Agenus Inc.
Q4 2012 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 28 Feb 2013

[Operator:]

Good morning. My name is Candice and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the fourth quarter and year-end 2012 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on-mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Ms. Jonae Barnes, you may begin your conference.

[Jonae Barnes:]

Thank you, Candice and good morning everyone. Welcome to Agenus’ conference call to discuss the financial results for the fourth quarter and year-ended 2012. With me today is, Dr. Garo Armen, Chairman and CEO, and Christine Klaskin, Vice President of Finance. During this call, we will review our financial results as well as provide a corporate update. We will then open up the call to a Q&A session. But before we continue, I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements including statements regarding the company’s cash position, potential income streams, development and commercialization efforts, timelines, availability of data and potential efficacy and market potential with respect to products and product candidates of the company and its partners. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Reference to these risks and uncertainties is made in today’s press release and they are disclosed in more detail in our most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements speak only as of the date of this call and Agenus undertakes no obligation to update or revise the statements. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. When evaluating Agenus’ business and securities, investors should give careful consideration to these risks and uncertainties. As a remainder, this call is being recorded for audio replay. With that, I will now hand over the call to Christine to review our financial results for the fourth quarter and year-ended 2012.

[Christine Klaskin:]

Thank you, Jonae. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us on today’s call. Some of the statements I'll be making now are also contained in the press release issued this morning. For the fourth quarter, we reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $5.6 million or $0.23 per share. This compares to a net loss attributable to common stockholders in the fourth quarter of 2011 of $6.2 million or $0.29 per share. For the year ended December 31, 2012, we incurred a net loss attributable to common stock holders of $12.1 million or $0.51 per share. This compares to a net loss attributable to common stock holders of $24.1 million or $1.21 per share for the comparable period in 2011. The decrease in net loss for the 12 months ended December 31, 2012, compared to same period in 2011 is directly related to the revenue of $13.4 million generated during the first quarter of 2012, which is primarily due to the one-time payments received to an extended agreement with GlaxoSmithKline enduring license of non-core technology. Cash provided by operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2012, was $1 million compared to cash used in operating activities of $16.2 million for the same period in 2011. Cash and cash equivalents were $21.5 million as of December 31, 2012. Based on our estimated net cash burn for 2013, which is defined as cash used in operating activities plus capital expenditures, we expect sufficient financial resources to fund operations in to 2014. This concludes the financial portion of the call. Garo will now provide a corporate update.

[Garo Armen:]

Thank you, Jonae and Christine. I am pleased to report that last year all of our high priority programs continued to advance. Between us and our corporate partner GSK, we achieved several milestones including the following

[Operator:]

(Operator Instructions) And your first question comes from Joe Pantginis with Roth Capital Partners.

[Joe Pantginis:]

A few questions Garo if you don't mind, first with the HerpV program having a little bit of, if we could look forward a little bit assuming the data are positive in the fourth quarter. If you could dive a little more into obviously the feedback you've been getting to [KOLs] regarding viral shedding being an important corelator or a biomarker if you will. So can you sort of link that up with any potential regulatory discussions you or others might have had with regard to the importance of that endpoint and how we will play a role in the pivotal study?

[Garo Armen:]

Okay, and thank you Joe for the question. So it is clear to us and to the [KOLs] that this endpoint alone would not be sufficient for regulatory approval consideration. That’s clear, only because there has been no validation of this any particular endpoint from a regulatory perspective. There has been no validation with ultimate clinical outcomes and we hope that this study will establish the first step of the relevance of viral shedding to the immunological response that we have seen in the Phase 1 study and what's that done, the next step is to show in a Phase 2b study the connection between viral shedding and observe clinical endpoints such as outbreaks in herpes patients. So that would be the aim of the second study before we proceed to a Phase 3 study. Now it seems to be clear and a consensus has emerged among the [KOLs] that if we can achieve a 30% plus reduction in viral shedding, this would be a very, very important determinant to expect a clinical benefit. So that’s where we are right now and they also believe that if we can show a reduction of the short in viral shedding, this will be a very, very meaningful accomplishment in the clinic from the perspective of the large companies conviction as to the efficacy of a therapeutic vaccine for genital herpes.

[Joe Pantginis:]

The next question is, it's look like 2013 obviously you are going to have a big ramp up with your internal programs with HerpV and also the two Prophage programs or front line and recurrent. So I just wanted to sort of gauge how you are going to look, I know obviously it will be very data driven, but how you are going to look to prioritize all of these programs and how that might sort of fit into any business development role as well?

[Garo Armen:]

Okay. So this is a very uncertain question not just with this year but for next five years and how the company will position itself in making a transition from a money consuming entity to presumably upon the success teams with some of our partner programs to a company that will have or what we hope to be a steady flow of income in the future. So as we go through that (inaudible) the priorities for this year have been set along the lines of what I presented as our expected milestones achievements.

[Joe Pantginis:]

Sure.

[Garo Armen:]

And prioritize beyond that are in the processes of being evaluated based on certain scenarios that may drive our future, and so we will be lot more vocal as to what and how we will prioritize things once we have a better and a clear picture of the readout from how GSK MAGE-A3 program.

[Joe Pantginis:]

And then the last question is speaking of MAGE, there are 17 programs is ongoing with Stimulon QS-21 with Glaxo. So if you look beyond the MAGE-A3 data of those 17 programs what is Agenus particularly excited about?

[Garo Armen:]

Not just us but I think our partners are excited about what QS-21 has been able to do; of course a variety of these programs in terms of bolstering the chances of success. As you know a successful vaccine particularly in therapeutic setting has two very, very important drivers, one is to accurately target the antigens in the [BV] cell whether it is cancer or infections. So that is a very, very important driver. The second one is to make sure that patients being targeted and their disease indeed express these antigens which are the key makeup or the vaccine being studied. Thirdly, not only would we want to target the disease cell properly but we would like to make sure that we have enough [opening] response to cause the damage to the disease cell and that's where QS-21 Stimulon comes into equation and so those are very, very important considerations and I think in each of the programs the ability to be able to execute a pivotal clinical trial with the correct driver in each one of these categories becomes key. I mean for example, even though the malaria program which we hope to be marketed in 2015 timeframe is the very first malaria vaccine that has been shown to prevent the disease, very first time in spite of the fact that malaria is a very, very difficult target and so to answer your question in a round about way, it would be inappropriate for us because of our public relationship to really single out anyone of their programs but suffice it to say because of the timelines and because of the market potential, we expect MAGE 3 to have a very substantial impact upon success. Now aside from that, we are particularly excited about the HerpV vaccine because once again it has all these components that I spoke about and so to read out at the end of this year and final read out after the booster shot which will come next year, I think it will be something to watch very closely.

[Operator:]

(Operator Instructions) We have a question from Megan Dow with MLV & Company.

[Megan Dow:]

Garo, you slipped in there that you are going to have an initial read out for HerpV separate from the final booster. It’s nice to hear that and do you have any other updates on the Janssen program and Alzheimer’s program we haven't heard anything from them in a while?

[Garo Armen:]

Right, so we do not have made any additional updates. Our understanding is that they will articulate their strategy on how they will move forward and this is based on basically public accounts that were gathered that they will articulate their strategy with regard to the Alzheimer’s vaccine program, sometime in the April timeframe, that's our understanding. And of course with large companies its very difficult to gauge what they will do and how and we do not have a kind of relationship with them that we do with GSK for example for a continuous dialogue if you will, probably because there are so many parties involved in the process and so I'm afraid that I cannot really shed any definitive light on this.

[Megan Dow:]

Okay, alright, just thought we would try to see if there is any other update. An additional question about the Russia operation, when you are supplying the vaccine for NewVac is your reimbursement higher and above and beyond your low double-digit [royalties]? Can you comment at all about the financials is that arrangement prior (inaudible) been able to supply there on medication?

[Garo Armen:]

The difference because of the lower quantities involved will be somewhat immaterial, but the net to us will be of course more meaningful with the royalties than the initial supply. So having said that, just to make sure that we preferably set expectations, any commercial sales in the first half of this year will be very minor and it will be really more exploratory from a commercial perspective and from the logistics perspective, meaning shipping to and back and forth to (inaudible) and vaccine in to Russia, will be exploratory, and once their manufacturing facilities are up and running, we should have until the end of this year, then that will set the stage for a higher level of sales, not tremendous sales but higher level of sales. The real boost could come when there is government reimbursement for the product which is not likely to happen until the later part of next year, but once money is available for reimbursement, then sales of this product in Russia based on our forecast and population availability could become a meaningful number.

[Operator:]

And we have no further questions at this time. I turn the call back to our presenters.

[Jonae Barnes:]

Thank you. I would like to remind listeners that our replay will be available approximately two hours after the call to midnight eastern time on April 25, 2013. The replay number is 855-859-2056 domestic, or 404-537-3406 international. And the access code is 14310694. The replay will also be available on the company’s website approximately two hours after the call. Thank you very much for listening to the call today. And if you have any questions you can always call us at 800-962-2436.

[Operator:]

And this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.