Nektar Therapeutics' CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Transcript

Now, I would like to hand the call over to Howard Robin.

Howard Robin

Thank you Jennifer, and thanks to everyone for joining us this afternoon. Nektar continues to make significant progress this year advancing our clinical and preclinical programs and greatly strengthening our financial position. I would like to give you a business update and then hand the call over to John for a review of financials. Last month, we completed a $125 million private placement of Senior Secured Notes that strengthens our balance sheet without any dilution to our shareholders.

These Notes, which have no equity or warrants associated with them, are due in July of 2017 and callable by Nektar beginning in July of 2015. Importantly, the notes have no financial performance targets and we retain the freedom to operate our business as we have in the past, including, for example, our ability to enter into collaborative transactions or monetize royalties.

We are very pleased with this transaction which we believe reflects the strength of

Nektar’s proven technology and our late-stage pipeline. The placement of these secured notes builds on the $124 million sale of nonstrategic royalties that we completed in the first quarter of this year. Funds from these two transactions will be used to repay the remaining balance on our convertible debt which is due in September of this year. This will eliminate the significant dilution associated with convertible debt for Nektar.

After repayment of the convertible debt, we now expect to end 2012 with approximately $300 million in cash and investments which should give us multiple years of working capital and bring us through many important potential product milestones. Now I’d like to review the significant progress we’ve made with our clinical pipeline in the past quarter. Let me start first with an update on naloxegol, a peripherally-acting mu-opioid receptor antagonist being developed by AstraZeneca as a once-daily oral tablet for the chronic treatment of opioidinduced constipation or OIC. In 2011, AstraZeneca initiated a global and comprehensive Phase 3 clinical program for naloxegol. The planned registration package will include two pivotal studies to evaluate the efficacy and safety of naloxegol in patients with chronic non-cancer pain, a 6-month extension study, and a long-term safety study. The two pivotal placebo-controlled studies each include an estimated

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