NovaBridge Biosciences (NBP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 2022 JPMorgan Global Healthcare Conference. I'm Lingling Chen from China healthcare investment banking team. And today, we are very honored without Dr. Jingwu Zang from I-Mab biopharma to present at our conference. I-Mab is a biopharmaceutical company committed to the discovery, development and commercialization of novel or highly differentiated biologics. Since its establishment, I-Mab has experienced tremendous growth and has developed an innovative pipeline of over 10 clinical stage assets. The company has also been listed on the NASDAQ since January 2020. Our speaker today, Dr. Jingwu Zang is the Founder and Chairman of the company with over 30 years of experience in the academia and industry. Now I'll pass the stage on to Dr. Zang for the presentation. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jingwu Zang, Founder, Chairman and the Acting CEO of I-Mab. First of all, I'd like to thank you all for joining this virtual meeting today. This is a great opportunity for me to introduce I-Mab and report to you the remarkable progress that we have made in 2021 and exciting outlook for 2022. Now on Slide 3, I-Mab has focused on discovery, development, manufacturing and some commercialization of innovative biologics of first-in-class, best-in-class potential in the therapeutic area of immuno-oncology. There are really 4 highlighted aspects to best describe I-Mab. First, our innovation is global, and that innovation is our differentiation. I-Mab has always been focused on innovative biologics or first-in-class, best-in-class potential in the therapeutic area of immuno-oncology because our R&D strength is in immuno-oncology. Our innovation is best represented by novel or highly differentiated monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies and recently, by technology-enabled super antibodies. For example, lemzoparlimab and uliledlimab are among the global front runners and differentiated from competitor compounds. I will elaborate further in this exact page. Second, our pipeline is global and is not only innovative but also advanced. It is comprised of 20 clinical and preclinical assets. 7 clinical assets are being evaluated in 15 Phase II or Phase III clinical trials in the U.S. and China, including 4 registrational trials in 2022. Third, our business is global. Over the years, we have established more than 20 business partnerships, including in-licensing our licensing and co-development. Throughout our licensing, we have generated a revenue stream of $1 billion in cash to be realized through 2025 via upfront payments and milestone payments. These large transactions have further validated the innovative nature and the value of I-Mab's assets. Fourth, our ambition is to become a global biopharma with a global R&D and manufacturing and commercialization capabilities. We started as a discovery company in 2016 and are now global clinical stage biotech. We're well underway to become a global biopharma in a few years. Now on Slide #3. I-Mab's pipeline is designed to address the current unmet medical needs in the oncology therapeutic area. That is the majority of the cancer patients do not or poorly respond to PD-1, PD-L1 therapies. As you can see on this slide, if ORR 30% is used as a cutoff, the majority of cancer patients fall below this 30% response line. These cancer patients seem to have a so-called immune-suppressive cold tumors that respond poorly to immunotherapies. Therefore, there's a huge unmet medical need for new therapies that can overcome tumor resistance to immunotherapy. On Slide #5. At I-Mab, we rely on our immunology expertise and drug development experience to design and develop monoclonal and a bispecific therapeutic antibodies capable of mobilizing or activating the immune network to fight against the cancers or turning cold tumors to hot tumors for a better treatment effect. These novel or highly differentiated antibodies are now in various stages of clinical trials. On Slide #6, I-Mab's innovation comes in 3 waves. The first wave is represented a highly differentiated monoclonal antibodies such as lemzoparlimab, CD47 antibody, uliledlimab, CD73 antibody and others. They are currently in Phase II clinical trials globally. The second wave is comprised of novel bispecific antibodies, the most advanced in Phase I clinical trials, and they are followed by the third wave, even more innovative assets that are enabled only by transformative technologies such as messenger RNA technology, cell-penetrating Alphabody technology, locally activated Probody technology and AI protein design technology. [ This ] represents the most innovative antibodies that are only enabled by cutting-edge technologies. On Slide #7, our current pipeline is comprised of 10 clinical stage assets that are either novel or highly differentiated, including monoclonal antibodies and bispecific antibodies. Now there are 2 important features about this pipeline. The first feature is about the innovative nature of the pipeline. As you can see, the pipeline is very innovative with lemzoparlimab, CD47 antibody and uliledlimab, CD73 antibody being global frontrunners and highly differentiated from the competitor compounds. In 2022, we will have clinical data readouts for both assets, and we are very excited about that. We aim to move forward with lemzoparlimab potentially to start 2 registrational trials in China in 2022. Other clinical assets such as TJ107, our long-acting Interleukin-7 and enoblituzumab, B7-H3 monoclonal antibody have also come to play in Phase II or proof-of-concept clinical trials. Further, C5a receptor antibody and bispecific antibodies are now in clinical trials as newcomers. There are more to come in 2022, 2023 from the current pool of innovative preclinical stage assets. Now the other feature is that this pipeline is quite advanced among 20 clinical programs that are ongoing or start soon. 15 are Phase II or Phase III clinical trials, including 4 registrational trials for felzartamab, eftan and potentially lemzoparlimab by the end 2022. So the pipeline is well positioned with 3 key assets, including the 2 hematologic malignancy assets in registrational trials in 2022, 5 key assets in Phase II proof-of-concept clinical trials and 3 assets in early-stage clinical trials. So we are very excited about the potential of this innovative pipeline. Now 2 examples on Slide #8. The first example is the lemzoparlimab, CD47 antibody. The molecule is differentiated by design to avoid bonding to regular cells while maintaining strong antitumor activity. This molecular differentiation translates to clinical advantages that are being validated. Over 100 patients have been treated so far with lemzoparlimab. We have seen some of the clinical advantages when lemzoparlimab is administered without the need of a priming dose in terms of clinical safety, without hemolytic anemia, no sink effect and promising antitumor activity in multiple clinical trials so far. On Slide #9, we are running 3 clinical programs with lemzoparlimab for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, AML/MDS and solid tumors. Our global partner, AbbVie, is running 2 clinical programs globally. As I mentioned earlier, based on the clinical data being generated, we hope to start 2 registrational trials in MDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2022. Our ambition, of course, is to get lemzoparlimab registered as the first CD47 antibody in China and work together with AbbVie to facilitate global registration. On Slide #10, uliledlimab is another example. It is also among the global front runners with its own differentiation. The molecule is differentiated by design to recognize a unique epitope that is not associated with the hook effect to avoid an abnormal PK/PD relationship. Our initial clinical results are very promising in terms of safety, PK/PD and early efficacy signals. We have determent RP2D and are running in parallel 2 clinical trials for solid tumors in both U.S. and China. There will be a data readout event in 2022, and we are looking forward to that. On Slide #11, in 2021, we have made remarkable progress in pipeline development. We have achieved 21 key clinical milestones, including successful completion of third-line registrational trial for felzartamab ready for BLA submission. We also achieved a number of BD milestones. These achievements have set a very strong foundation for 2022. So 2022 will be an even more exciting year in terms of pipeline development. On Slide #12, as I mentioned earlier, our pipeline is quite advanced with felzartamab and lemzoparlimab for hem-oncology progressing towards registration. We're positioned in the 2 hematologic oncology key assets for commercialization that will take place in the near term. So our strategy is to position lemzoparlimab and felzartamab in combination with other treatment agents to cover the 3 major hematologic malignancy indications, including multiple myeloma, leukemia, AML/MDS and lymphoma as a second treatment option and potentially first-line treatment options. In parallel, we're in the process of building our core commercialization team under the leadership of Mr. Zhu in sync with a product registration [ power ]. On Slide #13, just a few more words on the corporate side of things. we have achieved over 20 global and domestic business partnerships and transactions. This includes in-licensing our licensing co-development deals. The most notable deals are lemzoparlimab deals with AbbVie for $1.94 billion in 2021 and eftan deal with Jumpcan for $350 million in 2022. These deals have further validated I-Mab's capability as a global innovative biotech and have generated a cash stream of around $1 billion of cash to be realized through 2025, which is quite unique for our clinical stage biotech. We will continue executing more similar deals as we promised to the market. On Slide #14, in terms of capital market listings, I-Mab was listed on NASDAQ in January 2020. We recently announced that we will prioritize and accelerate our Hong Kong Exchange new listing process to provide more flexibility to our investors especially the international investors. We hope to complete the listing in 2022, and we will report our progress as we move forward. On Slide #15, as a global biotech, we have built our global footprint in U.S. and China. Our headquarter is in Shanghai with R&D facilities and our sites in multiple cities in U.S. and China. Our manufacturing facility is being built in Hangzhou. We are building a new R&D center in San Diego, which will open in early 2022. In addition, our commercialization capability is also being built to prepare for our first product launch in 2023. On Slide #16, I-Mab has emerged rapidly from a discovery start-up in 2016. We're now a global clinical stage biotech with an innovative and advanced pipeline of 20 clinical and preclinical assets moving towards registration. We have generated a revenue stream of $1 billion in cash to be realized through 2025. We're now well underway to become a global biopharma with manufacturing and commercialization capabilities in 2024. We're growing at a very fast pace, and we're very excited and take pride of what we have achieved so far. Now on Slide #17, I just want to say, 2022 is an even more exciting year for I-Mab. We have set to achieve a series of high-impact and value generating milestones or catalysts. We will strive to achieve 20 clinical milestones, including start of registrational trials for lemzoparlimab, clinical data readouts and clinical trial starts. As a result, our pipeline will have advanced to include full registrational trials, 11 Phase II clinical trials, 3 Phase I clinical trials and 7 to 10 preclinical programs by the end of 2022. In addition, we will deliver the key corporate milestones, including the BD deals that we have been working on. As always, we will strive to deliver what we promise to create value for the company and our shareholders. So thank you for your attention, and have a great day.