aTyr Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:LIFE) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

I think for 2810, we simply are taking a different strategy with that, which I think will do two things. Number one, it will put it in a home and perhaps with some academic groups that frankly will be able to move it forward at virtually little to no cost to us, so we can still advance the therapy that way. But I think the game plan right now is to generate certainly more pipeline opportunities. And then we can decide, we can see, I’ve always said, let’s look at the data and then let’s figure out, how we want to move this forward. It’s an approach we’ve always taken. We want to be data driven. And I think from a pipeline perspective, no, there is no contraction there.

Yale Jen: Okay, great. That’s very helpful. As we talked about 2810, do you have some estimate in terms of the dollar could be saved without the clinical work over the next few years. Do you have some sort of rough estimate on that?

Sanjay Shukla: So I didn’t — how many dollars could be saved?

Yale Jen: Right. Yes.

Sanjay Shukla: I don’t think we have — I’ll let Jill also answer here. I wouldn’t necessarily look at hard estimates here because one of the things is, these are rare tumor types, which I think one thing we just have to call out here, it can take much longer to enroll in these rare phenotypes. So this is another part of our strategy that who is best prepared, who has these sorts of patients and access to them. So I think from a time perspective, that’s where we actually saved quite a bit. From just a rough dollar perspective, Jill, do you want to add?

Jill Broadfoot: Yeah. From a dollar perspective, it’s not as significant. And obviously, it depends upon the trial design, which we’ve looked at a couple of different trial designs depending upon how we wanted approach this. But you could say on average from clinical costs maybe around $10 million or so, but it’s really what Sanjay was talking about is how long that takes. So that $10 million doesn’t really include all of that overhead and distraction to the company as well that could occur over that two year, two plus?

Sanjay Shukla: That’s right. Yeah. Early phase clinical oncology trials can sometimes take — there’s a number of hurdles to move through. It’s also a rare phenotype. But roughly speaking, I think $10 million for a program like that is a comp that most companies would look at there. The distraction part is, I wouldn’t necessarily say that we’re able to do a lot of things here at aTyr, but I think this is the best thing for us. And frankly, putting it in the hands of folks who maybe have these patients with neuroendocrine phenotype, they’re quite excited to move the asset forward there. And it also comes with the benefit that we may be able to tap into funding because we are focusing on these more rare and ultra-aggressive tumor types.

Yale Jen: Okay. Great. And maybe the last question here is that in terms of the clinical study in Japan, do you — are you guys going to reveal in terms of probably the size and maybe any other colors of that part of the trial? Thanks.

Sanjay Shukla: I would say, roughly speaking, a region like Japan, regulators typically like to see at least from a global trial, at least about 10% of the patients come from that region. An indication, a rare disease like this, partners our piggybacking off of our global data. So it’s obviously difficult to enroll and power a trial in a specific region like Japan. But I would anticipate right now early on somewhere around 10% of our patients will need to come from Japan somewhere around that range.