Ali Fattaey
Analyst · Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. 2017 was a year with significant clinical data for our drug candidates and we look to use these for creating considerable value for our shareholders in 2018. Curis’ achievements in 2017 included demonstrating that CUDC-907 is an active agent in patients with MYC-altered DLBLC, with nearly one in four treated patients experiencing a durable objective response. Also, establishing that CA-170 can significantly increase cytotoxic T cell numbers in patients tumors and resulted tumor shrinkage at a safe oral dose. Further, we were successful in bringing CA-4948 IRAK4 Kinase Inhibitor into the clinic to test its anticancer activity in patients with lymphomas. We’ve also readied CA-327 for first-in-man clinical testing and have secured sufficient capital for our operations into the second-half of 2019. These accomplishments are consistent with our business strategy to develop multiple oncology drug candidates, which we expect to commercialize in certain territories should they reach their registration state. Now today, I’d like to provide a brief update on each of these, as well as our expectations for 2018. I’ll begin with CUDC-907. At the ASH Annual Conference in December last year, we presented the combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical experience with CUDC-907 in patients with relapsed/refractory DLBCL. Of the total 105 patients with relapsed/refractory DLBCL treated with CUDC-907, 60 were identified to have MYC-altered disease. And of this 60, 14 patients had an objective response, including eight, that is over half of the responders experiencing complete responses. The median duration of response for these patients was 13.6 months. Based on these results, we conclude that beyond one year of durable benefit in approximately one in four treated patients is a significant clinical benefit for patients with relapsed/refractory DLBCL in general. Now recent reports, including those from the published CORAL and REFINE studies have noted an exceptionally poor outcome for patients with MYC-altered relapsed/refractory disease. These studies note that relapsed/refractory DLBCL patients who do not proceed to transplant or – and sorry, irrespective of their MYC status had a median overall survival of 4.4 months, and older patients and MYC-altered patients have even worse outcomes. Our clinical results with CUDC-907 when compared to these historical trial findings clearly indicate that CUDC-907 is active and is meriting a continued development to seek its registration for treatment of patients with MYC-altered relapsed/refractory DLBCL. We should also note that the vast majority of the patients treated with CUDC-907 were not eligible to receive a stem cell transplant, and would likely not be eligible for treatment with other cell therapy drug regimens either. At this point, we have been and continue to work closely with the regulatory authorities in order to define and establish a pivotal path for registration of CUDC-907 for the treatment of this patient population. We note that approximately one-third of patients with DLBCL have MYC-altered disease, providing a significant commercial opportunity for Curis. In addition to preparation for the design of a pivotal clinical study, we have continued to work with the commercial drug substance and product manufacturers, as well as held discussions with a potential companion diagnostic partner to enable selection of MYC-altered patients for treating physicians. We expect to provide further update on our regulatory discussions, as well as our development plans for CUDC-907 shortly. I would now like to provide an update on CA-170, the first orally-administered small molecule checkpoint antagonist that we are developing in collaboration with our partner, Aurigene. As you recall, CA-170 targets the PD ligands and the VISTA inhibitory immune checkpoints. In November of 2017, at the Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer Annual Conference, we presented preliminary results from 39 patients treated as part of the dose escalation stage in the Phase 1 trial of CA-170, with doses ranging from the initial 50 milligram through 800 milligram daily continuous dose courts. At the time of the SITC presentation, six patients, five of whom were immunotherapy treatment naive had experienced continued shrinkage of their tumors over multiple cycles. Evidence of an increase in the population of cytotoxic T cells within the patients tumors after CA-170 treatment was also noted in six out of 10 patient samples evaluated, which indicated that as expected, orally-administered CA-170 is a potent immune modulator. Now since the time of the SITC presentation, we have completed dosing in a cohort at the 600 milligram twice-daily dose for a total daily dose of 1,200 milligrams. There appears to be a significant improvement in the steady state levels of CA-170 using this twice-daily dosing schedule with as little as twofold difference between the maximum and trough plasma drug concentration levels. We’re encouraged with these recent results and have initiated dosing at the 900 milligram twice-daily dosing in a cohort of immunotherapy treatment naive patients. We’re also particularly excited that our partner, Aurigene, has recently initiated a Phase 2 trial of CA-170 enrolling select populations of patients in multiple centers in India. Now one advantage of this study is access to a significant population of immunotherapy treatment naïve patients with cancers of interest for CA-170 treatment, including those with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and MSI high diseases. We and our partner, Aurigene, expect to present further updates on the clinical results of CA-170 testing in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials by mid-2018. Recently, the published reports have emerged noting a proportion of patients from certain cancer types that appear to express high levels of VISTA protein on the tumor cells. This feature is different than the predominant expression of VISTAprotein expression on immune cells, including myeloid cells that appear in the tumor microenvironment. Our internal survey of a large repository of cancer tissue samples appears to be consistent with these reports. We are currently exploring whether these results provide us an opportunity for a direct patient selection strategy to examine CA-170s effect in such patients. We should note that up to this point, we have not yet identified a CA-170 treated patient that has demonstrated this particular characteristic. I would now like to update on our IRAK4 Kinase Inhibitor drug candidate CA-4948. We are excited with the initiation of patient enrollment in the Phase 1 trial of CA-4948, which is currently the only IRAK4 Kinase Inhibitor in clinical development for treatment of patients with cancer. Our Phase 1 study is enrolling patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma gearing the dose escalation state, and in particular, patients with cancers that are shown to have alterations in that MYD18 or the toll-like receptor signaling pathway. In this Phase 1 study, patients are currently dosed orally on a once-daily schedule during the dose escalation and we expect to examine other schedules of administration as we receive pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data as well. The primary endpoint of this study is to establish the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile, as well as to establish the recommended Phase 2 dose and to measure any anticancer activity in treated patients. We expect to provide an update on this Phase 1 trial later in the second-half of this year after further dose escalation. In December, our scientists also presented non-clinical data further demonstrating CA-4948 significant mechanism-based anticancer activity in multiple lymphoma tumor models in mice, either as a single agent or in combination with the anti-BCL-2 drug Venclexta, which is approved for treatment of patients with CLL. Our initial non-clinical data also show encouraging effect of CA-4948 in mouse models of AML, and we expect to explore the merits for clinical testing of CA-4948 for treatment of patients with these malignancies in 2018. Regarding our drug candidates, CA-327 in partnership with Aurigene, which is an orally bioavailable small molecule that targets PD-L1/TIM-3 Immune Checkpoint, IND enabling studies have now been completed and we expect to prepare for regulatory filing for this drug candidate in the first-half of 2018. Lastly, we are pleased to note Roche and Genentech continued commitment to commercialize Erivedge globally for the treatment of patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma. In summary, we see 2018 as an opportune and productive year for Curis and our shareholders. We believe CUDC-907 has the opportunity to provide benefit for the population of patients with MYC-altered DLBCL and we are committed to advance this drug candidate for these patients. In heme malignancies, CA-4948 IRAK4 Kinase Inhibitor provides us with an opportunity to build on and extend our now significant experience and extensive network of investigators for development of drug candidates to treat patients with B-cell malignancies. CA-170 is now established as the first oral checkpoint inhibitor in the clinic and we have multiple opportunities to demonstrate its development test in select populations of patients in the ongoing Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials with our partner, Aurigene. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Jim for discussion of our financial results.