But in terms of efficacy, the fact that you block it at the source should make it much more effective than trying to block it indirectly in the eye, while avoiding all of the serious local side effect, you can get in the eye, including this horrific retinal vasculitis, which is associated with sudden and permanent blindness.
Ryan Crowe: Thanks, George. I think we have time for two more questions.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of David Risinger with Leerink Partners. Your line is now open.
David Risinger: Yes, thanks very much. And first, I wanted to offer my congrats as well and best wishes to you, both Bob and Chris. So I have a commercial question on linvoseltamab, please. It’s clearly generated best-in-class results and a more attractive profile for patients. But Regeneron has to displace the incumbents. So could you discuss your plans to convert prescribers to linvoseltamab?
Marion McCourt: I’m anxious to answer, but Len will, of course, go first.
Leonard Schleifer: No, I just wanted to give a little history, David. You actually were around. You may even have asked the exact question, I’m not sure. when we were launching EYLEA and we had to displace Lucentis by the behemoth Roche. There are some lessons in there that it can be done with starting with a really good molecule, as you described, one that is potentially be best-in-class and then strong execution at the commercial front. We’ve done it. We’re not afraid of the 800-pound gorilla. We hope to put that gorilla on perhaps a weight loss program and get in there and show them what we can do, Marion, any comments. I just want to put that historical perspective out there.
Marion McCourt: Thank you, David, for the question. And I’m going to be a bit redundant, so I’ll be short. But my comment was to say it always starts with the best-in-class molecule. It’s about the science. And certainly, you’ve seen us across therapeutic areas launch into competitive categories, both in the anti-VEGF category and then, more recently, bringing great products into the marketplace. So we do look forward to this opportunity. And it fits quite beautifully with our oncology team, our onc — will be onc/hem team. And certainly, we will be very ready for that launch and look forward to helping patients with linvo.
Ryan Crowe: Okay. Thanks, Len and Marion. Shannon, last question, please.
Operator: Our last question comes from the line of Carter Gould with Barclays. Your line is now open.
Carter Gould: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I’ll echo all the prior comments about Bob, and best of luck. Maybe just on the 2seventy deal, Len and George. How should we think about this? Was this more about sort of protecting the rights of the assets that you already kind of partnered on, or really around sort of getting access to that manufacturing facility? And does that have implications then as we think about your business development going forward and maybe change kind of your willingness to move further down that path of cellular therapies?
Leonard Schleifer: I’ll let George comment on the scientific rationale, which drives pretty much everything we do. Just to mention from a business development point of view, we have been a long-standing partner with 2seventy when they were still part of bluebird. We’ve invested in them, both in equity and, frankly, in development. So this was something that was well known. George can comment how we see this fitting in.
George Yancopoulos: Yes. We’re excited about the existing programs. But what we’re even more excited about is as we know that the history of many diseases, but cancer in particular, is about combination approaches. And thus far, even in the setting of this collaboration, the CAR T space has been separate from the biologics space. And even though we were working together as separate companies, it was a little harder to really move forward in an expedited fashion the incredible opportunities that I believe that we have to combine what we think is the largest and most exciting portfolio of biologics in immunotherapy, together with cell therapy approaches. Nobody else has really tried that. Nobody else has really led that. Now that we’re really together all in with our new selected colleagues from 2seventy and their capabilities, we believe that we will now have the first opportunity to really try this new set of combination approaches against cancer.
That is, combining our large portfolio of biologics in the immunotherapy space with their cell therapy capabilities and expertise, that brings a whole new level of combinations to the immunotherapy field. We believe we will be alone in that capability until somebody else tries to copy us and do what we’re doing here. And that’s what we’re really excited about, in addition to just moving forward the existing cell therapy programs that we’ve been working on them for five years or more.
Ryan Crowe: All right. Thanks, Len and George, and thanks to everyone who dialed in today for your interest in Regeneron. We apologize to those remaining in the queue that we did not have a chance to hear from. As always, the Investor Relations team here at Regeneron is available to answer any remaining questions you may have. Thank you once again, and have a great day.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
