Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Amelix has dosed the first patient in the pivotal Phase 3 LUCIDITY trial of Avexatide in post-bariatric hypoglycemia and expects to complete enrollment by year-end with a potential commercial launch in 2027 if approved.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company’s research collaboration with Gubra is yielding proof-of-concept long-acting GLP-1 receptor antagonists, showing promising in vivo potency and extended half-lives toward IND-enabling studies.
  • Positive Sentiment: Top-line data from the Phase 2b portion of the ORION trial of AMX-35 in progressive supranuclear palsy are expected this quarter and will inform a go/no-go decision for a Phase 3 program targeting ≥20% slowing on the PSP Rating Scale.
  • Positive Sentiment: Long-term (48-week) data in Wolfram syndrome demonstrate sustained stabilization or improvement on clinical measures with AMX-35, guiding the design of a planned Phase 3 trial.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Amelix ended Q2 with $180.8 million in cash, projecting sufficient runway through 2026 to fund key clinical milestones, including Phase 3 LUCIDITY, ORION, and early AMX-114 ALS data.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. My name is John, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Amelix Pharmaceuticals Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

Operator

To withdraw your question, please press 2. Please limit your questions to one question with one follow-up. If you would like to add additional questions, you may rejoin the queue. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request. I would now like to turn the call over to Lindsey Allen, vice president, investor relations and communications.

Operator

Please go ahead, ma'am.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our second quarter twenty twenty five financial results and business updates. With me on the call today are Josh Cohen and Justin Klee, our co CEOs Doctor. Camille Bedrosian, our Chief Medical Officer and Jim Frates, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that any statements we make or information presented on this call that are not historical facts are forward looking statements that are based on our current beliefs, plans and expectations and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, our expectations with respect to vexatide, AMX-thirty five and AMX-one hundred fourteen, statements regarding regulatory and clinical developments, the impact thereof and the expected timing thereof, and statements regarding our cash runway.

Speaker 1

Actual events and results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward looking statements. You are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward looking statements, and Amelix disclaims any obligation to update such statements unless required by law. Now I will turn the call over to Justin.

Speaker 2

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. During the 2025, we made meaningful progress across our clinical programs. Our lead asset of Exitide is an investigational GLP-one receptor antagonist with FDA breakthrough therapy designation being evaluated for the treatment of post bariatric hypoglycemia or PVH. In April, we dosed our first participant in the pivotal Phase three lucidity trial studying Avextetide and PVH following Roux en Y gastric bypass surgery. We continue to expect to complete recruitment by year end.

Speaker 2

We have been pleased by the level of engagement from the clinical trial sites. Just a few weeks ago, we hosted an educational investor event at ENDO featuring a panel of KOLs, all experts in treating PVH, including investigators involved in the trial. Camille will share a few remarks on ENDO shortly. If you were not able to attend or listen live, I encourage you to listen to the replay available in the Presentations section of our website. Importantly, we are preparing to be launch ready and if approved, we anticipate a commercial launch of Avexatide in 2027.

Speaker 2

We have been focused on the initial steps for building the commercial organization and collecting insights on the market, which includes learning from people living with TBH and mapping out early disease education and market access strategies. We are encouraged by the potential of GLP-one receptor antagonism as a therapeutic approach, beginning with Avexatide and PBH and potentially extending to other rare diseases where this mechanism may be relevant. Reflecting our conviction in this target, last December, we initiated a research collaboration with Gubra, a global leader in long acting peptide drug development. We are pleased with the progress we are making to develop a novel long acting GLP-one receptor antagonist. Initial efforts with GUBRA are already showing proof of concept with new molecules, demonstrating promising potency values both in vitro and in vivo and extended in vivo half lives.

Speaker 2

We are excited about this collaboration and will share more as timelines toward IND enabling studies become clearer. Turning to the rest of our pipeline. AMX-thirty five is an oral small molecule therapy designed to target endoplasmic reticulum or ER stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. We are studying AMX-thirty five in progressive supranuclear palsy or PSP and Wolfram syndrome. PSP is a rare progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder that affects an estimated twenty three thousand people in The US and has no currently approved treatments.

Speaker 2

We expect top line data from the Phase 2b portion of the Phase 2bthree ORION trial this quarter, which will inform a go no go decision on whether we move into the Phase three program. Wolfram syndrome is a rare progressive monogenic prototypical ER stress disorder with no approved treatments that we estimate affects approximately three thousand people in The U. S. Alone. Earlier this quarter, we presented long term week 48 data which demonstrated that treatment with AMX thirty five led to sustained stabilization or improvement over time in the study's clinical measures.

Speaker 2

These results and discussions with FDA are informing the design of a Phase III trial of AMX-thirty five in Wolfram syndrome, and we expect to provide an update on the program this year. Now turning to AMX-one hundred fourteen, our investigational antisense oligonucleotide targeting CALPN-two for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS. We continue to expect early cohort data from our Phase one LUMINA trial of AMX-one hundred fourteen this year. AMX-one hundred fourteen is designed to inhibit CALPIN-two to prevent the breakdown of axons, which is along fibers that carry signals from neurons to muscles. In preclinical studies, AMX114 demonstrated improved neuronal survival and reductions in extracellular neurofilament light chain or NSL, a key biomarker of neurodegeneration across multiple disease models.

Speaker 2

In June, the FDA granted Fast Track designation to AMX114, which provides us with the opportunity for more frequent interactions with the FDA and could allow for an expedited review process. Our pipeline progress reflects the focus and executional rigor of our team. As we look ahead to the second half of the year and into 2026, we're encouraged by the strength of our position and the momentum we're building across all of our programs. Now I'll turn the call over to Camille.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Justin. Touching briefly on the upcoming Phase IIb data readout in PSP. PSP is a tauopathy characterized by the accumulation of tau protein in the brain. Unlike other investigational agents that have targeted extracellular tau protein or focused on downstream effects, AMX-thirty five is both brain and cell penetrant. Notably, in our phase II Alzheimer's trial, AMX35 demonstrated significant reductions in tau protein and cerebrospinal fluid.

Speaker 3

With these characteristics, we believe AMX thirty five may offer a differentiated and potentially disease modifying approach in PSP. We have set a high bar for AMX thirty five and PSP. Based on natural history data and feedback from clinical experts, we believe a clear slowing of disease progression of at least twenty percent on the PSP rating scale could signal meaningful clinical activity. We plan to base our decision making for advancing to the phase three portion of the trial on the totality of the data and the potential for clinically meaningful outcomes for those living with PSP. Now let's focus on Avexatide, our lead program.

Speaker 3

Post bariatric hypoglycemia is characterized by recurrent hypoglycemic events, which can impose a significant and lasting burden on a person's quality of life. The condition often impairs the individual's ability to perform basic activities of daily living. There are currently no FDA approved treatments. The pathophysiology of PBH is believed to be primarily driven by altered nutrient transit after bariatric surgery, which leads to exaggerated secretion of glucagon like peptide one, or GLP-one. In individuals with PBH, postprandial GLP-one levels can be more than tenfold higher than normal, triggering excessive insulin relief and subsequent hypoglycemia.

Speaker 3

Avexatide is our investigational first in class GLP-one receptor antagonist, which has been granted FDA breakthrough therapy designation. It is designed to inhibit GLP-one receptor activity, thereby reducing insulin secretion and stabilizing blood glucose levels. At ENDO twenty twenty five, we presented new exploratory analyses from the phase two PREVENT trial in PBH following Roux en Y gastric bypass surgery and the phase 2B clinical trial in PBH following a variety of upper GI surgeries, including Roux en Y gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, esophagectomy, Nissen fundoplication, and gastrectomy. These data show that Avexatide ninety milligrams once daily, which is the dose being evaluated in the pivotal phase three LUCIDITY trial, led to a 64% least squares mean reduction in the composite rate of level two and level three hypoglycemic events from baseline in people with PBH, with a p value of 0.0031. Importantly, more than half of participants receiving this dose experienced no level two or level three hypoglycemic events during the treatment period.

Speaker 3

Consistent reductions in the composite rate of level two and level three events were also seen with other abexatide doses studied in the phase II and IIb trials. Abexatide was generally well tolerated with a favorable safety profile replicated across the clinical trials. We also presented new pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data at the ENDO conference demonstrating continuous pharmacological activity of the ninety milligram once daily dose for a full twenty four hour period. These findings build on a consistent body of data from five clinical trials of Avexatide and PBH. When we designed our pivotal phase three lucidity trial, the goal was to be as consistent as possible with the previous successful phase two study, which directly informed the dose, endpoints, surgical subtype, and inclusion criteria.

Speaker 3

As a reminder, LUCIDITY is a multicenter, randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial of approximately seventy five participants with PBH following Roux en Y gastric bypass surgery. Lucidity is evaluating the FDA agreed upon primary endpoint of reduction in the composite of level two and level three hypoglycemic events through week sixteen. In addition to the analyses Amelix presented, expert PVH clinicians and researchers shared new data and research findings at ENDO twenty twenty five. For example, Doctor. Colleen Craig and her colleagues at Stanford presented a US prevalence model for PBH, which they have been working on for the past five years, including an assessment of prevalence and incidence based on surgical subtype.

Speaker 3

Doctor. Craig and team used historical census data going back to 1993 and found that there were approximately one point three million Roux en Y and one point six million sleeve gastrectomy surgeries during this time. Then using life expectancy estimates and disease state modeling, they found that nearly four hundred thousand people in The US who previously underwent bariatric surgery experienced clinically important hypoglycemia, defined as glucose less than 54 mgs per deciliter, or three or more PBH symptoms. Of these, approximately one hundred and sixty seven thousand people experienced recurrent events that are intense enough to require medical attention, which is a population considered to have medically important clinic PBH. Further breaking down these numbers, approximately one hundred and nineteen thousand had Roux en Y gastric bypass, and approximately forty eight thousand had sleeve gastrectomy.

Speaker 3

These estimates reinforce our projections, which are based on published literature and claims based analyses, and underscore both the urgency of the unmet need and the significant opportunity for vexatide to make a meaningful impact for people living with PDH. From a clinical and mechanistic standpoint, we remain highly encouraged by the therapeutic potential of GLP-one receptor antagonism. We view lucidity as just the beginning for Avexatide. Hypoglycemia does not just occur after Roux en Y gastric bypass surgery, but after several other types of major upper GI surgeries, which may be conducted for weight loss, gastric or esophageal cancer removal, or severe gastroesophageal reflux disease. Additionally, GLP-one receptor antagonism may be important in several other rare diseases.

Speaker 3

We continue to work through plans to evaluate Avexatide in these additional areas. But first and foremost, our focus is on lucidity. We are pleased by our continued progress on the Avexatide program and the growing recognition of PBH as a serious underserved condition. We look forward to top line data from lucidity expected in the 2026. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss the financial highlights from the quarter.

Speaker 3

Jim?

Speaker 4

Thanks, Camille. We ended the second quarter with a cash position of $180,800,000 compared to $204,100,000 at the end of the first quarter. We believe we have the necessary cash to deliver our planned clinical milestones, which include top line data from the Phase III lucidity trial of adexitide expected in the first half of next year, top line data from the Phase 2b portion of the ORION trial in PSP expected this quarter and early cohort data from our LUMINA trial of AMX-one hundred fourteen in ALS expected by the end of the year. In addition, our cash supports early commercial preparations for the potential first to market launch of vexatide. Turning now to our results for the quarter.

Speaker 4

Total operating expenses for the quarter were $42,900,000 down 43% from the same period in 2024. Research and development expenses were $27,200,000 compared to $23,300,000 in Q2 twenty twenty four, primarily due to an increase in spending on Avexatide and AMX thirty five for the treatment of PSP. The increase was partially offset by a decrease in spending on AMX thirty five for the treatment of ALS. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $15,600,000 compared to $21,600,000 in Q2 twenty twenty four, primarily due to a decrease in payroll and personnel related costs and a decrease in consulting, professional and other services. We recognized $7,400,000 of non cash stock based compensation expense for the quarter compared to $9,600,000 of non cash stock based compensation expense in Q2 twenty twenty four.

Speaker 4

With our current cash balance, we believe we're well positioned to execute on our clinical milestones. We expect our cash runway to last through the 2026. With that, I'll turn the call over to Josh.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Jim. In closing, I'd like to take a moment to highlight what continues to inspire us. The experience of people living with PBH is often underappreciated, but essential to understanding our work. As Camille described today, PBH is a serious and life altering condition. People living with PBH often experience frequent, unpredictable hypoglycemic events that can severely limit their independence and quality of life.

Speaker 5

Many live with constant anxiety around meals, social isolation, and an inability to perform basic daily activities. These patient experiences are not outliers. They reflect a broader underserved patient population that we continue to learn about and which motivates us to move with urgency and precision. As we look ahead, we're increasingly confident in the strategic value of antagonizing the GLP-one pathway and the potential to help many patients in need. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress across our pipeline.

Speaker 5

Now, I would like to open the call up for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Please limit your question to one question with one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may rejoin the queue. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster.

Operator

Thank you for waiting. We now have our first question. And this comes from Seamus Fernandez from Guggenheim. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks so much for the question. So really, the question that I have is more on the understanding of the market opportunity. You know, there's a lot of confusion, I think, in the marketplace in terms of how the moderate to severe patient population actually is broken up and what would be a clinically relevant result for this patient population? I know your event provided a lot of information along those lines, but I think it would be helpful to just know what you believe the truly severe kind of baseline population for a rapid potential uptake Avexatide would be.

Speaker 6

And just sort of separate, very quick follow-up question, is just the pace of enrollment, in your Phase III, Just hoping you might be able to give us a little bit of a sense. Your confidence in recruiting that study seems quite high. Just wondering how we should anticipate that enrollment to proceed given the timing of the Phase three data in the

Speaker 7

first half of next year. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Seamus. So maybe going one by one, starting on the market, yeah, we've continued to learn and continue to dive in. We actually updated our slide in our deck as well. So you can see a little bit more information there on the market as well. I think as we've continued to learn about hypoglycemia, even a single hypoglycemic event can be very dramatic for patients.

Speaker 5

It could be a moment where they fracture bone, could be a moment where they fall downstairs or potentially crash a car. And it's traumatic, you know, for individuals. And also just to try to prevent or reduce the rate of those hypoglycemic events, patients are forced to live a very limited life. Both in terms of their diet, being on a very restrictive diet where they have very, very few carbs and aren't able to eat, are only able to eat very, very small meals, but also just from a sense of fear in terms of feeling like at any point they might fall into this hypoglycemia. So we think that this population, I'd say in general is very eager for treatments and for potential benefits.

Speaker 5

Breaking down a little bit, Doctor. Craig did present recently at Endo some information on prevalence as well. She estimated overall prevalence of about one hundred and sixty thousand of what she called medically important PBH, which is defined by people that were seeking medical care for their PBH. She further subsetted that down to about thirty thousand patients. That was what she called critical PBH, which were people who were potentially going to an ER or a hospital for an inpatient visit to manage their PBH.

Speaker 5

So I think we're still working a little bit on maybe your follow-up question of exactly who gets on drug first. What is the very first segment that we might tackle in the market. That's work we're still doing commercially. But I think overall, we do believe that there are approximately 160,000 patients who may ultimately benefit over time as we continue educating and building the market. You also asked about the pace of enrollment in the clinical trial.

Speaker 5

So, we expect to complete enrollment by the end of the year with data in the 2026. We're making good progress towards that goal. So, we reiterated that goal today as well.

Speaker 6

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Joseph Thome from TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi, there. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe the first one on the Phase III lucidity trial design. Just because this treatment period is a little bit longer than the other, the Phase IIs, I guess can you just remind us what you have in place to prevent patients from self liberalizing their diet, or maybe how that can be tracked?

Speaker 8

And then, just quick a follow-up on the PSP program. What's going to be the most important determinant in deciding to move that forward? Is it just going to be a certain level of improvement on the PSPRS? Or are there any other secondary endpoints or safety measures that you're going be looking at before you decide to make that step? Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Sure. Thank you. So regarding the lucidity trial, we actually have great training initially with the site and through them with the participants regarding the dietary modifications and dietary following. Everyone is already on medical nutrition therapy beginning with the run-in period, And participants are asked to continue doing whatever they were doing during run-in throughout the trial. And this is double checked throughout the study.

Speaker 3

Individuals in the study also respond to questionnaires attesting to their dietary habits. And the diet piece is reinforced throughout the study.

Speaker 5

And maybe I might just add there as well. This is also consistent, in fact, if anything, even more close management as well as in the phase two and phase 2b. So just as Camille said, at every interaction with the site at every visit, patients are reminded kind of retrained on the appropriate diet for people with post bariatric hypoglycemia. There were some dietary training in the Phase II and Phase IIb. This is even more significant.

Speaker 5

And as a reminder, the Phase II and Phase IIb showed quite significant results on the hypoglycemic endpoints that we're also looking at here. So maybe I'll pass back to Camille on PSP. Sure. Yeah. And just one more point about this.

Speaker 5

The participants, as we've learned from the PIs in the study are highly motivated. So they are, you know, they do identify and follow the instructions based on their motivation. And that was observed in phase II2b. With regard to

Speaker 3

PSP program, as we remarked earlier, we are looking at a clinical endpoint, the progression rate as measured by the PSPRS, as well as biomarker and imaging data. And all those elements will go into our gono go decision for PSP. And also, as a reminder, we are setting a high bar, as noted earlier.

Speaker 2

Great, thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Michael DiFiori from Evercore. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Two for me. One on the PBH market. What's the potential for payers to force step edits on these non approved therapies such as diazoxide and noctreotide?

Speaker 9

I mean recognizing that most of these patients will probably have been already on them, especially the severely affected patients. But for newly diagnosed patients, potential for therapy edits. I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure. So I'm happy to start with that one. So we don't anticipate that. One, there's not really any solid clinical evidence that those therapies are effective in PBH. That wouldn't be the payers wouldn't turn to that given the lack of clinical evidence for benefit.

Speaker 5

I'll also add just as we've spoken to physicians, as we've spoken to patients with this disease, there's very minimal satisfaction with those therapies, both in terms of patients continuing to have significant amounts of events, even when on those therapies, as well as a number of side effects that they experience when taking them.

Speaker 9

That's very helpful. And my second question is on the PFP trial. I mean, as we headed into the interim analysis for this trial, how should we think about the variation in treatment duration across patients given that all patients will have been treated for twenty four weeks but I think you mentioned before that some patients will have been treated for much longer. I guess what I'm asking is what is the potential for these longer duration patients to really derive the signal versus the ones who were just treated for twenty four weeks? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yep. Thank you, Mike. All participants will have completed twenty four weeks of treatment, and that's the analysis that we'll be doing. And you are correct, we will also look at data through fifty two weeks for those who have progressed in advance through fifty two weeks. All the data will be taken into account, not one or another driving more or less our gono go decision.

Speaker 9

Okay. So basically, interim will just be at the twenty four week endpoint for everybody. That'll be the analysis?

Speaker 3

And yes, that will be the analysis. And we will also understand what longer term treatment does for these participants as well.

Speaker 5

Yeah, we'll use all available data in the analysis. I think, as Camille mentioned, at least everyone will have crossed that week twenty four time point. If there are important differences between week twenty four and going out to the full duration time point, we'll definitely explore those and share those as well.

Speaker 9

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Geoff Meacham from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey, guys. Good morning. This is Jarwei on for Jeff. Just a couple of quick questions from us. Again, on the PBH market opportunity, the lack of an ICD-ten code has made it a little challenging to pinpoint an exact prevalence number.

Speaker 7

So that second, you guys mentioned current efforts underway to get a better understanding of the market opportunity. And so, as you talk to additional. Payers and additional KOLs, what do you think would be the easiest path forward to demonstrate the need for a therapy and the benefit that could bring when you think about the need for educating the broader marketplace. And then a second question real quick on PSP. How would you characterize patient community and its awareness of the phase two Helios trial and the ongoing Orion study?

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Speaker 5

Sure. So maybe starting on the ICD-ten code, one, I'd say stay tuned there. It's definitely an area of active work towards having an ICD code in this condition. We've also done a good amount of claims work. While there isn't an ICDN code, we've been able to analyze the claims looking at those patients who have had bariatric surgery, who go on to have hypoglycemic events.

Speaker 5

And we've tried to eliminate other possible causes for those hypoglycemic events such as various diabetic medications and otherwise that might be causative for that hypoglycemia. When we've done that analysis, we do get very similar numbers to both what Doctor. Craig's analysis comes up with, as well as what our analysis from the literature comes up with as well. You also asked about the need for therapy and education. I will say, as we've spoken to adult endocrinologists, it really isn't hard to hear messages about just how significant the need is.

Speaker 5

A number of endocrinologists have described this as our most fragile patient population. We've heard I definitely encourage to for all listening to kind of go through the endo presentation as well. But in that there were a couple of patient stories including a couple of patients who found their symptoms so severe, they ultimately decided to have their pancreas fully removed just to kind of prevent these kind of ups and downs of blood sugar and having your pancreas fully removed has a lot of downstream consequences. But that was the kind of risk benefit analysis they made because of how severe PBH was and how significantly it was affecting their life. So it really has not been hard to find a number of physicians who have sizable groups of patients who are experiencing kind of consistent and progressive events as well.

Speaker 5

Maybe I'll pass over to Camille to talk a little bit about the patient community, as you were saying in PSP. And I think you asked about potentially Wolfram as well, I can touch on it either way.

Speaker 3

Yeah, thank you. Yes, just as a reminder, there are no approved treatments for PSP, and it is a devastating disease that is ultimately fatal. And there isn't even the possibility of treatment for these individuals, unfortunately. So the patient community is very supportive and enthusiastic about the possibilities, as are we. We do see and appreciate the sense of urgency to identify a treatment that will favorably impact these individuals.

Speaker 3

Having said that, we do understand also from patient community as well as the investigator and treating community that a clinically meaningful improvement progression rate relative to placebo is about twenty percent in the PSPRS, the Clinical Rating Scale. And that is one of the measures that we're using to make our gono go decision. We do want to be sure that AMX thirty five could provide a very meaningful benefit to these patients.

Speaker 5

And just briefly, I think you asked about Helios and Wolfram as well. Really, I guess in a way across all of the patient communities we serve, both our work and maybe just kind of continued awareness from the community has driven more and more interest, more and more patients kind of getting aware of these conditions. So, in Wolfram, one of the things we've heard from Doctor. Urano is that ever since we started Helios, he's had more and more referrals, more and more patients coming to him with Wolfram syndrome. You may have seen there was actually just a Washington Post article that described one patient's experience with Wolfram syndrome.

Speaker 5

But I think it is indicative of this something in the Washington Post. So overall, we believe there's about three thousand people in The United States who have Wolfram syndrome. And I'd also just mention as well that we are one of the first Phase three's to be conducted in the condition. So, it really is quite an opportunity to bring excitement and awareness to the space.

Speaker 7

Awesome. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Corrine Johnson from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Good morning, guys. So, maybe one from us. I think in the epi data, you see that Roux en Y surgery contributes a bit more significantly to the prevalence of the patient population and that does align I think to your Phase III design. How should we think about that from both like a label perspective and also with respect to trends in bariatric surgery approaches and sort of how that contributes to the incidence or prevalence of PPH from here? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Yeah, great question. So yes, in our Phase III study, to most of the past studies with Avexatide enrolled people with Roux en Y as a background. The Phase 2b did actually enroll people who had multiple surgical types and the effect looked very similar across all those surgical types. But going into Phase three, we wanted to go in a population where we had the absolute most competent, the absolute most data. So that's why we ran it in the Roux en Y population.

Speaker 5

Ultimately, and indication will be determined later by the FDA. But we do believe we will have arguments to make. We do believe pathophysiology is similar across these surgery types. And if we have to generate additional data, that's something that we think we can do very efficiently. From a transom surgery perspective, it's actually been interesting to hear.

Speaker 5

If you go back to kind of the early days of bariatric surgery Roux en Y was the dominant surgery really in the early 2010s. VSG passed it in terms of the kind of the incident surgeries that were happening. And that was mainly due to a lot of kind of messages that were coming out that VSG might be the potentially safer surgery. Over kind of the 2010s and even more recently longer term outcome studies have come out that in fact, it doesn't appear that VSG is really safer than Roux en Y and Roux en Y causes more significant weight loss. So if you look at the last maybe three or four years, you see Roux en Y starting to take some share back from BSG.

Speaker 5

And I'll say anecdotally, we've spoken to surgeons, especially in this era of kind of weight management and otherwise, we have heard kind of continued excitement towards Roux en Y, including because it causes deeper and longer lasting weight loss, ultimately with in their view, kind of a similar side effect profile. So, I'd say, to know exactly what the future may hold, but at least from our conversations, we think Roux en Y is continuing to maybe take some share back as well. But maybe just reiterating initially, we believe our drug there's no reason our drug shouldn't work across all these surgeries and our Phase 2b supports that as well. So that's definitely our ultimate plan is for this to be a drug that spans across surgeries.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Mark Goodman from Leerink Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Yes. Good morning. Can you talk about where these patients are? Like, are there centers of excellence? What kind of infrastructure would you need to build to reach these patients?

Speaker 7

And then secondly, just, Camille, if you could talk about the powering of phase three lucidity trial and what assumptions you have for the placebo reduction of levels two and three? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Sure. So starting with where are the patients? So we've spoken to many different clinical sites and physician sites. So primarily the call point seems to be adult endocrinologists who are most often caring for these patients. We've spoken to adult endocrinologists who have over 100 patients, sometimes hundreds of patients under their care.

Speaker 5

We've spoken to ones that have tens and we've spoken to ones that have a handful. So it does seem that different endocrinologists proportionally have different numbers of these patients as well. There are a number of KOLs who have kind of arisen in this space, but I'd maybe remind as well that bariatric surgery started becoming popular in The US in the early 2000s. So this is a somewhat newer phenomenon too. There is a sense that there are a number of sites that have become KOLs recently and there are a number of ones that are kind of rising KOLs, if you want to put it that way, who are becoming realizing that they have a pretty sizable patient pool and kind of becoming, I guess you could say kind of tomorrow's experts in this space as well.

Speaker 5

So I think overall, we think that there's a significant pool of identified patients who are at major academic centers that will definitely be really important, kind of early in our launch, but also quite an opportunity to continue building and growing the market over the long term as we keep educating and expanding out to the broader pools of physicians as well. Maybe I'll pass over to Camille for the powering of the phase three study. Sure. Thank you. Thanks, Mark.

Speaker 5

Just as

Speaker 3

a reminder, lucidity is approximately 75 participants. And also, we expect to complete recruitment by the end of this year, just to let you know. As is usual for Amelix, we are conservative in our powering assumptions for lucidity. So first, if we see similar results to the phase 2b trial of exotide with the same ninety milligram once daily dose of approximately 53% reduction in level two and 66% reduction in level three, both highly statistically significant, we have substantially more than 90% power to detect an effect over placebo. If the effect is approximately 35% reduction versus placebo, we still have 90% power to detect a difference.

Speaker 3

So, very well powered for detecting clinically meaningful improvement under even the most conservative assumptions.

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Operator

And the next question comes from Ananda Garth from H. C. Wainwright and Co.

Speaker 10

Yeah. Hi. Thanks, guys. Two questions from me on Avexidade. It's you know, based on the ENDO discussion, look like educating PSPs PCBs on early diagnosis is an, you know, a factor that needs to be considered as well as, you know, already discussed the PVH codes.

Speaker 10

So, you know, might be helpful to understand how are you thinking about these issues as you kind of, you know, approach that phase during the adixitide development? And the second question is, as you speak with the KOLs, what has been, you know, how how has been the definition of clinical significance looks like for for for for PBH?

Speaker 5

Yeah, absolutely. So, maybe starting, we definitely see this as a endocrine centered launch. So, yes, ultimately PCPs do probably refer and kind of help triage the patients to the endocrinologists. But our anticipation is that this will be kind of a targeted launch where we're focused on the endocrinologists, particularly with kind of our personal promotion efforts as well. And those endocrinologists already have quite a significant number of patients as well.

Speaker 5

So there's quite a lot of opportunity in that as well. In terms of clinical significance, the question actually got asked directly at the of discussion as well. And the physician's response and kind of what we've heard as we've spoken to KOLs is even one significant hypoglycemic event is a clinically meaningful change. Any one hypoglycemic event could be the moment where somebody fractures a bone, crashes a car, has basically a permanent change in their life based on the downstream consequences of that event. So, prevent even reducing the risk or preventing one event was viewed as clinically meaningful by the KOLs we spoke to.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Tim Anderson from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hi, good morning. This is Susan on for Tim. Thanks for taking our questions. So, my question is on the clinical trial timelines for lucidity. Given that lucidity primary endpoint is event driven, what can you talk about the risk that the trial might be delayed due to the lack of events accrued?

Speaker 11

And then just as a follow-up, can you talk a little bit more about the assumptions underlying the first half twenty six timeline that you've reiterated? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure, I'll pass that over to Camille. Sure.

Speaker 3

Actually, we don't believe there will be, so I'll begin again. This is an interesting question. What we saw in the phase II and phase IIb studies were that the event rates from the run-in period were reduced substantially, as we noted from the data and the results. 53% reduction in level two events, 66% reduction in level three. And as we described during the conference on our poster with the composite, we also saw a 64% reduction in the composite of level two and level three.

Speaker 3

So those results are a framework against which we've planned and are basing our lucidity trial. We don't anticipate event rates having an impact.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and maybe just adding to reiterate our timelines. So we anticipate completing recruitment by the end of the year with data in the 2026. The event rate doesn't actually drive when recruitment completes. We track all patients for events. And ultimately, the last patient's in that kind of, I guess, starts them towards completing the sixteen week study.

Speaker 5

So, from every we're making good progress against our goals for that. So, reiterated today as well our anticipation of completing enrollment by the end of the year with data in the '26.

Speaker 3

Thank

Operator

you. And yes, the next question comes from Craig Svanihan from Mizuho Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hi, this is Sam on for Greg. Thanks for taking our question and congrats on the progress. Maybe two for me. First, do you anticipate any issues with compliance for injection? Do you think that would potentially limit the population in terms of severity of the disease of who would potentially take it?

Speaker 12

And then second, I'm just curious what the overall feedback has been from the physician community from the recent ENDO conference, if there's any feedback whether positive or negative? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yeah, maybe I'm happy to start and then maybe pass to Camille to add a little bit at the end as well. So starting on the compliance, study is still ongoing, of course, but if you look back through the past of exotide trials, compliance was nearly 100% through those past trials. So we've seen very great compliance with this drug in the past. We've also done market research about injections in this patient population. And by and large, we've heard very little concerns from patients about the daily injectable, including comments from the patients such as they're often doing finger sticks and describing that a finger stick actually hurts more, your fingers are quite sensitive that a finger stick can hurt more than a subcutaneous injection and otherwise.

Speaker 5

And some of these patients are doing ten-twenty finger sticks a day. The other thing is the efficacy is a big aspect too. Hypoglycemic events are really quite traumatic. Patients described that often even just psychologically, it can take them several hours before they feel kind of back to normal after a hypoglycemic event occurs. So, that's kind of what they're balancing in the equation as well.

Speaker 5

And the idea of a kind of quick daily injectable seems far outweighed by the ability to potentially reduce the incidence of having those events or otherwise again from market research. And then from Endo and the physician community, we've just kind of continued to hear great outreach. We've had a number of different physicians ask if they can be part of the study. We've had a number of them kind of refer patients that they may have to potentially be in the study as well. So, get pretty constant outreach and excitement from patients as well, including requesting compassionate use and otherwise.

Speaker 5

And I think Endo just drove that even further because there's maybe another moment of putting a spotlight on PBH. Probably said a lot, but Camille, I don't know if there's any Sure, additions you

Speaker 3

want to thank you, Josh. Thanks. Yes, I do have a couple of points. First, regarding the compliance and injections, just to reiterate, the efficacy is most important for these individuals. And with regard to the study in particular, we've heard from the PIs that their participants or potential participants are highly motivated and very much want to participate in the study and do the best possible in the study, including the injections on a daily basis.

Speaker 3

With regard to ENDO, yes, notably as well, there has been quite an exponential uptick in the information about PBH during this year's ENDO relative to last year in 2024. So clearly, the awareness is increasing. More to come for sure. And as well, we heard from a number of ENDOs there that if they have people and many do have patients who have PVH, and they reiterate how fragile these individuals are. So, very exciting and very positive.

Speaker 12

Helpful color. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Christian from Abroad. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I had one on diagnosis rates, kind of diagnosis protocols for PVH. So, you know, the Society for Endocrinology, you know, came out with new guidelines, I think it was last year, in the hopes of standardizing, you know, diagnosis of PVH. What have you heard from conversations with providers about the potential impact those more standardized diagnosis guidelines might have?

Speaker 2

And I do have a follow-up.

Speaker 5

Yeah, maybe happy to start there. So I think maybe broadly characterize the general diagnosis for PVH is in very simple terms, once somebody has a bariatric surgery confirming that they have hypoglycemia, persistent hypoglycemia, and that there's not another explanatory cause. You can basically sum up the diagnostic guidelines as that. It's actually a relatively easy diagnosis to make once a physician suspects it. So I think that's the most important thing that a physician maybe has a patient in front of them who's having things like dizziness, maybe has had some events of syncope, loss of consciousness, events of confusion, or slurred speech or otherwise.

Speaker 5

And to put the dots together that they've had a bariatric surgery and that glucose and blood sugar might be the culprit for what they're experiencing. So, it's actually quite a straightforward diagnosis to make once one expects it. I think by and large going with that as well, we have seen kind of a continued uptick and kind of awareness and understanding of this disease. We did hear from a couple endocrinologists who are interested in the PBH space that they were really excited that this year for the first time on the annual endo boards where you have to get kind of recertified as an endocrinologist that there were questions on PBH. PBH is kind of also now in the endocrinology textbook as well.

Speaker 5

So, do think there's things like the guidelines also, as you called out too, there's a number of different initiatives that are going that kind of continue to build the awareness and the suspicion when a patient has these types of symptoms and they've had bariatric surgery that PBH might at play.

Speaker 2

Great, very helpful. And then just real quick, I know you can't go too deep into details on lucidity, but just wondering if you can offer just some color on anything you're hearing on durability of effect outside of twenty eight days. And what gives you confidence that you'll continue to see that durability of effect through the sixteen weeks?

Speaker 5

Yeah, I'd say we try to make sure not to analyze factor efficacy early in a study. It is a blinded study. But I will say we are happy that we do have patients that have gone out beyond the twenty eight days of the past studies and are certainly continuing on therapy as well.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and I'll just add that we don't anticipate any tachyphylaxis based on the mechanism Abexital.

Speaker 2

Helpful. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Josh Cohen. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 5

Thank you. So, thank you everyone for joining us today. Really appreciate the questions. And, you know, if you have follow-up questions, please reach out, and we're happy to find time. Thank you all.

Speaker 5

Have a great day.

Speaker 1

Thanks, everybody.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes our conference call for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.

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