On October 3, 2013, PropThink hosted an interview and investor Q&A with Tekmira Pharmaceuticals’ (TKMR) CEO Dr. Mark Murray. A recording and transcript of that event can be found below.
In the interview, Dr. Murray talks extensively about Tekmira’s proprietary LNP technology, a RNAi-delivery mechanism that enables a number of the leading RNAi therapeutics in development. In the interview, he elaborates on the company’s internal pipeline and paints a broader picture of the potential that he sees for the company’s proprietary delivery platform – the most clinically-vetted delivery mechanism globally.
Perhaps most interesting for investors, Tekmira will reveal in a webinar on Tuesday, October 8th a new asset that they plan to move into the clinic. In the PropThink interview, Dr. Murray foreshadowed what that candidate might look like:
We have spent a lot of time looking at potential new targets and ones that are appropriate for RNAi and our technology, and we’ll talk more about this next week. Clearly we get excellent delivery to the liver, an important organ, and so we’re looking carefully at the liver, and we see liver targets as having a high priority. I mentioned a few moments ago that we have very, very strong proof of concept in viral disease, and I think we have dominating experience in antiviral therapy. That’s a scenario where I think we could grow our business. But also you’re well-aware that orphan indications are very attractive and have very interesting features, so thats another area of interest for us. I guess the bottom line is, we see ourselves as an emerging drug development company and you’ll be hearing more about our products as time goes on.
With investor interest in RNAi and siRNA rapidly increasing, PropThink still believes that Tekmira continues to represent a compelling investment opportunity given its low relative valuation, strong balance sheet, and attractive technology platform.
You can read more about Tekmira and its LNP Platform in PropThink’s previous coverage, Own Tekmira for Exposure to RNAi Without Paying Anylam’s Hefty Premium, and The Beginning of a Shift at Tekmira: From Focus on Delivery, to Therapy.
Transcript:
Jake King
Hello everyone and welcome to PropThink’s interview at Tekmira Pharmacuticals, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Mark Murray, I am Jake King, Editor at propthink.com and I will be leading the interview and Q&A today. We’ll be discussing Tekmira, the Company’s lipid nanoparticle delivery platform and Tekmira’s proprietary pipeline with Dr. Murray, who will return the call over to participants for a few questions.
Many of you know we have been interested in Tekmira for quite some time, you can read more of our calls at propthink.com. In the last few months RNAi segment including Tekmira has generated some real interest among the healthcare investing community. Given our interest in facilitating discussion of management we’ll reach out to Dr. Murray to gauge interest in this call and he was happy to oblige.
First of all I have a brief disclaimer for PropThink. Use of PropThink’s research and analysis is at your own risk, your own due diligence before making any investment decisions with respect to securities covered in this call. As disclosed in our previous articles PropThink or its team members have taken a long position in Tekmira. PropThink, LLC is not registered as an investment advisor. To the best of our knowledge and belief, all information on this call is accurate and reliable. PropThink is not being paid or compensated in any forms for this event.
So getting back to you Dr. Murray, I want to welcome you and it sounds like you have your own forward-looking statement to get out of the way.
Mark Murray
I do, thanks Jake. And we really appreciate this opportunity to connect with your audience. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made on today’s call will be forward-looking and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
We do not expect to update forward-looking statements continually as conditions change. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing Tekmira appears in Tekmira’s Form 20-F for the year-ended December 31, 2012 which was filed on EDGAR and SEDAR and is available online under the Investors section at Tekmira’s website at www.tekmirapharm.com.
Back to you Jake.
Jake King
Great, thanks, pleasure to have you on the call Mark. So for our listeners who aren’t familiar with your history, why don’t you give us a rundown of your background particularly in biotech sphere?
Mark Murray
Sure I would be happy to. Well I have a scientific background and I have been in the biotechnology industry for over 25 years. My PhD is in bio-chemistry, following that I did a post-doctoral fellowship at MIT where I was fortunate enough to be part of a team who discovered the first human oncogenes or the mutations which caused cancer in human cells. Following this post doctor fellowship I entered the biotechnology industry, and I worked on the development of a number of protein therapeutics at a company called ZymoGenetics. And some of those protein therapeutics actually went on to achieve FDA approval.
Eventually I became responsible for worldwide business development at ZymoGenetics and its European parent and in 2001 I founded a company named Protiva and in May of 2008 I merged it with Tekmira, and that brings me where I am today.
Jake King
Great. So we’ll jump right into Tekmira and the LNP platform. So I’ll let you just give us some history on RNAi and the role delivery in these therapeutics
Mark Murray
I think one of the important things to appreciate about RNAi interference is this is a naturally occurring pathway, which exists in all cells of the body. So at Tekmira what we’re trying to do is to leverage this naturally occurring pathway to create a revolutionary new class of medicines which takes advantage of this pathway. So RNAi was first discovered in mammalian cells in 2001 and I am proud to say that Tekmira has been associated with really every major advance in the field to present day where we now have several drugs in clinical trials.
Now as you point out Tekmira entered this field by virtue of our invention and technology called LNP or lipid nanoparticle, and this is a critical delivery technology which really enabled the potential of RNAi to become a reality.
Now as you highlighted we are known and brought to this field by being a delivery technology, but I want to point out that I see Tekmira now as an integrated drug development company with simply the best in class delivery.
Now back to the initial part of your question, as companies began to push RNAi therapeutics forward or try to explain RNAi to developed drugs, it became apparent the delivery was rate limiting. And it’s rate limiting because the molecules which actually trigger the interest cellular pathway I mentioned a moment ago, what we call RNAi triggers, these molecules are destroyed when they enter the body unless they are somehow protected with the delivery vehicle.
So for your audience to understand and RNAi therapeutic requires two key components. The so called RNAi trigger molecule and the delivery component. And that delivery protects the triggers successfully delivers it to the target cell in organ and allows RNAi interference to happen. So that’s why we refer to LNP as an enabling technology, delivery in this space isn’t nice to have, it’s a need to have and because without delivery, you simply don’t have a viable RNAi drug.
Jake King
So can you talk about potential indications that can be addressed, is there a limit to the capabilities of RNAi and where is that line drawn?
Mark Murray
Well in principal, the indications for RNAi are limited only by our ability to introduce the RNAi trigger into the relevant cell. So initially the field believed that RNAi could only be affected in the liver because that’s where delivery was achieved. Now in fairness, the liver represents a very significant organ and there is lots of product opportunity in the liver. We at Tekmira are interested in the liver but we don’t want to stop there so we pushed ahead with evolving our delivery technology so that we can get the solid tumors, to immune cells, into the lung and we are even working on applications of the technology outside of human therapeutics for example in agriculture. So while in principal the indications are limitless, delivery will really determine the limits of where RNAi can go and when companies want to test those limits, they generally come to Tekmira for our delivery expertise.
Jake King
Okay and also I think there are probably some misperceptions among the investing community or at least a lack of clarity about sort of LNP may be in prospective of the broader RNAi landscape. So there are a number of companies with delivery platforms, may be could you just talk a little about where LNP fits in that landscape?
Mark Murray
Certainly so I feel confident in saying that we have the best in class delivery for RNAi. Now as I mentioned before, Tekmira and LNP have really enabled the critical milestones in the evolution of the field and certainly RNAi drugs. So for example, we supported eight human clinical trials, LNP based products have been dosed over 200 patients and the critical human proof of concept which has been done with drugs that are based on LNP technology. So I feel very confident saying even that LNP will enable the first FDA approved drugs in the class.
However, I think I see this field as — in a much bigger way. I see the future will involve multiple RNAi drugs approved for treating a variety of diseases. It should easily become a multi-billion dollar class of drugs. LNP will be at the forefront but I do think there is room for others. So we all know that others are exploring conjugate and polymer delivery applications for RNAi. These are promising platforms but they are early in development. We need more data; we need to better understand their potency, their efficacy, their toxicity. And so the verdict is out, remains to be seen where these are going to go. LNP on the other hand, we have been at this for 10 years and we understand it well, it’s very well characterized and we don’t envision being displaced as the leading class in the field. And we also of course, we are not standing still we continue to improve the technology, as I mentioned a moment ago we can get to the lung, immune cells and we can deliver subcutaneously.
Jake King
Excellent, so before we get into your pipeline, why don’t you discuss your exciting collaborations namely how many other companies or therapies are reliant on LNP?
Mark Murray
Okay, so just to reiterate then our business model of course is to collaborate with other companies and while developing our own internal product candidates. We know that pharma is very interested in RNAi interference and most if not all pharma companies are actively evaluating RNAi and exploring it in their R&D units and we know this because we are seeing an incredible amount of interest in our technology and we certainly expect that this will translate into new deals for Tekmira. However, RNAi therapeutics, the drugs are really being pushed ahead by the pure play companies in the RNAi space like Tekmira. So our technology enables leading drugs in the class, most notably the advanced product being developed Alnylam-TTR02.
Jake King
And have you ever publicly discussed the milestone payments or royalties associated with Alnylam assets?
Mark Murray
For the TTR02 products I mentioned a moment ago Alnylam lead product, we are entitled to a $5 million milestone payment when they initiate phase III clinical trials and they have guided that they will do that before the end of this year. We are also entitled to a low single digit royalty on their future product sales of that product but that exact figure we haven’t disclosed
Two of their other products and developments, the PSE product and the VSP products, we are also — those are also based on LNP and we’re entitled to again a low single digit royalty on their net sales and we also are entitled to a $5 million milestone on the VSP product. And I just would add that as this class of medicines continues to generate positive clinical data and others are more interested in the LNP technology that we expect the economics of future deals to improve.
Jake King
Sure. So let’s jump in and talk about TKM-PLK1, which just ended up proof of concept trial. Why don’t you talk about the results you saw in the previous Phase 1 and then how they ultimately directed to occur in a trial.
Mark Murray
Okay, so let me remind your audience that PLK1 is a validated oncology target, and we believe it’s one that’s ideally suited for an RNAi approach. So PLK we know plays a critical role in cell division and is necessary for tumor cell growth. We also know that if you inhibit or silence PLK1 you induce tumor cell death. So as you highlighted we’ve completed a Phase I human clinical study done in patients baring solid tumors and we completed it earlier this year. And you’ll also know that like in any Phase I study our obligation was to establish safety, to establish a maximally tolerated dose but we also were able to look for early signs in drug activity.
And we have said publicly and I’ll reiterate here we’re very excited about what we’ve seen, in particular two small groups of patients, one patients with a tumor called gastroenteric neuroendocrine tumor, we treated two such patients in the trial and both of them received a clinical benefit one of them actually had what’s classified as a partial response which is a dramatic reduction in their tumor mass. We also treated a number of patients with a rare tumor called adrenal cortical cancer and several of those patients also received clinical benefit from being treated with TKM-PLK1.
So based on these early signs of drug activity in these two indications we’ve have announced that we’re proceeding with a 20 patient Phase I/II clinical trial that is ongoing. And we expect the data to emerge from that trial in the first half of next year.
Jake King
Yes, so I think one of the major questions that we get, we recently saw that a company moved their PLK1 inhibitor forward in the clinical in a particular blood cancer and the drug course received breakthrough designation from the FDA. So do you — I guess the question do you have plans to move TKM-PLK1 into hematological cancers as well? Is it something you wait I guess?
Mark Murray
Well, we certainly have waited. So [Boehringer Ingelheim] is the company and as you point out they recently received breakthrough designation for their small molecule PLK1 inhibitor. Now let me point out how they are the LNP formulation that we are using in the TKM-PLK1 agent was one that we have specifically designed to reach solid tumor, disseminated solid tumor. So while we haven’t rule ability of looking at [indiscernible] tumors our immediate plans are to go forward with solid tumors in the niche indications of GI-NET and ACC we think that’s where we have a distinct competitive advantage.
So the other thing to remember about both of these indications is that they lack — they currently lack effective therapies for patients. In particular in case of GI-NET there is no approved therapy available for these patients. So we feel that success in the Phase I/II trial in that indication sets us up very nicely to move forward and expedite the drugs development.
Jake King
Sure, and did you consider screening for higher expression PLK1? Try to enrich the patient population overall?
Mark Murray
Yes, we have considered it but let me remind you, so PLK1 it’s well established in the literature that is regulated in many-many tumor types. So we expect that patients with these diseases will have elevated PLK1. But from a practical point of view PLK1 is not detectable in the blood so you have to look for it in an actual tumor biopsy. So if we were to require that to patients it would affect our ability to accrue the trial, accrue patients into the trial and it is probably not considered in the best interest of the patients. So net-net we’ve concluded that it’s not useful to do in the setting.
Now I will point out though you raised a good question and that’s the question of sort of biomarkers really. And we are looking at that and we may in fact have a biomarker that would help guide us through the development of this drug and we’ll be disclosing more about that over the next several days to weeks.
Jake King
Sure interesting and you just announced next week you’re obviously having this, I guess a pipeline update call which I guess we’ll talk about little later. Real quick, so why does single arm design as opposed to placebo controlled in this trial?
Mark Murray
This is a good question, I’m asked this question frequently, it really comes down to the clinical situation for these patients and the bottom line is; there is no approved therapy and no real standard of care. So there is nothing that we really need to compare to. So we believe and we’ve looked carefully at this that a single arm trial with proper results of course would be sufficient to support FDA approval. We just — we don’t think this is a setting where a placebo arm is necessary.
Jake King
Interesting, so you recently presented some compelling numbers for the TKM-Marburg assay, which we really hadn’t heard much about before, so what’s the go forward plan with that and TKM-Ebola as well and any idea whether you’ll pursue government funding somewhere than Ebola contract for the Marburg assay?
Mark Murray
Sure, okay, well maybe let me talk about both of them a little bit independently, so Ebola — let me remind you, we’re developing this drug under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, $140 million product development contract. We are in the so called first phase in that and the activity that we’re focused on at the moment is to introduce into the program a more potent LNP formulation and I think you referred to the data a moment ago that in a nutshell we’re able to get 100% protection of animals from a lethal dose of Ebola virus with 75% reduced dose.
So we’re in the process of integrating that formulation into the program and the next step is to take this agent into human healthy subjects to assess the safety of the drug and we’re on track to do that in Q1 of next year. Now with respect to Marburg, you’ve also seen that we have similar very nice potency data where we’re able to prevent animals from dying from Marburg virus with relatively low doses of the LNP agent. We believe that there is an opportunity here to expand our government relationship in ways similar to what we’re now doing with Ebola. We are certainly interested in it and we certainly will be exploring it
Jake King
We have talked a little about — I’m sorry the question is how many trials and how many nonhuman primate trials which need to run as well as the safety study? What is the full clinical program look like at least for TKM-Ebola?
Mark Murray
Okay so you remind me to mention something important, so this drug; the TKM-Ebola drug, the product development construct that you go under with the FDA, it’s called the Animal Rule, and so we do the first safety studies in humans and then we do the efficacy studies in primates. So the program is designed to do these serially; in order words we do the human safety study first and then we follow that with a primate study. I don’t know — I can’t tell you today exactly how many animals are in the study that depends on the study designed and so forth, but you have a number where the statistics allow you to make an efficacy conclusion the way you might in humans. Did that answer the question
Jake King
Yes, I mean — I guess, the bigger question is, how many trials does it take? I guess, what’s the timeline realistically?
Mark Murra
Okay, so as I said we’re going to start the safety Phase 1 in Q1 of next year. I believe that puts us in a position to start the animal efficacy before the end of next year and that trial probably takes a number of months to complete. Again, I don’t have the study designed right in front of me.
Jake King
So [indiscernible] people and Marburg are rather relatively speaking not many people contracted infections, what’s the opportunity like with the drug and how do you commercialize these kind of products?
Mark Murray
Good question, so the thing to remember here is in the eyes of the U.S. Government, these products represent therapies for very serious unmet needs. But your question and many question is really around what’s the procurement look like. So at an appropriate point in the evolution of the program, the government in a position to enter into a procurement discussion with the Tekmira, so in order to try to get a handle on what that looks like we look that the procurement contracts that the government has put out over the last many years and tried to develop sort of an average price that they might pay for a drug like this. And then multiply that times what we think the annual need would be, and we’ve estimated, we forecast, that we think procurement of TKM-Ebola could generate easily over $100 million a year in manufacturing annually to Tekmira. And before I leave that I just — the revenue is of course very nice, but it also — these relationships in Ebola and potentially in Marburg provide us with really, really powerful proof-of-concept for antiviral therapies based on RNAi.
Jake King
Kay, well so let’s return to the earlier discussion of the platform itself. We’ve heard a little bit more about your early with subcutaneous delivery. And your competitors are starving to define its base and its contacts which is sort of what makes this exciting to investors at least for Tekmira. So do you think subcu is a shift or an upgrade or is this just another avenue and is it — I guess is it necessary to repeat?
Mark Murray
Yes, so from where I sit, RNAi therapies are going to be a multi-billion dollar class in medicines, okay. And they are going to get there by having a range of products, addressing a range of clinical indications and probably employing more than one delivery technology. And that specifically with respect to subcu, I think I can certainly see where this mode of delivery could be a useful modality in certain indications or certain markets, okay. But I don’t think it’s going to displace LNP IV. And don’t think it’s needed in many high value clinical indications, right.
But you point out there is work there, there is interest in it, we recognize the potential and we have been exploring it ourselves. So, we know that we can administer LNP subcutaneously, we know that we can get knocked down of a liver target. And we believe we can do this at doses significantly lower or i.e. at higher potencies than what other technology has been able to accomplish, right. But if I look forward and I think about the first RNAi drugs that are developed in the space, I am pretty confident that the first approvals are going to be based on LNP and IV administration, okay.
So, I think the jury is still out frankly on subcu formulations, but I think if the potency gets there and the safety gets there and the market is big enough, they maybe there.
Jake King
Sorry, it’s great to have that in your words. So, the IPed landscape for you guys was a little clouded for a few years, but now that you have all the LNP IP universal property returns to Tekmira, are you seeing some renewed interest from, I guess from large pharma or just from other players in this space?
Mark Murray
Yes, we certainly are, I would say the interest in our technology has never been higher. So, we’re getting expressions of interest from big pharma, big bio, small bio and even as I’ve alluded to before, companies outside the pharmaceutical or human therapeutic space, right. So, we’re never able to predict precisely when these arrangements can be consummated and so we don’t guide them. But I can confidently say we will do more deals.
Jake King
And why don’t you update us on your cash position and guidance for 2013 Mark, and then maybe asses a little bit your royalty stream on Marqibo on where you should be going?
Mark Murray
Sure, so, Jake as of June 30, 2013 we had a little over $40 million in cash. And we have guided that this will last us into the middle of 2015. And that includes the fully funded PLK development programs that we’ve talked about, as well as advancing new programs into clinical development which we’ll talk about at our webinar next week, alright.
Now, one of the things that is important to remember is we have the benefit now of an already approved product. So the first product to receive approval based on LNP technology is Marqibo. Okay. Marqibo as you know is a liposomal formulation of vincristine and it was launched last month by Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. So, we’re expecting royalty payments to flow from them and it’s worth pointing out that they continue to expand the clinical development at Marqibo into lymphoma and leukemia. And as they are able to broaden the label and the market opportunity then we’ll continue to get significantly higher royalty payments from them.
And then of course as you go further into the future with RNAi products approved, we see Tekmira being the beneficiary of multiple sources of revenue based on our technology.
Jake King
It’s great and, so we’ve discussed the potential for expansion of your platform a little bit. And you guys have mentioned repeatedly this year a new asset. Can you give us any sort of insight on that?
Mark Murray
Well we’re going to talk very explicitly about it next week on the webinar as you and I have already touched upon here. Maybe what I could say today is that, we have spent a lot of time looking at potential new targets, and ones that are appropriate for RNAi and our technology and we’ll talk on more about this next week. Clearly we get excellent delivery to the liver, an important organ and so we’re looking carefully at the liver and we see liver targets as having a high priority.
I mentioned a few moments ago that we have very-very strong proof of concept in viral disease and I think we have dominating experience in antiviral therapy. That’s an area where I think we could grow our business. But also you are well aware that, orphan indications in rare diseases are very attractive and have very interesting feature, so that’s another area of interest to us. I guess the bottom line is we see ourselves as an emerging drug development company and you will be hearing more about our products as time goes on.
Jake King
Great, thanks we will look forward to that call next week, that’s next Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern time. Is that right?
Mark Murray
That’s right.
Jake King
So holding up on the lines for questions; why don’t you quickly run down Tekmira’s upcoming milestones as you see them
Mark Murray
I will be happy to do that. So let’s maybe first talk about our partner’s milestones. So Alnylam as you know will be initiating a phase III clinical trial for TTR02 by the end of the year. And that will trigger to us a $5 million milestone payment. We talked a moment ago about Marqibo and so their continuing product sales in generating revenue to us is something we are keeping eye on and should be of interest to everybody.
And with respect to our own products TKM-Ebolo, we will be beginning a phase I trial in healthy volunteers in Q1. And TKM-PLK, the oncology asset, we will be completing the ongoing phase I -2 study in GI–NET and ACC and releasing that data in the first half of next year. And as you know we’re also initiating a phase I study in hepatocellular carcinoma with PLK in the first half of next year. Our next products for development will — we will introduce in our webinar next Tuesday, and you will be seeing BD deals from us as well; and potentially also more Biodefense activity. That’s what to keep an eye on over the next several months.
Jake King
Great, well thank you very much Mark. We are going to go ahead and open the line up to questions now. (Operator Instructions) First one, I do have an email here from Dr. Nick Oakes (ph) he is a reader and he is curious that the government shut down all the debt feeling, which is pretty pertinent, would adversely affect the progress on TKM-Ebolo, or I guess Marburg, I guess if you go out and offer the [indiscernible].
Mark Murray
Sure, so Jake, we’re obviously keeping a close eye on that. The signals we have thus far is that we won’t be affected for the time being. But we obviously will be watching that
Jake King
We are going to go ahead and open the lineup. Caller, your line should be open.
Question-and-Answer Session
Greg Greenberg – Wells Fargo Advisors
This is Greg Greenberg with Wells Fargo Advisors, just trying to kind of get an idea; I now we talked about how the improvement in the LNP technologies in terms you said it’s 10 times more potent. Can you give us an idea between TTR02, the delivery system being used there? And what you’re actually using now? What’s the difference in potency?
Mark Murray
So, I am just trying to think whether we want to work with which class of numbers. I would say that we believe that the current version of LNP is approximately 10 times more potent than what is being used for TTR02.
Greg Greenberg – Wells Fargo Advisors
And then as far as uses in agriculture, can you give us — will you be using a delivery system to engineer, to grow viruses — to grow vaccine, what kind of implications are there?
Mark Murray
Interesting and good question, so the RNAi interference mechanism acts in plant cells and in insect cells. And so a number of ag companies have been exploring this for years and they end up with a similar problem as I described a moment ago for human therapeutics, and that is they have so called RNAi trigger molecules, but they can’t get them into the plant or into the insect. So it’s sort of an analogous challenge. But it’s not vaccine, it’s actually ways to modify the plant or in the case of insects to sort of kill the insect and control the population of the insect.
Greg Greenberg – Wells Fargo Advisors
If I recall I think Alnylam, one of their announced deals may be with Monsanto. So at that time is that using your delivery technology?
Mark Murray
What Monsanto and Alnylam did a number of years, as I said Monsanto or other ag companies are actively involved in using RNAi trigger molecules. So Monsanto was granted a license under the Alnylam intellectual property for their trigger molecules.
Greg Greenberg – Wells Fargo Advisors
There is incredible interest; hopefully we will be able to hear some announced deals in the near future, maybe even Tuesday.
Mark Murray
I think I already said we don’t guide on the deals.
Unidentified Analyst
This is Darren Mills [ph] I am a private investor. I am just curious if you can lay out who are the big pharma players [indiscernible] for the RNAi?
Mark Murray
I am sorry didn’t quite hear you?
Unidentified Analyst
I am just curious if you can lay out some of the big players, big pharma players that signed the delivery deals for the RNAi?
Mark Murray
So the big historical deals are deals are deals that were done say between Alnylam and Roche, Alnylam and Novartis. They may have had elements of delivery in them, but I don’t know exactly and there was also a Takeda deal. So all of them would have some aspects of delivery technology. I would add to this that whatever they have is several generations old. So from our perspective basically all pharma companies need delivery, need current versions of delivery.
Unidentified Analyst
Yes, this is Natasha, I am wondering if you could talk a little bit about your Q1 in relation to [indiscernible] maybe compare that data for us. And I will take [indiscernible].
Mark Murray
Well we have not done a direct comparison; the — I think generally those drugs have been shown to have activity but high toxicity and a narrow therapeutic index. So we see TKM-PLK1 is being rather different in a rather different tumor population.
Unidentified Analyst
Hi my name is Patrick from Primary Research Group. I was curious about your plans of your plans with the PLK program, I mean whether or not you are going to use some sort of diagnostic to look at PLK positive versus PLK negative kind of like you outlined in your recent slides?
Mark Murray
Well I touched on this a bit earlier and this is certainly something that we’re thinking about all the time, just because of the fact that you have to do a tumor biopsy to ask that question, it really effects your ability to accrue patients in the trial, that’s a key point. I think the other point is that many, many tumors that have already been looked at have up regulated PLK. So we’re struggling to see that it really provides us any benefit. We do think there will be other markers that will be useful and we’ll be talking more about those over the next several days. But it may not be the PLK as the marker that’s very useful.
Unidentified Analyst
Thanks for taking the call. My name is [indiscernible] emphasize earlier regarding your delivery system and saw some very robust preclinical data in liver diseases and I wonder if you may comment on like it’s potential in diseases like HPV, hepatitis B and also like the competitive landscaping in this area are — particularly regarding like technologies used by Arrowhead.
Mark Murray
So you certainly know from what I have said already today that we see the liver as an important target organ and you will also know from what I have said today that we have a high level of interest and I would say a dominating level of experience and expertise in the antiviral space. So we are not going to comments specifically today but as I said already we think antiviral is a very interesting place to grow our business. Now what we know about Arrowhead is what you know, what’s in the public domain. They are also developing an RNAi product, a rather different delivery approach and we don’t know that much more about it than you do.
Rajesh Patel – Red Acre Capital
I was just wondering, I know you are going to be announcing next week about your new pipelines assets but the cash guidance you gave about cash through 2015 does that include whatever new assets and what you would be doing with them through 2015
Mark Murray
Yes it does-yes it does, we have anticipated what our development cost would be and so that figure does include new assets going forward.
Jake King
Great, well Mark that all we are showing for questions. At the moment we will wrap things up. On behalf of PropThink thanks for joining us.
Mark Murray
Well, thank you Jake and we are really pleased to get a chance to talk to your audience.
Jake King
Great, folks you can read more actionable insight and analysis of publically traded healthcare companies at PropThink.com. In addition you can sign up for a free 30 day trial of our head description product PropThink premium on the site and as well as follow us on Twitter at @PropThinker. Again thanks for joining us and this concludes our call with Dr. Murray. Stay tuned for more of these events from PropThink as the year unfolds. Take care.
In connection with TKMR, PropThink has taken a long position.
