Justin Klee
Analyst · Evercore ISI
Hi, Mike. Thank you for the question. So, the first in terms of label, I'll start with that, you know, given that we have yet to see the Phase III trial results, we have yet to submit the NDA, it's, you know, it's early to know too much about what the label will be. I'll give you the context as we see it today. So first and foremost, we believe PBH is PBH, regardless of the surgery that leads to PBH, we believe the pathophysiology is the same and that the primary driver of hypoglycemic events is this exaggerated GLP-1 response. Now, looking through the clinical studies of avexitide, the majority of people with PBH studied with avexitide have had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery leading to PBH, and that includes the Phase III LUCIDITY trial. One of the inclusion criteria was Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery that led to PBH only. Now, in the Phase IIb, different surgery that led to PBH were allowed in for inclusion criteria, and avexitide appeared to work just as well regardless of the surgery that led to PBH. So as we submit our NDA and have the discussions with FDA, we think there's sort of two paths that could emerge. What we will strongly make the case for is that we believe avexitide should be for people with PBH, regardless of the surgery led to it due to the same pathophysiology and due to the evidence that we've generated to date. FDA could of course take the stance that the Phase III trial was studied only in Roux-en-Y gastric bypass PBH patients. And so could say, you know, that would be the indication in the label. If that's the case, then I think you're right. The question would be what additional evidence would we need in order to show that avexitide should be applicable regardless of the surgery that led to PBH. And so we're working through those, various scenarios right now. I'd say the way we view it, it should be pretty efficient. You're just trying to show that, you know, that these are not different and that avexitide works regardless. We're able to see the effects of avexitide in a single dose. So we think that that should not be an overly burdensome study. And maybe last piece I'll say on the sort of commercial side of things, if we go back to the Stanford prevalence work, their estimate is that of the current 160,000 people with PBH in the United States, about 120,000 had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass leading to their PBH. So I'd say at launch, we're already talking, if we were in that narrower label scenario, we're already talking about a very substantial population. And so our goal would be then to run an efficient study to show that avexitide should work regardless of the surgery that led to PBH. And for your second commercial question, I'll pass to Dan.