Renu Gupta
Analyst · Canaccord
Thank you, Will, and good morning, everyone. Will, when people ask questions about the primary endpoint of our NTM study, their question usually has its origin in the observation that this is a measurement that is not used in other bacterial infections, therefore it may seem quite normal. However, there are several reasons why it is the right measure for this patient population. Here, it's important for me to go back in history to explain how came to choose such a measure and its significance. In 1994, Wallace et al published in the blue journal, the results of the clarithromycin monotherapy trials for patients with M. avium complex lung disease. And the major outcome variable was sputum AFB quota results, so acid-fast bacilli or mycobacteria. And a definitive microbiologic response was either conversion of sputum to culture negative or reduction in colony count on 3 successive sputum cultures from 3+ to 4+ to 1+ or countable colonies, which is a semiquantitative scale that we've used. So essentially in layman's terms, they were looking to measure response of patients to therapy, based on the reduction in the semiquantitative colony count. Two years later, in 1996, Griffith et al published in CID, the results of a study utilizing azithromycin monotherapy, rather than clarithromycin for MAC lung disease. The study design was essentially similar, and the same semiquantitative culture method and response criteria were utilized in this study as well. In clinical practice, at centers specializing in the care of this patient population, semiquantitative mycobacteriology is routine practice. So as you know, in the last decade or so, not much development work has been conducted in NTM, and our study has been a significant undertaking for the severely neglected disease. As no controlled clinical trials were conducted in patients with NTM lung disease, the development of the primary endpoint for this study was a collaborative effort between the agency FDA, the clinical experts, including those who had published previously, and Insmed. So you might recall that the study population in the 112 study are NTM patients who have failed cryotherapy and not responding to therapy even after having been exposed to guideline-based regimens for a period of at least 6 months. Therefore, as we entered into our initial dialogue with the agency about the study design, we shared the perspective that I've just outlined. And it was subsequently agreed that the reduction in mycobacterial density would be the most suitable endpoint to examine in order to better understand and evaluate the potential benefits of liposomal amikacin for inhalation for the treatment of recalcitrant NTM patients. It's important to note that evaluation of clinical signs and symptoms, patient-reported outcome measures and sputum culture conversion are also being assessed as important secondary endpoints. It is equally important to understand that it will be an examination of the totality of all these data that will inform us of the assessment of the impact we're having on these patients with our treatment with liposomal amikacin for inhalation.