Denali Therapeutics Inc. Aktienkurs
Insights zu Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Insights
Mit KI besser investieren
aktien.guide Unlimited – alle Details der KI-Analysen
👉 Detailliertere Insights
👉 Exklusive Einblicke in Chancen & Risiken
👉 Klare Antworten auf deine Fragen
Mit KI besser investieren
aktien.guide Unlimited – alle Details der KI-Analysen
👉 Detailliertere Insights
👉 Exklusive Einblicke in Chancen & Risiken
👉 Klare Antworten auf deine Fragen
Mit KI besser investieren
aktien.guide Unlimited – alle Details der KI-Analysen
👉 Detailliertere Insights
👉 Exklusive Einblicke in Chancen & Risiken
👉 Klare Antworten auf deine Fragen
Mit KI besser investieren
aktien.guide Unlimited – alle Details der KI-Analysen
👉 Detailliertere Insights
👉 Exklusive Einblicke in Chancen & Risiken
👉 Klare Antworten auf deine Fragen
Ist Denali Therapeutics Inc. eine Topscorer-Aktie nach der Dividenden-, High-Growth-Investing- oder Levermann-Strategie?
Als kostenloser aktien.guide Basis-Nutzer kannst Du die Scores zu allen 7.601 weltweiten Aktien einsehen.
aktien.guide Premium
aktien.guide Unlimited
Kennzahlen
📘 Marktkapitalisierung
📈 Was ist das?
Die Marktkapitalisierung zeigt, wie viel ein Unternehmen laut Börse aktuell wert ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie hilft Unternehmen in Größenklassen (Large, Mid, Small Cap) einzuordnen und gibt Hinweise auf Marktmacht und Stabilität.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Große Unternehmen gelten als stabiler, zahlen oft Dividenden, wachsen aber langsamer.
- Kleine Firmen können stärker wachsen, sind aber schwankungsanfälliger.
- Die Marktkapitalisierung ist ein guter Indikator für Unternehmensgröße, aber kein Maß für Unter- oder Überbewertung.
📘 Enterprise Value (Unternehmenswert)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Enterprise Value (EV) zeigt, was ein Unternehmen tatsächlich kostet, wenn man es komplett übernehmen würde – inklusive Schulden und abzüglich Cash.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
(= Marktkapitalisierung + Nettoverschuldung)
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der EV ist eine realistischere Bewertungsbasis als die Marktkapitalisierung, da er die Kapitalstruktur berücksichtigt. Er ist Grundlage für Kennzahlen wie EV/FCF oder EV/Sales.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Der Enterprise Value zeigt, was ein Unternehmen tatsächlich wert ist – unabhängig davon, wie es finanziert ist.
- Er ist besonders wichtig für professionelle Investoren, da er eine objektivere Grundlage für Bewertungsvergleiche bietet als die Marktkapitalisierung allein.
- Ein Unternehmen mit hoher Verschuldung erscheint im EV teurer, eines mit viel Cash günstiger – auch wenn sie an der Börse gleich viel wert sind.
📘 Nettoverschuldung
📈 Was ist das?
Die Nettoverschuldung zeigt, wie viele Schulden nach Abzug des verfügbaren Cashs tatsächlich verbleiben.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie zeigt, wie stark ein Unternehmen von Fremdkapital abhängig ist – und wie gut es in der Lage ist, seine Schulden kurzfristig zu bedienen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine niedrige oder negative Nettoverschuldung bedeutet hohe finanzielle Stabilität.
- Unternehmen mit viel Cash und geringer Verschuldung sind besser gerüstet für Krisen.
- Eine hohe Nettoverschuldung erhöht das Risiko – besonders bei steigenden Zinsen oder konjunkturellen Schwächen.
📘 Cash
📈 Was ist das?
Der Cashbestand zeigt, wie viele liquide Mittel einem Unternehmen sofort zur Verfügung stehen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Er gibt Auskunft über die finanzielle Flexibilität: Ein hoher Cashbestand ermöglicht Investitionen, Rückkäufe oder Krisenresistenz.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Cashbestand zeigt finanzielle Stärke und Handlungsspielraum.
- Cash kann für Investitionen, Schuldentilgung oder Aktienrückkäufe genutzt werden.
- Allerdings: Zu viel ungenutztes Kapital kann auch auf mangelnde Investitionsideen hinweisen.
📘 Anzahl ausstehender Aktien
📈 Was ist das?
Die Anzahl ausstehender Aktien gibt an, wie viele Aktien eines Unternehmens aktuell im Umlauf sind und von Investoren gehalten werden.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie ist die Grundlage für viele Kennzahlen wie Gewinn je Aktie (EPS), Marktkapitalisierung oder KGV.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Je weniger Aktien im Umlauf sind, desto höher fällt z. B. der Gewinn je Aktie aus – wichtig für Bewertung und Dividendenrendite.
- Aktienrückkäufe verringern die Anzahl ausstehender Aktien – und steigern den Wert je Aktie.
- Kapitalerhöhungen haben den gegenteiligen Effekt: mehr Aktien → Verwässerung der bestehenden Anteile.
📘 Kurs-Gewinn-Verhältnis (KGV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KGV zeigt, wie oft der Gewinn pro Aktie im aktuellen Aktienkurs enthalten ist – also wie „teuer“ eine Aktie im Verhältnis zum Gewinn ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KGV gehört zu den bekanntesten Bewertungskennzahlen. Es hilft Anlegern einzuschätzen, ob eine Aktie im Vergleich zu ihrem Gewinn eher günstig oder teuer erscheint.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges KGV kann auf eine günstige Bewertung hindeuten – oder auf Probleme im Geschäftsmodell.
- Ein hohes KGV kann Wachstumserwartungen widerspiegeln – oder eine überbewertete Aktie.
📘 Kurs-Umsatz-Verhältnis (KUV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KUV zeigt, wie viel Anleger für 1 € Umsatz eines Unternehmens zahlen – unabhängig vom Gewinn.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KUV ist besonders bei wachstumsstarken oder noch nicht profitablen Unternehmen hilfreich. Es zeigt, wie hoch der Umsatz an der Börse bewertet wird.
🧮 Berechnung
Marktkapitalisierung = 4,06 Mrd. $ | Umsatz erwartet = 23,51 Mio. $
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges KUV kann auf Unterbewertung hindeuten – oder auf schwache Margen.
- Ein hohes KUV kann hohe Erwartungen widerspiegeln – oder übermäßigen Optimismus.
- Besonders sinnvoll bei Wachstumsunternehmen, bei denen der Gewinn oder Free Cashflow (noch) keine Aussagekraft hat.
📘 Unternehmenswert zu Umsatz (EV/Sales)
📈 Was ist das?
EV/Sales zeigt, wie viel Anleger für 1 € Umsatz eines Unternehmens zahlen, wenn man auch Schulden und Cash berücksichtigt – es ist eine kapitalstrukturbereinigte Version des KUV.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl eignet sich besonders für den Vergleich von Unternehmen mit unterschiedlicher Verschuldung – sie zeigt, wie teuer ein Unternehmen tatsächlich im Verhältnis zum Umsatz ist.
🧮 Berechnung
Enterprise Value = 3,08 Mrd. $ | Umsatz erwartet = 23,51 Mio. $
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- EV/Sales ist neutral gegenüber der Kapitalstruktur und eignet sich gut für Unternehmensvergleiche.
- Ein niedriges Verhältnis kann auf eine günstig bewertete Aktie hindeuten – ein hohes Verhältnis auf hohe Erwartungen oder Überbewertung.
- Besonders nützlich bei wachstumsstarken, noch nicht profitablen Firmen.
📘 Unternehmenswert zu Free Cashflow (EV/FCF)
📈 Was ist das?
EV/FCF zeigt, wie viele Jahre es dauern würde, bis ein Unternehmen seinen Unternehmenswert durch freien Cashflow „zurückverdient”.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl hilft, Unternehmen auf Basis ihrer tatsächlichen Cash-Erträge zu bewerten – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln oder buchhalterischem Gewinn.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriges EV/FCF deutet auf eine günstige Bewertung bei starker Cashgenerierung hin.
- Ein hohes EV/FCF kann entweder auf Optimismus oder auf temporär schwachen Cashflow hindeuten.
- Besonders hilfreich bei reifen, profitablen Unternehmen mit stabilen Cashflows.
📘 Kurs-Buchwert-Verhältnis (KBV)
📈 Was ist das?
Das KBV zeigt, wie hoch der Marktwert eines Unternehmens im Verhältnis zu seinem bilanziellen Eigenkapital ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das KBV ist besonders bei Substanzwerten (z. B. Banken, Industrie) relevant. Es hilft Anlegern zu erkennen, ob ein Unternehmen unter oder über seinem buchhalterischen Vermögen bewertet ist.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein KBV unter 1 kann auf Unterbewertung oder schwache Rentabilität hindeuten.
- Ein KBV über 1 zeigt, dass der Markt dem Unternehmen Mehrwert über den Buchwert hinaus zuschreibt (z. B. Marken, Patente, Wachstum).
- Das KBV eignet sich besonders gut für Unternehmen mit stabilen, materiellen Vermögenswerten.
📘 Eigenkapitalquote
📈 Was ist das?
Die Eigenkapitalquote zeigt, wie hoch der Anteil des Eigenkapitals an der Bilanzsumme eines Unternehmens ist – also wie stark es sich aus eigenen Mitteln finanziert.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Eine hohe Eigenkapitalquote steht für finanzielle Stabilität, Krisenfestigkeit und gute Bonität. Sie ist besonders relevant bei der Beurteilung der Verschuldung.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Eigenkapitalquote signalisiert finanzielle Stabilität – besonders in Krisenzeiten.
- Ein niedriger Wert kann auf ein höheres Risiko oder eine aggressive Verschuldung hinweisen.
- Wichtig: Die Eigenkapitalquote sollte immer gemeinsam mit der Eigenkapitalrendite betrachtet werden. Nur so lässt sich beurteilen, ob ein Unternehmen nicht nur solide, sondern auch effizient wirtschaftet.
📘 Eigenkapitalrendite (ROE)
📈 Was ist das?
Die Eigenkapitalrendite zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen mit dem Kapital seiner Aktionäre arbeitet – also wie viel Gewinn es pro Euro Eigenkapital erwirtschaftet.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Eigenkapitalrendite ist eine zentrale Rentabilitätskennzahl. Sie hilft Anlegern zu erkennen, ob das Unternehmen eine attraktive Verzinsung auf das eingesetzte Eigenkapital erwirtschaftet.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Eigenkapitalrendite spricht für ein starkes, effizientes Geschäftsmodell.
- Besonders interessant ist sie bei kapitalintensiven Firmen oder solchen mit hoher Eigenkapitalquote.
- Wichtig: Ein sehr hoher ROE kann auch auf hohe Schulden hinweisen – daher sollte sie immer im Kontext mit der Eigenkapitalquote betrachtet werden.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 Was ist das?
ROCE misst die Gesamtrentabilität eines Unternehmens – also wie effizient es das eingesetzte Kapital (Eigen- und Fremdkapital) zur Gewinnerzielung nutzt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Das eingesetzte Kapital ist das gesamte betriebsnotwendige Kapital, unabhängig von der Finanzierungsquelle.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
ROCE eignet sich besonders gut für den Vergleich unterschiedlich finanzierter Unternehmen. Es zeigt, wie effektiv ein Unternehmen Kapital investiert – unabhängig von der Kapitalstruktur.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher ROCE zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen sein Kapital effizient einsetzt – unabhängig davon, ob es durch Eigen- oder Fremdkapital finanziert ist.
- Je höher der ROCE im Vergleich zu ähnlichen Unternehmen, desto mehr Wert schafft das Unternehmen mit seinem investierten Kapital.
- Besonders wichtig ist der ROCE bei Firmen mit hohen Investitionen – z. B. in Industrie, Energie oder Infrastruktur.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 Was ist das?
ROIC zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen das Kapital investiert, das langfristig im operativen Geschäft gebunden ist – unabhängig davon, ob es aus Eigen- oder Fremdkapital stammt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
- NOPAT = „Net Operating Profit After Taxes“
- Investiertes Kapital = operatives Vermögen abzüglich nicht-verzinster Schulden
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
ROIC ist eine der präzisesten Kennzahlen zur Bewertung der Kapitalrendite – besonders im Vergleich zur Eigenkapitalrendite, weil es Verzerrungen durch Schulden vermeidet. Er zeigt, ob ein Unternehmen Mehrwert für alle Kapitalgeber schafft.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher ROIC zeigt, wie gut ein Unternehmen mit dem tatsächlich investierten (betriebsnotwendigen) Kapital wirtschaftet.
- Im Unterschied zu ROCE wird nur Kapital betrachtet, das wirklich zur Finanzierung operativer Aktivitäten dient – und verzinst werden muss.
- Besonders hilfreich, um die Kapitalrendite von Unternehmen mit viel „überschüssigem“ Kapital oder zinsfreien Verbindlichkeiten realistisch zu vergleichen.
📘 Verschuldungsgrad (Leverage Ratio)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Verschuldungsgrad zeigt, wie stark ein Unternehmen durch verzinsliche Schulden (z. B. Kredite und Anleihen) im Verhältnis zum Eigenkapital finanziert ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Kennzahl hilft, das finanzielle Risiko und die Abhängigkeit von Fremdkapital zu beurteilen. Ein hoher Verschuldungsgrad kann die Eigenkapitalrendite steigern – birgt aber auch erhöhte Risiken bei Zinsanstiegen oder Liquiditätsengpässen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriger Verschuldungsgrad steht für finanzielle Stabilität und Unabhängigkeit.
- Ein hoher Wert kann auf erhöhte Risiken hinweisen – insbesondere bei schwankenden Zinsen oder konjunkturellen Schwächen.
- Wichtig: Immer im Kontext zur Branche und Kapitalintensität bewerten.
📘 Umsatz
📈 Was ist das?
Der Umsatz zeigt, wie viel ein Unternehmen insgesamt mit seinen Produkten und Dienstleistungen verdient – also den Bruttoerlös vor Abzug von Kosten.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Umsatz ist eine der zentralen Kennzahlen zur Einschätzung der Unternehmensgröße, Marktstellung und Wachstumskraft.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein wachsender Umsatz zeigt eine steigende Nachfrage und kann ein guter Frühindikator für Gewinnsteigerungen sein.
- Vergleiche von aktuellem und erwartetem Umsatz geben Hinweise auf das Marktumfeld und Analystenerwartungen.
- Wichtig: Starker Umsatz allein genügt nicht – auch Margen und Profitabilität zählen.
📘 EBITDA
📈 Was ist das?
EBITDA steht für „Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization“ – also Gewinn vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen. Es zeigt das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens, bereinigt um bilanztechnische und finanzierungsbedingte Effekte.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EBITDA ist eine verbreitete Kennzahl zur Beurteilung der operativen Leistungsfähigkeit – insbesondere bei kapitalintensiven Unternehmen oder im internationalen Vergleich.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hohes oder wachsendes EBITDA spricht für starke operative Erträge – unabhängig von Bilanzierung oder Steuerlast.
- EBITDA ist besonders nützlich, um Unternehmen branchenübergreifend zu vergleichen.
- Wichtig: EBITDA ist keine offizielle Gewinnkennzahl – Abschreibungen und Finanzierungskosten werden ausgeklammert.
📘 EBIT
📈 Was ist das?
EBIT steht für „Earnings Before Interest and Taxes“ – also Gewinn vor Zinsen und Steuern. Es zeigt das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Finanzierungs- und Steueraufwand.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EBIT ist eine zentrale Kennzahl zur Beurteilung der Profitabilität aus dem Kerngeschäft – unabhängig von Kapitalstruktur oder Steuersystem.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hohes EBIT deutet auf ein profitables Kerngeschäft hin – vor Zinslasten oder steuerlichen Effekten.
- Es erlaubt objektivere Vergleiche zwischen Unternehmen mit unterschiedlicher Finanzierung.
- Im Vergleich mit EBITDA zeigt EBIT bereits den Einfluss von Abschreibungen auf das operative Ergebnis.
📘 Nettogewinn
📈 Was ist das?
Der Nettogewinn ist der verbleibende Jahresüberschuss (oder -fehlbetrag) eines Unternehmens – nach Abzug aller Kosten, Steuern, Zinsen und Abschreibungen
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Nettogewinn ist die zentrale Erfolgskennzahl – er zeigt, wie profitabel ein Unternehmen nach allen Kosten tatsächlich arbeitet.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein steigender Nettogewinn zeigt, dass das Unternehmen effizient wirtschaftet – trotz aller Kosten.
- Die Entwicklung des Gewinns beeinflusst z. B. direkt das KGV und weitere Kennzahlen.
- Im Zeitverlauf lässt sich ablesen, wie stabil und profitabel ein Geschäftsmodell wirklich ist.
📘 Free Cashflow (FCF)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Free Cashflow gibt Aufschluss über die echte finanzielle Stärke eines Unternehmens – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln. Er zeigt, wie viel Spielraum für Dividenden, Aktienrückkäufe oder Schuldenabbau besteht.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Free Cashflow bedeutet, dass ein Unternehmen echte Finanzkraft besitzt – unabhängig vom bilanzierten Gewinn.
- Er ist oft die solideste Grundlage für nachhaltige Dividenden und Aktienrückkäufe.
- Sinkender FCF kann ein Warnsignal sein – auch wenn der Gewinn stabil aussieht.
📘 Umsatzwachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Umsatzwachstum zeigt, wie stark sich die Erlöse eines Unternehmens im Vergleich zum Vorjahr verändert haben – tatsächlich (TTM) und auf Prognosebasis (erwartet).
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (Umsatz erwartet ÷ Umsatz Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Ein wachsender Umsatz ist ein zentrales Signal für steigende Nachfrage, Geschäftsausweitung und Marktanteilsgewinne – besonders bei Wachstumsunternehmen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Wachstum ist der Motor langfristiger Wertsteigerung – besonders bei Technologie- und Wachstumsaktien.
- Wichtig ist nicht nur das aktuelle Wachstum, sondern auch dessen Nachhaltigkeit.
- Prognosen zeigen, ob Analysten weiteres Potenzial erwarten – oder eine Verlangsamung.
📘 EBITDA-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das EBITDA-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gestiegen oder gesunken ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwartetes EBITDA ÷ EBITDA Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Ein steigendes EBITDA ist ein Zeichen für verbesserte operative Ertragskraft – unabhängig von Finanzierungsstruktur oder Abschreibungen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Starkes EBITDA-Wachstum signalisiert operative Effizienz und Skalierung – besonders relevant in Wachstumsphasen.
- EBITDA-Wachstum ist ein Frühindikator für Margen- und Gewinnentwicklung – sollte aber stets im Zusammenhang mit Umsatz und EBIT betrachtet werden.
📘 EBIT Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das EBIT-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark das operative Ergebnis eines Unternehmens (nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Zinsen und Steuern) im Vergleich zum Vorjahr gewachsen ist.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwartetes EBIT ÷ EBIT Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Erwartetes Wachstum basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Das EBIT-Wachstum ist ein direkter Indikator für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des operativen Geschäfts – unter Berücksichtigung der Kapitalintensität (Abschreibungen).
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Steigendes EBIT signalisiert wachsende operative Rentabilität – auch unter Berücksichtigung von Abschreibungen.
- Das EBIT-Wachstum ist ein wichtiges Maß zur Beurteilung von Geschäftsmodellen mit hohen Investitionskosten.
- Im Zusammenspiel mit Umsatz- und EBITDA-Wachstum ergibt sich ein umfassendes Bild zur operativen Entwicklung.
📘 Nettogewinn-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Nettogewinn-Wachstum zeigt, wie stark der Jahresüberschuss eines Unternehmens gegenüber dem Vorjahr gestiegen oder gesunken ist – sowohl tatsächlich (TTM) als auch auf Basis von Prognosen (erwartet).
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Erwartet = (erwarteter Nettogewinn ÷ Nettogewinn Vorjahr − 1) × 100
Der erwartete Wert basiert auf Analystenschätzungen für das laufende Geschäftsjahr.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der Gewinn ist die entscheidende Ergebnisgröße für ein Unternehmen. Ein wachsender Nettogewinn deutet auf steigende Effizienz, stabile Kostenkontrolle und nachhaltige Ertragskraft hin.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Wachsender Nettogewinn stärkt die Bewertung, Dividendenfähigkeit und Kursfantasie.
- Stagnierender oder rückläufiger Gewinn trotz Umsatzwachstum kann auf Margendruck hinweisen.
📘 Free Cashflow-Wachstum
📈 Was ist das?
Das Free-Cashflow-Wachstum zeigt, wie sich der freie Mittelzufluss eines Unternehmens im Vergleich zum Vorjahr verändert hat – also der Betrag, der nach allen operativen Ausgaben und Investitionen übrig bleibt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Free Cashflow ist der echte, verfügbare Geldzufluss. Wachstum in diesem Bereich ist ein Zeichen für finanzielle Stärke und steigende Flexibilität bei Dividenden, Rückkäufen oder Investitionen.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Sinkender Free Cashflow kann auf steigende Investitionen, höhere Kosten oder stagnierende operative Erträge hindeuten.
- Besonders bei Dividendenwerten ist das FCF-Wachstum wichtig – denn Dividenden werden letztlich aus dem verfügbaren Cash gezahlt.
- Ein negativer Trend sollte genauer analysiert werden – er ist nicht zwangsläufig schlecht, aber potenziell ein Warnsignal.
📘 Bruttomarge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Bruttomarge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug der direkten Herstellungskosten (Material, Produktion) als Bruttogewinn übrig bleibt – also der „Rohgewinn“ eines Unternehmens.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Auch: Bruttomarge = Bruttogewinn ÷ Umsatz × 100
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Bruttomarge gibt Aufschluss über die Profitabilität eines Produkts oder Geschäftsmodells vor Fixkosten, Steuern und Zinsen. Sie zeigt, wie effizient ein Unternehmen produzieren oder einkaufen kann.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Bruttomarge deutet auf starke Preissetzungsmacht und effiziente Herstellung hin.
- Sinkende Bruttomargen können auf Kostensteigerungen oder Preisdruck hindeuten.
- Besonders im Vergleich zu Wettbewerbern liefert die Bruttomarge wertvolle Einblicke in die Geschäftsqualität.
📘 EBITDA-Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die EBITDA-Marge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz als operativer Gewinn vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen (EBITDA) übrig bleibt. Sie misst die operative Effizienz – ohne Verzerrungen durch Finanzierung oder Buchwerte.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die EBITDA-Marge hilft zu verstehen, wie viel operativer Gewinn ein Unternehmen aus jedem Euro Umsatz erzielt – unabhängig von Kapitalstruktur oder steuerlichem Umfeld.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe EBITDA-Marge zeigt starke operative Ertragskraft – unabhängig von Bilanzierungseffekten.
- Die Marge ermöglicht gute Vergleiche zwischen Unternehmen und Branchen.
- Ein stabiler oder wachsender Wert kann auf effiziente Kostenkontrolle und Skalierbarkeit hindeuten.
📘 EBIT-Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die EBIT-Marge zeigt, wie viel Prozent des Umsatzes als operativer Gewinn nach Abschreibungen, aber vor Zinsen und Steuern übrig bleiben.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die EBIT-Marge misst die operative Ertragskraft eines Unternehmens unter Berücksichtigung der Kapitalintensität (z. B. Maschinen, Anlagen). Sie eignet sich gut zum Vergleich von Geschäftsmodellen mit unterschiedlich hohen Abschreibungen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe EBIT-Marge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen auch nach Abschreibungen effizient arbeitet.
- Sie ist besonders relevant in kapitalintensiven Branchen.
- Langfristig stabile oder steigende Margen sind ein Zeichen wirtschaftlicher Stärke und Preissetzungsmacht.
📘 Nettomarge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Nettomarge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz am Ende als „Reingewinn“ übrig bleibt – also nach Abzug aller Kosten, Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Die Nettomarge gibt an, wie effizient ein Unternehmen über alle Stufen hinweg wirtschaftet. Sie zeigt, wie viel Gewinn tatsächlich je Euro Umsatz übrig bleibt.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Nettomarge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen nicht nur operativ stark ist, sondern auch seine Finanzierung und Steuerbelastung im Griff hat.
- Vergleiche mit Wettbewerbern geben Einblicke in die wirtschaftliche Qualität.
- Sinkende Nettomargen trotz Umsatzwachstum können ein Warnsignal sein – etwa für steigende Kosten oder sinkende Effizienz.
📘 Free Cashflow Marge
📈 Was ist das?
Die Free-Cashflow-Marge zeigt, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug aller operativen Ausgaben und Investitionen tatsächlich als freier Mittelzufluss übrig bleibt.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Marge misst die echte Liquidität, die ein Unternehmen erwirtschaftet – unabhängig von Bilanzierungsregeln oder Abschreibungen. Sie ist besonders relevant für Dividenden, Rückkäufe und Investitionen.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Eine hohe Free-Cashflow-Marge zeigt, dass ein Unternehmen nachhaltig liquide Mittel erwirtschaftet.
- Sie ist ein starkes Signal für finanzielle Stabilität und Ausschüttungspotenzial.
- Wichtig ist der langfristige Trend – sinkende Werte können auf steigende Investitionen oder rückläufige operative Effizienz hindeuten.
📘 Ergebnis je Aktie (EPS)
📈 Was ist das?
Das Ergebnis je Aktie (EPS) zeigt, wie viel Gewinn auf eine einzelne Aktie entfällt – und ist eine der wichtigsten Kennzahlen zur Bewertung von Unternehmen.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Die verwässerte Aktienanzahl berücksichtigt auch potenzielle neue Aktien, etwa durch Optionen, Wandelanleihen oder andere Umtauschrechte.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
EPS bildet die Basis für viele Bewertungskennzahlen wie KGV, PEG oder Payout Ratio. Es macht den Gewinn für Aktionäre vergleichbar – unabhängig von der Unternehmensgröße.
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- EPS hilft, die Profitabilität pro Aktie zu erfassen – und ist besonders wichtig im Zeitvergleich oder im Vergleich mit Analystenschätzungen.
- Steigendes EPS kann ein Zeichen für stabiles Wachstum oder Aktienrückkäufe sein.
- Wichtig: Verwende verwässertes EPS für realistische Bewertungen – besonders bei stark aktienbasierten Vergütungssystemen.
📘 Free Cashflow je Aktie (FCF je Aktie)
📈 Was ist das?
Der Free Cashflow je Aktie zeigt, wie viel freier Mittelzufluss einem Unternehmen pro Aktie zur Verfügung steht – nach Investitionen, aber vor Dividenden oder Schuldentilgung.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Der FCF je Aktie zeigt, wie viel liquide Mittel pro Aktie tatsächlich im Unternehmen verbleiben – wichtig für Dividenden, Aktienrückkäufe oder Schuldentilgung. Im Gegensatz zum Gewinn ist er schwerer manipulierbar und daher besonders aussagekräftig.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Free Cashflow je Aktie ist ein Zeichen für hohe finanzielle Flexibilität.
- Er zeigt, wie viel Kapital ein Unternehmen effektiv einsetzen oder ausschütten kann.
- Besonders relevant für dividendenstarke Unternehmen oder solche mit starker Kapitalrendite.
📘 Short Interest
📈 Was ist das?
Short Interest zeigt, wie viele Aktien eines Unternehmens aktuell leerverkauft wurden – also von Investoren geliehen und verkauft, in der Erwartung fallender Kurse.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Der Wert zeigt den Anteil der Aktien, der aktuell auf fallende Kurse spekuliert wird.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Short Interest dient als Stimmungsindikator: Ein hoher Wert deutet auf Skepsis oder negative Erwartungen gegenüber dem Unternehmen hin – kann aber auch zu einem „Short Squeeze“ führen, wenn der Kurs plötzlich steigt.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein niedriger Short Interest deutet auf Vertrauen in das Unternehmen hin.
- Ein hoher Wert kann ein Warnsignal sein – oder eine Chance, wenn sich die Stimmung dreht.
- Besonders spannend in volatilen Märkten oder vor wichtigen Quartalszahlen.
📘 Employees
📈 Was ist das?
Die Mitarbeiteranzahl zeigt, wie viele Personen ein Unternehmen weltweit beschäftigt – ein Indikator für Größe, Struktur und Geschäftsmodell.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Sie hilft bei der Einschätzung von Skaleneffekten, Effizienz und Personalkosten. Zusammen mit Umsatz und Gewinn lassen sich Kennzahlen wie Produktivität je Mitarbeiter ableiten.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Viele Mitarbeiter bedeuten große operative Komplexität – aber auch hohes Umsatzpotenzial.
- Produktivität je Mitarbeiter ist ein wichtiger Indikator für Effizienz.
- Besonders spannend bei stark wachsenden Tech- oder Industrieunternehmen.
📘 Umsatz je Mitarbeiter
📈 Was ist das?
Der Umsatz je Mitarbeiter zeigt, wie viel Erlös ein Unternehmen durchschnittlich pro Beschäftigtem erwirtschaftet – eine Kennzahl für Effizienz und Produktivität.
🧮 Wie wird es berechnet?
Die Mitarbeiterzahl stammt in der Regel aus dem letzten verfügbaren Jahresbericht.
🏛️ Wofür ist es wichtig?
Diese Kennzahl hilft, Geschäftsmodelle zu vergleichen – insbesondere zwischen arbeitsintensiven und technologiegetriebenen Unternehmen. Ein hoher Wert deutet auf Automatisierung, Effizienz oder hohen Wertschöpfungsanteil hin.
🧮 Berechnung
🎯 Was bedeutet das für Anleger?
- Ein hoher Umsatz je Mitarbeiter spricht für ein skalierbares und margenstarkes Geschäftsmodell.
- Ein niedriger Wert kann auf arbeitsintensive Prozesse oder geringere Wertschöpfung hinweisen.
- Besonders hilfreich beim Vergleich von Tech- vs. Industrieunternehmen.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. Aktie Analyse
Analystenmeinungen
25 Analysten haben eine Denali Therapeutics Inc. Prognose abgegeben:
Analystenmeinungen
25 Analysten haben eine Denali Therapeutics Inc. Prognose abgegeben:
Beta Denali Therapeutics Inc. Events
🇩🇪 Neu: Alle Transkripte jetzt auch auf Deutsch verfügbar!
Abonniere Premium, um Transkripte und KI-Zusammenfassungen auf Deutsch zu lesen.
Vergangene Events
|
JUN
9
Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
vor 18 Tagen
|
|
JUN
4
Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2026
vor 23 Tagen
|
|
MAI
12
Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
vor etwa 2 Monaten
|
|
MÄR
25
Special Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
vor 3 Monaten
|
|
MÄR
17
Stifel 2026 Virtual CNS Forum
vor 3 Monaten
|
|
MÄR
9
Leerink Global Healthcare Conference 2026
vor 4 Monaten
|
|
MÄR
4
TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
vor 4 Monaten
|
|
FEB
5
Shareholder/Analyst Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
vor 5 Monaten
|
|
JAN
13
44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
vor 5 Monaten
|
|
DEZ
4
Analyst/Investor Day - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
vor 7 Monaten
|
|
NOV
18
Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
vor 7 Monaten
|
|
NOV
12
Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference
vor 8 Monaten
|
|
SEP
8
Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
vor 10 Monaten
|
|
JUN
10
Goldman Sachs 46th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2025
vor etwa einem Jahr
|
aktien.guide Basis
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
Great. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to have the Denali team here with us. We have Ryan Watts, CEO; and Alex Schuth, CFO.
To start here, the recent approval of AVLAYAH in Hunter syndrome serves as Denali's first commercial launch and the first from the transport vehicle platform. In this context, can you frame the outlook for your vertical specifically, the blood-brain barrier vertical, your key priorities and the catalyst outlook as we look to the next 12 to 18 months?
Yes. Maybe before I talk about the future, I'll just have a comment or two about the past. We've been working on blood-brain barrier technologies for almost exactly 20 years. And in fact, it was 20 years ago that the first medicine was approved for Hunter syndrome idursulfase and so for us, it's been a journey of inventing a platform, I think, really pioneering this space for over 2 decades. And the last 2 or 3 months have been extraordinary for us. It's really exciting to be able to launch our first medicine, have the first FDA-approved blood-brain barrier enabled technology with AVLAYAH, and it's been an exciting time.
And I think just -- I think an important point is this now becomes a new area of biotherapeutics where the competition is rising, which is great news. In biotech, whenever anything works, everyone jumps in. And so we're happy to be leading the way with transferrin receptor and with the TransportVehicle technology. Of course, this is just the beginning as well. And so talking about the next really 6 to 12 months, in addition to everything related to the launch, which is, of course, our focus of the commercial team, we also have the next enzyme replacement therapy, which is for Sanfilippo, where we'll complete the 49-week portion of that study in September, basically get the data ready, ideally present at world and then submit the BLA in 2027.
What's exciting about that product is we're actually going to do the commercial manufacturing ourselves. Our original with AVLAYAH, we've worked with CDMOs. Now we're going to be manufacturing for Sanfilippo, and we think this is the beginning of many enzyme replacement therapies. The next will be in Pompe, where we're enrolling that study now, also looking at data in 2027. And then at the end of this year, we have -- we've sort of categorically put our progranulin program into the enzyme replacement therapy because it's very similar to enzyme replacement therapies, but we'll have our first look at the Cohort B3, that's sort of the highest dose for that study. That's coming up soon.
Now I think what's happened for us is that we often get asked the question, why not just be an enzyme replacement therapy company. You know the technology works. You have your first launch, a lot of enthusiasm around that and in the community to bring forward other programs. But actually, we founded the company to ideally treat neurodegenerative diseases as well like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. So we'll have our first 2 data readouts in Alzheimer's disease also in the next 12 to 18 months. One is an oligonucleotide that knocks down the gene that codes for tau and the other is an Abeta antibody, which we published last year in August 2025 in Science around our mechanism of basically removing amyloid plaque, which we hope safer and ideally subcu dosing. And so that's also what's on the horizon. And I know we'll go into each of those aspects, but a very exciting time at Denali.
Definitely. Perhaps we can just start on the Hunter syndrome program here. So given the first commercial patients have been treated and -- could you just speak to early launch dynamics to date, including the conversion rate from start forms to active patients and how the medical exemption process and reimbursement has evolved since approval?
I have to remind myself that it's been about 10 weeks or so since approval. And I think what happened first is let's get the drug in the channel. We were able to do that within 2 weeks, obviously, with the label. And then in 3.5 weeks, our first patient was dosed in the commercial setting. And this is not a patient that's switching over from trials. So it's really exciting. It actually wasn't at one of our trial sites.
And now we have multiple patients who have been dosed in the commercial product. And so it's very early days to understand the dynamic of conversion from start forms to approval and getting the first dose, first infusion. But what we can say is that it's exceeded our expectations in terms of the enthusiasm from the field, and we're seeing really positive trends on time from start form to infusion.
And what is the mix of treatment-naive to newly diagnosed patients and those on prior standard of care? And has there been any pushback on patients or physicians on the need to return to clinic to initiate treatment though?
The vast majority of patients, especially early on, are going to be switched. If you think about it, there's 500 patients in the U.S. I think almost all patients are on idursulfase or the vast majority unless it's sort of like end of life. And so that dynamic, what's happened in the field is there's just real enthusiasm about the possibility of treating neurologic manifestations in addition to the fundamental treatment of the disease.
We also saw our peripheral biomarkers were better than what has been shown for standard of care. And so we haven't seen really barriers to that. I think, again, the field is driving that enthusiasm. So most of the patients that are on drug now, our commercial patients have switched from idursulfase. A handful will be newly diagnosed, and that will just happen over time.
And the drug is priced at a premium to previous standard of care Elaprase. And so as you engage with payers, what has feedback been around pricing and weight-based dose -- the weight-based dose model?
I'll hand that to Alex.
Yes. I'll take that one. So the pricing does reflect the clinical profile. So what we've shown in the clinical studies is that we are able to normalize the key biomarkers, heparan sulfate and also neurofilament. And it is the one, the first and the only drug that treats the whole body, including the brain, and that is appreciated by payers. So we have not encountered pushback on the price by payers. It has not been a barrier to access at this point. The weight -- it is priced by weight. The weight-based model is very well understood. It's a very standard in enzyme replacement therapy, so we feel very good about the price.
And have your expectations for modest revenue this year changed as the payers come online and as you kind of watch the trends that are playing out, just given -- I think you've guided to kind of the whole year needed in order to get that payer dynamic settled before you see that inflection in revenue more in '27?
Yes. So this is -- as Ryan said, we're very pleased about how the launch is going. We're very pleased about the interest, about the engagements, about the enthusiasm in this product and also what's coming in the pipeline. What is expected in a rare disease launch, especially in a buy-and-bill setting, is that prescription activity will outpace revenues in the early stages of launch. And that's exactly what we're seeing right here. 2026 is the setup year.
This is why we guide towards the modest revenue, and this is why we use the illustration of the S-shaped curve, right? We think '26 is the setup year, '27 will be the inflection year. We think in '27, once patients are on drug for a number -- for a period of time, but especially once all the payer engagement, once the payer policies are in place. We have guided that -- or we have stated that it's about 50-50 with respect to the payer mix. And it will take about 6 months or so for commercial insurance, 9 to 12 months for Medicaid. So that's when we then expect that in '27.
And what is the status of the European filing?
Yes, I'll go on -- I mean, European filing, but also really international. So the international market is very important. About 2/3 of overall Hunter market is internationally. And ultimately, our goal is to capture that full market and make sure that every patient that can benefit from AVLAYAH will have the opportunity to do so. So we're very actively engaged internationally.
In some instances, we can work with accelerated or conditional approval settings. We can work with pharmaceutical product certification, which will allow us to capture part of the international market before COMPASS reads out, so that's with the current data set in hand. Now specifically with respect to Europe, we will need to wait until COMPASS reads out. So COMPASS was fully enrolled by the end of last year at a 2-year endpoint. So we expect it by then and then file in Europe.
On the confirmatory study, which includes patients up to 26 years of age, what is your current target for filing a supplemental BLA here to expand the label to include the adult Hunter syndrome patients?
I think there was two reactions to the approval of AVLAYAH. The first was enormous enthusiasm that there's finally a medicine that can treat the central nervous system, but the other was disappointment that the drug wasn't immediately made available to adults. And so obviously, that's one of the important focus for us. What's interesting is once you're on drug, you stay on drug. So it's not like as you transition to adult, you then come off AVLAYAH and go on idursulfase. And so that's important to note and clearly articulated in the label.
The COMPASS study is a little bit more than 60 patients split into 2 cohorts, Cohort A, which focuses mainly on neurologic manifestations and then Cohort B, which has a broader age range, including adult. And so the key there, that's more peripheral, and we're looking for equivalency and frankly, ultimately, we should see data that's superior to standard of care, but it's powered to show sort of equivalency on biomarkers, things like liver and spleen volume and 6-minute walk.
And so the goal is that totality of that data will put us in a position to go to Europe, which is the main focus of COMPASS, at least Germany, France, some of the countries that won't really recognize an accelerated path, but also to really focus on expanding the label.
Just maybe broadening out on the TransportVehicle platform here following the preliminary Phase I/II data that was presented from DNL126 in Sanfilippo syndrome at the WORLD Symposium. How is your dialogue with the FDA evolved here regarding the use of heparan sulfate as a surrogate endpoint for the BLA filing? And does the 2027 filing remain on track at this point?
I thought this might be the first fireside chat where we don't get a question about the FDA. It's been an incredible journey for the last 2 or 3 years. You'll recall 2 or 3 years ago, we were talking about the inconsistency between CBER and CDER. With CBER, I think, being much more aggressive on biomarkers as a potential path to accelerate approval. And then in some ways, obviously, that switched as everything panned out over the last 9 to 12 months.
And I think what's really been important for us is that the review team has been the same over that 3 years. And so the evolution of thinking about biomarkers has been with the same people who have seen, for example, the Reagan-Udall Foundation presentation now over 2 years or so ago that articulated why CSF heparan sulfate should be a surrogate endpoint reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. And that was the foundation of that mindset shift. Those are all the same individuals.
So those that were briefly concerned about it were the ones who then understood, agreed and then understood that the approval of AVLAYAH is setting and so our engagement with the FDA on DNL126 has remained consistent, obviously, setting a high bar. We saw, on average, 80% reduction of CSF heparan sulfate in Sanfilippo with the ability to normalize. What's different about Sanfilippo is that all patients are treatment naive. And so basically, you have to build tolerance and when you do, you're able to see this robust reduction in heparan sulfate.
And the other thing that's like this very distinct about Sanfilippo over Hunter is it is a very aggressive degenerative disease. Patients will often have pretty significant volumetric loss even before we begin dosing. And so early is going to be really important. But our engagement with the FDA remains consistent. We've always, sort of, I would say the way we've approached it is around the review team. The review division is the most important relationship and interactions that we have for our medicine.
And given there's no standard of care therapy on the market for Sanfilippo here, how do you think the launch trajectory will pay out versus Hunters?
Yes. I think that's -- as I pointed out, no standard of care. It's not a switch dynamic. I think the other point is you need to find these patients and diagnose them. They often are diagnosed in the same center. So from a positive point of view, we -- it's the same physicians. We'll have the same commercial team. All the interactions are similar. The MPS society has been very involved with both Hunter, Sanfilippo, Hurler-Scheie. That part, I think that dynamic is going to be fantastic because we're -- you see the momentum of AVLAYAH, which will then feed into 126.
But there is no standard of care. So I think it's important to continue to push for newborn screening. As I mentioned before, because of the rapidity of how quickly this disease degenerates, finding patients really early is ultimately going to be key to have the most robust clinical benefit. So with similar patient numbers ultimately. So we see the combination of AVLAYAH and 126 is probably $1 billion-plus opportunity worldwide with just those two products. And that's just the beginning of the enzyme TransportVehicle franchise.
Can you just remind us what the rationale was for Takeda's decision to end the collaboration on 593 in the frontotemporal dementia program?
Yes, I'll take that one. So Takeda made a strategic portfolio prioritization decision in the broader context of their restructuring of the rare disease and neurology portfolio. Takeda has been a great partner for 9 years since we started the partnership, but now we take the program forward ourselves. It's very strong biology. It's a very direct mechanism substituting progranulin, which is missing or lacking in these patients with that form of frontotemporal dementia. The study is ongoing. It's fully enrolled now, and we expect the data by the end.
And what specific biomarker thresholds are we looking for with that data read?
Yes. So I think as Alex mentioned, this form of FTD is a mutation in granulin, these are heterozygous carriers so they have one copy loss of function. We published a paper in 2021 in Cell categorizing a set of biomarkers that we think may be relevant that are downstream of this loss of function. And so there are lysosomal-related biomarkers like glucosylsphingosine and a number of like BMP and other biomarkers.
Those are the proximal biomarkers. The distal biomarkers are the traditional degenerative biomarkers like NfL and GFAP. And so for us, we're interested in both proximal and distal. And our experience in Hunter syndrome and Sanfilippo is that you hit the proximal first, you establish dose and then over time, assuming that this is disease-modifying, you should expect the ability to reduce the distal biomarkers like NfL. And so that's what we're looking for early on here is early data trying to understand the proximal biomarker and dose that will then drive ultimately that what we believe will be the clinical benefit, which is then obviously looking at biomarkers like NfL.
I think one challenge you have here is because it's a single copy loss of function, the signal to noise in your biomarkers is not the same as what you see in Hunter and Sanfilippo, where those are complete loss of function. Heparan sulfate is elevated tenfold, where like glucosylsphingosine is elevated 25%, 30%, not even twofold.
And so that's a dynamic that we're -- we'll have to be prepared for and especially as we sort of select dose. And I think the ultimate goal would be to pin a decision on the distal biomarkers like NfL with longer-term data. And that's the other thing we've learned quite a bit from Hunter is that they have a fantastic medicine, but it took time to basically normalize NfL.
Following Biogen's recent data from its tau-targeted ASO in Alzheimer's, where we're going to see the full data, I guess, or whatever data we can midyear at the Alzheimer's conference in London. But they commented on demonstrating a slowing clinical decline in tau reductions, but they did not show a clear dose response. Maybe help us understand what you believe is the read-through to your own programs here.
I mean taken at face value, this could be historic. Why? There's really only one drug target in Alzheimer's that have shown clinical benefit, which is Abeta. This would be the second. So -- and if you look at the totality of the data, at least as articulated in the press release, what it tells you is reducing tau and slow cognitive decline. And that would then represent the second Alzheimer's target that has clinical validation.
I think it's, as usual, complicated to read into dose response. I think added complexity with their particular program is that intrathecal delivery introduces a significant amount of heterogeneity in brain biodistribution. And so it will be very interesting to look at the data and understand how many patients were in each of the dose cohorts. If I understood correctly, there are 3 dose cohorts. But it's possible, for example, that the lower dose had fewer patients and then maybe more subject to heterogeneity.
But I think the take-home message is reducing tau appears to result in a clinical benefit and a cognitive benefit. And I think that's historic actually because now it's like how do we improve Abeta, how do we improve tau. We have a real opportunity and I think then enter our approach, which is the transport vehicle that allows you to have much more consistency from patient to patient in terms of biodistribution.
We saw this in our nonhuman primate studies with an intrathecal delivery and compared it to the oligo TransportVehicle. And with intrathecal, our monkeys, some had decent brain exposure and some had very little. So you had always had great spinal cord exposure because these are lumbar delivery, but you had very significant heterogeneity and how much gets into the brain. With the oligo TransportVehicle where you're delivering across capillaries, you have an even distribution, and it was consistent from monkey to monkey.
And so I think that's just part of the dynamic. And I think we've seen it in the Abeta field as well is that as these new technologies, these brain shuttles and in our case, specifically the TransportVehicle they enter, you have now this ability to very rapidly reduce amyloid about 3x faster at maybe 1/5 the dose. And so I think it's very exciting. It's very exciting to see another target that may be clinically validated in Alzheimer's.
And remind us on the time lines for your program here?
Yes. So we're targeting 2027 for the first biomarker data. We're enrolling now rapidly the Alzheimer's patient study. It's a multiple dose out of the gates for OTV:MAPT. The key here is obviously to see tau reduction and understand the dose that drives tau reduction. And I think everything will follow the tau imaging PET and then ultimately running the study large enough to look at clinical benefit.
Again, timing of intervention matters, and we'll also be at AAIC, very excited to be there. We'll be presenting there. I think the thesis that I like to articulate is that amyloid is a trigger, tau is an executioner. And then you have all these other contributors to disease that are these microglial targets. They probably contribute the inability to remove amyloid. But if you look at the data, it's pretty consistent that amyloid is at the top of the cascade, but tau, I mean, I think ultimately is driving neuronal loss. And so I think they're both obviously very interesting targets.
You also have the beta-amyloid program that's moving forward. Can you just walk us through the learnings that have played out with the programs that are approved also in the clinic and how that translates to your program?
So both OTV:MAPT, which is our tau reducer and then ATV:Abeta as the rest of our portfolio uses the TransportVehicle, so it's transferrin receptor to get across the blood-brain barrier. And what we've learned about Abeta in particular, there's room for improvement. I mean, one, it used to be thought very simply, you remove amyloid, you cause vasogenic edema or what is now termed ARIA. But now that's disconnected. You can remove amyloid much more rapidly and have less ARIA. And it's probably around the biodistribution, similar to what we were just discussing with intrathecal for oligonucleotides.
In the case of antibodies for Abeta, when you deliver using the TransportVehicle technology, you don't have extraordinarily high concentrations in these perivascular spaces that cause breakdown the blood-brain barrier and vasogenic edema. Instead, you get this even distribution throughout brain. And we show that in our science publication in August of last year, how that is differentiated. The other important point is we can preserve the effector function. We can preserve the immunological function of the antibody when bound to amyloid plaque. But when bound to transferrin receptor, we can silence it. And that is through a unique engineering insight where we create a mutation on the Fc that makes it silent when bound to transferrin receptor. That is distinct and I think is unique to the architecture of the transport vehicle.
And so our expectation is a safer profile, the binding to transferrin receptor is integrated to less immunogenicity than what I think is being seen for other brain shuttles and then ultimately, subcu dosing where you have rapid plaque reduction and less ARIA.
And what are the key metrics from the initial Phase I trial in Pompe disease that we should look to understand how that's working out specifically as we look to understand the impact on muscle and bone.
Yes. So shifting gears now back to the enzyme TransportVehicle. Here, we're delivering GAA. There's a series of medicines in Pompe that are enzyme replacement therapies for Pompe. What we're seeing is that there's not fantastic delivery in particular to skeletal muscle. So even with standard of care, there's still a significant unmet need. I think major advances in cardiac, obviously, overall survival is better for IOPD, but a real unmet need. And the question is why. As we engage with -- by the way, the same investigators in Hunter and Sanfilippo are also made of these investigators seeing Pompe patients.
And the general thesis is that standard enzyme replacement therapy for Pompe relies on this mannose-6-phosphate receptor in muscle, which apparently is not highly expressed. And so there's not great distribution of muscle. And so what we see is a very substantial differentiation with any of the standard of care in Pompe when you use the TransportVehicle. This is now enhanced delivery to muscle. Obviously, we'll have delivery to the CNS, which standard enzymes don't have. So that's going to be important. That would be more in IOPD.
But what we're looking at in these early studies, so Pompe is enrolling now, 2027 data as well. And the goal there are these glycogen products to show that we've got the right dose target engagement and then rely on the biology where we have improvement in muscle delivery, which should ultimately lead to clinical differentiation.
Great. And just on the small molecule pipeline here. So following the announcement that the Phase IIb study in idiopathic Parkinson's did not meet its primary endpoint, were there any analyzable trends that you can talk to that played out in these LRRK2 patients?
Yes. I'll take LRRK2. And as you mentioned, the LRRK2 inhibitor was part of our legacy portfolio of small molecules, so completely separate from the TransportVehicle. As you mentioned [Technical Difficulty] which was time to confirm worsening [Technical Difficulty] Part 2 and 3 and importantly, in the idiopathic Parkinson's population. So essentially the all-comers Parkinson's population. The study was well designed. It was well executed. The molecule performed as expected. We saw very strong target engagement and acceptable safety. But I think we have to conclude that LRRK2 inhibition is not the path at least in idiopathic Parkinson's [Technical Difficulty].
Now importantly, we have another study ongoing in parallel of the BEACON study, which is purely focused on LRRK2 carriers. So that is 50 LRRK2 carriers, biomarker study, we expect to see those data by the end of the year. In LUMA, the number of LRRK2 carriers was too small to really look for a signal in the subset. There were only about 10 LRRK2 carriers out of the 650 patients. So that really does not give us any [Technical Difficulty].
Alex, another question for you here. You've been busy in terms all along since the genesis of this company with partnering and business development strategy. Maybe talk to the types of deals that make sense for you from here?
Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question. I mean partnering business development is a key part of our strategy. We have a track record. We set up collaborations early in the phase of Denali until about half of our portfolio was partnered. Then there was a period when we prioritized wholly-owned programs and advancing those. And now we're at the stage where essentially our portfolio is almost entirely wholly-owned. So that opens up a lot of new partnering opportunity.
The blood-brain barrier field has been very active in the last 2 years. 10 years ago, we were essentially the only ones, but now we see a lot of activity. There's a lot of interest from large pharma. There are a number of smaller companies as well. We've been engaged in many of those conversations. But right now, we're very well financed. We ended Q1 with just over $1 billion in cash. So we have the ability to really advance the program to the right moment in time of when we would do a deal.
I think really to highlight, we are one of the few companies to have a wholly-owned Alzheimer's portfolio as we just discussed, right? There is Abeta, there is tau. There's a lot of preclinical expertise on additional mechanisms, which, at some point, will be a very obvious partnering opportunity. We can definitely generate clinical proof of concept, high-quality clinical proof of concept in patients, and that's probably the time when we would look for the partner.
Follow-on one of the points you made. The space has been really busy around blood-brain barriers and you have some of these larger companies working on their own programs. How do you think about yours, just given the validity here through the commercial assets that are coming out and the defensibility of kind of -- and differentiation of it versus what's playing out in the competitive landscape?
The idea of crossing the blood-brain barrier using transferrin receptor was first proposed in the late 1980s, so this is like the typical story of biotech and discovery and iteration, the industrialization from that academic proposal has been a journey. We started on that journey, as I mentioned, 20 years ago in 2006, that was prior to founding Denali. And what we did is we just made every existing platform that was out there to say, do any of these cross the blood-brain barrier in therapeutic concentrations. And 20 years ago, the answer to that was actually no. There was no existing platform that we had actually tried that was working. And so began the process of the industrialization. The question is what was wrong?
And I think the first challenge was that most of them -- most of the technologies were getting trapped in the blood vessel. You were not getting therapeutic concentrations across the BBB. So now I think of the 20-plus competitors that we count, there's probably 30 that have bonafide blood-brain barrier platforms. 97% of them, 95% of them or 90% of them are all using the original sort of conventional Fab approach. So it's an antibody approach. It's a Fab fusion. And when we founded Denali 11 years ago, we wanted to build a platform that was highly modular, that didn't give up an arm of the antibody or didn't have to, in an unnatural way, attach an arm of the antibody, but integrate the binding into the Fc similar to the FcRn or Fc gamma, and that began the engineering quest to build that in.
And we knew that because we'd already seen the first-generation brain shuttles that were out there. We had already 5, 10 years of experience, and we knew the limitations, which was stability, immunogenicity. That's the challenge with a lot of these Fab fusion, and that was actually in the original publications. And so we built the TransportVehicle in a way that we integrated the binding into the Fc. And it is now and still the only molecule that does that very distinct from all the conventional Fabs. And as you point out, it's now the only molecule that has -- is FDA approved. We will have commercial validation as well, and that allows us now to create an entire portfolio.
Now we had a decision 10 years ago, and as Alex mentioned the partnering strategy, our decision was not to create a technology to enable the world, but to create a technology to enable our medicines and then find a way to collaborate on medicines, not on the platform. But there are other BBB technologies and strategies where the strategy is to out-license the platform. But those, again, are the conventional Fab approaches. And so the transport vehicle is definitely distinct in the way that we engineered it, also have the advantage of a decade worth of experience before building it.
Great. Well with that, Ryan and Alex, thank you so much. We appreciate your time today.
Thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 47th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Die Zulassung und der frühe kommerzielle Start von AVLAYAH bestätigen Denalis TransportVehicle-Plattform, Umsatzaufschwung wird aber erst 2027 erwartet.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Validation: AVLAYAH ist das erste FDA‑zugelassene Therapeutikum mit TransportVehicle-Technologie und liefert kommerzielle Evidenz für Blut‑Hirn‑Schranken(=BBB)-Engineering.
- Fokus: Kurzfristig Launch‑Execution und Payer‑Implementierung; mittelfristig Ausbau der Enzym‑Franchise (Sanfilippo, Pompe) und Entwicklung gegen Neurodegeneration (Tau, Abeta).
- Zeithorizont: Wichtige klinische Daten und Zulassungscatalysts sind in den nächsten 12–24 Monaten geplant, mit Umsatzinflektion 2027 gemäß Management.
📈 Strategische Highlights
- Launch‑Dynamik: Erste kommerzielle Patienten Anfangs innerhalb von Wochen nach Zulassung dosiert; Nachfrage übertrifft interne Erwartungen.
- Payer‑Setup: Preis auf Prämiumniveau, gewichtsbasierte Preisstruktur; Payer berichten bisher keine Zugangsbarrieren, aber vollständige Erstattungsintegration braucht Zeit (Kommerziell ~6 Monate, Medicaid 9–12 Monate).
- Portfolio & Produktion: Sanfilippo‑Programm (DNL126) schließt 49‑Wochen‑Teil im Sept., BLA‑Ziel 2027; Sanfilippo wird kommerziell inhouse gefertigt; Pompe‑Studie läuft, Daten 2027.
🆕 Neue Informationen
- Launch‑Signal: Konkrete Aussage, dass Konversion von Start‑Formularen zu Infusionen schneller/positiver als erwartet verläuft.
- Regulatorik: COMPASS (bestätigende Hunter‑Studie) ist vollständig eingeschrieben; EU‑Filing abhängig vom COMPASS‑Readout.
- Finanzen: Ende Q1 > $1 Mrd. Cash; Management sieht finanziellen Spielraum für eigenständige Entwicklung vor späterer Partnership.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Payer & Umsatz: Kritische Nachfrage zur Preisakzeptanz und Zeitachse für Umsatzaufbau; Management betont „Setup‑Jahr 2026“, Inflektion 2027.
- Biomarker‑Pfad: Wie weit akzeptiert FDA CSF‑Heparan‑Sulfat als Surrogat für Sanfilippo? Management nennt konsistente, langfristige Dialoge mit Review‑Team und starke HS‑Reduktionen.
- Wettbewerb & Differenz: Analysten fragten nach Abgrenzung zu anderen BBB‑Shuttles; Denali hebt integrierte Fc‑Architektur, FDA‑Zulassung und bessere Biodistribution hervor.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Konsequenz: AVLAYAH validiert Denalis Plattform und schafft kurzfristige kommerzielle und strategische Hebel. Wichtige klinische und regulatorische Katalysatoren bis 2027 bieten erhebliches Upside, während Umsatzwachstum erst nach vollständiger Payer‑Integration erwartet wird. Cash‑Position stärkt Runway; Risiken bleiben bei Erstattung, regulatorischen Endpunkten und ausstehenden Studiendaten.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
We're going to get started on our next session. I'm Andrew Tsai, senior biotech analyst at Jefferies. Thanks for joining me. And it's my pleasure to have Ryan Watts, CEO of Denali, joining me today.
Welcome, Ryan.
Yes. Great to be here, Andrew.
Of course. So for those in the audience less familiar with the story or revisiting the story, can you maybe help us level set where Denali is, what programs you might be -- there's a lot, but what programs you're working on and the milestones over the next 12 to 18 months could be very helpful.
Yes. Thanks, Andrew. It's great to be here and definitely a lot has happened at Denali in the last year, in particular, especially with our recent approval of AVLAYAH a little more than 2 months ago. And so just as a little bit of a background, we set out to solve, I think, one of the bigger challenges in drug development, which is the blood-brain barrier, inventing medicines that readily cross the blood-brain barrier, especially biologic medicines. It's an area where 11 years ago in the founding of Denali, not many companies were working. And in fact, I think it was in the late 1980s when the first idea of engineering a molecule to cross the blood-brain barrier using some type of natural transporter was proposed, but it's taken from that point till now to actually get the first FDA-approved medicine.
So over the last 11 years, we've invented a platform, which we call the TransportVehicle platform. It's one of these broader categorically brain shuttle technologies using a natural transporter known as transferrin receptor to cross the blood-brain barrier. And looking back now just 11 years ago in the founding of Denali and 20 years ago when we first started working on blood-brain barrier technologies, it's amazing to see how this space has so rapidly evolved and is quickly becoming, I think, the next really hot area in biotherapeutics.
For us, the proof of concept was in enzyme replacement therapy. And I think the reason we chose that as the first place is that enzymes have had a very high success rate. There are a number of enzymes that have been approved, I think, about 85% success rate in developing enzymes for enzyme replacement therapy, but those enzymes do not treat the neurologic manifestation of disease. And Hunter syndrome was the first of now a number of areas that we're going to test this hypothesis that we can take an existing enzyme, engineer it to cross the blood-brain barrier and effectively treat neurologic manifestations, but also whole body. And that's going to be important as we talk about AVLAYAH and its differentiation from potential standard of care.
And so we set out to do that 11 years ago. And for me, it's been a 20-year journey working on blood-brain barrier technologies. And so the approval on March 24 was, I think, a really key step for us. But that approval is just the beginning, obviously, especially for the patient community. But within 2 weeks, we had filled the channel as we call it. And within 3.5 weeks, the first patient was dosed in the commercial setting. And so we are ready to go and have been very excited about the launch of AVLAYAH. I think the reaction from the patient community has been twofold. The first is great enthusiasm. It's the first medicine in 20 years. It's ironic. 20 years ago, we started working on blood-brain barrier. And then it took 20 years to get the first approved medicine that treats neurologic manifestations and the whole body. But also a little bit of disappointment because there is an adult segment in which the label does not cover.
And so a lot of enthusiasm broadly throughout the patient community. So what we've seen is a pretty significant engagement from prescribers and obviously, key opinion leaders and families, and it's been a really exciting time at Denali. So that's where we are today. So the question is what's next? And I think the next 6 to 12 months is also very data rich. We have -- we'll have our second BLA filing for Sanfilippo. We also have begun studies in Pompe disease. So this is another enzyme replacement therapy. And then we have a progranulin replacement therapy. So very similar to enzyme replacement therapy. So a number of medicines. Those are moving forward.
I'll put those categorically in the enzyme franchise. But also what we have to think about is the next big wave. And for us, it's Alzheimer's disease. We're now dosing patients with a MAPT oligonucleotide, which suppresses the expression of MAPT, which leads to reduction in tau protein expression. And we'll soon begin testing in the clinic our own Abeta antibody using the TransportVehicle technology.
And so if you think about the next 6 to 12 months, you're going to be seeing data across the enzyme platform, but also now in the broader neurodegenerative diseases and specifically Alzheimer's disease. And it's just -- worth mentioning that, that is the ultimate goal, I think, of Denali is to defeat degeneration to focus on the neurodegenerative diseases ultimately, but we also believe the enzyme franchise is a great foundation to begin building our commercial footprint.
Great. So again, congratulations on the approval. It's a huge milestone. And so you mentioned you're differentiated because you can cross the brain, BBB benefit clinical manifestation. So as we think about the standard of care starting with Hunter with this launch, ELAPRASE, I think they're doing $700 million worldwide sales. So how are you superior long story short to that product?
So we obviously have a head-to-head study ongoing now. That's the COMPASS study, which is the Phase III confirmatory study for accelerated approval. But I think it's worth noting, and this data was published in the New England Journal at the beginning of the year. The vast majority of patients in that Phase I/II study switched from ELAPRASE to AVLAYAH or tividenofusp alfa at the time. And basically, what we see is, obviously, the most striking is the normalization of cerebrospinal fluid heparan sulfate. That's evidence of crossing the blood-brain barrier. We subsequently see the normalization of neurofilament, which is a marker of neurodegeneration. So that's highly differentiated.
And so recall that most of these patients are on standard of care, but they have elevated heparan sulfate in CSF and in brain. But what's also striking to us is that we can also see a robust reduction in peripheral heparan sulfate. So I think that basically tells you that we're -- based on our dose and also biodistribution that the biomarkers of both the central nervous system, but also the periphery are enhanced with the medicine. And so this is important. And I think we had an important decision to make early on with AVLAYAH, which was around dose.
And part of it was, I think, most enzyme replacement therapies experience what are called antidrug antibodies that recognizes foreign -- this is well known. Infusion-related reactions are the most common adverse effect for all of these medicines and often, I think, are limiting for dose, but we made the decision, especially because of our architecture, which is an Fc fusion to really push dose. And the goal here was to get not just superior brain exposure, but also ideally superior reduction in peripheral biomarkers as well, which we believe will ultimately lead to a broader clinical benefit.
Great. And so you've launched dose the first patient in April, we're in June. I must ask how many -- to the extent you can share how many patients have you dosed, I guess, with AVLAYAH? And are they coming from ELAPRASE? Or are they naive patients?
Yes. So I was thinking about this particular question, which we get often. I mean, it's so early in the launch. It's like 9 weeks since approval, although it feels like a year ago now, immediately becoming a commercial company. What we can say is that we -- the interest has exceeded our expectations. So maybe that shouldn't be surprising. We are debating what are the right metrics to share at the right time to basically provide meaningful data to be able to predict the future of this medicine. I think for now, what we've seen is just great enthusiasm across all patient segments.
So there are those who are newly diagnosed, which come in, as you know, there are about 500 patients in the U.S. and 2,000 worldwide, but especially switch. So in many ways, this is a switch market. And all patients are, generally speaking, known, at least by age 3 or 4. And what we're seeing is a pretty significant interest in switching to AVLAYAH. But I'd say stay tuned on exact numbers. I think we're just -- we're gathering the information now and looking forward to hopefully a very successful launch.
Great. And you mentioned earlier in the community, there's a slight disappointment that the label does not cover all 500 patients in the U.S. So what does your -- what proportion of those 500 U.S. patients does your label cover?
Yes. So it covers 70% to 75% of the population today. So it's the pediatric population. And if you think about actually Hunter syndrome, it's about 70-plus percent that have severe mutations that invariably lead to severe neurologic impairment. But what's been interesting and I think very striking is that neurologic manifestations is seen throughout the entire spectrum of disease, even in what we call attenuated patients. A good example of that is hearing loss. And that's one of our most striking, I think, data points that was published in the New England Journal was improvement in hearing.
And so what the community is generally understands is that this in the label where it states neurologic manifestations, which is linked to the CSF heparan sulfate as the biomarker for accelerated approval that, that basically represents essentially all patients at some point in disease will have a neurologic manifestation if it's behavioral, sleep disturbances, hearing. And so -- but the label itself covers roughly 70% -- 75% of the existing population, so very significant.
And in the meantime, like you said, you're running a confirmatory study called COMPASS. I think the data reads out second half 2027. That's a head-to-head study versus ELAPRASE. That should also -- not only can you prove superiority, but I think -- can you confirm it opens the door to all 100% of the U.S. population.
That is the goal of COMPASS ultimately. And there really -- there are 2 cohorts. There are those that are sort of, I would say, categorically severe neurologic and then those that are -- have been categorized as attenuated, again, all of which experiencing neurologic manifestations. The attenuated patients are generally adult patients.
So in the Phase I/II, we did not enroll any adult patients, although now there are patients who are, by definition, adult that are on AVLAYAH because they began treatment at, let's say, age 14 or 15 and now they're 17 or beyond. So that is the goal of -- ultimately of COMPASS. But I think really where COMPASS has its greatest value is likely ex U.S. is in Europe and unlocking Europe, where it's not just biomarkers that drive approval, but also the correlated clinical benefit that's observed.
Right. And totally understood your sales reps cannot market superiority, but this -- any NEJM article is quite compelling. Is there any way some personnel on your team can flag that to people to convince physicians, patients that you have a differentiated product. I don't know how it works.
Yes. So I think the most important thing for us is when you look at the label is the fact that 9 out of 10 patients have normalized CSF heparan sulfate. I always worry about the tenth patient. In this case, they also have like 85% reduced CSF heparan sulfate. So it's just near normalization. That's a really important piece is that there's no other medicine that has shown that level of heparan sulfate reduction and clearly normalization in cerebrospinal fluid. And that also points to the broader validation of the TransportVehicle technology. So for us, we can just focus on really the data that we have, and it's a very distinct profile from standard of care.
And in terms of -- so there's one volume and then there's price as it relates to sales. So on the pricing side, can you give us a sense of just based on the average patient -- this is weight-based dosing. So the average patient on AVLAYAH, how much it could cost per year and how that would compare to the average price per year for ELAPRASE?
Yes. So the wholesale acquisition cost is $5,200 per 150 mg vial. So this is the vial. Most patients will need 2 to 3 vials per infusion depending on weight. So if you do the math, a 10-kilogram patient will be about $270,000 per year and a 30-kilogram patient will be roughly $800,000 per year. So that's -- obviously, that's the exact pricing dynamic. The medicine is priced at a premium, recognizing the invention and the fact that we're treating not just whole body, but also the brain, which is, I think, a key step here. It's also priced in line with more recent enzyme replacement therapies that have launched. And just if you're doing the math, the roughly 30-kilogram price for ELAPRASE is about $500,000 per year.
Okay. Very clear. And so -- gross to net, any color around that inventory build for Q2? Any color around that?
Yes. So again, I think we -- it's very early days. It depends on the payer, obviously, Medicaid versus private payers. We've -- we're just -- policies are being put in place now. Just reminding myself that we got approval 9 weeks or so ago. And so just stay tuned. But the math is the math. If you know the 340B institutions and the discount that's required, you can do that math. It depends on if it's pediatric only or adult, but you can start -- I mean that will make sense over time, definitely as we launch and you see more data. I would not over-index on 2026. This is a foundation building year for the launch. We're excited and we're enthusiastic certainly by the interest in the community, but it's going to take time, especially as you get payer policies in place.
Okay. Well, things seem to be in the right direction. So congratulations. So then shifting to Sanfilippo then the next leading program that you have, you're filing next year, that's contingent upon full 20 patient worth of data. And my understanding is all those patients should complete around September of this year. When would the data be released though?
Yes. So the data cut is not too dissimilar from when we had the data cut for the filing for AVLAYAH in the sense that we got data sometime in September, October. Obviously go through the database lock cut evaluation. We're aiming towards a WORLD presentation would be February of next year and then filing next year. Right now, the rate-limiting step for us is manufacturing. We made the decision to onshore this manufacturing. So AVLAYAH is manufactured by Lonza and DNL126 for Sanfilippo, we will manufacture ourselves, even commercial product here in the U.S., which we're very excited about. That's the key there.
The -- as we've reported previously, and we'll probably get into some detail, on average, we see about 80% reduction of heparan sulfate. We also can achieve normalization both in heparan sulfate, but also downstream biomarkers of lysosomal dysfunction. What's distinct about Sanfilippo is that it is largely a CNS disease more than Hunter syndrome. So there is components of peripheral disease, but it's mainly CNS. And it is a very rapidly and aggressive degenerative disease, especially with the complete loss of function mutations.
And so even like at the volumetric level, when you look at MRI, you already see patients before you begin dosing have pretty significant volumetric loss. And so I think with Sanfilippo, it's going to -- we need to get a drug approved and then it's going to be about newborn screening to just get there as early as possible to see a huge benefit in these patients. Hunter is -- doesn't have the same volumetric loss. The reason I just state that is that in addition, heparan sulfate is actually 2x higher in Sanfilippo in brain than it is in Hunter syndrome and probably is just where SGSH is expressed versus idursulfase. Interestingly, they're both -- we're both looking at heparan sulfate as this class of MPS diseases.
And so we're really enthusiastic about the initial data. The 20 patients will complete the 49-week point in September, and then we'll begin looking at that data and preparing for filing and presentation in 2027.
Okay. And we've discussed before the next batch of -- technically, the remaining 12 patients to be presented at WORLD are dosed at a higher dose, we should get better efficacy. So to me, the likelihood of success is very high to support an accelerated approval.
And I think just a point related to that, if you look at our presentation from this year, it's what we did with the first 8 patients, it was all about dose finding. It was dose frequency, dose finding, dose levels. And so we started with every other week dosing.
And I think what's really striking is that with enzyme replacement therapies, specifically with SGSH, the drug is better tolerated with weekly dosing. It tells you something about building tolerance. And so having more frequent dosing and having drug on board was an essential learning from that initial study. We then kind of went to what we thought would be the optimal dose to weekly dosing, but many of the patients weren't really at that dose when we took the data cut it and presented it. So at this point, obviously, with the 12 additional patients, we'll be using that optimized dose regimen.
Great. And help us frame the patient sample size in the U.S., the peak sales opportunity relative to Hunter?
Yes. I think it's similar to Hunter. The difference is there is no standard of care. And as a result, not all patients are identified like you have with Hunter syndrome. And so there's no existing enzyme replacement therapy in part because it's a largely neurologic disease. And so standard ERTs are not treating the sort of very rapidly progressing degeneration that is observed in Sanfilippo. But we think the numbers will be roughly similar, maybe a bit smaller. It depends on whose epidemiology you're reading, but obviously, having an approved medicine will be really important in this disease area.
And so because there's no approved medicine as we think about the confirmatory study that I believe you said you're going to start later this year. Is that still the plan?
That's right. So we're in start-up mode right now. We've been used -- using the word start, we were selected as -- for the START program by the FDA, which is quarterly engagement with the FDA around designing the Phase III. We think that's very important. Obviously, again, with no standard of care, the dynamic is different than what we've designed for COMPASS. And so I'd just say with that, stay tuned. We continue to engage with the FDA, but we're definitely in study start-up mode for the Phase III for Sanfilippo.
Yes. And so because of no standard of care, there is this potential maybe to be an open label rather than a placebo controlled, which maybe means you can enroll pretty fast and generate the data pretty fast. Is that the guide?
I think what's implied in that question is that patients are excited to join trials where they know they're going to get active drug. And that's generally true. And certainly, that's been the case with the Phase I/IIs for both of these studies for both of these medicines for both AVLAYAH and for 126.
Okay. Very good. And so I guess, later this year, you'll have a progranulin readout shifting gears in FTD dementia. And it's -- I would just like to know what exactly are you seeing with -- what do you want to see to move forward basically in the study?
So our sort of hypothesis with FTD granulin is that it's a progranulin replacement therapy. So take what we've just talked about with Hunter and Sanfilippo and now apply that to FTD where you have a loss of function, although it's a single copy loss of function. And so we published a paper in 2021 in cell describing the mechanism of progranulin in the lysosome and associated lysosomal biomarkers. And so here, we'll be looking at a panel of biomarkers around lysosomal function, both those are what I call the proximal biomarkers and then also distal biomarkers like NfL.
Our experience with NfL, you can see it in the New England Journal paper is that at least -- and actually for most likely lysosomal storage disease, it takes some time. So at 6 months, we didn't see a reduction, but by 12 months, we are clearly seeing a reduction. And then by 18 months, we're starting to see patients that normalize. So those are the distal biomarkers, both of which are going to be important also in FTD granulin. I think one -- if you look at that paper, the only cautionary note is that the signal to noise for biomarkers with a single loss of -- single copy loss of function is not as great as with the enzyme replacement therapies in some of these MPS diseases.
And so we don't have huge patient numbers, but we do have more than, let's say, like 8 patients or so, which we had in the original LSD studies. And so anyway, so that's -- those are the biomarkers that's what we'll be looking at end of year in Cohort B3.
Okay. Great. And so I do want to spend some time on tau. But before that, you recently had a LRRK2 update for Parkinson's oral LRRK2. Unfortunately, it failed to many people, maybe not too surprising because it did evaluate a broad Parkinson's population, not necessarily just LRRK2 specific. By chance, did you happen to see a signal though in that LRRK2 specific population? Or else, why continue on this other study that you have BEACON to completion, which is evaluating LRRK2 specifically?
So it's interesting. We talked about the last 20 years working on blood-brain barrier. We also in parallel for 20 years, have been working on LRRK2. It was first described in 2004, so I guess, 22 years ago. This is the first medicine to test LRRK2 in idiopathic Parkinson's disease. This is the like, let's call it, the home run study. What we saw is robust inhibition in periphery and brain. And I think it's important to look at the biomarkers that we use to assess that. So one is phospho-serine-1292 or, I guess, it's 935 or something.
We -- that particular biomarker, we saw greater than 90% inhibition in the periphery. In brain, we use phospho-RAB and the reason we use phospho-RAB is the same biomarkers you can't actually measure in CSF. And in a LRRK2 knockout, phospho-RAB is reduced 40%. So 100% inhibition of phospho-RAB is roughly a 40% inhibition. So we're achieving greater than 30% inhibition of phospho-RAB. So again, probably about 90% inhibition. So we think it's a good test of the LRRK2 hypothesis in idiopathic Parkinson's. The study itself only enrolled 11 LRRK2 carriers. So it's too few. In fact, really only 10 that have full data sets. One was from the original LIGHTHOUSE study.
And so we don't have enough data to be able to determine if there's a signal or not in LRRK2. So that's a very specific answer to your question. I think 5 placebo, 5 treated with data. The BEACON study is only LRRK2 carriers, 50 patients enrolled. But I think importantly there, it's focused on LRRK2 specific biomarkers. And so we want to read -- that data will read out by the end of the year, and we'll understand where we're at from really the target engagement perspective with the medicine. It is not designed to look at UPDRS, unlike this 650-patient study, the LUMA study, which was powered for clinical efficacy.
I see. And then finally, then shifting gears to your Alzheimer's portfolio of tau and Abeta like you said, starting with the tau, it's pretty interesting. Biogen just shared their own tau intrathecal, given intrathecally. I think you have an IV version. And so what is going to be the exact dosing frequency of your IV? And is there a possibility to even go to subcu over time with...
I mean we could have started here. There's so much to talk about in Alzheimer's disease. And certainly, if you look at our portfolio, the most competitive area is tau and Abeta not surprisingly using the transport vehicle technology. So DNL628 is what we call OTV MAPT, and OTV is Oligo Transport Vehicle. It's delivering an antisense oligo to MAPT, delivered IV and/or subcu. The ultimate goal will be subcu delivery for these medicines. We're obviously, again, optimizing dose. Therefore, IV is the best place to start. And our goal there is to see tau reduction with a systemic delivery of an oligonucleotide. And I think the recent data from Biogen is very encouraging.
I think it's like early days Abeta, where you're looking for a correlation between reduction in some pathological marker. In this case, it would be tau or tau imaging, leading to some correlation with clinical benefit. I think the numbers are small, so probably looking at all treated patients pooled. The biggest difference between the intrathecal delivery and the systemic delivery is the difference in biodistribution. So with intrathecal, this is our own data, but also data presented by Biogen and others, you have basically pretty significant heterogeneity from patient to patient, but also within the brain. So a lot of intrathecal delivery, you get great delivery around areas that are adjacent to cerebrospinal fluid, but not into deeper brain regions. When you deliver with TransportVehicle technologies, you can actually cross capillary beds, and we've shown this even distribution and even knockdown of expression.
So we think that will dramatically reduce the heterogeneity. And also, we don't -- like when we look at monkeys that are treated with OTV, we have even from monkey to monkey, the same distribution in the brain, whereas when we do intrathecal, some monkeys will get good brain distribution, some will get less, some will get none. And even when you're injecting it intrathecally, there's pretty significant variability.
I see. So aside from the dosing convenience, you saturate the brain better, I guess that could lead to better efficacy overall, more patients response...
Yes. When you think of where tau pathology exists in entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, ultimately cortex, there is an unevenness about the adjacency to cerebrospinal fluid. And so it's better to have a technology that gives you that even distribution.
Yes. I guess there's a debate in the community, does -- is it your view stronger tau reduction leads to greater cognitive benefit? Is there too much tau...
Well, I mean, if anything, what you saw from the Biogen data is that, again, taking it at face value, the lowest dose had the greatest benefit. That's probably because the lowest dose had the fewest number of patients and subject to the most heterogeneity would be kind of my explanation, but let's wait until we see the totality of the data. But the reality is that there doesn't seem to be a dose response. So if the higher dose is giving you more tau reduction, it's not necessarily leading to better cognitive benefit. So I just think it's too early.
We'll just wait for the data in July...
Yes and probably need more data to...
And so then Abeta also starting Phase I, this is interesting. So the tau, I think you're starting -- you're doing Phase I in actual patients. And then the Abeta, I think you're starting SAD doses in healthy volunteers first, then MAD dosing in actual patients. Data -- all the data is in 2027. But in healthy, what exactly do you want to see? Why is that important?
Yes. So I think we published a paper in science last year in August that describes our approach to Abeta. And there are 2 major differentiators. One is, again, the biodistribution that leads to even plaque reduction and less ARIA-like effects in mice and hopefully in humans, so less vasogenic edema, which is one of the limiting factors, right? The other is we engineered the molecule to be immune silent when bound to transferrin receptor.
And as a result, it preserves any reticulocytes that express very high levels of transferrin receptor. So the advantage of doing a healthy volunteer study is we can very rapidly test that first hypothesis or the second hypothesis around [ RTIX ] in particular, in hematology, and then we can rapidly move to patient studies and look at plaque reduction. So the ultimate goal for differentiation is a safer, ultimately subcu delivery with robust plaque reduction. That's what we're trying to achieve with ATV-Abeta DNL921.
Right. Okay. I think that's all the time we have, but I look forward to connecting with you in a few months, and then we'll talk again. But thank you, everyone, for listening.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali stellt AVLAYAH-Launch und Validierung der TransportVehicle‑Bluthirnschranke‑Plattform in den Vordergrund; mehrere klinische Datenpunkte bis 2027 geplant.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Kern: Zulassung von AVLAYAH bestätigt die TransportVehicle‑Plattform zur Überwindung der Bluthirnschranke (blood‑brain barrier, BBB) und bildet die kommerzielle Basis, während parallel Enzym‑Programme (Hunter, Sanfilippo, Pompe) und neurodegenerative Projekte (Tau, Abeta, LRRK2) weiter vorangetrieben werden.
🚀 Strategische Highlights
- Launch: AVLAYAH vor wenigen Wochen zugelassen; erster kommerzieller Patient innerhalb 3,5 Wochen dosiert; starke Nachfrage aus Patienten‑ und Kliniknetzwerken.
- Label & Studien: Zulassung deckt aktuell ~70–75% der US‑Patienten (pediatrisch); COMPASS Phase‑III Head‑to‑Head gegen ELAPRASE, klinische Readout‑Ziel H2 2027, Ziel Erschließung weiterer Märkte.
- Pipeline: Sanfilippo‑BLA geplant nach Daten der 20 Patienten (49‑Wochen‑Cut) Ende 2026/Einreichung 2027; Alzheimer‑Programme (IV/Subcut oligo gegen MAPT, ATV‑Abeta) starten klinisch, Daten 2027 erwartet.
🆕 Neue Informationen
- Kommerz: Preis: $5.200 pro 150‑mg‑Vial; Jahrestherapiekosten je nach Gewicht ~ $270k–$800k; Management nennt frühe Nachfrage, veröffentlicht aber vorläufig keine Stückzahlen.
- Produktion: Sanfilippo (DNL126) soll onshore in den USA produziert werden; Herstellung ist derzeit limitierender Faktor für Einreichungstiming.
- Studienausblick: BEACON (LRRK2‑spezifisch) Daten bis Jahresende; Tau und Abeta Programme liefern erste klinische Signale 2027.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Uptake: Interesse übertrifft Erwartungen, konkrete Dosis-/Patientenzahlen will Management noch nicht offenlegen; Launchjahr 2026 als Aufbaujahr eingeschätzt.
- Label‑Lücke: Label umfasst aktuell überwiegend Kinder; COMPASS soll Indikation erweitern inklusive Erwachsener und klinischer Endpunkte für Europa.
- Risiken: Payer‑Implementierung, Gross‑to‑Net‑Effekte und 340B‑Rabatte wurden angesprochen; Management warnt vor kurzfristiger Prognose‑Überinterpretation.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Relevanz: Zulassung von AVLAYAH validiert Denalis Plattform und reduziert technisches Risiko; kommerzielle Umsetzung, Payer‑Zugänge und Fertigungs‑Execution bleiben kritische Kurzfrist‑Risiken. Wichtige Kurstreiber sind Launchmetriken, COMPASS‑Ergebnisse, Sanfilippo‑BLA/Data und mehrere 2027‑Readouts für neurodegenerative Programme.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
My pleasure to have our next presenting company, Denali Therapeutics. Sitting up here on stage with me is Alex Schuth, who is, of course, Chief Operating Officer as well as CFO, double duty. Alex, thank you for making the, hopefully, short trip over to see us in the desert today.
All right. Well, again, thank you, Tazeen, for inviting us for a fantastic conference. But really also thank you for following us for many years now and the always very thoughtful commentary. So much appreciated. So great to be here today. It's a special time for us at Denali.
As you know, we just had our first drug approved in March, big transition for us. Big moment for Denali, but also a big moment for the Hunter syndrome community. And I think importantly, also a really big moment for the whole field of blood-brain barrier transport. So looking forward to the conversation and going deeper on all of those topics.
Yes. So maybe let's start off with your first commercial launch. How is that going so far? And I've been asking everybody to pronounce the name of their drug so that we're saying it correctly.
So this one here, if you think about Star Wars, it's [ Avlaya]. So once you think about Star Wars, you can get -- you also think about the Himalayas and then you can also remember. So the drug's name is AVLAYAH. And it is, of course, indicated for the treatment of Hunter syndrome, a rare pediatric disease, which has a severe neurodegenerative component. And our technology, as you know, is designed to treat the whole body, including the brain. So a major unmet medical need in all of lysosomal storage disease, and especially in Hunter, is that traditional enzyme replacement therapy, doesn't cross through the blood-brain barrier.
So we have shown in our clinical trials that we can very effectively deliver the drug to the brain, normalized all biomarkers, showed stabilization and improvement in measures of function. So with that, we achieved accelerated approval. So the drug was approved on March 24. We're very excited about the early days of that launch.
Yes. So can you share a little bit about how that's looking?
Yes, very much so. So we're excited about the level of engagement. We're excited about the level of interest and importantly, across all patient segments. So while at some point, we thought the first patients to be engaged might be the ones that are on the earlier diagnosis or younger, but in fact, we see that across all age groups and across all levels of severity.
So we have indicated at our quarterly report that we now have the first patients that are actually on drug in the commercial setting. These are not patients that came up from our clinical studies, but that actually were not associated with that. In one case, it was a very quick transition. It took 3.5 weeks after approval to go through the medical exception process.
We're also quite encouraged with respect to the number of start forms that we're seeing. We're not sharing that number yet. I know you may ask. But the reason why we don't share this, we want to have more confidence in what the start forms actually mean. We want to have 1 quarter of experience, how long does it take us to get in this sort of buy-and-build setting to get through the multistep process to actually turn start forms into revenues. But from an engagement and an interest perspective, I think we're safe to say that we're ahead of expectations.
Okay. So it's exciting in that you have your first opportunity for a commercial launch. But to level set expectations, this is still an ultra-rare disease. So what is your expectation for patient finding efforts? And what clip of uptake would be a good launch in your definition?
Yes, great question. So first, with respect to the patient, so it is ultra-rare, but it's unique because there has been a standard of care on the market for 20 years. And essentially, every patient with Hunter syndrome is identified. So this is not as much of a finding and identifying the patient setting, but about a switch setting, right? And switching very much depends on the level of enthusiasm in the patient community and in the physician community. So from that level, from that perspective, we're very encouraged about the early indications that we see.
With respect to the market opportunity, it is ultra-rare, but ELAPRASE is a good -- is the standard of care. It is a good guidepost. It sells about $700 million a year. We believe that we have a drug that shows definitely some aspect that ELAPRASE cannot do. It can get into the brain. It can treat the whole body.
With respect to pricing, right, there is a premium that was justified based on the clinical profile. So we see that this can be a very substantial market opportunity. What we guide to is typically, we look at our first 2 enzymes together. So that's AVLAYAH and then DNL126 for Sanfilippo, that those together are a $1 billion market opportunity, but it's -- I would say that that's on quite conservative assumptions.
Okay. So what do you think is going to be the criteria for patients who want to switch?
We actually see -- I mean, from the early interactions, we see a lot of interest in switching. And as I mentioned, across the patient segments, right? The way the label is written right now, it is indicated for the treatment of neurologic manifestations in pediatric patients, and also has a subset about -- in symptomatic and presymptomatic but symptomatic and presymptomatic is essentially everyone, right? So it's in pediatric patients, which is about 70% of the patient population. And our commercial efforts are focused on that entire segment. So that's what we look at.
Okay. I think some have thought that the label was a little bit more limited than was expected when it first came out. Like, is that a right interpretation?
Yes, we don't see it that way. I mean, I will give you -- it does read a bit clunky at first when you read it. But at the same time, that gives our field team a really good opportunity to educate physicians on it. If you really look at it, it is really all pediatric patients and again, with -- for the treatment of neurologic manifestations. But it is pretty well established that in Hunter syndrome, essentially all patients either have or will develop neurologic manifestations.
So if you really talk about it, the treatment of neurologic manifestations is not a limitation. In fact, it actually highlights the key attribute of our drug that it actually gets into the brain what the standard of care is not able to do. There is also a limitation on less -- not less than 5 kilograms, which is essentially a 3-month old child, which was linked to -- that this was the patient population that we studied and it was important to the FDA to mirror the label as closely to the study population as possible.
Okay. Do you foresee that label changing over time?
We do. We do expect that with the readout of the confirmatory study, that's the Phase II/III COMPASS study, which we expect data by the end of next year, so a little over 1.5 years [ ago ], that the label would be expanded. In the COMPASS study, we have adult patients. We have patients up to 26 years of age. So we would expect that the limitation to pediatrics would be lifted.
What would you say is the level of undermet need for the adult population, relative to the pediatric population?
Yes. There is a very strong understanding that the current standard of care is not optimal. And when you speak with even older patients that are designated as non-neuronopathic -- and by the way, that old distinction between neuronopathic and non-neuronopathic is really sort of fading away in clinical practice, and it's much an understanding that it's more of a continuum. And essentially, all patients have neurologic manifestations.
So if you speak, for example, with some of the older patients, they will talk about hearing loss, that they have reduced hearing. We have shown very definitively an improvement in hearing. We have anecdotal evidence that some of our children don't need hearing aids anymore. Older patients will talk about brain fog. They will talk about even irritability, right? Those are neurocognitive and behavioral symptoms that a drug that can actually cross through the blood-brain barrier can address.
Okay. So what are you hearing on feedback about the dose escalation aspect of the drug? How are doctors adjusting to that?
Yes. It's going very smooth, right? So the context here is that we instituted a 3-step dose escalation or a 2-step until you get to the final dose. And the context here was really with respect to the patient experience, right? Enzyme replacement therapy -- all enzyme replacement therapy is associated with infusion-related reactions. And we want to make sure that the early dosing happens in a medical setting where infusion-related reactions can be managed.
So what that does require is that patients for the first, about, 12 doses or so for the first 3 to 4 months come back into the hospital setting. But -- I mean it's early into the launch, but we do not see that as a barrier.
Okay. In terms of the ex U.S. rollout, how should we be thinking about that?
Yes. So our focus right now is definitely on the U.S., but much of the market opportunity is global. So what we have set in place is distribution agreements covering actually most parts of the world, so in LatAm, in the Middle East, in Asia Pacific, actually a separate one in Israel. We have many connections through the clinical trial in Europe as well, where we're working on a named patient sale.
So we are establishing those relationships with the physicians and with the families. And we do work, wherever possible and however possible, to bring those patients on to commercial drug. But with respect to our guidance, our focus, it's very much a U.S. launch at this point.
Okay. Great. So as you think about how this launch is going to mature, how do we set expectation? Because investors always want to get a sense of what the peak sales opportunity is going to be and how long is it going to take to get there, and how strong is your pricing power, so maybe if we wanted to think about it in totality, what advice would you give us?
I mean, again, there's ELAPRASE, $700 million. We have a drug that is superior to ELAPRASE. We have a significant premium on the price to ELAPRASE. Also remember, it is weight-based dosing, right? So what we see in our trials or what we would expect is that as children live longer, as they grow older, as they grow heavier, right, the price per patient would also increase. So $700 million is, I think, a conservative guidepost of what we can achieve.
Now what the slope looks like, right? I think we will have to wait for some time as we really understand what does it take between the start form, how -- what does it take to actually turn that into revenues. We're gathering experience right now on that. What does it take -- as the reimbursement policies are not in place yet, neither with the commercial insurers nor with Medicaid, of course, we're gathering that experience.
We are getting the question, when do you show more metrics, right? And you may ask it as well. And just to preempt that, we will show metrics. We just want to make sure that we have confidence in those -- what those metrics actually mean, right? And that's why we don't want to speak about start forms too soon without really, with confidence, being able to say, once we have a start form on average, it takes us this long to translate that person into a commercial person, but we'll get there.
Is there any reason to think that some doctors might wait until you get a full approval before embracing this drug?
We have not heard that, right? We have not heard that at all. It was -- we -- and I think part of that is the very close engagement of the physician community in the clinical trial. It was a relatively large clinical trial program, 110 patients, right, between the Phase I/II and the Phase II/III out of a -- in an ultra-rare disease. It is -- almost all centers of excellence, in one way or another are, if not direct, right, at least in one separation, involved in this trial.
So if you had to find all the Hunter's patients in the U.S., how long do you think it would take you to do that, just given what you had said a few minutes ago about this being a rare disease, but a treatment already being available before?
Yes. So we actually know all of the patients in the U.S. already. I mean you can through prescription data, right? This is very well documented. So we know where they are treated. And our field team has already been in touch with every single treating physician. So the identification of the patients will not be an obstacle.
Right. So would you say that insurance coverage is going to be the main rate limiting factor here?
So we don't think so. So we have engaged with all major payer systems, the national ones, the regional ones. We have a very strong payer team in-house that is working on that. Many of the -- or the patients that came early on, the prior authorization process, the medical acceptance process has gone smooth. We have had some denials, but that is also as expected. Some of these denials are just the normal routine if the reimbursement policy is not established. So we're quite encouraged about the reimbursement.
Okay. Maybe let's talk about Sanfilippo now. Just remind us where you are with that indication, and sizing-wise, how it would compare to Hunter.
Yes. So -- and thanks for asking this because we are very excited about AVLAYAH, but what we're also tremendously excited about is, of course, the proof of concept for blood-brain barrier transport more broadly, right? And we have a broad portfolio enabled by the TransportVehicle. On one hand, a whole what we call the franchise of enzyme replacement therapy, and then beyond that is other neurodegenerative diseases, right? We have the tau program and the Abeta program. The enzymes we feel is the commercial foundation of the company. And then neurodegeneration is sort of the upside potential.
Now the first back -- the first next on deck on the enzyme replacement therapy franchise is DNL126 for Sanfilippo. So here, that's MPS IIIA. At the WORLD conference in San Diego in February, we showed very encouraging data from the first -- from the Phase I/II study, where we have a mean 80% reduction of heparan sulfate.
Heparan sulfate is the biomarker -- measured in CSF is the biomarker that is qualified by the FDA as being reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit and therefore, the basis of accelerated approval. So 80% mean reduction in heparan sulfate normalization in some patients. So that gives us confidence that we have the data package to submit the BLA next year and potentially achieve approval by the end of next year.
What do you think of FDA's actual interpretation of HS because there's been some controversy around that?
In our conversations, the FDA -- so there was -- 2 years ago, there was the Reagan-Udall Foundation meeting, which brought together regulators, academics, industry and patient groups and the role of heparan sulfate was discussed and that marker was qualified. I think some discussion was around the extent of reduction of heparan sulfate. I mean we don't know where the FDA's bar is, but we normalize heparan sulfate for Hunter syndrome. And in Sanfilippo, we have 80% with some patients already normalizing, right? So we feel very good about the extent of that.
I didn't answer your question on the size of Sanfilippo. Generally, we think Sanfilippo is about the same market size as Hunter syndrome. Epidemiology is not as well understood because there is no standard of care. But we feel that they -- it's maybe a tad bit smaller, but it's about the same.
And are the doctors who treat Sanfilippo the same as those who treat Hunter?
There is almost perfect overlap between the 2 of them, very similar treatment centers, treating physicians. The communities are often together as well. So you'd have -- we were just in Napa on a community event, you have the MPS Society and then you will have patients with MPS II and patients with MPS IIIA. They have a lot of cross interactions as well. So a lot of synergy there.
Okay. And then I'm sorry if you mentioned it, but when is the plan for the BLA filing here?
BLA filing in 2027 and potentially approval, depending on when the BLA filing happens, also in '27.
Okay. So that could be next year, which is right about [ Hunter ]?
That's right.
And in terms of the infrastructure that you've built, would you just be able to leverage that for this [indiscernible] trial?
Almost perfect synergy on the infrastructure. We do not expect to expand the team. Obviously, some marketing material has to be made, et cetera. But other than that, it's -- we can slot the next program right in, which is also true for several of the other enzymes that we have, right?
So the next one then is for Pompe disease, where we're about to start our first clinical study. That is for the first time then testing the benefit of transferrin receptor in the periphery, right? So more improved muscle distribution, bone distribution. So that will be an exciting expansion of our ETV portfolio.
And Pompe is, relatively speaking, crowded, right? Because you do have Amicus and Sanofi there already, so what would you say is the added advantage?
It is -- so if you speak with KOLs and with families, patients are weak. They don't do really well. And mostly, that is about the imperfect muscle distribution. So standard enzyme replacement therapy relies on mannose-6 phosphate receptor. Mannose-6 phosphate receptor is not very highly expressed on the muscle, but what is highly expressed is transferrin receptor because muscle need lots of iron.
So if you want to drive something into muscle and bone, transferrin receptor is the way to go. So what we expect, and we see this preclinically -- but we expect that we could probably really have a significant impact on the musculoskeletal system.
Okay. I should actually say not Amicus, but BioMarin. That switch rate from Sanofi to the now BioMarin asset was a little bit slower than what people anticipated. Do you think that it's because those are not particularly differentiated assets from each other and your focus on transferrin could be much more notable and thus be potentially much more appealing?
That's our hypothesis, right, that just like with Hunter syndrome, it's not -- AVLAYAH is not an incremental but a stepwise benefit over the standard of care, and we would expect the same, hopefully, with Pompe.
Okay. All right. So let's move on to Parkinson's as we move up away from enzyme replacement type diseases, more into neurodegenerative diseases. So you've got this 151 BIIB122 partnership. So can you talk to us about what's going to be presented? And what would be the data?
Yes. Happy to do that. So for context, this is our last remaining product, which is a small molecule. So when we started Denali 10 years ago, we had large molecules and small molecules. Once we had confidence in the TransportVehicle, we spun out all of our preclinical small molecules as a separate company right now. The one remaining is the LRRK2 inhibitor in collaboration with Biogen for Parkinson's.
So this is very compelling biology, right? So mutations in LRRK2 are one of the strongest genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease. LRRK2 is a kinase. The mutations are gain-of-function mutations. And when this kinase is overactive, the lysosome coalesces. And then when the lysosome coalesces, it doesn't process protein very well. Most of the neurodegenerative diseases are protein misfolding, protein accumulation diseases.
So the effect here would be inhibit LRRK2, improve lysosomal function, therefore, improve neuronal health and improve outcome in Parkinson's, right? So that's the biology, very compelling biology. We also know that we have a good compound. We tested it in a large Phase I, Phase Ib study, where we showed a dose-dependent improvement in lysosomal function.
The study that will read out, which is led by Biogen, so also the timing is determined by Biogen, is a 650-patient study with a clinical endpoint. It's UPDRS, the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Part 2 and 3. And it's a study that measures the rate of the progression of decline. So what we look for is for a clinically meaningful slowing in the rate of the progression of decline.
And would this be designed to be used instead of levodopa or with?
So it is a disease-modifying -- is actually the -- it would be the only and the first disease-modifying treatment in Parkinson's disease, while levodopa is a symptomatic. And ultimately, you would probably expect a -- those are 2 very different approaches that would be used in combination there. The study, by the way, includes both treatment-naive patients and patients on levodopa.
Okay. But do you have a sense of where it would work better?
I think we have to wait for it. I think we have to wait for the data. Yes.
So LRRK2 -- a few companies are looking at LRRK2 as a target. So on the one hand, it's good because several people want to pursue it. But how do you think about differentiation if that's the case?
Yes. So we have a very direct mechanism, right? It's a kinase. We have a kinase inhibitor. We know that overactive LRRK2 leads to dysfunctional lysosomes. We have shown that we can improve lysosomal function. Other approaches are a bit more indirect, either as protein degraders or other approaches. But honestly, we can hypothesize preclinically, but we would have to -- I think, here, the right thing to do is wait for the clinical data, wait for it to read out and then take it from there.
The one point that I do want to make on this program is that there are 2 studies ongoing right now, right? There is one that is -- that we just talked about, which is reading out with Biogen, which is in idiopathic Parkinson's disease. And there is a second study called BEACON, which is only in LRRK2 carriers. The strongest biologic rationale is in LRRK2 carriers. So the real decision about the future of this program would have to be made in the context of the readout of both of those studies, which would be by the end of this year.
And what percent, just remind us, of Parkinson's patients are LRRK2 carriers?
Yes. It's about 2% to 3% of Parkinson's. So there are about 1 million Parkinson's patients, so there's about 20,000 to 30,000 patients in the U.S.
Okay. In the few minutes we have, I did want to talk about Biogen's read-through for their tau program to yours. So is there a scenario where their readout does not bode well for Denali?
It's a good question. I mean we think the readouts are skewed in our favor, right? So Biogen is testing the tau hypothesis, but with a severe limitation on biodistribution, right? So Biogen's ASO in collaboration with Ionis is intrathecally administered. which has liabilities in itself, but the real limitation is that you do not have perfect distribution throughout the CNS, while the big advantage of going through the bloodstream with transferrin receptor, 300 miles of blood vessels in the brain, every neuron has its adjacent capillary, we have like perfect access to that.
So if Biogen sees some link between tau reduction and cognition and improvement in cognition, that's fantastic, right? If they don't see anything, it might be the issue on just imperfect biodistribution. I'll give you an example. An analogy is, back to Hunter syndrome, Takeda, a long time ago, ran an intrathecal ELAPRASE trial, and it didn't work, right? Intrathecal administration does not distribute the brain -- does not distribute drug very well in the brain.
Okay. And so basically, what you're saying is unless it doesn't show anything at all, it's good for Denali.
I think there is an outsized scenario where patients might actually get worse, but it's probably unlikely, and that would not be good for the whole field.
How should we be thinking about differences in the safety profile between a brain shuttler like Denali's versus the approach that Biogen is using?
Yes. I mean it is the safety profile. Again, we've -- this is the great -- one of the great things about having a drug approved with Hunter syndrome, AVLAYAH, this very strong support for the safety profile. We have patients on drug for over 5 years now dosed weekly, 15 milligrams per kilogram, a high dose. So we know it is safe.
Intrathecal administration is not perfect. It's not ideal at all, right, in -- the number of puncture with all the associated liability. So there is definitely a safety and convenience improvement, but really what we hope for is an efficacy benefit.
Okay. And then maybe last question is going to be on your 593 asset for FTD. Just talk to us about where you are in development there and when we should expect to see the next data set.
Yes. So 593 is what we call PTV, protein transport vehicle-enabled progranulin. So this is in FTD, frontotemporal dementia. A subset of those patients lacks progranulin. Progranulin again, is a lysosomal protein. It is important for lysosomal function. We substitute progranulin. So it's a very direct mechanism. You can almost think about enzyme replacement therapy. This is like protein replacement therapy.
So it is a mechanism that very directly addresses the lack of protein in these patients. We have shown in a Phase I that we can deliver safely large quantities of progranulin up to 27-fold the physiological levels. Now in this Phase Ib, what we look at in 40 patients with frontotemporal dementia granulin, if we can actually improve lysosomal function.
So by the end of this year, the study will read out, and we will look at proximal and distal markers of lysosomal function and then neuronal health. So markers of lysosomal function, GM2, GM3, Glucosylsphingosine, is what we primarily look for. There is an outsized scenario where we also look at neurofilament, right? So neurofilament would be the ultimate determinant that we can actually improve neuronal health. But remember, it's only a 6-month study. So in that short period of time, there is -- it's not impossible, but really what we focus on here is improvement in lysosomal markers.
And what about the view that for neurofilament, you need at least a year's worth of data because it seems like, with other programs from other companies, it's been kind of a noisy results?
That's probably right. We saw in Hunter syndrome, it took 2 years to normalize. On the other hand, you have, in some genetic forms of ALS, it took only 6 months. Tofersen was 6 months to really reduce. So there is a lot of variability on neurofilament.
Yes. So what would you, longer term, want to see to feel confident in this program then?
Well, early on, improvement in lysosomal markers, longer-term reduction in neurofilament, and that will give us the confidence to then actually go into an efficacy study next.
Okay. Perfect. With that, we are out of time. So thank you, Alex, for [ staying ] with me for the last 30 minutes, and thanks, everybody, for joining us.
Thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Bank of America Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali ist vom F&E-Player zur kommerziell operierenden Firma übergegangen: erste Zulassung und erste kommerzielle Patienten, mehrere klinische Readouts bis Ende Jahr/2027 als Katalysatoren.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Strategie: Kommerzielle Transition mit AVLAYAH (Hunter-Syndrom) als Proof-of-concept für Blut-Hirn-Schranken-Transport; parallel Ausbau einer Enzym-Rep.-Franchise und Programme gegen Neurodegeneration.
- Pipeline-Fokus: Kurzfristig Enzymtherapien (Hunter, Sanfilippo, Pompe), mittelfristig LRRK2-Parkinson- und progranulin-Programme als Upside.
✨ Strategische Highlights
- AVLAYAH: Zulassung 24. März; Ziel: Behandlung neurologischer Manifestationen durch Brain‑Delivery, breites Interesse über Altersgruppen.
- Kommerzialisierung: Erste kommerzielle Patienten on drug; Start‑Formen werden erfasst, Zahlen noch nicht veröffentlicht, Fokus vorerst USA.
- Skalierung: Internationale Distributionsverträge vorbereitet; gleiche Vertriebsinfrastruktur soll für Folge-Enzyme genutzt werden (DNL126, Pompe).
🆕 Neue Informationen
- Launch‑Signal: Kommerzielle Starts bereits erfolgt; ein Fall nach 3,5 Wochen via medizinischer Ausnahme dokumentiert.
- Sanfilippo (DNL126): Phase I/II zeigte ~80% Reduktion von Heparansulfat (in Liquor) — Ziel BLA 2027, mögliche Zulassung 2027.
- Timelines: COMPASS (confirmatory Hunter) Daten bis Ende nächsten Jahres; Biogen‑gesteuerte LRRK2‑Studie und BEACON lesen Ende Jahr.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Uptake & Start‑Formen: Kritische Nachfrage, wie schnell Start‑Formen in Umsätze wandern; Management veröffentlicht Zahlen erst nach einem Quartal verlässlicher Konversionserfahrung.
- Erstattungen: Payer‑Engagement aktiv, frühe Prior Authorizations meist reibungslos; Denials erwartet, Management sieht kein systemisches Hindernis, aber Unsicherheit bleibt.
- Wissenschaft/ Differenzierung: Diskussion um Heparansulfat (Biomarker) und Biodistribution gegenüber intrathekalen Ansätzen (z.B. Biogen); Denali betont Vorteil systemischer Transferrin‑Rezeptor‑Verteilung.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Bedeutung: Valider Proof‑point mit Zulassung und ersten kommerziellen Fällen, aber kommerzieller Erfolg hängt jetzt vom Konvertieren von Start‑Formen, Erstattungsprozessen und Uptake‑Geschwindigkeit ab. Wichtige klinische und regulatorische Meilensteine (COMPASS, Sanfilippo‑BLA, LRRK2‑Readouts, FTD‑Daten) bestimmen die nächsten 12–24 Monate.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Special Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the AVLAYAH FDA Approval Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Laura Hansen, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you Jonathan, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our AVLAYAH FDA approval conference call. I'm Laura Hansen, Vice President of Investor Relations at Denali Therapeutics. Joining me on the call today are Ryan Watts, Chief Executive Officer; Alexander Schuth, Chief Financial and Operating Officer; Peter Chin, Chief Medical Officer; and Katie Peng, Chief Commercial Officer. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing the FDA approval of AVLAYAH. The press release and the slide presentation to accompany today's call are available in the Investor Relations section of our website at denalitherapeutics.com.
Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements related to the approval, commercial launch and potential therapeutic impact of AVLAYAH tividenofusp alfa-eknm, our expectations regarding patient access and uptake, the potential addressable patient population and our plans and objectives for commercialization and future operations. These statements are based on information available to us as of today and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We undertake no obligation to update these statements, except as required by law.
For a discussion of factors that could affect our results, please refer to our recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and its risk factor discussion. On today's call, we will discuss the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of AVLAYAH, the first enzyme replacement therapy designed to cross the blood-brain barrier using our transport vehicle platform for the treatment of Hunter syndrome, and we will outline plans for commercial launch. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions.
And with that, I will turn the call over to Ryan.
Thank you, Laura, and thank you all for joining us on short notice. Many of you have followed our progress over the years, and this is a significant moment for Denali. We're excited to share what this approval represents. To begin, I want to recognize the Hunter syndrome or MPS II community that made this milestone possible.
As shown on Slide 4, each of these photos represents just a few of the individuals and families who have been so instrumental in reaching this moment. We are deeply grateful to this community for their partnership, their courage and for continually challenging all of us to move faster and do better. At the same time, this approval reflects the collective efforts of many, including clinicians, researchers, advocacy partners and especially the entire Denali team, all working with a shared sense of urgency to address a devastating rare disease. We also want to recognize the FDA for a rigorous, thoughtful and highly constructive review process. This approval under the accelerated approval pathway based on a surrogate biomarker represents an important scientific and regulatory advancement. It underscores both the strength of the data and the shared commitment to bringing meaningful therapies to patients as efficiently as possible while continuing to build the evidence base.
Hunter syndrome is a progressive life-limiting condition that affects children from a very young age. While some aspects of the disease have been managed historically, the neurological manifestations have remained largely out of reach. What has always stood out to us is the clarity of what this community has been asking for, therapies that reach the brain. That input has shaped how we think, how we design our studies and how we move with urgency and purpose. We view this moment as a shared achievement and also as a responsibility to continue delivering for this community. And importantly, we believe this regulatory path may help open the door for future programs targeting similar diseases.
With that foundation, let me highlight why this approval represents such an important inflection point, both for the MPS II community and for Denali on Slide 5. First, this is a historic FDA approval. AVLAYAH is the first and only therapy for Hunter syndrome designed to address the whole body, including the brain, directly targeting one of the most critical unmet needs in this disease. Second, this marks the first meaningful therapeutic advance for MPS II community in nearly 2 decades. Importantly, AVLAYAH demonstrated significant reduction and normalization of cerebrospinal fluid heparan sulfate, a key disease biomarker, supporting activity in the central nervous system and forming the basis for this accelerated approval. Third, this approval validates our transport vehicle platform. This is the first FDA-approved biologic and a new class of medicines engineered to cross the blood-brain barrier, one of the most persistent challenges in medicine. Fourth, this milestone has broader implications beyond MPS II. It provides a regulatory and scientific framework that may inform the development of other programs, including DNL126 for Sanfilippo syndrome and additional lysosomal storage disorders. Finally, this establishes the foundation for Denali's lysosomal storage disease franchise. We are entering commercialization prepared. And we see this as the beginning of a broader opportunity to address diseases across the MPS spectrum.
Stepping back, as we noted in our announcement, this milestone validates our platform and its potential to overcome the long-standing challenge of delivering biologic medicines across the blood-brain barrier with the aim of transforming treatment for a wide range of serious diseases. Taken together, this is not just a single product approval, it represents a meaningful step forward for patients and an important advancement in how therapies can be developed and approved and a defining moment for Denali.
So building on what I just outlined, both the significance of this approval for MPS II community and what it represents for Denali, let me walk you through how we will spend our time today on Slide 6. I've just framed the key messages coming out of this approval and what we believe matters most from a clinical, scientific and strategic perspective. Next, Peter Chin will take you deeper into Hunter syndrome, the disease burden, the long-standing unmet need and why reaching the brain has been such a critical challenge for this community. Peter will also review the clinical data and the FDA label for AVLAYAH, including the biomarker evidence supporting approval and how we're continuing to build the data set through our ongoing COMPASS study. Katie Peng will then present our launch readiness and commercialization strategy, including how we're working closely with the community to enable access. I'll come back at the end to connect this approval to the broader Denali story. particularly how it advances our transport vehicle platform and expands the opportunity across our pipeline. And then we'll open it up for questions.
I will now turn the call over to Peter.
Thank you, Ryan. Turning to Slide 8. Mucopolysaccharidosis type 2 or Hunter syndrome is a rare inherited lysosomal storage disorder caused by deficiency of the iduronate 2-sulfatase or IDS enzyme. IDS deficiency leads to accumulation of glycosaminoglycans or GAGs throughout the body. The disease course can vary across patients, but progression begins early in childhood and life expectancy in severe forms often extends only into the teenage years. Cardiac and respiratory failure are the leading cause of premature mortality.
On Slide 9, MPS II is a multisystem disorder with manifestations that can affect nearly every organ system as depicted on the figure on the left. The most prominent neurologic manifestations are progressive cognitive decline and behavioral changes, but can also include motor impairment and hearing loss. At the same time, patients develop significant peripheral disease burden, including cardiac, respiratory, skeletal and gastrointestinal complications. Because of this, it is important to address both the peripheral manifestations and the disease in the brain with a whole body treatment approach.
Turning to Slide 10. The current standard of care for MPS II is intravenous enzyme replacement therapy, which does not cross the blood-brain barrier. There remains a significant unmet need for therapies that can address the neurologic manifestations and better address full body disease. As a result, neurologic manifestations, including cognitive decline, behavioral symptoms and hearing loss remain inadequately addressed. Moreover, patients may continue to experience peripheral symptoms and show abnormal urine GAG levels even after treatment with IV ERT, and cardiac, skeletal and other manifestations may persist or progress despite treatment. Thus, new therapies in MPS II should aim to address both the neurologic and peripheral manifestations of disease. This is exactly the challenge AVLAYAH was designed to address. With today's approval, we now have a therapy engineered to reach both the periphery and the brain, enabled by our transport vehicle platform.
Let's go to Slide 12 to discuss further how that works. AVLAYAH uses Denali's transport vehicle technology, which is designed to optimize delivery of biotherapeutics across the blood-brain barrier. The approach leverages the transferrin receptor, which is naturally expressed on cells of the blood-brain barrier and throughout other tissues. AVLAYAH is designed to deliver IDS to both the brain and the body.
On Slide 13, the clinical data supporting AVLAYAH were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describing results from the Phase I/II study of tividenofusp alfa in pediatric patients with Hunter syndrome. Treatment with tividenofusp alfa produced large and sustained reductions in biomarkers of disease activity in both the CNS and the periphery. CSF heparan sulfate, a biomarker of primary substrate accumulation in the CNS and the basis of this accelerated approval was substantially reduced to levels seen in unaffected children. Neurofilament light, an established marker of neuronal injury was also reduced to normal levels. urine heparan sulfate normalized to levels in unaffected children, reflecting clearance of peripheral substrate in both previously treated and ERT-naive participants.
On Slide 14, overall mean change in Vineland adaptive behavioral raw score functional composite demonstrated continued skill gains over time. Bayley Scales cognitive raw scores similarly demonstrated improvement with continued cognitive skill gains. Improvements in hearing threshold as assessed by pure tone average were maintained throughout the period of follow-up. These data show the potential for treated patients to improve or stabilize meaningfully.
On Slide 15, with respect to safety, infusion-related reactions, a known risk of ERTs were the most common adverse event, decreasing in incidence and severity over time. Hemoglobin levels remain generally stable during treatment following an initial decrease. Overall, the safety results were consistent with ERTs and manageable for chronic therapy. Taken together, these data represent the culmination of years of work to address the full spectrum of peripheral and neurologic manifestations of Hunter syndrome, applying our understanding of the disease and leveraging the transport vehicle platform to deliver therapy to the whole body, including the brain. Importantly, this body of evidence has now translated into regulatory recognition in the United States, marking a meaningful step forward for patients.
With that context, I'll turn to Slide 16 to highlight key elements of the AVLAYAH U.S. prescribing information. Here are select highlights of the U.S. label. AVLAYAH is now approved under U.S. accelerated approval for the treatment of MPS II based on CSF heparan sulfate as a surrogate biomarker reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. AVLAYAH is indicated for the treatment of neurologic manifestations in patients with Hunter syndrome when initiated in presymptomatic or symptomatic pediatric patients weighing at least 5 kilograms prior to advanced neurologic impairment. AVLAYAH is not recommended for use in combination with other enzyme replacement therapies. The recommended AVLAYAH maintenance dosage is 15 milligrams per kilogram administered once weekly as an intravenous infusion over approximately 4 hours. Treatment should be initiated with a dose escalation regimen. The prescribing information reflects the robust effects on the primary substrate of IDS in both CNS and periphery.
With respect to CSF heparan sulfate, treatment with AVLAYAH resulted in a significant 91% mean reduction of CSF HS from baseline with 93% of patients having CSF HS levels below the upper limit of normal at week 24. For urine GAG at baseline, 4% of patients had total urine GAG levels below the upper limit of normal. After treatment with AVLAYAH, 68% of patients had total urine GAG levels below the upper limit of normal at week 24. With respect to safety, the prescribing information includes the following: a box warning regarding hypersensitivity, including anaphylaxis consistent with other approved ERTs guidance on management of infusion-associated reactions, anemia typically occurring early with guidance to assess hemoglobin prior to treatment initiation 3 months after initiation and as clinically indicated thereafter. and membranous nephropathy related to immune complex deposition in reported case. General guidance is to monitor serum creatinine and urine protein to creatinine ratio at a frequency to be determined by the prescriber.
On Slide 17, AVLAYAH's clinical development continues with a clear path from U.S. accelerated approval to full approval. The Phase I/II study with 47 participants supported U.S. accelerated approval and will continue to support select country approvals. The COMPASS Phase II/III confirmatory study in approximately 63 participants is ongoing. The design is a head-to-head randomized controlled trial versus standard of care ERT across disease phenotypes and a broad age range. This study is designed to evaluate both neurologic and somatic clinical outcomes. COMPASS includes adults living with Hunter syndrome and represents an important evidence package to potentially broaden future access in the United States and internationally.
And now I'll turn it over to Katie Peng.
Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on this milestone day for Denali and the MPS II community. Today, I'll briefly cover what this approval means and how we are positioned to execute on a successful launch.
On Slide 19, as Peter outlined, MPS II is a progressive and multisystem condition. What is most compelling to physicians about the AVLAYAH data is that patients achieved normalization of CSF HS in 9 of 10 patients as early as 6 months with sustained normalization at 12 months. None of the patients in the study had normal CSF HS at base line. AVLAYAH also achieved normalization of urine GAG, a key biomarker of disease progression in 9 of 10 patients by 12 months. Only 2 patients had normal urine GAG at base. Importantly, a majority of patients in this study were previously receiving standard of care enzyme replacement therapy, reflecting a real-world transition as more than 90% of patients today are on treatment. No other therapies to date have demonstrated this level of normalization across key disease biomarkers. This is setting a new bar. For the first time, we are seeing data that support addressing both systemic and neurologic disease burden in a single therapy.
Slide 20. Now let's step back and take a look at the broader landscape. In the United States, approximately 30 new patients are diagnosed each year. There are roughly 500 patients living with MPS II in the U.S. and 2,000 worldwide. With this approval, the opportunity is to capture approximately 75% of the treated U.S. prevalent population. With a positive COMPASS study, we should be able to address the entire MPS II population. Today's prevalent population reflects the reality that individuals born with severe disease often experience shortened lifespan. With AVLAYAH, we believe there is the potential to alter that trajectory over time. Early treatment may improve neurologic outcomes and longer survival could gradually expand the prevalent population. While this evolution will occur over time, it represents the potential for meaningful long-term impact for families and a durable opportunity for Denali to continue advancing therapies in rare disease.
Slide 21. Our commercial confidence is grounded in stakeholder insights gathered prelaunch. 90% of physicians view AVLAYAH's data as highly motivating to prescribe. 80% are aware of new treatments in development and are excited to try AVLAYAH. We have also engaged with payers that cover approximately 90% of commercial lives. The feedback has been constructive. Payers recognize the unmet need and have indicated that they will likely manage to the FDA-approved label. We have seen similar excitement from the patient and advocacy community and have been engaging with them frequently as they were critical in helping to shape our launch. This is not a market where awareness needs to be created from scratch. It is a community that is informed, organized and ready for change.
On Slide 22, the structure of the MPS market is an advantage for our launch. Of the 500 U.S. patients currently treated with enzyme replacement therapy, the majority are managed by clinical genetics in about 100 centers of excellence. The concentration enables a small and focused field team. We have already established relationships with all major MPS II centers. Our sales team have profiled and segmented all accounts with MPS II patients to optimize execution from day 1.
Slide 23. I could not be more excited or confident in the team we have in place. Our leadership team brings experience across product strategy, U.S. and global marketing, market access, analytics and medical affairs. We have marketed oral products, injectables and IV-infused products. Collectively, the team has launched 19 products or indications, including global blockbusters and rare disease therapy. Across our field organization in the U.S., 96% of our teams have lysosomal storage or rare disease experience. The depth of that experience is on average 12 years.
Slide 24. As the first TfR-enabled enzyme replacement therapy designed to cross the blood-brain barrier, AVLAYAH addresses progressive neurologic decline in MPS II, a critical unmet need not targeted by existing therapies. The innovation meaningfully differentiates AVLAYAH within the current MPS II treatment paradigm. The degree of biomarker normalization and CNS engagement is unprecedented and reflects the differentiated value of the therapy. AVLAYAH's pricing balances our 4 core principles: access, affordability, sustained R&D investment and the therapeutic innovation of our medicines. Our wholesale acquisition price is $5,200 per 150-milligram single-use vial. AVLAYAH is dosed weekly at 15 milligrams per kilogram. Most pediatric patients will require 2 to 3 vials per week depending on weight. The annual cost of maintenance dosing for a 10-kilogram infant is about $270,000. The annual cost of maintenance dosing a 30-kilogram child is about $811,000. We are deeply committed to broad and equitable access for eligible patients. Our teams have engaged with payers prelaunch and we will continue those discussions to support coverage for eligible patients at launch and beyond. Importantly, this launch establishes a sustainable revenue stream that supports expansion of our TfR-enabled platform across additional neurodegenerative diseases. We believe AVLAYAH is well positioned for long-term success, driven by the significant unmet need it addresses and the strength of our commercial execution. We are confident in this price supports a successful launch while balancing innovation, access and sustainable value creation.
Slide 25. Market access execution is critical in rare disease, so we invested heavily here. Through our Denali Care Program, we will provide personalized support throughout the treatment journey. Our comprehensive patient support services include benefit investigation, prior authorization and assistance navigating insurance coverage. In addition, the team will support treatment coordination, provide information and educational resources and financial assistance support where appropriate. Our objective is simple: reduce the time from prescription to first infusion and minimize friction for families.
Slide 26. Looking ahead, our road map is structured across stakeholders. For physicians, we are supporting in-service education, infusion training and robust scientific exchange to instill confidence in clinical use. For payers, we are securing commercial coverage policies, advancing Medicaid access and operationalizing prior authorizations and acceptance processes. For patients and caregivers, we are activating with the advocacy community, driving awareness and consideration and focusing on reducing the time to therapy initiation. AVLAYAH is expected to be available in the United States 2 weeks from tomorrow. We are prepared operationally for that time line. Rare disease launches follow a predictable uptake curve. In 2026, the focus is activation and access. In 2027, we expect adoption acceleration when we will see coverage policies in place and revenue inflection as workflows stabilize and confidence in AVLAYAH matures.
Slide 27. Let me briefly walk you through how we think about global access following our U.S. approval. The U.S. decision really serves as the anchor for our ex-U.S. regulatory strategy. In many markets, we can leverage that approval through a mechanism like the Certificate of Pharmaceutical Product, or CPP, and other conditional approval pathways to begin the registration process. Of course, registration is just the first step. After approval in each country, we will still need to go through local reimbursement processes to ensure patients can access the therapy. We expect global access to occur in phases. Roughly 1/3 of the market could become available in the near term with additional markets opening in the mid and longer term as both regulatory and reimbursement processes are completed. To support that expansion, we have already established distributor partnerships across select markets in Lat Am and MENA regions.
Slide 28. Let me leave you with a few key takeaways. AVLAYAH represents the first meaningful advancement in MPS II treatment in 20 years. Second, we have built a fully staffed and experienced rare disease commercial organization. Third, the competitive landscape is favorable and no direct CNS penetrant therapies are currently approved. And fourth, the community is ready and waiting. Our priorities are super clear: drive patient starts, ensure smooth reimbursement, deliver a consistent high-quality patient experience and build a durable franchise starting with MPS II. We look forward to updating you as we move through the first phases of launch.
Now I'll turn it back to Ryan.
Thank you, Katie. Slide 30. Established by today's approval of AVLAYAH, I'd like to discuss the broader strategic context, which is the ETV franchise we are building in lysosomal storage disorders. What this slide shows is that we are not pursuing a single indication, but a platform-driven opportunity across multiple diseases with meaningful patient populations, including MPS II, MPS IIIA, Pompe, Gaucher and others. Collectively, this represents a substantial addressable market. What differentiates our approach is that the ETV platform is designed to address both systemic and neurologic disease.
Historically, enzyme replacement therapies have been limited to peripheral tissues, leaving the brain untreated. We believe AVLAYAH demonstrates that this paradigm can change. From a commercial standpoint, this is also a highly leverageable model. We can build on existing infrastructure, apply a consistent development and launch approach across indications and drive efficiencies as we scale. Importantly, we are entering a large, well-established ERT market with significant precedent for adoption, reimbursement and long-term value creation. So when we talk about AVLAYAH, we see it not just as a product but as the foundation of a durable multi-program franchise in lysosomal storage disorders.
Slide 31. Let me close by putting this moment into perspective. With AVLAYAH, we believe we have reached an important first summit, one that reflects years of scientific invention, disciplined execution and deep partnership with patient community. First, this is proof. AVLAYAH is the first FDA-approved biologic design to cross the blood-brain barrier, demonstrating that we can deliver medicines to the brain in a meaningful way. Second, this validates our platform. The transport vehicle is now proven in humans, opening the door to an entirely new class of biologic medicines. Third, this fuels our pipeline. What we've established here creates a clear path to expand into additional lysosomal storage disorders, including DNL126 for Sanfilippo syndrome, which we plan to advance towards launch next year as well as into broader neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. where we expect to have 2 programs in clinical development this year. And most importantly, this is about our patients. While we are starting in rare diseases, our ambition is much larger to transform treatment for millions of people affected by serious diseases. So while today marks a major milestone, we see it as the beginning of what this platform can deliver. We remain steadfast in our purpose to transform life for patients. We look forward to continuing this journey with all of you. And now we will take your questions.
Operator, could you please open the lines for questions?
[Operator Instructions] And our first question for today comes from the line of Andrew Tsai from Jefferies.
2. Question Answer
Congratulations on approval. It's exciting. I know you guys have mentioned to think about an S-type trajectory acceleration later in 2027. Is there a low-hanging fruit though right now, maybe within naive or switch patients? And maybe asked another way, what exactly would it take for this S curve to look more linear or parabolic instead?
Thank you, Andrew. I'll hand back to Katie to answer that question.
Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, certainly, the patient population is very excited. We've already gotten a lot of outreach since the announcement from the community, excited to start. And I think as we've spoken before, a lot of it has to do with the mechanics of getting reimbursement, and it will take time for, of course, the product to get into the channel, which will take about 2 weeks. and then for the reimbursement process to start. And that's why we're guiding to an SJ curve more because of the mechanics of launch and not for the lack of excitement from the community.
Makes sense. And as you guys mentioned, you clearly have data showing clear benefits on functional outcomes violin Bayley. The label technically doesn't have that right now. So can your sales reps technically go out and message the functional data you're seeing? It was published in the NEJM paper or do we have to technically wait for COMPASS data in order for you to promote that?
That's a great question. Our sales team will focus on promoting what is within the label and consistent with label. In terms of the clinical data that's available through the NEJM article, our medical affairs team will be able to speak to that in engaging on scientific exchange with the physicians. So it's a dual approach essentially with our field team very much focused on the biomarkers and the safety data that's in the label, but med affairs will certainly be able to talk to the data set that is in New England Journal of Medicine.
And our next question comes from the line of Salveen Richter from Goldman Sachs.
This is Lydia on for Salveen. Congrats on the approval. I guess just given the language in the label, do you anticipate any payer pushback for the non-neuronopathic or attenuated patients? And then if you could just talk about your plans to monetize the PRV.
Great. Thank you, Lydia. Great to hear from you. Katie will answer your first question around payers and the details on label, and then Alex will answer your second question on the PRB.
Yes. So that's a great question. No, we don't expect there will be any limitations from the payers because the label indicates that it's for presymptomatic and symptomatic patients. So attenuated less severe patients also have neurologic manifestations. So our expectation is that the payers would cover to the label indication.
Yes, Lydia, we are, of course, pleased that the FDA has granted the rare pediatric disease priority review voucher, the PRB for the approval of AVLAYAH. As you know, this PRV can be transferred or sold, and we intend to do so in support of our operating expense in support of our long-term goal. So stay tuned on that.
And our next question comes from the line of Michael Yee from UBS.
Congrats on the approval. Two questions. I guess just thinking about the ramp, how do you technically determine if someone is neuropathic or has neurological disease? Is there a specific or requirement to determine the eligibility for that? And then secondly, how does this approval and your regulatory discussions you just went through read through to Sanfilippo and the process there and how that's going?
Thanks, Mike. I'll have maybe both Katie and Peter comment on neurologic manifestations. And as you sort of define that, maybe we'll start with Katie. And then the read-through on this for Sanfilippo will have Peter comment on that.
Thanks, Mike, for that question. In terms of how you think about the treatment landscape, the disease is really a spectrum disease. So in practice, we don't really think about neuronopathic versus non-neuronopathic. And if you look at the label today, it's really covering all of the pediatric patients, they should be able to gain access and specifically address in thinking about neurologic manifestations, which is different than neuronopathic. If you look at the literature as well as our claims data, about 90-plus percent of patients actually have neurologic manifestations. So that is not necessarily only relegated to neuronopathic patients. So that's why we're thinking in terms of the opportunity, it is really the pediatric population in the prevalent population in the U.S. So hopefully, that addresses your question.
And maybe I can add to what Katie has just shared. I do think it's important to note the distinction in the labeling language between neurologic manifestations versus neuronopathic. There's no mention of neuronopathic or non-neuronopathic or attenuated phenotypes. And really, the focus is on neurologic manifestations, recognizing that CSF HS is the basis of approval as a surrogate marker.
On the question of Sanfilippo, I think what this precedent sets is that CSF HS is an approvable surrogate marker for -- as a reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. And in our discussions with the agency through the START program, we have frequent interactions and anticipate and have already had discussions that CSF HS could lead to an approvable path. Each disease is different. I think that's an important thing to consider as well. And I also note that at this time, Sanfilippo has no standard of care. And so we'll have specific discussions in that disease state.
And our next question comes from the line of Sean Laaman from Morgan Stanley.
This is Mike Riad on for Sean. Congratulations on AVLAYAH's approval. Could you just maybe comment more generally on like neurological manifestations? Is this like restrictive or advantageous in terms of the positioning versus Elaprase? Like how does that influence early age uptake and commercial positioning over the long run?
I'll hand that to Katie to comment.
Yes. So in terms of commercial positioning, it really doesn't change. The only difference compared to the current standard of care has to do with the separation between pediatric and adults. But we feel with the current label, it is holistically being able to treat all different manifestations of the disease, whether it's symptomatic or presymptomatic. So if a physician deems that a patient even presymptomatic has the likelihood to show neurologic manifestations, they are able to treat. So I feel like this label is very holistic and able to help us address the pediatric population with MPS II.
Perfect. And just a quick follow-up. So you noted that like with the expansion of a prevalent patient population with disease burden reduction over time that, that would grow the patient population. Is this more of a result of just early intervention? Or like post COMPASS, would there be additional label expansions to help grow the addressable population?
Yes. So I think it's threefold. Newborn screening is now increasing in the United States. So we'll be able to identify patients earlier on. And certainly, with this disease, earlier treatment will result in better benefit. And as you know, with the severe population today, lifespan is shortened, right? It's late teens. And so we believe with early treatment, newborn screening, we will be able to address the disease more holistically. And over time, we expect with the COMPASS data set, we would then be able to unlock adult patients as well. So given these 3 things over time, we believe the prevalent population should grow with MPS II.
And maybe just 2 comments. One is I want our resident neurologist, our lead neurologist, Peter, to make a comment on neurologic manifestations and just to restate what we stated before about the breadth. The second is that this is -- I think it's important to understand that on initiation of treatment, it's in the pediatric time period, but patients will stay on drug throughout life. So they will continue as adults on AVLAYAH. Maybe a comment on neurologic manifestations.
Yes. Thanks, Ryan. I think echoing what Katie has said, neurologic manifestations are prevalent across the spectrum of MPS II. Importantly, the indication includes presymptomatic and symptomatic stages of the disease prior to advanced neurologic impairment. And I think that's important from a clinical perspective because it allows the patients and the families to make the assessment of the most appropriate treatment. And so even in the presymptomatic stage, one can anticipate that patients will develop or may develop neurologic symptoms.
Congratulations on AE approval.
And our next question comes from the line of Tazeen Ahmad from Bank of America.
This is Daniel on for Tazeen. Congratulations on the approval. Just 2 on our side. We're just wondering what kind of metrics you plan to provide to help us track the launch once you get this product on the market? And then in terms of coverage, do you expect there to be differences between patients switching versus newly diagnosed patients? Do you expect any sort of step edit requirements before patients can start on AVLAYAH?
I'll hand that to Katie.
Okay. I'll answer your second question first, which is, no, we do not expect there would be any differences in how payer would handle naive patients versus switch patients given the strong label that we have. In terms of updates on the progression of the launch, I think for the first year, we're not going to be providing a lot of details other than to give qualitative updates on the mechanics of what with the launch. And as the data and our launch evolves, we will then share additional information.
And our next question comes from the line of Paul Matteis from Stifel.
Let us offer our congratulations. This is Julian on for Paul. I guess I think a lot of people are wondering whether you guys think there's a bolus of patients that may be lined up waiting to switch from Elaprase. Anything that you could say about that? And I guess, just thinking about what types of patients you think may be interested, again, that are in line with the label.
And then one other follow-up question is FDA mentioned in its press release that you're 95% enrolled for the confirmatory Phase III. Just wanted to get your thoughts on how far along you think you need to be enrolled for the Sanfilippo study in order to file a BLA there? And if any specific considerations for that indication we should think about with respect to regulatory?
I'll hand it to Katie on the first one and then myself and Peter will comment on the Sanfilippo enrollment.
Great. In terms of bolus, I would not think of it as a bolus. Usually, you think about that when there's no treatment available in a current disease area. What I will say is the bottleneck will be access and reimbursement, right? We won't have coverage from payers from day 1. And so there will be a medical acceptance process in order to get reimbursement for patients. And as you know, with rare disease being expensive, patients will not have access until reimbursement can be assessed for each of the patients.
In addition, there is logistics of getting back into the clinic for infusion. So those are the sort of mechanistic bottlenecks. In terms of patients that are excited and waiting, certainly, the newly diagnosed patients, the younger patients that have been identified as having more severe disease. We have already heard a lot of excitement from the community on getting these patients on treatment as soon as possible. And we always think about time is neurons, so we need to get these patients on. But it's more about logistical hurdles that we'll have to work through and launch and not about excitement. There's not a lack of that in the community.
I'll add a couple of points to the second question around Sanippolics maybe just make a general comment the standard of care. But obviously, getting the Phase III off the ground is a priority as we will file for accelerated approval next year. Any other thoughts on that, Peter?
Yes. Just one additional thought. I think that it's important to note that the COMPASS study started years ago with the intent for a robust Phase II/III design to enable global approval, not just confirmation for the accelerated approval today. So while the FDA noted the 95% enrollment, I don't think that is a regulatory expectation per se. It's that the confirmatory study is underway.
And our next question comes from the line of Mayank Mamtani from B. Riley Securities.
Huge congrats on getting the brain shuttle field its first FDA approved product. Sorry if I missed this. As you mentioned, the initial focus is on the early symptom pediatric subjects. And there's some dose escalation monitoring period up to, I think, 8 weeks for a variety of things, infusion reactions, anemia, et cetera. Could you sharpen the split between the Elaprase naive newly diagnosed versus the switch patients that you intend to get on drug in sort of the next 2, 3 quarters? And also, I wonder in your physician research, how important some of the attributes that you have in your data like hearing improvement and even NfL improvement how does that kind of weigh in versus some of the other things that may come later like the 6-minute walk test or other neurological endpoints, which are obviously not in the label. If you could maybe give some more color there, that would be great.
Okay. I'll hand it to Katie and Peter will sort of tag team on this question.
I'll start with that. So in terms of the dose escalation, so 2 things. The patients -- the switch patients as well as the new patients, naive patients will need to come into the centers of excellence to get their infusion. And the dose escalation schedule is 3, 7 and 15. And so there are some logistics around getting patients set up for infusion. This is why we have guided to the S shape uptake curve because of the -- getting the patients back into the clinic. That is very common for new ERTs approved. With a new safety profile, physicians will need to gain experience infusing the product in the clinic before patients can be sent home. But we do very much expect all patients to be able to go home for home infusion for those that would like to get their infusions at home.
And maybe just to add, the dose escalation was scheduled to support positive patient experience by reducing infusion-related reactions early on. Remember that the data suggests that the incidence was highest early upon initiating treatment. And so the dose escalation really is designed to support a positive patient experience. We want patients to get to the maintenance dose as rapidly and as predictably as possible.
I think the second part of the question had to do with NfL and other outcomes. The label -- I want to emphasize the label is based on the Phase I/II study design, and that design had a primary study period of 24 weeks. And so the label outcomes are based on that primary study period. Now that said, as we've talked about before, we're highly encouraged by the NfL results and the large proportion of participants who normalized on NfL. And we think that also is highly meaningful. COMPASS is our confirmatory trial, and we will be analyzing a large number of outcomes, both peripheral and CNS across a very broad population from age 6 to 26. So that will -- that is intended to provide a very definitive and comprehensive efficacy.
I think I'll just add one other point, which I think you asked about hearing and some of these other endpoints. I think very much meaningful. within the community. And I think the great thing we have here is we have a rigorous FDA that based a label on the 24-week endpoint from the Phase I/II. And then we have the New England Journal publication that shows really longer-term data and what this medicine can actually do. I think it's a great combination. And then, of course, what Peter already mentioned, which is the COMPASS study as follow-up, but definitely viewed as meaningful, obviously, behavior cognition, and I think we hear a lot about hearing in particular.
And our next question comes from the line of Ananda Ghosh from H.C. Wainwright & Company.
On the data and of course, on this very fulfilling journey since inception. I have 2 questions. The first one, given the concentrated prescriber base, what does your survey work kind of tell about the percentage of docs willing to prescribe now versus those willing to see or wishing to see results from the head-to-head ERT study -- the study in the ERT?
Go ahead, Katie.
So our market research suggests that once they see and understand our biomarker data, they do see it as unprecedented given that no one has shown normalization in this treatment paradigm. Of course, with all launches, there will be a segment of physicians who have the wait-and-see approach, but there are much fewer of those because as I stated earlier, 100 -- 100 centers of excellence are managing these patients, and they have the level of depth and understanding of what is not being addressed with the current standard of care. And given that this is a progressive disease, we do see the level of excitement and willingness to prescribe. And I would say there may be a segment of physicians that's not as familiar with our data today that, of course, we're going to need to get to as part of this.
And maybe...
I just -- you have a second question, A. Go ahead.
Yes. So the second question is, I think, extension of what others have already asked, and that is based on some of the regulatory interactions you had over the past several months now, what are some of the -- what's the regulatory ramification with respect to some of the other assets in the platform beyond Sanfilippo? So what have you learned from this process? And how do you see a path forward for other programs?
Yes. I'll comment on that. Just to restate what we've stated before. I think it's obviously positive read-through, especially for Sanfilippo, which is a very aggressive neurologic disease where there is no standard of care, patients advance very rapidly. And I think importantly, it's precedent setting that heparan sulfate is used as a surrogate biomarker reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit.
Now we think about the broader pipeline. So that's, I think, clear for Sanfilippo, but our broader pipeline, each one of our medicines and each one of our desired therapeutic areas will have its own nuances. Pompe, for example, Gaucher, Alzheimer's. But I think most importantly, these data and this approval validates that the transport vehicle works. We can get biologics into the brain, but we'll approach each of those separately. We, of course, are looking for indications where biomarkers can allow for an accelerated approval. That's obviously advantageous.
And our next question comes from the line of Laura Chico from Wedbush.
Just a couple of follow-ups on my side here. Great color from Katie on the launch setup. Just wondering if you could expand a little bit more on the expectations around the payer mix within the U.S. And then this is more of a logistical clarification. Will there be patients converting from the trial to paid status? I know you're not looking for a bolus of switches or anything like that coming through. But just trying to understand if there's a conversion that has to happen here for AVLAYAH patients already on drug.
I'll hand back to Katie for those questions.
Thanks, Laura, for your question. In terms of the payer mix, our expectation is that 50% will be -- roughly 50% are commercial payers who have MPS II today and then the other 50% is likely Medicaid with very little Medicare. And maybe I'll address maybe part of your question, Peter can add in terms of the study. Now of course, with the U.S. approval, patients could drop out of study to get on to commercial therapy. But we haven't made any decisions or announcements in terms of our E2 program. So there will be more to come on that.
Yes. I'll just add that the study remains ongoing at this time.
And our next question comes from the line of Peyton Bonsek from TD Cowen.
This is [indiscernible] on for Peyton. I guess the first one is, when you look at the label and you finish the confirmatory trial, do you think that you could broaden it and get rid of the manifestations as part of the label? And the second thing is if you have any dose interruptions, do you imagine that you will have to go through a reauthorization step?
Okay. We'll have Peter talk about broadening the label, and then Katie will talk about if there needs to be reauthorization. Go ahead, Peter.
Yes. So thank you for the question. The question about the neurologic manifestations, that is a reflection of the accelerated approval based on the CSF surrogate. I think with the confirmatory study and the way that we have designed this with Cohort A with neurologic manifestations and Cohort B, which is an attenuated population and the totality of endpoints that we anticipate showing efficacy on we should be able to remove the neurologic manifestations because the study -- the confirmatory study is designed to assess comprehensive efficacy across a broad population.
In terms of reauthorization, what we understand from the standard of care today is that the reauthorizations and payers are usually at 6 months or at 1 year. And that's our assumptions to date.
I'm just going to add one other point around neurologic manifestations that Peter made earlier in the call. Again, linking it to CSF heparan sulfate is key, and that was, I think, a key for the FDA. But importantly, the majority -- the vast majority of patients experienced neurologic manifestations, both neuronopathic and attenuated. So I think what we think more about is would we initiate treatment in adult, which of course is a smaller fraction of the overall patient as we think about the expansion of the label. But we're very happy with the label. We think it does reflect the Phase I/II data, and it's a great place for us to start.
And our next question comes from the line of Myles Minter from William Blair.
This is John on for Myles. Congrats on the approval. So maybe just one final one on the neurological manifestations. Can you just talk a little bit more about how clinicians are defining these? And then maybe could you just provide us some clarity on what percentage of the attenuated population would not have those manifestations and therefore, would not be eligible as indicated?
Yes. Okay. We'll start with Peter on defining neurologic manifestations and then we'll hand it to Katie around the percentages.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I think the first thing to reiterate from my perspective is the indication is for neurologic manifestations in the presymptomatic and symptomatic stages. And remember that approximately 2/3 to 70% of MPS II patients are -- have a more severe phenotype with neurological involvement. And as Katie noted earlier, a large proportion of patients who are attenuated or classified as attenuated will also develop neurologic manifestations. So it's hard to put a specific number to it, but it's the majority of patients are expected to have neurologic manifestations.
The other thing I would say is important in the indication statement, there is a note that AVLAYAH is not recommended for use in combination with other therapies. And that is an implicit acknowledgment that AVLAYAH does address peripheral manifestations as well. And the urinary GAG normalization is also labeled in the pharmacodynamic results.
And maybe I'll just add a little bit of color because what the data that we have, there is a paper published that shows that actually before the age of 10, attenuated patients will develop neurologic manifestations. And based on our claims data set, when we looked at the list of what is considered neurologic manifestations, about 94% of patients have codes that cope to neurologic manifestations. So that's why we believe it is the majority of the population of the pediatric population.
I think we have time for at least one more question. I know we're at time, but we want to be able to get more questions. I think as we start repeating some questions, we realize we've kind of hit that limit. So let's take another question.
Our next question comes from the line of Jay Olson from Oppenheimer.
Congratulations on this landmark approval. We have a few questions. Can you talk about any educational support that you'll provide for patients to transition from Elaprase to AVLAYAH in clinical practice? And then second, can you share any color on the potential launch timing and strategy for countries outside the U.S. that also might provide approval based on your Phase I/II study results? And then finally, can you talk about whether there could be a platform technology designation granted by the FDA along with this AVLAYAH approval? And if so, how important would that be for future programs?
I'll hand it to Katie.
Great. Thanks, Dave, for your question. So our Denali CRE program or the care team, they will absolutely be supporting every patient and family with educational resources on how to transition from the current standard of care to AVLAYAH. And so our team is ready and waiting to be able to do that.
In terms of the global expansion, yes, and Peter mentioned this as well, we will be seeking regulatory approval with the U.S. approval now in hand, we can leverage the CPP or CMA process to be able to access other markets. But as you know, other markets will also require reimbursement unlike the U.S. market where we can go on day 1. So we'll have to be able to obtain reimbursement in those countries. And it will be local country by country as we go forward with registration in these various countries.
Yes, I'll end and we'll end the call after this comment. So great question around the platform designation. It's something that we've contemplated multiple times. And as you know, we have 3 different platform franchises, the enzyme transport vehicle, the oligonucleotide transport vehicle and the antibody transport vehicle. In our assessment, of the 3, the one probably most likely to qualify for platform designation may actually be the oligo transport vehicle because the core can be similar across medicines. With the enzyme, each enzyme actually behaves pretty differently. For example, SGSH and IDS behave differently. That being said, it's something that we're -- we would pursue that path if we believe it would be the fastest way to get more medicines to patients. And I think with that, we'll close questions. Those that we didn't get to, we apologize, we'll be following up with you directly.
Thank you. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Special Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Special Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Approval: Die FDA hat AVLAYAH (tividenofusp alfa‑eknm) unter dem Accelerated‑Approval‑Pathway für MPS II (Hunter‑Syndrom) zugelassen – basierend auf CSF Heparan‑sulfat (CSF HS) als surrogate Endpunkt.
- Indikation: Zulassung für pädiatrische Patienten ≥5 kg, presymptomatisch oder symptomatisch vor fortgeschrittener neurologischer Schädigung.
- Marktstart: US‑Launch vorbereitet; Verfügbarkeit wird in wenigen Wochen erwartet, Denali sieht die Genehmigung als Plattform‑ und Franchise‑Start.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Plattformvalidierung: Erstes zugelassenes Biologikum mit Transport‑Vehicle, das den Blut‑Hirn‑Schranken‑Transport (BBB) demonstriert; signal für weitere Programme (z. B. DNL126).
- Dosis & Label: Erhaltungsdosis 15 mg/kg wöchentlich i.v. (~4 Std.), Aufdosierung 3→7→15 mg/kg; Kombination mit anderen ERTs nicht empfohlen.
- Kommerz: Fokus auf ~100 Centers of Excellence, kleines, erfahrenes Field‑Team; Preis: $5.200/Vial (150 mg); Jahreskostenbeispiele: ~$270k (10 kg), ~$811k (30 kg).
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Wirkdaten: Phase I/II (n=47) zeigte 91% mittlere Reduktion des CSF HS; 93% unterhalb ULN bei Woche 24; Urin‑GAG normalization in 68% bei Woche 24; Ergebnisse in NEJM publiziert.
- Confirmatory‑Studie: COMPASS Phase II/III (~63 Teilnehmende) läuft; FDA nannte ~95% Enrollment; Ziel: vollständige Zulassungserweiterung.
- Sicherheitshinweise: Box‑Warning für Hypersensitivität/anaphylaktische Reaktionen, Infusionsreaktionen, frühe Anämie, seltene membranöse Nephropathie; Monitoring‑Empfehlungen im Label.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Uptake‑Mechanik: Management erwartet S‑förmigen Ramp‑Verlauf wegen Erstattungsprozessen, Kanalaufbau und Infusionslogistik; Community‑Nachfrage hoch, Zugriff limitiert durch Prozesse.
- Payer & Label: Payer‑Engagement positiv; Management rechnet mit Erstattung gemäß Label (inkl. attenuierter/presymptomatischer Patienten); keine erwarteten Step‑Edit‑Differenzen zwischen Switch und Naive.
- Regulatorik & Pipeline: Read‑through für Sanfilippo: CSF HS als approvable surrogate möglich; Unternehmen prüft Plattform‑Strategien und plant Verkauf der Priority‑Review‑Voucher (PRV) zur Finanzierung.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Die FDA‑Zulassung von AVLAYAH ist ein klarer Validierungspunkt für Denalis Transport‑Vehicle‑Plattform und eröffnet ein etabliertes, adressierbares Rare‑Disease‑Segment. Kurzfristig ist der kommerzielle Upside durch Erstattungs‑ und Logistikbarrieren gedämpft; mittelfristig bieten COMPASS‑Ergebnisse, internationale Ausrollung und weitere ETV‑Programme erhebliches Wachstumspotenzial, während Sicherheits‑ und Zugangsrisiken zu beobachten bleiben.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2026 Virtual CNS Forum
1. Question Answer
Great. Thanks, everybody, for continuing on here. It's my pleasure to be moderating a chat with Ryan Watts, Founder and CEO of Denali. I'm sure most folks know the story decently well. But maybe, Ryan, you can just give us a couple of minutes to sort of set the stage on 2026 is a big year for Denali with Hunter and the pipeline, and then we'll do Q&A. So thanks again.
Sounds great, Paul. Great to be here again. I was trying to count how many CNS days this is for me, but probably...
6 or 7. Do you know the first one was not on video. Well, no, I've done 7. The first one for you was probably 6 years ago, audio-only 5 days into COVID.
Yes. I remember that.
Crazy. So thank you. Appreciate it.
It's good to be back. And I think that might have even been a panel, if I recall, back...
Yes, that was interesting. We can talk about that another time. That was interesting.
I mean, 2026 is set up to be a very important year for Denali. I mean, obviously, we're at the very final stages of our first approval for tividenofusp alfa in Hunter syndrome. I think not only does this program have its own opportunity in a very significant area where there hasn't been an approved medicine for 20 years. And of course, in our case, engineering brain delivery has allowed us to take the next step and treat the brain for these patients.
But also, we kicked off the year with new data on our Sanfilippo program, very similar to the Hunter program. We'll have new data on our PTV: Progranulin program, which is another transport vehicle-enabled medicine. We're going to read out our LRRK2 program. And then we've started three new clinical trials. Well, two are starting and one we're just about to file. So one in Alzheimer's, another in Pompe and then another in Alzheimer's. So obviously, a very exciting year.
I think last year, I think as we shared in the last time we spoke a month or so ago, was the year of harvesting a lot of science for Denali. We had a couple of basic biology papers on Alzheimer's. We had a science paper on our ATV:Abeta approach, but we ended the year and began this year with our New England Journal publication on the Tivi program, on the Hunter program. And so what we've seen is a shift at Denali. Starting 2 years ago, we've harvested the fruits of our scientific efforts, but now we're applying the transport vehicle to many other programs. The goal is to accelerate and to expand the portfolio using the transport vehicle also at a time where TfR-enabled programs are highly competitive. So it's an exciting time in the field for sure and looking forward to diving into details, Paul.
Yes. Awesome. Well, I think just to start, I mean, everyone wants to know how you feel ahead of the PDUFA, right? We're in probably one of the weirdest years for the FDA that I can remember. And you're right in the center of rare disease, an area where I think people are debating to what degree have some of these negative decisions been product-specific versus a changing of the goalpost. You've expressed confidence, talked about being in labeling discussions. Like anything else you can kind of convey to us here about the 310 PDUFA?
Yes. I agree that the last year has been unusual, especially in rare disease, accelerated approval, biomarkers that are reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. And I think we're confident. We have had a fantastic engagement with the FDA over the last 9 months or so. And I think our confidence comes from the robustness of our data, our clinical data, our biomarker data that we believe it will translate and is translating to clinical benefit for patients. And so I think having a rigorous bar has been important. Obviously, it's -- and we're going to get into, I'm sure, more details, it's definitely a complicated time with the FDA.
Yes. Yes. Okay. I mean I think you said in November, you were in labeling discussions, which was a while ago. I hear labeling discussions, and I think that's super bullish, but it's also been quite a long time. Like how should I make sense of that from the outside looking in?
I think it's important to set the context of our review cycle. So basically, what happened for us is that our original PDUFA date was January 5, as you know. And leading into this sort of late cycle meeting, we were made aware and engaged with the FDA on a miscalculation of a molecular weight of Tivi, which is so unusual, solved it very quickly. But I think by statute alone, it resulted in a major amendment and a shift of the PDUFA date to April 5. So I think what the FDA did is they did their best to stay on track to the January 5. But inevitably, there isn't the time pressure that you have of January 5. And so I think we've been really in serious label discussions in the last month. Those early days, we basically took a bit longer for the CMC review, which is now completed. And basically, the right timeline kind of moved into 2026 is the best way to describe it. Maybe not as quick a turnaround on the back and forth, but we're -- now it's -- like you said, we're here. We're at the final stage.
Right. So I mean, the value proposition of this drug, as I see it, is, hey, you can maintain the same peripheral disease control you have in Elaprase, but treat the neurological part of the disease. Do you envision a label where it sort of indicates this for all Hunter as an Elaprase alternative? Or is it going to be like more neuro-centric?
Yes, it's a good question. I think we're too close to the finish line to go into detail on anything related to the label. And I think your -- the way you articulate it is right that what this medicine does is it does essentially what Elaprase or standard of care has done historically, but crosses the blood-brain barrier. And one of the things that we've done is we've really pushed dose. We want to maximize efficacy. We want to maximize efficacy in the periphery and in the brain. And I think inevitably, these patients, even if they're like attenuated, which at sort of diagnosis represents maybe 30% of the patients, they eventually develop neurological disease like hearing deficits and other challenges. So obviously, our ultimate goal is to treat all patients, but let's stay tuned. We're at the end here. I should say we're at the beginning, hopefully.
Okay. Yes, yes. Okay. All right. And then assuming you do get approval, like how are you setting expectations and what a good outcome would be for the first year of the launch?
I think that realistically, this is a switch market. Obviously, newly diagnosed patients is going to be key. The challenge is, in general, as you know, is reimbursement in the rare disease. So the way that we're setting expectation is sort of the S-shaped curve. We expect minimal revenue this year, but our focus isn't on that. Our focus is really patient starts, like how many patients can we get on drug out of the gates. That's going to be key.
Any thoughts on pricing and premium pricing potentially to Elaprase?
Right. I mean, again, it's too close to the beginning to discuss pricing in detail. But I think in general, we see this as not just an incremental leap from Elaprase, but a very significant leap of being able to cross the blood-brain barrier and access the central nervous system while not only adequately but maybe really robustly treating the periphery.
When you talk to clinicians in this space, do they think all patients have some element of neurological disease, whether it's a lot or even just a little? Or is it really a view that this is two different diseases peripheral-only in peripheral-plus-CNS.
Yes. I think that there's a spectrum of the disease, and there's a spectrum of how physicians view this. But in general, I think no one will argue with you that even like really attenuated patients will develop, for example, hearing loss and hearing deficiency, which is neurological, I think, by definition, there's both peripheral and central roles in hearing, but in general, believed to be behind the blood-brain-barrier. And so I think it's just a matter of time. So when I say spectrum, those individuals that carry severe mutations will experience neurological symptoms early on, age 2, 3, 4. Again, that represents 70% of patients. What's interesting, if you look at those that are on drug, attenuate patients obviously live much longer, but they eventually develop some type of neurological disease.
Yes. Okay. Okay. So I guess, does that argue for switching that is like a little bit slower?
Yes, it's a good question. I mean I think there -- obviously, the patients that are eagerly awaiting are those with neurologic disease. There's no question about that. And I think beyond that, it's really educating the community and asking what else is there, what represents some type of deficit that could benefit from Tivi.
Yes. Okay. So if Tivi gets accelerated approval, how fast can you then run with Sanfilippo?
Yes. So Sanfilippo for us, we just presented data for the first 8 patients. I think what's most interesting about the Sanfilippo data is that those 8 patients, we really explored the dosing regimen, both dose level and dose frequency. And I think actually, the last time you and I met, we were a day or 2 away from presenting that data at World. But now that it's presented, I can go into some detail. And I think it's actually -- was really, really insightful.
So I think one of the things we learned is that weekly dosing is much better tolerated than every-other-week dosing. And part of that is infusion-related reactions are all related to tolerance, right? And invariably, essentially almost every patient developed antidrug, antibodies to enzyme replacement therapies, some higher than others. But in general, these proteins are viewed as foreign.
And what we learned in that particular study is that as we shifted even at the high dose from every other week back to weekly, weekly was much better tolerated. And so we had a dose escalation. And now we've nailed down the -- what we call key efficacy cohorts, which are fully enrolled. That data will -- that data cut will be September of this year. And the planned BLA filing will be 2027 with approval in 2027.
Actually, the rate-limiting step for filing that medicine, part of it will be the data, but the real rate-limiting step is that we plan to manufacture that ourselves in our own facility. And I think as a result, we got to nail that down. We hope to be part of the FDA precheck effort where we can really engage with the FDA on the facility as it's a new facility, that could help us accelerate. But I think the timing will be driven largely by manufacturing for that medicine.
Okay. But I guess the thought is you file early in '27 then, just given the timelines you outlined?
Yes. I think probably the safest thing to say is first half of '27, second half approval, something along those lines.
I see. Okay. And we'll move on to the pipeline in a second. But with Hunter, I mean, I think it's pretty easy to size the global market just given the maturity of Elaprase. With Sanfilippo, like maybe talk about what the thought is on the likely prevalence and subsequently, the likely diagnosis rate or pool of diagnosed patients right now?
I think as you appreciate with Sanfilippo, there's no standard of care. So you're exactly right. It's much easier to size the market, understand the regionality of Hunter, where the primary cells, 1/3 in the U.S., 1/3 in Europe and 1/3 elsewhere. With Sanfilippo, there's less known. We think it's similar in size with similar distribution is probably the best way to look at it, but obviously, no standard of care.
Yes. Okay. And then you're doing Pompe, right? So what are sort of the similarities and differences between these programs in Pompe, like I guess you're targeting muscle there, so that is different. Like to what degree does your work here derisk that? To what degree is that kind of testing a new avenue for this technology?
That's a great -- that's a fantastic question. So Pompe also similar to Hunter and many of these genetic diseases comes in multiple forms based on the genetic -- the underlying genetic lesion or the mutation. In Pompe, you have IOPD and LOPD. Our ultimate goal is to compete in LOPD. And as you point out, the transferrin receptor has -- can enhance delivery to muscle just like it can to brain. What's unique about GAA in Pompe is that you're using this mannose-6-phosphate receptor for biodistribution. That appears to be limited in skeletal muscles. But by using transferrin receptor, we can pretty significantly enhance that delivery.
So the ultimate goal is really head-to-head. So it's a different dynamic here with LOPD. But I'd say sort of the other consideration is IOPD, which has a central nervous system component to it, which is not treated by any of the standard of care. And so we'll pursue those, obviously, in parallel. And so it's unique. I think the way to like summarize Hunter, cross the blood-brain barrier, almost everyone has some form of neurological disease. Obviously, there are those who are eagerly awaiting. Sanfilippo is largely a neurodegeneration in fact. It does have -- we saw normalization in liver volume, which was interesting. You never think about the peripheral effects of Sanfilippo. And then Pompe, largely muscle. So it is that new dynamic of what the transferrin receptor can do, but there's still the CNS component in the more severe cases.
Yes. Okay. Great. And Pompe, first proof-of-concept timing?
Yes. So I think if we look at the three programs that we're starting clinical studies this year, the Pompe and two Alzheimer's programs, just in general, we're stating 2027. We have a lot on our plate in 2026 with the potential launch, obviously, the new data in Sanfilippo, progranulin and LRRK2. But in general, we're stating 2027 for these three programs. That being said, we got to move as quickly as we can on all three. And they all have some type of biomarker data, if it's some type of glucose metabolite, if it's Hex3 or muscle-specific biomarker, that's what we look at in Pompe. For Alzheimer's disease, if it's an Abeta molecule, it's targeting plaque. If it's tau, it's targeting tau protein and tau PET. And so in general, I'd just state that those programs are 2027 readouts, and that represents the real expansion for vehicle platform.
Yes. Yes, makes sense. Maybe for the Abeta brain shuttle, we've got the data from trontinemab that looks great. What do you see as the one to two key points of differentiation for what you're doing?
Yes. I think you're right that -- if you look at all of transferrin receptor-enabled programs, you have those that are categorically muscle and then you have those that are CNS. And the two data sets that convince me that this is going to be a new class of medicines are our Hunter data, obviously, recently published and waiting for the first approval with a transferrin receptor molecule in accessing the brain and the trontinemab data.
And what you see with trontinemab, which is really fascinating is basically about 1/5 the dose, you have 3x faster plaque reduction. and it's obviously very robust. Now we don't know if speed of plaque reduction will correlate to enhanced clinical benefit. Probably the strongest driver of clinical benefit for Alzheimer's, in my opinion, is timing of intervention. So getting there as early as possible because you have two decades of plaque that cause synaptic loss and cell loss.
So I don't know. I mean that's obviously one thing that the brain shuttle and trontinemab has enabled is a faster plaque progression. And number two, significantly lower ARIA rates. That being said, there is definitely room for improvement. I think tolerability, I think one of the challenges that is obviously monitorable and reversible is any hematological findings. That was part of our engineering with the -- what we call the cisLALA mutation that allows us to engage transferrin receptor, get across the blood-brain barrier, but not engage transferrin receptor and the immune system on, let's say, reticulocytes.
And then I think the other component is that if you look at all of these brain shuttles, they're fusion proteins. They're essentially fusing Fabs or single chain Fvs to these full-length IgGs, and they struggle with stability. So if you look at 24 hours or 48 hours after dosing, you don't maintain the brain uptake, but also we think that also results in some risk around immunogenicity. And that's where we think the room for improvement is, is really tolerability around immunogenicity and potentially hematological outcomes.
Yes. Okay. How are you thinking about the right amyloid subtype or subtypes to target to maximize efficacy?
Yes. I think for us, we'd rather not reinvent what's already been discovered clinically. We're already inventing with the transport vehicle. So the goal is to look at all the profiles of successes and failures. And I think what you can determine is that those molecules that bound monomeric Abeta and did not bind aggregated Abeta failed in clinical studies, but those that found aggregated Abeta. And what I mean by aggregated, I mean plaque. I mean oligomers. I mean, basically, the challenge you have is if you're picking a single aggregate or single form of oligomer and you're not eliminating plaque, you're basically at very high risk because only correlation today that is plaque reduction and clinical benefit. So our Abeta arms target aggregated Abeta, both plaque and oligomeric and are less preferring to monomeric Abeta.
Yes. Okay. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. And the first study there from a proof-of-concept perspective, like you'll be able to answer some of the questions on amyloid anemia and ARIA, you think all in that first readout?
Well, it's a great question because if you think of the, let's call them like the 7th generation Abeta molecules, it's taken a long time for naked Abeta molecules to show some clinical readouts, right? And part of that is just the time it takes to see plaque reduction with standard antibodies. Now with trontinemab, that happens more rapidly. And so we hope to be able to get a quicker signal. But I think the order of assessment is essentially hematological plaque reduction and then you need larger patient numbers to look at rates of ARIA. I mean the ARIA, it's about statistics, right? It's about how many patients you treat that are APOE4 positive, which have higher risk of ARIA. And so these data will come in sort of in tranches as we first test the hypothesis around the cisLALA on tolerability and then go into plaque and then ultimately to ARIA.
Yes. Okay. You're also doing a tau conjugate as well. From a technical like feasibility perspective, I guess we haven't seen someone use transferrin to deliver an oligo into neurons yet, but we've seen it in muscle. Does the muscle space kind of derisk this along with your preclinical data? Or like how would you characterize the risk profile of this program translating from like preclinical animals to humans?
Yes. I mean this was -- to me, it was one of the most interesting technologies and surprising in the last decade is the ability to get oligonucleotides across the blood-brain barrier. Because think of your -- the path to a neuron or an astrocyte or microglia for an oligonucleotide, not only does that have to get across the blood vessel, but it's then got to get into those cells and knock down gene expression. So our preclinical data, we have a humanized mouse model that has a humanized apical domain of transferrin receptor has been pretty accurate at predicting clinical dose and clinical efficacy for the enzymes and for the antibodies. We expect the same for the oligonucleotides. I wouldn't say that the muscle delivery derisks it in any way because a lot of the muscle delivery technologies are using either bivalent or high affinity Fabs. So you obviously are testing this idea of getting the oligonucleotide into the brain, but the animal data are very convincing that this is doable.
Okay. Makes sense. Do you have a view on the BIIB080 study coming up and the probability of success of that trial?
So I think the most interesting thing about BIIB080 is it taught us that not only can you remove, you can lower tau in cerebrospinal fluid, but you also by tau PET, can see a reduction in the PET signal. What that actually means is that neurofibrillary tangles are in some equilibrium, which is not a known factor. I mean the plaque, we get it that microglia will engulf the plaque, but what we don't really know is can you remove existing neuropathology in this case, neurofibrillary tangles. And that's what the original data showed. This new data set, you -- I would read your note on what your opinion is, but 416 patients, I think it is actually 4 arms, 1 placebo and 3 dose arms. The lowest dose, I think, has enrolled fewer patients than the 2 higher doses. And I'm guessing they're going to do some type of pooled analysis. The great outcome would be directionally positive clinical benefit, some type of cognitive benefit. I think my only cautionary note is that those are not huge numbers when you're looking at things like CDR sum of boxes, and we just have to make sure that we take that with a grain of salt.
Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Maybe in the last couple of minutes here, I don't know if the stat is true, Ryan, but someone from another company told me that there are 16 brain shuttles in development in biotech. That obviously includes a lot that are probably named preclinical, early preclinical. But on the one hand, that's extraordinarily validating to what you're doing. On the other hand, right, there kind of becomes this whole question of like, is this technology going to become commoditized? Is it going to become like GalNAc in the liver? Like what would you say to that? Like why does a company like Denali deserve like a real premium for its transferrin technology over everybody else?
No, I agree that it's gratifying. I remember running the first experiments on transferrin receptor prior to founding Denali. But the idea of using transferrin receptor to get medicines in the brain was proposed in the 1980s. It's just taken a long time to industrialize it. And the question is why? Why did it take like multiple decades to get the first clinical data in Hunter syndrome or in Alzheimer's disease? And what -- and the reason for that is it's not just intuitive. It's not like you just take an antibody and it works or you take a Fab and it works. And so I think the winner will come down to those that really understand the engineering and how that engineering translates to the best outcome.
I'll just give an example. I think most enzymes, you cannot deliver with just a Fab fusion. The Fc is a huge differentiator relative to a Fab for iduronate-2-sulfatase or SGSH or GAA, and it brings a whole another area of benefit in biology and around building tolerance and PK. And so that's ultimately what's going to win. I don't know if there are 60 companies. I have no doubt that there are 60 medicines using transferrin receptor, but that's what happens. In biotech, it's really simple. If something works, everyone starts doing it. And then the question is, can you get there first? Or can you be the best?
Yes. Okay. Great. Anything else you'd like to highlight in the last couple of minutes here?
I think it's -- again, it's an exciting year. We obviously are waiting for our first approval. Waiting is probably -- that's a passive term, but we're very actively and constructive with the FDA and fully prepared to launch. We have the teams hired and ready to go. Looking forward to filing the next molecule. And then we want to lead the area of blood-brain barrier engineering. And I think it's a very exciting time, and it is gratifying to see everyone latching on to these transferrin receptor approaches.
Right. Okay. And the new PDUFA is what date? The 5th?
April 5.
April 5. Okay. That's Easter.
I know it's Easter Sunday.
And Good Friday is the Friday before. Okay. We'll see when you get the notice. Okay. Best of luck. Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2026 Virtual CNS Forum
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2026 Virtual CNS Forum
📊 Kernbotschaft
- 2026-Fokus: CEO betont, dass 2026 ein Schlüsseljahr ist: Zulassungsentscheidung für tividenofusp alfa (Tivi) zum 5. April 2026 und mehrere wichtige Klinik‑Readouts/Starts im Jahresverlauf.
- Plattform: Transport‑Vehicle (Transferrin‑Rezeptor, TfR) als Kernstrategie — Ziel: Gehirnzugang bei Enzymen, Antikörpern und Oligonukleotiden; Skalierung auf Sanfilippo, Pompe, Alzheimer‑Programme.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Hunter vs. Standard: Tivi soll periphere Wirksamkeit wie bestehende Therapie bieten und zusätzlich das zentrale Nervensystem erreichen; Management strebt breite Indikationsabdeckung an, Details offen.
- Sanfilippo‑Plan: Erste 8 Patienten zeigten bessere Verträglichkeit bei wöchentlicher Dosierung; Schlüsselkohorten sind voll, Datencut im September 2026, BLA (Biologics License Application)‑Plan für 2027.
- Engineering‑Differenz: Fokus auf Stabilität, Immunogenität und hämatologische Verträglichkeit (cisLALA‑Modifikation, Full‑IgG vs. Fab) als Wettbewerbsvorteil.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- PDUFA‑Update: PDUFA‑Datum verschoben auf den 5. April 2026 wegen einer CMC‑Frage (Molekulargewicht), die laut Management schnell gelöst wurde; Labeldiskussionen laufen.
- Timeline Sanfilippo: Datencut geplant für September 2026; Filing‑Zeitplan wird wesentlich durch Eigenfertigung der Substanz und Facility‑Freigabe beeinflusst (Ziel: Einreichung 1H/2027, Zulassung 2H/2027 möglich).
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Labelumfang: Nachfrage, ob Label ausschließlich neurozentriert oder Ersatz für Elaprase; Management gab keine definitive Zusage und verweist auf laufende Labelgespräche.
- Kommerzieller Start: Erwartung einer S‑Kurven‑Adoption; Fokus auf Patientenstarts statt kurzfristigem Umsatz; Erstattungsrisiken bleiben ein Limit.
- Sicherheit & Differenzierung: ARIA/hämatologische Effekte und Immunogenität bei Brain‑Shuttles wurden intensiv diskutiert; Denali betont cisLALA‑Engineering zur Risikominderung, konkrete Vergleiche zu Konkurrenten offen.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Implikation: Kurzfristig hoher Binary‑Katalysator (PDUFA 5. April 2026). Positive Readouts und Launch‑vorbereitung erhöhen Upside; gleichzeitig bleiben Fertigungsrisiken, Erstattungsfragen und Sicherheitsdaten (ARIA, Immunogenität) die Hauptunsicherheiten für Aktionäre.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Leerink Global Healthcare Conference 2026
1. Question Answer
Okay. Thanks for joining us, everybody. I'm Marc Goodman, one of the biopharma analysts at Leerink Partners, and we are lucky to have Denali Therapeutics. We have Ryan Watts, who's the CEO of the company; and we have Katie Peng, who is the Chief Commercial Officer, who I was just joking around with her, but I'm very serious as we all are, we need her to be very busy with an approved drug very, very soon.
And we probably should start right there and just give us a sense of -- I don't even know where to start, Ryan, just what's going on with the back and the forth and this and that and where are we?
Thanks for having us here. Great to be in Miami. It's an extraordinarily exciting time for us at Denali. We have a PDUFA date coming up April 5. Obviously, it's been something we've been looking forward to since the founding of the company over a decade ago with the goal of obviously delivering medicines to the brain using these novel technologies, using the transferrin receptor-enabled technologies, in this case, of transport vehicle. So the question you're really asking is on tividenofusp alfa, which is our lead program for Hunter syndrome. A little bit of back story behind tivi.
We started developing tivi in 2020. And really the first 5 patients of data, we saw that 4 out of those 5 patients had normalized heparan sulfate. This is just after 4 doses. And that was sort of unprecedented in the field and heparan sulfate is a biomarker of the enzyme, and we're measuring it in brain through, I guess, through a surrogate through cerebrospinal fluid. And at the time, we were, of course, that data told us that our platform is working in 2020. And now the question is, how could we expand that platform and at the same time, accelerate the Hunter program to some form of approval.
And I think as people appreciate, it's been a long story of imagining a surrogate endpoint of a biomarker that's reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit as the category in these monogenic diseases where the FDA has given us single enzyme guidance on sort of the simplicity of this. That being said, in MPS diseases, there is no precedent yet of using a biomarker as a surrogate endpoint. And so we began this long journey. Obviously, there are others on this journey as well in gene therapy and in our case, it's an enzyme replacement therapy, as I mentioned, engineered to cross the blood-brain barrier.
We submitted our BLA last year and have had, frankly, the way you describe it is really constructive, very engaging interaction with the FDA. As anyone who has gone through this process, a lot of back and forth, a lot of back and forth on the CMC as we sort of nail down this biologic [indiscernible], it's the first medicine using transferrin receptor as a mechanism for delivery to be reviewed at the FDA. So setting the precedent there as well. And at this point, we're weeks away from a decision, but moving in a positive direction.
So it was delayed by a short amount of time...
Right.
Do we have any idea what that delay was?
Yes, we know exactly what that delay was about. As we were nearing the late cycle review, it was identified that there was a miscalculation on a molecular weight from a public database that actually someone, a third party used to calculate our population PK. That was corrected in like 4 days. And the FDA, in general, sort of stayed on track with the review. And as I mentioned, like that longer period of time, probably going mainly through CMC.
But now let's put all of this in the context of the complexity of the regulatory environment right now. And I think a lot of has been said about accelerated approval in rare disease and providing medicines in these patients, especially in patients where you have these neurological deficits. And what I would say is that our experience with our review division has been generally positive and constructive. So that was completed. There's been actually no more questions around that particular piece. And now it's just the final stages, label discussions, post-marketing commitments, everything you'd expect at this timing of the review.
But you've been in labeling discussions, right, for a while? Or is that not a fair statement?
I think we have -- I would say that in the last month or 2, we're like really in it.
Okay.
Right. So it's like we began that process. We had a late cycle meeting towards the end of last year, but now this is -- we're really in the thick of it now.
Right. And then ReGenX gets a CRL. And I think everybody says, did something change here for Denali as well. So I guess I'll let you kind of answer that question.
I think the best way for me to answer that is rather than comment on [ ReGenX ] and their data set, specifically, what I can tell you is sort of the totality of our data set, right? So 47 patients worth of data. Patients have now been treated up to 4 to 5 years. We have a confirmatory trial, the COMPASS trial that has a significant number of patients as well, both neuronopathic as well as attenuated. And what we see is a normalization of heparan sulfate, and we'll just call it total heparan sulfate. So the 4 major dextrans as measured.
So no specific -- not measuring just one specific dextran and looking at effect, but there, we're seeing normalization. I think importantly, we also see NfL normalization, which is a biomarker of neurodegeneration. And so I think we, obviously, like others, have looked very carefully at what the FDA has said in that CRL. We feel like we're in a strong position with our data and our engagement with the FDA.
Not to keep harping on this, but they didn't have 4 major dextrans, right, in their data...
That's right.
They were kind of focused on.
Yes. I think historically, they did, but then they focused in on a single dextrans.
Do you think that's a potential reason?
Well, I think the issue you have and sort of cited in the CRL, again, without going into too much detail, is the great debate with biomarkers, and you've seen this in the last month or 2 is what level of biomarker correction is needed to drive a clinical benefit, right? And until you know what that level is, the best case scenario is you normalize, and therefore, it puts you in the highest probability of confirming that, that biomarker is leading to clinical benefit. And I think this is where the FDA is in my -- the way I would state it is holding a high bar. It's holding a high bar. And obviously, we were behind our competitors, both ReGenX and JCR, and our goal has been to develop a platform broadly to prove it with Hunter syndrome, but to hold ourselves also to a high bar in terms of the quality of the data we generate and the path towards approval.
So let's talk about what is the standard of care for Hunter today? And is there any way to make a comparison of your product versus that product?
Yes. So I'll answer that. And then as we get into more, Katie will add to it. But the standard of care today is it's now been almost 20 years since idursulfase was approved, which is an enzyme replacement therapy, and it's delivered systemically. And what I can just say generally is that if you look at our data, specifically looking at like peripheral urine heparan sulfate, we see even normalization in that as well when patients switch from standard of care to tivi. And part of that is probably around dose, the dose that we selected.
But in reality, that particular medicine is not engineered to cross the blood-brain barrier. 70% of patients on diagnosis are determined to be neuronopathic will have severe neurological deficits. And the idea is that those patients, in particular, will greatly benefit from a medicine that can also cross the blood-brain barrier. But we replace standard of care. So we -- we're not dosed on top of any other medicine, but we're dosed to treat both the entire body and the brain.
Right, right, right. So Katie, why don't you talk about commercial now? What's the plan?
Yes. So we're very excited to be here at this stage. And we've actually built our field team at the end of last year, getting ready originally for a January approval. So our payer field team, our sales team, our medical science liaison team are all out now. We've had great engagements with payers so far to share our data and to get an understanding of how they see pricing and coverage for patients. In addition, we've also engaged with all of the centers of excellence because our MSL team is very familiar with the investigators, but also we've been sharing our data along the way for a few years now.
There's tremendous excitement in the community. There's high awareness of the tivi data, but not just with physicians, but with the patient community as well. So there's general excitement. In addition, this year, now we finished setting up our distribution model as well as our patient services because we know that's really important to get patients reimbursed and supported as we launch this medicine. So we expect to see a very strong uptake in the patients who are just recently diagnosed and also patients that are diagnosed with the severe neurologic manifestations.
Do you think patients will switch?
Yes. So today, about 95% of patients are on Elaprase. So it is absolutely a switch strategy. And as Ryan mentioned earlier on the data, our Phase I/II data showed, right, patients who were on Elaprase switching to tivi and doing much better on all the biomarkers. So it is actually the most compelling point because physicians monitor patient progression today using urinary GAGs, and we see that tivi does much, much better. And so for all the market research we've done and the advisory boards we've done, this data is what's going to compel physicians to make the switch.
And the doctors are saying, even though the patient -- it seems to be working, this works even better, so we should switch.
Yes. One interesting fact that we've learned is that because there's been no innovation for 20 years, there was nothing to switch to. But as we get into these deeper conversations, almost all patients are still progressing on the standard of care. So it could be neurologically, it could be in the periphery. So what we have learned is that standard of care, even in the periphery, I think there's still unmet need.
Yes. What about genetic testing? How does that fit in?
Yes. So in order to get an official Hunter syndrome or MPS II diagnosis, patients do have to be genetically tested. And so once they get tested, then they confirm they have an ICD9 code and they can start billing for having Hunter syndrome. Are you asking maybe about newborn screening?
Yes, I was about ask, that's where I was...
Yes. So in the U.S. now, about 13 states have adopted newborn screening, which is great because we know in this disease, the earlier you can impact the treatment and treat the disease, the better it will be for patients. And so 13 states have now adopted it. But as you can imagine, with medicines now being approved in this space, there will be more incentive to push newborn screening more holistically across the U.S.
Yes. Interesting. And lastly, just on the subject, the Royalty Pharma deal, what was the purpose of that?
Yes. So I think for us, if we step back a little bit and look at the entire portfolio, our goal, which we've set now a while back was to commercialize our own medicines, specifically in the enzyme replacement therapies, right? And so we set out to figure out how would we do that as really leaving it ourselves. And the Royalty Pharma deal puts us in a very strong position. That with also an equity financing brings in another year of capital, really takes us to the end of 2028.
But I think also is reflective of the deep diligence on the platform in order to say, okay, there's real promise here. And there's real promise in Hunter as a commercial opportunity, right? We wanted to be able to finance ourselves through our 3-year goals. And we've laid those out at the end of last year, which was to have 2 growing brands, one with tivi in Hunter syndrome, another with DNL126 in Sanfilippo, 5 clinical proof of concepts and bringing an additional 5 medicines into the clinic using the transport vehicle. At this point, we have 5 [ tivi-enabled ] programs. So the royalty financing with the equity financing at the end of last year lays that foundation for the next 3 years.
Yes. Interesting. So let's flip gears to Sanfilippo 126. So where are we with that program? And what do we have to show? Because there seems to be some derisking that's already occurred, I would think.
Yes. I'll start on where we are with the program and then Katie, you can add to that. So we just presented data at WORLD. This is the first data, the most robust data set, I think, yet presented in Sanfilippo. We have a robust reduction in CSF heparan sulfate, again, our familiar biomarker as well as GM2 and other lysosomal biomarkers. We also see reduction in urine heparan sulfate, normalization of liver volume. And basically, we're in a strong position.
What's interesting about that data set is that it was essentially 2 cohorts that were dose finding, and we really need to figure out the dose frequency and the dose levels. And if you look closely at the data, you can see how that plays out in the biomarker over time as well, especially the urinary GAGs. You can really see that as we shifted to weekly dosing at the high dose, we drove a really robust effect. And we also improved tolerance going to weekly from every other week dosing. And part of that is in these enzyme replacement therapies, having drug on board allows you to build tolerance. So a lot of really important insight in that data set.
We now have what we call the key efficacy cohorts, which are fully enrolled. We'll complete -- we'll have a data cut in September, and that will be the data that goes into our BLA filing for accelerated approval, again, using CSF heparan sulfate as a surrogate biomarker reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. So a lot of similarities with Hunter, but also some significant differences. There's no standard of care in this disease. It is a very aggressive neurodegenerative disease. I'd say even more so than Hunter. Hunter is, of course, whole body and brain. Sanfilippo tends to really impact the central nervous system. Even the heparan sulfate is elevated about twofold above what you see in Hunter. And so I think timing of intervention is really going to matter with Sanfilippo and more so than some of these other diseases.
So in terms of the commercial opportunity, it is exciting because the infrastructure today that we're building for tivi is going to be the same infrastructure that we'll be launching DNL126 as well. So we will not have to add additional headcount. Same call point, same customers. And so you can imagine that with our ETB portfolio, we can get very, very high brand margins because our spend will be limited.
Interesting. And just lastly, before we move on, the number of patients in each one of these populations.?
Yes. So we're -- it's hard to because there's no treatment, getting the right epi is hard, but we're roughly estimating that it's about 75% of the MPS II market, so around 1,500 patients worldwide versus for MPS -- sorry, MPS II. MPS IIIA is 1,500, MPS II is 2,000 worldwide.
Yes. Okay. Terrific. I want to step back just for a second. One of the -- well, actually, before we do that, let's talk about any other lysosomal storage disorder pipeline products that we can talk about...
Yes. We just received clearance, and we'll soon begin dosing with our Pompe program using the transport vehicle technology. This is ETV:GAA. What we've shown there, which is a little unique from Hunter and Sanfilippo is the ability for transferrin receptor-enabled technology to improve muscle biodistribution. So that's well known. There are other companies that are using TFR platforms to deliver, for example, oligonucleotides to muscle. And what we've seen compared to the standard of care is more robust benefit in muscle endpoints in Pompe. So LOPD obviously, is the primary goal here.
Now fortunately, there's also a rare population that has more severe mutations, IOPD, where we also believe ETV:GAA can be differentiated because we can deliver across the blood-brain barrier. So improve muscle delivery, improve brain delivery. That program will begin dosing and really expecting data for this next set of transport vehicles that includes GA MAPT for Alzheimer's, Abeta for Alzheimer's in 2027, but it all comes down to our ability to enroll and dose escalate in each of these studies. So a very exciting time expanding the portfolio at the same time that Katie and her team are preparing for our first commercial launch.
So 5, 6 years ago, I feel like you were the blood-based barrier buster, right? I mean you were the one. And now it feels like I don't know everybody seems to want to have one. How is yours different? Like as you hear about each one of these, I'm sure you get questions like what do you think of this? What do you think -- how do you differentiate?
I mean it's very good news that everyone else is wanting to do it. If you're in a field and you're the only one doing it, it probably means that what you're doing is not working. And I think in biotech, like once something starts to work, everyone jumps on board with a variation. And frankly, that's actually what's best for patients because then they'll have many options and people will use their deep expertise to invent in whatever part of this technology, if it's the protein engineering, if it's the cargo that you're delivering. And so obviously, you're right, we probably had a decade head start in this area. It's something that I've worked on now for 20 years and started working on blood-brain barrier in actually 2006.
And I remember first working on this is prior to founding of Denali, we looked at everything that existed in the patent literature and everything that existed in the publication literature and just made them and said, is there something that already works and that's where we started to invent and really understand the dynamics of trafficking at the blood-brain barrier, first with transferrin receptor, then with CD98 and then we've now combined them. And what we learned when we founded Denali now over a decade ago is that we wanted really something that was modular that allowed us to make fusion proteins that allowed us to make antibodies.
And then eventually, we were the first to show that you could actually get an oligonucleotide into the brain. That had never been shown. And frankly, I didn't think it was possible because think of what has to happen. You deliver this thing either subcu or IV. It has to cross the blood-brain barrier, get into a cell, release the oligonucleotide and then modulate gene expression in the neuron. I mean that's a journey. That's multiple cells that you're crossing to this -- to get to this spot.
So when we saw that for the first time, and we actually published that in 2024, but saw it for the first time in 2021, we thought this is really like this can really change things. And I actually feel like that presentation of that data in '21 and [indiscernible] that's become one of the most competitive areas in blood-brain barrier is delivery of oligonucleotides because now you can regulate gene expression in the brain. And so of course, we want to win. We're competitive. That's great. But also, if it's working, you should expect a lot of people to do it, which was my original point.
Now to answer the question, what is differentiated. And I think the fact that we built receptor binding into the Fc is unique. We haven't seen that with any other competitors. Part of that is we have a very strong IP landscape. The fab approach is what most people are taking. There's some variation of fab and they make fab fusions, fusions with oligos, fusions with antibodies. I think stability can be a challenge there. And we've done a lot of work on differentiation. In some cases, directly against the exact architecture of a competitor in other cases, like theoretical differences. Some of that has been published. Others we presented at the end of last year in an extensive R&D Day.
So I think that those areas of differentiation are important. But all of them may work to some extent. The question is who will get there first and who will ultimately be better and let's see how -- I mean, I would love to look back 10 years from now and have like 20 or 30 approved transferrin receptor programs. Now great if a lot of them are ours, but also okay if the field is now really growing and can actually deliver medicines that way.
Yes. You mentioned the MAPT and the Abeta. Talk about those products a little bit. Obviously, there's 2 drugs for Alzheimer's on the market. Obviously, Roche is working very hard with tronti to kind of get there as well. Where do these fit in?
Yes. We're on the -- as we're on the eve of our first approval, I think it's important to step back and say a decade ago, we founded Denali because we wanted to defeat degeneration. Our goal was to make medicines for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But as almost always the case in biotech, you follow the science, and it was actually much more compelling for us to start with Hunter and Sanfilippo, where it's a monogenic disease. There's approved enzymes, they don't get in the brain. So there's a linearity, like you know there's a high probability of success.
What's changed for us is that I didn't never imagine working on childhood diseases. It's profoundly impactful, like beyond measure as you engage with these families and you engage with the community, and that ended up being very foundational for Denali is working in the enzyme replacement therapies. But we never forgot that we wanted to solve, at least be part of solving Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and these other areas. And so it's very exciting that our first real oligonucleotide program, MAPT, is now entering the clinic it's going to silence the expression of the gene MAPT that codes for tau.
And the idea is right now, there's intrathecal delivery, but can we replace that with IV delivery and subcu delivery and knockdown expression of tau. And in addition to that, there's now a class of molecules. I mean, let's all face it, everyone either believed in Abeta or tau, and now you can hopefully believe in both. I mean we're still waiting to see if tau knockdown will lead to clinical benefit. But there are now -- like now we need a best-in-class Abeta molecule, and that's where our ATV:Abeta program comes. And so that's -- I think it's an exciting time to go back to our origin and make neurodegeneration medicines using the transport vehicle technology to create this best-in-class, certainly in the Abeta field.
So just to be clear, the Abeta, this is your own Abeta...
Yes. So -- what we've done, and I think it's probably best described in a paper we published in science last year in August is we've engineered this antibody to be immune silent when bound to transferrin receptor. But when bound to amyloid plaque, we can remove amyloid plaque through the Fc gamma receptor interaction. It's called a cisLALA mutation. I think it's very clever. Our engineers proposed this idea and then determined it sort of empirically.
And so the goal is to have the robustness of plaque removal that you have with any standard full effector function antibody, but have that molecule be silent when bound to transferrin receptor. Then in terms of the Abeta arms, we're selecting arms that bind aggregated Abeta preferentially, not monomeric, and that's essentially the approach we're taking with that program.
Interesting. And where is that program?
We'll be filing it very soon. So we'll be starting clinical studies this year. I think with both MAPT, Abeta and our GAA program for Pompe, we're just generally seeing data in 2027, but full speed ahead. The faster we can go, the better with any of those 3 programs. Obviously, the Pompe program expands the ETV franchise to a larger market, including muscle, but let's face it like tau and Abeta are really important targets, one of which has at least been clinically validated.
So we're all watching Biogen, I guess, is probably the next tau oligo, right? So we'll know what if it doesn't work? What if it does work? What does it mean?
So I think what we can say already and probably the most interesting thing we can say is that with the Biogen ASO program, they were able to reduce tau, but they're also able to reduce tau pathology by PET. And that actually is not intuitive. Now we think of amyloid plaque, you have these microglial cells. They're the -- since we're here in Miami Beach, they're the beach comers of the brain. So microglia goes around and cleans everything up. You have antibody tag the amyloid plaque and basically engulf the amyloid plaque. That's what the Abeta antibodies do.
With tau, those neurofibrillary tangles are inside a cell. And it's uncertain that reducing tau protein alone would actually reverse tau pathology, but that's what the initial data has already taught us from Biogen. So now there's one really important question, which is, does reducing tau pathology lead to a clinical benefit. The distinction of the OTV, which is an oligo transport vehicle and the way that Biogen approach it, which is an intrathecal delivery of an ASO, so injecting the spinal cord is it's a very different biodistribution profile. Our medicine will cross capillaries and give you even distribution throughout the brain, where intrathecal delivered medicines don't penetrate deeper brain regions. We've shown this in nonhuman primates. And of course, humans are -- at least our brain or central nervous system is about 18x larger than a nonhuman primate. And there, you're just relying on browny and motion for these ASOs to diffuse.
So I think there's a real chance for differentiation in biodistribution. Now does the traditional intrathecal approach, is it going to actually test the tau hypothesis? I guess it remains -- this is a type 2 experiment. In other words, if there's clinical data looks great, then we know and then we can replace that with either a subcu or an IV injection. If it doesn't look great, it could be around biodistribution, right? So there's really one outcome that's informative, which would be a clinical benefit. If not, there are multiple reasons why it may have failed.
Yes. Interesting, very interesting. Another data readout this year is LRRK2, right? So give us a quick update on LRRK2.
Yes. This is an exciting year, waiting for an approval. We just had our first data on Sanfilippo, we'll complete that. We have a LRRK2 readout midyear. That's being run by Biogen. LRRK2 is a kinase that when mutated is hyperactive and is one of the 2 major genetic risk factors in Parkinson's. GBA is the other. We're approaching that with a GCase enzyme replacement therapy. But in the case of LRRK2, it's really compelling genetics, and we've developed a LRRK2 inhibitor. This is one of few medicines that aren't using the transport vehicle in our portfolio. This is one of our very first programs way back 11 years ago that we started engineering small molecules that were blood-brain barrier penetrant. This will be a really big test of the LRRK2 hypothesis because it's 650 patients, UPDRS, real clinical endpoint.
This is a registrational sized study being run by Biogen. But I think the reason to believe is that the genetics is very compelling. The question in neurodegeneration is always timing of intervention. right? You can have a genetic cause, but even Abeta, it took time for us to understand selecting the right patients, intervening at the right time to provide a clinical benefit. So we hope we've learned from that. And in the case of LRRK2, we're actually testing idiopathic, but we also have a separate study with just LRRK2 carriers where we're looking at biomarkers. So I think it's obviously an exciting target.
Were we able to find those patients? I know it was...
We -- actually, we are. And the difference between LIGHTHOUSE, which was a 400-patient study and BEACON, which is a 50-patient study, is that we actually focus more on the biomarker aspects of BEACON and therefore, changed the enrollment criteria to allow us to quickly find those patients. And that study, we're nearing completion and enrollment in that study, much faster than we had for LIGHTHOUSE.
Yes. And then just lastly, in the last few seconds, the other program that you were mentioning...
Yes. So progranulin, this is the -- so progranulin is PTV progranulin. And the idea here is a protein replacement therapy, enzyme replacement therapy for progranulin. And here, this year, we're looking at the proximal biomarkers, the biomarkers of lysosomal function in FTD granulin.
Excellent. There's a lot going on.
It's exciting time.
Hopefully, you'll be very busy.
Yes.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Leerink Global Healthcare Conference 2026
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Leerink Global Healthcare Conference 2026
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Kurz: Denali betont die bevorstehende FDA-Entscheidung für tividenofusp alfa (Hunter-Syndrom) und sieht sein transferrin-rezeptor‑basiertes Transport-Vehicle als validierte Plattform. Management signalisiert starke regulatorische Interaktion, kommerzielle Vorbereitung und mehrere kurzfristige klinische Katalysatoren.
📌 Strategische Highlights
- Regulatorik: PDUFA für tivi genannt; Label‑Verhandlungen und Post‑Marketing‑Auflagen laufen aktiv, Verzögerung erklärt durch eine korrigierte molekulare Gewichtsschätzung (Drittpartei‑Fehler).
- Kommerz: Feld‑ und Payer‑Teams aufgebaut, Vertriebs‑ und Patientenservice‑Modelle bereit; Ziel: Switch-Strategie von Elaprase (aktuell ~95% der Patienten) auf tivi.
- Pipeline & Kapital: 47 Patienten Datensatz für tivi, COMPASS‑Confirmatory‑Studie läuft; Royalty‑/Equity‑Deal verlängert Kapitalbasis bis Ende 2028 laut Management; mehrere Programme (DNL126, ETV:GAA, MAPT, ATV:Abeta, LRRK2) mit nahen Meilensteinen.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Regulatorisches Detail: Die kurze Verzögerung wurde auf eine fehlerhafte öffentliche MW‑Angabe zurückgeführt, Korrektur binnen Tagen; aktuell intensivere Label‑Diskussionen.
- Sanfilippo‑Plan: DNL126: robustes CSF‑Heparan‑Sulfat‑Signal; wichtiger Datenschnitt im September, geplant als Basis für eine BLA‑Einreichung mit biomarkerbasiertem Surrogat.
- Kontaktpunkte: Kommerzielle Infrastruktur bereits aufgebaut; 13 US‑Bundesstaaten mit Neugeborenen‑Screening erwähnt (mehr erwartbar bei Zulassungen).
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Regulatorische Robustheit: Nachfrage, ob ReGenX‑CRL Konsequenzen hat — Management betont stärkere Datentiefe (mehrfache Dextran‑Messungen, NfL‑Normalisierung) und positives FDA‑Engagement.
- Kommerzielle Uptake: Werden Patienten wechseln? Management verweist auf überzeugende Biomarker‑Verbesserungen vs. Elaprase und aktive Gespräche mit Zentren und Kostenträgern.
- Plattformdifferenzierung: Wie unterscheidet sich Denalis TV? Fokus auf Fc‑eingebaute Rezeptorbindung, IP‑Position, frühere Nachweise (Oligonukleotid‑Delivery) und breiterer Biodistribution als potenzieller Vorteil gegenüber intrathekalen Ansätzen.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Das Event liefert substanzielle klinische und kommerzielle Updates, reduziert einige Unsicherheiten (korrigierter technischer Verzögerungsgrund, kommerzielle Readiness, Kapital bis 2028), zeigt aber weitergehende Abhängigkeit von regulatorischer Bewertung biomarkerbasierter Zulassungen. Kurzfristige Kurs‑Katalysatoren: FDA‑Entscheidung für tivi, Sanfilippo‑Datenschnitt (Sept.), LRRK2‑Readout.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
1. Question Answer
Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us in the room and online for the third day of TD Cowen's 46th Annual Healthcare Conference. I'm Joe Thome, one of the Senior Biotech Analysts here on the team at TD Cowen. And it's my pleasure to have with me today Denali Therapeutics. And up here with me, we have Co-Founder, CFO and COO, Alex Schuth. So thank you very much for being here.
Maybe before we dive into the individual programs, if you want to just give a brief kind of high-level overview of kind of where the company is at and what we should expect for the rest of 2026.
Absolutely. I mean, first of all, Joe, thanks so much for the invitation to the conference and for the great coverage, always. I do want to highlight the title of your last note, which I really enjoyed, must-see TV ready for prime time. So thanks for that.
So 2026, we're very excited. It's a big year for us. It's actually -- we founded the company back in 2015 with the premise with the idea that the blood-brain barrier is breaking open, that we can pioneer a technology that can deliver large molecules through the blood-brain barrier and open up the brain for treatments that were not possible before. So 2026, first and foremost, eagerly awaiting our PDUFA date for our first drug for Tividenofusp alfa for Hunter syndrome. That is April 5. We feel very good about the ongoing dialogue with the FDA, and I'm sure we can talk more about that.
On the heels of 310, there is DNL126, which is Sanfilippo syndrome, which is also enzyme replacement therapy, follows a very similar trajectory as 310 does. Here, we just presented data at the WORLD meeting in San Diego, and we feel that those data support the accelerated approval path, and we plan to file early next year and then launch next year. So together, these two programs has about a $1 billion market opportunity and will be the foundation for the company, the commercial foundation for the company.
Beyond those two, there are two key clinical data readouts. First, there is the LRRK2 inhibitor study, which is in Parkinson's disease, that's midyear. And then there is the progranulin program in FTD later in the year. And then we'll start 3 more clinical studies, first-in-human studies, expanding the transport vehicle into more common neurodegenerative diseases with two Alzheimer's programs, targeting Abeta, one targeting tau. And then there is another enzyme program for Pompe, which is our first entry into peripheral muscle disease, where also transferrin receptor enables higher uptake into muscle, and we're excited about that.
So big year ahead. We did raise capital at the end of last year. So we're well financed with just under $1 billion at the end of the year. And with approval, there would be another $200 million coming in from the Royalty Pharma deal that we entered into in December. So yes, big year ahead.
Great. Maybe we'll start with Tivi. Can you, yes, just highlight a little bit where you're at with the FDA now, maybe your confidence in a positive decision? And maybe what led to the 3-month delay and your confidence that you've addressed that?
Yes. So as I said, we do feel very good about the ongoing dialogue with the FDA. It's productive. It's collaborative. We're in frequent conversations. We have stated before that we're in label discussions. We're discussing the post-marketing commitments.
In our conversations, the FDA has actually always been very consistent. Since that meeting 2 years ago, the Reagan-Udall meeting where the FDA essentially validated heparan sulfate -- CSF heparan sulfate as the surrogate biomarker that is reasonably likely to predict clinical outcome. Since then, we've had a very straightforward conversation with the FDA.
We did have the hiccup with a 3-month delay, which was caused by an error in the chemical structure in the public database, which then led to a miscalculation on the molecular weight by one of our collaborators.
And we caught that. We fixed that. It had no impact on efficacy or safety. But molecular weight is an important calculation and everything from dose to exposure. So it had to be fixed and that led to the major amendment, which led to the 3-month delay, which was frustrating, but we're beyond that, and now we look at April 5.
Awesome. And a competitor in the field did recently receive a CRL for the same indication, and we have been receiving some questions on it, and I know you're differentiated here. But I think it would be helpful to kind of point out what are the considerations that investors should be thinking about before trying to kind of cross examine that experience? How is your profile maybe different than the ReGenX program?
Yes. So obviously, it's the same indication, Hunter syndrome, but it almost -- that's almost where it ends. It's obviously a different modality. One is gene therapy, where, in a way, traditional enzyme replacement therapy enabled by our transport vehicle. It's also different divisions, CBER versus CDER. But I think more importantly, it's really the data package, right?
So it's the extent, it's the robustness of our data package. We have 47 patients followed now for up to 4 years. We have rapid and durable normalization of the key biomarker, heparan sulfate, total heparan sulfate, not just D2S6, a subtype. That reduction is also accompanied by improvement or stabilization in patients in neurocognitive outcomes. We see neurofilament normalization. We see improvement in hearing. We see normalization in liver function. So kind of like more longer and better data.
Maybe just on -- because we all -- now that the FDA, it is -- we actually think it's very helpful that the FDA has the transparency of making CRLs public because we can all learn from that. Really, the importance of total heparan sulfate, which is the aggregate of at least four subtypes of which D2S6 is one. And back to the Reagan-Udall Foundation meeting, it was total heparan sulfate, which was validated. So that's one.
And the other point that was highlighted was around the genetic classification of patients. And here, we have a very robust mechanism. We have an independent genetic evaluation committee which consists of three geneticists and a neuropsychologist and a medical geneticist, so five people. And they have -- and there is an algorithm they have to really align on is this mutation one that indicates that this patient may develop a neuropathic disease. So there's lots of differences. And as I said, we continue to feel good about the strength of our data.
And maybe can you talk about your initial launch preparation? Kind of what are you doing now to make sure that once approval is hopefully in hand, you can have sort of an effective launch? Any commentary on how discussion with the payer community is going? Anything helpful there?
Yes. So we've been preparing for upcoming approval, the hopeful potential approval for a while. Katie Peng, our Chief Commercial Officer, joined us actually 4 years ago and has been -- and has since then essentially been in launch preparation.
Now those accelerated mid last year once we filed the BLA. We now at our Q, we declared what we call commercial readiness. So all of the preparations are done. The team is in place and all the infrastructure prework has happened. So on the team side, it is both the field sales team, which is a small and focused and very experienced team.
Remember, in Hunter syndrome, 95% of patients are currently treated. So it's also known where they are and what centers they are. So that helps us with the targeted force. So the field team is in place. The MSL team actually has been in place for a number of years now in connection with the scientific community. And then on the infrastructure, everything from distribution to supply chain to the patient support hub to the payer engagement.
To your question on payer engagement, we have engaged with essentially all the payers in the U.S. Payers understand the unmet need. It's very straightforward. Traditional enzyme replacement therapy doesn't get into the brain. Ours gets into the brain. So it's -- they understand the unmet need. They also understand the robustness of our data package. So the initial conversations have been very productive with payers. Obviously, the price will depend on the label, and we'll have to have that conversation at that point. But so far, we feel good about it.
And if you do go for a premium pricing strategy, which is something that the company has suggested before, I guess, do you think patients would need to demonstrate any sort of progression on CNS manifestations of the disease or anything that would kind of clearly outlay that a CNS penetrant therapy over Elaprase would be recommended? Or how do we think about that?
Yes. I think both physicians, definitely families, but also payers understand that Hunter syndrome is really a whole body disease and that the delineation between a neuronopathic and non-neuronopathic disease is somewhat arbitrary.
The consensus and the more and more growing consensus is that essentially all patients develop neuronopathic symptoms at some point. Also remember, neuronal symptoms are not just in the CNS. There are peripheral neuronal symptoms like carpal tunnel syndrome and others. So there is -- there are definitely more severe and less severe forms of the disease. That's probably the better way to delineate rather than around a certain set of symptoms.
And can you talk a little bit about the rate of switching that you anticipate maybe based on the KOL conversations that you've had? How frequently do these patients come into the doctor to even get that initial touch point? And then what proportion do you think would switch pretty readily versus maybe some that may kind of wait a little bit of time?
Yes. So ultimately, we -- the goal is to become the standard of care and that at some point in the future, all patients with Hunter syndrome are -- have access to and are treated with Tivi.
With respect to the switching or the adoption will probably first be newborn patients. And now newborn screening, by the way, is in 50% of newborns in the U.S. are actually now have access to newborn screening.
So newborn patients, probably more severe patients, probably early on, patients with more overt neuronal symptoms, those will start first. Other parts of the patient segment will probably take some time. To your question around how often they come in, it varies. It's a very good question and obviously, that we ask as well. Some come in as frequently as quarterly, others come in once a year, depending on how well the patient and the family feels that their patients are treated. So that will take time. The switching logistics, also remember that many patients right now receive home infusions.
When they switch to Tivi, they would most likely do the first few number of infusions in a clinical setting to deal with potential infusion-related reactions. So there are some mechanics that we -- what we guide to, what we believe in what we guide to is that it's an S-shaped adoption curve. So we think very modest probably to minimal revenues in 2026. It's really about bringing patients on board. And then 2027 will be the inflection year when we feel we see actually the uptick in revenues.
And maybe can you talk about potential opportunities ex U.S. Kind of what's the strategy there? Is the treatment kind of paradigm and similarities exist in the U.S. and ex U.S. and kind of your appetite in other geographies?
Yes. So a very important point about -- if you look at Elaprase, the standard of care, been on the market since 2006 as a benchmark, about 2/3 of the revenues are ex U.S. revenues, right? It's a dynamic that you often see in rare diseases. So the ex U.S. market is very -- or the international market, as we call it, is very important to us.
We do believe that -- and roughly the revenues is about 1/3 U.S., 1/3 Europe and 1/3 rest of the world. We do believe that with the accelerated approval in the U.S. we probably have access to about 60% of global patients before the confirmatory Phase III study, the COMPASS trial will read out. So those are some countries that directly follow U.S. regulation. And then there are some other countries where some -- with additional regulatory documentation, we feel we can have access.
So with accelerated approval, 1/3 of the patient population accessible in the U.S. and then about up to 60% with approval. And then the rest of the world, we would have to look at the COMPASS data.
So the COMPASS trial, that's the Phase II/III confirmatory trial, fully enrolled the cohort A, that's the neuronopathic cohort and which has a 2-year treatment duration. So that fully enrolled at the end of '25. So end of '27, we'll have the data, and then we'll look to file that in '28.
Great. And then maybe we'll jump over to 126 for MPS IIIA. Recently presented some data at World. I guess, what about the profile do you think rings kind of most heavily with physicians there? And how much can we extrapolate from the experience in Hunter directly kind of to the experience in IIIA?
Yes. So MPS IIIA, Sanfilippo Syndrome, a very closely related to MPS II. So both from a patient perspective and from a treating physician perspective. So it's almost exactly the same treating physicians.
But there are two key differences. One, MPS IIIA is a more aggressive disease. It is a more predominantly neurocognitive disease. But also there is no standard of care. right? So there hasn't -- and there's never been an attempt to develop a standard of care with traditional -- or attempt to develop a care with traditional enzyme replacement therapy because it wouldn't cross through the blood-brain barrier. So there was really no hope to have an effective medicine.
So the data we presented at WORLD, we are very excited about this. This was from our dose escalation cohorts from our dose-finding cohorts. And we showed a mean reduction in heparan sulfate about 80%, including normalization in some patients.
We have had ongoing conversations with the FDA about this program for a while. As you'll remember, we were selected in what's called the START program, which was a program instituted about 2 years ago, which enables more frequent interactions with the FDA. Through that program, we have alignment on the accelerated approval path. And we feel that this data set will support that filing in 2027 and -- early in '27 and then hopefully approval in late '27.
And you mentioned that the data that you presented were from the sort of dose finding work. I guess, the optimized dosing strategy then, I guess, do you think there's areas to kind of improve on what you showed historically? Or kind of how do you think about what was left on the table kind of in the dose-ranging part that you can kind of optimize?
Yes. So we do believe that the optimized dose data should be at least as good as what we see right now in the dose ranging. Dose ranging, we did dose escalate. That was one. But we also experimented with dosing frequency. We got so excited about the preclinical data that we had seen that we thought maybe we can enable more convenience to patients by having every other week dosing and sparing them a trip to the hospital, for the families, which can be very, very taxing over time.
We did, however, see an increase in infusion-related reactions with less frequent dosing, which from a biologic perspective, makes sense as you develop tolerance, it's actually better, more frequent dosing is better. So we went back to weekly dosing, which is the standard of really almost all enzyme replacement therapies are dosed weekly. So those are two elements where there is reason to believe that the final data would be at least as good as what we've seen in dose ranging.
And when we think about the commercial opportunity between Sanfilippo and Hunter, I guess, how do you see those kind of separate between those two opportunities? Obviously, the different dynamics with kind of the currently available standard of care and one. So how do you see those kind of panning out?
Yes. We look at them almost as a pair of programs sort of as the commercial foundation. Again, we hope to have two programs. By the end of next year, we hope to have two programs on the clinic, which share a lot of the -- back to the synergy and the similarity in the treating physician population. So what we look at is that these programs together have about $1 billion-plus market opportunity. And that's -- they -- from an epidemiological perspective, they're about the same size.
So Hunter syndrome is about 2,000 patients worldwide. Sanfilippo, the epidemiology is not as good as Hunter because there is no treatment. But generally, it's believed to be about the same size, maybe a tad bit smaller. Some say it's larger, but we think it's probably the same. Hunter syndrome has Elaprase as a benchmark. Elaprase sells about $650 million a year. Sanfilippo doesn't have a standard of care. So if you take those, it will take a little longer maybe with Hunter than it might with Sanfilippo. So together, $1 billion plus.
Great. And maybe we'll jump on to some of the other programs. As you mentioned, there's 2 kind of shots on goal with Alzheimer's and different targets. I guess, why -- I guess, can you kind of walk us through the differences in targets and obviously, different aspects of the platform that are going after these? And how will you analyze kind of what's the right target? What do you want to see?
Yes. So back to sort of our core technology, we call the transport vehicle, so to deliver biologics through the blood-brain barrier into the brain. Also when we started the company 10 years ago, [ defeating neuro-degeneration ] was our core purpose. We think that, that is the ultimate -- probably the biggest unmet medical need in at least our part of the world at this point is dementia and is probably Alzheimer's disease. Antibodies couldn't really treat -- couldn't really be developed because they don't get into the brain themselves, but now is a different time, right?
So Alzheimer's, Abeta antibodies have shown some -- they have shown ability to clear plaque and that has translated to some extent into efficacy on slowing the rate of progression of decline. Roche has shown quite impressive data with trontinemab, which is also a blood-brain barrier enabled Abeta antibody that showed that not only can plaque be cleared faster than a standard antibody, but also really importantly, the safety profile is superior because it can avoid what's called ARIA, the Amyloid-Related Imaging abnormalities, which are a key safety concern.
So our technology, the transport vehicle is clearly differentiated from the brain shuttle. It's really the architecture about how we enable transferrin receptor binding. We're the only ones, and that was intentional to use the Fc of an antibody and not to have appended sequences, which helps with stability, infusion-related reaction, immunogenicity and everything. So we believe that there is a key differentiation on Abeta. Tau, so that's -- so Abeta and tau, the two hallmark pathologies of Alzheimer's, and we go after both of them.
Differentiation on Abeta. Tau, here, it's really the differentiation against or from intrathecally administered ASOs. Biogen has a program together with Ionis, intrathecally administered ASO. It will read out in the middle of the year. Early data, Phase I data was quite encouraging with respect to tau reduction. Our differentiation here is that it's IV administered, which is not only more convenient for the patient and safer for the patient than intrathecal in the lumbar tract, but also has better distribution in the brain.
Because intrathecal administration, you will have a high gradient of drug. You'll have lots of drug in the spinal tract, but actually very little drug in the actual brain, especially in the deeper regions. If you go through the bloodstream, the brain with 300 miles of blood vessels and every neuron with its adjacent capillary, you have the perfect delivery mechanism to deliver drug to each cell. So that's why we're excited about those two Alzheimer's programs.
Great. And obviously, with the Hunter and Sanfilippo and similar size opportunities, it's very straightforward maybe for the company to commercialize those opportunities. I guess what's the appetite if you see a signal in Alzheimer's for Denali to run sort of the larger programs here versus when is the right time to maybe bring in a partner after signal finding? How do you think about your options there?
Yes. So partnering has always been a key part of our strategy. And early on, we entered into three relatively sizable partnerships with Biogen, Sanofi and Takeda. And those partnerships were also for the large neurodegenerative diseases. So overall, our plan is that in the rare diseases, just as you say, we will probably go alone on those and build the infrastructure, sizable. There's lots of synergies. We can do that.
For the large indications, we will most likely team up with a partner that has the global development capabilities, the global commercial capabilities. There has been tremendous interest to this point. We feel that we can generate clinical proof of concept or we should generate clinical proof of concept ourselves. Thereafter, we have flexibility to go forward, but I think the base case would be that we team up with a partner at that point.
And speaking of partnerships, obviously, you mentioned that the LRRK2 data are coming up. I guess what would you want to see in that data set that would give you and Biogen confidence to, you think, move forward in the indication?
Yes. So this is the LRRK2 inhibitor program, which is a bit of a legacy program because it's a small molecule. It's our only program that we participate in clinical development that is not enabled by the transport vehicle. Here -- so LRRK2, very exciting biology. LRRK2 is one of the strongest genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease. And LRRK2 as it's a kinase and it regulates lysosomal function. If LRRK2 is overactive, lysosomal function is impaired and impaired lysosomal function is a hallmark feature of Parkinson's disease. You can even think about sort of GBA. GBA in the homozygous form causes Gaucher, a lysosomal storage disease and the heterozygous form is a risk factor for Parkinson's.
So the therapeutic hypothesis here is that inhibiting LRRK2 will boost lysosomal function and boosting lysosomal function will improve signs and symptoms of Parkinson's disease. This clinical study will always -- will be the almost definitive test of that hypothesis. 650 patients, a very well designed, very well run global clinical study with UPDRS, so a clinical endpoint. We're looking at the time to worsening in that endpoint. Biogen is controlling -- is running the study. We participate financially. It's a 50-50 deal. Biogen guided towards data in the middle of the year. So we're eagerly waiting in anticipation of those data.
And I guess when you think about moving forward, I guess, will you need both data from LUMA and BEACON to make that decision? And then maybe relatedly, obviously, there's been a lot of talk about changes at the FDA and sort of single study approvals and potential there. I guess, do you think any language coming out of that could benefit this PD program at all?
Yes, thanks for asking. That's a good nuance here. So the LUMA study that Biogen is running is essentially an all-comers Parkinson's study within 2 years of diagnosis. So it's early Parkinson's.
In parallel, what we are running is a study specifically in LRRK2 carriers. So about 2% to 3% of Parkinson's patients have a LRRK2 mutation. So that's about 30,000 patients in the U.S. So it's rare, but it's not super rare. And we have a separate study only in those. That study will read out later in the year. So by the end of the year, we and Biogen will have the benefit of having both data sets.
Now with respect to LUMA, it was intentionally and prospectively designed to be potentially registrational. The base case is that it would be one of the two registrational studies. So if positive, we would run another study with the hope that with a positive study, the second study would enroll really quickly and we could move.
Now we also follow and read the FDA's interest in accelerating development, and we'll have to see what the data look like. But the study design was very robust, and we'll see what the readout is.
Great. And maybe the last program we'll touch on is the FTD GRN program that you have. We're going to have some interim data later this year. Maybe what are the key points that differentiate this program from maybe others in the space? And I guess, will we -- will these patients be followed enough to see a true treatment effect at this point? Or how do you think about what you'll be able to see in this update?
Yes. So Frontotemporal Dementia, especially patients in Frontotemporal Dementia, especially those with a progranulin mutation have a deficiency in progranulin. Progranulin is a lysosomal protein. So the way you can think about this, it is a protein deficiency situation akin to a Lysosomal Storage disease.
Our approach is very direct. So we substitute the protein that is missing. That's very different from other approaches, approaches that target sortilin receptor, which were intended to block sortilin receptor and thereby to increase extracellular progranulin. Progranulin is an intracellular protein. It's a lysosomal protein we substitute it. So it's -- the mechanism is ours is very direct, others was indirect. It's almost as if in a Lysosomal Storage disease, you would hope to have a treatment effect by blocking the internalization of the enzyme from the extracellular space. That's not going to work.
With respect to the study, it is a biomarker study, right? So what we will look at here is obviously PK/PD and safety. We will look for markers of lysosomal function. We also will look for markers of neuronal damage. It is the -- we have data points at 6 months and at 12 months. So we will need to look at the totality of the data, but it is, first and foremost, a biomarker study.
And maybe on that point, what does the overall development path look like in this indication? What would be sort of the next step after that point, assuming you do see signals in the biomarkers?
Yes I think the base case would be a broader study with a clinical endpoint. Now if the biomarker data are striking, is it impossible that there is an accelerated approval pathway? Maybe not, but the base case is definitely a broader clinical study.
Awesome. Great. With that, we're out of time. So thank you very much.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — TD Cowen 46th Annual Health Care Conference
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Takeaway: 2026 ist ein Katalysatorjahr: PDUFA für tividenofusp (Hunter) am 5. April 2026; DNL126 (Sanfilippo) BLA geplant Anfang 2027; LRRK2-Readout Mitte 2026, Progranulin-Update später im Jahr.
- Finanzen: Ende 2025 knapp $1 Mrd. Cash; bei Zulassung zusätzlich $200 Mio. aus Royalty‑Deal.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Wissenschaft: Differenzierung über Total‑Heparan‑Sulfat‑Biomarker und unabhängiges genetisches Review, robuste Long‑Term‑Daten (47 Patienten, bis zu 4 Jahre).
- Kommerz: Launch‑Vorbereitung läuft (Field‑ und MSL‑Team, Lieferkette, Patienten‑Hub); Payer‑Dialoge als produktiv beschrieben, Preis abhängig vom Label.
- Portfolio‑Strategie: Seltene Erkrankungen eigenständig kommerzialisieren; große neurodegenerative Indikationen voraussichtlich in Partnerschaften (Biogen, Sanofi, Takeda als precedent).
🔭 Neue Informationen
- PDUFA: Marktzulassungsentscheidung für Tividenofusp datiert auf den 5. April 2026 (Unternehmensangabe).
- Delay‑Ursache: Drei‑monatige Verzögerung erklärt durch falsche chemische Struktur in einer öffentlichen Datenbank; Fehler korrigiert, kein Einfluss auf Sicherheit oder Wirksamkeit.
- DNL126: Daten bei WORLD zeigen ~80% Reduktion von Heparan‑Sulfat; Management plant BLA‑Einreichung Anfang 2027 und möglichen beschleunigten Pfad.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Vergleich CRL: Nachfrage zu competitor‑CRL; Management betont unterschiedliche Modalitäten (Gen‑Therapie vs ERT mit Transport‑Vehicle) und die Relevanz von Total‑HS sowie strenge genetische Klassifikation.
- Marktaufnahme: Fragen zu Switch‑Rate, Erstinjektionen, Neugeborenen‑Screening (~50% US‑Coverage) und S‑förmiger Adoption; Management erwartet moderates 2026, Inflektion 2027.
- Späte Readouts: LRRK2 (Biogen‑getriebener LUMA mid‑year) und separater LRRK2‑Träger‑Studie later‑year; FTD‑Programm primär Biomarker‑Update (6/12 Monate).
⚡ Bottom Line
- Relevanz: Denali liefert klare kurzfristige Katalysatoren: PDUFA (5. April 2026) ist der wichtigste Near‑Term‑Trigger; erfolgreiche Zulassung würde sowohl klinisch als auch finanziell (Royalty‑Zahlung) erheblich ent‑risiken. Investoren sollten PDUFA‑Ergebnis, COMPASS‑Zeitplan und LRRK2/FTD‑Readouts eng verfolgen, da sie die Bewertung und Partneroptionen maßgeblich beeinflussen.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Shareholder/Analyst Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Denali Analyst Call 2026 WORLDSymposium. [Operator Instructions]
I will now hand the call over to Mr. Ryan Watts, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Great. Thank you. We're looking forward to previewing our enzyme transport vehicle highlights from the WORLDSymposium, which we're here attending in San Diego.
Slide 2 is our forward-looking statements. On to Slide 4, just a reminder that Denali was founded to deliver the power of biotherapies to the whole body, including the brain, trend lives for people living with serious diseases. On Slide 5, an introduction into the transport vehicle. I know many of who are attending this call today are familiar with our technology, with engineered [indiscernible] of transfer receptor into an Fc giving us the ability to cross the [indiscernible] barrier and also access the whole body. On Slide 6, you can see our 3 different franchises, the enzyme transport vehicle, the all the go transport vehicle and the antibody transport vehicle. Today, we'll focus on our enzyme transport vehicle programs and the new data that's been presented here at the WORLDSymposium.
On Slide 7, you can see the totality of our enzyme transport vehicle franchise including our preclinical [indiscernible] molecules. And again, the focus today will be on [indiscernible]. On Slide 8 is a summary of the presentations that have been given here at [ oral ]. There are 7 presentations, 2 of which were oral presentations, just recently delivered, including new data for TV as well as DNL126. We'll also highlight the clinical trial design for ETV:GAA and new preclinical data. Our key messages are as follows: the continued analysis of a Phase I/II study in Hunter syndrome reinforces the potential for TV to address the full spectrum of disease. We've established launch readiness in anticipation of the April 5 PDUFA date and are looking forward to launching this medicine.
For DNL126, preliminary data from Phase I/II study was presented, showing an 80% mean reduction in [indiscernible] sulfate and substantial reduction in other biomarkers as will be highlighted today. The safety profile is generally consistent with established ERTs. And I think importantly, we're expecting to file our BLA and received accelerated approval in 2027, using these interim data as a foundation for this program. For ETV:GAA, we will describe the design of an ongoing DNL952 Phase I clinical study and also present preclinical data. We expect biomarker proof of concept data in 2027.
I'll now hand it to Peter, who will begin on Slide 11.
Thank you, Ryan. Hello. I'm Peter Chin, Acting Chief Medical Officer and Head of Development. I'm pleased to join you from WORLDSymposium today.
First, I'll briefly summarize the presentation by Dr. Joseph [indiscernible] under on the tividenofusp alfa Phase I/II study results with additional follow-up. On Slide 12, a tividenofusp alfa is designed to address both the neurologic and systemic manifestations of the Hunter syndrome by leveraging TFR mediated transport to deliver IDS to the brain and the body. On Slide 13, you'll see the study 2 study design. This is the Phase I/II tividenofusp study that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It's an open-label, first-in-human study with initial dose finding cohort followed by long-term treatment in all cohorts with weekly tividenofusp alfa at a dose of 15 milligrams per kilogram. The data in this particular presentation with extended follow-up have a clinical cutoff date of March 28, 2025. This represents when the last patient enrolled completed the week 49 visit.
On Slide 14, we see the disposition. I'll note that there's no change in disposition since the primary data cut published in the New England Journal and this updated analysis and a cumulative treatment exposure includes a median of 134 weeks and a maximum of 243 weeks. On Slide 15, the biomarker results, as previously presented, both CSF and urine heparan sulfate showed substantial reductions in normalization following treatment with tividenofusp alfa. These reductions were maintained long term through 201 weeks. On Slide 16, [indiscernible] showed substantial reduction with normalization and the majority of participants [indiscernible].
Moving to Slide 17. Here are the updated data on hearing thresholds, improvements in hearing threshold as assessed by [ Puretone ] average are maintained with the additional follow-up through week 21. This was reflected across all frequencies tested. On Slide 18, you see the updated data for liver volume, normal liver volumes were maintained through the MRI assessment at week 153. On Slide 19, these next 2 slides I'll show data and way that we haven't presented before. So note that Phase 2 slides have an animated bill. The plot in green shows the overall mean change in [indiscernible] adaptive behavior of [ Rosscor ] composite, which demonstrated continued skill gains through 213 weeks. If you advance the animation, it shows subgroups by age at time of treatment initiation, younger age groups expected in teal and the medium blue plots show continuous skill gains up to the extent of follow-up at the time of the data cutoff. The participants who were over the age of 4 at the time of treatment initiated, initiation depicted in dark blue, remains stable in their abilities through 213 weeks. And this is a meaningful outcome relative to the decline of what we expect to see over time.
On Slide 20. Once again, the green plot depicts the overall change in [indiscernible] through week 201, advancing the animation. Similar to the [indiscernible] results on the previous slide, Bayley scales [indiscernible] demonstrated improvement with continued cognitive skill gains in younger age groups up to the data cutoff. The older patients above the age 4 maintained stable cognitive scores over the course of nearly 4 years. And just a note on this, while the youngest patients appear to gain the most in terms of the rate of skill acquisition, well-treated with TV. These data show the potential for treated patients to improve or stabilize meaningfully across the broad study population as highlighted in videos from [ Dr. Muenzer ], who showed cases of neuronopathic siblings who were participating in our study at our R&D Day recently.
The next slide is the safety overview. Slide 21. With additional exposure since the primary analysis, tividenofusp alfa continued to exhibit a stable and manageable safety profile in the study participants with MPS II. On Slide 22, we once again show updated data on the infusion-related reactions. These IRRs are known risk of ERTs. They were the most common adverse event in the study. And as you can see, the decrease in incidence severity over time. On Slide 23, you see the conclusions in this updated analysis of tividenofusp alfa in the Phase I/II study with additional follow-up. We continue to see substantial reduction in normalization in the majority of participants on peripheral biomarkers, which were maintained over time and we continue to show improvement across multiple domains, including cognition, behavior and hearing. The safety with additional follow-up time remain consistent with the primary analysis.
And as noted earlier, TV was designed to treat brain in by in Hunter syndrome. And in the Phase I/II study, we continue to see positive outcomes across a broad age range and in both neuronopathic and nonneuropathic media types. If we move forward to Slide 25. I'll briefly summarize a poster that's being presented by Dr. [indiscernible] of UCSF, describing the outcomes of 2 non-neuronopathic siblings enrolled in the Phase I/II divide study. The full details of the cases will be presented in the poster itself. On Slide 26, here we present the data on the cases. And so there is a male sibling payer enrolled in the ongoing Phase I/II study. The data in this presentation of note also include standard of care observations from the clinical sites beyond the study protocol. Both siblings enrolled in Cohort D of the study, which was -- we included treatment 9 with individuals with pre-existing hepatomegaly, both initiated tividenofusp treatment in September of 2022. The younger sling notably missed his week 24 assessments due to illness, not related to the study drug.
On the right-hand side, Table 1 summarizes the baseline demographics and clinical characteristics of the sibling. They were aged 6 years and 8 months and 4 years and 3 months at the time of treatment initiation. Both had evidence of reduced IDS activity and neither had received any prior MPS II therapy. The composite cognitive D2s as noted show a normal age typical range in both siblings. But both have clinical signs of somatic involvement on clinical exam. If we move to Slide 27, you see the biomarker results. which basically shows baseline levels of CFH and DS as well as urine HS and DS being elevated above the upper limit of normal. As noted in Figure 2, all levels normalized by week 49 and the substantial reductions were maintained through week [ 14 ].
If we move to Slide 28. We'll look at the somatic manifestations and there were several. So both siblings had diagnosis of carpal tonic syndrome which resolved over time, while treated with tividenofusp alfa and this is true both clinically as well as by [indiscernible] study. Anecdotally, in the study week 24 interview, parents noted that both of the boys wanted to play video games, whereas in the past they had previously avoided this due to pain in the wrist. Joint mobility also improved, particularly in the old older sibling, who had bilateral [indiscernible] shoulder a reduction at baseline, which normalized at week 104. Both siblings achieved 6-minute walk test businesses within the typical range for 40. And of note, both siblings follow typical heightened wage trajectory is expected for their agents. With the older sibling and the 50th percentile for height and the younger sibling and the 90th percentile for height in recent measurements.
We also, as part of the poster presentation, have videos, which are accessible through the poster itself and the QR code and these demonstrate the range of motion and activity levels of the siblings following treatment. If we move to Slide 29, the cognition results in these 2 signings are also quite interesting. So the processing and cognitive abilities in both siblings improved from screening to week 29 reaching above average to what we might consider upper extreme ranges for age. The standard score games indicated cognitive development exceeding age-matched [indiscernible] score norms. And so these improvements were consistent with parent reported academic and functional gains supporting meaningful cognitive change while on treatment.
On Slide 30. As a brief summary, while treated with tividenofusp alfa in the Phase I/II study, these 2 non-neuronopathic siblings with MPS II, exhibited normalized disease biomarkers, improve their somatic manifestations and mobility demonstrated a typical growth in stature and cognitive function in an above average range. And while anecdotal, these collective outcomes appear to suggest that tividenofusp alfa is enabling these siblings to reach their physical and cognitive potential. If we move forward, next, I'll change gears and summarize the preliminary data from the DNL126 Phase I/II study, which was presented by Dr. Elizabeth [indiscernible] a short while ago. On Slide 32, a brief note about MPS IIIA, it's an autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disorder, resulting in the loss of SGSH, leading to an accumulation of heparan sulfate in brain. This drives lysosomal dysfunction, neurodegeneration, early developmental delays in childhood followed by severe neurological decline and sadly death and adolescence is typical. There are also somatic symptoms associated with the disease. There are no approved therapies for MPS IIIA, thus it represents an area of high unmet medical need.
On Slide 33, DNL126 is designed to leverage TfR-mediated transport to deliver SGSH to the brain and address the relentless neurological manifestations of the disease, while also delivering ERT to the body. On Slide 34, we'll look at the study design. DNL126 is being evaluated in a Phase I/II open-label study in children with MPS IIIA. Enrollment is complete with 20 participants. This update in this presentation includes preliminary data from 14 participants with a data cutoff of June 4, 2025. The safety data in the presentation are shown for all 14 participants. The preliminary biomarker efficacy data are shown for 8 patients in the dose-finding cohorts who had available data [indiscernible. The dose-finding cohorts involve weekly and every other week fusions with intra participant dose escalation in 3 dose levels, which inform the optimized dose regimen for the efficacy cohorts that you see in the bottom portion of the figure.
The 8 cohorts recruited participants across a broad pediatric range, including severe and allowance for slower progressing phenotypes. Cohort B1 recruited participants less 28 months of agent enrollment. Cohort B2 was proposed for siblings of participants in [indiscernible], but no siblings were enrolled in P2. The primary endpoint is percent change from baseline and CSF on sulfate at week 9. If we go to Slide 35. Data from 13 out of 14 participants were available through week 25 and from 8 participants in the dose finding cohorts data were available through week 49. The median age of enrollment was approximately 4 years, with the youngest participants aged 27 months at the time of treatment. The 8 participants in the 2 dose finding cohorts had an age range of 36 to 78 months, 6 were female and 2 were [indiscernible] for a slower progressing variant.
If we go to Slide 36. Preliminary biomarker results and the dose-finding cohorts were robust with substantial reductions in CNS biomarker after 49 weeks of treatment with DNL126 on the left-hand side, [indiscernible] reductions were observed by week 13, and they showed a mean reduction of 80% at week 49 with some participants achieving normalization. On the right, you see CSF [ TM3 ], mark our secondary license storage pathology was reduced by approximately 60% with most participants in the normal range, suggesting improved lysosomal function following treatment. On Slide 37, we show the peripheral effects of DNO 126. Treatment resulted in a rapid reduction in urine HS by week 3 and showed a mean reduction of 83% in week 49. Variability beyond week 3 is consistent with interim participant differences in dose escalation and dose frequency as described on the study design fly. The liver volume normalized in all participants by week 49. These findings support systemic activity of DNL126 in addition to enzyme replacement in the CNS.
Slide 38. The preliminary safety profile of DNL126 is generally consistent with established enzyme replacement therapies. Adverse events were primarily mild or moderate in severity, and there were no treatment-related serious AEs. There were no study discontinuations or treatment discontinuations due to adverse events. The infusion-related reactions were the most common AE as expected for ERTs. On Slide 39. You'll see additional information on infusion-related reactions. These were mild or moderate in severity and the frequency and severity of IRRs decreased over time as noted by the figure, which depicts IRRs by [indiscernible]. Reactions were manageable with premedication and infusion rate adjustments and dose escalation. Notably, treatment with the optimized dosing and the later cohorts appear to show improved tolerability with the use of gradual dose escalation as noted earlier.
On Slide 40. You see the conclusions and takeaways in this preliminary analysis, DNL126 treatment resulted in CSF reductions of 8% with normalization in 3 out of 7 participants. This appears to be the largest magnitude of CSF HS reduction reported in this very difficult to treat disease. Treatment also led to substantial reductions in other disease-relevant biomarkers, including GM3 and heparan sulfate in urine as well as normalization of liver volume. The preliminary safety was consistent with enzyme replacement therapy with IRRs being the most common [indiscernible] these decrease in frequency and severity over time in our clinical manager. These preliminary data support continued evaluation of DNL126 and the ongoing efficacy cohorts. And [indiscernible] remains on track for a potential accelerated approval in 2027 based on CSF heparan sulfate as a surrogate marker, reasonably likely to predict mobenefit.
And now I'll turn it over to Joe Lewcock, our Chief Scientific Officer.
Thank you, Peter. I'm Joe Lewcock, Chief Scientific Officer at Denali Therapeutics, and I will be sharing highlights from 2 posters presented at World, evaluating DNL952 to a novel investigational therapy for treating patients with Pompe's disease. And just a reminder, Pompe's disease is caused by a deficiency in the lysosomal enzyme GAA leading to glycogen accumulation in muscle cells and progressive muscle weakness despite existing enzyme replacement therapies.
In addition, glycogen buildup in the nervous system can cause severe neurological defects in infantile onset Pompe disease, IOPD and may also contribute to weakness in late onset Pompe disease or LOPD. Therefore, there is a need for therapies that enhance enzyme delivery to both muscle and the nervous system.
So if you go to Slide 43, I'll start with the first poster that was presented which is entitled enhanced correction of skeletal muscle and brain pathology in a Pompe mouse model using transferrin mediated delivery of GAA. Moving on to Slide 44, it outlines the architecture of DNL952 on the left-hand side of the slide. where recombinant GAA shown in blue is fused to Denali's transport vehicle in gray which, as you will likely recall, is an engineered Fc fragment that contains a transfer and receptor binding site illustrated in gold. On the right-hand side of the slide, it illustrates the delivery of DNL952 to the key tissues impacted in Pompe's disease, where transferrin receptor mediated delivery enables efficient delivery to muscle cells, as well as neurons via transport across the blood-brain barrier.
In addition to trafficking to the relevant tissue types, TfR also enables the cellular uptake in intracellular trafficking through the endosomal path -- endolysosomal pathway, and therefore, through engaging transferrin receptor, DNL952 is designed to buy or distribute properly and enhance delivery and lysosomal targeting in affected tissues.
So if we move on to Slide 45, you can see some of the preclinical data with this molecule. And this is looking at first at pharmacodynamic effects of DNL952 in a mouse model of Pompe's disease, in which the GAA gene has been knocked out. These mice also express a chimeric human mouse transferrin receptor to enable binding to the TV. And what you could see on this slide in GAA, no mice, which are shown in dark blue on the left-hand side of the slide, as well as on the right-hand side, you see in muscle on the left and in nervous system on the right, significant accumulation of glycogen in both of these tissues. Again, that's shown in blue compared to wild-type animals in gray. And what you could see across a dose range is really a substantial reduction of [indiscernible] accumulation after 5 every other week doses of DNL952, which at all dose levels is superior to the level of glycogen reduction using the same dosing regimen with 20 mgs per kg of the standard of care. So very encouraging pharmacodynamic activity with this molecule.
And if we move on to Slide 46, now we can look at the pathologic hallmarks of Pompe disease in muscle downstream of glycogen accumulation. And what you're looking at here is LAMP2 and P62 which are 2 markers of autophagic morphology in these tissues, which is abnormal in the mice that lack GAA enzyme activity. And that can be seen in the pictures on the top panels of the slide. If you then look down at the bottom panel of the slide for quantification of both LAMP2 on the left-hand side and P62 on the right-hand side, you could see that increased staining in muscles of mice that lack GA enzyme activity and a dose-dependent reduction of these pathologies after treatment with DNA in the same dosing regimen shown on the previous slide. By contrast, 20 mg per kg of the standard of care is unable to effectively impact these disease pathologies, showing clear differentiation of AR TfR-enabled DNL952 molecule.
If we then move on to Slide 7, here provides a QR code, where if you're interested, you can go and take a look at all of the details of this data, the preclinical package with the conclusions of this work being that the biomarker evidence we've established from these animals provides proof of concept for DNL952 and supports advancement into clinical studies.
We then move on to Slide 48, good. I'll go over the second poster presented here at World. A Phase I multicenter open-label study designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of DNL952 in adult participants with late onset Parkinson's -- or Pompe disease, pardon me. So to go -- we'll go over the study design on Slide 49. And this study, DNLI-J-0001 is the first-in-human Phase I study of 952. It is an open-label study and adult participants with late onset Pompe disease. The primary and secondary objectives of this study are to characterize the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and immunogenicity of DNL952 exploratory pharmacodynamic markers, including urine [indiscernible], serum creatine kinase and other markers will be measured as part of this study. This study will also include exploratory clinical measures of motor and respiratory function.
As shown on the graphic of the right -- on the right-hand side of the slide, enrolled participants will receive DNL952 during a 24-week core period and a 24-week extension period. Initial dose exploration will be conducted in 2 planned cohorts enrolling ERT experienced participants with optional additional cohorts to evaluate alternative doses or dose frequencies. Following initial dose exploration, selected dose regimens may also be evaluated in optional ERT-naive cohorts shown on the bottom right-hand side of the slide. So if we move on to Slide 50 is just the conclusions of this poster as well, which was meant to outline the design of the DNLI-J-0001 study and the goals of this study. For more information, you can visit clinicaltrials.gov or scan the QR code on the right-hand side of the slide for additional information.
So now I'll turn it over to our CEO, Ryan Watts, to provide conclusions for the presentation.
Thank you, Joe, and thank you, Peter. This ends the formal presentation portion of today's call. We'll now turn to the Q&A.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question coming from the line of Andrew Tsai with Jefferies.
2. Question Answer
Thanks for sharing a nice set of data sets. So for Sanfilippo, as we think about the next steps, is it fair to assume that the full 20 patients worth of data could look even better than what you're seeing right now since these next batch of patients are being dosed at the QE efficacy cohorts? And then secondly, with this nice data set you're seeing so far, especially on heparan sulfate, does it make sense to file for a breakthrough designation?
Great questions. Thank you, Andrew. I'm going to hand it to Peter and maybe we'll add a little bit as well, Peter.
Yes. Thank you. It's a great question about what we could expect to see with the efficacy cohorts. As you pointed out, we've A1 and A2 dose finding cohorts had various doses and every other week dosing for a substantial period of time, as we noted on the slide design. And so it's a slide with the study design. And so the efficacy cohorts will have an optimized slow dose escalation and weekly dosing, getting to the high dose weekly dosing at a faster rate. We hypothesized that it should be at least as good as the -- what we've seen in the dose finding cohorts, but we have to actually gather the data and show that in the future.
I think I'll just -- I'll add to that, that the -- we're very enthusiastic about the 80% reduction, the ability to normalize. I think one thing we've learned in Sanfilippo is this is a very difficult to treat disease. And this is, I think, clearly the best-in-class that's been shown to date on the ability to impact heparan sulfate. Now obviously, this is -- we've had a lot of experience with the transport vehicle. But of note, you'll see even when we look at urine heparan sulfate and then ultimately, that -- those first 2 cohorts were really important in optimizing. And so we think that this is -- I think a fantastic data really set us up for accelerated approval.
And Andrew, I think you may have had a separate second question, I don't know if we answered both questions and answering that.
Only to the extent you can share, would it make sense to follow for a breakthrough designation.
Yes, we will -- I mean my guess is we'd be moving in that direction as we did with TV.
Our next question coming from the line of Salveen Richter with Goldman Sachs.
Congrats here on the data. I was wondering if you could just speak in the context of TV here showing about a 62% of patients being previously on standard of care, how you think about outcomes or what you're seeing with regard to outcomes amongst previously treated patients versus treatment-naive patients?
That's a good question. I'll hand it to Peter and again may add a bit as well.
Yes, it's a great question. The first thing I'd say is there's heterogeneity across the population. The second thing I would say is that as an overall group, as you've seen, there is improvement, particularly in the younger population. And so I think those are the individuals that stand the greatest opportunity for benefit. The earlier we treat, the more likely they are to be treatment naive. But I think the other thing we want to say is the stabilization is highly important. And whether it's a very young patient or an older pediatric patient as we had in the study, I think the data are really important in maintaining skills over the course up to 4 years in the latest date of [indiscernible].
And I'll just add and maybe Salveen, what you're trying to get at is the switching dynamics, the fact that a large number of these patients were previously on standard of care and then switch to TV. And do we see any differences in clinical outcome with treatment naive versus switching. Notably, our COMPASS trial is designed so that patients initially start on standard of care and then switch. So most of our data, including, by the way, looking at urine heparan sulfate obviously, heparan sulfate are on standard of care. So we're seeing a robust effect even on patients that are switching from either [indiscernible] so Phase II to TV. I hope that answers your question.
And our next question coming from the line of Paul Matteis with Stifel.
This is Matthew on for Paul. I guess the questions on the urine heparan sulfate for Sanfilippo. You mentioned there was some variability in response due to the dosing titration schedule. Does that -- can we infer from that, that there is dose dependence all the way up to the high dose? And perhaps why are we only seeing it in the urine heparan sulfate and the other CSF markers?
Yes, thank you for that question. I'll answer it first and then Peter still feel free to add to it. What's been interesting for us is the sensitivity of urine seems to be greater than CSF. In other words, it returns to baseline more [indiscernible] than CSF, the duration of response seems to be longer in [indiscernible] fluid. So I think that allows us to, let's say, a more acute measure of activity. And I think what's interesting is if you line up the dose finding portion of A1 and A2 with that urine, you can see when we essentially switched everyone to weekly dosing at the high cost.
So I think that's probably the best way to look at it. Yes. I'll end there, do you want to add anything else, Peter?
I think you summarized it well. The only other thing I'd add is the A2 cohort was treated with every other week low dose for approximately 20 weeks. And so that, as Ryan said, urine tends to be more extensive. And that makes some of that variability. But as the patients in the dose-finding cohorts escalated to the higher dose, you see that we achieved an 83% reduction at week 49, which we consider quite [ less ].
I'll just add one other point, which is worth noting. I think when you think of samples you think of the severe and rapid neurological decline, which is certainly the case, but it's actually interesting in this data set to see elevated urine happen so and increased liver volume, which we can normalize. So this is clearly a whole lot [indiscernible] disease as well. And I don't think others have really shown data around that, at least to this extent. But I just an important point to highlight.
Our next question in queue coming from the line Mayank Mamtani with B. Riley Securities.
Appreciate the comprehensive presentation. So on DNL126, Ryan, if you are able to contextualize the depth and durability of [indiscernible] that we're seeing here say, relative to a gene therapy approach. And also, if you looked at any clinical measures yet, and is your expectation to have younger age groups do better like you have in TV. And in terms of next steps, are you going to assess any differences on the clinical measures relative to, say, an absolute history comparison that we've seen some of that being done. Obviously, unlike TV and Hunters, there's nothing out there here to compare against? And then I have a follow-up.
Okay. So the first question is the depth of response for CSF heparan sulfate. Let's start with that one. So maybe, Peter, you can comment on that.
Yes. I think we again, in these dose finding cohorts, we've shown an 80% mean reduction to our knowledge, is the most robust effect that has been seen. I'll also reiterate that pretty rapidly with effects shown by week 13 and an 80% reduction at week 25 as well as at week 49. So we find these data to be highly compelling even if they're preliminary.
And then the second question, or at least part of that is what is our plan to show cognitive benefit? And then the third question is are we planning to enroll younger patients. So let's talk about the [indiscernible] benefit as we go forward on this program.
Yes. As you know, these cognitive elements are more interpretable over time. And so this is a very preliminary analysis with limited follow-up. Of course, we are measuring those data over time. And this is -- there's a open label that follows the week 49 period. And so we will be assessing those. In terms of natural history, we don't have a direct natural history comparator, but that will serve as an important reference in the future as we accumulate longer-term data.
Yes. I think there is some in our experience, there is some challenge in who you select to compare in natural history. I think you asked one other -- I'll just have one other put around the heparan sulfate. Once again, people choose to measure heparan sulfate in different ways. It's either an absolute number, percentage AUC, in our case, we see this as really the best-in-class example and similar to what we've shown previously in other diseases.
Great. And a follow-up on TV world, have you broken down -- I'm sorry if I missed the biomarker and our clinical data by severed, I think you did [indiscernible], have you broken that down and what does that look like?
Sorry, Mayank, can you restate -- did you get that? Can you restate broken down the biomarkers, say that again?
For TV, have you broken down your biomarker and/or clinical data by severe and attenuated phenotypes, have you shown that?
Yes. So the on -- sorry, the 2 study, the Phase I/II study that we just presented on, 44 out of the 47 participants were neuronopathic. And so we don't typically do because it's such a small nonneuropathic formal analysis by subgroup. As we showed in the 2 siblings, both CSF and urine HS and DS were elevated even in the so-called attenuated patients, and we showed an ability to normalize all those markers rapidly. So the show long way of saying the biomarker effects that we've seen with tividenofusp cover both in neuronabathic and the non-neuronopathic patients in the ability to normalize.
I think from a clinical outcome standpoint, as we presented in the case studies, these are individuals who are already performing at an average level cognitively at baseline, and they actually continue to gain skills at quite a rapid rate. So the standard scores in the poster suggest that they're actually performing at an above-average level currently. And then finally, the somatic manifestations, I think this poster illustrates very nicely. The improvement on both pre-existing somatic manifestations such as the joint mobility as well as the resolution of carpal tunnel syndrome and some of the other highlights that are noted in poster as noted, TV was designed to treat brain and body and I think in both neuronopathic and non neuropathic patients that are available in the study, we've been able to demonstrate that [ rarely ] convincing.
Our next question coming from the line of Sean Laaman with Morgan Stanley. My question is around sort of potential clinical differentiation to elsewhere, but think about 126 and the HS reduction in the CSF of about 80%, how can you correlate that or how clinically meaningfully different might that be to something that sort of reduced HS by 65% or 50%? Or do we not know that yet is the sort of first part of the question. And the second part, still on clinical differentiation, the 61% reduction in CSF [indiscernible] is that meaningful in trying to demonstrate clinical differentiation to elsewhere?
Yes, it's a great question. And I think this is a question for all of the MPSs, what level of reduction leads to benefit. And clearly, there's -- we see substantially greater reduction than others have reported. I think ultimately, what's going to lay out is the subsequent biomarkers like GM3. I'm glad you pointed that out where 6 of 7 participants had normalized. So remember that [ perception ] is relative to the amount of increase for the particular biomarker. So when you achieve that level of we're actually normalizing the function of GM3 and rankly, what we believe is normalizing license function. But there is probably a cut at some point where you're not reducing it enough. And we don't know if that is what our goal is to maximize heparan sulfate reduction.
Our next question coming from the line of Tazeen Ahmad with Bank of America.
For 126, I just wanted to clarify, what are you expecting the go-forward dosing regimens to look like? And then secondly, what are you thinking about the trial design for Phase III [indiscernible] when could that start? And how many patients do you think roughly you need in order to enroll? And then lastly, can I ask a quick question on your interactions with FDA on Citi's review? Do you think you can get approved ahead of your PDUFA?
Great. So we'll answer those 3 questions. We'll start first with dosing.
Yes. So great question. What I refer you back to is the study design in the efficacy cohorts where we have -- this is Slide 34, where we show the dose escalation scheme, starting with a low dose for approximately 6 weeks going to a mid-dose and then going to high dose [ 2-week ] peak with weekly infusions. And so this is based on the preliminary data, what we believe to be the optimized dosing regimen.
And I'll just add very briefly, I know we have many questions to answer here. The -- we try -- I mean, as you can see in the stage of design we compare every other week versus we [indiscernible]. And this has been something that has been explored off in the enzyme replacement build. For us, the great thing about heparan sulfate is responsiveness and our ability to change the dose. But we now have the optimized dose that will be the same dose we're selecting for the Phase III.
And to answer your Phase III question, we will be sharing more. That's been a big topic with the FDA is the design and the finalization of that Phase III, which [indiscernible] that now it will not be a placebo-controlled pages, but it will actually be a comparator to baseline, which will be fantastic, and we'll share more on the number of patients. It's not going to be a very large study. Our goal 126 is to move about half as much as we did on 310 and new [indiscernible] as fast. So that's the ultimate plan. And your last question was on TV and where do we stand with the FDA. So right now, it's all about defining the post-marketing commitments and the ongoing label discussions. I can't comment if we imagine an early approval, that would be fantastic. Right now, the basis case is April 1 as a PDUFA date.
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Yee with UBS.
On the pivotal Hunter study that is ongoing. A couple of questions. One is have you guided to exactly when you would complete Cohort B? What is the general purpose of the Cohort B because I understand that obviously, that's non-neuronopathic. And so what is your confidence that would actually hit on a 6-minute walk or other endpoint? And is that for safety? Or do you actually think that would -- that population would be in the label?
Yes. Great question, Mike. In fact, I think there might have been a miss in the presentation by Dr. [indiscernible], maybe I misheard it, but Cohort B is not the rate-limiting step in completing the COMPASS trial. It's a 1-year end point as opposed to the 2-year endpoint for Cohort A. So Cohort A is fully enrolled. I think Dr. [indiscernible] mentioned, we're in search of several more patients for Cohort B, it's not rate limiting. And the purpose of that is to show comparability really to elevate 6-minute walk, but also maintaining reduction in liver and [indiscernible] and heparan sulfate. So at least that's the way that [ Scott ] was designed as we've engaged with the FDA now several years ago to show that we basically are comparable to [indiscernible]. The ultimate goal for us, obviously, is to have a broad table as possible.
The next question coming from Myles Minter with William Blair.
Congrats on all the data on the presentations here at WORLD. My question is actually about Dr. [indiscernible] said the 1 patient, I think, required a second bag infusion because of infusion-related sort of reactions. Do you know what dose that was at in the Sanfilippo program and if it was at the high dose, like what's your confidence that this will remain a single bag infusion as opposed to 2-bag infusion, which seems quite a lumpy process.
I'll hand it to Peter for that.
Yes. I would have to get back to you on the exact dose. I think what I would say is there are occasional idiosyncratic reactions that patients receiving ERT have. And this is an individual who had IRRs as we noted in the presentation, can be managed with reduction in bag concentration and slowing the rate and then slowly re-escalating at some point. And so this is an individual who continues to dose in the study. And we don't think that, that has broader implications on the tolerability of the drug.
Okay. Cool. And then just a quick one. Thanks for breaking down all [indiscernible] scores in the Hunter program as well based on age. It seems like younger than 2 years is where you get the most benefit, but I agree there's clear benefiting stabilization for those older patients. What are you going to do with the younger age group here? What's your plans there? Because I don't believe they are included in COMPASS. I don't think any patients below 2 years of age are included in that trial. So what is your plans there for that population?
Yes. So that's -- it's a great question. The way we think about the development program being a rare disease was to have complementary data coming from the E2 study, which did study patients as young as 3 months of age and all the way to adults in the COMPASS Phase II/III study that we've been discussing. And so we view the totality of the data as being important for both confirmed confirmation of an accelerated approval in the U.S. as well as global approval. So the data that we have in E2 are going to be very important, showing longer-term outcomes for the most patients.
Our next question coming from the line of Ananda Ghosh with H.C. Wainwright.
Congrats on the data. I have 2 questions. On the first one with respect to the Hunter syndrome where you show very nice adaptive and cognitive behavior. I was wondering how does it compare with Elaprase only patient, if you have, is there any data on that? That's the first question. I have a follow-up question.
Yes. I'll hand it to Peter. I think the question is natural history, but in reality, natural history is on standard of care. So how would this -- what would you expect on standard of care in these patients.
Yes. Thanks for the question. I mean our expectation is that these patients would decline over time, knowing that Elaprase is a cross the blood brain generator and address the neurological manifestations. There's limited long-term data that's interrogated targets [ award ], that's the word, for doing an actual comparison. But based on the data that are available, we end with additional follow-up. We anticipate that these patients will continue to stabilize on tividenofusp group and DDA from the natural history.
All right. And my next question, like if you look across the programs like Sanfilippo and the GM3 biomarker and then the preclinical data from the [indiscernible]. What does it -- I mean, what does like -- obviously, you are reaching [indiscernible] targeting the lysosomes. Does that open up other hard-to-treat lysosomal diseases like [indiscernible] or how are you integrating those data with respect to the future pipeline development?
The short answer is absolutely. I think what this data -- the data in Hunter and in Sanfilippo, including liver volume, urine heparan sulfate, but also all the central nerve system, we had very much opened our minds to other targets that we can go after in muscle and bone and including the central nervous system. But in your case, it's like [indiscernible] is really going after the lysosome. So the short answer is absolutely we have we have 6 minutes left. We're going to go in a rapid fire for the next 6 minutes. So apologies if they're shorter answer. So we'll do our best, really love to answer everyone's questions.
Our next question coming from the line of Laura Chico with Wedbush.
This is [ Thomas ] asking a couple of questions for Laura. So first, I wonder if you can help us understand the primary data points in the TV data package that you believe will be most you spoke to encouraging switching treatments? And what do you believe will relate most with bottlers?
I'll hand it to Peter for a brief answer.
Yes. I think, first and foremost, the urinary GAG data is showing normalization, including in those patients in the E2 study who were already treated with Elaprase with no washout I think those are highly compelling data. And then the other peripheral data that we have includes the normalization of liver volume and maintenance of normal liver volume in those who were at baseline. We're continuing to gather clinical outcomes over time. But I think the booker evidence strongly suggest that there is an advantage to switching.
Our next question coming from the line of Joseph Thome with TD Cowen.
Maybe on Sanfilippo, just based on your conversations at WORLD. If we assume that a gene therapy approach and 126 are commercially available, based on the doctor conversations, is there a subset of patients that they think might be more applicable for one versus the other? And could you combine these approaches assuming it'd be able to get reimbursed?
Yes. I mean I think the last point you made is probably been the most relevant point, which is a combination certainly the case in Hunter or gene therapy is delivered directly to the brain. I haven't seen the peripheral data in detail on the systemically delivered gene therapy, but we imagine that there will be room for both and likely in each patient as gene therapy make way.
Our next question coming from the line Marc Goodman with Leerink Partners.
This is [indiscernible] on for Mark. We just would like to clarify why whether you need to have a titration for the 126 in the Sanfilippo program because when we compare with the Hunter program, we noticed that you were able to the therapeutic dose in the efficacy cohort with that titration? And would that mainly to mitigate the side effect profile or what other reason for?
So the brief answer is to mitigate IRRs. And I think we've really know that, as you can see, with the IRRs over time with the different dosing regimens in the different cohorts, you see actually substantially less IRR. So that dose escalation allows you to do that. That will be common across most enzyme replacement therapies.
Our next question coming from the line of Jay Olson with Oppenheimer.
Congrats on these results. We had a question about the DNL126 biomarker data. What do you think is more important for driving clinical benefits, GM3 normalization or HS normalization? And then separately, can you provide any color on antidrug antibodies or neutralizing antibodies that you observed with DNL126 and whether or not the presence of ADAs or neutralizing anybody to have any impact on the efficacy of 126?
Yes. So I'll start and Peter can add up, now that we're running out of time. So I think what the GM3 data shows is that the amount of heparan sulfate reduction we achieved was sufficient to basically normalize lysosomal function as it relates to GM3, which is a separate marker. So I guess, back to, I think, one of the previous questions around the percent reduction you need to achieve ultimately, there's going to be downstream biomarkers that will also be very informative that may move later in disease, for example, like [indiscernible]. I think that answers the first question. Remind me again on the second question.
ADAs or neutralizing [indiscernible].
So ADAs are common in all ERTs and they're present obviously in our other programs, and we most certainly see antidrug antibodies with 126. I think your question is, does it seem to affect CapEx that actually remains to be seen. And I think part of these dose escalation protocol and then optimizing dose is really to optimize dosing over ADA. And that's what we learned with TV is that we pushed the dose here on questions on the dose level, but our goal there was to try to create all Hunter patients, including those that have high antidrug antibodies to enzyme, which is commonly observed. We don't have enough data yet to really define that for 126, but I think it's likely optimizing the dose is related to ADAs.
Our next question coming from the line of Michael DiFiore with Evercore ISI.
Two quick ones from me. I just want to revisit perhaps the first question that was asked around what we could expect in the efficacy cohort since these patients are dosed at the full dose or at the target dose. Could we possibly see a 90% reduction in CSF HS here? Is there a reason not to expect a greater dose response? And then separately, regarding NFL biomarker data, I know it's way too early to tell now. But could we expect 126 to exhibit similar kinetics on NFL reduction to what was seen in Hunter, where most of the reduction happened after 1 year of therapy?
Yes. So I'll answer that question. Peter gave a great answer to the first go around, we can read the transcript, and I'll add to that. So we believe 80% reduction is very robust. And we believe will be sufficient not only for the accelerated approval, but to drive clinical efficacy. I think the questions around ADAs and heterogeneity, that will play out over time now that we've optimized the dose I don't necessarily think you have to achieve any specific percent reduction as long as you get the downstream biomarkers corrected, like GM3 and ultimately, NFL.
So I think your question is a fantastic question thinking about, okay, what is needed then to drive the whole team of neurodegeneration. But we see this as a robust data set as we now optimize the dose moving forward.
Our next question coming from the line of David Hoang with Deutsche Bank.
So maybe just quickly in terms of commercialization of it, what's your level of confidence to get broad coverage and effect switches from Elaprase with an accelerated approval? Is it possible that any insurers may be looking for the COMPASS data and a full approval? And then on Pompe, are you thinking accelerated approval path there? Or would that may be a more full traditional path?
Both good questions. And obviously, that's a huge focus of us to imagine how to get coverage on TV, and that will play out over time. I don't think we have anything new beyond the data that we presented today. And then related to Pompe, I think our base case is actually head-to-head LOPD. We want to capture the broader market. We are thinking of other accretive ways, but I would just say for that, stay tuned. And for now, we're looking at some of the best-in-class again these, I guess competitors [ route ].
Our next question coming from the line of Charles Moore with Baird.
So just quickly, I wanted to know if there's any correlation between baseline cognition and improvement that you've seen with TV as well as checking in on how the post gene therapy or stem cell transplant patients are performing. And then I was just also quickly curious if you anticipate exploring infant onset Pompe as well with your asset after establishing proof of concept?
Yes. I think was with respect to the correlations, there's a lot of head originating in the clinical trial. I think we did present some correlations at Congress last year at ICA. So there are some baseline correlations, but it's difficult to have strong correlations that predict all the very outcomes that we showed earlier across the different groups.
With respect to IOPD, I think that remains to be determined. Definitely, IOPD has involvement to the brand, and that's something that we'll have to consider.
Our last question will come from the line of Tom Shrader with BTIG.
All IRR questions. The 310 patients that still have IRRs of 200 weeks, do they get normal benefit? Are the IRRs worse for 126? And do they explain any of the variability? And any read on Pompe, I think that's an extremely immunogenic payload.
Yes. I like the questions, Tom. And I think each of these diseases have a different immunogenic profile. I think we -- what we've learned from TV is that if you're seeing IRRs a lot after they've been on dose for a long time, it's usually because they've missed multiple doses. It's very often, its not always, but often in the case that these patients have missed multiple doses and then on vacation or whatever, and there's a higher rate of IRRs. I think we have enough data with 126 to say that there's more or less risk around IRRs or where Sanfilippo falls relative to Pompe versus Hunter, but there's certainly different immunogenicity profiles with these diseases.
And there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Ryan Watts for any closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you. I appreciate everyone calling in, and we move on. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Shareholder/Analyst Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Shareholder/Analyst Call - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Kern: Denalis Transport‑Vehicle (TV) liefert in Phase I/II bei MPS II langanhaltende Biomarker‑Normalisierung (CSF und Urin), stabile oder verbesserte kognitive und Hör‑Outcomes sowie beherrschbare Infusionsreaktionen; Launch‑Readiness nach PDUFA am 5. April 2026. DNL126 (MPS IIIA) zeigt ~80% mittlere CSF‑Heparan‑Sulfat‑Reduktion; beschleunigte Zulassung (accelerated approval) angestrebt 2027.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Kommerz: TV wird aktiv für schnellen Markteintritt vorbereitet; Gespräche zu Post‑Marketing‑Auflagen und Label laufen mit FDA.
- Regulatory: DNL126 setzt auf CSF‑HS als Surrogatmarker für Accelerated Approval; Firma plant BLA‑Pfad basierend auf Zwischen‑daten.
- Plattform: ETV‑Ansatz (Transferrin‑Rezeptor‑mediiert) wird auf mehrere Indikationen ausgeweitet (Sanfilippo, Pompe); DNL952 (ETV:GAA) hat überzeugende Präklinikergebnisse und läuft als Phase‑I‑Studie für LOPD.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Datenupdate: TV‑Follow‑up bis 28. März 2025 mit median ~134 Wochen Exposition; Erfolge bei Biomarkern, Kognition und Hörvermögen über Jahre berichtigt.
- Sanfilippo: DNL126‑Daten (Cutoff 4. Juni 2025): ~80% mittlere CSF‑HS‑Reduktion, Urin‑HS ≈83% Reduktion, GM3‑Normalisierung bei Mehrheit; Firma peilt 2027 beschleunigte Zulassung an.
- Pompe: DNL952 präklinisch überlegen gegenüber SOC in Muskel und Gehirn; DNLI‑J‑0001 (Phase I) beschrieben, Biomarker‑PoC erwartet 2027.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Dosis: Schwerpunkt auf optimierter Wochen‑Titration zur Maximierung Wirksamkeit bei gleichzeitiger Reduktion von Infusions‑reaktionen; Dose‑Response bleibt zu bestätigen.
- Immunität: Antikörper/Infusionsreaktionen (ADA/IRR) sind Thema; Firma nutzt langsame Eskalation und Monitoring, Einfluss auf Wirksamkeit noch unvollständig geklärt.
- Vergleich & Zulassung: Häufige Nachfragen zu Vergleich zu Gentherapien, klinischer Relevanz von %‑HS‑Reduktion und zu Kommerz/Erstattung; Phase‑III‑Designs und Payor‑Strategie noch in Diskussion.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Präsentation stärkt Denalis klinische Story: TV ist unmittelbar markt‑reif (PDUFA 5. Apr 2026) und DNL126 zeigt best‑in‑class Biomarkereffekte mit klarer Regulierungsstrategie; Investoren müssen jedoch Immunogenitäts‑risiken, die Notwendigkeit klinischer Wirksamkeitsbestätigung und Erstattungsfragen beobachten.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
Great. Welcome, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Jess Fye. I'm a biotech analyst at JPMorgan, and we're continuing our 44th Annual Healthcare Conference today with Denali. First, you're going to hear a presentation from the CEO, and then we're going to go into a little Q&A. If you're in the room here, and you want to ask a question, just raise your hand and then we'll bring a microphone over. If you're listening at home, you can submit questions through the portal, and I'll read them off on stage.
But with that out of the way, let me pass it over to Denali's CEO, Ryan Watts.
Thank you, Jess. Great to be back here at JPMorgan. It's an exciting year ahead for Denali. So I'm looking forward to presenting today and telling you about our path to patients. So just a reminder that we founded Denali to really deliver biotherapeutics to the brain. And our adventure has led us to actually many regions, not just the brain, but throughout the whole body with the transport vehicle technology. And a lot of the data has really come -- has matured over the last several years, both clinical data and preclinical data telling us the power of using transferrin receptor to enable biotherapeutics to access the brain and beyond. It's also become a very exciting and competitive field. So it's great to see many colleagues and and friendly competitors here today at JPMorgan.
So let's dive in. Today's key messages. I think importantly, that we believe that the transport vehicle is one of the most validated and differentiated and clinically proven BBB platforms. And we now are seeing -- we're moving our fourth and fifth transport vehicle-enabled program into the clinic and generating a fair amount of clinical data showing the power of this technology to get medicines into the brain. We're also on the cusp of our first approval with that and in Hunter syndrome and in [indiscernible], we believe that we can capture $1 billion plus market with these rare disease launches as we continue to expand the portfolio.
Also in the past year, we filed for one of our first Alzheimer's medicines, OTV MAPT. And the beginning of this year, we'll also file for ATV beta in terms of starting clinical studies with these technologies with these medicines using transferrin receptor, and this is in the Alzheimer's space. So obviously, expanding beyond rare disease. We've also learned a lot. In the first 5 years of Denali, we invented the transport vehicle. And I think a novel approach to crossing the blood-brain barrier using this technology. The last 5 years, we've proven clinically that it can work. We filed our first BLA. And I think, exciting for us in the next 3 to 5 years, it's around delivering and bringing many more of these transport vehicle-enabled programs forward.
So what do we expect for this year? And we'll -- I'm sure this is where we'll end as Jess asked questions, but we're on the cusp of our first approval with [indiscernible] and Hunter will present data on ETVGSH at World. And then we have a number of clinical studies that we're initiating in MAPT, A beta as well as GAA and then obviously, our readout for LARC 2 in the first half of this year as well.
Okay. So what is the transport vehicle. So the transport vehicle is an engineered approach to getting medicines into the brain using transfer receptor as a carrier. We have 3 franchises, the enzyme franchise, the oligonucleotide and the antibody franchise. The enzyme has matured most quickly. It was also the most linear way to go after this technology to prove that technology was using enzymes, which are proven clinical modality with approximately 85% success rate in terms of development but have a challenge in terms of crossing the blood-brain barrier. And so this is where we started first with the transport vehicle technology. We recently held an R&D Day where we described the next 3 years, what happens at Denali is we've evolved from a really science-heavy organization to now development and ultimately, commercial. And these are our [indiscernible] goals.
The first is to deliver 2 growing brands in Hunter and Sanfilippo. The second in development is to have 5 clinical proof of concepts. This is over the next 3 years. And this year, we have chances of this with several readouts and then bring in additional 4 to 6 programs into the clinic as part of our discovery efforts. Our discovery team has actually evolved pretty substantially from inventing the platform, going deep in the science in the lysosome and in Alzheimer's disease now to applying this transport vehicle technology across various targets that are known to be clinically validated but actually could be enhanced using the transport vehicle technology. Here is our broad portfolio now maturing in lysosomal stores disease as well as common neurodegenerative diseases.
And so today, I'll focus the first half of my presentation on lysosomal storage diseases in the second half on the common degenerative diseases and then talk a bit about how is the transport vehicle different than other blood-brain barrier technologies that are also being developed in this exciting field. So let's talk a little bit about the transport vehicle itself. This is an Fc-engineered molecule, meaning the IgG Fc portion is engineered to bind to the transferrin receptor. What you see in this image is a butterfly shaped receptor and the apical domain is where we have the binding site, the most validated domain for at least clinically, showing that we can basically enhance brain uptake using -- targeting this particular domain. The goal here is IV and/or subcu injection depending on what medicine we're developing systemic delivery and then obviously crossing the blood-brain barrier using basically transparent receptor receptor mediatrancytosis.
So this is one of my favorite images basically comparing a standard antibody distribution throughout an animal and the brain compared to the transport vehicle. On the left-hand side is a basically a control IgG. On the right-hand side is an antibody using the transparent receptor. What I'm going to show you now is basically the comparison in the biodistribution in the brain primarily, and then we're going to talk a little bit about the body. So what you see first is that standard antibodies have very high concentration in perivascular spaces. I think this is very relevant in Alzheimer's disease and some of the safety observations around ARIA in particular.
However, a transferrin receptor-enabled molecule has this even distribution throughout the brain as it crosses capillary beds, but it also lacks the high concentration in these perivascular spaces. What's unique about this particular image is we've also look at biodistribution across the entire animal. And the first thing you can see is basically very little antibody in brain. In the bottom left-hand corner where we're looking at the entire mouse versus high concentrations in brain on the right-hand side in the tire mouse. But what you also see is biodistribution to bone and muscle and to other tissues in which transparent receptor is expressed. And this has actually become very relevant for us in diseases like Hunter syndrome, where they are somatic diseases, they not -- they don't just affect the brain but also other parts of the body, and we see enhanced biodistribution throughout the body.
So this is just a little bit more detail around the actual transport vehicle technology. And there are 4 areas that we focused on when we first invented this. First was modularity. We wanted the ability to deliver something more than just antibodies. And so we went on to show we could deliver enzymes and ultimately, oligonucleotides. And we're very excited to advance our first oligonucleotide program into the clinic using this technology which at first, we didn't think was possible to get an oligonucleotide blood-brain barrier and then also affects gene expression in various cells in the brain.
The second is to optimize brain uptake. And the key here is that most biologics will get into the brain. The question is how much and for how long. And I think most importantly, is there a therapeutically relevant concentration of drug that gets in the brain. And for most biologics, there's not enough even with like a relatively high systemic dose. A good example is enzyme replacement therapies, even if you get very high doses, they're rapidly cleared, will not readily access the brain. The third area is around safety and engineering, the Fc, allowing us to turn on or off of factor function depending on what target we're going after. And then finally, I think integrated into all of this is the actual architecture and the stability of the molecule to build binding actually in as opposed to tagging, for example, fabs to an Fc I think I've already mentioned that this -- we have the potential to have the first FDA-approved TFR enabled therapeutic as we await the decision on the BLA for [indiscernible] and Hunter syndrome.
Now 5 clinical stage programs using this technology. We've demonstrated the ability to halt neurodegeneration, basically normalize NFL in Hunter syndrome. And then a number of other, I think, interesting points, we've given over 11,000 doses of the transport vehicle across these multiple clinical programs. So let's start first with the ETV franchise or the enzyme transport vehicle franchise. And the goal here is really replacing enzyme replacement therapies, which have been around for over 30 years.
However, it's been several decades where there's been a lack of invention to really treat the unmet need of the central nervous system in these diseases. So most enzyme replacement therapies do not readily cross the brain barrier. And so we have about 30,000 people worldwide with lysosomal storage disease, 2/3 of which have neurological deficits. Using the transport vehicle technology we can now, as I've shown before, access the brain, but also enhance distribution to other organs as well. So here is our portfolio in totality.
So many enzyme replacement therapies advancing. Today, because of time, I'm going to focus on the clinical stage programs, our TV program for Sanfilippo progranulin for FTD granulin and then finally, GAA and Pompe. So let's start first with Hunter syndrome. Hunter syndrome monogenic disease affecting an enzyme, IDS. It affects mainly boys. It's an X-linked disease. Standard of care for 20 years, either sulfate delivered systemically [indiscernible] somatic disease, not crossing the blood-brain barrier. And the goal here is that Tivican solve both somatic as well as CNS disease excited to report that at the end of this year, beginning -- or the beginning of this year, we published in New England Journal of Medicine the clinical data around TV. And I'm pulling the exact data as presented in the [indiscernible] paper.
So I think importantly, just to summarize, in terms of safety first, infusion-related reactions or the most common adverse event. And as you can see in this graph, these dramatically decline over time as you build tolerance. This is just keeping up the same steady dose of 15 mg per kg. We also see a slight dip in hemoglobin, which then also returns. We believe that this may be some of the frequent blood draws. I think importantly, we've engineered these molecules to be immune silent, so not affect reticulocytes in particular.
So this is a summary of the safety data as published in the New England Journal paper. This is now the biomarker data. And by the way, these are the data that represent the data in the BLA filing for TV. And so what you can see is a robust and sustained normalization of CSF heparan sulfate, which is the primary substrate for Tivy for either sulfate. Also normalization of NFL, which is a marker of neuro generation. You can see a delay in time. So you rescue first the primary substrate and then you see this halting of neurodegeneration as measured by serum NFL.
What's also notable and actually very interesting is that we get a robust reduction in urine heparan sulfate. The reason why this is interesting is that more than 70% of patients in this study were on standard of care and then immediately switched to tivi, meaning that we have a more robust somatic effect as well using tividenofusp alfa. And then in terms of the clinical end points, these are also obviously what's most relevant to patients, improvement in behavior, improvement in cognition and also improvement in hearing. I think it's interesting because obviously, behavior and cognition are mainly neuronopathic effects, but hearing seems to affect all patients broadly. And therefore, we're seeing robust improvements on these endpoints as well.
So what's next? We're waiting -- we have a PDUFA date, April 5. We're actively engaged with the FDA on this filing. As I mentioned before, the data that I just summarized as published in New England Journal is what constitutes the BLA filing data. We also have an ongoing Phase III study, the COMPASS study, a Phase II/III study. We completed enrollment of the neuronopathic cohort at the end of last year, which we expanded last year. We added more patients last year to a cohort. And I think importantly, the field is ready. And I just want to emphasize this New England Journal editorial, where it was commented that this is a critical turning point. And specifically, TV is designed to address both systemic and neurologic findings in Hunter syndrome.
Okay. So let's move on to SGSH for Sanfilippo. Similarly engineered molecule. In this case, it's a dimer. So you have basically 2 enzymes fused to the transport vehicle. Here, we have an ongoing Phase I/II study. This program was selected for start. And I will say that it's been fantastic to be part of start, regular engagement with the FDA as we align on an accelerated approval path, but also as we align on the Phase III study design in Sanfilippo. We recently announced, I guess it was the middle of last year that after that alignment on accelerated approval, we're now moving forward, completing enrollment of the Phase I/II study, which will be a total of 20 patients with a 49 week end point here, again, looking at CSF heparan sulfate.
We will be presenting data, although we've top lined the data last year, we'll present data world in early February and looking forward to sharing these data in the coming months. Ultimately, our goal is to submit the BLA and to have an approval by 2027.
Now shifting to DNL593. This is P2B progranulin. This is progranulin engineered across the blood-brain barrier. We've seen a very significant increase in interest in this area as the competitive landscape has has shifted. And here, I just want to emphasize, similar to the enzyme replacement therapies or the ETVs, our goal is to replace progranulin in individuals that carry 1 less copy of progranulin. So this will be systemic delivery crossing the blood-brain barrier, similar to the ETVs. Also happy to report that we've completed enrollment in this Phase I/II study. We've completed the enrollment of the MAD cohort and we plan to share data, biomarker data around this program by the end of this year. And if you're interested in what biomarkers we're looking at, I would say, take a look at the literature and which we published on ETV progranulin in cell, describing the role program in the lysosome and rescuing it with [indiscernible] programming and looking at a number of both proximal and distal biomarkers.
Now shifting to GAA. This is DNL952. This recently cleared the IND and will begin dosing soon. This is a program. This is actually our first shift out of like traditional CNS, I'll call it that, even though Hunter and Sanfilippo have obviously it's a lysosomal [indiscernible] disease with broader neurological deficits. In this case, our goal is to go after all of Pompe, including muscle we've presented data in the past that delivering GAA with the transport vehicle enhances efficacy in muscle, in particular. And so here, we'll have a very similar to our other studies will enroll patients and we'll go through dose escalation, and we'll look at standard biomarkers well known in the Pompe field, and we expect to have our initial biomarker data by 2027 with this program.
So in summary, when we look at the ETV franchise, there's great opportunity looking at both MPS II and MPS IIIA but also many other programs that we can bring forward to of which 2 additional I focused on today. We believe that there is a high probability of success and also it's time for new invention to improve medicines for enzyme replacement therapies. And we believe the transport vehicle is the ideal way to do that. So let's shift gears to Alzheimer's disease and just to highlight 2 of our programs, ATV, Abeta and OTV MAPT. And I'll just highlight briefly here that we published on ATV, Abeta will share a bit of data from that publication as we've continued to advance this particular program and also on the oligonucleotide transport vehicle published in 2024.
So let's start first with ATV Abeta. So in a mouse model in which we can look at what we call MRI lesions that are similar to ARIA, what we see is using the transport vehicle technology substantially less area. And the mechanism that we propose as highlighted on the right-hand side is basically this point I made earlier on that transport vehicle gives you even distribution throughout the brain as opposed to high perivascular localization. So the graph on the left-hand side actually quantifies the amount of MRI incidents you see with the standard Abeta antibody as compared to the ATVs, although you get about 2 to threefold better plaque reduction with ATVs. So we proposed the actual mechanism for reduced ARIA in this publication in science in August of last year. So I want to talk a little bit more about optimizing the actual transport vehicle and what makes the TV different than standard brain shuttles.
And here, I'm going to show 3 pieces of data, brain concentration reticulocyte number and then actually intact molecule. I think this is really important as we see this landscape evolving rapidly. This is maybe one of the first times in which we're comparing in the exact same animal model, which is a humanized mouse model that expresses the human apical domain of transferrin receptor across these different platform types. I think point number one, we actually expected that brain concentration would be very similar.
You're using transferrin receptor, and that's actually the limiting factor for brain uptake is how much transfer receptors express and how readily does it does it transport. But what we do see is about a twofold better uptake with the transport vehicle technology. Now the reason we believe that's the case is actually on the graph on the right-hand side, so let's shift to the far right and look at this graph. And what we see is that when you tag these fab molecules, these things are readily clipped. And therefore, at 24 hours, we're not seeing stability of these fab molecules.
This has actually been previously reported in the literature, but now we're looking across different fabs with different epitopes. And then in the center, and I think really importantly, is the ability of the transport vehicle to maintain effector function, but when bound to transferrin receptor not engage the immune system. So what we see is we don't see a reduction in meticulous [indiscernible]. However, molecules that can engage the immune system and bind transferrin receptor robustly reduced reticular sites as shown in the dark blue dots in the middle graph here.
So this is -- if you're interested in more differentiation, our recent Analyst Day, we go into great depth about the various epitopes and affinities, but definitely an exciting time in the BBB field for additional invention. So let's talk about our ATV beta, the clinical approach that we're taking here. So this is DNL921 and just a little bit about the Abeta arms themselves they are preferentially binding algae and aggregated Abeta, including plaque. Our belief right now is that data that's in the clinic that has shown plaque reduction, molecules have shown plaque reductions or those that correlate best with clinical benefits. So ideally, we're driving plaque reduction, but we're also capturing all comers and less binding to monomers. We're running a single ascending dose healthy volunteer study and then into patients in this MAD study.
And our -- we expect data in 2027 using this molecule. We're actually filing the first half of this year. Now on to DNL628. The other end of the spectrum for Alzheimer's disease, I've just referenced that the first one was targeting Abeta when the hallmark pathologies in Alzheimer's. This one is targeting tau, which makes up neurofibrillary tangles. And what we see here is the ability to actually knock down tau gene expression and protein and have a very prolonged effect in reducing tau protein levels. This particular model is, again, the human transferrin receptor apical domain crossed to human MAPT transgenic, and we see this robust and sustained knockdown of tau. So we've now filed the CTA.
This is cleared. We'll begin dosing for our OTV MAPT program. And here, we're going directly to patients in a multi-ascending dose study, the endpoints here are focused on CSF biomarkers such as TAO and then ultimately, tau PET imaging, again, expecting data in 2027 for this program. So I'll end with talking about our evolving business and where we're going. I mentioned that the first decade of discovery and development has now evolved to delivery, building our commercial organization and commercial infrastructure, preparing to launch in rare disease, which is very exciting.
We've also built our own in-house manufacturing, which allows us to move much quicker and substantially cheaper across all of these various transport vehicle molecules. And I think the last point is that we continue to invest heavily in blood-brain barrier research. We have over 30 scientists that have focused in this area now for almost 15 to 20 years, but it's exciting to see how this field has evolved.
We have the capital to execute. I think importantly, and here, the key is to invest strategically across various therapeutic areas, drive for that Phase I data Obviously, efficiency is key. What we learned in the hunter program as we took a lot of risk in that initial transport vehicle, we can apply those learnings to our other programs, such as Sanfilippo and others to move faster. We're in a strong financial position to be able to execute on this portfolio in the next 3 years. And I'll just end by highlighting again our goals. Our goals are to have 2 growing brands 5 clinical proof of concepts and then bring additional molecules in the clinic as we advance this transport vehicle technology.
So I think with that, I'd like to thank everyone who's here, especially thank everyone at Denali, who has worked on these programs for over a decade. All the patients that we interact with and the patient families, especially in the Hunter and Sanfilippo community. It's been an incredible privilege to work with all of you as we advance our medicines. And it's that, I'll call our team up here to answer questions.
Great. Thanks for the presentation. And as a reminder, anyone in the room who has a question can just raise your hand and someone will bring along a microphone. Maybe just starting with tivi for Hunter syndrome. Can you elaborate on the reason behind the PDUFA extension? Has -- whatever that issue has been addressed to the FDA satisfaction at this point?
I'm happy to do that. So the PDUFA extension was based on a molecular weight miscalculation in a public database. So we gave some detail about this when we receive that extend the PDUFA date to April from January 5, that has been addressed, in fact, addressed rapidly. I think importantly, the FDA continued continue to review. It's been actually really good engagement with the FDA. We've finished the late cycle meeting and at this point, basically, we're in discussions around the label, post-marketing commitments, and we continue on path here, we hope for approval by April.
Okay. And what are the key elements of your launch strategy for that product? And how should we think about the ramp in Hunter syndrome?
Great. Thanks. So as we think about Hunter, the market is already -- a majority of the market is already using standard of care. So 95% of patients are on treatment. So for us, the launch strategy is really driving a seamless switch. And our focus here is on engaging with the centers of excellence. There's about 100 genetics that is carrying for MPS II. Our field team has already been deployed and has been engaging them, our MSL team in exchange in scientific exchange and of course, our commercial field team doing the profiling. So it will be really important for us to continue to drive the value proposition and the clinical benefit of tivi with the centers of excellence. The other area, of course, that's really important for launch is ensuring fast payer coverage so ensuring that the payer understand the value proposition. Of course, our patient services have to be executed well to ensure that patients have support on the treatment journey to get access to the medicine. And then the last piece that's really important for the MPS community is this partnership. It's a very tight small community where patients and families get most of their information from patient advocacy groups and and the broader community and where if they support us in the clinical messaging, this is where they will be highly influenced by what the community thinks of tivi. And your second question was related to ramp. So in terms of the uptake in adoption curve, we expect in a rare disease launch, we expect to see an S-shape adoption curve.
So in 2026 this year, we're going to be very much working through the mechanics of launch, which is ensuring that patients get access as quickly as possible, but knowing that coverage is not going to be immediate. So for 2026, we expect revenues to be minimal. But as coverage expands and experience continues to drive adoption, we expect to see a strong inflection point in 2027.
And I guess, considering the product's profile, how are you approaching pricing for tivi? And can you also talk about the payer mix in Hunter in the U.S.?
Yes. So at Denali, we think about pricing in 4 key dimensions. So for pricing, we want to make sure there's going to be broad access for patients. We also think about affordability, which is why our patient support services are going to be really important that they can support the patient so that they can afford the medicine. And of course, thinking about the clinical value that our product brings and the revenue that we generate must be able to support further innovation at Denali. So given these 4 dimensions, we feel pretty confident that we'll be pricing at a premium compared to the current standard of care, given what we offer.
Now what's unique about our markets, our payer dynamics is that in rare disease, it's not uncommon to have high Medicaid payer coverage for patients. In our case, it's about 50%. And 50% commercial, 50% Medicaid, almost no Medicare, which is why I talked about the S-shape curve. There's going to be some mechanics of access and reimbursement. That will take some time in the early year of launch.
Maybe switching to DNL126, the [indiscernible] product. Can you talk about how you're going to kind of leverage the experience with tivi to compress the time line for 126? And maybe related to that, how the selection for 126 and the start program kind of factors into the development strategy?
Yes. Peter answer that.
Sure. So [indiscernible], our development program has taught us a lot that allows us to gain efficiencies in the Sanfilippo program with DNA. So first and foremost, the work that we did with the FDA, along with the MPS community to establish CSF heparan sulfate as a surrogate biomarker that is reasonably likely to predict clinical efficacy that's at the stage for us to have that discussion with FDA with the DNL126 program as well. Also the data that Ryan showed earlier that was published in the New England Journal shows the validation of our ETV platform. And so we have a high degree of confidence that we're able to address in neurological manifestations of Sanfilippo based on our ability to reduce heparan sulfate with the TV as well as peripheral biomarkers. So that is an important piece that informs the design of our program and our filing strategy. We also have had a lot of learnings on designing and executing rare disease protocols and lysosomal storage disorders as well as establishing relationships with the community. And so we're leveraging those for the Sanfilippo program as well.
In a nutshell, the tividenofusp program kind of created a playbook for us to be able to execute additional and rare disease development programs with more efficiency, including more capital efficiency. So we anticipate delivering this program to market potentially 5 years earlier than the tibia approval and at half the cost. In terms of your second question with respect to the [indiscernible] program, as Ryan alluded to, this has been highly beneficial to our ability to engage with the FDA on the program. It's given us an ability to accelerate, to engage early and to focus our interactions. Now we have an ability to plan the schedule of interactions in a predictable way in addition to having ad hoc meetings. And so we've been able to engage and de-risk a lot of the concerns that the FDA may have or perspectives that the FDA may have in terms of the heterogeneity, the patient population end points that might be meaningful and study designs, both in the Phase I/II as well as the Phase III, as Ryan alluded to. So it's definitely given us an opportunity to accelerate.
Can you just take us through what data you plan to generate to support a filing for this product?
Ryan showed the high-level slide earlier. The filing for DNL126 for accelerated approval is going to be based on the Phase I/II study that is ongoing. This is an open-label study with extended follow-up. There are dose-finding cohorts as was shown earlier as well as key efficacy cohorts. And the totality of that data is a 20-patient study. all patients at the time of filing, all patients will have at least 49 weeks of follow-up with some as anticipated to go as far as 2.5 years. And so that will provide durability of response as well as evidence for chronic safety.
Great. And how big is the [indiscernible] Type A population in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere? And how does that compare to the Hunter syndrome?
I'm happy to answer that. So it's very similar. There's about 2,000 patients worldwide for Hunter, 500 of which are in the U.S. and [indiscernible] probably about the same, maybe a little less. You'll see more variability in those numbers in part because there's no standard of care. So we'll obviously get a much better sense upon approval as -- and there's a medicine available, but that's roughly the epidemiology.
Are there any patients for whom 126 wouldn't be appropriate?
Our hope and and our aim is to be able to treat all patients with MPS IIIA.
And I think if you look at the biomarker data for both Hunter and [indiscernible], but regardless of timing of intervention, you see a robust biomarker effect, right? So the 1 thing we have learned and I think as we've shared before, and we'll share again in the upcoming world even in Hunter earlier is better. right? And especially as you look at like neurofilament and halting neurogeneration, but I think that's become obvious, although we now have data to show that. But the goal would be basically all patients for both San Flipo and Hunter. One other note is that [indiscernible] -- I mean, largely a CNS disease, there are peripheral manifestations, which we'll be able to treat with a systemic enzyme replacement therapy, which I think are important and maybe become more obvious if you only treated the central nervous system, but it is believed to be mainly a neurological disease, and certainly, there's robust decline in neurologic and robust neurological symptoms in Sanfilippo.
And for the Phase III, are you going to be using natural history data for the control?
Natural history data has been very helpful in helping us to understand the progression of disease and patient heterogeneity. That said, based on the ongoing discussions with health authorities, it's likely that our Phase III core study will be based on [indiscernible]
And baseline comparator, basically.
Maybe zooming out a little bit. What's your criteria for selecting the diseases to address with the TV platform? And just how do you prioritize what to pursue first?
Yes. Alex.
Yes. I'll take that, Jess. That is a fantastic question. So we know now from the clinical data and the preclinical data that the transport vehicle is effective wherever efficacy is limited by efficient tissue distribution. So we know the transport vehicle delivers biologics into the brain, but also delivers biologics more efficiently into other tissues, specifically into bone, muscle and others. Now as we look at that set of opportunities, how we prioritize is those where the biology is well understood, where there are biomarkers readily available so that we can efficiently and fast drive to clinical proof of concept and also those opportunities where there is a significant unmet need, so off a certain size. And those are the criteria that you will see in the next wave of programs that we take forward into the clinic.
So Ryan highlighted already in the slides a significant effort at Denali for efficient execution and capital allocation, and that will influence how we think about the selection of new indications.
You guys have had a couple of programs in ALS. I'm just curious what's your stance on those and future programs in the disease?
Yes. We remain very interested in ALS. I think about 1.5 years ago, we made the decision -- well, actually 2 years ago, we made the decision to focus entirely on the transport vehicle technology. And part of that was the data we generated in Hunter -- so we spun out our efforts in small molecules, which is where our initial efforts were in ALS. We now remain very interested in ALS, but for us, it's the right target likely a genetic medicine using oligonucleotides. So we -- that's where we're keeping our eyes open on where to go next. You may recall that we had a study with RIP kinase and ALS, which failed that was led by Sanofi and EIF2B, which is -- which also failed actually multiple programs, ours and another company failed in parallel. Those were disappointments, no doubt, especially with the integrated stress response sort of implicated in ALS, but I think there's still great hope for some genetic medicines at least in subtypes of ALS. And there, we'd use your OTV to target it.
Maybe thinking about the kind of next wave of assets and heading into the data for DNL593 for FTD. What will represent incurring results when you get that initial data?
Yes, I think as I highlighted, for FTD granulin, there's really 2 parts of how we've approached it. First was to understand what granular loss of function really is. And there, we've discovered a role for granulin in lysosomes and lysosomal biology. And it's fortuitous because we have a lot of work in lysosomal storage diseases, but actually, it's many of the same biomarkers that we're seeing for other enzyme replacement therapies like glucose [indiscernible]. So success for us, the primary success is some change and correction of the proximal biomarkers. This is highlighted in the paper that I referenced. The long-term success is the distal biomarkers, GFAP and [indiscernible]. I think ultimately, as a medicine works, you'll see a correction of these distal biomarkers as we've shown in Hunter syndrome. So those are the 2 areas. The question is, how long do you need to treat. There's a really interesting study that was alluded to at CTAD that NFL has a very long half-life like 260 days. So it's maybe not surprising that for us, we can normalize substrate and then we see a shift. And then over time, we see NFL also decreasing. So we need to keep that in mind in this neurogeneration field to be patient when you correct the substrate that you may ultimately halt neurodegeneration, but it may take some time. But those are the areas that we're most interested in, in FTD granular.
Great. So looks like we're out of time. So we'll stop there
Thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
📣 Kernbotschaft
- Kernaussage: Denali positioniert seine "transport vehicle" (TV)-Plattform als klinisch validierten Weg, Biotherapeutika über die Blut‑Hirn‑Schranke zu bringen; Fokus auf seltene lysosomale Erkrankungen (Hunter, Sanfilippo) mit Ausweitung auf Alzheimer (Aβ, MAPT).
- Near‑term: BLA für Hunter eingereicht; PDUFA-Datum genannt: 5. April (Erweiterung von Januar wurde laut Management adressiert).
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Plattform‑Modularität: TV liefert Enzyme, Oligonukleotide und Antikörper; drei Franchises (Enzym, OGN, Antikörper) in Entwicklung.
- Produktstrategie: Priorität auf zwei wachstumsfähige Marken (Hunter, Sanfilippo), Ziel: fünf klinische Proof‑of‑concepts in ~3 Jahren und 4–6 neue Programme in die Klinik.
- Kommerz & Fertigung: Aufbau kommerzieller Struktur, Inhouse‑Produktion zur Kosten‑ und Zeiteffizienz; Kapital wird als ausreichend bezeichnet.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- PDUFA‑Update: Extension begründet mit einer Molekulargewichts‑Fehlberechnung in einer öffentlichen Datenbank; Denali meldet, das Problem sei zügig adressiert und FDA‑Review läuft (Late‑Cycle abgeschlossen).
- Klinik‑Timelines: Sanfilippo Phase I/II (20 Patienten, 49‑Wochen‑Endpunkt) zielt auf beschleunigte Zulassung; GAA (DNL952) IND geklärt, Dosisbeginn geplant; mehrere Alzheimer‑ und OTV‑Programme erwartet mit ersten Daten 2027.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- PDUFA‑Fragen: Analysten fragten zur Ursache der Verzögerung und ob die FDA‑Bedenken gelöst sind; Management bestätigte Diskussionen zu Label und Post‑marketing und erwartete Entscheidung im April.
- Launch & Erstattung: Diskussion zum Launch‑Playbook: nahtloser Switch von bestehender SOC, Fokus auf Centers of Excellence, Patient Services; erwartete S‑förmige Uptake‑Kurve – minimale Umsätze 2026, Inflektion 2027.
- Preis & Payer: Management nennt Premium‑Preispositionierung; erwartete US‑Payer‑Split ~50% Medicaid / 50% Commercial, kaum Medicare.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Implikation: Der Conference‑Pitch macht die TV‑Plattform und ein nahes regulatorisches Binary (PDUFA 5. April) zum zentralen Kurstreiber. Genehmigung würde Umsatz und Validierung der Technologie stark vorantreiben; Risiken bleiben bei Erstattung, Marktdurchdringung und langfristigen klinischen Readouts (2027+).
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Analyst/Investor Day - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
1. Management Discussion
Our Investor Day. We've been excited to share an update. I think often, I'm sitting in a fireside chat with many of you. So it's great to see her faces here. We're going to go into some depth today about what we're doing at Denali. And I think it's a unique opportunity for us to really set the stage for what the future looks like for Denali but then dive into some questions.
We also have some really important guests with us, which I'll introduce later from the lysosomal storage disease community. So these are our forward-looking statements, and let's dive in. Let's start with the key messages. So our purpose at Denali is to deliver the power of biotherapeutics to the whole body, including the brain.
This is a little different than what we've said maybe in the last 5 or 6 years. And what we've realized from our own clinical data is that the transport vehicle technology not only crosses the blood-brain barrier, but enhances delivery to other parts of the body.including hard-to-reach tissues. And so we've really seen now an evolution in transferrin receptor-enabled biotherapeutics, and we like to believe that we help lead this revolution.
Our ultimate goal is, of course, to transform the life of people living with serious diseases. And this is also a little bit different from what we've said in the past where it was focused primarily on neuro degeneration, but we believe we can open up now muscle disease and other areas with the transport vehicle technology. There are 4 key messages for today, and these are really important.
And in fact, the presentation is broken up into these messages, and I'll share them in the introduction as well. The first is that we have a best-in-class blood-brain barrier platform or transferrin receptor-enabled technology, which we call the transport vehicle. We recognize that brain shuttles are now front and center.
And I think again, a decade ago, it was just an idea. Now there are clinical data that really prove that we can get medicines into the brain and hard REITs tissues. The second point is that we're ready to capture $1 billion plus opportunity in enzyme replacement therapies with the ETV franchise. And so for the first time, we'll lay out our commercial plans and very excited to do so and also bring the patient community here and have a discussion around the opportunity around enzymes, which, of course, has been multiple decades since new medicines have been launched in this area.
So there's a huge unmet need. We have a deep pipeline across high-value therapeutic areas. And we thought today rather than focus on everything we're doing, we're going to focus on Alzheimer's and really the second half of the Investor Day in part because we believe the transport vehicle is set to transform Alzheimer's.
So on the one hand, we have this great opportunity with enzyme replacement therapies, but also in an area that's really starting to break open is Alzheimer's disease, mainly enabled by biomarkers, but now the first approvals in this space that the transport vehicle technology is really set to enhance these medicines. And then we'll end with a discussion around efficient execution and capital allocation.
And this is important because we know the transport vehicle works, how can we now expand and bring many programs forward, but do it faster and cheaper. And I think that's a key to our approach. So here is the transport vehicle technology. I'll spend a little bit of time and then in the second half, Joe will go into some detail. I think the #1 question we get is, how is the transport vehicle different from all the other transparent receptor-enabled technologies.
And so we want to spend time in the second half articulating that. But I want to introduce, I think, the most important concept, which is we have the ability now to deliver enzymes oligonucleotides and antibodies across the blood-brain barrier and hard-to-reach tissues. And again, the focus we'll start with is on our enzyme technology.
So here is our broad portfolio. There are really 2 areas. The lysosomal storage disorders and then common neurodegenerative diseases. And I want to give a quick update, which we shared this morning in our press release and in our 8-K. Let me start with tividenofusp alfa. So very excited to announce that we signed a deal with Royalty Pharma which could be worth up to $275 million.
$200 million is unlocked by the approval of Tivi with a capped royalty. We have details in the press release. In addition to that, I want to give you an important update. So when we -- in 2019, we received rare disease pediatric designation or rare pediatric disease designation for Tivi, which we believe made us eligible for the PRV -- when we filed the BLA, we did not file the request for the PRV.
And so unfortunately, in our discussions with the FDA, the FDA has said based on this timing gap, we may not be eligible for the PRV. So we're in discussions with the FDA that's been very productive discussions. Our primary focus is basically getting the medicine approved. Our primary focus is timing more than anything else.
Separately and important update, the third update related to Tivi, so Royalty Pharma, PRB and the third update is that we've completed our late-cycle meeting with the FDA, and we're deep in label negotiations. And so although we've had a delay to the PDUFA date, we're seeing significant progress and engagement with the FDA.
And that's been actually really fantastic back and forth. And the focus now is really getting to the finish line and launching Tivi. The second important update this morning is that we received a clinical hold on our Pompe program. This is ETV GAA. And I want to really highlight what happened with this particular program. So based on hypersensitivity in mice, the FDA has suggested protocol changes through the FDA, we obviously haven't started our clinical study yet.
The team immediately turned around those protocol changes. They've been resubmitted and we believe that they will address the questions on this clinical hold. But again, this is well known for Pompe and specifically for GAA, I think part of this is really a question of timing and the time to review and make associated protocol changes. Both of those are highlighted by the way, in the 8-K. So let's talk about what the future looks like for Denali.
So I think the first is what we call the D3 strategy, discover, develop, deliver. And I think importantly, we have been fueled by discovery from the beginning. And I think pioneering the field of blood-brain barrier delivery with the transport vehicle and with transparent receptor. We spent the last 5 years validating the transport vehicle and submitting our first BLA, which, of course, we're very excited by that, and we'll expect many more to come.
And now it's about delivery. As I mentioned before, we'll focus today on our commercial launch for Tivi and broadly how we're approaching commercial for the enzyme transport vehicle. And so it's exciting to see that transition for Denali. And so it's really by 3. So let me explain what that means. So this was actually the first time we're presenting 3-year goals. And I'll start with, I think, 1 of the most important goals, which is to really build 2 brands for Tivity 126, that will lay the foundation for Denali going forward.
Now next will be 5 clinical proof of concept. And I think on the horizon, the near-term horizon is Alzheimer's disease, and proving that the transport vehicle will deliver the best-in-class molecules for A-beta and for tau and then continue to bring programs forward in an efficient way. So 4 to 6 new clinical stage programs over the next 2 to 3 years.
And I think this year is an example where we filed 2 regulatory filings, bringing 2 more programs forward with tau and GA. So ultimately, we want to deliver both near-term value by launching medicines but also create this long-term portfolio of clinical stage and ultimately, commercial products. This is what will happen in the next 3 years. So let's talk a little bit more about the transport vehicle just so we set the stage for today's discussion.
So we invented this transport vehicle about 9 years ago, and we've proven it over the last 5 years that it works for enzymes. And the way that it works is we bind to a natural receptor known as transfer receptor. Now there are many different brain shuttle receptors but the most validated receptor is transferrin receptor. And in our efforts, we've looked at all these other receptors as well.
And we believe that transparent receptor remains the most promising approach to get across the blood-brain barrier. As I highlighted before, and part of this is through our own clinical experience, and as I'll share on the next slide, it's not just about delivery to the brain, it's also enhancing delivery to other tissues.
And so here is an example, and this is -- we've shared this at least the center images before. So what you're looking at is a standard antibody compared to a transport vehicle-enabled molecule on the right-hand side. And in the center is the brain. So obviously, you can see a really big difference between a standard antibody, which is perivascular versus a transport vehicle-enabled molecule, which gives you this even distribution throughout the mouse brain.
But what I wanted to show here is whole body distribution on either the bottom left or the bottom right. And what we've noticed is that we get great distribution to bone and muscle in addition to brain. And part of this is where transparent receptor is located. So we believe this technology now opens up other therapeutic areas. And I think Pompe is a great example of that, where we can enhance delivery to muscle and hopefully either have less frequent dosing or lower doses but even at the same dose, much better distribution into muscle.
Now if we look at the clinical data, I think importantly, we've shared many, many times the heparan sulfate reduction in cerebrospinal fluid, which is representative of brain. So I think this is really robust. Obviously, normalization of heparan sulfate -- but what I think we often miss is the fact that we also get more robust reduction in urine and in plasma.
And so what we see is, again, distribution throughout the body to enhance delivery of enzymes. And this will be important as we think about the opportunity for enzyme replacement therapies even for ERTs that are not necessarily targeting the brain but rather the whole body. So what is the transport vehicle. Basically, what we've done is we've engineered the Fc portion of an and we've engineered it to bind to transfer receptor.
So there's no unnatural linkages, which is basically what we'll talk about in some depth is a competitive landscape. What have we shown? So we have the first potential FDA approval for a TFR-enabled therapeutic Five clinical stage programs. We've demonstrated the ability to correct neuro filament, which we think is a key biomarker across many diseases.
This is, of course, is in Hunter syndrome. We have more than preclinical stage programs using this TV technology, over 200 subjects dosed to date over 11,000 doses given with the TV and a number of publications and patents. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, but Joe later on today will talk about modularity, brain uptake, safety and architecture, including comparisons with other basically conventional fab approaches, which are shown on this slide.
So what you see, the vast majority of other companies that are approaching this technology are using fabs and making fab fusions either using leak or chemistry or other dynamics in terms of bringing this fab. And we'll show you some of the differences between an integrated binding site versus these conventional fab approaches.
I think also important is just the overall clinical experience and how much -- how many patients not only have been dosed, but how many doses have been given and the number of clinical stage programs. So the TV is now the most clinically validated BBB technology, and I've already highlighted this before, you can see here some of the competitive landscape, which we'll discuss in detail later.
So let's talk about the 2 franchises and where they stand. Let's start with the ETV franchise. So we believe that the launch in Hunter and San Filippo gives us a combined market opportunity of about $1 billion. I think most importantly, and we're going to discuss in detail is how transformative these medicines can be -- and what do we do when we're successful, we're able to reinvest and really build a broader franchise for the TVs.
There are over 30,000 individuals living with lysosomal storage disorders. Of course, these are single enzyme deficiencies. And so when we thought about the first place to go with the transport vehicle technology. We wanted to go somewhere where the biology risk was low. We know what's causing the disease and then we can basically solve that with the transport vehicle technology.
2/3 of lysosomal storage diseases patients have CNS manifestations. And I think as we mentioned, I'll just make one other really important point, which is there's about a 90% historical success rate with enzyme replacement therapies, which is very different than, let's say, even cancer or the Alzheimer's space. So we see this as a long-term foundation for Denali to build this franchise.
And as a result, we've invested not only in the ability to launch this medicine commercially, but also to manufacture these medicines. And we'll have a -- we'll be able to spend a little bit of time about talking about our manufacturing capabilities. In terms of the longer-term potential, although this is now becoming much more near term with OTV entering the clinic and very soon.
ATVA beta at the first half of next year also entering the clinic we can now take advantage of the transport vehicle to deliver genetic medicines like oligonucleotides or variations of antibodies. And this just highlights and we'll go into some detail around our ATV A beta program, but also our OTV MAPT program using these technologies. And I think it's very exciting to see the Alzheimer's field evolve and utilize these technologies.
So let's talk about today's agenda. So we'll start first with the enzyme transport vehicle. And I have the pleasure of introducing Barbara Burton, who, I guess, when I met Barbara for the first time at the family conferences, she is basically one of the most well-known physicians treating lysosomal storage disease for a number of years.
In fact, I think Barbara won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the last MPS conference in Chicago. We'll hear first from Dr. Burton. She'll set the stage on the opportunity around these diseases. And then we'll hear from Peter Chin and Katy Pang around our clinical data and our commercial approach. And then we'll end by talking about the ETV franchise.
We will also have a panel discussion with Jason Madison, who I'll introduce in a moment, and Dr. Kim Stevens, who is our major advocates and also Jason is living with Hunter syndrome.and has been -- become a close friend and colleague and our efforts around Hunter syndrome. So with that, I'm going to hand it now over to Dr. Burton.
All right. Good morning, and thank you for the introduction. So I'm going to focus for the next few minutes on clinical aspects of 3 of the lysosomal disorders of interest to Denali, of course, MPS II, but also MPS III and Pompe disease. And as you know, these are all lysosomal storage disorder part of a family of more than 50 disorders where there is a specific enzymatic deficiency that leads to substrate accumulation throughout the lysosomes of the cells really throughout the body.
That, in turn, has not only physical impacts within the cell, but also many downstream effects, impairing lysosomal function, so impairing autophagy, triggering inflammation and leading into a complex pathophysiology that really defines these disorders and differs from one to the other based on a lot of factors where that substrate is normally distributed in the body.
So we'll start with MPS II. And of course, this is one of the most common of the mucopolysaccharidosis, a subset of the lysosomal disorders. There are 8 distinct MPS disorders that share some features in common, but also our individually distinct and associated with different enzymatic deficiencies.
We know about 1 in every 25,000 babies born has some type of MPS disorder and the estimates for Hunter syndrome or MPS II are about 1,000 and 100,000. We're actually learning through newborn screening that is probably a little bit more common than that, maybe close to 170,000 and but right in that same neighborhood. This is an X-linked disorder, genes on the X chromosome.
So almost all patients are males. There are rare affected females, but -- they certainly constitute less than 1% of the population. It's very unlike Fabry disease, where the females with a single copy of the gene on the X. They're affected just like the males, although less severely not so with MPS to the women who have a single copy of the mutant gene typically are completely normal.
So in the MPS disorders, the problem is with degradation of the glycosaminoglycans, which we used to call mucopolysaccharides. That's where the name came from. Now it's glycosaminoglycans or GAGs and in MPS II is iduronate to sulfatase DS. This leads to progressive accumulation of 2 major species of GAGs, heparan sulfate and dermatan sulfate.
It's the heparan sulfate responsible for the CNS manifestations the dermatan sulfate that's primarily responsible for the somatic manifestations. And that's illustrated by MPS VI, where we just see dermatan sulfate accumulation, and they have no CNS involvement. They have severe somatic disease but no CNS. So GAGs are complicated molecules. We talk about them being complex sugars, there's basically a core protein and then a string of simple carbohydrates that are clipped off 1 by 1 with different enzymes responsible for each step.
But they have multiple functions, and they're really ubiquitously distributed. So that's why we see such complicated multi-systemic manifestations in the MPS disorders. Now MDS I, like all lysosomal disorders occurs along a spectrum of severity related to the underlying mutation and whether there's no residual activity are just a little trickle a little bit of residual activity.
So there's a spectrum of severity, but there's 2 major subtypes of the disorder that you see described the so-called neuronopathic or severe form and the milder although I hesitate to use that word, but the less severe or attenuated form. And the major differentiator is that in the severe neuronopathic form.
We have progressive neuro degeneration and cognitive decline, whereas in the patients with the attenuated form there's normal or near normal cognitive development without progressive cognitive decline and progressive neuro degeneration. But the severity of the somatic manifestations can be comparable in the 2. There are certainly patients with the attenuated form of the disease who have quite severe somatic manifestations of the disorder.
So it's not really fair to call it mild in those patients. There are some patients who kind of fall in between with some mild nonprogressive cognitive impairment, but the spectrum is heavily weighted at the 2 ends with about 70% of patients typically being classified as neuronopathic 30% attenuated.
Of course, this is a progressive disorder. The GAG accumulation is progressive. The emergence of the clinical manifestations is progressive and the severity increases over time. But some of the earliest things that we see in babies with MPS II or hernias, umbilical and inguinal hernias. Recurrent upper airway and ear infections, recurrent otitis media, enlargement of the tonsils and adenoids with GAG deposition in those tissues.
That leads to obstructive sleep apnea in many cases, coarsening of the facial features with soft tissue deposition of GAGs leading to the fuller lips, puffiness around the as broadening of the nodes and then developmental delay in some but not all patients. Obviously, if they have the attenuated form, development can progress perfectly normally.
And in all kids, it usually does for the first year to 18 months before we start to see developmental slowing in the neuronopathic patients. And then progressive stiffness of the joint and of the fingers leading to joint restrictions. There's also a progressive skeletal disease, dysystosis, multiplex and patients may need orthopedic procedures over time.
Later on, we see progressive airway involvement, airway narrowing, also cardiac valve thickening with that valve deposition and then that leads to dysfunction and sufficient and then later in some patients stenosis, cardiomyopathy, carpal tunnel syndrome, very, very common MPS disorders are the most common cause of carpal tunnel in the pediatric population.
And a significant issue for [indiscernible] as they get older is retinal degeneration with progressive visual impairment. Now in the neuronopathic patients, like I said, we typically see developmental slowing followed by progressive loss of developmental skills and progressive neuro degeneration. Death typically occurs in the teens or at the latest early 20s for the typical neuronopathic patient, whereas those with attenuated disease may live into their or beyond depending on the severity of their manifestations.
MPS II was added to the recommended uniform screening panel in the U.S. in 2017. So it's a disorder that's recommended for newborn screening to all of the states -- it is proliferating pretty rapidly. It has come on board a lot more rapidly than MPS I did. It took us 10 years to get to a universal screening for MPS I. This is moving along much more quickly. when I made this slide, we thought about 25% of newborns were being screened.
Now I think it's even higher. The big states are doing it, New York, California, Texas even. So it's coming along very rapidly. And I think it won't be too long before we'll have a situation where virtually all babies in the U.S. are screened for MPS II. Now currently, we have one approved pharmaceutical product for MPS II, that's hydrosulface or Elaprase. Most affected individuals get this from the time of clinical diagnosis.
But it's not a stand-alone therapy in the sense that we still have to monitor the patients carefully for complications of the disease and intervene symptomatically when we need to for all of the various things that I listed on the earlier slides. So these are kids who get a lot of surgery. They see a lot of different specialists hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is used in some cases.
As you probably know, it is the standard of care for the severe form of MPS I. It does not work as well in MPS-I and there may be a variety of reasons why that's the case. But it is used to some extent, even in North America, a little bit more so in some other countries. And if it's done early enough in the first year of life, it probably does provide some CNS benefit, but not as much as in the MPS I situation. And certainly, it provides thematic benefit.
It does work thematically -- so what are the limitations of our current therapy? Well, you already heard that the current enzymes don't cross the blood-brain barrier in significant amounts. So idursulfase does not arrest the progression of the neuronopathic disease in patients. We can keep the neuronopathic patients healthier.
And as a result, they do live longer have a better quality of life, but we still see progressive neurologic decline and ultimately, early death. We also see continued progression of cardiac valve and airway disease, and these are the major causes of death in our attenuated patients. They also, of course, contribute to death in the neuronopathic patients as well.
We have to figure out how much of this is due to the timing of starting therapy since we're just getting newborn screening versus we just don't penetrate all these tissues well enough, but I think it's a combination of those things. It does not prevent retinal disease and one of the most devastating things is to have a patient.
And I have this who is doing really well thematically on long-term therapy, but now starts losing is vision, and it's devastating to our patients and really impacts their quality of life. And it also doesn't prevent hearing loss. So most of our MPS II patients do require hearing aids. So the unmet need in MPS II is obvious.
We need a treatment to address that progressive neuro degeneration, stabilize the patient, allow them to live more functional and longer life. And we need better treatment for the peripheral tissues that currently are hard to reach and where we see disease progression despite our current ERT.
Okay. Moving on to MPS III, also referred to a San Filippo syndrome. And here, we're talking about MPS IIIA. There are 4 different types of San Filippo syndrome, which clinically, we call San Filippo because they all look alike. The manifestations are the same. They all store heparan sulfate, but they are 4 different enzymatic defects.
The most common of these is San Filippo Type A. That's about 70% of cases in North America and the deficiency here is in the enzyme and sulfur glucosamine sulfa hydrolase or SGSH for short. It's also referred to as sulfamidase or heparan sulfate, sulfur taste and again, primarily heparin sulfite accumulates. So this appears predominantly as a neurodegenerative disorder without the severity of the somatic manifestations that we see in MPS I and MPS II.
The overall incidence of MPS IIIA is estimated at about 1 in 25,000 births. So it's little less common than MPS II, nonetheless, more common than most of the other MPS subtypes. Now with MPS IIIA, again, as is true with MPS II, infants are typically normal at birth. But in this case, we begin to see developmental slowing at about 2 years of age with speech delays.
So in both of these disorders, they sit, they walk, they do that stuff normally, but then speech is delayed. Unfortunately, with MPS IIIA, a lot of times we diagnose it much later than MPS II because we don't have those somatic clues that I talked about, the coarsening of the facial features is less prominent there later and we may not have hepatosplenomegaly, some of the other things we see in MPS II.
So what we have as a kid who shows up with developmental and then by about the age of 3, they're starting to get some behavioral disturbances, hyperactive aggressive behavior. So they get referred to a developmental pediatrician or a neurologist, a lot of times, they're misdiagnosed having autism or just nonspecific developmental delay or ADHD.
They may get genetic testing, but usually it's the usual developmental delay stuff, micro array, Fragile X, they don't early on. Nobody thinks about GAGs because most of the time, there aren't a lot of clues there. But eventually, the developmental delay turns into developmental regression and then a light bulb goes off. So this is something worse. This is progressive and then they get whole exome sequencing or they refer to a geneticist, and they get diagnosed at that time.
So the average age of diagnosis is not really until 4 to 5 years. The average age of death is 10 to 15 years by the time the patients are diagnosed. They're typically -- they have lost quite a bit cognitively because the decline in cognitive skills is much more rapid in MPS IIIA than it is in MPS but there are some attenuated patients with MPS IIIA also.
Although it's weighted at the severe end of the spectrum, approximately 20% have a more attenuated course. Later onset of symptoms, later diagnosis, slower progression, longer survival. I have one where the girl was walking into her 20s. And she's in her late 20s now and in a wheelchair, but much slower progression. And there have been some adults with intellectual disability picked up on whole exome with this as well.
Now they can have somatic findings. I said it's predominantly neurologic. That dominates the picture. But some of the patients will have hepatomegaly or hepatosplenomegaly. Some of them will have more coursing of the facial features. These are 2 siblings I took care of both of whom are now deceased, but you can appreciate, I think they had corse facial features, and he was thought initially by the referring physician to actually have MPS II because of the way you looked.
And we can also see chronic or recurrent diarrhea. Sometimes we see that in MPS II. Also late in the course of the disease, there's very difficult prominent GI motility that makes it hard to feed them. They wind up needing G tubes because they can't. Sucks all of that, but then we even have trouble putting stuff down the G-tube because the GI motility is impaired. Cardiac valve disease does occur skeletal findings occur.
So occasionally, we'll see 1 with hip pain, hip dysplasia. But it's sort of a back burner kind of issue. We do surveillance for it, but it's not nearly the same relevance currently as it is with MPS I and II. That may change if we get the patients living longer. I think it will.
We're going to have to pay a lot more attention to the somatic manifestations. So currently, our treatment for MPS IIIA is very frustrating because we don't have any disease-modifying therapy available for them is primarily symptomatic. HSCT does not work at all in MPS IIIA. It's been done quite a few times. It does not alter the course of the disease in any way, even if you do it in a very young baby, most or many of the patients, certainly the most of the ones I take care of are receiving an anti-inflammatory drug, Anakinra, marketed as Kineret for a different disorder, off-label therapy.
But there is one trial that showed some clinical symptomatic benefit in patients with MPS III, so many patients are on it. In the past, they were on Genistein and then some of them are minglestat and all of these kinds of things. But none of that really changes the course of the disease.
You probably know there have been lots of therapeutic trials of different things in the past from intrathecal therapy to different gene therapy trials that have failed. Hopefully, the Ultragenyx gene therapy trial will come to fruition. But there have been a lot of failures, so the frustration in the patient community is extremely high and there's huge unmet need here and just waiting in the wings for something to happen.
There is no newborn screening currently for this. it is feasible, however. So I think as soon as we get an approved therapy, there's going to be a big push to get newborn screening for this one because we really need to treat the patients early and we don't find them early enough clinically in most cases unless it's a younger sibling, of course.
So really, tremendous unmet need here to slow down the relentless progression of the disease. It's a horrible thing for families to watch as their kids just slip away. And the focus is on the brain. But like I said, I really think if we treat the brain and we get these kids living longer, we're going to have to pay a lot more attention to the body and the somatic manifestation.
So therapies that just treat the brain, some of the gene therapies that we tried in the past go directly into the brain. I mean that's not going to do it for us in the long term. So we're going to need a somatic treatment as well.
Okay. And then finally, Pompe disease. Again, spectrum of severity from what we refer to as the infantile onset Pompe, where patients have no residual enzyme activity, no mutations to a later onset form of the disorder that looks a lot like limb-girdle muscular dystrophy and the major differentiator between infantile-onset and late-onset Pompe disease is the presence or absence of cardiomyopathy.
The infants have cardio all have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. They have it at birth, although it may not present clinically for weeks or months. But when we do newborn screening, we find them, it's there. That's the cause of death for those babies untreated, whereas, like I said, the late-onset patients don't have cardiomyopathy, they present with skeletal muscle and respiratory muscle weakness.
And the term late onset is a little misleading. It's really later onset because they can present as late in the first year of life. All the way through childhood into mid adult life. So there's a wide range of age at which it's diagnosed. And survival is long generally for the late onset patients, but with a progression like limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.
The deficient enzyme is GAA or alpha-glucosidase. This leads to progressive accumulation of glycogen and the lysosomes of cells. This is also referred to as asset multi deficiency or glycogen storage disease type 2. Some of you may follow the trials and other forms of glycogen storage disease like type 1. So you know that in addition to this lysosomal pathway for glycogen breakdown, the primary pathway for glycogen synthesis and breakdown is in the cytoplasm.
And that's where the defect is in these other disorders in patients who have cytoplasmic defects have problems with hypoglycemia, lactic acidemia hyperlipidemia, all of that. We don't have any of that with Pompe disease. The cytoplasmic pathway is completely intact. But once the glycogen gets in the lysosome, it's trapped in there and can't be degraded and progressively accumulates.
This is a pretty common lysosomal disorder between 10 and 15 and 1 in 20,000 more common much more common than the MPS disorders. I already told you about the infantile patients, hypotonia depth by 12 to 18 months without treatment. Now that we have treatment, they survive longer and there is a post-treatment phenotype that includes persistent progressive muscle weakness, hearing loss and white matter changes in the brain with progressive neurologic decline in a few.
We don't really know what the natural history of these brain changes is going to be yet. There have been only a few patients. We don't have a lot surviving beyond the age of 20 yet. We had all these immunologic issues initially. But now that we have addressed those and we get longer survival, we're starting to see it. The MRI changes are very common. Most patients are still asymptomatic, but there have been a couple with progressive neuro degeneration.
How common that's going to be, we don't know at this point, but there is that in IOP. We may very well need to get enzyme into the brain to be able to address that issue occurring later in the disease. Now in late onset Pompe, I mentioned a wide range of age of symptoms, that pragmatic weakness is very prominent, intercostal muscle weakness, so a lot of the patients need things like oxygen support, CPAP, BiPAP in addition to having to deal with their mobility issues and muscle weakness, but they don't have cardiac involvement.
Every baby now is for Pompe disease. It was added to the RES in 2015. It's now on the panel in all 50 states. And we have 3 approved of enzyme replacement therapy.
Our historical drug was Lumizyme, started as my Lumizyme approved for both IOPD and LPD. Now we have next biz and pambility. Both of these have enhanced glycosylation like the other enzymes, this gets into the cell through the mano-6-phosphate receptor. So these are -- have better glycosylation and then with the pomability we use the chaperone as well, miglustat.
Patients with IOPD are treated urgently at the time of initial diagnosis. We really hit them hard fast when we get them through a newborn screening. And it makes a different weeks make a difference in outcome. Patients with LOPD now diagnosed through newborn screening, we do not treat.
We monitor but treat them at the first onset of symptoms, which can be anywhere from a year to who knows when. So how well does the current treatment work? The answer is not very well at all.
Pompe disease treatment is not very effective compared to Goshe, Fabre, any of the others, really. It helps some. mean, it's been of incremental benefit to the patients. We had the immunologic issues early on if we address those properly, which now I think we pretty much know how to do, it's very effective for the treatment of cardiomyopathy and infants. And so it's life saving.
You can reverse that completely and get normal cardiac function. But it's much less effective for skeletal most disease, either in IPD or in LPD. Most patients show some modest improvement in muscle strength, mobility and respiratory function after the onset of treatment maybe up to a year, maybe 2 years in some cases, beyond 2 years, you never see any further improvement.
You hope for a period of stability, but ultimately, most of the patients then begin to progress ultimately. We don't really have that long-term data for the 2 newer drugs that what I just said is true for sure for Lumizyme. But I can tell you that the improvement we see when we move a patient from Lumizyme to one of these others is, again, it's incremental, a little bit maybe, but we're not making the patient healthy. We're not making them well.
We're not making them strong. They're not getting up outer wheel shares. Their life is not really changing dramatically. So there's still, I think, considerable unmet need in Pompe disease. So why is it not working very well for skeletal muscle? I think the biggest reason is very sparse [indiscernible] receptors.
On skeletal muscle [indiscernible] and so forth. So no matter how much you glycosylate these things. There's only so much you can circulate get through those receptors during the time that the patient is seeing it. in the circulation. We know in the past, we used to go up on the dose, up, go up on the frequency with Lumizyme.
We'd see a little bit better, little improvement. It's the same thing here, but there's a ceiling. So dosing was probably inadequate for most patients with Lumizyme. But now I think we're probably at the ceiling. Some patients, obviously, in the past have been diagnosed late. And if the muscles replaced with that, just like any of the other diseases, if things have died, you're not going to restore it.
And the other thing is we get lysosomal rupture over time. So we get a lot of cytoplasmic glycogen and you don't target that when you're going in through the mano6-bospate receptor into the lysosome. So you can't fix that.
So a lot of unmet need. We need treatment of the brain and IOPD, most likely, although we don't know how big a problem this is going to be at this point. But we definitely need better treatment for the skeletal must in both forms of the disease. And LOPD is 80% to 85% of cases.
And prevalence wise, it's higher than that because of the fact that they live a long time. So that's it for me. Thank you for your attention. And Peter, I guess you're up next.
Great. Thank you, Dr. Burton. I want to thank Dr. Burton for painting the picture of all the clinical unmet need in lysosomal storage disorders. You've heard from Ryan, that this is a collection of disorders that causes enormous burden worldwide.
And our ETV platform is designed to treat both brain and body. Now Hunter syndrome is our first target with tividenofusp alpha. And as you've heard earlier, traditional enzyme replacement therapy doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. 2/3 of these individuals have CNS manifestations as a neuronopathic disease. And so our goal is to address that unmet need and address the unmet need in peripheral manifestations of disease as well.
This is a study design of our Phase I/II study. You've probably seen it before. It's an open-label study, long-term extension in non-neuronopathic and neuronopathic patients. You can see the primary endpoint is safety. Secondary endpoints listed below. Early cohorts were dose-finding cohorts followed by 15 mg per kg on the target dose.
And really, the takeaway is that this is a study that has generated substantial long-term safety and efficacy data that supports the accelerated approval that's under review and supports the positive benefit/risk profile in MPS II. These are the data that have been generated from the study. You can see on the left, normalization of CSF HS. There's a dramatic and rapid reduction in CSF HS.
That's a primary substrate of iduronate 2-sulfatase, which is the deficient enzyme and MPS II. Greater than 90% reduction is achieved and sustained for up to 3 years. You can also see on the right-hand side, normalization of urine HS. And so again, primary substrate in the periphery, which shows the opportunity for us to address both brain and body to a great degree with normalization in both compartments.
In the middle, we see that there is a dramatic reduction in NFL over time. And what we're showing is a normalization of NFL. This is a common neurodegenerative biomarker across neurological diseases. The takeaway here is that tividenofusp alfa is the first and only therapy in development for MPS II that has achieved normalization on all of these biomarkers. In addition, while tividenofusp alfa, the E2 study patients demonstrated clinical outcomes with skill gains and adaptive behavior on the left and cognition in the middle. So these are patients that are over time continuing to gain skills where we would expect from natural history that they would start to decline as Dr. Burton has alluded to earlier.
In addition, you've heard that hearing is a major impact in MPS II and TV reduces the hearing threshold in auditory brainstem responses, significantly, and that is also sustained. And so these data support an impact on clinical outcomes with MPS II. The safety primarily infusion-related reactions are the main and most frequent adverse event. This is entirely expected with enzyme replacement therapies.
Most of the events were mild to moderate in severity and they decreased substantially over time with continued treatment. So in totality, the Phase I/II safety and clinical outcomes data and biomarker data support a broad indication for the treatment of MPS II in terms of the full spectrum of the disease. This is a schematic of our Phase II/III global trial that is ongoing.
It's called the COMPASS study. It's a rigorous design. It's a randomized, double-blind, active-controlled study with 2 cohorts. The first cohort is cohort A in neuronopathic disease, patients aged 2 to 6, and they are treated for 96 weeks and blinded comparison to [indiscernible] which is the current standard of care that doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier.
The assessments in this cohort are going to be primarily neurological with CSF HS and Violin 3 as well as the Bailey scales for cognition. Cohort B is a 48-week double-blind comparison against hydro sulfate in non-neuronopathic patients age 6 to 2. And here, the comparison is multiple endpoints that affect the periphery, including 6-minute walk test as well as a number of biomarkers and imaging markers.
Now you can see that -- there are a number of endpoints that are going to be assessed across the entire population for Cohort A and Cohort B. And again, this is to demonstrate the totality of efficacy both in the brain and the body. This is going to be the study that supports confirmation of the accelerated approval in the U.S. as well as global approvals.
In totality, the development program, we consider very robust by the time both studies are completed. We'll have over 100. We'll have 100 patients treated with videos. Our target PDUFA action date for the U.S. accelerated approval is April 5. And as Ryan mentioned, the progress in the filing is going well. We've had our late cycle meeting and we're in label negotiations with the FDA. Now I want to share an investigator perspective on MPS II from Dr. Joe Monser, who is one of our lead investigators in the Phase I/II study.
Hello. I'm Dr. Joseph Muenzer, Pediatric Biochemical Genetics NersaNorth Caroline Chapel Hill and want to present 2 siblings enrolled in the Phase I/II DNL310 study from an investigator's perspective. Both boys have pathodetic-IDF variants, have absent enzyme activity and have elevated urine glycosemaoglycan to make the diagnosis.
The older sibling was diagnosed at 3 years, 8 months based on clinical criteria. At that time, he had a younger brother at 5 months, unfortunately, also had Hunter Senior boast very quickly after diagnosis was treated with weekly ether sulfates at 0.5 milligram per kilo. Both enrolled in the Phase I/II study of DatAL310 and received weekly TV data alpha at 15 milligrams per kilo for greater than 4 years. The older brother started 6 years, 4 months and the younger ones started 2.5 years and I want to actually show you a slide of the 2 of them in a pool.
The next slide shows you the older brother sort of just in a routine situation at home where he's very calm, interactive but is non-verbal. As you can see he enjoys a video and the last video I want to show you is the younger brother who is now roughly 7 years of age, in second grade.
[Presentation]
And this video just shows you how well he's doing and the power of prevention of neurologic decline, versus stabilization in the older brother. Thank you.
So we've summarized the data that we've accumulated going dramatic effects and normalization of primary substrate for IDS in both brain and body. And I think from that clinical perspective, you can see the power of what we are trying to achieve and what the potential opportunity is for us to transform Hunter syndrome with videos.
So that is the cornerstone of our ETV franchise, but we're going to build on that with MPS IIIA with DNL-126 and DNL-952. A really, our goal with the ETB franchise is to deliver transformative treatments for the LSD community to address the unmet need that we've been discussing. As you've heard from Dr. Burton, MPS IIIA is debilitating and relentless disease with no current approved therapies.
This is our structure of the DN 126, ETV SGSH. This is a program that has aligned with the FDA on a path to accelerated approval, again, leveraging CSF HS as a surrogate endpoint like reasonably likely to predict clinical efficacy. And the Phase I/II enrollment has closed.
And so we're excited about the opportunity to address the unmet need here. Just a quick word on the study design. This is our Phase I/II DNL-126 study. You can see the study population includes both severe and attenuated patients with MPS IIIA. There are 2 dose finding cohorts, cohorts A1 and A2 and then 2 key efficacy cohorts A3 and B1. The endpoints are listed on the side.
This is an open-label study. with an open-label extension following a 25-week core study. The initial data are going to be presented at the World Symposium in 2026. Just a note on the data that's going to support the accelerated approval for DNL126. We'll have at least 49 weeks of data for all study patients in cohorts A1 to A3 as well as Bone. And then SFH reduction from baseline in key efficacy cohorts, A3 and B1 are going to be the surrogate endpoint reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. We'll also have supportive data from the entire patient population on both central and peripheral outcomes and long-term safety projected to be up to 2.5 years.
And so we expect a BLA submission to support an approval in 2027. And with that, I'm going to hand it to Katie.
Thanks, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with us today. I thought I'd start this next section by sharing with you voices from the Hunter community. So on the left is a letter that we received from a family whose child is participating in our Phase I/II study.
The family shared with us that their child is thriving and that as a family, they've been able to do things that they never imagined was possible when he was first diagnosed. In this letter, they wanted to remind us of a future. We're at the earliest possible moment a brain penetrant therapy is available and imagine what that could be for families in the future.
In the middle is a survey that we did in partnership with an advocacy group called Project ALIVE. In this survey, 60% of respondents indicated that there is significant unmet need for a medicine that can treat the brain and that it is urgently needed to deal with the cognitive issues with MPS disease.
And on the right, or common voices that we hear from the MPS community change is very hard, but they are watching carefully of the emerging therapies, but they do need confidence and reassurance from patients that's gone ahead. And for us, our goal is to ensure that every family feels confident to be able to consider a switch.
And we need to make sure that the experience early on with TV is a very positive one. These voices established the story of lived experiences of hopeful anticipation, but certainly a community ready for change and we have been listening to these voices every step of the way as we're preparing for our launch.
You heard Dr. Burton described very well the disease, and we've learned along the way that this disease is a spectrum and what's important here is that progression continues, not just in the CNS, but in the periphery as well, and you heard this from Dr. Burton. We've also learned for the attenuated patients, the onset may be later in life but the progression does continue over a lifetime. And we're also now hearing from adult patients that they're experiencing some CNS manifestations.
And that could come in the form of attention. And also Dr. Burton mentioned ocular degeneration. Our hope is that TV will be able to address all of these manifestations for all patients with Hunter syndrome. Peter and Dr. Burton refer to the incident population of 70% severe and 30% attenuated. But what we're seeing in the prevalent population that there is definitely a skew towards the less severe population, which isn't surprising given their longer lifespan.
With the introduction of TIV, our hope is that all patients will have a reduction in the severity of their disease and that over time, there will be more patients, people living with MPS II Peter shared the data of Tivi, and we believe that we will set a new standard for treatment in MPS II. TV is the only therapy that could treat all Hunter syndrome.
The first to be able to treat both brain and the body and to be able to normalize GAGs. With the data package we submitted, we are hopeful for a broad indication, and we feel like our molecule is very differentiated from the emerging treatments and the current standard of care. With the ability to normalize GAGs, we also believe TIV has the best chance to demonstrate superior clinical outcomes.
We've also received very positive feedback from key stakeholders. And it's not just Dr. Burton, who sees the unmet need across both brand and body. Many of the physicians we spoke to sees the unmet need in the brain, but certainly in the periphery as well. 90% of physicians believe that the TV data is very motivating prescribe and there has been no major concerns on our safety profile.
We hear similar feedback from patients and caregivers on the unmet need, and there's high awareness, 80% are aware of new emerging therapies and many are excited to try TV. We have now started significant engagements with payers, and we've also received similar feedback that they believe in the benefit/risk profile of TV.
But we also have heard that they believe in the therapeutic possibility and the benefit of a molecule that crosses the blood-brain barrier. So our launch strategy has 3 key imperatives: the first is that we continue and maintain the strong partnership we have with the community. We know that patients and families get most of their education and information from this community.
So we have to work very closely with them to ensure that our messages can reach the most amount of patients. In addition, we have to build an engagement model that can support physicians, patients and caregivers throughout the entire journey, the treatment journey.
And of course, the last is we have to make reimbursement and coverage of the molecule streamlined and efficient and easy for families. Given what we've put in place, we believe we'll be able to activate and maintain a switch and as well as drive broad coverage and fast policy establishment.
I also wanted to highlight some of the prelaunch activities that we've been doing. We've always had strong engagement and presence at medical congresses. But I'm really excited to share for World 2026, we've been accepted for 2 oral presentations and 5 poster presentations. This is an important meeting for us given that it will be our launch year. We've also been busy on the Hill, supporting policies around newborn screening, as well as ensure that there are biomarker accelerated group pathways for rare disease.
And of course, ensuring that there are not policies put in place that will hinder a patient from getting access to new treatments. And we've also, in launch preparation, formed a patient council. Council members have been helping us design our communication, and they have been instrumental in ensuring that we have the right patient services when we launch this asset.
Now I wanted to touch a little bit on our pricing philosophy and what we think about before we price Tivi. So for us, we need to ensure that there could be broad access and sustained access for patients. We also consider affordability and. So we design our financial support programs based on how much we can support patients on the affordability front. In addition, our molecules have to incorporate in the price, our ability to fuel future research.
And of course, the price has to represent the clinical value that the molecule brings. And given the package and the clinical data you've seen with TV, we expect to price at a premium, while importantly, balancing broad access and ensuring that it represents the clinical value that it delivers. In terms of the payer landscape, when we first engaged payers, there were very little awareness of MPS II which is not surprising, given that there's only 1 to 2 patients per million lives covered by their plans. But given the efforts that we've put forward, we feel very pleased that there is now strong recognition that the burden of disease is still significant even with the current standard of care.
And given the low budget impact, for MPS II, we are hopeful that we will be able to get similar coverage and good coverage that the standard of care sees today. There's also some interesting dynamics with MPS II. It is not uncommon in rare disease to see high coverage by Medicaid plans.
But in MPS II, it is quite unique. 50% of families or patients are covered by Medicaid and the other 50% by commercial payers, which is uncommon and also for Medicare, it's actually very few patients covered under Medicare.
Given this payer dynamic, we do expect payer policy and coverage to take a little bit of time. In terms of the U.S. landscape, we believe there's about 400 to 500 patients in the U.S. and they're concentrated at major centers of excellence. And there's about 100 genetics managing the majority of these patients. Since we've implemented the -- or we've deployed MSLs more than 4 years before we've launched, we have very well-established relationships with all of these centers.
In addition, now that we've hired our field footprint, we believe that we'll be able to cover all of the accounts that treat more than one patient. And here's just a quick profile of the team that we've put in place. You can see all of the team members have significant experience across commercial and medical affairs.
In addition, we've launched many successful products, including in rare disease, and we're very familiar with buy and bill or IV infused products. We are also very pleased with the assembly of our field team who have launched many rare disease medicines and have significant experience, 12 years on average of experience, either in lysosomal storage disorders or in rare disease.
Now how are we thinking about launch? And what does the trajectory look like? In terms of the adoption curve, we expect to see a very similar S-shape curve that you often see with rare disease launches. Even with all the excitement around TV and the high awareness, we expect that we will have to work through some mechanics of launch. For new therapies, new ERT therapies, patients have to come into the clinic to receive their infusion.
And right now, an MPS disease, a majority of patients get their infusions at home. So we'll have to work through the mechanics of scheduling infusions but also in the beginning, in the initial phase, more than likely we will not have payer coverage right out of the gate.
So we will have to get reimbursement through medical exceptions process, and that will take some time. So in 2026, we expect modest revenue, except what is really important is that we get as many patients as possible started on TV. And the reason for that is in rare disease, persistence is high. So once treatment is established, patients will stay on treatment.
But as more experience grows and the coverage improves over time, we do expect to see an inflection point where we'll see significant adoption and revenue growth. Okay. So in terms of global expansion, what are we doing with our U.S. approval?
Well, we feel very happy that we will be able to leverage the U.S. accelerated approval as well as the Phase I data to expand into the international space. There are many countries that accept a U.S. CPP or have a conditional pathway to move forward. We believe we can tap into about 60% of the addressable market even before the European Compass launch.
And our -- my last slide here touches on what Ryan discussed with our first 2 near-term assets, we believe we have a revenue opportunity of more than $1 billion. In addition, as we unlock the U.S. and other markets with these 2 assets, you will see sustained growth over time.
We will also have significant synergies with our first launch because the customer base is the same for TVN as well as DNL 126. We are building a commercial model that we think will be sustainable, repeatable. And with our leadership in LSDs, our future launches will be even more successful 1 after the next. And we're excited to be building a very sustained long-term high-growth rare disease business. Thank you. And I'd like to invite the panel up here for our next session.
Thank you. My pleasure to be able to introduce our panel. I think we're going to start with you. Dr. Stevens. Is that right? You're going to give us an introduction in your experience and why you're with us today. And then we're going to hear from Jason, and then we're going to open it up for questions for both all of you, but I also have a few questions as well.
Okay. Good. So I'm Kim Stevens. I'm the mother of a boy with MPS II, and I'm going to introduce you to Cole.
[Presentation]
He doesn't talk. At the age of 5, he stopped singing at the age of 7. He held on to 2 words, help and mommy by 9, it was Mommy, and that was the last word I ever heard him say. He's now 15. Some might heard him speak over 6 years.
You've heard a lot about the sort of journey that an MPS II child goes through but what I don't think we've grasped yet in this room is how devastating this disease is. I had Cole 15 years ago, there was no sign of disease. I had no idea that he had Hunter syndrome. At 1 year, I started to notice he had a large spleen and our pediatrician started talking about obesity at 1 years old, which was just ridiculous.
Six months, as Dr. Burton had said, he had double hernia repair, our tubes is constant running nose. And then at 2.5, he had ear tubes again. Tonsils removed and he started enzyme replacement therapy. So I also want to emphasize at this point that is standard of care.
For standard of care right now for enzyme replacement therapy, you go into a center or a hospital much like Tiny will do for 6 months. If you're okay with the infusion at that point, then they will send you home. So this is something our community is used to.
Everyone used to ask me at 2.5. How do you get coal to sit still for 3.5 hours for an infusion? He just does it. It's part of his life. We made it fun. He got a cupcake after every infusion. And he would finish his fusion cupcake, and I give him a cupcake, you get a toy. And we just knew our whole life just started around enzyme replacement therapy because I knew that was going to keep them alive.
And as I said, he went into a clinical trial at about 4.5 million right before we did that, you stop potty training. We were starting to potty train like most kids do at 2.5, 3 years old. You could see the words just getting stuck in its head -- he was very frustrated. He was banging his head on the ground because he was just so frustrated. They would call me from school, I'd have to go pick them up preschool.
Is tension spend was very, very low. He was starting to bite people as well as himself. He no longer could say any animal sounds his favorite thing to do was to do animal sounds. He would often say to Dr. Muenzer, who you saw earlier, Sir, and that's what he called them.
Sir, what animal has a long neck. And then he would laugh and say, Giraffe. He didn't do that anymore.
And then you really showed and the ability to really do anything academically just started to go away. We have what we call in our community, the Hunter syndrome star, where it's just nothing. It's like nothing is going on. So that was what's starting to happen here. So I really want to emphasize this. You're slowly watching your child disappear. And with TV, we're very excited in the community to have this opportunity to have something that's crossing the blood-brain barrier. Our community is waiting. I get calls every day or text or an e-mail.
When is this going to be ready for me? When can my child get this? I have discussions with newly diagnosed families telling them they have to wait for this particular drug to get approved. And also to point out, Kohl's had over 500 IV infusions with enzyme replacement therapy.
It's just our part of our line. And we're willing to really do what we need to do to keep our children alive, and that's what I've tried to do a whole is keep them alive until something better comes along, and it has.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Jason Madison. Thank you all for allowing us to also share our stories with you. So my Hunter syndrome story is a little different than a lot of other families because we can trace our back for generations. So I have a few pictures here of my family history.
We have Glenn Silverthorne, Glenn and Jane Silverthorne. And these guys were around even before Hunter syndrome is even known. So it's just a mystery illness and the same thing with my great uncle John. And it wasn't until my unkeen was around that my grandmother was like. This is in our family. We got to figure out what was going on. So we went to the Shiner hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania and they're like Hunters.
So then when I was born, my mother saw and we had such a long family history of something that we -- she actually got me genetically tested, and then we finally knew what was going on. So I also want to bring up real quickly, if you notice progressively, the agents have increase their lifespan, which is pretty amazing. And my ankle even has a wife and 2 children. So that's incredible.
And that's a great sign of just how far for health care has come. And I did want to bring up real quickly that Glen and Jay, I thought they just passed way naturally, but I learned later that they actually unfortunately killed themselves.
And I can understand why because you don't know what's going on or anything like that. And that really reflective of just the quality of life issues for people, especially who are attenuated -- it affects their mental health as well as our physical health. So my great uncle John, he ended up passing away from pneumonia. And I've just got over a real bad case of COVID pneumonia. So that really hit home if I didn't have the care that we learned, I would have just way. So that's just a little indication of just where we've gone. But once again, as you've heard before, there's a lot of unmet needs fast.
So through this time and experience with the family, I've really been a part of a lot of nonprofits MPS society and just being a part of the -- just the community because I want to be a part of that. I've actually been one of Dr. Munter's first patients back when he was a fellowship.
So my whole family has been pushing really hard just to get things better to improve not only our lives, but the lines around us. So and as you can see in this first picture, I meet with the hospital say , these are all hunters patients, and you can see just the difference and all the severity. And it was really funny because the little baby was we're getting a picture.
And I talked to the family, who had just been newly diagnosed, they're from the where I live in Allentown. And I never met them before, but they recognized me. So as soon as they saw all of us getting together for a picture, this woman just kind of comes up to me, can't be may -- all right.
Well, thank you very much. So I took a picture of it. we also mean the really well behaved kids. And I've just taken part of a lot of social media campaigns like bake the purple pie you wouldn't believe how much die went into that to make it that for both.
It was really difficult, but for a good cause. And then there's also another picture of just the entire MPS community that just includes all the different varieties of MPS just to show that there's a lot of unmet needs, even though we do have treatments, there's still a lot of things that need to be done. So I'm working with everyone here going forward.
So that's my story. Thank you.
What we'll do now is open up for questions. And maybe I will start and we pass the mic around. I know floor, if you have a mic, we're able to pass around. It's been brilliant to get to know all of you over the last 5 years as we've been developing medicines for Hunter syndrome. And I think maybe I'll start with Dr. Stevens or Kim. Kim, you and I have at least, I think, interacted for the last 5 years. Tell me what the communities mindset is right now around new therapies. I think it's been 19 years since Elaprase was approved. And I know there's been probably a lot of up and downs over the last 19 years, but would love to hear your perspective.
Yes. So Elaprase was approved in 2006. Nothing crossing the broad brain barrier has been developed, that's approved. So community is anxious, especially in the community with severe MPS II. We know what's coming. You saw on a slide earlier, and Dr. Burton had said that these kids die between 10 and 15 years old.
I would say Kohl's cohorts, the folks that around his age. Most of them have passed away. And I'm very aware that coal turns 16 next July, and he's bucking the system just a little bit. It's very scary. So we live with that fear every day. I still go in every morning hoping that he's still live and checking on him and making sure he's still breathing.
And all of our families in the community feel that. It's really just a devastating disease. And to have something so hopeful, and I tell parents, just hold on we've got something that really is going to help our community. It's really amazing now, and I'm so excited, and I've seen these kids on TV, and it's just amazing. And I also want that for Cole.
I know it actually minds me here we are. side you hear all the horns hunting that anxiety to get there right close to the finish line. I know you and I have had that conversation a lot. I don't know if there's any hands. Okay, good. Over here. A couple
2. Question Answer
Thank you. It's Sean Laaman from Morgan Stanley. I have a couple of questions on the newborn screening. So if I think read it right. I think newborn screening rates are about 25% in the U.S. and it started in 2017. So I'm wondering sort of what are the impediments for rolling that out to is the first part of the question.
Second, I imagine that Hunters is a very well defined and diagnosed disease, but would newborn screening change your estimate of the incidents at all. And then just looking forward, I guess, the earlier you treat the disease, the greater the improvement in clinical biomarkers, it seems.
So I'm just wondering in payer discussions, just those older patients, do you expect sort of potentially any pushback because there may be lesser benefit on clinical outcomes that led you lever it to treat the disease
So maybe we'll hand it to Dr. Burton for the RUSP and the newborn screening.
Yes. I'm not sure I caught all of that, but the major impalement implementing it right away is money. I mean every state has to do this independently. Newborn screening is a state health department prerogative. So they have to they have to get it set up.
I mean, that takes some time to develop a new test in the laboratory, establish their own normative values and all of that. But the main thing is money. They have to get state appropriation or right their newborn screening fee and state governments are very -- they're dinosaurs, their slow, things don't happen very rapidly in many cases.
So that's it. But I think it is going to -- I think probably by the end of this year, we'll be screening 50% of newborns, and I think we'll get to that 100% probably within the next 2 to 3 years faster than with too, but it's not instantaneous. There is significant time involved. What else was in there?
And I think what's interesting in your own slides, Dr. Burton is the difference between MPS I, MPS IIIA and Pompe, where Pompe, you have 100% screening across the U.S., and you have no screening yet for MPS IIIA, probably driven by the availability of medicines.
Absolutely, you can't get newborn screening. If you don't have a therapy. I mean in no state panel will agree to that. Even though families may argue there are other benefits beyond having a definitive therapy. There's got to be some. And there's got to be evidence that giving it early makes the difference as opposed to just doing it at the time of clinical diagnosis.
That's why we don't have widespread newborn screening for Gaucher disease, for example, because that evidence hasn't come to come forth or fabric for -- we have it in scattered states, but it's not certainly moving anywhere toward uniform. But once we have that, I think we can move much more rapidly with MPS IIIA.
And I think that Part B to question 1 is, will there be an increase in the incident once you have newborn screening across the U.S. I think for Pompe, it was clearly that...
Very much. It was at least doubled over what the projection were before Pompe. Some MPS-I that has not been the case. Really, it's turned out that MPS I was just about as common as we thought it was. MPS II, I think we're going to see -- it's a little more common.
We don't have enough published data yet, but our own experience in Illinois was that we see about an incidence of about $170,000. So somewhat more common and dominated by attenuated cases. So we have found families where there are baby is diagnosed -- we studied the family.
We find adult family members who have MPS II but have not previously been clinically diagnosed. So a big part of our newborn screening follow-up is to study the family because that not only helps us find other affected individuals, but it helps us predict the phenotype in the baby that we're dealing with, too.
So these are all attenuated cases. some really interesting various to any weighted cases, 1 family that I found where the dominant manifestation is just retinal degeneration. With a few other little minor things, but without a lot of the other disease manifestations.
So we will learn as we do with every disease with the proliferation of newborn screening more about incidents and also about the spectrum of the disease, and it makes sense that the mildest cases are the ones that have escaped diagnosis.
Your other question on payer. So we and the patient advocacy community are engaged with payers. We want to make sure that it's covered. As I said before, enzyme replacement therapy or ELAPRASE is the standard of care right now. So we're hoping that it stays in the price range with that. And that's sort of the expectation when we're talking with payers and their understanding, and we're working with them to understand this disease.
And talking with physicians, I think this will be a standard of care because certainly, you're going to prescribe something that crosses the blood-brain barrier as opposed to something that's just treats the somatic disease. And also, this is what I've seen from my own observation is much stronger than what we're currently able to get with the dose size that's for ELAPRASE.
So like I said, we're all anxious to switch.
Next question.
Salveen Richter, Goldman Sachs. With regard to switching versus naive, maybe help us understand how rapidly you would switch over attenuated patients versus non-attenuated patients and within the overall prescribing community, what physicians will need to see core leader adopters versus kind of the early adopter physicians.
And then if we could just overlay that with how you think about the landscape when and if gene therapy drugs were to emerge as well.
Maybe start with Dr. Burton. I'd love to hear Jason's perspective as well on switching, let's start with Dr. Burton.
Yes. I think we're going to -- I feel the most urgency to quickly switch an attenuated patient who is experiencing obvious disease progression or has a manifestation that I hope may be treated. I have one young adult man who just within the past several years, has lost most of his vision from retinal dystrophy, all those doing very well in every other way.
He's hoping and praying that what he has left may be salvaged if we can get them on an enzyme that crosses the blood brain barrier. So I'm urgently wanting it for him and for some of these other patients who are clearly progressing. I will offer it to all of them.
I think there may be some patients with attenuated disease who feel like they're very stable right now, who may not be anxious to come back to the clinic and get a new drug and maybe have IRRs that they're not having currently deal with that.
But certainly, I'll talk with them about the fact that we think certainly on a theoretical basis and knowing the mechanism of how it's getting in the cells, the dosing, the decline in urine GAGs, this could be more effective in treating their peripheral manifestations.
I'll encourage it, but I think there may be some who are less anxious than others. I think as far as physician doctors, obviously, those of us who had the opportunity to participate in the clinical trials. We'll be the earliest adopters. We know how to use it. We know the drug.
But I think genetics as a whole in the U.S. are used to putting new drugs online, even kind of complicated ones. We had to go through this dose titration thing with the lipid alpha for ASMD. So that's not really unique. I think, of course, with the newly diagnosed naive patient, it will be offered right out of the gate without question.
I think switching over the more established patients it's going to vary somewhat patient by patient. Some will be very anxious like Kim is talking about. I think there may be some of the more severe neuronopathic patients whose kids are very advanced in their disease and where they're getting home therapy and they're not having reactions and all of that where the family make question whether the benefit is worth the burden of coming back to clinic and maybe having more reactions.
And certainly, that's going to be true if they're at the very end of their life, tube fit and bad, all of that. But some of the very severe ones, I think, might feel that way, but I'm going to encourage patients that I feel like it's going to prolong their lives and keep them more functional for longer. So I think most of the patients will be ready to switch.
And I think most doctors are going to be anxious to have an alternative therapy. In terms of that versus the gene therapy, I mean, we'll look at the label and who we can use them for and who it gets paid for but I think if we have a patient where either could be an option, they're going to sort themselves out.
I mean there are some families that like that gene therapy concept and they like the idea that maybe for a while, they wouldn't have to have the weekly infusions. I know it's just going to be for a while. I mean they're all going to wind up on Denali eventually because you transduce the liver in these young kids, and it's not going to last.
I mean it's going to be a short-term fix. And when they understand that, I think a lot of them may just say, we're going to go with that from the beginning. But yes, we will offer to our patients all of the alternatives that are out there.
I want to hear Jason thought Tim probably has a thought.
Quite here switching. What do you think the barrier is to switching from Elaprase to [indiscernible] at this time, some patients might just be worried for something new. Elaprase works, especially with the attenuated the more geographic am I using the right return -- they might be more prone for. But sometimes there are people who do get scared to try something new.
So one thing I try to do, I'm very early that, I'll do whatever. So I try to do it and then I try to use my position to communicate to those who might be hesitant the goods and the match or whatever, just so they have someone that lives it can experience it.
So that's I mean I'm not hesitant. I want the stuff. So but that's what I think might be as far as the then goes.
So Jason, just along those lines, the last 2 years you and I have talked a little bit about like hearing and cognition changes? Maybe you can just describe.
Well, yes, certainly. I mean like hearing has gotten worse. And I'm beginning to think that there is a certain element of processing because I can hear the sounds, it just makes just in my brain, I can't quite get it like I used to. And I've also had some issues that are happening more frequently with the retinal and I'd love to have something to get in there.
And I am experiencing more confusion, and I know we all get confused a little bit when we get older, a little brain fog, but this is something that I've noticed it that seems to be a bit more. So I'm looking forward to just -- hopefully, it helps. I'm confident with what I've heard from other parents and their kids and also from the data that I'm confident that I'm ready for it.
A nice siren in the back test our confusion. Do you want to say anything, Kim? Maybe let's do one more question. I know we're over, but this is, I think, very important.
Tom Shrader very related question, but what is the switch process? What is the downside? And Dr. Burton, how difficult is the discussion? What do you have to warn patients might happen? But how tricky can it get? And maybe for Dr. Stevens, how eager would you have been when your son was 5 and still singing and I'm sure you like every bar you were hopeful I apologize for the questions.
I think many of our patients in North America are on home therapy. We bring them into the clinic, the first few months of treatment. If they're stable, not having reactions or over their reactions, send them to home therapy, they are going to have to come back in for -- to switch to Tivi.
Some of the Gaucher drugs will do switch at home because you don't once they get over reactions, they're not going to have a reaction with the next one. That's not true here. So there's a high incidence of infusion-related reactions. So we have to warn the patients that they may have reactions, what they look like, but we can handle it.
I mean we know how to handle it, but we are going to have them in a medically supervised setting. For that switch process. So that's usually going to go from maybe 4 months if they do fine and not really having anything major, get over it quickly to a little bit longer.
If they have more difficulty and we have to titrate up the dose and so forth. So that's the main disadvantage to a patient, I think, of the switch that they have to take that risk of having the reactions and the inconvenience of coming back into the clinic and weigh that against the benefits.
Kim?
Yes. And I think when we think -- unfortunately, when we think about the Hunter syndrome community, the turnover because the kids pass away, like I'm an old mom now because I'm one of the ones that they seek information from when I was the one when Cole was 5 or 2.5, and I was having those conversations. So certainly, at 5, I would have been anxious for something to least stabilize Cole.
And we should emphasize syndrome stabilization is a win. It's huge because as we said, this disease is very progressive. So I think as we've talked about at a point, it's going to become standard of care so that we won't be having the switching conversations for that long.
All right. I think we will I mean so much more that we could discuss, but we'll move on. Maybe thank you to the panel maybe a round of applause for these great people. Thanks,. So we will finish our discussion around the ETV franchise. Peter?
Thank you, Ryan. And I also want to thank Jason, Dr. Stephen and Dr. Burton for being wonderful partners and guides as we embark on trying to address these unmet needs. So we'll continue with our discussion about building an ETV portfolio.
And we'll start with DNL-593 or PTV progranulin, which is indicated or being developed for an indication in FTD granulin. Now this is a molecule that delivers a full length progranulin that retains binding to the sortilin receptor and is also tuned to deliver progranulin to the CNS with uptake to both lysosomes of neurons as well as glial cells.
And so this is an approach that is highly differentiated from other progranul approaches. Now it's not only science that actually elucidated that FTD progranulin is a lysosomal storage disease. And what you can see on the left is the co-localization of progranulin with BNP in the lysosome. BNP is a critical molecule set of molecules that regulate lysosomal function.
On the right-hand side, what you see is a granular knockout mouse with a TfR knock-in and the ability of PTV progranulin or DNL, to improve both glial activation and neuro degeneration biomarkers with GFAP and NFL. Now we've noted that this mechanism is distinct from other therapeutic approaches. And anti sortilin antibodies bind to the source selling receptor and increase extracellular concentrations of progranulin, but leave the intracellular lysosomal dysfunction unresolved.
DNL-593 is a protein replacement therapy that is designed to restore extracellular concentrations and lysosome wall progranulin to normalize function. This is a schematic of our Phase I/II clinical study that's ongoing. There's a SAD cohort, single ascending dose cohort in healthy volunteers that has been completed.
And this demonstrated a dose-dependent increase in CSF progranulin. What's ongoing is the MAD cohort in FTD granulin patients, aged 18 to 80. This is still enrolling, but enrollment is nearly complete and we anticipate Part B interim data with FTD granulin patients to read out in 2026. We are accumulating clinical experience across multiple ETV programs in our platform.
And this is a summary here. Safety from a safety perspective, we've already talked about tividenofusp with IRRs commonly seen in enzyme replacement. We also observed anemia frequently at baseline prior to exposure to treatment. Early declines in hemoglobin on treatment were generally returning to baseline and these were clinically manageable.
So importantly, no patients in up to 5 years of exposure with tividenofusp have discontinued treatment due to anemia. ETVsGSH or N26, the Phase I/II is ongoing. We have initial data. And so far, the IRRs appear to be clinically manageable and also decreased with time similarly. One patient has experienced a mild anemia -- but this is a patient that also had a predisposition or iron deficiency at baseline prior to exposure to treatment.
And then finally, PTV progranulin is blinded. It's a randomized double-blind study. But so far, IRRs appear to be manageable with standard measures. And there have been no anemia TEAEs reported to date in the blinded study.
The efficacy to date, we've already talked about, and I think the key takeaway that I want to emphasize is with this accumulated ETV clinical experience across multiple programs, we've demonstrated robust CNS activity and manageable safety that really supports the platform potential DNL 952 is AT-GAA.
This is for Pompe disease. As Ryan noted, we've rapidly amended the protocol and responded to the FDA in response to their concerns about a clinical hold. This is a molecule we're very excited about. As Dr. Burton highlighted earlier, there's great unmet need, and there's a limitation in the ability of the existing approved therapies to actually deliver GAA to muscle cells.
And so this is a molecule with the TFR TV contract that actually delivers GAA to the whole body including difficult-to-access tissues. It's tuned to maximize delivery both to muscle and to the CNS. And so our therapeutic aim is to demonstrate superiority over existing standard of care and deliver GA to the brain.
We have preclinical data in a GAA knockout mouse model with a TFR knock in. And what we've demonstrated with multiple doses is that lysosomal volumes are decreased in a dose-dependent manner with administration of DNL 952 -- and this is in comparison to avalglucosidase, which is one of the second generation standards of care.
We've demonstrated similar effects on neuro filament. And so again, DNL-952 approves muscle and CNS biomarkers that are relevant to FTD granular. Sorry, to GAA. This is a schematic of the Phase I study with DNL-952. The study plan includes late onset Pompe disease. There are 2 cohorts planned, A1 and A2 with optional additional cohorts, including a treatment-naive cohort.
Importantly, the cohorts A1 and A2 are intended to be treatment experienced with second-generation therapy. And we anticipate having Phase I biomarker data in 2027. So this is a schematic of our view on the ETV franchise portfolio, and we have many opportunities to address unmet need the serious genetic disorders that involve both delivering cargo to brain and body. And we're very excited about the opportunity.
There's a lot of unmet need and we feel confident that we have a transport vehicle that can deliver in multiple diseases. So with that, I'm going to hand it back to Ryan.
Thank you, Peter. I mean, as you can tell, ETP franchise has been a key starting point for Denali. In fact, we often get the question, why not just do TVs. Why not just focus on lysosomal storage disorders. And I think that, that's a fair question, and we believe we can create a really important business and franchise and a great relationship with the community, which is, at least for me, been very personally rewarding to work in the lysosomal storage disorders.
However, a decade ago when we founded Denali, our ultimate goal was to develop medicines for Alzheimer's disease. And similar to the devastation that you see in lysosomal storage disorder, you see this end of life with Alzheimer's disease for many of us. I mean, I'm sure many of you in this room have people that you love who have had Alzheimer's disease.
I know certainly I have -- there have been recent advances that bring new hope in Alzheimer's disease. This wasn't the case a decade ago. But with several approvals of anti-amyloid therapies we see at least some opportunity to delay disease. And I think we're all very eagerly awaiting the prevention study results where we remove plaque in individuals before they have cognitive decline.
However, there is a real unmet need. And we've already seen some initial clinical data with other brain shuttle technologies that could lead to faster plaque removal, potentially lower doses and maybe even less frequent dosing. And so we see this opportunity to use the transport vehicle to transform these medicines in Alzheimer's disease with now, I think, a higher probability of success.
And so what I'm going to do is introduce what I think is the future of Alzheimer's drug development. And then I'm going to hand it to Joe to go into some detail around our anti-A-beta program and our OTV MAPT program. Of course, that codes for tau. So these are the hallmark pathologies. We know that categorically, people were either believed to be believe in a beta or believe in tow and the reality is that both have very strong linkages to disease.
One, very strong genetically the other histopathologically impact both from a histopathological perspective. These end up being the 2 prominent pathologies and also genetic linkages. And we still continue to see neuro inflammation as maybe a future for us. And we've worked in that space for a number of years, but now we're focusing in on amyloid and tau.
I think what's really fascinating is now our ability to measure both in blood, but through imaging, these pathologies. And I think this is actually unlike many of the other neuro degenerate diseases. We don't have this ability quite yet in Parkinson's or Lewy-body dementia. But we do in Alzheimer's disease. And Part of this is the invention of these PET probes that will look at amyloid and tau.
And what I'm showing you here on the left is basically a normal individual that's amyloid negative and then a normal individual that's amyloid positive and then becomes an Alzheimer's patient over time at each of these separate individuals. The same is true for Tau. And interestingly, both amyloid and tau pathology preceded cognitive decline and synaptic loss.
And this is what the graph shows on the right-hand side. And so I think we've known this for now maybe 10, 15 years. And the question is, how do we develop safe medicines where we can intervene I think even more fascinating is how biomarkers transform the 3, I think, really important steps in drug development.
First is identification of patients Second is stratification of patients and third is target engagement. And you can use these biomarkers, both blood-based and imaging-based to do this. I think that's why we're starting to see more clinical benefit because patients can be selected earlier in the pathology and hence, delay the disease.
So how do we approach this? Well, today, the first-generation antibodies have shown that there is a potential to slow disease progression. The next generation will be TFR-enabled medicines, either the transport vehicle or other brain shuttle medicines. It's become very quickly a competitive space and an area that we focus a lot of time and effort on.
And interestingly, for TAL, the way that TAL's being approached now and I think probably the most promising approach our genetic medicines or oligonucleotides that reduce the expression of tau. And there, we can also see the next generation being enhanced with transport vehicle.
We can deliver now oligonucleotides across the blood-brain barrier and very excited that we've now filed our first medicine for testing in Alzheimer's patients. Okay. So this is the future. It's basically biomarkers to predict your risk of developing Alzheimer's and then safe medicines that allow you to then reduce that pathology before onset of disease.
That's, I think, the where we'll go. But in order to get there, we have to have effective medicines that are easy to deliver, easy to monitor. And I think with that, I'm going to hand it to Joe to tell you about our approach to Alzheimer's.
Thanks, Brian. So what Ryan just talked about is really how advances in Alzheimer's disease have led to really improve tractability in drug development in this indication as well as opportunities for TFR-enabled molecules. And what I'm going to spend a little bit of time on today is to dive into more detail around our 2 molecules targeting beta and tau using our TV platform and why we're excited about the best-in-class potential of both molecules.
So the first molecule that I'm going to talk about today is our ATDA beta molecule or DNA and here's a brief overview of the molecule on this slide. What you can see is it's an A beta a bivalent A-beta antibody preferentially targeting algomers. It has our transport vehicle with the TFR engagement tuned to maximize plaque engagement, and I'll show you a little bit about that data. And then lastly, it has a unique TV cis-LALA architecture. And this allows you to retain effector function, but do so safely while maintaining TFR binding.
And the way that it does that is it does -- it allows the molecule to bind both Fc gamma receptor as well as TFR but not both at the same time. So we believe this molecule has potential to be a best-in-class compared to definitely first-generation anti-beta molecules, but also some of the second-generation molecules currently in clinical studies.
And I'll dive into that data in a little bit more detail here. So what you're looking at in the middle of the slide is a mouse brain. And what's labeled in white there is co-localization of antibody with amyloid plaque. And so what you could see is that with the first generation antibody, the amyloid plaque that you're labeling is largely in superficial regions of the brain without very good penetration into deeper brain regions.
And this is very consistent with what we normally see for an antibody in the CNS. In contrast, when you look at our DNL 921 molecule, you see much greater target engagement, so much greater plaque binding, and that plaque winding goes into much deeper regions of the CNS. And that's what's quantified on the right-hand side of the slide there with the orange graph, the x-axis is really depth in brain and then it's the amount of labeling on the Y-axis, comparing our DNL-921 to a first-generation anti-beta molecule.
And I'll just note quickly, our scientific team did a really thorough investigation of this molecule as recently published in science. And so for those who are interested in more detail, I can look at that. I will show a few additional highlights here, and I'll start with -- the other staining that you see with that first generation anti-beta molecule, sort of those streaks and what those are perivascular regions.
So regions around large blood vessels in the brain. And why is that important? So if we look at it in a bit more detail, looking at the right-hand side of the slide, now looking at that -- the yellow color, which is co-localization of vascular plaque with a beta antibody, that with the conventional anti-beta, because of the route of entry is through the CSF, you see a very high amount of labeling of this vascular plot, which is significantly reduced, even though there's really good overall plaque target engagement, the vascular plaque engagement is significantly reduced.
And what this equates to on a functional level is if we look in a mouse model of Aria is that we see if we dose with a normal anti-beta molecule on the left-hand side of the slide in blue, that by the end of the study, 10 out of 10 animals in the study are showing signs consistent with an [indiscernible] related [indiscernible] vascular leakage event.
But when you look at a dose or the same dose of an ATDA beta molecule, you see a significantly reduced level of ARIA. And then if you look at a brain exposure matched dosing there, you see really no Aria throughout the entire study. So what you can achieve with this molecule then is significantly improved target engagement.
With significantly reduced occurrence of safety events, at least in preclinical models. So that's compared to our first -- the first generation anti-beta that aren't TFR enabled. What about a comparison to our TFR enabled A-beta competitor molecules so we went on to do a head-to-head study comparing our ATV Abeta molecule, to a molecule that is closely based on some of our clinical competitor molecules that has a C-terminal appended TFR binding region shown in orange on the schematic on the left-hand side of the slide. And what you can see is that both molecules have excellent plaque engagement, which is shown in the middle, that white staining.
But with the C-terminal TFR beta on the bottom, you see plaque engagement but also a decent amount of vascular engagement of that molecule. And we believe we've been able to further optimize the molecule to eliminate much of that vascular staining and really maximize that target engagement. And that's what's quantified on the right-hand side of the slide there, where we look and we show at a 10 mg per kg dose level.
We have significantly improved target engagement with our molecule compared to even TFR competitors. And in fact, our plaque engagement at 3 mg per kg is roughly equal to a competitor at 10 mg per kg. This is highly consistent within those plaque associated microglia. Why that's important? That's the effector function. The microglia or the cells that come and digest the plaque once the A-beta has found.
And you can see that, again, there's consistent higher microglial engagement with our molecule compared to a TFR competitor. So just to summarize a quick summary of how we stand next to the most advanced competitors in terms of overall properties. And I'm not going to go through this entire slide, I showed some direct comparisons with what is a trante-like molecule.
But if we think also about other molecules in clinical studies such as the Aliana, AbbVie molecule, where they've taken attack to improve safety -- they've eliminated effector function from the molecule. We agree that this will indeed improve safety, most likely, but it will also likely come at the expense of effective plaque clearance which has been observed in some of our clinical studies as well as the clinical studies that have been published or the preclinical studies that have been published in the literature.
So we're very excited about this molecule. We're moving full steam ahead. As Ryan mentioned earlier on, we plan for a regulatory submission in the first half of 20 -- and we've designed the clinical study to achieve as rapid clinical proof of concept in terms of both plaque clearance and safety with data expected within 2027.
I'll just also note that this is also a very streamlined design that could enable us to move directly from the Phase Ib study into a Phase III and really to try to make up as much time as possible in our clinical development. Okay. So now I'll move on to our second molecule, our OTV Map Ta molecule or DNL-628. So DNO-628 is essentially our TV-based molecule.
Our TV biologic molecule, I should say, conjugated to an antisense oligonucleotide targeting MAPT or tau. And it's a site-specific conjugation, a drug antibody ratio of 1. But past that, the molecule has been highly optimized to maximize peripheral exposure, which enables brain delivery as well as safety.
And so that included optimization of both the biologic portion as well as the [indiscernible] portion of the molecule. We believe that this molecule also has real strong potential for best-in-class, and I'm going to take you through some of the data of why we think that now.
So first to go over biodistribution within the CNS, and you've seen many different versions of this type of data today. But with all the goes, of course, there's existing drugs that are delivered through an intrathecal route so they do have direct access to the CNS. However, when you look at the biodistribution within the CNS, it's quite uneven.
And so what you're looking at here is nonhuman primate data comparing an antisense oligonucleotide delivered intrathecally or IT compared to our OTV. And I think that this is -- this study is done in nonhuman primates, which is particularly important because sometimes the impact of biodistribution is underestimated when using rodent models because rodents I mean, have much smaller brains.
But when you go into a primary spaces or a human, that biodistribution, which is an exponential process, it really has much more of an impact. And so when you look at the intrathecal delivery, what you see is really only peripheral antisense oligo, which again is marked in white there, around the CSF regions of the brain, but not very good penetration into deeper brain regions.
At the same time, you see very high drug levels in regions of the spinal cord, which is often the thing that limits dosing as you get such high levels in there that you can introduce toxicities before you're able to get sufficient drug concentrations to desired regions CNS. In contrast, when we look at our OTV platform, what you see is very broad and even biodistribution throughout the CNS.
So in addition to enabling peripheral delivery of oligonucleotides. The Tivi platform offers significantly improved biodistribution, which we think has a chance to have an improved therapeutic effect as well. So just a little bit of data from our OTV MAPC molecule. This is now looking in mice that express the human tau that is the target of our clinical candidate and looking both at the RNA level as well as the protein level at tau levels.
And the way this study was done in the first 2 weeks of the study, there were 4 doses administered and then measured NOPTRNA and tau protein over the course of the study. And what you could see this molecule is capable of potently knocking down to, and it does so in a sustained fashion. So in this study, it went out for 12 weeks after dosing, that's when we stopped it and it likely would prolong the knockdown for even longer time periods.
So very exciting data to say that we have a very potent molecule and potential for long dosing intervals and sustained knockdown. So this molecule, as Ryan mentioned earlier, we submitted the CTA in October of this year. So also full speed ahead. We're hoping for a clinical biomarker data by the first half of 2027.
And 1 thing I'll point out about this study is that we're going straight into MAD cohorts to enable us as rapidly as possible to assess levels of tau knockdown and to move on to further studies. SP-27 Okay. So those were the 2 -- 2 of our most advanced Alzheimer's programs.
Now I'm going to take a step back and look at a broader view, which Ryan had also mentioned before around looking at our platform, the TFR has become increasingly validated but also increasingly competitive space. And so we want to spend some time talking about how we feel like the TV platform really remains differentiated from the wealth of TFR competitors out there.
And I'm going to briefly touch on 4 aspects of our platform today. modularity, brain uptake, safety and architecture and just show you a few pieces of data on each of these to tell you about why we continue to be so excited about the TV platform and its potential to deliver a range of therapeutics.
So first, let's talk about modalities. And I won't go over all this slide in detail. This is all data that you saw during the presentations today, but it really highlights our ability to deliver a range of different therapeutics. That includes antibodies with our ATV platform all of the nucleotides with our OTD platform and then, of course, a range of enzymes with our ETV platform. So really, really broad potential to deliver therapeutics to the CNS using the TV.
Just to extend on that a little bit, I showed you data from our DN-0628, which is an ASO program. We also have gone on to show that we can deliver a range of different types of oligonucleotide therapeutics CNS using the TV. And here are just a couple of examples of that. So on the left-hand side, we're showing our ability to deliver siRNA. And both of these are just using MAPT tool molecules just because we have -- we had all of those reagents in-house.
And it is something that we are readily able to assess using preclinical studies. So what you see on the left-hand side of the slide is we can show similar knockdown using siRNA to what we were able to achieve with our ASO. So this is a modality we're able to readily deliver with our TV platform. And on the right is doing -- delivering a PMO which is an oligonucleotide specifically designed to alter splicing of a gene, right?
And what you could see is that we see in the bar graph on the bottom right, very nice alterations in splicing of tau with this molecule. Really highlighting that we can deliver any type of a nucleotide modality with the TV, and it further expands the range of potential targets that we can address. Lastly, in terms of modularity, I'll speak briefly about the receptor-mediated transcytosis targets themselves.
So we focused a lot today on TR. But we've also published papers showing that we can -- we've been able to generate TV molecules with an integrated binding site to [indiscernible] that also effectively deliver CNS drugs to the CNS, pardon me. And the biology of C9 is very different. So it enables a whole different set of targets that you go after with CR.
We've also very recently published that you can combine both the TFR and the C and NDA TVs. And what you get with this is really maximal brain delivery. So you can get to higher levels of brand delivery than you can with either TFR or CD98 individually. So we have a lot of potential in terms of the receptor media transcytosis targets that we can go after using the TV platform.
But I will reemphasize, I think, something that was mentioned earlier, which is TFR remains the highest capacity and by far, the best validated platform for delivery to the CNS and there's growing interest in a range of different transporters, but there's a reason why we've continued to focus on TFR based on that validation and proven ability to deliver high levels of molecule to the CNS.
Okay. Let's talk a minute about brain uptake. Here is just a comparison to 1 of the competitor platforms, which is used by 1 of the competitors we have in the enzyme space which is a high affinity bivalent binder to TFR, right? So one of the things about TfR-mediated drug delivery to the brain. It's a bit counterintuitive.
Highest affinity is not the best. Medium affinity tends to be best within a range depending on the molecule. And that's what you're looking at here. We're all just focus in on those pictures in the middle where all of those squiggly lines, that's the brain vasculature and what you could see with the TFR high affinity molecule is it's associated with the brain vasculature but it doesn't come off.
It doesn't come disconnected and enter the part of the brain parent. So it becomes permanently associated with the vasculature and is unable to dissociate and get to the target cells of interest, the neurons, the GLIA and all of that. In contrast, when you look at the ETV IDS molecule at 24 hours after a dose, you still see some molecules associated with the vascular vasculature, but a lot of it now is associated with neuron tea within the CNS.
Those are the target cells that we're most interested in rescuing and consistent with that, when you look at brain GAG levels in these animals, you can see that our TV molecule has significantly improved reduction of brain GAG accumulation compared to this high affinity competitor.
Okay. What about safety and this will touch on a little bit more of brain delivery as well? What we've taken the time to do it Denali is try to do head-to-head comparisons with as many of the competitors in the space as possible. That includes solving co-crystal structures of each of those molecules bound to TFR to identify where on the TFR protein sequence they bind A few examples are shown on that model, molecular model of TFR on the left-hand side of the slide.
And then we looked at their performance in terms of brain uptake and impact on reticulocytes compared to our molecule. And what we found interestingly was in direct head-to-head study, and these are all roughly affinity matched molecules, I should say, that the TV outperformed a number of different competitive molecules that were both different architectures and different epitopes from our TV platform.
And that's what's shown in the graph in the middle of the slide there. And what's more on the right-hand side of the slide, and this is something I highlighted before that we're able to deliver our molecules even when they have effector function without impacting reticulocytes, which is really the first sign of potential anemia risk, where some of these other architectures do impact reticulocytes.
And they don't -- even if that's not something that they talk about a lot, then we do see this in our comparator data. And that's what's shown on the right-hand side of the graph. So really nice data to support that our platform seems to be the most effective at delivery to the CNS. So what might be the reasons that that's the case.
I'll give you one of them here, which is architecture, right? So just a reminder that with our TV platform, the TFR binding is built into the molecule. So there's no appended sequences and this is designed to really minimize immunogenicity and maximize stability of the molecule. And in terms of stability of the molecule, that's exactly what we're seeing here. So in some of those same studies I showed you on the previous slide, look at the levels of intact molecule present after in vivo dosing, and we normalized it to one.
So like, of course, everything with our molecule is going to be one because it's an IgG, right? And so through both detection mechanisms, we see the same amount. However, with many of these competitor architectures, we see a decent amount of instability and clipping of that TFR seat went off the end of the molecule and once that TFR sequence comes cliff off, it's no longer a CNS penetrant molecule, right?
And that's what you see in the graph on the right is a significant amount of instability with some of these competitor architectures that have appended TFR binding domains. And this may limit the brain uptake of these molecules. So here's just a quick chart to summarize some of the landscape out there.
I'm, of course, not going to go through this is very complex for your reference. But just to really say that overall, we feel like the TV platform continues to compare very favorably to our competitors in this space. And then just to close, to say we heard a lot about our ETV franchise today, a little bit about our advanced Alzheimer's disease molecules, which we're quite excited about. But there's a lot more to come in terms of the potential of the TV platform.
We've fore shown our ability to deliver a range of modalities and there has potential in a range of different therapeutic areas. And so in addition to the molecules you heard about today, we have 3 additional molecules in the IND-enabling stage and greater than 10 additional preclinical molecules within our discovery portfolio. and a lot of exciting stuff that the team is really interested in moving forward.
And of course, we're continuing to innovate across the TV platform and differentiate our platform from competitors in the space. So with that, I'll close and hand it over to Dana to talk about our integrated manufacturing.
Thanks, Joe. As Joe just mentioned, I'll be discussing some of the steps we're taking to manufacture these molecules. And one of the big benefits or another benefit of our TV platform is because the FC were able to purify these very efficiently and effectively and manufacture these. So we use that Fc to use protein affine chromatography, the same step used globally in antibody manufacturing. And so our processes are shown in the middle look very much like a typical antibody process.
A choke fed bet cell culture front, followed by 3 purification steps to get your final product. And 1 of the benefits is now this is a very portable process. It fits very seamlessly in the global manufacturing capacity. We developed both by licensing and developing our own internal cell line of vector technology to give us sufficient production.
So for all of our programs, we're currently projecting our COGS to be less than our target, which is about 20% of revenues and in some cases much less than that. Also, because this is a platform process and fits very much kind of a standard facility, is to reduce our cost and time to quickly move these forward to IND to develop an initial process.
And high-productivity TV products, we believe also are very seamlessly fit and support large markets because of the productivity of the system. Now I'll be discussing the subsequent slides, the manufacturing we built internally to help support this. However, we also plan to continue using CDMOs contract manufacturers to support large-scale manufacturing to manage our capacity and efficiency as well as for items like drug product sterile filling and oligonucleotide synthesis where internalization is not yet beneficial.
So once we had proof of concept and have this platform of products coming behind, we decided to build our own internal manufacturing capability. This was completed earlier this year. And we've started that up in Q1 and have since made 8 batches in our site in Salt Lake City, which I'll come to in a minute.
One of the main drivers of this was to improve our speed and flexibility to move as many as programs as we can into the clinic quickly. Working through CDMOs, if you got challenging to quickly move things around. I mean, we're learning on the fly. We're getting data, and we have our own internal control of that.
It gives you the ability that when data comes and rationale changes, you can quickly change directions or move a product forward quickly and reprioritize yourself. It's also giving us cost efficiency by integrating that internal development and manufacturing. In fact, our first couple of programs we're doing internally, we're tracking 20% to 40% cheaper than what we were spending externally CDMOs. And maybe less obvious factors, it also eliminates the reservation fee.
Typically, when you kick off a project of a CMO, you make a commitment for the work this can be done in the manufacturing of several million dollars, and that can be significant bartaco moving a project forward. And so when we have the ability to do it eternal, we can move things more easily at risk, knowing that if we change our mind and we learn new data we can stop and change directions without that exposure to spend.
And then finally, gives us more control over our supply chain and as we move towards commercial, helps mitigate tariff exposures as well because we're doing this domestically. In summary that I think where there's an integrated platform advantage of doing this together. And one is you can really leverage your learnings across the portfolio because we have similar projects with this across the same platform.
And while certainly, you can learn things working with CDMOs and overseeing that work, in my experience, there's no substitute for that [indiscernible] you gain from having hands-on work doing it yourself in your labs developing the processes and analytics as well as the manufacturing to really be sure those learnings you really apply to the next project and continue to evolve your platform.
So specifically, we started up a manufacturing facility, as I mentioned, at Salt Lake City, and it's 2,000 later pirmeters in a single purification train. It's designed for single-use technology, which will become increasingly common for these early-stage biologics manufacturing over the last decade.
Now if you look at this figure, you're not familiar with this kind of manufacturing, you may look on the right and see you lost of stainless steel tanks and wonder how that is single-use disposables. But in fact, those are the shelves and for each batch, you drop in essentially pre-sterilized plastic bags and containers, you then run your process and when you're done at the batch, you pull those out, you dispose of them and then you're rate to drop in as a fresh set for the next batch.
So quickly, enables you to more quickly move between different products is obviously really helpful in early stage manufacturing. And also by eliminating all of the stainless steel piping and complexity of having to sterilize tanks, clean them between runs. It actually significantly reduces the capital of these plants.
One of the benefits of that reduced capital is because this is not as capital intensive anymore, now you don't need to run these super high utilization rates to be cost effective anymore. So in fact, our first year we're going to wait batches. And already, we're seeing cost benefits from doing that. But over time, we have a physical capacity to do up to 40 batches the year in this plant.
So to do that, we'll just add staff at shifts and enable us to continue to manufacture in the same facility at different run rates all cost effectively. This was designed to support both early and should say, design and support early clinical manufacturing, but we've realized that with DNO-126, our nice project coming along, we can reshore this to manufacture this and actually commercially launch this facility as well.
So that's what we're also intending to do. And then finally, I'll close with some more details on how we believe this integrated development and internal manufacturing really helps us drive speed, flexibility and value. And this cartoon on the first line is really how this works with traditional CMOs to move a molecule to IND. Initially, we develop internally what we think is the best molecule with working with our discovery group.
At some point, select the final sequence and then kick off work at a contract manufacturer to make the cell line, do the process development, make GLP material, make material and then file the IND. What this internal capability enables us to do start more things at risk. So very commonly now is moving projects towards that gate. We'll actually start cell lines in parallel with often 4 or more molecules while Joe's team is figuring out which 1 is the best when we want to move forward.
That way, we have a head start. We have some initial development work in a cell line most of the way made. So when we pull the trigger and know what the right molecule will move forward is we can immediately have a head start to move that quickly towards GMP manufacturing.
A second benefit is, especially with more complicated molecules, when you set your initial schedule with contract manufacturers, One of the challenges is that their manufacturing slots are often very full. They need to do that to be efficient and cost effective. And so they'll set several conservative schedules to be sure they don't miss that manufacturing slot given the uncertainty in development the sell-in the process.
In our case, we can set more aggressive schedules so that because we have the ability that if -- we get into the middle of talent and realized there was a surprise, something is harder than we think. We control that schedule. We can easily like swap things out, move things around. And I believe it will enable us to move faster.
I can say because it's our first 2 projects we've developed internally, we're projecting to hit IND about a quarter faster than we did for any previous project, and over time, expect it to even better as we get more experience in doing this. Secondly, it has also enabled us to reshore DNL-126 I mentioned and launch from this facility.
One of the big benefits of this is a challenge for companies when they are launching biologics is producing their launch material, which often is a significant expense, frequently before you even have your pivotal clinical data but then also reserving capacity at the contract manufacturer post launch to be sure you'll be able to make markets supply once you launch. These sums can be from tens of millions to in some cases, over $100 million in commitments and spend prior to launch.
In this case, by having it internal, we can more measure spend what we need to make the initial material and then really see how the demand signals are and rapidly respond and make material so dramatically reduce that commitment to spending at risk. And in bringing this process in-house, we'd realize additional benefit of being able to optimize the scale specifically for this program within our facility.
And for 126, we're able to modify the process to basically reduce our COGS by 50%. And this internal work, we're already seeing benefits of increasing our process understanding that makes it easier to later optimize the process to improve COGS and potentially also develop important IP around these programs.
So in summary, developing this integrated development and GMP manufacturing capacity in-house, we believe and is already showing benefits in reducing our risk, accelerating our time lines and producing longer-term mechanic benefits as well. And with that, I would like to hand things off to Alex to bring his home.
All right. Thank you, Dana. So in my section, I will discuss about how to deliver value, how to realize the value. In the last 2.5 hours, we discussed that we have a clinically validated and highly differentiated technology, which opens up huge potential. We focus on lysosomal storage disease and neurodegenerative diseases. There are other opportunities, but that's the focus right now.
However, to win in this space, an increasingly competitive and dynamic space to really win to win for patients and to win for all stakeholders involved, it needs more. It needs focused, efficient execution. So that's what's in my slide over the next few minutes here. Now where does this start? It starts with our broad portfolio. So this is the substrate that we work with.
So every program in this portfolio has a very clear rationale how this program is either first-in-class or best-in-class and can provide real benefit for patients in these diseases. Each of these programs has a sizable market opportunity shown on the right-hand side. And collectively, there is a wealth of milestones, which will deliver or unlock value as we go along in the near term and in the long term. Now how to win starts first with the right team and the right setting. So illustrated here, 520 Denalians as we call them in our 3 sites, the vast majority of them in South San Francisco.
And on the right-hand side, our now fully integrated capabilities. And this is more than an org chart. It really illustrates how now the seamless value chain of a molecule that is discovered on the third floor in South San Francisco, moves through the hands often alliance from discovery through development to Dana's manufacturing organization and then ultimately, to Katie's commercial organization as now with the team that is interacting directly with physicians.
I do want to highlight 3 areas which we consider as true durable advantages, which will help us really differentiate ourselves from others in this field. So the first one on the top left is really unparalleled experience in blood-brain barrier science. So there are over 30 PhD scientists that are dedicated and understand this field better than anyone else.
Some of the most prominent members in this field from academia have come and joined us and are part of this team. This team has an unparalleled publication record. We showed some of the published papers today and is working in the latest facilities with the in-house in vivo facilities.
But then also imaging, the power of imaging, we saw some of the pictures today where we can trace the drug from -- really from the vein to the brain, all the way down into the deeper subcellular structures where we can demonstrate that the life that the enzyme actually gets into the lysosome, the site of action where it needs to work.
On the bottom right, Dana just mentioned the manufacturing facility. This was a big investment that we made back in '20 -- or the decision for the investment that we made back in 2021. And when we have the first proof-of-concept data, and we have the confidence that we have a platform which can deliver many programs and with those many programs comes the scale.
And as Dana described this advantage now allows us to be faster, to problem solve quicker and to also manufacture our molecules at about 30% to 40% less cost than it would take us at the CMO. And then lastly, our now fully integrated commercial organization that Katie spoke about. So the team is fully on board. It's onboarded I do want to say that after the FDA delayed our PDUFA date by 90 days, we did not delay our internal commercial readiness activities.
We want to be ready if and when the FDA gives us the green light, and we want to be ready to commercialize on day -- now such an organization does require capital. It does require substantial capital, but it also requires really focused priorities and how we spend that capital.
So first is really clarity on the strategy. So right now, there are 2 things, which is launch 2 drugs in 2 years. So that's Tivi in 2026 and then DNL-126 in 2027 but at the same time, invest in this rich and broad early-stage pipeline that can deliver so many more programs in lysosomal storage diseases, but then also in the common neurodegenerative diseases.
The second is really to drive capital efficiency. So this is to learn from our experience to apply those learnings and to develop the NEXT programs subsequently at faster speed and at lower cost. And the last one is always to maintain capital optionality. So partnerships continue to be a core part of our strategy.
We have 3 existing successful partnerships Biogen, Sanofi and Takeda. And we now look to diversifying sources of capital. And I'll get to the announcement from this morning about our partnership now with Royalty Pharma that we're very excited about in a second. So the commercial -- the financial foundation at this point.
At the end of Q3, we had $873 million in cash with the expected additional EUR 275 million over time that will come in from our Royalty Pharma partnerships. In addition, over the next few years, we expect contributions from the 2 products, which we expect to launch. And then lastly, the 3 partnerships that we have, they contribute to our OpEx through cost share and milestone income.
So a word about the deal that we announced this morning. We're very excited about the deal. We're very excited about the partner. So I can say that this was a highly competitive partnering process, where at the end, we're very pleased that we ended up with what we consider favorable terms for us, but also in a partnership with Royalty Pharma, who not only pioneered this type of structure, but is also known for their deep scientific diligence and being a reliable partner to their companies over time.
So under this agreement, we are set to receive $275 million, of which $200 million would fund upon U.S approval of tivi and then another $75 million would fund a European approval of tivi, both within certain predefined time frames. In return, we agreed to pay 9.25% royalty payable on worldwide net sales of tividenofusp alpha. Up until the point when certain caps are reached, it's either in a 2.5% cap if reached by the first quarter of 2039 or 3x cap thereafter.
So this investment, even though it's funded upon tivi approval, gives us significant planning certainty that we have the resources needed to successfully launch tivi and to expand the pipeline.
Now before I wrap this section, I do want to show a case study here, a case study, which gets to the point of increasing efficiency and speed. And this, on the right-hand side, it puts side-by-side, the time and the cost it took us, or it takes us to bring tivi to the market with an expected launch in the first quarter of next year. And what it is expected to take us for DNL-126, so for the drug for San Filippo with an expected launch at the end of 2027. And on the left-hand side, there are all the elements that I spoke about sort of really using streamlined clinical development studies and validated biomarkers. When we started with tivi in 2020, we had to build everything from scratch, including the clinical development plan, and there were no validated biomarkers. Nobody had developed an enzyme that would cross through the blood-brain barrier. There was no way to assess the potential effect in the brain.
Now as we discussed in the panel here today, this is we understand how to look at the effects in the brain. We understand the biomarkers. We had a successful interaction with regulators last year at the Reagan-Udall Foundation meeting to validate heparan sulfate as a surrogate marker that reasonably predicts clinical benefit in patients. We also now have established relationships with clinical sites with CROs. We have the in-house manufacturing. And of course, the commercial team that launched the first product is exactly the same commercial team that launched the second product because these patients are treated by the same physicians in the same centers and have shared many of the dynamics.
So shown on the right-hand side what that translated to, well, for tivi, it will have taken us 5.5 -- a little over 5.5 years, which is not terrible in the greater scheme of drug development time lines, but it will have taken us $700 million because we build everything from scratch. Now with all the synergies and with all the learnings, we expect that 126, we can bring 126 to the market in 4 years. And in the end, it will cost us just under half of that amount.
In addition to the great team that we have in-house, we also want to highlight our broad network of collaborators. Partnerships have always been a key part of our overall strategy. And this reaches from partnerships in academia that help us really strengthen our depth in the science to the partnerships with global pharma companies which help us on execution and on the global, and we have now a largely wholly owned portfolio, which opens up additional partnerships, which we always consider, but we do continue to set a very high bar with respect to the terms, the right partner at the right time.
So that brings me almost to the end here. So we are very excited. We're in the 11th year of Denali. We started in 2015, and we're entering a new phase on what we call the path to the summit. So the first 5 years, 2015 to 2020, that was the discovery phase. That was the discovery and the invention of the transport vehicle and all the early validation work. In 2020, we had the first clinical proof-of-concept data. Many of you were with us at the time when we showed data when we saw, for the first time, the data after 5 patients treated with DNL310 and we saw normalization in heparan sulfate in 4 out of those 5 patients, which was a very strong result that, in fact, almost exceeded our expectations at the time. So that was when we entered into the development phase. That was when we had confidence that we have a platform that works that we can now expand to additional targets when we made the decision to build the manufacturing facility, and we built the broad clinical stage portfolio.
Now 2025, we're just at the step to go into the next phase. That's the delivery phase to deliver medicines to patients with the launch of our first drug imminently. Now this is only, again, another step on the way to sum it for the next 3 years, Ryan, for the first time now introduced 3-year goals. So these goals will guide our path forward, they will also measure us on the path forward. So by the end of 2028, we want to have two growing brands, tividenofusp alpha for Hunter syndrome and DN126 for San Filippo. We also expect to have five meaningful clinical readouts with clinical proof of concept, two of those in Alzheimer's disease for Abeta and for tau, in frontotemporal dementia with progranulin program in GAA or in Pompe disease with our GAA molecule, but then also with our small molecule LRRK2 inhibitor program.
In addition to that, Joe's discovery organization is enormously productive. There is no scarcity on ideas about where the transport vehicle could be really impactful, and we expect to bring four to six more programs into the clinic.
Along the way, there will be a wealth of milestones. I will not go through this slide. It's in the handout version, but I look forward to having these discussions with many of you over the course of the next few month [indiscernible].
So that brings the presentation to the end. We couldn't be more excited about where we are today. We are entering this new phase about delivering medicines to patients to really unlocking the full potential of biotherapeutics for the whole body, including the brain and really doing this for the patients that are on these images, all of these are very close and very personal to us. and then hopefully to many more patients beyond that around the world. So thank you to all of you for joining us here today and for joining on the Denali journey over the last 10 years and for many years to come. Thank you.
So we'll have the management team, those who have presented come on up, Joe, Dana, Kate, Peter, and we'll take your questions. We have set aside about 20-plus minutes for Q&A. And then Laura, if you want to start passing it around, it'd be great.
This is [indiscernible]. I have one question for the Abeta program and two for the tau. The recent CTAD, the trontinemab, there are two Phase III trials. It was interesting to see that they kind of excluded the patients on anticoagulants. The question is, given the safety profile which you see, how do you look at -- I mean it's still more advanced, but do you think that it can be -- it can have more broader application where -- given the safety profile with ARIA. Do you think that you can probably get -- reduce that gap because that was one of the debated question which was asked during the tronti presentation.
Okay. Just so I can restate the question and probably Joe and I will will answer it. So with trontinemab, you're asking where is the gap -- what's the remaining gap for differentiation using DNL921. That's the question. And you mentioned the Phase III trial. And obviously, there were some data presented on long-term hemoglobin. So maybe I'll start, and Joe, you can add to that. So I think obviously, there's going to be many players in the Alzheimer's space. And a lot of this will come down to some of the nuances who will actually be the best in class. So obviously, for us, one area of differentiation is reduced risk of anemia. Now as we've seen in our own programs, where there's some baseline anemia, this is manageable, reversible, monitorable, right? But still, if you think about this long-term use, especially in the elderly population, I think there's an opportunity for differentiation there. I think ARIA, we're definitely -- and I think the mechanism we proposed and that we published in Science is probably a universal mechanism for transparent receptor approaches, meaning that type of biodistribution will reduce the risk of ARIA for any Abeta antibody because of this perivascular localization. Now we still believe that there could be room for differentiation there. But I think the last point is going to be probably subcu dosing, dose frequency and that dynamic. And Joe, I'll hand it to you if you have any other thoughts.
No, I think you said it well, Ryan. I mean, I think the potential for subcu is huge in terms of winning that market. I think in addition to differentiation, there's also speed. I think tronti for better, for worse, has blazed the trail in terms of how you can progress quickly in these studies and what type of data you need to make early decisions. And we are building that into our clinical development strategy to be able to move as quickly as possible and narrow that gap. In terms of differentiation, I think Ryan got it right. There are subtleties to the molecule, and I shared some of them today, but preclinically at least, we do feel like we have a superior profile. Of course, we'll have to see whether that translates clinically. But what's going to really win the day in this space, as you mentioned, is a really safe molecule. And if we can come as close as possible to eliminating ARIA as an effect, I think that's going to really change the landscape. So these are things that we're shooting for.
And I think at the risk of going too deep in our preclinical science, we -- the comparisons that we have are literal comparisons. We've made competitor molecules. We've solved crystal structures we've compared. And I think the most interesting data in that process that Joe shared and I just want to reemphasize it because I think it's so important is the stability of these basically tagged conventional fab approaches. So almost universally we're seeing that they don't have sustained exposure. And we knew that, that was an issue back in 2014 when it was first proposed, the brain shuttle like architecture. So we think that's a big area for differentiation. How that plays out clinically, we will see I think maybe the immunogenicity, I think, reported like 40% to 50%. That's probably an area where that plays out because now you have this sort of clipped molecule and potential immunogenicity.
Great. Can I ask -- so one question on the MAPT program. The recently Biogen published using our radio label tracer technique that their [ 080 ] cannot get into the deep brain regions. And so the question is how important it is for the tau program to reach the deep brain region in terms of differentiation. And the second very quick follow-up is, there has been a lot of discussions on endogenous tau 243 as a biomarker becoming more and more relevant in conjunction with the P tau 217. So as you were kind of designing your Phase Ib, are you thinking of integrating that kind of biomarker approaches to the trial?
Do you want to answer that, Joe?
Yes. So I mean I think the first question was around biodistribution, as I understand, right? And your -- I mean getting access to the deep brain regions, even when we talk about deep brain it's even deeper cortical regions, absolutely critical. And the best way to think about it is the brain is a super highly vascularized organ. TFR is delivered through capillary beds. And there's no neuron that's more than a few microns from a capillary. So when you're delivering through capital, you're really by nature delivering to all parts of the brain very effectively, right? So we do feel like -- and that's why I showed some of that nonhuman primate data today, really fundamentally different from a biodistribution perspective. When comparing to the Biogen molecule, I think the Biogen ASO does have very encouraging data, right? And so when you combine perhaps not the best biodistribution with already encouraging data, it makes us really excited about the potential that we can get with improved biodistribution and also a potent oligonucleotide. In terms of clinical development strategy, absolutely. I mean I think looking at total tau levels in CSF is a very easy first readout in terms of making sure you hit target in early-stage clinical studies. But there are a range of now tower biomarkers in development that have been developed and are increasing in validation that can be extremely useful. And that includes additional CSF tau biomarkers as well as to tau PET imaging you can really look at the impact on pathology. And the way that we've designed a Phase Ib study is we're able to get -- we're hoping to be able to get many of those readouts even from a Phase Ib before you decide to move forward to larger studies.
And then I think very specifically, the forms of Fospotau, it's a little different when you have an oligonucleotide medicine because you reduced total tau. I think when you look at an anti-amyloid, and you measure something like Fospotau217, you're trying to infer the additional protection based on that biomarker. But when you're actually targeting tau directly, our expectation is to produce probably all forms of Fospotau. So it's not going to be quite -- I just see it differently than, let's say, a non-direct mechanism like an anti-amyloid.
Next question. There's a lot. We'll try to answer more quickly.
Madison Alsol with B. Riley Securities. I wanted to ask about the 628 time line. The CTA was submitted in October. You're saying data the first half biomarker data. We would have expected data a bit sooner. Is that related to any pool specifics, or are you just waiting to have a more comprehensive readout in first half '27?
Yes. So I'll give a couple of answers to that, right? Part of it is as we've matured as an organization, over the last decade, we realize that more mature data sets are more impactful. They're longer lasting. We learned this in the hunter program, that basically, over time, as we get -- and we're learning this obviously with 126 as well, we'll be presenting 126 at world. So part of that is allowing us to have a robust enough data package. The second, which is actually a very interesting dynamic about how Tao has a very long half-life. And I think it was referenced some of these silk labeling studies, which you look at the half-life of both tau and neurofilament. Neurofilament, for example, half life is 260 days. So you can run a short-term study and see a reduction of NFL if you're actually looking at that. tau also has a very long half-life. So part of that is the dynamics. We have to treat long enough to to see this reduction in tau. So we're building in this concept of robustness and understanding the actual dynamics of tau that targets that 2027 horizon.
Understood. And if I may also ask about manufacturing, so perhaps for Dana. I assume at the in-house facility, you're heavily utilizing solid face synthesis. Wondering if you are also looking to implement enzymatic ligation and then improving the COGS margin above the 20%. Is that just a result of scale? Or are there some other aspects at play?
So for the -- to be clear for the oligos, we're not doing that in-house, we're using contract manufacturers. We're only doing the biologic manufacturing and then do the conjugation in-house. We actually are looking at both approaches out for the oligo manufacturing, you mentioned both the [ endilgation ] as well as solid state synthesis. And then the total cost numbers will include combining both that contain antibody. So these are a bit more challenging and that you have more to make.
This is [indiscernible] on for Andrew at Jefferies. I just wanted to ask a quick question on Abeta. So you talked a little bit about potential subcu convenience I was curious like what dosing frequency you could potentially explore? And then if you're eligible for subcu, is this something that could potentially be dosed at home or you see lower rates of REF, for example?
Yes. I'll start. I'm sure Peter and Joe have something to add here. So the -- as I mentioned, in the future, of AD therapy, it's really going to be a diagnostic disease where you start to see biomarkers change and then we address plaque reduction and tau reduction very early before any cognitive decline. With that in mind, I think the two things you have to think about is safety, which is what we're really engineering on with keeping at least equal, if not better efficacy, but convenience. And so we think -- especially for ATV:Abeta, the subcu dosing, that would be the goal. And it's actually very interesting to see the dose frequency that our competitors that could be because of risk of reticulocyte depletion and anemia that you go from monthly dosing and then shift to once every three months, but also could be the fact that with the BBB technologies, you clear so rapidly that you almost are switching to a maintenance like dose, right? But I do think -- I mean I would be brilliant the future would be some type of subcu dosing that could be administered at home. But I think what you're going to be using is these biomarkers to determine, am I starting to develop amyloid plaque. Now I have this safe therapy that I can remove amyloid and then shift the entire disease. I don't know if Peter or Joe wants to add anything to that.
We were just mumbling about it. I mean I think subcu is a huge opportunity. We do believe our molecule is going to be compatible with subcu formulations, which is big. In terms of exact dosing regimens, that's not something we've nailed down yet. I think as Ryan mentioned, what we've learned from tronti is these TFR-enabled molecules have -- are extremely active, right? And so the paradigm that was the case for the first generation Abetas may not be exactly the same for some of these TFR-enabled molecules. And so we build in a clinical studies, the ability to do some dose finding and try to understand that early on.
Any thoughts, Peter, to add that there?i
So that's the only thing I was going to say is that there's optionality being built into the Phase I study to evaluate both IV and subcu doses.
Great. And then maybe one more, if I may. On the Hunter confirmatory Compass readout, do you expect presumably filing in 2028 or something. Would that include both the neuronopathic and non-neuronopathic patients?
Yes, Peter?
Yes. So that study is anticipated to recruit by the end of this year. And it's a 96-week time frame for Cohort A, which is the pivotal cohort. So we do expect having the entire data package knowing that Cohort B is a shorter time frame. So it's a 1-year comparison.
I'll just add another point. It's been really interesting to see the evolution of the FDA from Hunter to San Filippo. And our friends in the community here, Kim knows us very well, we were -- we did not want to run active comparator study [indiscernible]. There was no desire to have a comparison with [indiscernible], real demand from the agency at the time. Obviously, with San Filippo, it's an entirely different dynamic because now you have -- first, there is no active comparator. And both U.S. FDA and EU EMA are much more open to this idea of a natural history comparator, single study. And so that's -- it's been interesting to see that evolution. But anyway, we answered your question specifically on compass.
John Thome from TD Cowen. Just one on to the -- I guess, what's left with the FDA review? If you're already in labeling discussions, it feels like maybe you're more on track for the initial PDUFA date versus April, I guess, manufacturing site been inspected or anything left there? And then maybe on the payer side of things, if you do pursue a slightly premium pricing strategy, I guess, is there any concern that payers may require some sort of documentation of CMS symptom progression before reimbursement? And maybe just lastly, broadly, obviously, with some of these indications, you can take them through pivotal studies and market them yourselves, but some indications you're looking at are obviously larger. So I guess, how comfortable do you feel taking these to a certain level before looking for a partner.
Okay. I got the first and second...
Yes.
You got the second?
Yes. I got the second.
So let's start there. Let's start with the second.
Yes, in terms of payer coverage, at this point in time, based on our discussions with them and similar to the standard of care today, we don't expect additional testing required. And the payer reimbursement and coverage will likely be very much aligned to our indication statement from the label.
And then the first question is what else is left done. And I think as you all know, we had a in the PDUFA date related to this molecular weight discrepancy in the population PK calculation. At the time, we thought the FDA is pretty overwhelmed. They'll use this to take the extra time. Everything just continued. Late cycle meeting, draft label, we come back and forth on the label. So it's actually -- and then we continue to finish the diligence around CMC. And so we're at the point where we start discussing what would be the post-marketing commitments. That's kind of where we're moving towards. And so I can go into much more detail than that, but it's -- we'll just say that we're very enthusiastic that everything continued, and they actually said as much, and they said this is basically like a statutory thing because we have to change this population PK. We weren't sure we necessarily thought that would be the case, but they have continued. And it's been really productive, really engaging with the FDA.
And on the third part, with respect to partnering. So on the enzymes, I think we've shown and we plan to take those forward ourselves, that will be commercial foundation for the company. On neurodegeneration, it's a different thing, right? So we are very well equipped to take these programs to clinical proof of concept, biomarker proof of concept or maybe even clinical thereafter. Those are absolutely partnering open.
Charlie Moore with Baird here. I was just curious thinking about the OTV MAPT program. When you think about intrathecal versus intravenous, is there any risk that you're thinking about in terms of thrombocytopenia there that's been seen with ASO is the systemic versus potentially the intrathecal having somewhat of a better profile might be more restricted to the CNS.
Yes, it's a good question. I think what you're referencing is probably avidity and [indiscernible] maybe some of the others that are getting all the goes across well in the muscle tissue in particular, but with very high affinity and very high doses. I think the thing you have to look at is when others report just determine that MIG dose is that the oligo, or is it the entire construct, and you can actually calculate the entire dose that's being given based on that calculation. So I think dose is one. The second is we don't see that as a -- like we have seen it as a class effect for TFRs. What you're referring is maybe it's a classic with TFRs, combined with oligonucleotides. And I don't know if the one case or that avidity saw that, that would be the case. I can't comment on that. I mean there's a lot of debate what that means. So that's -- and then I think the other issue, and it's already pointed out, and I think Joe is exactly right, the initial data is very promising with intrathecal delivery, probably more so than we thought because we don't see great distribution, as Joe showed in the presentation in nonhuman primates throughout the central nervous system when you use intrathecal. However, when you use transfer receptor enabled, you get this even distribution. So I think our expectation is much better and much more uniform reduction in tau expression.
Yes. And maybe just one other thing to add to that is actually in one of our papers that Science Translational Medicine paper that we published looking at our OTV platform, actually did a direct comparison to a molecule much like ability, high TFR binding and looking at that head-to-head. And it's surprising how different those molecules behave, right? So that, in addition to a clean safety profile preclinically, we felt pretty confident about that, but that might be something to take a look at as well SP1 And just to highlight, we saw equal muscle distribution regardless of like the moderate affinity but essentially no brain uptake in the high affinity avidity construct.
Gina Wem from Barclays. So maybe one big picked questions like you mentioned a lot about subcu. And I do believe this is the future of the delivery to the brain. So maybe what are the technology challenge there and a different modality, what will be the hurdle if you can elaborate a little bit.
Yes. So if I can summarize the question, if subcu is the future, what's the limiting factor? And I think often it's dose. So you need to have a potent enough molecule that allows you to give a low enough dose to formulate subcu. So it's the concentration and Dana can add more to that. I think across each one of these therapeutic areas, we are going to optimize efficacy and then in the context of convenience. So subcu is often an issue of convenience. But I think the data that we see is that, at least with A beta and with oligonucleotides, they're extraordinarily potent. So it's very hard to deliver a dose like we just discussed in some of the egress with other TFR platforms that hot subcu. So it's really the amount of dose you need to drive efficacy that's the limiting factor. So it's the potency of the warhead. Now for enzyme replacement therapies, it's an entirely different dynamic because these patients have no natural enzyme. And as a result, it's -- you have to slow the infusion rate. So you can't -- subcu is not an option there. But that's categorically, I think, different. Do you want to add anything else, Dana?
I mean there's a lot of work going on with larger volume or subcu devices as well, which I think will also probably play a role in some of these modalities where we do think you may have fair amount of drug.
Julian Pino with Stifel working with [indiscernible]. I just have a couple of questions on Hunter. So I guess just for thinking about distribution between neuronopathic versus non-neuronopathic. I guess just how much consensus is there on the community with respect to the proportion of those patients with those diagnoses. And when thinking about accelerated approval, do you mind just putting some potential bookends on what proportion of sales you potentially be able to access ex U.S.? You talked about name patient sales before? And then just one more on the confirmatory Phase II, Phase III. Can you just go over the co-primary endpoints again on that study. We kind of went through that slide kind of quick. Does that apply to both cohorts in that confirmatory Phase III. And I guess just what gives you confidence in the ability to succeed, given there's some variability around these scales for these patients?
So 3 questions you're testing our memory. So Katy, you go the first 2, yes.
So in terms of what I showed from a prevalence perspective, we do have claims data. So we feel pretty confident in the distribution between attenuated and neuronopathic or severe patients. And that is because of the difference in the gift the teeth patients lifts well into adulthood. In terms of our global expansion yes, we've identified many markets outside the U.S. that will accept a U.S. CPP. And so many of these markets in the Middle East and Israel in Asia, they will accept marketing authorization using the U.S. approval. So definitely, we're going to pursue those markets and, of course, pursue reimbursement thereafter. So we do believe that 60% of the market can be unlocked. Now there will be discussions around reimbursement. So often you can get registration, you can get regulatory approval, but then the reimbursement piece will be critical. And that having the COMPASS data will help us consider what is the pricing on a pricing strategy for those markets.
And then the Phase III question around Compass, I'll hand it to Peter around may end points and our confidence in those.
Yes. So the co-primary endpoint for Cohort A is CS FHS and being in adaptive behavioral scale. The Bailey scales into development is an important secondary endpoint. And so we sort of view both of those as being really important for demonstrating the efficacy. The powering is based on the E2 data that we showed and the sample size was actually increased from the original based on that data. We feel confident because the way that we've designed the study is to recruit patients that are between two and six with a higher proportion that are younger, who are more likely to benefit. And so that's basically the the Cohort A. Your question about Cohort B, it's not powered for superiority, and it's not powered on the cognitive outcomes because this is a non-neuronopathic cohort. And so we'll be looking at comparability with other kinds of clinical outcomes that are more systemic.
And that was actually guidance from the FDA around Cohort B was comparability, so that actually can happen very early on. The FDA was very encouraging around sort of attenuated and showing comparability. That being said, we're -- we do see signs of improvement in peripheral manifestations beyond that.
Let's take the question upfront here because like one more, and I know we're out of time, but let's just do because I just I feel bad.
This is Chang for [indiscernible], Oppenheimer. Maybe for tivi, I'm curious about we can talk about the commercial product, how it looks like in terms of the infusion time volume and also for the label, I know adipic has some box warning. So whether or expecting to have a similar label or maybe potentially cleaner label and happen, a quick question Abeta, if I may.
Okay. Let's start with the tivi, and maybe I'll answer it. We were going to get to this point on the panel, and Dr. Burton has since left. We had a great discussion last infusion time. So maybe you may that Elaprase, its infusion time is 3 hours. But as fast as 1 hour. And I don't know if I am I missing Dr. Burton back there, he not there. And basically, her take was that she never infuses faster than 3 hours. So we're looking at basically 4 hours for tivi within that same range. Obviously, our goal, and I think as we've discussed switching, the dynamic of coming in, establishing tolerance and enable to dose at home. And there you can use like a backpack. And so this is something -- and we had a long discussion in up to this, but we didn't get that question in the panel. So I think that's point number one. Do you want to address point number -- or so point number 2 is on the label and...
Yes, maybe the black spots or...
Oh yes, so our expectation is it will look like all enzyme replacement therapies, which have warnings around IRRs and anaphylaxics, like that's what ERTs, and that's just the reality of these medicines.
Got it. A quick question for Abeta. I think you mentioned you can move to Phase III from Phase I. So I'm just wondering if you're thinking about mild-to-moderate AD or maybe potentially preclinical AD because we may see some data from the 2 trials in the coming years. And also whether you are thinking about some other population like Alzheimer's patients with Down syndrome, which with our differentiated profile.
I'm going to hand it to Peter who's our invest neurologists and knows this field well, like what do you think of the Phase III -- without -- I mean, we're speculating now basically.
Yes, yes. So ways away. We've got to get through the Phase Ib first. I think to Ryan's point earlier, what we want to do drive treatment earlier. And so aiming for an earlier intervention, prodromal and mild may be the right place to go. That doesn't preclude studying moderate patients, but I think driving treatment earlier is where the field is heading.
Yes. And we'll see president will be set soon, as you point out. And I think it will change the sort of dynamic. And the question is, do you have a safe drug that hits the biomarker, and you see that correlation now with plaque reduction and cognitive benefit, that's really the dynamic that you want to go after. So I agree that we would probably go as early as possible.
I think, Laura, we probably should call it. I mean, we'd love to answer all of your questions. Thank you so much for coming here in early December. It's been great to be with you all. It's great to see you in this context as well. So thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Analyst/Investor Day - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Analyst/Investor Day - Denali Therapeutics Inc.
🎯 Kernbotschaft
- Kernaussage: Denali präsentiert die Transport‑Vehicle(Transferrin‑Receptor)-Plattform als klinisch validierten Weg, Enzyme, Oligonukleotide und Antikörper sowohl in das Gehirn als auch in sonst schwer erreichbare Gewebe zu bringen. Das Ziel: Kommerzielle ETV‑Franchise (Lysosomale Speicherkrankheiten) plus Programme für Alzheimer und andere CNS‑Indikationen.
🚀 Strategische Highlights
- ETV‑Franchise: Fokus auf Hunter (MPS II, tividenofusp alfa) und San‑Filippo (DNL‑126); Management sieht adressierbaren Umsatz >$1 Mrd. für erste Indikationen.
- Alzheimer: Zwei TV‑Programme: DNL‑921 (ATV Aβ) und DNL‑628 (OTV‑MAPT ASO) mit Ziel für frühe biomarker‑gestützte Proof‑of‑Concept‑Daten.
- Execution: Eigene Produktionsstätte (Salt Lake City) zur Beschleunigung und Kostensenkung; drei Partnerschaften (Biogen, Sanofi, Takeda) und neue Royalty‑Vereinbarung zur Kapitalerhaltung.
🆕 Neue Informationen
- Finanzierung: Deal mit Royalty Pharma bis zu $275 Mio. gegen Royalty‑Stream (Details im Transkript genannt) verbessert Planbarkeit vor Launch.
- Regulatorisch: TIV: Abschluss des Late‑Cycle‑Meetings und fortlaufende Label‑Verhandlungen; PDUFA‑Timing verschoben. FDA weist auf mögliche Ineligibilität für Priority Review Voucher (PRV) hin aufgrund eines formalen Timing‑Problems.
- Programmstatus: Klinischer Hold für Pompe (ETV‑GAA) nach Präklinischem Hypersensitivitätsbefund in Mäusen; Protokolländerungen eingereicht.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Sicherheit: Kernthema ARIA (amyloid‑assoziierte Bildgebungseffekte) und Anämie/Retikolzyten‑Signale; Investoren fragten nach Differenzierung gegenüber anderen TfR‑Ansätzen.
- Kommerz/Marktzugang: Diskussion zu Newborn‑Screening (Incidenz, Rollout), Switch‑Prozessen von bestehender ERT zu TV‑Therapie, sowie zu Erstattungs‑/Preis‑Erwartungen.
- Dosis & Formulierung: Interesse an Sub‑Q‑Optionen und Dosierungsfrequenz für ATV‑Aβ; frühe Studien sind so angelegt, dass IV‑ und Sub‑Q‑Regime getestet werden können.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Investor Day macht sichtbar, dass Denali vom reinen Platform‑Developer zum produktnahen Biopharma‑Unternehmen übergeht: Near‑term‑Katalysatoren sind TIV‑Zulassung/Launch, DNL‑126‑Entwicklung und Alzheimer‑POC‑Daten. Chancen sind substantiell; Risiken bleiben regulatorische Timing‑fragen, der Pompe‑Hold und Sicherheits/Erstattungs‑Unsicherheiten.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
1. Question Answer
Okay. We're going to get started with our next session. I'm Andrew Tsai, Senior Biotech Analyst at Jefferies, and it's my pleasure to have the Denali team with me today. To my direct right, Ryan Watts, CEO; and to his right, Alex Schuth, CFO. Welcome, both of you.
Yes. Great to be here. Thanks.
Maybe we can spend a couple of minutes for those less familiar with the Denali story, talk about what you're working on, what you're trying to achieve, milestones that we can expect over the next 12 to 24 months, and then we go from there.
Great. Great to be here in London. Thanks for the invitation. Exciting time at Denali, exciting time in the tissue distribution, blood-brain barrier field, especially as we've been working on this for over, I guess, now 2 decades across multiple companies. And what you're seeing is, I think, the beginning of the next class of medicines using transferrin receptor for tissue distribution to brain, to muscle, to bone. And I think it's a very unique opportunity to open up a new class of medicines using transferrin receptor and other receptors to cross the blood-brain barrier.
So just as a bit of background, we've invented the transport vehicle technology with the goal of doing 2 things. One is to cross the blood-brain barrier and the second is to defeat degeneration. And we believe in our first program, our Hunter program, we've achieved both, both at the biomarker level. And now as we start to see these patients who have been on medicine now over 4 or 5 years, really have substantial benefit in hearing and cognition and behavior.
We're the first to submit a BLA using the transferrin receptor technology, of course, in the U.S. We have a program that's under review right now. This is tividenofusp alfa, formerly known as DNL310. And then we have another program on the heels of that in Sanfilippo as well.
I think really exciting in the last quarter. We just filed our first regulatory filing for an Alzheimer's medicine, getting an oligonucleotide across the blood-brain barrier using again the transferrin receptor technology or the transport vehicle technology.
So in terms of milestones, I think as we go through each program, we'll discuss them. It's worth mentioning that our ETV franchise is growing beyond Hunter, Sanfilippo with a regulatory filing an IND filing for Pompe. This is ETV:GAA. And then, of course, we see this near-term potential in our Alzheimer's portfolio with tau, but also with Abeta.
So again, preparing for our first commercial launch, bringing multiple medicines forward. We had guided towards 1 to 2 new INDs this year. We ended up filing 2, and bringing these programs into the clinic. The same will be next year. We expect another Alzheimer's medicine, our Abeta program and then 1 or 2 others.
And I guess with that, we'll dive into questions.
Okay. Sounds good. We'll tackle these one by one. But you are hosting an R&D Day, I think, December 4. Can you give us a teaser what you plan to share? Is it something across the pipeline? Or is it -- are you focused on 1 or 2 assets? And any color would be helpful.
Yes. Great. So there's really 3 major themes for R&D Day. This is on December 4 in New York. The first is around engineering brain and whole body delivery. So the details around transferrin receptor delivery around transport vehicle delivery. The second is laying the foundation for our ETV franchise, specifically the first commercial launch, the next product going into details, obviously, we'll have, I think, guest speaker talking about the opportunity in lysosomal storage diseases, and in Pompe, and then focusing on tivi and that launch. And I think the last piece will be around Alzheimer's disease. Obviously, there are many opportunities we can pursue with the transport vehicle technology, but it just happens to be that the most present one now is tau and Abeta. And so we'll focus on that. But I think woven into all of this are principles of engineering that set the transport vehicle apart from many of these other conventional fab-based approaches.
Great. And so let's shift gears to tivi, which has a PDUFA April 2026. So can you give us a sense of how big the Hunter's market is in terms of U.S. versus ex U.S. patients? What is the peak sales opportunity for your product?
Yes, I'll address that. So I mean, first, we're super excited to be at the start line to start commercializing tivi to launch our first drug. We hear tremendous enthusiasm from families and physicians who believe that the drug is clearly differentiated from the standard of care, being able to treat the whole body, including the brain, so to have the broad tissue distribution.
With respect to the market opportunity, the best benchmark here is the standard of care is Elaprase. Elaprase has been on the market since 2006. Annual sales are between $650 million and $700 million. With respect to the global distribution, it's about 1/3 in the U.S., 1/3 in Europe and 1/3 in the rest of the world.
Understood. And let's just say this was approved. This is technically an accelerated approval. So when you launch, how will you be marketing this relative Elaprase because you don't necessarily have generated the confirmatory data that's going on to tell physicians we're superior to Elaprase. So what -- where is the low-hanging fruit when you launch exactly?
Yes. So the Phase I/II data, which is the basis for accelerated approval is actually a very robust study. The primary endpoint here was reduction, normalization of heparan sulfate, which is the substrate of the enzyme that is missing in these children with Hunter syndrome. Heparan sulfate is very well understood by physicians. It's actually measured routinely in clinical practice to measure the treatment effect of Elaprase. In addition to normalization of heparan sulfate, we've also shown normalization of neurofilament. So neurofilament is now an established marker of neuronal damage. And by normalizing neurofilament, damage is essentially halted in the brains of these children. And the third piece is that we have very encouraging clinical data with respect to behavior, cognition and improvement in hearing. So while this is in an open-label study, I think it does provide the robust package to show superiority to standard of care.
I'll just add one other point, which is it's recognized that there's significant room for improvement in patients that are treated with Elaprase, both I think, in dose and in biomarkers. And the majority of patients treated in our Phase I/II study actually are switching from Elaprase to tivi. So we get a good insight into what their biomarker profile is prior to treating with tivi. And then I think as Alex already highlighted, as our behavior cognition and specifically our hearing data matures, and other aspects, we're seeing pretty significant improvement.
Okay. So how do you envision the launch curve to look like in the U.S., let's just say, in the first year or so?
Yes, that's a great question. And we will talk more about that at the Investor Day in December. But in general, launches in rare diseases based on the mechanics of a launch of getting patients on drug and then really working through the reimbursement typically follow an S-shape adoption. So with respect to the first year 2026, we probably expect modest revenues. But the real measure to look at with respect to the enthusiasm and the uptake is the number of patients that start treatment within the year. So that's what we will look at as a metric for our commercial team and to see if we're on the right track.
And can you give us a sense of pricing bookends? How much does Elaprase cost, for instance?
Yes. So Elaprase on a wholesale acquisition cost price is about $500,000 per patient per year. That's about for a 30-kilogram patient. Based on the clinical profile that we have, we do believe that a premium price is supported for tivi. We do have our field payer team in place, and that team has now spoken with the vast majority of payers, and we do feel that, that is understood and supported.
Great. And in the meantime, back to the PDUFA, technically got extended by the FDA. Long story short, it seems like it's more of an administrative benign issue than anything. Have you resolved that? And where are you -- has the FDA visited your manufacturing sites, for instance?
Yes. So as you can imagine, these BLAs are extraordinarily large and complicated. And I think what was interesting in this particular example is that through part of the usual request for information process was identified that there was a clerical error in the molecular weight calculation for tivi in a public database. Actually, there's 2 separate public databases and one has the correct molecular weight, one does not. And the one that does not was used for population PK analysis by a separate group. And essentially, it's a relatively easy fix. It's about a 5% difference, and there's no changes to the conclusions in terms of exposure or pharmacodynamic or associated safety. So we think that will be a very quick fix. I think logistically, it makes sense. I mean the FDA has the ability, especially late in the cycle. Our CMC evaluation is ongoing. We actually completed our late cycle meeting. So even with this delay, a lot of progress, and we see the FDA very engaged.
And what are the remaining questions? Are you in labeling discussions, for instance?
Yes. So those -- the label negotiations have begun. And I think I'd just say stay tuned. I think we're in a good spot. Obviously, the trial is designed to capture the vast majority of patients. We have both neuronopathic and non-neuronopathic patients in that study. And so we're excited to be at this point, also concerned with the major amendment that, that would be delayed, but that's actually ongoing now, both label negotiations and the completion of the late cycle meeting.
Great. And back to the launch, you mentioned modest -- expect modest in 2026, you'll be tracking patient sign-ups and so forth. How many sales reps do you ultimately need to launch this?
Yes, it's very -- the team is in place, both the field sales team, the MSL team and then the support team. So we will be ready to launch essentially on day 1 after we get the green light. It's a very small and focused team. In terms of the field sales, it's low double-digit individuals that are in field sales. And the reason here is that in Hunter syndrome, essentially, all patients are already identified because they are already on Elaprase. And all treating physicians are known as well. So from a commercialization perspective, that has the advantage that we can easily approach those and start the engagement and the education.
I see. And before -- I guess we -- it's a nice segue to Sanfilippo. Can you leverage the existing -- the sales force for Sanfilippo's launch eventually?
Yes, 100%. Sanfilippo patients or Sanfilippo is MPS IIIA. Hunter syndrome is MPS II. In many cases, early on, it's even a differential diagnosis in clinical practice. So the same physicians that treat Hunter also treat MPS IIIA or Sanfilippo. So from a -- there are a lot of synergies between these 2 programs, obviously, commercial, but then also from a clinical development and regulatory perspective, where we are using the same biomarkers and again, the accelerated approval pathway.
Great. And moving on to Sanfilippo then you've shared some initial data on an initial set of patients. I think you completed enrollment in 20 patients in November -- or actually this month. And you'll be sharing an update at World in February 2026. When exactly do you plan to file for this application for accelerated approval? And when could this launch relative to Hunters?
So just backing up a little bit, we provided early guidance on the data cut at the very beginning that we saw a robust reduction in CSF heparan sulfate. That was at 24 weeks with roughly the first 8 patients. We then made the decision at that time. And actually, when we started the Sanfilippo program, it wasn't clear that there was an accelerated approval path for tivi. And so it was a small Phase I/II that would then immediately go to a Phase III. But then basically, with progress with tivi, we've expanded the Phase I/II now to approximately 20 patients, completing that enrollment actually in September. We then -- in the most recent -- I think in the Q2, we gave an update that at 49 weeks, we see sustained robust reduction of CSF heparan sulfate. Now with the 20 patients enrolled, they're really focused on 2 things. One is completing that 49-week data in September of next year and then preparing for filing thereafter. So that would be the data cut, not giving an exact date on filing.
What's notable about this particular filing is that we are manufacturing the Sanfilippo product ourselves. We've been using Lonza for tivi. So our products going forward are manufactured at now at Denali. So that will be our first filing out of our own facility, including producing commercial product. We're very excited about that.
The world data cut will obviously not include all 20 patients seeing that the trial had just completed enrollment in September, but it will be essentially an interim look at the Sanfilippo data and then the final data set next September. So I guess some point after September as we complete the data, I actually think the rate-limiting step here will be nailing down manufacturing to be prepared to launch. That being said, it's -- we've seen a significant reduction in cost in doing our own manufacturing.
Got it. Got it. And one step back, big picture, what is the peak sales potential of Sanfilippo relative to Hunters?
Yes. So from an epidemiology perspective, Sanfilippo is about the same size, maybe a bit smaller than Hunter. On the other hand, there is no standard of care, which might lead to more flexibility on pricing. So roughly, we consider those 2 opportunities about similar in size and together, $1 billion plus.
Together, $1 billion plus worldwide?
Yes.
Got it. And when you file for an accelerated approval, is it contingent upon biomarker reduction of heparan sulfate only? Or do you need -- does the FDA want to see functional trends on top of that?
Yes. So it's actually a very interesting question, and it's nuanced. So the idea is that these surrogate endpoints are reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. And that comes from the totality of the data in the MPS field where we see that momentum with tivi. So technically speaking, the accelerated approval is actually on the biomarker, not on the clinical data. And then that clinical data matures, obviously, over time. And so I think we've invested heavily in the Hunter program that informs subsequent MPSs. And we'll be going after multiple MPSs. Obviously, the next one is MPS IIIA is Sanfilippo. So -- but the actual filing is really focused on the biomarker data and then you have ultimately the clinical data as a follow-up for the full approval.
I see. And by the time you submit for accelerated approval, the confirmatory study would have been underway. Is that correct?
That's absolutely correct. And that's been the -- interestingly, our focus with the FDA, this particular program has START designation. So we have a lot of engagement with the FDA on the Sanfilippo program. And before we address the AA path, we addressed the Phase III design. So most of the conversation with the FDA is what does the Phase III design need to look like. Then we turn to the AA path where we define these 20 patients as being sufficient for accelerated approval. And now we've turned back to the Phase III design and kicking that particular study off.
I think what's unique about Sanfilippo relative to Hunter is there is no standard of care. And when we were negotiating the Phase III design for Hunter, we were pushing towards using natural history as opposed to an active comparator. And of course, the COMPASS study is not that. It's an active comparator study. So for Sanfilippo, there is a lot of momentum both in the U.S. and in Europe to use natural history as opposed to placebo because there is no standard of care and it's sort of a one-way direction in Sanfilippo in terms of these patients declining very rapidly. So it's likely that, that Phase III will look very different than the COMPASS trial and will most likely use natural history data and similar clinical endpoints such as CSF heparan sulfate in either the Vineland or Bayley or Kaufman.
I see. Very helpful. And in terms of the ex U.S. strategy for both programs, Hunter and Sanfilippo, how do you go about this? Do they require confirmatory studies? Or can you -- can they leverage or can you leverage the U.S. approval?
Yes. So we believe that about 60% to 2/3 of the global market can be accessed leveraging the Phase I/II data. So with accelerated approval in the U.S., we can almost immediately start to commercialize in a handful of countries that follow the U.S., the Middle East, for example, and some others. And then there are countries, the U.K., Japan, some Latin American countries where we can also file for conditional marketing approval or something like an accelerated approval pathway based on the Phase I/II. The ongoing COMPASS study, which is the confirmatory Phase II/III trial will -- that's our base case, be needed for approval in Western Europe for the EMA.
That's for Hunter, to be clear.
That's for Hunter. Right.
And is it your intention to launch ex U.S. yourself?
So our intention is to commercialize in the U.S. and in Western Europe. We have a small site in Zurich, which right now focuses on clinical operations to run our studies, but can also then be the hub to commercialize in Western Europe. And beyond that, we are building up a network of distributors to make sure that any patient that could benefit from our drug has the ability to do so.
Understood. Okay. I think in the last 5 minutes, maybe we dig into your other earlier-stage programs, but not too earlier stage per se. So maybe I noticed you didn't mention the LRRK2 program for Parkinson's, but one question. You do have a data readout mid-2026, looking at Parkinson's patients pretty broadly, not necessarily with the LRRK2 mutation. So what gives you guys the confidence you will show positive strong efficacy data?
Yes, I'll take that one as well. So LRRK2 or mutations in LRRK2 are one of the strongest genetic risk factors in Parkinson's disease. It's a gain of function mutation. So individuals with that mutation have overactive LRRK2. And what that does, it impairs lysosomal function. So inhibiting LRRK2 improves or boosts lysosomal function, which is understood to be a central pathology of Parkinson's disease. So therapeutic hypothesis here is you boost lysosomal function by inhibiting LRRK2. The study that is ongoing, it's called LUMA study. It's in partnership with Biogen. It's a collaboration that we started in 2020. It's a fairly large and very well-designed Phase IIb study, 650 patients with a clinical endpoint, UPDRS, 48-week treatment duration. So it will be a very good testing of a hypothesis if LRRK2 inhibition has a clinical benefit. We're excited about the scientific rationale and the design of the study. And in the end, we'll have to await the data.
Let's just say it did succeed, would you need to start another study?
Yes. So it was prospectively designed to be potentially registrational. So in the base case, it would be 1 of the 2 Phase III studies. So there would be a second Phase III study, which would need to be run in the wildly positive scenario, one could imagine Biogen taking the path to potentially registering or seeking approval, but the base case is that a second study would be needed.
Great. And then moving on to your Alzheimer's, maybe starting with the MAPT that you are -- you filed an IND to start Phase I maybe next year. Can you talk about your differentiation for your asset compared to the others out there?
So in August of 2024, we published our first study that we basically had been achieved the ability to get oligonucleotides across the blood-brain barrier. So again, this is a new class within a class of medicine. So I started at the very beginning talking about how transferrin receptor and these technologies will get medicines across the BBB. It was in about 2021 that we showed for the first time that we could get oligonucleotides. That includes antisense oligos, siRNAs, other types of oligonucleotides across the blood-brain barrier. And then we had a very comprehensive study that was published in 2024.
MAPT is the first target we're going after using this, what we call the OTV or the oligonucleotide transport vehicle. And so that particular study is going to focus directly. We're going to go directly into patients. And the goal there is to look at tau reduction in cerebrospinal fluid and tau path, the ability to reverse tau pathology. And I think there's some precedent out there with using ASOs intrathecally delivered, this will allow us to have even and broad distribution throughout the CNS.
Just a broader comment around this class of medicines. Historically, antibodies have been tested as stopping the spreading of tau pathology. This is actually quite different than oligonucleotides that reduce the expression of tau. And what we've seen is basically, there is a, I'd say, I won't call it obscure, but less prevalent hypothesis that tau spreads from cell to cell. The great thing about going with oligonucleotides is that it's sort of agnostic to spreading or cell autonomous effect on tau pathology. So in other words, lowering tau in that way would reduce both spreading, but also cell autonomously reduce tau pathology.
And when could we get Phase I data in actual patients? It's great to hear.
Yes. We'll talk more about the design at the R&D Day in December, but I don't think we're guiding exactly on when that data is. There's going to be a whole dose escalation. It will depend on what dose is required to drive the pharmacodynamic effect.
Okay. We'll stay patient. And then maybe last question on -- you do have another Phase I/II in FTD dementia. There was a recent failure from Alector. So what is your comment or why your study could be different?
So I'll try to keep this brief. We've talked a lot about Hunter and Sanfilippo for progranulin and specifically FTD granulin mutation carriers, we're taking a very similar approach we took for Hunter and Sanfilippo. It's basically progranulin like a replacement therapy. So it's an ERT for this disease. So we basically take full progranulin, put it on the transport vehicle, get it across the blood-brain barrier. And we see a very robust effect in the animal models using this technology. This is fundamentally different than blocking a natural receptor and then driving, let's say, redistribution of progranulin. In fact, it might be considered the exact opposite. So rather than we're basically using the natural receptor using progranulin, using the transport vehicle to drive progranulin uptake into cells rather than reducing its uptake in cells. So we obviously are enthusiastic about the program. We have a Cell paper that described the mechanism of progranulin in the lysosome and the associated biomarkers. And those biomarkers that are explaining that paper will be the type of biomarkers we're ultimately looking at in human and FTD granulin mutation carriers.
But I think with the recent failure, our enrollment has actually gone up substantially. And as that other study stopped -- other studies stopped enrolling, initially, it was very challenging for us to enroll, but we've now fully enrolled B2 and have moved actually relatively quickly on B3, which is just a dose escalation in this Phase Ib, Phase II study.
Okay. Well, I think that's all the time we have, but look forward to more progress soon.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, for joining.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Jefferies London Healthcare Conference 2025
📣 Kernbotschaft
- Kurzfassung: Denali betont, dass die Transport‑Vehicle (ETV) Plattform das Überschreiten der Blut‑Hirn‑Schranke (BBB) ermöglicht und mehrere Programme gleichzeitig vorantreibt: tividenofusp alfa (tivi) nahe BLA‑Entscheidung, Sanfilippo (MPS IIIA) auf Kurs für Folge‑Filing, außerdem Alzheimer‑ASO‑Programme und LRRK2‑Parkinson‑Studie.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Plattformfokus: ETV/Transferrin‑Rezeptor‑Technologie als Kern zur Verteilung in Gehirn, Muskel und Knochen; skalierbar auf Oligonukleotide, Enzymersatztherapien (ERT) und Proteine.
- Kommerzplan: Vorbereitung auf Erstlaunch von tivi mit kleinem, fokussiertem Außendienst (low‑double‑digits), Tracking‑Metrik: Anzahl Patientenstarts; Preispositionierung über Elaprase erwartet.
- Produktion: Übergang zu eigener Fertigung (Sanfilippo künftig inhouse), Lonza wurde für tivi genutzt; Manufacturing wird als Schlüssel‑Hebel zur Marktreife genannt.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Regulatorisch: PDUFA für tivi April 2026, FDA‑Verzögerung war administrativ (molekulargewichts‑Datenbankabweichung ~5%) und soll schnell behoben werden.
- Pipelinebewegung: Zwei INDs dieses Jahr (oberes Ende der Guidance von 1–2); Sanfilippo: 20 Patienten eingeschlossen, 49‑Wochen‑Daten und Filingvorbereitung nach Abschluss, finale Datenerwartung im September nächsten Jahres.
- R&D‑Day: Geplant für 4. Dezember in New York mit Fokus auf ETV‑Engineering, kommender kommerzieller Launch und Alzheimer‑Programme.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Markt & Preis: Wie groß ist das Hunter‑Marktpotenzial vs. ex‑US? Management vergleicht mit Elaprase (Umsatz $650–700M jährlich; ~1/3 US/1/3 EU/1/3 Rest) und sieht Premium‑Pricing für tivi gestützt durch Biomarker‑Daten.
- Launch‑Execution: Nachfrage zu Erstanlauf, Reimbursement und Vertriebsgröße; Management nennt S‑Kurven‑Adoption in seltenen Krankheiten, erwartet 2026 nur moderate Umsätze und misst Erfolg an Patientenstarts.
- Regulatorik & Manufacturing: Kritische Fragen zu PDUFA‑Verzögerung und Site‑Inspektionen; Management gab technische Erklärung (Datenbankfehler) und betont laufende CMC‑Bewertung sowie begonnen Label‑Verhandlungen, nannte aber kein finales Filing‑Datum für Sanfilippo.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Implikation: Der Event bestätigt near‑term Katalysatoren (tivi PDUFA, Sanfilippo‑Daten) und unterstreicht die Plattform‑Optionalität. Hauptchancen sind beschleunigte Zulassungen auf Biomarkerbasis und wiederverwendbare ETV‑Assets; Hauptrisiken bleiben regulatorische Details, Fertigungs‑Vorbereitung und die Notwendigkeit bestätigender klinischer Daten.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
Thanks very much. It's my pleasure to be moderating this chat with Ryan Watts, Founder and CEO of Denali Therapeutics. I'm sure most folks know the company well, but Denali just provided a great update on a number of programs. So Ryan, maybe you can kind of go through that and set the stage, and then we can do Q&A.
Yes. Great. Paul, great to be here in New York with you at this conference. It's a very exciting time for Denali. I think as some of you may know, we founded Denali to do two things. One was to cross the blood-brain barrier and to develop technologies to get medicines in the brain and the second was to defeat degeneration. So setting that long-term vision. And I think this last quarter is an example of a lot of progress across our pipeline, including our late-stage programs and several new programs, including new modalities entering the clinic with regulatory filings.
And so just as a bit of background, our technology is known as the transport vehicle technology, which is part of a broader class of brain shuttles. And the key here is using the natural mechanisms at the blood-brain barrier to get basically molecules into the brain. And in our case, at least the lead programs are using transferrin receptor, which I think has now been validated as a path to the central nervous system.
We have three franchises. We have the enzyme transport vehicle franchise where now I'd say our fourth medicine is entering clinical trials in Pompe. The lead program is in Hunter, where we have a BLA that's under review right now. We have a Sanfilippo program, which we plan to file for accelerated approval. That's important. And then we have a progranulin program, which we put categorically in our enzyme franchise because it's a protein replacement therapy. The approach is very similar, and that's for FTD granulin. And as I mentioned before, the fourth one is in Pompe.
I think very excitingly, we have our first oligonucleotide molecule now entering the clinic. And I know, Paul, you and I have been discussing this for 4 years. I believe, although I can't say definitively that we are the first ones to show that you can get an oligonucleotide across the blood-brain barrier using transferrin receptor, using the transport vehicle. And this is a really exciting class of medicines. Now I wish we were the only ones doing it. It became highly competitive within the last couple of years, others using their technologies. Our first program is targeting MAPT, which is the gene that codes for tau. And so we're excited to have filed that program.
And then I'll just comment that we're close to filing our second Alzheimer's program for amyloid beta. So I think ultimately, you see a span between rare diseases like Hunter and common diseases like Alzheimer's, but the uniform relationship is using the transport vehicle technology to get distribution throughout the whole body and the brain.
I'll maybe make one last point. What's unique about the Pompe program is that it's muscle targeting in addition to brain targeting. So in terms of Pompe, there is severe Pompe or infantile onset, but there's also LOPD, which is basically the disease that really focuses mainly on muscle. And what you see with these transferrin receptor-enabled technologies is also improved distribution to muscle, bone and brain.
Great. Sounds good. So let's talk about 310 briefly. Any updates you can give on the regulatory review, and there was this major amendment recently. Anything to that, that kind of suggests the review is going in a different direction? Or do you feel like it's more or less administrative?
Yes. I think we were very surprised to get the major amendment based on a clerical error around the molecular weight of TV. But it was done in our experience, a very collaborative way with the FDA. They've been engaged from the beginning since we got priority review. Obviously, that shifts the PDUFA date from January 5 to April 5. I think we immediately identified where this clerical error originated from and how it affects specifically just one portion of our BLA, which is the population PK calculation based on this theoretical molecular weight. That's very easy to correct.
That being said, we've continued very positive engagement with the FDA, including beginning label negotiations and finish the late cycle meeting. So we see a lot of momentum with the FDA regardless of this shift in timing. So I think the way we're viewing it right now is that we're planning to April 5 as our PDUFA date...
But you're in [indiscernible] discussion.
That's right.
That would suggest things could actually close out a lot sooner.
That's possible. I think so. And I think if I look at the overall engagement from the beginning of the review, the FDA has been highly engaged, very relevant questions. And so we've been impressed with that. It's the same team we've worked with now for multiple years in the rare disease and medical genetics. It's the same team we work with on the START program for Sanfilippo and now for Pompe. So that consistency has been important for us. And obviously, we were disappointed. And I think technically, the FDA has that ability to delay the review based on having to recalculate the population PK. I should just comment that, that theoretical molecular weight shift doesn't change anything in terms of the conclusions of the data package, which I think is really important.
Right, right. Okay. Makes sense. So maybe just on the launch preparation side, how are you building out that infrastructure in the U.S.? And I've asked you this many times, but like what percent of the ex U.S. market is unlocked by accelerated approval in the U.S.?
Yes. So I think I'll frame a couple of -- sort of asking two questions there. So in terms of launch preparedness, we have a small but mighty team, low double digits, ready to launch in terms of the field team, all in place, ready to go. That's the same team that will launch not only Hunter, but Sanfilippo. And then obviously, by the time we get to the point of launching in Pompe, we will expand that team. But that's the value of having a franchise like the enzyme franchise. In fact, all the physicians -- treating physicians are the same across Hunter and Sanfilippo.
In terms of the U.S., ex U.S. markets, the way we think about it today is 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. So 1/3 of the market is the U.S. And then 1/3 is a portion of the market that we think we can access with the accelerated approval data package, okay, rather than the COMPASS data package, that will represent another 1/3. And then the final 1/3 is likely Europe generally, where it may require the clinical endpoints, although we have robust clinical data, it's not active comparator controlled, which is essentially what...
But it sounds like, areas like Brazil and South America...
Yes. Exactly right. MENA, other areas that we're looking at, U.K., Japan, these are areas where we will take the data that we have and then advance. So it's -- rather than being like two binary events, it's kind of going to be a stream of launch events now with U.S. accelerated approval.
Right. Okay. Okay. And can you update us on Sanfilippo data you've generated to date and how kind of close you are to figuring out what you're going to need to file there?
Yes. So I think exciting -- again, I mentioned this quarter, a lot of advances in the portfolio. So we completed enrollment of the Phase I/II portion of the study that's required for accelerated approval. So that's roughly 20 patients. And so as a perspective, when we enrolled the TV trial, we have 47 patients in that filing package. And so our goal is to have learned from that, be able to do things ideally half the size, twice as fast. And certainly, in the case of Sanfilippo, we're looking at 20 patients. That enrolled in September. That's 49-week endpoint. So 49 weeks from September, that data package will be complete, and then we'll start preparing the filing package for the BLA.
What's a little unique about Sanfilippo or this particular program is that unlike the Hunter program where we're manufacturing out of Lonza, we're going to be manufacturing ourselves the Sanfilippo program. So we have our own site. We've now onshored most of our manufacturing, but we began manufacturing that particular program. So that means we'll also do the commercial manufacturing for that.
So I think that will end up determining our time line for BLA filing. We just want to be really ready to go because it will be the first time launching a product out of our own facility.
Yes. Yes. And any clinical data you can speak to there?
Yes. So what we had mentioned before, we had top line that we had 24-week of data, the first, I think, roughly 8 patients where we had robust biomarker effects, and we've now seen up to 49 weeks of data. We plan to have our first actual data presentation, an interim look, obviously, it won't be the entire data package that's in the filing -- that will be in the filing because that obviously comes out in September. But at this upcoming world, we plan to present that data at that medical conference.
Okay. Okay. And then I guess for each of these indications, obviously, with 310, you're well underway, right, with like a confirmatory trial. And from my seat, right, it's like the biomarker data proves 100% that the drug works, but there's still just the risk of going into a placebo-controlled study, like not fully understanding placebo effects, like variability. So maybe start with 310 and just kind of your confidence that you've designed the pivotal study conservatively and then how that's going to follow through to Sanfilippo.
Yes. Well, I appreciate that you feel the way we feel, which is the data is very compelling that the drug works...
The heparan sulfate and neurofilament data are like unequivocal. It's just neurocognition, sortilin or how do you -- I'm sure you guys have thought ton about that.
Yes. I think what's been nice for us and I think very valuable is seeing the neurocognitive data, the behavioral data, the hearing data mature in our own data set. And I think it's becoming very clear, unequivocal that we have a medicine that has really robust pharmacological activity and efficacy.
Now the question is how do you design the trial? And it's actually interesting because we're putting this in the context of Hunter, but it's also important to think about it from Sanfilippo and from regulators' perspective there. So in the case of Hunter, this is an active comparator control. So we're comparing to idursulfase. Now interestingly, the vast majority of our patients in the Phase I/II were on idursulfase. So they already -- they're switching. So we look at hearing improvement after, let's say, 4 or 5 years of idursulfase and hearing is declining, then they go on to TV and they're -- we're seeing an improvement in hearing as an example. Same with cognition and behavior. And I think as that data matures, it becomes more and more clear.
So what we're looking at in the COMPASS trial is a 2:1 randomization and the co-primary endpoint is CSF heparan sulfate, and we know where that's going to play out. And the other is basically the VABS, which is the vineland, which is a behavioral scale. And there, if you look at our Phase I/II data, basically all patients either stabilize or improve, which is very different than what you see in the natural history data. So I think we're confident in that.
Now it's always about powering and scale, and these are rare diseases. So it's hard to enroll 200-, 300-patient trials. This is 42 patients in Cohort A in the neuropathic. And so that being said, it's a 2-year endpoint. That trial will complete enrollment essentially at the end of this year. So you're looking at 2027 to complete that trial.
Now in Sanfilippo, it's a different story. Their regulators, both in the U.S. and in Europe, are very open to using natural history as your comparator. So rather than having to do a placebo control...
Because they have no standard of care.
That's exactly right. You have -- there's no. So it's really -- I think in the case of Hunter, the argument was you have Elaprase that's providing some clinical benefit. So that's fine. But in the case of Sanfilippo, there's no standard of care. And so it's likely, although we're finalizing that now, this will be part of our AA sort of package for Sanfilippo that we'll use natural history as the comparator and will prespecify what we expect to see in terms of benefit across endpoints for these patients. Again, similar endpoints, behavior or cognition that we're testing in Hunter.
Yes. Okay. Okay. And to round out the enzyme conversation, and then I want to talk about Alzheimer's. But on the Pompe program, so like obviously, logical application with the transferrin platform. The one question I have is like do we have good evidence that the existing drugs for Pompe are inadequately clearing toxic substrates like within the muscle? Because I feel like usually the biomarkers in these indications are not actually like in the proximal tissues.
Yes, that's a great question. So I think the answer is there's definitely still an unmet need, both in sort of categorically two ways. One is in IOPD, anything neuro-related, there's definitely an unmet need. And so that is something that could be addressed with ETV GAA or DNL952.
Is that a big component of Pompe?
It's a small, very small component. And it would be like the obvious place for some additional proof of concept. But actually, we didn't develop ETV GAA for that. We developed it for the entire population. And there, we also believe there's an unmet need around muscle. But I think what you do is you are looking at distal biomarkers initially to show activity and then you look at proximal endpoints and there, it's really around muscle strength or clinical endpoints, right?
So I would say stay tuned. We have an Analyst Day on December 4. We're going to talk more about our strategy for Pompe. At least it will be the first glimpse looking at the strategy. We'll also talk -- answer your questions around the addressable markets, U.S., ex U.S. broadly for Hunter. But that will be a great time for us to just to talk about Pompe.
And I think notably, as we have key opinion leaders who work in this area and physicians, they work in the Hunter, Sanfilippo and Pompe area and very much understand where the unmet need is. And so therefore, we tailor our trials addressing that.
Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Anything you want to kind of close out this ERT discussion or enzyme replacement discussion with FTD? And maybe one, where things stand with your program? And two, like any learnings or implications from the Alector failure?
Yes. So I think it's -- I think we've now correctly put PTV progranulin into our enzyme franchise because the mechanism is essentially protein...
It's a lysosomal...
It's a lysosomal mechanism, protein replacement therapy. I think what we've learned from -- I mean, a couple of things we've learned from Alector. At the time that we first started our trial, it was actually difficult to enroll because there are others like Prevail and Alector who were enrolling. And our enrollment has very much accelerated as those programs have stopped enrolling. So B2 enrollment is complete. We're now enrolling very rapidly Cohort B3. We'll talk about that clinical trial design, I think, for the first time at this Analyst Day as well. And I think what to think about is that this is an entirely different mechanism than blocking a natural receptor. So the approach that Alector took was let's block sortilin, which is one of the natural receptors and then you get an increase in progranulin measured extracellular. You can measure it in blood, CSF, wherever you want to measure it.
In our case, we're replacing progranulin because these are homozygous patients. They have a loss of at least one copy. And basically, what we can do is replace the protein that's missing. And I think the best example to look at is our Hunter program or the Sanfilippo program.
Our focus will be on biomarkers that are both proximal and distal to progranulin. So the proximal biomarkers would be like glucosylsphingosine and anything related to lysosomal function and distal would be like GFAP and NfL. And I think NfL would be -- obviously, that's would be ultimately the goal...
And those patients have very high NfL levels.
That's right. They have elevated NfL levels.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Great. Switching gears on the OTV side, maybe walk through with tau, just the preclinical data you've generated. And I guess I think the key question is really that with delivering an oligo to the brain via the transferrin receptor, do you get the same kind of biodistribution and knockdown in the key areas that are going to matter for Alzheimer's?
Yes. I think it's a great, great question. And I would say that what you're comparing -- what implied in that question is today, the standard of care for oligonucleotide delivery to the brain is intrathecal delivery, right? So you inject it in the spinal cord. And you have -- and we show this, I think, pretty clearly and others as well, you have an uneven distribution. You get very high concentrations of oligonucleotide in the spinal cord and you get decent concentrations in regions that are adjacent to cerebrospinal fluid, but not so much in deeper brain regions.
And so what the transport vehicle enables, and this, I think, is the key point, is an even distribution throughout the central nervous system. In a disease like Alzheimer's, which affects many regions of the brain, not the least of which is the hippocampus and then obviously cortical regions, we would expect to see a robust biodistribution, and that's the advantage of the transport vehicle, which is much more challenging with intrathecal delivery.
So the preclinical data that we have is that -- and this is why it took us a bit of time. We had to do further engineering on the oligonucleotides. We've since expanded and are using all types of oligonucleotides, SI, ASO. And the reality is any type of oligonucleotide, we can transport across the blood-brain barrier. But this particular program, we specifically engineered in ASO, took additional time to really fortify the chemistry around that particular molecule. And what we see now is a very sustained reduction of MAPT, which then is a sustained reduction of tau.
When you think about it from a clinical perspective, we're going directly into patients and you're looking at two things: CSF reduction in tau protein, which takes some time because tau has a decently long half-life; and then the second is ultimately tau PET imaging, where you'd want to see a reduction in the PET signal.
Yes. And are these both going to be endpoints of the Phase I?
They will, definitely.
Okay. Yes. Okay. How long -- maybe just walk through that design. How long are you treating or following patients? And what's your expectation for like the time points at which you should see these PD markers?
Yes. So I think here, we're lucky we're not flying blind. I think there's been intrathecal delivery of ASOs for MAPT, so you can get an idea at least what would be today's like expected kinetics based on that data. And I think we would like model it based on that in terms of timing. This will also be something we'll lay out at our Analyst Day on December 4. But in terms of -- we'll need a certain dose escalation. And then from there, we'll have to expect a certain duration of treatment before you see a reduction both in tau protein and in tau PET.
Okay. Do you -- so your point on the biodistribution with intrathecal, I guess I thought the tau PET data for BIIB080 is like pretty good. Do you feel like that drug is not fully testing this tau hypothesis? Or do you think it's probably good enough that we're going to get like a real idea?
Yes. I thought it was really good as well. I thought like pretty good or really good. It's always hard with PET because I don't know exactly what I should believe is baseline or not. But in general, it was -- it taught us something really interesting, which is it's not -- wasn't entirely clear if neurofibrillary tangles could...
Actually be cleared by the brain if you knock it down.
That's right. And so I think that's actually really interesting. And so that should be part of the standard.
In terms of distribution, there was a recent paper published on some of the anti-amyloid antibodies, and these are some postmortem analyses. And what was really fascinating is that there is an uneven removal of amyloid plaque. Now this is a systemic delivery with an antibody. But my guess is that with intrathecal, it's going to be the same thing we see that we showed in our nonhuman primates, which is an uneven distribution of the oligonucleotide. So I -- will there be enough distribution with intrathecal to really test the hypothesis? I hope so. And then you could replace it with a systemic IV or subcu therapy.
Yes, yes. Okay. Maybe taking a step back, like how should a Denali investor think about just like safety risk in general for transferrin targeting? Like how many transferrin clinical programs do you think there have been in total? So there's 5 in the industry?
Yes. There's at least over a dozen who have like longer-term data now, right? And I think that's important.
And it's like maybe -- I don't know, maybe 10 have had some on-target safety that may be more, if you just count like mild anemia or like the stroke or the [indiscernible] or the trontinemab. Like I guess like what I'm trying to ask is like some -- I think some investors who look at this space think it's got tremendous potential, but there's still some smoke around safety. And it's hard for people, I think, to kind of get in the weeds on each program or each platform and really make sense of like who's cleverly designed out some of the safety risk. Obviously, you've been in the space like longer than anybody. So how do you think about that with your platform and program to program at the point?
Yes. Maybe just step back in time, we were the first ones to observe a hematological effect. Now the thing that's interesting about the hematological system is that it's evolved to be biologically robust. So if you lose blood, you very quickly start to retic and you regain red blood cells, it moves very quickly. We were the first to show that transferrin receptor targeting molecules have the ability to reduce reticulocytes and then subsequently cause anemia, and also how to engineer around that. So then in 2014, this was a year before founding Denali, we actually had a paper that basically showed that if your molecule is immune inert, you can basically preserve reticulocytes.
Now it's been very interesting to observe the mechanisms by which reticulocytes are lost. The primary mechanism is when you have full effector function. So this is our strongest argument around differentiation from trontinemab is that we have -- our Abeta antibody has an on-off switch. When it's bound to transferrin receptor because of a mutation in the Fc, it's off. You cannot bind Fc gamma. It's cisLALA. It's basically based on the architecture of the Fc. So in other words, our antibody will bind to transferrin receptor on reticulocytes or immature reticulocytes and will not engage the immune system.
However, when it's bound to plaque, it then can engage the immune system and then microglia can engulf plaque. And I think what you see with the data is maybe 20% anemia. Now we saw it with our TREM2 molecule, we reintroduced immune function with TREM2, which made it very robust at depleted reticulocytes. We still had a window, but we took a more conservative view about not developing that molecule in the Alzheimer's population with that particular risk, right?
So all of the hematological pieces, I think, are monitorable, reversible, easy to understand. Like that actually -- and that not may be as easy to understanding. We've been working on it for decades, so maybe it feels easy now. But you have the principles around engineering, you can get there. And I think that's a huge differentiator for our ATV:Abeta program.
I think these other points, these one-off safety events, I can't categorically say those are related to transferrin receptor. And I think you point out the trontinemab example, that is a full effector function antibody, right? It can engage the immune system fully with the brain shuttle. And then you look at some of these other programs and if they're related to transferrin receptor, they're giving 100 mg per kg more like very high dose...
We've talked about this, how they're describing dose for the payload, not that...
Yes, exactly. So I don't -- I actually don't know if I can even say they're transferrin receptor related or if they're dose related or both or neither, I don't know. But -- and so I think definitely, there's a lot of experience which there, we can figure out how to engineer over time.
Yes, yes. But as we look across your portfolio of clinical candidates, like what are you seeing in terms of any on-target transferrin...
Yes. So I think the one that we've described before, which again, we don't know if it is on target since how complicated it is. So in Hunter syndrome, there is anemia of chronic disease. So 20% of patients have anemia at baseline before we even start treating them, right? We see them are doing blood draws. But I think importantly, these patients, they retic. So the retic numbers aren't dropping. We know from what has been previously reported from trontinemab that they actually deplete reticulocytes, right? So beyond that, if you look across our portfolio, that's like -- that's basically what we've seen.
Okay. Makes sense. So as we think about like building the company for the next phase, you may have two clinical candidates in Alzheimer's. How much of this do you envision yourself funding independently versus partnering? Like do you think you could take one all the way? What's the thought process?
I mean that's the great debate in Alzheimer's, which is it stills inevitable that at some point, you'll partner with a bigger partner. Obviously, the further we take them on our own, the more value we can generate and frankly, probably the faster we can move at least initially. So at this point, we're very excited to advance both our MAPT program and our Abeta program as far as we can. But I think there will be a point in time where it makes a lot of sense to seek a partner in an area that could use additional firepower and can use a global footprint. I would love to be able to launch our own Alzheimer's medicine at some point. Now it may not be these first two, but it could be a second or third generation.
Yes. Yes, makes sense. How is your Abeta brain shuttle similar and different to what Aliada had?
Yes. So I actually put like Aliada on one end of the spectrum and trontinemab on the other end of spectrum.
From an effector function preceptive.
Yes, it's basically how much do you engage effector function, right? That's the biggest difference.
The other is that what's unique about the transport vehicle is because of where we bind transferrin receptor, it has a unique architecture that allows us to make it immune silent or immune active. And I already -- I referenced that in the sort of the safety question that you asked, Paul. And so I think that's the other piece.
We have the added advantage of now we have decades worth of clinical data to pick the Abeta binding profile, right? So that's important. pick the right Abeta binding profile, have the engineering that's specific to the transferrin receptor.
Are you picking a more lecanemab like binding profile, donanemab?
It's a great question. I have a preference to be as unbiased as possible. So I -- the one thing I would be biased against is binding monomeric, Abeta, right? And so I don't know...
It just takes away the rest of the...
Then it becomes a question is, does pyroglu actually capture everything? Or would you prefer to capture something more broadly...
Protofibril. Yes.
Yes. So maybe the latter would be my -- I'd be more interested in.
Yes. Protofib. Yes, yes.
A broader profile. Now...
Is that the crenezumab still in your heart?
I don't know if it's crenezumab, not really. I think it's interesting because we have bapineuzumab, crenezumab...
Crenezumab was like the oligomer one...
Yes, yes. And then gantenerumab and then bapineuzumab and solanezumab, I think what we've learned is that the molecule needs to remove plaque. And it likely needs effector function. And ideally, the profile isn't one where you're binding monomers, which would be irrelevant to the efficacy. So if you can like exclude the monomers and then -- and I think I don't want to overthink it beyond that because we can talk about ADDLs or protofibrils or Alzheimer's. And all of those are either fictitious or reality, but they're all -- it's stochastic in what is driving toxicity.
Yes. Okay. One of the coolest things you showed me, and I remember it was at whatever hotel you guys posted up that at JPMorgan, and you were showing me the biodistribution data for the Abeta brain shuttle and how using transferrin changes the degree to which the antibody will actually pull in certain areas that you hypothesized might be the driver of ARIA. Since we've seen some trontinemab data that like completely decouples amyloid lowering in ARIA. Can you like speak to this? And I guess, to me, with trontinemab in Phase III, like that's the biggest question. Like is this safety profile replicable? Because if it is, it completely upends, I think, the category, but what's your thought?
Yes. So we published a paper in August in science around that exact hypothesis. And I think the data is very consistent. It's always hard to prove a hypothesis, but the theory is this, with transferrin receptor, you have an even distribution throughout the brain, but you also have reduced blood concentration. And the reason for that is that when you bind transferrin receptor, you get this rapid distribution through muscle, bone, brain, like you actually see in a whole animal, this tissue distribution. Your blood levels go down. And as a result, you don't accumulate concentrations of antibody in the perivascular space that you do with a standard antibody. So if we take a standard anti-amyloid antibody or any antibody and you look at where it is in the brain, it's at very high concentrations in the perivascular space, which is where you have arteries and arterioles. That's where you have cerebral amyloid angiopathy. That's where you -- we believe you initiate ARIA.
And so you have a shift in distribution. So not only do you have better distribution in the brain parenchyma, you have less concentrated in the perivascular space. And I think it is actually that second point that is underappreciated. The fact that you don't have very high concentrations in areas where you have high cerebral amyloid angiopathy means that you shift the safety profile. And exactly to your point, this is actually mind-blowing. Everyone thought plaque reduction would correlate with ARIA.
It makes sense. It's like it's on target.
And it doesn't. And in fact, trontinemab is 3x better plaque reduction, 3x faster, 1/5 the dose and substantially less ARIA, right? And then we also have another case where you activate an immune receptor and you have ARIA and no plaque reduction, right? That's in the case of TREM2.
And so I think we're realizing that part of it could be geography, where you're localized or biodistribution, if I'm using the biological term. The other could be the mechanisms of clearance. And so I think for us, that's a huge -- and I think that, combined with a better sort of, let's call it, a reticulocyte profile, that's where we think the ATV:Abeta will have sort of a best-in-class.
And so I think you asked the question of trontinemab versus the Aliada approach. It's like if you're completely effectorless, you will most certainly have less ARIA, but you may have less plaque reduction. We tried that with crenezumab. So crenezumab was an IgG4.
Yes, yes. Okay. We're out of time, man, but that was great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Ryan.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Stifel 2025 Healthcare Conference
📣 Kernbotschaft
- Fortschritt: Denali meldet breite Pipeline‑Fortschritte: Hunter (BLA in Prüfung), Sanfilippo auf AA‑Kurs, Pompe mit kombinierter Muskel‑ und Gehirn‑Indikation.
- Plattform: Transport‑Vehicle (Transferrin‑Rezeptor) soll gleichmäßige ZNS‑Verteilung ermöglichen und damit neue Modalitäten (u. a. Oligonukleotide) systemisch in die Klinik bringen.
- Kurzfristig: Erstes transferrin‑vermitteltes Oligonukleotid gegen MAPT in der Klinik; mehrere near‑term Katalysatoren angekündigt.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Enzym‑Franchise: Lead Hunter‑Programm unter FDA‑Review; Sanfilippo für beschleunigte Zulassung; Pompe (ETV‑GAA) adressiert sowohl Muskel als auch Gehirn.
- Technologie‑Differenz: ATV/TV‑Architektur erlaubt Engineering der Fc‑Funktion (z. B. cisLALA) zur Reduktion hämatologischer Nebenwirkungen und veränderten Biodistribution.
- Kommerz‑Vorbereitung: Kleines Launch‑Team in den USA vorhanden; Sanfilippo‑Produktionen on‑shored (eigene Fertigung) für kommerziellen Start geplant.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- PDUFA‑Update: BLA‑Review für Hunter verschoben wegen formaler Routinekorrektur (Theor. Molekulargewicht) — neues PDUFA‑Datum im Transkript: 5. April; FDA‑Dialog und Label‑Verhandlungen laufen weiter.
- Sanfilippo‑Zeitplan: Phase I/II‑Enrollment (~20 Patienten) abgeschlossen; 49‑Wochen‑Endpunkt ab Einschluss im September; BLA‑Timeline hängt von Eigenfertigung ab.
- MAPT‑Programm: Erstes oligonukleotidgestütztes Programm über TV/ATV ist klinisch eingereicht/gestartet; PD‑Endpunkte: CSF‑Tau und Tau‑PET.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Sicherheit: Kernfrage war Transferrin‑Targeting → Anämierisiko/Retikulozyten‑Effekt; Management betont Monitoring, reversible Effekte und Fc‑Engineering zur Risikoreduktion.
- Trial‑Design: Diskussion zu Kontrollarmen: Hunter mit aktivem Vergleich (idursulfase), Sanfilippo will Natural‑History‑Comparator für AA; COMPASS‑Pivotal endet voraussichtlich 2027.
- Kommerz & Finanzierung: Frage nach Full‑Selbstfinanzierung vs. Partnerschaften in Alzheimer; Plan: Programme so weit wie möglich vorantreiben, später potenziell Partner zur Globalisierung.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Bewertung: Denali präsentiert klare Near‑Term‑Katalysatoren (Hunter BLA‑Pfad, Sanfilippo‑49‑Wochen, MAPT‑PD‑Signale) und eine technologisch differenzierte Plattform. Chancen sind substantiell, Risiken liegen in regulatorischen Timelines, Transferrin‑bezogenen Sicherheitsfragen und der Notwendigkeit strategischer Partnerschaften für großvolumige Indikationen.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
1. Question Answer
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference. I'm Sean Laaman, Head of U.S. mid-cap biotech equity research at the firm. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you do have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative.
For this session, we have the pleasure to host from Denali Therapeutics, the CEO, Ryan Watts. Welcome, Ryan, and maybe we kick off by giving us a few minutes on what Denali does.
Great to be here. Great to be back at Morgan Stanley. I think this is probably year #8 for us, maybe 9. And it's such an exciting time for Denali and an exciting time in the biotech sector. Roughly 10 years ago, we set out to invent a platform to cross the blood-brain barrier to get large molecules in the brain such as enzymes and antibodies and oligonucleotides. And it was at a time where most companies were exiting neurodegeneration and neuro more broadly.
And so for the first 5 years, we just buried our heads and invented this platform. The subsequent 5 years, we proved that it works in a disease known as Hunter syndrome, which we'll discuss in some detail and have now gone much more broadly. Our vision for the next 5 years is catalyzing those initial discoveries and the proof of concept with a large number of blood-brain barrier enabled therapeutics. And I think along those lines, when you show something works in a disease that's monogenic like Hunter or more broadly in Alzheimer's disease, this is now a field that is very much heating up.
And so welcome to see many friends and colleagues and likely friendly competitors to this discussion today, but it's definitely an exciting time to be working on blood-brain barrier technologies and on medicines that are engineered to target tissues.
Fantastic. Thank you for that, Ryan. And maybe to start, I've got a couple of macro picture questions for most companies or all companies. So with that said, with China's rise in biotech innovation, how are you thinking about your competitive position here? And will this influence your R&D or business development strategy?
Yes. Well, I'm a big believer in competition. So it's great to see competition from not only specifically in the platform we're working on, but across countries. And there's no doubt that invention in China is accelerating, generating either best-in-class or fast follower programs. The neuro space is lagging a little bit behind what we've seen in either metabolic or in cancer, but we're fully aware that there are many companies that are inventing.
And for us, we've had great collaborations with companies in China over the last decade. That dynamic has shifted a little bit, especially as we now are preparing for our first launch. But our eye is definitely focused on the competition broadly. I think importantly for us is the invention of a truly like proprietary unique technology where most that are playing in the blood-brain barrier space are using variations of conventional fabs, which has been around for now, I think, 30 years.
Our approach was to engineer the Fc that I think puts us in a unique IP position and also not just IP, but the Fc region of an antibody does so much more and is very different than a fab region of an antibody. And I think that's been our unique platform in the transport vehicle has allowed us to do things that you can't do with conventional fabs. But that being said, we're watching closely for the first company that tries to replicate that technology specifically.
Sure. Great. And still on the macro topics, how are you currently leveraging AI if at all? And how do you think about AI as a disruptive technology?
Yes. And I think we, Denali, of course, being founded a decade ago, wasn't founded on the premise of AI for drug discovery. But just like all of you in your personal lives, and I'm sure many of you in your professional lives, we've embraced AI actually as quickly as possible and at the very beginning, if it isn't from proof reading regulatory documents, generating protocols, analyzing biomarker data, writing algorithms specifically for image analysis, but many, many aspects within the workflow within Denali, we're utilizing AI.
And I think in the last 1.5 years, we've seen real progress in how we utilize it. And so I think the way we approach it is here's a problem, especially if it's a repetitive problem where you have a lot of existing data and experience. To be able to actually use AI to simplify that approach and reduce work hours basically and allow your algorithm to solve it, that's been -- that's where we've invested initially.
And we've seen it. We've seen major advances even within Denali using that technology. Where we have not used it yet is to more broadly take on very complex biological questions. And I think part of that is that we don't have the data -- we don't think the data broadly exists quite yet to be able to train those models. And it's happening in some -- and I'm sure at some point, we will take advantage of those technologies as well.
Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. And lastly, on the macro, what has been the most impactful to Denali over the last year? Is it on the regulatory side? Is it FDA? Is it MFN? Is it tariffs? Like how are you thinking about that picture? It sounds like it might be FDA.
Yes. Well, it's a little bit of -- well, actually, frankly, it's almost all regulatory. And part of that is because we just filed our first BLA for accelerated approval. And so the dynamic of changes at the FDA are directly impactful to Denali. And so this is an area that we follow very closely. Of course, MFN is probably in the future for us as we think about pricing outside the U.S. I hold strong opinions about that, but are not relevant today for Denali. And in terms of tariffs, we've onshored a fair amount of our own manufacturing now. And that was actually prior to even the concept of tariffs being something we talked about on a daily basis.
But back to regulatory, it's been interesting. If you look at Denali 2 years ago, there was a lot of inconsistency about our path to approval, and we were regulated under CDER, one of the centers separate from CBER that had historically a more conservative approach in rare disease. And in the last 1.5 years, there was an alignment of these 2 centers around what we were doing. And I think most notably is even last week, guidance from the FDA on Rare Disease Evidence Principles or these are basically RDEP. I don't know if we're going to give them a nickname, but really impactful to Denali.
And I think around single-arm studies likely being sufficient, monogenic diseases, patient populations less than 1,000, that basically defines Hunter and Sanfilippo and a number of indications that we have in our enzyme portfolio. Obviously, we're interested in Alzheimer's and other programs using transport vehicle technology. But these changes that the FDA, we've seen could be very positive, positive for patients, but also when you think about the investment in rare disease, this type of guidance is really important. And an alignment of CDER and CBER using these principles, I think, will be key.
Thank you, Ryan. To bring it straight back on to Denali in 310 or tivi. So the rolling BLA submission to be completed under the accelerated approval pathway. What are the next regulatory milestones?
Yes. So we completed the filing in May and very shortly thereafter, actually, the typical 60 days in our case, it was 57 days, but who is counting. We got our PDUFA date of January 5 and a priority review. And so this was obviously very big for us. And right after receiving that, we've had a constant engagement with the FDA on the clinical side, pharmacology side, manufacturing side. And I think when Commission Makary mentions that the review bodies are intact, we can tell you they are, and we've had a lot of great engagement and day 74 letter, where we alerted there's no AdCom for this particular program and then more recently, the mid-cycle review. And so it's an exciting time. It's also all hands on deck at Denali as we prepare for their decision.
Awesome. And what do you expect to support conversion to full approval?
That's a good question. Actually, one of the biggest questions about last week's guidance is what does it actually mean? Does it mean that if you follow this new guidance on rare disease evidence principles, is that for accelerated approval? Or is that actually for full approval? And what does confirmatory trials actually need to be? And so actually, if you read it, it's not entirely clear, but it's very helpful. For us, we're running the COMPASS trial. So we had already started a trial that is an active comparator control, which I'd say in rare disease, it's debatable if you should have a control. Certainly, placebo is less ideal in these patient populations where the decline is very rapid and there's no return.
And I think that's been a long-standing issue. So in Sanfilippo, where we have a program, it's very likely that our confirmatory trial will be a single-arm study without a placebo, which would make a lot of sense. And so we think if we stay sort of grandfathered into the way that the FDA has historically been, it would be the COMPASS trial would be the data that would convert the accelerated approval to full approval. But I think right now, it's a bit of a moving target. And our focus, obviously, is accelerated approval by January for tivi.
Sure. And maybe just to remind people what Hunter syndrome is just to contextualize the next question. But beyond heparan sulfate normalization, what sort of patient and clinical benefits and caregiver benefits might you hope to demonstrate through the approval?
Yes. So I often tell -- people ask, what do you do? Okay, we invent medicines for what? I say Hunter syndrome. Most people think that's Huntington's disease because it's neurodegenerative. But obviously, Hunter syndrome is, I'd categorize it as a rare disease, about 500 patients in the U.S. 2000 worldwide monogenic disease, a mutation in the gene known as iduronate-2-sulfatase or IDS. And for 19 years, there's been an approved enzyme replacement therapy, either sulfates or Elaprase.
And that medicine can treat the body but does not cross the blood-brain barrier. It doesn't effectively get in the brain. And so what we've done is we've engineered this enzyme through an Fc fusion that binds to transferrin receptor to allow it to distribute more broadly throughout the body, the whole body, but also to cross the blood-brain barrier. And I think what's important when you look at our data is not only are we achieving normalization of key biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid, which is reflective of what's happening in brain. So normalization of the substrate for the enzyme, normalization of NfL, which is a marker of neurodegeneration.
But we also see on the peripheral endpoints, better reduction in urine heparan sulfate, improvement in hearing behavior of cognition. And so ultimately, the goal is if you can get on enzyme early enough, you'd have a normal trajectory of development because these young boys at about age 2 or 3 fall off the developmental curve. And I mentioned boys, it's an x-linked disease affecting young boys in the case of Hunter syndrome.
So our goal is to have a normal life through these infusions. And I think our data is showing that as not surprisingly, the earlier you intervene, the higher likelihood that, that can be achieved, including like height and all sorts of activities of daily living are key.
Wonderful. And what are you looking for on the label?
That's a good question. So with accelerated approval, often the label is around the biomarker, that's the focus and safety. And I think most importantly, our Phase I/II trial included a very large group of patients across a broad age range, including not just overtly neuronopathic, but also attenuated patients are included in that Phase I/II trial. So for us, the ideal situation would be a broad label. And I think part of that is some of these peripheral endpoints where we're seeing benefit outside of the brain.
Can you talk about, Ryan, the commercial launch preparations? How do you get to the patients for those less familiar? What plans have you got in place?
Yes. I'll talk about operational and then sort of the action that we're taking for a commercial launch. So we recently hired our entire field team, patient services, payers team, small but focused team, which also, by the way, can launch in Sanfilippo. So it will be the same prescribers for both Sanfilippo and Hunter. And that team kicked off in August. So that's on the operational side.
I think the key for us is that the data needs to be understood. And there's a high amount of awareness of these blood-brain barrier crossing technologies. But I think immediately think this drug treats the brain. And some people even think, so I need to take standard of care plus this drug, so I can treat the body and then separately treat the brain. But the reality is that we replace standard of care. And because we've really pushed dose, this has been a really important point.
A lot of enzyme replacement therapies are actually underdosed. And I think historically, part of it is cost of goods. It's very expensive to manufacture enzymes without the Fc fusion. With the Fc fusion, they express better, they're easier to purify. So for us, it's easier to manufacture these medicines using the Fc fusion. But that's, I think, a key point is basically having the data awareness that regardless of if you're neuronopathic or if you're attenuated, you'll benefit from this medicine because you'll do -- be able to treat peripheral disease, including the brain.
And what about outsourcing or in-housing of commercial supply? I can imagine it's large demand, but...
Yes. So we've had an interesting path around manufacturing. We've worked with some of the world's best manufacturing organizations, Lonza, WuXi Biologics, they've been fantastic over the years, I mean, really good, but also pretty expensive. And so we made the decision to build our own manufacturing facility to then essentially onshore our manufacturing. In the case of tivi, we will continue to work with Lonza. They will produce our commercial supply. We have no immediate plans to do anything but to work with Lonza.
Notably, we've been manufacturing in Switzerland. We made the decision, by the way, independent of tariffs to onshore that manufacturing, mainly because we want to scale. We want to go from the 2,000 liter to 6,000 liter and that just gives us further improves our COGS. So at this point, in terms of tivi, we will continue to work with Lonza, but the future portfolio for Denali, at least the clinical stage portfolio will be manufactured in our own facility here in the U.S.
Wonderful. I push forward the DNL126, but can you give us an overview of the program for Sanfilippo syndrome Type A?
Yes. So similar to Hunter syndrome, Sanfilippo is a mucopolysaccharidosis disease or an MPS disease, I think generally called lysosomal storage disease, which includes other enzyme loss of function. What's interesting about Sanfilippo is it's much more of a brain disease than Hunter. Hunter is 70% of patients at diagnosis are clearly going to be neuronopathic because of the severity of the mutation. Sanfilippo is characterized by neurological defects. There are some peripheral defects, but they're minor.
There's no standard of care. There's no enzyme replacement therapy that's been approved for this. But then all the biomarkers are the same: heparan sulfate, NfL, downstream of heparan sulfate, lysosomal biomarkers, GM2, GM3, glucose and phenazine. So we've established these biomarkers and the treating physicians are the same. And so now we basically take this enzyme, which happens to be a dimer. So the actual structure is different than tivi, but it's a very similar path.
Our goal there is to be able to run substantially smaller trials. Hunter was the flagship program. It had to prove the transport vehicle technology, had to prove the transferrin receptor path to the brain, which has now unlocked many people's efforts in this field. But now with Sanfilippo, it's how do we do this faster and use all the experience that we have for Hunter to enable that.
Wonderful, Ryan. FDA start engagement, shaping trial design endpoints and time lines for 126 in Sanfilippo, just give us some insights into that.
Yes. So we were selected for a start. I think in total, there are about 7 programs that were selected. I believe maybe 3 in CDER and 4 in CBER. That was -- it's been fantastic for us. It's quarterly engagement with the FDA. Our first focus with the FDA was designing the Phase III trial, which is very interesting considering this recent guidance from the FDA last week on evidence principles around rare disease. And the reason I think it's interesting is that a lot of this is our single-arm trial is sufficient.
And we've been discussing both with EMA and FDA, what do we do in Sanfilippo where there's no standard of care. In parallel, we've been enrolling our Phase I/II trial. At the end of last year, we announced at 24-week data that we were able to have a robust reduction in heparan sulfate. And then more recently, we announced that, that is sustained, and we also announced the expansion of the trial.
Now we've agreed with the FDA that in general, 20 patients will be sufficient, which is less than half of what we have in the filing for the Hunter program. And we're looking at 49 weeks of data. We're nearly complete enrolling that Phase I/II, and that will basically be all the patients that will be required for that accelerated approval. And in parallel, we've now begun work on the Phase III and kickoff of the Phase III study.
Cool. And there's been a slight delay from a competitor launch. Meanwhile, you've aligned on AA closely narrowing the gap. Can you talk about the competitive positioning and how do you frame the value proposition of Denali's product versus others?
Yes. I think I have learned over a decade to be careful about what I say about competitors because they're also -- many of them are good friends because we work in a space that there's a huge unmet need, and it's such a small community in the rare disease space and a lot of respect across companies. What we've learned is that many gene therapy treated patients will need an enzyme replacement therapy. It's definitely the case in Hunter syndrome, where gene therapy is delivered directly to the brain, but doesn't treat the body and Hunter is clearly like every patient, if they're neuronopathic, they have severe defects in liver and spleen and peripheral bone structure and height.
And so all of those patients will either have a gene therapy plus standard of care or gene therapy plus tivi, which we hope someday becomes the standard of care. In fact, that's, I think, the goal. So we view this a little bit differently. And I think part of it is gene therapy has more heterogeneity, has some challenges around durability. Obviously, tolerability has been a long-standing question around liver tox and associated need for immunosuppression.
But we see ourselves -- in fact, even our Phase I study in Hunter, we have patients that were previously on gene therapy that had continued elevated CSF heparan sulfate. We treat them, we're able to normalize. And so we see that as the future is needing enzyme replacement therapy.
That's all I have on 126. But moving forward again, we saw some exciting preclinical data in science using engineered ETV to remove Abeta while also removing risk of ARIA. Can you comment on the breakthrough and what it might mean to technology in this area?
When we launched Denali a decade ago, I think everyone was like, all right, the neurodegeneration company, the Alzheimer's company is certainly a goal of ours and was to focus on eventually Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And what it's like the last 10 years has been extraordinarily interesting in the Alzheimer's space with successes, but mainly a bunch of failures as has always been the case in Alzheimer's, but now several approved medicines that target amyloid. And the great debate is how much efficacy are you really get? How much benefit for patient do you get when you remove plaque?
And I think the challenge is that most of those trials, these patients have some mild cognitive impairment. So they have a decade or more of plaque formation before you're seeing -- before you're actually removing plaque and obviously, some mild cognitive impairment. The new -- and the other issue is that you actually see breakdown of the blood-brain barrier through what was formerly called vasogenic edema, now turned ARIA. So amyloid-related imaging abnormalities are what is sort of one of the dose-limiting effects, although you can dose and then pull back the dose and then start dosing again.
It was generally believed -- it's actually really fascinating. It was generally believed that ARIA was inseparable from plaque removal. And what you see in the most recent data with Roche's blood-brain barrier technology is that you can get very rapid plaque reduction and substantially less ARIA. There are also other antibodies for Alzheimer's that have caused ARIA, but do not remove plaque. It's a different mechanism, modulating microglia. So we now know that these are separable, that you can actually remove plaque and it doesn't mean that you're immediately going to have this vasogenic edema.
The recent paper that you're highlighting in science that we published is the mechanism we believe is behind this reduction in ARIA but still robust removal of plaque. And it's largely around the biodistribution. Using the transport vehicle technology and TFR-enabled technologies, you deliver through the capillary beds and you don't get high concentration of drug in these perivascular spaces where you're breaking down amyloid and causing vasogenic edema.
And so we have preclinical data that supports that. And of course, what's in the clinic so far with blood-brain barrier technologies also supports that particular mechanism. Now what we've done is that was a proof of concept. We've created a clinical candidate with our own Abeta arms and have now -- are now advancing that into clinical studies. We're IND-enabling studies and next year, we'll be starting studies basically with that molecule.
Fascinating. And the clinical differentiation, what matters most? Is it the antibody being transported? Is it the transport vehicle itself and its specificity? And what's the trade-off between increasing brain bioavailability and tox?
Yes. So I think that was one of the biggest fears is you use these blood-brain barrier technologies, and now you get way faster plaque removal and you're going to have worse ARIA, worse pathogen edema and the reverse is true. And that's the mechanism we just talked about. Notably, the only real clinical experiment that's been run, there was a, I'd say, below average anti-amyloid antibody in terms of its ability to remove plaque. You then put that on the blood-brain barrier technology, and it's now the most rapidly reducing plaque antibody out there.
And so I think that by far, the enabling technology or the blood-brain barrier technology is what differentiates. I do think, however, the Abeta arms matter, and they matter in the sense that there's a preference against just binding monomeric Abeta and maybe a preference towards some aggregated oligomeric and fibrillar Abeta.
I do think there's still a lot of skepticism around plaque removal and clinical benefit but the 2 things that are going to matter, better safety profile and early intervention, frankly, prevention. And we're going to start seeing some trials read out on prevention but the ideal situation is if this platform allows you to have a safer profile, then you can go in a prevention setting, that's the future. We'll all be measured blood-based biomarkers on the plaque. If we confirm that, we'll have an amyloid imaging, we'll remove our amyloid at age 60 and then Alzheimer's will be delayed maybe forever, but certainly for a decade or more.
Great. Moving forward on to other programs. Can you comment on the LRRK2 program, including updates to the enrollment? And which hopefully accelerate the top line results to next year?
So LRRK2 was one of the first targets we started working on at Denali again about 10 years ago. This was in the first peak, the first wave of medicines that we invented using small molecules. Now the vast majority of what we do is the large molecule engineering to cross the blood-bin barrier. But we have a LRRK2 inhibitor that inhibits the kinase activity. Mutations in LRRK2 that are associated with Parkinson's disease substantially increase kinase activity. The most common mutation is the G2019S mutation, and as known to be in the kinase domain, activates the kinase. It's of 2 of the major genetic risk factors in Parkinson's, the other one being GBA, where we also have a program of GCase enzyme replacement therapy.
And so this is a field we've been very involved with for actually now probably almost 16, 17 years prior to -- even prior to founding Denali, when we worked on these LRRK2 inhibitors, we actually licensed them from Genentech. We're now at the point where 640 patients are being treated or on placebo control, and that study will complete around May of next year.
Biogen is running the LUMA study. It's patients that have been diagnosed within 2 years. And the endpoint is UPDRS. So it's actually a functional endpoint. And it's asking a very important and big question, does LRRK2 inhibition provide a benefit in Parkinson's disease? So it is the experiment to run.
In parallel, we're running what's called the BEACON study, which is just patients with LRRK2 mutations, and we're focused on the biomarkers around LRRK2 and around neurodegeneration because that is a more specific question and more specific experimental paradigm where it's how about inhibiting LRRK2 in just the patient population that has a mutation. And the idea is that if it's -- it will be brilliant to work in idiopathic Parkinson's and there's some evidence that LRRK2 is generally activated, but you also get a real insight into the LRRK2 component of this disease.
Sure. And I guess those -- let's say, you mentioned looking at functional endpoints. But just remind us what those functional endpoints might be? And what would you set as the bar for success?
Yes. So the study is powered to be significant on UPDRS, which is essentially motor function analysis by physician and otherwise it's well-established Parkinson's disease rating scale.
Yes. Awesome. You expect to accelerate at least one program a year into the clinic over the next 3 years in areas like Pompe and Parkinson's, Gaucher. When could we expect to hear more?
Yes. So we hope by end of this year, we'll announce at least 2 more molecules entering the clinic. And then obviously, I already mentioned the ATV Abeta has been selected, and we'll be moving that in next year, probably a third. So 1 to 2 programs per year is the guidance, but we're aiming a little bit more towards 2. Now is the time to execute on the transport vehicle technology.
There's a lot going on at the company. You're just in front of your first commercial launch. How should investors think about capital allocation and the runway of funding?
Yes. So we recently reported $977 million that we have lasting into 2028. One of the things that we've focused a lot on in the last 1.5 years is acceleration and expansion. But when I say expansion, I mean expansion of the number of programs, not necessarily in the spend. And so we're going to be spending less per program than we have historically. And I think the reason for that is we had to prove that this technology works. We had to invest and the Hunter program is a great example of just enormous amount of data, both clinical data, but biomarker data.
And then with Sanfilippo, everything we've learned from Hunter we can apply to Sanfilippo and run smaller trials move faster. And we see that for all the subsequent enzymes. The same will be true for the oligonucleotide transport getting basically ASOs and siRNAs across the blood-barrier barrier. Very soon, we'll have our first program moving in the clinic using the OTV. And the same thing is that program will unlock the future of the OTVs.
Sure. Just generalizing here that it has been a fairly tough time in biotech and uncertainty on rates. M&A has been pretty quiet. Certainly, uncertainty on the regulatory front, but we know the rates, but it looks a little bit more promising. We're starting to hear in the background more pickup on a greater pickup in M&A. And it seems, particularly listening to Marty Makary over lunch that maybe the regulatory piece is sort of falling more into play and were overdone. But with that as a backdrop, do you think there's -- and you've discussed a lot today on your company. What do you think there might be that investors could be missing that really could see Denali outperform?
Yes. So I think you're looking for over -- and I'm thinking about the last 2 or 3 decades, the technologies or the drug targets that became transformative in the field, right? If it's more recently, but also long history of GLP-1, PD-1, immunotherapies, a lot of modulation of the immune system. There is no doubt that transferrin receptor-enabled molecules are in that category, okay? Because it's not going to be just Alzheimer's or just enzyme replacement therapy, but many, many programs will create best-in-class molecules by using these transferrin receptor technologies. better delivery to bone, better delivery to muscle, obviously, enabling delivery to brain. Before that, there was no delivery to brain, like basically, you had to give intrathecal enzyme or intrathecal oligonucleotide.
And so to me, that's where the value is. And that's also why the competition in the last 3 years has shifted and the large number of deals that you've seen over the last 2 years are around these transparent receptor-enabled programs. We, without any question, when founding Denali, we wanted to invent a platform to enable our medicines. We wanted to be a company that invented medicines that we would bring to patients as opposed to becoming a platform company that enables everyone else's medicines.
And not that, that's not a good approach, but it's just not the approach that we took. The approach we took is that if we had a very unique platform, and in this case, Fc engineered, which is different than the conventional fab approaches, we can enable an entire portfolio of medicines. And actually, the only thing that's rate limiting to really capture this value is capital. We're at the point now that we could do 2 dozen programs in scale, but that capital ideally will come from our own commercial launches. And if you look at like the survivor's analysis of companies that eventually become great, there are sometimes these incremental victories early on that establish that. And the part is you also learn as an organization, institutional knowledge of how to succeed and then you can start going after bigger and bigger and bigger indications using this technology.
So I think if there's -- the question is when do you get in on these technologies? And who do you get in with? I mean there are a lot of technologies out there. And the question today is very different than the question we got 9 years ago that today is like tell us why you're different from all these other transferrin receptor-enabled programs. And 9 years ago, it was like I thought transferrin like what does this do? Does it -- I mean, we've kind of been around, but does it actually deliver medicines to the brain? So I think that's the key. And we recognize that we'll have competitor -- we want to have competitors. It means that you're working in a space that is working.
Wonderful. Well, we're just on time. So with that, it's been wonderful to host you, Ryan, and thanks for coming to our conference.
Thank you.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Morgan Stanley 23rd Annual Global Healthcare Conference
📣 Kernbotschaft
- Plattform: Denali positioniert sich als führend bei transferrin‑Rezeptor (TFR)-gestützter Zulieferung großer Moleküle ins Gehirn; der Ansatz (Fc‑engineering statt konventionellem Fab) soll breit auf Enzyme, OTV‑ASOs/siRNA und Anti‑Abeta übertragbar sein.
- Status: Leadprogramm (tivi) läuft über beschleunigtes Zulassungsverfahren, Sanfilippo und weitere Enzymprogramme folgen; Kommerzstart und Skalierung sind unmittelbar bevorstehend.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- Regulatorik: Intensive FDA‑Begleitung, PDUFA‑Termin (Benachrichtigung) und Fokus auf Rare‑Disease Evidence Principles, die Single‑Arm‑Pfad für monogene Indikationen wahrscheinlicher machen.
- Kommerz & Produktion: Feld‑, Patienten‑ und Payer‑Teams aufgebaut; kommerzielle Fertigung für tivi mit Lonza, breitere Onshoring‑Pläne für andere Programme zur Kostensenkung.
- Pipeline & Timing: ATV‑Anti‑Abeta IND‑Enabling, LRRK2‑Programm in Phase mit Top‑line‑Erwartung nächstes Jahr, Ziel 1–2 klinische Starts pro Jahr.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- Zulassungsdetails: Rolling BLA wurde eingereicht; FDA‑Interaktionen (Day‑74, Mid‑Cycle) ohne Advisory Committee; Management fokussiert auf beschleunigte Zulassung und erkennt an, dass Confirmatory‑Design noch flexibel ist.
- Sanfilippo‑Plan: Phase I/II‑Erweiterung nahezu vollständig, FDA‑Einigkeit, dass ~20 Patienten und ~49 Wochen Daten für AA ausreichend sein könnten.
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Regulatory‑Risiken: Wie klar ist der Weg von Accelerated zu Full Approval (Welche Daten/Designs erforderlich)? Management nennt COMPASS/Confirmatory als kritischen Faktor, Details noch offen.
- Markt & Wettbewerb: Position vs. Gentherapien und andere BBB‑Plattformen; Denali sieht Enzymersatz ergänzend/ersetzend und betont Unterschiede durch Fc‑Engineering.
- Operationales: Supply‑Scaling, Onshoring und Kostenstruktur; Cash‑Runway (Firma nennt ~ $977M) und Kapitalallokation für beschleunigtes Portfoliowachstum wurden thematisiert.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Einordnung: Near‑term Katalysator ist die tivi‑Zulassung; regulatorische Leitplanken haben sich günstiger entwickelt, bleiben aber der wichtigste Unsicherheitsfaktor. Die Plattformvalidierung erhöht langfristige Upside, Ausführungs‑ und Reimbursementsrisiken bestimmen jedoch die kurzfristige Kursdynamik.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 46th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2025
1. Question Answer
Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Salveen Richter, biotechnology analyst at Goldman Sachs. I'm really pleased to be joined by the Denali team. So with me, I have Ryan Watts, CEO and Alex Schuth, who's Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer.
Maybe to start here. Could you just provide an overview of where Denali stands today in the context of your recent pipeline progress and key upcoming milestones. And maybe walk us through where you're most focused on from an execution standpoint over the next 12 to 18 months.
Yes. Absolutely, Salveen. Great to be here, great to be back at the Goldman conference. We appreciate the invitation. It's an extraordinary time at Denali with our first BLA filing, and we're waiting, of course, the PDUFA date. And that really represents the last decade of efforts where we've invented a novel blood-brain barrier technology known as the transport vehicle and a field that's now becoming very hot. And a lot of people are interested in getting large molecules into the brain using these technologies.
And so we spent really the first 5 years inventing this technology, the subsequent 5 years with proof-of-concept clinical data and then getting a data package robust enough to file our first BLA. In addition to that, a second program, we've announced top line at the end of last year that we have biomarker proof of concept, which is important, and we're defining the accelerated approval path with the FDA for that program as well. That particular program is for Sanfilippo. Obviously, the lead programs for Hunter syndrome. Those 2 molecules combined, we're excited in the next several years to have multiple programs in our commercial portfolio and have launched multiple programs.
I think the other area is important as we think about the next 18 months in execution, it's launch readiness, launch, commercial piece, fortunately in a disease area that we're going to launch ourselves. I think one thing you learn is a CEO, you just roll with it. You just keep going. It's like it's kind of the way life is over the last decade. So the -- preparing for these launches, engaging with the FDA, we're going to get into that in some detail. We've had a really productive and consistent dialogue with the FDA even though the external world bills, a little crazy right now.
And then I think what's really exciting is bringing the next wave of transport vehicle molecules into the clinic. We have 3 in clinical testing now. I didn't mention the progranulin program but we'll be bringing at least another 3 within the next year an enzyme transport vehicle, an antibody transport vehicle and an oligonucleotide transport vehicle. So representing some of our new let's call them franchises with the oligonucleotide and the antibody transport vehicle. So it's an exciting time. I'll just end by -- my introduction by saying that we've also launched our own clinical manufacturing so that we can be actually move faster, but I think equally important, be capital efficient. And we're thinking a lot about how do we advance as many programs but reduce the cost of each program now that we have our flagship program at the FDA under BLA review.
It's interesting. I think when we look at the blood-brain barrier platform, there's very much this view especially as you talk about Hunter syndrome and Sanfilippo that this is kind of the next generation to after the enzyme replacement therapies. So maybe before we jump into the into these -- the specifics around these 2 programs. Could you just speak to your ability to go broad, if you want into all these rare diseases that have been targeted by ERTs? And the ability to do so. And I don't know if there's a quicker path to doing it where you can leverage the work you've done so far with the different targets.
I think that's the exact intent of having your own clinical manufacturing is the speed and cost reducing it by 30% or 40%. So we have absolutely the intent to go broad. The question for us is, from an identity perspective when we founded Denali division, I think that everyone saw externally is solving Alzheimer's disease, which we know is a long road. Our vision was to build a blood-brain barrier platform and ultimately to feed degeneration. In the case of Hunter syndrome, in some ways, we've achieved both. We've been able to show that the platform works, but also we've -- the biomarker that's used to measure neurodegeneration, neurofilament light chain, we've seen a normalization or near normalization in all patients. So it's like that's the actual proof.
The question then becomes, from a business strategy, how broad do we go on these smaller indications in rare disease and how much do we -- effort do we put into the larger indications and everything in between. And part of the capital raise last year, the intent of that at that time, which was opportunistic was to do exactly the following to accelerate and to expand. And so the short answer to your question is we can absolutely go broad, but we want that balance between the size of indications that we're going after. And we see really Hunter and Sanfilippo as proof of concept and the ability to build a foundation around the enzyme franchise, but we're very excited about some of these midsized and larger indications like Pompe, Gaucher, Parkinson's, the GBA mutations in Parkinson's and then obviously, Alzheimer's disease.
So I don't know, Alex, if you want to add anything to that.
Yes. At this point, as the transport vehicle is validated clinically, and we're going to commercialization and we know that blood-brain barrier transport is possible, we want to capture the full value of the technology, right? So now the strategy is to create the optionality, initiate new programs preclinically, which will then have the opportunity to either take them forward ourselves or have partnering opportunities.
And I think historically, we're a deep science company. And now as we transition, it's really deep execution, like using that scientific mindset on how to move rapidly and using the technologies that we've built to move quickly in areas that are really high probability of success. I mean, enzyme replacement therapies are very high probability of success.
With Hunter syndrome, you've recently completed the accelerated approval -- under the accelerated approval pathway you've completed the rolling BLA submission. Help us understand if there's anything else that needs to be done on the regulatory front, but then walk us through the commercial strategy here, recognizing there's already a pool of identified patients. So how do you go out and really kind of address that? And how much education is required for switching?
Yes. So I'll highlight briefly the BLA and then Alex will cover the commercial strategy. So what an unusual time to be in the process of filing a BLA, for us, it was not only business as usual, but very consistent and responsive FDA, which was really important, obviously, as there's a lot of uncertainty in the change in the administration. And so for us, it was -- we initiated the rolling submission in less than 5 weeks, we completed the entire BLA. And the data package is essentially the data that we presented at WORLD this year. So all 47 patients reaching 6 months or longer. We have some patients that have been on for over 4 years. And a very robust data package, but that's very large for this type of patient population, where there's 500 patients in the U.S. alone. And so now it's basically waiting for our PDUFA date, preparing basically for launch by early next year. It really depends on when our data is or earlier depending on the engagement with the FDA. But very consistent engagement.
Alex, on commercial.
Yes. So of course, super excited about the path to commercialization and then a successful launch and a successful product for patients. As you mentioned, Salveen, this DNL310 tivi can be the first product in a new generation of enzyme replacement therapy, really a field that hasn't seen much innovation for the last 20 years, and TFR enablement can enhance distribution into all tissues, not only the brain, but also more effectively distribute in the periphery. So what we see is a very clear best-in-class product profile for DNL310 we're building a commercial team that ensures success for that product but then can be leveraged for the whole enzyme franchise thereafter. So DNL126 will come within -- we were discussing with the FDA the path to accelerated approval, but hopefully, a very short period of time after 310. And then as Ryan mentioned, we have more enzymes that go into the clinic.
As for the operations, our Chief Commercial Officer, Katie Peng has been on board for over 2 years now as we are always preparing and when we're in discussions with the FDA on the path to accelerated approval to be able to go fast. Our MSL team has been in place for a while, and we have already engaged with all of the centers of excellence when we've by now engaged with every single prescriber of Elaprase in the U.S. Now the focus is on building out the rest of the team, engaging even deeper with the community, building all the patient support network around. And at the core of it, what it really is, is education, and it's education that tivi will be suitable for all patients with Hunter syndrome.
How many centers of excellence are there in the U.S. or potentially genetics targets that you're planning to pursue initially? And on the education front, what is the education that is required here?
Yes. So we see about to about 100 centers of excellence in the U.S. There is a high degree of awareness for tivi, many of these investigators have participated in our trial. There is also a high degree of awareness in the patient community with very close links to the patient community. Again, the core essence of the education is that this is a drug which is for all patients for Hunter syndrome. It does something that standard of care doesn't do, which gets into the brain, but it's also superior in the periphery. The education will also be, of course, around the differences to gene therapy. More broadly with respect to enzyme replacement therapy where we have clear advantages as well.
You also recently held a European workshop that was very much modeled after what played out in the U.S. that led to the alignment that you agreed upon with regard to the AA pathway. Can you provide an update on ex U.S. progress here?
Yes. So I think similar to the Reagan-Udall Foundation meeting, which was a little over a year ago, the initial reaction is, well, are these biomarkers predictive of clinical benefit. And that dialogue began about a year after in with European regulators. And of course, it's not just EMA, it's also MHRA, who was involved in that workshop. We've seen some steady momentum there. One of the biggest differences in Europe versus the U.S. is really how they look at reimbursement. And so our base case, of course, has been that we complete the COMPASS study and then we go to Europe and seek approval. But we'll continue to push where we can and with really the goal of a successful launch in Europe and successful pricing. So that's a little bit of a different dynamic than what you have in the U.S. I would say that where we continue to engage with the EMA as well on the Sanfilippo program is the design of that Phase III study. And that's where we aligned on COMPASS with the EMA and the FDA. We're doing a similar thing with Sanfilippo but that dialogue continues.
And our sense is that it's opening up in Europe as well. I don't think they want to be behind, especially these medicines where it's linear. It's a single enzyme loss of function. The biomarker predicts clinical benefit and let's see how that evolves. And where do you stand from a manufacturing perspective? So manufacturing is really 2, I think, major points. So for tivi, the product that we'll be launching, we're manufacturing with Lonza, that particular product manufactured in Switzerland, although we'll soon be onshore to the U.S. to a facility that can run larger volumes which is fantastic. And then the rest of our manufacturing is in our own facility here in the United States, and that's for basically the future programs, including, by the way, the Sanfilippo program as well. So we're in a strong position confident in our manufacturing for launch, obviously, with Lonza having a long and successful track record.
And what remains -- you've touched on this, but with the Sanfilippo program, what remains to be ironed out in the U.S.?
Yes. So I think there are really a 2-step process [indiscernible] Phase III and then once that's locked down, what is the data package needed for accelerated approval. That's essentially what we're engaging with the FDA. And their -- the star program has been advantageous for us. We have a consistent dialogue with the FDA, quarterly meetings in person as well, and we see that continuing and I think really advantageous for the Sanfilippo program.
And where is the debate around the Phase III trial design? Is it around really the surrogate endpoint here?
Yes. So actually, for the Phase III, the debate is there's not a standard of care. So in our COMPASS trial, it's an active comparator control. So we have tivi versus idursulfase. In this case, there's growing alignment that you'd use natural history as your comparator as opposed to placebo. And I think the reason for that is that Sanfilippo is a tragically rapid neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disease and much more than many of the other MPSs. So basically, selecting placebo is you're just going to expect a very rapid decline.
Can you speak to how the potential competitive dynamics may play out with different modalities in Sanfilippo. We've had ERTs, but how are you thinking about gene therapy coexisting there as well?
And it's not just Sanfilippo, it's also Hunter. We have basically 2 medicines that are under review for both Sanfilippo and Hunter using gene therapy, an interesting difference between the 2. One is basically delivered directly to the brain and the other is delivered systemically, which I find fascinating, and it's the reverse of what you would think because Sanfilippo is more of a neuronal disease, even more so than hunter, and that's the one that's delivered systemically and vice versa.
And so what ends up happening in Hunter basically, all patients will need to be on a standard of care Elaprase or tividenofusp alfa. Obviously, where this is -- I think Alex mentioned this, treating not just the brain but the whole body, our peripheral biomarkers show improvement compared to standard of care, and that's very important. In the case of Sanfilippo, I think also it's not necessarily normalizing substrates. We think we have a better profile and what will probably happen, we actually already have this in our Hunter program. We have patients that were on gene therapy which, of course, you're on forever, but have now -- are now on tividenofusp alfa.
And so part of that is to treat the peripheral disease, but also they had -- they didn't have sufficient biomarker reduction in the CNS, and so we're seeing further improvement in the CNS as well. So we imagine that really durability, tolerability with gene therapy, especially this generation of gene therapies that these patients will need to be on an enzyme replacement therapy. So that's how we view it. So maybe less competition and more combination.
Got it. Before we delve further into the pipeline, could you talk about how your prioritization strategy lies currently. So when you look across everything you're doing, and clearly, you've partnered some of these programs out. But within especially within the BBB platform, where are you allocating the most resources and capital.
Yes. I'll start and then, Alex, you'll have a good answer to this as well as you run operations and the finances. For us, the priority again for the last 5 years is proving that the platform works and filing our first BLA. And now it's been very wise about the spend on the enzyme transport vehicle, recognizing that a number of these indications are small. So the way I think about Sanfilippo is half the size of the study twice as fast. And if we can do that now with every additional program, that would be fantastic.
We also have like definitively made the decision that we are a delivery company, like we have built this novel platform. And rather than being a rare disease company or an Alzheimer's company, we're going to use the transport vehicle to go after various diseases of various I think part of that prioritization will feed into creating the opportunities with each one of these medicines, some of which we plan to take all the way and launch ourselves and others through strategic partnering. And so I think the key and I'll ask Alex to comment more in more detail has been wise about how much we spend on the late-stage portfolio and now bringing more molecules forward, Alex?
Yes. So as we look at the broad potential of transferrin receptor-enabled delivery, there is an enormous number of products, right -- opportunities. But what we look at is sort of 3 factors, right, time to value creation, biological risk and then market opportunity. right? As we started early with Denali, it was very much about validating the platform. So we also win for smaller opportunities that have a high probability of success. Now we want to go more to what we call sort of the top left quadrant.
So the enzyme replacement therapy portfolio has collectively has a multibillion-dollar market opportunity, and it has a high probability of success. And especially with an accelerated approval pathway, it has a fast time line to proof of concept. So we've used the terms that we call that sort of peak 1 of value creation. Then there is peak 2, which is the second wave of programs and Ryan mentioned some of these neurodegeneration programs, but a beta and tau through the biomarkers also have a relatively fast time to clinical data. So in both of those indications, it will be possible even in the first patient study to derive CSF levels of -- or imaging in the case of Abeta in CSF levels of tau in the case of MAPT. So that's how we prioritize. And then there is -- on the preclinical side, again, it's on programs that can create value in a reasonable period of time and have at least medium-sized market opportunity.
Can you speak to these Abeta and tau programs? And how quickly you can progress these trials to get to those proof-of-concept time points?
Yes. So we've generally been stating 1 to 2 programs per year, IND in the next 3 years. We've completed GLP tox studies for 2 more programs right now. So essentially, those programs were just riding and preparing for filing, which is exciting. One will be in Alzheimer's program. One will be an enzyme replacement therapy. And as I mentioned a year from now, my expectation is to have 3 molecules in the clinic, 2 in Alzheimer's and 1 ETV, that's just the beginning, right? And so again, it goes this resource prioritization. I think our guidance to 1 to 2 per year is also being wise about our burn as we prepare to launch our first medicine.
So speaking specifically about MAPT and Abeta, I think we're at the point now with Abeta and those people who really know the Alzheimer's filled really understand the genetics understand the clinical data, these medicines work, but they could be better, and they could be better for 1 of 2 ways. They can either be given earlier, which I think has a much higher chance of delaying disease to begin with, and those studies are some of those like preclinical studies are underway for the standard antibodies but also more rapid plaque reduction and a better safety profile. So our ATV Abeta is engineered to basically give you broad and even distribution throughout the CNS, more rapid plaque reduction but also engineered to be immune silent when bound to transferrin receptor, which we think will improve the profile around hematological findings, which are observed with a number of the TFR platforms.
And then in terms of the MAPT, that particular target, we -- I look at Abeta as the initiator and MAPT as the executioner in Alzheimer's disease, but it doesn't have the same direct genetic underpinnings that amyloid beta has, but it's still a very promising target. And there, I think all eyes are on the intrathecal delivery of an ASO as early signs, but I think everyone recognizes that a systemic delivery that has even distribution would be ultimately ideal for that target, and that's the product that we're bringing forward.
So you're taking both platforms [indiscernible] Alzheimer's.
Yes. And very rapidly. Yes. Now I think what happened is we blazed the trial with oligonucleotides, proved that it could be done. And then we basically have done a lot more engineering to improve the platform and bring our first product forward. And now we've, in fact, have an internal team that works on the oligonucleotide chemistry and it's been an exciting, let's say, expansion for Denali in the last year.
On the frontotemporal dementia granulin program here, could you speak to what we should be looking at from the Alector Phase III trial that could have read through to your program that's partnered.
I think fundamentally, the way that Alector is approaching FTD granulin is different than the way we're approaching it. So the -- their approach is to block its natural receptor that's required for internalization of progranulin, although there are at least 1 other receptor our approach is very similar to enzyme replacement therapy, but it's basically protein replacement therapy. So we're essentially giving progranulin back using the transport vehicle. We've shown that progranulin plays a role in basically lysosomes and this is -- it's very similar to the ERT programs, and that's the approach. We, of course, are watching what will happen with their program. But for -- I think for us, because it's distinct mechanistically I see a future regardless of the outcome, unless I guess it's definitively solved and it's going to be more challenging to develop PTV progranulin.
Is there anything else that you want to highlight across the pipeline, whether early-stage development or even the small molecule programs here with Biogen?
Yes. So I think what I'd like to highlight is that it's we believe, and I think it's been shown by the -- just the landscape broadly that it's the era of blood-brain barrier delivery and tissue delivery. And when we started a decade ago, there were a handful of companies that had a program or 2. And now I think with our Hunter data, Sanfilippo data, obviously, the data in the anti-amyloid fields that are enabled by brain shuttles at such an exciting time, right? And I think it's -- as Alex mentioned and I just want to reiterate, it's about execution. It's about bringing now a bunch of programs forward and decrease in the cost of that effort from idea to IND and then from IND to clinical proof of concept. So ideally, all of them have a biomarker.
And I think that tissue distribution allows us to even think beyond the brain. We're thinking about tumors and we're thinking about muscle, and that's also been known to be highly dependent on transferrin receptor as a way to distribute. And so that being said, why is resource allocation, especially with the high cost of capital is really important for us. So I'd say it's probably the most exciting time in the last decade for Denali.
Great. Maybe a last question here. You talked about how it's important to manage your allocation of capital. So with that context and recognizing you've always had a very decent BD effort, right, with regard to partnering your own assets. How are you balancing this with this broad opportunity set that you have?
Yes. So partnering and BD has always been a core part of our strategy. And as you mentioned, we did 3 deals in pretty short sequence early on Biogen, Sanofi and Takeda. And then we slowed down, which was really in an interest to have a part of our portfolio that is wholly owned. So now that some of those deals have -- or some of those alliances have essentially played out and our portfolio has expanded, we have much more capacity to do new deals. And especially as we look at the capital requirement into the future years, and Ryan mentioned a few times how important capital efficiency is for us. So we don't plan to grow OpEx much. And we will have revenues coming in, but still partnering and BD will be one of the core areas that we look at. There are opportunities. There are opportunities at different parts of the portfolio. It's really what's the right deal, who is the right partner and what's the right time.
Great. Well, with that, thank you so much, Ryan, and Alex. We really appreciate the time today.
Alright. Thank you for being here.
Transkripte auf Deutsch freischalten
- Alle Event Transkripte auf Deutsch
- Sofortige Übersetzung
- KI-Zusammenfassungen für die wichtigsten Insights
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 46th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2025
Denali Therapeutics Inc. — Goldman Sachs 46th Annual Global Healthcare Conference 2025
📣 Kernbotschaft
- Kernbotschaft: Denali hat eine Biologics License Application (BLA) eingereicht und wartet auf die PDUFA‑Entscheidung (FDA‑Entscheidungsdatum). Die Transport Vehicle (TV)‑Plattform ist klinisch validiert (bei Hunter: Normalisierung von Neurofilament light), das Management bereitet einen eigenen Produktlaunch vor und will durch eigene Produktion Kosten und Geschwindigkeit verbessern.
🎯 Strategische Highlights
- BLA & Launch: DNL310 (tividenofusp alfa, "tivi") ist Kern des Launch‑Plans; Management plant Self‑commercialization in den USA und frühe Launch‑Vorbereitungen.
- Produktion: Aktuell Fertigung mit Lonza (Schweiz) für tivi, Onshoring in die USA geplant; eigene Facility für Folgeprogramme soll Kosten pro Programm senken.
- Pipeline‑Priorität: Kurzfristiger Fokus auf Enzym‑Transportvehikel (ETV) für seltene Erkrankungen; mittelfristig Antikörper‑ und Oligonukleotid‑TVs (ATV/PTV/ASO) für Neurodegeneration und größere Indikationen.
🔭 Neue Informationen
- BLA‑Status: Rolling submission binnen ~5 Wochen abgeschlossen; Datensatz umfasst 47 Patienten ≥6 Monate, einige >4 Jahre; PDUFA ausstehend, Launchplanung "früh im nächsten Jahr" abhängig von FDA‑Dialog.
- Klinische Daten: Biomarker‑Proof‑of‑Concept bei zweitem Programm (Sanfilippo) bestätigt; Neurofilament light bei Hunter nahe Normalisierung.
- Klinische Roadmap: Ziel: 1–2 INDs pro Jahr, innerhalb ~12 Monaten drei Moleküle in klinischer Erprobung (u.a. zwei Alzheimer‑Programme, ein ETV).
❓ Fragen der Analysten
- Regulatorik: Diskussion um Sanfilippo‑Phase‑III‑Design; Dialog mit FDA/EMA zur Nutzung von Natural‑History statt Placebo und zu surrogate Endpoints für Accelerated Approval (beschleunigte Zulassung).
- Kommerzialisierung: Management wurde zu Switch‑Strategie vs. vorhandenem ERT (Elaprase) befragt; Ziel: Bildung eines Patienten‑/Behandlernetzwerks (≈100 Centers of Excellence in den USA) und extensive Education.
- Wettbewerb & BD: Fragen zu Koexistenz/Kombo mit Gentherapien und Kapitalallokation; Management betont Kombination statt reiner Konkurrenz und selektives Partnering.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Fazit: Das Event reduziert Entwicklungs‑ und Plattformrisiko: BLA‑Filing, biomarkerbasierte Proof‑of‑Concepts und Launch‑Vorbereitung sind klare Near‑term‑Katalysatoren. Hauptrisiken bleiben FDA‑Entscheidungen, europäische Erstattungsdynamik und Execution bei kommerziellem Aufbau sowie Kapitalallokation für die breite Pipeline.
Finanzdaten von Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Umsatz
Der Umsatz stellt die Summe aller Einnahmen eines Unternehmens z. B. für dessen Produkte oder Dienstleistungen dar.
Umsatz (TTM) einfach erklärtDirekte Kosten
Direkte Kosten sind die Kosten, die direkt im Zusammenhang mit der Herstellung des Produkts oder der Dienstleistung entstehen.
Bruttoertrag
Der Bruttoertrag gibt an, wie viel vom Umsatz nach Abzug der direkten Herstellkosten im Unternehmen verbleibt. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von der Bruttomarge (engl. Gross Margin).
Brutto Marge einfach erklärtVertriebs- und Verwaltungskosten
Die Vertriebs- & Verwaltungskosten (engl. Selling, General & Administrative expenses, kurz SG&A) beinhalten alle Aufwände für Marketing und den Verkauf sowie die allgemeine Verwaltung des Unternehmens.
Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten
Die Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten (engl. research & development costs, kurz R&D) geben Auskunft darüber, wie viel das Unternehmen in die Forschung und die Entwicklung seiner Produkte investiert. Vor allem prozentual vom Umsatz und im Vergleich zu direkten Wettbewerbern sind die Kosten interessant.
EBITDA
Das EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) ist der Gewinn des Unternehmens vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von der EBITDA-Marge.
Abschreibungen
Abschreibungen stellen Wertminderungen von Vermögensgegenständen des Unternehmens dar (z.B. durch Abnutzung von Maschinen).
EBIT (Operatives Ergebnis)
Das EBIT (engl. Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) ist der Gewinn des Unternehmens vor Zinsen und Steuern, das auch als operatives Ergebnis bezeichnet wird. Berechnet man den prozentualen Anteil vom Umsatz, spricht man von
der EBIT-Marge.
Nettogewinn
Der Nettogewinn stellt den Gewinn oder Verlust nach Abzug aller Kosten dar.
Nettogewinn einfach erklärtaktien.guide Premium
| Dez '25 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Umsatz | - - |
-
100 %
|
|
| - Direkte Kosten | - - |
-
-
|
|
| Bruttoertrag | - - |
-
-
|
|
| - Vertriebs- und Verwaltungskosten | 137 137 |
30 %
30 %
-
|
|
| - Forschungs- und Entwicklungskosten | 419 419 |
6 %
6 %
-
|
|
| EBITDA | -541 -541 |
10 %
10 %
-
|
|
| - Abschreibungen | 15 15 |
65 %
65 %
-
|
|
| EBIT (Operatives Ergebnis) EBIT | -555 -555 |
11 %
11 %
-
|
|
| Nettogewinn | -513 -513 |
21 %
21 %
-
|
|
Angaben in Millionen USD.
Nichts mehr verpassen! Wir senden Dir alle News zur Denali Therapeutics Inc.-Aktie direkt und kostenlos in Deine Mailbox.
Auf Wunsch erhältst Du jeden Morgen pünktlich zum Frühstück eine E-Mail, die alle für Dich relevanten Aktien-News enthält.
Denali Therapeutics Inc. Aktie News
Firmenprofil
Denali Therapeutics, Inc. ist ein biopharmazeutisches Unternehmen, das sich mit der Entwicklung und Kommerzialisierung eines Portfolios von Produktkandidaten für neurodegenerative Erkrankungen befasst. Seine Produktpipeline umfasst LRRK2, RIPK1, TREM2 und Tau. Das Unternehmen wurde am 14. Oktober 2013 von Ryan J. Watts, Marc Tessier-Lavigne und Alexander Schuth gegründet und hat seinen Hauptsitz in San Francisco, Kalifornien.
aktien.guide Premium
| Hauptsitz | USA |
| CEO | Dr. Watts |
| Mitarbeiter | 507 |
| Gegründet | 2013 |
| Webseite | www.denalitherapeutics.com |


