Good day, everyone. My name is Chelsea, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Helius Medical Technologies Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, November 9, 2023. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Michelle Bilski, Investor Relations for Helius Medical Technologies. Please go ahead. Michelle Gable Bilski Thank you, Chelsea. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call for Helius Medical Technologies. This is Michelle Bilski of In-Site Communications, Investor Relations for Helius. With me on today's call are Dane Andreeff, Helius Medical's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jeff Mathiesen, Chief Financial Officer. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. Please note that this call is being recorded and access to the webcast can be obtained through the Investors section of the Helius website at www.heliusmedical.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our remarks and responses to your questions today may contain forward-looking statements that are based on the current expectations of management. These forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Such factors may be updated from time to time in our other filings with the SEC, which are available on our website. All statements made during this call are as of November 9, 2023. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise our forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Nick Sherwood with Maxim Group.

Hi, guys. How is it going.

Good, Nick.

So my first question is about the letter of intent from the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services. Do you know what their time line is to evaluate the benefit of PoNS Therapy with those 30 devices?

So this is Jeff. I'll just step in. In the press release, we commented that the letter of intent, their desire is to have the -- all 30 patients, either beginning treatment or lined up by the end of March of next year. So it would be something that should play out fairly quickly.

And then, are there any -- is there any additional sort of like agreement or ideas that based on success that they would buy additional? Or is that sort -- or are you looking to go through the study, work with them, do the study and then once that's completed, work with them from there?

Their intent in the letter of intent, what they're looking to have come out of this is, if successful, they would want to incorporate this as part of their standard of care. But there are no specific commitments to do anything beyond that.

I understand.

Hi, Nick. This is Dane. Just a little more color on who Quebec, the Ministry of Health, is. It is their provincial health care provider like a CMS Medicare and most strokes are covered under government policies.

Okay, I understand. And then sort of what -- is there any -- I mean, what sort of communication can that Quebec Ministry of Health have with other provinces such as like Ontario? Or is it kind of you have to reach each Canadian province health system sort of on an individual basis?

Yes. I'll take that one. So yes, like Ontario OHIP plan, we would have to reach out and provide a similar conversation where a lot of them, provincial health care providers, would like to do their own studies. But they're also happy to see Quebec being the first one stepping in to do this balance and gait study in stroke.

Okay. Awesome. And kind of switching gears, can you just give a little bit of color on the relationship with HealthTech Connex and sort of any buying patterns they have for PoNS Therapy? And I mean the numbers -- people getting back to work who had traumatic brain injury, a lot of really good results from that. Can you just sort of give some more detail on that relationship?

Yes. This is Jeff. I'll step in. For the first part of the question, so we do have an arrangement with them where they are exclusive for the Vancouver area. And that was something that we signed earlier this past year. And so it's an agreement where they -- as part of the -- having this exclusivity, they do have a commitment to purchase a certain number of units throughout the period of the agreement and also an opportunity to renew that agreement after the first five year period with an additional payment and then also additional commitments for purchase. So we've had a great relationship with them for a number of years. They're a big promoter of PoNS and have done a lot of things, studies and things on their own using PoNS. And then we're part of a program with Pacific Blue Cross, where those two work together to evaluate PoNS with these TBI patients that was just reported. So I'll let Dane talk a little bit more about that specifically. But in general, we have a great relationship with them.

No, Jeff, I think you covered it all. So thank you.

Awesome. And then I'll wrap it up with one final question. Looking at the therapeutic experience program, do you still expect to enroll about 8 to 10 centers by the end of the year? And do you expect any of that enrollment to continue into the next year?

Yes. Right now, we're at six sites, and the enrollment keeps increasing. And in each site, the goal is five to 15 patients per site to get us in the 50 patients for the total research trial that we deem is very valuable to bring all these KOLs in to expand mindshare and really get experience treating their MS patients with PoNS.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you for all that detail. I will return to queue.

Great. Thanks Nick.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from Jonathan Aschoff with ROTH MKM.

Thank you very much guys. I was curious, the PBC estimate that five individuals who returned to work saved the provider like $1.63 million in net costs netting out the cost of PoNS. Can you tell us the number of years of those LTD claims that each of those five had coming to them that PBC doesn't have to shell out for?

Hi, Jonathan, this is Dane. So the savings on the rest of those long-term disability claims according to their actuaries was at $1.6 million. The five patients, some of them averaged three and four years left on it. Some went as far as 20 years on it. But the way they calculate their savings using PoNS Therapy, it was $1.6 million in savings.

Okay. And what do you think of that number? Is that a very conservative number? Or is that something that sounds kind of spot on?

I think it's a very conservative number, Jonathan. Some of these patients were -- again, the minimum for the study that specifically crossed in with HealthTech Connex, the minimum event was from two years and beyond. Some of these patients were four and five years away from their traumatic brain injury event like a motor vehicle event or workers' comp injury, just in general, where TBIs come from. But my belief was the savings were north of $1.6 million.

Okay. So some of those were a little confusing in that publication. Did four or five of the nine patients actually returned to work? Or did you -- I mean, did just four and one was simply deemed work-ready because it kind of says both. It's a bit confusing. Or, to PBC, does it not even matter because simply deeming someone work-ready despite not actually returning to any kind of work cuts off the LTD payments?

Yes. So good question. So they closed out five long-term disability claims based off going back to work. So five of them...

Actually four only went to work, right?

Actually, five did because their physical disabilities went away. So they were able to go back to work and actually five did go back to work. So there is some ambiguity and timing to that, Jonathan. But I think the number that we focus on clearly was that eight out of the nine deemed, balance and gait was no longer an issue to going back to work. So if you think about the three that haven't gone back to work yet, there is even more cost savings if they did. But the way the study was done by Pacific Blue Cross, their primary outcome was going back to work so that they could close their long-term disability claims.

And Jonathan, I think the ambiguity comes from I think four of the five went back to work in the same occupation that they had before. So I think that's where the ambiguity is, is five went back to work before -- actually went back to their same job.

Okay. So the eight -- you mentioned the eight of nine, the eight that had the gait and balance fixed, but only five of them went back to work. Is that because the three patients that differ between those two groups still had headaches, was that the one reason?

Not necessarily. I mean, if you read into this a little bit, the one thing -- one, this is not our study. This is not Helius Medical study. But second, those patients even though they're able to -- and basically saying balance and gait or their physical disabilities are no longer an issue to go back to work, we didn't have any color on their actual application resume and, frankly, going out and looking for new work. So our belief is those eight out of nine, actually, in 89% of the study, we felt like we met the goal of the ability to go back to work. Does that make sense, Jonathan?

Yes. it does. The last question -- I'm sorry, continue.

Yes, because PoNS Therapy treats balance and gait and that balance and gait deficit. Our claims are not in anything cognitive, headache severity and so forth. It is fabulous that their study reported the decrease in severities and increase in cognitive. Those are just wonderful things to see with using PoNS Therapy as hopefully a standard of care going forward in treating traumatic brain injuries.

Okay. And you had mentioned some warrant exercise contribution to give you some cash. Was there any ATM use after the 30th of June?

Yes. So we did disclose in our 10-Q that we raised $284,000 from our ATM during the quarter. And we sold 27, 875 shares in doing so.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jonathan.

[Operator Instructions] All right. And it seems we have no further questions in the queue. So I'll turn the floor back over to Dane for any additional or closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for following Helius Medical Technologies. We're living in very exciting times for PoNS Therapy. We look forward to keeping you updated as we pursue coverage for reimbursement and continue bringing PoNS Therapy to the millions who need it. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's call, and we appreciate your participation. You may disconnect at any time.