Legend Biotech Corporation (LEGN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

September 4, 2024

NASDAQ US Health Care Biotechnology conference_presentation 34 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#1

Okay. Great. Now we can get started. My name is Vikram Purohit. I'm one of the biotech analysts with the Morgan Stanley research team. Happy to have with me Ying Huang from Legend Biotech. Thanks for joining us, Ying. Appreciate it.

Ying Huang

executive
#2

Thank you for inviting, Vikram.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#3

Of course. Before we get started, just need to read a brief disclosure statement. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. With that, Ying, let's go ahead and get into it.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#4

Ying, maybe the best place to start is a common question that I know that you've received that we've also received on BIOSECURE. If maybe we can just talk about that, and then we can progress to fundamentals and CARVYKTI-specific questions. So on biosecurity, you've mentioned you don't see a direct impact to Legend Biotech. I'd be curious if you could just unpack what kind of work you've been able to do to kind of understand the legislation and how you're thinking about the implications for the business.

Ying Huang

executive
#5

Sure. So since the news broke, I think, on May 31, we, as a company, have been engaging with legislators in the D.C. We have also officially retained a lobbyist firm on our behalf. So our interaction with the -- here has been pretty productive. And we explained to the legislators how we operate and how our relationship with J&J is in terms of collaboration on CARVYKTI and the BCMA franchise and our role in this collaboration in the partnership with J&J. And I think at this point, the legislators understand our business model pretty well. They also understand the benefit we bring to the U.S. patients given the efficacy demonstrated by CARVYKTI and also in commercial launch. Separately, I think you actually can find the draft bill now on the House website, and the bill is likely to go through what we call floor vote next week in the House. And if you look at the latest version that's published on the House website, you will see that there's no new companies that's been added to the so-called list of company of concerns. So let's see what happens next week. But at this point, we believe that we're not going to see any impact given the draft bill and the language contained in the bill. And we continue to work on providing the CARVYKTI to the patients who need it.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#6

Great, great. Okay. With that, let's progress to CARVYKTI. So for 2Q, you and J&J reported 18% quarter-over-quarter growth. Could you unpack how much of that came from capacity manufacturing? How much of that came from just raw demand? I know it's not mutually exclusive. I know it's tough to kind of tease apart. But directionally speaking, what drove that growth?

Ying Huang

executive
#7

It's really our increase of supply because as you know, at this point, we're still in a situation where we have a constrained supply, and we cannot satisfy all the demand for CARVYKTI in both U.S. and in Europe. So what you have seen in the second quarter revenue of roughly $186 million is that we start to implement the last FDA-approved increase for capacity in the Raritan, New Jersey supply site. And that implementation was completed in about mid-May. So we did get roughly half of the quarter's benefit in that. Now you're going to see the full-blown benefit in the third quarter because now we're always producing at the most recently FDA-approved limit. And also, I can tell you, given the demand, our Raritan supply site has been running at 100% utilization essentially for the last few months. So typically, you don't get to see this in a pharmaceutical corporation because you always have what we call the safety margin defined by engineers. But given the demand and also, we don't really want to waste any slot. We have been running at 100% capacity all the time in the last few months. We're also very happy to see the demand from the early line since the FDA approved the second-line indication on April 5. I think we have said in the second quarter earnings call that if you look at incoming orders, roughly half of the incoming orders are actually for patients who are in the early-line or second- to fourth-line indication versus the old indication, which is fifth line and beyond. So we and J&J are very encouraged by the early adoption by the physicians and also by patients in the second-line indication.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#8

Understood. To kind of help us better understand the revenue impact of the label expansion, could you talk a bit about how long it takes from when an order is put in to when that becomes revenue for J&J and yourself? And is it distinct between second line, third line versus the later-line label?

Ying Huang

executive
#9

Yes. Sure. So CAR-T is a neodality for treatment, and it does entail slightly different logistics. So first of all, when a patient is prescribed CARVYKTI, it will be routed to insurance coverage. And then once the insurance approved the coverage, then the form or the order will be entered into our electronic system called [ Sequence ]. And from there, we'll have to schedule with the hospital providers. So first patient will be called in for apheresis. And then after that, the collective blood sample will be shipped to our New Jersey manufacturing site. And from there, we start the processing. Typically, if you look at most recent data we have in-house, you're looking at aphereses to release time of roughly 5 to -- yes, about 5 weeks-ish. And then, of course, based on the real-time information we provide in our system, the hospital will have to schedule the 3-day standard lymphodepletion and then followed by the CAR-T infusion here. So in general, from the prescription of CARVYKTI by a health care provider to the revenue booking, when that bag leaves our New Jersey site and being shipped to the hospital site, you're looking at roughly maybe 45- to 50-day lag over here.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#10

Got it. Got it. Okay. And then how would you characterize how much of a benefit you saw in 2Q from the label expansion?

Ying Huang

executive
#11

Yes. There's really minimal contribution from the label expansion. The reason is, even though we are officially approved by FDA on April 5, so that is actually the date when a physician can actually prescribe CARVYKTI for second-line use. Typically, as you probably are very familiar, in any hospital, there's a so-called P&T process. So the committee would have to meet, then they decide on the coverage policy for that specific hospitals. I would say, in general, some of the first wave of centers would probably go through the P&T committee in a 2- to 3-week period after FDA approval. And then the order will come in officially into our system. And like I said, from there to the shipment, you're looking at close to 45, 50 days. That is why we really see minimal revenue contribution in the second quarter, but we do expect a pretty significant contribution from the second-line launch in the third quarter.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#12

Got it. Got it. Okay. From a reporting standpoint, do you expect to report a breakup of second line, third line versus fourth line in any fashion, whether it's sales or scripts or...

Ying Huang

executive
#13

So that will be under discussion between Legend and J&J. As you know, we're a 50-50 partnership with J&J. So when J&J reports revenue for third quarter on October 15, you guys will have to stay tuned on this. But recently, we did put in a new field in our ordering system. So for any incoming order, we would actually know whether this order is for a patient that is fifth line and beyond or for a patient in early line, second to fourth line. So we'll continue to provide some information for the public and investors about the breakdown. I think what we said in the second quarter earnings call is that early information from the ordering book suggests that roughly half of the incoming order is actually for early line, and then the other half remains the fifth line and beyond, late-line indication. So that's what we know so far, but we'll continue to monitor that.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#14

Got it. Do you think that 50-50 or approximately that split, is that a reasonable revenue split to think about near term, call it, the next 1 to 3 years for CARVYKTI? Or do you think it could skew more heavily towards earlier line?

Ying Huang

executive
#15

So first of all, we and our partner, J&J, are very encouraged by the early adoption because this roughly 50% revenue mix from early line is actually above our internal expectation when we launched. As you know, patient in the second-line spectrum of multiple myeloma has many treatment options to choose from. Yet with this new label, we're already seeing roughly half of the order coming from early line. So that's a very encouraging leading indicator. And we do fully believe that in the next couple of years, we should expect more and more revenue coming from early line or second line because I'm sure you know that after demonstrating a significant PFS benefit with a hazard ratio of 0.26 or 74% risk reduction from PFS, we now actually have observed a significant and also clinically meaningful survival benefit. That data will be reported by, I think, September 25 at the annual International Myeloma Society Meeting. So with that survival benefit, we believe that CARVYKTI is really well positioned in the second line because as you know, for many medications for multiple myeloma treatment, they have PFS on the label but not necessarily survival benefit. The reason is, for most patients, multiple myeloma remains incurable, which means they keep cycling through different therapies. And that is why sometimes the survival benefit will be masked by following subsequent achievements. So in this case, we're really encouraged. For the first time, we have a formal analysis for survival. We already demonstrated a significant benefit. And we're planning to go to both the FDA and the EMA to file for label expansion so that we can promote on the survival benefit. That is why we and J&J have firmly believed that we'll see higher and higher penetration in the second line based on the survival benefit.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#16

Understood, understood. Okay. And then when we talk about label expansion, a much bigger patient reach, I think the natural question that comes up is ability to supply the market. So you put out this metric out there that you want to hit 10,000 annualized doses by year-end 2025. Could you remind us of the different manufacturing sources and the nodes that are going to play into providing those -- meeting that target?

Ying Huang

executive
#17

Sure. So we and our partner, J&J, have mapped out a global supply plan. It's a very well thoughtfully designed plan. So our first -- and today, the only commercial site is in Raritan, New Jersey. And we and J&J are conducting the physical expansion. Construction should be completed by end of this year. And then in the next year also, we'll qualify the suites and train the staff and make sure it's GMP-certified. So by end of next year, we are going to see a very significant expansion for the FDA-approved phase in Raritan site. So that will be a big contributor to that capacity expansion next year. That's the first node. Now on the second node, we're now expecting approval in Europe for our first facility in Ghent. It's called Obelisc, which is a stand-alone building we and J&J lease. Right now, that facility is already producing clinical trial material. But by end of this month, we're hoping to secure European approval for commercial license. So that means starting next quarter, we expect our second commercial site to start to contribute to revenue in Europe. And then we also have retained Novartis as a CDMO for CARVYKTI franchise. So I'm happy to report that in July, Novartis already received the IND clearance by FDA to start clinical production in the Morris Plain, New Jersey site. And we're expecting that in the first half of 2025, Novartis will also secure the FDA approval to produce commercial CARVYKTI in the New Jersey site. That's our third node. And then we and J&J are jointly constructing a brand-new, state-of-art facility in Ghent called Tech Lane. That is more than 200,000 square foot in square footage. Right now, we're expecting the physical construction to complete by end of this year. So in the first half of next year, that Tech Lane facility will start clinical production. And hopefully, around year-end, next year or beginning of 2026, we can start also commercial production from that facility. So if you look at the combined capacity from all 4 nodes, one in New Jersey from Raritan and then one from the New Jersey facility of Novartis plus the two facilities we have in Ghent, Belgium, we are targeting to achieve roughly 10,000 dose per year combined capacity by end of 2025.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#18

Got it. Got it. And I know you previously also mentioned that there could be an aspiration to try to extend further beyond that post 2025 and work towards potentially 20,000 doses. How much capital investment would be required to kind of make that step? And how much additional manufacturing scale beyond your current facilities could be required to kind of get there?

Ying Huang

executive
#19

So we and J&J together are working on a very ambitious roughly $1 billion CapEx. And that will include all 4 nodes, including the original investment in Raritan, New Jersey and now the physical expansion and then the two nodes in Belgium, plus the investment with Novartis as CDMO. So most of the CapEx and capital projects should be completed by end of 2025. And that actually is coincidental with the timing of 10,000 per year facility. Now with this $1 billion CapEx in place, we will need just a small incremental investment to get to the next level by end of 2027 to get to hopefully about 20,000 dose per year. That's our investment. Of course, we are working with J&J to look at further supply plan if we believe that the global demand will be higher than 20,000 doses per year. And I think, like I said, we're very encouraged by the recent survival benefit demonstrated in CARTITUDE-4 data. And the second line is a must-win market for us because the truth is, in the U.S., most patients will receive DRVd (sic) [ DVRd ] around transplant. So once a patient is refractory or has relapsed from DRVd after that, really, there's not a good option in the market today because they have already gone through transplant. They've already gone through DARZALEX, which is the best injectable, and then they've gone through also an oral IMiD and protease inhibitor. So by that time, I think CAR-T offers a great choice, especially given the data we have demonstrated in the CARTITUDE-4 where compared to DPd, which is DARZALEX, Pomalyst and dexamethasone or PVd, we show a significant PFS benefit and now also a significant survival benefit. So I do think that it really gives the patient great choice of second-line therapy after DRVd.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#20

Got it. Got it. Great. Going back to the topic of second-line, third-line uptake. You have a competitor that also received a broadened label to third line earlier this year. Are you seeing a stronger competitive push from them in the field? And how is your -- I guess, what is your latest share breakup that you're seeing across CARVYKTI and ABECMA where they're available?

Ying Huang

executive
#21

Sure. We actually welcome competition here because we believe that the CAR-T class share should increase given the clinical data, right, from us and also from competition. If you look at the current data from the clinical trials, clearly, CAR-T as a class offers superiority in both PFS and survival. In fact, this was demonstrated in a recent Nature publication where it's coming from the Mayo cohort. They looked at a few hundred patients who have received bispecific and also CAR-T-targeting BCMA in their center. And the conclusion is that there is a statistically significant superiority here compared to bispecific as a class in terms of PFS and also survival. So I think that is a very strong evidence in the real world that you do get better benefit in terms of progression-free survival and overall survival for patients who receive CAR-T. So I firmly believe that given that data set, you should expect wider adoption for CAR-T in the treatment of multiple myeloma. And in terms of competition, we're very glad that we received a very broad label in the U.S. and also in Europe as a second-line treatment, while our competition received a third-line label. So we believe that positions CARVYKTI really well. And the latest data suggest that in centers where we coexist with our competition, CARVYKTI has 87% market share. So again, that's a testament of the safety and efficacy for CARVYKTI.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#22

Understood. And more broadly on competition, obviously, Arcellx and Gilead have anito-cel in development. I guess, what is your take on the data that they've shown so far? And what do you think the hurdle is that they have to climb to be able to show real-world differentiation versus CARVYKTI?

Ying Huang

executive
#23

Our belief is that in oncology, efficacy always trumps everything else. Because unfortunately, like I said, myeloma remains incurable cancer for patients. So we recently found a survey where you ask patients and lots of physicians, what are the top 3 factors when you choose a therapy for multiple myeloma? The #1 is overall survival, followed by PFS, followed by response rate. So I think across those 3 metrics, CARVYKTI is really well positioned because, like I said, we have already demonstrated a clinically meaningful and statistically significant survival benefit, which not many drugs in myeloma has on the label. Secondly, I think our strategy has always been -- we want to win this market by leapfrogging our competition. We were about 1 year later in terms of FDA approval for CAR-T-targeting BCMA because of our designed CARTITUDE-4, we were able to leapfrog our competition. So today, we can promote a second-line label in the U.S. and in Europe, while our competition can do this in third line, right? So I think that shows you the thoughtfulness in our clinical trial design when we partnered with J&J, who is a really strong player in myeloma. And I think also the fact that today, we're already in second line and our other competition may come into the market 2 years later for fifth line and beyond. Again, I think you will have to see if there's any differentiation in efficacy. Like I mentioned, in oncology in general, efficacy always trumps everything else. If efficacy is on par -- by the way, CARVYKTI sets a really high bar because even in late line, fifth line and beyond indication, right, if you look at CARTITUDE-1, those patients on average, median prior lines was 6, which means we were treating seventh-line patients. Yet we achieved the PFS of 35 months. And at this point, median survival still has not been reached. Typically, for those triple- or penta-refractory patients, as you know, if you give them standard therapy, not CAR-T, the PFS is a range of 4 to 9 months only. Yet we were able to demonstrate 3 year -- nearly 3-year PFS. I think that's the bar, which is very high. And we believe that it's going to be very hard to show better profile than that. And also in CARTITUDE-4, although we have not reached median PFS or OS, but again, if you look at the hazard ratio compared to control, 90% of the patients in CARTITUDE-4 chose DPd. That's the best injectable, best oral plus dexamethasone. And we showed a hazard ratio of 0.26. That's 74% risk reduction. So again, those numbers show you a very strong profile here, and that's the numbers they have to beat, I believe.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#24

Understood. Okay. Staying on the topic of label expansion. You have first-line studies underway as well, CARTITUDE-5 and CARTITUDE-6. Just to level set for everyone, could you summarize where those studies stand and when we could expect initial data from those programs?

Ying Huang

executive
#25

So CARTITUDE-5 is a first-line trial. It's a head-to-head trial between CARVYKTI as a onetime therapy versus RVd, so it's REVLIMID, Velcade, dexamethasone for patients for transplant ineligible or who decide to defer transplant. And if you look at the historical literature, RVd historically has a median PFS of 35- to 40-month range. Like I mentioned, in CARTITUDE-1, for seventh-line patients, we demonstrated a median PFS for nearly 3 years. So we're highly confident that we'll be able to show superiority against RVd in CARTITUDE-5. And we have already completed all global enrollment of more than 650 patients, 1:1 randomized. We believe we can finish dosing very soon for this trial, and then it will be in the follow-up mode. According to the ClinicalTrials.gov disclosure we put in, the primary completion is 2026. So we hope to get data in 2 years and then file for the frontline approval. CARTITUDE-6 is actually another frontline trial we and J&J are jointly conducting. It's against the gold standard, which is transplant, also DRVd as an induction as well. So there, we're also conducting a 1:1 randomized active control trial. The goal is to enroll 750 patients. So far, enrollment is going really well. We actually think that we should be able to finish everything next year, in 2025, even though we just started the first patient enrollment in October in Spain. But we see a lot of demand, and this has enrolled very quickly. So here, the co-primary endpoints are PFS and also MRD activity. And we will engage with the FDA to talk about potentially using MRD activity as registration endpoint. So we can hopefully bring this to patient population faster than if you are using PFS as the endpoint.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#26

Got it. Got it. And have you communicated a time line for when you might have those regulatory discussions and try to get...

Ying Huang

executive
#27

We have not. But given the most recent ODAC meeting and recommendation by ODAC, we do plan to request a meeting with the FDA to talk about MRD activity as endpoint in frontline study.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#28

Got it. You mentioned kind of at the outset of our chat that the second-line, third-line opportunity seems to be bigger than what you had initially expected internally before the launch. Does what you're seeing so far with second line, third line then make you more confident about the opportunity in the first line versus what you had maybe previously thought of that opportunity?

Ying Huang

executive
#29

So in our internal forecast, we always thought that second line is a must-win market because it is a very large market. And also in the U.S., after patients already have been treated with DRVd and transplant. So it's not a good option there. So we think there's a pretty significant unmet medical need here. Now with frontline, we recognize that transplant plus DRVd does set a pretty high bar, right? If you look at the most and recent approval by FDA for J&J's DARZALEX in frontline in combination with transplant in PERSEUS, the 4-year PFS rate was greater than 85%. So that's the bar here. And obviously, sitting here, we don't know what the data is for CARVYKTI. But if we're able to show superiority -- because remember, both CARTITUDE-5 and CARTITUDE-6 are designed to be superiority trials. So if we can demonstrate superiority, then I think we do have an edge. The other one is survival benefit, right? So so far, we're seeing survival benefit in second line already in CARTITUDE-4 trial. Now you probably follow the literature, there's no proof that transplant actually can improve survival. In fact, there's some recent papers showing that transplant could hurt survival even though it does improve PFS. So I think if we can show PFS superiority against transplant and also, coupled with survival benefit, then I think CARVYKTI has the potential to replace transplant as the gold standard in frontline treatment. That's the ambition we have.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#30

Got it. Got it. Okay. Understood. Maybe we can then switch over to the pipeline. CARTITUDE-2, I know that there is some -- there are 2 frontline -- 2 cohorts enrolling frontline patients, right, Cohorts E and F. Any update as to how those cohorts are progressing and when initial data might be available from those?

Ying Huang

executive
#31

So we have enrolled about 50 patients in those 2 cohorts, Cohorts E and F in the CARTITUDE-2 trial. We cannot comment on whether data will be presented or not this year because the typical practice for us and J&J as a partner is that we will only comment on the abstract when those are published. But I'll tell you, in general, the way we think about frontline is that if you have a short follow-up, it's not really meaningful because based on our experience in CAR-T program, CARVYKTI is a very unique drug that is very consistent. It doesn't matter which line of study you're testing. It's always varied considerably in terms of response rate, CR rate and durable PFS. So if you have a short follow-up, it's probably not going to be meaningful in terms of differentiation from the current gold standard. We really need to demonstrate the long-term benefit in PFS and ideally, eventually in survival as well in order to win in the market share for frontline. That's our view.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#32

Got it. Okay. Great. Pivoting outside of CARVYKTI then. You mentioned a couple of earnings calls ago, maybe 2 earnings calls ago, that there are some autoimmune pipeline efforts underway both from an allogeneic perspective and also from an autoimmune -- from an autologous perspective, excuse me. Could you just kind of summarize for us where those programs stand? And what kinds of, I guess, clinical development programs could you prosecute there come 2025-2026?

Ying Huang

executive
#33

Yes. I mean, I think autoimmune indication is emerging as a new field for CAR-T therapy based on some of the academic data generated from the German study, another -- a few other industry players who are also starting to generate clinical data for CAR-T in autoimmune. We think there's certainly potential here, but our in-house view is that we need to understand the biology and the underlying pathology a little bit better. For example, you look at all the trials in the clinic for autoimmune, most of those constructs use CD19 as a target. We think, yes, CD19 is a very valuable target, but you should also evaluate, for example, BCMA, CD20 and other targets. Their disease data is driven by B cells. They're also a disease that's driven by both B cell and T cell. So there's a lot of underlying biology here we don't quite understand yet. That's why we're still trying to do some translation work and also preclinical work to help us guide which one is the target and which construct is the best for autoimmune indications. But our first program will be leveraging our existing autologous trispecific CAR-T. So that's targeting CD19, CD20 and CD22. We have done that study in China with about, I think, double-digit patients in lymphoma. We know the construct is safe. Now we're going to also dose that in lupus first. I think our first patient will be dosed either this month or next month in China. So we want to understand some of the translational research based on the clinical study we conduct.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#34

Sorry, that's with a trispecific, the...

Ying Huang

executive
#35

Yes, that's a trispecific. And then behind that, we also have a few constructs that are custom-made or designed for autoimmune indications. For example, we just put in the clinic in Phase I in China a dual-targeting CD19, CD20 construct. That will be tested in lymphoma first. But then if the safety is demonstrated, we intend to push that forward into lupus, for example. And that's allogeneic [ core ] modality construct. So we're doing a lot of work in the autoimmune indications. But I think the first and foremost is we would like to understand the underlying biology and pathology better before we decide which target we should pursue. Is it mono-targeting? Is it dual-targeting? That's one. Secondly, I'm sure you follow some of the safety findings here. So we're also looking at, for example, can we bypass or titrate those for the lymphodepletion because as you know, these patients are immunocompromised already following all years of therapy. So their safety tolerance may be different from the oncology patient population. So there's a lot of factors, we're looking into this in the research phase. But we just started our first clinical program, and then we'll learn from that program in terms of biomarker and translational results, and that will guide our further research and development into the field.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#36

Got it. Do you foresee a need for Legend to enter any sort of partnership to kind of complement your understanding of the autoimmune space here? Or do you think for the time being, it's well served just based on your in-house capabilities?

Ying Huang

executive
#37

We're absolutely open to partnership. There are many other players in the field where we think we can leverage each other's strength, right? We understand BCMA really well, and we have a library of good binders, and others may have enabling technologies that can complement our pipeline. So we're absolutely open to partnership, and we're engaging with multiple potential partners to further the discussion. I don't pretend ever that Legend will have all the process in cell therapy. There's gene editing. There's in vivo CAR-T. There's a lot of new breakthroughs that's happening in the field, and we're totally open to collaboration with other partners.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#38

Got it. Got it. And then outside of autoimmune, there's quite a few earlier-stage programs as well that you're looking into. I know DLL-3, Claudin 18.2. Of all those assets, where do you think analysts and investors should be focused for 2025 and 2026 in terms of progress with those programs and programs where we could expect to see some sort of outward updates?

Ying Huang

executive
#39

So we're actually actively enrolling and dosing for Claudin 18.2 program in the U.S. in Phase I now under the IND. Our plan is to solve through the safety and efficacy to make the decision. Early next year, we're also planning to look into other indications, for example, pancreatic cancer, which we know in certain pancreas cancer tissues, Claudin 18.2 is overexpressed. And that is a very interesting market because as you know, after years of experiment, we still don't have great therapies for pancreatic cancer. And that is one area we're interested in. For DLL-3, we are also actively enrolling and we have dosed a few patients. That program is partnered with Novartis. So we're continuing to do the dose escalation. And we'll have to talk with our partner, Novartis, in this case, whether to disclose the data next year or not. But both programs are moving forward and they're going well.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#40

Got it. Okay. And then more broadly, in terms of just R&D productivity, is there an aspiration to add new programs into the earlier-stage pipeline next year? Or do you feel like you're now kind of more in execution mode with CARVYKTI and also some of these other programs?

Ying Huang

executive
#41

I think in the field of solid tumor, we would like to work on a few partially clinically validated targets, for example, Claudin 18.2, DLL-3, GPC3 and GCC for colorectal. And I think we're also working on a product that's preclinical phase that is targeting Claudin 6. So these are the solid tumor targets we're working, but we probably won't venture into many other targets because, as you know, there's not a lot of clinical proof of concept for CAR-T in solid tumor indications. But we're also putting a lot of effort in allogeneic development. So we're working on all 3 modalities: alpha-beta gene, gene editing and also non-gene editing approach and then gamma-delta gene and then NK. So we're working on all 3 different modalities in allogeneic. We still think it's worth trying. I know it's not easy, but it's worth trying. And then the last one being autoimmune indications here. So we're going to test both autologous and also allogeneic modality in this case. The reason is we don't believe you need durable presence of the CAR-T for, for example, lupus. Because once you have a very clean kill of the B cells that produce those auto antibodies, then you might need to reset the immune system, and that could potentially give you a very durable remission for lupus, right? So there are a few things we're looking at in terms of the autoimmune indications. But every disease is different, but we believe that in lupus, you don't necessarily need a durable presence of CAR-T. So in this case, maybe allogeneic modality actually can work as long as you achieve very clean and deep kill of those B cells. And that's where, by the way, we think CAR-T has one advantage compared to, let's say, bispecific antibodies because we know from our trials before that CAR-T can get into bone marrow. CAR-T can also get into lymph nodes, right, instead of only killing those cancer cells in the peripheral blood. I think that's one advantage of CAR-T therapy versus bispecific antibodies.

Vikram Purohit

analyst
#42

Got it. Got it. With that, we're actually out of time. That may be a good place to wrap up. Ying, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Thank you all.

Ying Huang

executive
#43

Thank you, Vikram.

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