Conference Transcript - ZYME 2026-04-21

Kenneth Galbraith, Analyst — Other

Great. Well, I'm really pleased to be able to have a chance to come back to Bloom Burton after a couple of years and give you an update on ZymeWorks and what a time in our sector to be able to do that. Amazing what's finally happening in our sector right now. We're at least we're getting credit for some of the innovation that's been going on in the past few years. XBI was yesterday 138 haven't seen that for five years it's pretty amazing as you'll hear Eric talk at lunch you'll hear about you know the most activity in the M&A sector in our sector for some time period if ever so looking forward to Eric talk about that and also for myself as of yesterday first time I can come and present that investor conference where our stock is above where it was five years ago and I know there's lots of people who probably have same situation in our sector. I chose to talk this morning to make sure that's still the case, but I think it still is. So a great time in our sector to celebrate innovation that's been going on the past years, but also celebrate the fact that we're finally getting credit for some of the innovation we're bringing to patients. And certainly ZymeWorks have been a beneficiary of that trend the last period of time. I want to explain to you a little bit about the innovations we've been working on, where those are going and helping patients, and what we're going to do next from here to further our position that we've built over the past number of years. So, whoops, let's see if I can see my slides. Legal disclaimer, please refer you to our SEC findings because I will try to make forward-looking statements today if I can. A little snapshot of numbers for you all here. Again, we've been at this for some time period, pretty actively over the past 10 years making molecules for ourselves as opposed to being a computational platform making molecules for others and we'll talk a little bit about Xanadatamab and some other things that have been coming out of that work the past number of years. We've got a whole host of other platforms within the company that we still use for our own benefit and also available for partners. We have our first approved drug which is great and provides us with a different strategy we can we can utilize in the biotech company just because we now have a source of revenue we don't have our own commercial force but the revenue that comes from sales these partners is is durable long-term and very substantial so lets us think about being a self-funded entity from the proceeds from our first product getting commercialized to fund the rest of the company uh doesn't make investment bankers happy in terms of trying to look for equity issuances but we certainly gives us the ability of a very stable cash flow to build a biotech underneath that and continue to invest based on that cash and that's really where we are today and i'll try to explain that to you a little bit more uh we also because we have now have this stream of revenues coming at us in the future in the form of royalties and partners we're able to don't want to sell that want to hold on to it's very valuable and growing but we can access that for sources of financing that aren't available if you don't have that so we recently did a financing with royalty pharma to borrow against the future cash flows to today and invest that back again in the things that we like to do r d acquisitions and returning capital back to shareholders to pay them along the way as we build this company for the future uh beyond that well-funded the 271 million dollars does not include the 250 million dollars in in royalty proceeds so we're well funded to where we don't really think about a cash runway anymore we just think we'll be able to sustain ourselves for the future if we manage our business properly um so that's a nice position to to be in we're certainly appreciative of the work that took to get there still have a number of strategic partnerships uh in different parts of our business but we're very active right now in and trying to build more partnerships and collaborations into our business. And hopefully this year we'll show some of the results of that activity this year. In addition, I think we've talked a little bit about trying to be a royalty-oriented, you know, profitable biotech company, but don't want to forget that we are at the heart and always will be an innovative R&D vehicle. And so this past weekend at AACR we had seven great presentations. There's still some going on today of all the work that we're doing around, mostly in this case our adc platform including our brand new panras inhibitor payload driven adcs which is really an exciting next step or next generation for us beyond thinking about topo payload adcs and i'll talk a little bit about that but you certainly go to our website and look at our posters from acr if you're interested in that so what are we trying to do at least for ourselves we're trying to refine our the way we think about biotech inside zymeworks it's not something that we're thinking about for the industry as a whole but for us we kind of crossed a threshold last year where we could see with our first approved agent uh it's going to drive a substantial amount of royalty funding to us in a very durable and growing way for a long time period uh at least out to 2039 uh if not further so it gives us the ability of thinking then about not worrying about capital so we don't have a capital problem we have a capital allocation problem what do i do with that how do i use that capital to enhance shareholder value over time given the fact i have that and given i've got that without the need to have a commercial sales force of my own so i don't have to worry about products feeding my own commercial sales force right now i don't have one could do that in the future right now i'm able to generate all of these royalties revenue without having to forward integrate to be a commercial company so we thought a lot last year about how we're going to do this in a way that builds shareholder value and doesn't simply hope that we can replicate uh an amazing innovation that was made with zanidatamab 10 years ago inside ZymeWorks. So we have a number of different strategies that we have that will make us a more valuable company in the future without having to replicate that amazing innovation that happened with Zannie. I'll try to explain a little bit about that. But what we're hoping to do is simply try and be a positive revenue company and a growing revenue over a long term, turn that into a profitability venture, which still allows us to invest in R&D, but allows us to use the excess cash to make acquisitions, which we've never really done, and also to return capital shareholders along the way which i think is an important element of biotech so for us the biotech models changed last year still has innovative r d at the heart but it's quite a different model that we came up with beyond the threshold allows us to do some things that are are novel which i'll talk about from a business perspective still the very full pipeline of both adcs and multi-specific antibodies within this pipeline Beyond Xanadatamab, every one of these is unpartnered, so it's unencumbered. So a lot of optionality, flexibility of how we integrate partnerships into this to share risk and costs with partners, but still keep unencumbered R&D assets inside the company because of the nature of the upside that potentially can be attainable with those. We've recently added to our ADC platforms, moved beyond looking at topopayload ADCs, now looking at the idea of trying to deliver pan-ras inhibitors in an ADC construct and understand what that might give you beyond what we're seeing out of some of the excellent data from RevMed and others this weekend at AACR, which is phenomenal advancements in pancreatic cancer and others. But there may be an ADC construct that might be interesting to even go beyond that. So we're working on this for some time period. Really interesting now to start to push this forward now that we've really seemed to have cracked the undruggable. What allows us to think about this different business model is simply Xanadatamab or Zahira as the trademark is and just looking at the sales potential from this asset back in 2022 we thought this could be a billion dollar compound really exciting every biotech's gold let's create something that's so innovative differentiated provides value to patients it could be a billion dollar seller which is great it's obviously you know from consensus beyond that now just because of the clinical data generated the potential applicability beyond that and we don't think that's the end of it. So we clearly think that Xanidatamab could be even potentially beyond that from peak sales. It's very differentiated. There aren't a host of HER2 bispecific antibodies on the marketplace or in development right now. Xani is the only one. So we unusually find ourselves in a situation where we're kind of alone with an innovation we make, which we think then provides sustainable, durable cash flows in the future. So we need to make sure we take advantage of that from a business perspective. So we think Xani is going to be a multi-billion dollar seller our share of that is pretty substantial so we can see a as i said a positive cash flow going forward for a long time frame in this company without having to invent something new and without having to partner it that's already been done so we can build upon that base in the future this is how we hope to do it so we hope to do it by being a little bit differentiated so yes we will fund r d we'll do it in a managed way within the contracts of of what we can afford inside the company but we're going to allow ourselves to do two things one is we're going We're going to allow ourselves to hold on to our royalties for the long term, let them grow and take advantage of that value flowing to our shareholders. It's very easy to monetize royalties in the current marketplace very quickly, but it doesn't mean by doing that that you're not giving up value to someone else. So we'd like to retain that value to ourselves. So we will look like a royalty company somewhat because we'll be holding these royalty instruments and letting them grow for the value of the benefit of our own shareholders. And if we're going to do that, we'll actively manage that. we'll try to add to that as we move along we can add to that by internal r&d then gets partnered which drives additional royalty milestone streams or i can see myself going and buying something which also will be a royalty on a commercial product that i can add to what i have now so we allowed ourselves to be a bit of a royalty aggregator or acquirer a little bit different than some of the monetization players or financial players but we allowed ourselves to do that in addition very productive internal r&d organization as you can see from the pipeline we had never really bought a product in design works everything we develop we've invented ourselves we're going to give ourselves the flexibility that that doesn't always have to be the case so if we find an interesting r d asset that we just didn't have a chance to invent but think we could develop it and add value to it we'll allow ourselves to acquire that some we've never done before we have a full pipeline doesn't mean we shouldn't think about optionality of other great inventions that happen outside that we can bring inside and make valuable So those are the things that we're changing going forward based on last year, based on our own circumstances. I think we do have a proven execution track record so far. Zahira was invented inside ZymeWorks. We developed it right into phase three trials, partnered with JAZ and B1, or used to be known as Beijing, in a structure that gave us a really considerable stream, a share of the stream of royalties and milestones in the future. So we think we've showed the R&D capabilities, the partnering capabilities the financial piece of making sure we keep a good share of that for ourselves want to try to replicate what we did with Zahira going forward if we ever see the opportunity to take something to BLA ourselves and market ourselves we can always do that and I've got a good source of cash flow to do that but it might be in our model we never actually have to do that it can still be a very profitable successful biotech company and that's okay so beyond Zahira we do have a number of technology platform partnerships that we did more than 10 years ago inside the company. It was a way for us to learn about our own platforms before we applied it to making things like Xenodatamab. And this was very valuable for us at the time. But also what happens is we took a financial interest in obviously some of the products being developed with our platforms. And one of them has popped out to be pretty interesting. So Pazmitamig, which is a KLK2 T-cell engager for prostate cancer being developed by Johnson & Johnson, looks really interesting early clinical data last year has now moved into phase three studies looks like it could be the cornerstone of j&j's future prostate prostate cancer franchise really interesting uh sorry they've guided that to be uh one to five billion dollars in peak sales and we have a nice miles to run a royalty interest in that product so could be others in this platform but that's pretty interesting and if you add that to zanidatamab It also just accentuates the reason we're taking on the strategy we have right now. So obviously operating from a very strong financial position, strong cash position, that's going to get stronger. If we manage our business right, then our cash runway becomes irrelevant and we can invest as we want in R&D acquisitions, returning capital shareholders in the right mix. So we need to make sure we do that properly. So 2026, a lot of great things coming up for for us beyond 2025, which is a phenomenal year for for ZymeWorks. And these catalysts exist across the portfolio that we have right now. Obviously, Zanidatumab is in front of FDA right now for a review for a label expansion into HER2 positive gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma. So that's obviously something we'll look forward to this year. We have a number of global filings around Zahira around for the same indication, which will be exciting. So we're looking for progress in zanodatumab to maybe even position it for a potentially higher peak sales consensus than you've even seen today. And hopefully we can work on that this year. Got a very significant breast cancer study ongoing right now, which should read out in late 2027, which could also be helpful to that peak sales consensus number as well. Beyond that, we'd like to see J&J make more progress with pazwidabine, which they seem to be they seem to be starting additional phase three studies moving along and the first of those will start to read out in the years ahead which is exciting and our own pipeline have some really interesting data being presented today at AACR in San Diego on our ADC ZW191 which is targeted in ovarian cancer tumors so that'll be an interesting data update today at AACR in an oral presentation beyond that we have a whole host of other scientific presentations planned for either clinical data releases or pre-clinical publications as we as we did also at AACR this this weekend. So looking for a really rich catalyst event driven for 2026 for us at the same time as people starting to understand the financial dynamics going on inside the company around where we're getting to and why we decided to change the strategy somewhat last year. So for AACR as I mentioned we will have our ZW191 data presented this afternoon there'll be a press release out with that data beyond that we've been spending time at the conference this year talking about our new panras inhibitor platforms or adcs i think we've been looking for where adcs go next beyond the innovations and using campuses and analogs as payloads which has been phenomenal in multiple tumor types trying to find where to go beyond that we looked at different toxins we looked at bispecifics we looked at protein degraders looked at all sorts of other payloads we could deliver. And we finally decided that maybe trying to apply the same logic to thinking about how chemo agents might be more effective in ADC construct than as naked chemo agents could be the same thing with small molecule inhibitors. And we picked PanRASP because obviously a great benchmark there right now to look at. We could do others, and that'll be interesting. Beyond that, we do still think about this idea of dual payloads being interesting. If you could deliver a payload effectively with an ADC, can you deliver two payloads? And maybe the combination of a targeted small molecule inhibitor with a toxin like a topo could be pretty interesting and so we're presenting some of our early data around panras and again the data from revolution medicine is amazing it's just going to change the nature of pancreatic cancers and others for patients which is phenomenal but also we want to try to think about where do we go next so those are all monotherapy studies thinking about combination therapies and oncology is always a great idea. Trying to find better tolerability to drive activity is always a necessity to then start thinking about combinations. So we think an ADC construct could deliver same or better activity, but with better tolerability than allows it to be used in combination with other agents. So that's what we're trying to pursue with using ADCs as the construct to try to do that. So really exciting. Obviously early, we have a lot to prove. There's obviously a big benchmark there right now, which is changing patients' lives, which is great. doesn't mean we shouldn't try to shoot to go beyond that with something that's pretty innovative. So that's what we're trying to do. So please pay attention to some of those presentations going on. Shows you that at the heart we're still an innovative R&D company despite having revenues and a royalty strategy on top of that. That's it. So hopefully that was a good start for you. Didn't go over time. Give a chance to get settled. Calm down after all the rah-rah of the start of Bloom Burton, which is always something which is great. Ringing the bell. I'm really excited about this time in biotech right now. I think we've gone through a number of years. We didn't get credit for the innovation. Innovation didn't stop. Patient needs didn't stop. Everyone in this room was trying to play a part of the ecosystem to address those things. It's just nice now from investors and acquirers to start getting credit for some of the innovation we've worked on for the past number of years, and I hope that cycle continues going forward. At ZymeWorks, we're just positioning ourselves for where we go next in terms of success. We've already had the great ability to invent something, have it be meaningful to patients to get it to approval, and it's going to be financially successful for the company. We need to know what do we do next to try to continue to be a long-term player in this ecosystem that we love in Canada. And that's the focus of what we've been working on last year, and we'll continue to report out those results to you this year. So thank you for your time and attention.