 Hi, how are you doing today? This is Rich, here we have RichTVLive with our very special guest. It is David Elsley, the CEO of Cardiol Therapeutics. How are you doing today, David? I'm doing great. Good afternoon. Thanks for having us. My pleasure. Great to have you here. And it's been a very exciting couple months for Cardiol Therapeutics. What have you guys been up to over the last little while? Well, I think like all companies around the world, we're all learning to adjust to this global pandemic we're all living with. Fortunately for Cardiol, we're part of the pharmaceutical industry, we're developing important medicines for heart disease. And as a result of our pharmaceutical alliances, all of which are part of essential services, we have fortunately been not adversely impacted by this. In fact, we have migrated certain of our research interests to hopefully improve outcomes in COVID-19 patients who are at risk for very high risk for mortality and serious consequences of COVID because of their prior history of cardiovascular disease. And we've developed a unique cardioprotective formulation of an important medicine that we believe can really make a change in these people's lives and heart failure patients' lives in general. Now you were covered by Raymond James and Heltacorp and we have heard Cardiol refer to as the GW Pharma of the heart. How do you feel about that comparison? I think it's an appropriate characterization. I mean, GW Pharma did a great service to pediatric patients around the world or children around the world who suffer from rare forms of pediatric epilepsy that can cause brain damage. This has always been a poorly served disease and they've developed a oral cannabidiol formulation that has dramatically improved the lives of those kids. We at Cardiol see the opportunity to follow in their path and develop actually a larger opportunity around our cannabidiol formulation, which is essentially chemically identical to GW Pharma's with a slightly higher level of purity and stability, but we're targeting ours at a very important area of heart disease, which remains the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in children and in people under the age of 35. So this is a disease called acute myocarditis. It's caused by a virus. The prevalence of this disease is now increasing because the COVID virus is also now causing this disease and we see an opportunity to significantly improve the lives of those patients through the innovations that we're developing here at Cardiol. That's really good work that you guys are doing. Walk us through Cardiol's clinical and commercial strategy. This is very unusual aspect to your investment thesis. We're essentially a hybrid company. We have focused on the development of heart medicines for over 30 years. What led us into the development of cannabidiol, one of the cannabinoids, pharmaceutically for the treatment of heart disease was a discovery made at the National Institute of Health many years ago, back in 2011, that basically demonstrated the ability of CBD or cannabidiol to reverse fibrosis and inflammation in the heart. That fascinated us as specialists in the area of heart failure medicine and we decided to develop a pharmaceutical program around that to develop new and improved ways to reverse inflammation, which are one of the primary drivers of the progression of heart failure, which remains the leading cause of death and disability in the Western world. I think what makes Cardiol unique is notwithstanding our focus on developing these high value important medicines for heart disease, because Canada has basically passed legislation to enable cannabinoid-based medicines to become available to patients nationwide. We've also partnered with one of the most respected distributors of medicines in our country, which is Shoppers Drug Mart that dominate the Canadian pharmacy landscape to make our medicine available for all the reasons people are currently using CBD or cannabidiol today, including anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and in the case of severe pediatric conditions such as potentially epilepsy, as well as autism spectrum, where it's also being studied. Now we're in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic. It was recently announced that Cardiol has filed an international patent application covering the use of COVID-19 patients with CBD. What can you tell us about the exciting new development? We filed that patent application based on data that was accepted for presentation at the virtual sessions of the American College of Cardiology that were presented this past March for the first time in history virtually because of the pandemic. The data that was accepted basically demonstrated that our cannabidiol formulation, our pure pharmaceutical-produced CBD formulation reversed fibrotic processes in the heart and actually protected the heart against inflammatory insult. We now know that not only is COVID-19 causing severe respiratory issues, but it's also causing a massive inflammatory response which can attack cardiac tissue and the vascular system in general and lead to severe consequences including death. We see a unique opportunity in the context of COVID-19 to study our cardioprotective medicine to insulate or protect patients who are most vulnerable to this virus, which is essentially any patient with a prior history of cardiovascular disease or associated syndromes like conditions like diabetes. We know that those patients have exponentially higher risk for mortality and poor outcomes if they have that prior history of cardiovascular disease. We see an opportunity to pretreat those patients with our formulation to provide a cardioprotective benefit potentially to basically insulate them against those poor outcomes. Wow, this is great. What you guys are doing. When can viewers expect the clinical programs targeted at COVID-19 to begin? We're currently in discussions with regulators, major regulators internationally in order to explore the possibility of conducting a clinical study to study the impact of our medicine to provide a cardioprotective benefit to COVID-19 patients. We're imminently starting a phase one clinical trial, which is typically a precursor into phase two studies, which we plan to be in areas of heart failure medicine by the end of the year, but possibly this will also lead us into important work in COVID-19 where we can study forms of heart failure that resemble myocarditis and other types of heart failure caused by the presence of the COVID virus and the immune response to that virus. It's a very rare opportunity that we can participate possibly in improving the treatment options for patients with this cardiovascular background that currently are very vulnerable to death as a result of this virus. Now in March, you guys signed a monumental deal with Schropper's drug mark. Congratulations. Thank you. Tell us a little bit more about this exclusive agreement. We spent several months, almost a year negotiating with Schropper's drug mark, a very important agreement that we are now preparing to activate by making our medicine available to patients in Canada who are in desperate need of a formulation that we've developed that is quite unique to Cardiol, which is a cannabidiol formulation with essentially indetectable levels of THC or no THC. And that's important because we know that THC can adversely influence brain development in young people, people under the age of 25, so much so that pediatricians and the College of Physicians mandate that physicians not prescribe THC to any patient under the age of 25. But the fastest growing segment of the $1.2 billion medicinal cannabinoid market in Canada is people over the age of 65 who can have comorbidities, other diseases beyond other medications that can lead to an intoxication effect when THC is mixed with those other medications and that background of other disease states. And so even that patient population could significantly benefit from a THC free formulation. But unfortunately in Canada, that formulation is not available. We plan to be the first to introduce it. We've selected the most respected, most trusted distribution network in the country of Canada, a brand that is known by all Canadians, which is Shoppers Drug Mart to introduce this. And we're in the final stages of preparing for that commercial launch at present. And then we'll get out there and we'll educate the pediatricians that deal with people under the age of 25 and we'll educate gerontologists on the availability of this formulation that has no psychoactivity, no ability to cause intoxication. When can viewers expect to see your products in Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies? Shoppers Drug Mart or Medical Cannabis by Shoppers currently distribute only by prescription or only by authorization. So you require an interface with a physician to get an authorization or prescription for cannabinoids medically speaking in Canada. Medical Cannabis by Shoppers Drug Mart only make it available online at present as do all medical outlets to access prescription cannabinoids. And they are becoming the dominant distributor in this country for medicinal cannabinoids. The other reason I should have mentioned earlier that we selected Shoppers is they're solely focused on medical cannabinoids. They have nothing to do with the recreational side. We as a cardiovascular heart disease company also have nothing to do with that aspect of cannabinoids. We're simply isolating the medical benefits of a non-psychoactive, non-addictive form of cannabinoids that we believe can do a lot of medical good in cardiology and a number of other areas of medicine. And we're very pleased that we were able to align this development effort with a brand that is trusted for medicine in Canada for many years by all Canadians. And we're in the 11th hour of getting ready to make this medicine available to Canadians. That's great. We're going to be watching very closely. And what upcoming milestones can investors expect from Cardio this year? I think we have a very interesting development pipeline that is going to improve medicine ultimately for millions of people around the world. We are about to embark upon a phase one clinical trial in up to 60 patients. This is a very fast clinical trial activity. It will last 60 to 90 days. The purpose of that study is to look at blood levels of our products so we can optimize the dosing regimen for our important trials that we plan to initiate by the end of the year or early in 2021. It's focused on important areas of heart failure medicine, including acute myocarditis, which is leading causes of sudden cardiac death in people under the age of 30. And possibly a Cardio protection program in COVID-19 would be initiated in parallel with that. And then we're also advancing new important ways to deliver this medicine directly to the heart for the long-term treatment and care of chronic heart failure patients, which by any measure remains one of the largest medical problems facing the developed world. It is an epidemic unto itself. It's probably the second largest disease next only to diabetes affecting 6 million people in North America and remaining a leading cause of death. And the number one reason people are hospitalized. We're offering about $30 billion in health care expenditures. So we plan to advance a new important way to deliver this cannabinole medicine directly to cardiac tissue with a view to improving the standard of care for those patients who are most vulnerable to this epidemic heart failure. What is the best way for investors to get in touch with you? I think the most informative electronic methodology would be to visit our website at cardiorex.com or feel free to contact our Investor Relations Department and they'd be happy to address any questions or provide further information on the company. Well, David, thank you so much for your time today. We wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. A lot of great work you guys are doing, not just for heart disease, but for COVID-19. So congratulations on all your success. This is David Elsley, the CEO of Cardio Therapeutics. Thank you for watching everybody. Thank you for joining us, David. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have yourself a nice day. Thanks.