Welcome to the Minerva Neurosciences First Quarter 2018 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mod. There will be a question-and-answer session following today’s prepared remarks. This call is being webcast live on the Investors section of Minerva’s website at ir.minervaneurosciences.com. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to William Boni, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Minerva. Please proceed.

Good morning. A press release with the Company’s first quarter 2018 financial results became available at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time today and can be found on the Investors section of our website. Our quarterly report on Form 10-Q was also filed electronically with the SEC this morning and can be found on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Joining me today on the call from Minerva are Dr. Remy Luthringer, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Geoff Race, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today’s discussion will include statements about the Company’s future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors that are more fully detailed under the caption Risk Factors in our filings with the SEC including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 filed with the SEC on May 3, 2018. Any forward-looking statements made on this call speak only as of today’s date, Thursday, May 3, 2018, and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after today’s call except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Remy Luthringer.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. With the recent initiation of our Phase 2b trial is MIN-117, Minerva has now moving the three programs into late-stage development. So most advanced program is MIN-101, now called roluperidone for the treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia which remains a significant unmet medical need. At the end of last year, we initiated a pivotal Phase 3 trial with roluperidone. We have prioritized the initiation of US sites, and I am pleased to report that they have been actively enrolling patients during the first quarter. More recently a number of European sites have been initiated. Approximately 500 patients will be enrolled at approximately 60 clinical sites into US and Europe with about 30% of patients coming from the US. We expect to have the top-line results from the trial in the first half of 2019. As discussed during our recent key opinion leader event in New York, a recent survey of psychiatrists ranked [ph] negative symptoms as a principal unmet medical need for patients suffering from schizophrenia. Roluperidone is under development to be the first drug approved to target these symptoms in this patient population. Negative symptoms stay with the majority of schizophrenia patients for life. These symptoms severely limit the ability to lead productive lives and result in an emotional burden to themselves and their families as well as a significant economic burden to society. In contrast, positive symptoms which are the main focus of currently available treatments are episodic, represent only intermittently in patients with schizophrenia. Currently approved therapies for positive symptoms [indiscernible] have therapeutic effect primarily by blocking the dopamine transmission. So, blockade of the dopamine system in the brain reduces not only side effects such weight gain, sedation, extrapyramidal symptoms and prolactin increase but…

Thank you, Remy. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release summarizing our operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018. A more detailed discussion of our results may be found in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC earlier today. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities as of March 31, 2018 were approximately $121.1 million. The company believes that its existing cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities will be sufficient to meet its cash commitments for at least the next 12 months from today and into early 2020 based on our current operating plan. The assumptions upon which this estimate is based are routinely evaluated and maybe subject to change. Research and development expenses were $8.4 million in the first quarter of 2018 compared to $7.6 million in the first quarter of 2017. The increase in R&D expenses primarily reflects higher development expenses for the Phase 3 clinical trial of roluperidone and the Phase 2b clinical trial of MIN-117. These amounts were partially offset by lower development expenses for the seltorexant program due to the amendment to the Company’s Co-Development and License Agreement with Janssen. We expect research and development expenses to increase during 2018 as we increase patient enrollment and related support activities for the roluperidone and MIN-117 trials. General and administrative expenses were $4.3 million in the first quarter of 2018 compared to $2.9 million in the first quarter of 2017. This increase in G&A expenses was primarily due to an increase in non-cash stock-based compensation expense and salary costs from increased staffing to support our pre-commercial activities. We expect general and administrative expenses to increase during 2018 as we begin to invest in the infrastructure necessary to support the Company’s growth. Net loss was $12.4 million for the first quarter of 2018 or a loss per share of $0.32 basic and diluted, compared to a net loss of $10.6 million for the first quarter of 2017 or a loss per share of $0.30 basic and diluted. Now I would like to turn the call back to the operator for any questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Jason Butler of JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Hey, it’s [Will] in for Jason. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess my first question is Remy you mentioned some of the market research that you are doing for roluperidone and I know some of that was presented at the recent event. Just wondering if you could discuss in a bit more detail your current thoughts on the market opportunity and if you expect that to evolve or it is evolving at all? Thanks.

Thank you, Remy speaking here. I think I will give this to Rick, who is also on the call and he can give you a little bit more granularity on all this. So very important question and it's something we have really contemplated very carefully currently. So, Rick please.

Yeah, thank you Remi and good morning. So, at the [indiscernible] we mentioned what we think is very significant population that experiences negative symptoms who are clinically stable with positive symptoms or just to take you back to some of those numbers, we know there is about 1.4 million patients in the U.S. that are diagnosed and treated and almost 750,000 or almost of them are clinically stable and have persistent or predominant negative symptoms and what was interesting is in terms of advancing our assessment of the commercial opportunity, we recently surveyed 150 psychiatrists in the U.S. these are prescribers that see patients with schizophrenia and what they are telling us is that that population that [confirmed] that population exists, that there is a high unmet need are looking for therapies to treat these patients and when exposed to the clinical data that we generated thus far that we’re planning replicate in the Phase 3, they are really hitting, they are likely to use while we [indiscernible] in that patient population, so that is a of course very exciting for us.

Okay, great. And it’s kind of an out of the box question, I guess, but Phase 2 for MIN-117 is expected to be on the first half in next year maybe the same time as the 202 trials. Any potential for synergies both those agents are successful MDD?

So, it is obviously a great question. But I think as you know mood disorders is a very I have to say heterogeneous population, so it is definitely the symptoms the clinician will see and the symptoms the patient is suffering from are very similar, but you have really different population and without going into too much details you have definitely depressions where people are reacting to life events, stress at work, stress in the family and so this is I think a population who is responding quite well to existing therapies, afterwards you have a part of the population who are partial responders. And they are really not really responding well and they are not going to back to normal mood, when they are treated with the current therapies and at the end of the day you also really what we call the resistant patients, where probably and this was called under [indiscernible] depression before we went to DSM and we call this MDD. So just to say that you have different types of patients suffering from depression with probably a different biological background and which is important would need a different treatment. So all this say that I think the idea with 202, with seltorexant is really to go after the patients who are not responding well to the existing therapies to so partial responder this and as you know obviously sleep is an important component of depression but as you know also what we have seen with this molecule is that we have not only an improvement of insomnia or sleep, or the sleep wake cycle in these patients but due to the mechanism of action of this molecule, we have also in effect which is really a direct effect on mood. So, the rationale to go…

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Joel Beatty of Citi. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. And thanks for taking the questions. The first one is -- and maybe it’s a little bit too early to address this. Do you have -- could you discuss for the five [audio gap] to the ‘19, what the timing could be in a sense of -- do you anticipate there are certain trials that would read out earlier than others?

So, Joel, sorry, you broke up for whatever, five seconds. So, can you just repeat what was your question? I understood 2019 but I did not get the beginning.

Yes, sorry about that. So, with the five trials reading out in 2019, do you anticipate that certain trials will read out before others?

So, this is obviously an interesting question and honestly difficult to answer at this stage. What I can say today is that all the five trials currently going on are moving according to plan. And I think we should keep the guidance that the read out will be in the first half of 2019. We say that indeed obviously some trials will read out earlier than the other ones but I think we should keep this guidance. But I think the message here is things are going well, patients are entering the study and I think we are on target in terms of timing.

Great. And then maybe a slightly different question is, I’ve seen in the press release roluperidone and 117 are guided to have results in the first half of 2019 but seltorexant is guided to have results -- [as I’ve heard], in 2019. So, should we assume that seltorexant data is likely to come towards the end of 2019 or is it possible that the read outs from those three seltorexant trials could also come in the first half.

I would not read this in the same way as you are reading it, I think we are just taking our precaution in order not to be disappoint anybody but again the studies are definitely on time. So, on a peer Joel, I cannot give you more granularity. We are doing our homework, we are really very close to the investigators and to the teams around the investigators in order to have them focused on our trials. Again, in some trials the things are going even better than expected, but I think I would not give more guidance at this stage, you have to give us a little bit time to move forward with all these trials.

Got it, it makes sense. And then would you guys take cash obviously with five trials underway, expenses are increasing. How do you think about expenses ramping up over the course of this year, or perhaps how long cash lasts?

Yeah, let me take that one Joel, its Geoffrey, thank you for the question. So, as we guided in the call, we expect cash to last us into 2020. Of course, we have five fairly big studies running, but of course three of them are currently financed by Janssen in accordance with the amendment of the co-development and co-commercialization agreement that we penned with them with last year. So, obviously the role of [paradigm] study is a big study, the 117 is also moving ahead and cash burn will of course be correlated to the speed at which we recruit those studies. But clearly over the last couple of years we’ve spent around about $30 million per year on our clinical programs and obviously that rate is now increasing as you can see from the cash burn rate in the first quarter of this year.

Thanks, and then one last question. I think clearly there’s been a lot of companies that have had interest in negative symptoms with schizophrenia in the past and those drugs have all [sell to-date]. One of the things that’s unique about your program is that it’s a monotherapy trial whereas typically the trials in the past has been addon therapies. Could you discuss the importance of the distinction?

This is a great question and I am really happy that you asked this question. So, I think there are two aspects here, first of all and as Rick mentioned, there is definitely a population out there which is a significant part of the population of patients with schizophrenia who do not need any anti-psychotic but need a treatment to improve negative symptoms, cognition and in order to allow them to function well, so this is definitely a population out there. There is a population obviously who has some positive flairs and positive episodes of agitation and here you need obviously a treatment which is helping them to come down if you allow me this work from this positive episode. All these said, I mean if you want to get the approval of a drug for negative symptoms showing a specific effect on negative symptoms you have to design the right trial. So, this is a different aspect, this is not speaking about any population at the end of the day which is treated with a drug but I mean about getting the claim of a specific effect on negative symptoms and here it is interesting that I think no KOLs. I think also that the agencies at the EMA agree that the only way to demonstrate that you have a specific effect on negative symptoms is to do this in monotherapy. And second, we need to have as a controlled placebo why, first of all there is no approved drug for negative symptoms which obviously is making quite impossible to have a positive comparator. And second, I think in order to claim that you have a specific effect on negative symptoms you need to have a safe way to control which is not modifying confounding factors like positive symptoms like [EPS] and as you know when you go with an antipsychotic you have all these side effects which by the way are picked up by the PI and at the end of the day you are advising your trial. But I mean you can only do the trial versus placebo in order to demonstrate that you have a specific effect with the drug. So, this is all what we have done in the Phase 2b and obviously the results you know and this is the reason why I think we got the blessing to do the same in the Phase 3. And based on these two trials which are really powered in order to be registration of trials, I think we will be at a stage where we can file an NDA. So, I think there are two aspects, patient populations and at the end of the day the way we’re developing drug in order to get the approval of specific effect on negative symptom.

Thank you. And I am showing no further questions at this time. I will return the call back over to Remy Luthringer for any closing remarks.

So, thank you so much for being with us today and I am really looking forward to update you in very short future. Thank you again.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. It does conclude today’s program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.