I-Mab (NASDAQ:IMAB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andres Maldonado: Hi, thank you very much for taking my questions and congrats on the progress. Just one quick one, maybe for Raj from us. Could you elaborate on where do any initiatives for finding commercial pipeline — commercial partnerships for the pipeline fall with your new vision for the company? Obviously, prior to you joining. There was a lot of talk on partnering uliledlimab. I’m curious on your thoughts on the potential for partnerships outside of uliledlimab and how they align with your vision? Thank you.

Raj Kannan: Yep. Thank you for that question. I think as I look within the company and talk with my colleagues in R&D and in business development, we’re very excited about our assets. And we think they have interesting biology. They have produced early encouraging clinical data. And I think we have a very healthy balance sheet to be able to take them forward on our own at this time. I think it will be — in my estimation, premature to start talking about partnering until we actually produce mature data, either proof of concept or the ability to actually have a higher probability of success in taking these to market. And I think that, that time would be ideal to talk about if appropriate, depending on what else do we have in terms of opportunities to be able to talk about do we need a partner and why?

But I will say also as a note, we continue to get incoming inquiries of interest on these assets, and we continue to engage with these outside partners. But that doesn’t mean that we are keen on partnering until it makes strategic sense, and we believe that, that option produces the highest value for our shareholders in the near to midterm.

Tyler Ehler: Thank you for your question, Andres.

Raj Kannan: Does that answer your question, Andres?

Andres Maldonado: Yes. Thank you very much.

Raj Kannan: Thank you.

Tyler Ehler: I’d like to direct the next question to Qu Xiaoyi. Xiaoyi, please go ahead.

Xiaoyi Qu: Hi, this is Xiaoyi from CICC, and thanks for taking my question. I have a quick one on the CD73 antibody. So we see very encouraging results of this antibody in first-line non-small cell lung cancer. And in the 1b/2 Phase I2 trial, there are about 60-ish patients that has both high CD73 and PD-L1 expression, and the ORR reaches really high for this population. Do you predict similar percentage of target patient population in the real world? Or like what’s the target population like in average for this — both like double positive expressing patient population in the real world? And also for the pivotal trial, I just want to ask about the design for this trial. I see like for the patients that with really low TPS expression, you see like the response is minimal.

And by adding the chemo on top of the immune checkpoint inhibitors, do you see any evidence preclinically or clinically that adding chemo can boost the sensitivity of these PD-L1 active patients in the response to CD73?

Raj Kannan: Yep, Xiaoyi, that’s very good questions on uli. Let me just take the first comment, and then I’ll pass it on to John. I think all of the results that we’ve generated in the program to date give us the confidence, especially in advancing that program in the settings that John articulated in his prepared remarks. So I think our intent would be to go to a broader group of patients while we will continue to assess the PD-L1 status and CD73 status, but that’s just a subset of what we would be focused on. John, do you want to comment more on that and the second question that she had?