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Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. (IOVA)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 8, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Iovance Biotherapeutics Conference Call to discuss Second Quarter 2024 Results and Recent Corporate Updates. My name is Daniel and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Sara Pellegrino, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Iovance. Sara, you may begin.

Sara Pellegrino

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to Iovance conference call and webcast to discuss our second quarter and first half 2024 results and corporate update. Dr. Fred Vogt, our Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide an introduction and summarize key updates for our U.S. Commercial launch of Amtagvi including revenue guidance and our pipeline program; Jim Ziegler, EVP Commercial, will highlight additional details of the U.S. commercial launch of Amtagvi, in advanced melanoma; Dr. Igor Bilinsky, Chief Operating Officer, will comment on our commercial manufacturing experience and capacity expansion plans; Jean-Marc Bellemin, CFO, will review our financial results including revenue and financial outlook; and Dr. Friedrich Finckenstein, Chief Medical Officer, will review key clinical pipeline update. Dr. Brian Gastman, EVP Medical Affairs; and Dr. Raj Puri, EVP Regulatory Strategy are also on the call and available for the Q&A session. Earlier this afternoon, we issued a press release that can be found on our corporate website at iovance.com. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that statements made during this conference call will include forward-looking statements regarding Iovance's goals, business focus, business plans and transactions, revenue and revenue guidance, commercial activities, clinical trials and results, regulatory approvals and interactions, plans and strategies, research and preclinical activities, potential future applications of our technologies, manufacturing capabilities, regulatory feedback and guidance, payer interactions, licenses and collaboration, cash position and expense guidance, and future updates. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, including the risks and uncertainties described from time-to-time in our SEC filings. Our results may differ materially from those projected during today's call. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. With that, I will turn the call over to Fred.

Fred Vogt

Management

Thank you, Sara. I am pleased to host this afternoon's conference call to discuss our 2024 second quarter and first half results. We've had a productive year so far at Iovance following our first FDA approval and a successful start in the U.S. commercial launch of Amtagvi for patients with advanced melanoma. First, we were very pleased with the exceptional demand for Amtagvi. Our second quarter product revenue was $31.1 million, inclusive of recognized revenue for Amtagvi and Proleukin. Amtagvi revenue is recognized upon infusion, while Proleukin revenue is recognized upon delivery, typically a few months prior to Amtagvi Infusion, providing a strong leading indicator of demand of future Amtagvi revenue. The initial quarter of product revenue from our U.S. launch demonstrates early success from our team's execution as well as the unmet need, high awareness, broad patient access and motivated authorized treatment centers, or ATCs. With Amtagvi already showing a meaningful benefit for patients treated in a commercial setting, we expect continued launch momentum, which I'll return to in a moment. As Jim will discuss, we have a very engaged network of more than 50 current ATCs. These ATCs are proving that they have the training, infrastructure and capabilities to treat patients with Amtagvi. We also remain on track to have at least 70 ATCs by the end of the year, representing the largest ever initial ATC network for a cell therapy launch. We've also started our community referral activities to drive additional demand for these ATCs. Through early success with reimbursement and a strong logistics and scheduling collaboration between Iovance and the ATCs, time to treatment is also becoming faster for patients. In addition, our commercial manufacturing capabilities are successfully delivering Amtagvi at an increasing pace. The key takeaways, as Igor will summarize, that we are staffed to…

Jim Ziegler

Management

Thank you, Fred. We are excited about the potential for our U.S. launch of Amtagvi to improve the lives of patients with advanced melanoma. As more and more patients are treated with commercial Amtagvi, an increasing number of our ATCs are sharing positive feedback and posting stories about their patients who have benefited from Amtagvi in the early months since approval. My objectives today are to highlight our U.S. launch priorities and progress, including adoption and utilization within our expanding ATC network, community referrals, reimbursement and patient access, and streamlining and expediting the patient journey. First, our ATC network is scaling and expanding as planned, which is a key driver of demand, and we expect robust demand to continue. Today, onboarding is complete at more than 50 U.S. ATCs. The centers who were active at approval are scaling up and many have treated multiple patients. Newer ATCs that have recently completed onboarding, including major U.S. cancer centers, are beginning or preparing to treat patients. As we look to bring treatment closer to patients, our goal is to have approximately 70 ATCs in total by year end. Beyond this number, many additional centers have expressed interest in joining our network. Currently, more than 90% of treated patients are located within 200 miles of an ATC. With 70 ATCs, nearly all melanoma patients will be within a two-hour drive to the closest center. Community referrals are also driving growth in patient volume and demand within the ATCs. An increasing number of ATCs are proactively building awareness about Amtagvi across their community referral networks. Iovance is rolling out initiatives to further support awareness and referrals by deploying direct outreach and resources into the community. The size and scope of our ATCs and these community referral networks are a testament to the significant unmet…

Igor Bilinsky

Management

Thank you, Jim. Today I'd like to highlight our commercial and clinical manufacturing capabilities, the progress of our commercial launch, as well as our ongoing capacity expansion efforts. Manufacturing is a core competency of Iovance. We are laser-focused on quality from incoming receipt of tumor sample through manufacturing and product release to outbound shipment of the final product. Our established internal manufacturing facility, the Iovance Cell Therapy Center or ICTC is the core of our manufacturing network. Located in Philadelphia, ICTC is one of the world's largest cell therapy manufacturing facilities and the only one specifically designed for TIL manufacturing. The ICTC has a fully integrated and committed team with deep cell therapy experience. This facility is approved by the FDA for Amtagvi commercial manufacturing and has been supplying Amtagvi to patients since approval while continuing to serve patients in our global clinical trials. We're actively hiring at ICTC to support the continued ramp in the U.S. commercial demand and our clinical pipeline. The ICTC location in Philadelphia provides access to an experienced workforce with cell and gene therapy experience as well as to innovative partnerships with local colleges and trade groups. Within our manufacturing network, a contract manufacturer site is also approved by the FDA for commercial manufacturing of Amtagvi and provides additional capacity and flexibility to closely match supply and demand. Turning to commercial manufacturing updates, our experience to-date has been consistent with our expectations and with prior clinical experience. We are executing and scaling up as planned. Since the FDA approval in February, we have been continuously increasing our staff manufacturing capacity month over month to closely align it with the growing commercial demand. We have sufficient capacity and staffing available in our manufacturing network to meet the increasing Amtagvi demand. We are now running our manufacturing…

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

Thank you, Igor. Today, I will review our current cash position as well as our results for the second quarter and first half ended on June 30, 2024. I will also highlight our financial outlook, including revenue and expense guidance. As of July 24, 2024, Iovance had an unaudited cash position of approximately $449.6 million, which includes net proceed of approximately $200 million raised from an at-the market equity financing facility during the second and third quarter of 2024. The current cash position and anticipated product revenue are expected to be sufficient to fund current and planned operation into 2026. Iovance had $346.3 million in cash, cash equivalents, investment and restricted cash at the end of December 31, 2023. I will now transition to our second quarter and year-to-date financial results. Net loss for the second quarter of 2024 was $97.1 million or $0.34 per share, compared to a net loss of $106.5 million, or $0.47 per share, for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023. Net loss for the first half of 2024 was $210.1 million, or $0.76 per share, compared to a net loss of $213.9 million, or $0.98 per share for the six months period ended June 30, 2023. Revenue was $31.1 million for the second quarter of 2024 and consisted of product revenue from the initial quarter of Amtagvi sales as well as recurring revenue from Proleukin. We recognized revenue of $12.8 million from completed Amtagvi infusion. We also recognized $18.3 million in global revenue from Proleukin during our initial quarter in supplying U.S. specialty distributors. Revenue for the first half of 2024 was $31.8 million and consisted of product revenue from both Proleukin and Amtagvi. Revenue for the first half of 2023 was $0.2 million for global sales of Proleukin, which we began to recognize…

Friedrich Finckenstein

Management

Thank you so much. As my colleagues have conveyed, Amtagvi is only the tip of the iceberg for the potential of TIL cell therapy in solid tumors, which represent more than 90% of all diagnosed cancers in the U.S. I would like to acknowledge my own personal excitement and the rewarding experience for our Iovance clinical development teams as we hear frequent ATC feedback about patients benefiting from Amtagvi in the commercial setting. This is great news that also motivates our clinical teams to develop and deliver TIL cell therapy to cancer patients in additional therapeutic settings and with additional tumor types. Today, I will focus on key clinical pipeline highlights, including two ongoing registrational trials from this afternoon's press release. I'll begin with the frontline advanced melanoma setting, a key priority with the potential for lifileucel to address thousands of additional patients. Our global registrational Phase 3 trial TILVANCE-301 remains on track to support accelerated and full approvals of Amtagvi in combination with pembrolizumab in frontline advanced melanoma, as well as regular approval of Amtagvi in post-anti-PD-1 melanoma. Enrollment is strong across geographies with high enthusiasm for site participation. More than 40 sites are currently active across 10 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, with 60 additional sites selected across 18 countries total. Iovance does carefullyfeasibility assessments for each site selection, at which time the sites also commit to participate. Site activation includes institutional ethics board approvals and scientific review of the TILVANCE trial design, including the pembrolizumab monotherapy control arm and its fit with local standards of care for the enrolled patient population. We also believe the option to cross over to TIL therapy from the control arm is attractive to patients. As a reminder, TILVANCE-301 is supported by previously published data on TIL monotherapy in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Michael Yee with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Michael Yee

Analyst

Hey guys, thanks. Congrats on a good execution of the launch and good guidance. We just wanted to ask two questions on the guidance. Does the guidance number include Proleukin revenues built into that? I know it's not a huge amount, but just want to make it square and accurate. And then can you talk to the $18 million of Proleukin as a leading indicator? Does that imply a certain amount of patience or a certain amount of time? Or is it just distributors buying it up? We try to back into that as maybe a queue of demand. And so I just want to think about your numbers on Proleukin and perhaps related to that, if it may just ask differently, do you have any numbers on the patient enrollment forms to think about the Q? Thanks so much.

Fred Vogt

Management

Yes, Mike, the guidance does include Proleukin, so all the guidance numbers that we put out include Proleukin revenues as well as Amtagvi revenues. Now on the Proleukin revenue number for this quarter that represents sort of the leading indicator for what we think will be Amtagvi demand over the next couple quarters. You can model it any way you see fit. It's a large number of infusions. We've given you the number of infusions through very recently. It's more than 55 [ph] now. And you can use that to kind of estimate where we're going. But the whole point of us giving guidance is so that you can rely on our internal understanding of infusions and Proleukin demand and see what the upswing is going to look like here. It's a very positive uptake of both Proleukin and especially Amtagvi.

Michael Yee

Analyst

Yes. So to clarify, it's a buying up of a certain amount from distributors, but not like a one-for-one or a certain amount of time. It's just an indicator?

Frederick Vogt

Analyst

It's just an indicator. And they've already started restocking. I can't stress that more. They've already started reloading because they've sold a lot of that product already.

Michael Yee

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter Lawson with Barclays. Your line is open.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Thanks. Thanks for the guidance, Fred, and congrats on the progress. For the Q3 guidance, what's the breakout of IL-2 versus TIL same question for the full year as well? And then for the IL-2 revenues this quarter, what was the proportion of that IL-2 that was used for TIL therapy?

Fred Vogt

Management

Yes, we don't have. We're not going to provide guidance on the individual products. We're just going to provide the aggregate guidance. You can probably model it by understanding the amount of Proleukin that's used for Amtagvi patient, because I'm going to answer your second question ahead of time here. We don't know exactly how much of our Proleukin gets used in the Amtagvi regimen, but you can hear from Jean-Marc’s comments earlier and from the experience of Proleukin in the industry for many years. It's got to be the vast majority of it getting used for Amtagvi. We have no way of tracking that from an accounting perspective, but it's being. Obviously the massive upswing in Proleukin sales is driven by Amtagvi.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open.

Gotcha. Okay, thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrea Tan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Andrea Tan

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Fred, I'm curious here, just given where you stand in the launch in your six months and what is driving your confidence for a full year 2025 guidance given where you are now? And then, just curious if you plan on providing metrics around demand, such as the patient enrollments or screening as you have in past quarters? Thanks so much.

Fred Vogt

Management

Andrea, we may provide some additional guidance on – we're not, you won't hear us talking about enrollments anymore. It's really not relevant anymore. All that matters now is infusions, which is a revenue generating event. So we may talk a bit about that as we go over the next, whatever, four quarters or five quarters here. But really what we're trying to do with the guidance is give you the big number so you don't have to worry about enrollments and that sort of thing. You can figure out what we're seeing in terms of infusions. What's giving us guidance on that fiscal year 2025 guidance, the full year 2025 guidance. We can see the launch, we see how we're doing. We know all the dynamics. We know how many ATCs are coming on board. We know what we think they're going to do. We know our manufacturing capacity and all the details around that stuff that would be very difficult, I think, for the street to model in some cases. So we're going to provide it for you so you have clarity on what we're seeing. We are very, very confident in that guidance based on what we're seeing so far in the initial part of the launch, because we've got such a good picture of launch dynamics right now.

Andrea Tan

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Okay, thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Yanan Zhu with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Yanan Zhu

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking our questions and congrats on the progress here. So I guess I have a couple questions on patient numbers. You gave the patient infused – the infusion – number of infusions since the start of this quarter, which is 30 patients. Given that there will be, you have talked about month-to-month increase and quarter-over-quarter increase. Can we assume that over the next two months, within the current quarter, you will have patient numbers that will exceed the 30 patient number there? And also on patient number, just wanted to understand, have there been patients that have been resected around the same time as the 30 patient and who did not receive the product, i.e., trying to get a sense of the ongoing attrition rate, whether that's due to manufacturing issues or patient progression. If you can give some color there, that would be super helpful. Thank you.

Fred Vogt

Management

To answer your second question first, the patient dropout rates and manufacturing success rate remain consistent with what we saw in the clinical trial experience. So we're seeing that today, we can obviously further optimize that. And we're working on that. Part of the reason we're giving guidance is so that you don't have to necessarily factor that all in. We can see that pretty clearly and understand that. And as we go, we may provide more details on that once we have a larger end in our data set here. But right now we feel very good about those numbers. And then you asked a question, I couldn't fully understand what you were getting at with the patient numbers. We've already done more than 30 patients this quarter, meaning third quarter, the quarter we currently sit in than we did in the quarter or second quarter that we're reporting for. We expect that to obviously accelerate considerably such that by the end of third quarter, the numbers are going to be much higher. I'm not sure if that answers your question or if you want to phrase it differently, I can try it again.

Yanan Zhu

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Right. So given that you infused more than 30 patients this quarter, but this quarter is still have a couple of months to go, right. So I'm just trying to understand, what's your assumption for this quarter, the patient number for this quarter, given that you only gave the revenue guidance, which includes Proleukin and at this current stage, I think it's a little hard for us to understand the Proleukin revenue contribution because there's a lot of stocking going on. So it's hard for us to see the patient number. If you can help us understand the patient number for this quarter, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Fred Vogt

Management

Estimated – we have an estimated number for this quarter that's a lot higher than 30. I can't give you that number today. I can tell you that it will be significantly higher and we'll track out the way we think – we will track out to give you 53 million to 55 million in revenue with a good portion of that being Proleukin, especially restocking of Proleukin. That's the most color I can give you right now.

Yanan Zhu

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Got it. Got it. Thanks and congrats again.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tyler Van Buren with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Tyler Van Buren

Analyst · TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just a couple. So you gave basically some metrics on time to manufacturing, which is consistent and reimbursement. But what's the average time from the beginning from opt in to infusion? And then the second one is around kind of how much you're netting per infusion and gross margins. I suppose if you guide to target gross margin of 70% over the next few years that would assume roughly 360 on the 515 list. So it has to be lower currently. And we're getting some inbounds with cost of sales being the same as product revenue for this quarter. So more color on that and how much is fixed versus variable and how it might evolve over time would be super helpful?

Fred Vogt

Management

Sure. We currently, right now, Tyler, see the entire enrollment process, meaning reimbursement approval, the financial single [ph] case agreement, all the stuff we talked about endlessly on these calls, as well as scheduling, getting in line for resection. The whole thing takes about three or four weeks right now. So I hope that answers the first part of your question there. That's where it is today, and that's getting quite close to where we want it to be long term. On the netting, I think with respect to gross margin, we've already give you the number. Are you asking about gross to net on the product on Amtagvi, you mentioned discounting and I'm not sure exactly what you were talking about from a financial perspective. Gross to net on the product, very low.

Tyler Van Buren

Analyst · TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Yes. Currently, how much you're netting with each infusion and how you expect that to evolve in the coming quarters?

Fred Vogt

Management

All right. So gross to net right now is less than 0.5% and we expect it to stay around there, less than 0.5%.

Tyler Van Buren

Analyst · TD Cowen. Your line is open.

But I guess the question is, cost of sales are the same as product revenue. So it's a lot – I mean, is a lot of that fixed? I mean, and obviously, if it's a 70% gross margin, it's not 0.5% currently, right, 0.5% currently.

Fred Vogt

Management

I think so, I'm going to probably need Jean-Marc help here, but maybe some of this is lost in the definition of cost of sales that we're using.

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

Yes.

Fred Vogt

Management

Jean-Marc, you want to comment?

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

Yes, yes, yes. Just chiming in and trying to answer Tyler's question. So what you will see in the 10-Q and all the detail is obviously our cost of sales in total, which is $38 million. If you look at the year-to-date, June 2024, we don't have any specific gross margin to give for product or product by product because it's a total. But just know that on the cost of sales, you will have, of course, other things than only cost of product – cost of goods sold itself because you have intangible assets that you need to take into account. You have royalty to take into account. So you cannot draw exactly what's the conclusion on the gross margin. But we are committed, again in the next several years to reach this 70% because we believe that where we stand today in terms of cost of sales for our product make us confident for reaching the 70% in the next few years.

Tyler Van Buren

Analyst · TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Burnett with Stifel. Your line is open.

Ben Burnett

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Hey, thank you very much. And again appreciate or congrats on all the progress on a great quarter. Question just on the cash guidance that Jean-Marc you were talking about, to what extent do you consider product revenue when calculating that cash runway?

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

Yes, we do take into account the product revenue, but to be honest with you, Ben, we are very conservative. So that's why we're confident into saying with the recent $200 million we just raised to be able to go into 2026 and that includes all the spending in terms of investment in term of increasing manufacturing capability and capacity and all our operational spend. So we are very conservative and very confident about that.

Ben Burnett

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Okay, thank you. And so just to clarify, so when thinking about kind of the spending going forward, we shouldn't just assume that that cash guidance is assuming the product guidance exactly?

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

We do take into account what we are telling you around the $450 million to $475 million in 2025 obviously. This is our baseline to look into a cash burn for the cash overall situation for next year. But that's the top line after you have to take into account also some one-time expenses we may have into increasing capability and capacity at iCTC, for example, but again very confident into giving the guidance into 2026 as a cash in the end.

Ben Burnett

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Excellent. Okay. And maybe just one follow up. What is kind of the timeframe for expanding the manufacturing capacity to 5,000?

Fred Vogt

Management

Igor, do you want to handle that one?

Igor Bilinsky

Management

Happy to, so right now the network is built to a couple of thousand patients per year capacity. And within the existing iCTC facility, as you recall we have shelf space that we're now building out, and that build out will bring iCTC to over 5,000 patients per year capacity, and that build out should be completed in a couple of years.

Ben Burnett

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Igor Bilinsky

Management

Of course.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Colleen Kusy with Baird. Your line is open.

Colleen Kusy

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking our questions and congrats on the progress. Can you comment on the manufacturing success rate and just kind of what happens when there is an unsuccessful manufacturing run? Does that just get filtered into COGS? And then for the fiscal year 2025 guidance, how much is the contribution expected to be from Europe?

Fred Vogt

Management

Yes. Jean-Marc, do you want to talk a little bit about how it works with the manufacturing, like an out of spec and how that goes in the COGS?

Jean-Marc Bellemin

Management

Yes. So, Colleen, thanks for the question. I appreciate that. The out of spec and all the scrap will go and you will see that in the queue. As part of our cost of sales, because when the project is not being infused by the patient because of patient ails or other situation like that, and out of spec, of course, we have to take it into account what stage of production it was. So it will be taken into account as part of cost of sales. If it is going into potentially some kind of, in its case by case situation, clinical use, then we will switch into OpEx. We will switch it back to OpEx as part of our clinical spend in that case.

Fred Vogt

Management

And Colleen, I can answer no, the European revenue is not factored into anything right now. That will come online as I said in my remarks a little bit later, we expect and will give us even more tailwinds in 2026 and beyond.

Colleen Kusy

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking our questions and congrats on the progress.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Asthika Goonewardene with Truist. Your line is open.

Asthika Goonewardene

Analyst · Truist. Your line is open.

Hey guys, thanks for the question and appreciate all the color and the patience with all our questions today on this. I'm going to ask one more on the guidance here. Maybe you can give a little color if the proportion of the product revenue guidance that is attributable to Proleukin? Is that right to assume that the contribution slides down with each progressing period, or is it a fixed component each period – and then each period provided? And then of the 25 patients that were treated in 2Q what proportion of these patients was reimbursement sought on a single case basis and how is that shifted into the 30 patients already treated today in 3Q? Thanks.

Fred Vogt

Management

Asthika, the way to think about it is if Amtagvi has a price, Proleukin as a price you multiply the Proleukin price by the number of vials, you expect. You're going to get to what I think you referred to as a fixed combination, which is a fixed percentage. So ultimately, Amtagvi patients that get Proleukin, there's going to be a percentage between the total cost of those two drugs. What percentage Proleukin contributes and what percentage Amtagvi contributes. You can calculate it pretty easily. It's roughly in the ballpark of about 15%. We can calculate that out more detail for you, but I'm sure you can do the math. For the 25 patients in the single case agreement. We do single case agreements for every patient. They just go faster and faster. Maybe Jim, could you add a little bit of color on how – those 25 patients?

Jim Ziegler

Management

Yep. Thanks, Fred. So the payer mix that we're seeing currently in the early days of launch mirrors what we had previously shared prior to launch. So prior authorizations and single case agreements primarily apply to the private payers, which you will recall was about three quarters of the patients. That's what we're seeing right now in the early months of launch, a payer mix that's very consistent. So about 75%.

Asthika Goonewardene

Analyst · Truist. Your line is open.

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Reni Benjamin with Citizens JMP. Your line is open.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · Citizens JMP. Your line is open.

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions and congratulations on a great quarter and great guidance. A couple for us, maybe just starting off, can you talk a little bit about how you're managing and working with ATCs, especially as it comes to maybe constraints and how they're dealing with prioritizing CAR Ts versus TIL infusions and how that's looking going forward? And I guess also we heard a lot of arguments this quarter, patients were dying before they get the infusion. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how, what the patients are kind of looking at now as they're being enrolled. Has it changed any? Are they healthier, less lines of therapy? And then the other argument we heard was that you guys didn't have enough slots and that there was just a backlog, and then people were waiting for cells to get processed. Can you talk maybe a little bit about that? Whether or not there was a backlog? Thank you.

Fred Vogt

Management

Jim, do you want to take the first part of that? Maybe Brian can take the second part.

Jim Ziegler

Management

Yes, sure. So thanks, Reni. As we work with the ATCs, we work with them almost on a daily basis, especially the top ATCs. How they decide and allocate beds between CAR Ts and TILs, I'm not exactly sure of. But I do know that in terms of demand and scheduling patients for Amtagvi that doesn't seem to be a concern. Just as prior to launch, there was a lot of concern around the lack of hospital beds. It does not appear to be any type of a restraint at all. In terms of patients dying before infusions. I guess what I would say is similar to other CAR Ts where there's a high unmet need and the lack of available treatments. Yes, you do have some patients that may progress or may die before therapy. But as we are well into launch now into our fifth and sixth month, I think patient selection is getting much better and we're not seeing those same trends. I would just reiterate that the demand that we're seeing at the ATCs, the operational readiness, looks really, really good and it reinforces the confidence behind our guidance. Brian?

Brian Gastman

Analyst · Citizens JMP. Your line is open.

Yes, I would second everything you said. Jim. One thing that we've done at Iovance, I think it's not the only one of its kind. It's certainly rather unique, is developed this. We call it peer to peer, which is really former healthcare providers speaking to current healthcare providers and assessing patients as a partnership. We've all learned about the current commercial patient population out there, and I think what's really made the biggest improvement is patient selection. People understanding who are the most appropriate, and even more so that these authorized treatment centers are speaking to the referring doctors to try to get them to understand earlier when it's best to send the patients to them so that we can move this process up and make patients who right now may not be the best candidates. There is a point in their, earlier in their journey when they were better candidates. And I think this relationship that we have with all the authorized treatment centers is starting to bear fruit. And that's why I think you're seeing less and less of what you were describing.

Reni Benjamin

Analyst · Citizens JMP. Your line is open.

Excellent. Thanks guys, and congrats.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Fred Vogt for closing remarks.

Fred Vogt

Management

Thank you again for joining the Iovance Biotherapeutics second quarter and first half 2024 financial results and corporate updates conference call. We're honored to disclose the first revenues for the first commercial TIL cell therapy and look forward to providing further updates on the progress of our Amtagvi launch as well as continued developments in our pipeline and future updates. It's already been a monumental year for Iovance and we continue to be motivated, as we hear media and social media, how Amtagvi is providing hope to patients with metastatic melanoma. As always, we are thankful for the patients, healthcare and advocacy communities, our partners, and our exceptional Iovance team. I would also like to thank our shareholders and covering analysts for their support. Please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team for follow up. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.