Vir Biotechnology, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Paul Choi: Hi, thank you. Good afternoon everyone. My first question is, if we think about stripping out the one-time true-up for the excess sotrovimab supply and manufacturing to GSK. And I know there’s a couple of moving parts there still. If we strip that out — if we look at the maybe the year ago OpEx, is that sort of the normalized rate that you would think, think would be normal here going forward? And what does that imply for your cash runway? If you’re you can prepare and just say how long your cash balance will go through. And then secondly, on hep B for the, 2218 3434, plus or minus, peg data set that will be coming up in the, later this year. Can you maybe level set patients on how we should think about potential efficacy there? Is there potential for synergy, or should we potential think about it largely as additive And also, what can you say on potential tolerability of the regimen given, head interference, historical challenges? Thank you.

Marianne De Backer: Okay. Thank you very much, Paul. Maybe the first question on cash runway, Sung you can give some more information there.

Sung Lee: Yes, Paul. thanks for your question. So, I think you had a couple of questions there on basically operating expense normal levels, is last year comparable and the implications for our cash runway going forward. So, when you think about our operating expense and specifically R&D expense for the last several quarters — the last three or four quarters, it’s been heavily driven by the investment in the flu Phase 2 study, the PENINSULA study. In addition to that, we also invested in manufacturing activities for an anticipated Phase 3 study in flu. So, these have been the primary drivers of our R&D operating expense for the last several quarters. Now, going forward, obviously, as I go back to the prepared comments I made on the ramping down of the PENINSULA study in the next, few quarters, there are some variables here where we have an ongoing Phase 2 study in hepatitis B and hepatitis Delta and we’re going to get to some important data readouts in quarter four this year.

So, depending the readouts of those data, that could be a big swing factor for where our OpEx trajectory will be in the future. And certainly, has implications for our cash utilization as well. But I just want to make a clarification here. The cash utilization when you go from Q1 to Q2 is not indicative of a run rate. As I mentioned in my prepared comments, was a $273.6 million payment, to GSK related to a liability booked last year. So, I think you have to really, cancel that noise out and then you’ll kind of understand what our true cash utilization has been and it’s been averaging somewhere close to $120 million per quarter, in each of the quarters of this year so far. And then going forward, just coming back to something I said before, the cash utilization will largely depend on the data readouts for hepatitis Delta and Hepatitis B.

But just to finish answering your question, with $1.9 billion of cash and investments, we’re really in a good position here to fund not only to the end of phase two for those programs, but also through Phase 3.

Marianne De Backer: Thank you, Sung. And then, Paul, related to your question on our chronic hepatitis B functional cure program, as you rightly pointed out, in fourth quarter of this year, we will be reporting data on combining 2218, our siRNA, with 3434, our antibody plus minus interferon alpha, 24 weeks end of treatment. So, and we have actually some really promising data that we have seen and have announced at E-Zone earlier this year. So, I would invite Phil to talk a little bit more about what we have seen as to signals of efficacy and also additivity.