Earnings Labs

Trevi Therapeutics, Inc. (TRVI)

Q3 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 10, 2021

$13.80

-3.29%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.85%

1 Week

-9.40%

1 Month

-31.62%

vs S&P

-32.23%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Trevi Therapeutics Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event may be recorded. Various remarks the management makes during this call about the company's future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of the company's most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which the company filed with the SEC this afternoon. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent the company's views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing the company's views as of any subsequent date. While the company may elect to update these forward-looking statements in some point in the future, the company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so even if it views change. Participating on today's call from Trevi Therapeutics are Jennifer Good, President and CEO; Bill Forbes, Chief Development Officer; and Lisa Delfini, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer. Please go ahead.

Jennifer Good

Analyst

Good afternoon, and welcome to our third quarter 2021 earnings call and business update. As mentioned joining me today on this call are Lisa Delfini, our CFO; Bill Forbes, our Chief Development Officer. Lisa and I have some prepared remarks, then the three of us will be available for questions at the end. As we head into the end of the year, we are excited to share the progress we've made on enrollment for both of our trials. I will give you a bit more color on the progress and how we're preparing for the next stages and development. Our most advanced program in clinical development is in severe chronic Pruritus in prurigo nodularis or PN which is a serious and debilitating disease characterized by papules and nodules on the skin, as well as incessant and severe itching. There are no approved therapies for this indication. Prurigo nodularis is a chronic neuro inflammatory disease, and because of the repeated scratching, patients are stuck in a hard to break it scrap cycle. Due to the scratching, the papules and nodules continue to develop and worsen across the patient's body. We estimate the global prevalence of PN is approximately 730,000 patients with 300,000 patients in the U.S. and 430,000 in the rest of the world. We believe in the potential and utility of our mechanism of action in the syndication along with the benefit of being an oral candidate and late phase development. This positions us with an important competitive advantage and a potentially valuable option for patients in a space where the majority of compounds in development are biologics. We are currently conducting a Phase 2b/3 trial in this condition which we call our PRISM trial. The PRISM trial is recruiting in both the U.S. and Europe and today we have…

Lisa Delfini

Analyst

Thank you, Jennifer and good afternoon everyone. As a reminder, the full financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021 can be found in our press release issued ahead of this call and our 10-Q which was filed with the SEC today after the market closed. For the third quarter of 2021 we reported a net loss of $7.3 million compared to a net loss of $7.4 million for the same quarter of 2020. R&D expenses were $4.7 million during the third quarter of 2021 compared to $4.8 million in the same period of 2020. This was primarily due to decreased purchases of clinical trial supplies, as we near the end of our trials, partially offset by an increase in personnel related expenses as a result of an increase in our R&D employee headcount. G&A expenses were $2.2 million during the third quarter of 2021, compared to $2.4 million in the same period of 2020. This was primarily due to decreased market research costs and lower stock based compensation expense, partially offset by higher legal and other professional fees. Other expenses also increased by approximately $161,000 representing a full quarter of interest expense on our term loan with SVB which was executed in August of 2020. As of September 30, 2021, our cash and cash equivalents totaled $29.3 million compared to $45 million as of December 31, 2020. Subsequent to the end of the quarter we raised $14.8 million through the sale of common stock and warrants to both a new investor and NEA an existing investor who also chose to participate. The proceeds will be used to fund the development of Haduvio and company operations. This concludes our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Today's first question comes from Annabel Samimy with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Nick Rubino

Analyst

This is Nick Rubino on for Annabel, thanks for taking our question. We're just trying to get a sense of expectations for the upcoming PRISM readout. So you've made some several adjustments to hopefully improve the PRISM design from Phase 2, is the benchmark the Phase 2 results where you saw 15% delta in the MITT and 30% delta in the Completer groups? Or do you have improved expectations for the percent of responders for the four point reduction? And then just kind of separately, where does LID sit currently? Thank you.

Jennifer Good

Analyst

Bill, I'll let you take on the PRISM answer and then I'll comment on LID.

Bill Forbes

Analyst

Okay. Hi, Nick. This is Bill, thanks for your questions. So we -- obviously we did a interim analysis, but that was done by an independent statistician. So if you're talking about the sample size, we estimation on PRISM. We don't know what those results were, obviously, they fell into a promising conditional power zone that was spelled out in the protocol. And so from that perspective, we feel confident that the study continued to perform the way that it was. That the current PRISM study as is designed and powered should reflect positive results based on that interim analysis. So I don't know if that answers your question, Nick as far as it's the kind of the delta between the active and placebo.

Nick Rubino

Analyst

Yes, that's definitely helpful. I guess, in terms of you provided kind of a Phase 2 look at what we saw. In terms of --

Bill Forbes

Analyst

Oh, you're referring to the previous study?

Nick Rubino

Analyst

Yes.

Bill Forbes

Analyst

Yes. No, I mean, I think look, in this particular study that -- a previous study was just a little over 60 patients and three treatment groups, obviously, the current study is 360 patients in two treatment groups. Obviously, we feel pretty good that we're power to where we need to be to show a difference between active and placebo on this based on those results. So -- on the previous study. So obviously, this is about execution at this point in time, I can tell you that the centers are anxious to finish this study. I mean, they've had a very good October, the screenings in November have been very good. So we hope that we can continue to drive this and get to the analysis part of this study, obviously, it's a 14 week double-blind period. So that's why we say more guiding towards reading up results sometime in the first half of next year.

Jennifer Good

Analyst

Great. Nick, that was a crystal ball question we all ask Bill every week. But unfortunately, he doesn't know. But I'm glad you asked it. Your question on LID it's an indication we still continue to be quite interested in. We've got the IP rights around that. What I would say as we've communicated, we're going to -- we're focused on these two indications. Depending on the data, and both we've looked at other opportunities to expand within pruritus and cough. And also sort of the opportunity LID and I think there'll be a good sort of strategy decision based on final results from both trials, where we head next and sort of what we can absorb and afford. So I would say it's still on the table, but it will be evaluated against other opportunities in the pruritus and cough space as well.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Rohit Bhasin with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Rohit Bhasin

Analyst · Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

This is Robert on for Serge. Thanks for taking my question. What are your thoughts on the recent two picks and Phase 3 results in PN and where do you see that product fitting in the treatment paradigm PN?

Jennifer Good

Analyst · Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Yes, that's a good question. So we looked at the results. I generally try to not comment on others. I think the good news is it's a tough condition. They had statistical significance which is obviously good for the patient. I mean, everybody knows to pick them so good drug they've done great with it. The results weren't so daunting though, that I think that they're beatable, if you will. So I think that is a good opportunity for us. This is a market that's become pretty biologics and trends. So my own feeling on it this is a personal opinion, I was glad the drug works, but I was glad it was not overwhelming results either. Because I think that puts us in a really good position as an oral therapy to be in that treatment paradigm. So we obviously have our eye on the ball about how we become step through therapy to the biologics. But it will depend on our own results and our own label to be able to do that.

Rohit Bhasin

Analyst · Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

And just as a follow-up, was the enrollment in the PRISM trial affected at all by to dupixent trial at all?

Jennifer Good

Analyst · Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Not so much dupixent because they had a lot of sites in different countries, China, Russia, kind of around Europe, we crisscross with them in a couple of sites. So I would not say we were so affected by dupixent. I think they finished enrollment in their second trial so they're out of the way. But we did not run into them all that much in the -- out in the field.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Jennifer Good for any closing remarks.

Jennifer Good

Analyst

We would like to thank everybody for participating in today's call. I'd also like to thank the Trevi team, our study investigators and all the subjects who continue to participate in our clinical trials. We will be at several conferences over the next three months starting with the Stifel Healthcare conference next week. We hope to see you there. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.