Star one to queue in line. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Leah Liu, VP of Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We have announced this morning our agreement with Gilead on the regional rights of Trodelvy, and we would like to share more insights with you on this transaction on this call. Joining today from the company are Dr. Kerry Blanchard, our CEO, and Mr. Ian Woo, our President and CFO. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that the speakers of this conference call may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements, including descriptions regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of the company or its officers with regards to the business operations and financial conditions of the company, which can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident," and similar statements.
Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and assumptions. The company or any of its affiliates, directors, officers, advisors, or representatives has no obligation and does not undertake to revise forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events, or circumstances after the date of this conference call, except required by law. Now I will turn over the call to Ian to give you more details on the transaction. Thank you.
Great. Thank you, Leah. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this call. I will walk through this presentation to review the transaction and discuss our corporate strategic priorities going forward. If we go to slide five. First, I just want to say why we decided to pursue this transaction. While Everest continues to remain committed to developing a robust pipeline and address critical medical needs, we recognize the challenges of today's volatile capital market. We believe this transaction will help us navigate through this critical period of time and achieve the following three important goals. First and foremost, I think for us, it is patient first.
We believe that this transaction will allow Trodelvy to get the right level of resources and attention to maximize the value and impact of this important drug to all patients in our territories, as well as maximize the value for our various stakeholders. Second, this transaction allows us to streamline resources to be more focused. Focused on fewer therapeutic areas and position ourselves for future growth through development of our internal pipeline, further acquisitions, and the internal discovery effort that we initiated about 18 months ago. Third, this transaction will allow us to achieve, we believe, capital markets independence and allow the company to right-size ourselves in this capital markets downturn. We think this is exceedingly important for a biotech company to be able to weather the current volatilities and the capital market challenges and come out at the other end as a stronger company.
Next slide, please. Since April 2019, when we in-licensed Trodelvy from Immunomedics, which is now a subsidiary of Gilead, Everest has demonstrated superior clinical and registrational execution capabilities through successfully completing our own Trodelvy trial in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in China, receiving NDA approval in China and in Singapore, and launching the product in Singapore. We have also completed NDA submissions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Going forward, we are very confident that through this transaction, Gilead will maximize the value of the impact of Trodelvy. As a leading global pharmaceutical company with worldwide operations, Gilead has the capabilities and capital to continue to invest in this key global strategic asset. Consolidating control over Trodelvy's global development and commercialization will also provide better access and development for further and future indications.
Gilead will have broader involvement in clinical and commercial development for patients in Everest territories going forward. Next slide. Moving on to the financial terms. The total deal value is $455 million. This includes a significant upfront payment of $280 million. Milestone payments of up to $50 million in regulatory and up to $125 million in commercial milestones, contingent on various mutually agreed milestone events. Further, we will no longer have to pay the up to $710 million of further obligations to Gilead that was previously part of the license agreement with Immunomedics. We also wanted to highlight that we have worked diligently with the Gilead team to ensure that employees critical to the development and commercialization of Trodelvy will have the opportunity, will have the chance to continue to work on Trodelvy.
This is quite important to us as many of our employees have been with the company for a long time, and we want to ensure that, through this transaction, there will be an opportunity to interview with Gilead and to potentially have ongoing roles at the company. These financial terms will provide Everest with capital markets independence and extend our runway into 2026, which is especially important given the broader macroeconomic uncertainties we are facing today. Next slide. We have gone through a comprehensive and diligent process over the past few months to arrive at what the company and the board considers to be the best transaction for Everest at this time. We ran a competitive process, which included a range of multinational pharma companies, as well as local Chinese biopharmas, to evaluate various options for Trodelvy.
After extensive discussions with counterparties and our advisors, we are moving forward with a proposal that best reflects our goals to expand patient access and maximize shareholder value. As I mentioned in the previous slides, this transaction with Gilead best achieves all of our objectives. We are also confident that consideration captures the full intrinsic value of Trodelvy. With significant upfront cash de-risking our portfolio, while the regulatory and commercial milestones provide significant participation in the future success of Trodelvy. We are confident that the team at Gilead will drive success for Trodelvy, and we will further share the upside, thanks to our team who have successfully developed Trodelvy to the current stage. Next slide. This slide just shows you our current cash situation. We are expecting that in July or in the mid-year, we will have roughly about $300 million of cash.
This transaction will provide $280 million of additional cash, and up to another $175 million in future regulatory and commercial milestones. In total, this will bring our cash balance to, if you just include the current cash and the upfront $580 million, and the milestones could bring another $175 million. In total, this represents an attractive return on what we have paid upfront for Trodelvy. We could get up to a 3.6 times return on the capital that we have invested in licensing Trodelvy for our territories. Now we plan to utilize this capital to continue the development of NEFECON and the rest of our existing pipeline assets, expand our drug pipeline through business development, and further strengthen our discovery platform to build up our in-house R&D capabilities. We look forward to advancing our mission and key priorities on our path forward.
With that, I will hand over to Kerry now to discuss further.
Thanks, Ian. Please go to the next slide. First, I want to reiterate that the sale of Trodelvy rights do not change Everest Medicines' business focus. We remain committed to developing novel and differentiated therapies to address critical unmet needs in Greater China and other emerging Asia Pacific markets. After completion of the transaction with Gilead, our path forward will be driven by two strategic priorities. One, to accelerate the development of the other 10 assets in our pipeline, such as NEFECON, Etrasimod, and developing multiple vaccines from our messenger RNA platform. And two, to pursue business development and drug discovery programs to further expand our asset portfolio. Next slide, please. Since the company's founding in 2017, we have strategically built a portfolio of first in class or best in class candidates in all different stages of development to sustain healthy and consistent future growth of our business.
After this transaction, we'll continue to develop 10 candidates currently in our pipeline and expect seven BLA/NDA approvals in the next two to six years. We have three best-in-class assets in various phases of development in our antibiotic portfolio, among which we have eravacycline, a novel, fully synthetic tetracycline approved in the U.S. and E.U. for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections. This product has already been approved and commercialized in Singapore, and we expect NDA approval and commercial launch in China within this year. Apart from eravacycline, we also have taniborbactam, a beta-lactamase inhibitor in phase III clinical trials with positive top-line results announced in March of this year, as well as SPR206 that's currently in phase I trials. Next slide, please. Our internal medicines portfolio has, first and foremost, NEFECON, a first-in-class therapy targeting a first-in-disease therapy targeting IgA nephropathy.
Our partner, Calliditas, received accelerated approval from the U.S. FDA for NEFECON under the name of TARPEYO to reduce proteinuria in IgA nephropathy in December of 2021, making it the first and only FDA-approved treatment for this condition. We joined Part B of the phase III global NefIgArd trial by contributing 60 patients in China, and we reported on these Chinese data this year. NEFECON has also received EMA approval earlier this year. The NDA filing for NEFECON is expected within this year, as NEFECON has been granted breakthrough therapy designation by NMPA. We expect NEFECON to be approved in China in the first half of 2023. Next slide. Etrasimod is our potential best-in-class product in the autoimmune disease area. Etrasimod has therapeutic potential in many autoimmune and inflammatory-mediated diseases, including ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and atopic dermatitis.
Among which prevalence of UC in China is expected to reach 900,000 by 2023. We are currently conducting a phase III trial for Etrasimod for the treatment of ulcerative colitis in China and plan to conduct trials for other indications as well. Next slide, please. Etrasimod has demonstrated efficacy in ulcerative colitis in two global pivotal trials announced by Pfizer earlier this year. In the 52-week ELEVATE UC 52 trial, clinical remission for Etrasimod was 27%, compared to 7.4% in patients receiving placebo at 12 weeks. In the 12-week ELEVATE UC 12 trial, clinical remission was achieved among 24.8% of patients receiving Etrasimod, compared to 15.2% of patients receiving placebo, while demonstrating safety profiles consistent with our other studies. Etrasimod has not only demonstrated best-in-class potential but outstanding efficacy signal compared to several categories of drugs, including biologics and JAK inhibitors already approved for the treatment of UC.
In 2021, the company entered into a collaboration agreement with Providence Therapeutics. The partnership not only adds a best-in-class potential messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine to our portfolio, it also establishes a broad strategic partnership, giving us exclusive access to a clinically validated messenger RNA technology platform. Today, Everest Medicines has made significant progress on the development of our messenger RNA platform. First, on the discovery and development side, we have completed the technology transfer related to antigen design and sequence optimization in messenger RNA vaccines and continue to develop the lipid nanoparticle delivery system with Providence. We've also assembled a vaccine R&D team made up of highly experienced and multidisciplinary talents to further the development of this platform. Everest has built a fully independent messenger RNA vaccine manufacturing platform with full tech transfer from Providence, which will enable us to be a local manufacturer of messenger RNAs in China.
Our manufacturing plant in Jiashan will be ready for commercial production by the end of 2022 with a planned annual capacity of 700 million doses. The messenger RNA pipeline currently consists of phase III-ready COVID-19 vaccines of PTX-COVID19-B and the second-generation bivalent vaccine, EVERCOVID-19-M1, as well as three preclinical vaccine candidates for other infectious disease indications. We have regional rights to the two COVID vaccines, 50/50 shares in global rights for the first two preclinical candidates and 100% global rights for the third and subsequent candidates developed from the mRNA platform. PTX-COVID19-B is designed as a full-length S protein candidate that can be stored at - 20 degree Celsius.
The data from the phase I trial of our COVID-19 vaccine shows robust neutralizing antibody activity against COVID-19, and the comparison of our 40 microgram and 100 microgram dose levels to convalescent titers result in 8.6 times and 23 times higher than convalescent sera. Our safety profile is similar to the two approved messenger RNA vaccines. Next slide. EVERCOVID-19-M1 is a second generation of the COVID-19 vaccine, a bivalent vaccine which contains the S protein RNA of both the original D614G strain and the Omicron variant. It is intended to be used as a bivalent booster vaccine. Next slide. Our preclinical mouse study results have shown that the bivalent vaccine candidate as a booster generates high neutralization titers against Omicron subvariants BA.1, BA.2, and BA.4, BA.5. Next slide, please. Here we've laid out the timeline and pathways to approval for COVID-19 messenger RNA vaccine programs.
Our partner, Providence, has finished a head-to-head phase II trial against Pfizer's messenger RNA vaccine, and we're expecting immunobridging data and safety data this month. Meanwhile, the phase III registration booster trials for COVID-19B will be initiated in Asia in the second half of this year, as well as a phase III booster trial of EVERCOVID-19-M1, our bivalent vaccine. We anticipate approval and launch of the COVID vaccines in 2023. After consultation with stringent regulatory authority, we expect to initiate rolling EUA submissions in 2023. Next slide. In addition to our extensive current pipeline, we look to further expand our product portfolio through BD and internal discovery. Our top-tier business development team has continually executed on our strategy of identifying promising, high-quality, first-in-class, and best-in-class molecules and therapies with an unmet medical need where we have acquired regional and global rights.
Our track record in asset selection has been shown today in our transaction with Gilead, and also by five of our licensed asset having subsequently been acquired by large MNC or biotech since 2019. Pfizer acquired Arena Pharmaceuticals for Etrasimod in December of 2021. Pfizer licensed SPR206 from Spero Therapeutics in July of 2021. Gilead acquired Immunomedics for Trodelvy in October of 2020. La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company acquired Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals for XERAVA in 2020, and United Therapeutics licensed ralinepag from Arena Pharmaceuticals in 2019.
Apart from those five, we have a long list of global partners whom we work closely with in developing our in-licensed assets and technologies. We are currently in active discussions with different parties for five assets, two that are in late stage, one in phase III. We're also exploring many opportunities with early diligence, including three phase II assets and more than five late-stage preclinical or early clinical stage assets.
We'll continue to build and move through business development pipelines as we continue to invest in our portfolio and create value for our shareholders. Shifting to our internal R&D, we continue to add to our pipeline with our strong expertise in discovery and translational research led by Dr. Jennifer Yang, our Chief Scientific Officer. In the first quarter of this year, we opened our research labs in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, giving us access to a 1,700 sq m state-of-the-art facility. We are proud of our experienced bioinformatics team who are capable of comprehensive and integrated analysis of genomic, transcriptomic, and immune profiling data, and our deep understanding of disease biology and strong capabilities in small molecules and therapeutic antibody drug discovery. We are also partnered with AbCellera, which gains us access to cutting-edge AI-powered antibody discovery platforms. We are working with Providence for messenger RNA-based prophylactic vaccines against infectious disease.
Next slide. We currently have eight internally discovered assets in pre-clinical development. Some of these assets we expect to see IND approval late this year or early next year. In addition to our internally discovered assets, we also have three in-licensed assets for which we own global rights. Together that makes for a total of 11 assets in our pipeline for which we own global rights. Next slide. Finally, I would like to highlight the achievements that have been made so far this year within our portfolio. Other than advances in Trodelvy, we've also had great top-line readouts for Trodelvy in the phase III trial for IgA nephropathy in Chinese patients. Next slide. Looking ahead, we're excited for important upcoming catalysts within our strong pipeline for the next 12 to 18 months.
Notably, in the second half of this year, we expect NDA filing for NEFECON and IgA nephropathy in China, and NDA approval in complicated intra-abdominal infections in China for XERAVA. Our partner, Pfizer, is expected to file NDA for Etrasimod in ulcerative colitis in the U.S. In 2023, we expect NDA approval for NEFECON in IgA nephropathy in China. We will continue to update the market on our exciting progress. Next slide. Now, to wrap up our presentation, I want to summarize this transformational deal with Gilead, which supports our near-term priorities.
As we've already discussed on this call, this transaction maximizes value for Everest shareholders and patients worldwide, allows us to continue to focus on our other pipeline assets, to pursue additional opportunities to further expand our growing pipeline, as well as optimize our capital structure to support our long-term strategy and extend our cash runway through at least 2026. Beyond 2026, we hope to have commercial-stage assets in internal medicine and infectious disease, advance our messenger RNA platform with broad applications in multiple therapeutic areas, bolster our robust research pipeline focused on indications with high unmet needs, and to develop global assets. All of which we now have the financial strength to advance. With that, I invite the operator to begin the question and answer period. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the question and answer session is now open. To register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The first question comes from Ziyi Chen of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you, Ian. This is Ziyi. I am trying to have a few questions. Number one, you mentioned about the upfront payment and deal terms. I am trying to understand a bit more about how much money Everest has been spent on Trodelvy. I think you paid about upfront payment, $65 million+, a $60 million milestone for the approval. Have you guys paid any additional milestone yet? What about the development cost in China after licensing for Trodelvy? Particularly, you guys have built a commercial team. How much money you have been spending on all building up the commercial team and also for the pre-launch marketing to physicians? I am trying to understand a bit on that, see how $280 million upfront is going to cover that.
You also mentioned about in terms of milestone payment, it is going to be broken down to two different tranches, right? $50 million regulatory and a $125 million commercial milestone. I am trying to understand a bit more on that too. For the $50 million regulatory milestone, what kind of a milestone we need to achieve? For $125 million commercial milestone, how we should be expecting when and how we are going to get that? That is my first question. The second part is really on the oncology therapeutic areas. Trodelvy used to be the core assets in oncology, while the visibility on the FGFR4 has been relatively limited at current stage. What is going to be your strategy on oncology going forward? Is it going to be a deprioritized therapeutic area or you have any other new ideas on that?
The third question is on the existing commercial team in oncology, clinical development team within Everest for the oncology area. Could you elaborate a bit more about how big the team is and what is going to be the future plan for the commercial team? We understand that you mentioned about they have the option to transition into Trodelvy or Trodelvy commercialization. We try to understand a bit more color on that. What about oncology clinical development team, what they are going to do over next 12 months to 18 months. Thank you.
Thanks, Ziyi. I think I will turn these questions to Ian, in particular, the first and second question.
Okay. Sure. Ziyi, I am not sure if I got all of your questions, so I will try to do what I can, but just please let me know if I missed anything. On the first part of your first question, the milestones paid, you got it right. It is the $65 million upfront and the $60 million U.S. FDA TNBC approval, right. So a total of $125 million. That is what we have paid. On how much we spend on the clinical development, and you had also asked about the commercial team. That is a little bit harder to capture because, as you recognize, we have other products within the oncology portfolio. We also have other products that are close to commercialization. We are already commercial in Singapore, for example, for eravacycline. So some of these functions are shared and some of the costs are shared.
It is a little bit harder to put a number on it. The way we look at it is if we think about the specific milestones spent on Trodelvy, it is $125 million. Okay, I think you had asked more details about the regulatory and the commercial milestones that we expect to get as part of this transaction. For the $50 million regulatory milestones, there are three indications where we would get approval for. Those are not disclosed at the moment, but you can probably guess what they are. What are the number two, number three, or number three indications to come after TNBC. The commercial milestones are kind of typical milestones set at achievement of aggregate annual sales in our territories. I think it starts at the levels that we believe to be very achievable.
Now, your second question, I think it is related to oncology therapeutic area. I can start.
That is right.
I am sure Kerry will have additional inputs on this as well. We still have FGFR4, which we have global rights. We have an oncology R&D organization, or I should say, we have an R&D organization that are working on a number of oncology products, but those are early, right. But the underlying thread to all of this is that, we have global rights to those, right. We have an opportunity to realize potential value creation, not just in China but also outside of China, right. That is certainly something that going forward, we would look to do more. On the business development side, we have not stopped looking for additional assets. We are also seeing, the market has been volatile for everybody, right. We are seeing some interesting opportunities for us to look at.
Clearly, I think we also have to think about ways to be able to get broader territorial rights rather than just China. Ziyi, I do not know if that answers your question, and maybe I will hand it over to Kerry for the third question.
Thank you, Ian. The third question was about the existing teams in oncology. As we mentioned in the presentation, the teams that have focused predominantly on Trodelvy will have an opportunity to be interviewed and recruited by Gilead. That will be our path going forward.
What about the clinical development team in oncology? Previously we do have three CMOs on different therapeutic areas. What about now? Currently your internal R&D pipeline on oncology is pretty relatively early stage, and in the clinical stage it is only FGFR4. Trying to understand on how you are going to deal with the existing oncology development team.
As I mentioned, Ziyi, the bulk of the development team works predominantly on Trodelvy. The development of Trodelvy in China will continue, and the difference is it will continue through Gilead. So, again, Gilead has expressed interest in recruiting our team if possible.
Yeah. Ziyi, maybe just to add a little bit on that. I think, clearly oncology for Gilead is an important corporate effort, right? I think Trodelvy is the anchor product for their oncology franchise. You probably have seen that they announced TROPiCS-02 hit statistical significant improvements in overall survival, right. There is a clear pathway to BLA submission now in indication in the U.S. and other territories. Clearly, it's very important to them. When you look at their oncology presence in China and in Asia, today they're not in Asia, right. Or I should say in our territories. They're not in our territories for oncology. Clearly, now that they have rights to Trodelvy in these territories, we expect them to build out oncology presence.
It just makes a lot of sense for our team, people that we have hired and built to be the foundations of that build-up. That's our understanding.
Got it. Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Kerry. Congratulations to you all. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thanks, Ziyi.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to ask questions online, please click right hand button. Thank you. The next question comes from Yang Wang of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks. I have two questions. The first one is, I wonder if the management can give us some background or some color about the negotiation or when did the Trodelvy licensing deal with Gilead started. To help us understand the motivation or rationale behind the deal from Gilead's point and from Everest Medicines point. That's my first question.
Okay, Ian, do you want to address that?
Sure. Yep. Thank you for the question. As you know, Gilead and Everest, we are existing partners. We have ongoing discussions all the time. You also know that we originally signed the Trodelvy licensing agreement with Immunomedics, which Gilead acquired in the middle of the pandemic, right. In September of 2020. We have built a very good relationship with Gilead. The working and the interactions have been very constructive. Nevertheless, it's a relationship that we were put in with each other during a pandemic, where it would be difficult for people to meet face-to-face and really build a relationship. It's also, I think, what Gilead wants out of this partnership. Different companies have different needs and objectives, right.
As we went along, we were just sort of at a point where it felt like a reset of the relationship would be ideal for both parties. That sort of was the trigger to this. When we started to work through various options on what that reset could look like, that's when the proposal came for a full restructuring of the partnership. Then, of course, as I mentioned earlier, with that interest in hand, we reached out to a number of other, I would say, usual suspects, and the people that we felt, and our advisors felt, could be interested in Trodelvy as well. After a robust process, we ended up where we are today, which is sort of where we started off, that we felt that Gilead would be the best partner for this.
Okay, that's great. My second question is our another asset, since the Etrasimod, since this has a similar scenario also.
We lost you.
I'm sorry?
Oh, I'm sorry. I lost you. All I heard was the other assets.
Yeah. My second question is Etrasimod, b ecause Pfizer acquired Arena, right? And our licensing agreement was with Arena. Will we expect, or is it possible that for Etrasimod, we might have a similar situation, that Pfizer want to get it back?
Well, I cannot speak for Pfizer, but Pfizer likes Etrasimod. They paid $6.7 billion for Arena. Today, we intend to continue our development with Etrasimod. If you remember, our Etrasimod trial is a completely independent trial from the Arena trials, and it is a regional trial. That trial is enrolling well, and we expect it to continue to enroll well and finish relatively soon. So currently, there is no plan to reverse a decision about Etrasimod. We will continue to develop it ourselves.
But if Pfizer want to get it back, are we willing to negotiate with Pfizer on this one?
Ian, do you want to address that?
It is too important for us.
Look, we have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to evaluate all proposals, right. After evaluating these proposals, we may come to the view that they are not in our best interest to do, right. I will have to say, as I just mentioned, after this transaction, we have essentially extended our cash runway into 2026, right. I think the bar will have to be quite high for us to consider doing something around assets that we feel are highly strategic and have significant amount of value. We will probably put Etrasimod in that category of description.
Okay, got it. Just very quick follow-up. You mentioned the cash runway is going to be 2026. What kind of expected cash burn every year from now on?
Well, I mentioned that if you look at the current cash balance plus upfront consideration, that's $580 million, right. I think it will be easy to calculate what it would take to get into 2026, b ut again, I just want to clarify one thing, right. That's with our existing portfolio, right? Obviously, if we execute on additional business development transactions, that may impact our cash runway. If somebody comes in with an offer that we cannot refuse for another product, right. That could also impact the cash runway. What we have guided is our standalone, the current situation, right. I think that's where we are on the cash front.
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thanks for the questions.
Yes, operator. We can take the next question.
The next question comes from Arthur He of H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, Kerry and Ian. This is Arthur He.
Yeah, Arthur.
From H.C. Wainwright. Hey, Ian, congratulations on the deal first. I just have quick question regarding terms. I noticed there's a regulatory for the subject to the $280 million upfront is still subject to some approval. My understanding is purely related to the current MAA you submit to the different regulatory?
Yeah. There are certain activities that we need to complete, but these are all related to transition. This is in an asset transaction, and we were talking about a product that is getting ready to launch in the middle of a number of clinical trials, and have a number of marketing authorizations received or in the process of being applied. A lot of these activities will need to be transferred over to Gilead. The upfront consideration takes into consideration that the work that needs to be done to transfer these.
To be clear, there is no regulatory approval that's contingent, right?
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
On the upfront.
Okay. Oh, yes sir. Thanks for that. Yeah. Regarding the ongoing trial in the HR-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer patients. Regarding those trial, would Gilead also take over fully or Everest will continue the effort and Gilead do some reimbursement for the expense? Just want to understand for that part.
Yeah. Arthur, our intention is to be able to transfer everything over as soon as possible.
Okay. My last question is more probably in the strategic wise. In your internal discussion, for the long-term strategy for Everest, do you guys want to be viewed more like with the diversified pipeline pharma wise or you try to simplify pipeline to get more streamlined? Thanks.
Thanks, Arthur. It's a great question. The second option is the right option. I think it's to enhance the focus on our remaining assets and to streamline around them. I firmly believe that assets that allow us some global upside are key to our success in the future as well. This generally means our internal assets for which we have complete global rights or earlier phase in-licensing assets for which we have partial or complete global rights as you've seen with some of our deals with the messenger RNA platform, with our BTK inhibitor and with our 3C-like protease inhibitor.
Thank you, Kerry, and thank you, Ian. Thanks for taking my question.
Thank you.
Thanks, Arthur.
Hi, everyone. In the interest of time, I think we will end the conference call here. Thank you all for attending and thanks to the management for joining us. Any last words from Kerry and Ian?
Well, thank you all and have a great day.
Thank you.