Q3 2024 Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc Earnings Call

Erik Harris

Thank you, Emil, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll start with Chris Vita, where global revenue continues to grow impressively, seven years into our commercialization efforts. In the United States, where our partner, Kiowa Kirin, is leading commercialization, the demand for Chris Vita continues to remain strong. Approximately 60% of the start forms in the quarter came from adult patients and were prescribed by community physicians. Across the US, there are approximately 420 prescribers, with 40% or so writing more than one prescription. This is encouraging, given adult penetration is in the low 20s, and suggests CRISPRIDA has meaningful room to continue growing. We are confident in our full year U.S. revenue projections, given the strength of underlying demand. Shifting to CRISPR-Vita in Latin America, where we lead commercialization, our LATAM team delivered another successful quarter by adding approximately 65 new patients to CRISPR-Vita, totaling now almost 700 patients on reimbursed therapy since launch. Brazil is the largest market in Latin America and continues to drive the majority of the revenue in the region. We are, however, seeing increasing contributions from countries including Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico driven by increasing patient demand. As I mentioned on previous earnings calls, we expect quarter-to-quarter variability in LATAM revenue due to uneven ordering patterns but remain confident in the underlying demand growth for our products. Moving on to Dojolvi, growth of new start forms in the third quarter continues to steadily increase. In the US, we added more than 30 start forms and 30 patients on reimbursed therapy compared to last quarter, resulting in approximately 550 reimbursed patients since launch. The split between pediatric and adult patients continues to be approximately 65% P’s and 35% adults. The number of new prescribers continue to grow, adding approximately 15 new prescribers in Q3 2024, with half of them writing more than one prescription. For Dojolvi across Europe and the MENA region, revenue is currently driven by named patient sales requests. They are over 230 patients treated under MPS across 12 countries in the region. The majority of the demand is from France, but we are receiving an increasing number of requests from other countries within the EMEA region, including the Middle East. I’ll close with a few comments on Evkeeza, where we have been launching this transformative therapy for patients outside of the U.S. with HOFH. In our territories, The HOFH physician and patient communities continue to provide positive feedback on their experience with Evkeeza. The clinical data showing significant reductions in LDL levels on top of standard of care support the long-term potential for this therapy. In the EMEA region, we have patients from all of the major countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and the Middle East on therapy as a result of our commercialization efforts or responding to named patient requests as we navigate the country by country pricing negotiations. In Japan, the launch is continuing to build following the pricing and reimbursement approval that we received in the second quarter. As Emil mentioned in his opening remarks, Japan is expected to be an increasingly important contributor of revenue. not just for Evkeeza, but for all of our programs going forward. With that, I’ll turn the call to Howard to share more details on our financial results and for the quarter and guidance for the year.

Howard Horn

Thanks, Eric. And good afternoon, everyone. I’ll start by briefly summarizing our financials that were reported in our press release earlier today. We reported $139 million in total revenue for the third quarter of 2024. which represents 42% growth versus the prior year quarter. Prisvita contributed 98 million including 56 million from North America, 36 million from Latin America and Turkey, and 6 million from Europe. Dojolvi contributed 21 million, Evkeeza contributed 11 million, and Mepsevii contributed 10 million. Our total operating expenses in the third quarter were 271 million, which included R&D expenses of $170 million, SG&A expenses of $80 million, and cost of sales of $21 million. Operating expenses included non-cash stock-based compensation of $42 million. In the third quarter, net loss was $134 million or $1.40 per share. As of September 30, 2024, we had $825 million and cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. Net cash used in operations was 67 million for the third quarter and was 335 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2024. We expect 2024 net cash used in operations to be around 400 million for the year. Shifting to revenue guidance, we are reaffirming our total revenue range of between 530 and 550 million for the year that we announced last quarter. This reflects strong performance and trajectory across all of our products, including CRISFIDA globally and the launch of Evkeeza in our territories. For CRISFIDA, we continue to expect revenue to be towards the upper end of our range of 375 to 400 million. which includes all regions and all forms of CRISPVIDA revenue to Ultragenyx. Specifically, it includes CRISPVIDA product revenue from Latin America and Turkey and cash and non-cash royalties from North America and Europe. We also continue to expect Dojolvi revenue to be between 75 and 80 million. With that, I’ll turn the call to our Chief Medical Officer, Eric Crombez.

Eric Crombez

Thank you, Howard, and good afternoon, everyone. In addition to the clinical pipeline progress that Emil has already commented on, we have also made meaningful advancement across our gene therapy programs, starting with DTX401 for the treatment of glycogen storage disease type 1a. In our press release today, we shared new data from the crossover patients in our phase three glucogene study. These are the patients originally randomized to the placebo group and who have now been treated with DTX401. 12 of these crossover patients have reached 30 weeks post-treatment with DTX-401 and demonstrate a clinically meaningful 62% mean reduction in daily corn starch requirement. This is double the reduction seen in the patients randomized to receive DTX-401 in the blinded part of the phase three study at the same earlier week 30 time point. Also importantly, the patients originally treated with DTX-401 at the start of the phase three study continue to reduce cornstarch use while maintaining good glucose control through week 78. While the blinded design of the phase 3 study was important, we anticipated that physicians and patients would take a cautious and conservative approach with reduction of cornstarch without knowing to which arm patients were randomized. Now that all patients have received DTX-401 and unblinding is complete, physicians and patients are able to titrate cornstarch with full, direct, and immediate visibility to all glucose values, which enables them to act more rapidly and appropriately, particularly to hyperglycemia. The cautiousness with cornstarch reduction in the blinded period reinforces the unmet need for these patients and the continued deep and ingrained fear for the consequences of hyperglycemia during times of fasting, or increased metabolic demand. Shifting to UX701 for the treatment of Wilson disease, last month we provided an update from the dose finding stage of the phase 1, 2, 3 study that included data showing that patients across the three dose cohorts demonstrated clinical activity as well as improvements in copper metabolism. In this initial stage, 15 patients were enrolled into three sequential dosing cords and followed for at least 24 weeks. Six of the patients completely discontinued treatment with chelators and or zinc, and a seventh patient had begun tapering as of the data cutoff date in August of this year. We are seeing evidence of the establishment of the normal trafficking of copper with the loading of copper onto ceruloplasm for the safe transport of copper in the body and the pumping of excess copper into the bile system for excretion from the body. As a next step, we plan to enroll an additional cohort at a moderately increased dose and with an optimized immunomodulation regimen with the goal of allowing the majority of patients to discontinue current standard of care treatment before selecting a dose for the pivotal part of the phase 1, 2, 3 study. I’ll now turn the call back to Emil to provide some closing remarks.

Emil Kakkis

Thank you, Eric. Over the first four quarters of this year, we’ve continued to hit our marks by delivering growing revenue, advancing our clinical programs. I’ll close quickly by summarizing our key clinical catalysts for the rest of the year. For GTX 102 for Aynswern Syndrome, we are planning to share a program update at the upcoming FAST and Child Neurology Society meetings. This update will include data from patients in the dose escalation and expansion cohorts who’ve been on therapy for at least The data will show that our Phase III study is very well-powered to succeed for the primary endpoint of Bayley Cognition raw scores and also for the key secondary endpoint of MDRI. We’re also on track to initiate the Phase III by the end of the year. Based on our own clinical data and the novel science that supports it, we are confident that we are now the leader in this space. For the Phase III portion of UX143 Orbit Study of setrusumab, There are two interim analyses planned, with the first anticipated by year-end, or early 2025, and the second in mid-2025. In order to end the study early at the first interim, there’ll need to be an extreme and early separation of the two groups to meet a very stringent threshold of a p-value less than 0.001. In order to end the study early at the second interim, we’ll spend a little alpha, and we have set the threshold of p-value to be less than 0.01 when there is a little more time for the groups to separate. In the event the data readout is not accelerated at the first or second analysis, the final analysis will occur in the fourth quarter of 2025 after all patients have been on therapy for 18 months. In the event an NMR analysis clears our stringent threshold, we would only share that the threshold was met. Top-line clinical results would be announced several months later as the study requires that the patient complete final visits over a couple months and will need time to collect and prepare the data for a complete analysis. As I mentioned in the opening, we’re also working on multiple BLA submissions, one for UX111 around the end of the year and another for DTX401 is expected in mid-2025. As we head into the final month of the year, I want to express my gratitude to the talented team at Ultragenetics for executing one of the largest late-stage pipelines in the industry It’s incredible to think that we could potentially launch three new therapies over the next couple of years, bringing first ever approved treatments to patients without any real options. With the approved programs we currently have, that would make eight commercial programs in just over a decade on the public market. With that, let’s move on to your questions. Operator, please provide the Q&A instructions.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Chris Raymond, Piper Sandler.

Chris Raymond

Hey, thanks and congrats from us on all the progress. Maybe two questions. I guess first on the Wilson program, maybe Emil, what is Who is the ideal patient for this gene therapy? Would this be, as you guys are envisioning, a commercial rollout suited for patients that are well-controlled, maybe on copper chelators or zinc? Or would this be targeted only for those most severe patients? And then maybe also a follow-up on citrusumab. Can you give a little bit more color on this negative binomial regression model that you’re using? Just explain a little bit about what that means, what you’re doing there, thanks.

Emil Kakkis

Very good. Do you really want me to go into the math of that? All right, let’s start with the Wilson question. We’ve talked about the Wilson program several times about who’s the most addressable. There’s about 20% of the patients that are not really well controlled, can’t tolerate the meds, are probably the highest most addressable population. That’s 20,000 out of a population of 20% of a population of 50, 60,000. Among the remaining, there are certainly a segment of patients that could do better than they are, but there may be some patients who are very stable and well controlled that may or not be most addressable. So we wouldn’t necessarily assume that all Wilson patients are addressable, but we do think a combination of people not tolerating and those that are not getting optimal Copper management are patients that more having clinical symptoms would be ones that might benefit from the treatment. Given how large the disease population is, that fraction of the total is still makes for a very large potential market. With regard to setrusumab, PK Tannin, our head of biometrics, a highly experienced biometric statistician who was at Genzyme for 20 years and has done probably more rare disease programs than anyone, I believe the negative binomial model is the best way to do an event-driven analysis. And it’s a basic model that the FDA has agreed to. For me to go through the math would be probably pretty difficult, but we probably can provide some explanation for investors on that model. But it’s the best way to look at events and looking at event rates and being able to control in the model for things like baseline fracture rate or age or other factors that will be different between different patients. So I can’t explain it. What I can say is the study is very well powered to succeed in the setrusumab orbit study. Thank you.

Operator

Tazeen Ahmad, Bank of America.

Tazeen Ahmad

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. On OI-AML, Given the timelines that you’ve provided for the different interim reads, if the study has to continue past the first interim, is there a calculation that you’ve made about likelihood of success of the trial? That’s the first question. And then secondly, would the timeline to when this would become commercial vary significantly depending on which of the time points the study would eventually stop, assuming that it would be Successful at one of those stocks, if that question is clear.

Emil Kakkis

No, I understand. So, first of all, we think that whether the first interim hits or not doesn’t have any impact on the outcome. It has to do with how fast the lines separate, not whether they will separate or how powerful. In other words, it could be 0.002 at the first interim and not hit, but be less than 0.01 at the second one just a few months later. But giving the hits A few more months of time for fractures to occur could help dramatically separate. So it doesn’t really affect what the efficacy determination would be. Our goal in doing the first interim was to try to end the program as quickly as possible to head toward a filing. And we think if we hit that level of threshold, it should be. But I don’t think it speaks at all to the efficacy of the drug. It just speaks to the question of how fast they separate and how variable they are. With regard to the commercialization time, the reason to go with IA1 or to put the interims in was to help shorten the timeline. Obviously, if the 18 months are toward the end of the year, you know, there’s a year difference potentially there. We will collect some extra data from the first interim, but there is a substantial number of months between the first interim and the final. The second interim, the differential will not be as great because When the second term occurs, everyone will have had a year. So that means we don’t have to, we wouldn’t have to wait further to collect any information. So the second one will probably not be as long after the interim. It’ll be only a few months after in terms of BLA filing. So you could argue why worry about so many, a few months here, a few months there. The value, the NPEC value of the program was highly dependent on that. Each month represents a very substantial amount of value to the company. And as a company, we look carefully at how time affects value. This is one of the most important parts of how do you achieve success in rare diseases is understanding the value story, not just cash spend in terms of execution. So a few months, by the way, has a very big impact on net peasant value. And that’s why we press hard to get things done as promptly as we can.

Operator

Anupam Rama, JPMorgan.

Anupam Rama

Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is actually Malcolm Kuno on for Anupam. So what data should we focus on with regard to the near-term ANGELMINT updates coming at the near-term medical conferences?

Emil Kakkis

Okay. We’ll provide a little bit more long-term data on the group so it’ll allow you to see how the expansion patients have been doing going longer through day 338. And the reason to focus on day 338 is that’s the length of the phase three trial. So today we’ll help give you a view of what it looks like at day 338 for that population. We’re also gonna show you the fact that it doesn’t really matter if you use raw or GSV as your analysis that the transformation of one to the other is not a problem. It doesn’t affect the power. So we’ll provide that information, which was requested from a number of investors that we think will help settle people’s questions about whether we use the GSV or raw scores as we were planning based on the FDA’s request. So those are a couple of things. And also we’ll talk, we’ll update on sort of overall safety in the phase three plan going forward. So it won’t be a massive update, but it’ll be a nice step forward heading to phase three, which is where our minds are at getting phase three up, running, and completed.

Anupam Rama

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Gena Wang, Barclays.

Gena Wang

Thank you. Maybe just quickly follow the previous question. Will data at the FAST and the CMS meeting the same data set? And I have one question regarding the CTRUCEMAP Phase 3 study. Amir, you did actually provide a little bit more clarity regarding the timeline. I remember last time was more likely beginning of 2025. Now is it year-end 2024, beginning of 2025, and second interim very definitive is 1Q25. Is that because the events are already picking up and you have more clarity regarding when this will happen? And then also, will you share the baseline characteristics of phase three trial at some point? If not, could you comment on patient baseline attack rate, range, and also the breakdown of the patient, specifically between age five to 12, 12 to 18, and 18 to 25? Great.

Emil Kakkis

That’s quite a list. So thank you for the question. So the data cut from Angeman for FAST and the C and the P child neurology meeting will be the same data set. There should not be differences between those two. We’ve gone to the first interim timing. The clarity on the timing is not based on data we’re collecting, so it’s not based on fractures. We said from the beginning it would be end of the year, early 2025, and then a few months later, we’re being a little more specific, saying middle for 2025, but it was always a few months So we weren’t intending to change anything. Those are just where the timeline is. What we did change a long time ago, we talked about having fracture number as being the trigger. But because it was so operationally challenged, we just estimated when we’d hit a certain number of fractures. But none of the change in time is related to fractures. We haven’t put out baseline characteristics yet, but we will at the perfect time. Usually when we bring out the phase three data, we’ll bring in the characteristics. We would not expect to put out that data until we’re releasing our phase three data. What we have said to date is that the population has more type three and type four patients, closer to half or more, as opposed to what was in phase two, where it was about a third. And so that’s one difference. We’d expect those patients to have more fractures. We’d expect then the phase three study to have a higher fracture rate than what we saw before. But right now, We haven’t put in the breakouts for age groups that are enrolled in the study either. It is spread across the age groups. It is primarily a PEED study with a majority of patients in the PEEDs age range. We are stratifying in the randomization to make sure that we have similar populations in both groups. That’s where we stand. Thanks for the good questions.

Gena Wang

Thank you.

Operator

Salveen Richter, Goldman Sachs.

Salveen Richter

Hi, this is Lydia on for Salveen. Thanks so much for taking our question and congrats on the progress. Just on Wilson’s disease, when could we expect to see data from this additional stage one cohort? And I guess what would you want to see from this data set to gain confidence in the regulatory and commercial outlook? Thanks so much.

Emil Kakkis

Thank you for the question. So on the Wilson’s fourth cohort, Hoping to get that protocol in and get set up so we would start early in the year. It depends how long it takes to roll a five, but we expect that to be going on. Because we have to wait till those patients get at least six months, 30 weeks or so of treatment, it will take most of next year to get there. But we haven’t yet put a specific timeline on when exactly the data will come. It will depend on how quickly we get the study accepted. We are doing it primarily in the U.S., that cohort. how fast it takes to get that settled and accepted. And then the fact that we have to enroll five and get all their data. So it’s gonna take a good part of next year. What we’re looking for is I would say consistent reduction in standard of care in the majority of patients, if not all. We wanna see a majority of patients. We believe to make a gene therapy viable, we wanna see a potency that is distinct and profoundly important to patients. And while we have activity at this point, We think we need to see a higher fraction of patients off standard of care to make it worthwhile. And we didn’t want to invest in phase three until we had that in hand. And so it makes sense to work at a higher dose. And mean modulation, we hope, will improve potency. It’s a simple way to improve potency. So that’s what we’re looking for. We want to see that we’re really changing biology completely in a large fraction of patients.

Operator

Maury Raycroft, Jefferies.

Maury Raycroft

Hi. Congrats on the progress, and thanks for taking my question. For Sutruzumab, just wondering what are key learnings from the Phase 2 14-month data update at ASBMR that help you triangulate around fracture rates and chances of success for the first interim or second interim updates? And maybe just a quick follow-up, if you can clarify if you’ll have new patients with less follow-up in the Angelman data updates that you have.

Emil Kakkis

Okay, so I think what we learned in the 14-month update on Citrusmab was, in fact, that these patients can have a very profound degree of separation, and that that separation can lead to a majority of patients having no fractures over a significant period of time The other thing we learned is that particularly the younger patients have a dramatic improvement in vomital density. So I think what we learned is that how strong the effect could be. And that gave us more confidence in putting in the interim in the first place. Because if they are separating very quickly, within two or three months, and if that effect size is large, then we would expect the groups could separate early. We just don’t know for sure. We set a stringent threshold for the first one, the second one less so. That data gave us confidence that we can do that. It also gave us confidence we can lower the number of patients modestly and shorten the timeline then to finish enrollment. So those are the things we learned and what we expect to know. And everything that we’ve seen so far tells us that we have a strong effect going on and we wanna reach that as promptly as we can. With regard to Angeman, we are primarily focused on patients through day 338. We have patients in a whole series of different stages in the program. The main focus will be on people through day 338 at this point. Our minds are really focusing on setting up for phase three and the day 338 data is really about telling people where we are on path for phase three where a larger randomized study will become the most important piece of information we need to gain. So that’s what the focus is, update what it would look like and help people see how the phase three would set up based on our phase two data.

Maury Raycroft

Got it, thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Joon Lee, Truist Securities.

Joon Lee

Hi, good afternoon. This is Mehdi on for Joon and thanks for taking our question. So on Angelman, could you please provide some comment on the Aurora study given the patient’s age from two to 64 and diverse mutation type that are included So what should be the optimal endpoint for a thesis study and would Bayley-Foer commission be the one for this study?

Emil Kakkis

Right, so you’re talking about the Iona study, is that right?

Joshua Higa

No, Emil, I think he’s talking about the Aurora study, the open label study.

Emil Kakkis

Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t quite understand what he said. Aurora study. Yeah, so the Let’s talk about the main study, Aspire. The main study, Aspire, is four to 17-year-olds with the deletion type, which represent 80% of the patients out there. For Aurora, this is a supportive labeling study. This study will take the younger patients who have a deletion or older patients who have a deletion to look at effect in those range. And the idea would be to demonstrate an open label setting where they have similar safety and efficacy as we’ve seen in the deletion type, this was in the randomized trial. We’ll also include patients in the four to 17 range that are like the ones that are in the deletion program but have missense, UPD, ICD, the other genetic types of the instruments so they will get a chance to get treated. The idea is to try to cover these various pockets of the population of genetics and age in the Aurora study We believe one large, randomized trial is enough to prove the cause and effect of the drug, and the Aurora study will help extend the safety and verify comparable efficacy in these other subpopulations.

Joon Lee

Thank you.

Operator

Yaron Werber, TD Cowen

Yaron Werber

Great, thank you. So, Emil, I got a couple of questions. Maybe the first one, just on citrusumab, and I totally understand that the need to, when you finish the study, to have a couple of further assessments. At the time in which, you know, this goes to a committee, independent committee, and let’s say based on the events they decided to recommend to you to terminate the study, I think they will do it based on the fracture rates and statistics and the hazard ratio. Can you at least let us know hopefully when that hits and it becomes positive that you hit and the hazard ratio is X, Y, Z at a certain P value is the first question or would you really just not say anything until later? And then secondly, just on 401, did you complete the tech transfer to your own facilities now that you have a filing around mid next year? And anything you can share with us initially on margin and COGS, because you’re going to be obviously scaling a whole new facility. Thank you.

Emil Kakkis

Thanks. So at the time of the interim, we will not put out the hazard ratio or any other detail, partly because the study is not locked. All the database will not be locked. There’s a certain part of it locked. And we have to collect a little bit more data in final visits. So with the database not locked, we don’t want to put out any data of an incomplete data set. So the interim will allow us to see that the primary endpoint is hit. We’ll want to lock the entire database before we, and we wouldn’t want to endanger the study by releasing data from a database that’s not fully locked. So that’s why that will be a little bit delayed before we put out the data. The fact that it hits though should be enough to give investors confidence that the drug works in a big way and that we want, that we’re on track to move ahead. Regarding the tech transfer, tech transfer has occurred. We are running PPQ lots in the plant. Our expectations of running them in the plant will probably save us around 40%. We haven’t put out COGS or margins yet in the program, but by running our own plant, it does substantially reduce our costs. We own the plant outright, and so our whole cost structure of the plant will be an improvement over a contract manufacturer. But the ability to control and assure the consistency and execution I think will be great. And the tech transfer is easy because it’s from our WURN team to our team there. It’s actually like almost like an internal transfer because we’ve developed the processes at our WURN facility ourselves. The contract manufacturer didn’t develop the process. So a lot of this is gonna work way better. It’s why we made the investment in the plan because not only with 401, but the other programs in hand, we have the ability to leverage our cost structure and we’ll help improve margin cost in gene therapy, which we think will be important for making a successful business out of gene therapy going forward.

Operator

Yigal Nochomovitz, Citi.

Yigal Nochomovitz

Yeah. Hi. Thanks, Emil and team. Maybe I missed it, but just with regard to DTX-401, it doesn’t appear that you gave us the specific reduction for cornstarch for the patients that were on the treatment in the 48 weeks. The primary treatment group had a 41% reduction during the 48-week period during the blinded phase.

Emil Kakkis

And what we said, now they’re getting better. Now they are able to look at their glucose values so that they’re going down and getting better. We are mainly commenting the fact that if you cross over and you know you’re getting the treatment and you know what your glucose values are, that you have a double the rate of reduction that is by 30 weeks hitting 62% versus what was about 31% at that point in time for the GTX-401 group. So we’re just saying we would double the reduction in corn starch people knowing what they’re on. The real reason for this, Yigal, is that while you can tell if you have hypoglycemia, if you have hyperglycemia, the patients don’t really feel bad. They don’t really notice it necessarily. What that means then, if you’re blind to their glucose values, they don’t know they’re running high. And when they see a low, they didn’t realize that an hour ago they were shooting sky high. So they have trouble reducing their starch when the only thing they can feel are lows. The monitoring allows them to know when they’re high and allows them then to be smarter and more proactive. The thing that’s important to understand also is that as the glucose, as the starch level doses come down and you lower your glucoses, it actually will induce the transgene because lower insulin, higher glucagon will stimulate transgene expression. It’s almost like you need the transgene or the gene therapy to exercise. You need to exercise it a little bit. So it will become, You know, a synergistic effect of lowering cornstarch, driving glucose down, inducing more expression, allowing you to bring cornstarch down. So we’d expect the original treated patients to gain ground now and start coming down. But we think this explains a little bit that the blinding makes it very hard for people to manage this disease without having direct and immediate knowledge of what’s happening with their glucoses. So we’re just encouraged and we thought it would be important for investors to see The effect is what we think it is. And if you do it, apply it in the way it will be applied commercially, the patients can improve quite a lot in reducing their dependence on corn starch and particularly in their fear of dying suddenly by going too low in their glucose.

Yigal Nochomovitz

Okay, thanks. I guess what I was driving at is will there become a point in time where you’ll share

Emil Kakkis

We’ll put out updated data in a formal scientific meeting with all the data. We’d like everyone to get through a particular point in time. We just thought we should put out this piece of data here. But we’ll put out complete data on the 48-week group when they get to their second year through to show where they’re at. But as we said, they’re titrating further. We feel comfortable that we’re going the right way.

Yigal Nochomovitz

And then more of just a corporate picture in terms of the cash and the path to profitability. I recall at the R&D Day just over a year ago in New York, you had a sort of a qualitative slide on the path to profitability. It wasn’t too specific as far as numbers and the exact year. So now that you’re burning $400 million cash a year I have a little over 800 in the bank. I’m just wondering if you could comment any further on revised thoughts around the time to profitability. I know you’ve mentioned that the launch in Japan could accelerate that. Thanks.

Emil Kakkis

Yeah, well, the growing product portfolio, products approved and launches, including the new ones, will continue to help that. I’ll let Howard go through it in a little more detail, but we’re on the same path we’ve put forth before at the analyst day, and we feel good about The contributions of Evkeeza, for example, is starting to make. And the three other programs launching will help us. So maybe, Howard, you can talk about the path of probability.

Howard Horn

Glad to. Yigal, thanks for the question. What we have said is that with these we did in June and the monetization of PRVs coming from 111 and 143, that we feel like we have the cash or we will have the cash to fund our operating plan that gets us to a GAAP profitable quarter by the end of 2026. So that’s the translation of what we said a year ago about that pathway. And then the underlying sort of logic of that is that we continue to see our commercial programs grow in revenue, add to that a little bit from launches, but not an enormous amount. And then if you kind of level out on all the rest of the spending, That’s how you get the P&L, the profitability, again, by a quarter, about before the end of 26. Okay.

Yigal Nochomovitz

Thank you.

Operator

Ed Arce, H.C. Wainwright.

Thomas Hoffmann

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. This is Thomas. We are asking a couple of questions for Ed. Thank you for taking our questions. So first question for GKS 102 for Angelman syndrome, the phase 3 expired study. So we called it preliminary design that was discussed in April. It would incorporate 12 week or 84 days primary efficacy time points period. Can you discuss the significance of this duration? And then the second question for 143, can you discuss development status, progress, what next step that we can expect from this program in 2025?

Emil Kakkis

Okay. 143 in 2025 is all about the interims and getting to phase three. We’ll have the orbit study as well as the cosmic study that will be helped to go to file. And our expectation, depending on where we finish in the year, we take a few months after the data come out to finish the BLA and get it filed. But we expect to be filing sometime next year unless we go to the final assessment, which will be at the end of the year. But it’s really those two studies are the primary drivers. There will be some data from biopsies and a few other things that need to be done, but the package is really Orbit and Cosmic. Regarding DTX-102 and Aspire, I wasn’t quite sure I heard the question. Maybe someone from Eric or others heard the question more clearly.

Eric Crombez

Sorry, I think the question was on the importance or why we selected the follow-up period that we did. And I think, you know, obviously we want to give these children a chance to, you know, start to develop, gain new skills and be able to detect that with the assessments we have there without, you know, letting the study go on too long. Based on the Phase 1-2 data that we’ve presented so far, we have a lot of confidence on not just the primary endpoint, but also key secondaries at that duration.

Emil Kakkis

Yeah, I think if we went shorter, like day 170, there were things that moved faster that you would see, but there’s some things that took a little more time and you gained more separation, and that’s why we felt it worth going to 48 weeks. Is that your question?

Thomas Hoffmann

Yes, that was it. Just wanted to understand the duration of the data measurement, so that helps. Thank you again for taking our questions.

Operator

Jack Allen, Baird.

Jack Allen

Hi, thanks so much for taking the questions and congratulations to the team on the progress made over the course of the quarter. I know there’s been a lot of discussion on setrusumab and the interim analyses on the call, but I was hoping we could just step back and provide some more context around what triggers the interim analysis. I think there was a comment made by Emil previously about an estimation of time to fracture rates and I just want to understand, are the interims set in stone internally as it relates to when those interims occur or is there still incoming data that needs to be accrued to determine the timing of the interim analysis?

Emil Kakkis

Yes, so they’re now set on a timeline but originally where planned was to do the interims based on the events. and that they could move up or back based on when the events occurred. It was operationally challenging to set up because it left a lot of unknowns to the team. So we decided just to estimate when we’d expect those fractures to be hit, the 60% and 80%, laid those down on the timeline and just set that as fixed. We are confident that that is going to be fine because we’re estimating based on the original fracture rate, but we believe the true fracture rate will be faster to what we saw from their historical fractures. And therefore, and because of the type three and four numbers, we’d expect that that estimation will be assessed after the 60% would have been hit, for example, because of the fact that the fracture rate is probably faster than what we used to make the estimate. So it’s just an operational choice that they’re set on the timeline now, which is the timeline we put forth our current corporate presentation and what we just described. Is there any more color, Eric, on this?

Eric Crombez

No, I think that’s great.

Jack Allen

That’s very helpful. Can I just ask one brief follow-up? I guess, how did you think about the potential time for onset of citrus map when you were making those fracture estimates? And I guess that’s all I’m really interested in. Maybe when operationally did you make that change in the thinking as it relates to estimating?

Emil Kakkis

The time onset, the estimate we started gaining by looking at the 14-month data, it really looked by about three months or so in that the number of fractures had declined, and the number after three months, relatively few, and after six months, much, much less. And so our take was that, in fact, separation is probably happening within within three months. Now, from osteoporosis, people know that the separation occurs at around six months with a anti-sclerosin. So it’s not so surprising when you go to children, it might be faster. But that’s what we’ve learned now. Eric, did you have an answer for the second part of that?

Eric Crombez

Well, the second part, I guess, you know, when we decided to make these changes. Yeah, I mean, it really was based on the results we started seeing in younger patients. When we originally designed this to remember orbits of phase 2-3, we really only had the original adult data set. So once we started seeing, you know, these really profound and much earlier effects in younger children, we really were able to recalculate power and the overall design of that phase 3 part of that 2-3 study.

Emil Kakkis

I think he was thinking about when we decided to change from —
Operator, I think we can move on to the next question. I think also underlying that is we’re not looking at the —

Operator

Joe Schwartz, Leerink Partners.

Joe Schwartz

Great. Thanks so much. I also have a couple of questions on setrusumab. I was wondering, first, in ORBIT, if you could talk a little bit more about how you’re calculating the effect size in ORBIT, how that compares to how you did in Phase 2. and then the range of effect size separations that might be needed in order to hit STAT-SIG at the different interim analyses would be very helpful. And then I have a follow-up on COSMIC.

Emil Kakkis

Well, we assumed a 50% reduction in fracture rates and a fracture rate of 0.7 for the powering estimate. However, for the interim and the choice of doing interim, That was based on the concept there could be more fractures, events happening, not a higher fracture rate reduction. And so if there are more fractures, it improves the power to detect that result earlier, right, just because more events to find. So the effect size of 50% and the fracture rate, 0.7, was what was used to develop the power and design. Given that the fracture rate reduction was closer to 67%, which could be similar or higher with the binomial. I think we feel pretty comfortable that we’re in good position in how we’ve designed the study. So that’s sort of what happened there with regard to the effect size.

Joe Schwartz

Okay, thanks.

Emil Kakkis

And then what kind of?

Joe Schwartz

Sorry. Sorry.

Emil Kakkis

No, go ahead.

Joe Schwartz

No, go ahead, Reddy. Okay, so in terms of COSMIC, what kind of a treatment effect do you assume in your powering relative to bisphosphonates? What do you hope to see for the setrusumab arm? Are there any nuances in terms of how the endpoints in COSMIC are calculated versus ORBIT?

Emil Kakkis

Well, keep in mind something about ORBIT and the phase two part ORBIT, is those patients, the vast majority of those patients have been on bisphosphonates. The bisphosphonates are in their bones. So when we’re looking at the 67% reduction, that’s really like the treats they have on top of bisphosphonates, just to be clear. So we’d expect that a similar differential would occur even head to head with bisphosphonates. It is really like an add-on, if you will, in orbit because they already have them in their bones. There might be some tailing off of the bisphosphonate effect in orbit. In COSMIC, everyone had to be on bisphosphonates up front. So our expectation is actually similar in terms of we went with the 50% reduction in fracture rate. Now, the fracture rate in little kids can be much higher. It could be several fold higher, which is partly why the study is in the 60 to 70 patient range rather than 150. But that’s our assumptions right now.

Joe Schwartz

Thanks again.

Operator

Jeffrey Hung, Morgan Stanley.

Jeffrey Hung

Hi, this is Michael Riadon for Jeff Hung. Thank you for taking our questions. For UX111 for San Felipo, given reductions in heparin sulfate and their association in Bailey, is it safe to assume like HS is the sole biomarker data in the BLA, or do you expect to include other measurements like maybe more downstream markers like NSL just in case? Thanks. I have a follow-up.

Emil Kakkis

Yes. Well, as we presented, we have heparensulfate. We also have ganglicides, which are elevated or probably pathologically important, which also decrease. And then we have NSL data, and we also have brain volume data. So we have a value chain all the way from the beginning through the biology that helps support what that efficacy is all the way to Bayley.

Jeffrey Hung

Thank you, that’s helpful. And then as a follow-up, for the interim statistics analysis, if you see a similar fracture rate like you would have seen in ORBIT, would that treatment effect have been sufficient enough to, winding back to ORBIT? Would ORBIT have detected a clear enough separation at a representative first interim analysis?

Emil Kakkis

Well, I think if the fracture rate of 0.7 and 50% then the probability of hitting the first interim is much less. The first interim has a chance of hitting if the fracture rate is higher and if the fracture rate reduction is greater, those would synergize and give us an opportunity to hit the first interim. Is that what you’re asking?

Jeffrey Hung

No, that’s very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Kristen Kluska, Cantor Fitzgerald.

Kristen Kluska

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. On cetrusumab, I was hoping to get a little bit more color around thoughts about the placebo arm. We know that the five bisphosphonate studies had diverse readouts, so can you give us some context about how you developed that 20% figure? And then is there any possibility in this trial that because patients are used to being quite inactive, that we could see more fractures on placebo if the protocol requires them to go to the clinic. Thank you.

Emil Kakkis

Yes, so we’re aware of five randomized studies to look at bisphosphonates. Three of them failed and two of them were successful. In the two that were successful, there was an estimate that they had a reduction of 20% in fracture reduction. and they did make patients feel better too, which is one of the reasons why people were using it less about fracture reduction than feeling better, which is probably dealing with like micro fractures or something of that kind. So the data are not really that compelling, but if you look at our own phase two data, the 67% reduction was on top of bisphosphonates, which were on majority of those patients. So it’s pretty clear what we should be able to see a substantial difference between the two. Now, if you talk about the placebo arm in the study, they’re not getting the dysphocytes anymore during the study, so they will be weaning, which might have some impact on their bones over the period of the year. But in addition, most of them would be normally staying at home. And we know that by coming in the clinic alone, the incidence of accidents and fractures goes up. It’s one of the reasons patients are reluctant to come in a placebo-controlled study. They know going back and forth in clinic every month opens them up to having fractures. So we’d expect actually the clinical activity to actually increase their fractures, which would give us more opportunity to detect a difference between them. But because the data in the phase two were so strong, the doctors, the patient decided they wanted to get in even if they got placebo because they realized they would cross over under drugs Before anyone else, they wanted that opportunity. So that’s why we suddenly were able to get enrollment to crank up and go real well. People felt like this was going to be too big a difference to not want to be part of it.

Tazeen Ahmad

Thank you.

Operator

Dae Gon Ha, Stifel.

Dae Gon Ha

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to, and we’ll take a different angle to the setrusumab line of questions that have dominated the call today. I wanted to ask about manufacturing for setrusumab. Just if you can maybe remind us, you know, what scale is it at? Does that plant actually have some precedent or regulatory success track record when it comes to getting a drug approved? And similarly, when it comes to Burosumab or Crisvita, it was, I guess, as of 2023, transitioned over as more of a royalty-based commercialization activity in the U.S. So just wondering, from a salesforce standpoint, how ready are you if you were to hit the interim number one? Would there need to be a massive hiring spree that would need to get done? Thanks so much.

Emil Kakkis

Okay. So on the manufacturing of Crisvita, It’s the traditional stirred tank batch type method. And it’s currently at 3,000 liter scale. It is operating at a contract manufacturers in Germany that we use already for Mepsevii, so they’re already licensed and approved. So we’re very comfortable on that. Given our view of the product and the size of the market, we’d expect to have to get another manufacturer in addition to that at some point and we would obviously start working on that as soon as we knew we had our study. So, but we are well set up to launch and if the project does as well as we think it can, we’ll need a second manufacturer to get going, but we’re confident in the manufacturer we have, we work with them, they are approved. With regard to the situation in the U.S., while it has become royalty-based, we have actually had people in the field since the crossover in April 2023 and we currently still have 16 salespeople helping support our partner KKC. And we have some people within the org, within patient services and other places that have been moved around, filled other roles, that are still part of our team and have the knowledge and experience. So there’s a significant established base of people, but no doubt if we’re launching, given the value of the program and its potential, we would need to hire additional people too to launch that product. But I think at that point, I think it’s gonna be Real evidence that the value of the product will be high, that that investment will make a lot of sense. If we have enough established base, I think that’ll allow us to be really efficient, effective, and really design a launch plan that will meet our needs. I don’t know if you want to say anything else, Eric, about who we have and our expectations on launch.

Erik Harris

I think you covered just about everything. The only thing I would add is that we still have our leadership team in place. that successfully led the commercialization of CRISP VITA and had it on the right trajectory. So we’ll be ready.

Emil Kakkis

Great. That’s our code. Yeah, you can talk about the North American head or head of the patient services hub, the team involved at, the regional managers. We’ve got a great team set up, but we’ll be in good shape to take off.

Dae Gon Ha

Yep. Yep. Sounds good. Thanks very much, guys.

Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached the end of the question and answer session. I’ll now hand the floor back to Joshua Higa for closing remarks.

Joshua Higa

Thank you. Sorry we weren’t able to get to all the follow-up questions. Feel free to reach out. I’d be more than happy to help facilitate responses. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining us.

Operator

Thank you. All parties may now disconnect.