Good day, and welcome to the Trinity Biotech First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Diaz with Lytham Partners. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Matt, and thanks all of you, for joining us today. The management team of Trinity Biotech will review the financial results of the first calendar quarter ended March 31, 2022. Joining us on today's call is Ronan O'Caoimh, Chief Executive Officer; and John Gillard, Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of today's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, I must inform you that statements made in this conference call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks include, but are not limited to, those set forth in the risk factor statements in the Company's annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trinity Biotech undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after today, or the occurrences of unanticipated events. With that said, I will now turn the call over to John Gillard, Chief Financial Officer, for a review of the quarter results. He will be followed by Ronan O'Caoimh, CEO to provide further details. John, please proceed.

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. Now I will take you through the results for Q1 2022. Starting with revenues, total revenues for the quarter were $18.8 million compared with $25.6 million in Q1 2021. As Joe pointed out, and as our typical approach, Ronan will discuss revenues in further detail later on the call. As such, I will move on to discuss other aspects of the income statement. Before I begin, I will point out that the company recognized once-off accounting charges in Q1 primarily related to the refinancing and repayment of its exchange notes. I will give further details later on those charges. But for now, the numbers I quote exclude the impact of those charges. Gross margin for the quarter was 38.7% compared to 42.6% achieved in Q1 2021. The reduction in gross margin is mainly due to the very strong sales and margins recorded in Q1 2021, within our COVID-19-related portfolio of products. In the year since then, pricing for such products has fallen progressively because of lower demand as the level of PCR testing for COVID has declined in North America, and the availability of greater supply from other manufacturers has also negatively impacted demand. As ever, our gross margin remains susceptible to product mix changes, geographic spreads, currency fluctuations and product level variation. Moving on to R&D expenditure, this decreased to $1 million compared to $1.4 million in Q1 2021. The company continues to focus on operating efficiency and cost control and has continued to reduce headcount as it pursues greater automation and simplification of processes. Meanwhile SG&A costs are broadly stable at $5.9 million, down approximately $100,000 versus the corresponding quarter in 2021. This resulted in an operating profit for Q1 2022 of $0.2 million compared to $3.1 million reported in Q1 2021.…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Jim Sidoti with Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions, Ronan. You mentioned the Viral Transport Media revenue was down. I believe it was around $8 million in the year-ago quarter. Can you tell us what it was for the first quarter of 2022?

Yes. About $2 million, Jim.

About $2 million. So was down about $6 million?

Yes.

Okay. So I mean that's really the bulk of the revenue decline then is the VTM revenue, it looks like.

Yes.

Okay. All right. And do you think it will remain steady at around $2 million a quarter? Or do you think it will continue to decline throughout the year?

I think we'll see a drop off in Q2. And I think we'll see a ramp up in Q3, second half of Q3. And then as we go into Q4, I think we'd expect to see demand increase again.

Okay. Ronan O’Caoimh: This is Ronan…

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Ronan O’Caoimh: No, I was going to say, in addition to that, of course, now we've received a CE Mark approval for our COVID antigen test. And so we should see revenues commence there.

Right. And that was going to be my next question. You've gotten two major approvals since February, the antigen test and the TrinScreen. Can you give us an update on when you think you'll start generating revenue from those products? Ronan O’Caoimh: In terms of TrinScreen, a number of algos that have just happened to have kind of opened up for review and renewal. And so we're seriously in the chase in a number of countries, single-digit number of -- low single-digit three or four countries, where we're -- five countries where we're pursuing basically -- looking to be included in the new algorithm. And it's too hard to be sure, but we're doing well. We're doing well, and there's a few of them are significant countries. We're very encouraged by how we're doing. So it's still a task to replace an incumbent who's been in there for a significant amount of time. But it's looking very encouraging. I mean, bearing in mind that the WHO themselves ran a very significant trial, which resulted in 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity and puts us in a really good position in that sense.

And what about the point-of-care test for COVID? Ronan O’Caoimh: So in term of COVID, we've received just in the past number of weeks, CE Mark approval, which enables us to sell the product throughout Europe. But in addition to that, it actually opens up many other international markets, albeit not the U.S. market. So many other countries outside of Europe will accept the CE Mark. So as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, MiCo BioMed, who have a strong distribution channel in Asia and Southeast Asia, are endeavoring to sell the product there. And meanwhile, we are basically working on selling the product through our distributor base or indeed, in some cases, directly in Europe. So we haven't made any breakthroughs yet. But bear in mind, we're literally only half week [ph] into the market. But we're very encouraged by developments. And we're seeing a resurgence of COVID levels, COVID infections at the moment. And so we're optimistic about breaking into the market. And meanwhile then we're pursuing an FDA approval.

And so as sales of these two products start to ramp, are you fairly confident that the first quarter of 2022 will be the lowest quarter revenue-wise of the year? Ronan O’Caoimh: I mean, I don't know. Obviously, I'd hope so. But I don't want to say -- I mean, Jim, yes, I suppose so, but I'm reluctant to indicate otherwise.

I think you would be hopeful -- we'd expect that H2 is going to be stronger than H1 because we have those new products coming out of the market with sufficient time from regulatory approval to be able to get sales in America and get those volumes out.

All right. I think that -- I'm sorry. Ronan O’Caoimh: In overall terms, we're very optimistic. I mean, at this moment in time, I talked about a new beginning. I mean, we have moved from a situation where we were extremely worried about repaying $100 million loan note in circumstances where we didn't really have the funds to do so, to a situation where we've repaid that, where we brought in $45 million worth of equity at a price -- average price of $2.60 per share. Thereby, I think restructuring and effectively, very significantly restructuring our balance sheet. We've got a very strong partner, who brings not just a lot of money to the table but also a lot of expertise in terms of -- they're well-funded. They have a significant diagnostic business of their own, and they've got a strong management team, and got a lot of enthusiasm. They have multiple investments in various diagnostic sectors, mostly in point-of-care areas. And they intend, I think, to use Trinity Biotech as the medium to bring these products -- all these various products to market, many products that we haven't talked about. We're not really necessarily in a position to talk about yet, but really, really interesting, innovative products. So basically what we have is we have Chairman of MiCo BioMed who basically has invested significantly his own personal money and he’s very interested in diagnostics and has invested significantly in multiple new point-of-care platforms. And we see all of these coming through Trinity Biotech. In addition to that now, we are now in a position to invest in R&D, to look forward positively to bring in strong management, and we're doing that. We just have Dr. Yung joining us. And we're looking at new R&D programs. I think we'll have a focus on point-of-care, but it won't be exclusive in that area. And so I think we're moving forward with genuine confidence, and I think we're a company transformed. I think you will see now over the coming weeks and months -- coming weeks, I think you'll see the final restructuring of the balance sheet. And thereafter, I think you're going to see -- at the same time, you're going to see significant management appointments. So very, I think a rebirth [ph] and we're very positive for the future. The approvals of both TrinScreen and the COVID antigen tests have been very significant as well, really.

Do you think now that the balance sheet has improved, it will be easier to negotiate contracts with new customers? Was that a concern in the past? Ronan O’Caoimh: Frankly, it wasn't actually. No, it never -- that was never really an issue for us. But I mean, I think in bringing in strong management has been an issue or having the confidence to invest significantly in new research and development projects, to license -- the ability to, for example, license in technologies or do joint ventures with partners for innovative new products. I mean, it's very difficult to do any of those deals against the background of the 1 of April repayment of $100 million when you don't have it in your balance sheet. So yes -- so I think at the customer level, I don't think it's been a problem. It hasn't held us back.

Okay. And how about in terms of management resources now? Are you able to now focus on some of these new opportunities now that you've got the balance sheet cleaned up?

Yes. Absolutely. Like I think we've spoken before about the changes that we see happening in the diagnostic industry post COVID, where people now have a new relationship with diagnostic providers. We see a continually increasing role for diagnostic providers who can provide solutions outside of the traditional health care setting, right? So whether it's at home, across -- over-the-counter products, point-of-care products they're going to be more and more a feature in people's health care journeys. They're typically faster. They're typically cheaper, which is also important in the context of maybe some of the economic headwinds that we're facing, right? So we think that COVID has really led to breaking of significant adoption to do in people learning how to use these types of tests and being able to take biological samples themselves. And in that context, you have to ask the question, are people going to spend time going to their doctor to get a simple test where they can potentially do that at home themselves or do it in some other settings such as a pharmacy that's more towards point-of-care. So we think the testing volume is going to come towards point-of-care, which is obviously a very strong area for Trinity and has been for 30 years. And then also, I suppose, as we see continued aging of the population and a greater use in people's lives of information and data to make decisions, the diagnostics really is a very powerful data source for people to take a significant role in their own health care journeys. So we think there's a lot of kind of broader trends that feed towards where our business is because remember, we have a lot of features, Jim, outside of just being in point-of-care. We own or have our own lab. We develop our own tests. We manufacture our own tests. So we have a huge amount of that overall value chain associated with diagnostics in-house within Trinity. I think to Ronan's point, with renewed financial confidence that gives us the opportunity really to aggressively attack those opportunities and derive growth and additional value from them.

I think that’s it for me. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Jim.

[Operator Instructions]. Ronan O’Caoimh: I don't believe we have any more questions. So could I just take this opportunity to say thank you very much. Good afternoon, and speak to you soon again.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.