Suma Krishnan
Analyst · Jefferies
Thank you, Laurent, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to share today's update on our development efforts. Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated R&D team, we are making rapid progress on our rare disease pipeline, generating breakthrough clinical data and moving quickly towards multiple registrational data readouts later this year. I would like to start by highlighting one such breakthrough recently achieved with our KB407 program for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. A little over a month ago, we announced a successful delivery and expression of full-length wild-type CFTR protein following KB407 administration to the lungs of patients with CF. Not only could we confirm full-length protein expression in CF patients with Class I mutations, we also saw that HSV1 airway cell transduction was consistent across all patient biopsies. In a diverse patient population, including 4 modulator ineligible patients with uncorrected lung disease, we consistently observed transduction rates ranging from 29% to 42% and all usable biopsies were positive for transduction. Taken together with encouraging apical CFTR expression observed in Class I patients, as well as durability of expression out to at least 96 hours, these results give us high conviction in the potential of KB407 to fill the treatment gap that exists today for modulator in eligible patients. We are working closely with the CFF TDN and the FDA on a repeat dosing study design and streamlined pathways to support registration. We look forward to sharing updates once we have aligned with the agency and expect to start repeat dosing in the first half of the year. Our KB407 results also have profound implications for our platform, showcasing the versatility of HSV-1-based gene delivery to epithelial tissues beyond the skin. With upcoming readouts for KB801, KB803 and KB408, we hope to further underscore the exciting potential of HSV-1-based gene delivery to both the lung and eye. Another important advantage of our HSV-1 platform is the potential for convenient at-home dosing. Although it took us a few years, we are very proud that VYJUVEK is now approved in the United States, Europe and Japan for administration in the home setting with the option for caregiver or patient administration. This is a fantastic breakthrough for that patients and one we want to secure for as many of our pipeline programs as possible, including our ophthalmology programs, KB801 and KB803. To that end, we have updated the protocol of EMERALD-1, our registrational study evaluating KB801 for the treatment of NK. Our updated KB801 study protocol is briefly summarized here. To expedite the potential path to registration, we have upsized the study and now expect to enroll approximately 60 patients in the study and to enable flexible administration options from launch while also mitigating the risk of human error when administrating an eye drop, we have updated the KB801 dosing regimen. Patients enrolled in EMERALD-1 will receive KB801 or placebo once daily. Importantly, KB801 or placebo may be administered either by HCP or by a caregiver or the patient after receiving appropriate training. We believe that this change will provide maximum flexibility to patients and their caregivers and ultimately support superior real-world outcomes. There's also a change that is only made possible by the clean safety profile that we have observed to date across both KB801 and KB803 programs. We do not expect these changes to meaningfully affect our time lines to data readout. Thanks to the rapid expansion of our clinical trial site network, already over half the number of sites have been activated, and we are well on our way to target 30. We continue to expect data before the end of the year. We have made similar updates to our KB803 program, again, with the goal of maximizing flexibility and real-world outcome for patients from the day of launch. Our KB803 protocol is summarized here. Patients enrolled in the study will receive KB803 or placebo 3 times weekly. As with KB801, KB803 or placebo may be administered either by HCP or by a caregiver or the patient after receiving appropriate training. With our existing trial network and patients available for rollover from the natural history study, we expect to complete enrollment in the first half and report data before end of the year. We are also making tremendous progress across our broader pipeline, working towards our registrational study start and multiple additional clinical data readouts before year-end. Our clinical development efforts for KB111, our latest rare skin disease program for the treatment of Hailey-Hailey disease are progressing well. Our team is in the process of developing our HHT-specific scale and is on track to complete the study in the first half of the year, enabling a registrational study start in the second half. We expect many of our patients from the scale validation study to enroll into the registrational study. We are actively enrolling patients with AATD lung disease in our KB408 repeat dosing study and expect to be able to issue a data update before year-end. This study includes multiple bronchoscopies, both at baseline and after 4 weeks KB408 doses and will help us better understand the edited effects of repeat KB408 dosing on lung, AAT and bound neutrophil elastase levels. These are key data points that will support accelerated approval discussions with the FDA. We are also enrolling patients on our Phase I/II KYANITE-1, evaluating inhaled KB707 in patients with advanced NSCLC. Here as well, we are on track for clinical data updates later this year with an opportunity to move quickly into a registrational study, having already received FDA input on a Phase III study design to support a potential filing. Finally, I would like to make a special mention of the 2 program designations we recently received from the FDA. In January, the FDA granted us a Fast Track designation for KB111. And earlier this month, we received an RMAT designation for KB707. These designations underscore the potential of our programs to address urgent unmet needs for patients with rare and serious diseases. They also provide us important advantages to accelerate our programs, including opening the door to accelerated approvals based on surrogate or intermediate endpoints. Having received similar designations for VYJUVEK in the past, we are well versed in the many benefits they can provide and how to best leverage them. We look forward to working closely with the FDA to accelerate KB111, KB707 and our broader pipeline of redosable genetic medicines. With that, I'll hand the call over to Kate.