Conference Transcript - IDYA 2026-06-03

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Hi, everyone. My name is Maury Raycroft, and I'm one of the biotech analysts at Jeffries. It's with great pleasure that I'd like to welcome the IDEA team today. We've got Ujiro Hada, the CEO, Josh Wilharski, the CFO, and Mike White, CSO. It's fireside chat format. To start off, Ujiro, maybe give a brief intro to IDEA. And you guys had an announcement this morning with the collaboration with Roche. Maybe provide some key highlights for that.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

So, Maury, thanks for the introduction, and thank you to Jeffries for the opportunity to participate at your annual global health care conference. So, Maury, as you noted, in terms of IDEA, we did have an announcement this morning, which we'll cover. So, IDEA Biosciences, we're a leading precision medicine oncology company. We just came from ASCO, where we had a late-breaker oral presentation this past Monday, which which was the full complete data set around our top line results for the frontline HLA-82- metastatic human melanoma. We have begun the, under our tour, the pre-submission process, pre-submission module one has been officially submitted as of a few days ago. So all of that is tracking forward. In addition to the frontline HLA-82- metastatic human melanoma with our global partner survey, We have two additional randomized phase three studies that are now either kicking off or ongoing, including in the neoadjuvant setting as well as in the adjuvant setting. Beyond that, we have a very deep pipeline, including a phase two DLL3 topo-ADC molecule that is being advanced for both small cell lung cancer and neuroendocrine carcinoma. We also have two clinical assets in PRMT5 and MAT2A in the area called MTAP deletion with a significant focus in pancreatic cancer as well as non-small cell lung cancer. We did announce this morning a new collaboration with Roche specifically to do a combination with their phase one pan-ras inhibitor with ID892, our potential best-in-class per M25 inhibitor. And this is specifically going to target MTAP deletion pancreatic cancer, I'm sure we'll talk about that. Perhaps the last asset I'll mention is ID574, which is a first-in-class dual inhibitor of CAT67. Here, a significant focus on breast cancer, colorectal cancer, as well as other indications.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Great intro, and we always run out of time at the end, so maybe let's start off with Roche first. Maybe talk about why you picked that compound. Did you see preclinical data or something that gave you confidence that this is the best drug to combine with? Maybe talk about that.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, look, the parties did your typical diligence as part of the discussion around the clinical collaboration. Our perspective on this is that, you know, the real, we think, significant opportunity moving forward is can you deliver a greater efficacy and patient value in the earlier line settings of indications like pancreatic cancer. And we believe a lot of that is going to be through enabling rational combinations. And within that context, Mori, our view is that we have the opportunity to have a potential best-in-class combination with their PanRAS inhibitor, with our PRMT5 inhibitor. Beyond that, I think, you know, Gro should be the better group to answer questions as it relates to their specific molecule. But we feel very good about what we're able to observe, and we're excited to get this collaboration going.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Anything more on where you're at with your PRMT5 and anything on timelines for getting to the combo and what that could look like.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so what I can tell you with IE892, we also have Mike White here, CSO, so I'm sure Mike could also jump into why we're excited about the mechanistic rationale of this combination. The dose escalation has been going very well. We believe based on the human PK data we've seen, we're going to have a very favorable pill burden size. We also believe we've substantiated some of the key sort of premises of this molecule and why we believe it has a potential best-in-class profile. We will be commencing the combination phase for this program in about a week. I actually just checked in with the clinical team yesterday. We already have multiple patients in screening to start the ID892 and MAT2A combination, which, as you know, more is a big focus for us in MTAP deletion lung cancer, so that should be within days that combination is going, which implies we've already cleared multiple-dose cohorts. The monotherapy expansion will also begin here relatively shortly, we anticipate in the second half. Their significant focus on pancreatic cancer, obviously, to also generate the contribution of components data we would need for combination work we would do ultimately moving forward, and then as well as in non-small cell lung cancer.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it, and all really helpful. And for your PRMT5, maybe talk about how you think about the dose range compared to the Tango drug and the Bristol drug.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, Mike, do you want to take that? And obviously we can't specify a specific dose, but high level.

Michael White

Yeah, so we're very excited about this compound. When we made this, it was really with an eye towards optimizing specificity for MTAP, making sure that we were MTA cooperative, but also SAM competitive, so we're very clean. That meant that we have a safe starting dose that's very close to our anticipated efficacious dose, which means that we're going to be ready to go into combinations very soon. And we have a PK profile that, together with what we're seeing with respect to tolerability and our perceived tolerability with respect to this profile, also a very nice PK, no pill burden, no getting up to high doses, where we're going to start to engage other targets. So we're excited about that aspect of the combination as well.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

And also, Moria, I did forget to mention for the Roche collaboration, I think what is also unique about our collaboration with them is we also have the ability, and this would require approval by both IDA and Roche, but a combination triplet with the PanRAS, our PRMT5, and Matsue. And we do think that could be a key point of differentiation. Obviously, that's going to be further afield, but we think, you know, a key potential path of differentiation.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Really interesting. And then for the combo with MAT2A, how are you setting expectations there for what you want to see on response rate and safety? And I don't know if you're setting expectations for what you'd want to see with the Panras inhibitor, too, if you've kind of thought about that already. Some other companies have commented there.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, look, I think for both combinations with non-small cell lung cancer, maybe we'll We'll start with that one. We've already seen some clinical combination data, and at least Mike should comment here, but our anticipation is that we will likely be at an efficacious range at the first cohort, the first combination cohort. Based on what we've seen in the past, our anticipation is that we should have the ability to identify several combination cohort doses we should be able to move forward with. Second is that we should see responses at sub-therapeutic doses of PRMT5 monotherapy. And ultimately, the real premise of this combination is going to be to drive greater both response rate and durability. So, you know, so I think that's our expectation. We're not going to throw out a specific number, but the bar will be high. So, Mike, do you want to comment on that or also on the pan-rasp combo?

Michael White

Yeah, so one of the things that's important to us is that combination, the PRMT5-MAT2A combination allows us to really reduce the dose intensity for both of those molecules and get spectacular preclinical efficacy and durability. And the durability piece is very important because what the MAT2A inhibitor brings on board is intercepting escape mechanisms, particularly escape mechanisms due to sulfate transitions and epigenetic alterations. And I want to bring that to the pancreas cancer piece, very excited there, because the KRAS combination, or the pan-RAS combination in the KRAS mutants, that's exciting in pancreas Virtually all MTAP pancreas cancer patients have KRAS mutations. And this combination, and particularly the triplet, gives us multiple mechanisms of action that will combine with each other, we think, to give deeper and more durable responses. So one, you have the co-alteration piece, so hit it from two different sides. But two, as was presented by a number of laboratories at the AACR this year, the mechanism of action of MAT2A and PRMT5 to perturb splicing also directly perturbs the machinery that KRAS uses to activate the MAP kinase pathway. So we actually weaken the ability of RAS to drive tumors. And the third piece is that the MAT2A inhibitor restricts the sulfate transitions that occur, which seem to be one of the major mechanisms that drive bypass to monotherapy, mono-RAS therapy. So that triple combination could do something really important in the pancreas cancer setting.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. All really helpful. And let's shift gears. The Darrow story has been front and center for IDEA for a while, and you guys had positive phase three data with the 6.9 months PFS, 0.42 hazard ratio, and you just presented this at ASCO as a late breaker. Maybe talk about just the key takes that investors need to know from this program and next steps as well.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, I would first start with metastatic human melanoma continues to be extraordinarily high on that medical need. Unfortunately for patients, there are currently no FDA-approved therapies in HLA-A2-negative metastatic uva melanoma. And we believe, based on the data that was just presented at ASCO, has the opportunity, as the discussant noted at the presentation, the opportunity to be the new standard of care in HLA-A2-negative metastatic uva melanoma. So that's extraordinarily exciting, Maury. And what is that based on? That's based on the strength of the data that was presented on Monday. First, just for the listeners that may be less familiar, when you look at the clinical efficacy profile, we demonstrated a confirmed response rate by both central review as well as investigator scoring that was trending towards 40 percent. Just put in context, the control arm response rate was sadly mid-single digit percent. and in fact by investigator scoring it was roughly two percent which shows you how challenging this indication is next when you look at median progression free survival uh here we more than doubled what was seen in the control arm which was primarily uh ipi nevo uh so i think a clear win on progression free survival uh hazard ratio was 0.42 uh was less than that by investigator scoring and a p-value of less than 0.0001 by so all statistical measures it's clearly mission accomplished from a safety perspective just high level we saw last SCE rates less discontinuation rates than the control arm so as well as from a safety perspective we think significant potential advantages when you look at safety so when obviously and with any kind of new therapy as a a potential standard of care, you always want to look at both the risk as well as the benefit in both parameters. We think the molecules position extremely well.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. That's helpful. And you mentioned that the first RTOR module was submitted. Can you just clarify what was in there and then what the timeline could look like for the remaining modules?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so the FDA with the RTOR pre-submission module 1, 2, 3, there's actually some fairly clear defined parameters of what they want to see within those modules. I'm not going to go through all those specifics. You can actually go to the FDA website, and that's all available online. The next pre-submission module is a few months away, and then the final third is typically filed when that final submission process. And typically, I would say companies in our peer group try to get that filed within roughly two quarters. And so we're tracking along that. As you know, Maury, we also have fast-track designations, so we would get expedited review and now with our tour we would anticipate having a further acceleration of that review process since they're now reviewing the data real time so i think that's going to be great and hopefully can pull in that launch timing got it and you've commented on the the potential to include the hla positive data um in the filing i guess where are you at with conversations with FDA around that?

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Have you already spoken with them on that point?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so the quick summary is yes. Discussions have occurred with the FDA on the HLA-2 positive piece of it, and those discussions will continue, including for the pre-NDA meeting that's already penciled in the calendar. But the preliminary discussions have occurred.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. And so that'll be confirmed at the pre-NDA meeting. Are you saying more about timing for when?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

We're not saying more about the timing, but yes, that's correct. We would anticipate we'll have further clarity as part of that pre-NDA meeting.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay. And would that be included as a part of the rolling submission, or would that be a major amendment for the HLA positive data?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

So one is we would have that conversation as part of this pre-NDA meeting. I think, Maury here, we probably don't want to get into too many specifics on regulatory pieces there. But I would say, you know, kind of base view is if that is the path forward that is available, we will submit that as part of the NDA. It would likely be staggered from the full submission.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Okay. And you've highlighted an early OS trend at approximately 10 months of follow-up with the potential to extend that by six-plus months. What are the key drivers and options involved with your next OS cut for FDA? And do you see a path to stopping the study early given control patients can't cross over to combo?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so we are seeing an early trend in OS for the treatment arm versus the control arm. We noted that as part of the top-line results. That was with fairly minimal follow-up with just over seven months, but I think that's encouraging when you see an early trend even with only a fairly minimal follow-up in the So in terms of additional updates moving forward on OS, our view here is that the current projection for the interim OS analysis is middle of next year. But you are correct, Maury, that at the time of the NDA submission, the FDA will want to have, as part of including the safety database update, where we are on the OS events. And as part of that, because there is no crossover in this study, there is a scenario we may get full approval. But just so this is clear, that is not what we view as base case, but potential upside scenario. got it and for the amount of time of OS follow-up that you could have are you commenting more on what that could look like what the range could be in terms of at the time of the NDA submission no we're not on the the cutoff for the top-line results was end of January so I think here you know it's gonna be roughly six to you know seven months more follow-up you know something in that time frame got it okay and you've showed you've got the hazard ratio of 0.42 from this study, which is meaningfully better than Chemtrax 0.76 hazard ratio.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

How do you think about pricing here? Could you price at a premium versus Chemtrax, or what other variables should we be thinking about? Sure.

Joshua Bleharski, CFO

So that's work that is ongoing right now, Maury. Obviously, as the data evolves, we want to take that into consideration as we think about pricing. You know, as you throw out other competing drugs in the space, you know, Chemtrax is obviously one analog. Yeah, I think depending on how the data shakes out, we do think there's an argument to be made for pricing at parity or even at a premium to ChemTrack. But ultimately, we want to make sure that we take the full data set into account as we make those decisions.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. That's helpful. And for the pivotal study, what are you seeing on median duration of treatment?

Joshua Bleharski, CFO

Yeah, I mean, what we've seen so far is 10 months.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

So that's sort of what our clinical trial experience has shown to date I think there's a there's a path for that to extend beyond that in the real world setting depending on where we are but you know that's sort of what the data has told us thus far got it okay and for later this year you're gonna have the HLA positive data update expected a medical conference how should we think about the frontline versus second-line post chemtrax split within the 85 plus HLA positive patient cohort And how are you setting expectations for median OS, median PFS, and ORR relative to what you observed with the HLA-negative?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so the majority of the patients, Maury, will be pretreated patients. So we're not sort of specifying beyond that, but the majority will be pretreated. And as you noted, we'll have a full data set for all comers as well as the frontline patient subset, including response rate, PFS, as well as median overall survival, which will be important, obviously, because we are going into an important interim OS analysis. And then this will be the second time we're now sharing median OS again. Granted, it is from a single arm study, but I think hopefully a useful data point. I would say the high-level takeaway, Maury, hopefully people will take from the data set is our view is the data is very robust and also consistent with what we've seen in HLA-A2 negative, and we've said that in the past, that the fundamental underlying biology is around the activating mutation of JNAQ11, and it is agnostic of specifically HLA-A2 status. Got it.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

And for patient baseline characteristics, overall, those are pretty similar to the HLA-negative patients.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

For the frontline patients, we would anticipate that it would be the case. But this is a much more limited data set than what we just shared at ASCO. That was, at least from a safety perspective, that was over 400 patients. Got it.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Makes sense. And you're going to have the neoadjuvant data updated at a medical conference second half of this year as well. How mature will the data be across the plaque brachytherapy and enucleation cohorts, and how many patients are going to be available for radiation reduction?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so there will be roughly just about 100 patients. There will be more follow-up from what was provided in the past. That will be split a bit more, I believe, enucleation than plaque therapy. we're not seeing how much data as it relates to actual visual acuity data but more as you know even for that it's still I would say early I would say we need to have continued follow-up we will have a refresh on the percent of patients what that we preserve their eye which just as a reminder that is the primary endpoint for full approval in the enucleation cohort so I think for the plaque therapy it will likely be more related to this predicted visual acuity tools that we've shared in the past and you know I think for EFS as well we may have some high-level commentary but I suspect for event pre survival it will also be still immature but we are tracking the EFS data from the single arm study piece and since we're on the topic of neoadjuvant more One other I will mention is that similar to our strategy for HLA-2 positive with Compendia, we will also likely pursue the neoadjuvant indication as well in the U.S. for Compendia, based on this data that we'll be publishing. Got it.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay. So that could get added to guidelines. You could potentially start getting some update there commercially once you're commercial. um and for the adjuvant study i wanted to ask about that too so starting first half of this year um seems like the base case base case scenario the study could take about three to three and a half years uh what can you say on powering assumptions for interims relative to immunocores uh adjuvant phase three which assumes hazard ratio 0.55 with an interim analysis at 76 events and 56% probability early stopping for that?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah. So the, uh, the study maybe just kind of base parameters here. So it's 450 patients, uh, primary endpoint is superiority for relapses revival, uh, target has a ratio 0.65. Uh, so our study is more powered, uh, than, uh, the peer company that you noted. The randomization will be one-to-one. The randomization will be against observation. And importantly, it will be agnostic of HLA-A2 status. So much larger pool of patients will not require HLA-A2 status testing. So I think those are, you know, hopefully answer most of your questions there.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Yeah. Yeah, that's helpful. And let's shift gears to, well, I guess anything more about getting that study up and running, and how would you think about that?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

No, we're ready to go. So, you know, we had the type C meeting with the FDA, with survey recently, we essentially got everything that we had hoped for and asked for. So now, you know, we have obviously very deep relationship with, you know, all the key sites globally. And I think what we can say is there's tremendous amount of enthusiasm to get this study. And our anticipation is this study shouldn't roll very rapidly so and you know again here the drug is clearly working in the metastatic setting including at least based on single-arm data survival so we think this is a very high probability success study where we're essentially randomizing against nothing so got it makes sense so let's shift gears talk about DLL3 your ADC there maybe starting off with the the a small cell update, how are you setting expectations on PFS and could we get other efficacy details based on the patient's prior line and or breaking it out by dose?

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Sure, Josh, you wanna take that?

Joshua Bleharski, CFO

Yeah, so we'll have two updates on DLL3. The first is actually Hungary's update from their phase one study in China. There we anticipate updates in both small cell and neuroendocrine. It'll be a refresh of the data they shared last year at the World Lung Conference. We'll see updated PFS, you know, obviously safety response rate PFS, and then importantly for the first time, landmark OS data. So that'll be sort of, to our knowledge, the first look at how a DLL3 top 180C performs from an overall survival standpoint. So that's very exciting. And then in parallel, or sort of at a similar timeframe, we're going to have our update from our ongoing phase one global study. And I think there the focus will be primarily small cell. We do have, you know, some early look at safety and probably response rate. I don't think we'll have enough to comment on PFS at that point, but we'll see. And we anticipate that will be roughly 30 to 40 patients.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Okay, helpful. And should we expect intracranial overall response rate data in patients with baseline brain mets in this update?

Joshua Bleharski, CFO

Yeah, I would expect, you know, definitely Hungary had that data set, you know, originally in their data last year. We expect there'd be a full refresh of that as well. So, yes.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. And for the next, the NEC population, should we expect a similar number of efficacy-evaluable patients relative to Xilabs update, where they had about 34-evaluable, and how should we think about tumor heterogeneity in this setting?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so, you know, the exact numbers, we're not going to specify here, Maury, but look, there will be enough patients on the neuroendocrine carcinoma, this is enough for Hungary's data, where I think people will have a good sense of what we're seeing, both in terms of response rate as well as progression-free survival. In addition, we've also begun enrolling in the U.S., Europe, outside of China, and we've also probably about a half of our patients have been in neuroendocrine carcinoma. And really the quick summary there is we believe we're seeing activity that there should be a monotherapy approval path forward here based on what we're seeing and based on what else is out there. In terms of the heterogeneity of this population, maybe, Mike, you can talk about that. But, yeah, there are several indications of note. Some have higher DLL3 expression than others, but, Mike?

Michael White

Yeah, we're obviously focusing on those indications where DLL3 positivity is known to be high. And that's something that we also are excited about with respect to IDE161, our PARG inhibitor. So what does heterogeneity mean? it means for an ADC that you could get less tumor exposure to the payload. IDE 161, the PARG inhibitor, its mechanism of action is to amplify the therapeutic effects of what would otherwise be a suboptimal delivery of that payload. So that's where we see a real opportunity in the combination setting.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. And for picking tumor types, that's one thing. But I guess could you select for patients that have high DLL3? I think Zalgens, moving forward with a higher 30-mig dose, and they're seeing better efficacy in patients that have that higher DLL3 expression.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, so for small cell lung cancer, we don't think that's going to be needed. For DLL3, that's something that we're discussing. So I think, you know, we don't want to give too much visibility in our regulatory strategy for competitive reasons. But I think here, you know, I think more a big picture. There are some neuroendocrine carcinomas that have very high DLO3 where we think that's not going to be needed. And then you can think about following that with, let's say, a pool of NECs where something like a diagnostic could be more helpful. So, you know, more to come on that front. And, you know, hopefully we'll be able to share more before the end of the year on that. But we are clearly, you know, we have our strategy, and I would say we're, you know, we have a strategy on what we're going to do on that question.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Mike, you mentioned the PARG combo. Could we see some data from that by the end of this year?

Yujiro Hata, CEO

We're pushing the team. So the dosing has just begun. For those that may not be as familiar, this is a proprietary combination that we have clinically. our view is that the PARG mechanism may have the opportunity to extend the durability of the topo-ADC class. We have very strong preclinical data to support that. We've now begun the combination dosing in patients with DLL3. So we'll push as hard as we can, Maury. I think a lot of it will just be about how many patients do we have. And to really get good visibility on this question, I think durability is going to be important. Got it.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay. Okay. And at ASCO, I was part of conversations around CAT6. People were talking about CAT6 and breast cancer. You've got the CAT6-7 that you're dose escalating in breast, prostate, colorectal, and lung. Can you talk about the strategy here and what improvements you want to see in some of these indications, including in breast cancer?

Michael White

Yeah. So this is a very exciting asset. This is something where I think people are really starting to appreciate the importance of maximally suppressing this epigenetic mechanism. And to do that, you need to bring CAT7 on board. And so having a dual CAT6-7 inhibitor, we've shown, now Pfizer has shown as well, that that's an optimal profile to be able to drive monotherapy responses in a preclinical setting. We're expecting that to happen in patients as well. Very excited about the opportunity in P53 mutant MSS colorectal cancer, especially because that tumor is very heterogeneous because of epigenetic mechanisms that promote diversity. We intercept that with a CAT6-7 inhibitor. If you don't have CAT7 inhibitor inhibition on board, you can't get that phenotype. We're also very excited about large lung cancer cohorts that are addicted to the alveolar type 2 lineage program. That's a large section of lung adenocarcinoma. Again, you cannot get efficacy in models, PDX models, without having a CAT7 on board as well with a breast cancer setting, estrogen positive, estrogen receptor positive, breast metastatic breast cancer. We're expecting to see monotherapy activity there, equivalent to what you might otherwise get with a CAT6 inhibitor together with an estrogen inhibitor. The reason the CAT6 inhibitor needs the estrogen inhibitor is because it cannot sufficiently suppress that pathway on its own. A dual inhibitor can do so independently of the presence of an RB mutation, independently of the presence of an estrogen receptor mutation. So we're very excited about that one.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Thanks, Mike. And I think we're out of time, so maybe to close up, if you just want to highlight key catalysts ahead for IDAN.

Yujiro Hata, CEO

Yeah, I think the message for the second half of this year is we have a lot of catalysts upcoming. So I know we covered a lot of it already today. But for Derova-Sertib, obviously, you know, everything that we're doing on the NDA submission in the second half, commercial preparation. We have about 100 patients worth of data in HLA-2 positive. That's already been submitted for a major medical conference. Roughly 100 patients in neoadjuvant as well has already been submitted at a major medical conference. We have the DLL-3 phase 2 topo-ADC. Our partner, Hungry, will present about 100 patients worth of data in small cell neuroendocrine, including with landmark OS data. We'll also present on our side from the U.S., Europe, non-China studies. And, you know, we're pushing hard also on the bispecific ADC. We didn't cover B7H2, PTK7. We have a clinical update we're guiding towards by the end of the year. And obviously now with our Roche collaboration moving forward, hopefully we'll be announcing our Matsui-PermT5-FPI combination start here very soon as well. So, you know, look for a very catalyst-rich second half. Got it.

Maury Raycroft, Analyst — Jefferies

Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much, Mark.