Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 9, 2024

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Intellia Therapeutics’ First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Drew, and I will be your conference operator today. Following formal remarks, we will open the call up for a question-and-answer session. This conference is being recorded at the company’s request and will be available on the company’s website following the end of the call. As a reminder, all participants are currently in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the conference over to Ian Karp, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Intellia. Please proceed.

Ian Karp : Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Intellia Therapeutics first quarter 2024 earnings call. Earlier this morning, Intellia issued a press release outlining the company’s progress this quarter, as well as topics for discussion on today’s call. This release can be found on the Investors and Media section of Intellia’s website at intelliatx.com. This call is being broadcast live and a replay will be archived on the company’s website. At this time, I’d like to take a minute to remind listeners that during this call, Intellia Management may make certain forward-looking statements and ask that you refer to our SEC filings available at sec.gov for discussion of potential risks and uncertainties. All information presented on this call is current as of today, and Intellia undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

Joining me from Intellia are John Leonard, Chief Executive Officer; David Lebwohl, Chief Medical Officer; Laura Sepp-Lorenzino, Chief Scientific Officer; and Glenn Goddard, Chief Financial Officer. John will begin with an overview of recent business highlights. David will provide an update on our clinical pipeline progress, Laura will review our R&D updates, and Glenn will review our financials before we open up the call for questions. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to John, our Chief Executive Officer.

John Leonard : Thank you, Ian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. We’ve made outstanding progress in the first quarter of 2024 with one ongoing in two, soon to be initiated pivotal Phase 3 trials, Intellia is undoubtedly leading the gene editing revolution, and with well over 100 patients already dosed across our two lead programs. We have already amassed the largest set of safety and clinical activity data for any in vivo CRISPR based therapies. Notably, we believe our one-time treatments for ATTR in HAE offering potentially unmatched clinical profiles could overcome key hurdles faced by patients in two large and rapidly growing commercial markets. Moreover, our first two investigational gene editing therapies are designed to be especially patient friendly and convenient for physicians and caregivers.

There is no extensive preconditioning regimen, no long-term steroid requirement, and no hospital stay, all of which can be very challenging for patients and limit commercial uptake associated with other gene therapies. And of course, with a one-time treatment, there’s no annual insurance reverification needed, which is typically required for chronic specialty therapies and can be a tremendous burden. But this is just the beginning for industry leading CRISPR based technology. We’re now entering the next stage of growth, pushing the boundaries of what we can do and expanding where we can go with CRISPR from gene knockdown to gene insertion, from liver targets to a broader set of tissues. Our first wholly owned CRISPR based gene insertion program, NTLA-3001, is expected to enter human clinical development this year.

NTLA-3001 holds the potential to provide normal alpha-1 levels after a single dose treatment for people with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. We will also have a second clinical program utilizing our modular gene insertion platform run by Regeneron for hemophilia B expected to start patient dosing later this year. Building on our clinical success, we are now pursuing gene editing in five new tissue types outside the liver. As part of this expansion strategy, we have and will continue to establish collaborations with external innovators, these R&D efforts have already yielded at least a dozen potential drug candidates utilizing our technology. Further, we’re advancing our modular platform by developing a diverse set of editing and delivery tools for in vivo and ex vivo applications.

Whether it’s our proprietary LNP formulations, novel gene editing tools, or differentiated allogeneic cell therapy approach, we emphasize safety and therapeutic activity at each step of development. Through our commitment to these principles, we are well on the path towards transforming cutting edge scientific tools into real world medical treatments. With this as a backdrop, we expect to end this year with five enrolling clinical studies, three of which are in Phase 3. This includes a newly planned Phase 3 for NTLA-2001 in patients with ATTR polyneuropathy. Additionally, we plan to submit a BLA submission in 2026 for NTLA-2002, which we anticipate will lead to the first ever approval for an in vivo CRISPR based therapy. By that time, our expectation is we’ll have accumulated safety, efficacy, and durability data for over seven years and have treated as many as a thousand patients in our clinical studies.

In summary, we will continue transforming medicine with gene editing therapies with at least three important clinical data readouts expected this year. I’ll now hand the call over to our Chief Medical Officer, David Lebwohl, who will provide an update on our clinical programs. David?

David Lebwohl : Thanks John, and welcome everyone. I’ll begin with 2001, our in vivo CRISPR candidate for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis. This multisystem disease primarily manifests as either cardiomyopathy due to amyloid deposits in the heart, or polyneuropathy through the progressive accumulation of protein deposits in the nervous system. As demonstrated in our Phase 1 study, a 1x treatment of 2001 led to greater than 90% TTR reduction. Importantly, we demonstrated best-in-class reduction of absolute TTR levels among TTR silencing agents, which we believe will be a key differentiator for treating patients with CM and or PN. In ATTR-CM, despite the introduction of TTR stabilizers, patients continue to experience worsening heart failure, hospitalizations, strokes, and heart attacks.

Ultimately, it remains a fatal disease. Today, I’m pleased to report that patient enrollment in the Phase 3 magnitude trial for patients with cardiomyopathy is off to a great start. In March, we announced the first patients in both the U.S. and globally had been dosed with over 30 patients already dosed and another 40 plus in screening, we are tracking well ahead of our initial projections. Further, we expect many additional sites to open in the weeks and months ahead, which will further accelerate enrollment in the trial, while we will not be providing patient by patient enrollment updates moving forward, we will look for opportunities to keep you abreast of our progress. The rapid rate of enrollment reflects their enthusiasm we hear from physicians and patients who believe 2001 holds a potential to revolutionize the ATTR treatment landscape.

In parallel, we are also excited to announce today that we now expect to initiate a new Phase 3 trial for patients with ATTR polyneuropathy by year end. Importantly, ATTR-PN patients are typically diagnosed earlier in adulthood and their disease often progresses more rapidly than ATTR-CM. Published data from chronically dosed TTR silencing therapies demonstrate that deeper reductions of TTR are highly correlated with improvements on standard measures of neuropathy. To date, no other agent approved or in clinical development has demonstrated the depth and consistency of TTR reduction, regardless of baseline levels like 2001, which gives us tremendous confidence in our ability to positively impact patients. Based on productive discussions with the FDA, we have aligned on a trial design to support a BLA filing for 2001, subject to review of the IND application.

We plan to initiate the Phase 3 by year end. The study is expected to be a small placebo-controlled trial of approximately 50 patients conducted in ex-U.S. regions with limited or no access to silencers. We are making significant strides in advancing 2001 and look forward to presenting data from the ongoing Phase 1 trial in the second half of the year. We expect to be presenting safety and TTR reduction data on all 72 patients from both the CM and PN arms. Additionally, we plan to include for the first-time data beyond TTR levels, such as NT-proBNP, six minute walk test, and mNIS+7. In summary, we continue to believe 2001 may halt and potentially reverse the disease, as well as dramatically reset the ATTR treatment landscape. I’ll now turn to 2002, our in vivo CRISPR program for the treatment of Hereditary Angioedema or HAE.

In January, landmark findings from the Phase 1 were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, highlighting a single dose of 2002 led to a 95% attack rate reduction. On June 2nd, we’ll be presenting updated data from the study at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Annual Congress. These long-term data will speak to the safety and durability of effect on both kallikrein and attack rate reduction. Importantly, we will also present on the number of patients who remain completely attack free with extended follow-up now reaching beyond 18 months for all patients and longer than two years in some. Additionally, we plan to report top line results from the randomized placebo controlled Phase 2 study shortly thereafter. Full results evaluating the 25 milligram and 50 milligram doses are expected to be presented at an upcoming medical meeting.

These data updates will provide clarity on which dose to move forward into the Phase 3 trial. Assuming 2002 continues to show a strong safety and efficacy profile, we believe that 2002 will become the preferred prophylaxis treatment in a growing commercial market. In the US market, for example, currently about 70% of HAE patients use chronic prophylaxis treatments, and that number is increasing. Many patients continue to seek better efficacy and more convenience, expressing a strong willingness to switch to new treatments that can deliver on both fronts. As previously discussed, we plan to initiate the pivotal Phase 3 trial in the second half of 2024. At this point, we are mainly waiting for the Phase 2 data before submitting regulatory amendments to begin our global Phase 3.

Notably, we have now also completed the additional preclinical mouse study requested by the FDA to support inclusion of women of childbearing age in the U.S. As expected, these data did not show an impact to female reproductive health in the animals treated with 2002. This is consistent with the extensive preclinical work completed and reviewed by regulators prior to our initial IND clearance, and we plan on submitting these data to the FDA prior to Phase 3. Let me now turn to exciting developments with our modular gene insertion platform. Here we are leveraging the same LNP platform used in our gene knockout program to deliver the CRISPR machinery along with an AAV to deliver a functional gene. Unlike traditional gene therapy, we expect our approach will permanently restore a missing or defective protein without a waning of effect over time.

We expect to begin this year a first in human study of 3001, our wholly owned gene insertion program for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. As a reminder, the main hurdle with treating this disease is getting patients to consistently normal levels of alpha-1. Current standards of care, which involve weekly infusion of augmentation therapy does not choose this. Other approaches in development have also been unable to yield normal levels of alpha-1, and in some cases have only been able to produce a modified version of the protein with unknown consequences. 3001 is the only drug candidate to show AAT levels restored to normal levels after a single dose in non-human primates. It is designed to precisely insert the wild type SERPINA1 gene, and permanently restore production and secretion of fully functional alpha-1 protein.

Assuming success 3001 could be life-changing for alpha-1 patients and unlock the whole new category of diseases we can pursue with in vivo gene insertion. Separately, our collaborative Regeneron has achieved clearance from both U.S. and EU authorities for the Factor IX program using our modular gene insertion platform and plan to enroll the first patient later this year. Our clinical development of the in vivo pipeline is rapidly accelerating and Intellia is well-positioned as a leader in this new era of medicine. I’ll now hand over the call to Laura, our Chief Scientific Officer, who provide updates on our R&D efforts and what’s coming next.

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino : Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. At Intellia, we’re advancing novel gene editing and delivery technologies for in vivo and ex vivo therapeutic applications. As John mentioned, core to our strategy is the emphasis on safety and performance at each step of development. Our success to date is not by chance, and it’s a common misconception that gene editing and delivering tools have become commoditized. By leveraging experience of a world class team and making dramatic improvements and adaptations to our platform technologies, we have been able to lead the entire industry forward. But don’t just take my word for it. Let me give you some real world examples. Intellia is now 545 in IND approved by the FDA for our investigational therapy.

Groundbreaking clinical dataset for both NTLA-2001 and NTLA-2002 have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We have already gained regulatory clearance for multiple clinical trials in eight different countries. Together, we Regeneron, we’re conducting the largest global Phase 3 study of a genetic medicine. Intellia has become the reference gene editing company, which has to help us foster important relationships with the world’s leading scientific and medical experts, as well as advocacy organizations. And now building on the success of our work in diseases that originate in the liver, we’re expanding the tissue types that can be targeted with our CRISPR based technologies. We now have active research programs in five different tissues outside the liver, either independently or in collaboration with partners.

This includes the bone marrow, brain, eye, lung, and muscle. We’re particularly excited about pursuing diseases such as sickle cell disease, muscular diseases, cystic fibrosis, ALS, and many other [Indiscernible] genetic conditions. We’re also advancing a pipeline of ex vivo programs, both wholly owned and in collaboration with partners for the treatment of immuno-oncology and autoimmune diseases. In fact, two of our partners are leveraging our allogeneic platform, one of which is already in the clinic. Our differentiated allogeneic solution, including HLA matching, is uniquely positioned to avoid both T-cell and NK cell mediated rejection and result in cell persistence and disease control. Further, therapies engineer with our allogeneic platform combined with edits to enhance the function, offering new approach to target solid tumors.

We look forward to updating you on our progress across our R&D platforms more broadly this year. And now hand over the call to Glen, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide an update on our financial results as the first quarter 2024.

Glenn Goddard : Thank you, Laura. Good morning everyone. Intellia continues to maintain a strong balance sheet that allows us to execute on our pipeline and platform. Our cash, cash equivalence and marketable securities were approximately $953.4 million as of March 31, 2024, compared to $1 billion as of December 31, 2023. The decrease was driven by cash used to fund operations of approximately $137.2 million. The decrease was offset in part by $58 million of net equity proceeds from the companies at the market program. $12.6 million of interest income, $5.9 million of collaborator reimbursements and $2 million in proceeds from employee based stock plans. Our collaboration revenue was $28.9 million during the first quarter of 2024 compared to $12.6 million during the first quarter of 2023.

The $16.3 million increase was mainly driven by a $21 million non-cash revenue recognition adjustment related to the AvenCell collaboration. R&D expenses were $111.8 million during the first quarter of 2024 compared to $97.1 million during the first quarter of 2023. The $14.7 million increase was mainly driven by the advancement of our lead programs. Stock-based compensation included in R&D expenses was $20.2 million for the first quarter of 2024. G&A expenses were $31.1 million during the first quarter of 2024 compared to $27.4 million during the first quarter of 2023. The $3.7 million increase was primarily related to stock-based compensation. Stock-based compensation included in G&A expenses was $14 million for the first quarter of 2024.

Finally, we expect our cash balance to fund our operating plans into late 2026. Notably, our strong balance sheet gives us the financial power to execute on the three year strategic priorities laid out at the beginning of this year. First to execute pivotal trials for our first two in vivo CRISPR based therapies. Second to launch the next wave of in vivo and ex vivo clinical programs, and third, to deploy new editing delivery modalities. We’re well on our way to realizing the promise of — this will be a catalyst rich year for Intellia, and we look forward to updating you on our contingent progress. With that, we will now open the call for your questions. Operator, you may now open the call for Q&A.

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Maury Raycroft with Jefferies. Please go ahead. We’ll go to the next questioner of Yanan Zhu with Wells Fargo Securities.

Yanan Zhu : A lot of progress this quarter. So congrats on those progress. I have a question about your comment about the need of enrollment in ATTR Phase 3 trial tracking ahead of internal expectation. Wondering how many sites have you opened? What’s the number of U.S. versus ex-U.S. sites? And what is the per site, per month patient number that you are currently tracking? And any updated thinking on the enrollment completion timeline, tafamidis use at in terms of the currently enrolled patients? I think, yes — thank you. A lot of questions. Sorry about that.

John Leonard : Yanan, thank you for the many questions you just asked. And that one question. We’re not going to be giving updates on patients per site, numbers of sites, et cetera. As we said before, this is a balanced study around the world. We’re still actively initiating study sites. We’ve said that we expect about a third of all of the ultimate sites will be in the United States, and the remainder will be spread around the world. I think the takeaway that I would encourage you to see here is that we’re early in this process and things are going very well. I mean, we’re very excited about the enthusiasm that we see with investigators. We’ve been clearing the regulatory submissions expeditiously. We’ve been able to initiate sites and patients have been waiting to come into the study.

We think it’s a testimony to what patients and physicians see with the current state of therapy, which as you know with current approved drugs, patients continue to suffer from the morbidity and the mortality of disease with ongoing progression. So, we will not be giving updates patient by patient as we go, but I would encourage you to see that we’re off to a very, very strong start. We’re enthusiastic about the progress we’re making.

Yanan Zhu : Thanks for those color. If I may make a quick follow-up on that. From your interaction with — in particular the U.S. sites, what do you hear from TIs and patients in terms of how they think about the potential upcoming approval of silencers? How did that impact their thinking of going on the gene therapy treatment?

John Leonard : In our interactions thus far, it hasn’t influenced how they’re thinking about the trial or putting patients on it. Again, I think people have been very impressed with the data that we presented and are encouraged to put their patients on the study. I’ll remind you that we created a study that’s very favorable to patients. We’ve put into study the ability for patients with stage three heart failure, a higher proBNP level, et cetera, a two to one randomization that favors drug over placebo. There’s lots of reasons for patients and physicians to want to participate in the trial, and we’re seeing that in these early results.

Operator: The next question comes from Maury Raycroft with Jefferies.

Maury Raycroft : Sorry about the technical issue and thanks for taking my question and congrats on the progress. For the ATTR-PN study. Just looking at precedent studies in the space. So Ionis, their study was 168 patients. Apollo A was 225, and then [indiscernible] was 164. And so just wondering if you can talk about how the conversation went with FDA to align on your Phase 3 with 50 patients. Maybe talk about what expectations are for clinical endpoints and results on those endpoints. And what does this imply about the size of what your HAE Phase 3 study could be?

John Leonard : Well, let me take the last point first and then I’m going to hand it over to David to address the specifics of polyneuropathy. HAE endpoints and polyneuropathy endpoints are two totally different animals, and I wouldn’t read how one study is designed into how we think about the other, and as we get more specificity with respect to both of these trials, we’ll certainly speak to that so you can see. But I would just emphasize before David speaks to some of the specifics, we’ve developed a very close working relationship with the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies around the world. I think they have a very good understanding of the expected effects of these drugs and have a very good understanding of how to show them in a meaningful way for their own purposes as well as for physicians and ultimately for other regulatory agencies around the world.

David, maybe you can say a few things about how we’re approaching that study and why we think it’ll be successful.

David Lebwohl : First, the big picture is that we and the FDA recognize that patients are still progressing despite the existing drugs. And we talked to about this design, what they have seen are clinical data. An important part of that is that we’re getting very deep and consistent reductions in TTR, and we do think that’s been a positive effect on our discussions with them. In terms of the number of patients, the FDA also has seen a number of studies that show TTR reduction leads to a benefit in patients. So that’s becoming a well-established fact. Of course, the FDA is more interested in how biomarkers may be a way to not only reflect what happens with disease, but actually go forward to approvals in the future. So I do think that the size of the trial has to do with their confidence in how we’re working. And of course, we also have not only the 50 patients this trial, but a much larger database from the Phase 3 as well as the ongoing cardiomyopathy Phase 3.

Operator: The next question comes from Troy Langford with TD Cowen.

Troy Langford : Congrats on the progress this quarter and thanks for taking that question. For NTLA-3001, how quickly do you think you can move through development with this asset? Do you think you would try to take this asset into a pivotal study shortly after the Phase 1 dose work, like with NTLA-2001, or do you think we’ll have more traditional placebo controlled Phase 2 to further refine the dose before pivotal study, like with NTLA-2002?

John Leonard: Thanks for the question, Troy. I just start by saying, as was emphasized in our comments earlier today, we emphasize understanding these drugs, especially from a safety as well as from an efficacy point of view. And so that those will be our guiding principles as we carry out the study of 3001. We’re excited with what we think the drug can do. I’ll remind you that in the preclinical data we’ve established that we’re able in non-human primates to reach normal levels as seen in human beings. We think that’s fundamental to the regulatory strategy. Our hope is that we’ll show that in Phase 1 studies, and assuming that we see that we will progress as quickly as we can working with the Food and Drug Administration and other related agencies to establish what is the shortest, most efficient way to regulatory approval. So that lies ahead and we’ll give you updates as we proceed.

Operator: The next question comes from Luca Issi with RBC Capital.

Luca Issi : Congrats on all the progress. Maybe David, on TTR cardiomyopathy. Given the recent changes from your competitor, are you rethinking any aspects of your trial design in a scenario where HELIOS-B hits only monotherapy and show no benefit as add-ons expanded, do you have any optionality to split the primary endpoint between the overall population and the monotherapy are similar to what they did? And then maybe quickly on TTR poll neuropathy, can you just expand on why not enrolling patients in the U.S. for the pivotal?

John Leonard : David speak to some of the specifics of the trial, but I just start by pointing out that, there’s some fundamental differences and how we’ve approached the pivotal trial. In the case of TTR, we’ve certainly been mindful of understanding the rates of progression. We’ve been able to learn from other drugs as they presented data as we’ve gone that have gone before us. And we’ve been really thoughtful about an endpoints driven study, which is driven by the rate at which things happen, not by some pre-specified moment in time when we surmise that all the events may be in. I think the standard approach these trials is in fact an endpoints driven approach. And that’s what we’ve embraced from the beginning. I think, David, maybe you can just say a few words about how HELIOS does or does not affect our thinking at this current time.

David Lebwohl : Yes. The first point is that we are confident that John is saying in the design of the magnitude study because in all those points you made, we been in conservative in the assumptions we’ve made as we designed it. Of course, it is a larger study than HELIOS. I think that’s very important. And we also took on some more advanced disease in these patients. The proBNP is higher and we don’t have an upper limit at that. We don’t limit the amount of time that we follow these patients in this event driven trial. Of course, as we’ve stated before, because we get consistently deep and durable TTR reductions, we do think we can be the best-in-class and can be better to drugs and other studies. So we will be paying very, obviously, very close attention to the data that comes out from HELIOS B.

We do expect it to be a positive trial as you point out the, how much it will add to tafamidis, we don’t know at this point, but whatever comes out from those results, we have the potential to modify our trial in order to address whatever is found of the other drugs.

John Leonard : I think you, Luca is also looking for some insight into the polyneuropathy study for Phase 3 and where we’re conducting it and, and why?

David Lebwohl: So our discussions with the FDA is clear that it was important to have a control arm, a placebo control arm. These are patients in the world who do not have access to silencers. In the U.S., there is very good to access to silencers. The main reason we would not begin having patients in the U.S. is because of other satisfied need for those patients.

John Leonard: And it’s important to note that we’re aligned with that approach. They understand how we would be doing a study and where we’ll do it. And because the treatment practices are so similar we think that this information should be readily applicable to the United States.

Operator: The next question comes from Gina Wang with Barclays.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Harshita on for Gina. Thanks for taking our question. Just a quick one on from us. On NTLA-2002, now that you’ve completed the preclinical embryological development study, are you able to provide more granular color on when you plan to submit these data? Is the submission imminent and any color you can provide on how long it’ll take the agency to review this data? And I understand that you can speak for the agency and each situation is unique, but if you’re able to provide at least a range on timelines, that would be helpful.

John Leonard : We don’t go through report by report and submission processes and procedures for each of those things. And I remind you that this is not even gating for the Phase 3 program. The first point I think to make is that we’re seeing the data. It’s as expected there’s no issues. And we’re a really good position to proceed. What’s really going to drive the Phase 3 start is getting the data in with respect to our Phase 2 program, and as was referred to by David during the comments earlier. When we have those, we’ll be sharing those later this year. And that’s something we’re very enthusiastic about. And because we have some regulatory designations that allow us to interact more readily with the FDA, we think we’re going to be in a really strong position, actually poised to take that data and very, very quickly submit it to the FDA to begin Phase 3, which has a reminder, we said, well, we expect to start this year, and hopefully we’ll be in a position to enroll patients before the end of the year.

Operator: The next question comes from Kostas Biliouris with BMO.

Kostas Biliouris : One question on 2001 from us. You have previously saw data from other types of amyloidosis that suggests that the lower the residual TTR levels post-treatment, the higher the survival may be. Given that you are presenting more data from NTLA-2001 this year, I’m wondering whether the data you have collected so far across different doses can be sufficient to ultimately show trends that allow you to test the relationship between TTR levels and survival.

John Leonard : David, you want to speak to what we can extract so far from TTR decreases in endpoints? I know it’s early, but any additional comments you might want to provide?

David Lebwohl : Yeah, you’re right when you say that the, what’s been found with other diseases is lowering the protein is extremely important. In fact, when you achieve a complete response, for example, with light chain disease, for patients, essentially have a normal survival. We do see this as an important goal and why we’re very excited about the deep level of reductions we’re getting. To do that — because our actually, our results are so consistent in our own data, we won’t be able to see a relationship between TTR reduction survival because all the patients are getting very deep reductions. But you can look back, for example, to the data from polyneuropathy with silencers that as you do go to deeper reductions, you see, for example, a greater improvement in the neuropathy.

So this is a really one really important finding already. It goes along with the findings in other types of cardiomyopathy and just gives us the confidence that this trial will be successful in what it’s trying to do.

Operator: The next question comes from Dae Gon Ha with Stifel.

Q – Benazir Ali : Hi, this is Benazir for Dae Gon. We just noticed that recently there was a Stanford group that published on [Indiscernible] insertion, when Cath and AAV mediator repair templates are introduced, can you comment on what methods you’re employing to detect such incidents with NTLA-3001? And in your interaction with the FDA, have they kind of discussed this phenomenon at all?

John Leonard : Maybe Laura, if you — the question was an academic group has found [Indiscernible] for insertion, and are there techniques that one can employ to understand the extent to which that might occur in a cell?

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino : Yes, of course. That’s part of the preclinical development. By then, you could use different types of next generation sequencing, including long range sequencing to understand whether you have a single insertion or [Indiscernible].

Benazir Ali : Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Has the FDA brought up anything about wanting that kind of information?

John Leonard : The FDA hasn’t asked about that at all. No.

Operator: The next question comes from Brian Cheng with JPMorgan.

Brian Cheng : I recall from our prior conversation, the goal is to always have about two years cash on the balance sheet. Can you give us a sense of how you’re thinking about your cash burn and runway overall as you’re set to your offer to pivotal study later this year? How are you prioritizing and allocating resources when you’re moving forward with focuses like TTR, HAE, and AATD?

Glenn Goddard : Yes, Brian. This is Glenn. Thanks for the question. So, basically, what we talked about this morning is we’re having runway now to late 2026. That’s about two and a half years’ worth of cash, and that contemplates the three year strategic priorities all being funded that we’ve been laying out for investors. So we feel like we’re in pretty good shape there. The other thing I would say is just the operating expenses are going to stay pretty consistent as we go forward here from what you’ve seen in the last couple quarters.

Operator: The next question comes from Debjit Chattopadhyay with Guggenheim Securities.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Robert on for Debjit, thanks for taking our questions. Two from us this morning. What does Intellia’s view on potential synergistic effects of 2001 knockdown into faminus stabilization? And on gene insertion, how does Intellia and Regeneron plan to maintain expression within a therapeutic window, particularly in a disease like [Indiscernible]?

John Leonard : David. Do you want to say a word or two about how we’re thinking about the interaction between 2001 and tafamidis, and then maybe Laura, you can follow-up as how we aim for the therapeutic levels that we’re pursuing with a reminder that hemophilia B is being pursued primarily by Regeneron at this point.

David Lebwohl : Sort of discussed already, the way we think about it is that the lower the amount of this precursor protein of the abnormal protein, the better the effect on the disease. And in fact, if the protein gets low enough, then what we expect, not only that you don’t start, don’t accumulating amyloid, but you actually might see the reduction of amyloid that the body will remove the amyloid from organs. So our goal is to get the lowest absolute TTR levels. We’ve talked about that in some of our recent work. In fact, at some people, at some point people may asking, what is your TTR number that’s going to be the important thing moving forward. What happens with tafamidis, if you do get the levels low enough, then tafamidis could be valuable still because the bit of remaining abnormal protein could be stabilized.

You go from what is a very low amount already with our drug to make it even somewhat better perhaps with the tafamidis. It may be a valuable interaction, it might be a synergistic interaction as you get to these very low levels.

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino : With regards to the question on the gene insertion and how do you maintain therapeutic levels as part of the preclinical development package involves doing a matrix of dose of how much LNP and how much insertion template, right? And you clearly and deeply characterize what’s the range of insertion that results in therapeutic protein production. And that data is then taken into account all scaling for humans, right? That’s part of your clinical development plan. In the clinic, there is going to be a very purposeful and safe way of dose escalating to understand what’s the level of expression and how does that translate across multiple patients on the cohort. So, reminding that factor — is being driven by Regeneron, so they’re already approved to move into the clinic.

And we’re expecting, we’re going to be seeing data, clinical data, in due time, which not only is important for that program, but is a validation of the insertion platform that will translate to 31 and a number of other diseases for which insertion is the most appropriate gene editing modality.

Unidentified Analyst: Part of the question was how to maintain levels. Maybe you could say a word about the stability that we expect.

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino: And for maintenance, right? We have shown now for factor nine for alpha-1 and other inserts that, once that’s stable inserted into the genome, you see very, very stable insertion. This is a key difference from traditional gene therapy where you have an epitone where over time that epitone could be silenced or can be lost just by the proliferation of the liver cells over time. So we expect that once you achieve those stable levels, those are going to be persistent and well controlled.

Operator: The next question comes from Mary Kate Davis with Bank of America.

Mary Kate Davis : I guess looking at your earlier stage pipeline with your recent collaboration with recode, could you talk about the opportunity in potential market with gene editing medicine and cystic fibrosis, and maybe also the opportunity of utilizing your DNA writing technology to address this indication?

John Leonard : I’ll start. Why we’re excited about cystic fibrosis and maybe Laura can talk about some of the technical things that we believe we can address successfully with our approach. As I think as well known, there’s many people who suffer from cystic fibrosis in the United States and around the world, and therapies that currently addressed are chronically administered. There’s no doubt that that’s represented in advance for patients relative to where they were some years ago, but the fact remains, this is chronic therapy and many of these patients continue to progress. There’s a set of patients for whom no therapy is available, and as exciting as some of the advances are, that they’re just irrelevant to a large subset of these patients.

This is a very large market as we’ve seen with other companies, and it’s something that we think we can make some very, very significant contributions to it. Maybe, Laura, you can say a word about how we can address that and our work with [Indiscernible].

Laura Sepp-Lorenzino : Yes. So, as John was saying, right, we believe that cystic fibrosis is there is still significant unmet medical need, not only the people who don’t respond to carbon therapies, but there are patients who don’t tolerate them. Important among those patients is what’s called the Class 1 that they don’t make CFTR protein. So we believe that that’s a perfect place for us to start by combining our DNA writing efforts with ReCodes, LNP, we were encouraged to see the LNP development by ReCode and particularly they’re in the clinic, we inhale LNP for two indications, one being CFTR. They have really robust preclinical data demonstrating that they can get to the cells that we need to edit to have persistent long-term CFTR correction. So we’re very enthusiastic about the collaboration and really pushing experiments to move as fast as we can. Great team on both sides working together.

John Leonard : I think the ReCode work is a good example of our approach to partnerships in general. We look for leaders in the space, people that share our values and approaches to patients. And those are the partnerships that we think are going to yield important new drugs. And we look forward to the five areas that we’ve talked about in our comments as we now progress outside the liver.

Operator: The next question comes from Rick Bienkowski with Cantor.

Rick Bienkowski : Congrats on all the progress and thanks for taking the questions. So for 2001 in TTR I had a follow up from Lucus earlier question magnitude I hoping here your thoughts on how important it is for 2001 to show a strong treatment benefit on top of tafamidis and what the potential commercial implications would be for showing different treatment effects in the patient’s on baseline tafamidis versus those not on treatment.

John Leonard : David, do you want to address, the benefit and importance thereof?

David Lebwohl : And so, I think what we believe is that the drug can be 2001 can be better than tafamidis as a single agent. We also believe that will be a benefit on top of tafamidis. Of course, that’s still to be proven. What we are hearing from investigators and physicians is that they’re looking for better drugs for this disease. Patients continue to progress on tafamidis virtually all the patients as best we can understand from investigators and from the literature. So we do think there is a role for a single agent that is better than what tafamidis is doing. This could be seen in the patients who are obviously are not receiving tafamidis in the study. So this will be an important analysis as part of our work.

John Leonard : I think it’s important to state that nobody is satisfied with tafamidis. I mean, patients all progress on that drug. The disease remains a mortal illness and investigators and patients know that. And what we think will prevail in the marketplace is drugs that offer the very best outcomes to patients. And that’s the approach we’ve taken from the beginning of the development program. We’re excited with the data we’ve seen thus far, which we’ve been sharing, and we expect to show that at the end of our Phase 3 trial that we represent a significant advance over what is currently the state of treatment, whether used in combination or alone. And that’s going to be a real advance for the field.

Rick Bienkowski : I just had a quick follow-up on alpha-1. Since there’s two moving parts here, the LNP and the AVV was hoping you could just comment on how you’re thinking about the dose escalation. Would you be able to escalate both components in tandem or would you have to maybe do an extended dose escalation to control for those two different delivery vehicles?

John Leonard : I’ll turn to David, but just to set the table, we do a lot of free clinical work to try to address as many of the variables as possible before ever entering into the clinic. So I don’t want anybody to think that we go in with a complete unknown. Just as our work with 2001 and 2002 where we shared earlier our modelling was essentially dead on in terms of what we saw in the clinic. We expect that many of the insights we’ve learned from the preclinical work will apply very, very directly to 3001 as well. So David, maybe could just say a word or two about some of the contraction of what would be a standard sort of checkerboard study to 3001.

David Lebwohl: With these two parts, the LNP and the AAV, we’ve learned a lot already about LNP, the ability to go to a particular site and target that site. And what we’ve learned from both the 2002 and 2001 program is that we can achieve essentially every, every allele being targeted with this so that we can open that up for the contribution that then AAV will make. We think this more as we have a good idea of the LNP dose and the variation will be more in terms of how much AAV is needed to optimally get expression of alpha-1 antitrypsin. Again, our goal is to get normal levels. That’s what we’ve achieved pre clinically and that’s our goal clinically as well.

Operator: The next question comes from Joon Lee with Truist Securities.

Unidentified Analyst: This is [indiscernible] on for Joon, staying on ATTR. So assuming positive update from HELIOS-B possibly late June and July. How does a third generation RNAi candidate with potential once a year dosing could change the treatment landscape in your view?

John Leonard : I would point out that things that follow us will be by definition after us. And we expect to be in a position where we will demonstrate the effect of our drug, which we think is going to be defining for the space. And our belief is that people will be comparing themselves to us as opposed to the agents that are out there. And regardless, it’s — I have not seen data that surpasses anything that we’ve presented thus far. Patients will still be receiving the drug chronically, which brings with it all of the issues that apply to that. And we think that the one and done approach is ideal for this patient set. And we are unique in that space. So, it’s important for patients to have different options, but nonetheless, we think that we will be setting the standard.

Operator: The next question comes from Silvan Tuerkcan with JMP Securities.

Silvan Tuerkcan : My mine is more strategically, maybe you can give us like 10,000 foot view on your strategy and the new tissues. I know you touched before on bone marrow and today a little bit on cystic fibrosis. But within all of these tissues that you’ve mentioned, which ones are closer to IND enabling studies, which ones are further along and how should we think about those programs coming to fruition over the next couple of years towards moving towards IND?

John Leonard : Thanks for the question. It’s an important one, but I don’t want you to think it’s a horse race and we give updates on the individual laps that, these relay races run. All of these tissues are very, very important. It really goes back to the philosophy and the strategic intent that has been the basis of the company since we first set out. It’s a very deliberate approach that thinks about delivery and editing technology. So, as is apparent, we started out with knockouts and the liver. What you see with the 3001 program is a gene insertion into the liver. We have technology to add to that in the form of gene writing in the liver. And the goal has been to take these various editing technologies, imply them to diseases that reside outside deliver.

And as Laura has mentioned earlier, we do that with collaborators where people have technologies that can supplement our own and take us to places that we may not be able to get there by ourselves. We’re excited about the work with Recode. We’re doing work with sparing vision. We have collaboration as with Regeneron. Each of these tissues, five of them that were delineated earlier, have very important diseases with large populations with unmet medical need. Some of those opportunities surpass what we see in the liver at the current time. And so, all of them benefit from the common approach from an editing point of view. And all of them are being resourced very, very aggressively to get to those preclinical development candidates.

Operator: The next question comes from Steve Seedhouse with Raymond James Financial.

Timor Vanicus: This is Timor Vanicus on for Steve Seedhouse. Congrats on rapid enrollment in Phase 2 magnitude study. One thing we would like to clarify is, what type of patients are expressing more interest in this study? Is it patients who have no access to any treatment, patients who couldn’t enroll under the trials or patients on the parameters or some other category? And one other thing we’d like to clarify is what is the screen failure rate? So out of the 40 patients that are screened, what proportion do you think will be dosed?

John Leonard : Thanks for the question. We’re not going to go into the details of screening failures and as I said earlier, number of sites and patients for sites and all that. That’s our work to do. And we’ll share as appropriate as we go forward. But David, is there any general insight you can provide in terms of the type of patient that’s coming or not coming into the study at this point?

David Lebwohl : We were actually just meeting with investigators earlier this week and there’s excitement from these investigators for all of their patients that this can affect the disease at all stages. As you can imagine, patients with early disease, they want to prevent progression of disease. If they’re doing well for the sicker patients, they want to at least stabilize or even reverse their disease. They are really coming forward from what we are hearing from the investigators with all their patients. What we expect is about half of them have access to tafamidis, about half don’t around the world. That’s the proportions we expect in the trial. The screen failure rate is low. But we will continue that’s obviously piece of any trial that some patients might be too sick or too healthy in some cases, but it’s going very well, as you’ve heard, with more than 30 patients already randomized and more than 40 right behind them.

Operator: And our last question comes from William Pickering with Bernstein.

William Pickering : Congrats on all the progress this quarter, and thank you for taking my question. I believe you said that you filed the AATD CTA application in December. Could you share if you have received any response or feedback to that application? And once the trial is underway what duration of follow-up would you want to include in any initial data presentation?

John Leonard: David, do you want to speak to CTA status of the alpha-1 program?

David Lebwohl : With the CTA, we’ve gotten some straightforward questions that we’ve addressed. We’re expecting to hear any day back about the status of that. In terms of follow-up, we will follow the principle we always have that when we have a significant body of data to report on that we will be bringing the data forward. As a reminder, there’s Regeneron has gained approvals of both Europe and the IND cleared. So that, in terms of the application itself, the platform, we have high confidence in its ability to be go forward around the world.

Operator: At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Ian Karp as this concludes our question-and-answer session for any closing remarks.

Ian Karp : Thanks so much Drew, and thanks everyone for joining us today for your great questions and for your continued interest in Intellia, and we look forward to updating you as we continue to progress. Have a great day everyone.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.