MiNK Therapeutics, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to Mink Therapeutics' third quarter 2023 conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Please note, this event is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, you may now disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Zach Arman, Head of Investor Relations at Mink.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us today. Today's call is being webcasted and will be available on our website for replay. I'd like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our clinical development, regulatory, and commercial plans, as well as timelines for data release and partnership opportunities. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and we refer you to our SEC filings for more details on these risks. Joining me today on the call are Dr. Jennifer Buell, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Mark Van Dyke, Chief Scientific Officer, and Christine Klaskin, Principal Financial and Accounting Officer. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dr. Buell to highlight our progress in 2023 and plans for the year ahead.

Thank you, Jack. It's a pleasure to have you all with us for Mink's Third Quarter Earnings Call 2023. I'm excited to report on the excellent headway we've made this quarter, particularly with our proprietary IMKT cell technology and pipeline program. A pinnacle of this progress was presenting compelling new data on our flagship product, HS797, as the recent Society for Immune Therapy of Cancer, or CITC, annual meeting that took place last week. To reiterate, 797 is an allogeneic INKT cell therapy. It's distinguished by its scalability, robust immune modulatory properties, and its administration without the need for toxic preconditioning regimens, a testament to the versatility and promise of these cells. The findings we reported at CIPSE included first-of-kind data highlighting many of these unique benefits of INKTs. particularly related to the lengthy persistence of the cells without liquid depletion or toxic preconditioning. Mark's going to tell you a bit more about that shortly. So last Friday, we reported an update on the durable clinical benefits from HM797 across a diverse set of tumor types in patients who have exhausted all other treatment options. Notably, in late-stage metastatic cancer, we observed long-term durable disease stabilization and biomarker responses in more than 30% of the patients treated. And these are patients with non-small cell lung cancer, refractory to prior therapies, testicular cancer, and appendiceal cancers that were refractory to prior chemo and or commonly used immune therapies like anti-PD-1. Additionally, the durable responses in a patient observed with second-line metastatic gastric cancer continued. This patient was unresponsive to prior chemotherapy, as well as prior chemotherapy combined with anti-PD-1 therapy. This is an exciting continued finding for us, and these data provide continued evidence of the potential that Agent 797 holds in patients with solid tumor cancers. Our data presentations also underscore the benefits of INKT cells beyond cancer, including in infections, inflammatory diseases, and autoimmunity. Just earlier this year, at the end of May, we presented data at the American Thoracic Society meeting, the International Lung Meeting, and we showed an improved survival of more than 75% when patients were treated with HF797 compared to in-hospital controls that ranged anywhere from 10 to 30% in survival rates. And these include patients who were on the most severe form of life support, patients on VV ECMO, where their blood was being oxygenated externally. That's a step past mechanical ventilation. And we had reported earlier in patients with viral ARDS on mechanical ventilation also showed a survival exceeding 75% compared to in-hospital controls of 10% to 22% at that same time point. We continue plans to expand this program through externally financed platforms. These data, along with the others presented earlier this year at AACR, continue to demonstrate that Agent 797 is well-tolerated up to a billion cells alone, as well as in combination with some of the most widely used immune therapies, And these cells also promote clinical benefits in a range of solid tumor cancers. Another important finding from these data are the new translational insights that we've generated into IMKT cells, their immune-modulating mechanisms, and their long-term persistence. Our data demonstrated that 797's ability to persist, amplify, and accelerate immune responses, and promote tumor infiltration beyond what has been observed with any other cell therapy today.