Hello and welcome to Genmab's conference call regarding its proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. During this telephone conference you may be presented with forward-looking statements that include words such as believes, anticipates, plans, or expects. Actual results may differ materially, for example as a result of delayed or unsuccessful development projects. Genmab is not under any obligation to update statements regarding the future nor to confirm such statements in relation to actual results unless this is required by law. Please also note that Genmab may hold your personal data as indicated by you as part of our investor relations outreach activities in order to update you on Genmab going forward. Please refer to our corporate website for more information on Genmab and our privacy policy.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jan van de Winkel. Please go ahead.
Hello and thank you for joining us today. We are sharing a transformative step for Genmab, our planned acquisition of Merus N.V. With me today to present this exciting news is our Chief Medical Officer Tahamtan Ahmadi, who will tell you about Merus's exciting program petosemtamab, or PETO, and our Chief Financial Officer Anthony Pagano, who will walk you through the details of the proposed transaction. For the Q&A, we will be joined by Genmab's Chief Development Officer Judith Klimovsky and Chief Commercial Officer Brad Bailey. Before we continue, just a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements, so please keep that in mind as we go through the rest of this call, and here is some important information on where you will be able to read more about today's news. The proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. marks a pivotal moment for our company.
It clears Genmab's very high bar for innovation and aligns with our financial commitment of driving profitable and disciplined growth. Since the 2010s, we have been successfully building an integrated biotech the Genmab way, having an impact on thousands of patients. We are on track to achieve our 2030 vision and improve the lives of more patients with our wholly owned medicine. With this proposed acquisition, we will further strengthen our foundation as we add PETO to our already compelling late-stage product pipeline. High potential assets like PETO, which has received two breakthrough therapy designations, are truly unique and rare, and our expertise and leadership in antibody-based innovations as well as our rapid and broad clinical development of both EPKINLY and RYNA S are a testament to our ability to unlock PETO's full potential.
We believe there is a clear path to market in most major indications for PETO, and we anticipate its initial launch could take place in 2027, and we are confident that PETO has multibillion dollar peak sales potential. The addition of revenue from PETO once approved will give us the flexibility to invest in the next winners from our innovative R&D pipeline. Genmab has delivered robust performance year over year. Our long-term strategy has been to shift the company from a dependence on royalties into an end-to-end biotech, one that fully owns, develops, and commercializes our own medicines. PETO provides us with a unique opportunity to both advance that shift to a 100% owned model and maximize our long-term growth altogether. Genmab is on course to achieve sustainable growth and profitability into the next decades and beyond.
Here you can see how the addition of petosemtamab enhances our late stage pipeline. These programs represent the future of Genmab. We will have three products with five breakthrough therapy designations between them. That means that the FDA believes each of these therapies has the potential to substantially improve outcomes for patients over existing therapies. Importantly, RYNA S, acasunlimab and petosemtamab would be 100% owned assets, positioning Genmab as an antibody focused biotech powerhouse and together with EPKINLY they underpin our sustainable long term growth. We are confident in our late stage pipeline and excitingly we anticipate a number of significant catalysts in the next 12 to 24 months. As Merus has stated, we expect top line interim readout of one or both of the phase 3 petosemtamab trials in 2026 for EPKINLY.
We are anticipating the potential approval in second line follicular lymphoma in November and in 2026 we expect data in frontline diffuse large B cell lymphoma. Also next year we expect potentially registrational data in platinum resistant ovarian cancer for RYNA S and following these significant readouts we anticipate critical launches and indication expansions across EPKINLY, RYNA S and petosemtamab in 2027. With this exciting news I will ask Tahamtan to provide you with the details of why we are so very enthusiastic about petosemtamab. Tahamtan, the floor is yours.
Thank you Jan. Similar to EPKINLY and RYNA S, we view PETO as one of these truly rare assets in our pipeline with innate product. To start with the basics, PETO is an EGFR LGR5 bispecific antibody with the potential to become the first and best in class therapy for head and neck. We've seen meaningful clinical benefit in both first and later line head and neck cancer settings, and this has been recognized by the FDA, which granted breakthrough therapy designation for both the first line PD-L1 positive and second line plus recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer. There are two phase 3 trials ongoing, one in first line and one in second line head and neck. As Jan just noted, we anticipate potential top line data for one or both of these trials already in 2026, and as Merus N.V.
has publicly indicated, there is a clear path for accelerated approval under Project Frontrunner agreed with the FDA in both indications. Importantly, as we have been doing with EPKINLY and are doing with RYNA S, there are multiple significant opportunities for expansion beyond the ongoing phase 3 trials. There remains a significant need for innovative treatments in head and neck cancer. With current standards of care delivering modest progression free survival and overall survival in frontline disease, an active and well tolerated bispecific could materially change outcomes for patients. In addition to first and second line, PETO's emerging profile supports a strategy to expand development into locally advanced head and neck cancer.
This is our first planned next step with our goal to initiate the first phase 3 trial in this indication in 2026, and we will provide you with more specific details in terms of both timing and trial design next year. Now let's take a look at some of the data behind our confidence and our enthusiasm for PETO. The data to date are highly compelling in both first line head and neck in combination with standard of care and in second line plus head and neck as a single agent. PETO has demonstrated a meaningful clinical benefit. In the second and third line setting, standard of care typically achieves objective response rates around 6% to 19%. By contrast, PETO demonstrated a 36% response rate with improvement also observed in both progression free survival and overall survival. Equally, the data in the first line setting are also highly encouraging.
PETO here in combination with pembrolizumab achieved a 63% response rate that is more than three times higher than the 19% that have been observed with the standard of care. This benefit is not limited to response rate, but it's also reflected in improvements in endpoints such as progression free survival and overall survival. It is this data on which the FDA based its granting of two FDA breakthrough therapy designations for PETO. This recognition underscores our confidence in PETO's potential to meaningfully improve outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer. Importantly, these results support moving the combination into earlier setting, locally advanced disease, where the treatment opportunity and medical need is even greater. Now turning to safety, in addition to its efficacy, PETO has been shown to be well tolerated with a manageable safety profile.
Infusion related reactions were generally confined to the first cycle with a mitigation plan in place, and overall the risk benefit supports advancement across lines and combination. In summary, we believe that our expertise in both clinical development and commercial execution will allow us to maximize the potential of PETO, giving us another opportunity to rapidly advance innovation into the clinic and ultimately to patients. I would now like to hand it over to Anthony to take you to the financial details of this transaction. Anthony.
Thanks, Tyeed. I'd like to begin by reiterating how enthusiastic we are about Merus N.V. and what this acquisition means for the future of Genmab. This proposed transaction will have a substantial and positive impact on Genmab's growth trajectory. Under the terms of the transaction, Genmab will acquire Merus N.V. at an offer price of $97 per share in cash, which equates to around $8 billion. We will fund the transaction with a mix of existing cash and new debt, and we expect to achieve a strong non-investment grade rating. We anticipate that the transaction will close by early in the first quarter of 2026, subject to the receipt of regulatory clearances. Now, I'd like to take a moment to frame the financial considerations.
We are confident that petosemtamab (PETO) has the potential to meaningfully improve outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer, but in order to unlock this potential, we'll need to invest. As you'd expect, there will be a step up over the near to medium term in R&D and commercialization expenses as we invest in PETO as well as our existing late-stage programs. Even with this investment, we will maintain significant profitability in 2026, and we'll expect meaningful growth in 2027 as launch revenues build and our spending normalizes. We anticipate we'll be approaching break even on the transaction in 2028, and the transaction will be accretive to EBITDA a year later as we believe PETO has the potential to reach at least $1 billion in revenue by 2029.
Further, we are committed to rapidly deleveraging, and a robust financial foundation will allow us to pay down this debt significantly within two years after the closing of the proposed transaction, giving us low leverage by the end of the decade. We are planning for sustained growth and profitability into the next decade as we unlock meaningful value from our late-stage assets and maximize the potential of our commercialized medicines. Now, I want to take a moment to look more closely at just how the addition of PETO to our pipeline will help us achieve the sustained growth. Adding PETO to our portfolio not only increases our scale, it significantly advances our strategy to reduce dependence on royalties by diversifying our sources of revenue, which will address our path to growth and profitability by the end of the decade and beyond.
As you can appreciate, there are essentially two parts of our business. We have the royalty products which include six out-licensed therapies and then we have our co-owned and wholly owned assets. Let's remember, in addition to DARZALEX we also have five other royalty products with the potential for more to come, all of which have significant potential for growth into the next decade. Together these will continue to serve as a solid foundation of recurring revenue for Genmab well into the future. What is really exciting for us at Genmab is the potential of our proprietary products. These are the promising late-stage programs that we are investing in today that provide us with significant growth prospects moving forward. We believe that the data we are anticipating next year will serve as proof points for our conviction that EPKINLY, RYNA S, and now PETO all have multi-billion dollar potential.
In summary, we have multiple streams of growing recurring revenue. These have laid the groundwork for our success, and now with the addition of PETO to our high-potential late-stage portfolio, we will be well positioned to move Genmab into Genmab's next phase of growth. Our confidence in our projected growth comes from our track record. We have proven that we are excellent evaluators of innovation and that we can deliver on our promises. We over-delivered on our financial commitments made at the time of the ProfoundBio acquisition, and we rapidly accelerated the development of RYNA S. We had roughly 40 patients' worth of data when we acquired ProfoundBio, and we are going to exit this year with three ongoing phase 3 trials and two potentially registrational phase 2s for RYNA S.
We have also proven that we are disciplined in our execution against our capital allocation framework and prioritization of our investments, and we continue to be committed to delivering profitable growth. The addition of PETO will be absolutely key to achieving this. In summary, our differentiated approach to building a fully integrated biotech company started in the 2010s, has continued here into the 2020s, and now we have high conviction that we have the building blocks in place to continue the strong track record through the 2030s. The proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. and the addition of PETO to our pipeline is firmly on strategy and has the potential to bring another breakthrough therapy to patients and help drive long-term sustainable growth for Genmab. With that, I'm going to hand you back over to Jan.
Thank you, Anthony. Let me summarize. The proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. is an exceptional opportunity that advances our evolution into a global biotech leader. It accelerates our shift towards a 100% owned model, expands and diversifies our revenue, and brings us closer to achieving our 2030 vision to improve the lives of patients. The first petosemtamab launch is anticipated in 2027 with real potential for it to join EPKINLY and RYNA S as multi-billion dollar programs. Combined with disciplined capital allocation, a strong financial foundation, and proven commercial execution, this transaction sets us up for durable long-term growth into the next decade. We are pleased to answer any questions you may have. I will now turn the call back to the operator and open the call for questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please note there is a limit of one question per person on today's call. We'll now move on to our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Jonathan Chang from Leerink. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Congrats on the proposed acquisition and thanks for taking my question. How much does the CRC opportunity contribute to your decision and price of the acquisition? When could we see data on CRC and what could we see in that update? Thank you.
Thanks Jonathan for that question. I think I will take this one myself. CoC data will come in the coming months and will be released by Merus, and we have based our whole model only on the head and neck cancer data.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Jonathan.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Schmidt from Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning and thanks for taking. My questions and congrats for me. On that proposed.
Theo, could you talk a bit about the timing of the acquisition? You're obviously taking on some clinical risk and talk about your comfort level in.
Stepping in with the proposed deal prior to the phase 3 data reading out next year.
I also had a question on the investment that may be necessary to maximize the potential of petosemtamab globally.
Can you talk about that as well? Thank you so much.
Thank you, Michael, for the question. I will take the first one and then Anthony can take the second one. We think that the timing is perfect here. We have done very deep due diligence and we understand PETO really, really well, Michael. We went through 56,000 files in due diligence and we are very, very confident that this is a potential game changing, potentially transformational bispecific antibody. We understand bispecifics really well as well as head and neck cancer. Remember that we had a number of programs active at Tivdak and also with 1042 and head and neck. We could really value the strength of the data better than other companies potentially can do. We believe that this is perfect timing for us to actually first approach Merus N.V.
and now come to an agreement with them because it will be the exact building block we need to very convincingly grow into or profit into the next decades together with molecules like RYNA S, epcoritamab, and acasulimab. We think the timing is just perfect and the confidence level is super high. I want to leave it with that and then hand it over to Anthony to maybe talk a bit more about the investment levels needed to optimally and broadly maximize the potential for PETO.
Yeah, thanks Michael. As a starting point, if we think about the opportunity for PETO from my perspective, it very clearly clears our high bar for innovation. At the same time, Michael, it clears that high bar we have here at Genmab for investment. Now moving forward, you're going to see the same focus and disciplined approach to how we run this business and how we invest back into our business. Further, PETO in its overall deal is fully in line with our capital allocation framework. PETO, again, is that opportunity, that potential breakthrough therapy asset where we want to prioritize investment and that's fully in line with our capital allocation framework. This is a late stage program with important data readouts in 2026 and has the potential to launch again in 2027. Absolutely, we will be investing accordingly.
We will resource PETO to unlock its full potential both from an R&D and commercialization perspective. From a commercialization perspective, we have a very strong foundation that we built out here, particularly in the United States and Japan, and we'll be looking to leverage that investment. As you know, we've started to build out in Europe, so we feel very comfortable that we have a very strong foundation that we can leverage. At the same time, Michael, we're not going to shy away from making the necessary investments. Just very quickly, I'll reiterate what I covered in my prepared remarks as we get into 2026. We fully expect to retain significant profitability in 2026, have meaningful growth in 2027, and we expect this transaction to be approaching break even in 2028 and to be accretive in 2029. Overall, we really like the setup here from an overall financial profile perspective.
As a reminder, we not only delivered but over delivered on the financial commitments we made to the market the last time we did an acquisition and acquired RYNA S from ProfoundBio. Overall, Michael, you should expect the same focus and disciplined approach from the Genmab management team here.
Thank you, Anthony. Let's hand back to the operator.
Thank you. We'll now move to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Asthika Goonewardene from Truist. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning guys.
Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the deal. It's good to see that you. Already have plans to commence the trial.
In locally advanced head and neck cancer, to Jonathan's question earlier, you could potentially see some sufficient data in colorectal cancer expansion cohorts that might illustrate a potential path to market in colorectal cancer as well in the near term. I just want to get an idea from you. How would you prioritize that if you do see a signal in colorectal cancer, how would you prioritize that versus expanding to locally advanced head and neck? If I can just tag. On something extra here, just want to. Get your comments on what you think.
About the LGR5 mechanism of action specifically related to head and neck and colorectal. Which one makes more sense to you? Thanks.
Thanks, Asthika, for the question. Why don't we ask Tahamtan to first give you a perspective on the prioritization of colorectal versus locally advanced head and neck, and then also talk a bit about the mechanism of action, which is what you refer to, and then let me see whether Judith can then add to that. Tahamtan, why don't you start?
Yeah, thank you Asthika for the question. I would start with what is in the public data. This is of course what we at this point can talk with confidence in the public space, is the head and neck data. We've obviously done a lot of diligence on all the data that Merus N.V. has, but the focus right now is to talk about our plans in head and neck. Merus N.V. did a fantastic job in starting a very broad focus development with two phase 3 trials that will read out in 2026. This is the area where you have a signal in the public domain, single agent activity, good combinability, good safety profile with high response rates. That then allows us to talk about the first of many plans, which is to move into the locoregional space, head and neck.
I think it's premature for us to have a conversation about colorectal until Merus N.V. has publicly released the data. At that point, we would be very happy to discuss what our thoughts that we of course have on colorectal are as it relates to the mechanism of action of the asset. I think Merus N.V. itself spoke about that. They are looking into trying to further elucidate the biology. Broadly speaking, what it does is it integrates and basically binds to EGFR, internalizes it. Don't really see a reason why it would play out differently in one EGFR positive disease over the other. Haven't seen any reasons to believe that. We like the profile, we like the potential of the drug, and we are really excited. As we said in the beginning, we view this as a potential pipeline within a drug. Thank you.
Thanks, Ty. Juli, do you want to add anything to that?
Yeah, only two things that you know, there are strong preclinical data on different models of organoids to support LGR5 in different settings, among them colorectal. I want to echo Anthony on our commitment to unleash the full value of PETO as data provide signals to your question on potential prioritization. That's it.
Thanks. Thanks, Judith. Let me hand back to the operator and see whether there are any additional questions. Thanks, Asthika.
Thank you. We'll now move on to the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Judah Froma from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you.
Congrats on the announcement and thanks for taking the question. Maybe just one on your assumptions around peak market share potential and head and neck. First line specifically, can you share with us any thoughts around peak market share in HPV positive versus HPV negative head and neck, and the competitive landscape within those two subsets?
Thank you. Thanks, Judith, for the questions. Anthony, why don't you give this a go and then I can ask Tahamtan to add to that?
Yeah, I'll start off to kind of characterize the opportunity and then Ty can maybe address the emerging target product profile. Again, I think if we sort of think about PETO, it has all of the characteristics that we like in terms of wanting to invest into a product. It clears our very high bar for innovation and our high bar for investment. Here at Genmab we think about the opportunities we stated. We think this has multi-blockbuster potential moving forward. Importantly, as we think about the financial profile of Genmab, we've said that we expect at least $1 billion of sales from the opportunity by the end of the decade or in fact by 2029.
We like the overall setup in terms of adding this potential multibillion dollar product to our pipeline, which now includes three products with that multibillion dollar potential: EPKINLY, RYNA S, and now potentially PETO moving forward. We like the overall setup as well as the financial profile in terms of sort of further characterizing that. We're not going to get into that right now. The last thing I'd leave you with before handing over to Ty is really just sort of thinking about where we're at in terms of the clinical development. We have the two ongoing phase 3 trials in frontline and second line. Expect at least one of the readouts next year and a launch in 2027.
I think not only the multibillion dollar peak sales potential is very important here, it's also the launch timing being near term as well as clear line of sight to a very, very appealing and highly compelling growth trajectory as we get in the back half of this decade. Perhaps Ty, you want to sort of further characterize the target product profile.
Yeah. Thank you, Anthony, and thank you for the question. What I would say is start with this: PETO has two breakthrough therapy designations, one as monotherapy in second line and one in combination with pembrolizumab in frontline. What that usually means is, what it actually means is that the FDA has come to the conclusion that this data set, if true in a phase 3, is really transformational for that particular space. We underscored that conviction. That's also what we have seen pass up based on our diligence. The opportunity space that we go in the patient right now is where there's really no drug available in second line and not much transformation or innovation has happened in frontline beyond the integration of pembrolizumab into that space.
I think that kind of gives you the idea of the potential, as Jan said, to really transform head and neck cancer that PETO has and that we are excited about to be part of.
Thanks, Ty. I think Julia will leave it with that, and I look forward to further discussions in the very near future. Let me hand the floor back to the operator.
Thank you. Move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Phipps from William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on getting what we believe is a great asset. Do you think there's any need to?
Develop a subcutaneous formulation to try to reduce those initial infusion reactions, particularly maybe if you move into a locally advanced setting, and I assume there you would look to kind of build on the KEYNOTE-689 data given what we've seen of good combinability with pembrolizumab generally. Thank you.
Thanks for the questions, Matt. I'll hand over the formulation question to Judith. Maybe you can give some color on that.
Thank you for the question. At this point, the target product profile is based on the current formulation, so we are not. It's very early to speculate future potential subcutaneous.
Thanks.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Qize Ding from Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Congrats on the proposed deal.
Thanks for taking my question. I have no one on my side. Given you have the 1042 ongoing. For the head and neck cancer. How does this proposed deal change your?
View and the future development for GEN1042 in head and neck cancer? Thank you.
Thanks, Kiesa, for the question. Judith, can you handle this one?
Thank you Jan and thank you for the question. As we already communicated, we expect more mature data for 1042 by the end of the year. At that time, we will put that data in line with other data sets in our own pipeline and competitive landscape, and we will make the best decision for the compound and for Genmab and for patients. For now, things as planned will read out for GEN1042 by the end of the year.
Thank you. That's very clear.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kiese, for the question.
We will now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Yaron Werber from TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, this is Jana on for Yaron. Congrats on the proposed deal and thanks for taking our question. Obviously, as you say, it's pretty early to speculate on the colorectal cancer opportunity, but just because we're going to see data from PETO later this year, can you give us a sense of what you'd like to see to be convinced that you could get another kind of blockbuster potential in colorectal cancer as well as head and neck? Secondly, do you see any issues potentially with RYBREVANT given that you receive royalties on that drug while it competes with PETO? Thanks so much.
Thanks, Jenna, for the questions. I will hand them over to Ty. Ty, maybe you can give your thinking on colorectal cancer and RYNA S potentially interfering.
Yeah.
I appreciate the question and I have to bring it back to that. We are somewhat limited at this point in what we can disclose and what we can discuss based on Merus N.V. not yet having shared any data in colorectal cancer. Broadly speaking, I think we went in the earlier question through why we believe it has really the potential to transform head and neck single agent activity. Great combinability, fantastic combination data in terms of ORR, PFS, and OS. In colorectal cancer, this is even more obvious because there's pretty substantial data to support the idea that ORR doesn't translate into event-driven endpoints such as PFS and OS, maybe more so than other disease areas.
I think what we would be looking for is, particularly in the combination setting where actually also the larger patient population is in frontline, second line, or that would really promise a transformational effect. We will have this conversation when the data is in the public domain as it relates to amivantamab or RYBREVANT. This is a Janssen drug that we are fortunate to receive royalties for because it came out of the Genmab discovery engine. That's basically all there is to say. Not much to say. I don't know Jan, if you want to add anything to that.
No, I think that's what we can say here. We will let the strength of the data speak for itself. Let's look forward to the data and then we will position petosemtamab further for further development in different settings if the data actually underlying the risk potential there, and then we'll just go for hopefully differentiated data.
Great. Thanks so much, Debbie.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Rajan Sharma from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to understand the extent to which this is an acquisition of a platform rather than just a single asset in PETO. Could you potentially just discuss Merus N.V.'s bispecific antibody technology platform and how that differs from Genmab's in-house capabilities, and post closure of the deal, how would you think about sort of prioritization of assets as they come through both of the individual platforms? Thank you.
Absolutely. Rashaun, thank you for the question. I will definitely let Ty speak with you more about the details. Merus has a completely different platform based on the Merus mouse than Genmab has. They are very, very good in making excellent bispecifics like PETO, but also trispecifics in different settings in a different way than Genmab now has in their suite of technologies. I will pause here, Ty, and let you give further color on the Merus platform and its complementarity to our suite of technologies at Genmab.
Yeah, thank you for the question. Thank you, Jan. It is exactly as Jan said. Obviously we know our colleagues at Merus very well. They are friends and literally neighbors, and we understand their point of view, their pipeline, their technologies. They are very complementary to what we are doing. It essentially expands our toolbox, gives us another edge and angle in looking at certain scientific problems through a different lens of a more wide toolbox as it comes to prioritization. If and when this transaction were to close, we are one company. Each asset gets looked at on its own merits and there are no Merus or Genmab pipelines anymore. It's one pipeline. I think that's all there is to say. We are very excited to have a group of fantastic scientists also within the same ecosystem, culturally a very good fit to join the company.
Thanks. Thanks, Ti. I think probably nothing further to add, Rajan, but a good question for sure.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sebastian van der Chute from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi Tim, congrats on this acquisition.
Of this great asset, and thanks for taking my question.
I was wondering whether you can expand on your understanding of the mode of action of petosemtamab that actually drives the. Therapy in head and neck. I'm just wondering whether you.
See opportunity to create other new bispecifics that can combine the LGR5 arm with potentially other cancer targets.
Thank you. Thank you, Sebastian, for the questions. I think Ty already addressed it a bit, but I will ask Ty to elaborate a bit further what unique aspects are of PETO, which is basically combining a very good EGFR binding arm with an LGR5 binding arm and the resulting mechanism of action for that molecule. We have a pretty good understanding of that at this moment. Ty, why don't you describe that and let's see whether we can potentially use the LGR5 arm also in other combinations later on if we would close this transaction, hopefully at the beginning of next year at the latest time.
Thank you for the question again. I would start with, first, of course, mechanism of action is one thing and the other one is clinical data. The clinical data for PETO is, as we said many times now, truly impressive. Transformational, very well tolerated with the low discontinuation rate due to AEs, single agent activity, combinability, high response rate in combination with pembrolizumab in the front line setting. This is what we're seeing to the degree I have to be now within the frame of what is in the public domain as it's been communicated by Merus N.V. Merus N.V. has spoken to that they are further diving into the mechanism of action. What really is the contribution of both of these arms. It is without a doubt a very good EGFR arm.
Without a doubt, the mechanism leads to the internalization and degradation of EGFR, which is to some degree a differentiating aspect of this bispecific that then translates into the clinical profile as it's been seen. As it relates to future plans on other bispecific combination on the LGR5, I think this is too premature to discuss at this point.
Thanks, Ty. Thanks, Sebastian, for the question.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, so I'll hand the call back to Jan for closing remarks.
Thank you for calling in today to discuss this exciting step in Genmab's evolution. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to our investor relations team. We very much look forward to speaking with you again soon.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.