Dr. Martina Flammer
Analyst
Thank you, Sara. And good morning, everyone. 2021 marked another transformational year for Insmed with respect to our clinical trial work. Today, I'm excited to be able to share important updates around several of our programs in development. Let's begin with brensocatib, our DPP1 inhibitor targeting neutrophil-mediated diseases. I'm pleased to report that our Phase 3 ASPEN study for the potential treatment of bronchiectasis is now 50% enrolled and we anticipate enrollment to be complete at approximately this time next year. Let me remind you that this trial is expected to enroll more than 1,600 patients at more than 400 clinical sites around the world. If there's one takeaway, I can leave you with, it is this: for ASPEN to be halfway enrolled in just one year is an extraordinary achievement, and we believe this milestone demonstrates significant enthusiasm for the potential of [Indiscernible] for bronchiectasis patients. We are grateful to our investigators and to patients, who have dedicated their time to this program at a very challenging time in respiratory medicine. I'm also pleased to share that the first meeting of the Data and Safety Monitoring Board or DSMB took place at the end of last year, where it was recommended that the ASPEN trials continue as planned. Recall that bronchiectasis is a globally prevalent disease with no approved treatment and with over 1 million patients diagnosed worldwide. This represents an enormous opportunity for our compound. Furthermore, we believe COPD and asthma patients, who may have undiagnosed bronchiectasis, present additional market opportunities, given the co-morbidity of these indications. Let's now turn to the next area of brensocatib development in cystic fibrosis. We are on track to release results this year or early 2023 from the Phase 2 PK/PD study, which will be instructive as to the appropriate dosing strength for CF patients. The trial is a single-blind assessment of once-daily brensocatib 10, 25, and 40 milligrams versus placebo in 36 patients with CF. Treatment duration is 28 days and we will evaluate PK and safety data as well as reduction of NT levels in sputum and blood, along with other exploratory spirometry measurements, such as FEV1. Following a review of safety and PK data, there is optionality to go to a 65-milligram dose, which may be warranted, even CF patients often have different metabolic profile versus non-CF patients. All toxicology work to support higher dose levels has been completed. The tremendous success of our Phase 2 WILLOW study highlighted the efficacy of DPP1 and condition in treating bronchiectasis patients and suggest its potential role in treating CF patients. In addition, what excites us is the pathway of DPP1 inhibition for the treatment of many neutrophil-mediated diseases and we have been doing significant work to explore how our compound may benefit patients in other disease areas. I'm excited to share with you today that we're moving brensocatib into two new potential indications: chronic rhinosinusitis without major polyps or CRS and Hidradenitis suppurativa or HSS. These indications are an exciting new chapter in brensocatib development. Echoed by the enthusiasm from the deep bench of experts within intimate, we have experienced in these disease states. We see clear scientific rationale supporting the potential role of brensocatib in pursuing this indication as we are targeting the neutrophilic activity in the inflammatory pathway of disease. We believe the DPP1 inhibition leading to a reduction of NSP level may be able to interrupt the inflammatory components of these diseases. First, it's important to distinguish CRS without nasal polyps, which we are targeting from CRS with nasal polyps. Both can be severe diseases, but with CRS without polyps, we generally see more neutrophil recruitment in the inflammatory process, aligning with the mechanism of action demonstrated by venture [Indiscernible]. There are currently no approved therapies for patients with CRS with our nature politics, which is the most common type of Rhinosinusitis. [Indiscernible] without [Indiscernible] is characterized by chronic inflammation and fibrosis of the mucous membranes inside the sinuses. The most common symptoms include a nasal obstruction, decreased sense of smell and facial pain. Patients with CRS also report lower quality of life measures impacting bodily pain, general health, physical and social functioning, and the disease is associated with increased rates of depression. Currently the only available treatment options for patients with CRS without polyps, are corticosteroids antibiotics, or endoscopic procedures. Deep endoscopic surgeries may have to be repeated. We are targeting patients at the severe end of the disease spectrum for whom surgery does not work. All of the signals that we need -- an urgent need for a safe oral therapy for these patients. Let's now turn to HS. HS is a chronic inflammatory skin disorder characterized by painful, inflamed, and small lesions affecting hair follicles often in the armpits growing in skin folds. The clinical course is variable ranging from relatively mild disease characterized by the recurrent appearance of inflamed lesions and nodules to severe cases with deep abscesses, drained fistulas, and severe scars. Patient-reported quality of life measures indicate a high psychosocial impact from the disease, with increased rates of anxiety and depression. We are targeting the moderate to severe end of the disease spectrum. There's only one approved therapy for HS, which does not work for all patients. And given the complexity of the disease, patients can require multiple treatments and sometimes surgery to maintain control of the disease. We have seen enthusiasm among healthcare professionals for investigational therapies to help identify new effective treatment options for both HS and CRS. Let me take a moment to walk through the study designs. Our current plan is to move CRS into the clinic in a Phase 2 study over a 24-week treatment period, exploring brensocatib 10 milligrams and 40 milligrams versus placebo, followed by four weeks of therapy with a primary endpoint of change in an established measure of total symptoms for it. Let's now turn to the trial design in HS. We anticipate that our Phase 2 trial in HS would have been a 16-week treatment period, exploring 10 milligrams and 40 milligrams of brensocatib versus placebo, followed by a 36 weeks open-label extension period. The primary endpoint will be percentage of subjects achieving Hidradenitis suppurativa clinical response at week 16. All of this aligns with our broader strategy of building a portfolio around the DPP1 inhibition pathway to target neutrophil-mediated diseases. We anticipate advancing one of these new indications into the clinic this year. And we rolled up more to see about our overall progress with brensocatib and all indications in the next few quarters. Let's now turn to the ARIKAYCE front-line program. I am excited to report that the arrived study is now 50% enrolled, and we anticipate reaching enrollment completion this year with top-line data from ARISE in the first half of 2023. We also anticipate ENCORE to be fully enrolled in 2023. As a reminder, data from ARISE will inform and allow us to finalize the PRO utilized in beyond per trial. These timelines are consistent with what we have seen in our previous NTM trial reaffirming that enrollment of NTM trial typically proceed at a slow pace. As was the case in our previous trials, positive sputum cultures are not always present at the time of patient screening, and it is not surprising to see strange failure rates surpass 40%. Recall that ARISE is preferentially enrolled over ENCORE with randomization of two-to-one. And once arrived is fully enrolled, we anticipate enrollment in the ENCORE study to accelerate. As additional study sites come online, we also anticipate this will help drive enrollment momentum in ENCORE. In addition, ENCORE is a more attractive study from a patient recruitment perspective because it provides an uninterrupted treatment cycle, allowing patients to stay on therapy for a full 12 months versus six months for ARISE. This is a relevant factor for patients and physicians as they evaluate their participation in these clinical trials. We look forward to maintaining our enrollment momentum in both of these studies and we'll update you on our progress. I will now turn to TPIP. TPIP is our treprostinil prodrug in Phase 2 development for both PAH and PHILD. This is an exciting opportunity as we believe that our compound could unlock the full potential of the prostanoid pathway to benefit patients with certain rare pulmonary disorders. Let me take a moment to walk you through our Phase 2 trials. The first study to discuss is the randomized double-blind placebo-controlled Phase 2b study that will assess the efficacy, safety, and PK of TPIP in patients with PAH or a 16-week treatment period. Target enrollment in this study is approximately 100 patients. Patients will be dosed once-daily and each patient will be up - titrated to his or her individual maximum tolerated dose. The primary measure is the change from baseline in pulmonary vascular resistance or PVR at week 60. And the key secondary measure will evaluate the impact of TPIP on six-minute walk distance at various time points. As planned, site initiation for the Phase 2b trial in PAH patients began late last year. We will update you on our progress in the coming quarters. The second study to discuss is the randomized double-blind placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial in PH-ILD, which will assess the safety and tolerability of TPIP over 16 weeks. Target enrollment is 32 patients. As with the study in PAH, patients will be dosed once daily and each patient will be uptitrated to his or her maximum tolerated dose. Other key endpoints will include TPIP’s PK profile, as well as various exploratory efficacy measures, including effect on six-minute walk distance. We think TPIP maybe well-positioned for this indication by the way of inhaled route of administration, which delivers basal dilation to the ventilated areas of the lungs. Systemically administered therapies on the other hand, can lead to vasodilation in the areas of the lung that due to fibrosis are not ventilated leading to a ventilation perfusion mismatch. A TPIP route of delivery is intended to mitigate this problem with the potentially more favorable side effect profile as well as long residency time versus inhaled Tyvaso. Site initiation for the Phase 2 trial in PH-ILD patients is currently underway and we look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress. Finally, the ongoing Phase 2a 24-hour right heart catheterization study evaluating PVR and PAH patients continues to look for volunteers, and we're hopeful that with Omicron receding we will be successful in identifying volunteers and advancing enrollment. While this study is not weight limiting to the other Phase 2 trials we have discussed, we are excited by the potential the results could suggest for our TPIP program and look forward to providing results from patients in this study as we collect data over the course of this year. I'd like to close by recognizing the significant and growing excitement behind our fourth pillar: translational medicine. This pillar is led by multiple teams and contains several exciting technology programs running in parallel, some of which are complementary to one another and others that are standalone therapies targeting different and unrelated conditions. We envisioned that some programs within these four pillars may act as platform capabilities, for example, the potential deimmunization of capsids in gene therapy. We anticipate that translational medicine will serve as the IND engine for incoming future, thereby addressing the question of what may follow the anticipated success of our first three pillars. We hope to make significant progress from these efforts in 2022, culminating in the filing of an IND in a new non-pulmonary indication by the end of the year. In parallel to this program, there's several other components of our fourth pillar, and we envision a detailed research date in the second half of this year, at which time we anticipate sharing pre -clinical data. While this represents an important pillar for our future, I continue to work closely with Sara (ph) to ensure capital allocations to these areas remains measured and it's deployed only with successful data along the way. In summary, Insmed realized several major clinical achievements over the past year. 2022 is poised to be a critical year of execution across our clinical operations. And we look forward to delivering on the catalysts we've outlined today. With that, let me turn the call over to Roger, to discuss some key operational updates. Roger.