Earnings Labs

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALNY)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, May 8, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ Conference Call to discuss their First Quarter 2014 Financial Results. There will be a question-and-answer session to follow. Please be advised that this call is being taped at the company’s request. I’d now like to turn the call over to the company.

Cynthia Clayton

Management

Good afternoon. I’m Cynthia Clayton, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Alnylam. With me today are John Maraganore, our Chief Executive Officer; Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer; Akshay Vaishnaw, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer; and Mike Mason, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. Laurence Reid, our Chief Business Officer, is also here and available for Q&A. For those of you participating via conference call, the slides we have made available via webcast can also be accessed by going to the Investors page of our website, at www.alnylam.com. During today’s call, as outlined in slide 2, John, will provide some introductory remarks and provide general context for some of our recent progress and activities. Akshay will summarize the clinical progress with our Alnylam 5x15 and broader genetic medicine pipeline. Mike will review our financials and guidance. And Barry will provide a brief summary of our business highlights and goals for 2014, before we open up the call to your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call will contain remarks concerning Alnylam’s future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provision 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 our most recent annual report on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the date of this recording and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligations to update such statements. I will now turn the call over to John.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Cynthia. Welcome and thanks everyone, for joining us this afternoon. The first quarter and recent period have truly been game-changing for Alnylam and our continued efforts to advance RNAi therapeutics as a whole new class of medicines. For starters, I think there is little doubt that our recent alliance with Genzyme is transformational, for both the advancement of RNAi Therapeutics and also for our commitment to and prospects for building a leading independent biopharma company that delivers value to patients and then to our shareholders. This alliance provides Alnylam with expanded development and commercial opportunities for our Alnylam 5x15 and broader genetic medicine pipeline through Genzyme’s established global infrastructure and proven in fact pioneering track record in rare diseases. Moreover, this alliance crystallizes Alnylam strategy to develop and commercialize our products in North America and Western Europe, while Genzyme advances our products in the rest of the world. And you’ll hear from Mike in just a minute, it is also significantly solidified our balance sheet enabling an increased investment and an expanded number of RNAi therapeutic programs, while securing a cash runway that we believe provides us with financial independence to develop and launch multiple products. In addition, we’re making terrific progress on our pipeline and I’ve recently presented some key clinical and preclinical data. And Akshay is going to go through that in just a minute, but I want to highlight some key points. And some highlights of these recent efforts. These include positive initial data from our Phase II Open Label extension study with patisiran, which has a study of the patients with ATTR polyneuropathy. Excellent progress on our ALN-TTRsc Phase II study as we’re reporting today in TTR cardiomyopathy, initiation of our Phase I study with ALN-AT3 and innovative RNAi therapeutic targeting anti-thrombin for the…

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

Thanks John. We’ve indeed had a steady stream of data from our pipeline of RNAi Therapeutics. I’ll start with patisiran. Patisiran is our lead 5x15 program, and is aimed at the treatment of patients with TTR-mediated amyloidosis or ATTR who have familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy of FAP. This program is in a Phase III trial with over 10 sites active in four countries. As the company’s first ever Phase III study, this is a very significant milestone in our history. And also for the entire field of RNAi Therapeutics. The APOLLO Phase III trial is a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of patisiran in ATTR patients with FAP. The primary endpoint of the study is the difference in the change in the Neuropathy Impairment score called mNIS+7 between patisiran and placebo at 18 months. At the international symposium on amyloidosis just last week, we presented updated results from our patisiran Phase II study, which was conducted in 29 patients with FAP, where patients received two doses of patisiran administered intravenous infusion. In this study, and as you can see on slide 8, patisiran demonstrated a rapid dose dependent and durable knockdown of serum TTR of up of 96%, and then average TTR knockdown of approximately 80%. Patients who are in this Phase II study, have rolled over into an Open Label Expansion or as we refer to it, OLE study, where they are eligible to receive continued dosing with patisiran. The OLE study is measuring a number of clinical endpoints every six months, including mNIS+7. Off the 29 eligible patients, we expect 27 to roll over into the OLE study. We view this as an encouraging number of patients that have agreed to receive continued dosing. At IFA and as shown here on slide 9,…

Mike Mason

President

Thanks, Akshay. I’ll be referring to slide 16 for a discussion of our first quarter 2014 financial results. This quarter, we significantly strengthened our balance sheet with just over $1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. Our GAAP revenues for the first quarter of 2014 were $8.3 million as compared to $18.6 million in the first quarter of 2013. GAAP revenues this quarter included $5.5 million related to our collaborations with Takeda, $1.4 million related to our collaboration with Monsanto and $1.4 million related to our collaboration with the Medicines Company. The decrease in GAAP revenues this compared to the first quarter in 2013 was due primarily to the recognition of the remaining deferred revenue under the Cubist agreement of $9.7 million due to the termination of that agreement in the first quarter of 2013. Regarding the GAAP accounting related to the upfront payment from our recent Genzyme agreement, we recorded this share issuance using the price of our common stock on the date the shares were issued to Genzyme at closing, which was approximately $50 million, in excess of the proceeds received from Genzyme. We are amortizing this difference of $50 million offset by the remaining deferred revenue of $33 million from our 2012 Genzyme alliance over a 5-year period, resulting in an approximate $900,000 per quarter reduction in GAAP revenue. Moving to expenses, R&D expenses were $43.8 million this quarter as compared to $22.2 million in the prior year period. This increase was due to additional expenses related to the advancement of our patisiran and ALN-TTRsc programs as well as licensees due to certain third parties as a result of our Genzyme collaboration. The company expects that research and development expenses will increase for the remainder of 2014 excluding the one-time licensing in the first quarter…

Barry Greene

President

Thanks Mike, and hello everyone. As you’ve heard from John and Akshay, we had a tremendously productive first quarter in recent period. In addition to kicking off the year with our Genzyme Sanofi partnership, we completed a major acquisition of Sirna Therapeutics for Merck. Specifically, we’ve acquired the entirety of Merck’s RNAi assets including their wholly owned Sirna Therapeutic subsidiary. Following the acquisition of Sirna by Merck in 2006, Merck scientists made significant advances in siRNA chemistry and delivery including GalNAc-siRNA conjugates, which we view to be best in class approach for liver delivery of RNAi therapeutics. Our acquisition of Sirna brings those assets and technologies to Alnylam in a manner that accelerates and advances our overall efforts in RNAi therapeutics and cements our continued leadership in the RNAi field. As part of the acquisition, In we obtained over 125 issued patents, one of these patents is the McSwiggen Patent which was recently upheld Oral Opposition Proceedings in Europe. The McSwiggen Patent estate broadly describes chemical modifications of RNAi therapeutics that we believe are critical for achieving drug-like properties in siRNA. Specifically, the McSwiggen patent covers chemical modifications in siRNA that are required to achieve potent GalNAc-siRNA conjugates, such as those delivered in our ESC-GalNAc-conjugate platform. These patents are now owned and controlled by Alnylam. When coupled with our legacy Alnylam IP estate, we believe that the McSwiggen acquisition gives us the broadest and deepest patent portfolio in the fields of RNA therapeutics and provides us, and provides our partners an unparalleled level of exclusivity for our clinical and preclinical programs. A final component of the Sirna acquisition was a couple of later state preclinical assets. We’ll give you one of these as an attractive new opportunity for Alnylam and we look forward to sharing some of the details of…

Cynthia Clayton

Management

Thanks, Barry. We will now open the call up to your questions. As a reminder, we ask you to limit your questions to two each and jump back in the queue if you need to. Sam, we’ll take questions now.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Alan Carr of Needham & Company. Your line is now opened. Mark Monane – Needham & Company: Hi guys, this is actually Mark on for Alan, thanks very much for taking my questions.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Mark Monane – Needham & Company: I was wondering if you guys could talk a little bit about how our discussions with payers are going right, TTR you talked about conducting some surveys with payers. I was wondering if you could give us an update on that.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, that’s a great question. We’ve just in fact a few – about a month ago now we had an excellent panel here at the company with payers. Barry, you want to summarize some of the key findings?

Barry Greene

President

Yes. The bottom line is, as discussions are going incredibly well, we’ve talked to U.S. private and government payers and we have been talking to payers throughout Europe and with our Genzyme partnership of annual pace with payers in other parts of the world. I think to summarize it, the payers recognized that ATTR is an orphan disease and it’s a fatal disease where they have the onset of symptoms people die within 5 to 15 years. They recognized that TTR is a pathogenic protein, they’re actually quite excited by seeing our data and ability to knock down or remove that pathogen of protein. It’s not every day they run across a modality that actually reads out so early in the clinical trials. And at least for the Phase III study that we’ve articulated now for APOLLO there is complete buy-in, the mNIS+7 readout accompanied with a secondary endpoint should provide good proof and good health benefits for orphan like pricing. So, I think we got good buy in there. On TTRsc, we haven’t yet declared exactly what the Phase III design looks like. We’ve talked generally about it. But again, they recognize that this is a fatal disease, patients are very sick. And there is extreme cost to the healthcare systems. And the kind of outcomes we’ve been talking about are very attractive to them for this patient population as well. That answers your question? Mark Monane – Needham & Company: Yes, that’s great. Thanks very much. And good luck on everything going in ‘14.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike King of JMP Securities. Your line is now opened. Mike King – JMP Securities: Thanks guys for taking the question and congrats on all the progress to date. I just wanted to maybe follow-up on that question on TTRsc because I received a couple of questions from clients. Regarding perhaps the difference in the economics for that market relative to patisiran and FAC, with respect to I guess, I missed it at ISA but I understand it was a Pfizer epi-study of tafamidis population being more of a Medicare population and whether that had any aspect on pricing. And would that be less of sort of the orphan pricing and more towards pricing of some of the other drugs that are out there for rare disorders like either the general drug or some of the drugs for PAH etcetera, I wonder if you could comment?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Sure, Barry?

Barry Greene

President

Yes, so, Mike, we’re not at a point where we’re crafting exact pricing for a drug. But I think that today the cardiac amyloidosis patient consists of the FAC population where the mutation holds and for genetic counseling you can track people and their families earlier. And then the SSA population in which the idiopathic form of wild type TTR creates a cardiac amyloidosis. In that disease, particularly picked up in the healthcare system, prelate their disease may tend to be much, much older. The thought is that in the mutation side, because it’s a known mutation you can start picking up people earlier, we’ll in fact be able to intervene earlier in the disease. And instead of people expiring in two to four years after disease diagnosis people can live much longer with much less core morbidities. And at least in our case, by removing the pathogen of protein. And if we can achieve that profile, there will be health economic arguments that achieved orphan like pricing. And that’s right now our perspective on it. Mike King – JMP Securities: Okay. So does that mean you’d see a couple of Phase IIIs Barry in terms of one Phase III for FSA and then another Phase III for the patients with the mutation?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Mike, this is John. We believe at present and we’re beginning our dialog with regulators as we speak. So, we don’t want to get too far ahead of our skis on this one. But we do believe that there is going to be benefit in studying these populations in Phase III trials separately. Right, and so, our current thinking is around studies that would work initially at FAC and then would also ultimately look at the SSA population as well. And of course, that is subject to change if our dialog with the agencies gives us encouragement to do something different. But at least as we sit here today, we think that’s the right strategy with the goal of having a more homogenous population that we would study in our clinical studies. I mean, actually anything to add to that?

Barry Greene

President

No, I think that’s exactly where our thinking is right now, from a clinical trial strategy and regulatory strategy if you point, it makes lower sense to that. But let’s engage with folks and report back.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, good. Mike King – JMP Securities: Okay. Thanks. I’ll hop back in queue. Yes, it does, I’ll jump back in queue.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Terrific.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Marko Kozul of Leerink Partners. Your line is now opened. Marko Kozul – Leerink Partners: Hi, good afternoon. Congrats on your progress and thanks for taking my questions.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Marko. Marko Kozul – Leerink Partners: Maybe just upon the last one, so, with regardless thinking maybe being or different studies for SSA and FAC. Can you comment on whether these would still be small studies, possibly for FAC? Does your dialog with the agency suggest anything about risk associated with combing the two indications in 300, 400 patient study?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Okay, good question. Akshay, you want to tackle that one?

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

Yes, I mean, I want to use the Skiing metaphor again and let’s not get too far ahead of our skis. Because I think we’ve been studying this whole landscape very carefully. And we were discussing with Mike King just now, certainly doing two separate studies to reduce heterogeneity seems like a smart thing to do. And we’re working very hard in terms of thinking on our endpoints when the trial designed around those two populations. And we really want to engage regulation, we’re very excited about it. I think the pharmacodynamic activity strongly suggest that we’ll have a very significant clinical impact in both populations. But that’s about as far as we can go today.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Marko, I’ll just add one other thing which and we haven’t yet presented this data. But not unlike our natural history dataset that we’ve generated with FAC, we’ve been looking very closely at rates of progression in different disease measures in the FAC and SSA setting. And so, we’ve certainly been working closely at those types of datasets to help guide our thinking about the Phase III trial development. Marko Kozul – Leerink Partners: Terrific, thanks. And actually I had two of my own bigger picture questions. First one being, while you’re making progress with your enhanced stabilization chemistry, GalNAc conjugate technology, can you give us your views on any growing trends in the space, and in the delivery field towards an increasing number of companies exploring use of GalNAc conjugate strategies in the – well, it seems like all roads lead to GalNAc …?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I mean, at the end of the day, we were surprised that the ISA meeting to hear our friends at Isis talking about GalNAc conjugates now. And so, and of course Regulus has been doing that for quite some time. I think the bottom line is, that’s a technology that’s superior, it works, it works great. Of course, we have an approach with RNAi which is very potent with low tissue exposures. And so we feel that we are clearly a best in class approach. I think the latest PCSK9 data also highlights a very important differentiation strategy which is really once monthly, maybe even once quarterly type dose frequencies. So we’re in a great position but we’re flattered that other companies are admiring our progress with GalNAc conjugates. And are pursuing and advancing that approach as well. It’s a good sign. It certainly provides some important validation of our efforts. Marko Kozul – Leerink Partners: Thanks. And just a last one here, looking out beyond 5x16 or 5x17 or 7x15 sorry. And some of your emerging programs, can you talk a little bit about your collective experience and what that’s alluding to as far as how quickly you can go bench to clinic with new programs that we may be seeing a year or two down the line?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, we’re operating at about 12 to 18 month clip from light bulb to the start of developing candidates that’s robust and one that we believe in. And then you can add depending on the program six to nine months predominantly. So, we’re at a pretty fast cliff from where we are. And we’re really at a stage of significant expansion of our pipeline, I think you’re seeing that already we’ll have two additional INDs this year, so by the end of the year we’ll have five programs in clinical development, the six rolling into early 2015. And AAT obviously will be in the clinic next year as well so that will take us up to seven programs. We think a pretty remarkable increase in our productivity. And that we only expect to continue significantly.

Barry Greene

President

Let me just add to that Marko, as you know, our business model at least in the genetic medicine pipeline is to commercialize in North American Western Europe assuming Genzymes in. So, we have been very diligent the targets we’re picking, how good those targets are, what the clinical development plan looks like and what our commercial opportunity aligned with the strategic imperatives of the 5x15 progress. So, you’re seeing, as John said an acceleration expansion of our pipeline. But for programs, we think meaningful impact on patients, represent robust development plans with very significant commercial opportunities that will commercialize on our own.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Does that answer your question Marko? Marko Kozul – Leerink Partners: It does, perfect. Thanks for taking it. And congrats on the progress. Thanks.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Geoff Meacham of JPMorgan. Your line is now opened. Carter Gould – JPMorgan: Hi, hello.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Hi, how are you? Carter Gould – JPMorgan: Hi, John and Barry, this is Carter on for Geoff.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Hi Carter. Carter Gould – JPMorgan: Just some quick questions on AT3, I know in the past you spoke about trusting decisions for inhibitor patients. Can you give us some additional color on how your – you’re thinking about this market opportunity, thinking the number of patients, frequency of dosing and things like that? And then with the coming approval of new agents for Hemophilia A and B the promise of lower rates in neutralizing antibodies, how, if at all has this color are you thinking? Thank you.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So Carter, couple of comments. I mean, one is, just as an overlay and Akshay, you should jump in here too. We are going to be presenting some updated data next week at the World Federation of Hemophilia so that will be I think helpful on understanding the overall opportunity and promise with this approach. But we do view there to be significant unmet need in the inhibitor population, but also a significant opportunity in patients that are using their replacement factor on demand. And that’s a very significant proportion of U.S. population than in fact populations in many parts of the world where rigorous prophylaxes is not always at here too. And so, that’s a population where the possibility or the opportunity or a once weekly sub-Q injection to reduce their need for On-Demand therapy would be highly attractive for those patients. So I think it’s the inhibitor patients, I think its On-Demand patients, I think it’s rare bleeding disorder patients with factor 10 deficiencies, 7 deficiency, 5 deficiency, possibly type 3, with a brand. It’s an opportunity that will expand substantially over time. Akshay, you want to add anything to that?

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

No, I mean, I think that’s completely right. The On-Demand situation is very interesting because it comes from a number of angles, one of the chief ones the current therapies or intravenous. And many patients that may have been on prophylaxes during childhood fallout and as time goes on. Because they can’t maintain three times a week IV etcetera. And so, there are lots of youth and adult patients, about 50% in the U.S. with Hemophilia A and B, who are on-demand because they can’t manage their lifestyles with an intravenous therapeutic. And so, what we hear from speaking to experts is that for individuals like that a subcutaneous once a week would be extremely advantageous and attractive.

Mike Mason

President

And I think Carter, you mentioned something about the dual agents in the rate of inhibitor formation. There is certainly no rigorous evidence at all that suggests that there is a change in the incidents of inhibitors with some of the newer agents that are emerging. So I think we’ll just have to wait and see how that plays out. In the meantime, there are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 patients worldwide that have inhibitors who are bleeding frequently because they have no prophylactic option. And so, we view that as an important unmet need. Carter Gould – JPMorgan: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Willey of Stifel. Your line is now opened. Stephen Willey – Stifel: Yes, hi, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just follow-up on a prior question. With respect to the cardiomyopathy indication, are you guys thinking about endpoint selection in the context of pricing? Are you looking maybe at something more that’s – more on the lines of venture with endpoint maybe like what percentage of this is using as being something that could secure greater pricing power with payers or do you think you could maybe go ahead with some kind of measurement of surrogacy and then supplement with longer term outcomes data?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Well, Steve, I don’t – I sure don’t know how you can have any pricing discussion with other consideration what the endpoints are both primary endpoints of the study and also secondary. So that’s factored into every aspect of our thinking on this. And certainly again, we are in the midst of discussions with regulators on the program and the page with trial design. And so, let’s get through that process, we certainly know the range of different endpoints that can be considered this is pretty well documented in the literature. And there is certainly a lot of thinking that we’ve had, the benefit with our KOLs to help guidance in this regard. But it would be premature to sort of say what we think it would be. Again that trial would be starting toward the end of the year this year. And but it’s not locked down yet from probably there. Barry, do you want to add anything to that?

Barry Greene

President

No, I think you got it. Stephen Willey – Stifel: And would your kind of review of the natural history data confirm that 30-month follow-up in terms of looking at EV driven events would be appropriate from a powering perspective?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

I don’t think we view that as needed, Steve. I think with any of these diseases, there is no question that the longer you treat, the more likely it is that is better. But we believe that earlier endpoints and that duration can be used in the design of the study. And again, and the conduct of study, and again, we’ll – we have evidence to support that. And we’ll bring that evidence in front of our friends in Washington and in the EU and we’ll certainly get their alignment with that. And we’ll report back at the right time. Stephen Willey – Stifel: Okay. And then, just with respect to CC5, how are you guys thinking about establishing proof of concept there?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Well, great question, great question. Stephen Willey – Stifel: Would that be something a switching study or do you think you could actually do something on a head-to-head basis or find naïve patients?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Akshay you want to handle it?

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

Yes, I mean, Steve, there are a number of components to think about there. And we’re mapping that out all very carefully. But the types of things to think about and of course the experience with that coliseum map in the literature provides rich information on this. So, for example, reduction in red-salt hemolysis is associated with the rapid reduction in a serum, bio-marketed and LDH or lack dehydrogenize. Another aspect is taking serum from patients or individuals that have been treated with a drug like ALN-CC5 and treating PNH red-salts with that and assessing the level of hemolysis. And that could be a powerful insight into how it would look ALN-CC5 and how PNH patients. And ultimately the outright clinical evidence such as change in Hemoglobin, change in hemolytic crisis, transfusion needs. And so, there is really the very rich landscape here. And I think we’re very confident that both in the short-term with very sophisticated with informative invitro studies and biomarkers as well as in the long-run with clinical studies, we cannot equivocally show the benefit of our drug.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

And I think that just have one other interesting population Steve, which we’re certainly looking at it patients that have probably more prisms than C5 that are completely resistant to eculizumab. And that’s certainly a very small population but one that it does define potentially an interesting development strategy that we might consider. Stephen Willey – Stifel Okay, thank you. And congrats on the progress.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Great, thanks Steve.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our final question comes from Mike King of JMP Securities. Your line is now opened.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Hi Mike. Mike King – JMP Securities: Hi, good afternoon again guys. I was just wondering, would you – and I just wanted to go to the milestone chart here. And look at APOLLO and you’ve got ongoing accrual in the Phase III throughout the rest of 2014. But I was just wondering if you might want a venture guess as to when we could contemplate full enrollment of APOLLO?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Well, I mean, that’s a great question. I mean, look, it’s going well. It’s not without a lot of effort on our part. But I must say and I wouldn’t have said this and I think I didn’t say this the last time we were on a call, while back that we feel encouraged with what we are, we were making good progress. The ISA meeting was another encouraging data-point, it helps with accrual. And we know where our competitors are at this point in time and we’re aiming to meet them at the same item (ph) or beat them to that item (ph). So that’s where we’re heading. Mike King – JMP Securities: Okay. And, you said 10-10 sites, four countries, did I hear that correctly?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

That’s right, that’s correct. Mike King – JMP Securities: Then what would you think you would ultimately get to in terms of sites and then how many countries?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Well, we’re going to keep that a little bit close to our vest. As you can imagine, we’re playing a little bit of a tactical chess game here with the other side. And I don’t think we need to disclose that information. Mike King – JMP Securities: Okay. Anything you want to say John, I know you were – you guys were excited going into the ISA regarding the EPI-data was going to be presented there on FAP. And just perhaps for the record comment about how it makes you feel like you powered APOLLO for success?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I mean, Akshay, you should comment on that. I mean, that’s a very important data point for us.

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

Yes. We had looked available datasets at the time of designing the Phase III study. And I think the full presentation we gave and Professor Adam did a superb presentation summarizing all the natural history data we have and comparing it to what was tafamidis and oligonucleotide experiences. And it all points to the same thing, which is about 15 to 20 point increase in the mNIS+7 per annum. And that’s exactly how we had powered our Phase III study. So, I think we feel dedicating the approach, we’re confident that we’ve got a very, very plus statistical design and approach the Phase III study. So, lots of data there and beyond that lots of understanding of how changes in this related to the severity of the phase of disease and things like that. So, but all-in-all, our Phase III design is spot on.

Barry Greene

President

Yes, and just as a reminder Mike, we have it conservative in our tax size, sort of floor in the study which I think is appropriate and so we’re powered to show as little as 37.5% difference. But obviously we expect more than that from a performance standpoint but we’ll have to see how the data speak at the end of the day. We’ve been conservative in how we’ve designed the study, we want to be robust and equivocal we think that’s important. Mike King – JMP Securities: Can you talk about the – how the 17 point in deterioration is impacted by the late versus the early onset? And how that breaks down proportionately and if you’ve kind of – I know you stratify but I just wonder if in your enrollment criteria if you expect mirror, what the distribution is on the patient population?

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, it’s a great question. Akshay, you want to handle it?

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

I’m trying to get my head around your question. We have stratified. Mike King – JMP Securities: I thought the late onsets deteriorate faster in their mNIS+7, so I’m just wondering what the balance might look like and the population at large versus what you’re going to roll in APOLLO and how you adjust for that?

Akshay Vaishnaw

Management

Yes, I mean, I think the APOLLO input population would reflect what’s going on out there. We’re not sort of capping off the early onset versus late onset (inaudible) at any particular level. But what we are doing importantly is making sure the early versus late up balance across the two arms. So the ratio is they end up, it would be very likely there the disease out there in the real world. In addition, the other very important real world aspect of that I think is the range of mNIS+7 scores that allow you to be in the study which are in the 5 to 100 range. And they really kind of reflect what’s 10 to 100 rate, they really reflect what’s going on out there in terms of what the clinicians see and what the patients are suffering with. Very different from the very early to founders population that was barely symptomatic and have scores below 10 right on average. So, I think if couldn’t be a well-balanced study between the arms, then it’s going to be a very real world study and comes in the full spectrum of mutations with active disease and getting back to the natural history study of Professor Adam, the rate of change is going to be brisk during the course of the study, which is important for an intervention like patisiran. Mike King – JMP Securities: Right. Okay. Thanks again for taking my questions. I appreciate it.

John Maraganore

Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thanks Mike. Okay. Well, thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. I think we’re off to a great start in 2014. And we fully expect this to be another exciting year for Alnylam and for advancing RNAi therapeutics to patients. Look forward to talking to you in the coming months. Bye-bye.