David L. Hallal
Thanks, Rushmie, and good morning. Thanks to everyone for joining our Q2 update call today. This is an exciting time of great strength and opportunity at Scholar Rock. We are scaling for the next phase of growth as a commercial stage fully integrated global biopharmaceutical company. Our three core priorities drive our vision of becoming a global biotech powerhouse. First, apitegromab regulatory approvals; and following those approvals, the U.S. launch of apitegromab for children and adults with SMA; followed by a series of country launches in the coming years, starting in Europe, with Germany next year. Second, expand apitegromab into additional rare, severe, and debilitating neuromuscular diseases. And third, disciplined capital allocation to support our high-value commercial and development initiatives. With respect to our ongoing regulatory processes, we are working collaboratively with the FDA and European Medicines Agency. We are also urgently preparing for our U.S. commercial launch as our BLA has been accepted under priority review with a target action date of September 22. As you are aware, GxP inspections are part of the standard FDA review process, including those relating to pre-approval inspections, clinical trial site inspections and manufacturing site inspections. These inspections often result in observations requiring responses within the review cycle. The FDA has conducted a full set of inspections; and as part of this process, noted observations at 2 of our CDMOs. On Friday, August 1, another pharmaceutical company disclosed observations as part of an FDA general site inspection at their filler, Catalent, Indiana, which was recently acquired by Novo Nordisk. Our fill/finish for apitegromab is conducted at the same site. The general site inspection of the facility was not specific to apitegromab. Novo Nordisk submitted a robust and comprehensive response earlier this week to the observations noted by the FDA. For the other CDMO, observations were received at the conclusion of a pre-licensing inspection and a comprehensive response will be submitted within the next week. We continue to work collaboratively with the agency. Importantly, the FDA recently completed our late cycle meeting following both site inspections. We are encouraged by the dialogue with the agency at the late cycle meeting where the FDA indicated that they are working towards completing the review of our BLA by our September 22, PDUFA date. Earlier this year, we also filed our MAA for apitegromab in the EU, and we continue to work with the European Medicines Agency and expect a potential approval near mid-2026. We are planning for Germany to be our first European country launch with an ambition to reach patients with SMA across all of Europe, followed by additional countries in Asia Pacific and Latin America over time. The global opportunity with apitegromab in SMA alone offers the potential for many years of sustainable growth through the end of this decade and into the next. Along with Keith, Akshay, and Vikas and the other leaders at the company, we have bolstered Scholar Rock's capabilities as we advance our mission to deliver apitegromab to children and adults with SMA. This is indeed what we know well and what we do well. In addition to the large opportunity to serve patients with SMA, we will continue to expand our pipeline by planning additional opportunities for apitegromab for children and adults suffering with additional rare, severe, and debilitating neuromuscular disorders, which Akshay will discuss in more detail shortly. Importantly, to grow Scholar Rock, we are taking a thoughtful, deliberate approach to capital allocation by staging our investments along with our commercial progress in serving the SMA community. Q2 has been exceptionally productive. In the quarter, when Keith joined our team as our Chief Operating Officer, he brought a proven track record of building and leading teams to deliver highly successful rare disease global launches in the neuromuscular therapeutic area, including most recently with Vyvgart. Under Keith's leadership, we have assembled an exceptionally experienced, talented and patient-centric field team committed to the SMA community. Impressively, over just a few months, the team is on board, trained and deployed and are ready to deliver apitegromab to the SMA community pending approval in September. Despite currently available treatments that have been approved over the past 10 years, we are acutely aware that muscle strength and motor function are among the top unmet needs in SMA, which we believe can be addressed with the potential approval of apitegromab, the world's first and only muscle-targeted therapy to deliver statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in motor function in a pivotal Phase III trial. I would like to now turn briefly to the readout of the positive Phase II EMBRA