10/31/2024

speaker
Operator

Thank you,

speaker
Nivy

Shelley. Good morning and welcome to Career Therapeutics the third quarter 2024 financial results and corporate update call.

speaker
Operator

Thank you

speaker
Nivy

all for joining. Today's call will be led by our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Eric Dube. Eric will be joined in the prepared remarks by Dr. Jula Enrich, our Chief Medical Officer, Peter Hirma, our Chief Commercial Officer, and Chris Klein, our Chief Financial Officer. Dr. Bill Rowe, Senior Vice President of Research and Development will join us for the Q&A session. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this call regarding matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause actual results, performance, and achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statement. Please see the forward-looking statement disclaimer on the company's press release issued earlier today, as well as the risk factor section in our forms 10Q and 10K filed with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only. As of the date such statements are made, October 31, 2024, interviewers specifically disclaims any obligation to update such statements to reflect future information, events, or circumstances. With that, let me now turn the call over to Eric.

speaker
Eric

Thank you, Nidhi, and good morning, everyone. Our team has delivered another exceptional quarter, advancing our leadership position in rare nephrology with the full approval of Phil Spari for IGN and Propathy and the ongoing commercial launch. As you will hear shortly from Peter, our commercial team's execution resulted in continued strength and demand, more than 30% growth in net sales over last quarter, and a recent acceleration in new patient start forms following full approval and the draft Codigo guidelines. Our vision for Phil Spari to become foundational care in IGN is clear, and we are making great progress towards achieving this. As we look ahead, there are tangible growth drivers that we believe will enable us to reach significantly more patients with IGN. These include the full approval label, which now provides the ability to educate the nephrology community on the incredibly strong two-year data. The updated draft Codigo guidelines, which should drive nephrologists to treat more ambitiously, and use Phil Spari as foundational care, and the growing body of data, providing further support for earlier treatment with Phil Spari and paving the way for use in combination with other medicines. I am pleased to share with you, we also recently submitted an SNDA to modify the frequency of liver monitoring in the Phil Spari RIMs. If this modification is approved, it represents another step forward in improving access for patients, as it would align their liver monitoring with regular schedule of lab work while maintaining patient safety as a key priority. Moving beyond IGN, the recent recommendations of the Parasol Group offer new hope to the FSGS community. As a reminder, there are currently no medicines approved and few in development for this progressive rare kidney disease. Specifically, we were very pleased that this group of experts, including representatives from FDA, aligned around a potential proteinuria-based clinical trial endpoint for FSGS. Jula will touch on this shortly, but when we look at the data from our duet and duplex studies, two of the largest prospective controlled studies ever completed in FSGS, we see a statistically superior reduction in proteinuria with sparsentin compared to maximum dose standard of care across multiple proteinuria thresholds and time points. We now have a meeting with FDA scheduled where we look forward to reviewing these data in the context of the Parasol findings with the goal of establishing a path to an SMDA submission for an FSGS indication. We anticipate being able to provide an update on our discussions by our Q4 earnings call. In parallel, we are working diligently in preparation of an SMDA filing. If we are able to submit, we would anticipate a potential full approval for sparsentin in FSGS next year. Lastly, we're continuing to expand access to Filspari outside of the US with our partners, CSLv4 and Renales Pharma. Under CSLv4's leadership, Filspari has now launched in two key European markets, Germany and Austria, and recently received temporary marketing approval in Switzerland. We look forward to continued progress as they launch in other countries. Now, let me turn the call over to Jula. Jula?

speaker
Jula

Thank you, Eric. I'm pleased to provide a medical perspective following the full approval of Filspari and the increasing confidence we hear from nephrologists about Filspari's role as a foundational treatment for patients with IJ nephropathy. This confidence is rooted in Filspari's compelling clinical profile as the only kidney targeted medicine which blocks two pathologic processes, endothelin-1 and angiotensin-2. These two pathways work together to amplify inflammation and kidney injury in IJ nephropathy. Our growing scientific evidence demonstrates that Filspari as the only dual endothelin and angiotensin receptor antagonist significantly reduces proteinuria and preserves kidney function for patients with IJ nephropathy. We just attended ASN Kidney Week in San Diego, the largest worldwide gathering of nephrologists. During Kidney Week, we presented important new data supporting the use of Filspari in a broad population of IJ nephropathy patients at risk of disease progression. Data supporting the use of Filspari early in treatment as well as early data paving the way for potential combination use with other medications. I'll briefly highlight some of these data sets. First is the Spartan study of newly diagnosed RAS inhibitor naive patients with IJ nephropathy which showed that Filspari reduced proteinuria up to nearly 70% with approximately 60% of patients in the study achieving complete remission through 24 weeks. And EGFR was stable throughout the measurement period. Also as part of Spartan, we examined initial human mechanistic data which demonstrates that Filspari reduces an important inflammatory biomarker called urinary CD163. This biomarker is recognized as highly predictive of IGAN disease progression. The magnitude of CD163 reduction that was seen with Filspari has only previously been seen with a systemic immunosuppressive. These clinical data are consistent with our preclinical model and support the kidney targeted anti-inflammatory mechanism of Filspari. They're also promising given Filspari is the only non-immunosuppressive treatment available for patients with IJ nephropathy. We look forward to presenting more data from Spartan on how Filspari impacts important pathologic processes that cause kidney inflammation and injury in patients with IJ nephropathy at upcoming meetings. We also presented promising data in patients from PROTECT with lower ranges of proteinuria, less than one gram per gram, and showed treatment with Filspari reduced proteinuria and preserved kidney functions, similarly to patients with higher ranges of proteinuria. This is especially important given the recent draft KDECO guidelines calling for physicians to diagnose and treat all patients above 0.5 grams per day or even 0.3 grams per day. Uniquely, we also showed encouraging data on patient reported outcomes that suggests that treatment with Filspari versus herbicartin can improve a patient's burden of kidney disease. Lastly, in IGAM, consistent with the growing approach of using multiple treatment options for patients with IJ nephropathy, we presented compelling efficacy and safety data in combination with SGLT2 inhibitors and immunosuppressants, both from real world use as well as from our open label extension study. We expect this will provide nephrologists with even greater confidence in using Filspari as foundational care. In a late breaking session at ASN, we also presented exciting new data in high risk subgroups of genetic FSGS patients who were historically the most difficult to treat. The data demonstrated that sparsentin was able to deliver a rapid and sustained proteinary reduction in high risk patients with genetic FSGS, including only a sparsentin treated patient achieving complete remission and low rates of the kidney failure composite endpoint compared to herbicartin. The efficacy of sparsentin in patients with genetic FSGS was consistent with the overall duplex population, which is promising given the subgroup of FSGS patients is typically resistant to treatment. From a regulatory perspective, we have submitted an SMDA for a modification to our REMS for Filspari and IJ nephropathy to request a change in our liver monitoring frequency from monthly in the first year to quarterly. We remain confident in the safety profile of Filspari, especially given increased patient exposure from our clinical trials and commercial use, which continue to demonstrate no change in the low rates of asymptomatic LFT elevations and no cases of drug induced liver injury. That's we believe we now have the data to support the proposed change to the liver monitoring frequency within our REMS and have aligned with the FDA on the presentation of the data package for them to consider the request. Quarterly monitoring of liver function is what was used in our clinical trials and it aligns well to the regular testing IGAN patients undergo with their nephrologists. We have requested priority review of this REMS submission with the potential for this modification to occur in the first half of next year. Let me now turn to FSGS to discuss the recent data from the PARASOL initiative, as well as our plans for a potential SMDA submission for sparsentin and FSGS. The PARASOL group held their public workshop in early October and we were encouraged by the input of the patient community, thought leaders, regulators and industry who came together with a common goal to identify a path forward for medicines to be approved for the FSGS community. During the workshop, participants heard firsthand from patients and family members, stories of perseverance and of hope for a better future, such as an eight year old's wish to leave the hospital to attend his sister's third birthday. These compelling stories are a consummate reminder that the data reviewed at PARASOL are from people living with a rare kidney disease with no approved treatment options. In our view, the PARASOL meeting was a success as the consensus from the workshop, which reviewed comprehensive analysis for more than 20 databases encompassing over 1600 children and adults with FSGS represent a potential new path forward for regulatory approval in FSGS. I'll walk through some of the key findings from the PARASOL work and how we believe data from our sparsentin program align. First, due to the relapsing and remitting nature of FSGS, there is clearly too much variability in eGFR measurements to remain a feasible endpoint for regulatory approval. This was evident in our duplex data set, the largest randomized study run in FSGS to date. Second, reduction in proteinuria over 24 months is strongly associated with a reduction in the risk of kidney failure in FSGS patients, including responder definitions based on thresholds of proteinuria that are both biologically plausible and strongly supported by epidemiologic data. We have seen this response consistently across both our phase two duet and phase three duplex studies. In duet, we saw significantly more patients achieve the modified partial remission endpoint with sparsentin versus herbicartin. And in the open label extension portion of the study, with approximately four years of followup on sparsentin, 43% of patients achieved complete remission. Among those patients who achieved complete remission with sparsentin, which was roughly an 80% reduction in proteinuria over time, they had a significantly slower rate of loss of kidney function, approximately one mil per minute per year, and negligible rates of kidney failure. In duplex, sparsentin demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful treatment effects on the modified partial remission endpoint at 36 weeks, and this treatment effect was durable to two years. And as published in the New England Journal of Medicine and its supplement, we see that at multiple pre-specified thresholds of proteinuria, from 1.5 grams per gram, down to 0.3 grams per gram of complete remission, sparsentin demonstrated a statistically significant treatment effect versus herbicartin. Notably, the magnitude of the treatment effect became even stronger as the proteinuria thresholds got more stringent. And while duplex was not powered to show statistically significant treatment effects on heart outcomes, the rates of kidney failure were nearly double with herbicartin versus sparsentin, with a meaningful 42% reduced risk of kidney failure. First, there needs to be clear biologic possibility for how a potential therapy works to reduce proteinuria and or preserve kidney function. With proteinuria as an indicator of podocyte injury, it is in the mechanistic pathway leading to kidney failure in FSGS. And in our preclinical data, some of which was recently featured in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insights, sparsentin led to improvements in podocyte number, femoral hemodynamics, cell functions, and tissue repair, resulting in reduced proteinuria and preserved kidney function. Most importantly, FDA was a key stakeholder in the Parasol Initiative, and through these findings, proteinuria is now expected to be used as a validated surrogate endpoint for full approval in FSGS going forward. These data were again presented at ASN Kidney Week and were received with enthusiasm and support from the community. Overall, we believe that our data from DUET and DUplex align very well with the conclusions from the Parasol Group. Our next step will be to discuss our data with the FDA to understand their perspective now in the context of the Parasol work and a potential path forward for an FSGS indication. As Eric mentioned, we now have a meeting scheduled with the FDA, and we're preparing a robust briefing book that will align with the recent Parasol work to discuss the potential for filing an SNDA for sparsentin in FSGS. In parallel, we are preparing the SNDA so that we will be in a position to move quickly following our FDA interaction. I'll now briefly touch on pectobatinase as it remains the only development program that has the potential to be disease modifying for the HCU community who deserves better treatment. While we recently announced a voluntary pause in enrollment in our phase three Harmony study due to necessary commercial scale-up process improvements, we continue to have the utmost confidence in the program and in our team's ability to restart enrollment as quickly as possible. We are grateful for the continued support of the HCU community and our supply partners. Overall, we've made incredible progress with the FFARI and its path to foundational positioning in IgA and the property. And we look forward to our upcoming regulatory engagement on the potential to deliver sparsentin to patients with FSGS. Let me now hand the call over to Peter for the commercial update, Peter.

speaker
Peter

Thank you, Zula, and good morning, everyone. During the third quarter, we continued our strong and focused launch execution of FFARI for IgA and the property while also preparing to build upon our success with full approval and the draft Cadego guidelines. And I couldn't be more pleased with the strong results driven by our talented and dedicated teams. From a demand perspective, we continued our strong growth trajectory and again added more than 500 new patient staff forms during the third quarter. This is particularly noteworthy given that we encountered some seasonality as is typical during the summer holidays, as well as the fact that we took our field force out of the field for an entire week to train them on the new label after full approval on September 5th. And I'm very encouraged with the upward inflection in new patient staff forms in the weeks following full approval. As we highlighted prior to approval, we anticipated that demand would increase as physicians prescribe FFARI to more of their patients and new physicians will write prescriptions for the first time. And we are seeing clear evidence of this coming through, which provides added confidence to our outlook. We also demonstrated continuing efficiencies in our fulfillment process while maintaining high patient compliance and persistency rates. This has resulted in $35.6 million in net product sales of FFARI in the third quarter, representing more than a 30% growth quarter over quarter growth. With our execution, we continue to outperform the most recent rare nephrology launches prior to FFARI on all core launch metrics. And we are on track to outperform these benchmarks on net revenue in the first full year of launch. We are even more excited about the opportunity ahead of us. As I outlined during our IAEA full approval call last month, FFARI's new label is allowing us to further accelerate FFARI's growth trajectory for two reasons. One, we can now leverage the full potential of FFARI in our physician communication and educational initiatives. This is important because under accelerated approval, we were limited in our commercial communication efforts to discussing only proteinuria. But now with full approval in our compelling label, we can discuss how FFARI's rapid and sustained proteinuria reduction translates into superior long-term kidney function preservation relative to active comparator and maximally-dosed herbes artone. And this kidney preservation benefit accrues year over year over the course of the two-year measurement period, supporting long-term use of PhilSpari. And two, the new indication statement supports broader use of PhilSpari in any adult patients with IJ nephropathy, who is at risk of progression. As a reminder, the full approval significantly expands the eligible patient population beyond the accelerated approval indication statements that guided physician to generally use PhilSpari only in patients at or above 1.5 gram per gram. With our broader indication and the exciting data that was presented at ASM last week, showing the patients below one gram per gram also benefit from PhilSpari, we are eager to reach these patients who can upgrade their foundational treatments. These messages resonate well with nephrologists and are representative of what we heard from the broad community of key opinion leaders and community physicians at ASM last week. And as I mentioned earlier, we are very encouraged by the demand uptake we are seeing in the first month post full approval. The recently published draft KDGO guidelines are already being referenced by nephrologists and expected to build further momentum. These draft guidelines emphasize the urgency to diagnose and treat patients earlier and more aggressively. More specifically, they call for every IGM patient who isn't in remission to be treated with a kidney targeted medicine and highlight that PhilSpari is the only medicine to have shown superiority over in-trial up-titerated RAS inhibition. Before handing the call over to Chris, let me share an IGM story that exemplifies why we are so excited about the impact that PhilSpari is having on patients. These patients recently shared in one of our national broadcasts that he looks forward to taking PhilSpari every morning because he is in complete remission and feeling great. He described receiving his lab results as akin to getting an A plus on a school report card. While this is the result of only one patient and may not reflect typical results, we hear similar stories regularly. And these are the types of stories that motivate our teams every day. And we know there are so many more people living with IGM nephropathy who can benefit from a treatment that has shown superiority over maximally dosed RAS inhibition. And how PhilSpari is convenient, once daily, oral, kidney targeted, and non-immunosuppressive profile provides new hope. With our strong new label, the draft kidney guidelines and focused execution, we are confident in our ability to reach these patients, accelerating our growth trajectory and establishing PhilSpari as the foundational treatment option for IGA nephropathy patients. Let me now turn the call over to Chris for the financial update. Chris.

speaker
Chris

Thank you, Peter, and good morning. During the third quarter, our execution led to a significant increase in net product sales and disciplined investments in the areas we believe will drive growth. Net product sales for the third quarter of 2024 grew to $61 million compared to $33.9 million for the same period in 2023. This increase of approximately 80% is attributable to strong performance in the ongoing US launch of PhilSpari and IGA nephropathy. During the quarter, we also recognized $1.9 million of license and collaboration revenue, which results in $62.9 million in total revenue reports for the period compared to $37.1 million in the same period in 2023. Research and development expenses for the third quarter of 2024 were $51.7 million compared to $60.6 million for the same period in 2023. On a non-GAAP adjusted basis, R&D expenses were $48.4 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $53.8 million for the same period in 2023. Selling general and administrative expenses for the third quarter of 2024 were $65.6 million compared to $67.8 million for the same period in 2023. On a non-GAAP adjusted basis, SG&A expenses were $49.7 million for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $51.8 million for the same period in 2023. The decline in -over-year operating expenses is attributable to the restructuring enacted at the end of 2023 and reduced clinical expenses as the sparscented phase three studies advance towards completion. Importantly, we continue to invest in evidence generation to support PhilSpari and IGA nephropathy and potentially FSGS as well as continue to invest in commercial efforts in IGA nephropathy now with full approval and draft Cadego guidelines in hand. Total other income net for the third quarter of 2024 was $1.3 million compared to $3.4 million in the same period in 2023. The difference is largely attributable to a decrease in interest income. Net loss including from discontinued operations from the third quarter of 2024 was $54.8 million or 70 cents per basic share compared to net income of $150.7 million or $1.97 for basic share for the same period in 2023. A non-GAAP adjusted basis, net loss including from discontinued operations for the third quarter of 2024 was $35.6 million or 46 cents per basic share compared to net income of $173.5 million or $2.27 for basic share for the same period in 2023. The difference is largely attributable to a gain related to the sale of the vial acid products which was recorded in the third quarter of 2023. As of September 30th, 2024, the company cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $277.4 million with continued growth in PhilSparry sales, measured investments, including shifting some of our investments and PEG to BATIN-8 beyond 2025, we continue to expect our cash use to decline over time. We also anticipate multiple incoming milestone payments from CSL v4 upon conversion of PhilSparry to full approval in Europe and market access achievements, all of which continues to position our balance sheet to support current operations into 2028. I'll end with one administrative note alongside the filing of our 10Q today, we're also filing a new ATM agreement with the SEC. This is a housekeeping measure as our previous ATM which had been in place in 2020, did not transfer over to the new shelf registration that was filed in August. With that, I'm now turning over to Eric for his closing comments, Eric.

speaker
Eric

Thank you, Chris. I could not be prouder of the execution and performance of our organization. The underlying dynamics of our PhilSparry launch are strong and have created positive momentum for growth moving forward as a foundational therapy and again, as our near term opportunities for growth in 2025 and beyond hold great promise for the rare kidney community. Now, let me turn the call over to Nivy for Q&A. Nivy.

speaker
Nivy

Thank you, Eric. Operator, we can now open up the line for Q&A.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And if you would like to ask the question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, you can press star one to ask a question. We also, as a reminder, ask that you limit yourself to one question and if you have another question, please rejoin the queue. So we'll pause for a brief moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions.

speaker
Eric

Our

speaker
Operator

first question is coming from the line of Joseph Schwartz with LeeRink Partners. Your line's open.

speaker
Joseph Schwartz

Great. Good morning, everyone. This is Will on for Joe today. Thanks for taking our question and congrats on the great quarter here. So just one for us on PSF metrics. We saw that very minor dip in numbers between the second and third quarter. And as Peter mentioned, it seems like this could be chalked up to summer seasonality and taking the sales horse out for a week in September. But are there other dynamics here that we should appreciate and how things been trending now early in the fourth quarter? Any additional color here would be helpful. Thank you.

speaker
Eric

Thanks, Will. Well, let me first say that I am incredibly impressed with what we've seen. And I'll ask Peter to talk about the dynamics, particularly what we've seen since full approval. Peter?

speaker
Peter

Yeah, thanks, Eric. And thanks, Will, for the question. Let me start to say that I'm really pleased how we have continued our growth trajectory during the accelerated approval period and how we have outperformed recent rare nephrology benchmarks. To the point and what I mentioned in the prepared remarks, in Q3, we saw some typical summer seasonality. And we also took the teams out of the field for a week for training for full approval. So I'm actually really pleased with a continuation of strong growth over 500 patients' star forms. But I'm mostly excited about the opportunity ahead of us and how we will accelerate momentum based on the full approval. And to what I said in the prepared remarks, the demand uptake we are seeing in the first month after full approval is really encouraging and allows us to empty here strongly.

speaker
Eric

Great, thank you so much.

speaker
Operator

Our next question is from the line of Emil Divan with Guggenheim Securities. Your line is open.

speaker
Emil Divan

Hi, it's Arsenio Onfobamo. Congrats on all your progress and thank you for taking our questions. In regard to parasol recommendations and FSGS, how much do you feel the discussions with the FDA will focus on keeping specific protections and linear thresholds at certain time points and perhaps reanalyzing the data that way versus considering the fatality of data more holistically and focusing more on the mechanistic rationale and the biological feasibility argument.

speaker
Eric

Great, thank you so much for the question. Bill, I'll turn that over to you.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, thank you for the question. And I think it's a good one. I think you hit on the elements of what's important. Certainly based on parasol, the agency has said publicly that proteinuria can be used as a validated surrogate for full approval in FSGS, but the agency will always look at the full data in the submission. So totality is important in parallel with hitting proteinuria targets. And I think additionally, as you noted, the biologic plausibility is key to the entire story that your reduction in proteinuria, in the case of sparsentin, is due to the biology and the pathology of FSGS. It's a podocyte-driven disease, and the only way you can reduce proteinuria is to make that cell healthier. And sparsentin achieves that. We have clinical data, we have preclinical data that support that. So all in all, you hit on three very key elements of this mission, and I don't know how they will weight them, but we're confident that we have very strong data across that whole space.

speaker
Eric

Yeah, thank you, Bill. The only thing that I would add is that's the opportunity that we have to speak with them and why we're eager to meet with them here soon, to be able to understand what specifically information do they want. That said, as we take a step back, we're very confident in the data that we generated in our programs.

speaker
Eric

Thank you, I'll get back into the queue.

speaker
Greg

Thank you. Our next question's coming from the line of Ann and Pam Rama with

speaker
Operator

JP Morgan. Your line is open.

speaker
JP Morgan

Hey, guys, thanks so much for taking the question, and congrats on all the progress at ASN and in the quarter. Can you give us a sense of the scope of the additional data you've provided on liver monitoring sort of beyond the clinical experience? I'm assuming that that package includes all of the data from FSGS and IGaN clinical trial work, but I'm corrupting if I'm wrong there. Thanks so much.

speaker
Eric

Thanks so much, Ann and Pam. So Bill, why don't you take that question as well?

speaker
Bill

Yes, thanks for the question. It does, your supposition is accurate. We pooled the data from the ongoing clinical trials, the open label extensions for both Duplex and Protect. So that's an increasing body of data, as well as the data that we're gaining from all of the commercial experience. So we have a substantial body of data and all of that was pooled. Importantly, what we've seen is in both the trial extensions as well as in the real world, the commercial experience, we see the same thing that we saw in the trials, that low levels of LFT elevation and no evidence of Heislaw or liver failure events or liver injury. So having that consistent story with a much larger body of evidence was the basis on which we built our submission to go back and change the REM's frequency to match that that hits the cadence that patients see their nephrologist on a quarterly basis.

speaker
Eric

Thanks so much for taking our question. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Our next question is coming from the line of Tyler Van Buren with PD Collins. Your line is open.

speaker
spk11

Hi there, thanks for taking my question. This is Greg Wiesner on for Tyler from TD Collins. I'm curious to get some insight on what you will propose during the type C meeting and what are the key questions you would need to ask of the FDA. Thank you.

speaker
Eric

Great, thanks so much for the question, Greg. Bill, back to you.

speaker
Bill

Yeah, well, I think we leveraged the discussions that have been had at Parasol where the agency has suggested a threshold of proteinuria reduction so that you have a treatment effect for both the control and the treatment arm, sparsentin versus herbisartin in our case. They haven't suggested, or they haven't nailed down a specific endpoint that what they've said is you need to make a proposal and come in and talk to us. But with their presentation, they have spoken the most about the value of 0.7 gram per gram per day, patients that get below that. So they think that's a reasonable spot to think about when you picture what we'll go in and propose to the agency. And the question really is, here's our proposal, here's how we're going to analyze the data. What else do you need to see in the submission so that we're aligned with the agency and we make sure our filing has everything in it that they need for their review?

speaker
spk11

Okay, great, thank you, very helpful and

speaker
Eric

congrats on a successful quarter. Thanks, Greg.

speaker
Greg

Thank you. The next

speaker
Operator

question is coming from the line of Maury Raycroft with Jeffreys. Your line is open.

speaker
Maury Raycroft

Hi, good morning, this is Farzinan from Maury. Congrats on the progress as well. Following up on the FSGS Type C meeting, are you going to include any data from the open-label extension? And then do you also on the post-hoc analysis, what would be considered sufficient? Is the pre-specified data already good enough or any post-hoc work would be needed?

speaker
Eric

Okay, thanks so much, Farzinan, for the question. Bill?

speaker
Bill

Yeah, well, the short answer for the open-label extension data is yes. That will be included from both the ongoing duet open-label as well as duplex, so from both studies. As far as post-hoc analysis, we have threshold proteinuria cut points that were pre-specified and we looked at those as part of the statistical analysis plan and looked at in addition to FPRE or the modified partial remission, we looked at one and a half gram per gram, 1.5 and 0.3. So that brackets around the target that the agency has seemed to align around. We're not doing a lot of post-hoc analysis ahead of that meeting, so we will go in with the data that we have and work with them on what additional analyses they wanna see in that submission and get that aligned so that we have in the file everything they need to complete their review.

speaker
Eric

Yeah, thank you, Bill. And I'll point you all to our corporate presentation, which is posted on our website. If you look at slide 29, you can see very nicely laid out the treatment effect across those different pre-specified thresholds, clearly showing a benefit and superiority for Sparsentin over Urbisartin NFSGF. Thanks, Bill.

speaker
Eric

Thank you. Thanks, Marzum.

speaker
Operator

The next question is coming from Greg Harrison with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

speaker
Greg Harrison

Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the quarter. This is Joe Thomas on for Greg. Just one kind of on the patient and physician education front. Can you maybe comment on any ongoing efforts or opportunities you might have to help patients be getting diagnosed earlier and treated earlier based on the recent Codigo draft guideline update?

speaker
Eric

Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Peter?

speaker
Peter

Yeah,

speaker
Eric

I think the presentation that

speaker
Peter

Jula mentioned earlier in the prepared remarks tells about the benefit that Phil Sparry has also with patients with lower post-dermuria levels. And I think what I'm hearing from physicians, especially coming back from ASM, where we had many conversations with thought leaders as well as community physicians, is there is like a higher urgency and a call to action to treat patients earlier and more aggressively. And I think Codigo really helps there. And I think we have the data now also in hand to show that Phil Sparry acts consistently across different patient populations.

speaker
Eric

Thank you. Thanks, Peter.

speaker
Operator

Our next question is coming from Jason Zamansky with Bank of America. Your line is open.

speaker
Jason Zamansky

Hi, good morning. This is Dina Ramedayn on for Jason Zamansky. Congrats on the progress this quarter, and thank you for taking our question. Though it might be a little bit too premature to speak to Phil Sparry's upside in FSGS, could you discuss what the broader opportunity might look like? Is this something you anticipate needing to build the market, or do you think dynamics are likely to quickly shift? And maybe what sort of challenges is a new entrant likely to face, given the lack of approved therapies, especially given the potential shift in trial endpoints? Thank you.

speaker
Eric

Thanks, Dina, for that question. Peter, why don't I turn that over to you, and then Jula, if there's anything further that you'd like to add on how physicians are thinking about FSGS. Peter?

speaker
Peter

Yeah, thanks, Dina. Well, we are really excited about the opportunity for FSGS in the US. In particular, the market may be slightly smaller in IGN of property. We anticipate about 15 to 30,000 patients as directly addressable for Phil Sparry. But to the point you're making, this is a patient population that is served by basically the same prescriber group as we have for IGN of property. So it's basically the same call point. And if we would get like a full approval, I am expecting that we will have a rapid uptake since the brand name of Phil Sparry is so well established, as well as the clinical profile. And many of the physicians have already the experience with Phil Sparry in IGN of property, and they have seen the rapid and sustained posterioria benefit in their patients. So I think the opportunity is real, and we're really excited about it. And as I said, we have a strong position that we can build upon.

speaker
Phil Sparry

And let me just add to that.

speaker
Jula

Remember, FSGS is a patient population with a really high unmet need. They have symptomatic disease. They might wake up one day, be very swollen, and there's really almost nothing that is effective and safe for these patients. They get treated with immunosuppressants. And if they have genetic disease, that doesn't work for them. So there is a high unmet need, particularly for non-immunosuppressive therapy that can reduce their proteinuria and help their symptomatology as well. So to Peter's point, it meets the same physicians who are treating IGN and FSGS. So we do believe that there is a significant unmet need here that we can address with Phil Sparry.

speaker
Eric

Dina, thanks so much for the question. And certainly we recognize that there's additional education and outreach, but as you would have heard from Julie and Peter, there's a high recognition and certainly brand awareness. You know, we expect to be first if approved and certainly the leader and the new standard of care within FSGS. So more to come there, but certainly a tremendous opportunity for us to serve this community.

speaker
Phil Sparry

I appreciate all the color. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Our next question is coming from Laura Chico with Wet Bush Securities. Your line is open.

speaker
Laura Chico

Good morning. Thanks very much for taking the question. I had one on FSGS. There was some commentary at the Paracel meeting earlier this month and it's just coming out of ASN now. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on whether groups like Kadego would consider making an update to FSGS treatment guidelines in response to the observational data that Paracel presented. Thanks very much.

speaker
Eric

Thanks, Laura. Julie, I'll turn that one over to you.

speaker
Jula

Well, it's certainly a potential. They typically do update if there's new treatment or there's change in where we want to target the thresholds for. There was just recently an update to those guidelines, but I would anticipate if we get full approval for SPAR Center and FSGS, then that would be an appropriate time for them to make an update.

speaker
Eric

Thanks very much. Thanks, Laura.

speaker
Operator

Our next question is coming from Yigal Nukomovich with Citi. Your line is open.

speaker
spk16

Hi, this is Reena on FreeYigal. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask if you could comment on any compliance or adherence metrics for PhilSparry with regard to the monthly rems monitoring and how you might expect this rate of compliance to change with the reduction in frequency for the liver month.

speaker
Eric

Thank you, Reena. Peter, I'll turn that over to you.

speaker
Peter

Yeah, thanks for the question. What we are seeing is that the compliance as well as the persistence rates of PhilSparry are really high. And I think that speaks to that patients' experience that this product works for them. This is a patient population that historically has seen very little innovation. Many of the patients, every time they see their physicians, they hear you're not yet to the targets. And for the first time with PhilSparry, they are actually reaching targets. And some of those patients are in full remission, which is really encouraging for patients. And I think that's also the explanation for the high compliance and the

speaker
Eric

persistence rates. We would

speaker
Eric

expect certainly that with not just the lab values, but also the support and the education that these patients have, including as part of the rems, we'd be very thoughtful around if there is a modification to less frequent monitoring, that we would ensure that these patients still have the right level of support and engagement from us and from their clinicians.

speaker
Eric

You're taking my question. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks, Reena.

speaker
Operator

Our

speaker
Greg

next

speaker
Operator

question is coming from Mohit Bansal with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

speaker
spk15

Hi, this is Nadia Ramon on from Mohit. Thanks for taking our question. So a question on the IGAN launch. Given the CADECO update recommending lower targeted protein or your levels, wondering if you're seeing that pairs are willing to reimburse for patients that start below one gram, given that your trial enrolled patients that were above that, have there been any resistance there from pairs? Thank you.

speaker
Eric

Thanks for the question. Peter, I'll turn that over to you. It might also be helpful to talk about how these patients are at risk based on the radar data to frame. Peter, go ahead.

speaker
Peter

Yeah, maybe Eric, to that last point, maybe it's good to start that. Patients, according to the radar registry data set, patients reach even 0.5 gram per gram of plasma urea. There is still like a 22% chance that they progress to dialysis or kidney failure within 10 years. So this is a progressive disease. Pairs are also recognizing the progressive nature of the disease. And we have invested quite a bit in education for pairs as well on this aspect. On your specific question with regards to like how quickly are pairs adopting new guidelines as well as our new label, well, we have an active account team that is focusing on this. I'm really pleased with the progress we are making with pairs. Some of the authorization criteria are already being updated. But the majority, that's the reality, is early in the year, early in 2025. But we're seeing good uptake and we also start to see that patients with lower protein urea levels are being treated with still sparring now.

speaker
Eric

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Our

speaker
Greg

next question is

speaker
Operator

coming from Alec Thompson with Stiefel. Your line is open, Alec.

speaker
Alec

Hi, this is Charles and I answer Alec. Thanks for taking our question and congrats on the progress this quarter. I guess on our end, just wanted to ask about your current expectations for LOE in IGAN and how you see those changing in the near future.

speaker
Eric

Sure. Thanks, Charles, for the question. So our current planning assumption for LOE with Sparsentin is into 2033. We were very pleased to announce that we have an additional term for orphan drug exclusivity that was associated with the full approval in IGAN that would take us into September 31st, sorry, September of 2031. So we are very pleased to have both of those layers of protection, but our current base assumption is into 2033.

speaker
Eric

Thank you. Thank you.

speaker
Greg

Our next question

speaker
Operator

is coming from Vamil Devan with Guggenheim Securities. Your line is open.

speaker
Emil Divan

Thank you, Arseny and Vamil. In regards to Phil Spars's IGAN launch, could you comment on your view for the update with community-based mythologists versus academic thought leaders now versus when you first launched? In other words, do you feel that your message is getting out to a broader group of mythologists

speaker
Eric

now? Arseny, thanks for the question.

speaker
Eric

I'll turn that over to you.

speaker
Peter

Let me rephrase the question. I think the question is, what is the update that you're seeing with thought leaders, academia, relative to the community positions? So what we have here is, and I think it's good to go ahead.

speaker
Emil Divan

Yeah, and essentially how that changed now under full approval versus when you first launched.

speaker
Peter

Yeah. How that changed, it's early days. I mean, we are now four or five weeks post full approval, but I can give you like a broader sense on how Optake has been pushed for Spari so far. And I think it's good to realize also that you have to cast a broad net to reach all the patients. And what we have said is we are planning to reach about 6,000 nephrologists out of the universe of about 10,000 nephrologists in the U.S. to be able to get to about 85% of the patient population. So the majority of those patients are residing in the community. And that's what we also see in the prescription patterns that the majority comes from the community. Having said that, I'm really encouraged with the strong feedback that we get from academia and thought leaders about the profile of Phil Spari and in particular where Phil Spari is being positioned. I think the recent Cadego guidelines really outlining that you have to target the kidney as well as the immune system really resonates with physicians. And what I'm hearing is that physicians really feel that Phil Spari is well positioned to be that foundational care targeting the kidney with a broad utility for a broad patient population. So hopefully that answers your

speaker
Eric

question. Yes, thank you.

speaker
Greg

Ladies and gentlemen,

speaker
Operator

this concludes the question and answer session of today's conference call. I'll now hand the call back over to Nibby.

speaker
Nivy

Great. Thank you everyone for joining us for our third quarter 2024 financial results call. We look forward to providing additional updates on our progress. Have a great rest of your day.

speaker
Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer

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