Earnings Labs

Omeros Corporation (OMER)

Q4 2024 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 31, 2025

$14.61

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to today's Earnings Call for Omeros Corporation. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the company's remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request, and a replay will be available on the company's website for one week from today. I'll turn over the call to Jennifer Williams, Investor Relations for Omeros.

Jennifer Williams

Management

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the call today. I'd like to remind you that some of the statements that will be made on the call today will be forward-looking. These statements are based on management's beliefs and expectations as of today only and are subject to change. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. Please refer to the special notes and the Risk Factors section regarding forward-looking statements in the company's annual report on Form 10-K, which was filed today with the SEC. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Dr. Greg Demopulos, Chairman and CEO of Omeros.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Thank you, Jennifer, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm joined on today's call by David Borges, our Chief Accounting Officer; Nadia Dac, our Chief Commercial Officer; Andreas Grauer; our Chief Medical Officer; Cathy Melfi, our Chief Regulatory Officer; and Steve Whitaker, our Vice President of Clinical. Today, I'll start with an overview of our 2024 financial results and provide updates across our development programs. David will go through our financials in more detail, and then we'll open the call for questions. Let's begin with the financials. Our net loss for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $31.4 million, or $0.54 per share, compared to a net loss of $32.2 million, or $0.56 per share in the third quarter of 2024. For the full year 2024, our net loss was $156.8 million or $2.70 per share. As of December 31, we had over $90 million in cash and investments on hand. Now that we have resubmitted our BLA for narsoplimab in TA-TMA, which we'll discuss in just a bit. Our focus is on restructuring the balance sheet. Having substantially reduced the amount of the 2026 convertible notes last June, we now are in preliminary discussions with certain remaining holders of the 26 notes to retire and/or refinance them to extend their maturity. As part of this debt restructuring, we intend to add substantial capital for operations. In addition, discussions are underway regarding potential partnerships, primarily around our complement franchise, which includes narsoplimab, zaltenibart, and OMS1029, with additional discussions directed to our deeper pipeline. Other possible options, of course, include royalty monetization or debt or equity transactions, including through the use of our existing at the market offering facility, which provides for the sale of up to $150 million of our common stock at prevailing market prices. We're confident in our ability to…

David Borges

Management

Thanks, Greg. Our net loss for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $31.4 million or $0.54 per share compared to a net loss of $32.2 million or $0.56 per share in the third quarter of 2024. For the full year 2024, our net loss was $156.8 million or $2.70 per share. As of December 31, 2024, we had over $90 million of cash and investments on hand. Costs and expenses from continuing operations for the fourth quarter before interest and other income were $35.7 million, which was an increase of just $253,000 from the third quarter of this year. Research and development expenses in the fourth quarter were heavily focused on narsoplimab and Zaltenibart. Interest expense for the fourth quarter was $3.2 million, which was $1 million lower than in the third quarter of this year. The primary components of interest expense are the 2026 notes, the DRI OMIDRIA royalty obligation, and the secured term loan. In the fourth quarter, we recorded a $4.1 million non-cash remeasurement adjustment to interest expense related to changes made to the OMIDRIA royalty obligation. This credit was $700,000 higher than the similar adjustment recorded in the third quarter and is a primary driver of the decrease in interest expense for the fourth quarter. Interest and other income totaled $2.3 million in both the fourth and third quarters. Income from discontinued operations in the fourth quarter was $5.2 million, down just $300,000 from the third quarter. The fourth quarter total includes two primary components. First, a $4.1 million of interest earned on OMIDRIA contract royalty asset and $600,000 of remeasurement adjustments to the OMIDRIA contract royalty assets. As previously discussed, royalties earned are recorded as a reduction of the OMIDRIA contract royalty asset on our balance sheet rather than recognized in our income statement. OMIDRIA…

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Thanks, David. Operator, would you open the call to questions, please?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Steve Brozak from WBB Securities. Steve Brozak, your line is now open. Please check your mute button.

Steve Brozak

Analyst

Sorry about that. Can you hear me? Hello?

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Now, -- yes.

Steve Brozak

Analyst

Hey. Congrats on the submission of the BLA, and thanks for taking the questions. Simply put, one question, you've given us details on the resubmission. Can you tell us why you believe in going to as much detail as possible, that this submission is that strong, and what are the implications? And anything else you want to add on that? And I'll hop back on the queue. Thank you.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Okay. That could take a while. Let me do this at a high level. Look, what we did in the analysis, and remember that the statistical analysis plan and associated protocol were created with FDA's agreement. So what we really did was what FDA asked us to do. And the result of those analyses, I think can be characterized as nothing else, but impressively strong, right, right down the line, whether it's the primary, or the primary related sensitivity analyses or the analyses that we conducted with the expanded access program on not only descriptive analyses on the EAP but also taking the EAP population and comparing it to the same external control group, which -- frankly, I don't believe we were even asked to do. We took it one step further and ran those analyses as well. And I would -- it would be wonderful to be able to share our forest plots from all of those analyses because it tells -- those really tell the story in one quick glance, but really everything is favoring in our supplement all the way down the line. And with the p-values and the hazard ratios that we generated, and I'll just -- I know everybody heard it, but I'll just remind that the primary hazard ratio was 0.32, meaning the likelihood of survival in the narsoplimab-treated group was more than threefold higher than in the control group. And then you look -- and that had a p-value of well less than 0.00001. Any way that you look at these, squeeze these, push on these, the data are impressive, they are statistically significant, and they're clinically meaningful. And all of those numbers that I just gave you are really aligned and supported by those same comparisons we did with the EAP population in comparison to the external control. It's all consistent. So when you're asking why we're confident about the data, I mean, the data speaks for themselves. We've put the data out publicly, folks, I'm sure, you have seen those. We've tried to make those very available. And I think, despite all I've just said, the data really speak for themselves. Let me ask Cathy if you have anything you'd like to add to that.

Catherine Melfi

Analyst

Yeah. I feel very strongly that we've got a solid package. We had a meeting with FDA back in September. It was an in-person meeting, very productive. As Greg mentioned, we've got a well-matched external control group. We, with FDA's input and agreement, adjusted for moral time bias, use propensity matching, and then pushed on the model every which way to see if it would budge, and consistently we're getting very strong results. And so, both with the FDA collaboration and the strength of the results, I think we've got a strong package.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Does that answer the question, Steve?

Steve Brozak

Analyst

Yeah. And I'm sure everyone appreciates the detail you just went into. So obviously, good luck on the PDUFA. And I will hop back in the queue. Thank you.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Thank you.

David Borges

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Olivia Brayer from Cantor.

Olivia Brayer

Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Hi, Olivia. How are you?

Olivia Brayer

Analyst

I'm good, Greg. How are you doing? And can you comment at all on how you're thinking about pricing for narsoplimab now that you are officially in launch-prep mode? Or at least anything directional would be really helpful. And then on PNH, can you just talk about the level of confidence you have in the clinical profile we've seen to date, and whether there's anything you are doing in the Phase 3 to help mitigate for liver toxicity? And then I've got one follow-up.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Sure. First, let me answer about the pricing, and then I'll hand that over to Nadia. But I think we have not disclosed pricing plans for narsoplimab. But I think one would be safe to assume that there is a range within that pricing would fall, and it's probably similar to other complement inhibitors that are used in TA-TMA. But at present, we have not yet disclosed, but let me see. Nadia, do you want to comment on that as well?

Nadia Dac

Analyst

Yeah. I agree with you, Greg. And the way I look at it is -- pricing is never final until we're literally publishing it and launching. We're looking at it from every angle. The uniqueness here is that nothing is approved, and narsoplimab will be the first approved TA-TMA treatment. And as Greg just explained, the efficacy, a threefold benefit in overall survival is drive significant value. And so we're taking that into consideration as payers will look at this along with physicians. And the last aspect that's really critical is that we believe that it will be administered. It has the potential to be administered both in the inpatient and outpatient setting, and so there could be numerous payers there. So we look at it as costs within the inpatient setting, costs within the outpatient setting. So those are all the parameters. But the bottom line is we believe that narsoplimab will deliver significant value, and we're taking that into consideration with pricing determination.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Okay. Thank you, Nadia. And then with respect to your second question around how we characterize Zaltenibart. As I mentioned in the prepared statements, we have not seen a safety signal of concern with Zaltenibart. That includes LFTs or lipid profile changes, have not seen it. And I think that's what you're referencing since those have been identified with other agents. I'll hand this over to Steve Whitaker, who is here. But, yeah, I also would expect that very likely those changes that people have seen around LFTs and lipid profiles are very well may not be target-related, but I'll let Steve comment on that.

Steven Whitaker

Analyst

Thanks, Greg. We haven't seen anything that we think is -- it's a liver safety signal with narso -- I'm sorry, not narsoplimab -- Zaltenibart. And obviously, we look at this just like every other company looks at liver -- potential liver toxicity with every drug. We have done a couple of things to mitigate confounders. And let me emphasize that, that was a confounder, not a liver toxicity issue. But as you know, PNH patients can have elevated LFT, our liver function test, because they can get biliary disease from the hemolysis. They get a lot of transfusions, and they get hemochromatosis. So we have excluded prospectively patients who have significant liver disease, pre-existing liver disease. So we don't have to worry about that confounding interpretation of the clinical trials. But we do not expect to see evidence of liver toxicity in the trials, and we don't think we've seen it to date.

Olivia Brayer

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys. That's helpful. And then, last question is just around cash runway and managing balance sheet from here. So I guess more broadly, what's the strategy for funding? You guys have a lot going on this year with the commercial launch and multiple Phase 3 trials kicking off. So just how are you thinking about that broader kind of balance sheet management strategy? And then specifically, how you're thinking about your current cash runway from here? Thank you, guys.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Olivia. Obviously, we're very aware of that. We're on top of it. We commented about discussions that are ongoing. Our objective here would be, as I think I made clear to restructure the converts and bring in additional capital in so doing. There are a lot of other levers that we have to pull, whether those be partnering, whether those be other debt instruments, whether that'd be royalty monetization or even equity, all of those are levers that we can pull. But we're quite aware of what needs to be done. And we wanted to turn some of these cards over, which I think we've now done, perhaps more coming. And what we will see is how to first, let's take care of what's right in front of us and move on from there. So we're quite confident that we've got this well in hand.

Olivia Brayer

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Serge Belanger from Needham & Company.

John Gionco

Analyst

Hi. Good afternoon. This is John on for Serge today, and thanks for taking my question.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Hi, John.

John Gionco

Analyst

So, pending a potential approval in September for narsoplimab, just curious where the company stands on any manufacturing scalability required to adequately support market demand? And secondly, as the potentially first product approved in this category, have you begun or plan to begin making any inroads on increasing awareness for narsoplimab with treating physicians? Thanks.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Yes. Let me answer first, and then I'll hand it to Nadia. In terms of manufacturing, we have all the drug supply necessary to launch and to support narsoplimab through the three years -- through the first several years of -- two to three years of utilization. So we're well set there, John. That drug product, drug substance and drug product are available. With -- and remember that we would expect to be launching that product very soon. After approval, our commercial team -- one of the few benefits of having this approval that we expect take so long from the initial CRL is that certainly our commercial team has been able to interact with the experts and there has been a tremendous amount of education in identification of TA-TMA patients and identification of high-risk TA-TMA patients and also with respect to their treatment. So let me hand that over to Nadia and see -- Nadia provide any additional color.

Nadia Dac

Analyst

Yeah. I'll build on Greg's comments. We have a small but very targeted team in the field that has been working, as Greg said earlier, with not only our top 40 accounts that drive 60% of the allogeneic transplant volume, but all the way up to those 80 accounts that drive 80% of the allogeneic transplant volume. And they're building what we consider the first phase of the pre-launch and then launch, it's that awareness of TA-TMA. There is over -- if you rewind, historically, there has not been a lot of harmonization of understanding of how to diagnose and then treat TA-TMA. That awareness has increased significantly, a lot due to the efforts in the field, also with our MSLs on the medical side. And at a recent conference, the most important transplant conference in the U.S. in February, we have been engaging -- we engage with over 100 physicians, and the TA-TMA topic is mainstream. That's being raised by the physicians, and they want a solution. So there is a very strong relationship, a strong foundation of awareness, but those efforts have to continue. So we're very excited to be able to provide a solution in short order here.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Thanks, Nadia. Any other question, Olivia -- John, sorry.

John Gionco

Analyst

No, sir. Thanks for all the color.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Great.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Folkes from Rodman & Renshaw.

Brandon Folkes

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the progress in the resubmission. Greg, maybe for you. Can you just talk sort of at high level, how do you think about Omeros strategically longer-term now with narsoplimab being resubmitted and the ability to obviously self-commercialize there? But a number of these opportunities are large market opportunities, and you have a very deep and broad pipeline. How do you think about partnering commercially in the future? Should we think of Omeros as sort of taking its pipeline largely forward commercially itself? A combination of seeking partnerships where that makes sense, or -- I'd just love to get your view, especially given sort of your history right with OMIDRIA, and kind of having seen both sides of it all play out? Thank you.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Thanks, Brandon. Look, I think certainly in our supplement, we are planning to launch in the U.S. independently. We have the team ready to do that. We have the relationships with the transplant centers, with the transplanters. And as Nadia said, a tremendous amount of work has gone in on the front-end of that to make sure that we have a very successful launch. With respect to ex-U.S., absolutely. We are expecting to partner narsoplimab ex-U.S., similarly Zaltenibart. That can be regional. That could be ex-U.S. written large. There are a lot of opportunities, and we just need to figure out what makes the most sense for us. When you say long-term, there are a number of products coming behind narsoplimab and Zaltenibart. And certainly, at some point in the future, we would love to be able to manage ex-U.S. commercialization independently as well. I don't see that currently for either narsoplimab or Zaltenibart. So very, very much focused on partnering those programs again regionally or internationally ex-U.S. broadly. But that's -- that is the plan. You do see a deep pipeline. I think there's going to be a lot coming. I really feel like, look, with the resubmission of the BLA, things changed. The -- I think the tenor of the company, the complexion of the company, has significantly changed. We're moving back to being a commercial entity. We've done it once with OMIDRIA. And remember, we were able to commercialize that, I think, extremely well. There were a lot of folks questioning what we could do with that program. OMIDRIA brought in net revenues to Omeros north of $1 billion through the sales and through the partnerships and royalty sales that we did there. So we're very excited about this next phase of Omeros, which means commercial narsoplimab…

Brandon Folkes

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much, Greg.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Yeah. And I would not forget the pipeline programs. So I would pay very much attention to what's happening in our oncology programs and in the other programs that we mentioned.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Demopulos for closing remarks.

Gregory Demopulos

Management

Okay. Thank you, operator. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today. Before we close, I just want to acknowledge the entire Omeros team. That continues to build a series of truly cutting-edge programs that will likely change the landscape in their respective fields. We look forward to sharing more with you in the very near future. All of us at Omeros appreciate your continued support. Have a good evening. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.