But we also have to balance it in being realistic. This is a tough landscape, right? We’re a small biotech company, and we’re getting into cash numbers where we may have to do something over the next several quarters. And the dilutive financing for some deals out there are not pretty. And we’re not going to do some of those deals that are being done. I’m not trying to throw a dart or judge anybody else. There are different factors that they take into account. But we are not going to be doing some of those deals that are being done that I don’t think a company can recover from. So with that, we have to balance, hey, I have a non-dilutive financing. And no matter what, it’s going to be a good deal. But timing is a significant factor for us, and we do take into account the market landscape regarding raising funds.
A quick pause on that after the Coke and a hot dog that’s not the only potential collaboration that we have that could happen. And I’m not just moving away from Vyleesi, which we have a lot of confidence in. Dry eye disease, we have – obviously, the data is coming out we’re hoping for that nice Christmas present in the holidays there. But our other programs have interest. And that’s also something – a lot of times, the more – the further you take your program as long as everything is working well, safety, efficacy, tolerability, those types of things, more than likely the greater value you’re going to get, but you have to balance where your company is and doing what’s right for the shareholders regarding non-dilutive versus dilutive financing.
But I want to be clear, we do have other interest. Carl and I try to talk to as many people as we can, where I think it was either you or Joe asked about the 8177 ulcerative colitis endpoints. Listen, these endpoints, this is based on a lot of conversation, not just for KOLs, but companies that would be interested, it’s a nice way you start with, hey, if we get the first phase, do you care, right? And we’ve changed the protocol based on that type of feedback, and that was both with the dry eye disease and also with the ulcerative colitis. But to be clear, we have multiple shots on the goal for cash flow coming in 100% separate than a potential equity raise.
Michael Higgins: That’s great feedback. If I may, speaking of the earlier pipeline programs and cash as well, you’ve talked about 9643 starting another indication, possibly by year-end. It doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen. I just want to bring that one up because it’s that still…
Carl Spana: Sure. So Michael, we look – in the ocular space, we are following up with a separate compound for glaucoma. That would be the next ocular program that pending resources, obviously, we would take forward. We’ve already started outreach to the FDA on what a trial design would look like with some of the preclinical things we would need and we’ll have that feedback before year-end. So we would tend to go there, in part, because our goal at 9643 coming out of the MELODY-1 would really do look for a partnership. So obviously, in a partnership, we take all of the opportunity for PL9643 we will be taken up by that partnership. So that’s why we’ve held back on some of the things we could do there. And really, we’re focusing on glaucoma and also back of the eye with 9654, which we didn’t talk about, but there’s tremendous interest in our retinal programs.
