John von Benecke Presents Locate Bio at LSI USA '23

Transcription

John von Benecke  0:06  

Now there's two really interesting things. Both have already happened. But as we start to see them play out and understand how they interact, we're starting to show the world that we will be living in. The first is increased life expectancy. We've seen average life expectancy in the USA increased by 30 years over just a few generations. And the second is declining fertility rates. Since the 1950s, the average number of children born per US family has fallen by half these patterns being replicated around the world. And as they do so, we're confronted with an aging global population. This is going to change so many things. In economic terms, there'll be fewer people of working age supporting more in retirement, we're coming towards the end of their life. I'm John von Benecke, chief executive at Locate Bio. And in this short presentation, I'd like to share some the challenges that healthcare are going to face and the products that we are developing, which are going to revolutionize the $3.2 billion market today. But why that market is forecast to double over the next few years because of this aging population. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2050, there'll be 2.1 billion people around the globe over the age of 60. And because of this interaction, with declining fertility rates, the proportion they make up of the global population is going to change from the current 12% to 22%. But in developed economies, those that have the longest life expectancy, and I've seen declines in their fertility rates happen soonest that up to 40% of the total population will be over the age of 60. By that time, that's going to have profound implications for everything that we all do in healthcare. Three things to really concentrate on and think about our changing disease patterns, we're going to see more conditions like dementia in the population, more arthritis, and other muscular skeletal conditions so prevalent among that age group. We're also going to see healthcare systems challenged by the increased per patient treatment costs. These are patients with chronic conditions, and multi morbidities, which makes their care expensive and complicated. And one of the biggest changes we're going to see is a surge in demand for healthcare resources. These are the patients most likely to become ill and when they do become ill have the lowest regenerative potential and therefore their treatment episodes are longer. So as we start to think about how do we design healthcare systems to cope with that surge in complex care, we really do need to think about the lessons that have been taught to us since the 1960s. The solution is out there, the key to healthy aging is retained most muscle mass and mobility. There is currently a significant threat to that maintained mobility, it's low back pain, the World Health Organization estimates it, but it is the leading cause of disability worldwide. There's 1.8 million annual spinal fusion procedures to treat this chronic debilitating condition. And it's already back pain is the third largest area of expenditure in the US healthcare system. So it's a massive problem today. And then you layer on top of that the projections for an aging population. This is a study published just last month doing exactly that the German population and aging population forecasting, a doubling in the number of procedures and a significant increase in those patients most at risk. Surgeons today have a number of products they can use to treat this condition. And they really broadly fall into two categories. There's those products that are incredibly effective, like Medtronic Infuse it's a powerful therapeutic protein called BMP to 97% success rate in treating those patients. But it comes with a nasty side effect profile that can have life changing consequences for the patient. Product handling is frustrating the in theater preparation time is at least 20 minutes. And the price point is so high that this cannot be the solution for a surge and in patient demand. On the other side, the products are all pretty much the same. They all have really good handling and easy to use far more affordable from a pricing perspective. But they don't work all the time there's a significant failure rate and for those patients that means a second spinal surgical procedure significant risk to them and a significant cost to the healthcare system. And for those reasons, those products are also not the solution that we're looking for. So there's a clear unmet need for something better. At Locate Bio or think differently approach was really clear design a product that could be best in class at every single aspect. Leave no enemy stronghold intact. So we wanted to match the fusion rates Some of the growth factors like the BMP used in the infused product, but eliminate their side effect profile. We wanted to match the best in class handling and the price point of the other segments. So no matter what the basis of competition, we have a product that can dominate irrespective. So understand how we've achieved that you need to understand a little bit more about how the current BMP products are delivered. BMP comes as a life alized powder in a vial. It's passed into the surgical field and the solute, the surgeon needs to solubilize it to get the BMP to dissolve and pause that onto either collagen sponge or a Calcium phosphate material. But to get BMP to solubilize, it has to be in an acidic environment and in that acidic environment, it gains a surface charge which allows a simple non covalent bond to be formed with the material. But that's a reversible process, the minute they implanted, physiological pH takes over it's increased to 7.4. BMP loses its surface charge crashes are the solution and aggregates that leads to a dramatic drug burst. The half life of that material is about six hours when applied on to college and sorry, calcium phosphate in about two days at best on a collagen sponge. Think about trying to stabilize a spine joint restores despite take the pressure off those nerves causing that excruciating pain. That's a process growing new bone in there, that takes five to six weeks at least. So having a half life of six hours really shows a very clear mismatch between the bioavailability and the underlying biological need. We've addressed this by taking the BMP and not relying on surface attachment at all. When cases within a biodegradable polymer, that Polymer takes five weeks degrade leading to fresh BMP released over the time, the chart on the left shows a significant reduction in drug bursts relative to the commercially available alternatives. So that's the theory, but how's it working in vivo. So we'll do really proud of having just completed the most comprehensive, ever large animal study using a therapeutic protein 120 sheep, and the results are astonishing, we've been able to achieve the primary endpoint, in just half the time of the current gold standard of treatment. We've achieved in any none of animals, not one at any dose had any side effects related to BMP that compares incredibly favorably to the market leader in fuse that had peak sales of 850 million. So we've matched that high performance and broken the link to the side effects. We've also significantly reduced the in theater preparation time and 90% reduction. This is a product that opened the pack into the patient in under two minutes, very easy to use, also available in minimally invasive surgeries. And using state of the art manufacturing methods, we've produced a significant cost of cost of goods reduction, we can have the price of the infused product, and still be making a very, very high gross margin. So we've, I think, eliminated all the basis of the current competition in the market for that people that we speak to describe it as a game changer in a class of its own. once in a generation and career defining. We're incredibly proud of the work that we have done over the last few years. And I'm incredibly excited to be moving this product into human clinical studies this year. So I hope in this very short presentation of giving you some sense of our industry leading drug delivery capabilities, we're able to take existing drug molecules change their release profile to achieve a step change in performance. We're playing to areas that are currently poorly served, but that the market is going to significantly increase because of this aging population. Our preclinical evidence speaks for itself. This is what happens when science is done right. And as a company were built to last with strong IP, very high gross margins and an incredible team. Please do follow locate story of the coming years. We've got some exciting new data coming as well. Thank you