Greetings, and welcome to Processa Pharmaceuticals third quarter 2022 earnings call and corporate update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Jim Stanker, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, sir. You may begin.
Thank you, and welcome to Processa's third quarter 2022 results and clinical update conference call. We are very pleased to have recently reported positive results from our ongoing phase I-B trial for PCS6422 in GI cancer and from our recently completed phase II-A trial for PCS12852 in gastroparesis. Dr. Young will discuss these later during the call. Joining me on the call today are our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. David Young, and our Chief Operating Officer, Mike Floyd. Shortly before this call, we filed our September 30, 2022 Form 10-Q, and this morning issued a press release containing preliminary results from our PCS12852 gastroparesis trial. I wanna remind everyone that a PowerPoint presentation will accompany Dr. Young's prepared remarks.
To view the PowerPoint slides, please go to the investor relations section on our website or our earnings press release and click on the webcast link to follow along. I will start our call by reading the safe harbor statement. This statement is made pursuant to the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
All statements made on this call, with the exception of historical facts, may be considered forward-looking within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although we believe expectations and assumptions reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can make no assurances that such expectations will prove to be correct. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties.
For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, please see risk factors detailed on our annual report on Form 10-K. Any forward-looking statements included in this earnings call are made only as of the date of this call. We do not undertake any obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent knowledge, events, or circumstances. At this time, I will touch briefly on our published financial results, then turn it over to Dr. Young to provide an update on our drug development activities, which will be followed by Q&A.
Our cash balance at September 30, 2022 was $9.1 million. We believe this will be sufficient to complete our three ongoing clinical trials and fund our operations into the third quarter of 2023. During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, we spent cash for our three clinical trials and in our operations of $7.1 million. This is significantly less than our GAAP net loss of $14.4 million, due primarily to the effect of non-cash stock-based compensation, application of amounts we had prepaid to our CROs, and amortization.
We continue to be focused on conserving our cash and using it to advance the drugs in our pipeline. One way we are doing this is by having our executive officers invest the majority of their base salary for shares of our common stock. During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, our executives as a group acquired 305,617 shares of our common stock with a fair value of approximately $916,000.
Not only does this conserve precious cash, but it aligns our executive team with our shareholders and provides them with significant potential upside. As I noted, our GAAP net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 was $14.4 million or $0.90 per share, compared to a net loss of $8.2 million or $0.54 per share for the same period of 2021. The increase in our net loss relates primarily to increased clinical trial costs we incurred in our three clinical trials. For the nine months ended September 30, 2022, we incurred $8.3 million in research and development costs, an increase of $3.5 million when compared to the same period of 2021.
We anticipate clinical trial costs will be fairly consistent for the rest of the year as our trials continue and we fund development activities for other drugs in our pipeline, as David will discuss. During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, our general and administrative expenses totaled $6.1 million, compared to $3.4 million for the same period in 2021. The increase related primarily to increases in stock-based compensation costs along with other operating and consulting costs. We allocated $6.1 million of non-cash compensation costs between our R&D and G&A, with the majority being recorded as G&A.
Our net cash used in operating activities during the nine months ended September 30, 2022 increased by $1.1 million to $7.1 million, compared to $6 million for the same period in 2021. As of September 30, 2022, we had 15.9 million common shares outstanding. That concludes my remarks. I'll turn the call over to our CEO, David Young. David, please go ahead.
Thank you, Jim. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Prior to the filing of our 10-Q for the third quarter, we had some great news on two of our drugs which has been shared in press releases over the last eight days. I hope that you saw our press release on our cancer drug, Next Generation Capecitabine, formerly called PCS6422, last Tuesday, and the press release this morning on PCS12852, our drug for the treatment of gastroparesis. This evening, what I like to do is to concentrate on these two drugs so that you understand them a little more and can appreciate how the results from each drug increases the probability of success for an FDA new drug application. First slide three, please.
This slide summarizes our findings for Next Generation Capecitabine at PCS12852.
The first three bullets are for the Next Generation Capecitabine or NGC, as I'll call it from now on, while the bottom three bullets are for PCS12852. For NGC, first, in the ongoing phase I-B trial, Processa has successfully identified NGC dosage regimens and 5-FU exposures that were well-tolerated, as well as NGC regimens and 5-FU exposures that had dose-limiting side effects. Second, the timeline for the formation of new DPD was also found to be approximately 24-72 hours after the PCS6422 dose was administered, while NGC potency was increased to 50 times greater than reported for FDA-approved capecitabine. Lastly, in 2023, Processa plans to initiate an efficacy safety phase II-B trial following FDA's Project Optimus initiative after meeting with the FDA.
For PCS12852, the proof of concept phase II-A trial in gastroparesis patients has been completed, with the results showing that the change in gastric emptying rate after 28 days of treatment on 0.5 milligrams of PCS12852 was statistically better than placebo treatment at a P- value less than 0.1. Second, the change in gastroparesis symptoms for PCS12852 versus placebo is expected by the end of the year. Lastly, Processa plans to initiate an efficacy safety phase II-B trial in 2023.
Next slide, please.
Let's look more at Next Generation Capecitabine, or NGC, which we previously called PCS6422. NGC can be used in many cancers with a market opportunity over $1 billion in the US.
Next slide.
To provide a little background for NGC, 5-FU is a cancer drug approved in 1962 and is administered intravenously, while capecitabine is an oral prodrug of 5-FU approved in 1998. Capecitabine and 5-FU are presently the most widely used cancer chemotherapy agents in the U.S. and worldwide. Approximately 30% of the patients receiving capecitabine do not respond, and another 30% are partial responders, with many of these non-responders and partial responders having adverse events that may require a modification of their regimen, dose interruption, or possibly even a discontinuation of treatment. As you can see from the diagram on the left, capecitabine after oral administration is metabolized to 5-FU. Approximately 70%-80% of 5-FU is then metabolized by the DPD enzyme to catabolites to the right and approximately 10%-20% to the anabolites to the left.
Less than 10% of 5-FU is typically eliminated through the kidney. The catabolites formed on the right have no antitumor properties but do cause side effects that may require a modification of their regimen, dose interruption, or discontinuation. Anabolites to the left can kill replicating cells, which include cancer cells and normal healthy cells. The side effects associated with anabolites, such as neutropenia, mucositis, and severe GI distress, also may require dose modification or discontinuation of treatment.
Next slide.
PCS6422 is an irreversible inhibitor of DPD that prevents 5-FU to be metabolized to catabolites to the right in the diagram. This results in 5-FU being metabolized to anabolites to the left in the diagram, while also being eliminated systemically through the kidney, probably greater than the typical 5%-10%. PCS6422 has no anticancer properties, and at the low doses that we are administering, PCS6422 should not cause any side effects. After administering PCS6422, the DPD activity in the body is not only dependent on the presence of PCS6422 and its irreversible binding to DPD, but the DPD activity is also dependent on the formation of new DPD. If PCS6422 is not present, the new DPD formed can metabolize 5-FU to its catabolite.
Next slide.
Let's now look at the findings from our trial thus far. Remember, Next Generation Capecitabine regimens are a combination of a PCS6422 regimen, as in the example, PCS6422 is only administered on day one, and a capecitabine regimen, which in our example is administered on day two through eight.
In our example, the cycle then repeats itself after 14 days. This is one example, but there are other possible combinations of PCS6422 regimens and capecitabine regimens that would result in different 5-FU and 5-FU catabolite exposure profiles. From the different NGC regimens evaluated, the timeline for the formation of new DPD is approximately 24-72 hours after the PCS6422 dose. While NGC potency was increased to 50 times greater than reported for FDA-approved capecitabine. We have also successfully identified NGC dosage regimens and 5-FU exposures that were well tolerated, as well as NGC regimens and 5-FU exposures that had dose-limiting side effects. As stated before, Processa plans to initiate an efficacy safety phase II-B trial following FDA's Project Optimus initiative after meeting with the FDA.
The purpose of evaluating multiple regimen in this phase II-B trial will be to evaluate both efficacy and safety, not just safety, and to select an optimal dosing regimen to achieve a better balance between efficacy and safety rather than merely using the maximum tolerated dose.
Next slide.
Since FDA's Project Optimus Oncology initiative is relatively new, I have provided one slide briefly describing the principles behind it. I will not address it except to say that the aim of this approach is to determine the optimal dosage regimen with the best balance between efficacy and safety. This approach is very important for combination products, which is why the approach fits Next Generation Capecitabine so well.
Next slide.
The latest news release this morning is our initial findings of PCS12852 in gastroparesis patients.
Next slide.
Gastroparesis is a condition that affects normal spontaneous movement of the muscles in the stomach. The stomach does not move food down to the small intestine in the normal manner. The typical symptoms are, for example, nausea, vomiting, too much bloating, too much belching, pain in your abdomen, and heartburn.
Next slide.
Presently, there's only one drug that is approved for the treatment of gastroparesis. Metoclopramide, a dopamine D2 antagonist, has a black box warning and serious neurological side effects. Its use in gastroparesis is limited to only 12 weeks. Other drugs used off-label have been 5-HT4 receptor agonists, which bind to many other receptors and can have serious side effects because of this off-target binding. Side effects such as cardiovascular side effects and even suicidal ideation.
One of these drugs was efficacious in gastroparesis but was pulled off the market in 2000 because of its cardiovascular side effects, which were not related to its 5-HT4 agonist activity.
Next slide.
PCS12852 is a more potent selective 5-HT4 receptor agonist than 5-HT4 agonists on the market. It enhances both GI motility and GI secretion, helping to move food from the stomach to the small intestine. PCS12852 may also be effective in other GI motility disorders.
Next slide.
There have been two clinical trials evaluating the effect of PCS12852 on stomach motility and gastric emptying. The first study was in healthy volunteers with constipation and functional constipation conducted in South Korea. This study successfully demonstrated PCS12852 affects the gastric emptying rate. The second study is our U.S. study.
Our press release this morning announced that upon completing our proof-of-concept phase II-A trial in gastroparesis patients with only six to nine patients in each treatment group, the trial showed that for six patients receiving 0.5 milligrams of PCS12852 compared to eight patients receiving placebo, the gastric emptying rate was significantly different at a p-value less than 0.1. In addition, we had no unexpected side effects, including cardiovascular side effects or serious side effects. We expect to receive the analysis of the gastroparesis symptoms before the end of the year. Remember, however, given this is a proof-of-concept study with only six to nine patients per group, we are only looking for a strong trend in symptom efficacy in order to guide us in the phase II-B 12-week efficacy safety trial that we plan to initiate in 2023.
Next slide.
For NGC and PCS12852, I hope you can see how we are moving closer to not only meeting FDA requirements before running a pivotal trial, but we are also collecting data to increase our likelihood of having a successful pivotal trial by selecting the best dosage regimen and designing the best trial to demonstrate optimal efficacy and safety.
Next slide.
The next five to six slides not only provide a short corporate overview of Processa, but also provide information about a common question that I receive. The question is, what makes Processa different than the many other biotech companies? If you're asking the same question, please look at the last five to six slides, and I hope you will see that there are many reasons why we are different from other biotech companies and why we are a far better investment than other companies.
I want to remind our investors that like you, Processa is an equity play for the Processa team. Our goals are aligned with yours, increase the value of Processa. This concludes my remarks. I will now ask the operator to open the phone lines for Q&A. Operator, can you please poll for questions?
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question at this time, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. We do ask if listening on speakerphone this evening that you pick up your handset while asking your question to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that'll be star one at this time to enter the queue if you would like to ask a question. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions.
First, earlier, the company received an email asking to explain the significance of the P- value being less than 0.1. I'll now direct this question to the team. What is the significance of this statistical data?
Thank you, operator. The P-value is a statistical measure that indicates whether or not the effect of 0.5 milligrams of PCS12852 in our proof of concept trial was significantly different from the placebo. Since it was less than 0.1, what this really means is that less than 10%, there's a less than a 10% probability that the results occurred by chance. That means, again, I'll repeat that. There is less than a 10% probability that the results occurred by chance. The fact that we had a statistical difference at a P-value of less than 0.1 is really good. Remember, this was a proof of concept study. It wasn't a study that we wanted to find statistical significance for a large pivotal study.
Instead, what we're looking for in proof of concept studies are trends, strong trends. This study wasn't designed for that large study. Instead, what we did is we designed it for that trend, and we saw it. We only had six patients in the 0.5 milligram group of PCS12852 and eight patients in the placebo group. A very small number of patients in each group. Yet we saw that P- value of less than 0.1, which really told us that, in fact, was less than a 10% probability that this is by chance. The probability is this really occurs. Thank you, operator.
Thank you. The first question from the audience today is coming from François Brisebois from Oppenheimer. François, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. Appreciate the color on the P- value there. I was just wondering in terms of the DPD inhibition and the length. I think you showed here one of the slides, 24-72 hours of irreversible inhibition. I'm just wondering, you know, what's optimal, what's ideal, how long would you like to see the inhibition? Just any data or thoughts around that.
Hi, Frank. Good question. One of the things that we have to remember is that the range of 24-72 is variable. We had some patients that it was earlier, some patients that was later. It's not like it's, you know, exactly 48 hours. It's not that way. The variation across the patients is wide. Given that, what we would like to have is we would like to have it longer, a little bit longer. Closer to 72 would be great for us. If it's not, we just have to figure out how to deal with it in terms of our dosing.
In terms of the Project Optimus kind of project and going away a little bit from the MTD, the maximum tolerated doses, I was just wondering, is that something that in order to find the right dose for the right patient, is that something that could potentially require multiple phases?
We've been using the concept of Project Optimus, looking at the dose-response relationship, you know, in all other drugs, in all other indications. Cancer is the only one that's not like this. All other therapies, you say, "Okay, what's the balance between efficacy and safety?" You're always looking for that regimen that gives you efficacy and safety, but the right balance. If you have great efficacy, but you have terrible safety, that's not so good. If you could decrease the efficacy a little bit but have no safety issues, that's fantastic. You know, there's that balance that we're trying to always reach, and we do that with all other indications. This is the one indication we don't do it for. The question is, do we do multiple phase II-B's in other indications? No, we don't typically do that.
Typically, we do one phase II-B, and then we go to phase III. I think, I believe that cancer is gonna be oncology the same way. We're gonna be doing, and our plan is to do one phase II-B and then go to pivotal trial. I think that should work out for us.
Okay, great. Then on the gastroparesis test, can you just maybe help us understand the magnitude of the efficacy seen here, although it was a proof of concept, but just the magnitude in terms of whether or not you have a healthy subject or a, you know, not a healthy subject? Is that something that varies a lot once the subjects aren't so healthy?
Yes, it varies a lot. I mean, if a subject has gastroparesis, even from mild gastroparesis to severe gastroparesis, there is a large difference in terms of gastric emptying rate. A large difference. You know, that's why our study, we're looking at more moderate to severe patients because they're the patients who really need something. A lot of the mild gastroparesis patients, for example, well, yeah, they'll have gastric emptying problems, and they'll have some of the side effects, but they're not extreme. They can deal with it with antacid, they can deal with it other things in their diet.
When you're moderate to severe, your gastric emptying is so slow that all the pain is big, the belching could be big, and all these other GI or stomach issues become a real problem because it is so slow. That's one reason we targeted that population. They really have an unmet medical need. Metoclopramide works really well there, but again, as I said in my talk, you know, it the side effects are just too big. We need something else. If you can only give the drug for 12 weeks because of side effects, and potentially the side effects are neurological, where you get tardive dyskinesia, and you can have tardive dyskinesia for the rest of your life for some patients just because you took this drug, that's not good.
We need something better, and that's what we think our drug is.
Okay. Those side effects, is it the cardiovascular side or is it the nausea that's especially bad?
For our drug or for other drugs?
No, for Metoclopramide.
No. Metoclopramide, it's the tardive dyskinesia. It's the CNS problem.
Okay.
That's what was really bad.
Okay, great. Then just lastly, I know this wasn't emphasized and because you just had data on other programs, but just was looking for an update. I think in the deck I still see that next year we might see some data on PCS499. Any update there on you know the difficulty recruiting patients and whatnot?
The only thing I can comment right now is that we do expect to have data in the mid-next year for the interim analysis group. We hope to be able to enroll all the rest of our patients in the beginning of the year, sometime in the first half of the year. We'll get the results, the final results for the whole study near the end of the year. That's what our hope is. We're moving slowly, but we're hoping to do that. We're trying to initiate and push other approaches to recruit patients. Unfortunately, you know, the problem with this is it's a very small population.
The patients that we have been getting coming in who think they have ulcerative NL, a lot of them do not have ulcerative NL, a lot of them do not have NL, and a lot of them do not have ulcers. They have lesions, not ulcers. There's a little bit of problem of defining in this population what ulcerative NL is.
Is it more difficult for the patients to know what they have, or even amongst physicians or derms they're not sure exactly if it's an ulcer or not?
No. It's actually very easy for the physicians to know. When we've received calls from patients who say, or sites have received calls from patients who said, "Oh, I wanna come in. I have this ulcerative NL." When they come in, they don't have an ulcer, or if they do biopsy on the lesion, they don't have NL. That's what seems to be our problem. There seems to be among dermatologists and endocrinologists and other physicians who are diagnosing this for the patient, there seems to be a little bit of disconnect between is it really NL, is it not NL, is that really an ulcer or is it an erosion?
That's just, you know, unfortunately it's communication to the patients about what they really have.
Understood. Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Naz Rahman from Maxim Group. Naz, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on all the positive data thus far. I wanna talk a little more about the gastroparesis data. First off, just on the symptom measurements we could expect at the end of the year, could you just give us more color on what we could expect to see and what you're sort of hoping to see or what you're looking for?
Sure. Hi, Naz. There is a scale that is an FDA-approved validated scale for gastroparesis that looks at symptoms. It looks at most of the symptoms that we described in the slide deck. What we expect to see in the phase II-A, in our present study, is we expect to see a trend for some of those symptoms. Now, this scale sums all the symptoms, but so we will look at all the symptoms cumulatively, but then we'll also look at individual symptoms. All right. We'll see if the cumulative evaluation shows a trend towards improvement or it's individual symptoms that show a trend.
FDA allows us to move forward in a phase III study and get approval on either the total symptom score or even subcategories of symptoms. We'll look for both so that we know exactly where our drug helps in terms of symptomology. It's critical to remember that FDA only approves a drug based on symptom improvement, not just on gastric emptying.
Got it. On that point, from a regulatory perspective, you do not hypothetically have to show a statistically significant difference on every symptom. You could just show a difference on the composite score, right?
That's correct. That's correct.
Okay. My other question was, over the 20 days, the rate of gastric emptying, did you see the rate of gastric emptying in these patients increase over time or did you just see like a certain level of emptying, like early in the study, which is relatively, let's say, maintained through the 28 days?
Yeah. We actually didn't follow it over time. We actually looked at beginning and end, because we wanted to treat them, so we don't know what happened to time, across the days of treatment. We did not study that.
Got it. Did you see any discontinuations in the study?
We did see a couple patients did drop out, but they did not drop out because of side effects. They dropped out 'cause all of a sudden they said, "Oh, we can't come in to get our tests done." That was unfortunate. Again, it wasn't because of adverse events that they dropped out. It was purely because they didn't wanna travel in to get tests done.
Got it. The AE you saw in the study, did any of them require any form of intervention to address or did they just mostly go away on their own?
They went away on their own and they went away really early on. All the adverse events were mild to moderate type of adverse events, you know. There was very few things that'd be happening. Nothing that anybody couldn't get through. Nobody dropped out because of that, those mild, moderate AEs. Everybody was fine to continue on except the two patients who didn't wanna travel anymore. There wasn't a problem because of that.
Got it. All right. Like, gastroparesis is mostly a chronic condition, and 28 days is obviously a short study. You're just looking for trends here. In your next study, the phase II-B, what are you sort of thinking in terms of, like, a timeline or how long the study would be? Would that be, like, over a year, like 52 weeks, or what are your thoughts around that?
Yeah, that's a good question. Fortunately, FDA has put out a guidance on gastroparesis. Because there's nothing being developed in gastroparesis specifically, or there's nothing approved, I should say, there are a few drugs being worked on, they put out a guidance. The expectation is that every company follows that guidance. That guidance says, you administer the drug minimally for 12 weeks. All right. There's minimally a 12-week treatment. You can go longer if you want, but you can't have any less. Again, you have the symptom score that FDA approves already that I talked about earlier, but the treatment has to be minimally 12 weeks. Then again, you can go longer.
One of the things we will be going longer in terms of treatment, though, because we need safety data longer than 12 weeks. We need to have one-year safety data. There will be some patients who will go out to a year. Primary endpoint for the phase II-B study will be at 12 weeks or 16 weeks or shorter time. The patients will be going out longer, so we could have longer safety information, more safety information for a longer period of time.
Hey, David. On that 12-week comment, is that because the currently approved drugs can't really be used for more than 12 weeks safely? Or is that-
Yeah. Yes. Good question. No, you know, that could be one reason that they're doing it, because they know all the data that they have is on metoclopramide for 12 weeks. That's all they have, you know, that in terms of that's good application data, so that's why they say minimally 12 weeks. I think that is one reason. I think the other reason, though, is in terms of the long-term effect of the drug on the GI tract, you need to continually give the drug. You need to have more than just a short, acute treatment. Because this is a chronic disease, because a lot of the symptoms don't occur right away, but they occur after you've had the condition for a while. So some patients, for example, have gastroparesis, and they'll have one or two symptoms.
Then after a year, they'll get a couple more symptoms. You know, the symptoms don't all come exactly at the beginning. I think they want to make sure that you're treating the condition and you're seeing symptoms improvement over time. We will be looking at symptom improvement over time for that study. The FDA expects us to do that. I think it's one for the reason you said, possibly 'cause of Metoclopramide 12 weeks, but it's also because they wanna make sure that this can be used chronically in the long run.
Right. Now on the patient population itself, could you just quickly remind us, the patients enrolled in this study, were they mostly, like, diabetic gastroparesis patients, or did it also include, like, post-surgical gastroparesis patients?
Most of these were diabetic gastroparesis patients. We did have a few idiopathic gastroparesis patients. We did not take surgical gastroparesis patients because they would've came out of surgery, and we did not wanna deal with the side effects that might be going on with post-surgical issues and things like that. We did not take any kind of surgical patients.
Got it. All right. I just have one last question, and it's actually on PCS3117. Have you determined, like, your path forward on this asset, and what are your development plans here?
We have a couple roadmaps to go forward on. We are actually getting ready to request a meeting with the FDA to talk through a few things. We hope to have that in the beginning of next year, sometime in the first half of next year in 2023, so we can define the path. Part of what we're doing in terms of defining the path is defining really what the target population would be. You know, should we be using biomarkers? Should we be using, you know, what kind of dosing regimen? Is it first-line, second-line, or third-line therapy? All these things are being considered that we feel we need to talk to the FDA first. We'll be doing that in the first half of next year.
Got it. Thanks a lot for taking my questions, and congrats on all the recent data thus far.
Thanks, Naz Rahman.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if anybody would like to ask a question at this time, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue to ask a question. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that'll be star one at this time if you would like to join the queue to ask a question. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, just checking. If anyone would like to join the queue, you may press star one at this time. Please hold a moment while we poll for further questions. We did have a question come in from Bruce Witten. Bruce, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Again, congratulations, gentlemen. David, just a very quick question. On the gastroparesis drug, what were your thoughts on the 0.5 milligrams being significant and the one milligram not? Do you have thoughts on that?
It's actually 0.5 milligrams and 0.1 milligram.
Oh, I misread it. My bad.
We did not expect the 0.1 milligram. We thought it was not likely the 0.1 milligram would be good, and we thought the 0.5. We wanted to show that we could find a dose that was not effective, and that was why we chose the 0.1. There's a chance the 0.1 could have been effective, but again, we didn't think it was gonna be as good as the 0.5, and that's what we did.
Great. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. We do have a follow-up question from François Brisebois. François, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Just on the gastroparesis, in terms of what you can share between the 0.5 and 0.1, just based on that, any thoughts on, you know, if the safety is better to, how high can you go here? Is 0.5 probably the max?
That's a good question. At least from the tox data that we've seen and the other data we've seen in healthy volunteers and constipation patients who've actually received up to 5 milligrams of the drug. You know, the safety data says 0.5 milligrams is, and 1.0 milligrams are equally safe. Not really much difference. We could go higher. We would not wanna go to 5 milligrams, you know, 0.5 to 5 milligrams, but we would consider going higher than 0.5, but not too much higher.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions in queue at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
Thank you.
Bye.
Good day.