Eric Dutang
Analyst · Jack Allen with Baird. Please proceed with your questions
Thank you, and welcome, everyone to Cellectis second quarter 2021 corporate update and financial results conference call. Joining me on the call today with prepared remarks is Dr. André Choulika, our Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Carrie Brownstein, our Chief Medical Officer; and Steve Doares, our Senior Vice President of US Manufacturing will be joining for the Q&A. Yesterday evening, Cellectis filed its interim report and issued a press release reporting our financial results for the second quarter and six months period, ending June 30, 2021. The reports and press releases are available on our website at cellectis.com. As a reminder, we will make forward-looking statements regarding Cellectis financial outlook in addition to its manufacturing, regulatory and product development plans. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those forecasted. A description of these risks can be found in our most recent Form 20-F filed with the SEC and the financial report for the year ending on December 31, 2020, and subsequent filings Cellectis makes with the SEC from time-to-time. Now, I would like to turn the call over to André.
André Choulika: Thank you, Eric. Good morning, and thank you, everyone for joining us today. Despite challenges the world is facing, Cellectis has achieved a series of key milestones and we are incredibly grateful and proud of all the hard work achieved by our team, our partners and our stakeholders. During the first half 2021, we have made significant progress on all fronts that we're thrilled to share with you over the next half an hour. Today, we believe that Cellectis is reaching a turning point and is entering into a new phase of it’s development demonstrating excellence in clinical execution and acceleration of our internal product manufacturing of both new products and also new stock of existing products for expansion phases of our clinical program. Cellectis has enrolled patients in parallel in the three sponsored Phase 1 dose-escalation trial for our three clinical stage wholly-owned product candidate, UCART22 and BALLI-01 for relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia, you’ll recall 123 in AMELI-01 for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukaemia and UCARTCS1 in MELANI-01 for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. During the second quarter we presented preliminary translational data for the first group of patient enrolled for the MELANI-01, UCARTCS1 at the virtual American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy for the 24th Annual Meeting. Early preliminary data, validate CS1 as a target for allogeneic CAR T-cell in multiple myeloma. UCARTCS1 expansion and persistence was observed and correlated with the change in relevant serum cytokines and anti-myeloma activity. MELANI-01 trial is currently enrolling patients at the dose level minus one, the first of the three plan doses level. We organize a virtual event called Cellectis Innovation Days that took place in May 2021. The event provides an inside look at Cellectis and was a huge success with great attendance through the week. We're presented a clear view into our pipeline of new product candidates, our gene editing platform, our electroporation technologies, as well as our end-to-end state-of-the-art internal manufacturing capabilities. The new in oncology product candidate includes UCART20x22, the first allogeneic dual CAR T-cell candidate product for B-cell malignancies, the power of UCART20x22is that it is not yet another CD19 product. CD19 is a de novo crowded target space and UCART20x22 with the power of UCART can address all patients with B cell malignancies, including the one not responding to the numerous CD19 targeting treatment. In addition, we also present a UCARTMESO targeting mesothelin expressing solid tumors and UCARTMUC1 targeting mucin-1 expressing epithelial cancers. Finally, we're presented UCARTFAP, a very innovative mechanism to pursue solid tumor to targeting cancer associated fibroblasts CAFs in the tumor microenvironment, which has the potential to turn a cold tumor, hot. We plan to file INDs of UCART20x22 and UCART mesothelin in 2022. During these innovation days, we also introduced the market to heal our genome surgery platform for genetic diseases. The platform leveraged the power and the precision of TALEN gene editing to perform therapeutic genome surgery of hematopoietic stem cells. We announced programs in sickle cell disease, lysosomal storage disorders and primary immunodeficiencies. .HEAL’s lead product candidate is TALGlobin01 for the treatment of sickle cell disease. TALGlobin01 is developed using both TALEN technology to induce a double strand DNA break under mutation of the sickle cell disease causing hemoglobin subunit beta, HBB gene and AAV that will be providing a DNA repair matrix designed to correct the faulty HBB gene via homologous recombination. Cellectis plans to file an IND for TALGlobin01 in 2022. If you're interested in watching Cellectis Innovation Days on-demand episodes, you can get more information on our website cellectis.com. In May 2021, Cellectis and Sanofi entered into a partnership agreement and a supply agreement regarding alemtuzumab, an anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody, to be used as part of the lymphodepleting regimen in certain Cellectis’ sponsored UCART clinical trials. Sanofi will supply alemtuzumab to support Cellectis clinical trials and we agreed to enter into discussion to execute a commercial supply of alemtuzumab under pre-agreed financial condition. In our Paris GMP manufacturing facility, manufacturing of plasmids starting material its DNA matrixes is now fully operational. One very critical element was the production of messenger RNA coding TALEN that we are -- that are at the center of our gene editing approach. We are proud to announce that messenger RNA are now in production at Cellectis. We finally remain on track for the manufacturing of viral vectors in the second half of 2021. In our Raleigh GMP manufacturing facility, we successfully completed two UCART training runs from starting cells to vile drug product. And we have started major production of first batches. Manufacturing independent and execution in the cell and gene therapy space is a key success factor for all companies operating in this competitive arena. We believe that Cellectis a state-of-the-art biotechnology company with the product development process, master from A to Z, including the construction of our proprietary electroporation devices to the production of buffers up to the vile file product ready to be injected. With that, I would like to hand the call over to Eric Dutang, Cellectis, Chief Financial Officer for an overview of financials for the quarter. Eric, please go ahead.