PureTech Health plc (PRTC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

January 5, 2021

London Stock Exchange GB Health Care Biotechnology conference_presentation 44 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Amy Walker

analyst
#1

Hello, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. My name is Amy Walker. I'm the covering analyst at Peel Hunt on PureTech Health. And today, I'm delighted to introduce to you 2 members of the executive team at PureTech. We have Bharatt Chowrira who has joined us. He is President and Chief Business Strategy at PureTech since March 2017 and prior to that, Bharatt held various C-suite positions and senior leadership positions as a number of biotech and pharma companies, Merck & Co, Nektar Therapeutics, Auspex Pharmaceuticals and others to name a few. And we're also delighted to have with us Eric Elenko, who is Chief Innovation Officer at PureTech. And Eric has led a number of PureTech's highly successful programs including Akili, Gelesis and Karuna and others that he will speak about this afternoon and evening. And he was formerly a consultant with McKinsey specializing in the pharmaceutical sector. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us and for taking the time. For the people who dialed in as participants, just a reminder, If you send an e-mail through the details that you've been provided, that will come through to me, and I will be able to ask questions to Bharatt and Eric during the course of the session this evening. But to kick us off, Eric and for Bharatt, I thought you could just give us a 5 minutes of introduction into PureTech, what it is, how it came about, the philosophy, just a very high-level overview, and then we can kick off with some Q&A.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#2

Great. Excellent Thanks, Amy. Thank you for inviting us to your conference. Happy New Year to everyone. Before we start, just also wanted to remind everyone, we'll be making some forward-looking statements today. So please do refer to our filings for updates on the progress. So for those of you who are not familiar with PureTech, we are a biotherapeutics company based here in Boston. Company was founded several years ago by our CEO, Daphne Zohar and Eric, who's been with the company almost since the beginning. And our focus has been to develop new medicines around the dysfunctions of the brain, the immune system and the GI tract, what we call the BIG systems, brain, immune, gut systems, and the interconnectivity between these 3 systems. And we have a very unique approach to addressing dysfunctions of the brain, the immune system and the gut. We start with the problem we're trying to address within underlying disease, and then we bring together key opinion leaders and experts from around the world to really kind of brainstorm and try and figure out the most innovative way to address the given problem. And those that -- from those discussions, we come up with a half dozen or so solutions, and then we go out and try and work with academics and other people who may be working on one or more of those solutions. And then we auction them in, bring it in-house, we do the early derisking experiments to essentially kind of kill the hypothesis, and those that survive that derisking experiment become programs in our pipeline. And in the early days of PureTech when Daphne and Eric founded this company, we didn't have a lot of capital to fund these programs. We had more ideas than we could fund. So we came up with this really innovative model where we would house each one of our programs in a separate independent wholly owned subsidiary within PureTech umbrella. And we would fund those selectively, and we would partner with venture capital and other investors to advance these programs individually within each one of these founded entities. And over time, as these programs matured and we brought in more external capital to advance these programs, our ownership interest would then get reduced. We have currently 10 of these founded entities with various degrees of ownership interest. In some cases, we're also co-inventors because, as I mentioned earlier, we start these programs essentially from scratch. And in a number of cases, we're also co-inventors in these original concepts. So we're also eligible for royalties and product sales for some of these programs. So we have 9 of these founded entities, and we advance them, and we have equity positions in each one of these founded entities. And about 4 years ago or so, as we got good at launching these really innovative programs and our cash position improved, we decided rather than partnering with external investors, we decided to keep these new programs internally and fund them ourselves and advance them further into development versus trying to find outside investors. So we started building this internal pipeline and focused around an aspect of the BIG access, which is immunology-focused with a specific lens of the lymphatic system, and we'll talk more about that during the course of this session. So we have a growing pipeline that we'll talk about in a few minutes. And they are at clinical stage. And they're focused on really some serious dysfunctions of the immune system and the lymphatics, and we are advancing those programs internally. We wholly own that. And the future value drivers for PureTech is going to be driven by these programs in the wholly owned internal pipeline. And the equity position that we have in the 9 of these founded entities are going to be a source of capital to PureTech that we can use to fund -- continue to fund these programs as we move forward. So I'll pause there. We have a strong balance sheet. We have about $357 million or so in capital. And so we're well funded. We have runway through first -- into first quarter of 2024, is what we have guided. And so we have a strong cash position, and we continue to execute. We had a phenomenal 2020 in terms of execution and achieving different milestones, and we look forward to an exciting 2021. So I'll just pause there. I don't know, Eric, if you wanted to add.

Eric Elenko

executive
#3

Again, great to be here at the conference, and thank you again for the invite. The only thing maybe I'll add to what Bharatt was saying is, a lot of our recent interesting focus has been on the lymphatic system. We think this is an area where there is a lot of potential and perhaps, hasn't been appreciated as much as we think it deserves to be appreciated. The lymphatic system has 3 major functions, maintaining the balance of fluid, educating and trafficking of immune cells and absorption of dietary lipids. And if you look at our internal pipeline that Bharatt was describing, you see these various aspects, the lymphatic system reflected either in terms of trying to address some sort of fundamental pathophysiology. For instance, LYT-100, one of the areas of interest is lymphedema; or LYT-200, this is our immuno-oncology program; LYT-300, which is an oral version of allopregnanolone comes out of our lymphatic targeting platform. And the idea there is that we're -- have potential to make something really bioavailable through lymphatic targeting and avoiding first pass metabolism.

Amy Walker

analyst
#4

Thank you, both. I think just before we start diving to some of the details of those upcoming value drivers in the internal wholly owned pipeline, I wonder if I can get you just to give a flavor of the success that PureTech's already had to date. The two things that people ask me about when I present the equity case to investors are: how can we have confidence, given the diversity of the pipeline that PureTech will allocate capital effectively? And I know that there have been some instances where you've had to kill early, so if you can address that, that would be great. And then, of course, on the other side of the coin, there have been some tremendous successes, Bharatt, alluded to how much cash you have available. And I always think that the Karuna story is particularly impressive one. So I don't know, Eric or Bharatt, which if you wanted to take those, I think those are 2 things often give investors comfort around the capital allocation and the degree of success you've already achieved clinically.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#5

Yes. I can start, and Eric, feel free to jump in, right, so. You're right, I mean, the cash position, as I mentioned earlier, we have a strong cash position. In fact, the number is $387.2 million cash as of last year. And so -- and out of that, we were quite successful in monetizing a small stake in our ownership interest in Karuna, almost $350 million or so we were able to monetize last year. Which we were able to bring back into the company. And we still own over 12% of equity in Karuna in addition to being eligible for some royalties on product sales when they do launch their products. So -- and so -- and we're still the second largest shareholder in Karuna. So this kind of a model is a very attractive model in terms of starting these programs, helping them grow and then bringing in some really good management team to advance these programs. And we have done that with a pretty good track record, and that's kind of highlighted in this slide here. We have currently 24 product and product candidates, out of which 13 of them are clinical stage and 2 of them have gone all the way to FDA clearance as well as cleared approval in the EU. And these were 2 of the programs that we started from scratch and helped all the way reach that major milestone, which is quite remarkable for a small biotech. Very few biotechs can really plan to have taken anything into Phase III, let alone all the way to FDA approval, and so we have been quite successful, good track record. And compared to the industry average, we've had a really good, what we call in the U.S. baseball analogy, good batting average compared to the industry. So -- and we continue to use that same track record of innovation and execution that we had to bring to bear on our internal wholly owned pipeline. And because the way we grow up as a company with very little capital initially, we are very capital efficient in terms of how we advance these programs. And because we have the diversity of programs, the success and failure of any single program does not necessarily affect the overall value of the business because we have quite a few quality, again, using the hockey analogy, shots on goal, right? So -- and so we have the opportunity to not only advance these innovative programs, but also be capital efficient. And in addition, we're very disciplined, right, so we can actually move the resources around depending on, if certain programs are not working as well, we can quickly move that capital to other programs that are showing more promise. And so we can be very disciplined and not be too emotionally attached to any single given program and deploy capital as needed to the programs that are showing more promise, so...

Amy Walker

analyst
#6

And I remember, and I know Eric was intimately involved in the inception of Karuna, and the reason I bring Karuna up is because we're about to talk about LYT-100. And I know that in the past, you have mentioned in terms of the philosophy and the origination of the LYT-100 program, the resonance that, that has with Karuna in terms of both came out of ideas in a different part of the pharmaceutical industry. I think, Eric, can you -- maybe you can remind us the returns numbers on the Karuna case study that we go were pretty phenomenal. Just as a leader into talking to LYT-100, I don't know, if you'd like to expand on that?

Eric Elenko

executive
#7

Yes. Absolutely. So in Karuna is a good case study. Now in this case, as Bharatt was mentioning, we started literally from a blank sheet of paper. I think Karuna right now has a market cap. I think that's like, I think, something like USD 2.6 billion, something like that. somewhere around there. We are the second biggest shareholder despite monetizing, let's say, fairly considerable sum of money. You see on the slide here. But really, the key here was the unmet need, the fact that there has been a new drug in terms of novel pharmacological mechanism of action, arguably in 60 years. And that when we got together a group of experts sort of brainstorm with them. If they could do anything, what would it be, which led to the identification of xanomeline developed by Lilly. But the challenge with that drug was adverse events, and that's why it didn't go forward. And PureTech came up with its KarXT combination of combining xanomeline with trospium chloride. The idea is to get the therapeutic effect in the brain, but you can damp down the side effects in the periphery. And then we did the critical derisking experiment there, which was a Phase I study showing viscoelasticity concept, can in fact, dampen down the side effects associated with xanomeline. And then started to build out the companies. We had Steve Paul joined as CEO, who -- phenomenal drug developer in the psychiatric space, really, arguably the top person developing psychiatric drugs. Great track record. Previously, at Lilly, and did financing. The company went public. And then following a Phase II study, the market cap increased quite significantly. And so the original hypothesis that we had during this company, I think, has really shown itself to be correct thus far in the clinic. And really kind of what the key is here, starting from scratch, unmet need and then having the pharmacology and people improve now, but having an issue, in this case, safety, which we wanted to address. And we'll talk about LYT-100, but that's really the analogy. In case of LYT-100, there's a drug where the pharmacology in terms of the effect in people is something where there's a lot of data, right? So -- but we can get more into that. But what we're really addressing is -- and the innovation here is addressing the tolerability, pharmacokinetic issues, which we think could really open the door in terms of use of LYT-100. So there are actually a lot of analogies between Karuna and LYT-100. And so to your point, everything we did with these founded entities, we're doing exact same, but we're doing it with our internal pipeline.

Amy Walker

analyst
#8

Fantastic. Well, yes, if you can duplicate the success of Karuna with LYT-100, I think that would be phenomenal. That's a great launching point for talking about LYT-100 in a bit more detail. I mean we've touched briefly there on 2 key themes, which are safety and unmet medical needs. But I know that we've got some slides, which I think help guide us through the story quite nicely. So maybe just to set the scene for those who are not familiar with what deuteration and deupirfenidone is and why it's better than the on-market drug. I'll let you expand on that, Eric and Bharatt.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#9

Go ahead, Eric?

Eric Elenko

executive
#10

Great. So the origin story here, again, really similar to this idea starting with a blank sheet of paper. In this case, we're interested in how do we treat lymphedema. This is the major disorder of the lymphatic system, which manifests itself in terms of swelling, typically of limb, and arm or leg, generally caused by complications associated with a treatment of cancer cell, radiation, surgery, that sets off a cycle of inflammation and fibrosis. Current treatments are purely mechanical. There are no approved drugs. So it's wrapping of bandages and there's this massage technique to push fluid out the limb, but of course, the fluid unfortunately comes right back down the limb. As you can imagine, this is a disease which causes distress for patients in terms of loss of mobility, discomfort and can lead to more serious complications like cellulitis. We identified work that was unpublished at the time coming from Babak Mehrara's lab, Memorial Sloan Kettering, kind of the free proactive approach. And what's the standard model of lymphedema, he had shown that pirfenidone had a really nice effect in this model. Pirfenidone is an approved drug for use in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or IPF. Sells over $1 billion a year. The challenge with the drug really is adverse events. About half of people will either dose down, switch therapies or discontinue therapies. And as you can imagine, as we thought about this opportunity, we're like, okay, especially when you have a chronic condition like lymphedema, that could be problematic. But more generally, it became clear as we looked at the space, including in respiratory that if there was a drug that had the efficacy of pirfenidone but could be better tolerated and have other better characteristics. So for instance, right now, pirfenidone is given 3 times a day, high -- help burn. That would actually solve a large unmet need and really have potentially large commercial value, if there is a solution. So then we had another piece of asymmetric information, which was really around Bharatt's previous company, Auspex Pharmaceuticals. I'll let Bharatt address that. But so we had one piece of information, and then we put together with another piece of information. I don't know, Bharatt, if you want to talk Auspex and Teva and their relationship and the history of deuteration?

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#11

Yes. So maybe this one is more helpful. So deuterium substitution is essentially replacing regular hydrogen atoms with a heavier form of hydrogen called deuterium. And essentially, you're replacing one hydrogen for another form of hydrogen. In this case, the deuterium form of hydrogen substitution actually stabilizes the carbon hydrogen bond, making them more stable. And so the end result is that the molecule becomes more stable from a metabolism perspective and can stay longer in circulation. So it's not as rapidly metabolized. And so that was the technology at my former company, Auspex, and we had taken one of the products there all the way through to FDA approval. And Teva acquired the company back in 2015. That was a significant transaction, and that product is currently in the market. And it's doing about -- this year it's supposed to do about $700 million in sales since third year in the launch. It's a pretty -- even in the face of a generic drug being present in the market because this deuterium substitution remarkably improves the pharmacokinetic safety tolerability profile of the molecule that it is preferentially prescribed versus a generic that had other tolerability issues. So we had that good precedence. And while we were at Auspex, we were developing also other molecules, and one of them was the pirfenidone. We had stabilized pirfenidone using deuterium substitution, and we have shown in a Phase I study at Auspex where we showed a very differentiated PK profile, very similar to the other molecule that I mentioned earlier. And that would lend itself to a potentially enhanced exposure, improved tolerability of pirfenidone, reduce the pill burden and hopefully, overall, improve the overall better optimal disease management in IPF. So we're initially interested in IPF when we are at Auspex. But then when Teva acquired Auspex, they essentially put it on the shelf. They were not developing yet. And so when we became aware of this unpublished data on lymphedema and its efficacy in the animal model with the pirfenidone we said, hey, pirfenidone, with all its potential tolerability issues, cannot be really realistically be developed for lymphedema and other indications. So we went to Teva, acquired the molecule. We now have full ownership on this molecule. And we can now develop it not only for lymphedema, but for a whole range of other fibrotic and inflammatory conditions. So that's sort of the little bit of backdrop on...

Eric Elenko

executive
#12

Yes. And I'd say the other part of the process and this is -- you'll see this with all dependent entities now again, with our internal pipeline. The next thing that we did was really the critical derisking experiment, which was to a multiple ascending dose study. So what had been done previously was a single-dose crossover study. So this is a study that was done in healthy volunteers. So very similar, in the case of Karuna, we want to do a Phase I study with the KarXT combination. In this case, we wanted to do a Phase I study that was a multiple ascending dose study in healthy volunteers. And what we saw were adverse events that were all mild and transient. We're actually only supposed to originally go up to 750 mgs twice a day. We ended up going up to actually 1,000 milligrams twice a day. Pirfenidone was given 801 mgs, 3 times a day. That's maximum dose. You see the overall side effects on this slide. But based on these results, it gave us comfort to go forward and proceed forward into other indications. Lymphedema being an example, but others including the respiratory space, where, of course, pirfenidone has so much data.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#13

Right.

Amy Walker

analyst
#14

And just on that point, in terms of where we are with the clinical trial program now, Eric, I mean you've just advanced into mid-stage trials in lymphedema, but also in long COVID. I wondered if it was worth touching on sometimes say to me when I talk about multiple indications for products or does that mean that there's a lack of confidence in one indication or the other? I know that's not the case, but perhaps you can just talk about the rationale or we've talked about the utility in lymphedema, but the thought process behind Long COVID. And then perhaps also, I know you've done some market research and maybe it's worth touching on the indications you've already got around the commercial opportunity for the product.

Eric Elenko

executive
#15

Yes. Absolutely. It's an important point because the way we look at this is, it's a platform and a product. LYT-100 is generally anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory. And what that means is, it could be applicable to a number of different conditions which are driven by fibrosis and have an inflammatory component. So there are really two reasons. We want to go into more than one indication. So one is risk mitigation, and this is really something very central to PureTech is, we always like to have more than one shot on goal. Coming back to the sports analogy, it's here. And so I think a big problem with biotech is, there's just pretty binary yes or no. So in the case of PureTech technology we have all defended entities and multiple programs in our pipeline, but more than one shot with any given program. And then the other is to maximize value. So since we have something in-house, the question is what can we do to drive the most value from it? And that really means doing more than 1 trial. In terms of Long COVID, we're all familiar with COVID-19 and the unfortunate events and kind of really huge impact on society that this disease is having. But there's one more recognition of is that, COVID, for many of the survivors, leaves longer-term symptoms. This is referred to as Long COVID. People who all refer to themselves as long haulers. These are individuals that even though they're post-acute, continue to experience symptoms, respiratory distress, shortness of breath and cough being 2 of the most prominent symptoms. This could be because of the buildup of fibrosis and residual inflammation. A similar experience was seen with SARS. And the public health consequences of this could be enormous. If you think about the number of people with COVID, if even a small percentage of them end up with permanent respiratory issues, that could have a huge impact not only in the lives of those individuals, but also on society. So the idea here really is to intervene during a critical window where it's possible to dampen down fibrosis and inflammation and to put patients in a position where they have greater respiratory function. But we'd really look at this as one study as that's part of a bigger respiratory strategy. So given that the original indication for pirfenidone was IPF. Of course, IPF is of great interest. When we've done market research perhaps to say we commissioned a third-party market research firm did a survey of 100 pulmonologists. It became clear from that survey what the pulmonologist said is, if there was a drug with the same efficacy as pirfenidone, but which had better tolerability, that's something that would be welcomed by the marketplace. And then we think in addition to IPF, there are other respiratory conditions, which are relating to IPF, where this drug to be applicable. So IPF is an example of a progressive fibrosis in jurisdictional lung disease, PF-ILD. And so there are opportunities more generally in the respiratory space. And so what we've said is that we'll be going into that respiratory space with IPF of very high interest.

Amy Walker

analyst
#16

Perfect. And then just in terms of the timelines on which people I see before -- you're anticipating my question very good. Yes, maybe just talk us through when we can expect to see some of these results?

Eric Elenko

executive
#17

Yes. So Long COVID, we're anticipating results this year. Lymphedema, we've also guided fourth quarter this year. That's the current guidance. And then as we have our go through, I think together with the various pieces that are relevant for an IPF study, we'll also provide further guidance as that comes together, in critical pieces, including things like regulatory interactions. I don't know Bharatt, if there's anything, I think we should in terms of timing.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#18

Yes. One of the attractive features about deuterium substitution is that it maintains the pharmacology of the original drug but changes the metabolic stability that translates into the differentiation in PK and other tolerability benefits. And so what that allows is, you get a benefit of a composition of matter patents. So you can get a pretty long period of exclusivity. You also get -- eligible in the U.S., FDA practice, what we call new chemical entity or NCE designation as well as for indications that are considered rare disease or orphan indications, you can potentially be eligible for orphan designation. But then on top of that, you also get the benefit of, in the U.S., what we call the 505(b)(2) regulatory path where you can rely on the -- some of the safety databases and other aspects of the original drug, which is pirfenidone in this case. So that speeds up some of the timelines and shorten some of that timeline to go from Phase I, we can go potentially in the IPF indication, for example, through one or more registration studies without having to necessarily do a Phase II and then go to Phase III. So that potentially you have the opportunity to shorten the timeline for things like IPF. But then for new indications like lymphedema and post COVID, we are going through this Phase II study now and they're followed by a potential registration study after that, so...

Amy Walker

analyst
#19

And I guess one of the questions that sometimes comes up and I discuss this with investors is, it's great that there is a stage market ESBRIET and offers the on-market drugs, which are both blockbuster products. So there is established market for you to go after. What some people say is that is, you mentioned for Bharatt and Eric, is things like convenience or a safety benefit enough to guarantee -- while guarantee to give confidence that you'll be able to take share, particularly, if these products genericize over time? These are things that you worry about. How do you address those concerns?

Eric Elenko

executive
#20

I'll just give a high-level remark and then Bharatt, you actually have quite a bit of experience with this. The only approved pirfenidone drug. No, there are really two parts here. So one is going into a new indication, where a drug -- another drug doesn't have the label then, of course, we feel quite protected there, right? So 150ml, right, there, you don't have pirfenidone approved. But even having said that, we're actually -- think there is great opportunity even something like an IPF where there's direct labeling by pirfenidone. And I think we've seen this in our -- the market research that we commissioned with a third-party firm saying that there would be a demand by the marketplace for a better tolerated drug. Bharatt, I don't know if you have anything possible to add, anything...

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#21

Yes -- right, let's see. This is what the benefits of Zoom culture is that -- we can have the flexibility to switch slides.

Eric Elenko

executive
#22

Pull up things as we speak. But at least what we've seen in our market research and then Bharatt, with new tech pirfenidone, right, yours also in a very analogous situation that was very successful product because here there was direct actually, generic...

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#23

Yes. And so we had done this independent market research that Eric was mentioning, right? So where we essentially pulled, we talked to over 100 different pulmonologists who actually use -- treat this IP of patients, and they use in between the 100 pulmonologists, the standard of care currently is ESBRIET or the Ofev from BI. And combined sales for those 2 drugs isn't that pretty good, actually, about $3 billion-plus in our end market in sales. So -- and when we profiled saying just improving the tolerability of the current standard of care reduce the frequency of dosing, pill burden, that alone can drive significant market share in terms of, it says, 30%. So that -- if you look at a $3 billion product, that's a pretty good market share right there. And then if that translates into better disease management because people are staying on the drug longer. They don't have to discontinue because of tolerability issues. There's better compliance and we get better disease management and, in a sense, better efficacy. Then the market share goes up even higher, right? So we see the potential for LYT-100 to actually take a significant share of the current standard of care. And what's also interesting, what we found from this survey is that, and also what we are aware of other products that are currently in development. There are 3 different products that are in Phase IIIs. There are a number of others in Phase II studies. All of those have to be studied on top of the current standard of care, right? So any label that those new products come out, they'll either have to be on top of standard of care or be a second line, go after people who have discontinued our not responding to the current standard of care. It's a much smaller slice, right, compared. So if we can take market share from standard of care, then all the new drugs that are going to come in the pipeline, we believe, would be on top of that standard of care, right? So we have that real good opportunity to drive significant potential commercial opportunity here. Just with that one indication, right, and then not even including lymphedema and other indications. So you look at this as a multiple indications of pipeline within a product kind of a life cycle management for this product.

Amy Walker

analyst
#24

We spent a lot of time talking about LYT-100 because that -- it's really exciting, and you've got the data coming up this year. But I think it would be a shame not just very quickly, in the last 5 minutes we have, touch on some of what we haven't yet spoken about, which are, we alluded at the beginning to some of the near-term value drivers on the founded entities, which are yet to fully mature. And I know there are a few very exciting there. There are some other elements of the internal pipeline, LYT-200, LYT-300 and then, of course, the broader platform project, which are at the earlier stage. So I'll let you guys decide what you think is the best use of the last few minutes, which is a quick tour, if we could of some of the other exciting things that are coming up behind LYT-100 would be great.

Eric Elenko

executive
#25

Maybe I can...

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#26

Maybe you can talk about 200 quickly, right, so?

Eric Elenko

executive
#27

Yes.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#28

Because we completed this year, right, so?

Eric Elenko

executive
#29

Yes. So we've initiated the trial for LYT-200, which is a monoclonal antibody targeting galectin-9. Galectin-9 is upregulated, secreted by tumors, solid tumors and on solid tumors for a number of different solid tumor types, where they enact multiple immunosuppressive pathways within the same tumor microenvironment. So the idea is by blocking galectin-9, potentially one could then dampen down a number of different immunosuppressive pathways, simultaneously in the same tumor microenvironment, which is why this -- why LYT-200 has potential for single-agent activity as well as synergy with other agents. There are three lines of evidence that gave us comfort moving into the clinic. So animal models, where including animal models were a checkpoint inhibitors like anti-PD-1s don't work like their human counterparts, like the KPC pancreatic cancer model, where we see some nice data. We also saw data in patient-derived tumor organoids where we're -- were able to observe a frustration of T cell activity and malignant immunosuppression. And then also data showing increased expression of galectin-9, either on tumors or in serum in a number of different solid tumor types correlating with worst outcomes. And that's not just PureTech data, that's a number of other groups. We're in the academic sphere, so that convergence gives us confidence. The first study is a dose-finding safety study, but this is an patients who have cancer. So it's an all-comer solid tumor study. And while we'll be looking for safety and for a dose that we could take forward, of course, because it's in patients, we'll start to look for any types of signals of efficacy that we might observe. Unfortunately, the patients who might participate in a trial like this are -- because of the nature of their cancer, it's often quite difficult to observe anything in terms of efficacy. So if we are able to observe something in terms of efficacy, it would be a very nice signal to us in terms of the potential for this product. On the right, you see a number of the investigators. So we're fortunate to have a group that I think arguably is some of the leading groups of PIs in terms of these types of proof-of-concept trials.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#30

Yes. I want to just quickly jump ahead to the milestones and catalysts for this year. So there are a number of significant catalysts in 2021. We had a really exciting 2020 where we hit a number of milestones that were significant value drivers, we believe, including the FDA approval for Akili's product, EndeavorRx. So 2021, we can look forward to a number of our internal programs maturing and announcing clinical trial results from LYT-100, 2 studies, LYT-200, as Eric mentioned, and then also starting filing the IND for the LYT-300 this year as well as a number of other founded entities will have significant clinical readouts this year as well. So it's, again, another catalyst-rich 2021, and we look forward to sharing more as we progress, so...

Amy Walker

analyst
#31

Yes. Thank you both so much for joining us. This is a company where just looking at that high-level list, it's quite clear that there's so much value in this platform. It's impossible to really do justice in 45 minutes. But this is the joy and the excitement of covering and being invested in PureTech. So thank you both so much for taking the time to join us today. If there are any follow-up questions from the people who joined us on the call, I will make sure to connect you with them. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#32

Thank you, Amy.

Eric Elenko

executive
#33

Thanks so much.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#34

Happy New Year to everyone.

Eric Elenko

executive
#35

Thanks, everyone, for joining.

Bharatt Chowrira

executive
#36

Take care.

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to PureTech Health plc earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.