Sabrina Johnson
Analyst · Kumar Raja with Brookline Capital Markets
Wonderful. Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to our Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Business Update Call for Dare Bioscience. Our plan today is to review our second quarter results, discuss development since our last call in May and use the time to review our business strategy and highlight our objectives and milestones anticipated for the rest of 2022. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical facts should be considered forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from those anticipated or implied by these statements due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements in the company's SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, which was filed on March 31, 2022, and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, which was filed today. I would also like to point out that the content of this call includes time-sensitive information that is current only as of today, August 9, 2022. Dare undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information or developments after this call, except as required by law. As you know, Dare is solely and squarely focused in women's health. It is our belief that prioritizing women's health is not only good for the many women lacking effective or convenient therapeutic choices, but also for a broad set of stakeholders, including their families and partners and, of course, our shareholders. We work to accelerate innovative differentiated product options in contraception, vaginal health, sexual health and fertility, that expand treatment options were not exist, but enhanced outcomes where current standard of care has meaningful shortcomings and that improve ease of use for women where a more compelling form factor can drive adoption. Why? Because these are compelling markets impacting millions of women, and we have seen that innovation in these areas has led to commercially successful brands. Let's look at contraception. There are 73 million women in the U.S. ages 15 to 49 and the first monthly intervaginal ring contraceptive, NuvaRing peaked at $900 million annual revenue. The first hormone releasing intrauterine system contraceptive, Mirena peaked at $1.2 billion. And what about menopause? There are 47 million new entrants to the menopause and postmenopausal market each year, the first estrogen hormone therapy, Premarin peaked at $2 billion in annual revenue. And how about arousal problems? There are 10 million women estimated to have arousal problem significant enough to seek treatment. Now while we can't point to the success of the first product for women yet, since there is no FDA-approved product for female sexual arousal disorder. The first product for the analogous male condition erectile dysfunction, Viagra peaked at $2 billion in annual sales. Novel products that provide new features and flexibility have the potential to become meaningful brands. So what are the next big ideas in women's health? Well, at Dare, we believe these are the 4 novel contraceptive candidates or potential candidates in our portfolio. The first hormone-free monthly contraceptive candidate, Ovaprene, first 6- to 12-month injectable ADARE-204/214, first long-acting reversible contraceptive system, DARE-LARC1, and the hormone-free contraceptive target for men and women, DARE-RH1. We believe it's a 3 vaginal health programs in our portfolio, our FDA-approved product, XACIATO, clindamycin phosphate vaginal gel, 2% treatment for bacterial vaginosis in a single-dose vaginal administration. Our product candidate, DARE-HRT1, the first hormone therapy, bioidentical estradiol and progesterone monthly intravaginal ring and our product candidate, DARE-VVA1, the first hormone-free vaginal atrophy therapy for women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer. We believe it's a sexual health product candidate in our portfolio, the first topical cream with the same active ingredient as Viagra being evaluated as potential first-in-category treatment for female sexual arousal disorder or FSAD. And the pregnancy management product candidates in our portfolio, DARE-FRT1 and DARE-PTB1, IVR designed to release bioidentical progesterone over 14 days. So yes, it's our belief that prioritizing women's health is good for the many women lacking effective or convenient therapeutic choices and good for a broad set of stakeholders, including their families and partners and yes, of course, our shareholders. And it's our belief that the programs in our portfolio represent a compelling opportunity overall, given that strategic partners are looking for meaningful market potential for differentiated products. Providers are looking for first line and first-in-category product opportunities to address unmet patient needs. And investors are looking for a diverse pipeline with independent outcomes to mitigate risk and enhance the overall commercial opportunity. And women will continue to seek innovative options to help them navigate their needs and preference over the course of a lifetime. The Dare portfolio is built on these core principles, meaningful market opportunities, product candidates for women with first-line or first-in-category potential and a highly diversified pipeline that often leverages well-known and well-characterized active pharmaceutical ingredients or API. And a great example of the execution of these core principles can be found in our FDA-approved product XACIATO. In the case of XACIATO, use of a well-characterized API mitigated the development risk, the time and cost as compared to new molecular entities. As with XACIATO, that 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway that's possible for non-new molecular entities is planned for most of our development candidates. Why is that important? Well, 505(b)(2) candidates have a 23% probability of success of advancing from Phase I to approval in a 67% likelihood of success advancing from Phase III to approval versus just 6% and 38%, respectively, for new molecular entities. And let's talk about multiple delivery platforms. Persistent unmet needs require creative new approaches designed for her. Novel delivery platforms allow us to configure the most relevant API for the condition in a dosage form and delivery duration that has an opportunity to improve outcomes. This can lead to first-in-category products while using that well-characterized API, that allows us to use that 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway. The commercial value in women's health has been evidenced by differentiated brands and recent transactions in the category. Anyone following the category knows that women are often the most frequent consumers of health care. They manage 80% of the health care dollars in the household. Recent transformational pharma transactions are a good reminder of the global opportunity for differentiated women's health brands. We continue to drive our portfolio forward to deliver value as evidenced by our anticipated milestones. The milestones we expect our programs to achieve in 2022 alone include a product launch, a Phase III initiation, and we have 2 data readouts will be the focus of our call today. Specifically, in terms of the milestones, XACIATO, the clindamycin phosphate vaginal gel, 2% for bacterial vaginosis. We have that commercial launch planned and targeted for the fourth quarter of this year. So more on that to follow. Ovaprene, our hormone-free monthly contraceptive, were talked about the IDA approval process in the pivotal Phase III study commencement that's planned for the fourth quarter this year. VVA1 our vaginal atrophy program treatment for women with breast cancer. That's one of the Phase I/II study top line data readouts anticipated this year for the fourth quarter. DARE-HRT1, a hormone therapy for the treatment of menopausal symptoms. That Phase I/II study top line data is anticipated fourth quarter this year; and Sildenafil Cream, our female sexual arousal disorder program, the Phase IIb study top line data target data announcement is pending an interim analysis for study sizing, which is planned for this year. So shortly, I'll turn the call over to John to provide an update on the collaboration with Organon to commercialize XACIATO and the launch targeted for later this year as well as to provide an update on various of the anticipated program milestones this year. But first, I want to address some questions we've received regarding Ovaprene and particularly to provide some perspective on our IDE-related discussions with the FDA. As I mentioned, we're targeting commencement this year of what we expect to be the single pivotal Phase III study necessary to support a premarket approval or PMA submission to the FDA. In order to initiate the pivotal Phase III study, we must have an FDA-approved IDE in place. We initiated the IDE process for Ovaprene in early 2022. You may remember that the device division of the FDA is leading a review of Ovaprene. There is no predicate device for Ovaprene in that there is no existing FDA-approved product that the FDA can use to compare with Ovaprene. As such, Ovaprene will be reviewed via a PMA and not a 510(k) submission. While the regulatory process for such a novel product via a PMA can require more interactions and research to support the approval, the benefit is a clearly differentiated product. We've seen firsthand how challenging the contraceptive payer process can be and also pleased to be working on such a clearly differentiated product. Even if it means more FDA discussions and time to prepare for the pivotal study than would be required if Ovaprene were not so clearly differentiated. Those of you following the company, the last couple of years may recall that we've been utilizing the presubmission process with the FDA to align with the FDA on certain biocompatibility, chemical characterization and animal studies to support the safety profile of Ovaprene, such as a 9-month sheet study, which was completed and demonstrated the safety of Ovaprene over several months of use. We've also been discussing the Phase III study protocol with the FDA and Bayer, our commercialization collaborator from Ovaprene has contributed to these and other discussions with the FDA. Based on these ongoing interactions with the FDA and the IDE process for Ovaprene that we initiated in early 2022, we anticipate continuing the IDE process into the third quarter and subject to the FDA's approval of the IDE, we are targeting the investigator meeting for the fourth quarter of 2022, that preparatory step to commence the pivotal study based on communications with the FDA in terms of study sample size and duration, we expect that at least 200 subjects completing 12 months of Ovaprene use will be adequate. The Phase III study will be conducted under our cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, or NICHD, which is part of the National Institute of Health or NIH. We look forward to collaborating with the NIH and Bayer on the ongoing development of this potential first-in-category contraceptive. With that, I will now turn it over to John for additional portfolio updates.