Everest Medicines Limited (6HN.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning or good evening. Welcome to Everest Medicines Full Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Leah Liu.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to our full year 2024 financial results conference call. Joining us today are Mr. Rogers Luo, our Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Ian Woo, our President and CFO; Mr. Rico Liang, our Chief Product Officer; Dr. Jennifer Yang, our Chief Scientific Officer; and Sandra Zeng, our Chief Medical Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that the speakers on this conference may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements, including descriptions regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company or its officers with respect to the business operations and financial conditions of the company, which can be identified by terminologies such as will, expects, anticipates, future, intends, plans, belief, estimates, confident and such similar statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and assumptions. The company or any of its affiliates, directors, officers, advisers or representatives have no obligation and does not undertake to revise forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or circumstances after the date of this conference call, except as required by law. And now I will turn the call over to Rogers to provide you with more details on our business updates and 2024 full year results. Rogers, please. Thank you.

Thanks, Leah. Thank you, everyone for joining this call. 2024 was an exceptional year where we generate strong revenue while improving operational efficiency and ended the year with very solid balance sheet. Our full year 2024 revenue of RMB 706.7 million reflected significant 461% year-on-year growth and exceeded our guidance of RMB 700 million revenue. Gross margin on a cash basis were an impressive 83% for the full year 2024, backing out noncash amortization of capitalized expenses, which we think is a better reflection of the true picture of the company's operations. As a reflection of our highly efficient organization, our operating expenses as a percentage of revenue reduced 562% year-on-year by delivering strong revenue growth with lower R&D spending and increase in commercialization and G&A expenses. We continue to achieve profitability at the commercial level. Our non-IFRS net loss was approximately RMB 537.6 million, down by 25% year-on-year. We have consistently provided non-IFRS disclosures, which backs out onetime items and noncash charges and believe that this is the best measurement of the company's operations. Our cash balance of RMB 1.6 billion remains strong and provides significant flexibility to fund the continuing growth of our business. We will target to achieve cash level breakeven by end of 2025. Together, this combination of high revenue growth, optimized operational efficiency and strong cash position puts us at a strong position to execute on our dual engine growth strategy, which focuses on strong commercial execution in parallel with internal development and in-licensing initiatives. Also, we are glad to share that with the release of 2024 annual results, we will be qualified for removal of B-marker to the company's English and Chinese stock name, which can be seen as a recognition of our progress from biotech to a biopharma company. Our total product revenue reached RMB 706.7 million of the full year of 2024, marking a remarkable 461% increase compared to the full year of 2023. NEFECON, which was launched in May, generated revenue of RMB 353.4 million, representing a staggering year-on-year growth of 1,581%. This outstanding performance was achieved with the support of dedicated team of 150 sales reps covering 600 to 700 hospitals, which represents around 6% of the market potential. Meanwhile, XERAVA introduced in March of -- approval in March 2023 and launched in late July of 2023, continued its strong trajectory, contributing RMB 352.8 million in revenue. This growth amounting to a 256% increase year-on-year. This was driven by our focused commercial team of 120 sales representatives covering 300 core hospitals. We also started working with 2 CSOs in the second half of 2024, which may contribute more to our revenue growth in 2025 onwards. Next slide. Throughout 2024, we have had multiple regulatory achievements for NEFECON and etrasimod, expanding the availability of these products to patients in our territories. 2024 was a big year for NEFECON. NEFECON was successfully listed in the National Reimbursement Drug List as the only approved IgAN therapy. The NRDL listing, which was officially implemented on January 1, 2025, makes NEFECON affordable to the majority of patients in China and thus, lays a solid foundation for our rapid growth in the next few years. The sNDA for full approval of NEFECON in China has been accepted by CDE, expecting to receive approval in 2025. We believe we are well situated as a leading IgAN treatment in China. Besides China, NEFECON also gained NDA approvals in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. On Velsipity, it was approved in Macau and Singapore in 2024. With the Macau approval, we could benefit from Hong Kong and Macau Testing and Equipment Connect Policy, which leads to the launch of the product in multiple hospitals in Guangdong province. This NDA has also been accepted in the Mainland China and Hong Kong. We expect the China approval in late 2025 to early 2026 and a full product launch next year. Next slide. We also have major clinical advancements in 2024 from data publications to guideline inclusions. Let's take a look by product. First, in NEFECON, we presented additional positive results of NEFECON at ERA. WCN and 2-year Chinese subpopulation data was published in the Kidney360 magazine, which shows faster and more severe disease progression in Chinese population. Our partner, Calliditas announced positive NEFECON open-label extension results, which provides a solid scientific foundation for the potential long-term maintenance treatment. Besides, NEFECON was included in the KDIGO draft guidelines last year with the official publication expected in 2025. For Velsipity, we launched positive induction phase data and maintenance data from our Asian multi-center Phase III clinical study and presented such data at AOCC 2024 and 32nd UEGW2024 and 20 ECCO 2025, respectively. This positive data demonstrated etrasimod has potential to be a breakthrough option for UC patients. For XERAVA, clinical breakpoints was approved by ChinaCAST, which gives doctors increased guidelines on using this important anti-infective drug. We generated new clinical evidence supporting increasing utilization such as the real-world data from National Health Commission demonstrating an overall efficacy rate of 90.1% with a very low 2.7% AE rate. On the CHINET 2024 surveillance data demonstrated XERAVA susceptibility rates of 98%, 97.5% and 96.4% against E.coli, Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae, respectively. XERAVA data were included in the 3 treatment guidelines and 14 medical journal publications in 2024.  Cefepime-taniborbactam, the second product in our infectious disease portfolio to be launched, showed superiority to meropenem in the Phase 3 CERTAIN-1 study published on the New England Journal of Medicine by our partner, Venatorx. Besides our commercial or near commercial stage products, I wanted to draw your attention to the amazing progress we were making in our pipeline with global rights, EVER001. Our BTK inhibitor generated positive clinical POC results and announced encouraging results last December. We plan to report more data from this program this year.  On our mRNA platform, we recently held an investor call to highlight our very exciting pipeline of mRNA cancer vaccines. I'm proud to report that we have dosed our first patients in the personalized cancer vaccine program EVM16 and IND application in U.S. for EVM14 has been approved. This is Everest's first in-house developed products to receive U.S. IND approval. Lastly, our highly promising in vivo CAR-T program generated POC in animal models. Next slide. Diving a little bit deeper, I would like to share again the key highlights of EVER001, positive results we announced in December. In conclusion, EVER001 induced early onset a high risk of immunogenical, immunological and clinical response. In Cohort 1, 90% of subjects achieved ICR at week 28. In Cohort 2, all subjects reached ICR at week 24. And of course, if we look at the percentage change, close to 100% reduction in both cohorts by the data cutoff date. And then if we look at the clinical response in Cohort 1 at week 36, 82% of subjects already experienced proteinuria remission and then for Cohort 2 by week 24, 86% of subjects already experienced proteinuria remission. In addition, the serum albumin levels returned to normal or near normal range in Cohort 1 by week 36, in Cohort 2 by week 24.  Besides efficacy, safety is also very important for a new drug in autoimmune disease. For both costs, EVER001 treatment was well tolerated and safe. Most AEs were just Grade 1 or Grade 2 and also these AEs are transient. No clinical meaningful adverse events typically associated with BTK inhibitors, such as serious neutropenia, hemorrhage and cardiac arrhythmias have been observed. Through these assets, we have demonstrated our capability to quickly move in-licensed global assets to license -- to clinical proof of concept. We believe these and other drugs in our pipeline with global rights have the potential for forming global partnerships and become a significant future value driver for Everest.  Next, I'll turn over to Ian, and he will go through our financial performance for 2024. Ian.

Thank you, Rogers. Next, I would like to take a closer look at our financial statement. The most important takeaway I would like to highlight is our ability to substantially increase operating efficiency while driving rapid revenue growth. 2024 full year revenue increased significantly by RMB 580.7 million or 461% to RMB 706.7 million, driven primarily by the strong growth of XERAVA and the successful launch of NEFECON in Mainland China. And I would also highlight that RMB 706.7 million exceeds our revenue guidance for last year.  The cost of revenue was RMB 179.8 million. Excluding noncash items, our gross margin was 83%. This is inclusive of royalty obligations to our licensing partners. G&A expense increased RMB 84.9 million to RMB 250.1 million, primarily attributable to higher compensation and professional services expenses as we grow into a larger organization with broader business operations. R&D expense was RMB 528 million. This amount is a slight decline from 2023 as the company remains committed to strategic R&D investments across its various product pipelines for long-term sustainable growth. Distribution and selling expenses increased by RMB 276.7 million to RMB 508.1 million. This increase coincides with the growth of existing product sales and the launch of new products as we expand our commercial team and increase our commercial activities. However, if you look at commercial expense to revenue ratio, which represents the efficiency with which we generate our revenue, it decreased significantly year-over-year by 111.9 percentage points, showing that we are able to generate more with less capital. We expect to continue to improve commercial expense to revenue ratio in 2025.  This leads to our non-IFRS net loss for the period narrowing by RMB 176.1 million or 25% to RMB 537.6 million. To arrive at the non-IFRS net loss number, we back out noncash and onetime items from the IFRS measures, the most significant of which is a onetime nonrecurring intangible asset impairment loss on the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine program, which we have deprioritized in the first half of 2024. The COVID program has now been fully impaired. At the same time, as our loss narrowed, we maintained a healthy cash position with RMB 1.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2024. We believe this provides sufficient funds for the company to support growth initiatives. Our goal remains to reach cash flow breakeven by year-end 2025. With these financial results, we now qualify for the removal of B-marker to the company's English and Chinese stock name. It's a testament to our ability to generate revenue from continuing operations. And as Rogers mentioned earlier, it reflects our transformation from a biotech to a biopharma company. So if you're looking at this slide, you can see that building on our strong performance in 2024, Everest is well on track to become a leading integrated biopharma company in the Asia Pacific region. Our dual engine strategy will continue to fuel sustainable revenue and pipeline growth. The first engine is our China-focused commercial platform that currently houses 3 key products: NEFECON, XERAVA and Velsipity. Our proven licensing capability allowed us to quickly build a unique pipeline and leadership position in core therapeutic areas. Around these assets, we have established a highly efficient and lean commercial infrastructure that drives revenue growth and cash generation. We have been able to achieve commercial level profitability and expect cash flow generation to accelerate as we increase in size and scale. We will continue to leverage this platform to launch more pipeline assets. The second engine is our in-house R&D platform where we have made tremendous progress building a portfolio of and generating clinical proof-of-concept data on assets where we have global rights. We will continue to advance EVER001 and our mRNA therapeutics targeting cancer and autoimmune indications. We believe these assets can generate significant value for Everest, either from future data generation or through external partnerships. We expect that this parallel approach to pipeline development, combined with our strong commercial growth and existing infrastructure will drive sustainable growth for Everest in the coming years. Next, I will highlight some of Everest's core therapeutic areas and related product portfolio. Everest is well known for our strategic focus on renal diseases. And we look to both strengthening our position in IgAN following the strong NEFECON commercial launch in China and expanding presence in indications beyond IgAN.  Our second clinical asset in this space is EVER001, which, as Rogers mentioned earlier, has already delivered exciting clinical proof-of-concept data in primary membranous nephropathy or PMN. Similar to IgAN, PMN is an orphan disease in the U.S. and Europe, but our research shows that there are 2 million patients in China. There are no approved therapies for PMN, and we believe that EVER001 represents an attractive treatment option for PMN patients. EVER001 also has potential in other autoimmune renal diseases, including IgAN, lupus nephritis, NCD and FSGS. These are diseases with critical unmet needs with a total addressable patient population of over 10 million in China and over 300,000 in the U.S. We own global rights for renal and intend to explore these additional indications in parallel with PMN. As part of our efforts to build an ecosystem around renal diseases, we are also developing a Gd-IgA1 diagnostics kit to provide IgAN patients with a tool to enhance disease diagnosis and track disease progression without biopsy. This is expected to be approved and marketed in 2026. Finally, renal is an area of active BD activities, and we are committed to building a pipeline of innovative therapeutics in this space. Let's talk about NEFECON in a little bit more detail. Most people on this call are probably familiar with NEFECON as the first and only approved drug for IgAN in China, where there is a large addressable patient population of approximately 5 million patients for IgAN, among which about 1 million eye biopsy diagnosed and with roughly 100,000 newly diagnosed patients every year. In Phase III clinical trials, NEFECON demonstrated 66% less deterioration of kidney function, which could translate into potential delaying disease progression to end-stage renal disease by 2.8 years. The KDIGO guideline update draft published in 2024 for public review recommends a 9 month initial course of treatment with NEFECON for patients who are at risk of disease progression and recommended repeated 9 month treatment cycles or a reduced dose maintenance regimen after the first 9 months of treatment to achieve desired levels of proteinuria reduction or stabilization of eGFR.  The most significant driver for NEFECON is its inclusion in the 2025 NRDL in China, which increases affordability for patients and opens the door to significant patient volume growth. Now less than 3 months after the NRDL initiation on January 1, 2025, we are seeing rapid implementation across our target hospitals earlier either through formal hospital listings or dual channel pharmacies. We will continue to enhance physician and patient awareness through a combination of education and RWE data generation. The expected addition of NEFECON to the updated KDIGO guideline and China's first guideline for IgAN in 2025 will also drive broader commercial adoption. To broaden our coverage of hospitals and physicians, we intend to expand our sales organization to 200 sales reps in 2025 and believe that we can reach 80% of the addressable market potential.  Now switching to our infectious disease area. The WHO updated its bacterial priority pathogens list in 2024 to reflect recent trends in global microbial resistance. CRAB and CRKP continue to be listed as critical priorities, highlighting the substantial unmet needs in this area. In China, antibiotic resistance is a major issue with 65% of the Acinetobacter baumannii cases resistant to carbapenems and a significant number of Klebsiella and Pseudomonas cases showing resistance as well. Additionally, the detection rate of metallo-beta-lactamases in carbapenems-resistant E. coli and CRKP is alarmingly high. There are limited available treatment options prior to XERAVA, each with its downsides. Consequently, there is strong demand for new efficacious and safe treatment options like XERAVA. Behind XERAVA, we have 2 pipeline products in the infectious disease space. Cefepime-taniborbactam is a best-in-class beta-lactam, beta-lactamase inhibitor for empirical treatment of multidrug-resistant infections. We plan to submit the NDA for this product to the NMPA in Mainland China for the treatment of cUTI this year. If approved, we believe that there are synergies with XERAVA in terms of both spectrum of coverage and the ability to leverage our existing infectious disease commercial infrastructure. In 2025, Everest looks to deepen XERAVA's role in combating multidrug-resistant infections by strengthening the position of XERAVA as the foundation for earlier line empirical treatment regimen for MDI infections and increasing efforts to enhance adoption in our 300 high-priority target hospitals. Our efforts are supported by strong surveillance studies from CHINET, which shows close to 100% susceptibility rates to XERAVA across commonly seen resistant pathogens. And RWE data covering 3,300 cases analyzed by the China's National Health Commission showed XERAVA with 91% efficacy in CRAB and CRKP infections with a very low 2.7% adverse event rate. This combination of potency and safety positions XERAVA as a best-in-class option in China. In terms of commercial efforts, we continue to leverage a hybrid model, a dedicated lean team of 150 sales reps covering 300 target hospitals and strategic partnerships with 2 leading CSOs to broaden reach.  Turning to our autoimmune franchise and lead program, Velsipity or etrasimod, the third commercial product in our portfolio. Velsipity was approved in Macau in 2024 for the treatment of moderately and severely active ulcerative colitis. Velsipity is an effective, safe and orally available convenient UC treatment well suited for first-line use. UC represents an attractive and sizable market in China that is expected to grow to 1 million patients in 2030. Additionally, the target physicians are concentrated in approximately 100 IBD centers in China, making it easier to target these prescribers with a lean sales footprint. To date, Velsipity has been made available in 5 medical institutions in the Guangdong province under the Greater Bay connect policy, which allows us to start physician and patient education. We are expecting more significant contributions from this product in Mainland China with NDA approval expected in late 2025 or early 2026. I will now hand the mic to Sandra to talk more about EVER001.

Yes. As we presented in our call last December, EVER001 is a covalent reversible BTK inhibitors that we are developing for autoimmune renal diseases. EVER001 can selectively form a reversible covalent bond resisting 481 in the BK kinase domain, which is distinguished from other BTK inhibitors currently marketable for other indications. Those BTK inhibitors are either covalent irreversible inhibitors or noncovalent irreversible inhibitors. For EVER001, the covalent binding with in the kinase domain ensures a strong BTK inhibition, while irreversibility and selectivity based on toxicities. These interests make particularly cohesions with all immune diseases who likely need long term treatment. So right now we are currently running Phase 1b and Phase 2a in the patients with primary membranous nephropathy which we record in the preliminary results in December. So the study enrolled pMN patients with positive anti-PLA2R for the antibody and they evaluate to ensure dose levels. The low dose level is the Cohort 1 starting with 100mg of QD for 4 weeks followed by 100mg BID for 32 weeks. And for the Cohort 2, we choose dose level 200mg BID administrated for 36 weeks and rate those groups all the patient are being followed for up to 2 years. Next slide, please. So in December we recorded a total of 31 patients at the part of September 30 in 2024. We were pleased to observe that EVER001 induced in immunological complete remission, ICR as early as week 24 to week 28. As shown in the graph, the blue bars represents that the result from the Cohort 1 the low does. And then the red bar represents the high dose Cohort 2. In Cohort 1 by week 16 more than 60% of subjects experienced immunological complete remission, ICR and the by week 36 as many as 90% of patients achieved ICR. And for the Cohort 2 67% of subject experienced ICR at week 8 for the bandwidth 24 all 7 subjects achieved a immunological complete remission. Next slide. If we look into the clinical efficacy and codes the 24 hour proteinuria reduction is very important for the patient to occur. The preliminary analysis show that remarkable  proteinuria reduction during the treatment period for both cohorts. So in the Cohort 1, 73% of subjects experienced a proteinuria remission at week 28 and there is 1 subject achieving complete remission. By week 36 have got 82% of subject experience proteinuria remission with 2 subjects achieving complete remission. So the median time to approach proteinuria remission was about 20 weeks.  For the Cohort 2 as early as week 20, we already observed 86% of subject experience proteinuria remission and the by week 28 all 4 subject achieved proteinuria remission. So the time to proteinuria remission in this cohort was much more rapid with median time of 60 weeks. So besides this impressive efficacy result with respect to the safety and Rogers's already mentioned, EVER001 was safe and well tolerated in both dose levels. We didn't observe any clinical meaningful adverse events typically associated with BTK inhibitors such as serious neutropenia, haemorrhage and arrythmia.  So now I turn to Jennifer who will present to you about our mRNA platform.

Thank you, Sandra. So earlier this month, we held a conference call to present to you our mRNA technology platform, progress made on our cancer vaccine and in vivo CAR-T programs. At Everest, we have a fully integrated and clinically validated mRNA platform with end-to-end capabilities across the whole value chain. Our proprietary antigen design algorithm can ensure high expression of target protein. Our proprietary LNP delivery system lead to enhanced T cell immunity, which is well suitable for cancer vaccine programs. And our CMC process development capabilities can ensure high-quality mRNA DS/DP production. Last but not least, our self-owned manufacturing facility in Jiashan has successfully produced GMP-grade materials. Next slide.  We have developed a proprietary LNP delivery system with novel ionizable lipid, while AI has been used in our efforts for the lipid screening. With the help of AI, we are able to expand the diversity of the lipid library as well as enhance or increase the screening efficiency. Next slide. To enable our personalized cancer vaccine program, we developed a proprietary machine learning-based neoantigen prediction algorithm named EVER-NEO-1. This algorithm takes into consideration of many aspects of a strong immunogenic neoantigen and it identifies and generates those immunogenic neoantigens that we can assemble into a vaccine. This algorithm has identified multiple known and previously unreported tumor antigens in our preclinical animal models, and it has been well validated using human clinical data. Next slide. With this platform, we have established a pipeline of mRNA therapeutics. The most advanced one is our personalized cancer vaccine program, EVM16. EVM16 preclinical data demonstrated strong antitumor effects, both as a monotherapy as well as in combination with PD-1 antibody. Recently, we have commenced an investigator-initiated trial in 2 top cancer hospitals in China, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center and Beijing Cancer Hospital. And first patient was dosed with EVM16 on March 4. In the first Phase 1a part of the study, we are evaluating safety, tolerability of EVM16 monotherapy as well as in combination with anti-PD-1 antibody to identify the RP2D in order to advance this program. We will provide more updates on this program over the course of the year. The second program is tumor associated antigen TAA cancer vaccine, EVM14. This is an off-the-shelf cancer vaccine. It has several advantages. First, this type of cancer vaccine usually have good tumor specificity as the antigens are only highly expressed in tumor tissues with very limited expression in normal tissue. Second, because there are more T cell epitopes in such vaccine, there is no HLA selection needed for patients. Due to its off-the-shelf nature, this type of vaccine is well suited for advanced stage disease.  Compared to PCV, the TAA vaccine has lower manufacturing cost, and it has the potential to be applicable for multiple cancer indications. EVM14 is a bivalent vaccine designed to target TAA highly expressed in squamous non-small cell lung cancer and squamous head and neck cancer. The combination of EVM14 with immune checkpoint inhibitors, including anti-PD-1 antibody or anti-CTLA-4 antibody can significantly enhance antitumor activity in preclinical models, supporting the exploration of this combination regimen in future clinical development. Preclinical data not only showed immune response, but also show that EVM14 can potentially induce immune memory cells and prevent tumor recurrence. Recently, FDA approved our U.S. IND marking the first U.S. IND for Everest. We are in the process of submitting the IND in China this year. Next slide.  In addition to these cancer vaccine programs, we've also developed in vivo CAR-T program based on our mRNA platform. As you all know, in recent years, CAR-T has expanded its application beyond liquid tumor to other disease indications, including B-cell-mediated autoimmune disease. There is highly encouraging early clinical data generated on refractory lupus patients suggest that CAR-T therapy can potentially reset the immune system. At Everest, we use mRNA technology platform to enable in vivo CAR delivery. We conjugate a T cell recognizing antibody to the surface of mRNA LNP. Once in vivo, this LNP can then bind to the surface of T cells. After endocytosis, the CAR encoding mRNA is released in the cytoplasm of T cells and translate into CAR protein, which can then be expressed on the surface of T cell, turning a normal T cell into a CAR T cell.  We believe that in vivo CAR-T can address many of the challenges encountered in the traditional CAR, including high cost of production and patient lymphodepletion. Our in vivo CAR-T is off the shelf, therefore, can be easily scalable. There is no lymphodepletion required and hospitalization may not be needed for the patient. Additionally, the PK/PD are more predictable and quality is more controllable. Last year, we've made significant progress for our mRNA in vivo CAR-T program. We've now developed a robust conjugation method to ensure high efficiency and consistent conjugation. We've also identified appropriate targeting that can allow specific and high expression of CAR in T cells.  In the humanized mouse tumor model, we've demonstrated antitumor efficacy and target cell depletion. We've also completed a study in nonhuman primates demonstrated good T cell transfection and high CAR expression. We are working towards a candidate selection this year for further development of this program. Now I'll hand over to Ian for a summary on future outlook.

Thank you, Jennifer. So over the last few years, as you can see on this pipeline chart, we have built a broad pipeline with multiple first-in-class or best-in-class products through both in-licensing and our discovery engine. And the 4 commercial stage or near commercial stage products in the pipeline have the potential to generate RMB 10 billion in combined peak sales.  On earlier-stage clinical products, we have zetomipzomib, which our partner, Kezar is developing in autoimmune hepatitis. AIH is a rare chronic disease in which the immune system attacks the liver and causes inflammation and tissue damage, severely impacting patients' physical health and quality of life. The study has completed enrollment of 24 patients and Kezar just announced today positive top line data. We congratulate our partner on this milestone, and we'll work with them to formulate future development plans. We have discussed EVER001 in depth with you, and EVER206 is the third product in our infectious disease portfolio currently in Phase I development. Our self-discovery pipeline is growing. Listed are some of the key products that Jennifer just shared with you. We will continue to build our pipeline through business development and internal discovery to ensure continued solid growth for Everest. This will be an exciting year where we have a multitude of catalysts listed on this slide. My colleagues and I have discussed all of this, so I will not read these again. But I would like to highlight that it is very clear what we need to do in 2025. We will continue to expand our commercial revenue base and ensure that NEFECON is successful in its first year under NRDL coverage. We will advance our pipeline, especially EVER001 and our emerging mRNA pipeline, all of which we have global rights. And we will actively look for synergistic and value-enhancing business development opportunities. We are confident that if we continue to execute in these areas, we will drive substantial and sustained shareholder value. I'd like to thank you for attending our call, and now we'll open it up to Q&A.

Operator, can you announce the way to ask question please?

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Goldman Sachs, Linhai Zhao.

I'm Linhai from Goldman Sachs. And congrats for a great year in 2024 and very inspiring results, both for top line and bottom line. I think I have 3 questions that we appreciate management insights.  The first question is on NEFECON. As you mentioned that it's been 3 months after the NRDL inclusion for NEFECON. Can you share a bit more on the NRDL implementations in terms of the -- as a percentage of hospital listing or the number of pharmaceutical pharmacies progress? And also in terms of the observed patient usage and ramp-up of NEFECON in the 3 months in the NRDL coverage?  And in addition, would you comment on the evolving competition in IgAn, particularly with multiple drugs with different MOAs coming into the market for the ETA antagonist, CFB and [indiscernible], would you share your view on the potential clinical preferences for different drug classes potentially by different patient subgroups? That's the first question. I'll stop here.

Thank you, Linhai. So you have 3 questions, but there are 3 parts to each question. But I appreciate it. Thank you for asking this. I think NEFECON -- first, the NRDL implementation, I think it is still early days, but we are very pleased with how the NRDL implementation is progressing. So, it's been less than 3 months, right? We are well on our way of making sure that all of our 800 target hospitals have NRDL implementation, either through formal hospital listing or through the dual channel pharmacies. I think maybe one number that I can give you is that since January 1, there has been over 10,000 new IgAN patients that have been prescribed NEFECON. We think that is a good foundation to have as we progress through the rest of the year. In terms of prescription, maybe just a little bit more details. Oftentimes, every prescription is for 1 to 2 bottles of NEFECON. Again, that's 1 to 2 months of a drug product, but there are patients that have been prescribed as much as many as 3 bottles at a time.  Again, we are expanding our sales team. We still have a very high standard for hiring salespeople, but we are expanding from about 140, 150 people. I think as we go through the year, we will get to 200 people, which will allow us to better cover the 800 target hospitals.  In terms of the evolving competition, we're obviously monitoring that very carefully. We do think that, first of all, NEFECON has a unique opportunity as a -- not just as the first IgAN product approved in China, but we really don't see any other IgAN products, even if they are approved in later this year or next year to have NRDL coverage until at the earliest of 2027, right? So we will have a 2-year exclusivity, if you will, with NRDL coverage. I think that will allow us a sufficient amount of lead time to position NEFECON appropriately. The second is that the profile of NEFECON with the clinical data that it has generated, the more data that we will generate, right, through RWE and IIT studies and by ourselves and together with Calliditas center and their new owners, Venatorx center [indiscernible] and we'll position this product. We will just have a lot more data than the competition. But the profile of this as an oral agent that's convenient to take with benign safety profile, right? It just positions us very well as a first-line therapy and as a foundation in potential combinations.  The third point I would make is the treatment guideline. And I think there, as both Rogers and I mentioned, we're quite pleased with how the KDIGO guideline positions NEFECON really as the only product in the category of being able to reduce potential pathogenic IgAs and pathogenic IgA immune complexes. And we believe that positioning is unique and the guideline that to really suggest repeated dosing with NEFECON beyond the 9-month treatment period that's in the approved label, we think also allows a lot of flexibility in how patients can be managed by their physicians.

Thanks, Ian. Probably I can add some more points here regarding the NEFECON. As Ying just mentioned, there's more than 10,000 new patients currently on therapy of NEFECON. Talking more about the data we are generating, there's more than 20 new studies in China now using NEFECON for the IgAN patients. Those studies will generate more data on repeated treatment costs or combining with different regimens they are currently using. And some of the studies also will show the benefit of early use, long-term use, or repeated use in different patient groups. So those data will support NEFECON for the expand to more patient segments.  And if you're looking at the KDIGO guidelines, clearly, NEFECON has a very unique position. As we are already on the market for several months, some KOLs, doctors are kind of trying to use NEFECON combining with other regimens Ying just mentioned. And there's -- I would say, if you're looking at the KDIGO back to the guidelines, if you back to the guidelines, clearly classify all these different product categories into 2 categories. One is on the treat the root cause of the disease. Another category is the products treat the symptoms of the disease. So where NEFECON belongs to the product category treating the root cause of the disease, especially for long-term use. I think some of them probably just mentioned, probably they do not have any data to show eGFR benefit, though they already show some benefit on the proteinuria reduction, but not the eGFR case. Because the study ongoing, they do not have data on -- if you stop the treatment, whether the proteinuria will come back or the eGFR will come back again. So that's, I would say, advantage of NEFECON. Number one, we have a study showing that if you're using NEFECON for 9 months and stop for 5 months, they still have the benefit. Number 2, I think that's the base for future combination therapy as a foundation. Number 3 is the oral, which is very convenient, not like others, you have to do the injection. So from these 2 perspectives, I think NEFECON has a very unique position at the whole treatment algorithm to be the first line and foundational therapy for most of the patients. So I just add this.