image
Healthcare - Biotechnology - NASDAQ - US
$ 11.19
-5.65 %
$ 472 M
Market Cap
-3.79
P/E
EARNINGS CALL TRANSCRIPT
EARNINGS CALL TRANSCRIPT 2022 - Q3
image
Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to UroGen Pharma's Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Vincent Perrone, Senior Director of Investor Relations for UroGen Pharma. Please go ahead..

Vincent Perrone Senior Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to UroGen Pharma's Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release providing an overview of our recent corporate highlights and financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2022.

The press release can be accessed on the Investors portion of our website at investors.urogen.com. Joining me today are Liz Barrett, President and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Mark Schoenberg, Chief Medical Officer; Jeff Bova, Chief Commercial Officer; and Don Kim, Chief Financial Officer.

During today's call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements.

These may include statements regarding our ongoing commercialization activities relating to Jelmyto, the expected benefits of the FDA's expansion of the end-use period for Jelmyto, our ongoing and planned clinical trials, commercial and clinical milestones in the year ahead, the growth potential for Jelmyto, the design potential benefits and commercial potential for UGN-102, if approved, the design, potential benefits and commercial potential of UGN-301, potential future commercialization activities for UGN-102 if approved, data presentations, expected regulatory filings and timing thereof, future research and development efforts and our financial and other corporate goals, among other things.

These forward-looking statements are based on current information, assumptions and expectations that are subject to change.

A description of potential risks can be found in our earnings press release and leave its SEC disclosure documents, including under the Risk Factors heading of our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, filed today.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, and UroGen disclaims any obligation to update these statements. I will now turn the call over to Liz.

Liz?.

Liz Barrett

Mr. Dan Wildman and Dr. Leana Wen. Leana is an emergency medicine physician and has served as a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University School of Public Health, since 2019.

She also serves on the Boards of several other organizations, including Glaukos Corporation, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Baltimore Community Foundation and the National Committee on US-China Relations. Dan is a seasoned executive with more than 40 years in the medical device industry.

He is currently Chairman of Progenerative Medical, and he also serves as a strategic adviser for several medical device and pharmaceutical companies. With Johnson & Johnson, Dan led the digital surgery strategy initiative tasked with developing an integrated strategy for robotic surgery, leading to the 2019 acquisition of Auris Health.

UroGen will benefit greatly from their insight and guidance. With that, I'll pass the call over to Mark to update you on our clinical development programs.

Mark?.

Mark Schoenberg Chief Medical Officer

Thank you, Liz. Before I jump into our clinical update, I want to share our results from a recent retrospective analysis published in the British Journal of Urology International. The study was conducted by Dr. Kyle Rose and colleagues and evaluated 32 patients who received at least one dose of JELMYTO via the nephrostomy tube.

The study found that 17 or 59% of patients had no evidence of disease at primary disease evaluation and did not recur at a median follow-up of 13 months post induction. Importantly, ureteral stenosis occurred in just 9% of patient study.

This multi-institutional retrospective analysis concluded that integrated administration of JELMYTO demonstrated a favorable safety profile, including a low rate of ureteral stenosis and can be administered without general anesthesia.

Additional reports of real-world data are anticipated later this year and are expected to support the use of JELMYTO to treat low-grade UTUC. As Liz mentioned, both our Phase 3 ENVISION trial with UGN-102 and our Phase 1 trial, UGN-301 are ongoing.

ENVISION is our single-arm international multi-center study evaluating the efficacy and safety of UGN-102 as primary chemoablative therapy in patients with recurrent low-grade intermediate-risk NMIBC. There are no approved primary non-surgical therapies for malignancy that affects approximately 80,000 new patients each year in the US alone.

It is also worth restating that for these patients, the current standard of care remains transit resection of bladder tumors, or TURBT, a surgical procedure performed by resectoscope through the urethra that requires anesthesia, lifelong surveillance and is associated with the risk of complications and frequent recurrent treatment.

After 61% of TURBT patients typically experience recurrence after one-year and 78% experienced recurrence after five years. 34% to 76% of patients show evidence of tumor on repeat TURBT at two to six weeks.

Given the high recurrence rate of low-grade intermediate-risk NMIBC, it remains a high unmet medical need for alternative therapies that decrease procedure-related risk and the need for repetitive intervention.

We believe that UGN-102, if approved, has the potential to offer a convenient intravesical therapeutic option administered in an outpatient non-surgical setting. We expect the ENVISION trial to enroll approximately 220 patients across 90 clinical sites, who will receive six once-weekly intravesical installations of UGN-102.

The primary endpoint will evaluate the complete response rate at three months after first installation, and the key secondary endpoint will evaluate durability over time in patients who achieve a complete response at the three-month assessment.

We remain confident about the design of the ENVISION trial and the clinical potential of UGN-102 based on its similar design to our previously completed Phase 2b OPTIMA II study, which included new and recurrent low-grade intermediate-risk patients.

I'm pleased to announce we anticipate the trial to be fully enrolled as soon as the end of this month with an NDA submission planned in 2024, assuming positive results. In parallel, we continue to advance a single-arm, at-home installation feasibility study for UGN-102.

In 2023, we intend to share a data readout from the ATLAS trial, which will be included in our planned NDA submission, including complete response, duration of response and safety data of patients who completed treatment with UGN-102.

To further build on what Liz commented about in her opening remarks, we are likewise optimistic about the clinical potential of UGN-102, because of its similarities to Jelmyto.

Both products utilize mitomycin as their key pharmaceutical ingredient, albeit in a different ratio, and both allow for local delivery and sustained exposure to mitomycin for up to six hours. Importantly, both low-grade NMIBC and low-grade UTUC show many biological and clinical similarities.

We are optimistic that the clinical results demonstrated by Jelmyto in the kidney could translate similarly to the bladder. For UGN-102, it sets itself apart from Jelmyto is that it is designed to be instilled into the bladder via urethral catheter in an outpatient setting.

We believe that, if successful, it may offer a simpler, minimally invasive and non-surgical alternative to TURBT that can be administered in clinic by a, urologist or a member of the support staff.

Clinicians and KOLs we've engaged have already shown a receptiveness to this potential new treatment option with a 96% indicating, they are likely to use UGN-102 within two years of approval. Meanwhile, our Phase 1 trial with UGN-301, our in-licensed anti-CTLA-4 antibody for intravesical administration in RTGel, continues to enroll.

UGN-301 is in development for the use in combination with other immunomodulators, including UGN-201, our proprietary TLR7 agonist, and other potential chemotherapy and immunotherapies to treat high-grade NMIBC. This study is aimed at identifying the suitable dose for a subsequent Phase 2 trial.

We viewed UGN-301 as a cornerstone checkpoint inhibitor for a variety of potential combination therapies targeting, NMIBC and continue to see broad applicability of intravesical administration of immunotherapies with RTGel, as a compelling opportunity to explore novel immunomodulatory drug combinations for advancing care in a broad range of clinical indications in urologic and specialty cancers.

I'll now hand the call over to Jeff to provide a commercial update.

Jeff?.

Jeff Bova

Thank you, Mark. As Liz noted, the third quarter saw a slight decline in Jelmyto sales compared to last quarter. However, on a year-to-date basis, Jelmyto sales have grown 45%, compared to 2021. We remain confident in the long-term success of Jelmyto and its ability to address a significant unmet need in an underserved patient population.

Last year, we attributed third quarter softness to what we believe corresponded to a rise in COVID-19 cases. We now believe that the slowdown is more likely a result of seasonality resulting from a wider conversion rate, of patient enrollment forms, to new patient starts.

Specifically, in 2021, PEPs conversions slowed down in July before returning to baseline in August. This year, however, the slowdown continued through August and snapped back September right after, the Labor Day holiday.

While this pattern was not expected, we do feel better about the consistency we're beginning to see quarter-to-quarter and expect to return to growth in Q4 based on the number of PEPs converted in October. Key metrics, learnings from the field and recent real-world outcomes data continue to give us confidence in the low-grade UTUC opportunity.

Adoption metrics continue to support encouraging trends and positive long-term thesis. Activated sites on November 1st were 930 compared to 893 on August 1st, and repeat accounts were 177 compared to 144 for the same period. Additional metrics demonstrate a steady addition of new prescribers each quarter and steady expansion of repeat users as well.

Reimbursement remains at approximately 99% across all coverage types. Importantly, several larger academic and referral institutions are coming online, including NYU and LSU, which has taken longer than expected to onboard. From a field operations perspective, several territories and sales reps continue to outperform others.

We dug deeper to better understand what's driving their success and came away with several important findings. First, we found that while patient identification remains a key driver, early adopters in these regions tend to be comfortable using Jelmyto for all appropriate patients.

We also learned that in the field, Jelmyto closely resembles a medical device cell within a therapeutic. In response, we proactively made changes to several underperforming territories and regions to better align with this type of relevant experience.

As Liz mentioned, Dan Wildman, who led J&J's med device business, is a recent addition to our Board of Directors, and we expect his extensive device experience to have a positive impact on our commercial organization.

We also continue to look for opportunities to facilitate additional logistical efficiencies and minimize operational complexities for doctors and patients. During the third quarter, we announced the FDA authorization of an extension of the end-use period of Jelmyto admixture from eight to 96 hours.

We believe this update simplifies treating Jelmyto and will positively impact adoption moving forward.

We're already seeing a positive impact, helping to solve several logistical challenges, including allowing for delivery of the admixture the day before the installation and enabling early morning installations, which based on the feedback from the field, is preferred by nearly all of our HCPs.

Feedback is overwhelmingly positive and day before delivery has proved -- has provided confidence and on-time procedures for both patients and doctors.

Looking ahead to next year, we anticipate all doses will be delivered at least one day before scheduled installation and for 90% of procedures to take place before 9:00 AM, allowing Jelmyto to fit in nicely with the HCP schedules.

Not only does this benefit current adopters, but it also allows us to reengage with prospective customers who were reluctant or unable to adopt Jelmyto as the previous end-use period of eight hours was viewed as too restrictive.

This reinforces our optimism for the future of Jelmyto to enhance treatment of low-grade UTUC and lay the foundation for the potentially much larger opportunity with UGN-102 and low-grade intermediate risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

As Mark mentioned, the publication of outcomes from real-world data, most recently in the form of retrospective analysis, evaluating administration of Jelmyto via nephrostomy tube, continues to support the use of Jelmyto in low-grade UTUC.

Growing adoption of administration via nephrostomy tube, which represents more than 50% of Jelmyto installations, continues to offer operational efficiencies and benefits to the patients as well.

HCPs generally recognize the benefits of antegrade administration, which avoids the need of an OR and offers more flexibility with scheduling and installation since it can be performed by a trained nurse and does not require fluoroscopy after placement of the nephrostomy tube.

During the third quarter, we continued implementing our phased launch of our uTRACT registry, which is expected to provide additional insights into the real-world outcomes of UTUC patients treated with Jelmyto, and evaluate its use in clinical practice in the US. With that, I'm happy to pass the call over to Don to discuss our financials.

Don?.

Don Kim

Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. I'm pleased to be with you today to review our financial results of the third quarter ended September 30, 2022.

UroGen reported a net product revenue of Jelmyto for the third quarter of 2022 of $16.1 million, compared to $11.4 million in the third quarter of 2021, representing a 41% increase from the same period last year.

Cost of revenue for the third quarter of 2022 was approximately $2 million, resulting in a gross margin of 87% compared to gross margin of 89% in the third quarter of 2021.

Research and development expenses for the third quarter of 2022 were $13.1 million, including non-cash share-based compensation expense of $600,000 as compared to $11.9 million, including non-cash share-based compensation expense of $1 million for the same period in 2021.

The overall increase of $1.2 million is primarily attributed to the Phase 3 ENVISION study for UGN-102, research into ingredients scale-up and production efficiency for Jelmyto, partially offset by lower stock-based compensation expense to 2022.

Selling, general and administrative expenses for the third quarter 2022 were $19.1 million, including non-cash share-based compensation expense of $1.8 million. This compares to $21.6 million, including non-cash share-based compensation expense of $4.5 million for the same period in 2021.

The reduction in SG&A resulted primarily from lower stock-based compensation expenses in 2022. For third quarter ended September 30, 2022, we reported financing expense related to the prepaid forward obligation to RTW Investment of $4.8 million, compared to $6.8 million for the same period in 2021.

Interest expense related to the up to $100 million from loan facility with the funds managed by Pharmakon Advisors was $2.7 million for the third quarter of 2022. As the transaction closed in March of 2022, there was no such expense in the third quarter of 2021.

For the third quarter ended, September 30, 2022, we reported a net loss of $25.8 million or $1.13 per share. This compares to a net loss of $30.2 million or $1.35 per share in the third quarter of 2021.

The net loss for the third quarter of 2022 includes $2.4 million in non-cash share-based compensation expense, compared to $5.5 million in non-cash share-based compensation expense in the third quarter of 2021. We closed quarter with $95.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.

During the third quarter, we continued to prioritize our balance sheet in support of our commercial and clinical development activities.

We remain cognizant of the challenging capital market environment and maintain a keen eye on capital preservation, emphasis on prudent and responsible management of our operating capital continues to ensure investment in our core assets, specifically JELMYTO commercial sales growth and clinical development of UGN-102 as priorities.

While we acknowledge the contraction in JELMYTO net sales, we were able to offset this shortfall by deferring or suspending non-core activities, ending the quarter with a solid $2.2 million in operating expenses, $4.7 million below consensus.

Our efforts to manage our cash flow gives us confidence in our ability to end the year with approximately $100 million in cash, which assumes the receipt of the $25 million second tranche under our $100 million common loan facility with the Pharmakon Advisors, which is expected to fund on December 16, 2022, subject to customary conditions and deliver growth.

Looking ahead, we will watch revenue and expenses carefully while also managing the ample avenues of capital potentially available to us, should the need opportunistically strengthen our balance sheet arise. With that, I would like to turn the call back to Liz for closing remarks..

Liz Barrett

Thank you, Don. As we look ahead, we are very enthusiastic about the learnings and covered in several over-performing territories that will allow us to capitalize on a significant market opportunity to increase adoption for JELMYTO.

We're even more bullish on the potential of low-grade intermediate risk on non-muscle invasive bladder cancer with UGN-102 and look forward to sharing data in 2023 And leveraging our experience to prepare for its potential approval and launch in the not-so-distant future.

We thank you for your continued support as we advance both programs in parallel. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for a Q&A session.

Operator?.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Dipesh Patel with H.C. Wainwright. Your line is open..

Dipesh Patel

Hi. Thank you for the updates. This is Dipesh Patel standing in for Ram Selvaraju. I have a few questions with regards to JELMYTO and then a few others with regards to the other assets.

So beginning with JELMYTO, what percentage of potential target physicians remains likely to switch to using JELMYTO with the new installation method?.

Jeff Bova

Thanks, Dipesh. It's hard to measure. I can tell you that, that new installation method has increased last -- since last week spoke from around 40%, 45% to now over 50%, and that was without the data from Dr. Rose. We had only nine patients, and now we're looking at 32 patients, which is obviously much more robust.

So the expectation is certainly that it will help, it will grow. It will make things more convenient for both the physician and the patient. But as far as an exact number, we do believe it's going to help grow JELMYTO sales overall.

But it's a matter of obviously understanding the clinical benefits first, and this will certainly help from a convenience standpoint..

Dipesh Patel

Great. Thanks.

And how is the utilizing physician population remarked at all upon the enhanced ease of use with the end-use period extension for JELMYTO admixture and how impactful is this?.

Jeff Bova

They definitely have reacted well. Again, this provides an opportunity for those physicians that are used to doing surgeries in the morning, because we may not have been able to get them a mixed dose until the afternoon. They've had to shift a lot of things around the business. Territory business managers have done a phenomenal job managing that.

In some cases, multiple physicians would give a dose to the same patient, just because of scheduling. This will allow flexibility, so to confirm that the dose is there the day before. It will allow the representative, if they're in there supporting to do that in the morning.

And then once they support the installation in the morning, they're able to go out and sell and bring Jelmyto to more patients. And so the response has been immediate.

We've already had, I think, the number is higher now, five accounts that have gotten the product the day before and administered in the morning when this wasn't possible just a month ago..

Dipesh Patel

Great. That's helpful.

And then, have there been any new developments with respect to optimizing the value of Jelmyto in ex-US territories?.

Liz Barrett

No. What we've continued to do is the named patient program, but we have not done any work on ex-US, mainly as we've talked about before, because of reimbursement.

So the idea is to sort of get an understanding and appreciation for the value of Jelmyto in ex-US territories and then at that point in time, be able to go to payers and work with them on being able to get a valuable and feasible, frankly, price from bringing Jelmyto into the market.

I can just tell you that yesterday, I received an article that was done in Australia that talked about a patient, that got dosed through the named patient program and how compelling it was for her personally.

And hopefully, those types of stories will start to get out and then the payers and the government will be more interested and working with us on being able to provide a price that's reasonable for us to be able to market the products outside the US..

Dipesh Patel

Great. Thank you. And then just a couple of questions on some of the other assets.

Since you now expect possible completion of enrollment in the UGN-102 Phase III ENVISION trial by the end of this month, when might we see top line data? And how quickly after that might you be able to file for regulatory approval of the drug in the US?.

Liz Barrett

Yes. So as we've mentioned before, and just so that everybody understands, the good news is we've actually -- we've already recruited, already to date, recruited the number of patients we need to hit our enrollment target. So it's just a matter of the shifting from the recruitment to enrollment.

And that's why we feel very confident in our ability to do that very shortly here. So that's great news for us and for patients. Remember that these patients, we all have to have -- we need 12 months -- minimum of 12-months follow-up post CR for all patients, before we can go to the FDA. So that obviously won't happen until after the end of '23.

And then, it's just a matter of the timing on the database close and stuff. So as we've talked about before, our intention is to work with the FDA and submit in 2024 and then hopefully be able to get priority review and be able to have a six-month review period. So that's the goal at this point. That's what we're working towards.

But it's important that when we do go to the FDA, it's more important to ensure that we have all of the appropriate data that will allow them to quickly review and provide approval, than it is for us to try to do it earlier. So again, that's the timing. We need all of 2023 to get us to follow all of the patients, which would all have 12 months.

And obviously, a lot of patients would have more than 12-months follow-up at that point in time..

Dipesh Patel

Great. I appreciate the added color on that.

And then last question, what are the next steps likely to be in the development of UGN-301, assuming positive Phase 1 results?.

Liz Barrett

Yes. So what we will continue to do with UGN-301 is the study that we have in place -- and I apologize, I really should turn this over to Mark to answer, but the intention is really to combine with multiple different chemotherapies and other targeted agents.

And so, we will cycle through whatever we believe and we see in the data are the most compelling combinations, and those are the ones that we would move forward with. So we continue our enrollment in the monotherapy and then we obviously have to get data on monotherapy before we can start the combinations, which should happen in 2023..

Dipesh Patel

Great. Thank you so much for the update..

Operator

Our next question comes from Boris Peaker with Cowen. Your line is open..

Boris Peaker

Great. Several questions as well. Maybe first, let's start on Jelmyto.

How should we be thinking about the expectations for 4Q sales? And also, do you anticipate to issue an annual guidance in early 2023?.

Liz Barrett

I'm sorry, what was the last question?.

Boris Peaker

Do you anticipate to issue annual sales guidance in the beginning of 2023, maybe JPMorgan or in your 4Q results call?.

Liz Barrett

Yes. So, I think, what -- where we are right now, obviously, given the Q3 results, we do expect that Q4 will return to growth in Q4. Having said that, that I can't -- I'm not confident in being able to say that we would hit guidance this year. So I think that it's too early to speculate on what we will do as far as guidance for 2023.

So I think we -- Q4 is an important quarter for us. The good news is that we've seen a real bounce back, as Jeff talked about, in September and October and November to-date. But again, too early to speculate and given the variability, I think we -- at this point in time, that's all we're going to say about guidance..

Boris Peaker

Got it. And lastly, when it comes to Jelmyto administration with nephrostomy, you mentioned it's an increasing proportion of patients.

Can you talk about the economics of the physician for traditional administration versus using nephrostomy tube?.

Jeff Bova

Sure. So in the nephrostomy tube, if they were to go to the surgery center to a hospital, the surgery center or hospital buy and bill for the drug. This gives the clinician the opportunity to go to the -- to administer it in their clinic, where they would buy and build for the drug. So from a professional fee, they're probably similar.

There's always a little bit more, because they're encouraged to give it in the clinic. I don't know how meaningful that is. But it's really the buy-and-bill portion that allows physicians to buy the product in their clinic, administer it in their clinic versus retrograde.

They often go to the ASC where the surgery center would buy the product or the hospital, or the hospital would buy and bill for the product..

Boris Peaker

Got it. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions..

Liz Barrett

Thanks, Boris..

Operator

Our next question comes from Matt Kaplan with Ladenburg. Your line is open..

Matt Kaplan

Hi. Thanks for taking my question and good morning.

Just can you talk a little bit about how you can translate your success regionally, I guess, in the Northeast to more broadly across the country and what your strategy is to do that now for Jelmyto?.

Jeff Bova

Sure. So the challenge is with Jelmyto is that each region, each territory is a bit unique. The Northeast is not like the Midwest. They may have more academic centers. The Midwest may have more larger community accounts.

And so what we found is very important to look at each region, look at each territory and decipher the background of the business manager that's really going to be successful. We share -- it's a great question, Matt. We share best practices every day, and many of them are implemented in the accounts that are similar to those that are successful.

But what business managers will tell you is that each account is unique, and they do things differently. And it's important for them to problem solve, to work through the operational logistics, to work through formulary. But, yes, certainly we're sharing best practices. And where they are applicable across the nation, we're implementing those.

It's just -- it is a challenge because not every territory is similar. And so we have to make sure that we get the right person in there, and we have to adapt accordingly..

Matt Kaplan

Okay. And you mentioned something about -- thinking about Jelmyto in certain regions as a device type sale or a drug device combo sale.

Have you implemented that aspect of it yet, or do you think that should have an impact going forward?.

Jeff Bova

We have, and I believe it will. We -- in the last year, we provided more hospital training. We certainly look at the territory and try to get the -- the perfect fit for that a territory. It does resemble a device, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have successful territories that have device. It's a mix. It's certainly a mix.

What's consistent is hiring folks that can work and navigate through the issues and more importantly, are motivated by the challenge, quite frankly. And this -- as we talk to the business managers, this is -- its hard work.

It's a lot of work, but it's very gratifying once they become successful in getting these accounts on board and getting patients treated with Jelmyto. So yes, Matt, we've recognized this and have implemented some changes as well as I talked to, making sure that we have the right person in the territory..

Matt Kaplan

Okay. Great. No, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just a follow-up to Boris' question. I guess previously, you had given guidance for $70 million to $80 million in revenues for this year. I guess now with more than, was it $46 million in the first nine months.

What -- Liz, what are you seeing now and in terms of ability to meet that prior guidance?.

Liz Barrett

Yes. I know, as I stated before when Boris asked the question, I would say that we do not think that we will be able to hit guidance for this year. Having said that, I think we feel very good about where we are in Q4 and where we're going.

Just to give you some perspective, right, if you had looked at the growth rate from last year, second half over first half, we would have -- if that had translated, we would have hit the guidance this year as well and even through where we are. But we had a really, really strong Q4 over Q3 last year.

I think the good news is what we actually are seeing is more consistency. So while we -- while there was a slight decline in Q3, it was nowhere near the magnitude that we saw in 2021, which gives us a lot of confidence in the fact that we're getting to a more consistent quarter-over-quarter experience. And so I think that's important.

Also just to note, part of what Jeff was talking about, I think the other thing that we're very enthusiastic about is how successful some of our territories have been. What that tells us is that the opportunity is there, right? So it's not a situation where we feel like the opportunity isn't what we expected.

We actually see and they have proven that it is there. And we know that if we have the lower territories anywhere near the average of the better territories that this is a significant product, as we've talked about many times. So all of those things combined with the changes that Jeff has talked about really gives us a lot of confidence in the future.

It's just a slower -- to be really honest about it, it's just a slower growth than we expected it to be. So the inflection point -- and we were in the middle of COVID, and now we're seeing that, yeah, it continues to grow. We continue to get very positive. We continue to see new accounts come on.

We continue to see new doctors prescribe and that, most importantly, the doctors that are using it, we actually see them adopt this as their standard of care. So they are using this in most of their patients. So all of those elements, again, give us great confidence at the peak where we expect to be has not been unchanged.

It's just the growth rate to get there..

Q – Matt Kaplan

Okay. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. And then maybe a question for Mark.

On the UGN-301 Phase 1 study, can you talk about a little bit what you're looking for and what would meet designate a positive result in that Phase 1 study as a monotherapy before you go into the combination arms of that study?.

A – Mark Schoenberg

Matt, thanks for the question. So remember, this study is designed in order to help us identify an appropriate dose for intravesical administration of this antibody, which, of course, is a very novel thing to be doing in this disease state. So what we're looking for is safety and tolerability and the identification of the dose.

We would obviously be interested if we saw an efficacy signal. But that's really not the point of the study.

Currently, it's to help us identify a dose, which we can then carry into the next phase of the development program, which would be a combination, as Liz mentioned earlier, with other agents such as our TLR7 agonist or other potential combinations with chemo or immunomodulators..

Q – Matt Kaplan

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks guys..

A – Liz Barrett President, Chief Executive Officer & Director

Thank you, Matt..

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Howerton with Jefferies. Your line is open..

Q – Chris Howerton

Great. Thank you so much. I think probably most of the questions at this point have been answered. I was curious what the status of 201 was.

And Mark, I guess, I'm always kind of bugging you about this one, but what about doing a combination study with BCG in high grade? I can appreciate the fact that there are supply issues, but BCG is already approved and would have a similar mechanism to other TLR agonism. So, maybe I'll just end with a bit of a combative question to you, Mark..

Mark Schoenberg Chief Medical Officer

Thank you very much, Chris. Liz may want to comment as well. I'll just give you my impression. One of the interesting things about BCG is that although, if read about it, there are a lot of hypotheses about how it works. It is still an area of active investigation, and it's a bit of a mystery how it does what it does.

And as you also know, many people who received BCG ultimately relapse. So, between the issues related to supply, as you noted, because BCG is in short supply and manufacturing is challenged currently, having a real impact on clinical practice, I think personally, it would be great.

And I'm glad that we're doing this to identify other novel immunomodulatory combinations, which would move us away from a BCG-dependent strategy for this particular population.

So, while I can agree with you on a theoretical level that it would be interesting to do, I think practically and from a clinical perspective, it will be very important for us to pursue lines investigation like we are doing in Neurogen, namely, to seek other important immunomodulatory and potentially other types of therapeutic combinations to address the unmet need in this patient population, which is acute.

And as you know, these patients do face some difficult choices when BCG does not work..

Chris Howerton

Okay. That's fair. All right. That's fair.

And so what about for 201 then?.

Mark Schoenberg Chief Medical Officer

As you know, and as we've previously discussed, we have very interesting nonclinical data suggesting that there is a sort of a synergistic interaction between 201 and 301, and that forms the basis for our current development program for the 301 molecule.

So, one of the combinations we are contemplating and have sort of tentatively planned is the combination of 201 with 301 once the Phase 1 dose escalation study has provided us with safety and dose information about 301.

So, we are still actively developing that as a combination that we'd like to carry forward once we have the Phase 1 data on the antibody..

Chris Howerton

Okay. Awesome. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate all the answers and look forward to the 102 data from ATLAS soon..

Liz Barrett

Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it..

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Choi with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open..

Paul Choi

Thank you and good morning. My first question is for Jeff.

And Jeff, I was wondering if you can maybe just help us understand the market maybe segmenting a little more as to which proportion of potential prescribers are thinking about JELMYTO more as a device-based approach is maybe relative to medical oncologists who think about it more from a therapeutic treatment perspective and just help us understand which additional portion of the prescriber base you might be additionally able to target here?.

Jeff Bova

I think what we've seen is that when device reps are sort of part of the OR team, they're in there. They're assisting whether -- it's the C&E, our nursing team or they're assisting with the installation. And so I think the -- it's just -- it's more of a mentality as a company and I think as a business manager.

Even if the business manager has a lot of buy-and-bill experience, it's adapting to the institution, the academic institution or maybe the -- where they're familiar, the clinic or the larger urology group. And so, it's more of just -- yes, we look at that certainly when we're hiring.

But it's also we look at it with the additional training that we give. I do think the physicians, the accounts that we have that are looking at Jelmyto for every patient, really appreciate our support. They appreciate the business manager. They appreciate the nurse.

They appreciate the field reimbursement manager, all of the support that we provide them and just a little bit more device-oriented. And it's where you see early success and then you see consistent success. There's a constant effort to try to find patients that will benefit from Jelmyto. So we're doing that.

You've heard me say in the past, we do need to go deeper into accounts that still holds true. But we need to continue to set accounts up. You heard me mention on the call, NYU has come on board, LSU as well. There are still plenty of accounts large like those that need to come on board.

And we need to provide them that -- the support and in behaving more like a device, which is we have so many similarities. This is a procedure. This is sometimes in the OR. There are many things that are similar. We're starting to see receptiveness. We're starting to see doors open.

And it's just -- it's a different type of cell than it's just a pill where you write a prescription that goes through specialty pharmacy. And it's just a different mentality. And when we do that, the accounts, the physicians really they noticed the difference. But more importantly, we noticed the difference because we have more success..

Liz Barrett

Yes. And just our commentary, Paul, to ask, medical oncologists don't treat these cancers. These are really treated by urologists. So to Jeff's point, you have your large urology group practices, and then you have your institutions.

And what we have found, to Jeff's point, is really when you go into the institutions where you can have some great success and the large group practices tend to use more than nephrostomy tube administration. And so that's where we're seeing some delineation.

But just to be clear to you and answer your question, it's not really with medical oncologists, it's really with urologists..

Paul Choi

Great. Okay. Thanks for that. My second question for you, Liz or maybe Mark, is just your commentary on thinking about getting priority review for 102 next year. Obviously, you had success with your 101 filing.

Can you maybe just comment on what feedback or commentary from the regulators you've received, like is underpinning that your view that you could possibly get priority review in next year when you do some of the -- I'm sorry, in 2024, when you do some of the filing?.

Liz Barrett

Yes. It's really just based off of the fact that, to your point, we were able to get it for UGN-102. We do believe when the agency agreed with us on the high unmet need with this patient population, and we moved to a single arm study. I think that, that shows that they recognize that there's a high unmet need.

So when you take those things into consideration, I mean, I think that's why we feel like we have an opportunity to get priority review. Again, using a lot of the same data, when you think about it and approach as we give UGN-101, which is now Jelmyto as well..

Paul Choi

Okay. Great. Thanks for that clarification. And last one for me is the financial, maybe for Don, which is -- I think you commented your cash assumptions for this year factor in the second tranche excess to the second tranche or term loan.

But can you provide an update on after that second tranche, what your assumed cash runway is going forward?.

Don Kim

Yeah, sure. So we already give the notice to Pharmakon, which is accepted. So we are going to get funded December 16 this year, before the year-end. And with that money, we are going to achieve approximately $100 million at the end of the year..

Paul Choi

And how long is that $100 million assumed to last you through?.

Don Kim

So the $100 million, at least cover 2023, and it's all depending on our Jelmyto revenue and also how we invest and spend the money. So we can pretty much cut a lot of stuff except for our core business, depending on, again, Jelmyto sales and financial market condition goals.

But we are not going to touch anything about the Jelmyto sales growth and usually one or two R&D investment..

Paul Choi

Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking our questions..

Don Kim

Sure..

Liz Barrett

Thanks Paul..

Operator

Our next question comes from Leland Gershell with Oppenheimer. Your line is open..

Leland Gershell

Yeah, thanks. My apologies, I joined a bit late, so I missed the prepared remarks. And I was wondering, did you touch on the use of the nephrostomy tube delivery method, how that's been trending? And I think on your last quarterly call, you mentioned that was a favorable aspect with respect to physician uptake and convenience and so forth.

Has that been playing out? It seems like with the sales in Q3, maybe that has not been as supportive as you had expected. Could you provide some more color? Thank you..

Jeff Bova

Sure. So -- hi Leland. Yes, we are now over 50%. I think the last time we reported; we were around 40% to 45%. That over 50% is still without data that Mark just talked about from Dr. Rose, 32 additional patients that we will be able to go out there and discuss with physicians. And I think you're going to see -- that will start in Q4.

So the effects of that will be Q4 moving onward. But it still slowly was going up even with just a small amount of patients that we had to reference from Dr. Murray. So good that we'll have additional, I think those physicians that were a little reluctant on with just nine patients. We're probably still doing retrograde.

I do think with this additional data, you'll see a big increase in nephrostomy tube administration..

Leland Gershell

Okay. And just to drill a bit further, I mean it seems like there are other hurdles to growth and uptake of Jelmyto.

Could you put into perspective the role that the nephrostomy tube, the move to the nephrostomy tube is offset by other hurdles that still exist, whether it's reimbursement, whether it's other logistical issues, as we think about how Jelmyto is doing here two-plus years into the launch? Thanks..

Jeff Bova

Sure. And I'll couple that with the additional eight-hour stability to 96 hours, how that's going to eliminate a hurdle that was in place a month ago. So nephrostomy tube administration allows convenience for the physician and the patient. Let's start with the physician.

If we didn't have a nephrostomy tube as an opportunity, the physicians would have to go to the OR, to go to the surgery center, they'd have to schedule time. They may or may not have to have another physician trained to give the dose to the same patient just because it doesn't work out from a timing standpoint.

We know that patients would prefer to come to the clinic, more than they would a surgery center or the hospital. So it's just -- it's an overall convenience that we now have more robust data to talk about with those doctors, to your point, solid is a hurdle, maybe not a hurdle that they could overcome, but certainly was a hurdle.

They're excited about the eight to 96 hours. And in fact, just since I talked -- answered to Dipesh's first question, I know that 15 accounts have now gotten the product before -- the day before and had administered in the morning.

By the end of the week, by today, we're going to hit -- we'll have -- or by tomorrow, we'll have up to accounts that are doing that. So they're -- that's probably just as much excitement is getting that stability increase to allow the flexibility.

So if they want to administer in the OR, if they want to administer in the surgery center, they can now do it on their schedule, because of this flexibility. So these two operational hurdles that existed really no longer exist moving forward..

Leland Gershell

Okay. Thank you..

Liz Barrett

Thank you. .

Operator

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call over to Liz Barrett for any closing remarks..

Liz Barrett

Thank you. As always, we appreciate your support and interest in UroGen. We continue to forge new ground in the treatment of urothelial cancers as we change some very long-embedded standards. So we have much to look forward to over the next 24 months. We'll keep our open dialogue as key initiatives play out. So I hope you guys all have a nice day.

And operator, you can now disconnect. Thank you..

Operator

This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Goodbye..

ALL TRANSCRIPTS
2024 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2023 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2022 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2021 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2020 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2019 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2018 Q-4 Q-3 Q-2 Q-1
2017 Q-4 Q-3