Gregory Demopulos
Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jennifer. And good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. We'll start with a corporate update, and an overview of our second quarter 2022 financial results followed by a more detailed financial summary. Joining me on the call today are Mike Jacobsen, Nadia Dac, Cathy Melfi, and Steve Whitaker, our respective heads of Finance, Commercial, Regulatory, and Clinical. We'll start with an update on our MASP-2 program and specifically narsoplimab in stem cell transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy or TA-TMA. In the first quarter of this year, we had a Type A post-action meeting with the FDA review division for our biologics license application, or BLA. Following the receipt of the official minutes of that meeting, we decided in consultation with our regulatory and legal advisors to pursue formal dispute resolution. The dispute resolution process allows a sponsor to appeal a decision made at the division level to a higher deciding authority, which in our case is the Office of New Drugs, or OND. As previously reported, our dispute resolution request was submitted to FDA in June. The request comprised a detailed briefing document that we believe presents to OND a compelling case across all of the components, clinical data, regulatory history, regulatory precedent, and literature that narsoplimab should be approved for use in TA-TMA based on our BLA as originally filed. Following the submission of that briefing package as part of FDA standard procedures for dispute resolution, we met with OND last month. The deciding official was well prepared and familiar with our BLA, and with our briefing package. We were joined at the meeting by several leading experts in stem cell transplantation. At that meeting, FDA does not typically provide any indication of how the dispute resolution will be decided, and our meeting was no exception. We're currently awaiting a decision which unless OND determines it requires additional time should be rendered this month. Once received, we'll share FDA decision publicly with our shareholders and the investor community. Let's turn now to narsoplimab for the treatment of IgA nephropathy. We continue to advance enrollment and our Phase 3 ARTEMIS-IGAN trial and the 9-month proteinuria data are scheduled to read out by mid next year. We look forward to making those data publicly available. Our narsoplimab Phase 3 trial in atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome. or AHUS is also on-going but as we've previously reported its prioritization and as a result it's resource allocation is below those of our other complement programs. We're also evaluating narsoplimab as a potential therapeutic both for acute severe COVID-19 and for long COVID, also known as Postacute Sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC. As new variants of SARS-CoV-2 continue to emerge and vaccines and the current antivirals are proving less effective than hoped the need for better COVID-19 therapeutics remains and arguably continues to grow. Narsoplimab was part of the I-SPY COVID-19 platform trials sponsored by Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative, which has evaluated now multiple agents as potential therapies for COVID-19. To date, no agent in the I-SPY trial has been publicly reported to show a benefit over standard-of-care. We continue to look forward to Quantum’s disclosure of the narsoplimab results. The important role of complement and specifically the central role of the lectin pathway in both acute COVID and PASC is increasingly the focus of publications from leading research groups internationally. The Omeros teams in the U.K. at the University of Cambridge and in Seattle, recently added ground breaking work to this effort, publishing manuscripts by Ali et al. in Frontiers in Immunology and by Lynch et al. in Clinical and Translational Medicine. Together, these publications describe our discoveries related to the pathophysiological mechanism of severe COVID-19. Specifically, that patients with severe COVID-19 early in disease, show marked complement consumption, which is driven by lectin pathway hyper activation. It's this hyper activation of the lectin pathway that leads to secondary hypocomplementemia, and loss of complement mediated protection against infection. The result is increased risk of clinically severe infections, which are known to be a common cause of morbidity and death in COVID-19. So where does narsoplimab fit in? Well narsoplimab inhibits this complement consumption and restores complement function and bactericidal activity, thereby preventing risk of secondary infection.
share: Collectively, these data indicate that the lectin pathway is the key driver of complement hyper activation in acute COVID-19. Based on these data, we’re developing a multiplex high throughput assay platform as a commercially available tool for hospitals and physicians to reduce morbidity and mortality by identifying COVID-19 patients at risk for becoming severely ill. The clear implication is that these identified patients would then benefit from treatment with narsoplimab as soon as the consumptive biomarker profile is seen. Let's now discuss more broadly our MASP-2 program which as of this week, has two molecules in clinical trials. Narsoplimab and OMS1029 are long acting second generation MASP-2 antibody. The first two subjects have now been dosed in our Phase 1 trial evaluating OMS1029. Dosing for OMS1029 is expected to be once monthly to once quarterly, delivered subcutaneously or intravenously designed to be complimentary to narsoplimab OMS1029 should enable us to pursue lectin pathway driven indications for which longer duration dosing would be a particular advantage. We're also making good progress on our small molecule MASP-2 inhibitors. These will be orally administered and we're working to add an oral MASP-2 inhibitor to our clinical portfolio as soon as possible. Now, let's turn to OMIDRIA and a high level overview of our financial results for the quarter. As previously discussed last December, Omeros completed the strategic divestiture of its commercial ophthalmic drug OMIDRIA to Rayner Surgical. The transaction with Rayner required us to reclassify all historical OMIDRIA revenue and expenses as a discontinued operations and to record the royalties earned as a reduction from the OMIDRIA contract royalty asset on our balance sheet. Our royalty rate for U.S. net sales of OMIDRIA is currently 50%, which equates to more than 70% of the operating profit. For the second quarter, Rayner reported OMIDRIA net sales of $34.5 million, a new all-time high. This eclipses our previous high of $34.2 million for quarterly OMIDRIA revenues and represents a 25% increase over Rayner’s net sales of OMIDRIA for the first quarter of 2022. Our 50% royalty on Rayner net sales for the quarter was $17.2 million. Given the required reclassification of OMIDRIA revenues and expenses, our revenues for the second quarter were reported as zero, and our net loss from continuing operations was $41.7 million, compared to $50.2 million in the prior year quarter. Our overall loss for the current quarter was $30.8 million, or $0.49 per share, compared to $28.6 million or $0.46 per share in the second quarter of last year. Our non-cash expenses were $3.7 million or $0.06 per share for the current quarter and $3.9 million or $0.06 per share for the prior year quarter. As of June 30 2022, we had $122.6 million in cash and investments on hand available to support on-going operations. So in total, our change in cash and investments from the end of the second of the -- I'm sorry of the first quarter to the second quarter is a decrease of $19.7 million. In addition, we have an additional $14.5 million of receivables representing primarily royalties to be paid to Omeros by Rayner for OMIDRIA sales for May and June. OMIDRIA royalties are received monthly by Omeros within 60 days of being earned. We also have $150 million at the market sales agreement, which we have not used. During the quarter, we continue to work closely with Rayner to ensure a smooth transition of the product, the teams and all operations with minimal disruption to customers. The transition has gone well and we expect to complete it this quarter. We're encouraged by the quarter-over-quarter growth in OMIDRIA sales. We expect that the positive momentum will be further boosted by the proposed 2023 rule governing the Outpatient Prospective Payment Systems issued by CMS last month and reconfirming that OMIDRIA qualifies for separate payment under the non-opioid pain management exclusion when used in ambulatory surgical centers, or ASCs. We appreciate CMSs commitment to continue providing access to OMIDRIA for Medicare patients and their physicians. We're also pleased that as part of the proposed rule, CMS solicited public comment on potentially expanding the exclusion beyond the ASC setting to pay separately for non-opioid surgical drugs and hospital outpatient departments or HOPDs. We support this expansion as approximately 20% of cataract procedures are performed in HOPDs and cataract surgery patients deserve access to OMIDRIA regardless of whether they undergo surgery in an ASC or in an HOPD. Under the terms of the Rayner transaction, Omeros is also eligible to receive a $200 million milestone should before 2025 separate payment be secured for OMIDRIA for a continuous period of at least four years. Congressional passage of the non-opioids prevents addiction in the Nation Act or the NOPAIN would trigger this milestone payment for Omeros. The NOPAIN Act would provide separate payment for non-opioid pain management drugs like OMIDRIA in both the ASC and HOPD settings. Leading the charge voices for non-opioid choices continues to advance the NOPAIN Act, and has assembled an impressive coalition of major medical societies patient advocacy groups, and prevention and recovery organizations across the country in support of the legislation. The bill has strong bipartisan and bicameral support with sponsors and co-sponsors now numbering 49 in the Senate, and 113 in the House of Representatives roughly equally split between Democrats and Republicans. These Senators and Representatives include chairpersons, and key members of relevant committees, representing a diverse group of congressional caucuses. Passing the NOPAIN Act is the right thing for patients and for the country and we expect that given the bills, broad based and bipartisan support in both chambers. The NOPAIN Act has a good likelihood of becoming law in this Congress or early in the next. Looking at the sales trajectory for OMIDRIA, we expect that the drug will continue to provide us with meaningful cash flow from royalties in both the near and long term. The non-dilutive OMIDRIA revenue stream helps to defray significantly the costs of developing our pipeline programs including our complement franchise of MASP-2, and MASP-3 inhibitors. Just as we have done for MASP-2, we continue to build a dominant intellectual property position around MASP-3, the key activator of the complement systems alternative pathway. Let's now turn to OMS906 our lead MASP-3 inhibitor. Having successfully completed a Phase 1 study in healthy subjects, we're preparing to initiate enrollment in a trial evaluating OMS906 in patients with Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria or PNH, who have an unsatisfactory response to the C5 inhibitor ravulizumab. In late July, OMS906 received orphan drug designation from FDA for the treatment of PNH. The benefits of which includes seven years of market exclusivity following marketing approval tax, credits on U.S. clinical trials, eligibility for orphan drug grants, and waiver of certain administrative fees. Awareness of our OMS906 program is growing within the scientific community. We'll be presenting preclinical data on OMS906 at the European meeting on Complimented Human Disease later this month in Bern Switzerland and the results of our Phase 1 trial have been submitted for presentation at a major Congress later this year. We expect that OMS906 could hold significant advantages over other agents approved or in development for alternative pathway related disorders. These advantages are expected to include decreased infection risk and a convenient dosing profile with administration as infrequently as once monthly to once quarterly. Importantly, unlike other targets in the alternative pathway, MASP-3 does not appear to be an acute phase reactant. And acute phase reactant increases in circulating concentration in response to inflammation in the body. That inflammation can be as simple and common as the flu. And the result is that dosing of a drug targeting an acute phase reactant might no longer be effective, resulting in breakthrough disease. Because MASP-3 is not an acute phase reactant background inflammation has no effect on its concentration, or on the dosing of OMS906, greatly mitigating that risk of disease breakthrough. Given these expected advantages, we're focused on obtaining efficacy data with OMS906 as quickly as possible. So in addition to initiating our Phase 1b study of OMS906, in PNH patients who have had an unsatisfactory response to ravulizumab, we're expanding our OMS906 program to include trials evaluating OMS906 in treatment, naive PNH patients, and in C3 glomerulopathy patients, as well as in one or more related indications. We're making good headway on this and are targeting data that demonstrate efficacy of OMS906 in these diseases by early 2023. The importance of alternative pathway inhibition is well understood as is the commercial viability of agents successfully inhibiting the alternative pathway. If we demonstrate efficacy of OMS906 and alternative pathway diseases like PNH, and like C3G, and the safety dosing and or biological advantages that I just described, proved to be accurate, which we expect they will. The value created around OMS906 should be compelling. Although we continue to prioritize our complement clinical programs over those of our phosphodiesterase, or PDE7 inhibitor program OMS527 discussions are on-going to access third party funding to continue development of OMS527 for addictive disorders. In addition to our work in addiction, researchers at Emory University are evaluating in clinically, predictive primate models the potential of our PDE7 inhibitors to improve L-DOPA induced dyskinesias. More than 50% of Parkinson's patients develop dyskinesias following prolonged L-DOPA treatment. Our existing patents broadly cover this indication and we look forward to seeing the final dyskinesia data early next year. If positive, we expect that we would have another viable and large commercial opportunity for OMS527. I'll close the update today with our immuno-oncology programs in which we're evaluating a number of novel molecules to treat cancers. To date, immune-oncology primarily has been focused on cell surface checkpoints. We're taking a different approach, developing intracellular target inhibitors that optimize T cell conditioning to yield both potent tumor killing and a more sustained anti tumor response. Our technology involves a combination of inhibitors of GPR174, adenosine receptors and other targets to limit the negative impact of certain pathways on T cell function. We believe that our novel approach has the potential to improve response rates for patients receiving either engineered or native T cell therapies for liquid and solid tumors, and we're continuing to explore the application of this technology to improve human car T cell therapies. Across these landscapes of both therapeutics and adoptive T cell therapies, we're building broad patent protection. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mike Jacobson, our Chief Accounting Officer for a more detailed description of our second quarter financial results, Mike?