Now we've experienced that.
Just didn't realize that.
It all worked really well till lunch. I'm like, oh, it's no problem.
Okay, welcome everyone. This is Evercore's healthcare conference. I'm Lisa Bayko, one of the SMID cap analysts here at Evercore, and I've been covering Editas as one of the gene editing companies that we've been working with over my time at Evercore, and it's been really fun to watch your progress, so looking forward to getting into it with Erick, CFO. And we have IR here as well with Cristi, and so we'll go ahead and get started. Why don't we start with giving us a company overview?
Thank you, Lisa, for having us. You guys have been a great partner with us over the years and with me personally for a long time. So thank you. Honored to be here. So I'd say where Editas is, the best way to think about what the company is, is to think along the lines of our three-pillar strategy. The first meaning reni-cel, the second being our in vivo program, and the third being our outlicensing of our IP, which we think of as its own little business. So with respect to reni-cel, as you may have seen, we recently announced our intention to find a partner for that. And that is ongoing. But we think that it is a very, very good asset with respect to where some of the other sickle cell products are. We think we have the potential for a best-in-class medicine.
We're going to have an update in a little under a week at ASH next week in San Diego. If you guys are there, Cristi will be out there with our poster. We'll have an update on our RUBY trial and our thalassemia trial as well. That's the sickle cell franchise. The second one is where we're going to pivot the company, which we're really excited about, which is our in vivo gene editing. Just to compare and contrast, the sickle cell franchise as it exists in the market today with us, Casgevy, is largely an autologous cell therapy. It's a long process. When you get to in vivo gene editing, you're talking about a single shot or maybe two shots or IVs where you can go to a cure.
So we really think it's going to be one of the most, if not the most transformative things in medicine, all of medical history, the ability to treat disease to a cure with one or two shots. So we're really excited about that. We recently announced some pretty interesting mouse data in terms of the level of editing that we had. And we think it's very competitive with some of the stuff that we've seen out there. And the good thing about kind of what we're pursuing with respect to HSCs is we already have de-risked them in humans. So in some sense, we have de-risked the Cas12 enzyme. We have de-risked the target, the gamma-globin promoter target. And what we're doing, not to oversimplify it, is but it's sort of a reformulation in a sense. So we're really excited about that.
It's a high conviction target where we have proof of concept of the first generation in humans. We'll have more to say about what we're thinking about in vivo in the future. But we're really excited about where that could take the company, obviously, because that's where we're headed. And then finally, with respect to the IP business, as you all know, we are the exclusive licensor of the Cas9 and Cas12 patent estate from Harvard, MIT, Broad. And in that vein, we do believe it is a foundational patent estate that everybody in gene editing has to have a license to from a freedom to operate standpoint, very similar to Cabilly, if you're old enough like me to remember Cabilly. In the last year, we were able to bring in a fairly substantial amount of non-dilutive capital from that.
As you know, we signed an agreement about a year ago with Vertex to license our IP so they could launch Casgevy. And then we monetized some of the annual payments with DRI. So within just one year from one license, we brought in $80-ish million of true non-dilutive capital. And there's a lot of other folks out there that we think are going to have to have conversations with us about those licenses. And we look forward to having those as well. So that's the summary of our three businesses.
Great. I thought it was really interesting that you announced an intention to partner a program. It's a little bit of an unusual strategy. Often people just partner. Why did you make that decision to announce that?
I think we wanted to make it public so that way anybody that is interested would be able to contact us. We've obviously, as we said in the press release, I've been working with a banker on that. But I think in the interest of sort of full disclosure, we wanted to get that out to investors.
That partnership would include the sort of in vivo component as well?
I'd say if you're a potential partner, that is certainly a logical thing that you would want to have as a potential second asset in the pipeline.
Do you think that your program, reni-cel, is sufficiently differentiated from exa-cel, Casgevy for someone to want to enter the market? Because it's a big uphill battle, all the manufacturing and setup and upfront costs that are required.
Yeah, I think there's enough differentiation to enter the market. But I think, as you alluded to in the last question, where the franchise can get that long-term viability and durability is on the in vivo piece. So we view the reni-cel piece as kind of the way to get into the market to know the patient groups, the advocacy, the reimbursement. And then you would have fairly short order of follow-on.
So what future investments are you making in this whole sickle cell beta thal program in general? What will you commit to or not commit to given that you are going to partner it? How far do you take it?
Yeah, I mean, I think right now we have collected cells from patients and we'll continue to dose those. As we have announced, we have completed enrollment of the trial, so I think we'll continue to make sure that we get those patients dosed.
Okay, and how far have you gone in terms of scale-up in manufacturing?
We've been really fortunate that we came up with a very flexible manufacturing arrangement with Azzur where we're essentially renting cleanroom space. So we have our staff and our stuff, as I like to simply simplify, and we use their cleanrooms. So we have a very flexible agreement where we can scale it up or scale it down as need be.
Can you maybe give us a little insight into the upcoming new data you'll be presenting at ASH?
Cristi?
Yes. I will take that one. Yes, we're excited to share data next Monday, as Erick pointed out, at ASH. We're going to have more than what the abstract outlines, but 28 patients' worth of data. I believe the abstract shares that 10 of those patients will be out past a year and at least one is out past two years. So some good long-term durability data as well. We'll continue to show safety and efficacy data like we've shown in the past, including VOEs, the total hemoglobin, other hematology parameters. And then lastly, we are going to share patient-reported outcomes. So we'll have some initial patient-reported outcomes to share as well, which will be kind of the first time we're sharing those as well.
I mean, could you qualify in some way how partnering discussions are coming along?
No. Like any of the BD deals that I've ever been involved with since leaving the buy side a few years ago, you never comment on anything until it's done because you never know.
Okay. Okay, fair enough. I wanted to move into your IP platform and stuff. I think there is still some legal exchange going on. Are we looking? I thought there was going to maybe be an update towards the end of this year, potentially.
That's correct.
On the appeals. Can you kind of talk through what the status is there?
Yeah. So taking a step back, we have two sets of IP that we've licensed. One are the George Church patents, which are not subject to interference. And the second are the broader Harvard MIT Broad patents, which are subject to the interference that you mentioned. As you know, we've beaten the CVC. So there's basically two camps of IP. There's the East Coast and West Coast, as we like to call it. And we have prevailed over the CVC a couple of times now. And this now is sort of the final appeal. We had a preliminary hearing, I think, in April. And we're expecting a ruling at any point. So at that point, they'll either affirm the prior that we're in the right spot or they would remand it back. And we're just waiting for.
Then what happens after that? Can there be another appeal or is that the end of the road?
No.
You appeal the appeal if it doesn't go in your favor?
So if it gets remanded back, then there'll be a whole new couple-year process just for that set of IP. Remember, the other IP is not subject to this. And that is what allows us to continue to do IP deals. If it goes back, we'll go through that process. And if they rule in the Broad's favor, then it's over.
Can you just quickly, in a very basic way, distinguish these two sets of IP? One that's sort of clear for you to do deals on, the other that's still?
Yeah, the clearer set are the George Church patents, and we did an analyst meeting about a year and a quarter ago, I think June of 2023, where we detailed out the specific patent numbers that are in the George Church estate and then the other ones that are in the Broad estate.
Okay. And how do you value? I mean, actually, we did an exercise.
Yeah, I remember we talked about that. Yeah.
So yeah, Jingm ing, who's not here with us today, but she's back in Chicago, and she did a ton of work going through everybody working on Cas9 and 12a with programs, and we kind of applied some basic kind of probabilities of success that are kind of industry-wide and some of our own gestalt as well and kind of came up for evaluation of all of those based on sort of loosely what you did with Vertex and some parameters around it. Do you kind of think of it in a similar way?
I do.
What kind of value do you see from that?
Yeah, I would say by our research, there was about 100 programs in development. Half of them are at 8-10 companies. When you think about each one in terms of the value, for the ones that are sort of later stage public companies, you can pull up a consensus revenue model for what those are. So that's not really disputable. And then the way we think about a Cabilly-like royalty is low single digit, 1% or 2%, something like that. All the bankers that we've met with have said royalty deals tend to have about a 10% cost of capital. So you apply the Cabilly royalty to consensus sales, discount it at a market rate of 10%. And that gets you sort of an NPV of what the license would be worth.
And then the question there in terms of how do you structure a deal is really based on the stage of the company and what their resources are. We want to be helpful in any company. So there are the later stage companies that are closer to market where there's a potential for missed milestones, the initial upfront, the first in humans, et cetera, et cetera. So that would tend to be more of the money being upfront. Whereas the earlier stage companies that maybe haven't done any work, those tend to be your more deferred back-end loaded deals. So that's kind of how we think about the valuation and then sort of how we structure it.
Okay. And so the next kind of closest to market, I think, are the Intellia assets. Is that correct?
That's correct. Yeah.
Okay. And you haven't done a deal with them yet?
No, we haven't. No.
I mean, most people wait, right, until they sort of have, it seems like, some visibility on commercial. That's what happened with Vertex, right?
Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I think some of the companies that are public, if you get enough questions from investors and you just want to kind of put it to bed, some of the earlier companies where a Series B or C raise may be contingent upon getting freedom to operate. So we've seen a little bit of both. But nobody has to do anything until you're at approval.
These patents, they do have a relatively near-term expiration, right?
Yeah, 2033. Yeah. So nine years. Yeah.
Okay. Well, that's a pretty good amount of time. These things take a while to develop.
Yes, they do. But the Cas12 is a year or two later. So the 9 is '33 and Cas12 is a year or two later.
Okay. Okay, good. So turning to your in vivo platform, I know you haven't said a lot. There's other people working in the in vivo space. We talked about Intellia. They're one of many. CRISPR has also gone in that direction. And then there are others. Should we think of you doing something kind of akin to some people seem to be focusing on a certain group of indications, many of which are in the liver. That's been sort of the most logical because of being able to target the liver. Is that a path we should expect for you in terms of something liver-oriented? Or do you have your sights on something else? Maybe you can walk us through your thoughts.
Yeah, I would say there's kind of two ways to think about it. The first is with respect to liver. And I think if Linda were here, she would say the path to HSCs is through the liver, right? You obviously have to detarget the liver to get extra-hepatic delivery. So with respect to the liver, what we've always talked about is we don't want to do liver knockdown like everyone else. I think we want to do something that's differentiated. So we've been looking at liver upregulation. We haven't disclosed what those targets will be, but at some point, we'll do that. And the reason we haven't disclosed that is because of the plug-and-play nature of in vivo, where you could swap out 20 nucleotides of the guide RNA.
And if someone is further along in vivo than we are, we say, "Hey, we're going to do this." And then they just say, "Oh, that's a great idea. Why don't we do that?" So we'll probably wait a little bit longer before we disclose any potential liver targets. And then obviously, I think extra-hepatic delivery, the HSCs is what we've released the data on already. That's where we have human proof of concept with reni-cel with respect to the 12a and the target. So I think those are the things that we'll be focused on.
Okay. Interesting. Okay. Timing on when we might learn more about that?
I'd say as we get into the first quarter, we'll have more to say.
Okay. That'll be exciting.
We'll lay out a plan.
So one question I actually meant to ask you about back to reni-cel. Can you describe what you see as an ideal partner? Would this be somebody who sort of buys it outright? Do you want to have some kind of involvement as you grow your own commercial platform? Do you think of it as geographic? Or are you still very open at this point? What's your ideal partnership?
I mean, obviously, I think from a shareholder value and patient access, those are the two most important things. So with respect to patient access, whatever company can get reni-cel into the broadest distribution is obviously an important attribute for us. And then I'd say with the share price where it is, obviously, the cost of capital is quite expensive, especially for reni-cel. So the preference would be to pass on as much as possible.
Okay, well, you're kind of at a pivot point, it seems to me.
Yes, we are. Yes.
You've made the decision that you're going to partner your lead asset, which was kind of actually the identity of the company was eye, and then you shut that down, which I think was the right move.
Yeah.
Now you're kind of going to partner this.
Yes.
And so now you're kind of turning more into your early stage pipeline and looking to obviously leverage all your IP in Cas9 and 12a. So you're at this kind of pivot point. Maybe you can articulate kind of your vision and strategic outlook for the company.
Yeah. So I think it's a great question and something we think about all the time as you approach a pivot point. But I think if you go back to when Gilmore took over as CEO and he got up in front of everyone at a competitor conference in the beginning of the year and said, "Our long-term goal is to be an in vivo company." And at that point, that's when he shuttered all of the ex vivo programs and a lot of the other stuff. He kept reni-cel, which I think has been a great proof of concept for us to get into in vivo. So I'd say what we're doing is we're fulfilling the vision that he laid out a few years ago to become an in vivo company. I think we all realize the limitations of autologous cell therapy.
It's been a road that other people have tried before, and we don't need to talk about that anymore. But I think his vision has always been in vivo. Because when you think about in vivo, it really is a business model that most investors and most strategics are sort of used to seeing, where it's the single shot, single IV infusion, whereas autologous is really probably closer to a medical device or a hospital supply business model in a lot of ways. So I think everything we're doing really falls in line with the vision he laid out a few years ago.
Okay. And then can you speak to your cash runway and then maybe talk through some catalysts or things we can look forward to in 2025?
Yeah. So I'd say that the cash runway, as we disclosed at the last quarter, we ended essentially with a pro forma cash of $322 million. We did that DRI deal one day after the quarter closed. And that allowed us to extend our cash runway into the second quarter of 2026. So we feel we have a strong balance sheet and a strong cash runway. And in terms of catalysts for next year, I think as we're becoming a full in vivo company, we'll lay out a plan. And I think the beauty of in vivo is we're going after de-risk targets that we have high conviction on. And we'll be excited to share the development plans soon.
Okay. Eric and Chris, I want to thank you for your time today. Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Welcome, everyone, to this Evercore's healthcare conference. I'm Lisa Bayko, one of the SMID cap analysts here at Evercore, and I've been covering Editas as one of the gene editing companies that we've been working with over my time at Evercore, and it's been really fun to watch your progress, so looking forward to getting into it with Erick, CFO. And we have IR here as well with Cristi, and so we'll go ahead and get started. Why don't we start with giving us a company overview?
Thank you, Lisa, for having us. You guys have been a great partner with us over the years and with me personally for a long time. Thank you. Honored to be here. I'd say where Editas is, the best way to think about what the company is, is to think along the lines of our three-pillar strategy, the first being reni-cel, the second being our in vivo program, and the third being our outlicensing of our IP, which we think of as its own little business. With respect to reni-cel, as you may have seen, we recently announced our intention to find a partner for that. That is ongoing. We think that it is a very, very good asset with respect to where some of the other sickle cell products are. We think we have the potential for a best-in-class medicine.
We're going to have an update in a little under a week at ASH next week in San Diego. If you guys are there, Cristi will be out there with our poster. We'll have an update on our RUBY trial and our thalassemia trial as well. That's the sickle cell franchise. The second one is where we're going to pivot the company, which we're really excited about, which is our in vivo gene editing. Just to compare and contrast, the sickle cell franchise as it exists in the market today with us, Casgevy, is largely an autologous cell therapy. It's a long process. When you get to in vivo gene editing, you're talking about a single shot or maybe two shots or IVs where you can go to a cure.
So we really think it's going to be one of the most, if not the most, transformative things in medicine or all of medical history, the ability to treat disease to a cure with one or two shots. So we're really excited about that. We recently announced some pretty interesting mouse data in terms of the level of editing that we had. And we think it's very competitive with some of the stuff that we've seen out there. And the good thing about kind of what we're pursuing with respect to HSCs is we already have de-risked them in humans. So in some sense, we have de-risked the Cas12 enzyme. We have de-risked the target, the gamma-globin promoter target. And what we're doing, not to oversimplify it, is, but it's sort of a reformulation in a sense. So we're really excited about that.
It's a high-conviction target where we have proof of concept of the first generation in humans. We'll have more to say about what we're thinking about in vivo in the future, but we're really excited about where that could take the company, obviously, because that's where we're headed. And then finally, with respect to the IP business, as you all know, we are the exclusive licensor of the Cas9 and Cas12 patent estate from Harvard, MIT, Broad. And in that vein, we do believe it is a foundational patent estate that everybody in gene editing has to have a license to from a freedom-to-operate standpoint, very similar to Cabilly, if you're old enough like me to remember Cabilly. In the last year, we were able to bring in a fairly substantial amount of non-dilutive capital from that.
As you know, we signed an agreement about a year ago with Vertex to license our IP so they could launch Casgevy. And then we monetized some of the annual payments with DRI. So within just one year from one license, we brought in $80-ish million of true non-dilutive capital. And there's a lot of other folks out there that we think are going to have to have conversations with us about those licenses. And we look forward to having those as well. So that's the summary of our three businesses.
Great. I thought it was really interesting that you announced an intention to partner a program. It's a little bit of an unusual strategy. Often, people just partner. Why did you make that decision to announce that?
I think we wanted to make it public so that way anybody that is interested would be able to contact us. We've obviously, as we said in the press release. I've been working with a banker on that. But I think in the interest of sort of full disclosure, we wanted to get that out to investors.
And that partnership, would that include the sort of in vivo component as well?
I'd say if you're a potential partner, that is certainly a logical thing that you would want to have as a potential second asset in the pipeline.
Do you think that your program, reni-cel, is sufficiently differentiated from exa-cel, Casgevy for someone to want to enter the market? Because it's a big uphill battle, all the manufacturing and setup and upfront costs that are required.
Yeah. I think there's enough differentiation to enter the market, but I think, as you alluded to in the last question, where the franchise can get that long-term viability and durability is on the in vivo piece, so we view the reni-cel piece as kind of the way to get into the market, to know the patient groups, the advocacy, the reimbursement, and then you would have fairly short order of follow-on.
So what future investments are you making in this whole sickle cell beta thal program in general? What will you commit to or not commit to, given that you are going to partner it? How far do you take it?
Yeah. I mean, I think right now we have collected cells from patients, and we'll continue to dose those. As we have announced, we have completed enrollment of the trial. So I think we'll continue to make sure that we get those patients dosed.
Okay, and how far have you gone in terms of scale-up in manufacturing?
We've been really fortunate that we came up with a very flexible manufacturing arrangement with Azzur, where we're essentially renting cleanroom space. So we have our staff and our stuff, as I like to simply simplify, and we use their cleanrooms. So we have a very flexible agreement where we can scale it up or scale it down as need be.
Can you maybe give us a little insight into the upcoming new data you'll be presenting at ASH?
Cristi?
Yes. I will take that one. Yes. We're excited to share data next Monday, as Eric pointed out, at ASH. We're going to have more than what the abstract outlines, but 28 patients' worth of data. I believe the abstract shares that 10 of those patients will be out past a year, and at least one is out past two years, so some good long-term durability data as well. We'll continue to show safety and efficacy data like we've shown in the past, including VOEs, the total hemoglobin, other hematology parameters. And then lastly, we are going to share patient-reported outcomes. So we'll have some initial patient-reported outcomes to share as well, which will be kind of the first time we're sharing those as well.
And I mean, could you qualify in some way how partnering discussions are coming along? Are there?
No. Like any of the BD deals that I've ever been involved with since leaving the buy-side a few years ago, you never comment on anything until it's done, because you never know.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I wanted to move into your IP platform and stuff. I think there is still some legal exchange going on. Are we looking? I thought there was going to maybe be an update towards the end of this year, potentially, on the appeals. Can you kind of talk through what the status is there?
Yeah. So taking a step back, we have two sets of IP that we've licensed. One are the George Church patents, which are not subject to interference. And the second are the broader Harvard MIT Broad patents, which are subject to the interference that you mentioned. As you know, we've beaten the CVC. So there's basically two camps of IP. There's the East Coast and West Coast, as we like to call it. And we have prevailed over the CVC a couple of times now. And this now is sort of the final appeal. We had a preliminary hearing, I think, in April. And we're expecting a ruling at any point. So at that point, they'll either affirm the prior that we're in the right spot, or they would remand it back. And we're just waiting for.
Then what happens after that? Can there be another appeal, or is that the end of the road? You appeal the appeal if it doesn't go in your favor?
So if it gets remanded back, then there'll be a whole new couple-year process just for that set of IP. Remember, the other IP is not subject to this. And that is what allows us to continue to do IP deals. If it goes back, we'll go through that process. And if they rule in the Broad's favor, then it's over.
Can you just quickly, in a very basic way, distinguish these two sets of IP, one that's sort of clear for you to do deals on, the other that's still?
Yeah. The clearer set are the George Church patents. And we did an analyst meeting about a year and a quarter ago, I think June of 2023, where we detailed out the specific patent numbers that are in the George Church estate and then the other ones that are in the Broad estate.
Okay, and how do you value? I mean, actually, we did an exercise.
Yeah. I remember we talked about that. Yeah.
So yeah, Jingm ing, who's not here with us today, and she's back in Chicago. But she did a ton of work going through everybody working on Cas9 and 12a with programs. And we kind of applied some basic kind of probabilities of success that are kind of industry-wide and some of our own gestalt as well and kind of came up for evaluation of all of those based on sort of loosely what you did with Vertex and some parameters around it. Do you kind of think of it in a similar way?
I do.
What kind of value do you see from that?
Yeah. I would say by our research, there was about 100 programs in development. Half of them are at 8-10 companies. When you think about each one in terms of the value, for the ones that are sort of later-stage public companies, you can pull up a consensus revenue model for what those are. So that's not really disputable. And then the way we think about a Cabilly-like royalty is low single-digit, 1% or 2%, something like that. All the bankers that we've met with have said royalty deals tend to have about a 10% cost of capital. So you apply the Cabilly royalty to consensus sales, discount it at a market rate of 10%. And that gets you sort of an NPV of what the license would be worth.
The question there in terms of how do you structure a deal is really based on the stage of the company and what their resources are. We want to be helpful in any company. There are the later-stage companies that are closer to market where there's a potential for missed milestones, the initial upfront, the first in humans, et cetera, et cetera. That would tend to be more of the money being upfront. Whereas the earlier-stage companies that maybe haven't done any work, those tend to be your more deferred back-end-loaded deals. That's kind of how we think about the valuation and then sort of how we structure it.
Okay. And so the next kind of closest to market, I think, are the Intellia assets. Is that correct?
That's correct. Yeah.
Okay, and you haven't done a deal with them yet?
No. We haven't. No.
I mean, most people wait, right, until they sort of have, it seems like, some visibility on commercial. That's what happened with Vertex, right?
Yeah. Exactly. But I mean, I think some of the companies that are public, if you get enough questions from investors and you just want to kind of put it to bed, some of the earlier companies where a Series B or C raise may be contingent upon getting freedom to operate. So we've seen a little bit of both. But nobody has to do anything until you're at approval.
These patents, they do have a relatively near-term expiration, right?
Yeah. 2033. Yeah. So nine years. Yeah.
Okay, well, that's a pretty good amount of time.
That's what.
These things take a while to develop.
Yes. They do. But the Cas12 is a year or two later. So the 9 is '33, and Cas12 is a year or two later.
Okay. Okay. Good. So turning to your in vivo platform, I know you haven't said a lot. There's other people working in the in vivo space. We talked about Intellia. They're one of many. CRISPR has also gone in that direction. And then there are others. Should we think of you doing something kind of akin to some people seem to be focusing on a certain group of indications, many of which are in the liver. That's been sort of the most logical because of being able to target the liver. Is that a path we should expect for you in terms of something liver-oriented, or do you have your sights on something else? Maybe you can walk us through your.
Yeah. I would say there's kind of two ways to think about it. The first is with respect to liver, and I think if Linda were here, she would say the path to HSCs is through the liver, right? You obviously have to detarget the liver to get extra-hepatic delivery. So with respect to the liver, what we've always talked about is we don't want to do liver knockdown like everyone else. I think we want to do something that's differentiated. So we've been looking at liver upregulation. We haven't disclosed what those targets will be, but at some point, we'll do that, and the reason we haven't disclosed that is because of the plug-and-play nature of in vivo, where you could swap out 20 nucleotides of the guide RNA.
And if someone is further along in vivo than we are, we say, "Hey, we're going to do this." And then they just say, "Oh, that's a great idea. Why don't we do that?" So we'll probably wait a little bit longer before we disclose any potential liver targets. And then obviously, I think extra-hepatic delivery, the HSCs is what we've released the data on already. That's where we have human proof of concept with reni-cel with respect to the 12a and the target. So I think those are the things that we'll be focused on.
Also keep in mind sort of. Okay. Interesting. Okay. And timing on when we might learn more about that?
I'd say as we get into the first quarter, we'll have more to say.
Okay. That'll be exciting.
We'll lay out a plan.
So, one question I actually meant to ask you about, back to reni-cel. Can you describe what you see as an ideal partner? Would this be somebody who sort of buys it outright? Do you want to have some kind of involvement as you grow your own commercial platform? Do you think of it as geographic, or are you still very open at this point? What's your ideal partnership?
I mean, obviously, I think from a shareholder value and patient access, those are the two most important things. So with respect to patient access, whatever company can get reni-cel into the broadest distribution is obviously an important attribute for us. And then I'd say with the share price where it is, obviously, the cost of capital is quite expensive, especially for reni-cel. So the preference would be to pass on as much as possible.
Okay. You're kind of at a pivot point, it seems to me.
Yes. We are. Yes.
You've made the decision that you're going to partner your lead asset, which was kind of actually the identity of the company was eye, and then you shut that down, which I think was the right move.
Yeah.
Now you're kind of going to partner this.
Yes.
And so now you're kind of turning more into your early-stage pipeline and looking to obviously leverage all your IP in Cas9 and 12a. So you're at this kind of pivot point. Maybe you can articulate kind of your vision and strategic outlook for the company.
Yeah. So I think it's a great question and something we think about all the time as you approach a pivot point, but I think if you go back to when Gilmore took over as CEO and he got up in front of everyone at a competitor conference in the beginning of the year and said, "Our long-term goal is to be an in vivo company," and at that point, that's when he shuttered all of the ex vivo programs and a lot of the other stuff. He kept reni-cel, which I think has been a great proof of concept for us to get into in vivo. So I'd say what we're doing is we're fulfilling the vision that he laid out a few years ago to become an in vivo company. I think we all realize the limitations of autologous cell therapy.
It's been a road that other people have tried before, and we don't need to talk about that anymore. But I think his vision has always been in vivo, because when you think about in vivo, it really is a business model that most investors and most strategics are sort of used to seeing, where it's the single shot, single IV infusion, whereas autologous is really probably closer to a medical device or a hospital supply business model in a lot of ways. So I think everything we're doing really falls in line with the vision he laid out a few years ago.
Okay, and then can you speak to your cash runway and then maybe talk through some catalysts or things we can look forward to in 2025?
Yeah. So I'd say that the cash runway, as we disclosed at the last quarter, we ended essentially with a pro forma cash of $322 million. We did that DRI deal one day after the quarter closed. And that allowed us to extend our cash runway into the second quarter of 2026. So we feel we have a strong balance sheet and a strong cash runway. And in terms of catalysts for next year, I think as we're becoming a full in vivo company, we'll lay out a plan. And I think the beauty of in vivo is we're going after de-risk targets that we have high conviction on. And we'll be excited to share the development plans soon.
Okay. Erick and Cristi, I want to thank you for your time today.
Thank you.
Really appreciate it.
[crosstalk]Thank you.