Jon Stonehouse
Analyst · JP Morgan. Your line is open
Thank you, John, and thank you all of you for joining us this morning. We’re excited to update you on our progress since announcing our positive Phase 3 results for our HAE prophylaxis program and share some important advancements in our pipeline.Since May, we’ve been engaging directly with treating physicians and HAE patients to gather important insights to build out our commercialization strategy. The demand and excitement they are expressing for our once-daily oral prophylactic therapy BCX7353 has been resounding and consistent.10 days ago, we had the privilege of attending the HAEA Patient Summit in Atlanta, which gathered over 1,000 attendees from the HAE community. Over the course of the Summit weekend, we had one-on-one interactions with hundreds of patients. So what did we learn?Many patients are doing better preventing or treating their attacks, but they want more. Patients are tired of sticking themselves with needles. During the conference, patients were pulling BioCryst team members aside to remind us they’re waiting for our oral therapy and we need to go fast.Some are experiencing challenge with access. It causes stress and anxiety for these patients, which is a known trigger for HAE attacks. Access is an important topic we are in the process of planning for and we will be prepared when we launch, so that we are able to knock down as many of these barriers as we can.There is a strong desire for our products profile and the benefits it can provide: an oral drug that reduces the attacks, and brings the convenience and a lifestyle patients want. Patients told us they’re excited. Their wait for once-daily oral prophylactic therapy is nearly over. And they want our product.So what have we concluded? We have an amazing drug and they want it approved. This is a direct quote from a mother of a teenager in our clinical trial. They want more than they have now with injectables. Being controlled is not enough for many.While there are new treatment options available to them, patients tell us they are still having breakthrough attacks. No drug is perfect. With the finish line now in sight, the excitement building among patients is amazing. The enthusiasm for 7353 is not confined to the U.S. Representatives from outside the U.S. attended as well and their response was the same.No real prophylactic market exists outside the U.S. and they want to build it with 7353, an oral therapy in Europe, Japan, Latin America and across Asia Pacific.This global commercial opportunity is one of the many reasons we’re happy to add Megan Sniecinski, our Chief Business Officer, to our leadership team. In her leadership role at PTC Therapeutics, Megan helped drive significant global revenue for multiple products through a mix of their own commercialization and partnerships. And she will add tremendous value to BioCryst, as we evaluate and then execute a similar strategy.Our patient and physician interactions including our ongoing market research are aligning. Overall, 7353 represents a significant market opportunity. And we are actively preparing for the launch next year.So what’s next? We’re in the process of completing patient, physician and payer market research to refine our go-to-market strategy. Bill is making great strides in filling out his Medical Affairs team, that’s hold Regional Advisory Boards to build physician relationships and gather their feedback much more broadly than we’ve been able to do in the past.We are also developing the U.S. and ex-U.S. commercial launch, and resource plan, and are filling critical roles to support a successful launch. We look forward to sharing more on our commercial launch strategy with you this fall.Let me now move to our oral Factor D program, which is another exciting priority for us. We are just months away from reporting clinical data from our Phase 1 trial for our oral Factor D inhibitor BCX9930, which represents an even larger commercial opportunity for our company. The current market for complement-mediated disease therapy is $4 billion, double that of HAE and can double again as treatments and development target more indications.The well-established development path and widely available and accepted biomarkers enable rapid advancement of 9930 and allow us to show meaningful clinical differences in a small number of patients over a short period of time.The timeline to show progress is very attractive with this program. Bill will go into more detail here. But the takeaway is that you get to a much faster answer to understand if you have a drug. And we will get an important answer soon, when we report out the PK and PD result for the Phase 1.Following our Phase 1 readout, we will move to a proof-of-concept trial in a small number of PNH patients. This patient data will provide further proof and set us on a path to bring another valuable oral drug to many patients with rare disease.And finally, another important piece to the puzzle is the capital to fund all of this. The good news is we have roughly $100 million on the balance sheet and a number of different options to bring in more capital. And I’d like to turn the call over to Tom to discuss this in more detail. Tom?