Mineralys Therapeutics, Inc. ($MLYS)

Greetings, and welcome to the Mineralys Therapeutics Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Dan Ferry of LifeSci Advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. I would like to welcome everyone joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. This afternoon, after the close of market trading, we issued a press release providing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results and business updates. A replay of today's call will be available on the Investors section of our website approximately 1 hour after its completion. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call and webcast will contain forward-looking statements about the company. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in today's press release and our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Please note that these forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of today, March 12, 2026. Except as required by law, we specifically disclaim any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. I would now like to turn the call over to Jon Congleton, Chief Executive Officer of Mineralys Therapeutics.

Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results and corporate update conference call. I'm joined today by Adam Levy, our Chief Financial Officer; Dr. David Rodman, our Chief Medical Officer; and Eric Warren, our Chief Commercial Officer. I will begin with an overview of the business, our clinical programs and recent milestones, followed by Adam to review our fourth quarter financial results before we open up the call for your questions. We're pleased to have this opportunity to provide a corporate update as this call comes on the heels of our announcing the FDA's acceptance of the NDA for lorundrostat for the treatment of adult patients with hypertension in combination with other antihypertensive drugs. In connection with the acceptance, the FDA assigned a PDUFA target action date of December 22, 2026. This NDA submission followed a successful clinical program, which culminated in the completion of 5 positive clinical trials that consistently demonstrated clinically meaningful blood pressure reduction, 24-hour control and a favorable safety profile. This comprehensive data set has generated broad interest across the medical community, underscoring the significant clinical need in uncontrolled and resistant hypertension and the desire for innovative solutions that help patients meet their blood pressure goals. The NDA includes the positive data from the Launch-HTN and Advance-HTN pivotal trials as well as the proof-of-concept trial, Explore-CKD and our open-label extension trial, Transform-HTN. Each of these trials demonstrate that lorundrostat maintains a durable and clinically meaningful response across diverse patient populations, a key consideration for its potential as a new treatment for patients with hypertension. Uncontrolled and resistant hypertension remain major unmet needs, affecting over 20 million people in the United States and attributed to nearly 700,000 deaths per year. As we have noted previously, roughly 30% of all hypertension patients have dysregulated aldosterone. We are progressively seeing research and updated guidelines that highlight the need to identify and address aldosterone dysregulation in these patients. Our clinical data highlight the differentiated value of targeting aldosterone with an aldosterone synthase inhibitor like lorundrostat, especially when compared to current third and fourth-line treatment options. To catalyze the successful launch of lorundrostat, we have begun market access planning and payer engagement to ensure the value proposition of lorundrostat is understood and appreciated. We have also expanded our medical communications efforts. which will include increased peer-reviewed publications, a larger presence at scientific meetings and an expanded team of field-based medical science liaisons, which will support broader data dissemination for this potentially transformative therapy. These activities are intended to drive a rapid uptake of lorundrostat and feed into potential partnering opportunities. I would now like to briefly touch on the other development activities we're pursuing to enhance and extend the lorundrostat profile into hypertension with comorbid conditions, which are largely driven by inadequately controlled blood pressure and dysregulated aldosterone. Earlier this week, we issued a press release announcing the top line results of our exploratory trial, Explore-OSA. This 4-week trial, which enrolled 48 participants evaluated the safety and efficacy of lorundrostat in participants with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea and hypertension. This trial enrolled a high-risk population with an average body mass index of 38, an average apnea hypopnea Index or AHI of 48 and baseline systolic blood pressure of 142 millimeters of mercury. While lorundrostat did not demonstrate a clinically meaningful difference relative to placebo on the primary endpoint, AHI, the trial did show clinically meaningful reductions in blood pressure and a favorable safety profile in this population with difficult to control hypertension. In the preplanned parallel arm analysis of the first period, the trial demonstrated an 11.1 millimeter of mercury blood pressure reduction with lorundrostat and a 1.0 millimeter mercury reduction with placebo at 4 weeks. There was a 6.2 millimeter mercury placebo-adjusted reduction in blood pressure in the crossover analysis. Lorundrostat demonstrated a favorable safety profile and was well tolerated with no serum potassium excursions above 5.5 millimoles per liter. Our analysis is ongoing for other endpoints in the trial and will be reported in future publications or medical meetings. Our clinical development strategy has been and will continue to be focused on generating a comprehensive data set that reflects the complexities that physicians face when treating their hypertension patients. We remain focused on fulfilling our mission to develop lorundrostat as a potential best-in-class therapy for patients with uncontrolled or resistant hypertension. We believe the strength of the lorundrostat data generated to date and the significant clinical needs for uncontrolled and resistant hypertension offer substantial opportunity as we prepare for the upcoming milestones. We are continuing to evaluate further clinical development for lorundrostat in comorbidities and other potential indications. We will keep you informed on our progress as appropriate. I'll now turn the call over to Adam to review our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025.

Thank you, Jon. Good afternoon, everyone. Today, I will discuss select portions of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. Additional details can be found in our Form 10-K, which will be filed with the SEC today, March 12. We ended the year with cash, cash equivalents and investments of $656.6 million as of December 31, 2025, compared to $198.2 million as of December 31, 2024. We believe that our cash, cash equivalents and investments will be sufficient to fund our planned clinical trials and regulatory activities as well as support corporate operations into 2028. R&D expenses for the year ended December 31, 2025, were $132 million compared to $168.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. R&D expenses for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, were $24.4 million compared to $44.6 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. The annual decrease in R&D expenses was primarily driven by $49.3 million reduction in preclinical and clinical costs, largely attributable to the conclusion of lorundrostat pivotal program in the second quarter of 2025. The annual decrease was partially offset by increases of $9.9 million in compensation expenses resulting from headcount growth, higher salaries and accrued bonuses and increased stock-based compensation as well as $3 million in clinical supply, manufacturing and regulatory costs. G&A expenses were $38.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $23.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. G&A expenses were $13.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $7.2 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. The annual increase in G&A expenses was primarily attributable to $8.9 million in higher compensation expense driven by headcount growth, higher salaries and accrued bonuses and increased stock-based compensation. The annual increase was further attributable to $5.3 million in higher professional fees and $0.6 million in other general and administrative expenses. Total other income net was $16 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $14.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. Total other income net was $6 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $2.8 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. The annual increase was primarily attributable to higher interest earned on investments in money market funds in U.S. treasuries, resulting from higher average cash balances invested during the year ended December 31, 2025. Net loss was $154.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $177.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. Net loss was $32.2 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, compared to $48.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. The annual decrease was primarily attributable to factors impacting our expenses described earlier. With that, I will ask the operator to open the call for questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Michael DiFiore with Evercore ISI.

And congrats on all the continued progress. Two commercial questions for me. Now that the potential launch of lorundrostat is roughly 6 months behind your direct competitor, what are you hoping to learn from this competitive launch that would optimize the success of lorundrostat's launch? And second, could you offer any additional color on the prelaunch payer interactions you've been having? Like have there been any unexpected changes in anticipated coverage, et cetera?

Yes, Mike, thanks for the questions. We're obviously excited about the time line we're on now, the day 74 letter giving us the PDUFA date. We clearly see a significant market opportunity here with, as we've stated before, about 20 million patients in the United States alone dealing with uncontrolled and resistant hypertension. We're obviously aware that AstraZeneca potentially is going to be launching in the second quarter. I think there'll be some interesting things to identify as far as how they think about pricing, their footprint in the space. But fundamentally, we think this is a large market opportunity. There's certainly room for 2 novel therapeutics in what I think may be a transformative class overall. We clearly are very bullish on the profile that we've seen with lorundrostat with its best-in-class profile. As it relates to some of the dialogues that we've had with payers, we continue to feel bullish as it relates to access, particularly where we've targeted lorundrostat's use. That's that third line or later. We think resistant to hypertension is the natural opening space and with experience both from a physician standpoint and demand growing into the third-line usage. I think it's also important to point out, and I talked about it in my opening remarks, the comprehensive nature of the data set that we've built. When we think about resistant hypertension patients, it's rare that they're isolated to only be dealing with elevated blood pressure. There are so many comorbidities these patients are dealing with. Certainly, that's why we did the Explore-CKD study, It's why we did the Explore-OSA study. Even though we did not achieve a benefit on AHI, we know there's significant overlap, over 50% overlap with resistant hypertension and OSA. And so being able to show the kind of robust, safe benefit we have on blood pressure in this population, we think will have a significant translation into reduced cardiovascular risk for these patients.

And our next question comes from Rich Law with Goldman Sachs.

Congrats on the PDUFA date and getting the NDA accepted. A couple of questions from me. So when you look at the results from the Phase II OSA study, do you think the design limited lorundrostat's potential to show benefit in the AHI primary endpoint? I mean the study was much shorter than the historical MRA studies with only 4 weeks and you allow CPAP and PAP use. And then the study population was also different from MRA trials. So it's not clear to me if the study duration and design really tested lorundrostat's effects one way or the other. How confident are you on the finding? And where do you go from here with regards to OSA? And then I have a follow-up.

Yes, Rich, let me give you some opening thoughts, and I'll turn it to Dave. As I noted, the reason we did this study was because we think it's important for the prescribers they're going to be utilizing lorundrostat to have a clear sense of both efficacy and safety within these complex patients. And so being able to show a really robust reduction in BP and doing so safely in these patients that clearly are high risk, particularly the ones that we studied in Explore-OSA with the BMI over 38 with AHI over 48 when severe OSA is ticked off above 30. These are patients that have a pretty high cardiovascular risk when you compound that with elevated blood pressure. So for us, it was an important study to complete. Again, we believe that we're going to be able to operate with our existing label within this population, just given the fact that they have uncontrolled hypertension and elevated cardiovascular risk. But I'll have Dave talk about some of the design features and his thoughts.

Thanks for the question, Rich. Good thoughts. I have a couple of things I want to say. But first of all, directly, was it long enough? It's unclear. It could have taken longer than the 4 weeks, but I think there's probably a major interaction between that and the actual study population demographics. In other words, we saw these people were extremely obese. They had extremely high AHIs, close to 50, and their BMIs were 28 with many of them as high as 40.

38 on average.

I'm sorry, they're AHI.

AHI was 48, BMI 38, please.

Okay. Sorry, 38. You're right. And so we think the mechanism here, which is the mechanism is your fluid overloaded when you lay down, the fluid goes up into the veins of the neck and that further obstructs the airway. In this population, there's so much extra adipose tissue that it may be that, that compartment is already obstructing the airway enough just from that structural piece that you wouldn't see anymore with decreasing volume. So I think the thing to look at going forward, should we want to answer the question is take a more representative population similar to the ones that were used in studies like eplerenone and spironolactone and test it again. But I want to make a different point, if you can just give me a minute, which is this. We did this because we wanted to know about AHI mainly because that's the easier way to register a drug if you want to claim for treatment of OSA. But that's not necessarily our objective. Our objective is to know whether we're going to have a benefit on long-term outcomes in patients with OSA. And the interesting point is if you make AHI less than 5 with CPAP, it doesn't reduce your blood pressure and there's no compelling evidence that it makes your long-term cardiovascular outcomes any better. So it's really simply a way to look at the regulatory effect. On the other hand, the reduction in blood pressure we saw is comparable to -- is predicts rather, and the agency gives you sort of the claim for improved outcomes. And at the 10 millimeters of mercury that we saw in the point estimate analysis, that's been shown to have about a 17% incidence of reduced coronary heart disease, 27% of stroke and 28% of heart failure. So what we learned here was that we have the potential to be disease-modifying in sleep apnea. And as Jon mentioned, we can get to that point with the label we have, we're going to have already for treatment of uncontrolled resistant hypertension. It's been reported that 80% of these patients have uncontrolled or resistant hypertension. So that's the long and the short of it. We don't need to prove it works in AHI because our objective isn't to make a therapy for upper airway obstruction, it's to make a therapy that makes these people live longer, better lives.

Okay. Got it. And then just to kind of -- for my second question, I know you guys are still exploring the partnership. But with the PDUFA date now set in December, which is about 9 months from now, can you discuss like what kind of commercial capability have you been building? And how large is that commercial team now? And what commercial hires are you still holding back while you're continuing to explore the partnership? And then is there any urgency to build a full commercial capability now in case a partnership may not occur until after the PDUFA date?

Yes. Thanks, Rich. I'll take you back 5 years ago, we've always made discrete investment choices that support this molecule and put it in its best position to deliver value for the most appropriate patients possible. And so early days, that was CMC, that was ClinPharm. Where we're at now is we're making those right investment choices. We began this late last year, as you're aware, we're continuing that now to ensure that we're preparing the market. And so that's why Eric and his team are beginning to have dialogues with payers. It's why we're expanding our medical affairs capabilities from continued data dissemination. I mean we have just a wealth of clinical data that we've accumulated last year and even as recently as the Explore-OSA that we're going to continue to put in the public forum via medical meetings and publications. We're expanding our MSL team. I don't want to give numbers, Rich, other than to say we're continuing to do everything we can to ensure a rapid uptake on the potential approval of lorundrostat for uncontrolled and resistant hypertension. And I think fundamentally, that's the right thing for us to do because it also becomes very informative and potentially catalyzes those partnering dialogues. And we've heard that from potential partners, but we need to make sure that we're continuing to invest in this asset. So upon approval, it does have a rapid uptake and a rapid launch.

We'll go next to Seamus Fernandez with Guggenheim Partners.

So just a follow-up on the commercial side of things. Can you just help us understand what you believe the number of reps would be to launch the lorundrostat effectively versus AstraZeneca? And do you envision having a sort of differentiated approach to market than Astra, if there is a differentiated approach, what would that be?

Yes. I don't know that I'll give you a specific number, Seamus, and we're continuing to evaluate that. But as you've heard us say before, when we look at where we've developed this molecule third line or later and in the United States, who prescribes there, it's about 60,000 physicians that are responsible for half of the scripts third line or later. So that's kind of a broad way to look at the market. I don't want to give too much on our intended commercial strategy. But I will say that if you look at the comprehensive data set that we have, Advance-HTN confirmed hypertension, that was the study we did with the Cleveland Clinic, Explore-CKD that looks at hypertension and comorbid chronic kidney disease. And then if you look at the OSA population and the data that just came out of the Explore-OSA, that's going to begin to inform how we think about subsegments of physicians that are treating specific types of hypertension with related comorbidities. And so we'll begin to look at the broad IMS data, but then also in the context of these subsegments that we think can give us rapid uptake within the resistant hypertension population and then with experience, move rapidly into third line as well.

Great. And then maybe just as a follow-up, is there kind of a timing-related dynamic? How much of a derisking event, not just for Mineralys but perhaps for strategics, would you say the availability, the assignment of a PDUFA date actually is broadly speaking?

Yes. I think each step along this journey there's a level of derisking and a level of increasing value. That began last year with the readout of advance and launch. It continued with the submission of the NDA last year. I think the day 74, both acceptance of and PDUFA date for lorundrostat further derisks the molecule and brings value nearer term. Maybe related to that, when is an ideal time to identify a partnership. I think that these partnerships, they have a life of their own, a time line of their own. Our goal is to really identify a means to generate the greatest value with lorundrostat, which means getting the molecule in front of the most appropriate patients in the United States and in due course outside of the United States. So those are all of the things that go into the calculus as we think about maximizing the value of lorundrostat through partnering.

Moving next to Jason Gerberry with Bank of America.

Just wanted to quickly follow up on the payer access discussions. I think the comment was maybe favorable access with a certain segment of payers. So I was wondering if you can expand upon that a little bit and just get a sense of your confidence in breadth of quality coverage, 3L plus as I guess, you've articulated in the past. And then one CFO question here. Just -- from an R&D perspective, thinking about 2026 R&D relative to 2025, should we be thinking about, I don't know, cash burn mitigation effort? Or is 2025 a good run rate for the company? And then last one for me is just on the OUS regulatory submissions, -- apologies if I missed this in past commentary from you guys, but is that in any way gated at all by the partnership discussions? Just if you can give us a sense of when you anticipate the OUS submissions?

Yes. Thanks. Let me maybe give some quick thought on payer, and then I'll have Eric add some additional color. We've done a great deal of research in this area. Obviously, it's probably one of the most critical vectors to ensure that we get lorundrostat to the appropriate patients with as few barriers as possible. I think we continue to feel very strong about the value proposition of lorundrostat, the need, specifically in the resistant hypertension population. And so we believe that both the combination of appropriate price and rebate is going to create that access. But Eric, I don't know if you want to add some additional thoughts. I know your team continues to work aggressively on this.

Yes. Yes. And Jason, I'm just back from a large payer conference in Orlando PCMA, where the team was engaging Medicare as well as commercial payers. I will say we're on their radar. They're very well aligned with the positioning that Jon spoke of. And we're now in the midst of scheduling these pre-approval information exchange or PI discussions. So we've got a favorable footprint and interaction kind of cadence with payers.

And then, Jason, I think to your second question, Adam, do you want to add some thoughts?

So Jason, we haven't intended to give guidance on R&D, but I can tell you that in 2025, we're running a number of trials. We had Launch-HTN, Advance-HTN, Explore-CKD for part of that year, Explore-OSA plus the open-label extension. So it was a heavy lift on R&D for us in 2025. When you roll into 2026, we've been wrapping up the costs on the OSA trial. We still have the open-label extension running. There may be other R&D that we decide to do this year, but I would expect that there's less R&D activity in 2026 than we had in 2025, at least current to our existing plans. Does that help?

And Jason, to your last question, if I recall it right, ex U.S. and how do partnerships play within that. As we've spoken about in the past, our goal is certainly to try to get lorundrostat to as many patients in the United States as well as outside of the United States as appropriate. We know there are some complexities right now between MFN and tariffs that we're continuing to evaluate. Partnering may play a role in that, and it may play a role beyond just a co-promotion. This is where co-development becomes an interesting opportunity. I think David and his team have done such an excellent job of characterizing lorundrostat, not just in hypertension, but in so many of these related comorbidities that, that creates an opportunity for us to assess what is the appropriate way to introduce lorundrostat outside of the United States? Is it as a monotherapy? Is it potentially in a fixed-dose combination strategy? Those are still things we're evaluating. And once we've made a solid plan relative to that, we'll certainly be communicating that.

Moving on to Annabel Samimy with Stifel.

Just a little bit more on the commercial side. Maybe you can help -- I know it's probably too early to talk about pricing. But is there any scenario where the competitor can angle for third line while you're putting yourself in fourth line first? Are you thinking about the possibility of using pricing as a competitive lever? And what kind of things do you need to do to get yourself into third line? And then as a follow-up to that, just with Explore-CKD and Explore-OSA, are you actually seeking to put it in the label as a differentiating feature or just have the data available for presentation and publication?

Yes. I think it's too early to give you too much specificity on pricing. I can't really speak to where AstraZeneca may go from a pricing line of treatment approach. I can tell you, as Eric kind of alluded to and I did in my prior comments that based on the research we've done with payers right now, the value proposition of lorundrostat certainly resonates fourth line with some payers even third line. I think it's going to be, as I noted, a beachhead at fourth line. That's clearly where there's unmet need. That's clearly where the value proposition resonates. And with experience and demand, I think that begins to open up third line. We've talked in the past, Annabel, that as guidance or frame for pricing. We've always directed to probably more of an SGLT2-branded price point, Entresto price point broadly at a WACC, but haven't guided as it relates to rebates. To your second question, as I noted in my prepared remarks, we do anticipate having. Explore-CKD as part of the NDA application. That will be part of a negotiation what portion of that data may be reflected within the label. We believe that the blood pressure reduction data from Explore-CKD is informative for prescribers, and that will be part of our positioning from a negotiation standpoint. Explore OSA was not part of the original NDA application. It may be part of continued safety updates but the actual data was not available at the time the NDA submission was made. But we do think both of those trials will be very informative to the medical community. We will be using medical meetings, publications and our medical science liaison team to certainly convey the important messages contained within both of those studies.

Okay. And is there any possibility to share other comorbidities you might be interested in exploring that could be particularly impacted by hypertension lowering agents?

Yes. I think I'd go a little bit deeper than hypertension agents, very specifically aldosterone-driven conditions. When we talk about 30% of hypertension patients have dysregulated aldosterone, I think by extension, that goes into other conditions like CKD, like OSA, as David has spoken about before. Heart failure, we've mentioned is a place where clearly aldosterone plays a significant role in the risk profile of those patients. There are some other indications that we continue to look at that we haven't really spoken about yet. But as I said in a previous response to a question, we believe that there are significant opportunities. Some of those are ones that we would pursue on our own. I think some of those others are ones that we've thought about having partnering involvement with. But at it's clearly at this stage, lorundrostat, extremely well characterized for what it does to aldosterone and how it safely addresses that, and we think it opens up a lot of other opportunities. And as we said in the remarks, as we solidify those development plans, we'll be sure to convey those to the market.

And our next question will come from Mohit Bansal with Wells Fargo.

Congrats on all the progress. Just one question. Just trying to double-click on the 60,000 prescriber number, Jon, you mentioned. Wondering like is this primary care heavy or these are specialists that you would be targeting? And then what sort of role direct-to-consumer marketing type of mechanism could play for a market like this?

Yes. Mohit, I think it's important that there's 2 vectors that Eric and his team are looking at, and it's the broad prescriber data that everybody can look at the IQVIA data, and that's where the 60,000 is a broad target comes from. It's about a 60-40 split primary care specialty, the bulk of the specialty being cardiologists. But then there's another vector that we're looking at this, and that is for those resistant hypertension patients with comorbidities, who's managing those patients. So hypertension and CKD, hypertension and OSA, confirmed hypertension and even the Black or African-American population because we know we have done a considerable job to make sure we have proper representation within our clinical trials. And so we're taking the broad macro data from a prescribing standpoint, but also informing that with primary market research to see where are the true targets that can really ensure that we're getting lorundrostat as rapidly to as many appropriate patients as possible. And I'm sorry, I think you had a second part of your question, Mohit?

Yes. So yes, thank you for this. The second part was more about the direct-to-consumer marketing sort of mechanism. Like what sort of a role it could play for a company like yours?

Yes. I don't know that we're in a position quite yet to talk about the consumer strategy. But obviously, we want to be speaking to patients, reiterating the importance of getting their blood pressure under control, seeking different means to do that, whether it's diet exercise or therapeutics and the benefit specifically of lorundrostat, particularly if they have overlapping comorbidities where we have data that can speak to the opportunity for lorundrostat to help them get to goal and subsequently have hopefully longer lives and better lives.

We'll go next to Rami Katkhuda with LifeSci Capital.

I guess I know it was a small study, but did you observe any differential treatment effects in blood pressure reductions or AHI across any kind of key subgroups in Explore-OSA? And I guess, a particular focus in those receiving and not receiving CPAP? And then maybe secondly, I know you touched upon potential future indications. Is the goal to be first-in-class for those indications? Or are they large enough similar to hypertension where it doesn't matter?

I'll let Dave answer the first part, and then I'll address your second one on other indications. Rami?

Thanks, Rami. So we're in the midst of examining deeper into the data. And one of the things we're doing right now is looking at your question of subsets. You're right, it is a small trial. So it will be hypothesis generating more than proving hypotheses, but that's still really useful. And we intend to present that kind of analysis at future publications and meeting presentations. So just stay tuned for that. In terms of the CPAP, about 1/3 of the subjects or 1/4 were on CPAP, and we didn't see any difference between those groups. But again, they're pretty small numbers. So I don't want to hang my hat on that.

Yes. And Rami, to your follow-up question as it related to -- go ahead. Would you repeat it for me one more time? I want to make sure I address it specifically.

Yes. I just wanted to check in and see if those indications, the goal is to be first-in-class there? Or could you kind of pursue larger indications? I know you mentioned heart failure where they're large enough to encompass multiple winners here in the ASI class.

Yes. I think what our intent is to not be a follower. And what do I mean by that? We know that dapagliflozin is going to be generic potentially this year. I think some of what's being done with the ASIs tend to be more life cycle management combined with an SGLT2. I don't know that we're looking to frankly get into that mud fight. I think there's going to be ample opportunity and with the data that we have for physicians to use lorundrostat with the SGLT2 of choice if patients have an overlapping comorbidity like CKD with their hypertension. As I noted in a previous response, we know that dysregulated aldosterone plays a significant role across the spectrum of cardiorenal metabolic disorders. That's what's informing how we think about where is the white space, where is the opportunity for us to take what we believe to be the best-in-class aldosterone synthase inhibitor and either alone or in some distinct combinations, bringing forward solutions for those patients.

And going next to Dennis Ding with Jefferies.

This is Georgia Bank on the line for Dennis Ding. Maybe a little bit more on the potential partnerships. And if you could talk about what an ideal partnership looks like in terms of capabilities and also creative deal structuring. Obviously, the commercial infrastructure is important, but what other nuances are important to you, maybe in terms of R&D funding or bigger indications and payer relationships. I know that you mentioned that there's opportunity in pursuing some indications on your own and others involved maybe partnering it on. Any color there would be helpful.

Thanks, Georgia. No, it's a good question, and I will repeat what I've said in the past, we would love to find a partner that sees the opportunity with lorundrostat the way we do. And how is that? And that is with a best-in-class aldosterone synthase inhibitor in the near term, generating significant value for patients, for physicians and for the health care community at large and helping to control uncontrolled and resistant hypertension, but then also more broadly fully realizing the value of the asset from a development standpoint. So co-development, I'm not going to talk about what kind of deal structures that would look like, but really extending the value of lorundrostat beyond hypertension and some of its related comorbidities. And then within that becomes addressing the complexity that exists just right now with branded assets that you want to get into the hands of patients outside of the United States. And so it's really what's been informing the dialogues that we've had is finding a partner that thinks more holistically about the opportunity. As we've stated before, lorundrostat has excellent IP out to 2035 patent term extension probably to 2039. There's a significant time period there to fully realize the value of this asset and bring that value to patients.

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Jon Congleton for closing comments.

Thank you, operator. We believe the strength of the clinical results for lorundrostat show the potential benefit for uncontrolled and resistant hypertension and those related comorbidities. This is an exciting time for our team, the patients with hypertension who may benefit from treatment with lorundrostat, the physicians and researchers that have worked so hard in support of bringing lorundrostat through our clinical trial program and our shareholders. We look forward to sharing updates with you in the coming quarters. And with that, I'll say thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. We'll now close the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.