Ali Fattaey
Analyst · RBC Capital
Thank you, Mani, and thanks to the conference call and webcast participants for joining us this morning. We remain committed to advancing our 2 proprietary drug candidates, CUDC-907 and CUDC-427, which are currently in Phase I clinical development. And we have a first-in-class approved drug, Erivedge, that is being commercialized by Genentech in the United States and by Roche worldwide, outside the U.S., for treatment of advanced basal cell carcinoma. We expect the royalty-based revenue stream to Curis from Erivedge sales to continue for the foreseeable future, and our current cash position should enable us to execute our plans into mid-2016. These are the elements of the company that we'd like to highlight during our call today. I will start with CUDC-907, our orally available small-molecule drug candidate that is designed to selectively inhibit HDAC, as well as PI3 kinase enzymes. We are currently evaluating CUDC-907 in an ongoing Phase I dose escalation and expansion trial in patients with relapsed or refractory lymphomas or multiple myeloma. In this trial, patients have received oral doses of CUDC-907 using 3 different treatments schedules: continuous daily, twice weekly or 3 times weekly. A total of 36 patients have received CUDC-907 to date, and, thus far, the focus has been to fully characterize CUDC-907's safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and activity profile with the goal of identifying a recommended Phase II dose and schedule. We identified the maximum tolerated dose for the daily schedule at 30 milligrams with a dose-limiting toxicity of diarrhea and hypoglycemia observed in one patient. The last patient in the daily schedule was enrolled in October of 2013, and 2 patients are continuing to receive CUDC-907 for more than 1 year on this schedule. This includes one patient with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, that is in cycle 21 of treatment, and one patient with multiple myeloma that in cycle 25 of their treatment. No dose-limiting toxicities have been declared, thus far, on either the twice-weekly or 3 times weekly intermittent dosing schedule, both of which are currently dosing patients at 150 milligrams dose level. We expect to identify the recommended dose and schedule for CUDC-907 that will be used in the expansion stage of the study later this year. In the expansion phase, we plan to test CUDC-907 in patients with selective malignancy, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and, potentially, multiple myeloma. Each expansion cohort is expected to enroll up to 12 patients of a particular cancer type. As we've noted in the past, we've also been interested in testing CUDC-907 in patients with solid tumors. To this end, the FDA recently granted Curis' request to enroll hormone-receptor positive breast cancer patients in a separate cohort within the ongoing Phase I trial testing CUDC-907. Enrollment in this breast cancer cohort is expected to begin later this year as well. This is an acceleration of our original plan to administer CUDC-907 to patients with solid tumors, and specifically to patients with hormone-receptor positive breast cancer. This is driven by our observations of the high distribution and high apparent half-life of CUDC-907 in solid tissues in preclinical studies and, more recently, in the Phase I study. As well as, based on the potential clinical benefit of combining HDAC and PI3 kinase inhibition in this disease sector. I will now turn to CUDC-427, which is our oral small-molecule Smac mimetic that is designed to promote cancer cell death by antagonizing IAP proteins. During our last quarterly call, we reported that the FDA had lifted the partial clinical hold on our Phase I study, based on our comprehensive response to the agency. In early June, we reinitiated dosing of patients newly enrolled onto the monotherapy trial. The trial is now administering CUDC-427 on a 14-days on/7-days off dosing schedule in a 21-day cycle period, in sequential-dose escalation cohorts planned at doses ranging from 100-milligram to 300-milligram dose of CUDC-427. We are currently enrolling patients into the second of 3 dose cohorts, namely the 200-milligram dose level. Based on the cumulative safety pharmacodynamic and clinical benefit data to date, we believe that the recommended dose level of single agency CUDC-427 will likely be identified within this dose range of 100 to 300 milligram. We anticipate establishing a recommended dose for CUDC-427 in the coming months and remain on track to enroll into the expansion cohort stage of this trial, which will include patients with multiple [ph] lymphoma. As previously stated, patients' tumors will be retrospectively genotyped to discern IAP pathway or the other genetic alterations that may inform stratification strategies for CUDC-427 monotherapy treatment. In addition, our preclinical team continues to investigate the mechanistic basis for synergy that we've observed in select tumor models when CUDC-427 is combined with apoptosis-inducing chemotherapeutic agents such as capecitabine, taxane or platinum drugs. Examination of CUDC-427 in combination with chemotherapy for patients with HER2-negative breast cancer is expected to follow. And now, I would like to turn to our partner program, and I will begin with Erivedge, which is been developed and commercialized globally by Genentech and Roche under our broad collaboration. Roche continues to focus its efforts on global commercialization of Erivedge, including in key territories worldwide, such as the United States, European Union and Australia. In addition, Roche is continuing to pursue marketing approvals in many other countries within 2014. Genentech and Roche are also continuing to further develop Erivedge in other cancers, as well as non-oncology diseases. Sales of Erivedge continue to increase. During the second quarter of 2014, Roche reported Erivedge worldwide net sales of approximately CHF 33 million, or approximately $36.5 million, which represents an approximately 40% sequential increase over first quarter 2014 sales of CHF 24 million. Importantly, the U.S. sales trajectory returned to growth during the second quarter, with Roche reporting U.S. sales of approximately CHF 21 million, which is up 50% from net U.S. sales of CHF 14 million reported for the first quarter of this year. As a result, we reported royalty revenues of approximately $1.8 million for the second quarter of 2014, as compared to $1.3 million in the first quarter of this year, and $805,000 for the first quarter of 2013. While at this time the majority of Erivedge revenues are U.S.-derived, we expect that reimbursement will be finalized, particularly in major European countries, later this year. On the development front, Roche is investigating Erivedge in new oncologic and non-oncology disease settings. We look forward to result from a Phase Ib2 trial in patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia and high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome next year. Additionally, in June of this year, Roche filed an investigational new drug application for Erivedge to treat patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF. This is a first non-oncology indication to examine Erivedge. Currently, there is no cure for IPF, and life expectancy for most people is approximately 3 to 5 years after diagnosis. Respiratory failure is the most common cause of death due to IPF. There are an estimated 128,000 people with IPF, and there are 40,000 deaths attributed to the disease in the U.S. Roche has stated that it expects to begin enrollment in an approximately 130-patient randomized Phase II study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Erivedge in patients with IPF later this year, and we look forward to sharing updates on this novel study with you. Erivedge is the first Hedgehog pathway inhibitor to be studied in patients with IPF, the pathogenesis of which may involve aberrant activation of the Hedgehog pathway. We continue to be very pleased with Roche's and Genentech's commitment to investigate Erivedge in indications beyond basal cell carcinoma and even beyond oncology, including IPF, which is a serious disease with very high unmet medical need. Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to Debio 0932, which is a second-generation oral Hsp90 inhibitor that is being developed by our partner, Debiopharm. Debiopharm is currently being -- Debio 0932, I apologize, is currently being evaluated in combination with 3 different chemotherapy regimens, including gemcitabine, pedetrexed and docetaxel in the Phase I portion of the ongoing Phase I/II HALO trial in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. We expect that Debiopharm, and we will review the data from all 3 arms of this study later this year, and determine plans for subsequent development. Additionally, for the renal cell carcinoma study, Debiopharm has concluded not to advance the combination of Debio 0932 and everolimus further in renal cell carcinoma. We continue to believe that our wholly-owned and partner programs hold promise for the treatment of patients with cancer. We look forward to providing further updates on all of these programs in 2014. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Gray for his discussion of our financial results. Mike?