Bassil Dahiyat
Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Your line is open
Thanks, Josh, and good afternoon, everyone. And the telecommunications problem cause the brief delay, I do apologies. With that I will kick off the call in earnest. So in the first quarter of 2017 we really continued our work on advancing the broad pipeline of potential best-in-class antibodies that we have created for the treatment of autoimmune disease and allergic diseases, as well as cancer using our XmAb platform. [Audio Gap] (02:28-02:50). … injection and the pharmacokinetic and bioavailability data from the trial support and week dosing schedule. These are important step for the XmAb5871 program. Subcutaneous dosing on every other weeks schedule offers patients and doctors simple more flexible treatment option than infusions. We plan to use subcutaneous dosing in our future clinical trials for XmAb5871. Now for the remainder of 2017, we expect topline results from our Phase 2 study of XmAb5871 in IgG4-Related Disease also known as IgG4-RD this year and to engage with the U.S. FDA to discuss the development plan including future trials and potential registrational requirements for XmAb5871 in IgG4-RD. We are also on track to announce topline data for a subcutaneous administration Phase 1 study of XmAb7195, as well as additional data for our Phase 1 study of, sorry, as well as initial data from our Phase 1 study of XmAb14045 our first bispecific antibody pending alignment with Novartis on timing. Now [audio gap] (03:50-04:17) with more things to follow. I’ll now get into the specifics of our clinical and preclinical efforts. Today I am going to start with XmAb5871. That's our first-in-class monoclonal antibody in Phase 2 development for IgG4-RD and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. XmAb5871 targets CD19 with its variable domain, XmAb immune [audio gap] (04:36-5:10). Now I will discuss our Phase 1 clinical trial to study the pharmacokinetic and bioavailability of subcue administration of XmAb5871. 40 subjects were given three administrations of subcutaneous XmAb5871, 125 milligrams to 375 milligrams flat dose on an every other week or weekly schedule and an additional 10 subjects were given XmAb5871 intravenously as a comparator arm. First on the safety, subcutaneous XmAb5871 was safe and well-tolerated, with only mild treatment emergent adverse events or TEAEs reported with subject [audio gap] (5:42-6:07). So intestinal TEAE mild diarrhea was reported in contrast the GI infusion reactions seen at about 20% of patients for intravenous XmAb5871. Now at least one antidrug antibodies positive sample was observed for four subjects or 10% with one subject possibly having an impact on drug concentration. Now on to the PK data, bioavailability of subcue XmAb5871 was about typical for monoclonal antibody, drug exposure was disproportionate as we increase dose, animal half life was similar to that reported for intravenous XmAb5871 about three and half days to four days. Now the drug exposure kinetic supported every other week scheduled for subcue XmAb5871 and we are very encouraged by the tolerability results of our formulation. We are looking forward to using a subcue XmAb5871 in our future clinical trials in this program. Now for an update in the ongoing Phase 2 studies we have for XmAb5871 and IgG4-RD in lupus. First, with regard to IgG4-RD, as you know we reported preliminary data from our ongoing [audio gap] (07:09-07:36) and including clinical trial design and potential registration requirements. And as part of our ongoing Phase 2 study, we are monitoring a variety of immune cell populations of patients with IgG4-RD with for enduring treatment with XmAb5871 in order to better understand pathology hopefully we create new tools to monitor its progression. At the third international symposium on IgG4-RD [audio gap] (7:57-8:32). We are continued to progress our Phase 2 study in that disease another area with a high unmet need and a strong rationale for B-cell inhibition. And as a reminder this is a novel clinical trial design, it’s a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, multi-dose study has designed to evaluate XmAb5871's ability to maintain the improvement in SLE disease activity after a short course of intramuscular steroid therapy and critically in the absence of immunosuppressant medication. We designed this study to assess XmAb5871’s effect on disease activity within a shorter -- with a shorter time to endpoint and with fewer patients compared to standard SLE trials. We expect to report data in late 2018 or early 2019. Now I’ll turn to XmAb7195, our first-in-class monoclonal antibody to target IgE with its variable domain and uses the same XmAb immune inhibitor Fc domain of XmAb5871 to target Fc gamma R2B. This design creates three distinct mechanisms of action for reducing IgE levels. It's sequesters free IgE to block IgE signaling, it suppresses B-cell differentiation into IgE-secreting plasma cells and enables the rapid clearance of IgE from the circulation. This is in contrast to existing approved therapies for controlling IgE in severe asthma which only have a single mechanism of action blocking IgE receptor binding. Intravenous administration of XmAb7195 induced a rapid and potent suppression of free IgE below the limit of detection including from single doses in 75% of high IgE subjects has shown in data reported last year at the American Thoracic Society Meeting. We believe XmAb7195 therefore has the potential for treatment -- for use as a treatment, I should say, for allergic disease even if patients [audio gap] (10:14-10:37) different antigen binding domain. It result a single molecule combined with multiple targets simultaneously while preserving native antibody properties like long circulating half life, stability and ease of manufacture. Our lead bispecific programs are tumor targeted antibodies that contain both a tumor antigen binding domain to target malignant cells and a cytotoxic T-cell binding domain to activate T cells killing. We exploit the plug-and-play modularity of our XmAb bispecific based on this Fc domain to tune the potency of T-cell killing to potentially improve the tolerability of tumor immunotherapy. Now we currently have two bispecific oncology candidates in Phase 1 clinical testing. The first is XmAb14045, which is in development for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia or AML and other CD123-expressing hematologic malignancies. XmAb14045 engages the immune system against AML by binding CD123, a protein that’s highly expressed in AML and on leukemic stem cells and to CD3 approaching on cytotoxic T-cells. So, therefore it activate the targeted T-cell immune response against tumor cells. Now the second program we have in the clinic is XmAb13676, like XmAb14045, XmAb13676 bind a CD3 and T-cells and they target CD20 on its other side which is highly expressed on B-cell tumors, for example, in CLL and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Now we started the Phase 1 for XmAb13676 this past quarter in February. We hope to announce initial data from our XmAb14045 study later this year and from our XmAb13676 in 2018 pending alignment with our partner Novartis on timing. Now next in oncology bispecific pipeline are XmAb18087 and XmAb20717. XmAb18087 target somatostatin receptor 2 or SSTR2 on one side and CD3 on the other for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors. At the American Association for Cancer Research or AACR meeting in April we presented preclinical data showing that XmAb18087 had an ability to eliminate SSTR2 positive tumor cells by stimulating T-cell cytotoxicity both in vitro and a mouse model, and it has stimulated SSTR2-dependent T-cell activation, T-cell margination and cytokine release infinite models -- monkey models. We plan to file IND later this year. XmAb20717 is our first candidate simultaneously target two T-cell checkpoint targets, PD-1 and CTLA-4 and it is designed for potential use in multiple oncology settings. As a dual checkpoint bispecific antibody, we believe XmAb20717 has the potential to improve selectivity of combination checkpoint inhibitor therapy and eliminate the need for multiple different checkpoint antibodies during treatment. We do expect to file the IND in 2018. Now we are advancing additional bispecific oncology programs to continue to grow the pipeline and plan additional INDs in 2018. We present a preclinical data on several of our lead programs at AACR, including a bispecific antibody targeting PD-1 in an undisclosed co-stimulatory receptor on T-cells we call our PD1 x costim bispecific and IL15 receptor alpha heterodimeric Fc-fusion for T-cell activation. Now a quick update on partnerships in March of 2017, CSL Limited through its licensee Janssen advanced CSL362 now called talacotuzumab into the Phase 3 portion of its ongoing Phase 2/3 study in AML. Talacotuzumab uses our cytotoxic XmAb Fc domain to enhance its cytotoxic activity. Now this event triggered a milestone payment to Xencor of $3.5 million. With this advancement we now have two partner programs in Phase 3 testing. The other being Alexion with the program using our half-life extension Xtend Fc domain in addition to the five and earlier stage in the clinical development across nine pharmaceutical companies and the NIH. Last [audio gap] (14:39-15:02) Bob Baltera will be departing our Board following our Annual Meeting in June. I’d like to thank him for their many contributions and helping Xencor since before our IPO. Now, with that, I'll pass it over to John Kuch to review our financial results.