Good morning, and welcome to Oncolytics Biotech second quarter 2022 conference call. All participants are now in listen-only mode. There will be a question and answer session at the end of this call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request. I would now like to turn the call over to Jon Patton, Director of Investor Relations and Communication. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Earlier this morning, Oncolytics issued a press release providing recent operational highlights and financial results for the second quarter of 2022. A replay of today's call will be available on the Events and Presentation section of the Oncolytics website approximately two hours after its completion. After remarks from company management, we will open the call for Q&A.
As a reminder, various remarks made during this call contain certain forward-looking statements relating to the company's business prospects and the development and commercialization of pelareorep, including statements regarding the company's focus, strategy, and objectives, the company's belief as to the potential and mode of action of pelareorep as a cancer therapeutic, the design, aims, and anticipated benefits of the company's current pending clinical trials, and the anticipated timing of the release of additional data, the company's plans and expectations regarding a potential registrational study, the company's business development plans and strategies, and other statements related to anticipated developments in the company's business.
These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of factors, which involve known and unknown risks, delays, uncertainties, and other factors not under the company's current control that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the results, performance, or expectations implied by these forward-looking statements. In any forward-looking statement in which Oncolytics expresses an expectation or belief as to future results, such expectations or beliefs are expressed in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, but there can be no assurance that the statement or expectation or belief will be achieved. These factors include results of current or pending clinical trials, risks associated with intellectual property protection, financial projections, actions by regulatory agencies, and those factors detailed in the company's filings with SEDAR and the SEC.
Oncolytics does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by applicable laws. I will now pass the call off to Oncolytics' President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Matt Coffey. Please go ahead, Matt.
Thanks, Jon, and good morning to all listening. As usual, joining me on today's earnings call are a few fellow members of the Oncolytics leadership team, including Dr. Thomas Heineman, our Chief Medical Officer, Andrew de Guttadauro, our Global Head of Business Development, and Kirk Look, our Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to begin today's call with a brief recap of our very strong second quarter, highlighting two clinical data readouts in our breast and pancreatic cancer programs that we find very encouraging. Each of these readouts further clarifies pelareorep's core value proposition, which is its ability to solve one of oncology's most prevalent and long-standing problems, the inability of the immune system to recognize and infiltrate tumors. This problem extends across many tumor types and is known to severely blunt the impact of many of the most widely used and commercially successful classes.
To date, the problem posed by the inaccessibility of tumors to immune cells has yet to be broadly solved, due in large part to the multiple biological mechanisms perpetuating it. With pelareorep, or Pela, as I'll call it, we believe we have a safe and versatile immunotherapeutic agent that can simultaneously address many of these various mechanisms and make tumors more amenable to successful treatment with complementary anti-cancer therapies. By doing this, we believe we can substantially broaden the commercial opportunity of these therapies by expanding their reach in large indications such as HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer and pancreatic cancer, which affect approximately 114,000 and 62,000 patients yearly in the U.S. respectively.
This belief is supported by data from multiple clinical studies such as IND-213, which showed a statistically significant near doubling of overall survival in HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients when Pela was added on top of chemotherapy. It is also supported by AWARE-1, which provided a mechanistic explanation for IND-213's results by establishing Pela's immunotherapeutic effects in HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients. These findings were strengthened with new analysis presented at the ESMO Breast Cancer Meeting in May, which showed Pela remodeling tumor microenvironments in a way that improved patient prognosis and long-term outlook. Another key finding from AWARE-1 was the demonstration of synergy between Pela and checkpoint inhibition, as combining Pela with Roche's atezolizumab led to an enhanced immunotherapeutic effect.
This added to the massive data supporting our breast cancer program and provides a clear scientific rationale for the phase I/II GOBLET trial, which showed in June that the synergy observed in breast cancer may extend into pancreatic cancer. Notably, pancreatic cancer is a highly prevalent and challenging indication where checkpoint inhibitors have thus far not provided substantial clinical benefits. We were thus highly encouraged when GOBLET's initial readout showed treatment with the combination of Pela, atezolizumab, and standard of care chemotherapy led to dramatic tumor shrinkage and partial responses per RECIST criteria in all patients in the pancreatic cancer cohort. Though early, we believe these data are indicative of Pela's potential as a platform molecule that can be used in a variety of indications to enable immune cell access to tumors.
Pela's ability to do this contributes to its anti-cancer activity as a single agent and positions it as a broadly applicable combination partner. That can drastically enhance the efficacy of a range of drug classes. Looking ahead, we plan to present additional data from GOBLET's pancreatic cancer cohort at a major medical meeting later this year. With enrollment nearly completed in Stage 1 of the cohort, we submitted an abstract that includes objective response data at week 16 on all evaluable patients. This update includes follow-up on the three patients we've already reported on at ESMO GI this past June. If the early signal of efficacy observed with the first three patients persists in subsequent readouts, we believe it will open up new pathways towards registration that will de-risk our pipeline and increase our avenues for value creation.
Tom and Andrew will be providing additional context on our pancreatic cancer program in a bit later. I'd now like to turn our attention to an important announcement we made in our press release that was distributed early this morning. This was the completion of enrollment in BRACELET-1, our randomized phase II trial in HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. With BRACELET-1 enrollment finishing near the end of last quarter, the trial is now less than four months away from a complete data set on its primary endpoint of week 16 overall response rate. Once we have cleaned and locked the database, we will provide our partners at Pfizer and Merck Serono with a report that will trigger the start of their 90-day period of exclusivity, during which the data cannot be publicly announced.
As we are already monitoring the data from this open label study in real time, we're able to review the data as it develops, which allows us to engage investigators, cooperative groups, and regulatory consultants on a confidential basis. While a brief delay in BRACELET-1 enrollment, combined with the 90-day exclusivity period from our contractual obligations to Pfizer and Merck Serono and the scheduling of major medical meetings, we have pushed our anticipated disclosure from the end of 2022 into Q2 2023. It's important to realize that this does not impede our lead program's momentum. We intend to take advantage of this 90-day quiet period to engage with regulators on a confidential basis during this time to discuss the optimal design of the future registrational study.
This new study will be informed and supported by BRACELET-1's results, as well as by Pela's robust safety database, phase I efficacy data demonstrating its single agent activity, and the aforementioned results from IND-213, which notably counts as one of the two pivotal registrational trials required for approval by the FDA. With regards to public disclosure of the data, our collaborators and analytics team believe announcing BRACELET-1's full suite of clinical and translational data, alongside emerging overall survival results at a major medical meeting, will ultimately be more impactful. Instead of just piecemeal top-line data, this announcement will include an expansive set of clinical and translational data, including overall response rates, progression-free survival data, and evolving overall survival data from the trial's randomized cohorts. We'll also provide important external validation and allow us to receive unbiased input from relevant experts and key opinion leaders.
This feedback will be invaluable as we work to advance towards registration as efficiently as possible. As we stated repeatedly, we expect BRACELET-1's data to substantially de-risk our breast cancer program, bolster our business development prospects, and fuel Pela's advancement into registrational study by providing key learnings that will inform the trial's design. Nonetheless, we are still very excited about the breast cancer data we will have in the fourth quarter of this year at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December, where we will be seeing clinical data from our Chinese partner's HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer bridging trial and additional AWARE-1 data. With that, I'll introduce Tom to provide some additional context around the recent announcements from AWARE-1 and GOBLET. Tom?
Thanks, Matt. The most recent results from the AWARE-1 study further strengthen the overall data set that demonstrate Pela's immunologic mechanism of action. Importantly, in doing so, these results clearly reinforce Pela's potential as a versatile platform therapy that can overcome some of the most prevalent tumor defense mechanisms. These data, which were presented at the ESMO Breast Cancer Meeting in May, focused on how Pela, when added to the standard of care therapy letrozole, with or without the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab, modified the tumor microenvironment in HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients. This is the same breast cancer subtype for which Pela provided a statistically significant and clinically meaningful survival benefit in the IND-213 study, as mentioned earlier by Matt, and is the breast cancer type we intend to evaluate in the future registrational trial.
Some of the most interesting data presented at the ESMO Breast Cancer Meeting came from the PAM50 gene panel analyses that correlated changes in the tumor with the likelihood of a patient's cancer recurring following successful treatment. These correlations were captured using a risk of recurrence score, with results showing all evaluable patients having a risk of recurrence score classified as low following treatment. This represented a near doubling from the 55% that had this favorable classification at the start of the study. These exciting results, together with the previously reported AWARE-1 data, including increases in the prognostic cell TIL score, clearly support the profound clinical benefits we believe Pela can provide. They also offer a thorough understanding of exactly how Pela may drive clinical benefit.
In essence, Pela has a multi-pronged mechanism of action by which it educates the immune system in its fight against cancer, it reverses the suppressive microenvironments that typically exclude immune cells from tumors and lessen their effectiveness, and it conditions a tumor to respond to anti-cancer agents such as checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T therapy, or chemotherapy. These mechanisms of action were established by multiple experimental observations. First, Pela stimulates the generation, expansion, and activation of CD8-positive T-cells. This illustrates its ability to teach the immune system to recognize tumors, solving the first half of the long-standing problem Matt laid out at the top of the call, namely the inability of the immune system to recognize and infiltrate tumors. Second, Pela promotes the infiltration of anticancer immune cells into the tumor, and it upregulates PD-L1 expression in tumors.
This is noteworthy because it demonstrates Pela's ability to remodel tumor microenvironments to enable immune cell access, as well as the potential to enhance the activity of other immune-based therapies, including checkpoint inhibitors. This solves the second half of the problem laid out by Matt, improving the impact of some of the most widely used and commercially successful drug classes. Pela's potential here is further supported by the observation that the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab enhances many of its immunotherapeutic effects, demonstrating synergy between the two agents. Lastly, changes in T cell populations have been identified as potential predictive biomarkers that could improve the odds of success in future trials by informing patient selection. Collectively, we believe these data highlight AWARE-1 as a foundational study.
It both explains the substantial survival benefit observed in IND-213 , and it confirms Pela's potential to solve the problems posed by the inaccessibility of tumors to the immune system. This positions Pela to be a partner therapy for a broad spectrum of anticancer agents with which it can act synergistically to improve outcomes across a range of indications that are in need of better treatment options. One indication for which there is a clear need for better therapies is pancreatic cancer, which is the subject of the second data readout I'll be discussing today. These data come from the phase I/II GOBLET study, which seeks to leverage the aforementioned synergy between Pela and atezolizumab. Patients in this study were treated with Pela in combination with atezolizumab and the chemotherapeutic agents gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel.
GOBLET's initial readout revealed that all three patients in the pancreatic cancer's initial phase I-B portion achieved confirmed partial responses with an average tumor size reduction of 48% at 16 weeks following the initiation of treatment. With these data showing responses in three out of three patients, we have already met the pre-specified success criteria for efficacy in the trial's first stage, which is designed to enroll a total of 12 patients. This robust early efficacy signal exceeded our expectations and the expectations of our primary investigator. To put these and future data readouts into perspective, the largest randomized controlled trial evaluating gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel in pancreatic cancer patients had an overall response rate of 23%. Additionally, other studies have shown that adding a checkpoint inhibitor alone to chemotherapy does not benefit the overwhelming majority of pancreatic cancer patients.
In fact, checkpoint inhibitors alone have been demonstrated to benefit only those pancreatic cancer patients with tumors classified as MSI-high, which represents less than 1% of all pancreatic cancer patients. Our promising early data suggests that the synergy we saw between Pela and atezolizumab in AWARE-1 in breast cancer may extend to pancreatic cancer. If GOBLET's pancreatic cancer efficacy data continue to be favorable as the study progresses, we will work to engage with health authorities to identify a regulatory path that allows us to advance the program as expeditiously as possible. We expect our next data update in pancreatic cancer to be at a major medical conference later this year. Should this readout continue to demonstrate a strong positive efficacy signal relative to historical controls, it would provide proof of concept support for moving forward with late-stage development.
Therefore, the forthcoming GOBLET study update could represent an important milestone with positive strategic implications, which I will now let Andrew discuss. Andrew?
Thank you, Tom, and good morning to all participants. I'm especially excited about today's BD update as we've been making meaningful progress across our licensing drivers, starting with our most important opportunity, breast cancer, but also our exciting emerging opportunity in pancreatic cancer and our CAR T out-licensing activities. I'll begin by providing context as to the potential of the pancreatic data from a licensing perspective. We believe GOBLET's initial data in pancreatic cancer is significant from both a clinical and a business development perspective, as pancreatic cancer is one of the major PD-L1 unrealized opportunities. Despite repeated attempts, checkpoint inhibitors have failed to successfully treat pancreatic patients, with the exception of the 1% of such patients who are MSI-high.
Given that the current standard of care can only extend survival by a few months and only the minority of patients who respond, pelareorep may represent PD-L1 agents' best opportunity to redefine the pancreatic standard of care. Pancreatic cancer also serves as an excellent example of one of pelareorep's core value drivers, which is its potential to dramatically expand PD-L1's addressable patient population beyond those that are already approved. As demonstrated by AWARE-1 successfully meeting its endpoint in the Pela plus Tecentriq combination cohort, as well as GOBLET's current pancreatic readout, Pela has the ability to synergize with PD-L1 therapies across multiple tumor types. Pela's synergistic potential, therefore, can help produce meaningful clinical responses in patients in significant need of novel transformative clinical solutions.
Pelareorep's potential to make previously untreatable tumors amenable to successful treatment with approved PD-L1 agents positions it to create significant new opportunities across a wide breadth of indications. This potential has served as the driver for our collaborations with biopharma industry leaders, including Pfizer, Merck Serono, Roche, BMS, Incyte, and Adlai Nortye. Looking forward, we believe these relationships, together with Pela's clinically demonstrated ability to overcome one of oncology's most prevalent problems, the inability of certain immuno-oncology therapies to be effective in a broader range of tumors with significant unmet need, leaves us well-positioned as we work towards an eventual partnership and successful registration. Currently, our most direct path towards registration continues to be in HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. That said, if our pancreatic cancer data continues to mature favorably, we may be able to provide potential partners with two near-term registration opportunities.
Breast and pancreatic cancer are therefore the primary focus of our development and partnering efforts, which would be enabled by a global clinical commercialization partnership. Pursuing a registration-focused breast and pancreatic cancer trial via partnership will allow us to intelligently leverage our capital to pursue these large target market indications with significant unmet clinical needs while minimizing risk. We envision such a partnership preserving our upside potential in the form of upfront payments, milestones, and royalties. With compelling near-term clinical readouts and many key players already intimately familiar with pelareorep, thanks to collaborative studies such as BRACELET-1, AWARE-1, and GOBLET, we believe we are poised to successfully execute on our BD strategy. As BRACELET-1 and GOBLET progress, we will continue to leverage the emerging data to drive the interest of potential partners.
While the nature of the BD process precludes me from predicting the timing of any potential deal, I can say that we remain in productive discussions with multiple current and potential business development partners. Rather than rushing to a deal that favors the partner over Oncolytics, however, we intend to take a methodical approach that capitalizes on both the strength of our prior results and, just as importantly, leveraging the emerging data from BRACELET-1 and GOBLET. Our goal remains to secure a deal that minimizes clinical commercial risk while maximizing shareholder value. We are pleased to be in the fortunate position of having drawn interest from several competing industry leaders and look forward to providing additional updates as appropriate. Next, I'd like to give an update on CAR T cell therapy partnering efforts, which represent a separate compelling business development opportunity.
In April, we announced a publication in Science Translational Medicine that highlighted pelareorep's potential to fully unlock the value of CAR T therapies by synergistically enhancing their efficacy against solid tumors. This was an exciting finding as it points to pelareorep as a potential solution to a problem that has thus far severely limited the therapeutic and commercial impact of CAR T therapies. Though CAR T cell therapies generate billions of dollars in annual sales and have produced groundbreaking clinical data showing long-term cures in hematologic cancers, efforts to extend their benefits to patients with solid tumors have thus far been unsuccessful. With U.S. National Cancer Institute estimates indicating solid tumors comprised about 90% of new cases last year, the enormous growth opportunity represented by CAR T's potential ability to treat solid tumors becomes easily evident.
Data featured in the Science Translational Medicine paper suggests pelareorep may allow CAR T therapies to reach their full potential, as the two agents combined to provide statistically significant survival benefits in murine solid tumor models. Notably, cure rates of greater than 80% were achieved in two separate solid tumor models treated with Pela-loaded CAR T cells and a subsequent intravenous pelareorep boost. Mechanistic analyses tied these benefits to pelareorep's ability to overcome each of the three key challenges currently hampering CAR T therapy, namely limited cell persistence, challenging tumor microenvironments, and antigen escape. Bolstered by these findings, we are now seeking partners who could in-license pelareorep to develop it as an enabling technology for CAR T cell therapies.
The strategy of these BD efforts is notably different from those of our breast and pancreatic cancer programs, which have the long-term aim of generating direct revenues by selling large volumes of pelareorep. In contrast, the Science Translational Medicine data suggests Pela can substantially increase the number of patients benefiting from CAR T therapies, with only one to two pelareorep doses needed per patient. With CAR T therapies typically priced in the range of $400,000-$500,000 per patient, the financial opportunity comes from expanding the market and collecting royalties on the CAR T revenues made possible solely by pelareorep synergistic effects. With this in mind, our goal with CAR T therapies is to reach a deal based on combination of upfront, milestone, and royalty payments in line with what is typical of preclinical licensing agreements.
Such an agreement would position us to share in the upside of any future commercial success of pelareorep CAR T cell combination therapy without assuming the associated development risks and costs ourselves. We are making positive progress in these efforts as we have multiple ongoing preclinical testing collaborations. These collaborations seek to demonstrate synergy between pelareorep and the specific CAR T therapies being developed by our collaborators. Unlike with PD-L1 agents, a class effect cannot be assumed due to CAR T cell therapies behaving according to their own unique genetic makeup.
The confidentiality required by potential partners leaves our ability to provide a more in-depth update on these collaborations contingent on the maturation of the ongoing research. Nonetheless, I'll reiterate that we remain enthusiastic about our BD prospects with CAR T therapies and look forward to providing additional information when appropriate and permitted by collaboration agreements. With that, we'll now move on to Kirk's portion of the call and a discussion of our second quarter financial results. Kirk.
Thanks, Andrew. Oncolytics continues to maintain a strong balance sheet throughout the second quarter ending June 30, 2022, with $33.7 million in cash and cash equivalents. This compares to $41.3 million in cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2021. I'm pleased to say that our current cash position leaves us well-positioned to execute on key clinical milestones. Based on our projections, our financial runway extends well into the second half of 2023, which is expected to take us through BRACELET-1's clinical and translational data announcement, as well as the additional efficacy data from our GOBLET study planned for later this year. Turning now to our financial results. Operating expenses for the second quarter of 2022 were $2.8 million compared to $3.5 million in the second quarter of 2021.
This change has been mainly due to lower Investor Relations activities as the current global economic and political conditions have impacted the market sentiment in the biotech industry, along with the overall capital markets. Consequently, this year we've been mindful of our resource allocation to IR-related activities. Research and development expenses for the second quarter of 2022 were CAD 3.2 million, which remained consistent with the same period last year. Now, the net loss for the second quarter of 2022 was CAD 5.1 million, compared to CAD 7.2 million for the second quarter of 2021. This equates to a net loss of CAD 0.09 per share for the second quarter and CAD 0.13 per share for the second quarter of 2021. With that, we'll now pass the call back to Matt for some concluding remarks. Matt.
Thanks, Kirk. Before I get into concluding remarks, I'd like to briefly recognize another important corporate achievement in Q2, which was the addition of James Parsons to our Board of Directors. James' financial and strategic acumen will be invaluable assets as we work to achieve our objectives, and we're thrilled to have the chance to draw on his 20 years of life science leadership experience. This includes over 10 years spent as the CFO at the immuno-oncology company Trillium Therapeutics, a role James held through Trillium's acquisition by Pfizer for an aggregate purchase price of approximately CAD 2.1 billion. It's been a pleasure benefiting from James's guidance in the short time since his appointment, and we look forward to our continued work to advance Pela and bring Oncolytics to its next stage of development.
As we move towards these goals, we are doing so with meaningful foundation that we believe leaves us well-positioned to solve the pressing problems posed by the inability of the immune system to recognize and infiltrate tumors. There are several key components to this foundation, the first being our clinical data. Thanks to the success of AWARE-1, IND-213, and other studies, we have shown that Pela can train immune cells to recognize and attack tumors, modify tumor microenvironments in a way that enable immune cell infiltration, and derive a robust and statistically significant survival benefit in a well-controlled randomized study. These are tasks that are not easily accomplished. The first two requiring a multi-pronged mechanism of action that can simultaneously modulate many biological pathways.
This helps explain why the inaccessibility of tumors to the immune system remains such a prevalent problem that continues to severely hamper a wide range of therapeutics such as checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T therapies. With Pela, we have a versatile immunotherapeutic agent that can pair with these therapies to tap into large new markets that are not served well by current treatments. Given the fundamental role immunosuppression plays in cancer growth and survival, Pela's potential is broad, with its ability to awake antitumor immunity positioning as a platform molecule with applicability across many indications and as the backbone of combinations with a variety of drug classes. Internally, our primary focus is on pursuing the robust signals of efficacy seen in breast and pancreatic cancer, as Andrew mentioned.
Our goal is to advance these programs into the next stage of development so we can generate multiple avenues to clinical success and minimize the risk of binary events in late-stage trials. We are supporting these efforts by our established relationship with industry leaders. This is another core component of Oncolytics' foundation, designed to allow us to pursue large therapeutic and commercial opportunities in a capital-efficient manner. We are, of course, also supported in our endeavors by the talented team of employees, academic collaborators, and clinical trial investigators working with us. They form an additional key component of our foundation, and I am always grateful for their contributions. These contributions have us moving towards key potential value drivers, including GOBLET's next update expected later this year, numerous breast cancer updates at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December, and BRACELET-1's comprehensive data expected in Q2 2023.
Each of these has the potential to be a crucial inflection point and major step on the path towards our ultimate goal in improving the lives of cancer patients. Finally, I'll conclude this portion of today's call by reiterating my gratitude for the support of our shareholders, and most importantly, by thanking our clinical trial participants. With that, we will now take questions. Operator?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt on the phone line will indicate when your line is open. Again, press star one to ask for a question. We'll pause now just for a moment to allow everyone to signal for question. We will take our first question from Patrick Trucchio from H.C. Wainwright. Please go, sir.
Hi, this is Jason on for Patrick . Congrats on the progress, and it's really exciting to see the BRACELET-1 study progressing. Just a quick question, 'cause we were just wondering with the safety results presented already in 4Q 2021 for the IRENE study, when can we expect additional updates on this IRENE program, and what else does Oncolytics and Incyte need to do to progress further into a phase III trial for IRENE? I have a follow-up question after that. Thank you.
Sure. Andrew or Tom, do you want to field that question since it's the relationship with Incyte?
I think it's actually more Tom's question really, because there's some rule tests to how many responses would be needed in order to move forward with the expansion of the trial.
Yes. I mean, Tom here. The IRENE study continues to enroll. We have two sites open and enrolling in IRENE. This is an investigator-sponsored study, as you are aware, and we are in contact with the investigator regarding the progress of that study. I don't have any update at the immediate time regarding that, but we do hope that we will be able to update that study in the not too distant future. Although it is an investigator-sponsored study, it's not wholly in our control.
Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. I guess the other thing, what we were just wondering was around the multiple myeloma studies. When can we also expect kind of additional updates on the NCI-9603 study, which you already showed achieved safety results in the second quarter of 2020? How about the WINSHIP 4398-18 trial? Thank you.
I can grab that one. Dr. Kelly, actually, and actually Dr. Huffman have actually shared with us manuscripts for both studies. They're in the review process now with, well, quite frankly, quite prestigious journals, so we're hoping that both of those get accepted. We're also working with one of the investigators on a follow-on study that would be in conjunction with a major immunotherapeutic agent. We haven't announced that yet, but I think that will be announced. I'm hoping by end of year.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. It appears there are no further questions at this time. Speaker, I'd like to turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.
I would just like to say thank you all for joining us this morning to hear about our recent progress. We're obviously very excited about it. We're in the midst of an exciting time and look forward to providing additional updates on our clinical advances. We do appreciate everyone's continued interest and we do wish everyone a wonderful day. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.