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Fate Therapeutics, Inc. (FATE)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 12, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Fate Therapeutics’ Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. This call is being webcast live on the Investors and Media section of Fate’s Web site at fatetherapeutics.com. This call is a property of Fate Therapeutics and recordings, reproduction or transmission of this call without the expressed written consent of Fate is strictly prohibited. As a reminder, today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce Scott Wolchko, Chief Operating and Financial Officer of Fate Therapeutics. Sir, please begin.

Scott Wolchko

Management

Thank you. Good afternoon. And thanks everyone for joining us for the Fate Therapeutics fourth quarter 2014 earnings call. At 4:00 PM Eastern Time today, we issued a press release with our fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results, which can be found on the Investors and Media section of our Web site under press releases. In addition, our 2014 10-K will be filed shortly thereafter and can be found on the Investors and Media section of our Web site under Financial Information. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that except for statements of historical facts, the statements made by management and responses to questions on this conference call are forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Please see the forward-looking statement disclaimer on the company’s earnings press release issued after the close of market today, as well as the risk factors in the company’s SEC filings, included in our Form 10-K for the quarter ended December 31 2014 that was filed with the SEC today. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made, as the facts and circumstances underlying these forward-looking statements may change. Except as required by law, Fate Therapeutics disclaims any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future information, events or circumstances. Joining me on the call today are Dr. Christian Weyer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Dan Shoemaker, Chief Research Officer. I will begin the call by reviewing our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2014. For the three months ended December 31 2014, Fate Therapeutics reported a…

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Thank you Scott and good afternoon everyone. Over the past three months we have made significant progress in demonstrating the broad potential of our innovative ex vivo cell programming approach for the development of first in kind hematopoetic cellular therapeutics. First, in late December 2014, we reported a favorable neutrophil engraftment data from an interim analysis, interim safety review of the first 12 subject administered PROHEMA in our ongoing phase 2, PUMA study, are randomized controlled multicenter clinical trial in adult patients undergoing double umbilical cord blood transplantation for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. These initial data where encouraging on several fronts. The studies independent data monitoring committee determined that PROHEMA had met established safety criteria and supported continuation of the PUMA study. Additionally, time to achieve neutrophil engraftment was reduced for PROHEMA subjects receiving myeloablative or reduced intensity conditioning, the median times were reduced by six and seven days respectively as compared to pre-specified median times reported in the literature. And furthermore, the incidence of early neutrophil engraftment was increased. Six of the nine engrafting subject administered PROHEMA achieve neutrophil engraftment prior to the prespecified historically confirmed medians. In patients undergoing hematopoetic stem cell transplantation or HSCT, engraftment of donor derived neutrophils is one of the most crucial early milestones required for the successful reconstitution of new blood and immune system. And it is well-established that patients with delayed neutrophil engraftment have a several fold higher risk of transplant related mortality and also achieve early neutrophil engraftment. Second, over the past three months we also expanded our HSCT therapeutics pipeline by adding a second development stage candidate that is based on the programming of hematopoetic cells from mobilized peripheral from blood. Mobilized peripheral blood represents the most commonly used hematopoetic cells source for HSCT, and together umbilical cord blood…

Dr. Dan Shoemaker

Management

Thank you Christian. Since our founding, we have been dedicated to the programming of the therapeutic function of hematopoetic cells ex vivo. We built a platform that enables us to identify small molecule or biologic modulators that promote rapid and super-physiologic activation or inhibition of therapeutically relevant gene and cell surface proteins such as those involved in homine [ph] proliferation and survival of CD34 cells, or those involved in persistence, proliferation and reactivity of T-cell. We believe that this novel therapeutic paradigm which involves systematically and precisely programming the biological properties of cells ex vivo is an elegant cost-effective and scalable approach to maximize the safety and efficacy of cellular therapeutics. And because of the programming that occurs ex vivo and is not until administration of pharmacological modulators directly to the patients, it is feasible to apply combinatorial programming approaches using multiple modulators to achieve profound biological stats without the complexities and safety concerns that are typically encountered with in vivo combinatorial treatments. In the past several months, our internal research team has identified a novel combination of three pharmacologic modulators that synergized the programmed supraphysiological expression levels of PD-L1, a key immunosuppressive protein on CD 34 cells. We intend to exploit PD-L1 expression on CD 34 positive cells as a mechanism to limit the alloreactivity of T-cells that have been activated, just part of an inflammatory or autoimmune response. In recent years, the PD-1 PD-L1 pathway has been clinically validated as a promising therapeutics target. And data from large clinical trials where checkpoint inhibitors targeting this pathway provide compelling support for the prudent immunosuppressive role of PD-L1. Using our cell programming approach, we have achieved a greater than 100-fold upregulation of PD-L1 gene expression on CD34 cells during a 24 hour ex vivo treatment. Additionally in our initial in…

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Thank you, Dan. Looking ahead in 2015, we believe we are well-positioned to validate the disease transforming potential of PROHEMA in patients across a wide range of ages and a broad spectrum of blood threatening malignant and rare genetic disorders and to further apply our cell programming approach in optimizing the therapeutic potential of CD 34 cells and T cells. With respect to PROHEMA our ongoing phase 2 PUMA study is poised to generate a robust informative set of data on multiple clinical endpoints that continue based to the overall morbidity or mortality of HSCT. We expect to report data on the primary endpoint which is based on the incidence of neutrophil engraftment prior to the prespecified historic median times in the second half of 2015. Additionally we expect to see a data related to the therapeutic effect of ex vivo programming on donor derived T cells including rates about reactivation graft through the source disease and immune-reconstitution. In particular with keeping a keen eye on the rates of reactivation of cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus which are major clinical challenges during the first hundred days following HSCT. We call that, in our phase 1B study, subjects who receive PROHEMA shot in increased proportion of naïve and early memory T cells within the CD8 positive T cell compartment at day 100 following HSCT. And lower rates of CMV and EBV reactivation were observed as compared to the rates reported in the literature. In addition to our content of the PUMA study, we continue to make progress in the clinical expansion of our PROHEMA franchise to pediatric patients undergoing single cord blood transplantation. We are in final preparations to initiate our phase 1B PROVIDE study which is designed to investigate the potential of PROHEMA to provide cellular enzyme replacement therapy for the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Boris Peaker with Cowen & Co. please go ahead Sir, your line is opened.

Boris Peaker

Analyst

Thank you for taking my question. I guess my first question is through the PD-L1 expression, CD 34 positive cells, and now based on what's known about PD-L1, is there a high level where the amounts of the cell ligand can cause just infection and if so just curious and just based on model you [indiscernible] so far, what is the kind of the margin of safety between the PD-L1 level you anticipate to expose patients to and these potentially infectious levels.

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

So first of, this obviously relatively still earlier states in the developmental program. So we do not have at this point extensive preclinical experiments to address some of the questions you are raising. We are taking great comfort out of critical data that already exists, right interventions in the PD-L1 Pathway. Dan, anything you want to add?

Dr. Dan Shoemaker

Management

No, these the questions, that are currently underway in our preclinical models and we are certainly paying close attention to the level that PD-L 1 that we are achieving both pharmacologically as well as with genetic overexpression systems but this is definitely something we will keep a close eye on.

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

And Boris one more thing to add, just to keep in mind if you one with our therapeutic approach overall, the [indiscernible] changes we are driving on the self-service of this cells are transient in nature and so I think that is another important thing to consider.

Boris Peaker

Analyst

Great and similar question is in the PROHEMA study, do you monitor CXCR4 gene expression or the [indiscernible] approaching expression levels and so, is that something that correlate with at least with the initial patients whether there is a correlation between engraftment time and expression of these markers or not?

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Another great question, we are in addition to collecting the [indiscernible] parameters, we are obviously characterizing both the cells that actually we administered to patients as well as taking extensive characterization following the actual PROHEMA transplant.

Boris Peaker

Analyst

Okay and my last question, this is a more kind of a may be a kind of basic science question that take why does delay in neutrophil engraftment correlate with expression with GHD?

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Sorry, can I ask you to repeat that question one more time?

Boris Peaker

Analyst

Sure. Are you mentioned that delayed in neutrophil engraftment in bone marrow transplant, is it correlates with high level of GHD? I am curious why that is so?

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

No, I think what I wanted to convey here is that when you do an analysis of a time to engraftment and transplant recipients and you analyze the outcomes, the overall transplant related mortality and compared that late engrafters and early engrafters, it is a very clear based on the literature and there is multiple multicenter experiences that have been published that patient who engrafted late have a higher overall mortality risk, I did not refer to GVHD risk in that.

Boris Peaker

Analyst

I appreciate the clarification, I was a little confused by that.

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Just to complete this point, the major contributors to that excess risk than if include for instance, risk of serious bacterial and fungal infections. So the longer the patient, it remains not fully engrafted the higher the risk of the bacterial infections among other things and that contributes to the clear association that one sees with time taking to feel engraftment of mortality.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Nierengarten with Wedbush Securities, your line is open. Please go ahead.

David Nierengarten

Analyst · Wedbush Securities, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering the study in rare diseases, where are you in terms of enrolling patient so you are screening them, you have your center set up, just that you get a progress report on that. Thanks.

Dr. Dan Shoemaker

Management

Let me have to answer that question. So we are in, as we have set in our prepared remarks in the final status of activating and initiating this trial. As you might imagine, we are working with sites that have extensive experience and considered leaders in this field and we are excited to get those study up and running. We are on the final things of getting the study activated starting with the patients.

David Nierengarten

Analyst · Wedbush Securities, your line is open. Please go ahead.

And will you, sorry to be speaking about the details, but would you press release the first patient which you treat so we can have an idea when we could see the initial results?

Dr. Dan Shoemaker

Management

The exact, [indiscernible] prepared to disclosed by that, to talk about that. We will definitely keep everyone informed as we make progress on the two studies in pediatric patients, absolutely.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Reni Benjamin with HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Just jumping back to the provide study detailed and I know you mentioned you are in the final stages, can you comment a little bit about what is kind of taken the significant amount of time but very more importunately from patient enrollment perspective, is there already a backlog of patients, so during this whole setup time, have they been screening or looking for patients that might be lined up so that enrollment may occur faster?

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

First of I mean we the team has said are highly focused and working with a great sense of urgency to advance all of our clinical trials and we just had an opportunity to meet with many of our clinical investigators at the annual meeting of the ASMBT here San Diego last month and I can tell you there was a shared excitement and commitment to advance these programs with the shared ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. As I said, there is administrative and just general like steps we need to take as far as start up activities. As I mentioned, we are working with the sites that are highly specialized in this area do not have previous experience within our other clinical trials but we are very pleased with the progress we have been making recently and I as said we are very close to initiating that study we feel. With respect to the line of our patients, I mean the thing of course that keep in mind with involvement and transplant, settings or studies is that you have a narrow window of opportunity from a timing perspective to actually once an indication for transplant is made, you have a narrow window of opportunity to get this patient consented and screened and then enrolled into a clinical trial. So there per-say, if you will backlog, outpatients are waiting for the study to start that being said again the centers who are working our referral centers globally and so we are quite comfortable that once we got started enrollment will go according to plan. Keep in mind and I think we have talked about this on a prior call that very nature, PROHEMA being and allogeneic cell, the cell therapeutics that is derived from a healthy donor derived cell we have the ability to include the several types of inherited metabolic disorders in fact there is 18 of those disorders that are actually eligible for our trials so that we hope and feel will eight enrollment.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Just switching gears to the new program regarding PD-L1 expression on these CD 34+ cells, can you talk a little bit about how long the expression does last, I think you answered that it's pretty transient and may be how you are thinking about moving this forward, would you look for additional modulators to extent the expression or would you prefer, cell therapies that you do multiple times in order to control, have more control over the process.

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Great question. Overall thing, I think we feel like when these cellular therapy including CD34 cellular therapies are administered to patients, there is a tremendous opportunity to, in the very early days after the administration or transplant of the cell to engage very important biological processes that are critical to long-term patient outcome and PD-L1, the program we just talk about and announced it is not similar from that, I’ll let Dan sort of talk about a little bit more about some of the underlying biology and science here.

Dr. Dan Shoemaker

Management

We are definitely leveraging our pre-clinical models to explore this parameter. We typically believe ourselves would be in a [indiscernible] state for 48 hours to 72 hours. Again a multiple dosing is one of the strategies we use to achieve the optimal dosing regimen but again it’s early and we are using [indiscernible] and pre-clinical model that they guide us on this one.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay and might we say data, from this program even the IPSC program this year and what conferences should we be targeting?

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

We are not giving exact guidance as to when we would disclose further scientific information on the progress we are making in this clinical assessments, we might do this is critical to the future call on and then there's the obvious scientific meetings that we attend and have a scientific presence as being one of them.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good luck in 2015.

Operator

Operator

Thank you and I am showing no further question at this time and I would like to turn the call back to management for any further remark.

Dr. Christian Weyer

Management

Thank you. I appreciate everyone's of participation in today’s call and we look forward to updating you again in the near future. Thank you,

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect, everyone have a great day.