Epizyme, Inc.

Hello and welcome to Epizyme's conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a question and answer session after the prepared remarks. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at Epizyme's request. I would now like to turn the call over to Craig West, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Lorenz, and good morning, everyone. For those of you I have not yet met, my name is Craig West, and I recently joined Epizyme as Vice President of Investor Relations with over two decades of experience in the field. My contact information can be found on the bottom of the quarterly update press release Epizyme issued this morning. That press release, as well as slides to accompany today's call, can be found in the investor section of the company's website at epizyme.com. On the call with me today is Rob Bazemore, Epizyme's current president and chief executive officer, Grant Vogel, our incoming chief executive officer, Matt Ross, executive vice president and chief strategy and business officer, and Dr. Shefali Agarwal, executive vice president and chief medical and development officer. As a reminder, today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. related to Epizyme's current plans and expectations, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various important factors, including those described in the risk factors section of our most recent forms, 10Q, 10K, and other SEC filings. These forward-looking statements represent our views as of this call and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We undertake no obligation to publicly update these statements. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Rob Basemore.

Rob? Thank you, Craig, and welcome to Epizyme, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on this call this morning. Today, we have a robust set of updates on the quarter and on the business, including important updates regarding our PASVERIC launch, as a MetaStat development, advances to our research pipeline, and exciting collaboration efforts. We will also be discussing changes that we are making to our operating plan to fuel our most important growth initiatives while improving our capital position. Before we get into the second quarter overview, I'd like to start with an important announcement that was press released this morning, immediately following our second quarter release. As you may have already seen, we announced that I will be transitioning out of my role at Epizyme as part of a thoughtful succession plan after serving as the company's president and chief executive officer since 2015. At the end of last year, following Pazveric's U.S. approvals in epithelioid sarcoma and follicular lymphoma and finalization of the company's next year five-year growth strategy, I started discussions with the Epizyme board regarding the initiation of a succession plan. This was an important decision for me, to be able to redirect my energy towards things that I needed to be able to focus on personally. And I felt that this represented an opportunity for a new CEO to lead the company's next chapter of growth. As we moved into the first quarter and started to see signals that made us believe the effects of the pandemic may be improving, the board and I resumed these discussions. At the same time, we also realized that there were some changes that we needed to make to improve our ability to access customers, to drive adoption of Pazderic in this challenging environment, and to ensure we maintain sufficient capital to continue funding our key growth-driving programs. Over the last few months, I've been working closely with senior leadership of Epizyme and our board of directors to develop a revised operating plan for 2021 and 2022 that reduces our operating expenses, while at the same time remains true to the four pillars of our long-term strategy as communicated in the next episode call in March. Our revised operating plan includes a strategy to accelerate commercial adoption of Hasberic in the U.S., including some important changes to the commercial infrastructure that we launched Hasberic with, and ensures that our resources are targeted at those programs that will provide the most significant value for the company. As a result, we expect to reduce our non-GAAP operating expenses in 2021 from the previously communicated guidance of $235 to $255 million, So approximately 220 to 230 million. This includes an approximate 20% reduction to our budgeted workforce, in addition to other important reductions in external spending. We expect this plan to preserve our cash runway into Q4 2022, with multiple options available to us to further extend our operating capital as needed. This was not just an exercise to reduce our expenses, but rather a thoughtful set of decisions to ensure that our resources are properly gated and deployed commensurate with top line growth to ensure that we can continue to fund our highest priority growth opportunities. It's difficult to say goodbye to our colleagues who played such an important role in getting Epizyme to this stage. And I would like to personally thank them for all of their contributions. As we finalized the revised operating plan that we'll discuss further on the call today, it became apparent that now was the right time to continue our succession plan discussions and for a new leader to take the reins and continue this next chapter of growth for Epizyme. With this in mind, we are fortunate to have found a trusted leader and someone intimately familiar with the Epizyme story and family. The Board and I are extremely pleased that Grant Vogel, an industry veteran, as well as an Epizyme board member since 2019, will be stepping in as Epizyme's chief executive officer. As CEO, Grant will be creating a structure that allows him to be more closely involved with the commercial organization and their execution of the revised commercial strategy, including dissolving the chief commercial officer role. Grant brings deep commercial and operational leadership experience in oncology to his role and signifies the importance of the first pillar of the company's five-year vision. maximizing the adoption of Tasveric as a backbone of therapy in ES and FL, while continuing to broaden our portfolio through new Tasveric indications and bringing novel epigenetic treatments into clinical development. Grant is the right leader with the right experience to take over at this very important stage in Epizyme's growth. Importantly, Grant shares my passion for Epizyme, and he's aligned with our mission for both Tasveric and our long-term vision for the company. While I am officially stepping down as CEO, I will be intimately involved in ongoing strategy and integration, serving as a consultant and a trusted advisor to the company and to Grant over the next 12 months as he builds and executes upon Epizyme's vision. On a personal note, I'm very grateful to our board, our executive leadership team, and to Epizyme's employees for their dedication to our mission and to the patients that we serve. While I need to focus my time and energy on other areas of my life that have become important to me, it's incredibly gratifying that together we built an organization that addresses the needs of patients suffering with cancer. And I would not be leaving the organization now if I did not believe it was the appropriate time with the appropriate personnel in place. With that, I'm thrilled to have Grant with us on the call and to introduce him to you directly. Grant, please go ahead.