Plus Therapeutics is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing targeted radiotherapeutics with the potential to enhance clinical outcomes in patients with difficult-to-treat cancers of the central nervous system. The company’s technology allows for extremely precise radiotherapeutics.
The company recently presented data at the Society for Neuro-Oncology Conference in San Francisco. Early results from ongoing studies of the company’s lead drug candidate showed extremely promising responses from patients in phase 1.
The company recently presented data at the Society for Neuro-Oncology Conference in San Francisco. Early results from ongoing studies of the company’s lead drug candidate showed extremely promising responses from patients in phase 1.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 ♪
00:04 Welcoming in Dr. Mark Hedrick.
00:06 He is MD, President and CEO of Plus Therapeutics.
00:09 Dr. Hedrick, it's great to have you with us this morning.
00:11 Thank you so much for joining us.
00:12 Hey, Michael. Good morning. Great to be here.
00:15 Pleasure to have you here, Dr. Hedrick.
00:16 Let's go ahead and kick things off.
00:17 We've talked with you guys at Plus Therapeutics
00:19 many times over the past few months
00:21 and even years now, I believe.
00:23 But let's kick things off with a brief introduction
00:25 to the company. Tell us a little bit about
00:26 Plus Therapeutics and what you do.
00:29 Yeah, Michael. We're a biotech company.
00:30 We develop targeted radiotherapeutics.
00:33 Little nuclear bombs in a way that go right to the tumor,
00:36 only kill the tumor and kill nothing else.
00:38 And we're going after CNS cancers,
00:41 central nervous system cancers, brain cancers,
00:43 which are some of the most deadly cancers out there,
00:46 and we have very poor options for them.
00:49 Understood. So can you maybe give us a little bit
00:51 of the gravity of the overall breadth
00:54 and just widespread nature of this problem
00:56 that you're looking to address?
00:57 I think that it may be one of those things
00:59 that's not discussed so frequently
01:00 because of the technical nature of how you're solving it.
01:03 But give us maybe a sense of how many people are impacted
01:05 by this issue that you're looking to solve.
01:08 Well, one reason we're on this morning
01:09 is we want to talk about some data we released.
01:11 I'm here in San Francisco at the Society for Neuro-Oncology
01:14 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting,
01:17 and we presented data this morning
01:18 for a central nervous system cancer
01:21 called leptomeningeal metastasis.
01:24 It's on the rise.
01:25 It affects about 150,000 patients per year,
01:28 but it's probably two to four times underdiagnosed,
01:31 so maybe as many as a half million patients.
01:34 And it's what happens when a woman may have breast cancer
01:37 or a man with lung cancer, for example.
01:40 We might have good local control of the tumor,
01:42 but it pops up into around the brain, the spinal fluid,
01:46 and then there's no good treatment.
01:47 These patients die in four to six weeks without treatment
01:51 and just a few months even with treatment,
01:53 and there's nothing approved by the FDA.
01:56 I think you have a slide up right now.
01:57 You can see the disease on the left,
02:00 and on the right is our drug.
02:01 You're actually seeing our drug in real time
02:03 in the colored images where we put a small port
02:07 in these patients' skulls.
02:09 We have direct access to the central nervous system,
02:12 and we put our drug, which is a targeted radiotherapeutic
02:16 that is made in a nuclear reactor.
02:18 It's called rhenium abyss pomada,
02:20 and then it essentially circulates rapidly
02:22 within minutes.
02:23 It sterilizes the central nervous system
02:26 and spinal fluid by circulating in that space
02:29 and stays there for well over a week
02:32 with a single five-minute administration in the clinic.
02:36 >> Understood.
02:37 Okay, so can you maybe lay out a couple of next steps for us?
02:40 This is really exciting news, and we're obviously very pleased
02:43 to have the chance to have you on and talk about it
02:45 when it's so recent here.
02:46 But let's talk a little bit about what this means
02:48 for Plus Therapeutics and what you're going to do next.
02:50 What does this set you up for,
02:51 and what really excites you about this opportunity
02:53 as you release this data?
02:55 >> Well, there's another slide, if you could show that.
02:57 That'll help illustrate about why we're so excited about this,
03:01 and I'll tell you what our next steps are.
03:03 So this is phase one data.
03:06 On the left, it shows the decrease in cell count.
03:09 So we can actually-- because we have access
03:11 to the central nervous system, which is very unique,
03:14 we have access to the fluid.
03:16 We can take the fluid out at any time during the follow-up.
03:19 We can assess exactly how many tumor cells
03:22 are in the spinal fluid.
03:24 So what you see in this graph on the left
03:27 is a 50% to 90% reduction in tumor cells
03:30 after a single dose-- in fact, a very low dose--
03:33 that persists for a month with a single administration.
03:36 So that's excellent news.
03:38 It shows biologic response, which is what you want to see.
03:41 Very unusual to see that in a phase one dose escalation trial.
03:44 But the real money is on the right side.
03:47 As I mentioned, these patients live a few weeks
03:49 or a few months.
03:50 We show that in the first patients we've treated,
03:52 single administration, the overall survival
03:55 is at 10 months.
03:56 So we have five patients that are still alive.
03:58 So very unusual in a phase one to see biologic response
04:02 and a survival response, but also a great safety profile.
04:07 So we're really excited to continue
04:09 to find the maximum dose, add multiple doses,
04:13 and maybe turn this fatal disease into a chronic disease
04:16 or maybe even have some cures.
04:18 Or if patients are going to succumb to their disease,
04:21 it won't be because of their central nervous system disease.
04:23 It might be the disease somewhere.
04:25 But this could be a major step forward for these patients.
04:29 >> Outstanding.
04:30 And I'm also aware that you guys are participating
04:32 at the SNO, ASCO, CNS Cancer Conference right now
04:35 on the 10th through the 12th out in San Francisco.
04:38 What's being discussed out there?
04:39 And is this data that you've just released
04:41 coming up as a prevalent point that you're discussing?
04:43 And what's the feedback maybe that you might be hearing
04:45 about what you've just released?
04:47 >> Yeah, if you could put up the next slide, Michael,
04:49 that'd be great.
04:50 So yeah, we're here at the Society for Neuro-Oncology
04:52 meeting.
04:53 It's an annual brain metastases meeting.
04:55 And one of the things that is on everybody's mind
04:58 is the fact that, I sort of mentioned it before,
05:01 that we're able with new drugs and immuno-oncology therapies
05:05 and new small molecule therapies,
05:07 we're able to control cancers like melanoma,
05:10 breast cancer, and lung cancer.
05:13 The problem is even though you have local control,
05:15 it pops up and it pops up in the central nervous system.
05:18 That's a shielded, protected environment in the body.
05:21 And so there's a lot of excitement now
05:23 because we're so good at controlling the primary disease.
05:27 Now doctors can pivot to this very important,
05:30 growing complication called leptomeningeal disease.
05:33 And target radiotherapeutics are really taking off.
05:36 There've been three really major drugs
05:37 that have been launched relatively recently.
05:40 So we're right at the cusp of this new direction
05:44 towards going after these CNS applications,
05:48 but also in the targeted radiotherapeutic space,
05:50 which is also very hot.
05:53 >> Wonderful.
05:54 So let's take a little bit more of a longer term approach
05:56 here too as we start to wind down with the data
05:59 that you've just released, the exciting path that you're on,
06:01 the progress that you've made, especially recently.
06:03 What do these next few years look like for Plus Therapeutics?
06:06 What are you going to do on the development side?
06:08 What is that path forward going to look like?
06:09 And if you take a snapshot of the company two, three,
06:12 four years from now, where do you see yourselves
06:14 being at Plus Therapeutics?
06:16 >> Yeah, so from a development perspective,
06:18 we're a small micro-cap company,
06:21 but we actually, we're very frugal.
06:23 We fund our trials through grants.
06:25 So the leptomeningeal cancer drug that I just showed you
06:28 is funded by approximately $18 million
06:32 by the state of Texas.
06:33 We have another indication using the same drug
06:36 for glioblastoma, which is primary brain cancer,
06:39 a rare disease, and we're actually in phase two.
06:42 And that's funded by the National Cancer Institute.
06:45 So we're able to take these kind of first-in-class,
06:48 CNS-focused, targeted radiotherapeutic drugs
06:52 and get outside sources of capital,
06:55 which allows us to minimize dilution,
06:57 but drive these things forward.
06:59 And by phase two, you effectively know
07:01 what's going to work or not.
07:02 So we're in a position where we have two co-lead indications
07:06 that are multibillion-dollar opportunities.
07:08 We're going after, in aggregate,
07:10 opportunities that are $8 to $10 billion.
07:12 They're unmet medical needs, horrible prognosis,
07:16 and really in need of new drug opportunities.
07:18 So the next three years or so for us
07:20 is getting these drugs through phase two,
07:22 potentially partnering them with larger companies.
07:25 There's a number of new public companies
07:27 that are looking for drugs in their mid-stage pipeline.
07:30 We think these are two assets
07:31 that are going to be very attractive for partnering
07:33 while we continue to develop new drugs
07:35 and new opportunities in our pipeline
07:37 and sort of our grant-funded development model.
07:42 - That's terrific. Great breakdown there.
07:44 And I want to make it even just a little bit more granular here
07:46 as we close out with the final question.
07:48 For retail investors, right, in our audience,
07:50 you just talked about the dilution opportunities
07:52 this gives you and the way that you're able to raise capital,
07:54 how you're funding through grants.
07:56 For retail investors, in our following specifically,
07:58 right here, what does this data mean
08:00 and why should they be paying such close attention
08:02 to Plus Therapeutics right now,
08:03 especially over the rest of this year
08:05 as we go into the middle of Q3?
08:07 - So data drives milestones and data drives partnerships.
08:12 And milestones and partnerships in biotech
08:14 drive value and drive opportunity.
08:17 So if you look back at our history,
08:19 we're very communicative.
08:21 We're a very highly followed company.
08:25 And we're now setting up to be able to get the interest
08:28 of large companies that need new drugs in their pipeline
08:32 for an unmet medical need.
08:34 And we'll try to position ourself for that group
08:37 of capital sources from a partnership perspective
08:40 that can really drive value.
08:41 So we've built the infrastructure.
08:43 We've built it sanely and frugally.
08:46 And now I think over the next two or three years,
08:48 and perhaps even sooner in terms of milestones,
08:51 we'll be able to capture that value.
08:54 - Wonderful.
08:54 Dr. Hedrick, we know you're busy.
08:56 It's your conference out in San Francisco.
08:57 Congratulations on the data coming out.
08:59 And thank you very much for taking a few minutes out
09:01 to spend with us here this morning and share more details.
09:04 - Yeah, Michael, thanks.
09:05 See you. Take care.
09:05 Have a good weekend.
09:06 [music]