Steve Lisi
Analyst · Truist. Please proceed with your question
02:28 Thanks, Maria, and good afternoon to everyone joining us on today's call. As always, I would like to start by thanking the Beyond Air team as they continue to embody the mission of our organization and move us forward towards regulatory approvals and R&D pipeline progression and expansion. 02:45 We continue to believe in the potential of LungFit PH to revolutionize the treatment of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn or PPHN, in the United States and cardiac surgeries around the world. Today, our commercial team continues to prepare for a U.S. commercial launch of LungFit PH in anticipation of a regulatory decision in the first half of this calendar year. I will have our Chief Commercial Officer, Duncan Fatkin discuss this preparation in much greater detail shortly. 03:14 Beyond Air continues to work collaboratively with the FDA to bring our device to the market as quickly as possible. I won't be able to comment further on our ongoing interactions with the FDA. Except to assure everyone that the dialogue is productive, and we have provided the agency with all information and support we believe they need to grant approval for LungFit PH. Additionally, we remain on track to receive CE Mark in Europe in the first half of this calendar year. We expect to secure an international commercial partnership for LungFit for ex U.S. Markets following CE Mark, and we will provide more information on our global strategy at a later time. 03:54 Turning now to recent operational highlights. In December of last year we expanded our leadership team and welcome Dr. Andrew Colin, as our new Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Colin has been invaluable contributor to our Scientific Advisory Board since 2013 and his advice has been instrumental to the progress of our ongoing clinical programs to date. He has been tasked with leading our late stage development efforts of both LungFit Pro and LungFit GO systems, given his medical background as a board certified pediatric pulmonologist with more than 4 decades of clinical experience in respiratory physiology, cystic fibrosis and lung infections. 04:35 With regards to scientific updates and our presence at upcoming medical conferences, I am happy to report that we have been accepted to present new data from our pipeline programs at 3 leading scientific conferences, all within the next four months. I will start off our pipeline commentary with our LungFit GO NTM, Lung infection pilot study. 04:57 As you may recall, in December 2020 we began screening for refractory NTM patients for this pilot trial in Australia. In October, we released interim data where a total 8 refractory NTM patients have been titrated up to the maximum dose of 250 parts per million nitric oxide in the hospital over several days and then sent home to self-administer therapy. There were no dose reductions, no steady discontinuations and no treatment related serious adverse events reported. Our team was very encouraged by this initial safety profile. We have now been accepted to present additional results from this proud study at the American Thoracic Society International Conference being held from May 13 to May 18 in San Francisco. 05:43 Beyond the safety profile, this study aims to evaluate efficacy parameters, such as quality of life, physical function and bacterial load among other metrics. Remember, this is a pilot study designed as a single arm 12 week at home trial aiming to enroll up to 20 cystic fibrosis or non CF bronchiectasis patients with a refractory NTM lung infection at our Mycobacterium abscessus complex or Mycobacterium abscessus. 06:10 It is important to note that NTM is a disease area of focus for FDA. In fact, 50% of patients will die in less than 5 years from the initial diagnosis of Mycobacterium abscessus lung infection. As such, the success of this trial could signal that LungFit GO has the potential to be a game changer for this patient population and start to open up the enormous potential of the home market for our system. 06:35 We have always had an interest in investing in other indications with our LungFit GO system and have announced our intention of beginning a pilot study to treat severe COPD exacerbations due to lung infections over the next 12 to 24 months. 06:50 Moving on to our viral lung infection program, which uses the LungFit Pro system at a 150 parts per million nitric oxide to treat community acquired viral pneumonia in adults and bronchiolitis in children under 2 years of age. As many of you may recall, we presented interim data from our adult cohort of hospitalized pneumonia patients last May at the American Thoracic Society international conference. At the time of the cut off period for these data, we analyzed a total of 19 patients on an intend to treat basis. None of the patients in the NO treatment arm and 10 in the control arm, all of which were COVID-19 patients. 07:30 These data show that 150 parts per million NO administered by LungFit Pro was deemed to be safe and well tolerated with no treatment related or possibly related adverse events or serious adverse events. Additionally, 22% of subjects in the NO treated group required oxygen support beyond their hospital stay compared to 40% of control subjects. With respect to duration of oxygen support NO treated patients averaged 2 days less than control. A 26 hour reduction in mean duration of hospital stay between the NO treatment group and control was observed when adjusting for extreme outliers. 08:06 Since presenting these data, we have kept the study active with trial sites open for enrollment. I'm happy to report that we have been accepted to present new data at the 32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease being held April 23 through 26 in Lisbon. Our team is excited to have the opportunity to share these additional data with the scientific and medical communities. 08:31 Finally, I would like to provide updates on our private affiliate beyond cancer. Late last year, we successfully raised $30 million in a private placement of common shares to spin out our oncology program, developing ultra-high concentration nitric oxide or UNO therapy for the treatment of solid tumors. We believe UNO therapy may not only partially ablate or shrink the primary tumor, but also can arm the immune system to recognize an attack same tumor cells if they metastasize to other regions in the body. 09:00 Our preclinical data show that treating and tumor with UNO therapy will cause local cell death, exposing the immune system to tumor antigens, thereby by creating a memory immune response. For patients, this could mean preventing recurrence or metastases. 09:16 Under the leadership of CEO, Dr. Selena Chaisson Beyond Cancer has established at 6 member board with the recruitment of Mr. David Dvorak, previously the CEO of Zimmer Biomet and Dr. Gregory Berk, a clinically trained physician who is currently serving as a Chief Medical Officer and Interim CEO of GT Biopharma, a clinical stage immune oncology company. 09:37 Additionally Beyond Cancer will present 2 datasets at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, which is being held from April 8 through 13 in Orleans. Recall, we previously presented in vitro and in vivo preclinical data for ultra-high concentration gases, nitric oxide at several conferences in 2020, which suggested that direct administration of UNO therapy to solid tumors triggers a systemic antitumor immune response, which could serve as the basis for an effective immunotherapy. 10:07 These new preclinical data being presented in April will continue to build upon this growing body of evidence and we are excited to support the progress as a partner of Beyond Cancer. 10:17 I will now turn the call over to Duncan Fatkin, the Chief Commercial Officer of Beyond Air to provide additional details on the U.S. commercial launch for LungFit PH.