Arbutus Biopharma Corporation Q1 2023 Earnings Call

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Good day, and thank you for standing by and welcome to the RP tests Biopharma 2023 first quarter financial results and corporate update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.

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Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand, the conference over to your speaker today VP of Investor Relations Lisa Copper Alley. Please go ahead.

Thank you Elena good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our beauty says first quarter 2023 financial results and corporate update call. Joining me today from the our beautiful executive team are Bill Collier, President and Chief Executive Officer.

David Hastings, Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Mike Sofia, Chief Scientific Officer, and Dr. Karen since VP of clinical development.

This bill will begin with a corporate update followed by Dave Hastings, who will then provide a review of the company's first quarter 2023 financial results.

After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A doctors Sofia and Sims will be available to address your clinical and scientific questions.

Before we begin I'd like to remind you that some of the statements made during the call. Today are forward looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially including those described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly.

A report on Form 10-Q, which will be filed later today and from time to time in our other documents filed with the SEC.

With that I'll now turn the call over to Bill Collier Bill.

Lisa and good morning, everyone and thank you very much for joining us today.

Now our beauteous was founded with the goal of developing a functional cure for patients with chronic hepatitis b virus by advancing the development of our clinical and preclinical assets that could be combined to create a treatment regimen.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we made the strategic decision to leverage our team a virologist and expertise in discovering developing and commercializing antiviral compounds to expand our core focus to include developing treatment options for COVID-19 as well.

As future coronavirus outbreaks.

With our expanded focus on pipeline abuses today is actively advancing a broad portfolio of innovative clinical candidates that address large market opportunities.

We believe that both chronic HBV and Corona virus require a combination of compounds to achieve therapeutic success.

And we are encouraged by the advances we've made in both our HBV and Corona virus franchises.

There are over 290 million people worldwide, who are chronically infected with HBV.

And with current lifelong treatment options, resulting in less than a 5% effective cure rate that remains a large unmet medical need for a functional cure for chronic HBV.

We believe we are well suited to address this need beginning with AB seven to nine which is one of the most advanced RNA therapeutics in development.

Based on data generated to date, a seven to nine is the only RNA are shown to impact all three components needed for a functional cure for patients with chronic HBV.

Namely, reducing HBV DNA suppressing surface antigen and reawakening, the HBV specific immune response.

Giving it given its compelling data thus far we believe that AB 779 has the potential to be a cornerstone therapy to provide a functional cure for patients with chronic HBV.

We're exploring seven to nine in combination with other investigational unapproved products through our two ongoing phase two a combination trials.

One with interferon and one with <unk> HBV antigen specific immuno therapeutic.

Both of these combination trials are expected to have preliminary data this year that potentially will help inform the combination strategy that we expect to evaluate and later stage clinical trials.

Before I discuss these combination trials, though I would first like to take a moment to provide data from our ongoing phase one clinical trial.

Now as we recently reported that the global Hepatitis Summit last week seven of nine patients treated with seven to nine from a phase one clinical trial show low levels of HBV, DNA and surface antigen persisting for at least a year and a half after their last dose of seven to nine.

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Furthermore, data from that same trial showed that seven to nine treatment produces robust and comparable declines in surface antigen, regardless of dose dosing interval examined or baseline characteristics.

Now going back to the ongoing combination trials.

We look forward to reporting additional seven to nine combination data in the first half of this year from our phase Iia clinical trial evaluating seven to nine in combination with the ongoing nuc therapy and short courses of interferon. The trial is a b seven to nine to a one.

We shared preliminary data from the lead in phase of this trial late last year, which further validated seventy-ninth capacity to reduce surface antigen.

Patients are now being randomized to receive interferon plus ongoing nuc therapy, plus or minus additional seven to nine doses for either 12 or 24 weeks.

The preliminary data that we plan to report in the first half of 2023 will include some of these patients who have received interferon.

In the second half of 2023, we expect to report preliminary data from our phase Iia clinical trial, a b seven to 922, which is evaluating seventy-nine nuc therapy, and <unk> HBV specific immuno therapeutic B T P 300 or placebo.

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Thanks to check because recently reported data from a phase one b to a trial showing that V. T. P 300 induced meaningful sustained reductions of surface antigen and some chronic HBV patients.

Through this combination trial, we are testing whether the combination of seven to nine N V. T. P 300 can lower the surface antigen enough for the host immune system to fully suppress the virus.

As a reminder, we are preparing to expand the latter trial to include an additional with low dose and if all of them up.

Which is a PD one monoclonal antibody inhibitor approved to treat a number of cancers under the brand name Opdivo.

We are we are adding the vulgar a map more commonly known as nivose to determine if the addition of new boat to the V. T. P. 300 combination will further stimulate immune mediated reduction of surface antigen. After the initial treatment of seven to nine and first dose of <unk> 300.

And we will provide an update when we begin enrollment in this new arm of the trial.

One moment please.

The immune response.

We explore different ideas different options.

Yes, we're going to have to be patient for a little while.

Thank you everyone for joining us. This morning, we do appreciate your continued interest and questions and your support for Arbutus.