Earnings Labs

Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AGIO)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, May 7, 2015

$24.78

+1.41%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+9.92%

1 Week

+14.47%

1 Month

+20.46%

vs S&P

+20.66%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Agios Pharmaceuticals Incorporated First Quarter 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Ms. Lora Pike, Senior Director, Investor Relations, Public Relations. Miss Pike, you may begin.

Lora Pike

Analyst

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone and welcome to Agios’ first quarter 2015 conference call. You can listen to a live webcast with slides or a reply of today's call by going to the Investors & Media section of our Web site agios.com. With me on the call today with prepared remarks are, Dr. David Schenkein, our Chief Executive Officer who will review progress to-date in all of our programs and provide an outlook for the reminder of the year. Dr. Chris Bowden, our Chief Medical Officer, who will review our recent clinical development update and Glenn Goddard, our Senior Vice President of Finance will summarize Agios' first quarter 2015 results. Dr. Scott Biller, our Chief Scientific Officer is also here today and will join us for Q&A. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's discussion will include statements about the Company's future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. While we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so even if our views change. With that, I will turn the call over to David.

David Schenkein

Analyst

Thanks, Lora and good morning everybody and thanks for joining us today. 2015 is an important year for Agios as we execute on a number of important clinical events and so far this year we're off to a great start. On the call today, we will highlight the efforts we're making on our 2015 key priorities. As a reminder, they are to execute on our planned global registration programs, build out our capabilities and continue to invest in research to maintain our leadership position in cancer metabolism and the rare genetic disorders of metabolism. Over the past four months, we have made great progress both meeting and exceeding important clinical regulatory and business milestones. This progress is highlighted by the selection of our fourth development candidate AG-881 for the clinic and a new joint worldwide collaboration with Celgene for this molecule, as well as the rapid advancement of AG-221 and AG-120 into large scale Phase 1 expansion cohorts in AML in the existing trials which we're announcing today. AG-348 is also advancing on schedule and we remain on track to initiate the Phase 2 study in patients with pyruvate kinase deficiency in the second quarter. Through the natural history study conducted by Boston Children's Hospital we continue to refine our understanding of the severity of the disease, disease manifestations, identify patients and help to provide measures of clinical outcomes. Our culture at Agios continues to thrive and evolve and is an area of special focus for us now and into the future. And we're pleased, we've ended the quarter with a strong cash position of approximately $440 million, these efforts are the result of hard work, prioritization and disciplined decision making. We are uniquely focused on maintaining our competitive leadership advantage in the field of dysregulated cancer metabolism and in…

Chris Bowden

Analyst

Thanks, David. I’d like to start by saying that our expanding clinical development programs underscore our commitment to bringing important new medicines to patients. The most recent example is the addition of the newly selected AG-881, a brain-penetrant, pan-IDH inhibitor to our IDH portfolio. With this addition we now have three IDH mutant inhibitors being developed in collaboration with Celgene. Our progress so far in 2015 is marked by the key clinical events we announced today, the initiation of large scale expansion cohorts as part of AG-221 and AG-120 ongoing Phase 1 studies in hematologic malignancies. I will start with the Phase 1 trial of AG-221 and hematologic malignancies. As a reminder the ongoing Phase 1 dose escalation study of AG-221 has four expansion cohorts of approximately 25 patients and al our evaluating a single daily 100 milligram dose. Three of these cohorts are in clinically defined AML population and one comprises a basket cohort enrolling patients with other IDH 2 mutant positive advanced non-AML hematologic malignancies, for example, myelodysplastic syndrome. I’d like to highlight our decision to add the fifth cohort to the Phase 1 study in hematologic malignancies for AG-221. The early part of the expansion cohorts, four cohorts I just described are designed to generate additional information to continues to develop the clinical profile that is advancing the AG-221 program toward late stage development. The amendment of this study we announced today broadens the trial by adding an additional cohort of 125 patients in a selected group of AML patients who are in second or later relapse our refractory second line induction or re-induction treatment or have relapsed after allogeneic transplantation. AG-221 will be administered at the same dose of 100 milligrams once daily as in the other four cohorts. Given the strength of the AG-221 clinical…

Glenn Goddard

Analyst

Thanks Chris. Agios is in a very strong financial position today; it is well capitalized as we advance multiple programs in the late stage clinical development. As David has mentioned we are very pleased to be advancing our fourth internally developed investigational medicine AG-881, a brain-penetrant pan IDH mutant inhibitor. AG-881 will be jointly developed with Celgene under a new world wide profit share collaboration agreement. Under the terms of the new collaboration agreement, we'll receive an initial payment of $10 million and are eligible to receive regulatory milestone payments of up to $70 million. Agios and Celgene will jointly share 50-50 in both worldwide development costs and worldwide profits. Now moving on to our financial results for the first quarter. Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of March 31, 2015 were 440 million compared to 467 million as of December 31, 2014. The decrease was driven by cash used to fund operating activities of approximately 32.2 million which was offset by AG-221 cost reimbursements of approximately 6.6 million made by Celgene during the first quarter of 2015. Our total revenue was 34.2 million in the first quarter of 2015 compared to 8.4 million in the first quarter of 2014. Approximately 15.8 million of the increase related to the delivery of the ex-U.S. license for AG-120 at Celgene. In addition the first quarter of 2015 included revenue for reimbursable cost related to development services for ongoing Phase 1 studies. Research and development expenses were 32.4 million in the first quarter of 2015 compared to 17.4 million in the first quarter of 2014. The increase was largely due to increased investments in our three lead investigational medicines as they advance into later stage development activities. General and administration expenses were 7 million for the first quarter of 2014 compared to 3.3 million in the first quarter of 2014. The increase was largely related to increased headcount in other professional expenses to support growing company operations. Today we are also reorienting our previous guidance that we expect to end 2015 with more than 320 million of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. In addition, we expect this cash position to give us runway through late 2017. And with that I'll turn the call back over to David.

David Schenkein

Analyst

Thanks all for your time today. We're excited by the progress we have made so far in 2015 and look forward to executing on our remaining milestones and updating you on our clinical progress at EHA and on future calls. And we want to thank all the patients, their caregivers, the members of the medical community who have participated in our clinical trials and of course all our employees and shareholders for their continued support. And with that operator we can open it up for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question is from Eric Schmidt with Cowen and Company. Your line is open.

Eric Schmidt

Analyst

I guess the question on the new 125 patient expansion cohorts for both 221 and 120 it looks like they are very specific patient sub-populations so I guess I am just asking how those would have been chosen, why those might have been chosen?

David Schenkein

Analyst

Thanks Eric this is David. I'll kick it over to Chris in a second. So, I appreciate your comments and your support. As you know and as have we articulated in the past our goal is to get 221 and 120 as quickly as possible to the patients out there with IDH1 mutant positive disease in particular AML who need desperately a new treatment. And we've always said that we would combine both speed and breadth as we move these molecules forward in development and I think this is the first component of that and so with that let me turn it over to Chris who can articulate a little bit more about the patient selection.

Chris Bowden

Analyst

That's a group of patients in that 125 patient cohort that has very limited if any treatment options. If you really look at that what I outlined there in my remarks they have are on second or later relapse the refractory to the second line induction and four have relapsed after allogeneic transplant, bone marrow transplantation. So those patients don’t have a lot of options whereas to clearly seeing activity in that group of patients and we think that's an important group of patients for us to build a really robust efficacy and safety data set and as we plan further steps in our clinical development.

Eric Schmidt

Analyst

And does your commercial team have a sense of what percent of the AML community might fit in one of those three buckets?

David Schenkein

Analyst

So I don’t think we've gone through that yet in any extensive detail but as you know with current standard of care, the majority of AML patients are elderly over the age of 65 and very few of them will be cured of their disease. So, if one looks eventually most of the patients with AML over the age as 65 which is the majority are going to end up heading towards that category overtime with the current standard of care but we don’t have any detailed market numbers yet.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and your next question is from Terence Flynn with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Lilly Maisel

Analyst

Hi. This is Lilly actually in for Terence, thanks for taking our question. Just a few on the AG-881, are you planning to start like a heme and a solid tumor trials in parallel as you did with the 120? And then also on the solid tumor side kind of related I know it all depends on the data, but will you wait to move 124 in solid tumor until you get the 881 data?

David Schenkein

Analyst

As you know as we've articulated from the beginning when we broke open the IDH story, our commitment has been to lead the space and with that it was to not only bring the first two lead molecules as quickly as possible to patients and eventually to the market but have that flexibility with additional next generation molecules of which 881 is an important component of that. We've not yet articulated what the development plan will be for 881, we'll do that as we enter into the clinic shortly and we will do that and it’s just too early to speculate on how 881 will fit into that paradigm. There's no question 221 and 120 are moving as quickly as we can to the patients who need it towards approval and then as we generate data with 881 we'll decide how to dovetail that into the development programs.

Operator

Operator

All right, and our next question's from Yaron Werber with Citi Group, your line is open.

Tim Tynan

Analyst

Hi guys this is Tynan on for Yaron here. A question on the, your new 881 IDH inhibitor, can you address how much better the brain penetration is here versus 221 and 120? And maybe also address the IC50 since this is a pain inhibitor can we assume that it's less specific for each mutation or is that not the case?

David Schenkein

Analyst

Yes, I'll let Scott Biller our CSO take that one.

Scott Biller

Analyst

Yes, so I'll start with your second question first. All of the molecules we brought forward into the clinic are potent inhibitors of the respect of enzymes, so 881 is potent against all of the mutated isoforms of IDH1 and IDH2, so no real differentiation on potency. They all effectively lower 2HG and the tumortation and your first question, remind me your first question again.

Tim Tynan

Analyst

Degree of brain penetration.

Scott Biller

Analyst

Yes, certainly, sorry about that, certainly AG-881 is a very highly brain penetrant molecule, AG-221 does also get in the brain and AG-120 less so, so clearly 881 is an advanced in being able to get penetration with a potent IDH inhibitor.

Tim Tynan

Analyst

And then maybe just a follow-up on the data at EHA, you mentioned on the call that there would be some molecular identification data there. Is this going to potentially address sort of when IDH mutations arise in tumor genesis sort of whether they're ancestral or as subsequent sort of clonal mutation?

David Schenkein

Analyst

Yes, it's probably a little bit too early to commit to exactly what it'll be in those presentations. As we get closer to the meeting we'll be putting out a statement on the titles and things. As you know we've been partnered closely with Foundation Medicine on the development pathway for all three of our molecules which allows you to look not only at the IDH mutation but across a broad range of mutations. But as we got closer to the presentation Chris and his team will articulate what we expect to see in those data sets.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and our next question is from Anupam Rama with JPMorgan, your line is open.

Eric Joseph

Analyst

Hi, morning guys this is Eric in for Anupam. Just a follow-up question on the whole refractory AML population you would be looking at, the expansion cohorts you would be looking at. And just wondering, given the size there -- would there be potential for maybe an accelerated approval filing based on an overall response in things assuming positive data? And also maybe just a quick question on 348 and PKD. You talked previously about hemoglobin changes being a key potential end point. What kind of delta do you think would be clinically meaningful across a spectrum of PKD? Thanks.

David Schenkein

Analyst

Sure, Chris will handle both of those.

Chris Bowden

Analyst

To your first question around the potential for regulatory filing with that expansion cohort, that's part of a -- that cohort as well as all the expansion cohorts are really around getting more information and more robust feel around our efficacy and safety data in AML patients. The possibilities as a filing data set really is dependent on a number of factors, it really depends on what the data looks like and our discussions and interpretations of that internally. We of course work with experts in the field, our partner Celgene and then finally and perhaps most importantly with the regulatory authorities say. So we're anxious to get these expansion cohorts up and running we’ll be looking at the data carefully and that will really drive those types of decisions. For 348 the question around dose exposure and what we would expect to see in terms of impact from hemoglobin we have a clearly very important measure of whether this drug is going to be effective or not. We don't know yet at this point, that would be speculation and that's one of the reasons why we're getting ready to launch our first trial in patients which, the details which we hope to be able to disclose relatively soon. And so that's really going to help us understand what types of dose and what the safety and efficacy profile looks like in 348.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and our next question is from Howard Liang with Leerink, your line is open.

Howard Liang

Analyst

Great thanks very much. Regarding the phase 3 for AG-120 since it's a phase 3 should we assume that these will be randomized studies?

Chris Bowden

Analyst

Hi, Chris here. We haven't disclosed the design of those trials yet and where the end points of the patient populations. We're still working through that internally and again with looking at experts as well as with Celgene and we're still in the discussion phase with the regulatory authorities. So a lot of that information is really in the works so we’re working very hard on it but we haven't finalized a lot of that components of the design yet, but to the extent that we're ready to talk about it.

Howard Liang

Analyst

AG-120 you talk about the selection of 500-milligram q.d. as a dose. Did you go up above 800-milligram q.d. in the -- in the dose escalation and can you talk about whether you run into DLT?

Chris Bowden

Analyst

So, we're going to provide new data for AG-120 at EHA and early June that was point will update the experience to-date with that trial. As you know, what we published last year at Triple meeting in Barcelona was we went up to 800 milligrams and that's what we've stopped put in the public domain to-date.

Howard Liang

Analyst

AG-120 in solid tumors, other than lack of a brain penetration with AG-120 in -- which will be more specific for glioma patients are there other reasons why an IDH inhibitor would not work as well in solid tumor patients as compared to liquid tumors? I think you mentioned that pre-clinically you also see induction of differentiation.

David Schenkein

Analyst

Yes, Howard, David here. I mean as you know, we've talked about this in the past our goal is to be obviously develop these medicines as broadly as the science allows us and if you take a step back and you look at the mutation and the ability of 2HG to block differentiation it is pretty similar across all the different diseases. And now that's why we've designed the experiments, so we've done both on the heme side and on the solid tumor side to look at a wide range of solid tumors in the ongoing trials of both 120 and 221 to give us an understanding not only the safety but also the potential for efficacy and changing the biology in these patients with diverse set of tumors. And that's why we're looking forward to completing this data set and brining that out to you in the second half of this year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and our next question is from John Newman with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

John Newman

Analyst

First one I had is should we view the characteristics of the expansion cohorts for 120 and 221 as informing the specific types of patients that may be looked at in phase 3 or have those patient groups already been accepted? And my second question was on 348, just wondered if you could give us a sense on terms of timing when we might see data in humans I know that study is just getting going but just curious? Thanks.

David Schenkein

Analyst

So on your first question about the expansion cohorts, I think again I'll bring you back to where Chris had mentioned that at several different events we've done about our quest to make these molecules foundation of care for certainly the disease we've already shown data such as AML and the other heme malignancies. The whole spectrum as a disease from newly diagnose patient through the refractory patient. And so obviously the cohorts that we're expanding are highly refractory but that's we're also going to combine that we multiple other trials, which will articulate as the year goes along including the combination trails that will likely be in the front line patients that will allow us to give us that breadth across that whole patient population. So I don't think you should read in from the design of the expansion cohort anything more than that's a very high unmet medical need population that we're moving quickly on. With respect to 348, just correct you little bit, we have been in humans already remember we've done two normal volunteer studies. The patient study will be starting shortly and until we start that study we won't yet give out any guidance, it's a bit premature on when to expect to see data from that phase 2 study. Thanks for your question.

John Newman

Analyst

If I could ask one additional question, what is your thinking in terms of the mechanism, or the potential mechanism for 120 in solid tumors such as gliomas versus what is known about the mechanism in hematological malignancies? I know that in the hematological malignancies it seems very logical as to how and why the drug works in terms of the differentiation of the blasts but I'm just curious as to how you think about it in solid tumors. Thanks.

Scott Biller

Analyst

Yes, this is Scott. We know, we've seen that 2HG and the mutation induces a block of differentiation and all the tumors and which we've looked there which is included the major tumors we have seen the mutations, glioma, chondrosarcoma, and cholangiocarcinoma. As you know, in liquid tumor setting there is precedent for therapeutic affects with ATRA of the relief in the block in differentiation. You can actually see complete remissions and durable remissions with ATRA and combined with arsenic. So we have more precedent in therapeutic sense, we've liquid tumors but certainly in solid tumors we're seeing the very similar biology of course tissues specific but very similar biology. So we're looking forward to the results of the trials to tell us whether this continues to work in a therapeutic mode.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our next question is from Arlinda Lee with MLV, your line is open.

Arlinda Lee

Analyst

On the expansion cohorts and the phase 3 that you guys are planning to start for 220 -- 221, sorry, I'm kind of curious, what is the difference in patient populations that you have? My understanding is the phase 3 is for second line AML with IDH2 mutations as well, so I am kind of curious what the difference is there.

David Schenkein

Analyst

The expansion cohorts for 221 and 120 that is the 125 patients where I describe the inclusion criteria, the selection criteria. I think you should look at them as comparable. The language is slightly different but really at the end of the day from a clinical perspective the way clinicians are looking at them and in terms of thinking about the unmet medical need and the lack of treatment options for these patients, they're largely comparable. On the phase 3 design is in the works and as per some of the previous questions we're working through what that design and patient population will look like and looking forward to discussing that when the time is right.

Arlinda Lee

Analyst

And then maybe another question on the solid tumors, are you seeing -- I know that David and I had talked about the IDH1 and 2 mutations in a single patient being very rare. Are you seeing more of those in solid tumors versus hematologic malignancies? And I guess this comes back to the question of whether IDH in the instigator mutation in some of these molecules.

David Schenkein

Analyst

So Arlinda, David here, we haven't obviously yet disclosed any of that data and we're crunching through a lot of that data with Foundation Medicine both on the heme side and on the solid side, and certainly as Chris articulated in his comments on the heme side, we said that in one of EHA presentations we will have some molecular data, we haven't yet decided or articulated on the solid tumor side whether any of that data will be available. Importantly we believe we've done the right experiment in patients with these diseases to be able to answer these questions and by partnering with Foundation Medicine and other collaborators we'll try and understand as much as we can of the molecular underpinnings of their disease. As you know these patients have to have an IDH mutation to come into the study and then we're looking for other mutations as well using that technology, so just a little bit too early.

Arlinda Lee

Analyst

And then I guess lastly on 348 will some of the data at EHA help us figure out I guess the proportion of patients that require blood transfusions or help us better get a handle on the addressable population? Thanks.

David Schenkein

Analyst

The data that will be presented at EHA will be an update of the new data for the multi ascending dose study, that's in healthy volunteers, and that will be a follow up in new data from what we initially presented at ASH. Dr. Grace from Boston Children's Hospital will be presenting some of the first data from the natural history study and that's looking at patients who are coming onto the trial and helps us understand a lot of aspects in terms of disease, disease progression and so on and so forth. So there should be some information there that people will be able to start to understand more from the disease especially given that most of the data that's been presented to date has been from single institution experience.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and our next question is from Debjit Chattopadhyay with ROTH Capital Partners, your line is open.

Debjit Chattopadhyay

Analyst

Just first one on 348, do we know of the relationship between ATP increase 23DPT decrease, at what level these become clinically meaningful for patients? Is there any kind of natural history study at different levels which should help us translate the healthy volunteer data into patients?

David Schenkein

Analyst

Yes, there is no natural history study that's looked at that kind of data but what I will remind you is that we do have some data based on the level of enzyme activity and ATP in the patients themselves and then along with that we have the data available in their parents because remember the parents are heterozygotes and they have one defective allele and have depressed ATP levels and enzyme activity but are clinically normal with no hemolysis. So we know at least where the bar we need to achieve is approximately up to about 50%-60% of normal ATP levels. And we know from the data that we’ve already previously presented that if we take samples from patients with the disease and ex vivo activate the enzyme with 348 we believe we can restore ATP levels into that range which we think hopefully will help patients. Certainly the ATP increase we've seen in the healthy volunteers also we believe is into that range and now we just need to still occurs in patients with the disease and that's why we're so excited about moving ahead with the clinical trial.

Debjit Chattopadhyay

Analyst

Thanks. And then one more if I may on the -- the pan IDH [indiscernible] selection. So I'm just wondering in terms of the other driver mutation is which patients very often have along with IDH I mean how would inhibition of both agonist 1 and 2 impact the other driver mutations?

David Schenkein

Analyst

These molecules are highly selective for the IDH mutation and so for say, they shouldn't have any impact on other mutations and so this will all come down to as it is on the heme side and solid side and in individual patient in tumor which are the driver mutations and which are the cooperating mutations.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I am not showing any further question at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to your CEO, David Schenkein for closing remark.

David Schenkein

Analyst

With that, I want to thank everybody for your support. We're obviously very excited by the results of our first quarter and look forward to keeping you updated on our progress and then our request to help as many patients as possible out there. So thank you very much and have a great rest of the day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.