Stephen R. Davis
Analyst · Needham
Thank you, Lisa, and good afternoon. Let me take this opportunity first to thank all of you for joining us on today's conference call. Today, my prepared remarks are directed at 3 things: First, I'll address our progress regarding the preparation of manufacturing of quality systems; second, I'll address our priorities for the year, including an update on achievements to date on the medical, clinical and commercial fronts in preparation for our planned launch of NUPLAZID in the U.S; and last, I'll offer comments on our financial results for the first quarter. As noted in the release, we continue to make important progress in advancing our NUPLAZID program for Parkinson's disease psychosis, or PDP, toward registration and in preparation for the planned launch of NUPLAZID in the U.S. I'm pleased to report that we remain on track with completing the preparation of manufacturing quality systems to support commercial manufacturing and supply and as previously indicated, we plan to submit our NUPLAZID New Drug Application, or NDA, to the FDA in the second half of 2015. Importantly, the NDA is complete. The NDA encompasses the body of scientific evidence generated from the NUPLAZID development program and of course, serves as the principal documentation for FDA review. Roger and his team have worked diligently on the NDA and plan to submit it once we've completed the work on manufacturing quality systems. Of course, as a reminder to everyone on this call, NUPLAZID has been designated as a breakthrough therapy by the FDA for the treatment of PDP and has the potential to be the first drug approved in the United States for this disorder. In addition to having that potential to be the first drug approved for PDP, I'd also like to just underscore that NUPLAZID, or pimavanserin as it's known generically, has the potential to change the way we treat psychosis across a broad number of disorders. As a selective 5-HT2A inverse agonist, pimavanserin works in a very different way than any antipsychotic approved today. It has the potential, and again I'll underscore the word potential, to be the kind of transformative advancement we saw over 20 years ago with the introduction of Prozac, which demonstrated a significantly improved tolerability and side effect profile over pre-existing drugs due to its improved selectivity. Today, we treat psychosis in a way that's not too dissimilar to the way depression was treated prior to the advent of Prozac. Psychosis is treated with nonselective drugs that carry significant safety and side effect burden, including significant sedation and the potential for weight gain and metabolic syndrome. With its selective 5-HT2A mechanism, we believe pimavanserin represents an opportunity to improve on this significant side effect burden in today's antipsychotics, and again, with the potential to change the way we treat psychosis. Turning to our priorities for the year and our operations to date. Our #1 priority in 2015 is to complete our ongoing work preparing for an NDA review and inspections to then submit our NUPLAZID NDA for PDP and continue our PDP market launch preparations. Our second priority is to continue to advance our ongoing study in Alzheimer's disease psychosis, or ADP, where we plan to complete enrollment around the end of this year. As is the case in PDP, there's no drug currently approved in the U.S. for the treatment of ADP and current antipsychotics are used off-label to treat ADP despite the black box warnings of increased risks of mortality and morbidity in elderly patients with dementia. Next on our priority list, we plan to continue moving forward with studies to explore -- further explore the potential benefits of pimavanserin in additional areas. On this front, we have undertaken a significant life cycle management assessment to prioritize both our short- and long-term clinical activities. In this arena, we plan to commence a clinical study to further explore the sleep benefits previously observed in pimavanserin. And in keeping with our highest priority of being very focused on PDP, we plan to commence this study in the second half following the submission of our PDP NDA. In addition, and as previously stated, we plan to commence a study in schizophrenia around the end of 2015. With respect to work we've been doing on the medical and commercial fronts, we also have made significant strides in our foundational medical education efforts. This includes expansion of our medical affairs team and initiation of an important disease awareness campaign designed to increase dialogue in the medical community regarding the needs of patients suffering from PDP. In January of this year, we launched the PDP disease awareness initiative, using a multichannel approach to better serve the educational needs of health care professionals. In addition to the launch of the pdpsychosis.com website, in April, we exhibited at the American Academy of Neurology conference held in Washington, D.C. There, utilizing an innovative virtual reality technology, several hundred meeting participants who visited our booth had the opportunity to experience a 3D simulation of what it's like for a patient to have hallucinations associated with Parkinson's disease. This experience was very well-received and provided the health care professionals with greater insight into how alarming and disabling these symptoms can be and in particular, why it's important to uncover the symptoms early. Also at the same meeting, we conducted an industry-sponsored symposium with leading scientific experts in the field of PDP. These experts highlighted that: One, symptoms of PDP are common in Parkinson's disease but may go unreported by patients and caregivers; second, they noted that Parkinson's disease psychosis, if not controlled in the outpatient setting, has been shown to be the leading cause of nursing home admission. They also noted that uncovering PDP symptoms is key because they can quickly worsen and decrease the quality of life for both the patient and caregiver. Later this month, we will have a presence at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, which will be held in Toronto; and we will also have a presence at the International Movement Disorder Society Annual Meeting, which will be held here in San Diego in June. In addition to these advancements on the medical front, Terry and his team has continued the planned build out of our commercial team, including the hiring of our regional sales management team in the first quarter, and we remain on track with our short- and long-term plans there. Terry will offer additional details in his remarks. These medical and commercial activities highlight the strong efforts that we're putting behind addressing the very significant unmet medical need represented by PDP and the preparations for the planned launch of NUPLAZID. Now let's turn to our financial results. Our financial results for the first quarter aligned with our strategy, which as previously communicated is to build a leading U.S. specialty CNS franchise using pimavanserin as the foundation. Turning to the numbers. Total operating expenses for the first quarter of 2015 were $40.6 million. R&D expenses for the quarter increased to $16.3 million from $11.7 million for the comparable quarter of 2014. This was due primarily to 3 factors: First, increased cost related to our planned NDA submission for NUPLAZID and associated preparations for review and registration of drug candidate; second, costs associated with our ongoing Phase II study in Alzheimer's disease psychosis together with our ongoing open-label safety extension study; and finally, R&D-related stock-based compensation expense increased by over $1 million for the first quarter of 2015 versus the first quarter of 2014. G&A expenses increased to $24.3 million for the first quarter from $6.3 million for the comparable quarter of 2014. This reflected our continued investment in commercial preparations for the planned U.S. launch of NUPLAZID, but also importantly and as noted in the release, G&A expenses for the just-completed quarter include $12.2 million in stock-based compensation expense, of which $9 million is related to the revaluation of our former CEO's outstanding options upon his retirement in March of 2015. Now let's turn to our cash position. We ended the quarter with $297.9 million in cash and investment securities. We expect our cash used in operations to increase in future periods as we execute on our current business plan as described earlier on this call. Under our current plan, we anticipate our cash resources will be sufficient to fund our operations, at least into the second half of 2016, and should fund us through an approval and U.S. launch of NUPLAZID for the treatment of PDP. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Roger, who will provide you with an update on our NUPLAZID program.