Vimal Mehta
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is live
Thank you, operator, good morning everyone and thank you for joining our conference call to discuss BioXcel Therapeutics financial results and business highlights for the second quarter 2020. We appreciate everyone’s time and attention. Joining me on the call today are Vince O'Neill, Chief Medical Officer; Will Kane, Chief Commercial Officer; Reina Benabou, Chief Development Officer; and Rob Risinger, Senior Vice President of Clinical Development. Our CFO, Richard Steinhart, is currently on medical leave and he is unable to join us today. In his absence our Controller, Michael Stanton, will be reviewing the financial results on today’s call. Months in COVID-19 is still creating uncertainty in the world and continues to affect each and every one of us. Healthcare workers will forever be our heroes as they remain committed to protecting our lives and halting the spread of the virus. In accordance with the U.S. CDC and State of Connecticut earlier – earlier this year, we implemented a work-from-home policy for all employees. We have been monitoring the impact of the pandemic in order to determine the best practice for continuing operations while mitigating this. At the end of the second quarter, we initiated our return to work plan, slowly bringing a limited number of staff back to the office and implementing the strict rules to protect our employees. Except for challenges in accessing elderly care facilities, we are fortunate that we have not experienced any significant delays to our ongoing or planned clinical trial. However, we continue to closely monitor the situation and provide updates as needed. As many of you know, this is one of the most exciting times in BioXcel’s history from positive results in two pivotal Phase 3 trials of BXCL501 to a very successful follow on offering. We cannot tell you how pleased we are with our progress. We remain committed to and on track with our commercial, clinical and development plans as we advance the investigation of our two candidates: BXCL501 and BXCL701. I will be starting off with our lead neuroscience clinical candidate BXCL501. As a reminder, 501 is a proprietary thin film formulation of dexmedetomidine, or Dex, for the treatment of acute agitation. We were ecstatic last month to announce positive top-line results from both SERENITY Phase 3 trials of BXCL501 for the acute treatment of agitation in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, achieving the primary, secondary and exploratory endpoint. I would like to quickly recap those results, which we also reviewed in greater detail during a conference call last month. As you may recall, these two SERENITY studies were similarly designed as double-blind placebo-controlled parallel group trials with a total of 759 patients, 18 to 75 years of age. In each trial, patients were randomized to 1 of 3 arms receiving a film of either 120 microgram, 180 micrograms or a matching placebo. The primary objective of the trials was to determine the effect on agitation at two hours using the PAN's Excitatory Component scale, or PEC, a validated means to quantify the degree of agitation. The key secondary end point was the earliest time at which an effect on agitation was apparent by the change from baseline impact total score. Both trials demonstrated highly statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PEC score and demonstrated statistically significant improvement in PEC score as early as 20 minutes after treatment. BXCL501’s rapid onset is an extremely important benefit for both the caregiver and patient. To further confirm the primary, our exploratory endpoints also demonstrated highly statistically significant and clinically meaningful reductions in agitation measures with durable reductions in agitation lasting at least four hours. In terms of BXCL501 safety profile, it was well tolerated with no serious adverse events. We could not be happier with the outcome of SERENITY I and II. These encouraging data represents an important milestone for patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as their caregivers. We have a pre-NDA meeting scheduled with the FDA in October and look forward to submitting an NDA expected in the first quarter of 2021. In preparation for a potential approval by the FDA and the commercialization of BHCL501, we have built out our management team and have hired Will Kane as Chief Commercial Officer former Head of the U.S. General Medicine business unit at Allergan, and Dr. Reina Benabou as Chief Development Officer, former Chief Medical Officer of Cognivue. Both hires have extensive experience in bringing neuroscience products to market and will be integral in developing our prelaunch plan and go-to-market strategy. Will and Reina’s focus over the next 12 months is to develop the infrastructure needed, including building and hiring the medical affairs team, the managed markets team and the sales force. We will be well prepared for a potential product launch by 2022. Furthermore, these strong results from the SERENITY trials highlight BXCL501’s beneficial mechanism of action in helping to reduce agitation despite the underlying neuropsychiatric disease. This is in turn opens the candidate's potential to being an effective treatment for a variety of conditions ranging from acute to chronic agitation. And as you know, we are already well underway investigating BXCL501 in patients suffering from dementia and opioid withdrawal symptoms and are preparing to initiate a Phase II trial for the treatment of delirium later this year. Moving to TRANQUILITY, our Phase Ib/II trial for the acute treatment of agitation in dementia, this proof-of0concept trial is an adaptive design, intended to identify the most effective and tolerable dose or doses in this elderly patient population using three exploratory efficacy endpoints: PEC, Pittsburgh Agitation Scale and a modified version of the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory. We have currently finished dosing the first two arms of the trial, 30 microgram and 60 micrograms in a total of 30 patients. After reviewing the safety and tolerability data, we are now initiating the next dose 90 microgram. Please note, we are evaluated lower doses than previously tested in schizophrenia and bipolar patients because these elderly individuals may be intrinsically more sensitive to Dex, the active ingredient in BXCL501. Once we have identified the optimum dose for this patient population, we plan to advance the program into late stage development in consultation with the FDA. Recall that the FDA granted fast-track status to the development of BXCL501in dementia. Based on findings from the 90 microgram cohort, the company will report top-line results expected in the fourth quarter of 2020, or if needed, proceed to an additional dose cohort. With no FDA approved therapies to treat agitation in dementia and off-label drugs having a black box warning for the elderly, a treatment is desperately needed for this large patient population, especially given that they are at a significant risk of falling and injuring themselves when having an agitation episode. After reviewing the SERENITY results, we are confident that BXCL501's significant coming response shown in schizophrenia and bipolar patient will be repeated in dementia, since 501's mechanism of action seems to directly target agitation regardless of the underlying condition. With this patient population among the highest at risk for COVID-19, we are making sure we are taking all precautionary measures to guarantee that both the patients and caregivers remain healthy by reducing the risk of potential exposure. This past quarter, we announced that first patient has been enrolled in the Phase Ib/II RELEASE trial for the treatment of opioid withdrawal symptoms. And we are already and currently enrolling the third dose cohort of 90 microgram. This is our fourth indication to enter the clinic for BXCL501, again, highlighting the potential versatility of this candidate across vastly different conditions. In addition, for the first time, this candidate will be used as a sub-chronic treatment with ascending dose cohort of 501 being administered twice daily, 12 hours apart for 10 days. We are looking forward to reporting top line results from the RELEASE trial in the first quarter of 2021. Managing addiction has been a major challenge, and this crisis has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms associated with opioid withdrawal are extremely debilitating and uncomfortable that makes breaking this addiction very difficult, often resulting in relapse and continued drug abuse. With accidental drug overdose as the number one cause of death in the U.S. for individuals under the age of 50 years old, a new treatment option is needed that helps alleviate withdrawal symptoms in order to assist in breaking the cycle of addiction. We believe BXCL501 has the potential to provide relief from debilitating opioid withdrawal symptoms, diminishing the arch to relapse in hopes of helping the individual on their path to recovery. In addition, we plan to initiate a Phase II trial in patients with agitation associated with delirium with and without COVID-19 this year. We believe our compassionate use program initiated last month at Massachusetts General Hospital, which provide BXCL501 to critically-ill COVID-19 patients in the ICU suffering from delirium and agitation will be symbiotic with our plans to pursue delirium as an additional indication with BXCL501. To wrap up, this quarter's neuroscience highlight, we received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent application related to 501. The patent is expected to cover film formulations containing Dex and method of treating agitation using such film formulations in strengthening our intellectual property position and providing additional value for our stakeholders. The pattern, which is to be issued in the third quarter of 2020, is expected to extend IP protection until 2039. Now that we have shown 501's effectiveness in two indications, we are excited to explore all of the potential opportunities ranging from acute to chronic use in hopes of expanding the market value. We truly believe that BXCL501 will offer a safe, effective and easy-to-administer therapy for the millions of individuals that suffer from agitation in the U.S. and around the world, regardless of the underlying diagnosis. We are focused on continuing to validate 501's success across conditions marked by agitation and look forward to exploring numerous potential indications such as alcohol withdrawal, PTSD, traumatic brain injury and phobias. Now I would like to turn the conversation to our immuno-oncology clinical candidate, BXCL701, our orally available systemic innate immunity activator designed with a dual mechanism of action. Starting off, the Phase II efficacy portion of the Phase Ib/II trial of BXCL701 in combination with KEYTRUDA for Treatment-emergent Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer, or TNEPC, is progressing on track, approximately 30 eligible men with TNEPC will receive 0.3 milligram of BXCL701 twice daily on days one to 14 of each 21-day cycle, plus 200-milligram of KEYTRUDA, administered intravenously on day one and then every 21 days. This split dose totaling 0.6 mg per day, the recommended dose when used in combination with KEYTRUDA, is based on results from the Phase Ib safety lead-in, which showed on-target side effects consistent with cytokine activation. In addition, based on preliminary evidence of activity in the Phase Ib safety portion of the trial, we recently initiated a separate cohort forecasted resistant prostate cancer patients who have failed taxane-based chemotherapy and up to two lines of second generation androgen pathway blockers. This cohort is expected to run concurrently to the tNEPC cohort. Initial efficacy data from this trial are expected to be reported later this year. BXCL701 was designed to generate an adaptive immune response, causing tumors to be more reactive to immunotherapies, including KEYTRUDA. Our preliminary clinical biomarker data showed dose- and time-dependent changes in circulating IL-18 concentrations from baseline. This is consistent with our understanding of the MOA of BXCL501 as IL-18 is a multifunctional cytokine that serves as a bridge between innate and adaptive immunity. We believe this candidate has the potential to be an effective treatment for patients in these subpopulations of prostate cancer. We are also progressing the clinical evaluation of BXCL701 via the open-label Phase II basket trial conducted at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. This study is evaluating the combination of BXCL501 and KEYTRUDA in patients with advanced solid cancer and consists of two arms: checkpoint naïve patients and patients who are refractory to checkpoint therapy. In June, the safety portion of the trial was complete. And recently, the trial met the efficacy bar in both arms, allowing the study to proceed to completion. We look forward to presenting initial data at a scientific conference later this year. Furthermore, the combination trial of BXCL701, bempeg from Nektar and avelumab from Pfizer and Merck KGaA in second-line pancreatic cancer, will start following the completion of Nektar and Pfizer Phase Ib safety study of bempeg and avelumab and the outcome of that trial. We are also further exploring compelling combination with BXCL501 in additional indications with high unmet needs. In July, we raised gross proceeds of approximately $200 million in a public offering, which helped to significantly strengthen our balance sheet. This cash, together with our current result, provide BioXcel a cash runway well into 2022 to fund key clinical regulatory, operational and commercial activities. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our Controller, Michael Stanton. Michael?