We reported on those early. And that's in canola, and that is in North America. So, there are basis for planting crops. And I think that trait is not only multiple geographies but multiple crops. A little different to Pod Shatter in that Pod Shatter Reduction is more confined to smaller geographies, and the option now we are looking at is further in the U.K. and Europe for our Pod Shatter trait in 2028.

And to add a little bit to Peter's comments on weed management. So, weed control systems are an operating system for farmers. It's an expectation in developed agriculture that you have a weed control package to enable cultivation even on smaller acreages I mean, like Latin America and India. Weeds take away water, nutrients and sunlight away from plants that reduce yield. And so, we -- I mean, we are not a chemistry company. but over our history, we've been able to develop gene-edited weed control solutions for at least 4 groups of chemistry, and I believe there's even more potential beyond that. So, we're excited with where we are, and we believe that there's strong value for both seed companies, growers and our shareholders in the weed control traits we're developing.

We'll go next now to Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright.

It's good to see there has been some initial commercialization of biofragrances. Should we expect sort of ramp-up quickly in 2026 on this and get to double-digit millions? Or should we expect sort of single-digit million revenues from this in 2026?

Thank you, Sameer. This is Peter. I really appreciate your question. Biofragrance, we're excited to run through our pre-commercialization scale up this year and has been very successful. We see opportunity beyond the 2 fragrances that we have scaled. And so, we do see a ramp-up in 2026. We see that the total opportunity in the $20 million to $40 million revenue range. But for -- early on, that will be -- it will be in the single-digit millions. But it is just the tip of the iceberg in our minds. The fragrance market is over $65 billion, and this area is looking for alternatives, particularly for the natural fragrances out there. So, there's an opportunity, I think, that could expand beyond that.

Understood. And then, as I understand, the cost-cutting efforts included focus on HT1 and HT3, but there are pipeline traits that you have available for partnership. And there was some announcement in October about the HT2. So, I was just wondering, are there any money being spent still on these pipeline traits? Or -- and should we expect that to reflect in the R&D or some other line on the income statement?

Sameer, thank you for your question. I think that you've captured this fairly well. I think that -- with regards to our expanded pipeline traits in crops like HT2, we're excited with the field results this year. We are in discussions and looking for partners for this area. Right now, it's not a lot of resource. For us, we've developed that trait. We've been able to do the edits very efficiently, and we're excited to sort of think through the next steps with -- again, this is a multi-crop, multi-geography trait. So, I think this is exciting for 2026.

Understood. And then last one from me. The AgVaya relationship that is being developed, and I think Greg mentioned other crops as well. So, it's relationship with seed companies in India, but how about the regulatory environment? And what kind of requirements do you have to meet in order to sell in India?

Excellent question, Sameer. This is Greg. So, one of the people who I had the opportunity of meeting was the former Minister of Agriculture in India. And as I think you realize from some press releases over the last 6 months or so, the first gene-edited rice has been planted in India. So, there's a lot of appetite for traits in India. And because of that, we're excited with the acceptance, but also with the demand for -- in the first instance, our HT1 and HT3 traits there.

We'll go next now to Austin Moeller at Canaccord.

So just my first question here on the biofragrance products. So, will those be hitting store shelves in 2026 in a pilot capacity and then scaling up into 2027? And then, how much should we think about the ramp in '27 being in terms of revenue?

Thanks, Austin. This is Peter. I'll answer the first part of this question and hand it off to Carlo. We are working with an, as yet undisclosed CPG, with regards to fragrances and getting into products. So, there's -- what our role is with regards to Biofragrance is the scale-up that we've already done on a pre-commercialization step this year and going through to a full commercial scale next year. That will be included in various formulations is our understanding. We don't know exactly which products will end up in next year. We have some guidance on that, which we've given the market. And we look forward to announcing when those products actually hit the shelves.

Peter, the only thing I would like to add because you specifically asked about '27, that's still single digit, but then we take off.

Okay. And do you have any specific updates you can provide on the European parliament?

Yes. Thanks, Austin. Let me start. I'm going to dive into what's happened in the last couple of months because I think we've talked about the history of the EU regulatory, but the trialogue as they call it, which is the discussion around the Parliament, the Council and the Commission has gone very well with the Danish leading that -- the council discussions. They are working on a number of areas, what they call the amendments to the legislation for the final text. And we've been very encouraged with where they've ended up, particularly on some of the detail around how many edits and how many genes within a plant genome are acceptable. It all matches everything that we do internally here at Cibus. And beyond that, labeling and patent discussions have also gone well. So, they're very close to, I believe, final text. The next 4 to 6 weeks are going to be very interesting to watch as they move through that. The next country who will take this on is Cyprus. If it does flow over into Q1 2026, which we don't expect today, they are also very supportive of completion based on the understanding of how the amendment should be changed.

We go next now to Alex Hantman at Sidoti.

Just given the current cash position and runway into early Q2 '26 that you mentioned, could you talk a little bit about kind of the size and range of non-dilutive, dilutive financing options you're exploring? And what milestones do you expect to achieve with the next [ period ]?

Thanks, Alex, for your question. This is Peter. I think that I'm going to let Carlo answer most of that question. But to start with, we have made a lot of great progress with regards to our near-term revenue opportunities. A combination of that with the catalyst of the tailwinds, we believe, from the regulatory front allows us to be well positioned to look at strategic alternatives of financing the company. And at this stage, we don't have anything more to report on it than that.

Yes, I think correct, Peter. I think all options are still on the table. Like in the past, right, it is not any different at the moment. I think most important is that we progress so well on our milestones. And I think that's what investors want to hear to continue to support us in the near-term. What you said on the burn, I think you've seen that very spot on. I think quite impressive. A couple of things we did. So, we implemented RIF just after summer, but we did much more than that. So, there's also streamlining facilities. We've shut down the Oberlin facility, some other cost saving initiatives, all to get ready for that $30 million annualized net burn next year. But I think most important is that we continue strongly to deliver on the milestones.

Great. And congrats again on the biofragrance side, initial payment. I had a question on the trait side. Can we get an update on automations and improvements on the real-time -- real delivery system? I think we heard a little bit about AI and ML technologies from Greg, but just curious about from edit to stable trait line technology these days.

Yes. So, excellent question, Alex, and really proud of what the team has been able to accomplish and is continuing to, in our facilities, we're always pushing to become more efficient. So, efficiency is improving editing frequency, which I'm really impressed with for Rice over the last year, it's increased by an order of magnitude. The regeneration frequency for our key crops, really impressed by the improvements there. And to your point, in terms of automation, so we're a semi-automated process, but a lot of the really repetitive mundane tasks we're able to do with robotic assistance, which really enables our team of scientists to focus on the hard problems and the more repetitive tasks are handled by robots, both for some of our cell culture process, but also for a lot of the liquid handling. And then, because we've been around for a quarter of century, we're able -- we have a lot of data in the editing space, in the what to edit space where -- and also with what you've seen generally for structural biology and intelligence there in terms of predicting and helping support some of the edits and accelerating the what to-edit space so that we're making the right choices as we move edits into our production pipeline. So, excellent question, Alex.

And gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this afternoon. Dr. Beetham, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.

Thank you, and thank you all for joining us on today's call. As I've said in the past, I continue to be so proud to be part of the Cibus team. As you've just heard, we've made excellent progress this past quarter with a renewed focus and streamlined business. What I hope you've heard is that gene editing is happening now, and it's delivering across multiple sectors. As Greg just mentioned, some of the incredible things that are going on in the company with regards to the understanding of what to edit with AI and ML as well as automation for us to be time-bound and predictable for our seed company partners, delivering back their elite genetics is really going to drive our near-term revenue. So, we're excited to be leading this charge in the ag industry. And we do see these near-term revenue targets like herbicide tolerance in Rice, a clear path to that market, which is fantastic. You think about the focus with regards to the different geographies we're targeting. This is a huge commercial expansion of trait royalties. That's why we see ourselves as a coiled spring. But finally, we clearly see the seed industry also recognizing the global harmony of regulatory. As Carlo mentioned, our team just coming back from Euroseeds, understanding that this is a tailwind behind our expanded business opportunities, and we really look forward to a great year in 2026 and beyond. So, again, thank you for joining. Thank you for your support and time today.

Thank you, Dr. Beetham. Again, ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude the Cibus Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. Again, thanks so much for joining us everyone, and we wish you all a great remainder of your day. Goodbye.