Nektar CEO Discusses Q3 2010 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Nektar Therapeutics (
)
Q3 2010 Earnings Call
November 4, 2010 5:00 PM ET
Executives
Jennifer Ruddock – Investor Relations
Howard Robin – President and CEO
John Nicholson – Chief Financial Officer
Bharatt Chowrira – Chief Operations Officer
Dr. Lorianne Masuoka – Chief Medical Officer
Steve Doberstein – Chief Scientific Officer
Analysts
Ian Sanderson – Cowen and Company
Jonathan Aschoff – Brean Murray
John Sonnier – William Blair
Shiv Kapoor – Morgan Joseph
Bert Hazlett – BMO Capital Markets
Presentation
Operator
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Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2010 Nektar Therapeutic Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Ms. Jennifer Ruddock. Ma’am, you may proceed.
Jennifer Ruddock
Thank you, Kristine. Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us for Nektar Therapeutic’s third quarter 2010 financial results call. With us today are Howard Robin, our President and CEO; John Nicholson, our Chief Financial Officer; Bharatt Chowrira, our Chief Operations Officer; Dr. Lorianne Masuoka, our Chief Medical Officer; and Steve Doberstein, our Chief Scientific Officer.
Before we get started, please note that in our presentation and in our response to questions today, we will make forward-looking statements that reflect our current views as to the value and potential of our technology platform, the progress and potential of our drug candidates, the timing of the start of clinical trials, the timing and potential for a partnership of NKTR-102, the economic potential under certain of our agreements, the market potential for certain of our drug candidates, our financial guidance for 2010 and other future events and opportunities related to the company.
These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that are detailed in Nektar’s reports and other filings with the SEC, including our Form 10-Q quarterly report filed with the SEC on July 28, 2010, our report on Form 8-K filed today and our Form 10-Q quarterly report filed today.
Actual events could differ materially from these forward looking statements. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events. A webcast of this call will be available for replay on the Investor Relations page of Nektar’s website at nektar.com.
With that, I will now hand the call over to our President and CEO, Howard Robin. Howard?
Howard Robin
Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks everyone for joining us today. 2010 continues to be an exceptional year for Nektar. We have made significant progress in advancing an impressive pipeline of high-value therapeutics, including mid to late stage development programs in oncology and pain.
Through continued productivity in R&D, Nektar’s pipeline has both expanded and matured significantly. We now have over 25 therapeutic programs in our pipeline from candidates and discovery to those preparing for Phase III. Each of our candidates is designed to address an important clinical need and a significant commercial opportunity. Under pinning all of these of accomplishments, is a powerful and validated polymer conjugate technology platform that continues to generate exciting new drug candidates.
Today I will review Nektar’s achievements in the last quarter and update you on NKTR-102, NKTR-105, NKTR-181 and selected partnered programs. John will review our financial results and guidance, and then we will take your questions.
Before I review the progress of our key programs, I’d like to comment briefly on the recently announced Amgen agreements. While the exact terms of this non-exclusive contract are confidential, we are exceptionally pleased with this agreement which was outlined in the 8-K filed this week.
We will receive $50 million and we will now make reasonable margins on any future orders from Amgen. As a result, we are increasing our year-end cash guidance to reflect the $50 million payment we will receive from Amgen. We now expect to end 2010 with a cash balance of approximately $315 million. Please note that this guidance does not include the potential cash from a Nektar-102 partnership.
Now more importantly, let’s talk about Nektar-102. As you know, we continue to be very excited about NKTR-102 and its compelling activity as a single agent in a number of tumor cells. We are currently in active negotiations to partner NKTR-102 and we expect to enter into a partnership around the end of this year.
We remain committed to entering into a collaboration that maximizes the value to share holders and brings Nektar-102 to physicians and patients as quickly as possible.
Chemotherapies represent a $12 billion global market and they’re use to works that of targeted agents, many of which need chemotherapies to work. As a class though, these agents typically have very short half lives and the Cmax related toxicities, which limit their utilities. It has long been hypothesized that if you can improve the PK profile of a chemotherapeutic agent, you can address limitations of the class and have a very potent anticancer drug.
With NKTR-102 we have successfully created a new topoisomerase I-inhibitor, with optimized PK properties, with the goal of increasing its efficacy and improving its tolerability.
Nektar-102 was specifically designed to have an extended half life that can also achieve greater penetration into tumors. So the agent can have maximum impact on continuously dividing cancer cells. NKTR-102 was also designed to be efficacious with a lower Cmax, which reduces the Cmax related toxicities.
The positive efficacy data that is continuing to emerge for NKTR-102 in the breast and ovarian cancer settings highlights the drug significant potential to provide great benefits to cancer patients. We have seen these highly promising results for NKTR-102 in some very difficult to treat cancer cells.
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