Good day and welcome to the 22nd Century Third Quarter 2019 Business Update Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tom James. Please begin.

Thank you very much. My name is Thomas James, the Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of the company. We thank everybody for joining the call, and I appreciate you bearing with us as we read the required safe harbor text. The statements made on today's call that are not based on historical information are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our company's business strategy, future plans and objectives and future results of operations or that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements. The words estimate, project, intend, forecast, anticipate, plan, believe, will, will likely, should, may or the negative of such words or words or expressions of similar meanings are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and all such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our company's ability to control. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the risk factors disclosed in our company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 6, 2019. 22nd Century does not undertake and it disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements or announce revisions to any of the forward-looking statements. During this call, we will also disclose certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, which we define as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as adjusted by 22nd Century for certain noncash and nonoperating expenses, all as described in our company's earnings press release for the quarter ended September 30, 2019, as publicly issued yesterday on November 7, 2019, and which is available on our company's website. And I'd now like to turn the call over to Cliff Fleet, our company's Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Tom, and thanks to everyone for joining today's call. We also thank those who submitted questions for the call in advance of today's discussion, and we have incorporated answers to many of those questions in our remarks today. Past 3 months have been quite busy as we have made meaningful progress against the 2 strategic focus areas outlined 3 months ago in our previous conference call. We are leveraging the company's leading position and core strengths in plant biotechnology to create shareholder value in the 2 spaces of tobacco and legal hemp/cannabis. Our first objective is to create meaningful change in the tobacco industry by reducing the harm caused by smoking through the commercialization of our proprietary, very low nicotine content tobacco and its related intellectual property. Our second objective is to grow our profitable, legal hemp/cannabis business in this fast-growing emerging space. We believe the pursuit of these 2 objectives which we are very well positioned to do, will create substantial value for shareholders. Over the past few months, we have conducted a thorough review of all of our plans and activities to ensure that everything we do supports these 2 objectives and allows us to operate more efficiently than in the past. I'm going to talk about the company's strategies, plans and overall performance during the third quarter and year-to-date against these 2 strategic areas of focus. And then John, 22nd Century's Chief Financial Officer, will review highlights of the company's operational and financial performance for the same time periods. If there are any questions, we ask that you please direct them to our Investor Relations team after the call, we will be happy to answer them. Our tobacco harm reduction efforts are going very well. As a reminder, we have submitted 2 applications to FDA…

Thank you, Cliff. Details about our company's performance can be found in yesterday's earnings press release and quarterly Form 10-Q filed yesterday on November 7, 2019. All financial comparisons in my remarks are against the comparable year ago time period unless otherwise noted. Our operational and financial performance remains solid with relatively stable revenues, the maintenance of a strong balance sheet and adequate liquidity to fund our research and other investments. Our income performance deteriorated from the prior year periods due to the factors Cliff discussed previously as well as several other items, but we expect the comparable numbers for income to improve as we move into next year. We also expect some improvement in cash utilization rate due to the cost reduction program. For the 3-month period, net sales revenue increased from the comparable prior period due to an increase in contract manufactured cigarette sales. And for the 9-month period, net sales decreased from the comparable prior year period primarily from a decrease in revenues from the production of filtered cigars. We have carefully evaluated our pricing strategies and planned for this year and next and planned to thoughtfully and prudently manage pricing and sales initiatives to maximize our revenue potential. This new plan has already resulted in the company taking a cigarette pricing increase in October of this year. Our cost of goods sold increased in both time periods principally driven by an increase in FDA fees for filtered cigars as well as higher labor and equipment maintenance costs. These cost increases resulted in a slight gross loss on sales during both the 3- and 9-month time periods versus a gross profit in both periods last year. We are working diligently to bring our costs down, which, in conjunction with our new revenue and product pricing plan, should…

We thank everyone for joining our call today. If there are any questions, please contact our Investor Relations team. Information on how to contact them can be found in yesterday's press release and on the company's website. We wish everyone a good day.

This concludes today's conference, and you may log off the webcast at this time. Thank you for your participation.