Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Brian Lian: Yes. We hope to have the data from all of the cohorts. It has been – I know it is been slower than everybody would like, including us, the holidays kind of broke that up a little bit as well. And then we had a couple of cohorts that got split. And since it is a Phase I unit, is not necessarily available to have patients come in the next day if they miss a day. So that has just dragged out some of the cohorts. But we do believe we will have the data this quarter from all the cohorts.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Thanks again for taking the question.

Brian Lian: Thanks.

Operator: The next question comes from Andy Hsieh of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Andy Hsieh: Thanks for taking our question. So obviously, there is a lot of movement in the NASH space recently. Just curious about your thinking in terms of the correlation between liver fat reduction or the magnitude of that and leading to fibrosis from a histological perspective?

Brian Lian: Yes. Thanks, Andy. I think it is fairly well-established correlation between reduction in liver fats and improvement in overall histology, including fibrosis, and that has been shown in pharmacological studies but also in weight loss studies. But there are exceptions. There are some mechanisms that have been shown to reduce liver fat and haven’t resulted in other histologic improvements. And I don’t know why that is. But most of them would appear to show the – that when you reduce liver fat, particularly above 30% relative reduction, you have higher odds of success on NASH resolution and fibrosis improvement.

Andy Hsieh: Got it. That is helpful. Going on to the 2735 program, maybe as a whole, looking at your in-house compounds, as you anticipate the readout from the Phase I SAD/MAD study and also indication selection. I’m just curious about kind of the potential to advance other assets, right? There is – I forgot, maybe like half a dozen or so development candidates that you presented. And I’m curious if there is any sort of special unique characteristics that might be good for a specific indication, same thing for 2735, anything that you saw there that would position you well for potentially rare disease versus other bigger metabolic diseases?

Brian Lian: Yes. That is a good question, Andy. We have looked at a whole bunch of these, and we continue to explore different peptides. And we have sort of a scoring system that we have used and that has helped guide us to make some decisions on which compounds to prioritize. And that kind of that is kind of the early part of the discovery work. And then we look at the in-vivo data, PK and efficacy models to help prioritize. As far as the indications to select, I think just globally, when you look at the opportunities for the mechanism, it is NASH, diabetes obesity and then a couple of smaller indications. And we would like to view the opportunities kind of like we look at with the thyroid beta agonist where we have got 2809 and a bigger opportunity, NASH and then VK0214 in the orphan indication.

I think if we were able to parallel that with the dual agonist, and we had something in large indication and a different molecule in a smaller indication, that would be ideal. And I think we will be pursuing that as we move forward.

Andy Hsieh: Great, thanks for answering all of our questions.

Brian Lian: Thank you, Andy.

Operator: The next question comes from Yale Jen of Laidlaw & Co. Please go ahead.

Yale Jen: Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions. In terms of 2735, we understand that, obviously, after the data release, you will make some additional decisions and pending on that outcome. But nevertheless, would you give me a top sort of view what you and possibly anticipate to do after the data release in this quarter? Thank you.