Michael W. Aguiar
Thank you Eric and good afternoon everybody. This has been another successful quarter for Theravance as we continue to make progress toward our 2015 goals. In particular, the recent U.S. approval of BREO for the treatment of asthma in patients 18 years and older was an important milestone that significantly expanded the number of patients that can benefit from this important medicine. While we're still early in the asthma launch we are pleased with the initial results which have increased market share and received a positive reception from allergists an important new target physician group. During the second quarter royalties earned from the sale of BREO and ANORO increased by 37% compared to the first quarter resulting in a corresponding increase in our income from operations of $5.1 million versus $0.7 million in the first quarter. In designing Theravance as a standalone company one of our primary objectives was to create an efficient low expense company with a sure path to profitability. I believe that our proving financial results demonstrate that this strategy is delivering on the subjective. In addition, we are pleased to continue returning capital to the shareholders including a cash dividend of $0.25 per share paid on June 30, 2015 and declaring another dividend today of $0.25 per share payable on September 30, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on September 10, 2015. Recently we announced the hiring of Michael Faerm as Chief Business Officer, an important step in our strategy of building a long-term recurring revenue business. Michael Faerm's brings to us a strong background including significant equity research experience at Wells Fargo and Credit Suisse as well as business development experience at Regeneron and Forest Labs. He is responsible for leading our growth strategy and corporate development initiatives beyond the Company's existing respiratory portfolio. Please join me in welcoming Mike to his new role. I will now turn to our program updates. RELVAR/BREO is our lead respiratory program partnered with GSK for the treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD and asthma. It is a combination inhaled respiratory medicine consisting of vilanterol, a long-acting beta2 agonist or LABA, and fluticasone furoate, an inhaled corticosteroid, or ICS, both delivered in the ELLIPTA dry powder inhaler. Total net sales for RELVAR/BREO in the second quarter 2015 were $82 million representing a 37% increase compared to the previous quarter. Sales were $28.1 million in the U.S. market driven by 44% increase in TRx prescription volumes compared to the first quarter 2015 and a concurrent increase in market share. Sales were $53.9 million in non-U.S. markets driven by strong performance in Japan and Germany and launches in additional geographies. Our second program ANORO is a combination dual bronchodilator medicine for the treatment of COPD consisting of the LABA vilanterol and the long-acting muscarinic antagonist, or LAMA umeclidinium. Total net sales for ANORO during the second quarter 2015 were approximately $23.7 million compared to $17.7 million in the previous quarter. This represents a quarter-over-quarter sales growth of 34% driven primarily by an increased TRx volume in the U.S. of 49% versus Q1. According to IMS both BREO and ANORO gained market share during the second quarter in key physician groups including primary care, pulmonologists and allergists. For example, through the week ending July 10, IMS reported that BREO in RX growth outperformed the market following the U.S. asthma launch with average week-over-week growth of approximately 3.5% versus a weekly decline of 0.8% for the LABA ICS market as a whole. BREO new to brand performance was even stronger during this timeframe with average week-over-week growth of approximately 2.8% compared with an average weekly contraction of 2.6% for the entire LABA ICS market. Looking to the rest of the year both the ICS LABA and the LAMA, LABA markets are impacted by seasonality with summer months tending to have relatively lower prescription volumes and winter months historically having higher prescription volumes. For example, according to IMS data for the U.S. in 2014 Q3 total scripts for the ICS LABA class were $6.3 million compared to $6.8 million in Q4. As a result we believe that in RX new to brand and market share the important metrics of product performance during this period. Looking forward we have significant data expected later this year from the SUMMIT study and next year from the Salford Lung Study in COPD. SUMMIT is evaluating the impact of RELVAR/BREO and on all-cause mortality in approximately 16,000 COPD patients with pre-existing cardiovascular risk factors. This is an important study for RELVAR/BREO which could demonstrate a significant patient benefit and support future use in this patient population while delivering real differentiation from other LABA ICS products. The Salford Lung Study in COPD evaluates the impact of RELVAR/BREO in a real world setting with the goal of identifying the effectiveness of once a day therapy with RELVAR/BREO versus standard-of-care. We remain optimistic about the long-term potential for both products and look forward to the upcoming clinical study results from SUMMIT and Salford. I'll now turn the call back to Eric to review our second quarter 2015 financial results. Eric?