Thank you, operator. This morning we issued a press release announcing our third quarter 2020 financial results and business updates. This release is available on the ADCT website at ir.adctherapeutics.com under the Press Releases section. On today's call, Chris Martin, Chief Executive Officer, Jay Feingold, Chief Medical Officer, and Jenn Creel, Chief Financial Officer, will discuss recent business highlights and review our third quarter 2020 financial results. In addition, Jennifer Buell, our Chief Commercial Officer, will be available for questions. As a reminder, this conference call may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to various factors.
We refer you to the section titled "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in Exhibit 99.2 of our report on Form 6-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today for further information on forward-looking statements. Such statements speak only as of the date of this conference call. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update these forward-looking statements unless required to do so by applicable law. In addition, during today's call, we will be presenting certain non-IFRS financial information that management uses when monitoring and evaluating operational performance, generating future operating plans, and making strategic decisions regarding the allocation of capital. These non-IFRS measures have limitations as financial measures and should be considered in addition to, and not in isolation or as a substitute for, the information prepared in accordance with IFRS.
We refer you to the section titled "Use of Non-IFRS Financial Measures" in Exhibit 99.3 of our report on Form 6-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today for further information on non-IFRS financial measures, including reconciliation of IFRS to non-IFRS financial measures. It is now my pleasure to pass the call over to our CEO, Chris Martin. Chris?
Thanks, Amanda. Thank you all for joining us this morning. I'm pleased to be here today to share our recent corporate and clinical accomplishments. Our team has made tremendous progress over the past quarter as we prepare for the launch of our first drug and continue to build out and advance our deep pipeline of highly potent and targeted antibody-drug conjugates. I would like to thank our teams for their resilience and dedication over the past month. In September, we reached a major milestone for our organization, announcing the submission of our BLA to the FDA for our lead program, Lonca, for the treatment of relapsed and refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
As we have previously discussed, this submission is based on data from our pivotal phase II LOTIS-2 trial, which evaluated the efficacy and safety of Lonca in patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL following two or more lines of prior systemic therapy, and demonstrated important antitumor activity and durability as well as manageable toxicities across patients with difficult-to-treat disease. We are expecting to receive FDA feedback on this submission later this month. In anticipation of our pending PDUFA date, we are currently preparing to launch Lonca in 2021. In order to prepare for launch, we have recruited highly experienced and focused oncology, commercial, and medical affairs teams based out of our New Jersey office. Despite COVID restrictions, this team is collaborating seamlessly and engaging key DLBCL stakeholders.
As we anticipate the FDA acceptance of our BLA later this month, we have continued our efforts to ensure a quick sales team build in 2021, comprising predominantly of hematology oncologist specialists with knowledge and network to effectively communicate the Lonca value proposition to key stakeholders. The sales force will cover more than 90% of the DLBCL opportunity, and we anticipate a hybrid approach with launch due to COVID-19. Therefore, we are staffing and training all members of our commercial and medical organizations to be prepared to pivot between face-to-face and virtual launch activities. We have developed a multi-channel engagement plan to ensure that all key audiences, physicians, nurses, office managers, payers, and patients receive the necessary information and support to ensure rapid and easy access to, and safe administration of, Lonca.
As part of our launch preparations, we have had the opportunity to engage with healthcare professionals in advisory boards and market research regarding Lonca's maturing profile, and I'm pleased to report that the profile resonates really well. Hematologist oncologists have shared with us their challenges to find an agent in the third line in relapse refractory DLBCL that can potentially address the majority of their patients, be they transplant eligible or ineligible, high-risk disease, heavily pretreated, or refractory populations. Based on feedback from physicians on Lonca's efficacy, tolerability profile, and ease of administration, we believe Lonca has the opportunity to become the standard of care in third line based on our competitive profile versus other available options. In addition to our Lonca commercial preparations, we have continued to progress and expand our pipeline.
I'm pleased to hand the call over to Chief Medical Officer, Jay Feingold, who will now discuss those programs with you in more detail. Jay.
Thank you, Chris. Good morning. I am pleased to present an update today on both our clinical and pre-clinical programs, in addition to providing some additional information regarding our upcoming ASH presentations. Overall, we continue our plan to expand the use of Lonca into earlier lines of therapy for patients with DLBCL, with both our pivotal phase II combination study with ibrutinib and the opening of sites for our confirmatory phase III study in combination with rituximab. To expand the use of Lonca into other cancer types with a pivotal phase II trial in follicular lymphoma. For Cami, we continue enrollment in our pivotal phase II trial for patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. With the trial now 65% enrolled, we have recently expanded Cami's phase I-B study in solid tumors to add a combination arm with pembrolizumab and dosed our first patient.
I will also provide a brief update on the phase I/II study for ADCT-602 and the phase I study for ADCT-601, moving into a combination with a checkpoint inhibitor. Let me give you an update on Lonca and our continuing life cycle development plan. As we approach the anticipated approval of Lonca next year, we are broadening our life cycle development program. We are investigating its potential as an early line of treatment in relapsed or refractory DLBCL. Our LOTIS-5 trial, the phase III confirmatory clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of Lonca in combination with rituximab versus standard immuno-chemotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL who are not eligible for autologous stem cell transplant, is now open for enrollment.
The study is designed to support a supplemental Biologics License Application for Lonca as a second-line therapy and to fulfill our post-marketing requirement to the FDA for full approval if accelerated approval is granted for relapsed or refractory DLBCL. We continue to enroll patients in our pivotal phase II trial of Lonca in combination with ibrutinib in relapsed or refractory DLBCL and mantle cell lymphoma. Which in a phase I-B showed a promising effect on overall and complete response rate, along with manageable toxicity. We are planning to initiate a dose-finding study of Lonca in combination with R-CHOP in previously untreated DLBCL patients in the first half of 2021. We are expanding to new histologies where Lonca has demonstrated encouraging activity, including follicular lymphoma, where we plan to initiate a phase II trial in relapsed refractory follicular lymphoma in the first half of 2021.
With regard to our second lead program, Cami, the pivotal phase II clinical trial in patients with relapsed refractory Hodgkin lymphoma who have failed at least three prior lines of therapy continues to enroll. There are 65 patients enrolled as of November 6th, and we remain on track to announce further data in the first half of 2021. Data from this trial is intended to support submission of a BLA to the FDA. In addition to our Hodgkin lymphoma program, we continue to advance our phase I-B clinical trial of Cami in solid tumors. In September, we presented preliminary data in the ongoing phase I-B trial in patients with selected advanced locally or metastatic solid tumors in ePoster at the European Society for Medical Oncology Virtual Congress 2020.
Data presented, which included pharmacokinetics and biomarker evaluations, showed that treatment with Cami is associated in some patients with clinically relevant modulation of immune cells, including an increase in CD4 positive and CD8 positive T-cells, an increase in soluble CD25, and cytokines in serum post-dosing, and a dose-related increase in the effector T-cell to regulatory T-cell ratio. This presentation followed the publication of pre-clinical data related to Cami in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, which demonstrated that single low doses of CD25-targeted ADCs resulted in potent and durable antitumor activity against established CD25 negative solid tumors with infiltrating Tregs, both as a monotherapy and in combination with an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor. Based on these data, we have expanded the phase I-B trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and antitumor activity of Cami in combination with pembrolizumab, a checkpoint inhibitor, in patients with selected advanced solid tumors.
We recently announced that we dosed the first patient in the phase I-B expansion, and we look forward to sharing the data in the future. In our earlier stage pipeline, we have a presentation at ASH analyzing the preclinical activity in the B-cell lymphoma models and potential biomarkers for ADCT-602 targeting CD22, which is currently in phase I/II development in patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We are also preparing to initiate a phase I-B combination trial with ADCT-601 targeting AXL in patients with certain solid tumors in the second half of 2021. We continue to advance our preclinical programs towards IND submissions and look forward to providing further updates as these programs advance. We are pleased that eight of our abstracts were accepted for presentation at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, which is being held virtually from December 5th to 8th.
Presentations will feature data on three of the company's ADCs, Lonca, Cami, and ADCT-602. I'd like to highlight two of the Lonca abstracts. The first poster provides additional subgroup data from the LOTIS-2 pivotal phase I-B trial in relapsed or refractory DLBCL. This data set is a more mature data set than previously shared. It will include efficacy and duration of response data for patient subgroups with high-risk characteristics, as well as patients who were refractory to first-line therapy, patients refractory to any line of therapy, patients who received prior CAR T, or patients who received prior stem cell transplants. The second poster will highlight interim results from the ongoing phase I-B trial of Lonca combined with ibrutinib in relapsed or refractory DLBCL or MCL. The poster will provide more mature data on the efficacy and safety for the combination. There will also be three Cami presentations.
We have an oral presentation of the interim results from the phase II trial of Cami in relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. An oral presentation will highlight efficacy and safety data from the first 47 patients enrolled as of August 2020. In addition, we will have a poster presentation of PK/PD data from the phase I study in relapsed or refractory Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and preclinical data showing the anti-tumor activity of Cami in combination with gemcitabine. With that, I will turn the call over to Jenn to give a financial update.
Thank you, Jay, and good morning, everyone. In September, we completed an upsized public offering of 6 million common shares at a price of $34 per share. Gross proceeds from the public offering were approximately $204 million, and the funds are intended to support the acceleration of Lonca development activities, advancing our early pipeline, and the commercialization of Lonca. These funds position the company to deliver on the many opportunities discussed in today's call. Now turning to our financials. As we reported in our press release, we ended the third quarter with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $494 million as compared to approximately $116 million as of December 31st, 2019. We used approximately $44 million in net cash for operating activities in the third quarter and $117 million in net cash year-to-date.
We expect our spend to continue to increase over the next few quarters as we prepare for the anticipated launch of Lonca and continue to invest in our broad pipeline. R&D expense was $32.2 million for the third quarter, compared to $30.5 million for the same quarter in 2019. The increase was primarily due to increased headcount to support the Lonca BLA submission and multiple Lonca and Cami clinical programs, as well as increased share-based compensation expense. G&A expense was $20.3 million for the third quarter, compared to $2.3 million for the same quarter in 2019. The increase was primarily due to increased share-based compensation expense and an enhanced commercial team as we prepare for the anticipated launch of Lonca. We also saw an increase in investment in our commercial preparations and the costs associated with being a public company.
Our net loss was $20.3 million for the third quarter of 2020, compared to $31.3 million in the same quarter of 2019. Net loss for the quarter includes a $33.9 million non-cash gain related to the changes in fair value of derivatives associated with the convertible loans under the facility agreement with Deerfield. Net loss for the quarter was also impacted by share-based compensation expense of $11 million. Finally, our adjusted net loss, which excludes certain items including the Deerfield convertible loan and share-based compensation for the third quarter of 2020, was $41.3 million, compared to $31.1 million in the same quarter of 2019. The adjusted diluted net loss per share was $0.58 in the quarter ending September 30th, 2020, compared to $0.62 for the same quarter in 2019. With that, I will turn the call back to Chris for closing remarks. Chris?
Thanks, Jenn. As you can see from today's call, we have several important upcoming milestones, and it's certainly an exciting time at ADC Therapeutics. As we await feedback from the FDA on our BLA submission, our highly experienced commercial, market access, and medical affairs teams are actively preparing for a successful commercial launch next year. Looking forward to the first half of next year, we are eager to expand our Lonca development program with the start of the pivotal phase II in follicular lymphoma and to review interim results for the Cami pivotal phase II trial in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. We continue to build the long-term value of the company and its assets through investment in Lonca and Cami and our promising earlier-stage pipeline programs.
We look forward to presenting a number of key data sets during the upcoming ASH meeting in December, further showcasing the value and potential of our productive ADC platform and development team. We plan to host a conference call with Dr. Hamadani, Professor of Internal Medicine and Scientific Director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin on Monday, December the 7th at 8:00 A.M. Eastern to highlight our ASH abstracts. I look forward to updating you on our programs in the future and will now open the call to your questions. Operator?
We will now take any questions you may have. If you have a question, press zero one and you will put in to the queue. If you would like to cancel your question, please press zero two. The first question comes from Matthew Harrison from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Great. Good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess maybe one for Jay and one for Chris. Jay, could you just comment, briefly, I guess the question is more broadly on earlier lines of therapy in NHL. I think a lot of investors are trying to figure out the competitiveness of that landscape and how to view the early data that you have from the ibrutinib combination, how that fits in, and how much data you think you need to have from that combination before you feel confident that you have a signal there that is significantly better than competitors. Then Chris, or maybe it's for Chris and Jenn, but could you just comment broadly on how we should think about commercial spend ramping up over the course of the next few quarters as you get ready for launch? Thanks.
Matt, I'll answer the clinical question first. I agree with you that the landscape is very competitive in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and even in for both DLBCL and follicular lymphoma, as well as mantle cell lymphoma. Focusing on DLBCL, with the introduction of rituximab about 20 years ago, the cure rate for DLBCL increased significantly. Since that time, there's been little change, and it remains a very difficult-to-treat disease if the patients are not cured in the first line. As you know, about 30%-40%, or slightly more in some cases, some studies, of patients are not cured in that first line. We believe that Lonca, because of its significant activities as a monotherapy, has a role in the treatment of relapsed refractory DLBCL.
In terms of moving up into earlier lines of therapy, the only data that we've shared so far and what you'll see at ASH, I think is very interesting in the combination of Lonca plus ibrutinib, particularly in the non-GCB DLBCL patients, which is where most of the data is at this time. I think we'll just have to wait and see how it works out. I don't have a number in mind that would say to me, "Oh, yeah, this is so great, we have to go into second line or whatever with this combination." I think we need to see more data. We need to see more about the durability. The early indications are very positive.
Thank you, Jay. Matthew, in terms of commercial spend, I'll let Jenn answer that in detail. I will say that Jennifer and Joseph Camardo in commercial and medical affairs have made tremendous progress in this quarter in building their teams and interacting, as I mentioned earlier, with the healthcare professionals, and the healthcare infrastructure more broadly. They've received very encouraging feedback from those interactions. We continue to recruit the commercial and medical affairs field forces, ready for deployment. Jenn perhaps you'd like to address the financial part of that question.
Sure. Thanks, Chris, and thanks, Matthew, for the question. As the teams have been building out, and as Chris mentioned, we've had a lot of progress this year in the commercial and medical affairs teams building throughout this year. We have seen our spend increasing steadily throughout this year with that preparation, and we'll continue to see an uptick each quarter as we head towards the potential launch of Lonca in the middle of next year. I would say that we're seeing that increase in the year-to-date spend, and it'll continue to tick upwards as we head towards the middle of next year. Thank you.
I remind you that if you want to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude your program, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.