Good morning, and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Cytokinetics Conference Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this call is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen only mode. At the company's request, we will open the call for questions and answers after the I will now turn the call over to Diane Weiser, Cytokinetics' Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. Robert Blum, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will lead us off today with an overview of today's announcement. Then, Libby Schneider, Senior Vice President of Business Development, will speak to the multiple components underlying the deal before Qing Jia, our SVP and Chief Financial Officer, will summarize the financial terms of the deals and how they inform our financial outlook. Next, Fady Malik, our Executive Vice President of R and D, will discuss the impact of these transactions on the development program for CK-two seventy four before Robert provides final comments and opens the call for questions. Please note that portions of the following discussion, including our responses to questions, contain statements that relate to future events and performance rather than historical facts and constitute forward looking statements.
Our actual results might differ materially from those projected in these forward looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in these forward looking statements is contained in our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update any forward looking statements after this call. And now, I will turn the call over to Robert.
Thank you, Diane, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call this morning. This morning, we announced a series of transactions and included amongst those deals is a licensing collaboration, a funding deal, a royalty monetization deal and the sale of our common stock. These deals are with RTW Investments and its affiliate funds as well as with Xijing Pharmaceuticals and is focused to CK-two thirty seven-seven thousand three hundred and seventy four or CK-two seventy four, our next in class cardiac myosin inhibitor that we're developing for the potential treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. The total committed capital to Cytokinetics under these deals is $250,000,000 In addition, we're eligible for an additional $200,000,000 in development and commercialization milestone payments, plus royalties on future sales of CK-two seventy four in certain Asian countries. As you'll hear in more detail from my colleagues, these deals afford us an opportunity to expand and accelerate our development program focused to CK-two seventy four in multiple indications and across a wider span of geographies.
Moreover, these deals reinforce our commitment to rapidly and broadly advance our cardiac myosin inhibitor program and to hopefully deliver a next in class medicine that could meaningfully impact underlying challenges of hypercontractility in patients suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. We have built our company by leveraging both innovative science as well as deals, and we're pleased to enter into another set of transactions to diversify our access to capital and extend and expand what we believe is an industry leading cardiovascular pipeline anchored in pioneering muscle biology and pharmacology. Libby, Fady and Ching will now elaborate on the details of these several transactions and the implications for how we plan to dial up the further development of CK-two seventy four. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Libby to review the specifics of the deals.
Thanks, Robert. In connection with these agreements, Sotaconix has granted Xijin Pharmaceuticals, a new company formed by RTW focused on the development and commercialization of innovative medicines in the People's Republic of China an exclusive license to develop and commercialize CK-two seventy four in the Greater China region, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and in accordance with Cytokinetics' planned global registration programs. In exchange, Cytokinetics receives an upfront payment from Zhejiang and is eligible to receive payments related to the achievement of development, regulatory and commercial milestone events for CK-two seventy four in the field of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and or non obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and other indications. In addition, Zhejiang will pay to Cytokinetics tiered royalties on net sales of CK-two seventy four in the China region, subject to certain reductions. Xijing will be responsible for the development and commercialization of CK-two seventy four in China in coordination with Cytokinetics.
Development will be initially focused on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and Zhejiang will have the opportunity to participate in Cytokinetics global pivotal trials of CK-two seventy four and registration program. Cytokinetics and Zhejiang have also agreed to terms related to matters of manufacturing and regulatory affairs. Under a separate agreement with investment funds managed by RTW, Cytokinetics is eligible to receive funding for our development and commercialization of CK-two seventy four. The funding will be available at Cytokinetics' option upon the achievement of certain clinical trial milestones. In exchange for exercising options for funding, Cytokinetics has agreed to make royalty payments to RTW, Specifically, upon our initiation of a global registration program for CK-two seventy four in each of obstructive HCM and non obstructive HCM, Cytokinetics is eligible for funding from RTW in the amount of $45,000,000 each in exchange for a 2% royalty payable by Cytokinetics on sales of CK-two seventy four in the United States and certain European countries.
If Cytokinetics takes down the full $90,000,000 in development from RTW, we would be responsible to pay RTW a 4% royalty on sales of CK-two seventy four in the United States and certain European countries subject to royalty reductions for other indications. Next, under a royalty purchase agreement between Cytokinetics and RTW, we have agreed to sell our rights to receive certain payments on potential future net sales of mavacamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor in exchange for a one time payment. The payments and closing of the transaction is contemplated by the purchase agreement are subject to customary closing conditions. Lastly, Cytokinix and RTW have agreed to common stock purchase agreements, which provide for our sale and issuance of 2,000,000 shares of our common stock subject to certain trading and other restrictions. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Ching to elaborate on these deals with regard to the financials.
Thanks, Libby. As previously mentioned, these deals combined to provide Cytokinetics with 250,000,000 dollars in committed capital. These payments break out as follows: 1st, an upfront payment for the license to CK-two seventy four in China. 2nd, dollars 85,000,000 for sale of our royalty on mavacamten. 3rd, up to $90,000,000 for the funding of CK-two seventy four and 4th, $50,000,000 for sale of common stock equal to 2,000,000 shares at $25 per share.
In addition, we're eligible for another $200,000,000 in milestone payments for development and CK-two seventy four in China, plus royalties on sales. Taking into consideration the capital from these transactions, we expect to end 2020 with at least 2 to 3 years of forward cash, even as we plan to expand the development program for CK-two seventy four alongside plans to co commercialize Omecamtiv mecarbil with Amgen. We will update our pro form a financials during our Q2 earnings call in August. Finally, these deals reflect our long standing corporate development strategy to secure capital to fund our business by principally leveraging strategic partnerships. And now I will turn the call over to Fady to speak to the expanded development programs.
Thanks, Ching, and good morning, everyone. These transactions announced today enable us to extend the reach of the development program more globally by synchronizing program geographically and to consider in parallel a range of additional indications for CK-two seventy four beyond obstructive HCM, including non obstructive HCM and also those patients with hypercontractility associated with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction or HFpEF. In essence, these deals provide us the opportunity to accelerate execution of our next in class development program and undertake key activities in parallel. Importantly, this funding meaningfully contributes to our ability to deliver on the promise of our pioneering science in the area of muscle biology directed to an expanded array of indications. In terms of specifics, regarding the development program associated with CK-two seventy four, these deals ensure that we can conduct a planned Phase III clinical trial of our next in class myosin inhibitor in patients with OHCM in North America, Europe and China promptly after we have results from Redwood HCM and we receive feedback from regulatory authorities.
Our current goal is to initiate a Phase 3 registration program in 2021. In a parallel path, we can planning for the conduct of clinical trials in CK with CK-two seventy four in NHCM and HFpEF also in the 2021 2022 timeframe. We look forward to partnering with the team at Xixin and have been impressed with their professionals and the rigor with which they approach development. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Robert.
Thank you, Fady. In summary, these corporate developments announced today reflect and reinforce our unwavering commitment to the promise of our cardiac myosin inhibitor program for the potential treatment of patients suffering from diseases associated with hypercontractility of cardiac muscle. To be clear, this was a competitive and rigorous process. Over the past year, we have engaged with multinational and regional pharma and biopharma companies as well as a wide array of royalty buyers, And we believe we have optimized on our objectives with this deal to expand the development program for CK-two seventy four, diversify access to capital and monetize our pioneering leadership in the cardiovascular arena. After considering a multitude of alternative deals and partners, we're pleased to have completed these transactions with RTW Investments and Jixing Pharmaceuticals.
RTW has a proven track record of investing in companies with innovative science and the team at Xixin has complementary development expertise to that of our own. Operator, with that, we can now open up the call to questions, please.
Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Joe Pantginis with H. C. Wainwright. Joe, your line is open.
For taking the questions and congratulations on today's announcement continues your long standing record of delivering these kinds of transactions. So great job. So I have two questions. First from a logistical standpoint, I was just curious if you could provide any update with regard to projected timing for Redwood initial Redwood data and how enrollment might be going with regard to COVID? And then more importantly, how do you feel today's transactions and increased, I guess you could call it as you did, global reach for 2/74 potentially close the timing gap between you and mavacamten?
Excellent questions. Maybe I'll turn to Fady, please, to answer the first one, and I'll take the second one.
Yes. So Joe, I think Redwood HCM is back in beginning to screen and enroll patients. As you know, we suspended enrollment for a bit of time. We now have several sites that are activated and actively screened patients. We're continuing to open more sites, both in the U.
S. And Europe. So we've got geographic diversification to help us with COVID-nineteen as well. We still expect to complete enrollment in the 1st cohort and to have data from cohort 1 to inform the start of cohort 2 in early 2021.
And with regard to your second question, Joe, I think this deal factors very, very importantly into that strategy to narrow the gap between CK-two seventy four and mavacamten. Mavacamten, as you know, was the subject of very encouraging Phase 3 results recently in the EXPLORER trial. But at the same time, there's an opportunity with the next generation drug candidate to demonstrate some advantages potentially, especially as could be extending into China. We'll have more to say that over time with regard to where this could ultimately play out in terms of time to market. But we do foresee that by going forward, not only in an expanded geographical way, but also in multiple parallel indications, we're in an enabled position to move with next in class properties to what hopefully can translate into an expansion of the category to the benefit of both mavacamten and CK-two seventy four.
Great. Thanks guys.
Thank you, Joe.
Your next question comes from the line of Jason Butler from JMP Securities. Jason, your line is open.
Hi, Jason. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the transactions. Just wondered if you could give any more specifics about how the additional capital and capital certainty impacts your plans to advance other indications. So any plans that we might see an NHCM or any other indications begin to start Phase II trials in the 2021 time period, for example?
Yes, most definitely. I'll speak to that and ask Fady to also. As we highlighted throughout 2019, given our pioneering science in this space, we foresaw where there were opportunities in connection with this mechanism in obstructive HCM, of course, but also in other populations where hypercontractility complicates the management of these patients. And I think cytokinetics much like it was original in pioneering the therapeutic hypothesis and obstructive HCM has been generating both preclinical data as well as clinical understandings about how CK-two seventy four can move forward in these other indications. I'll turn to Fady maybe to be a bit more specific about how we're thinking about these populations in particular given the mechanism of action?
Yes. Good morning, Jason. Yes, I think going back to our R and D Day in 2018, we telegraphed our thinking in terms of NHCM and the HFpEF, in particular, a population of heart failure preserved ejection fraction, where patients' etiology of their condition is hypercontractility. We think there is a sizable population with this phenotype, although it doesn't make up the majority of today's hep hep population, which in many ways has become more driven by diabetes and obesity. But the ideas here are to focus on markers of their condition that define a population where the disease etiology is more central and cardiac in nature and develop a trial around that to look at initially function, say, in terms of and symptoms and then potentially, eventually to move on to thinking about outcomes in these patients.
I'll also mention that tomorrow, as many of you know, we're convening an Investor Day that'll be early here in California. And we'll elaborate on these strategies as it relates to the biology and how that biology mechanistically translates to our build of a cardiovascular pipeline and a franchise. We'll speak to how matters of corporate development combined with commercial development, enabling that to become a sustainable business. But to your question, Jason, with regard to the mechanism and the biology and how that then extends, we'll go into some more detail, both with management and physician panel experts. And we won't be committal yet about what studies we will be adding to the roster in 2021, but we do foresee that we will be proceeding forward in parallel in these multiple indications.
Great. Thanks for the questions and looking forward to the discussions tomorrow. Thanks. Thank you, Jason.
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Hung with Morgan Stanley. Jeff, your line is open.
Good morning, Jeff. Good morning. Congratulations on the deals and thanks for taking the questions. I guess, first, can you talk about the opportunity for CK-two seventy four in China and Taiwan such as like HCM prevalence?
Yes. So obviously, in doing this deal, that's something that we and RTW and Jixin were able to investigate through in each case our proprietary primary market research. I don't think we want to go at this time into too many details about that because obviously this is a nascent opportunity that will be evolving over time in connection with the clinical research. But I think we would be better suited to perhaps speak to that to you and others more as that becomes more tangible.
Okay, great. And then you indicated that it's cured, but are you able to indicate what's the size royalty you are eligible from Gxene?
Yes. We can speak to that. It's mentioned in the 8 ks that was filed also. It's a royalty that is ranging with escalating sales from low teens to high teens.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Charles Duncan with Cantor Fitzgerald. Charles, your line is open.
Hi, Charles.
Hey, good morning, Robert, and congratulations to you and the team. Pretty innovative approach to funding these programs. I guess I had a question on 274, one on the MAVA royalties and then one on the common stock. So just quickly on 274, I'm wondering if you could provide us an estimate of the percentage of direct development expenses for 274 that you anticipate in the next couple of years that could be covered by this funding? And then also perhaps provide a little bit more color on the clinical profile that I think you mentioned, 4,274 that may be particularly important as you envision in Asia?
So I'll start and then maybe turn it over to Ching to speak a bit more to the financials and then maybe Fadi, you can pick up with the remainder of the question. So obviously, for having access to committed capital of 250,000,000 dollars This goes well beyond the costs that we foresee in the clinical research associated with CK-two seventy four. We are not obligated, but we have the option to take down funding from RTW. And as we have better clarity on what our financials will look like in 2021, this deal affords us certain latitudes to be able to do that in exchange for a low single digit royalty. The REDWOOD study is a ongoing Phase II trial that we expect will conclude in 2021.
And a Phase III study in obstructive HCM is, we think in the range of each of those tranches of capital that we'd be pulling down, enabling us, we think to be able to fund this program through this deal. But as you can appreciate, the company has a lot of moving parts. And amongst those moving parts is also, our buildup of the commercial business to support co commercialization of omecamtiv with Amgen. We expect and hope that will be happening in 2021. So we wanted to enter into a series of transactions that gave us latitudes.
We can pull down capital from different sources. It could come from milestone payments that are earned under our collaboration with Amgen. It could come from this funding, both that which is going to be already on our balance sheet and that which will be available to us. And maybe I'll ask Ching to kind of speak a bit to 4R indicating we should have over 2 years of capital at the end of this year, how he's thinking about that?
Hi, Charles. This is Qing here. Thank you for your question. So as Robert said and as I alluded during the call, that with this deal and a $250,000,000 committed funding, we expect to end 2020 with at least 2 to 3 years of forward cash. As you might appreciate, it depends on the indications that we decide to go into, as Fady alluded to during his presentation, that we might consider development in half path.
And this funding allows us the kind of flexibility that we didn't have prior to consummating this deal as to the scope and the timing of all these development programs. And I could tell you that we're on track with our current year spending to the guidance of $105,000,000 to $115,000,000 net cash spending for the year. And with this, we are well positioned for 2021 2022.
Perfect. That's helpful. I added color. I appreciate that. Regarding the MAVA royalties, I just need a clarification on that.
The amount that you've received from RT or will receive from RTW, does that cover 100% of the royalties? And really, how did you establish a value on that? Does it depend on revenue levels and protect from the downside? And frankly, I wanted to know your perspective, if you think this is MAVA royalties were a key driver to questions that you've been receiving from investors or do you believe that the royalties were largely overlooked by many investors in your recent discussions not really a driver to cytokinetic share value recently? That one may be harder for you.
Very good question. So we are selling the entirety of our retained royalty on mavacamten and that will be going to RTW subject to some closing conditions. And as far as how it was valued, obviously, something like this gets valued both by each of cytokinetics and RTW and also independently by other third parties, including analysts who follow Cytokinetics. With that said, only a couple of analysts who are following cytokinetics, I think ascribed value to that at this juncture. And then therefore, I think it would probably be reasonable to say that this wasn't properly calibrated in expectations for the company and represents upside.
Okay. Final question regarding common stock that was purchased. Is that free to trade? And if not, when would it be free to trade?
So that is also elaborated on in the 8 ks. It is subject to trading restrictions. Ching or Libby, do you want to elaborate?
Yes, maybe I can start and Libby, you can chime in. It has a 2 year restriction on trading, but if we were successful entering Phase III development with obstructive and non obstructive HCM, then that period could be further extended until we have the results from those studies.
Okay, very good. That's a good deal. I appreciate you taking my questions. Congrats on this finding.
Thank you, Charles.
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Pantof with Piper Sandler. Good morning. Thanks very much. Hey, good morning. Congrats on the deal.
So I wanted to get a little bit more of a sense of what Xijin is going to be and what they're going to be bringing in China in terms of development and regulatory capabilities? Thanks very much.
Yes. So I'll start and then maybe Fady. This is an exciting new company that RTW is supporting, nothing like the way they've helped launch other companies that have been, I think, built around very innovative science. In the case of Xijin, this is a company that is comprised of people who have a lot of expertise in China pertaining to cardiovascular drug development and regulatory affairs, medicine and commercialization. And I think in that way, they impressed us with their commitment to this science and this opportunity, in ways that went beyond in many instances how we were discussing with other third parties.
Fadi, do you want to speak to that?
Sure. I think with, as Yixin, one of the things that attracted us was that, the company as it's being formed has a strong focus to cardiopulmonary medicines. And so as a consequence, they've built an expertise in this area, attracting and development cardiologists with deep expertise in terms of development obtained at large pharma as well as regulatory experience with folks that have experience with the Chinese regulatory authorities or have worked there. They're quite articulate on the operations side and also significant experience in conducting trials in the China region. And so this affords us to work with a company that is like minded to us that very much is focused on the cardiovascular space and deeply knowledgeable about it.
What's nice about this deal and the timing of this deal is it enables us now to begin coordination and planning activities to be enabling of the inclusion of China in a Phase 3 registration program from the get go, much like was the case in the registration program for omecamtiv mecarbil. I think that goes a long way to increasing the probability of success for what could be ultimately approval in China than to try to do that as an add on later.
Great. Thank you. Makes a lot of sense. I'm looking forward to the R and D Day tomorrow.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Salim Syed with Mizuho. Salim, your line is open.
Good morning, Salim.
Hey, good morning, Robert, and congrats on the deal. It looks like a good deal. I had a few, if I may, if that's okay. Sure. Thanks.
So maybe we can start with the mavacamten royalty. So I mean, look, just judging from what the payment is $85,000,000 here, it looks like you guys are putting about $1,000,000,000 peak sales on MAVA. Is that the correct way to think about it? And does that mean could you comment maybe what your assumption is on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy mavacamten pricing?
I don't think I want to go into that. That's what you guys do so well. Obviously, we have assumptions associated with timing of approval, geographies in connection with approval and sales ramps and peak sales. And it's for mavacamten not limited solely to obstructive HCM and the United States. But I don't think it would be proper for us to articulate our assumptions like that in a public way in this format.
Granted, we believe in mavacamten. This is a compound that I think is an excellent compound around which we think they're going to be doing some very important cultivation of a market, development of a market and it's a product that we anticipate can be highly successful. Although as we've discussed many times, with that said, we also think there's room for a next generation product that can be benefiting both mavacamten and CK-two seventy four. So we had to do a lot of simulations and scenarios, different indications, different geographies, ultimately to get to what we thought was a proper value. I don't think our numbers here are that different for this value than what you and a few other analysts modeled.
And in that way, I think it's consistent with that benchmarking. Maybe that's the best thing I can do on a call like this.
Okay. Appreciate it. I mean, to me, it seems like there's this massive disconnect with what people are modeling for mavacamten in myocardial models, which seems more like $2,000,000,000 plus and what you guys are seeing in terms of, I guess implied pricing on
To comment on something like that.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. 2nd, on you didn't really talk about 271 at all. Could you maybe comment on how this deal changes your perspective on development of HFpEF in particular, whether you'd like to develop HFpEF with 2 74 or 271?
Like how does this deal change? Because obviously now you have 100 percent economics on 271 and you're giving up some of the economics on 274 for a massively potentially massive indication?
Yes, it's a very good question and I don't think our strategy there is so solidified yet. In large part, CK-two seventy one is moving forward in Phase 1 with an opportunity for us to consider down the road how it might be developed to complement or supplement what we're doing with CK-two seventy four. But CK-two seventy one is positioned in some ways as an insurance policy and as long as CK-two seventy four continues to look very promising in obstructive disease and as we may extend that to include non obstructive, that could also include HFpEF. And in that way, it might very well be that CK-two seventy one is positioned as a backup, but doesn't go forward on its own. We haven't made any of those decisions.
Fadi, I don't know if there's anything more that you want to add?
No, I don't think so. I think it's still early in terms of our thinking about development there and specifics. So probably more to say in the near future.
Okay, got it. And third, just a little bit more on the competitive process here. So I think this is the 2nd time in Cytokinetics' history that you've actually partnered with a financial partner, if RTW here. The other one was Royalty Pharma, I believe. Curious why you didn't choose perhaps one of the pharma partners who would have been able to argue perhaps higher synergies and offered you some sort of opportunity in commercializing 274 in Europe, which seems like that would you would need a separate partner for Europe if you wanted to commercialize there?
So it's a very good question. And as we've discussed for a few years now, Cytokinetics has been talking to multinational companies as well as regional companies about a more classical licensing and collaboration agreement. And as we've done that, we've been firstly informed by the fact that many of those deals for a product at this stage would have required us to seed certain responsibilities, rights, decision making and other activities in connection with development and commercialization in territories where we wanted to preserve that ourselves. So, it was about 6 to 9 months ago that we began to shift our strategy primarily to enable us to gain access to capital without giving up on those rights in North America and Europe, where we still could choose to do that down the road, if ever that were something that we felt motivated to do. These deals don't preclude that possibility, but it also enables us to move forward, pedal to the metal as we see fit, bring this through registration programs.
And then we can always decide if we're benefited with regard to reach frequency and commercialization in partnership with another company. I'm not going to say never with regard to even partnering in HFpEF, depending on what might be required for a global registration study that still might benefit from the kinds of capabilities internationally that a company like Amgen has been able to provide to us for omecamtiv mecarbil. And that might prove to be the case in HFpEF2. Doing these deals enables us to proceed through those registration programs before we have to make any meaningful commitment that way. I think that's maybe the way I put it.
Okay. And last from me, just on reldesemtiv, now you see, and Ching, you mentioned at the end of 2020, you think this additional capital could give you 2 to 3 years of runway. How does you've talked about in the past how you wanted to lower your cost of capital for reldesemtiv development. Does this transaction lower your cost of capital for development there?
It does. I'll turn to Ching to elaborate, but we won't be making any committal statements today about reldesemtiv, but rather we'll be considering all of this together in connection with how we'll approach our Q2 earnings call. Ching, anything you want to say about that?
Nothing really, Rob. I think you summarized it well. I think for the time being, we're still considering the opportunities, but part of it will become more clear during the Q2 call.
Great. Congrats again guys on the
We've been engaging with key opinion leaders. We're finalizing protocol. We have a very good handle on what that Phase III trial looks like. Now that we've got these deals done, we can speak more credibly to what our cash runway looks like. We can contemplate that together with our other colleagues in the management team and also our Board and decide whether or not this is sufficient in order to be able to lean forward on reldesemtiv or do we still want to see the GALACTIC data?
That's something that we'll be discussing in these next few weeks.
Your next question comes from the line of Gil Blum with Needham and Company. Gil, your line is open.
Thank you, everyone. And let me add my congratulations on the deal. I'm very impressed. It seems like there's a very strong buy in from RTW considering you guys got a $90,000,000 for an earlier stage asset and $85,000,000 in royalty stream for a later stage asset. So interesting to me.
So only kind of a maybe kind of a technical, should we expect to see a significant uptick on 2021 R and D expense now that you can expand development of CK-two seventy four?
Qing, do you want to take that?
It's too early to say, to be honest, because there are still various parts of development programs that we have to hash out together with FADI in terms of how we proceed in 20 21. I'll tell you that in our Q2 earning, we might give a bit more guidance and precision on this question.
Yes. Maybe just to elaborate on what Sheung said, In 2021, we'll still have costs associated with Redwood. We would be potentially adding these costs associated with additional clinical trials for CK-two seventy four. A lot of it has to do with METEORIC and where we are with METEORIC in 2021 in terms of whether total development expenses will be going up, albeit, as you know, METEORIC expenses are reimbursed by Amgen. So, this is as much a timing matter as it is associated with activities and we aren't yet in a position where we can point precisely to how all those things relate to one another.
Thank you very much for providing the clarity and we look forward for the R and D day tomorrow and your quarterly recordings and also readout for Macametha that's coming up.
Lots going on indeed. Thank you.
Your final question comes from the line of Jeff Hung with Morgan Stanley. Jeff, your line is open.
Hey, Jeff. Thanks for taking the follow-up questions. I wanted to clarify a previous question. You said that you expect to end 2020 with 2 to 3 years of cash. So does that take a registration program for reldesentiv into consideration or is that separate?
Yes. So Ching, I think you may have answered that, but if you want to do it again, I can defer to you and then I'll add to that.
Okay. So to the 3 year forward cash is really an estimate, Jeff, for the time being. We haven't really come to a decision to start the Phase III trial in ALS for rodesemtiv. But as Robert elaborated earlier, we might come to that decision sooner than what we have galactic data. We might still do that pending the directions of how we want to take CK-two seventy four.
Robert, do you want to elaborate further?
Yes. Even if we decided today to start a Phase 3 trial for reldesemtiv as soon as possible, it would still be no sooner than the Q4. And therefore, we're poised to do that if that appears to be the best thing for the company. And we want to now that we have these deals concluded, we want to consider that possibility. And in parallel with how we consider that, we'll probably be seeing results from GALACTIC.
So as you know, GALACTIC results are on schedule for our Q4 announcement. So, when we say 2 to 3, I think it's encompassing of what could be many different scenarios, including moving forward with reldesemtiv. But one of the key variables in that equation is, are we earning milestone payments from Amgen? And the way we've built the company from a corporate development standpoint and financial standpoint is we have a multitude of different cash flows that can be coming in to lend support for our expansion of our pipeline from omecamtiv to CK-two seventy four and also reldesemtiv. All this will become a bit more clear tomorrow when we talk about our franchise building strategy.
But in terms of specific runway, as Ching points out, this is a soft projection to what we think could be the case at the end of the year, subject to us needing to make a number of decisions.
Thanks. That's helpful. And then can you remind us what the royalty is for mavacamten? I think in the past you said low single digits, but are you able to disclose what the percentage is?
We have been only saying low single digits and we're not enabled by these deals to be any more clear than that. Under terms of confidentiality, we need to be maintaining that we're selling the entirety of the royalty we have, but we can't say what that is.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
This concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Robert Blum for closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thank you to all the participants on the teleconference today. Thank you for your continued support, your interest in Cytokinetics. Obviously, these deals announced today, lay the foundation for what will be an expansion of our business, our expansion of our cardiovascular pipeline, putting in another plug for our Investor Day tomorrow, we'll be in a position to speak much more comprehensively about these strategies, both from the science and medicine standpoint, but also from the corporate development and commercial development standpoints. And we hope that you'll join us for that call tomorrow. With that, operator, we can now conclude this call.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.