Matthew Foehr : Yes. Thanks, Jack. I’ll say, very positive. We launched it at the PEGS Conference in Boston in May. And I’ll say that the feedback in the room is a big area, a big presentation, very well attended, and the feedback from partners who were sitting in the room was almost immediate. And it continues to be an area of focus in terms of not only new programs, but potentially taking different approaches to increase the potential success rate of some existing programs with partners and our — obviously, our research and innovation team and our BD team continues to partner on that as we talk with partners about it. So the feedback has been quite positive.
Operator: Your next question comes from Chad Wiatrowski from TD Cowen.
Chad Wiatrowski : Matt, Kurt, it’s Chad on for Steven Mah. Yes, congrats on the GSK milestone. Could you give us some more detail as to what differentiates your tech stack from peers who also claim at these historically difficult targets such as ion channels or an opportunity that they’re pursuing as well?
Matthew Foehr : Yes, sure. Happy to talk more about it. I think one of the — a few things differentiate our technology, right? At the core is the foundation of the multi-species approach that we can present. But beyond that, we highlighted a little bit about our commitment to continually expanding our capabilities around the ion channel space. We have a long history here that really date back decades in terms of building high-throughput screening that can be applicable to a variety of modalities, I think that is extremely important in this space where — and especially in the industry overall, where the lines between different approaches and modalities are becoming creatively blurred intentionally. And I think we are really at a spot where we can leverage that different than others.
We’ve also built up an extensive bank of custom cell lines that are specifically designed to facilitate the discovery in these areas — in some of these specific areas. That’s something that’s been built up over many years. And when you marry that with our other discovery and repertoire generation and screening technologies, it really does, I think, position us in a pretty unique fashion. And I think that’s why folks like GSK and Roche are attractive to us for these sorts of partnerships.
Chad Wiatrowski : Really helpful. And I appreciate the improved downstream economics regarding ion channels, but there’s sort of precedent that exclusivity of targets has led to some significant upfront payments. So is there an opportunity here to drive some upside in the near-term?
Kurt Gustafson : All deals are become a negotiation, right? And so I think to the extent that we show success that we always try to leverage that for higher payments. I think as we look historically, a lot of this — the difference between this and the antibody business has been more just on the exclusivity. The other thing that I would point out on the ion channel side and Matt talked a little bit about the expertise that we have. And so for the most part, with these ion channel programs, there’s a license that for a target on an exclusive basis, but then we are continuing to do all of that work. And so a big portion of the service revenue that we generate comes from the ion channel side of the business. In many cases, the partners are pre-paying for that and sort of gave the example today on the specific GSK program where they paid $7 million upfront that was being amortized over the research period.
So we are able to generate relative to the antibody side of that business, call it, outsized economics just on a relative basis. But a lot of that is just this function of that it’s on an exclusive basis.
