Q2 2024 Absci Corp Earnings Call
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Speaker Change: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ABSCI second quarter 2024 business update conference call.
Speaker Change: At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session.
Speaker Change: To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone.
Speaker Change: You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.
Speaker Change: To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.
Speaker Change: Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
Speaker Change: I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alex Kahn, VP, Finance and Investor Relations.
Speaker Change: Please go ahead.
Alex Kahn: Thank you. Earlier today, Absci released financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30th, 2024.
Alex Kahn: If you haven't received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list,
Alex Kahn: please send an email to investors at abseye.com. An archived webcast of this call will be available for a replay on Abseye's Investor Relations, available for a replay on Abseye's Investor Relations website at investors.abseye.com for at least 90 days after this call.
Speaker Change: Joining me today are Sean McClain, Absci's founder and CEO , and Zach Jonasson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer.
Speaker Change: Christian Stegmann, Absci's SVP of Drug Creation, will also join for Q&A following prepared remarks.
Speaker Change: Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated, and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
ABSCII: Additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause results to differ appears in the section titled Forward-Looking Statements in the Press Release ABSCII issued today and the documents or reports filed by ABSCII from time to time with the Auxiliaries and Exchange Commission.
ABSCII: Accept as required by law, APPSI disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward-looking statements, either because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast, August 14, 2024.
ABSCII: With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean.
Sean McClain: Thanks, Alex. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter business update call.
Sean McClain: Today, I'm excited to be sharing updates around new and existing partnerships, as well as continued progress on our own internal pipeline of programs.
Sean McClain: As always, these achievements are a testament to the work our team does each and every day and reflects our platform's differentiated capabilities in AI drug creation for biologics.
Sean McClain: With our integrated drug creation platform's unique capabilities in creating differentiated antibody candidates, we believe we offer valuable propositions to potential partners to work together on therapeutic programs.
Sean McClain: Along those lines, we are pleased to announce that we have recently entered into a new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a leading cancer treatment and research center to jointly develop up to six therapeutic programs.
Sean McClain: MSK has an incredible record of groundbreaking translational and clinical innovations in oncology.
Speaker Change: By combining MSK's research expertise with our generative AI drug creation platform, we have the potential to unlock critical advances towards treating these devastating diseases.
Speaker Change: We at Absci are proud to be adding another great partner to our list of collaborators, now including AstraZeneca, Merck, Almoral, Invidia, and others. And we look forward to working with MSK on these important programs.
Speaker Change: While work continues on our partnered programs, we continue to make great progress on each of our internal programs.
Speaker Change: ABS 101, ABS 201, and ABS 301. And we are working towards advancing at least one additional internal asset program to a LEED stage this year as well.
Speaker Change: Starting with ABS 101, our anti-TL1A antibody.
Speaker Change: Today, we are excited to share results from our non-human primate studies for this program, demonstrating 2-3x extended half-life as compared to antibodies in clinical development, and further supporting this program's potential best-in-class profile.
Speaker Change: Supporting information for these sites can be found in our newly published corporate presentation on our investor website.
Speaker Change: We are also pleased to share that ABS 101 is observed to have an increased fat distribution in non-human primates as compared to anti-TL1A antibodies in clinical development.
Speaker Change: This could potentially lead to a therapeutic benefit as steady state levels and tissue penetration could be achieved faster, potentially without the need for loading dose.
Speaker Change: Additionally, CMC studies verified the ability to formulate ABS-101 at a high concentration of 200 mg per ml, which supports further development of a subcutaneous formulation.
Speaker Change: We continue to advance ABS 101 through IND-enabling studies as planned.
Operator: Good day and thank you for standing by.
Speaker Change: and are confident in our program's ability to potentially demonstrate a truly differentiated
Operator: Welcome to the Absci, 2nd quarter, 2024 Business Update Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is erased. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again.
Speaker Change: Product Profile. We remain committed to advancing this program and expect to initiate Phase I clinical studies for ABS 101 in early 2025, with an interim data readout expected in the second half of 2025.
Speaker Change: Turning to ABS-201, our potential best-in-class dermatology program, ABS-201 is designed for an undisclosed dermatological indication with significant unmet need, where the efficacy of the pharmacological standard of care is not satisfactory.
Operator: Please be advised yesterday's conference is being recorded.
Speaker Change: As we advance this program, we see this target as underappreciated, where we could potentially be second to clinic for this target. We continue to anticipate selecting a development candidate for this program later this year.
Alexander Khan: I would now like to hand the conference over your speaker today, Alex Khan, VP, Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Alexander Khan: Earlier today, Absci released financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. If you haven't received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investors at absci.com.
Speaker Change: Finally...
Speaker Change: ABS-301, our potential first-in-class immuno-oncology program. ABS-301 is a fully human antibody designed to bind to a novel target discovered through Absci's reverse immunology platform. We continue to anticipate completion of mode-of-action validation studies for this program later this year.
Alexander Khan: An archived webcast of this call will be available for a replay on Absci's Investor Relations, available for a replay on Absci's Investor Relations website at investors.absci.com for at least 90 days after this call.
Speaker Change: And as we continue to advance this program, we look forward to further updating you all in the future.
Sean McLean: Joining me today are Sean McLean, Absci's Founder and CEO, and Zach Jonasson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer.
Speaker Change: For ABS 201 and ABS 301, we plan to share data from preclinical studies either at the end of this year or early next year.
Christian Stegmann: Christian Stegman, Absci's SVP of Drug Creation will also join for Q&A following repair remarks.
Speaker Change: Looking at the rest of 2024, I'm excited for what's to come next. We remain focused on continued innovation and execution on our internal and our partner programs, all with the mission to create better biologics for patients faster.
Unknown Executive: Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward looking within the meaning of the Federal Security's laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated, and you should not place undue reliance on forward looking. Additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause results to differ appears in the section titled Forward Looking Statements in the press release.
Speaker Change: With that, I'll now turn the call over to Zach to walk through our new partnership, our outlook, and provide an update on our financials. Zach.
Zach Jonason: Thank you, Sean.
Zach Jonason: As Sean mentioned, we are pleased to have recently announced our new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Unknown Executive: Absci issued today and the documents are reports filed by absci from time to time with the activities and exchange commission. Except it's required by law. Absci disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward looking statements either because of new information, future events or otherwise.
Zach Jonason: a world-leading cancer treatment and research center to discover and develop up to six novel oncology therapeutic programs using generative AI.
Zach Jonason: Under the terms of the collaboration, world-leading research teams from both ABSCI and MSK will work together to co-develop therapeutics designed using ABSCI's integrated drug creation platform.
Unknown Executive: This conference call contains time sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast August 14th, 2024.
Zach Jonason: We believe this co-development collaboration with MSK will leverage considerable synergies between the two organizations.
Sean McLean: With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean. Thanks Alex.
Speaker Change: The collaboration will combine MSK's target research and validation capabilities with our generative AI drug creation platform capabilities to potentially create differentiated antibody therapeutics towards novel oncology targets.
Sean McLean: Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter business update call. Today, I'm excited to be sharing updates around new and existing partnerships as well as continue progress on our own internal pipeline of programs. As always, these achievements are testament to the work our team does each and every day and reflects our platforms differentiated capabilities in AI drug creation for biologics. With our integrated drug creation platforms unique capabilities, creating differentiated antibody candidates, we believe we offer valuable proposition to potential partners to work together on their data programs.
Speaker Change: Furthermore, Absci and MSK plan to collaborate on the early development of these therapeutic assets in advance of outlicensing or partnering them.
Speaker Change: By working with a premier research institution, such as MSK, on co-developing therapeutic programs, we aim to leverage R&D synergies that could lead to significant value creation through the generation of first-in-class therapeutics addressing significant unmet medical needs.
Sean McLean: Along those lines, we are pleased to announce that we have recently entered into a new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a leading cancer treatment and research center to jointly develop up to six therapeutic programs. MSK has an incredible record of groundbreaking generational and clinical innovations and on college. Technology. By combining MSK's research expertise with our generative AAD Drug Creation Platform, we have the potential to unlock critical advances towards treating these devastating diseases. We'd outside our crowd to be adding another great partner to our list of collaborators, now including AstraZeneca, Merck, Almoral, Invitia, and others.
Speaker Change: Moreover, such co-development collaboration structures, which include cost-sharing, allow Absci greater diversification on a capital-weighted basis.
Speaker Change: Our pipeline of potential new drug creation and co-development partnerships remains robust. Hence, we continue to anticipate signing partnerships with at least three more partners in addition to our multi-program partnership with MSK during 2024. This will bring us to a total of at least four new partnerships this year.
Speaker Change: We look forward to utilizing our expanding set of generative AI capabilities in existing and new partnerships.
Speaker Change: A particular focus area for existing and potential new partners is leveraging our platform to provide epitope specificity and epitope landscaping at both the local and global level.
Sean McLean: And we look forward to working with MSK on these important programs. While we're continues on our partner programs, we continue to make great progress on each of our internal programs. AADS 101, AADS 201, AADS 301, and we are working towards advancing at least one additional internal asset program to elite stage this year as well.
Speaker Change: Our global epitope landscaping capability supports epitope selection.
Speaker Change: by allowing testing and validation of the potency and MOA associated with different epitopes on a given antigen.
Speaker Change: Our local epitope landscape and capability then enables the identification of desired epitope interactions for potentially improving potency and MLA.
Sean McLean: Starting with AADS 101, our anti-TA1A antibody. Today, we are excited to share results from our non-human primate studies for this program, demonstrating two to three X extended half-life as compared to antibodies and clinical development, and further supporting this program's potential best-in-class profile.
Speaker Change: that is, once an epitope is selected, our AI model exhaustively sampled interface contacts with a designated epitope to further refine potency in MLA.
Speaker Change: Together, these capabilities offer the potential to enhance potency, reduce biological risk, improve and broaden IP claims, and to achieve differentiated MOA for a given program.
Sean McLean: Supporting information for these studies can be found in our newly published corporate presentation on our industrial website. We are also pleased to share that AADS 101 is observed to have an increased sub-distribution in non-human primates as compared to anti-TA1A antibodies and clinical development. This could potentially lead to a therapeutic benefit as study-state levels and tissue penetration could be achieved faster, potentially without the need for loading dose. Additionally, TeamC study's verified the ability to formulate AADS 101 at a high concentration of 200 migs per moment, which supports further development of subcutaneous formulation. We continue to advance AADS 101 through IND enabling studies as planned, and are confident in our program's ability to potentially demonstrate a truly differentiated product profile.
Speaker Change: We believe that these capabilities and others, such as the ability to design tunable selectivity, multivalency, and pH-dependent binding, make our platform highly attractive to potential partners.
Speaker Change: As Sean discussed, our growing portfolio of programs includes three wholly owned assets, ABS-101, ABS-201, and ABS-301, all of which were generated using our integrated drug creation platform.
Sean McClain: We continue to advance these internal programs according to plan. We also continue to make progress on new internal programs and expect to advance at least one additional internal therapeutic program to the lead stage later this year.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, our business model is focused on out-licensing or selling our internal programs and co-developed programs following value inflection proof points, anywhere from pre-clinical proof of concept to Phase II clinical proof of concept.
Sean McLean: We remain committed to advancing this program, and expect to initiate CASE-1 clinical studies for AADS 101 in early 25, with an interim data readout expected in the second half of 2025.
Speaker Change: Turning now to our financials. Revenue in the second quarter of 2024 was $1.3 million, as we continue to progress our partnered internal programs concurrently.
Sean McLean: Turning to AADS 201, our potential best-in-class dermatology program. AADS 201 is designed for an undisclosed dermatological indication with significant unmet needs, where the efficacy of the pharmacological standard of care is not satisfactory.
Speaker Change: Research and development expenses were $15.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $12.1 million for the prior year period.
Sean McLean: As we advance this program, we see this target as under-appreciated, where we could potentially be second to clinic for this target. We continue to anticipate selecting a development candidate for this program later this year.
Speaker Change: This increase was primarily driven by increased lab operations, including direct costs associated with IND-enabling studies for ABS 101, and an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change: Selling general and administrative expenses were $9.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $9.4 million for the prior year period.
Sean McLean: Finally, AADS 201, our potential first-in-class immunology program. AADS 201 is a fully human antibody designed to a novel target discovered through app-sized reverse immunology platform. We continue to anticipate completion of mode of action, validation size for this program later this year. And as we continue to advance this program, we look forward to further updating you all in the future. AADS 201 and AADS 201, we plan to share data from pre-clinical studies either at the end of this year or early next year.
Speaker Change: This decrease was due to lower personnel costs and continued reductions in administrative costs, offset by an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change: Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $145.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
Speaker Change: as compared to $161.5 million as of March 31, 2024.
Sean McLean: Jim. Looking at the rest of 2024, I'm excited for what to come next. We remain focused on continued innovation and execution on our internal and our partner programs, all with the mission to create better biologic expectations faster.
Speaker Change: We continue to enhance our focus on high-value proprietary internal programs and co-development arrangements while also seeking high-quality drug creation partnerships with industry leaders who can bring talent and complementary expertise.
Zachariah Jonasson: With that, I'll now turn the call over to Zach to walk through our new partnership, our outlook and provide an update on our financials. Zach, thank you, Sean.
Speaker Change: We believe focusing on these initiatives to build a diversified portfolio of partnered programs, rather than simply pursuing a higher volume of programs, best positions us for further success in the future.
Zachariah Jonasson: As Sean mentioned, we are pleased to have recently announced our new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a World Leading Cancer Treatment and Research Center to discover and develop up to six novel oncology therapeutic programs using generative AI. Under the terms of the collaboration, World Leading Research teams from both Absci and MSK will work together to co-develop therapeutics designed using Absci's integrated drug creation platform. We believe this co-development collaboration with MSK will leverage considerable synergies between the two organizations.
Speaker Change: For 2024, we continue to expect a gross use of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of approximately $80 million, including the expected costs associated with completing the IND-enabling studies for ABS 101 with a third-party CRO.
Speaker Change: Based on our current plans, we believe our existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operations into the first half of 2027.
Speaker Change: All together, we are very encouraged by the progress we have made on our internal programs and confident in our ability to execute on these and our partner programs over the course of 2024 and beyond.
Zachariah Jonasson: The collaboration will combine MSK's target research and validation capabilities with our generative AI drug creation platform capabilities to potentially create differentiated antibody therapeutics towards novel oncology targets. Furthermore, ASSci and MSK plan to collaborate on the early development of these therapeutic assets in advance about licensing or partnering them. By working with a premier research institution, such as MSK on co-developing therapeutic programs, we aim to leverage R&D synergies that could lead to significant value creation through the generation of person-class therapeutics addressing significant unmet medical needs.
Speaker Change: With that, I'll turn it back to Sean.
Sean McClain: Thanks, Zach. The past few months have demonstrated our continued progress across all aspects of our business.
Sean McClain: Advancing our internal programs, executing our partner programs, and signing additional partnerships with companies who see the value of our platform capabilities.
Sean McClain: As we continue to execute over the course of this year, we see a number of potential catalysts in the next six to 12 months and beyond. We look forward to updating you all along the way, including at our 2024 R&D day to be held on December 12 in New York City.
Zachariah Jonasson: Moreover, such co-development collaboration structures which include cost sharing allow Absci greater diversification on a capital-weighted basis. Our pipeline of potential new drug creation and co-development partnerships remains robust. Hence, we continue to anticipate signing partnerships with at least three more partners in addition to our multi-program partnership with MSK during 2024. This will bring us to a total of at least four new partnerships this year. We look forward to utilizing our expanding set of generative AI capabilities and existing and new partnerships.
Speaker Change: With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A. Operator?
Speaker Change: To ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
Speaker Change: To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again.
Speaker Change: In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.
Speaker Change: Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Zachariah Jonasson: A particular focus area for existing and potential new partners is leveraging our platform to provide epitope specificity and epitope landscaping at both the local and global level. Our global epitope landscaping capability supports epitope selection by allowing testing and validation of the potency and MOA associated with different epitopes on a given energy. Our local epitope landscaping capability then enables the identification of desired epitope interactions for potentially improving potency and MOA. That is, once an epitope is selected, our AI model exhaustively samples interface contacts with a designated epitope to further refine potency and MOA.
Speaker Change: it
Speaker Change: Our first question comes from Stephen Ma with TD Cowen. Your line is open.
Stephen Ma: Thanks for taking the questions. I had a question on ABS 101, the non-human primate data.
Speaker Change: When you're saying that the two to three times additional half-life and, you know, the bioavailability
Speaker Change: Is that based on head-to-head data that you use from aqua competitor molecules, or is it based on publications on the clinical competitors?
Christian: Yeah, great question, Steve. So it is a head-to-head comparison with the clinical competitors and Christian, do you want to dive into the details on that?
Zachariah Jonasson: Together, these capabilities offer the potential to enhance potency, reduce biological risk, improve and broaden IP claims, and to achieve differentiated MOA for a given program. We believe that these capabilities and others such as the ability to design tunable selectivity, multi-valency, and pH dependent binding make our platform highly attractive to potential parts. Partners.
Christian: Yes, thank you, Sean, absolutely.
Christian: We have indeed compared ABS 101 with two competitor molecules that are in clinical development. This is RVT3101 and MK7U40, so the Riemann molecule and the Merck molecule. And we could see in our study head-to-head that we have seen a two- to three-fold improvement in plasma half-lives of ABS 101 over these two molecules.
Zachariah Jonasson: As Sean discussed, our growing portfolio of programs includes three wholly owned assets, ABS 101, ABS 201, and ABS 301, all of which were generated using our integrated drug creation platform. We continue to advance these internal programs according to plan. We also continue to make progress on new internal programs and expect to advance at least one additional internal therapeutic program to the lead stage later this year.
Christian: Does that answer your question?
Speaker Change: Yeah, I guess you got the sequences of the antibodies from their patents and then you expressed them yourself to do the head-to-head studies.
Speaker Change: That's correct, yes.
Speaker Change: Okay, got it. All right, and then a quick one on the Memorial Sloan Kettering Partnership.
Zachariah Jonasson: As a reminder, our business model is focused on out licensing or selling our internal programs and co-developed programs, following value inflection proof points anywhere from preclinical proof of concept to phase two clinical proof of concept.
Speaker Change: [inaudible]
Speaker Change: Can you give us a little bit more detail on the level of the code development that your scientists and the MSK scientists are going to be working on and also there's any IP sharing details you can share and then if MSK is going to be providing any
Zachariah Jonasson: Turning now to our financials, revenue in the second quarter of 2024 was $1.3 million. As we continue to progress our partnered internal programs concurrently. Research and development expenses were $15.3 million for the three months ending June 30th, 2024, compared to $12.1 million for the prior year period. This increase was primarily driven by increased lab operations, including direct cost associated with I and the enabling studies for ABS 101 and an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change: You know patient real-world data or other data genomics, you know profiling or proteomics. Thank you
Speaker Change: Yeah, absolutely. Zach, I'll let you take that.
Zach Jonason: Sure. Yeah, Steve, we're really excited about this partnership with MSK. You should think of this as a 50-50 cost-sharing co-development platform, where we're going to look at six different programs.
Zach Jonason: MSK will be bringing a lot of validation around novel targets, so that validation work could encompass all of the areas that you referenced.
Zachariah Jonasson: Selling general administrative expenses were $9.3 million for the three months ending June 30th, 2024, compared to $9.4 million for the prior year period. This decrease was due to lower personnel costs and continued reductions in administrative costs offset by an increase in stock compensation expense.
Zach Jonason: We will jointly decide on which programs to nominate into.
Zach Jonason: program development for us to work on from the drug creation side and then would be collaborating throughout that process including once we have a drug candidate to advance those through IND enabling and potentially through phase one development.
Zachariah Jonasson: Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $145.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, as compared to $161.5 million as of March 31, 2024. We continue to enhance our focus on high-value proprietary internal programs and co-development arrangements by also seeking high-quality growth creation partnerships with industry leaders who can bring talent and complementary expertise. We believe focusing on these initiatives to build a diversified portfolio of partnered programs rather than simply pursuing a higher volume of programs best positions us for further success in the future.
Zach Jonason: Does that answer your question?
Speaker Change: Yeah, that does. Thanks.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kripa.
Kripa Devarara: Devarara Khanda with Truce, your line is now open.
Kripa Devarara: Hey guys, thank you so much for taking my questions.
Kripa Devarara: So I have a question about the ABS-101 non-human primate data. Now obviously it's the totality of the data and the totality of the profile of the drug that is important.
Speaker Change: And you laid out, you know, how the drug compares with the other drugs on different metrics. But I was wondering if you were to pick characteristics of the drug that you think would be tough to replicate for a competitor and help maintain the differentiation, which ones would you point to?
Zachariah Jonasson: For 2024, we continue to expect a gross use of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of approximately $80 million, including the expected cost associated with completing the I and the enabling studies for ABS 101 with a third-party CRO. Based on our current plans, we believe our existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operations into the first half of 2027. Altogether, we are very encouraged by the progress we have made on our internal programs and confident in our ability to execute on these and our partnered programs over the course of 2024 and beyond.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thanks, Christian. You want to take that?
Christian: Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So I think in a nutshell, the totality of the data in the way we differentiate from competition is the combination of attributes we have combined here in overall to achieve a best-in-class profile.
Christian: So, what we mean by a best-in-class profile, we have achieved very high affinity of both the TL1A trimer as well as the monomer.
Sean McLean: With that, I'll turn it back to Sean. Thanks, Max. The past few months have demonstrated our continued progress across all aspects of our business. Advancing our internal programs, executing our partner programs, and signing additional partnerships with companies who see the value of our platform capability, as we continue to execute over the course of this year, we see a number of potential catalysts in the next six to 12 months and beyond.
Christian: We have achieved significant plasma half-life extension over competitors.
Christian: We've achieved very good CMC properties that allow us to formulate this molecule at 200 mg per ml.
Christian: And then finally, we have also worked on the immunogenicity profile, which will hopefully lead to lower anti-drug antibody rates in clinical development.
Sean McLean: We look forward to updating you all along the way, including at our 2024 R&D day to be held on December 12 in New York City.
Christian: So, overall, I think it's the combination of different attributes all addressing liabilities of the competitor molecules that will make ABS 101 a highly differentiated asset.
Operator: With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A operator. To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. In the interest of time, yes, that you please lend yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Speaker Change: Got it. And then you mentioned the 200 milligram per ml concentration. That's a pretty high concentration. I was just wondering if while you were designing the molecule itself, was there anything that
Speaker Change: So it was engineered to be able to give you this high level of solubility of the protein.
Speaker Change: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker Change: The artificial intelligence engine we have built at AppSci clearly aids us in improving developability properties of all our antibodies. So, in essence,
Stephen Ma: Our first question comes from Stephen Ma with TD Cowan. Your line is open. Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I had a question on ABS101, the knocking of primary data. When you're saying that the two to three times additional half-life and, you know, the bioavailability. Is that based on head-to-head data that you use from a co-competitor molecules or the based on publications on the clinical competitors?
Speaker Change: We are really leveraging artificial intelligence to basically improve our antibody profiles, and that certainly includes CMC properties that allow us these high concentrations.
Speaker Change: Thank you so much.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from George Farmer with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
George Farmer: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.
George Farmer: also with some more questions on the 101 and HP data. Can you talk about toxicity and how high you dose in these animals? I'm assuming this is part of your GLP talk studies. Is that right? And also,
Sean McLean: Yeah, great question Steve.
Christian Stegmann: So it is a head-to-head comparison with the clinical competitors and Christian, do you want to dive into the details on that? Yes, thank you John, absolutely. We have indeed compared ABS101 with two competitor molecules that are in clinical development. This is RBT 3101 and MK72040, so the Robin molecule and the Mark molecule. And we could see in our study at to head that we have seen a two to threefold improvement in plasma half-life of ABS101 over these two molecules.
Speaker Change: You know, you mentioned a number of partnerships that you're counting on closing this year. Can you give us a ballpark estimate of how much cash you think that will bring into the company? Thanks.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks, George. Christian, you want to take the first one, and Zach, you want to take the second one?
Christian Stegmann: Does that answer your question? Yeah, I guess you got the sequences of the antibodies from their patent set and then you expressed them yourself to do the head-to-head studies. That's correct. Yes. Okay, got it. All right.
Christian: Absolutely. So yeah, you're correct. Our GLP toxicology studies are currently ongoing and we will disclose the results of this study once they're once they're concluded and we have a line on the publication strategy for those. We have not yet disclosed the doses of these of these studies.
Stephen Ma: And then a quick one on the more moral stone-kettering partnership. You can give us a little bit more detail on the level of the co-development that your scientists and the MSK scientists are going to be working on and also there's any IP sharing details you can share. And then if MSK is going to be providing any patient real-world data or the data genomics, genome profiling or proteomics, thank you. Absolutely.
Jordan: Sure, and I can address the second question, so we don't have guidance on cash and closing partnerships, but we do have guidance on bringing in three additional partners in addition to the MSK partnership this year. Some of those would likely be multi program partnerships. Thank you.
Speaker Change: And those could range from more traditional drug creation partnerships that have up-fronts.
Speaker Change: and Milestones as well as Development Milestones and Railpiece to arrangements that are like what we've done with MSKT, which are codeads, your code development program.
Christian Stegmann: That will let you take that. Sure, yes.
Christian Stegmann: We're really excited about this partnership with MSK. It's a, you think of this as a 5050 cost sharing co-development platform where we're going to look at six different programs. MSK will be bringing a lot of validation around novel targets. So that validation work couldn't compass all the areas that you. Reference, we will jointly decide on which programs to nominate into program development for us to work on from the drug creation side, and then would be collaborating throughout that process, including once we have the drug candidate to advance those through ID enabling and potentially through phase one development. Yeah, that does. Thanks. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Okay, great. Sorry, Sean. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, we've given guidance on the four partnerships. This is one out of the three. So we do expect another three to be announced from now through the end of the year.
Speaker Change: Okay, yes. Great. And then regarding the MSK partnership that you have, does MSK have publication rights? Can we expect that they'll be kind of actively publishing papers on the fruits of this collaboration, or is that going to be restricted in some way?
Speaker Change: That all flows through the joint steering... Oh, go ahead, Christian.
Speaker Change: So go for it, Zach.
Zach Jonason: Yeah, I was gonna say that has to be done in joint collaboration as well. So we have a joint steering committee that oversees the partnership.
Kripa Devarakonda: Our next question comes from Kripa Devarakonda with truth. Your line is now open. Hey guys, thank you so much for taking my question. I have a question about the ABS 101 non human primary data. You know, obviously is the totality of the data and the totality of the profile of the drug that is important, and you laid out, know how the drug compares with the other drugs and different metrics, but I was wondering if you were to pick characteristic of the drug that you think will be tough to replicate for a competitor. And has maintained the differentiation, which one would you point to? Thank you. Thanks, Kripa.
Speaker Change: Beto K.
Speaker Change: But the plan is to be able to publish the work in the future. Okay. Right.
George Farmer: Great, all right, thanks very much. Although, to your point, George, I think we will work with them to be careful about publishing too early, but yes, it's a decision that's made jointly, but to Sean's point, we do want to publish on some of the great science we'll be doing there.
George Farmer: Yeah, of course. Okay, thanks again.
Speaker Change: Thank you. And our next question comes from Vikram Purohit with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Christian Stegmann: Christian, you want to take that? Yeah, absolutely.
Christian Stegmann: Great question. So I think in a nutshell, the totality of the data in the way we differentiate from competition is the combination of attributes we have combined here overall to achieve a best in class profile. So what we mean by a best in class profile, we have achieved a very high affinity of both the tier one, a trimmer as well as the monomer. We have achieved significant plasma applied extension over competitors.
Morgan: Hi everyone, this is Morgan on for Vikram. Thanks for taking your question. So we had one on ABS 201. Do you anticipate disclosing the target upon choosing a development candidate later this year? Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yes, we do plan on disclosing the target once the development candidate is selected, either at the end of this year or beginning of next year.
Christian Stegmann: We've achieved very good CNC properties that allow us to formulate this monitor that 200 mix per mil. And then finally, we have also worked on the immunogenicity profile, which will hopefully lead to lower anti-drug antibody rates in clinical development. So overall, I think it's the combination of different attributes, all addressing liability of the competitor molecules that will make it is one of one highly differentiated asset. Got it.
Speaker Change: Okay, thanks.
Speaker Change: i
Speaker Change: Thank you. And our next question comes from Scott Schoenhoff with KeyBank. Your line is now open.
Scott Shownhouse: Hi team, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to quickly ask on 101, you mentioned in your release that it was observed to have an increased biodistribution in non-human primates, and then you say this could lead to, you know,
Speaker Change: faster penetration, basically. When will you have a readout on that? Or when will you be announcing more on that specific attribute?
Christian Stegmann: And then you mentioned the 200 milligram per mil concentration that's a pretty high concentration. I was just wondering if while you were designing the molecule itself, was there anything that was engineered to be able to give you this high level of solubility of the protein? Yes, absolutely. The artificial intelligence engine with this at the outside clearly aids us in improving the availability properties of all our antibodies. So in essence, we are really leveraging artificial intelligence to basically improve our antibody profiles. And that certainly includes CNC properties that allow us these high concentration. Okay.
Kripa Devarakonda: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks, Scott. Christian, I'll let you take that.
Speaker Change: Yeah, absolutely. So what we disclosed today are non-human climate data.
Speaker Change: And obviously, these data are usually quite translational into the human setting. However, of course, there are caveats. These are not humans.
Speaker Change: We think the ultimate proof on the pharmacogenetic properties will be in the clinic, so we will
Speaker Change: observed during our third continuum study of the actual pharmacokinetic properties in humans.
Speaker Change: And we think these data will then be very telling regarding the biodistribution properties which we now think are quite promising based on the non-human primate data. Does that answer your question?
George Farmer: Our next question is from George Farmer with Scotia Bank. Your line is open. Hi, good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions.
Speaker Change: Yes, thanks. And then a follow up on the partnerships, just generally speaking, team, I guess, Sean and Zach.
George Farmer: Also, some more questions on the 101NHP data. Can you talk about toxicity and how high you dose in these animals? I'm assuming this is part of your GLP talk studies. Is that right?
Speaker Change: Would you say from last quarter, you know, the demand environment or the end markets are accelerating, are same or worsening both, you know, large pharma and mid-size and then small biotechs? Just trying to get a sense of the landscape here. Thanks.
Christian Stegmann: And also, you know, you mentioned a number of partnerships that you're counting on and closing this year. Can you give us a ballpark estimate of how much cash you think that will bring into the company? Thanks. Yeah, thanks, George. Christian, you want to take the first one and Zach, you want to take the second one?
Speaker Change: Yeah, I think that what we're seeing is pharma and, you know, great institutes like MSK are looking for differentiated technologies, such as what Absci is developing. I think one of the things that got MSK excited about what we're doing here is being able to, you know, start to drug some of these undruggable targets like GPCRs and NIN channels using our AI drug discovery platform. And that's what we're seeing in discussions with large pharma and biotech.
Zachariah Jonasson: Absolutely. So, yeah, you're correct.
Christian Stegmann: Our GLP toxicology studies are currently ongoing and we were disclosed that the results of this study once they're concluded and we have a line on the publication strategy for those. We have not yet disclosed the doses of these studies.
Speaker Change: as well. And I think if you can, you know, start to have, you know, show that AI can be, you know, highly differentiated and ultimately create differentiated assets whether you don't best in class or first in class. [inaudible]
Zachariah Jonasson: Sure, and I can I can address the second question. So we don't have guidance on cash and closing partnerships, but we do have guidance on bringing in three additional partners in addition to the MSK partnership this year. Some of those would likely be multi program partnerships and those could range from more traditional drug creation partnerships that have up front and milestones, as well as developing my extended rail piece to arrangements that are like what we've done with MSK, which are code of your code development program.
Speaker Change: That is really driving discussions, even, I would say, in a, you know, in a backdrop that has been tougher for biotech. And so I think that that's really exciting to see that.
Speaker Change: kind of regardless of the environment, we are seeing a high interest, just given the differentiation we have in our AI platform.
Speaker Change: Great, thank you so much.
Speaker Change: Thank you. And our next question comes from Li Shen with HC Wainwright. Your line is now open.
Speaker Change: Hi everyone, this is Peterson for RRK. I have a question regarding the breadth of the potential of your epitope capabilities. So should we
Sean McLean: Okay. Great. Sorry, Sean. Go ahead. Yeah. I was just going to say, yeah, we've given guidance on the four partnerships. This is one out of the three. So we do expect another three to be announced from now through the end of the year. Okay. Yes. Great.
Speaker Change: Think about it as a disease agnostic capabilities or do you think there's certain disease indications that it's
George Farmer: And then regarding the MSK partnership that you have.
Zachariah Jonasson: Does MSK have publication rights and can we expect that they'll be kind of actively publishing papers on on on the fruits of this collaboration or is that going to be restricted in some way. That's that all flows through the joint steering to go ahead of Christian. So go for it, Zach. Yeah, I was going to say that has to be done in joint collaboration as well. So we have a joint steering committee that oversees the partnership.
Speaker Change: Your platform is particularly good at identifying.
Speaker Change: And a related question is that in the future, how we should...
Speaker Change: how do you think about the partnership focus? Is it more oncology and cytokine where you have discussion regarding additional therapeutic areas? Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah, absolutely. So we really see this as disease agnostic. Really, the input to our model is the structure of the target, whether that's experimentally derived through, let's say, cryo-EM or x-ray crystallography, or it is computationally derived through, let's say, off-the-fold, you take that structure of the target.
Zachariah Jonasson: And so publication decisions would run through that committee. Okay. But the plan is to be able to publish the work in the future. Right. Great. Right. Thanks very much. Although, yes, to your point George, I think we work with them to be careful about publishing to early. But yes, so there is a decision that's made jointly. But the Sean's point, we do want to publish some of the great science will be doing there. Yeah. Of course. Okay. Thanks again.
Unknown Executive: Thank you.
Speaker Change: and you feed that into the model, and then you can then specify what epitope you want the antibody to bind to, and then the model is able to then design the CDRs that will bind to that particular epitope of interest, allowing you to start to test some of these hypotheses that have been difficult to test in the past just because of the lack of being able to generate antibodies.
Vikram Purohit: And our next question comes from Vikram pure hit with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now.
Morgan: Hi, everyone. This is Morgan on for Vikram. Thanks for taking your question.
Speaker Change: And so that's where we really see this as disease agnostic. And you can even see that in our partnerships, you know, with AstraZeneca, we're focused on oncology, with Almerol, it's focused on dermatology. And, you know, we have some, you know, discussions around, you know, neuro programs. And so, you know, the technology really expands across different indications. And then...
Morgan: So we had one on ABS-201.
Vikram Purohit: Do you anticipate disclosing the target upon choosing a development candidate later this year? Thank you. Yes, we do plan on disclosing the target once the development candidate is selected, either at the end of this year or beginning of next year. Okay, thanks. Thank you.
Speaker Change: With your last question, Christian, do you want to address that?
Christian: Sure. Can you remind me of your last question?
Scott Schoenhaus: And our next question comes from Scott Schoenhaus with Keybank. Your line is now up. Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to quickly ask on one on one. You mentioned your release that it was observed to have an increased bio distribution in non-human primates. And then you say this could lead to, you know, faster penetration basically. When will you have a readout on that or when will you be announcing more on that specific attribute? Yeah, thanks Scott.
Christian: Yeah, it's more about in terms of future partnerships truly, truly think about oncology and cytokine focus or it can also include other potential disease areas.
Christian: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, we view cytokine biology really as the first frontier for AI.
Christian: driven disruption of the biologics market.
Christian: And we deeply believe that this is really just the first frontier. We are actively working on addressing various path mechanisms with various biologic modalities, really fully leveraging artificial intelligence.
Christian Stegmann: Christian, I'll always should take that. Yeah, absolutely.
Christian Stegmann: So what we're just close today are non-human primate data. And obviously these data are usually quite translational into the human setting. However, of course, there are caveats. These are not humans. We think the ultimate proof on the summer could genetic property is will be in the clinic. So we will observe during our session study, the actual summer could genetic properties in humans. And we think this data will then be very telling regarding the biosefribution properties, which we now think are quite promising based on the non-human primate data. Does that answer your question? Yes, thanks.
Christian: for drug creation. So, absolutely, we are convinced that we can tackle difficult targets, as mentioned, GPCRs, and other difficult targets as well.
Speaker Change: Yeah, and I would say with our own pipeline really where we're focused and we're continuing to stay focused is in immunology and oncology and so I think the, you know, pipeline programs that you're going to start to
Speaker Change: As you come to fruition, we'll be really focused on immunology as well as oncology. But again, in partnerships, we plan to expand outside of that.
Sean McLean: And then a follow up on the partnerships, just generally speaking team, I guess Sean and Zach, would you say from last quarter, you know, the demand environment or the end markets are accelerating or same or worsening both, you know, large pharma and mid size and then small biotechs just trying to get a sense of the landscape here. Thanks. Yeah, I think that what we're seeing is pharma and, you know, great institutes like MSK are looking for differentiated technologies, such as what absides developing, I think one of the things that got MSK excited about what we're doing here is being able to, you know, start to drug some of these undrugable targets like TPCRs and I and channels using our AI drug discovery platform.
Speaker Change: Thank you for the clarification.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Stephen Ma with TD Kallen. Your line is open.
Steven Malau: Thanks for taking the follow-up question and this question is just more in response to a prior answer you gave where you said that MSK got excited because he couldn't do
Steven Malau: you know, undruggable targets with, you know, your Gen-AI platform. You know, my understanding is that MSK doesn't have any other AI drug development partnerships with the industry.
Speaker Change: I'm not 100% sure if they have any other non-AI drug development partnerships, but it seems pretty rare for them. So, you know, just curious if you can disclose...
Sean McLean: And that's what we're seeing in discussions with with large pharma and biotechs as well. And I think if you can, you know, start to have, you know, show that AI can be, you know, highly differentiated and ultimately create differentiated assets, whether, you know, best in class or first in class. That is really driving the discussions even say in a, you know, in a backup that has been tougher for biotech. And so I think that that's really exciting to see that, you know, kind of regardless of the environment, we are seeing high, high interest, you know, just given the differentiation we have in our in our AI platform. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker Change: You know, did MSK come to you with, you know, some targets in mind or was it the genesis of the deal with them? Was it through your BB team?
Speaker Change: Thanks.
Speaker Change: [inaudible]
Speaker Change: They're discovering and validating at MSK and to my knowledge this is the first partnership they've done with an AI company and I think
Speaker Change: I think they're very excited about it. We're very excited about it.
Speaker Change: And the second part of your question, do they come with initial targets? And the answer there is no, really, this is sort of a.
Lee Chun: Thank you. And our next question comes from Lee Chun with H.C. Wainwright. Your line is now open. Hi, everyone. This is Lee Chun for I.K. I have a question regarding the rest of the potential of your attitude capabilities.
Speaker Change: a real understanding of how these two capabilities could fit together.
Speaker Change: So we're starting that process now of starting to look at targets with them, and that's just kicked off because we just signed the partnership. But really the genesis of this is just understanding how these two platforms could be really synergistic. So we're going to go through the process now of selecting targets.
Sean McLean: So should we think about it as a disease of a domestic capabilities or do you think there's certain disease indications that it's your platform is particularly good at identifying and related to the question is that in the future, how we should also do you think about the partnership focus is a more oncology and subtle cytokine where you have discussion regarding the additional therapeutic areas. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So we really see this as a disease agnostic really the input to our model is the structure of the target, whether that's experimentally derived through let's say cryo, Ian, right?
Speaker Change: together and advancing those together.
Speaker Change: and I think they saw like a lot of the talk today. Sorry.
Speaker Change: No, go ahead, Sean.
Sean McClain: Yeah, I think a lot of the targets that they are seeing that are emerging are, you know, more difficult to drug targets like GPCRs. And I think having this capability, I mean, I think it's a really, really nice synergy. I mean, they're bringing
Speaker Change: The oncology expertise, the disease biology, the target biology, and then we're bringing our AI expertise in the antibody design to be able to develop first-in-class, best-in-class oncology assets.
Speaker Change: And then obviously, you know, being able to work with them on taking this through a phase one.
Sean McLean: That's right, Chris, the loggercy or it is computationally derived through let's say alpha fold you take that structure of the target. You feed that into the model and then you can then specify what epitope you want the the antibody to bind to and then the models able to then design the CDRs that will bind to that particular epitope of interest allowing you to start to test some of these hypotheses that have been difficult to test.
Speaker Change: I think it makes a ton of sense. And so I think that the synergies that we have here, I think are going to be, you know, really important for not only the success of this partnership, but even with our own oncology pipeline, I think we're going to be able to leverage this, you know, partnership to progress our own pipeline as well.
Speaker Change: Okay, thanks for the call, Aaron, and congrats on the partnership.
Sean McLean: And in the past just because of the lack of being able to generate antibodies and so that's where we really see this as disease agnostic and you can even see that in our partnerships with with AstraZeneca we're focused on oncology with all moral is focused on dermatology.
Speaker Change: Thanks, Steve.
Speaker Change: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time.
Speaker Change: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Christian Stegmann: And you know, we have some, you know, discussions around, you know, neuro programs or so, you know, the technology really expands across different indications and then with with your last question, Christian, do you want to address address that? Sure, can you remind me of your last question? There is more about in terms of future partnerships to lead to we think about oncology and federal kind of focus or it can also include other potential disease areas.
Christian Stegmann: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we view federal kind of biology really as the first frontier for AI driven disruption of the biologics market and we are we deeply believe that this is really just the first frontier we are actively working on addressing various various path mechanisms with various biological modalities. Really fully leveraging artificial intelligence for for direct creation. So absolutely, we are convinced that we can tackle difficult targets as mentioned GPCRs and other difficult target as well.
Speaker Change: © transcript Emily Beynon
Speaker Change: [inaudible]
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, and I would say with our own pipeline really where we're focused and we're continuing to say focused is is in a neurology and in oncology and so I think those, you know, pipeline programs that you're going to start to see come to fruition will be, you know, really focused on a neurology as well as oncology, but again in partnerships we plan to expand outside of that. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you.
Speaker Change: [inaudible]
Stephen Ma: Our next question is a follow up from Stephen Ma with TD calendar line is open. Hi, thanks for taking the fall question and this question is this more in response to you, a prior entry gave where you said that MSK got excited because you can do, you know, indrugable targets with, you know, your gen I gen AI platform. You know, my understanding is that MSK doesn't have any other AI drug development partnerships with industry and not 100% sure if they have any other non AI drug development partnerships, but it seems pretty rare for them.
Stephen Ma: So, you know, just curious if you can disclose, you know, did MSK come to you with, you know, some targets in mind, or was it the genesis of the deal with them, was it through your BB team. Thanks.
Zachariah Jonasson: Yeah, Zach, do you want to talk about that partnership?
Zachariah Jonasson: Yeah, sure. Yeah, so Stephen, this came through the BD interactions and it started as just the conversation around, you know, how we could collaborate in their interest in how we could deploy it against some of the novel targets that they're discovering and validating at MSK. And I, to my knowledge, this is the first partnership they've done with an AI company and I think, I think they're very excited about it.
Zachariah Jonasson: And the second part of your question is that they come with initial targets and the answer there is not really this is sort of a real understanding of how these two capabilities could fit together. So, we're starting that process now, starting to look at targets with them, and that's just kicked off because we just signed the partnership. But really, a genesis, this is just understanding how these two platforms could be really synergistic.
Zachariah Jonasson: So, we're going to go through the process now, selecting targets together and advancing those together. And I think they saw a lot of the target that are emerging are, you know, more difficult to drug targets like like GPCRs and I think having this capability, I think it's a really, really nice synergy. I mean, they're bringing the oncology expertise, the disease biology, the target biology, and then we're bringing our AI expertise in the antibody design to be able to develop first in class, best in class oncology assets.
Zachariah Jonasson: And then obviously, you know, being able to work with them on taking this through a phase one, I think makes it makes a ton of sense. And so I think the synergies that we have here, I think are going to be really important for not only the success of this partnership, but even with our own oncology pipeline, I think we're going to be able to leverage this partnership to progress our own pipeline as well.
Speaker Change: , , , , , , ,
Stephen Ma: Okay, thanks for the call, or congrats on the partnership. Thanks, Steve. Thank you.
Speaker Change: CHAPTER THREE
Speaker Change: Thanks for watching, and don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our channel.
Speaker Change: And, educate children, challenge children. – Jonathan McClain
Speaker Change: Good day and thank you for standing by.
Speaker Change: Welcome to the Absci second quarter 2024 business update conference call.
Speaker Change: At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.
Speaker Change: After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session.
Speaker Change: To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone.
Speaker Change: You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.
Speaker Change: To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.
Speaker Change: Please be advised, such a day's conference is being recorded.
Speaker Change: I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alex Komp, VP, Finance and Investor Relations.
Speaker Change: Please go ahead.
Alex Komp: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Earlier today, Absci released financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024.
Speaker Change: If you haven't received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list,
Speaker Change: Please send an email to investors at absci.com. An archived webcast of this call will be available for replay on Absci's investor relations website at investors.absci.com for at least 90 days after this call.
Speaker Change: Joining me today are Sean McClain, Absci's founder and CEO , and Zach Jonasson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer.
Speaker Change: Christian Stegmann, Absci's SVP of Drug Creation, will also join for Q&A following prepared remarks.
Speaker Change: Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated, and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Speaker Change: Additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause results to differ appears in the section titled Forward-Looking Statements in the Press Release Absci issued today and the documents or reports filed by Absci from time to time with the Auxiliaries and Exchange Commission.
AppSide: Accept as required by law, Absci disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward-looking statements, either because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast, August 14, 2024.
AppSide: With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean.
Sean McClain: Thanks Alex. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us for our second quarter business update call.
Sean McClain: Today, I'm excited to be sharing updates around new and existing partnerships, as well as continued progress on our own internal pipeline of programs.
Sean McClain: As always, these achievements are a testament to the work our team does each and every day and reflects our platform's differentiated capabilities in AI drug creation for biologics.
Sean McClain: With our Integrated Drug Creation Platform's unique capabilities in creating differentiated antibody candidates, we believe we offer a valuable proposition to potential partners to work together on therapeutic programs.
Sean McClain: Along those lines, we are pleased to announce that we have recently entered into a new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a leading cancer treatment and research center to jointly develop up to six therapeutic programs.
Speaker Change #100: MSK has an incredible record of groundbreaking translational and clinical innovations in oncology.
Speaker Change #100: By combining MSK's research expertise with our generative AI drug creation platform, we have the potential to unlock critical advances towards treating these devastating diseases.
Speaker Change #101: We at Absci are proud to be adding another great partner to our list of collaborators, now including AstraZeneca, Merck, Almerol, NVIDIA, and others. And we look forward to working with MSK on these important programs.
Speaker Change #101: While work continues on our partnered programs, we continue to make great progress on each of our internal programs.
Speaker Change #101: AVS 101, AVS 201, and AVS 301 and we are working towards advancing at least one additional internal asset program to a lead stage this year as well.
Speaker Change #101: Starting with ABS 101, our anti-TL1A antibody.
Speaker Change #101: Today, we're excited to share results from our non-human primate studies for this program, demonstrating 2-3x extended half-life as compared to antibodies in clinical development, and further supporting this program's potential best-in-class profile.
Speaker Change #101: Supporting information for these sites can be found in our newly published corporate presentation on our investor website.
Speaker Change #101: We are also pleased to share that ABS 101 is observed to have an increased FAB distribution in non-human primates as compared to anti-TLNA antibodies in clinical development.
Speaker Change #101: This could potentially lead to a therapeutic benefit as steady state levels and tissue penetration could be achieved faster, potentially without the need for a loading dose.
Speaker Change #101: Additionally, CMC studies verified the ability to formulate ABS 101 at a high concentration of 200 mg per ml, which supports further development of a subcutaneous formulation.
Speaker Change #101: We continue to advance ABS 101 through IND-enabling studies as planned.
Speaker Change #101: and are confident in our program's ability to potentially demonstrate a truly differentiated
Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time.
Speaker Change #101: product profile. We remain committed to advancing this program and expect to initiate phase one clinical studies for ABS 101 in early 25 with an interim data readout expected in the second half of 2025.
Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.
Operator: You may now disconnect. Thank you very much, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. [inaudible] Daniel Devarakonda, Good day, and thank you for standing by.
Operator: Welcome to the Absci, 2nd quarter, 2024 Business Update Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
Speaker Change #101: Turning to ABS-201, our potential best-in-class dermatology program. ABS-201 is designed for an undisclosed dermatological indication with significant unmet need, where the efficacy of the pharmacological standard of care is not satisfactory.
Speaker Change #101: As we advance this program, we see this target as underappreciated, where we could potentially be second to clinic for this target. We continue to anticipate selecting a development candidate for this program later this year.
Alexander Khan: I would now like to hand the conference over your speaker today, Alex Khan, VP, Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Speaker Change #101: Finally, ABS-301, our potential first-in-class immuno-oncology program. ABS-301 is a fully human antibody designed to bind to a novel target discovered through AppSci's reverse immunology platform. We continue to anticipate completion of mode-of-action validation studies for this program later this year.
Alexander Khan: Earlier today, Absci released financial and operating results for the quarter-end June 30, 2024. If you haven't received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investorsatabsci.com.
Alexander Khan: An archived webcast of this call will be available for a replay on Absci's Investor Relations website at investors.absci.com for at least 90 days after this call.
Speaker Change #101: And as we continue to advance this program, we look forward to further updating you all in the future.
Sean McLean: Joining me today are Sean McLean, Absci's Founder and CEO, and Zach Jonasson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer.
Speaker Change #101: For ABS 201 and ABS 301, we plan to share data from preclinical studies either at the end of this year or early next year.
Christian Stegmann: Christian Stegman, Absci's SCP of Drug Creation will also join for Q&A following repair remarks.
Speaker Change #101: Looking at the rest of 2024, I'm excited for what's to come next. We remain focused on continued innovation and execution on our internal and our partner programs, all with the mission to create better biologics for patients faster.
Unknown Executive: Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Federal Security's laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking results. Additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause results to differ appears in the section titled Forward-looking Statements in the press release, Absci issued today, and the documents are reports filed by Absci from time to time with the Exceridies and Exchange Commission. Except it's required by law, Absci disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial or product pipeline projections or other forward-looking statements either because of new information, future events or otherwise.
Speaker Change #101: With that, I'll now turn the call over to Zach to walk through our new partnership, our outlook, and provide an update on our financials. Zach.
Zach Jonason: Thank you, Sean.
Zach Jonason: As Sean mentioned, we are pleased to have recently announced our new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Zach Jonason: a world-leading cancer treatment and research center to discover and develop up to six novel oncology therapeutic programs using generative AI.
Zach Jonason: Under the terms of the collaboration, world-leading research teams from both ABSCI and MSK will work together to co-develop therapeutics designed using ABSCI's integrated drug creation platform.
Unknown Executive: This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast August 14, 2024.
Zach Jonason: We believe this co-development collaboration with MSK will leverage considerable synergies between the two organizations.
Sean McLean: With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean. Thanks, Alex. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter business update call.
Zach Jonason: The collaboration will combine MSK's target research and validation capabilities.
Zach Jonason: with our generative AI drug creation platform capabilities to potentially create differentiated antibody therapeutics towards novel oncology targets.
Sean McLean: Today, I'm excited to be sharing updates around new and existing partnerships, as well as continue progress on our own internal pipeline of programs. As always, these achievements are a testament to the work our team does each and every day and reflects our platforms differentiated capabilities in AI drug creation for biologics. With our integrated drug creation platforms unique capabilities, creating differentiated antibody candidates, we believe we offer valuable proposition to potential partners to work together on therapeutic programs.
Zach Jonason: Furthermore, Absci and MSK plan to collaborate on the early development of these therapeutic assets in advance of outlicensing or partnering them.
Speaker Change #102: By working with a premier research institution, such as MSK, on co-developing therapeutic programs, we aim to leverage R&D synergies that could lead to significant value creation through the generation of first-in-class therapeutics addressing significant unmet medical needs.
Sean McLean: Along those lines, we are pleased to announce that we have recently entered into a new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a leading cancer treatment and research center to jointly develop up to six therapeutic programs. MSK has an incredible record of groundbreaking translational and clinical innovations and on call. G. By combining MSK's research expertise with our junior debate on your creation platform, we have the potential to unlock critical advances towards treating these devastating diseases.
Speaker Change #102: Moreover, such co-development collaboration structures, which include cost-sharing, allow abscite greater diversification on a capital-weighted basis.
Speaker Change #102: Our pipeline of potential new drug creation and co-development partnerships remains robust. Hence,
Speaker Change #102: We continue to anticipate signing partnerships with at least three more partners in addition to our multi-program partnership with MSK.
Speaker Change #102: during 2024. This will bring us to a total of at least four new partnerships this year.
Speaker Change #102: We look forward to utilizing our expanding set of generative AI capabilities in existing and new partnerships.
Sean McLean: We'd outside our crowd to be adding another great partner to our list of collaborators, now including AstraZeneca, Merck, Omoral, Invidia and others, and we look forward to working with MSK on these important programs. While we're continues on our partner programs, we continue to make great progress on each of our internal programs, ABS 101, ABS 201, and ABS 301, and we are working towards advancing at least one additional internal asset program to elite stage this year as well.
Speaker Change #102: A particular focus area for existing and potential new partners is leveraging our platform to provide epitope specificity and epitope landscaping at both the local and global level.
Speaker Change #102: Our global epitope landscaping capability supports epitope selection.
Speaker Change #102: by allowing testing and validation of the potency and MOA associated with different epitopes on a given antigen.
Speaker Change #102: Our local epitope landscaping capability then enables the identification of desired epitope interactions for potentially improving potency in MOA.
Sean McLean: Starting with ABS 101, our anti-CO1A antibody. Today, we are excited to share results from our non-human primate studies for this program, demonstrating two to three X extended half-life, as compared to antibodies and clinical development, and further supporting this program's potential best-in-class profile. Supporting information for these studies can be found in our newly published corporate presentation on our investor website. We are also pleased to share that ABS 101 is observed to have an increased bad distribution in non-human primates, as compared to anti-CO1A antibodies and clinical development.
Speaker Change #102: That is, once an epitope is selected, our AI model exhaustively samples interface contacts with the designated epitopes to further refine potency and MOA.
Speaker Change #102: Together, these capabilities offer the potential to enhance potency, reduce biological risk, improve and broaden IP claims, and to achieve differentiated MOA for a given program.
Speaker Change #102: We believe that these capabilities, and others, such as the ability to design tunable selectivity, multivalency, and pH-dependent binding, make our platform highly attractive to potential partners.
Speaker Change #102: As Sean discussed, our growing portfolio of programs includes three wholly owned assets, ABS-101, ABS-201, and ABS-301, all of which were generated using our integrated drug creation platform.
Sean McLean: This could potentially lead to a therapeutic benefit as study state levels and tissue penetration could be achieved faster, potentially without the need for loading dose. Additionally, Team C study verified the ability to formulate ABS 101 at a high concentration of 200 makes per moment, which supports further development of subcutaneous formulation. We continue to advance ABS 101 through IND enabling studies as planned, and are confident in our program's ability to potentially demonstrate a truly differentiated product profile.
Sean McClain: We continue to advance these internal programs according to plan. We also continue to make progress on new internal programs and expect to advance at least one additional internal therapeutic program to the lead stage later this year.
Sean McLean: We remain committed to advancing this program and expect to initiate phase one clinical studies for ABS 101 in early 25 with an interim data readout expected in the second half of 2025.
Speaker Change #103: As a reminder, our business model is focused on outlicensing or selling our internal programs and co-developed programs following value inflection proof points, anywhere from preclinical proof of concept to phase two clinical proof of concept.
Speaker Change #103: Turning now to our financials, revenue in the second quarter of 2024 was $1.3 million, as we continue to progress our partnered internal programs concurrently.
Sean McLean: Turning to ABS 201, our potential best-in-class dermatology program. ABS 201 is designed for an underclosed dermatological indication with significant unmet needs, where the efficacy of the pharmacological standard of care is not satisfactory.
Speaker Change #103: Research and development expenses were $15.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $12.1 million for the prior year period.
Sean McLean: As we advance this program, we see this target as underappreciated, where we could potentially be second to clinic for this target. We continue to anticipate selecting a development candidate for this program later this year.
Speaker Change #103: This increase was primarily driven by increased lab operations, including direct costs associated with IND-enabling studies for ABS 101, and an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change #103: Fell in general and administrative expenses for $9.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $9.4 million for the prior year period.
Sean McLean: Finally, ABS 201, our potential first-in-class immunology program. ABS 201 is a fully human antibody designed to a novel target discovered through AppSize Reverse Immunology platform. We continue to anticipate completion of motive action validation studies for this program later this year.
Speaker Change #103: This decrease was due to lower personnel costs and continued reductions in administrative costs, offset by an increase in stock compensation expenses.
Sean McLean: And as we continue to advance this program, we look forward to further updating you all in the future. For ABS 201 and ABS 201, we plan to share data from pre-clinical studies either at the end of this year or early next year. Ram.
Speaker Change #103: Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $145.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
Speaker Change #103: as compared to $161.5 million as of March 31, 2024. [inaudible]
Sean McLean: Looking at the rest of 2024, I'm excited for what to come next. We remain focused on continued innovation and execution on our internal and our partner programs, all with the mission to create better biologic expectations faster.
Speaker Change #103: We continue to enhance our focus on high-value proprietary internal programs and co-development arrangements by also seeking high-quality drug creation partnerships with industry leaders who can bring talent and complementary expertise.
Zachariah Jonasson: With that, I'll now turn the call over to Zach to walk through our new partnership, our outlook and provide an update on our financials. Zach. Thank you, Sean.
Speaker Change #103: We believe focusing on these initiatives to build a diversified portfolio of partnered programs rather than simply pursuing a higher volume of programs best positions us for further success in the future.
Zachariah Jonasson: As Sean mentioned, we are pleased to have recently announced our new collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a World Leading Cancer Treatment and Research Center to discover and develop up to six novel oncology therapeutic programs using gendered of AI. Under the terms of the collaboration, World Leading Research teams from both Absci and MSK will work together to co-develop therapeutics designed using Absci's integrated drug creation platform. We believe this co-development collaboration with MSK will leverage considerable synergies between the two organizations.
Speaker Change #103: For 2024, we continue to expect a gross use of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of approximately $80 million, including the expected cost associated with completing the IND-enabling studies for ABS 101 with a third-party CRO.
Speaker Change #103: Based on our current plans, we believe our existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operations into the first half of 2027.
Speaker Change #103: All together, we are very encouraged by the progress we have made on our internal programs and confident in our ability to execute on these and our partner programs over the course of 2024 and beyond. With that, I'll turn it back to Sean. Thank you. Thank you.
Zachariah Jonasson: The collaboration will combine MSK's target research and validation capabilities with our generative AI drug creation platform capabilities to potentially create differentiated antibody therapeutics towards novel oncology targets. Furthermore, Absci and MSK plan to collaborate on the early development of these therapeutic assets in advance about licensing or partnering them. By working with a premier research institution, such as MSK on co-developing therapeutic programs, we aim to leverage R&D synergies that could lead to significant value creation through the generation of person-class therapeutics addressing significant unmet medical needs. Moreover, such co-development collaboration structures, which include cost sharing, allow Absci greater diversification on a capital weighted basis.
Sean McClain: Thanks, Zach. The past few months have demonstrated our continued progress across all aspects of our business.
Sean McClain: advancing our internal programs, executing our partner programs, and signing additional partnerships with companies who see the value of our platform capabilities.
Sean McClain: As we continue to execute over the course of this year, we see a number of potential catalysts in the next 6-12 months and beyond. We look forward to updating you all along the way, including at our 2024 R&D Day to be held on December 12th in New York City.
Speaker Change #104: With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A. Operator?
Zachariah Jonasson: Our pipeline of potential new drug creation and co-development partnerships remains robust. Hence, we continue to anticipate signing partnerships with at least three more partners in addition to our multi-program partnership with MSK during 2024. This will bring us to a total of at least four new partnerships this year. We look forward to utilizing our expanding set of generative AI capabilities and existing and new partnerships. A particular focus area for existing and potential new partners is leveraging our platform to provide epitope specificity and epitope landscaping at both the local and global level.
Speaker Change #105: To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
Speaker Change #106: To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again.
Speaker Change #107: In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.
Speaker Change #108: Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Speaker Change #109: Our first question comes from Stephen Ma with TD Cowan. Your line is open.
Zachariah Jonasson: Our global epitope landscaping capability supports epitope selection by allowing testing and validation of the potency and MOA associated with different epitopes on a given energy. Our local epitope landscaping capability then enables the identification of desired epitope interactions for potentially improving potency and MOA. That is, once an epitope is selected, our AI model exhaustively samples interface contacts with a designated epitope could further refine potency and MOA. Together, these capabilities offer the potential to enhance potency, reduce biological risk, improve and broaden IP claims, and to achieve differentiated MOA for a given program. We believe that these capabilities and others such as the ability to design tunable selectivity, multi-valency and pH dependent binding make our platform highly attractive to potential parts. Partners.
Stephen Ma: Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I had a question on ABS 101, the 19th Reprimate Data.
Speaker Change #110: When you're saying that the two to three times additional half-life and You know the bioavailability
Speaker Change #111: Is that based on head-to-head data that you use from actual competitor molecules or is it based on publications on the clinical competitors?
Steve: Yeah, great question Steve. So it is a head-to-head comparison with the clinical competitors and Christian do you want to dive into the details on that?
Christian: Yes, thank you, John, absolutely.
Christian: We have indeed compared ABS 101 with two competitor molecules that are in clinical development. This is RVT3101 and MK7240, so the Royman molecule and the Merck molecule. And we could see in our study head-to-head that we have seen a two- to three-fold improvement in plasma half-lives of ABS 101 over these two molecules.
Zachariah Jonasson: As Sean discussed, our growing portfolio of programs includes three wholly owned assets, ABS 101, ABS 201 and ABS 301, all of which were generated using our integrated drug creation platform. We continue to advance these internal programs according to plan. We also continue to make progress on new internal programs and expect to advance at least one additional internal therapeutic program to the lead stage later this year. As a reminder, our business model was focused on out licensing or selling our internal programs and co-develop programs following value inflection proof points anywhere from preclinical proof of concept to phase two clinical proof of concept.
Speaker Change #113: Does that answer your question?
Speaker Change #114: I guess you got the sequences of the antibodies from their patents and then you express them yourself to do the head-to-head studies.
Speaker Change #115: That's correct, yes.
Speaker Change #116: Okay, got it. All right. And then a quick one on the Moral Sloan Kettering Partnership.
Speaker Change #117: Can you give us a little bit more detail on the level of the code development that your scientists and the MSK scientists are going to be working on? And also, if there's any IP sharing details you can share, and then if MSK is going to be providing any
Zachariah Jonasson: Turning now to our financials, revenue in the second quarter of 2024 was $1.3 million as we continue to progress our partnered internal programs concurrently. Research and development expenses were $15.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $12.1 million for the prior year period. This increase was primarily driven by increased lab operations, including direct cost associated with IND and E-Link studies for ABS 101 and an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change #117: You know, patient real-world data or other data genomics, genome profiling or proteomics. Thank you.
Speaker Change #118: Yeah, absolutely. Zach, I'll let you take that.
Zachariah: Sure. Yeah, Steve, we're really excited about this partnership with MSK.
Zachariah: It's a, you should think of this as a 50-50 cost-sharing co-development platform where we're going to look at six different programs. MSK will be bringing a lot of validation around novel targets, so that validation work could encompass all of the areas that you referenced.
Zachariah Jonasson: Felling general and administrative expenses were $9.3 million for the three months ending June 30, 2024, compared to $9.4 million for the prior year period. This decrease was due to lower personnel costs and continued reductions in administrative costs offset by an increase in stock compensation expense.
Speaker Change #120: We will jointly decide on which programs to nominate into.
Speaker Change #120: Program Development for us to work on from the drug creation side and then would be collaborating throughout that process including once we have the drug candidate to advance those through IND enabling and potentially through phase one development.
Zachariah Jonasson: Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $145.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, as compared to $161.5 million as of March 31, 2024. We continue to enhance our focus on high-value proprietary internal programs and co-development arrangements by also seeking high-quality drug creation partnerships with industry leaders who can bring talent and complementary expertise. We believe focusing on these initiatives to build a diversified portfolio of partnered programs rather than simply pursuing a higher volume of programs best positions us prefer the success in the future.
Speaker Change #121: Hello, my name is Zachariah, I'm for your question [inaudible]
Speaker Change #121: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kripa.
Kripa Devarara: Devarakonda, with Truce, your line is now open.
Kripa Everaracondo: Hey guys, thank you so much for taking my questions.
Kripa Everaracondo: So I have a question about the ABS-101 non-human primate data. You know, obviously it's the totality of the data or the totality of the profile of the drug that is important. And you laid out, you know, how the drug compares with the other drugs on different metrics. But I was wondering if you were to pick a characteristic of the drug that you think will be tough to replicate for a competitor.
Zachariah Jonasson: For 2024, we continue to expect a gross use of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of approximately $80 million, including the expected cost associated with completing the IND and E-Link studies for ABS 101 with a third-party CRO. And based on our current plans, we believe our existing cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operations into the first half of 2027.
Speaker Change #123: and help maintain the differentiation, which ones would you point to? Thank you.
Speaker Change #124: Thanks, Kripa. Christian, you want to take that?
Speaker Change #125: Yeah, absolutely. Great question.
Speaker Change #126: So I think in a nutshell, the totality of the data in the way we differentiate from competition is the combination of attributes we have combined here overall to achieve a best-in-class profile.
Zachariah Jonasson: Altogether, we are very encouraged by the progress we have made on our internal programs and confident in our ability to execute on these and our partner programs over the course of 2024 and beyond.
Speaker Change #126: So, what we mean by a best-in-class profile, we have achieved very high affinity of both the TL1A trimer as well as the monomer. We have achieved significant plasma half-life extension over competitors.
Sean McLean: With that, I'll turn it back to Sean. Thanks, Max. The past few months have demonstrated our continued progress across all aspects of our business. Advancing our internal programs, executing our partner programs, and signing additional partnerships with companies who see the value of our platform capability.
Speaker Change #126: We've achieved very good CMC properties that allow us to formulate this molecule at 200 mg per ml.
Sean McLean: As we continue to execute over the course of this year, we see a number of potential catalysts in the next six to 12 months and beyond. We look forward to updating you all along the way, including at our 2024 R&D day to be held on December 12 in New York City.
Speaker Change #126: And then finally, we have also worked on the immunogenicity profile, which will hopefully lead to lower anti-drug antibody rates in clinical development.
Speaker Change #126: So overall, I think it's the combination of different attributes, all addressing liabilities of the competitor molecules that will make ABS 101 a highly differentiated asset.
Operator: With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A operator. To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. And wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. In the interest of time, yes, that you please lend yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Speaker Change #127: Got it. And then you mentioned the 200 milligram per mil concentration. That's a pretty high concentration. I was just wondering if while you were designing the molecule itself, was there anything that
Speaker Change #128: So it was engineered to be able to give you this high level of solubility of the protein.
Speaker Change #129: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker Change #130: The artificial intelligence engine we have built at AppSci clearly aids us in improving developability properties of all our antibodies. So in essence,
Stephen Ma: Our first question comes from Stephen Ma with TD Calon. Your line is open. Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I had a question on ABS 101, the not even primary data. When you're saying that the two to three times additional half-life and the bioavailability, is that based on head-to-head data that you use from actual competitor molecules or the based on publications on the clinical competitors? Yeah, great question, Steve. So it is a head-to-head comparison with the clinical competitors and Christian, do you want to dive into the details on that?
Speaker Change #130: We are really leveraging artificial intelligence to basically improve our antibody profiles, and that certainly includes CMC properties that allow us these high concentrations.
Stephen Ma: Yes. Thank you, Sean. Absolutely. We have indeed compared ABS 101 with two competitor molecules that are in clinical development. This is RBT 3101 and MK72040. So the Robin molecule and the Merck molecule, and we could see in our study at two heads that we have seen a two to threefold improvement in plasma half-life of ABS 101 over these two molecules. Does that answer your question? Again, I guess you got the sequences of the antibodies from their pad and then you expressed them yourself to do the head-to-head studies. That's correct. Yes. Okay, got it.
Stephen Ma: All right.
Speaker Change #131: Thank you.
Speaker Change #131: Our next question comes from George Farmer with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
George Farmer: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.
George Farmer: Also, some more questions on the 101 and HP data. Can you talk about toxicity and how high you dose in these animals? I'm assuming this is part of your GLP talk studies, is that right?
Speaker Change #132: You know, you mentioned a number of partnerships that you're counting on closing this year. Can you give us a ballpark estimate of how much cash you think that will bring into the company?
Speaker Change #133: Yeah, thanks, George. Christian, you want to take the first one and Zach, you want to take the second one?
Chris: Absolutely. So yeah, you're correct. Our GLP toxicology studies are currently ongoing, and we will disclose the results of this study once they're concluded, and we have a line on the publication strategy for those. We have not yet disclosed the doses of these studies.
Christian Stegmann: And then a quick one on the more moral stone-kettering partnership. Can you give us a little bit more detail on the level of the code development that your scientists and the MSK scientists are going to be working on and also there's any IP sharing details you can share. And then if MSK is going to be providing any, you know, patient, real world data or the data, genomics, genome profiling or proteomics, thank you. Absolutely.
Zach Jonason: I can address the second question. So we don't have guidance on cash inflows from partnerships, but we do have guidance on bringing in three additional partners. In addition to the partnership this year, some of those would likely be multi program partnerships.
Zach Jonason: and those could range from more traditional drug creation partnerships that have upfronts.
Zach Jonason: and Milestones, as well as Development Milestones and Rail Peaks, two arrangements that are like what we've done with MSK, which are co-devs, or co-development programs.
Christian Stegmann: That will let you take that. Sure. Yes.
Christian Stegmann: We're really excited about this partnership with MSK. It's a, you think of this as a 5050 cost sharing code development platform where we're going to look at six different programs. MSK will be bringing a lot of validation around novel targets, so that validation work could encompass all the areas that you run. Conference. We will jointly decide on which programs to nominate into program development for us to work on from the drug creation side. And then we'd be collaborating throughout that process, including once we have the drug candidate to advance those through ID enabling and potentially through phase one development. Yeah, that does. Thanks. Thank you.
Zach Jonason: Okay, great. Sorry, Sean, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, we've given guidance on the four partnerships. This is one out of the three. So we do expect another three to be announced from now through the end of the year.
Speaker Change #135: Okay, yes. Great. And then regarding the MSK partnership that you have, does MSK have publication rights? Can we expect that they'll be kind of actively publishing?
Speaker Change #136: papers on the fruits of this collaboration, or is that going to be restricted in some way?
Speaker Change #136: That all flows through the joint steering. Oh, go ahead, Christian.
Christian: Oh, go for it, Zach.
Zach Jonason: Yeah, I was gonna say that has to be done in joint collaboration as well. So we have a joint steering committee that oversees the partnership.
Kripa Devarakonda: Our next question comes from Kripa Devarakonda with truth.
Kripa Devarakonda: Your line is now open. Hey guys, thank you so much for taking my question. So I have a question about the ABS 101 non human primary data. No, obviously it's the totality of the data and or the totality of the profile of the drug that is important. And you laid out know how the drug compares with the other drugs and different metrics, but I was wondering if you were to pick characteristic of the drug that you think will be tough to replicate for a competitor and has maintained the differentiation, which one would you point to.
Speaker Change #137: And so publication decisions would run through that committee. Okay.
Christian Stegmann: Thank you. Thanks, Kripa.
Speaker Change #137: But the plan is to be able to publish the work in the future.
George Farmer: Great. All right. Thanks very much. Although, to your point, George, I think we will work with them to be careful about publishing too early, but yes, it's a decision that's made jointly, but to Sean's point, we do want to publish on some of the great science we'll be doing there.
George Farmer: Yeah, of course. Okay. Thanks again.
Speaker Change #138: Thank you. And our next question comes
Christian Stegmann: Christian, you want to take that? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker Change #138: Vikram Purohit with Morgan Stanley , your line is now open.
Christian Stegmann: Great question. So I think in a nutshell, the totality of the data in the way we differentiate from competition is the combination of attributes we have combined here overall to achieve a best in class profile. So what we mean by a best in class profile, we have achieved a very high affinity of both the tier one a trimmer as well as the monomer. We have achieved significant platinum apply extension over competitors.
Speaker Change #138: Hi everyone, this is Morgan on for Vikram. Thanks for taking your question. So we had one on ABS 201. Do you anticipate disclosing the target upon choosing a development candidate later this year? Thank you.
Speaker Change #139: Yes, we do plan on disclosing the target once the development candidate is selected, either at the end of this year or beginning of next year.
Christian Stegmann: We've achieved very good CNC properties that allow us to formulate this monitor that 200 mix per mil. And then finally, we have also worked on the immunogenicity profile, which will hopefully leads to lower and to drug antibody rates in clinical development. So overall, I think it's the combination of different attributes, all addressing liability of the competitor molecules that will make it is one of one highly differentiated asset. Got it.
Speaker Change #140: Okay, thanks.
Speaker Change #140: Thank you. And our next question comes from Scott Schoenhaus with KeyBank. Your line is now open.
Scott Shonass: Hi team, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to quickly ask on 101, you mentioned in your release that
Scott Shonass: It was observed to have an increased bio-distribution in non-human primates, and then you say this could lead to, you know, faster penetration, basically. When will you have a readout on that, or when will you be announcing more on that specific attribute?
Christian Stegmann: And then you mentioned the 200 milligram per mil concentration. That's a pretty high concentration. I was just wondering if while you were designing the molecule itself. Was there anything that was engineered to be able to give you this high level of solubility of the protein? Yes, absolutely. The artificial intelligence engine with this at the outside clearly aids us in improving the availability properties of all our antibodies. So in essence, we are really leveraging artificial intelligence to basically improve our antibody profiles. And that certainly includes CNC properties that allow us these high concentration. Okay.
Scott Shonass: Thanks, Scott. Christian, I'll let you take that.
Christian: Yeah, absolutely. So what we disclosed today are non-human primate data and obviously these data are usually quite translational into the human setting. However, of course, there are caveats. These are not humans.
Speaker Change #142: We think the ultimate proof on the pharmacogenetic properties will be in the clinic, so we will
Speaker Change #142: Observe, during our first intrusion study, the actual pharmacokinetic properties in humans.
Speaker Change #142: and we think these data will then be very telling regarding the biodistribution properties, which we now think are quite promising based on the non-human primate data. Does that answer your question?
Kripa Devarakonda: Thank you so much. Thank you.
George Farmer: Our next question is from George Farmer with Scotia Bank. Your line is open. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Also, some more questions on the 101 and HP data. Can you talk about toxicity and how high you dose in these animals? I'm assuming this is part of your GLP talk studies. Is that right? And also, you mentioned a number of partnerships that you're counting on closing this year. Can you give us a ball? A ballpark estimate of how much cash you think that will bring into the company. Thanks. Yeah, thanks, George. Christian, you want to take the first one and Zach, you want to take the second one?
Speaker Change #143: Yes, thanks. And then a follow-up on the partnerships, just generally speaking, team, I guess, Sean and Zach.
Speaker Change #144: Would you say from last quarter, you know, the demand environment or the end markets are accelerating, are same, or worsening both, you know, large pharma and mid-size and then small biotechs? Just trying to get a sense of the landscape here. Thanks.
Speaker Change #145: Yeah, I think that what we're seeing is pharma and, you know, great institutes like MSK are looking for differentiated
Speaker Change #146: technologies, such as what Absci is developing. I think one of the things that got MSK excited about what we're doing here is being able to, you know, start to drug some of these undruggable targets like GPCRs and NIN channels using our AI drug discovery platform. And that's what we're seeing in discussions with large pharma and biotech.
Christian Stegmann: Absolutely. So, yeah, you're correct.
Zachariah Jonasson: Our GLP toxicology studies are currently ongoing and we were disclosed the results of this study once they're once they're concluded and we have aligned on the publication strategies for those. So, we have not yet disclosed the doses of these of these studies. Sure, and I can I can address the second question. So, we don't have guidance on cash and closing partnerships, but we do have guidance on bringing in three additional partners in addition to the MSK partnership this year.
Speaker Change #146: as well. And I think if you can, you know, start to have, you know, show that AI can be, you know, highly differentiated and ultimately create differentiated assets, whether, you know, best-in-class or first-in-class, that is really driving discussions. Even, I would say,
Speaker Change #146: in a backdrop that has been tough for biotech. And so I think that that's really exciting to see that kind of regardless of the environment, we are seeing a high interest, just given the differentiation we have in our AI platform.
Zachariah Jonasson: Some of those would likely be multi program partnerships. And those could range from more traditional drug creation partnerships that have up front and milestones as well as developing my extended rail fees to arrangements that are like what we've done with MSK, which are code of your code development program.
Speaker Change #147: Great, thank you so much.
Speaker Change #147: Thank you. And our next question comes from Li Shen with HC Wainwright. Your line is now open.
Speaker Change #147: Hi everyone, this is Peterson for RK. I have a question regarding the breadth of the potential of your epitope capabilities. So should we
Zachariah Jonasson: Okay. Great. Yeah. And one more. Sorry, Sean. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, we've given guidance on the four partnerships. This is one out of the three. So we do expect another three to be announced from now through the end of the year. Okay. Yes.
Sean McLean: Great.
Ethan: Think about it as a disease agnostic capabilities or do you think there's certain disease indications that it's
George Farmer: And then regarding the MSK partnership that you have, does MSK have publication rights and can we expect that they'll be kind of actively publishing papers on on the fruits of this collaboration or is that going to be restricted in some way? That's that all through the joint steering. Go ahead, Christian. I'll go for a sec. Yeah, I was going to say that has to be done in joint collaboration as well. So we have a joint steering committee that oversees the partnership.
Speaker Change #149: Your platform is particularly good at identifying.
Speaker Change #150: And related question is that in the future, how we should
Speaker Change #151: how should we think about the partnership focus within more oncology and cytokine where you have discussions regarding additional therapeutic areas. Thank you.
Speaker Change #152: Yeah, absolutely. So, we really see this as disease agnostic. Really, the input to our model is the structure of the target, whether that's experimentally derived through, let's say, cryo-EM or x-ray crystallography, or it is computationally derived through, let's say, you take that structure of the target,
George Farmer: And so publication decisions would run through that committee. Okay. But the plan is to be able to publish the work in the future. Right. Great. Right. Thanks very much. Although, yeah, to your point George, I think we will work with them to be careful about publishing purely. But yes, so there is a decision that's made jointly. But to Sean's point, we do want to publish some of the great science will be doing there. Yeah. Of course. Okay. Thanks again.
Zachariah Jonasson: Thank you.
Speaker Change #152: You feed that into the model, and then you can then specify what epitope you want the antibody to bind to. And then the model is able to then design the CDRs that will bind to that particular epitope of interest, allowing you to start to test some of these hypotheses that have been difficult to test in the past just because of the lack of being able to generate antibodies. And so that's where we really see this as disease agnostic. And you can even see that in our partnerships, you know, with AstraZeneca, we're focused on oncology, with Almerol, it's focused on dermatology. And, you know, we have some, you know, discussions around, you know, neuro programs. And so, you know, the
Vikram Purohit: And our next question comes from Vikram Purehid with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now. Hi, everyone.
Morgan: This is Morgan on for Vikram. Thanks for taking your question.
Morgan: So we had one on ABS 201. Do you anticipate disclosing the target upon choosing a development candidate later this year? Thank you.
Vikram Purohit: Yes, we do plan on disclosing the target once the development candidate is selected, either at the end of this year or beginning of next year. Okay, thanks. Thank you.
Speaker Change #152: Unknown Speaker Technology really expands across different indications. And then with your last question, Christian, do you want to address that?
Christian: Sure, can you remind me of your last question?
Scott Schoenhaus: And our next question comes from Scott Schoenhaus with HEBANG. Your line is now up. Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to quickly ask on 101. You mentioned your release that it was observed to have an increased bio distribution. In non human primates, and then you say this could lead to faster penetration. Basically, when will you have a readout on that, or when will you be announcing more on that specific attribute? Yeah, thanks, Scott.
Christian: Yeah, it's more about in terms of future partnerships to lead to rethink about oncology and cytokine focus or it can also include other potential disease areas.
Christian: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, we view cytokine biology really as the first frontier for AI-driven disruption of the biologics market.
Christian: And we deeply believe that this is really just the first frontier we are actively working on addressing.
Christian Stegmann: Christian, I'll always take that. Yeah, absolutely.
Christian: Various Pathomaconisms, various biological modalities, really fully diverging artificial intelligence.
Christian Stegmann: So what we're just close today are non human climate data. And obviously, these data are usually quite translational into the human setting. However, of course, there are caveats. These are not humans.
Christian: for drug creation. So absolutely, we are convinced that we can tackle difficult targets, as mentioned, GPCRs and other difficult targets as well.
Christian Stegmann: We think the ultimate proof on the summer could genetic property is will be in the clinic. So we will observe during our first continuum study, the actual summer could genetic properties in humans. And we think this data will then be very telling regarding the biosefribution properties, which we now think are quite promising based on the non human primate data. Does that answer your question? Yes, thanks.
Speaker Change #153: Yeah, and I would say with our own pipeline really where we're focused and we're continuing to say focused is is in a murology and in oncology and so I think the you know pipeline programs that you're going to start to do it right now.
Speaker Change #153: see come to fruition, we'll be really focused on immunology as well as oncology. But again, in partnerships, we plan to expand outside of that.
Sean McLean: And then to follow up on the partnerships, just generally speaking team, I guess Sean and Zach, would you say from last quarter, you know, the demand environment or the end markets are accelerating or same or worsening both, you know, large pharma and mid size and then small biotech, just trying to get a sense of the landscape here. Thanks. Yeah, I think that what we're seeing as is pharma and, you know, great institutes like NSK are looking for differentiated technologies, such as what outsides developing, I think, one of the things that got NSK excited about what we're doing here is being able to, you know, start to drug some of these undrugable targets like TPCRs and I and channels using our AI drug discovery platform.
Speaker Change #153: Thank you for the clarification.
Speaker Change #154: Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Stephen Ma with TD Kallen. Your line is open.
Steven MA: Hi, thanks for taking the follow-up question. And this question is just more in response to a prior answer you gave where you said that MSK got excited because he couldn't do...
Steven MA: you know, undruggable car rides with, you know, your Gen AI platform. You know, my understanding is that MSK doesn't have any other AI drug development partnerships with industry and
Speaker Change #156: I'm not 100% sure if they have any other non-AI drug development partnerships, but it seems pretty rare for them. So, you know, I'm just curious if you can disclose...
Sean McLean: And that's what we're seeing in discussions with with large pharma and biotech as well. And I think if you can, you know, start to have, you know, show that AI can be, you know, highly differentiated and ultimately create differentiated assets, whether, you know, best in class or first in class. That is really driving discussions even say in a, you know, in a backup that has been tougher for biotech. And so I think that that's really exciting to see that, you know, kind of regardless of the environment, we are seeing high, high interest, you know, just given the differentiation we have in our in our AI platform. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker Change #157: Did MSK come to you with some targets in mind, or was it the genesis of the deal with them? Was it through your BD team?
Speaker Change #157: Thanks.
Speaker Change #158: Yeah, Zach, do you want to talk about the partnership? Yeah, sure. Yeah, so, Stephen, this came through the BD interactions, and it started as just a conversation around, you know, how we could collaborate in their interest and how we could deploy it against some of the novel targets that
Speaker Change #159: they're discovering and validating at MSK. And to my knowledge, this is the first partnership they've done with an AI company. And I think
Speaker Change #160: I think they're very excited about it. We're very excited about it. And the second part of your question, do they come with initial targets? And the answer there is no. Really, this is sort of a...
Lee Chun: Thank you. And our next question comes from Lee Chun with HC Winray. Your line is now open.
Speaker Change #160: A real understanding of how these two capabilities could fit together.
Lee Chun: Hi everyone. This is Lee Chun for ICA. I'll have a question regarding the rest of the potential of your active talk capabilities.
Speaker Change #160: So we're starting that process now of starting to look at targets with them, and that's just kicked off because we just signed the partnership, but really the genesis of this is just understanding how these two platforms could be really synergistic. So we're going to go through the process now of selecting targets.
Sean McLean: So should we think about it as these diagnostic capabilities or do you think there's certain disease indications that your platform is particularly good at identifying and related to the question is that in the future, how we should also do think about the passenger shift focus is a more oncology and fatal cytokine where you have discussion regarding additional therapeutic areas. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So we really see this as a disease agnostic.
Speaker Change #160: Together and advancing those together.
Speaker Change #161: Yeah, and I think they saw like a lot of the talk. Okay, sorry.
Speaker Change #161: And I'll go ahead, Sean.
Sean McClain: Yeah, I think a lot of the targets that they are seeing that are emerging are more difficult to drug targets like GPCRs, and I think having this capability, I mean, I think it's a really, really nice synergy. I mean, they're bringing...
Speaker Change #162: The Oncology Expertise, the Disease Biology, the Target Biology, and then we're bringing our AI expertise in the antibody design to be able to develop first-in-class, best-in-class oncology assets.
Sean McLean: Really, the input to our model is the structure of the target, whether that's experimentally derived through, let's say, cryo-eamp or ultra-acrystallography or it is computationally derived through, let's say, alpha-fold. You take that structure of the target, you feed that into the model and then you can then specify what epitope you want the antibody to bind to and then the model is able to then design the CDRs that will bind to that particular epitope of interest allowing you to start to test some of these hypotheses that have been difficult to test in the past just because of the lack of being able to generate antibodies and so that's where we really see this as disease agnostic and you can even see that in our partnerships.
Speaker Change #162: And then obviously, you know, being able to work with them on taking this through a phase one, I think makes a ton of sense. And so I think the synergies that we have here, I think are going to be, you know, really important for not only the success of this partnership, but even with our own oncology pipeline, I think we're going to be able to leverage this, you know, partnership to progress our own pipeline as well.
Speaker Change #163: Okay thanks for the call and congrats on the partnership [inaudible]
Steve: Thanks, Steve.
Speaker Change #164: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time.
Speaker Change #165: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Sean McLean: With AstraZeneca, we're focused on oncology, with Omeral, it's focused on dermatology and we have some discussions around neuro-programs and so the technology really expands across different indications and then with your last question, Christian, do you want to address that? Sure, can you remind me of your last question? There is more about in terms of future partnerships, truly, to think about oncology and subtle kind of kinds of focus, or it can also include other potential disease areas.
Speaker Change #165: [inaudible]
Sean McLean: Oh yeah, absolutely. So we view cytokine biology really as the first frontier for AI driven disruption of the biologics market and we deeply believe that this is really just the the first frontier we are actively working on addressing various pathways mechanisms or with various biological modalities, really fully diverging artificial intelligence for direct creation. So absolutely, we are convinced that we can tackle difficult targets as mentioned, GPCRs and other difficult targets as well.
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, and I would say with our own pipeline really where we're focused and we're continuing to stay focused is is in a myrology and in oncology and so I think of the you know pipeline programs that you're going to start to see come to fruition will be really focused on a myrology as well as oncology but again in partnerships we plan to expand outside of that. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you.
Stephen Ma: Our next question is a follow up from Stephen Ma with TD calendar line is open. Hi thanks for taking the fall question and this question is this more in response to you a prior entry gave where you said that MSK got excited because you can do you know a drug of a targets with you know your gen I gen AI platform. You know my understanding is that MSK doesn't have any other AI drug development partnerships with industry and not 100% sure if they have any other non AI drug development partnerships but it seems pretty rare for them so you know just curious if you can disclose.
Zachariah Jonasson: You know did MSK come to you with you know some targets in mind or was it the genesis of the deal with them with the through your BDT. Thanks.
Zachariah Jonasson: Yeah, that you want to talk about that partnership. Yeah sure. Yeah so Stephen this came through the the BD interactions and it started as just the conversation around you know how we could collaborate in their interest in how we could deploy it against some of the novel targets that they're discovering and validating in MSK.
Zachariah Jonasson: And I to my knowledge this is the first partnership they've done with an AI company and I think I think they're very excited but we're very excited about it. And the second part of your question is they come with initial targets and the answer there is not really this is sort of a real understanding of how these few capabilities could fit together. So we're starting now process now starting to look at targets with them and that's just kicked off because we just signed the partnership.
Zachariah Jonasson: But really the genesis this is just understanding how these two platforms could be really synergistic so we're going to go through the products now selecting targets together and advancing those together. And I think they saw my. Sorry. Yeah, I think a lot of the targets that they are seeing that that are that are emerging are you know more difficult to drug targets like like GPCRs and and I think having this capability and I think it's a really really nice synergy.
Zachariah Jonasson: I mean they're bringing the oncology expertise the disease biology the target biology and then we're bringing our AI expertise in the antibody design to be able to develop first in class lesson class on oncology assets. And then obviously you know being able to work with them on taking this through a phase one. I think makes makes it makes a ton of sense and so I think the synergies that that we have here I think are going to be you know really important for not only the success of this partnership but even with our own oncology pipeline I think we're going to be able to leverage this partnership to progress our own pipeline as well.
Stephen Ma: Okay, thanks for the color and congrats on the partnership.
Unknown Executive: Thanks, Steve.
Operator: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time.
Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.