NASDAQ:VYGR Voyager Therapeutics Q2 2023 Earnings Report $3.35 +0.18 (+5.68%) As of 10:02 AM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Voyager Therapeutics EPS ResultsActual EPS-$0.51Consensus EPS -$0.59Beat/MissBeat by +$0.08One Year Ago EPSN/AVoyager Therapeutics Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$4.85 millionExpected Revenue$2.00 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$2.85 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/AVoyager Therapeutics Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2023Date8/3/2023TimeN/AConference Call DateThursday, August 3, 2023Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsVoyager Therapeutics' Q2 2025 earnings is scheduled for Monday, May 12, 2025Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Voyager Therapeutics Q2 2023 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 3, 2023 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Morning, and welcome to the Voyager Therapeutics Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. All participants are now in a listen only mode. There will be a question and answer session at the end of this call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request. A replay of today's call will be available on the Investors section of the company website approximately 2 hours after completion of this call. Operator00:00:25I would now like to turn the call over to Pete Franchiou, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:38Thank you and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Doctor. Al Sandrock, our Chief Executive Officer Doctor. Todd Carter, our Chief Scientific Officer. We issued our Q2 2023 financial results press release this morning. Speaker 100:00:57The press release And the 10 Q are available on our website. In a moment, I will turn the call over to Al. Before I do this, I want to remind everyone that during this call, Voyager representatives may make forward looking statements As noted in Slide 2 of today's deck, these forward looking statements include future expectations, Plans and prospects. All forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and subject to risks and uncertainties That may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by these forward looking statements. You are encouraged to review and understand the various material risks and uncertainties facing the company as described in the company's most recent annual report On Form 10 ks filed with the SEC. Speaker 100:01:53As of the filing of today's quarterly report on Form 10 Q, There have been no material changes to the risk factors described in our annual report. All SEC filings and are available on the company's website. Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Al. Speaker 200:02:12Thank you, Pete, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 3. I'd like to start by recognizing the incredible innovation happening right now in neurotherapeutics And in gene therapy. I talked about this on our last call and since then we continue to see tremendous progress. On the neurotherapeutics front, just last month, lekanimab received full FDA approval for Alzheimer's as well as Medicare coverage. Speaker 200:02:43This follows other recent FDA approvals in the neurotherapeutic including approvals of medicines for Friedreich's ataxia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The gene therapy field also continues to advance with recent FDA approvals of the first gene therapies for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy And hemophilia A. Voyager sits at the intersection of neurotherapeutics and gene therapy. We believe we are uniquely positioned to leverage the advancements in both fields and importantly to combine them. To date, the delivery of gene therapies into the central nervous system or CNS has proven challenging. Speaker 200:03:27Approaches to inject these therapies into the brain parenchyma or various cerebral spinal fluid spaces generally have not been And continue to result in setbacks for other companies. Voyager recognized this back in 2021. That's why we pivoted to intravenous delivery, leveraging the vasculature to penetrate the CNS, Something we have enabled through our innovative capsid design. Moving to Slide 4, I will briefly review our investment Now, platform, pipeline, partnerships and potential. First, the platform. Speaker 200:04:07Voyager uses our tracer capsid discovery platform to generate multiple families of novel capsids with robust CNS tropism following IV delivery. We have presented data demonstrating strong transduction to multiple areas within the brain And activity across multiple species. Our most recent data at the American Society For Gene and Cell Therapy or ASGCT 2nd, our pipeline. We are advancing 4 CNS programs through late stage research And towards IND filings, including our wholly owned anti tau antibody for Alzheimer's disease and SOD1 gene therapy program We currently have 3 wholly owned assets targeting Alzheimer's disease, including a new early initiative just announced today to advance a vectorized anti abeta antibody. We'll talk more about this in a minute. Speaker 200:05:203rd, partnerships. Voyager has generated more than $200,000,000 this year alone in non dilutive partnering revenue. In Q2, we executed a license agreement with Sangamo around prion disease, bringing our total number of partnered programs to 11. These programs provide opportunities for additional milestone and or royalty revenue to Voyager As well as opportunities to generate data with our capsids and most importantly to help patients. Finally, potential, Specifically, the potential to expand from gene therapy into other approaches of neurogenetic medicine. Speaker 200:06:04As those of you who attended our standing room only talk at ASGCT know, we are making good progress in our receptor program. After identifying a receptor for 1 of our capsid families, we have now also identified a ligand for this receptor, Which has many of the characteristics required for transport of macromolecules across the blood brain barrier or BBB. We are exploring the potential to leverage the receptor to shuttle non viral genetic medicines Across the BBB, we have also preliminarily identified 2 receptors for additional families of our tracer capsids And we are conducting confirmatory research to further validate these discoveries. While this program is early, I am increasingly excited about the potential here to expand the reach of our technology into other approaches of neurogenetic medicine. Moving to Slide 5, as you can see Voyager is advancing quite a robust pipeline. Speaker 200:07:11However, we are doing so efficiently. The 4 programs depicted in blue at the bottom of the slide are funded and executed by partners. They do not require significant investment of time or money from Voyager. Moving up the slide, the 7 programs depicted in yellow Represent our collaborative programs with Neurocrine. For these programs, Voyager is fully reimbursed for our collaborative research. Speaker 200:07:38The 6 programs depicted in orange at the top of the slide represent our wholly owned pipeline. This is where I will focus today. Turning to Slide 6, you can see that our wholly owned pipeline now includes 3 programs for Our lead program is our humanized anti tau antibody, which is advancing towards initiation of IND enabling We continue to expect to file an IND in the first half of twenty twenty four. Additionally, we continue to conduct early research on our tau gene silencing program, which we introduced earlier this year. This program utilizes a vectorized siRNA delivered with a tracer capsid to reduce tau expression in the brain. Speaker 200:08:29Today, we are introducing another early research program in our Alzheimer's disease franchise. In this program, we are combining a vectorized anti A beta antibody with a tracer capsid. I will turn the call over to Todd, who will talk more about this program momentarily. But first, I want to explain why Voyager has chosen to focus 3 of our on Alzheimer's disease. On Slide 7, a glance across the top row highlights some of the recent progress With anti amyloid antibodies, these represent tremendous first steps toward modifying the course of Alzheimer's Turning to the 2nd row of milestones on this slide, there's an increasing body of data demonstrating the role of tau in Alzheimer's disease. Speaker 200:09:19I think of amyloid as the trigger and tau as the bullet. There is a tipping point at which increasing amounts of amyloid caused tau to spread and that spread of tau is what causes neurodegeneration. The Lilly data reinforced this, Demonstrating that anti amyloid treatment showed greater clinical benefit in patients with lower tau burden. Ultimately, we need to better understand the clinical efficacy of anti amyloid treatment by stage and subtype. We may already be starting to see evidence of complete responders, partial responders and non responders to anti amyloid treatment Based on recent Phase 3 data, complete responders may not need any further treatment than anti amyloid, But partial responders may be appropriate for a combination of anti amyloid and anti tau therapies and non responders to anti amyloid might be In short, this is a disease that affects millions of people. Speaker 200:10:25The field is making great progress against multiple targets and there's still much work to be done. Now I'll turn the call over to Todd to talk about our new anti amyloid gene therapy program. Speaker 300:10:38Thank you, Al. Please turn to Slide 8. As Al mentioned, there are now multiple FDA approved anti amyloid antibodies for Alzheimer's disease. We think a vectorized anti amyloid gene therapy may offer the benefit of providing similar disease modifying efficacy with a single dose. Additionally, while more research is needed, there is biologic rationale to suggest that a gene therapy approach to targeting amyloid May reduce the risk of amyloid related imaging abnormalities or ARIA. Speaker 300:11:09In a gene therapy approach, the anti amyloid antibodies are Moreover, the antibody would first engage the beta amyloid deposited in and around amyloid plaques rather than the beta amyloid deposited around blood vessels. Both mechanisms may reduce the risk of ARIA. Voyager has a long history of antibody expertise. Our lead program is our anti tau antibody VY tau-one. Although VY tau-one is not a gene therapy, We previously shared data at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in 2022, demonstrating that we had vectorized antibodies from this program And achieved substantial anti tau antibody expression in the hippocampus, cortex and CSF of mice, which was sustained 7 months after a single administration. Speaker 300:12:10In addition, we have also vectorized an anti HER2 antibody for the potential treatment of brain metastases from breast cancer. So this gives you a flavor for Voyager's work in antibodies as a whole and in vectorizing antibodies specifically. In this new program, vectorized an anti antibody and delivered it using a novel capsid. Preliminary data in mice have shown target engagement with amyloid plaques Following a single IV administration of the vectorized antibody with the BBB penetrant capsid. We have shown this using vectorized murine antibodies and vector And we are currently evaluating antibody payloads with our TRACER capsids. Speaker 300:12:51I'll now turn the call back to Al. Speaker 200:12:54Thank you, Todd. Turning to Slide 9, as you can see Voyager continues to execute on our milestones. We secured partnerships with Pfizer, Neurocrine, Novartis and now Sangamo and the company is well capitalized with Approximately $273,000,000 in cash on our balance sheet. We selected a development candidate for our anti tau We also continue to add incredible talent to our team. Last quarter, we welcomed George Skangos to our Board of Directors, earlier this month, we appointed Jacqueline Fahey Sandel as our Chief Legal Officer And she is already adding tremendous value. Speaker 200:13:49Looking forward, we continue our work to break through the barriers constraining the fields of gene We expect to identify a lead candidate for our wholly owned SOD1 ALS gene therapy program by the end of this year. As we look towards 2024 2025, we anticipate the potential for multiple IND filings Across our wholly owned and collaborative and or licensed programs. This translates into multiple opportunities to earn milestone payments And even more importantly, once clinical trials begin, several shots on goal to establish human proof of concept for our TRACER capsids. Furthermore, there is potential to see early biomarker based evidence of disease impact in Some of these very difficult CNS indications. We continue to engage in active discussions with potential partners regarding collaboration And licensing arrangements around our platform and pipeline. Speaker 200:14:54In summary, it's a very exciting time at Voyager and we look Forward to continued execution this year and next. With that, we're happy to take any questions you may have. Operator? Operator00:15:08Thank you so much presenters. Your first question comes from the line of Joon Lee of Truist Securities. Please ask your question. Speaker 400:15:32Progress and thanks for taking our questions. On the Alzheimer's program, are you able to share any information regarding the Choice of the antibody that you plan to vectorize and how do you plan to mitigate risks associated with ARIA, for example? And I know you mentioned specifically plaque that are not on vessels and curious if there are certain antibodies you are aware that can do that. And lastly, would you be able to fit an RNAi in the same contract? I'm thinking maybe a vectorized tile RNAi for a dual pronged strategy. Speaker 200:16:11Thanks, June. This is Al Sandrock. But we haven't disclosed which of the anti amyloid antibodies We're going to vectorize yet. As you know, we have a choice of a few, but and we're doing experiments to on several of them now or at least We will disclose that at the right time in the future. The risk of ARIA is real and Todd Nicely pointed out the reasons why we think we're going to minimize the risk of ARIA with our vectorized antibody. Speaker 200:16:41Nevertheless, it's something to keep in mind. There's 2 things I would say here, one is that the risk of ARIA is mostly in the 1st 6 months to 1 year of treatment. And so if ARIA were still a concern, we may wait until most of the risk has passed And therefore use the gene therapy as more of a maintenance after the initial treatment for 6 to 12 months. And then the second thing is that we are we have some preliminary experiments regulating gene expression With a small molecule, which we may be able to then turn on or turn off or adjust the dose in the future. So both are Things we are actually contemplating at this point. Speaker 200:17:29In terms of RNAi, you're right that we have a vectorized RNAi tau knockdown program. At the present time, we don't plan on combining the 2 into the same vector. Speaker 400:17:43Got it. Thank you so much. And your deal with Sangamo, it's really interesting because they got to license your capsids For the prion disease, yes, just a month later, Prevail, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly announced an agreement with Sangamo To develop a novel capsid for Prevail's Parkinson's program, I mean, it's confusing and amusing at the same time. We would appreciate it to elaborate A little bit on the deal given your competitive position on a similar gene therapy program for Parkinson's. Thank you. Speaker 200:18:16Yes. Thanks, June. Well, I really can't speak to prevail strategy here. However, I can verify that Sangamo did come to us seeking the capsid for the Cryon disease program. Speaker 400:18:36Just a quick follow-up. I mean, obviously, Are you concerned at all or are there mechanisms in place to ensure that whatever they may learn from your path that is not You know, stays within Sangamo or maybe with between you and Sangamo, but not to lead to competitors. Speaker 200:18:59Well, we trust Sangamo. I know the scientists and the CEO there are very well. We think they'll take good care of our Capstead as well as any of the intellectual property around them. Thank you. Thank you so much. Speaker 200:19:18Thank Operator00:19:19you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Laura Chico of Wedbush. Please ask your question. Speaker 500:19:27Hi, this is Ingrid on for Laura Chico. Thank you for taking our question. One question for Pete. Pete, how should we be thinking about R and D expense trajectory as you're heading into 2024? You'll be in a position to file an IND. Speaker 500:19:42And so how much of a pickup should we be expecting here? Speaker 100:19:47Ingrid, appreciate the question. And We don't really provide tremendous guidance with regard to Speaker 600:19:54forward looking burn or R and Speaker 100:19:56D expenses Going forward into 2024 at this point, I would say this, if you do look at our R and D burden for the 1st 6 months of this year and in the most recent quarter, our burn is up about 50% plus on the R and D side. Overall, from a financial perspective, you see that that's from an OpEx perspective. From a cash flow perspective, our overall burn is kind of tracking and tracing to about 15% higher. That's on a 6 month basis. So if you look at last year in 2022, our burn was $78,000,000 for the full year. Speaker 600:20:39Our Speaker 100:20:391st 6 months of this year is $45,000,000 on a net basis. That translates to that 15% increase. So hopefully that helps you. Speaker 500:20:51Thank you. Appreciate the color. Speaker 600:20:53Thank you. Speaker 200:20:54May I add that your concern I guess about burn, It's a good concern. I would say that we will continue to exercise financial discipline that these early stage programs are relatively They're not very intensive in terms of resource requirements for early stage programs. And I'd also say that we choose programs based Our ability to rapidly achieve proof of concept and to derisk as quickly as possible in the clinic. And so, but I want to end by saying, reiterating that we will continue to exercise financial discipline and maintain a healthy cash runway. Speaker 100:21:34And Al, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that really shows in the cash balance that we had at the close of the quarter, $273,000,000 on the balance sheet, good runway going forward and we continue to reiterate that that carries us into 2025. Speaker 500:21:54Thank you. Operator00:21:56Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Jack Allen of Baird. Please go ahead. Speaker 200:22:04Thanks for the team on all Speaker 400:22:05the progress made over the quarter and thanks for taking the question. I guess the one key question I have is around the Speaker 700:22:12tau antibody IND in the first half Speaker 400:22:14of next year. I guess, any additional color you could provide as Speaker 700:22:17it relates to The IND activities that need to be completed to get that IND done and submitted? Speaker 200:22:24Yes. So Jack, this is Al. We did have feedback from the FDA in the form of a pre IND interaction earlier this year. And so our timelines are based on what we learned on that feedback and what more needs to be done to get to an IND. The main thing of course is the toxicology study, the GLP tox studies that we will be initiating shortly As well as of course skewing our manufacturing, so we can start dosing patients. Speaker 200:22:56And I'm happy to say that we're on track on all these fronts. And We continue to believe we'll file an IND in the first half of next year. Speaker 800:23:06Great. Thanks so much. Operator00:23:09Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Phil Nadeau of TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Speaker 900:23:20First on the SOD1 ALS gene therapy program, can you discuss in a bit more detail the What you're doing to identify the lead candidate, what experiments in particular do you think will differentiate among the candidates that you have in development currently? Speaker 200:23:36Good question. I'm going to ask Todd to answer that. Speaker 600:23:38So thanks for the question. We're really excited about our capsids and their ability to cross the BBB. We're in the process of finding the optimal Combining the optimal transgene with the optimal capsid. And so we're doing experiments in non human primates to find the optimal combination. Speaker 200:23:58And Mickey, you might be asking about how did you choose the particular siRNA? Speaker 600:24:05Hi, Steve. So our process, we have a long history of vectorizing siRNAs At Voyager, we have a process by which we first screen identify siRNAs and then begin screening the vectorization components We look at a whole variety of different characteristics. So we look at specificity for the gene, we look at the ability to knock it down with that And make sure that we don't have the substantial off target effects and all of those things come together to identify the optimal transgene. Speaker 200:24:38And if I remember correctly, Todd, we've used a mouse specific capsid with one of these vectorized siRNAs and got some very nice Data in mouse models of SOD1 ALS. Speaker 600:24:51That's true. On the T93A So I have a model we saw a greatly extended lifespan and lower capacity retained and we presented that at conferences as well. Speaker 900:25:02That's really helpful. And then, one last question from us. The slides note that there are discussions ongoing for potential partnerships. Can you Give us some sense of what type of partnerships you're interested in and what do you think would create value for the company and shareholders? Speaker 200:25:19Yes. So thanks. Well, as you can see, we have a history of doing a variety of different types of deals. I'd say on one end of the spectrum, we have the deals that we did with Pfizer and Novartis where we where it's basically capsid licensing agreement. We do very little work after they choose a capsid. Speaker 200:25:42They have all the capabilities in house Those programs and they run with it. On the other extreme, I would say we have the Neurocrine collaboration where It's more of a program collaboration around GBA-one and 3 undisclosed neuro targets As well as the prior arrangements around Friedreich's ataxia. And for these, we're much more sort of research collaborators, They reimburse us for our expenses, but we're working hand in hand with them. And but the programs are there. They make all the decisions. Speaker 200:26:23We try to be as collaborative and helpful as possible. And then we have other we have those I would say are the 2 extremes and we can do anything in between those. And we're look, we want to help patients and we want to grow shareholder value over time. And we'll do whatever makes sense for both. Speaker 900:26:47That's very helpful. Thanks for taking our questions. Operator00:26:51Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Yanan Xu of Wells Fargo Securities. Please ask your question. Speaker 800:27:00Hi. Thanks for taking our question. This is Quan on for Yanan. So I have a 2 part question for the new anti ABL Speaker 900:27:08Okay. So first, I know Speaker 800:27:10you don't want to disclose the asset, but may I ask, would you be targeting like monomer, beta monomer Speaker 600:27:17or bigomer of fibro. And I think Speaker 800:27:20Tom mentioned engagement with the plaque. Does that mean it's targeting the fibro? And the second part is, I assume the T2 concentration you want to achieve might be different from the naked antibody strategy. So what would be the T2 concentration you are targeting and as a speculation, what would be the dose level that would be required to achieve that T2 concentration? Thank you. Speaker 200:27:47Hi, Ann. I'll take the first question and I'll ask Todd to answer the second one. In terms of the antibody, we will not be targeting we will not be using antibodies that target the monomer. Those don't work actually. Solanezumab is a clear example that just hasn't worked. Speaker 200:28:09We will be targeting we will be using antibodies that favor the soluble oligomers as well as Insoluble fibrils. And examples of that would include, for example, aducanumab and lekanumab, both of which are for aggregated forms of A beta either the large soluble oligomers including protofibrils Or and as well as the fibrillar amyloid is present in the amyloid plaques. And the reason why we choose those is that there is Very good validation obviously in human clinical trials and of course they have been FDA approved. One of them has even been fully approved recently. So I think the precedence is there for that. Speaker 200:28:59And Todd, do you want to take the second one? Speaker 600:29:01I think so. I want to confirm that I heard the second one correctly. It's a question about the vectorized antibody, How it differs from the straight antibody, is that right? Speaker 800:29:14Right. And the tissue concentration you plan to achieve and Speaker 600:29:24So I can't comment specifically on the Tissue concentrations and the doses we'll be going into. Clearly, we can take what the learnings are from the field on the Antibody concentrations needed for efficacy. We think a potential advantage of the vectorization is beyond the single dose, which of course could have Implications for being able to treat large numbers of patients. But as we talked about in the call, we hope to avoid the Potential reactions with ARIA that you get when you infuse an antibody, you necessarily get a peak of delivery, a peak of antibody exposure In the vascular system, we'll be secreting in a constituent fashion. So we hope to avoid that high exposure And we hope that the we expect to encounter the plaques in the brain before it's encountered in the blood vessels. Speaker 600:30:19We hope to have some advantages there as well. Speaker 200:30:22Yes. So I guess a summary of that would be that we're sort of targeting the AUC side of things rather than the Cmax That we achieved with antibodies because Cmax is more related to ARIA and AUC is more related to efficacy. I would also say that we know the concentrations in spinal fluid you have to achieve with both of those antibodies. And they're in the typical range, 0.1% to 0.5% brain to plasma ratio. So And then there's a lot of published information from animals as to what antibody concentrations are needed for removal of amyloid. Speaker 200:31:00So the nice thing is, this is a derisk program in many ways. We're going after a highly validated target. We have a lot of quantitative information that we can use for drug development. We understand the major side effects and thoughts about how to mitigate those. And that's the kind of thing that we like to go after highly validated targets with sufficient path to proof of concept. Speaker 200:31:26Got it. Super helpful. Thank you, Alan and Todd. Operator00:31:31Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Hirchenhorn of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Speaker 1000:31:39Guys, congrats on all the progress. This is Matt on for Jay and thanks for taking our questions. So we were wondering if you had any thoughts Following Biogen's acquisition of Reata, which obviously reflects a pretty high value for the Friedreich's ataxia opportunity. So how are you thinking about any differentiating factors for your FA gene therapy program, obviously, pros and cons potentially versus Skyclaris, Which you have collaborated with Neurocrine and any advantages as a potential leader follower? And then for Pete, if could just please remind us any timing on the potential for milestones from that SA program, that would be very helpful. Speaker 1000:32:18Thank you, both. Speaker 200:32:20I'll start and I'll ask Pete to talk about the milestones. But yes, so I was excited to see that Biogen Acquired Reata, Reata drug, rexanolone was the very first drug ever approved for FA It shows evidence of disease modification in the sense that it slows the worsening. This was all published in panels of neurology and I thought that the data were pretty convincing When I first saw the paper that was published. And so I think it's a breakthrough and I'd love for us to Also continue on that trend and make further progress. I think that with FA, the complexity, this light complexity here is that It involves the central nervous system, but also the heart. Speaker 200:33:07And the RAYADA drug really targets the CNS side of things, Because the outcome measure that they looked at was more oriented toward neurological outcomes. And so obviously this is A program that is in the hands of Neurocrine, it's their decision. But it can't hurt To have regulatory precedence established by another company, outcome measures that work And that have been accepted by regulators. And look, the peers we want to replace the gene. It's autosomal recessive. Speaker 200:33:47So the patients who have the disease basically aren't making frataxin. We need to replace for the tax in some way. Well, and our approach of course is to use gene therapy. And you have to get the dose right here because too much of the tax is probably not good either. So this is all in the capable hands of our colleagues at Neurocrine and I'll let them answer the question more specifically Back to the program. Speaker 100:34:20Yes, Matt, with regards to specific guidance on milestones So, she with the FA program, which I think was the second part of your question. So, what we've provided in the past is kind of a Full summary of what the 2019 Neurocrine agreement looks like in terms of future milestones. Those milestones are about $1,400,000,000 Approximately, we have not guided or provided detailed guidance with regards to what the specific next milestones are on that program. But I do think what I would highlight, not just for NARCAN, but also for some of our other partnerships, we do have a number of milestones that Essentially could come due in the next couple of years here on all of those partnerships. As Al alluded to earlier, we've got 11 partnered programs now, 7 with Neurocrine alone, 3 in the original 2019 agreement, which includes FA. Speaker 100:35:19Those milestones have not been factored into our cash runway as of yet and potentially could benefit us greatly as we move forward here. So that would be what I would say with regards to that. Speaker 1000:35:32Okay. Very helpful. Really appreciate the answer. Thanks and congrats again. Speaker 100:35:39Thanks, Diane. Operator00:35:39Thank you so much. All right. And our next question comes from the line of Ross Fadeland of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:35:55Ross on for Samant Kulkarni. I just had a question in regards to the antibody programs they have going on. Given that you now have an anti tau antibody and also a vectorized anti tau antibody program, what does this mean in context for prioritizing spend levels On the relatively expensive Alzheimer's programs versus the other programs in your pipeline? Thank you. Speaker 200:36:18Thanks for the question. So actually, we do not have a vectorized antibody against tau program. We have essentially a passive intravenously administered antibody monoclonal antibody, non vectorized. After we achieve proof of biology, hopefully, we will achieve that. And if we do, we have the choice And moving forward with either continuing with the passive antibody or going to vectorization. Speaker 200:36:51So that's so I just wanted to clarify that. And I mean The whole approach here is to choose programs where we can get proof of biology very efficiently. For example, the antibody To tau, we think we can do a proof of biology experiment in humans with about 25 patients per dose group In a 1 year study and with tau PET imaging, we think we can determine whether we block the spread of pathological tau. And so we like that because it's a rapid path to derisking and proof of biology. And then after that, as I said, we have a choice of vectorizing or not. Speaker 200:37:35I hope that clarifies or answers your question. Speaker 100:37:38Yes. Thank you. Operator00:37:41Thank you so much. And presenters, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to Turn the conference back to you for closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:51Well, thank you very much for all the great questions. And If you have any further questions, obviously, we're ready to please call us and we'll do our best to answer them. But thank you very much for your interest in Voyager. Operator00:38:06Thank you, presenters. And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallVoyager Therapeutics Q2 202300:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Voyager Therapeutics Earnings HeadlinesFY2025 EPS Estimates for VYGR Raised by Cantor FitzgeraldMay 11 at 2:17 AM | americanbankingnews.comQ2 Earnings Estimate for VYGR Issued By Leerink PartnrsMay 11 at 1:09 AM | americanbankingnews.comWatch This Robotics Demo Before July 23rdJeff Brown, the tech legend who picked shares of Nvidia in 2016 before they jumped by more than 22,000%... Just did a demo of what Nvidia’s CEO said will be "the first multitrillion-dollar robotics industry."May 12, 2025 | Brownstone Research (Ad)Wedbush Issues Optimistic Forecast for VYGR EarningsMay 11 at 1:09 AM | americanbankingnews.comVoyager Therapeutics, Inc.: Voyager Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating ResultsMay 9 at 10:49 PM | finanznachrichten.deAnalysts Set Expectations for VYGR FY2029 EarningsMay 9 at 4:15 AM | americanbankingnews.comSee More Voyager Therapeutics Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Voyager Therapeutics? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Voyager Therapeutics and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Voyager TherapeuticsVoyager Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VYGR), a biotechnology company, focuses on the treatment of gene therapy and neurology diseases. The company's lead clinical candidate is VY-TAU01, an anti-tau antibody program for the treatment of alzheimer's disease. Its product pipeline includes superoxide dismutase 1 silencing gene therapy, which is in preclinical trial for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; tau silencing gene therapy, which is in preclinical trial for the treatment of alzheimer's disease; and vectorized anti-amyloid antibody, a gene therapy targeting anti-amyloid for the treatment of alzheimer's disease and is in preclinical trial. In addition, the company develops VY-FXN01, which is in preclinical trial to treat friedreich's ataxia; and GBA1 gene replacement to treat parkinson's disease and is in preclinical trial. Further, it provides research program for the treatment of Huntington's disease. The company has collaboration and license agreements with Alexion; AstraZeneca Rare Disease; Novartis Pharma AG; Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc; and Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. 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There are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Morning, and welcome to the Voyager Therapeutics Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. All participants are now in a listen only mode. There will be a question and answer session at the end of this call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request. A replay of today's call will be available on the Investors section of the company website approximately 2 hours after completion of this call. Operator00:00:25I would now like to turn the call over to Pete Franchiou, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:38Thank you and good morning. Joining me on the call today are Doctor. Al Sandrock, our Chief Executive Officer Doctor. Todd Carter, our Chief Scientific Officer. We issued our Q2 2023 financial results press release this morning. Speaker 100:00:57The press release And the 10 Q are available on our website. In a moment, I will turn the call over to Al. Before I do this, I want to remind everyone that during this call, Voyager representatives may make forward looking statements As noted in Slide 2 of today's deck, these forward looking statements include future expectations, Plans and prospects. All forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and subject to risks and uncertainties That may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by these forward looking statements. You are encouraged to review and understand the various material risks and uncertainties facing the company as described in the company's most recent annual report On Form 10 ks filed with the SEC. Speaker 100:01:53As of the filing of today's quarterly report on Form 10 Q, There have been no material changes to the risk factors described in our annual report. All SEC filings and are available on the company's website. Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Al. Speaker 200:02:12Thank you, Pete, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 3. I'd like to start by recognizing the incredible innovation happening right now in neurotherapeutics And in gene therapy. I talked about this on our last call and since then we continue to see tremendous progress. On the neurotherapeutics front, just last month, lekanimab received full FDA approval for Alzheimer's as well as Medicare coverage. Speaker 200:02:43This follows other recent FDA approvals in the neurotherapeutic including approvals of medicines for Friedreich's ataxia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The gene therapy field also continues to advance with recent FDA approvals of the first gene therapies for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy And hemophilia A. Voyager sits at the intersection of neurotherapeutics and gene therapy. We believe we are uniquely positioned to leverage the advancements in both fields and importantly to combine them. To date, the delivery of gene therapies into the central nervous system or CNS has proven challenging. Speaker 200:03:27Approaches to inject these therapies into the brain parenchyma or various cerebral spinal fluid spaces generally have not been And continue to result in setbacks for other companies. Voyager recognized this back in 2021. That's why we pivoted to intravenous delivery, leveraging the vasculature to penetrate the CNS, Something we have enabled through our innovative capsid design. Moving to Slide 4, I will briefly review our investment Now, platform, pipeline, partnerships and potential. First, the platform. Speaker 200:04:07Voyager uses our tracer capsid discovery platform to generate multiple families of novel capsids with robust CNS tropism following IV delivery. We have presented data demonstrating strong transduction to multiple areas within the brain And activity across multiple species. Our most recent data at the American Society For Gene and Cell Therapy or ASGCT 2nd, our pipeline. We are advancing 4 CNS programs through late stage research And towards IND filings, including our wholly owned anti tau antibody for Alzheimer's disease and SOD1 gene therapy program We currently have 3 wholly owned assets targeting Alzheimer's disease, including a new early initiative just announced today to advance a vectorized anti abeta antibody. We'll talk more about this in a minute. Speaker 200:05:203rd, partnerships. Voyager has generated more than $200,000,000 this year alone in non dilutive partnering revenue. In Q2, we executed a license agreement with Sangamo around prion disease, bringing our total number of partnered programs to 11. These programs provide opportunities for additional milestone and or royalty revenue to Voyager As well as opportunities to generate data with our capsids and most importantly to help patients. Finally, potential, Specifically, the potential to expand from gene therapy into other approaches of neurogenetic medicine. Speaker 200:06:04As those of you who attended our standing room only talk at ASGCT know, we are making good progress in our receptor program. After identifying a receptor for 1 of our capsid families, we have now also identified a ligand for this receptor, Which has many of the characteristics required for transport of macromolecules across the blood brain barrier or BBB. We are exploring the potential to leverage the receptor to shuttle non viral genetic medicines Across the BBB, we have also preliminarily identified 2 receptors for additional families of our tracer capsids And we are conducting confirmatory research to further validate these discoveries. While this program is early, I am increasingly excited about the potential here to expand the reach of our technology into other approaches of neurogenetic medicine. Moving to Slide 5, as you can see Voyager is advancing quite a robust pipeline. Speaker 200:07:11However, we are doing so efficiently. The 4 programs depicted in blue at the bottom of the slide are funded and executed by partners. They do not require significant investment of time or money from Voyager. Moving up the slide, the 7 programs depicted in yellow Represent our collaborative programs with Neurocrine. For these programs, Voyager is fully reimbursed for our collaborative research. Speaker 200:07:38The 6 programs depicted in orange at the top of the slide represent our wholly owned pipeline. This is where I will focus today. Turning to Slide 6, you can see that our wholly owned pipeline now includes 3 programs for Our lead program is our humanized anti tau antibody, which is advancing towards initiation of IND enabling We continue to expect to file an IND in the first half of twenty twenty four. Additionally, we continue to conduct early research on our tau gene silencing program, which we introduced earlier this year. This program utilizes a vectorized siRNA delivered with a tracer capsid to reduce tau expression in the brain. Speaker 200:08:29Today, we are introducing another early research program in our Alzheimer's disease franchise. In this program, we are combining a vectorized anti A beta antibody with a tracer capsid. I will turn the call over to Todd, who will talk more about this program momentarily. But first, I want to explain why Voyager has chosen to focus 3 of our on Alzheimer's disease. On Slide 7, a glance across the top row highlights some of the recent progress With anti amyloid antibodies, these represent tremendous first steps toward modifying the course of Alzheimer's Turning to the 2nd row of milestones on this slide, there's an increasing body of data demonstrating the role of tau in Alzheimer's disease. Speaker 200:09:19I think of amyloid as the trigger and tau as the bullet. There is a tipping point at which increasing amounts of amyloid caused tau to spread and that spread of tau is what causes neurodegeneration. The Lilly data reinforced this, Demonstrating that anti amyloid treatment showed greater clinical benefit in patients with lower tau burden. Ultimately, we need to better understand the clinical efficacy of anti amyloid treatment by stage and subtype. We may already be starting to see evidence of complete responders, partial responders and non responders to anti amyloid treatment Based on recent Phase 3 data, complete responders may not need any further treatment than anti amyloid, But partial responders may be appropriate for a combination of anti amyloid and anti tau therapies and non responders to anti amyloid might be In short, this is a disease that affects millions of people. Speaker 200:10:25The field is making great progress against multiple targets and there's still much work to be done. Now I'll turn the call over to Todd to talk about our new anti amyloid gene therapy program. Speaker 300:10:38Thank you, Al. Please turn to Slide 8. As Al mentioned, there are now multiple FDA approved anti amyloid antibodies for Alzheimer's disease. We think a vectorized anti amyloid gene therapy may offer the benefit of providing similar disease modifying efficacy with a single dose. Additionally, while more research is needed, there is biologic rationale to suggest that a gene therapy approach to targeting amyloid May reduce the risk of amyloid related imaging abnormalities or ARIA. Speaker 300:11:09In a gene therapy approach, the anti amyloid antibodies are Moreover, the antibody would first engage the beta amyloid deposited in and around amyloid plaques rather than the beta amyloid deposited around blood vessels. Both mechanisms may reduce the risk of ARIA. Voyager has a long history of antibody expertise. Our lead program is our anti tau antibody VY tau-one. Although VY tau-one is not a gene therapy, We previously shared data at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in 2022, demonstrating that we had vectorized antibodies from this program And achieved substantial anti tau antibody expression in the hippocampus, cortex and CSF of mice, which was sustained 7 months after a single administration. Speaker 300:12:10In addition, we have also vectorized an anti HER2 antibody for the potential treatment of brain metastases from breast cancer. So this gives you a flavor for Voyager's work in antibodies as a whole and in vectorizing antibodies specifically. In this new program, vectorized an anti antibody and delivered it using a novel capsid. Preliminary data in mice have shown target engagement with amyloid plaques Following a single IV administration of the vectorized antibody with the BBB penetrant capsid. We have shown this using vectorized murine antibodies and vector And we are currently evaluating antibody payloads with our TRACER capsids. Speaker 300:12:51I'll now turn the call back to Al. Speaker 200:12:54Thank you, Todd. Turning to Slide 9, as you can see Voyager continues to execute on our milestones. We secured partnerships with Pfizer, Neurocrine, Novartis and now Sangamo and the company is well capitalized with Approximately $273,000,000 in cash on our balance sheet. We selected a development candidate for our anti tau We also continue to add incredible talent to our team. Last quarter, we welcomed George Skangos to our Board of Directors, earlier this month, we appointed Jacqueline Fahey Sandel as our Chief Legal Officer And she is already adding tremendous value. Speaker 200:13:49Looking forward, we continue our work to break through the barriers constraining the fields of gene We expect to identify a lead candidate for our wholly owned SOD1 ALS gene therapy program by the end of this year. As we look towards 2024 2025, we anticipate the potential for multiple IND filings Across our wholly owned and collaborative and or licensed programs. This translates into multiple opportunities to earn milestone payments And even more importantly, once clinical trials begin, several shots on goal to establish human proof of concept for our TRACER capsids. Furthermore, there is potential to see early biomarker based evidence of disease impact in Some of these very difficult CNS indications. We continue to engage in active discussions with potential partners regarding collaboration And licensing arrangements around our platform and pipeline. Speaker 200:14:54In summary, it's a very exciting time at Voyager and we look Forward to continued execution this year and next. With that, we're happy to take any questions you may have. Operator? Operator00:15:08Thank you so much presenters. Your first question comes from the line of Joon Lee of Truist Securities. Please ask your question. Speaker 400:15:32Progress and thanks for taking our questions. On the Alzheimer's program, are you able to share any information regarding the Choice of the antibody that you plan to vectorize and how do you plan to mitigate risks associated with ARIA, for example? And I know you mentioned specifically plaque that are not on vessels and curious if there are certain antibodies you are aware that can do that. And lastly, would you be able to fit an RNAi in the same contract? I'm thinking maybe a vectorized tile RNAi for a dual pronged strategy. Speaker 200:16:11Thanks, June. This is Al Sandrock. But we haven't disclosed which of the anti amyloid antibodies We're going to vectorize yet. As you know, we have a choice of a few, but and we're doing experiments to on several of them now or at least We will disclose that at the right time in the future. The risk of ARIA is real and Todd Nicely pointed out the reasons why we think we're going to minimize the risk of ARIA with our vectorized antibody. Speaker 200:16:41Nevertheless, it's something to keep in mind. There's 2 things I would say here, one is that the risk of ARIA is mostly in the 1st 6 months to 1 year of treatment. And so if ARIA were still a concern, we may wait until most of the risk has passed And therefore use the gene therapy as more of a maintenance after the initial treatment for 6 to 12 months. And then the second thing is that we are we have some preliminary experiments regulating gene expression With a small molecule, which we may be able to then turn on or turn off or adjust the dose in the future. So both are Things we are actually contemplating at this point. Speaker 200:17:29In terms of RNAi, you're right that we have a vectorized RNAi tau knockdown program. At the present time, we don't plan on combining the 2 into the same vector. Speaker 400:17:43Got it. Thank you so much. And your deal with Sangamo, it's really interesting because they got to license your capsids For the prion disease, yes, just a month later, Prevail, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly announced an agreement with Sangamo To develop a novel capsid for Prevail's Parkinson's program, I mean, it's confusing and amusing at the same time. We would appreciate it to elaborate A little bit on the deal given your competitive position on a similar gene therapy program for Parkinson's. Thank you. Speaker 200:18:16Yes. Thanks, June. Well, I really can't speak to prevail strategy here. However, I can verify that Sangamo did come to us seeking the capsid for the Cryon disease program. Speaker 400:18:36Just a quick follow-up. I mean, obviously, Are you concerned at all or are there mechanisms in place to ensure that whatever they may learn from your path that is not You know, stays within Sangamo or maybe with between you and Sangamo, but not to lead to competitors. Speaker 200:18:59Well, we trust Sangamo. I know the scientists and the CEO there are very well. We think they'll take good care of our Capstead as well as any of the intellectual property around them. Thank you. Thank you so much. Speaker 200:19:18Thank Operator00:19:19you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Laura Chico of Wedbush. Please ask your question. Speaker 500:19:27Hi, this is Ingrid on for Laura Chico. Thank you for taking our question. One question for Pete. Pete, how should we be thinking about R and D expense trajectory as you're heading into 2024? You'll be in a position to file an IND. Speaker 500:19:42And so how much of a pickup should we be expecting here? Speaker 100:19:47Ingrid, appreciate the question. And We don't really provide tremendous guidance with regard to Speaker 600:19:54forward looking burn or R and Speaker 100:19:56D expenses Going forward into 2024 at this point, I would say this, if you do look at our R and D burden for the 1st 6 months of this year and in the most recent quarter, our burn is up about 50% plus on the R and D side. Overall, from a financial perspective, you see that that's from an OpEx perspective. From a cash flow perspective, our overall burn is kind of tracking and tracing to about 15% higher. That's on a 6 month basis. So if you look at last year in 2022, our burn was $78,000,000 for the full year. Speaker 600:20:39Our Speaker 100:20:391st 6 months of this year is $45,000,000 on a net basis. That translates to that 15% increase. So hopefully that helps you. Speaker 500:20:51Thank you. Appreciate the color. Speaker 600:20:53Thank you. Speaker 200:20:54May I add that your concern I guess about burn, It's a good concern. I would say that we will continue to exercise financial discipline that these early stage programs are relatively They're not very intensive in terms of resource requirements for early stage programs. And I'd also say that we choose programs based Our ability to rapidly achieve proof of concept and to derisk as quickly as possible in the clinic. And so, but I want to end by saying, reiterating that we will continue to exercise financial discipline and maintain a healthy cash runway. Speaker 100:21:34And Al, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that really shows in the cash balance that we had at the close of the quarter, $273,000,000 on the balance sheet, good runway going forward and we continue to reiterate that that carries us into 2025. Speaker 500:21:54Thank you. Operator00:21:56Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Jack Allen of Baird. Please go ahead. Speaker 200:22:04Thanks for the team on all Speaker 400:22:05the progress made over the quarter and thanks for taking the question. I guess the one key question I have is around the Speaker 700:22:12tau antibody IND in the first half Speaker 400:22:14of next year. I guess, any additional color you could provide as Speaker 700:22:17it relates to The IND activities that need to be completed to get that IND done and submitted? Speaker 200:22:24Yes. So Jack, this is Al. We did have feedback from the FDA in the form of a pre IND interaction earlier this year. And so our timelines are based on what we learned on that feedback and what more needs to be done to get to an IND. The main thing of course is the toxicology study, the GLP tox studies that we will be initiating shortly As well as of course skewing our manufacturing, so we can start dosing patients. Speaker 200:22:56And I'm happy to say that we're on track on all these fronts. And We continue to believe we'll file an IND in the first half of next year. Speaker 800:23:06Great. Thanks so much. Operator00:23:09Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Phil Nadeau of TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Speaker 900:23:20First on the SOD1 ALS gene therapy program, can you discuss in a bit more detail the What you're doing to identify the lead candidate, what experiments in particular do you think will differentiate among the candidates that you have in development currently? Speaker 200:23:36Good question. I'm going to ask Todd to answer that. Speaker 600:23:38So thanks for the question. We're really excited about our capsids and their ability to cross the BBB. We're in the process of finding the optimal Combining the optimal transgene with the optimal capsid. And so we're doing experiments in non human primates to find the optimal combination. Speaker 200:23:58And Mickey, you might be asking about how did you choose the particular siRNA? Speaker 600:24:05Hi, Steve. So our process, we have a long history of vectorizing siRNAs At Voyager, we have a process by which we first screen identify siRNAs and then begin screening the vectorization components We look at a whole variety of different characteristics. So we look at specificity for the gene, we look at the ability to knock it down with that And make sure that we don't have the substantial off target effects and all of those things come together to identify the optimal transgene. Speaker 200:24:38And if I remember correctly, Todd, we've used a mouse specific capsid with one of these vectorized siRNAs and got some very nice Data in mouse models of SOD1 ALS. Speaker 600:24:51That's true. On the T93A So I have a model we saw a greatly extended lifespan and lower capacity retained and we presented that at conferences as well. Speaker 900:25:02That's really helpful. And then, one last question from us. The slides note that there are discussions ongoing for potential partnerships. Can you Give us some sense of what type of partnerships you're interested in and what do you think would create value for the company and shareholders? Speaker 200:25:19Yes. So thanks. Well, as you can see, we have a history of doing a variety of different types of deals. I'd say on one end of the spectrum, we have the deals that we did with Pfizer and Novartis where we where it's basically capsid licensing agreement. We do very little work after they choose a capsid. Speaker 200:25:42They have all the capabilities in house Those programs and they run with it. On the other extreme, I would say we have the Neurocrine collaboration where It's more of a program collaboration around GBA-one and 3 undisclosed neuro targets As well as the prior arrangements around Friedreich's ataxia. And for these, we're much more sort of research collaborators, They reimburse us for our expenses, but we're working hand in hand with them. And but the programs are there. They make all the decisions. Speaker 200:26:23We try to be as collaborative and helpful as possible. And then we have other we have those I would say are the 2 extremes and we can do anything in between those. And we're look, we want to help patients and we want to grow shareholder value over time. And we'll do whatever makes sense for both. Speaker 900:26:47That's very helpful. Thanks for taking our questions. Operator00:26:51Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Yanan Xu of Wells Fargo Securities. Please ask your question. Speaker 800:27:00Hi. Thanks for taking our question. This is Quan on for Yanan. So I have a 2 part question for the new anti ABL Speaker 900:27:08Okay. So first, I know Speaker 800:27:10you don't want to disclose the asset, but may I ask, would you be targeting like monomer, beta monomer Speaker 600:27:17or bigomer of fibro. And I think Speaker 800:27:20Tom mentioned engagement with the plaque. Does that mean it's targeting the fibro? And the second part is, I assume the T2 concentration you want to achieve might be different from the naked antibody strategy. So what would be the T2 concentration you are targeting and as a speculation, what would be the dose level that would be required to achieve that T2 concentration? Thank you. Speaker 200:27:47Hi, Ann. I'll take the first question and I'll ask Todd to answer the second one. In terms of the antibody, we will not be targeting we will not be using antibodies that target the monomer. Those don't work actually. Solanezumab is a clear example that just hasn't worked. Speaker 200:28:09We will be targeting we will be using antibodies that favor the soluble oligomers as well as Insoluble fibrils. And examples of that would include, for example, aducanumab and lekanumab, both of which are for aggregated forms of A beta either the large soluble oligomers including protofibrils Or and as well as the fibrillar amyloid is present in the amyloid plaques. And the reason why we choose those is that there is Very good validation obviously in human clinical trials and of course they have been FDA approved. One of them has even been fully approved recently. So I think the precedence is there for that. Speaker 200:28:59And Todd, do you want to take the second one? Speaker 600:29:01I think so. I want to confirm that I heard the second one correctly. It's a question about the vectorized antibody, How it differs from the straight antibody, is that right? Speaker 800:29:14Right. And the tissue concentration you plan to achieve and Speaker 600:29:24So I can't comment specifically on the Tissue concentrations and the doses we'll be going into. Clearly, we can take what the learnings are from the field on the Antibody concentrations needed for efficacy. We think a potential advantage of the vectorization is beyond the single dose, which of course could have Implications for being able to treat large numbers of patients. But as we talked about in the call, we hope to avoid the Potential reactions with ARIA that you get when you infuse an antibody, you necessarily get a peak of delivery, a peak of antibody exposure In the vascular system, we'll be secreting in a constituent fashion. So we hope to avoid that high exposure And we hope that the we expect to encounter the plaques in the brain before it's encountered in the blood vessels. Speaker 600:30:19We hope to have some advantages there as well. Speaker 200:30:22Yes. So I guess a summary of that would be that we're sort of targeting the AUC side of things rather than the Cmax That we achieved with antibodies because Cmax is more related to ARIA and AUC is more related to efficacy. I would also say that we know the concentrations in spinal fluid you have to achieve with both of those antibodies. And they're in the typical range, 0.1% to 0.5% brain to plasma ratio. So And then there's a lot of published information from animals as to what antibody concentrations are needed for removal of amyloid. Speaker 200:31:00So the nice thing is, this is a derisk program in many ways. We're going after a highly validated target. We have a lot of quantitative information that we can use for drug development. We understand the major side effects and thoughts about how to mitigate those. And that's the kind of thing that we like to go after highly validated targets with sufficient path to proof of concept. Speaker 200:31:26Got it. Super helpful. Thank you, Alan and Todd. Operator00:31:31Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Hirchenhorn of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Speaker 1000:31:39Guys, congrats on all the progress. This is Matt on for Jay and thanks for taking our questions. So we were wondering if you had any thoughts Following Biogen's acquisition of Reata, which obviously reflects a pretty high value for the Friedreich's ataxia opportunity. So how are you thinking about any differentiating factors for your FA gene therapy program, obviously, pros and cons potentially versus Skyclaris, Which you have collaborated with Neurocrine and any advantages as a potential leader follower? And then for Pete, if could just please remind us any timing on the potential for milestones from that SA program, that would be very helpful. Speaker 1000:32:18Thank you, both. Speaker 200:32:20I'll start and I'll ask Pete to talk about the milestones. But yes, so I was excited to see that Biogen Acquired Reata, Reata drug, rexanolone was the very first drug ever approved for FA It shows evidence of disease modification in the sense that it slows the worsening. This was all published in panels of neurology and I thought that the data were pretty convincing When I first saw the paper that was published. And so I think it's a breakthrough and I'd love for us to Also continue on that trend and make further progress. I think that with FA, the complexity, this light complexity here is that It involves the central nervous system, but also the heart. Speaker 200:33:07And the RAYADA drug really targets the CNS side of things, Because the outcome measure that they looked at was more oriented toward neurological outcomes. And so obviously this is A program that is in the hands of Neurocrine, it's their decision. But it can't hurt To have regulatory precedence established by another company, outcome measures that work And that have been accepted by regulators. And look, the peers we want to replace the gene. It's autosomal recessive. Speaker 200:33:47So the patients who have the disease basically aren't making frataxin. We need to replace for the tax in some way. Well, and our approach of course is to use gene therapy. And you have to get the dose right here because too much of the tax is probably not good either. So this is all in the capable hands of our colleagues at Neurocrine and I'll let them answer the question more specifically Back to the program. Speaker 100:34:20Yes, Matt, with regards to specific guidance on milestones So, she with the FA program, which I think was the second part of your question. So, what we've provided in the past is kind of a Full summary of what the 2019 Neurocrine agreement looks like in terms of future milestones. Those milestones are about $1,400,000,000 Approximately, we have not guided or provided detailed guidance with regards to what the specific next milestones are on that program. But I do think what I would highlight, not just for NARCAN, but also for some of our other partnerships, we do have a number of milestones that Essentially could come due in the next couple of years here on all of those partnerships. As Al alluded to earlier, we've got 11 partnered programs now, 7 with Neurocrine alone, 3 in the original 2019 agreement, which includes FA. Speaker 100:35:19Those milestones have not been factored into our cash runway as of yet and potentially could benefit us greatly as we move forward here. So that would be what I would say with regards to that. Speaker 1000:35:32Okay. Very helpful. Really appreciate the answer. Thanks and congrats again. Speaker 100:35:39Thanks, Diane. Operator00:35:39Thank you so much. All right. And our next question comes from the line of Ross Fadeland of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:35:55Ross on for Samant Kulkarni. I just had a question in regards to the antibody programs they have going on. Given that you now have an anti tau antibody and also a vectorized anti tau antibody program, what does this mean in context for prioritizing spend levels On the relatively expensive Alzheimer's programs versus the other programs in your pipeline? Thank you. Speaker 200:36:18Thanks for the question. So actually, we do not have a vectorized antibody against tau program. We have essentially a passive intravenously administered antibody monoclonal antibody, non vectorized. After we achieve proof of biology, hopefully, we will achieve that. And if we do, we have the choice And moving forward with either continuing with the passive antibody or going to vectorization. Speaker 200:36:51So that's so I just wanted to clarify that. And I mean The whole approach here is to choose programs where we can get proof of biology very efficiently. For example, the antibody To tau, we think we can do a proof of biology experiment in humans with about 25 patients per dose group In a 1 year study and with tau PET imaging, we think we can determine whether we block the spread of pathological tau. And so we like that because it's a rapid path to derisking and proof of biology. And then after that, as I said, we have a choice of vectorizing or not. Speaker 200:37:35I hope that clarifies or answers your question. Speaker 100:37:38Yes. Thank you. Operator00:37:41Thank you so much. And presenters, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to Turn the conference back to you for closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:51Well, thank you very much for all the great questions. And If you have any further questions, obviously, we're ready to please call us and we'll do our best to answer them. But thank you very much for your interest in Voyager. Operator00:38:06Thank you, presenters. And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating and you may now disconnect.Read morePowered by