Sangamo Therapeutics Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2024

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon,

Speaker 1

and welcome to the Sangamo Therapeutics Second Quarter 2024 Teleconference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Louise Wilkie, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. On this call are several members of the Sangamo executive leadership team, including Sandy MacRae, Chief Executive Officer Pratyusha Durababu, Chief Financial Officer Nathalie Duvall Stringfellow, Chief Development Officer Amy Pooler, Head of Research and Greg Davies, Head of Technology. Slides from our corporate presentation can be found on our website, sangamo.com, under the Presentations page of the Investors and Media section.

Speaker 2

This call includes forward looking statements regarding Sangamo's current expectations. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to Sangamo's cash runway, plans to obtain additional capital and ability to continue to operate as a going concern the therapeutic and commercial potential of Sangamo's product candidates and technologies Sangamo's ability to earn and receive payments from its collaboration and license agreements, including the Genentech and Pfizer agreements Pfizer's sorry, Sangamo's expectations regarding new collaboration and license agreements, the anticipated plans and time lines of Sangamo and its collaborators for clinical trials, clinical data presentations and regulatory submissions, upcoming catalysts and milestones and other statements that are not historical facts. Actual results may differ materially from what we discuss today. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that are discussed in our filings with the SEC, specifically on our annual report on Form 10 ks for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, as supplemented by Sangamo's quarterly reports on Form 10 Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2024, and June 30, 2024, and subsequent filings and reports that Sangamo makes from time to time with the SEC. The forward looking statements stated today are made as of today, and we undertake no duty to update such information except as required by law.

Speaker 2

Please note that all forward looking statements about our future plans and expectations are subject to our ability to secure adequate additional funding. Now I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Sandy Macrae.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Luis, and good afternoon to everyone joining the call today. This has been such an exciting and important quarter for Sangamo. At our last earnings call, we shared compelling preclinical data demonstrating the potential of our neurologyepigenetic regulators, AAV capsid delivery platform and next generation genome engineering platform. Importantly, we also outlined our resolute focus on raising additional capital in order to progress these compelling assets into the clinic and to board patients in need. To that end, this morning we were thrilled to announce our 1st neurologyepigenetic regulator and delivery capsid license agreement.

Speaker 3

This comes close on the heels of the highly compelling Phase 3 of the potential of our science and both could meaningfully extend our cash runway as we continue to advance our wholly owned neurology epigenetic regulation pipeline. Getting into the details of our STACK BBB capsid deal, this morning we announced a license agreement with Genentech to develop novel intravenously administered genomic medicines for neurodegenerative disease. We have granted Genentech an exclusive license to our highly potent zinc finger repressors that are targeted to tau, a critical gene involved in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies as well as an additional undisclosed second neurology target. For these same targets, we've also granted Genentech an exclusive license to our industry leading neurotropic delivery capsid, STACK BBB, which has demonstrated potent blood brain barrier penetration and brain transduction in non human primates. As we have shared before, we strongly believe that our powerful combination of proprietary genome targeting cargo paired with our neurotrophic delivery capsid platform is critical to the successful development of neurology focused genomic medicines.

Speaker 3

We believe this agreement with Genentech, a leader in the biotechnology and neurology space reinforces this potent combination and underscores how Sangamo is able to provide both. We are delighted that Genentech chose our zinc finger and capsid delivery technologies to address their neurology needs. We expect to receive from Genentech $50,000,000 in near term upfront license fees and milestone payments, which we anticipate will extend our cash runway into early 2025 and are eligible to earn up to $1,900,000,000 in development and commercial milestone payments as well as tiered royalties or net sales of such products under the agreement. Our agreement with Genentech is significant as we believe it paves the way for others in the future. We anticipate this agreement could be the first of multiple capsid collaborations as we have ongoing discussions with other interested parties alongside our Fabry partnership discussions.

Speaker 3

Generating additional funding continues to be our top priority as we work to position Sangamo for long term success and value creation and are hopeful to have news of additional transactions in the second half of this year. I would now like to hand over to Natalie, our Head of Development, who will share details on the positive top line Phase 3 AFFINE trial results and take us through other pipeline updates. Natalie?

Speaker 4

Thank you, Sandy. As Sandy outlined, we were thrilled to recently share positive top line results from the Phase III AFFINE trial of Gerop Tokogene, Fetel Farvavec, an investigational gene therapy we are developing with Pfizer for patient with moderately severe to severe hemophilia A. Hopefully, we had an opportunity to look at the results. But to summarize the key point, the APHINE trial achieved its primary objective of non inferiority as well as superiority of total annualized bleeding rate or ABR compared with routine factor VIII replacement prophylaxis treatment. Following a single dose of girotacogenefitalpravovec demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in mean total ABR compared to the pre infusion period.

Speaker 4

Key secondary endpoints were met and also demonstrated superiority compared to prophylaxis with 84% of participants maintaining Factor VIII activity greater than 5% at 15 months post infusion and the majority having Factor VIII activity greater than or equal to 15%. Furthermore, the mean treated ABR showed a 98.3% reduction post infusion. Importantly, the product candidate was generally well tolerated. These impressive results further validate the potential of our genomic technologies and take us one step closer towards what could become Sangamo's first medicine commercially available to patients. We greatly appreciate Pfizer's strong leadership of this important program and we're therefore pleased to see this update permanently profile in their 2nd quarter earnings update last week.

Speaker 4

Pfizer reiterated that they plan to review this data with regulatory authorities in the coming months, which would take us a further step closer to unlocking a substantial first tranche of the anticipated milestone payments. As a reminder, we are eligible to earn up to $220,000,000 in milestone payment from Pfizer upon the achievement of certain regulatory and commercial milestone soon and 14% to 20% royalty on potential sales for this program if approved and commercialized. Positively impacting the lives of patient is our ultimate goal. So selecting a partner with strong commercialization infrastructure and experience as well as a broader franchise in this area was an essential criterion when selecting a partner for this program some years ago. We look forward to hearing Pfizer's progress on this program in the coming months.

Speaker 4

This quarter, we also continue to advance our Fabry disease program, and I wanted to take a moment to share how the Fabry clinical data continues to evolve and demonstrate real patient benefit. As outlined previously, dosing is complete in the Phase III STAR study of ISARAGA gene civaparvek, an investigational gene therapy for the treatment of Fabry disease with a total of 33 patient dosed. Since our last update, we are pleased that 3 additional patients have been able to stop enzyme replacement therapy or ERT, resulting in a total of 17 patients withdrawn from ERT to date. All 17 patients remain off ERT as of today. The one remaining patient dosed who began the study on ERT has plans in place to withdraw ERT treatment at the appropriate time.

Speaker 4

To reiterate, 17 patients no longer have to undergo long ERT infusion session every 2nd week. This is a life changing development for those patients. With the longest treated patient now to nearly 4 years and with 10 patients having at least 2 years of follow-up, we continue to amass important clinical data including durability from this study. This data continue to look highly encouraging with patient achieving and maintaining physiological or supra physiological level of plasma alpha Gal A enzyme activity. What particularly pleases me is that we're seeing evidence of improvement in kidney function.

Speaker 4

In contrast to the progressive decline in kidney functions seen in untreated Fabry patient and even those on ART, In the 18 patients treated for more than 1 year, we are seeing a statistically significant rise in both mean and median eGFR levels in male and female patient dose with irisarga gene cvaparvavec. This reflects an important improvement in kidney function. We look forward to sharing a detailed data update in the coming months. In June, we also held a productive meeting with the European Medicine Agency or EMA on a proposed pathway to potential approval in Europe. In particular, we were impressed to be joined in that discussion with 9 member of the U.

Speaker 4

S. Food and Drug Administration. Finally, our engagement with potential Fabry collaboration partners continues with multiple discussions ongoing. These advances allows us to focus on our mission as a genomic medicine company to treat debilitating neurological disorders. We believe our ability to combine potent zinc finger epigenic regulation payloads with exciting new industry leading capsid delivery technology could unlock significant potential for the treatment of devastating neurological diseases, indication for which delivery to the central system has historically proved challenging.

Speaker 4

This quarter, we continue to advance IND enabling activities for our zinc finger repressor in chronic neuropathic pain, NAV1.7 as well as CTA enabling activity for our program to treat prion disease, which leverages our novel STACK BBB capsid. And we also shared exciting development in our new next generation genomic engineering efforts to integrate larger sequences of DNA into the genome, an approach that could offer the potential to treat with a single medicine patient who have unique mutations in the same gene. I will now hand it back to Sandy for closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Natalie. In closing, we're delighted with the important progress made this quarter, which can be summarized in 3 areas. First, we are proud that our epigenetic regulation and capsid delivery capabilities are being recognized by leaders in the field. We expect that the near term payments to be received from Genentech will extend our cash runway into the Q1 of 2025 reinforcing the potential of our science and providing us with needed near term financial resources. We believe this could be the first of multiple capsid collaborations to come with other partners, which we hope will create a stream of future non dilutive funding opportunities.

Speaker 3

2nd, we are excited to have achieved important advances in our legacy gene therapy programs, which provide a foundation for our core neurology business. The positive top line data from the Phase 3 AFFIND trial take us one step closer toward what could be Sangamo's first medicine commercially available to patients and the resulting important potential milestones and royalties that would follow. The compelling clinical data emerging from our Fabry disease program coupled with the encouraging potential regulatory pathway further underscores the importance of our science and we anticipate will further fund the company. 3rd, this stream of non dilutive funding opportunities provides the foundation to build our neurology epigenetic regulation pipeline and CAPC deliver platform led by our chronic neuropathic pain and PRIME disease programs, both of which continue to advance towards potential IND and CTA submissions. We will continue to build on our progress in the second half of twenty twenty four and look forward to continuing to achieve key milestones to bring our promising technology to patients in need.

Speaker 3

Operator, please open the line for questions.

Speaker 1

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Nicole Garmino of Truist Securities. Your line is now open. Great.

Speaker 1

Congrats on all the progress. You've noted that Sac BBB is manufacturable at scale. Can you elaborate on this a bit more and what this means potentially from a cost of goods perspective compared to the standard process compared to, I'm sorry, the standard process?

Speaker 3

Thank you for your question. Amy, can you help with that, please?

Operator

Yes, sure. I'm happy to comment on that. Once the discovery of STACK BBB was made, one of the first things that we did was look into the manufacturability of the capsid, knowing that that's an important consideration when scaling up in order to be able to make enough of the capsid to treat these devastating neurological diseases we mentioned earlier. What we found is that by and large the SPECT BV capsid behaves very similarly to its parent capsid. So we believe that the all of the expertise that we've developed for our previous programs and manufacturing AAV can be leveraged now for SacBB.

Speaker 3

Thanks Amy. And it's one of the gating factors in choosing this capsid to move ahead.

Speaker 1

Our next question comes from the line of Gena Wang of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to congrats on the great deal with Genentech. So maybe wanted to ask regarding the partnership, they are open for additional indication beyond the 2 indications that already decided regarding this deal. And then second regarding the Fabry disease, now you have a more compelling clinical data and also strengthened cash position. What is your latest thoughts on the Fabry program path forward, whether as a standalone asset or you want to still continue looking for the partner to divest this asset?

Speaker 3

So you have to excuse us. You were very quiet. Can I make sure that we understood the question? So I think the STACK BBB and was it available for other indications? And would we be doing partnering for other indications?

Speaker 3

Did I understand that correctly?

Speaker 5

That's correct. Sorry.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 5

Can you hear me better now?

Speaker 3

Yes, that's much better. Thank you. So the license we have with or the partnership we have with Genentech is for they have named their first indication as tau, which clearly applies to Alzheimer's and the various tauopathies and a second undescribed target. All other targets are unclaimed at the moment. Of course, we at Sangamo want to take forward Prion and we have a range of I think there's 8 in our current pipeline on the website that we would consider depending on resources taking forward.

Speaker 3

We're really lucky that we've been inundated by other companies looking for opportunities to access the capsid. And we're being very careful to hear the ones that they're interested in and make sure that that fits with the ones that we want to take forward. So it really does speak to the importance of this capsid and the many neurological conditions that hopefully will be addressed with various cargoes in this capsid. And then the second question I think you asked was about Fabry. Natalie, can you update us on where we are with the Fabry study, please?

Speaker 2

So we have

Speaker 4

very encouraging data. But if I understand your question, you're wondering if we are still wanting to partner?

Speaker 5

That's correct.

Speaker 4

Yes. So we have very encouraging data and really a remarkable path forward. We've agreed with the agency. But it doesn't make sense for us to set up a commercial infrastructure around a single product. So we believe a company with the appropriate commercialization we follow the Fabry

Speaker 3

data, the more interesting it becomes. What's really interesting is the longer we follow the Fabry data, the more interesting it becomes. We have patients out of 4 years. We have several out of 2 years. We have 17 patients now that have come off of ERT and none of them show any sign of going back on.

Speaker 3

And then the more recent data that we got that we described in this where we show an improvement in the EGFR. So this isn't a biopsy. This isn't a biomarker. This is what's important to patients and what determines the fate of patients and in some case literally their fate. And the EGFR drops year on year in patients with Fabry disease.

Speaker 3

ERT slows that somewhat, but we've been told no one has ever seen an EGFR that actually statistically improves both the mean and the median improves. And it really speaks to the clinical utility as a physician, the clinical utility of this medicine. So we have several companies that we're talking to now. They too have got very excited by the cGFR data. We see this as an important medicine.

Speaker 3

The team's driving goal is to get this to patients. However, it takes to do, we will make sure that this is a medicine because it is making such a difference to patients with Fabry disease.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 1

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Yanan Xu of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for taking our questions and congrats on the progress. So maybe first a couple of questions for the Genentech collaboration, specifically on the technology front. I was wondering, are there new engineering features in the zinc finger repressor that Genentech licensed? Is the repressor similar or different or with any of the prior and or current zinc finger repressor product candidates that has been worked on?

Speaker 6

And secondarily, I was wondering how deep of a repression can linked finger repressors achieve and how much repression is necessary for achieving therapeutic benefit in suppressing tau?

Speaker 3

Thank you. Those are all great questions. And Amy, I'm sure you'll love to answer them.

Operator

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for the question. The Zinc Finger repressor technology is something that Sangamo has been working on for some time and we are really confident in both the potency and the specificity of the platform. The Sing Finger, especially for tau, is really a beautiful example of that Sing Finger technology. Now the thing that was missing in the past for the tau program really was a way to deliver.

Operator

We know that these tauopathies, especially in Alzheimer's disease, affect the whole brain. And with the direct injection approach or an intrathecal CSF approach, we really weren't able to achieve that widespread brain distribution that we think would be critical for treating the disease. The important thing is to pair that potent and specific tau zinc finger repressor with the STACK BV capsid in order to achieve that. As we showed in ASGCT earlier this quarter and also in our corporate deck, we have really outstanding distribution of the STACK BV capsid throughout key brain regions that are involved in Alzheimer's disease. So we're really excited about that.

Speaker 6

So in terms of And

Speaker 3

I think other piece that we are delighted about in this is Genentech. Genentech and Casper, the Head of Neuroscience at Genentech has always been a great fan of zinc fingers as a way to control gene expression. And they have a love and a passion for Alzheimer's. We feel in their hands it will get to patients as quickly as possible. So this from a Sangamo point of view is getting the right deal with the right partner.

Speaker 3

And for us, it validates both our cargo, the zinc finger repressor and our capsid. And we're delighted to partner with Genentech in this.

Operator

And then to follow-up on the second part of the question about the potency of the repression, we see greater than 90% repression on a cell by cell basis in neurons, which are the key cell types that are affected in Alzheimer's disease. So that demonstrates this potency. We see that both in vitro in neurons that we can grow in the dish and also in vivo in the animal studies that we've completed.

Speaker 3

And Amy, what's necessary?

Operator

No, that's the $1,000,000 question. What we see with the Sac PB repression mediated repression that we've demonstrated in non human primates, we believe is at levels that is necessary again on a single cell basis of over 90 percent in those neurons. So really excited about being able to move this program into development and get into patients.

Speaker 6

That's very, very helpful. If I may ask 2 additional questions. 1 on STAX BPD, sounds like this capsid really has a lot of very intriguing features, not only for broad neuron transduction, but also with impressive de targeting of the liver. I was wondering, have you undertaken any work to characterize what might be the cell surface target that had been that is targeted by this engineered capsid? And another question on the Fabry program, I was just wondering hearing about the improvement in eGFR.

Speaker 6

Could you give us a little bit more color on how many patients do you have long term EGFR data for? And also what might be the venue for this

Speaker 3

the

Operator

Sure. We presented some data on the possible mechanism of blood brain barrier crossing of STACK BBB at the ASGCT conference earlier this year. What we found was a potential mechanism where it's a highly conserved protein in both in mouse, non human primate and human. Of course, the data that we've seen in the non human primate is really compelling, but we also understand that the most important thing is the proof of principle in humans. And this is really why we're so excited to be driving forward the Sac B2B capsid with our pre owned program.

Operator

And that will give us the potential to make a difference in the life of patients that have this fatal disease.

Speaker 3

Natalie, can you talk about the longer term data that we have with Fabry, please?

Speaker 4

Yes. So at this point, we have 18 patient at 1 year, where we have followed the EGFR. And we can see that there is the mean and both the mean and the median of EGFR is improved when you look at those 18 patients. Statistically significantly. Statistically significantly improving those 18 patients.

Speaker 4

In this patient, we have both male and female. So we're very excited with this data because we demonstrate for the first time an improvement in EGFR, which really does not happen on ERT.

Speaker 3

And if you remember, in addition, the patients are coming off their ERT, their SF-thirty six is positive, they're sweating, just the general symptomatology of these patients is all positive and the capsid is incredibly well tolerated. So we're very pleased and the patients and the patient support groups are very pleased with the progress of this asset.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing the data.

Speaker 1

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Maury Raycroft of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Hi, thanks for taking my question and I'll add my congrats on the Genentech deal as well. I have a question just on hemophilia A with Pfizer. Since the $70,000,000 milestone payment is tied to the BLA filing, which seems like a lower risk event for Pfizer. Could you potentially accelerate that milestone payment? And for the commercial milestones, would you consider renegotiating earlier payments for those milestones as well?

Speaker 3

Thanks for the comment, Maury. We look forward to Pfizer moving this forward into registration and beyond. We were particularly encouraged by the recent Pfizer, the quarterly call, where this was a core part of their pipeline and something that they spoke of and we're excited about, particularly as it matches with their hemophilia B asset as well. We don't give details of when these milestones will be coming. We don't need to draw down these milestones or royalties.

Speaker 3

Of course, when the results were announced, we had inbound inquiries from royalty companies who were interested in talking about that with us. But we're so close to the registration that it's a balance between supporting Pfizer and believing in Pfizer and the need for cash now. And so we are blessed to have that choice. With this money that we've brought in from Genentech, it gives us time and it gives us an opportunity to complete other business development deals. With the Fabry, we have the choice and the results are giving us incoming interest on the clinical benefit.

Speaker 3

With the capsid and cargo that Aimia created, we can do other capsid and cargo deals. So this has been a great turnaround from Sangamo. This is the beginning. And we are fortunate to have so many assets that we can monetize and choose our own path.

Speaker 7

Got it. That makes sense. That's helpful. And maybe one quick follow-up. I'm just wondering if there's more you can say about the STACK BBB out licensing process and the extent of diligence from Genentech and whether other parties were involved for TAO specifically?

Speaker 3

There's a limit to what we can say. We saw this data first of its STACK BBB in November in amongst a whole other library. We saw the data on the single capsid in March and the business development team did a great job of driving it forward. Of course, I wanted it sooner and they will be smiling at me saying what a great job they have because I was always asking them to do it sooner. Why we particularly like Genentech as our partner is they did deep, deep diligence.

Speaker 3

They've turned over every stone. They work closely with Amy and her team to make sure that they were making the right choice both with the capsid and cargo. We have several other companies that we're talking to and we're very careful to make sure that we know what they want as their intended target, to make sure we can maximize the value that we can get from this capsid. Amy, it really was significant scientific diligence, wasn't it?

Operator

Yes, it was such an exciting process and really such an honor also to go through it with Genentech team. They're really wonderful looking at the data together and working in such a collaborative way. So really looking forward to working together.

Speaker 7

Great. Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 1

Our next question comes from the line of Lisa Walter of RBC. Your line is now open. Great. Thanks for taking our questions. This is Lisa on for Luca.

Speaker 1

First on Fabry, it has been about 10 months since the search for a partner has started by my count. Sounds like there have been some fruitful discussions going on with strategics and as well as clinical data progress and progress with FDA and EMA regulators too. But just wondering if you can add any more color on what is holding a potential strategic back here from partnering with you on Fabry? And my second question on hemophilia A, just wondering how the conversations with Pfizer are evolving on which regions will be most strategic to file a BLA. In the past, I believe the U.

Speaker 1

S, EU and Japan were flagged. However, we saw yesterday that BioMarin is opting to limit their launch now to only 3 countries, the U. S, Italy and Germany. So my question is, will a more focused launch be under consideration? Or do you need to go broad for hemophilia A considering you'll be second to market?

Speaker 1

Any color here would be helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 3

So I'll answer the second question first. We can't comment and won't comment on Pfizer's marketing plans. That just is not appropriate. And it's also in the contract that Pfizer would be the people who would speak to that. We noted with interest BioMarin reducing the number of companies who are intending you reducing the investment.

Speaker 3

It's really hard to relaunch a product and we are pleased that this gives Pfizer an opportunity to make this medicine available. Our data looks great. The efficacy looks good. The tolerability looks good. And in Pfizer's hands, I'm sure it will be an important medicine.

Speaker 3

You asked an interesting question about Fabry. We're determined to do the right deal, not a quick deal, do the right deal. And with the money that we brought in from the Genentech deal, we have the time to work with the right partner to take Fabry forward. What's interesting is as the discussions have continued is the data has matured, the data has improved, the biopsies are starting to come in, in the coming months. The EGFR is statistically significant and the partners are excited and we look forward to solving this as soon as possible.

Speaker 3

It's an important medicine and it's important that we get it right.

Speaker 1

I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back to Louise Wilkie for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you once again for joining us today and for all your questions. As a reminder, you can access our presentation on the Investor Relations section of the Sangamo website. We look forward to keeping you updated on our future developments.

Speaker 1

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

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