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Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. (FOLD)

Q3 2021 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 9, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Amicus Therapeutics’ Third Quarter 2021 Fiscal Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Andrew Faughnan, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Andrew Faughnan

Analyst

Thank you, operator. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss Amicus Therapeutics' third quarter 2021 financial results and corporate highlights. Speaking on today's call, we have John Crowley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Bradley Campbell, President and Chief Operating Officer; Daphne Quimi, Chief Financial Officer; and Dr. Jeff Castelli, Chief Development Officer. Joining for Q&A, we'll have Dr. Mitchell Goldman, Chief Medical Officer; and Sébastien Martel, Chief Business Officer joining. As referenced on Slide 2, we may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 relating to our business as well as our plans and prospects. Our forward-looking statements should not be regarded as representation by us that any of our plans will be achieved. Any or all the forward-looking statements made on this call may turn out to be wrong and can be affected by inaccurate assumptions we might make or by known or unknown risks and uncertainties. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which should be according to the date hereof. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. And we undertake no obligation to revise or update this presentation and conference call to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. For a full discussion of such forward-looking statements and risks and uncertainties that may impact them, we refer you to the forward-looking statements and Risk Factors section on our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and the quarterly report on Form-10Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 to be filed later today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to John Crowley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. John?

John Crowley

Analyst

Great. Thank you, everyone. Good morning. And welcome to our third quarter 2021 results conference call. I am pleased to report that the third quarter reflected broad execution across our business as we remain on track to achieve our key strategic priorities for the year. As we did in this morning's release, I'd like to go ahead and highlight several key updates. First Galafold continues its strong performance and remains the cornerstone of our success with $79.5 million in third quarter revenue. We are very pleased with the continued momentum of Galafold globally as we added new patients from both switch and naïve populations throughout the quarter. Second, we continue to make tremendous progress on our global regulatory filings for AT-GAA, our novel next-generation therapy for Pompe disease. In September, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted the review – accepted for review the biologics license application for cipaglucosidase alfa and the new drug application for miglustat, the two components of at AT-GAA. The U.S. review is underway. The FDA has set a PDUFA action date of May 29, 2022 for the NDA related to the enzyme stabilizer, in July 29, 2022 for the BLA of the biologic. The two regulatory filings, significantly cross reference each other, and we expect that they will be reviewed together. In the European Union, following our previously announced positive repertoire and co- repertoire meeting, I am pleased to share for the first time this morning that the marketing authorization applications or MAA for AT-GAA have been submitted to the European Medicines Agency. We are now closer to having another potential treatment option for people living with Pompe disease, both in the United States and in Europe with further regulatory applications planned in the months ahead. We are confident in the potential benefits of at…

Bradley Campbell

Analyst

Great. Thanks John. Good morning, everyone. As mentioned, I will walk you through in more detail now our Galafold performance for the quarter. On Slide 7, we give our typical global snapshot on the Galafold commercial progress. For the quarter total product revenue grew by 18% versus same quarter last year to $79.5 million globally, driven by strong patient demand, new patient starts and business continuity. The geographic breakdown revenue during the quarter was $53.9 million or 8% of revenue generated outside the United States and the remaining $25.6 million or 32% coming within the United States. As we've mentioned before, this is in line with the roughly 70-30 split that we expect as we continue to grow both parts of the business. Turning now to Slide 8. The third quarter was another strong quarter for our global commercial efforts. The business continues to be incredibly resilient with patients added in all of our major markets and third quarter revenue reflected increased patient demand, it also benefited from continued foreign exchange tailwinds. We do continue to see some sporadic COVID related slowdowns in new patient starts due to delays at the point of care between patient identification and initiation of treatment. Importantly, though, our customers have confidence they can access Galafold. Our field team has been able to achieve a substantial majority of their pre-COVID touch points. And this is done through a combination of in-person digital telephonic, and other means of interacting with physicians. So, while COVID is not yet fully abated, as we had hoped, it continues to be a very successful year for Galafold with the first three quarters of 2021 in line with our internal expectations. As mentioned on past calls, due to a variety of factors, the rate of growth within the year is typically,…

Jeff Castelli

Analyst

Thank you, Brad and good morning, everyone. Moving on to our R&D updates on Slide 13, we'll start with AT-GAA, our novel next-generation therapy for Pompe disease. First, it's always important to recognize that Pompe continues to pose a range of health challenges for people affected by the disease and having therapeutic choices and options is crucial. Pompe is a severe and fatal neuromuscular disease and one of the most prevalent lysosomal disorders. In addition to the individual human tragedies we've seen multiple publications and natural history studies of Pompe patients that highlight the initial benefit of treatment that is often followed by continued long-term decline on key measures of disease for many individuals. As a reminder, this sustaining high unmet means for the ERT experienced population has only ever been studied in a controlled setting in our Phase 3 PROPEL clinical trial. All other controlled lay onset Pompe disease studies to date have been in participants naïve to treatment. Moving on to Slide 14, we present a summary of the primary key, secondary and biomarker endpoints from our Phase 3 PROPEL study. As a reminder, the study was double blind, randomized, set in the efficacy and safety of AT-GAA in adult treatment naïve and ERT experienced patients against approved therapy alglucosidase alfa. Here in the slide, grouping these endpoints into domains of motor function, muscle strength, pulmonary function, patient reported outcomes and biomarkers, you can see the majority of endpoints across all of these domains favor AT_GAA alglucosidase alfa in both the overall and ERT experience populations. We believe this consistency of effects across the key disease manifestation illustrates the potential impact of AT_GAA for Pompe patients. As our reminder on the primary endpoint of six-minute walk distance patients on AT-GAA outperformed those on alglucosidase alfa in the overall…

Daphne Quimi

Analyst

Thank you, Jeff. And good morning, everyone. Our financial overview begins on Slide 20 with our income statement for the third quarter ending September 30, 2021. For the quarter, we achieved Galafold revenue of $79.5 million, which is an 18% increase over the same period last year. This includes a year-over-year operational revenue growth measured at constant currency exchange rates of 17%, further benefited by a positive currency impact of 1%. Total operating expenses of $110.2 million in the third quarter were down as compared to $111.8 million in the third quarter of 2020. On a non-GAAP basis, total operating expenses were $93.6 million in the third quarter as compared to $92.4 million in the third quarter of 2020. We define non-GAAP operating expense as research and development and SG&A expenses, excluding share-based compensation expense, changes in fair value of contingent consideration and depreciation. Net loss for the third quarter of 2021 was $50.3 million or $0.19 per share as compared to a net loss of $64 million or $0.25 per share for the prior year period. As of September 30, 2021, we had approximately 279 million shares outstanding. Turning now to Slide 21, the $200 million private investment in the quarter added to our strong cash position. We are on a path to self-sustainability and profitability in 2023. We have achieved this milestone through our continued revenue growth with Galafold as well as driving efficiencies, cost savings and careful expense management. For the third straight year, we expect total non-GAAP operating expenses in 2021 to remain relatively flat as we leverage the commercial infrastructure that is already in place for the AT-GAA launch and other products in our pipeline, transition the costs associated with the development of AT-GAA to multiple gene therapy programs in the pipeline and maintain financial discipline while meeting our objectives. A few comments about our cash position and 2021 financial guidance. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $557 million at September 30, 2021, as compared to $483.3 million at December 31, 2020. We are reiterating our full year Galafold revenue guidance expecting to be within the $300 million to $315 million and maintaining our non-GAAP operating expense guidance of $410 million to $420 million as we expect the timing of manufacturing batches to impact fourth quarter operating expenses. And with that, let me turn the call back to John for closing comments.

John Crowley

Analyst

Great. Thank you, Daphne, and Jeff and Bradley as well. As you can see, we've been relentlessly focused on execution and performance across the business, driven by a global team of passionate entrepreneurs who have led and will continue to lead us on our patient-focused mission. We are immensely excited for what the future of science and biotechnology hold as we continue to advance toward our commitment to people living with rare diseases through not only Amicus, but beginning with the next earnings cycle with Caritas Therapeutics as well. So with that, operator, we're happy to take any questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Ritu Baral with Cowen. Your line is now open.

Anvita Gupta

Analyst

Good morning team. This is Anvita on for Ritu today. On the two deaths in the CLN6 study, could you perhaps provide a little more color on how all these patients were when they were diagnosed? And what was the rate of decline on the Hamburg scores in the extension period? And probably more broadly, could we expect a clinical data update at World from the CLN6 and CLN3 programs?

John Crowley

Analyst

Sure. Again, I'll remind everybody the Batten program came to us through the acquisition of Celenex, which was a spinout out of Nationwide Children's Hospital more than three years ago, the 13 children dosed in that study. The first children were dosed about 5.5 years ago. The last patient was dosed more than three years ago. So again, to reiterate, the investigator has deemed this not to be related to study drug. I want to be very clear about that. These children were among the oldest, in fact, one of the two was the oldest in the study upon enrollment and had already advanced in their disease prior to the gene therapy. With that said, we'll continue to evaluate all of the children who remain in the study, gather data on the children who did pass away. So, I'll turn it to Jeff or Mitch for any additional color or comments.

Jeff Castelli

Analyst

John, this is Jeff. I don't have anything to add to what you noted other than we continue to follow the patients across both studies. We're not noting whether we'll have data at world or not, but we do expect to provide data updates next year as we continue to collect data from those extension studies and continue to work on manufacturing at Thermo Fisher to provide GMP material and to have clinical and regulatory discussions with the agencies to move these forward.

John Crowley

Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Anupam Rama with JPMorgan.

Anupam Rama

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Hey guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. I know you probably can't get into a lot of detail here, but how has the engagement been with the FDA on the AT-GAA filing and on the regulatory side? And has there been any indication of a potential ADCOM for the filing? Thanks so much.

John Crowley

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Yes. Thank you, Anupam. I'll say the FDA has been highly engaged and interactive. The review is continuing. Inspections are underway. So, everything we would expect, we continue to receive information requests. So, it's been a highly engaged review to date, which we're very pleased with. I will note that we have received in writing from the FDA that there will not be an advisory committee. So, while, again, of course, the FDA will always reserve the right to revisit that. As of now, the FDA has confirmed that there will not be an ADCOM.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Schwartz with SVB Leerink. Your line is now open.

Joseph Schwartz

Analyst · SVB Leerink. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks very much. I was wondering if you could give us an update on your plans to study infantile onset Pompe disease and get AT-GAA approved in this population. And how should we think about the size of this opportunity? Is it would compare with the size of the population with late-onset Pompe disease?

John Crowley

Analyst · SVB Leerink. Your line is now open.

Great. No, thank you for the question, Joe. Studying the infantile-onset Pompe disease population is incredibly important to us. We expect that study to begin, the formal study to begin very shortly as we finalize the protocols with FDA and the EMA. It is a relatively small portion of the population. We would estimate it to be perhaps 10% or less. And again, in terms of an opportunity, for this product, again, based on weight-based dosing and even smaller proportion there, but obviously incredibly important to be able to treat these children. I will remind everybody that we have treated under our global expanded access or compassionate use program a number of infants, and we're very, very pleased with the results that we've seen in those infants.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dae Gon Ha with Stifel.

Dae Gon Ha

Analyst · Stifel.

Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. And John, if this is my last time speaking with you, good luck on your next adventure and look forward to keeping in touch.

John Crowley

Analyst · Stifel.

Thank you, Dae.

Dae Gon Ha

Analyst · Stifel.

My one and only one question is with regards to Pompe, as we're gearing up for your progress with AT-GAA. Just wondering if you guys have done any latest market research with regards to Lumizyme and NexViazyme uptake? And how that is faring in the current landscape as you're gearing up your commercial sales force? Thanks.

John Crowley

Analyst · Stifel.

Yes. Let me – Bradley, why don't you go ahead and take that, please. Thanks, Dae.

Bradley Campbell

Analyst · Stifel.

Sure. Obviously, careful not to speak on other products out there in this space, but we can share what's available publicly. We know that the Pompe market continues to grow. We think that reflects the high demand for treatments for Pompe disease. And I would encourage you to look at the latest reports on the uptake around the more released product in the United States, GAA. And I think Sanofi released those numbers recently. So, I think that would be a good indicator of at least their initial uptake there. I will say that focusing on AT-GAA, we continue to expect high demand for that product. Of course, we have to get – go through the regulatory process. But I do think the color that Jeff provided in particular around the EAMS process in the UK shows that where AT-GAA is now available through a formal mechanism albeit a pre-reimbursement – pre-approval mechanism we're seeing significant demand and interest for use of that product, and we hope that reflects physicians confident that there's an opportunity for AT-GAA to make a major difference here. And clearly for the unmet medical need in the Pompe space.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Yun Zhong with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Yun Zhong

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking the question. So, a question on your Fabry gene therapy program. And given that you have Galafold in the market and also – excuse me – several other gene therapy programs are already in clinical studies and have reported quite interesting data, so how do you think your program will be able to compete with existing program? What part of the program do you think is most differentiated?

John Crowley

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.

Yes, great. Thank you, Yun. So again, we've had great experience working in the Fabry community for really since the day we started Amicus, and we think that will be incredibly important to understand the unmet needs in that community, the nature of clinical studies, regulatory pathways and eventually providing 100% access to everyone living with Fabry disease in the world. I think for gene therapy, we continue to believe that the greatest unmet need will be in those patients who don't have access to Galafold today, so those patients with non-amenable mutations. And we've got a commitment. It's part of the Amicus promise to patients that we would continue to forever designate a portion, a significant portion of our revenue from Galafold into Fabry disease to not only develop treatments but ultimately until there is a cure. And we think this does have the potential to be that cure. We've developed something we think is highly differentiated. We think very importantly in the Fabry market, while several firms may be the first to the clinic, we would hope to be the first out of the clinic. And I think that's very important and that gets to the nature of what we've created. Again, the whole notion for what we've developed in gene therapy at Amicus is to look at each disease, understand its unique biology, the unique aspects of the disease, the clinical manifestations and develop a therapeutic gene therapy that can best address that. Let me turn it to Jeff. Jeff, if you want to just remind everybody the drug candidate that we've developed in conjunction with Dr. Wilson and his team at Penn, and why we think that's differentiated.

Jeff Castelli

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.

Sure. Thanks, John. Yes, there is really two main components that we can differentiate our approach. One is this is a ubiquitous promoter with the AAV. So, we get expression not only directly in the cells that are transduced, but also and cost correction that ubiquitous expression can help not only create more of the enzyme out in the circulation, but also could be more durable. And then secondly, and really what's most differentiated is that we've created a transgene that expresses a GLA that has a stabilized dimer through two engineered disulfide bond. That stabilized enzyme is not only more stable in the blood as it's secreted and then travels to treat other cells and tissues, but even after uptake into tissues and cells, it looks like it is more active. So, we've done studies comparing that stabilized transgene versus the wild-type GLA transgene, and just see that we get much more substrate clearance at a given dose with that more enzyme that's being expressed. So, we're really excited, as John mentioned, about the opportunity here to have what we believe has the potential for a best-in-class AAV gene therapy in Fabry. And in terms of unmet need, for that nonamenable Fabry portion of the market, which is over half of the patients out there, their only option is every other week ERT infusions, currently. We view there's a real need there for a onetime treatment, which would be a big market expansion from an Amicus perspective.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Nishant Gandhi with Needham & Co. Your line is now open.

Nishant Gandhi

Analyst · Needham & Co. Your line is now open.

Hi. This is Nishant. I'm on for Gil. Thank you for taking our questions. I know PDUFA date is six, seven months away, but are you planning in any way, like thinking of commercial launch? Like are you planning for sales force ramp up? Or are you waiting on the decision before proceeding?

John Crowley

Analyst · Needham & Co. Your line is now open.

Yes. Thank you, Bradley, do you want to feel that, please?

Bradley Campbell

Analyst · Needham & Co. Your line is now open.

Sure. Of course, yes, thanks for the question. We are very much geared towards commercial launch and anticipating approvals in the summer of next year, as John articulated. Really excited to do that. Of course, this would be the second product that Amicus has brought from discovery all the way through to launch, and will be an exciting milestone for the company. Importantly, to your point about building commercial infrastructure, good news is the infrastructure we've built for Galafold is highly leverageable here. Many of the same physicians and centers are responsible for treating Pompe disease as are responsible for treating Fabry disease. What we said previously is that in order to support the launch of AT-GAA, we only anticipate a handful of additional FTEs, maybe in the sort of a dozen or so FTEs to support that launch, primarily in our Amicus Assist team as well as medical affairs and direct marketing. So that's one of the great things about the team that we've built to support Galafold as they'll also be able to support the launch of AT-GAA. But rest assured, we're eagerly anticipating that opportunity and doing all the things to prepare – to be ready for an exciting launch.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Eliana Merle with UBS. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open.

Hey, this is Jonny on for Ellie. In terms of the Pope early access in the UK, can you update us on any trends you're seeing there in terms of updating switches from ERT? Thank you.

John Crowley

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open.

Great. Yes, thank you again to remind everybody, we received the early access approval at the end of May. Since that time, we've been working through all the health authorities, the regional authorities in the United Kingdom to enable the next level of approvals. We've made significant progress there. Again, we really are seeing significant enthusiasm. We've received for multiple key opinion leaders, multiple centers throughout the United Kingdom request to switch patients from the approved standard of care enzyme therapy to AT-GAA. We've been working through that for all the approvals necessary, the switches. We're starting to see patients now switched, which we're very encouraged by, and we think that, that will continue and that momentum will grow in the months ahead. Bradley, anything I missed, feel free to add color.

Bradley Campbell

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open.

No. I think you've captured it, John.

John Crowley

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open.

Great. Thank you. Yes. It's a very significant commitment for us. And again, something we're very excited about to provide AT-GAA in the United Kingdom to adults eligible to switch.

Operator

Operator

We have a follow-up question from Ritu Baral from Cowen. Your line is now open.

Anvita Gupta

Analyst

Hi, this is Anvita on again for Ritu. Thanks for taking our follow-up question and apologies if I missed this earlier. Of the 150-plus patients on AT-GAA globally, could you provide us a breakdown of open-label extension patients versus early access from the U.S. versus any other compassionate use? Thank you.

John Crowley

Analyst

Yes, we don't provide specific numbers for all of that. Again, the vast majority of those patients are on a long-term extension study following the PROPEL data. We also have all of the Phase 1/2 patients who continue on AT-GAA. We now have patients in the adolescent study. Again, we expect to begin the infantile study very quickly. And we do have an expanded access program that includes a range of patients, including infants as well. So, it really is a mix in terms of disease onset and characterization within the spectrum of Pompe disease. And importantly, it's also a mix across clinical sites with dozens and dozens of investigators now caring for these patients receiving AT-GAA on now five continents. So geographically quite dispersed.

Operator

Operator

At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. John Crowley, Chairman and CEO, for closing remarks.

John Crowley

Analyst

Great, operator. To all the analysts, thank you for all the great questions today. Again, a good very strong quarter for Amicus on Q3, and we look forward to a very strong closeout to the year. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day. Take care.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you, and have a great day.