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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALNY)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 9, 2015

$313.92

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Conference Call to discuss the Third Quarter 2015 Financial Results. There will be a question-and-answer session to follow. Please be advised that this call is being taped at the company's request. I would now like to turn the call over to the company.

Christine Regan Lindenboom - Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Management

Good afternoon. I'm Christine Regan Lindenboom, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Alnylam. With me today are John Maraganore, Chief Executive Officer; Barry Greene, President and Chief Operating Officer; Akshay Vaishnaw, Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Medical Officer; and Mike Mason, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. For those of you participating via conference call, the slides we have made available via webcast can also be accessed by going to the Investors page of our website, www.alnylam.com. During today's call, as outlined on slide two, John will provide some introductory remarks and provide general context for some of our recent progress and achievements. Akshay will summarize recent clinical progress. And Mike will review financials and guidance, and Barry will provide a brief summary of recent business highlights and goals for 2015 and beyond, before opening the call for questions. I would like to remind you that this call contains remarks concerning Alnylam's future expectations, plans and prospects, which constitute forward-looking statements for the purpose of Safe Harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our most recent quarterly report filings on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the date of this recording and should not be relied upon as representing our views of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligations to report such statements. With that, I will now turn the call over to John. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Christine, and let me start by welcoming you to the Alnylam team, it's great to have you onboard. And for everyone else, thank you…

Christine Regan Lindenboom - Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Operator

Thank you, Barry. Operator, we are ready to open the call for questions. As a reminder to those dialed in, we would ask you to limit your questions to two each.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The first question is from Ritu Baral of Cowen. Your line is open. Ritu Baral - Cowen & Co. LLC: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. For the PH1 program, you mentioned starting in asymptomatic excretors and then translating into patients who are having attacks. Can you clarify when this translation would take place, and how you'd evaluate that? Thank you. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, we do. Thanks for the question. Good to talk to you this morning. I think that is really the porphyria program, AS1. Ritu Baral - Cowen & Co. LLC: Yes. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. And not the GO1 program. Ritu Baral - Cowen & Co. LLC: All right. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, the porphyria program is indeed currently in these asymptomatic high excretor patients, these are called ASHE patients where we've done single dose, and we're now in the multi-dose arm of that study. And we expect to transition into Part C of the study, which is in recurrent PAC patients early next year. Ritu Baral - Cowen & Co. LLC: Okay. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Akshay, anything you want to add? Akshay K. Vaishnaw - Chief Medical Officer & Executive Vice President of R&D: No, I think that's it. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Good. Ritu Baral - Cowen & Co. LLC: Good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Anupam Rama of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Anupam Rama - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. Just a quick one for me on the upcoming ASH data related to ALN-AT3. I'm wondering if we'll be seeing any type of annualized bleed rate data by dose, and then if can you give us a sense of whether or not there might be any inhibitor patient data at the conference? Thanks so much. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great, great, Anupam. So, great question. So, I think that the quick answer is, yes, we will – we are going to show annualized bleed data from in the study based on both dose and also by analysis of anti-thrombin knockdown. We think both assessments are important. And as we look at dose, one of the things I think you'll see, Anupam, is that we'll look at prospective bleeding rate data during the initial period of time when the knockout is occurring – knockdown is occurring where patients effectively don't have robust knockdown. And then, during the subsequent period where they are essentially at their peak level of knockdown. And I think that type of data will be very informative, because it's not going to be based on historical assessments, but rather prospective assessments and that will obviously, give us greater – should give us and others greater confidence from the effects that we are seeing. Regarding inhibitors, we do have an abstract at ASH, you might have seen it, regarding serum sample assessments in inhibitor patients, but we won't have inhibitor patient data at the meeting. Akshay, anything else to add? Akshay K. Vaishnaw - Chief Medical Officer & Executive Vice President of R&D: No, I think you covered it, John. Yeah. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good.

Anupam Rama - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Great. Thanks so much for taking our question. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Terence Flynn of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Terence C. Flynn - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just two from me. First on the ALN-CC5 program, just wondering if your target level of inhibition of hemolytic activity in the MAD portion is still 80%? And then any updated thoughts on the design of Part C with respect to the patient population? And then the second question I had is just on financials. Obviously, you've guided to a step-up in 4Q versus 3Q for R&D expense, but just as we think about 2016, should we expect another step-up over 4Q, or is 4Q the right run rate to think about? Thank you. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Terence. Let me – and Akshay, maybe address the first question first. Yeah, nothing has changed in terms of our perspective on serum hemolytic activity as a target, and that will be – that will certainly be something we share at ALN-CC5, at the ASH meeting regarding the ALN-CC5 program. So I think nothing has changed there. I do think it's important to also look at residual ALN-CC5 that we achieve versus free- ALN-CC5, as reported for eculizumab, because that's another way to look at the data as well, but all of the data will be shared, including the serum hemolytic activity and our view on the 80% target hasn't changed. Akshay, anything to add to that? Akshay K. Vaishnaw - Chief Medical Officer & Executive Vice President of R&D: No. I think you covered it. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good. Okay. And then Mike, you had some questions – Terence asked some questions on forecast. Michael P. Mason - Treasurer & Vice President-Finance: So, Terence, we will give our formal guidance during our Q4 call in February 4, forecast for next year, so you can get an idea on burn rate for 2016. And the other thing that obviously, in biotech, each quarter, there is ups and downs based on different C&C batches and things like that enrollment in trials, but we will definitely see an increase in 2016 as we grow our development pipeline compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, and we'll go – give more clarity on that on our Q4 call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Geoff Meacham of Barclays. Your line is open.

Geoffrey Meacham - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. Good morning, Geoff.

Geoffrey Meacham - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Good, thanks. How are you? John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good.

Geoffrey Meacham - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

So, a question, John, on revusiran. So the ENDEAVOUR study may take some time to complete enrollment, but I want to get a sense from you guys as to, aside from the open-label extension, what we'll learn along the way? For the DISCOVERY study, is there going to be maybe any, I wouldn't call it an interim look but a description of the patient population? I'm just trying to get a better sense for how you can correlate how the science is advancing with respect to correlating TTR mutations to cardiovascular disease severity, to things like six-minute walk? John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Those are great questions. I'm just going to hand it right over to Akshay. Akshay K. Vaishnaw - Chief Medical Officer & Executive Vice President of R&D: Yeah. We have – Geoff, you may have seen previously, we brought out some natural history data that we have on the FAC and SSA area and that clearly shows this is a devastating disease, where FAC and SSA both are associated with significant morbidity and mortality in terms of hospitalization and deaths respectively, median survival is well under five years. With respect to FAC and genotype, there is some data within that natural history work that we can share again with folk. The predominant genotype that's associated with FAC, of course, is V122I. And so the majority of patients both in the ENDEAVOUR study and patients ultimately when the drug gets approved and the drug's prescribed, a majority of patients will have V122I. And so the data from the natural history work are fairly representative of what we can expect to see within the ENDEAVOUR Phase 3 study. And apart from that, of course, this Phase 2 OLE study for revusiran, which we just…

Geoffrey Meacham - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Got you. Really helpful, guys. Thanks. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Geoff.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Alan Carr of Needham & Co. Your line is open. Alan Carr - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Alan. Alan Carr - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning. Can you talk a bit more about the HBV program, what will be your expectations at ASH? And then also over the course of 2016, timelines for getting this into patients? And then maybe also an update, I believe you were looking at other infectious disease indications in the liver, an update on that too? Thanks. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great. And so I think you meant the Liver Meeting, not at ASH for... Alan Carr - Needham & Co. LLC: You are right. I'm sorry. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, no. No problem. No problem. Yeah. And that's just in a couple of weeks. So we're going to provide some updated pre-clinical results there. The development candidate is just finishing up its pre-IND studies, we're very much fully on track to file a CTA for that program by the end of this year, in December. We are going to likely be able to initiate our Phase 1 study in the first quarter, maybe toward the end of the first quarter, early second quarter. So early 2016 is our guidance there. And as we get closer to that filing, we'll update you on the design of our Phase 1 study, we wouldn't do this yet, Alan. But I expect that we'll see data sometime next year. Now regarding other hepatic infectious disease targets, we're quite interested in hepatitis delta as a co-infectious pathogen with HBV where the disease…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And the next question is from Gena Wang of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open

Hey, this is Shao Ping (38:55) for Gena. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi. How are you?

Unknown Speaker

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open

Thank you for taking my question. So, I just had a quick question about patisiran, so how do you see the improvement in the nerve fiber density could help patisiran regulatory approval? John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's a really great question. Akshay, do you want to handle that? Akshay K. Vaishnaw - Chief Medical Officer & Executive Vice President of R&D: Yeah. So the nerve fiber density data, just to repeat, we saw a 4.9 millimeter per cube increase from baseline in sweat gland nerve fiber density in the leg, and that's a really, to our minds, a really remarkable result to show an improved innovation in a key organ in the limbs and something that's never been shown before in this disease. And what that serves to do from our perspective and we hope regulators will agree, is it provides additional data sets on top of the clinical data we'll be reporting with the NIS-based scoring system and the TTR knockdown, it provides an additional data point to say something important is happening with TTR knockdown in terms of outcome, and of course, it begins to explain some of the improvements we're seeing in this. Now, I can't say any of that conclusively. This is a small Phase 2 open-label study, but we will be looking at similar data from the Phase 3 APOLLO study where there too, we've incorporated nerve biopsies, and if these data reproduce in that control study then I think, it will be another powerful nugget within the entire data set, that should compel people that patisiran is an important new agent for familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy. So really very, very excited about that and something that's unique to our program and we also in the Paris meeting showed reductions in…

Unknown Speaker

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open

All right. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And the last question is from Ted Tenthoff of Piper Jaffray. Your line is open. Ted A. Tenthoff - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Great. Thank you, guys, and really excited to see all the progress continuing into the back half of this year. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Ted. Ted A. Tenthoff - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): And what is going to be a really busy 2016. I guess my question has to deal with ASH. Just going back through and getting a sense of what to expect, obviously, updates on ALN-AT3 and I think also on ALN-CC5, if I'm not mistaken. So maybe you can sort of tell us what we should be expecting at the conference, and then what next steps for those two programs will be into 2016? John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. That's great, Ted. Well, we're really looking forward to the conference coming up, it's going to be a big meeting for us, for sure. With ALN-AT3, we're going to be showing data from about a dozen additional patients that have now received monthly dosing of ALN-AT3, and I think obviously, we'll be sharing knockdown, trauma generation changes, safety very important with this drug, as well as also looking at annualized bleed rates. And again, as I mentioned earlier in the call, we're going to be looking at annualized bleed rates by dose group, as well as by relative changes in thrombin generation. And the bleed rate data that we're going to be sharing are prospectively generated. So, they are not based on comparisons with historical controls. So I think, I think those type of data will be very helpful. Clearly, where we want to be with ALN-AT3 and we think that we'll be able to be, come that point in time, is exiting the year with clarity around the dose, those regimen that we can then proceed into Phase 3 in the middle of next year, which is our plan. So, that's going to be a big data readout. And then with ALN-CC5, absolutely, we're going to have ALN-CC5 data at the meeting. This will include data from our multi-dose cohorts that extend what we did and showed at EHA. Here, I think all eyes should be on the level of knockdown that's achieved, the changes in hemolytic activity, as well as the type of residual level to ALN-CC5 we obtained, and how they compare with the three ALN-CC5, that's been reported historically with eculizumab, because that's a direct apples-to-apples comparison. So those type of data sets, I think, will be very – of great interest to people, and we look forward to sharing them. I can't wait for early December. Ted A. Tenthoff - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Yeah. Good. All right. Excellent. Thanks so much for the update. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great, Ted.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I'll turn the call back over for closing remarks. John M. Maraganore - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great. So listen, thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning, again. Look out for our R&D Day in December. We love to see you there, it will be great meeting, but I do want to end by just thanking a few groups. First, the Alnylam team, who have been working tirelessly to deliver these innovative medicines to patients, and then also the physicians and study teams and coordinators who've worked with us on our clinical studies, we now have a significant number of clinical studies around going, but most of all, I'd like to thank the patients and their families who are participating in our clinical trials. Obviously, our commitment is to you, and to make a difference in your lives. So with that, I think we can now close. Thank you very much.