Laura Sepp-Lorenzino
Analyst
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to share additional details on our pipeline progress. Beginning with our lead program, NTLA-2001 is in development for ATTR, a progressive and fatal disease caused by the deposition and buildup of misfolded TTR protein in multiple organs. People living with ATTR can have either the hereditary or wild-type form of the disease, which results in diverse disease manifestations, most commonly polyneuropathy and cardiomyopathy. NTLA-2001 applies our in vivo approach to knock out the TTR gene in the liver, which is a source of circulating TTR protein. While approved chronic therapies for ATTR have clinically invalidated the rationale for knocking down TTR, there is still unmet need for this highly underdiagnosed condition. We believe NTLA-2001 has the potential to hold and possibly reverse the disease with a single course of treatment. Moreover, based on our preclinical data, we believe it offers a differentiated profile, along with reduced treatment burden in contrast to currently available chronic therapies. As John shared, we recently submitted our first CTA for this program to the U.K 's health authority to begin our first-in-human study. As part of our global development strategy, we're submitting additional regulatory applications to enable enrollment in multiple countries, and we're working closely with the leading ATTR treatment physicians to conduct this global Phase I study. This CTA in the U.K. is currently under regulatory and ethics committee review. As NTLA-2001 is an advanced therapy medicinal product, this process could take up the 90-day statutory time line. Pending CTA authorization and subject to the impact of COVID-19, we remain on track to dose the first patient by year-end. As previously shared, the Phase I trial will be a single ascending dose study in ATTR patients to assess the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of NTLA-2001. Given the readily observable serum biomarker, we will also be able to assess pharmacodynamics by monitoring the decrease in circulating TTR protein levels. As John noted, we plan to share more details about our Phase I study design upon regulatory authorization for our pioneering first-in-human study. Now moving on to NTLA-2002, our wholly-owned in vivo therapy in development for the treatment of hereditary angioedema, or HAE. HAE is a rare genetic disease characterized by recurring painful and unpredictable edema, which can occur in any part of the body. For example, those suffering from HAE can die of asphyxiation due to airway obstruction. For other acute and prophylactic therapies for HAE, the treatment-burden on patients is significant, and we believe there is room for additional clinical efficacy. Today, we're pleased to share updated data from an ongoing durability study in nonhuman primates. Following a single dose, we continue to achieve sustained reduction in [indiscernible] protein and activity levels through 10 months. If translatable to patients, these reductions of up to approximately 90% are expected to be highly efficacious and durable in preventing HAE attacks. IND-enabling activities are ongoing, and we're on track to submit a regulatory application for NTLA-2002 in the second half of 2021. Switching now to our ex vivo efforts in immuno-oncology. Here, we're using CRISPR as a tool to create engineered cell-based therapies. We employ a unique TCR-based approach that we believe harnesses the full therapeutic potential of T cells to attack tumor cells to address a variety of cancers. The key elements of our approach are the identification of higher VVT in naturally occurring TCR sourced directly from a healthy donor, coupled with our proprietary engineering process that allows us to introduce multiple sequential edits with high efficiency and precision. Notably, we're capable of engineering T cells without introducing undesirable changes to their chromosomal architecture whilst we wire them with the functionalities required for efficient and durable antitumor activity. As we presented at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy in May, our sequential editing approach achieved removal of endogenous TCRs from greater than 98% of all T cells. To generate a homogeneous potent cell product with high antitumor activity, we essentially create a blind slate for the efficient insertion of the therapeutic TCR and reduce the risk of [indiscernible] in endogenous TCR. Further, our engineered T cells carry favorable cell attributes, which include high viability, excellent expansion potential and a large proportion of memory T cells, which is a highly desired characteristic associated with prolonged T cell persistence. Our proprietary process has already been applied to NTLA-5001, our engineered T cell therapy candidate targeting the Wilms' Tumor 1 or WT1 antigen. It also paves a way for us to introduce more complex edited T cells, including allogeneic T cells and T cells to overcome the barriers presented by the solid tumor microenvironment. In the second presentation at ASGCT, our research collaborators at Ospedale San Raffaele showed preclinical in vivo data demonstrating the WT1-directed TCR T cells led to decreased AML tumor burden, substantiating the therapeutic potential of our engineered TCR T cell approach and NTLA-5001. We're initially developing NTLA-5001 for the treatment of AML as WT1 is overexpressed in over 90% of AML patients regardless of driver mutations and disease subtypes. Although treatment developed over the past several years has led to improved response rates in AML, long-lasting responses are infrequent, with overall 5-year survival remaining below 30%. Based on our preclinical data, we believe that NTLA-5001 could deliver a well-tolerated treatment that improves long-term outcomes for AML patients. We continue to advance NTLA-5001 toward these tenets and remain on track to submit a regulatory application in the first half of next year. Finally, we continue to make significant progress across our platform and research programs. This includes evaluating the same WT1-targeted TCR construct for potential use in multiple solid tumors, advancing our allogeneic platform and expanding our ex vivo capabilities with our recent license and collaboration agreements with TeneoBio and GEMoaB. Regarding our in vivo research, we continue to advance the development of CRISPR-mediated targeted transgene insertion for our wholly-owned programs and in collaboration with Regeneron for hemophilia A and B. We believe our insertion technology offers a differentiated approach to traditional gene therapy, including the ability to intervene early. Our broad platform innovations and expanded capabilities, both in vivo and ex vivo, will drive the next wave of differentiated clinical candidates. With that, I would like to now hand over the call to Glenn, who will provide an overview of our second quarter 2020 financial results.