Good morning or good afternoon, depending upon your time zone. And thank you for your participation today. At the outset, we would like to express our immense gratitude to the healthcare professionals, other first responders, and those who support them, who are leading the charge to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Your compassion, courage, and commitment to us, your patience in this time of need, is inspiring. I would now like to call to order the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which is being held virtually via the internet. I am Michael Bonney, Chair of the Board of Directors of the company.
I'd like to introduce the other directors who are with us today for the annual meeting: Dennis Ausiello, Olivier Brandecourt, Marsha Fanucci, Margaret Hamburg, John Maraganore, who is the company's Chief Executive Officer, Steve Paul, Colleen Reitan, Paul Schimmel, Amy Schulman, and Phil Sharp, constituting a majority of the members of our board. I'd also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Dr. Paul Schimmel, who is retiring from the Board of Directors effective today. Paul's countless contributions over the course of his 17 years since he founded the company to the Alnylam board are remarkable. We are delighted that Dr. Schimmel will continue to serve on the company's scientific advisory board going forward.
Also with us today are several members of the company's senior management team, including Barry Greene, President; Akshay Vaishnaw, President Research and Development; Yvonne Greenstreet, Chief Operating Officer; Laurie Keating, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary; Jeff Poulton, Chief Financial Officer; Christine Lindenboom, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations; and Mary Beth DeLena, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. Representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, the company's independent auditors, are also participating and will be available following the formal portion of the meeting to respond to appropriate questions from stockholders submitted online.
On behalf of your board of directors and management, I welcome all stockholders in attendance today to our 2020 Annual Meeting. My sincere thanks are also extended to all stockholders voting today, whether by proxy in advance of this meeting or online during this meeting. Thank you for your interest in the company's mission and business and future prospects. I will now turn the meeting over to Laurie Keating, the company's Chief Legal Officer, who will conduct the formal part of the annual meeting and serve as Secretary of the same. Laurie?
Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to all our stockholders participating online today. We will now begin the formal portion of the annual meeting. During the meeting, stockholders participating online may submit questions through the virtual meeting platform by typing your question into the Ask a Question field and clicking Submit. Questions pertinent to the meeting matters will be answered following the formal portion of the meeting, subject to time constraints. Any questions pertinent to meeting matters that cannot be answered due to time constraints will be posted online and answered on Alnylam's website under the Investor section. Following the formal meeting, Josh Brodsky, a member of Alnylam's Investor Relations Group, will present a brief company update and be available to answer any additional questions submitted online during his presentation.
As indicated in the Notice of Meeting and in the company's proxy statement that was made available on the internet, the following matters have been proposed by the board for approval or ratification by the stockholders who were stockholders of record as of the record date: First, to elect three members to the Board of Directors to serve as Class 1 directors, each for a term of three years. Next, to approve an amendment to our 2018 Stock Incentive Plan as amended. Third, to approve an amendment to our amended and restated 2004 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Fourth, to approve in a non-binding advisory say-on-pay vote the compensation of the company's named executive officers. And finally, to ratify the appointment by the company's Board of Directors of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditors for the current fiscal year ending December 31st, 2020.
We will consider each item in turn in the same order that they appear in the Notice of Meeting. The polls will open when the first matter is called to a vote and will remain open until I announce that the polls are closed. You may vote your shares during the meeting online through the virtual meeting platform. You will need the 16-digit control number included on your proxy card or voting instruction form. If you previously voted, that will not limit your right to vote online during the meeting through the virtual meeting platform, and your online vote will supersede the vote you submitted previously. No online votes, ballots, or proxies, or revocations of or changes to online votes, ballots, or proxies will be accepted after the polls are closed. I will announce the preliminary voting results on each matter following the tabulation of the voting.
I have received an affidavit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, the company's agent for distribution, certifying that the Notice of Annual Meeting was sent to all stockholders of record as of March 9th, 2020, and the Proxy statement was made available on the internet as of March 23rd, 2020. This affidavit is available for inspection by any stockholder. I'd like to now introduce Mr. Louis Larson. Mr. Larson has been appointed to act as Inspector of Election and has taken the Inspector of Election oath. I'd like to ask Mr. Larson to state the number of shares present at our meeting.
Thank you. There are present at this meeting in person or through representation by proxy 102,189,224 shares of common stock, representing approximately 90% of the outstanding shares of common stock of the company as of 12:00 P.M. this afternoon.
Thank you very much, Mr. Larson. Based on the number of shares reported as present at this meeting, I'm happy to report that a quorum exists. Voting today is by proxy and virtual ballot. It is not necessary for stockholders to vote by virtual ballot if they have already submitted their proxy cards, unless they wish to change their vote. Virtual ballots are available for any stockholder who wishes to vote by virtual ballot or to change their vote. Stockholders may do so online through the virtual meeting platform. Your submission of a virtual ballot, as I said earlier, will revoke all prior proxies. Voting is now open for all matters to be presented. Voting shall be closed after we go through the proposals to be voted upon. I will now review the proposals. Proposal 1, Election of Directors.
The first matter to be voted on is the election of three Class 1 directors, each for a term of three years. The nominees for election are Michael Bonney, our Chair; John Maraganore, our CEO; and Phil Sharp, a co-founder of the company. Proposal 2 to be voted upon is the approval of an amendment to the 2018 Stock Incentive Plan as amended. The third matter to be voted on is the approval of an amendment to the amended and restated 2004 Employee Stock Purchase Plan as previously amended. The fourth matter to be voted on is the advisory vote on executive compensation. The fifth and final matter to be voted on is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent auditors for the 2020 fiscal year. This concludes the business items on the agenda for this annual meeting. The polls are now closed.
No additional virtual ballots, proxies, or votes, and no changes or revocations will be accepted. I've been informed by the Inspector of Election that the preliminary vote report shows that a majority of the votes cast at this meeting have been voted in favor of each of the directors nominated to serve as Class 1 directors of the company, and that each of proposals 2 through 5 received the requisite vote in favor and was therefore approved by our stockholders. We will be reporting the final voting results in a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC within four business days. This concludes the formal business of today's meeting, and the formal part of our meeting is adjourned.
In closing, I'd like to thank again the stockholders in attendance today for your participation in our virtual annual meeting and, of course, for your interest in Alnylam, in our innovative RNAi therapeutics that we're commercializing, and the very exciting work we're doing to advance our pipeline of additional RNAi therapeutics for serious diseases. We will now take questions from stockholders related to annual meeting matters. Mr. Brodsky, are there any questions from stockholders related to matters properly brought before the meeting?
There are no questions from stockholders at this time.
Thank you very much, Mr. Brodsky. The directors will now depart from the meeting. We welcome stockholders to remain online to hear a brief presentation about the company provided by Mr. Brodsky and our Investor Relations Group. Following his presentation today, he would be happy to answer any additional pertinent questions that may be submitted online. Josh, I'll turn it over to you.
Thanks, everybody.
Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Keating. And hello, everyone. This is Josh Brodsky. I'm Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications here at Alnylam. I'm happy to provide a brief overview of the company. And, of course, this presentation will contain forward-looking statements, and I encourage you to review our most recent SEC filings for a more complete discussion about risk factors. A s a lot of you know, Alnylam is a biotechnology company that, since our founding in 2002, has been pioneering the advancement of RNAi therapeutics as a brand new class of innovative medicines. This is an approach where we silence the production of disease-causing genes by targeting messenger RNA. This is, of course, based on Nobel Prize-winning science, and it enables us to silence any gene in the genome.
At Alnylam, we're proud to have been the pioneers in translating RNA interference from the Nobel Prize-winning science that it is into the clinic being the first to demonstrate positive human proof of concept, now from four positive phase 3 programs, and, of course, advancing it onto the market, where we have multiple products and plan to also advance multiple additional products to the commercial markets with the potential to impact patients globally. Our first approved product, which we received approval for in August of 2018, is ONPATTRO. The generic name is patisiran. This has been approved now in the U.S., E.U., Canada, Japan, Switzerland, and Brazil, and it's been approved to treat a rare disease called ATTR amyloidosis, and specifically, it's approved for the treatment of the polyneuropathy associated with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis.
Now, in addition to its currently approved label, we did see encouraging data from the positive phase 3 Apollo study that led to ONPATTRO's approval, looking at some additional exploratory endpoints on cardiac parameters, and to that end, we are pursuing potential label expansion of ONPATTRO to include both hereditary and wild-type ATTR cardiomyopathy with our Apollo B P 3 study, which is currently enrolling patients. Now, our ATTR amyloidosis franchise is bigger than just ONPATTRO, and it also includes vutrisiran, which is a once-quarterly subcutaneously injected investigational RNAi therapeutic that we're developing for the treatment of all forms of ATTR amyloidosis. It's currently being evaluated in the Helios phase 3 program, beginning with Helios A, which is a phase 3 study targeting patients with ATTR polyneuropathy, and it also includes Helios B, targeting patients with both hereditary and wild-type ATTR cardiomyopathy.
Helios A, we have completed enrollment and are anticipating top-line results in early 2021. Helios B enrollment just began back in November of 2019, and this is a larger and longer outcomes study, and if successful, we expect that it should allow Vutrisiran's entry into the very large wild-type ATTR market opportunity, with potential for having CV outcomes as part of its label, and combined with that, having a once-quarterly low-dose, low-volume, subcutaneously injected therapeutic that's capable of reducing serum TTR on the order of 80%-90%, we believe that can be a very attractive option for patients. Now, our second commercial product at Alnylam is GIVLAARI, or also known by its generic name, givosiran.
This was approved just back in November of 2019, and it's been approved now in the U.S. and E.U. for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyria in adults, and also in the E.U., that label also includes adolescents. This is a rare disease that's characterized by patients that get these recurring porphyria attacks with hallmark symptoms that include debilitating and excruciating abdominal pain, and they frequently experience these attacks, sometimes on the order of once a month, if not more frequently. GIVLAARI was shown in a phase III randomized trial to reduce the frequency of these debilitating porphyria attacks by a mean of 74% and a median of 90%. So now we are underway with the launch of GIVLAARI as well.
Importantly, the Alnylam commercial story is larger than just Onpatro and Givlaari, and over the next 12 to 24 months, we are planning for multiple launches, which include Lumasiran for the treatment of a rare disease known as primary hyperoxaluria type 1, as well as Inclisiran in a much larger indication, hypercholesterolemia. Both of these have now had their NDA and MAA filed. Inclisiran, which is in partnership with Novartis, recently had those filings accepted. In addition, we're advancing Vutrisiran, as I mentioned, and also with our partners at Sanofi, we are advancing Fitusiran for the treatment of hemophilia. So across these four programs that are nearing the commercial finish line, we plan to launch multiple products over the next 12 to 24 months, either on our own or with a partner advancing these programs.
Now, we do have six programs in the late stages of clinical development across four strategic therapeutic areas, as you can see on this slide. And let me just highlight quickly our efforts with Lumasiran, again, in development currently for the treatment of primary hyperoxaluria type 1 or PH1. This is an ultra-orphan disease that's characterized by a buildup of calcium oxalate crystals in kidneys, which leads to painful and recurring kidney stones. It's a disease that more predominantly affects children and, in severe cases, can require a dual kidney and liver transplant. Now, we are running a comprehensive registrational phase 3 program called the Illuminate program, and the three studies are shown here. We've already reported positive top-line results back in December from the Illuminate A study, which was a double-blind placebo-controlled trial in PH1 patients at least six years old with preserved renal function.
We're planning to report full results at a congress virtually in June. Our phase III program also includes Illuminate B, a single-arm open-label study in PH1 patients under the age of six with preserved renal function. Enrollment in this study has been completed, and we're on track to report top-line results in the middle of 2020, and this also includes Illuminate C, which is a single-arm open-label study in PH1 patients of all ages, but who have more impaired renal function, including advanced disease. This study is ongoing, and we're expecting top-line results in 2021. In addition, we have two other programs in the late stages of clinical development that are partnered, and I'll touch on these quickly, beginning with Inclisiran, shown on the left hand of the slide. This is partnered with Novartis in development for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia. Now, Novartis has filed the NDA and MAA.
These have recently been accepted, and we in Novartis are anticipating FDA approval by the end of 2020. We look at this as a potential game changer in the treatment landscape of hypercholesterolemia that can almost be likened to receiving a flu shot for hypercholesterolemia with a once-every-six-month subcutaneous injection that's capable of durably reducing and clamping levels of LDL cholesterol. We're also advancing fitusiran with our partners at Sanofi, which is in development for the treatment of hemophilia A or B with and without inhibitors. This is a very innovative approach to the treatment of hemophilia using an RNAi therapeutic by rebalancing the coagulation cascade and essentially normalizing hemostasis in individuals who can't sufficiently clot their blood. Sanofi is now advancing fitusiran in the phase III Atlas program, and they have guided to having top-line results expected in the first half of 2021.
Now, in addition to these late-stage clinical programs, we do have a number of additional earlier-stage clinical development programs, which are shown here on this slide, and these include programs across a number of rare diseases as well as more common diseases such as hypertension and NASH, and also infectious diseases like hepatitis B virus infection, which is partnered with Vir, and also, this includes our coronavirus efforts combating COVID-19, also in partnership with Vir, where just earlier this week we announced the selection of a development candidate. Our fourth strategic therapeutic area, while not currently in the clinic, has some really exciting preclinical efforts that we've shown some data on, and this is an effort that's partnered, we partnered just about a year ago with Regeneron. This partnership is aimed at advancing and potentially commercializing RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of CNS and ocular diseases.
The first two programs to come out of these efforts, shown on the bottom here, are ALN-APP in development for the treatment of hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy and potentially opening the gate to larger indications, including early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease. And our second effort is ALN-HTT in development for the treatment of early manifest Huntington's disease. And again, coming back to our recently disclosed efforts on COVID-19, we have now selected a development candidate, ALN-COV, also known as VIR-2703, which we plan to accelerate for potential IND filing at or around the end of 2020. This targets the SARS-CoV-2 genome, of course, SARS-CoV-2 being the specific virus that causes COVID-19. We've also expanded this partnership with Vir to include development of RNAi therapeutics targeting human host factors, which include ACE2 and TMPRSS2, both of which are proteins necessary for viral entry into human cells.
In the last couple of minutes, let me conclude with guidance goals and some forward-looking perspective. Alnylam 2020 is a vision and set of goals that we launched in early 2015, and we believe that we're well on track now to not meet, but just actually exceed these goals with the potential for four marketed products by the end of 2020, in addition to having 14 clinical programs, six of which will be in late stages of clinical development across four strategic therapeutic areas. That's the guidance, and if we take a step back and look at a higher level, we believe that Alnylam 2020 represents our company's transition from a late-stage clinical development organization into a multi-product commercial organization that also has a sustainable development pipeline behind it, and importantly, also an R&D engine that's capable of continuing to fuel innovation for long-term growth, sustainability, and value creation.
Frankly, if we look across the whole biopharma industry, that's a profile that we believe has rarely been achieved, but a profile that we believe we can achieve by continuing to leverage this reproducible and modular approach that we have to developing these innovative medicines. Our Alnylam 2020 goals are shown here. We have a lot of milestones to look forward to this year. We provided some color on our progress earlier this morning on our first quarter 2020 financial results earnings call. At a high level, across 2020, we plan to continue commercial excellence in Onpatro and Givlary. We also plan to have one phase III readout, that being the Illuminate B phase III readout, but also we'll plan to have full results from the Illuminate A study with Lumasiran. We're planning to have six programs in phase III development across nine separate phase III studies.
Planning for two regulatory filings with Lumasiran and Inclisiran. These have both actually already been achieved, and we'll plan to file additional INDs across some of our earlier-stage pipelines as well. Now, just looking forward at some of the future perspective, in closing, I just want to give some color on Alnylam's future prospects, and I think it's important here to highlight the real remarkable productivity of Alnylam's platform, and as you can see on this slide, if we look at the cumulative probability of success for Alnylam's development efforts over the years, our track record here really exceeds 50% when we go from the IND stage to positive phase III readout, and when we compare that with the industry metrics, it's less than 10% for the industry.
Now, it's clear that we're achieving some outsized probabilities of success when we compare it to these industry norms, and the fact that we're able to achieve these outsized probabilities of success is not simply good luck. It actually reflects the power of a reproducible and modular platform combined with a focus on genetically validated targets. Now, going forward, we plan to continue to leverage this reproducible and modular approach, along with a steadfast focus on human genetics to sustain outsized returns from our R&D investments. Now, second, a very important point to make is that Alnylam is strongly focused on transitioning toward achieving a self-sustainable financial profile. This is a top priority for our company.
The key elements of this transition will include: one, top-line revenue growth from what is currently two, but soon potentially up to six revenue-generating products, and two, having a moderated growth in our operating expenses. We ended 2019 with a cash balance shown here, and we updated that earlier this morning. We ended the first quarter of 2019 with about $1.37 billion in cash and investments. That does not include the initial proceeds that we received from the Blackstone financing that we announced a couple of weeks ago in April. Of course, the $2 billion strategic partnership with Blackstone will anchor our path toward a self-sustainable financial profile without the need for future equity financings. We've committed that 2019 was our peak net operating loss year, and as we get better visibility on the top-line revenue growth, we'll also have better visibility into our specific profitability horizon.
Really, to sum this up and to be clear, we believe that achieving a self-sustainable profile is not a question of if, but rather an optimization of when and how to make the biggest impact for patients and to build the greatest value for shareholders. As we look at Alnylam today, and then if we look over the next five to six years where we believe Alnylam is going, we really see the opportunity of building a top-five biopharma company, bringing transformative medicines to patients around the world and growing with innovation, excellence, and responsibility.
We'll do this with medicines for rare and more common diseases. This is the future for Alnylam that we see. We're committed to this future and believe that we're now strongly positioned to realize it. With that, I'd like to conclude my presentation, and I will take a quick look to see if we have any questions that have been submitted by shareholders. At this time, I'm seeing no questions. So, in closing, I'd like to thank all of our stockholders participating in this annual meeting for their engagement and interest in Alnylam and the patients that we serve. Thank you all very much. I hope you all stay safe and healthy and have a good day.