- 现金
- 62111 元
- 精华
- 26
- 帖子
- 30437
- 注册时间
- 2009-10-5
- 最后登录
- 2022-12-28
|
5 Feb 2014
Extracts
Arrowhead's CEO Discusses F1Q 2014 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Dr. Christopher Anzalone - President and CEO:
In November, we applied for regulatory approval in Hong Kong to conduct a single-dose Phase 2a study in patients with chronic hepatitis B. The two sites NPIs are well-known international KOL that have conducted many HBV trials. Ethics committees from both sites have approved our protocol and all necessary preparation -- preparations are completed.
We are waiting for final approval from the Hong Kong Department of Health to begin the study. Communications have been positive and we believe that we will receive approval and begin treating patients this quarter.
We're currently planning two dose groups of eight patients each and we expected to enroll quickly. We believe both cohorts will be at effective dose levels in our primary endpoint, our safety and tolerability as well as depth and duration of s-antigen knockdown.
We believe that dosing portion will be complete in the second quarter and we will follow patients until s-antigen levels return to baseline. While we cannot predict how long the duration of effect will be, we believe that topline data should be available sometime during the summer.
Our plan is to provide these data via press release and then present a full data set at a scientific meeting. We have a high degree of confidence that the Phase 2a will be successful. The Phase 1 suggested that we have a safe and well-tolerated drug at all dose study.
We saw no dose limiting toxicities. So we do not expect any safety concerns in the Phase 2a. We have generated a substantial amount of data in multiple animal models indicating highly protein knockdown. For instance, we publish data from electrotherapy describing ARC-520 administration in rodent HBV models that lead to three to four logs of greater than 99.9% knockdown of HBV gene products.
We have generated data in non-human primates using other siRNAs sequences demonstrating similar results. Most recently, we reported deep and durable knockdown in a chimpanzee with chronic HBV. Should the 2a -- should the 2a work out as we hope, it will represent a great leap forward in HBV research and potential treatment.
We believe it will be the first time anyone will have demonstrated consistent s-antigen reduction, which is thought to be a critical step in reaching a functional cure. Based on a Phase 2a data, we plan to move into a multi-dose base 2b in the second half of this year.
Preparations for this much longer study are underway and they include completion of our second external GMP manufacturing run, chronic GLP toxicology studies in multiple species, site and investigator recruitment, protocol development and applications for regulatory approval.
The Phase 2b will be a multinational study and will likely include sites in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We will be designing the trial to provide readout on ARC-520’s ability to achieve functional cures among other outcome measures.
As you can see, 2014 is an important year for ARC-520 and we expect substantial value to be created around this program. 2014 is also about leveraging ARC-520 to de-risk the DPC delivery platform and broadening out our pipeline.
So think of ARC-520 as the candidate drives value directly and as a proxy for other liver-based candidates. Our friends at Alnylam did the same thing with their TTR program over the past year and a half. We've demonstrated that DPCs are safe and well tolerated in humans and we hope that by this summer, we will have demonstrated that they are capable of inducing efficient, deep and durable gene products knockdown in humans.
|
|