Lexicon at Leerink Conference: Strategic Pipeline Focus

On Wednesday, 12 March 2025, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LXRX) presented at Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025, outlining its strategic priorities and development plans. The company highlighted both opportunities and challenges as it advances its drug pipeline, focusing on diabetic neuropathic pain, heart failure, and obesity treatments.

Key Takeaways

• Lexicon is advancing pilavapidin (LX9211) into Phase 3 trials for diabetic neuropathic pain.
• The company is working on differentiating sotagliflozin (Zynquista) for heart failure and major cardiovascular events.
• A new compound, LX9851, is progressing into Phase 1 trials for obesity.
• Lexicon’s financial outlook includes operating expenses of $140 million to $150 million for 2025, with a cash runway extending into 2026.
• A partnership with Viatris could yield up to $225 million in milestones and royalties for sotagliflozin.

Financial Results

• Operating expenses for 2025 are projected at $140 million to $150 million.
• The cash runway is expected to last into 2026.
• Lexicon received a $25 million upfront payment from Viatris for the sotagliflozin partnership and may receive up to $200 million more in milestones and royalties.
• The company is focused on cost management and funding key objectives.

Operational Updates

• Pilavapidin (LX9211) for Diabetic Neuropathic Pain (DPNP):

- Plans to hold an end-of-Phase 2 meeting with the FDA and move into Phase 3 trials by year-end.

- Phase 3 trials will involve 300-400 patients per group in two parallel studies.

• Sotagliflozin (Zynquista) for Heart Failure and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM):

- Ongoing global Phase 3 program for HCM, with 500 patients across 20 countries.

- The primary endpoint is the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire score.

• LX9851 (Obesity Program):

- Conducting IND enabling studies with plans for first-in-human trials by year-end.

Future Outlook

• Lexicon aims to secure partnerships for pilavapidin and LX9851.
• Sotagliflozin’s differentiation is emphasized through its dual SGLT1/2 inhibition.
• The company continues to focus on the U.S. cardiology community for sotagliflozin.

Q&A Highlights

• A potential partnership for pilavapidin is seen as valuable due to its market potential in neuropathic pain.
• The HCM trial is enrolling patients with relatively open criteria and a focus on KCCQ score.
• Investors are encouraged to focus on the progress of Lexicon’s three key programs.

For more detailed insights, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025:

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us for our Global Healthcare Conference here at Leerink. My name is Ruana Ruiz. I’m one of the senior biotech analysts here at Leerink.

And it’s my pleasure to introduce the team from Lexicon. So with me here today, I have Craig Granowitz, the CMO, and also Scott Chiante, the CFO. So welcome, and thanks for joining us.

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Thank you, Mike.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yep, great. And so general plan for today, I’ll start with some bigger picture questions and start to drill down across some of the different programs that you guys have. So to kick it off, I’ll ask about just help frame things for investors that are new or revisiting the story. Can you talk about current business, some of your top priorities this year going into 2026?

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: Sure. And, Roana, first off, thank you to you and the bank for inviting us to the conference. We’re really happy to be here and appreciate the opportunity. So for those new to the Lexicon story, Lexicon was founded on the Geno 5,000 program, which utilized knockout mouse gene technology to study nearly 5,000 genes, which yielded more than 100 potential therapeutic targets. This work has informed us, and our ability to develop innovative and targeted medicines in areas of high met medical need.

We’ve already brought several successful candidates through the late stage development. And in 2023, we launched serticiflosion for heart failure. However, due to market headwinds and two established players in the industry, we made the very difficult decision to cease promotion on Empapa and pivot and focus on our R and D pipeline. Craig will add some additional color about the past year and what’s expected.

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes, I think, Roan, what we really try to do is focus. And we’ve got three key priorities right now for the company. The first and most importantly is to get our pilavapidin which is nine thousand two hundred and eleven in Phase three in diabetic neuropathic pain. We have three positive studies of that in Phase two, two in DPNP and one in post herpetic neuralgia. The second is to continue to both differentiate and develop sotagliflozin particularly in heart failure and in MACE along with heart failure which would be the first and only of in the SGLT class in that regard and also to complete our ongoing global Phase three program in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy both obstructive and non obstructive.

And the third priority is to get our 9,851 asset, which is a non incretin once daily oral compound into Phase one development in obesity. That’s a really interesting compound because it has activity both in obesity, reduction of liver fat and then also reduction of vascular plaque as well. So we think we have three really interesting assets in three very different therapy areas that are diversified across the range of development timelines as well.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Sounds good. So maybe I’ll dig in on pilavapidin first since you had some recent data. So could you just remind us about how you’re thinking about the path forward for pilavapidin after the progress data and what are you hoping to learn with, I think you’re going to do upcoming sub analyses and just go into the data and see more insights that you can gather?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yeah, it’s a great question. And we really tried to prepare the market for what the goals of the Phase two program were for the progress study. And we really had three goals. The first is, did we need that day one loading dose for efficacy? If we remove the day one loading dose, do we maintain efficacy and eliminate that dizziness?

And the third is to pick a final single dose to bring into Phase three to streamline both the cost and complexity of a Phase three program. We believe we achieved all of those goals, quite clearly. In that regard, I think the market is perhaps anticipating this was going to be a Phase three pivotal trial, but we never tried to position in that way. But when we remove the loading dose, we still had significant separation within the first couple of weeks of the ten milligram dose arm from placebo despite the fact that the placebo arm responded far better than we did in the relief study, but we still had that significant separation. We continue to see, improvement in pain score in the ten milligram dose throughout the eight week dosing period.

So we expect that would continue in the pivotal which would be roughly twelve weeks in duration. We did not see nearly as much dizziness. In fact, the completion rates were the same in the ten milligram dose as in the placebo about eighty eight percent of patients completed therapy. So we also noted that in the ten milligram dose arm we had really single digit dizziness and dropout for dizziness. So in that regard, we’ve demonstrated that 10 works, 20 did not perform as we hoped and didn’t separate from placebo.

We didn’t need the loading dose to have the efficacy. And when you remove that you largely eliminated the dizziness. So we feel we have a Phase three ready asset to move right into pivotal.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yes, got it.

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Just to answer the second part of your question on the additional analyses. I think we want to do like we did after we with the relief study is there’ll be some additional sub analysis some of the secondary endpoints the burning pain, the sleep interruption, the use of the rescue medication, some additional color on the tolerability, site performance, those kinds of things I think will be forthcoming. But clearly we have the primary endpoint of the trial. We are looking and I think we mentioned this at the earnings call to have an end of Phase two meeting with the FDA sometime in the second half of this year and really be prepared to move into Phase three pivotal by the end of the year.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yes, got it. And yes, talking about the end of Phase two meeting, what are some of your goals going into that meeting with the FDA? What do you hope to achieve there? And, what data do you think will shine through in terms of your discussion with them?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Well, the FDA has already told us when we had our meeting at the end of the relief study that we could proceed into Phase three if we so chose at that point in time. There’s just a number of other operational issues we’d like to understand with the FDA. In this category there’s always going to be the issue about likability. Is there a withdrawal effect from the drug? We didn’t see that.

But is there going to be some sort of issue around, when you remove the drug will there be any sort of addiction potential? We don’t believe that there is. But just to clarify exactly what FDA’s concerns are on that. In CNS acting drugs, FDA generally asks about is there going to be any next day drowsiness or other effects. So I think clarifying some of those points and then really finalizing the design with FDA, particularly the long term extension, and how much safety data do they want in addition to the pivotals which are relatively short in duration.

So I think those are some of the things that we’d like to clarify. I think we have a very good handle on all the CMC issues and all the other issues related to manufacturing. We have a process we’re comfortable with. We reviewed a lot of that data already with the agency as well.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Makes sense. And thinking ahead to possible Phase three trial design, I know it’s not finalized yet, but how are you thinking about the different levers that you might use in that trial? So size, duration, endpoints. So what are you thinking about there for pilavapidin?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes. So the two trials we powered were placebo adjusted reduction of 0.6, again from placebo, not from baseline. And many of the other programs that have been reported are really looking patient to baseline and there you get a significant reduction in pain score in all patients. So we’re really looking at roughly that same clinical benefit compared to placebo. I think we have a much better understanding now after running two positive trials on data variability size at sample size and duration.

And I think as we’ve publicly stated before we’re really looking at a single drug arm compared to placebo and we believe that the sample size would be in the range of 300 to 400 patients per group and look at two parallel studies. So these are not really long studies and are not really large studies from the standpoint of cost and complexity. Certainly having run a lot of studies in the cardiovascular area, these are far more easily achievable than, CV outcome studies or heart failure trials.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: I hear you. And just to confirm, so is your base case that you probably need two studies or is there a chance you might only need one after talking to the FDA?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yeah, I think this is a it’s a great question that we’re totally bringing up with the FDA at the end of phase two, meaning I think our base assumption is we would run two trials. I think anyone who runs CNS trials know that often you run three to get two, because a lot of times in CNS drugs there is some variability in the patient data as we’ve demonstrated with the placebo effect here. So our base assumption is run two parallel Phase three trials, probably one in The U. S. And then one U.

S. Global.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Okay. Got it. And then I’ve gotten this question from investors before. Just how are you thinking about possible powering of the upcoming Phase three or two Phase three’s depending on what happens for pilavapidin?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Well, I think that’s really the sample size that we’re looking at is that range of 300 to 400. And again, I think we’ve got a much better understanding of the variance of the data, which would feed directly into the sample size. And again, we’re looking at a placebo adjusted reduction in that same range of 0.6. Overall reduction in the pain score though is probably going to be in the range of close to two when you look at the data, right, we’re at 1.75, in this most recent trial with the ten milligram arm.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: And bigger picture, I know you’ve messaged pilavapidin maybe a good candidate for a possible partnership down the road. So can you just level set for us, how are you thinking about that going forward as you go forward to talk with the FDA, etcetera?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes. So I’ll answer it from a medical and scientific standpoint. I think Scott certainly can add some additional color to that. We believe that having a partner on this would be very valuable, for a couple of reasons. The first is that neuropathic pain is a very large area, and there are a number of indications where this drug has already demonstrated significant activity beyond DPNP, particularly postherpatic neuralgia, chemotherapy induced neuropathic pain.

There’s other interesting data that we have from the animal models about looking at spasticity pain states. Those that come to mind would be things like MS and spinal cord injury and we’ve demonstrated activity in both those in preclinical models. So we think that there’s a broad issue around scope. There’s also the issue around geography and to really do a global program, we’d probably want to run separate trials particularly in Asia. First of all, there’s going to be the requirement in Japan and China to run trials in those geographies, but also really having a partner that understands the regulatory and clinical environment in those countries specifically where there are a lot of cultural and other differences regarding pain and pain management.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yep. Got it. And then just thinking about this, you mentioned post herpetic neuralgia and MS spasticity. Could you just remind us, what’s some of the early data showing for pilavapidin and what would you want to see to encourage you to move forward in these indications?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: I think this is an area where having the interaction with a partner could be very useful as well as talking to the agency some more after we get the DPNP program running. The models we’ve looked at and some which has been presented and published is that when you give pilavapidin in a number of these murine models whether it’s a partial spinal ligation or an MS model demyelination type model that you see reduction in neuropathic pain or what is the model for neuropathic pain in these murine models. So we feel that there’s a good basis for that but you would really need to do a develop full development program in that starting with pilot studies and trying to understand what are the right patients for that. But this these could be potentially really important drugs for certainly spinal cord injury is a major unmet need. And MS, I mean there are good therapies there right now, but not really to manage the pain associated with MS.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yep. Got it. And zooming out a little bit in the neuroscience space, sometimes placebo effect is a thing in trial design. So curious as you pursue some of these different indications, what are your strategies that you’d love to employ to just help control placebo effect, help run tight trials, etcetera?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Based on having run now three trials in this area, I think site selection, patient identification, doing the right run-in, training the sites on the diagnostic tests for neuropathic pain are really, really important. And I think those are some of my key takeaways having now run three of these trials is that that level of site selection, training of the sites and the patient, making sure that patients can actually fill out the diaries correctly, that they do it reproducibly, that they’re actually taking the medication, that patient population selection is very important. And it’s also important that the sites really know their patients. And I think we’ve seen much better performance where these sites have actually worked with these patients and know these patients as opposed to sort of advertising and bringing patients to the site.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yes, got it. Great. So I’ll switch gears to your commercial product, sotagliflozin, and for heart failure and just thinking about the where it stands in the market today versus standard of care. I did want to ask, how are you planning to continue to put out the differentiation sort of messaging of sotagliflozin versus other classes like SGLT2s, etcetera? Like how are you thinking about that?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes, we look at HCM as sort of a two pronged strategy. The first is differentiation of the dual SGLT1 and two and as a reminder sotagliflozin is the only dual inhibitor that’s been approved, in the SGLT class. And we’ve demonstrated that there is SGLT1 expression in the gut, on the myocardium and on the endothelium and then platelets. And over the last couple of years, we’ve done quite a bit of work to demonstrate mechanistically that by inhibiting SGLT1 and two, you have incremental effects on reducing a number of inflammatory markers, proteins and gene expression. We’ve also demonstrated that there is far less agglomeration of platelets, so much less thrombosis formation when you give animals sotagliflozin versus empagliflozin, which is a pure SGLT2 inhibitor and some of that data was presented last year at ASH.

It was a very interesting paper that was just published in Lancet Diabetes within the last month that demonstrated that out of all the pivotal trials that were conducted only sotagliflozin shows a reduction in at risk patients. These are at risk for heart failure in MACE patients in both stroke and MI. So that has not been seen with any other SGLT2 inhibitors. So I think continue to develop the story particularly on MACE where these patients with heart failure remain at very high risk of MACE related events and also the data in HFEPEF and there was some data presented last year in both, HCM related models and others that showed reduction in cardiac work in these slices that were cardiac slices from humans that were given soda and that gave us great confidence going forward in HCM. So I think it’s positive study in HCM both obstructive and non obstructive.

Then also continuing to develop the mechanistic story on reduction in stroke and MI and thrombosis and endothelial platelet interactions. And then the third is continuing our work in HFpEF specifically and demonstrating that you get continued good response in terms of reduction of heart failure events in those with normal or near normal ejection fraction. That composite together we hope will lead to significant differentiation and a resistance or reluctance to try to do any sort of substitution for an SGLT2 inhibitor upon approval of sotagliflozin in HCM.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Makes sense. So we did want to pivot to the HCM potential label expansion there for sotagliflozin. So how are you thinking about soda fitting into treatment paradigm for HCM? We’ve got the CMIs that have been recently approved, or at least one of them, and then standard of care, beta blockers, etcetera. Like, where does SOTA fit in that lineup?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yeah. It’s a it’s a great question. And I think one of the areas that is really exciting to a lot of the clinicians that are participating in the trial is that we’re allowing the drug to be used on top of any background therapy. So the entry criteria is symptomatic disease as measured by KCCQ score below 80. And in that regard, the patients can be on a CMI, they can be on a beta blocker, they can be on a calcium channel blocker.

It’s similar to the approach we took when we did the heart failure program that we included both HFpEF and HFref in a single trial. Nobody else did that. We believe that there’s a strong mechanistic basis for it. We also believe that it is a far more efficient way to run our clinical trials both in terms of time, size and cost. And in that regard, allowing patients also with an ejection fraction much lower than the CMIs have.

You’re going to have far greater utility of this drug either on top of a CMI in obstructive. It’s not really clear yet whether the CMIs are going to work in non obstructive disease and I think there’s a fair amount of discussion will they work as effectively in non obstructive as obstructive. And I think the future of HCM is there’s going to be I would imagine over time again this is speculation on my part, but there’s going to be far more non obstructive disease than obstructive disease once people start looking with genetic markers for non obstructive HCM.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yep. Got it. And so you’re starting to talk about the different segments of HCM, like obstructive versus non obstructive. And in context of your Phase three, like, how is enrollment going across those two different buckets? I think it’s really interesting you’re colluding both.

And you know what should we know about how those two populations tend to respond in HCM trials?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes, it’s a great question. One of the rationales for doing the program the way we did is that the underlying genetic malformation or genetic issues in both the HCM, both obstructive and non obstructive are kind of the same because in a significant percentage of patients, if you remove the obstruction, you still have heart failure or if heart failure returns within five to ten years. So if you look at the genetic underlying issues, they are not so dissimilar. So we believe that the drug will have utility in both. What we’re seeing right now and I think we’ve publicly talked about this and it’s posted on CLIN trials is that we’re looking at a single 500 patient study, stratified both obstructive and non obstructive two fifty patients each.

We’re doing the trial in 20 countries. We’ve opened a number a large number of sites in The U. S. And certainly are shooting to have all 30 sites in The U. S.

Open in a short period of time. We’re already opening sites in other countries starting with The UK and we have country approvals in most countries that we’ve targeted for this trial. So really looking at broad representation across the globe and the feedback we get from most sites is that this trial is going to be relatively appealing because the entry criteria are open, very open compared to the others. The duration of treatment is short, it’s only twenty six weeks and you don’t need to do all of the intensive echoes and other things that are associated with the HCM trials, as the CMI trials as well as there’s a single endpoint which is KCCQ and New York Heart is the main secondary endpoint. So you don’t need a lot of the complicated physiologic testing.

I think FDA is moving away from, but many other companies are still performing those, those type of analyses. And I think they need to because with soda we’ve already demonstrated we reduce mortality, and heart failure events where the CMIs really have only demonstrated symptomatic relief and that data will only come with time for that class of medication.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Interesting. And just to confirm, with your interactions with the FDA, does it sound like you probably only need one Phase three?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Oh, yes. That is what the feedback they’ve given us.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yep. Got it. And so let’s assume the Phase three works. What would the next steps be in terms of thinking about commercial prep, strategy, marketing, etcetera?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes. Again, I think ideally, Lexicon would focus in The U. S. On the cardiology community and in a sense this one is even easier than heart failure because the number of centers that are treating HCM is much smaller. I think the opportunity could exist with a drug like soda that HCM treatment could move more into the community because it’s far less complex to deal with.

But our goal would be we would continue to be interested in focusing on the cardiology world in The U. S. And really our partner, Viatris already has the rights to soda outside of The U. S. And Europe.

And Europe, I think is a really interesting opportunity for HCM because I think it could have a really interesting fit in the reimbursement realm in Europe.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Got it. And yes, just to remind some investors that don’t know about the Viatris sort of partnership there, can you just remind us about the terms and what motivated that collaboration there?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Jonathan, now we’re to Scott.

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: Yes, sure. So we announced the partnership in the fourth quarter of last year. It came with a $25,000,000 upfront payment to Lexicon and the ability for us to achieve up to another $200,000,000 in milestones and royalties. The partnership has gotten off to a great start. And in fact, Beatrice has even indicated publicly that they are moving forward with their efforts to register in their key geographic areas, and that effort is moving forward in 2025.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Interesting. And I also want to give you a chance to talk about your earlier stage assets. So with the obesity program, could you talk about your longer term vision for this program? Where could it fit in the treatment paradigm?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: Yes. So we’ve publicly talked about obesity is really a very broad area and this asset would be best served by having a partnership. Moving into Phase one, I think is really pretty straightforward and we’re certainly prepared to do that. We’re doing all the IND enabling studies this year and we’re targeting potentially to be first in human before the end of the year. And I think in obesity, we have what we believe will be a once daily oral medication that is non Ingridin based.

And in the animal models, we’ve demonstrated the drug works, independently alone to cause weight loss. It works on top of maximum dose semaglutide and it even works if you would draw the semaglutide and add nine thousand eight hundred and fifty one that you continue to maintain weight loss. So I think there’s a lot of areas of opportunity where the drug could work because also with the mechanism, the ACSL5 mechanism, we believe in the animal models demonstrate there’s a significant reduction in liver fat and also reduction in coronary plaque in certain animal models which fits with the mechanism which is a critical step in the synthesis of triglycerides and the distribution of the enzyme along the border of the ileum and in the liver. Phase one I think would be pretty straightforward. We want to demonstrate that the drug cause weight loss that it’s well tolerated and that the mechanism is not dependent on the Inkerton system.

I think those are really three critical domains in the phase one program.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: And is your thought that this would possibly be combined with future agents or how how are you thinking about

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: that? Yeah. I mean, I think the standard of care right now is to start with an incretin, or an incretin like mechanism. You get dramatic weight loss in a significant number of patients. I think the interesting thing or the important thing to note is that the duration of treatment with these agents is fairly short, six to twelve months for a majority of patients.

So for one reason or another, patients just do not stick with these therapies over the long run. So I I think there’s going to be a need for a number of different mechanisms. I think that what people are thinking now and again there’s plenty of people who know this area better than I do is that using the InkerTins for rapid early weight loss is probably going to be hard to replace, but that there’s going to be other class of medications that would probably be important for the long term maintenance of that weight loss or other objectives that patients have along with just loss of mass.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yes, interesting. And so wanted to zoom out a little bit in the last few minutes. So you have a bunch of things going on. You’ve got running the Phase III for HCM, potentially starting up a Phase III, potentially with a partner for pilavapidin. So where do you stand on cash runway?

And how are you thinking about executing on all those fronts in terms of balance sheet, resources, things like that?

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: So thanks for the question. So as Craig alluded to, we do have those three key objectives, which we are funding at the moment. In terms of pilavapatin, we are doing a lot of behind the scenes work to keep the train moving, if you will, so that if a partner does come on board, that we’re not losing any time. Time is really important to us here. So we are doing some of the background work.

The HCM trial is again fully funded and ongoing. And we are our budget assumes the development and the progression of 09/1951 for the IND filing by the end of this year. And we have guided last week that our operating expenses for 2025 will be in the range of $140,000,000 to $150,000,000 So all those activities fully funded with a cash runway that certainly takes us into 2026.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Understood. And I know in the past, you’ve done restructuring and things like that. Is that on the table when you’re considering moving forward? Or how are you thinking about that?

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: No. Look, I think in my seat, there’s always an ongoing evaluation of costs and where you can reduce costs, potentially eliminate costs. So I think that’s an ongoing effort that just doesn’t stop as far as I’m concerned. So we’ll continue to take a look at those type of items

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: and

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: look to save wherever possible.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Yes. And in terms of thinking about the next year or two, what data catalyst or regulatory events should we be watching for? And where would you think investor eyes should be focused on the most?

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: I think that what we’re looking to do is, not to oversimplify it, but execute, execute, execute, right? And we are focused on those three items that Craig alluded to. And I think that investors should focus on that and measure us against those achieving our objectives in those three areas because it’s important for us to continue to find ways to invest and ultimately help patients. And that’s what we look to do when we come to work each day. So we should be evaluate on the progress that we make on those three primary areas of focus.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Okay, great. And last question before we close out. I was curious, what do you think investors currently under appreciate or might warrant more digging in, in terms of your different programs? Like, where should they be doing more work?

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: Your thoughts, Craig?

Craig Granowitz, CMO, Lexicon: I think really understanding the neuropathic pain opportunity and to have three positive studies in neuropathic pain, compared to others. I think that’s an area that still investors, I think, are trying to wrap their their heads around. It’s a new area. There hasn’t been a novel agent approved in neuropathic pain since Lyrica in 02/2002. And I think it’s just an area that when you think about morbidity associated days of life lost, neuropathic pain is in the top five worldwide.

So the scope and scale of this problem is really large, but I think the investor community and I give the investor community a lot of credit, they’re coming up to speed quickly, but I think there’s a lot of still education that needs to be done regarding endpoints, trial design, patient types, even basic definitional issues of how do you define what neuropathic pain is that we look forward to really working with the investment community to bring forward. Yes.

Ruana Ruiz, Senior Biotech Analyst, Leerink: Sounds good. And with that, we’re at time. So Scott and Craig, thank you so much for joining us.

Scott Chiante, CFO, Lexicon: Thank you, Yaronna.

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