Xi Lab at Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference: Strategic Growth Insights

Published 04/06/2025, 20:12
Xi Lab at Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference: Strategic Growth Insights

On Wednesday, 04 June 2025, Xi Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB) presented an optimistic outlook at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2025. The company highlighted its strategic plans for revenue growth, profitability, and advancements in its product pipeline. While reaffirming its revenue guidance, Xi Lab also addressed competition and market challenges, particularly in the Chinese healthcare sector.

Key Takeaways

  • Xi Lab reaffirmed its 2025 revenue guidance of $560 million to $590 million, projecting over 40% growth.
  • The company aims for profitability by Q4 2025, leveraging flat operational expenses.
  • Vivgart’s sales in China showed a strong rebound post-Q1 seasonal dip, with significant growth expected.
  • Promising data from the DLL3 ADC program in small cell lung cancer positions Xi Lab ahead of competitors.
  • Xi Lab is exploring partnerships for commercialization while maintaining a focus on early-phase assets in oncology and immunology.

Financial Results

  • 2025 Guidance:

- Revenue expectations between $560 million and $590 million, indicating over 40% sales growth.

- Profitability targeted by the end of 2025, driven by sales growth and stable operational expenses.

  • Vivgart Sales:

- First-year sales in 2024 reached $93 million.

- Q1 2025 sales were $18 million, affected by seasonality.

- Strong sales growth anticipated, particularly in the second half of 2025.

  • NRDL Price Adjustment:

- A single-digit price decline expected in January 2026.

Operational Updates

  • Vivgart in China:

- Approved in 2023, with NRDL listing achieved in January 2024.

- Sales impacted by Chinese New Year but rebounded strongly in April 2025.

  • GMG Treatment Guidelines:

- National guidelines in China to be updated in June, benefiting Vivgart’s positioning.

  • New Indications:

- Pursuing NRDL inclusion for Hytrulo and CIDP, with CIDP expected to drive future sales.

Future Outlook

  • DLL3 ADC Program:

- Data presented at ASCO showed a 79% overall response rate with favorable safety.

- Plans for a second-line registrational study, with ORR data expected in 2026.

  • IL-thirteen thirty one Bispecific:

- Phase one study to start later this year, offering potential for less frequent dosing.

  • Commercialization:

- Open to partnerships in the US for DLL3, with plans to potentially field their own sales force.

Q&A Highlights

  • Vivgart Sales Rebound:

- April marked the best sales month, with continued growth expected.

  • NRDL Negotiation:

- Anticipates minor price adjustments in 2026.

  • DLL3 ADC Competition:

- Xi Lab’s DLL3 ADC is seen as leading competitors by up to eighteen months.

In conclusion, Xi Lab’s presentation at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2025 outlined a robust growth strategy, with a focus on innovation and strategic partnerships. For a detailed account, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2025:

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Thank you. Good morning. We are excited to kick off the next session with Xi Lab. We have the Chief Operating Officer, Josh Smiley, with us. Exciting times at Xi Lab.

Obviously, been executing on the commercial front in China. So that’s an important thing we want to talk about with Vivgart and all the commercial success in China because you got guidance and all these other things. So we’ve to talk about that. And obviously, we want to talk about the pipeline, particularly the wholly owned pipeline, which is a big change for Zai Lab because now you have global wholly owned drugs and you just came away from ASCO. Great, great ASCO.

I don’t know how often Zai Lab is at ASCO, but you have presenting your own data. So let’s start with just 2025. Josh, you reported first quarter, you gave guidance. First quarter, to be fair and I’m not the only sell side analyst right now, a little bit challenging. I’m going to miss some consensus.

But you reiterated some pretty bullish guidance. So can you tie together how you’re going to hit $560,000,000 to $590,000,000 this year and how you’re going to do all that? You should talk about what’s going on with your guidance and your confidence on 2025.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having us. So for 2025, we’ve given the guidance for sales of $560,000,000 to $590,000,000 which would imply sales growth in the 40% -plus range.

I think the range of $30,000,000 is mostly driven by we’ve got a couple of new launches this year, OGTYRO and ZACDORO. So estimating where they come out is it’s a new launch, it’s challenging. We reaffirmed that we gave that guidance at the beginning of the year, we reaffirmed it in our Q1 earnings call. I think how you get there from here is we expect strong sequential quarterly growth Q2, Q3 and Q4. And I think the dynamics that will lead to that start with Vivgart.

As you alluded to, Vivgart was a relatively light Q1. I just remind everybody, we had approval for Vivgart in 2023, but started with NRDL listing in January of twenty twenty four. So last year was really the effective launch year for Vivgart, we sold $93,000,000 which I think is quite impressive for a first year immunology product. First quarter sales were $18,000,000 which was

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: lower than Sequentially down. Which was

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: sequentially down, and I’ll give you the two reasons for that. And I think we now have plenty of rearview mirror analysis time to confirm this. We did see seasonality around Chinese New Year. Now, I know many of you follow the Chinese market and have seen seasonality for a long time. We see patients don’t go to the doctors or hospitals much, we see lots of that.

But we saw it in a pretty pronounced way with Vivgart, driven by the fact that currently on NRDL, Vivgart is only reimbursed through an IV formulation. Formulation. So patients have to go into the hospital to get the IV treatment. Vivgart’s a great drug, but I think patients felt okay skipping a dose or two, going on their holidays, whatever they had planned, in a way that you don’t see probably with IV oncology products. So, we did see very low patient utilization in January and February.

What we did see though in March was a back to normal, by normal meaning levels of patient utilization, hospital consumption that were in line with Q4 of last year. We also then said on the call that April was our best month ever. So growth versus any month in every measure that you would look at.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: So totally bounce back. April was the best month ever.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: That’s right.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: January, February were seasonal impacts. They drove right there.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: That’s right. And now what we’ve said is you should expect very strong sequential growth for Vivgard itself through the year with accelerating sequential growth in the second half of the year. That’s driven both by the just the compounding effect of patients getting onto therapy and coming back in for second, third, fourth, and fifth cycles. But also, there’s a pretty significant change to guidelines for GMG treatment in China that will be rolled out in June. We’ve seen

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: What is the change? It gets added to the guideline?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, so right now, FcRn and of course, Vivgart being the FcRn are recommended in the national guidelines for more acute and refractory usage. In these guidelines, they’ll be moved up for patients who don’t respond well to current therapies or are seeking rapid MSC improvements. So really move it to a maintenance type of setting. This will be important for our efforts to educate physicians. And there still is a big education factor here.

Although we were pleased with the start last year, we still only have about 12,000 patients on Vivgart. There’s 150,000 patients who are on label in China. So there’s a huge opportunity here and we’re quite excited about that.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Okay, so April record level and then continued strong growth May, June guideline changes that take place in the summer. And if you add steady new I mean, you saying are you still kind of holding to the around $1,000 a month type Yeah, yeah. Is that still going on?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yes, that’s still going And again, as you get those thousand, they begin to I say there’s a cumulative effect then of those patients staying on therapy. And that’s why you’ll see

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And then patients come back in because the way it works for Vivint Gard is you take a break. And then they come back based on symptoms. And most people, if you look at The US numbers, come back for a certain number of cycles per year. And that you think that that should totally be on pace so that in our model, there would be actually acceleration sequentially. Some pretty big jumps in third and fourth quarter.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: That’s right. You should, yes. And we’re confident that from what we’re seeing now will lead to that.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Now within that for Vivgart, also there is an adjustment based on not everyone is familiar with the rules that after year two there’s NRDL year two negotiation. When does that happen and when do we find out what if any price adjustment would occur?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, so we are as you mentioned Mike we’re coming up on the two year reset of price that would go into effect in January of twenty twenty six. Typically, there’s about a six month process of renegotiation during the year. And if that process follows historical patterns, it’s we’re in the process now, but it’s sort of September through early December is when the sort of rubber meets the road and December is usually when you hear the price. Now what we know and have seen from the last few years, there have been some significant positive improvements in how these renegotiations work.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Talk about that.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: There’s something called simplified renewal now, which is basically an algorithm for products that are facing a mandatory renegotiation. And it looks at the budget impact and the budget numbers that you projected as part of your initial price setting. And if you’re within sort of if you’re over anywhere from zero to like 200% of that initial projection, there’s a grid you can follow that gives you a mandatory price reset To give some context, if you’re somewhere between 1040% higher than what you projected for that period, the price reduction is between 515%.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Okay. So That’s so significant. Well, I was saying, it’s a big change from a couple of years ago where people saw this and like, oh, you’re over the budget. You can get a pretty big price discount here. It’s a more modest adjustment based on time.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: And what we have said is based on what we know and how we’re seeing sales and otherwise, we think a single digit price decline in this reset is a reasonable expectation.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Good. And then where are the additional indications or things like obviously you have the sub q and obviously a second indication that came CDP. So how does that play into some of the growth for ’twenty six or ’twenty seven?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, so the two big ones that are in front of us for NRDL first time inclusion with Vivgart would be Hytrulo, which is the subcu version. It’s been approved, but it’s not yet on NRDL. So we’ll pursue a separate negotiation and price setting for that.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Is that not supposed to be a similar price?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: The reference price will be IV, but it is looked at as a separate product. So we’ll have to go through that process. And then CIDP is also approved. And it also will need to because of when it was approved, it’s not on NRDL yet. So that’ll also go through a separate price setting.

Again, the reference starting point will be the IV GMG price. So we’ll work through all

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: of those. So yes, the subQ is approved. That should be referenced to a similar price to whatever the IV is. Then that’s nice because people with MG can’t get the sub q.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: But

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: now CIDP is a new indication that happens to use the sub q. So that should be pretty straightforward then.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: That should be pretty straightforward. We see a good opportunity with CIDP. There’s about fifty thousand patients with CIDP in China. But they do use more doses, and they use it more chronically. But they also are in more need of therapy even than the GMG.

So we’re excited to pursue a listing for that.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: So that drives like 27 sales?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, think that’s I think it’s realistic to think of CIDP kicking in in a meaningful way later in the decade.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And then last part about this for 2025 is your idea that if you hit this $5.60 to $5.90, which you and I have discussed, I mean, personally believe a good chunk of that range is Vivgart. You’ve alluded to the idea that with just modest growth of Vivgar, you should still come in that range. And that you somehow could be profitable later this year within that guidance And what’s that? Because OpEx is mostly flattish, you’re going to particularly pay keen attention out of profitability? Like how important is that at the end of the year and what should we take away from

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, it’s really important. We established the marker and the goal about two years ago that we would be profitable by the end of twenty twenty five and have taken, I think, actions to get us in that place, including things like productivity and infrastructure change and otherwise. But right now, where we are is, I think, you should expect is if you look at our Q1 OpEx, we’re where we need to be to drive the sales and the R and D pipeline progress in terms of overall spend. So if you think about sort of a flat sequential OpEx base and growing sales that gets you to profitability in Q4. So we don’t need any heroic actions or new things.

We just need to continue to scale the portfolio.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: I mean, I that’s important, and I’m not saying about 2026. Yeah. But generally, once you’re at that levels, revenues that you’re seeing should continue to be faster than any OpEx. So once you hit that, Yeah.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: This isn’t a one time move for us. Is opening the door to long term profitability.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: That’s a milestone we look forward to this year. And again, let’s look for continued strong Viv Guard sales. Q1 was a little bit seasonal, so I do expect a nice big bounce back in Q2 and Q3. So we’ve to show that to get people on track with that. Now, the other part that’s very important is obviously you guys just hosted a conference call webcast from ASCO.

I think that was yesterday. And I’ve lost track

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: of time. Monday.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And Monday, I just lost track

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: of time. Think your week all blends together, I swear.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: That was Monday morning. And importantly, you guys put up some very strong data at ASCO. And actually, I just came from the Amgen fireside. And they talk about how Tarlatumab and Delta is going to be a billion dollar product. And here you are, and they’re aware of your product, about your response rate.

So tell me what the data at ASCO showed for your DLL3 small cell lung cancer ADC, and how fast is this thing moving? Because this thing looks like it could be one of the best small cell lung cancer drugs. And you claim that you’re already going to be in a pivotal study.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Right. Yeah. So on Monday, as Mike mentioned, we did an investor event and we had a poster at ASCO that provided an update on our DLL3 ADC program. In second line small cell lung cancer in the one point six MPK dose, we saw an overall response rate of seventy nine percent and a very, I think, mild safety profile, six percent grade three or higher TRAE. So I think if you look at that relative to Mdaltra, which is also a DLL3 targeted, it’s a bispecific, really significant difference in terms of safety.

And so we were encouraged to see the New England Journal paper from there. I have a conditional approval right now in The US for second line small cell lung cancer. They presented the data on the overall survival study. They showed meaningful overall survival, but still show, I think, some pretty significant safety challenges which make the product challenging to use in The US, and I think they’re off to a good start commercially, but our view is less than forty percent of patients in The US can even access the drug in a second line setting because of the inpatient hospital monitoring required and the logistics that go with that. So FDA has been quite favorable, I think, to finding another maybe safer or alternative.

And what we have said is based on the data that we presented at ASCO, we’re in a position to start a second line registrational study using hopefully the 1.6 that I mentioned. And this will be a two arm study that will

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: is a randomized controlled study. Randomized controlled study. It’s not single arm

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: accelerated approval stuff. That’s right. But we will be able to use ORR data that we can generate in 2026 for an accelerated approval. Then that same trial will roll on survival and serve as the

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: basis Yeah. So let me clarify. Didn’t appreciate that. So the 2026 data so you put up strong numbers at ASCO that is supporting a pivotal study, randomized controlled study. But the data that would read out in 2026 is I don’t know.

You call it an interim look? Yeah.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: It’d be

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: a big interim RR. Yes. And that those response rates would support statistically significantly better data than the control arm, which is chemo. Yeah. That data is also better cross trial comparison to terlatumab.

And that that should set a filing. The confirmatory survival will continue.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Will continue.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: You wouldn’t cross people over. I don’t even know what would happen there. But you will read out survival in ’twenty seven, and that

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: would support the approval. I think what we would say is we’ll read out

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: When would the OR

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: I think survival may be later If you look at the survival in the Tartaratinib trial, think it was thirteen months.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Thirteen months in the New England Journal on Monday.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Right. So that may be later. But I think what we’ve been clear about is enroll the trial by the end of this year. Follow patients for ORR for somewhere in the range of six months, be able to generate that data for an accelerated approval, have an accelerated approval in hand in 2027, and then convert that to a full approval once you have all the survival data.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Okay. So that’s impressive. Now, just to clarify for people, you believe because there is competition coming too we’ll get to that in a second but that people who are looking at terlotamab are seeing potential billion dollars. But you believe that that only is going to be able to target half the market because that drug, as we’ve appreciated now too, if you had a lung cancer doc dinner, that’s at least a two, three day stay in the hospital with tarlatumab Right. And that you don’t believe that you’re gonna have to require that.

So the challenges of administering Tarla Right. Are really limiting that agent. You’re not gonna have in hospital stays.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, there’s nothing we’ve seen in any of the data that would indicate that. Yeah, there’s

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: How does your Okay, that’s a big difference. So you believe there’s a clear value proposition

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yes, absolutely. Commercially.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And the efficacy, too, is better. So what about competition? So there’s another company, Idea. They have a DLL3. That product also came from China.

Your product came from China, by the way. Congrats. It’s business development. They got that. We’ll get to the other ones.

But they have a very similar ADC, and they’re kind of like right behind you. Is that competitor? Do you have any differences to that product? You’re ahead. I think you’re ahead.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, I think when you say they’re right behind us, they’re behind us. I think it’s probably a year to eighteen months behind. So meaningfully behind. And as a function of that, we haven’t seen a lot of data. We really like the product that we have.

We like the this is

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: based on I think all their data is in China. You have China and US. And the data you put out at ASCO, half of that is US patients?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, yeah, yes. Our phase one data, again, we’ve had about 79 patients of data. That’s all from global studies. It includes China. It Right.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: I think half of it’s US. That’s right. Yeah. Okay.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah. So they’re behind. Again, I think as we look at the ADC platforms in China, we really like MetaLink. We’ve worked with them. I think they have seven programs

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: from This program came from MetaLink?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yes.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Okay. And then you’ve in licensed, I think, couple more

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: from you as Yeah, We have an LCCR5 that we’ve also in licensed from So I think their platform’s good. We know it well. I think you guys can all assess that. So we don’t know that because they’re early, the Idea and Roche programs that have been licensed from Chinese companies Roche. Which don’t have a lot of data to compare.

But I think we’re quite confident that we have a first in class ADC here and most likely a best in class as well.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And so what are the next steps? Would you also just to close out on DL3, particular advantage is it’s kind of interesting because you’re trying to get a second line label. However, Tarlatumab has a second line approval. And they are basically quickly moving into first line or they have a first line study going on. And therefore, this idea that they’re technically ahead, does that complicate either the regulatory path or the commercialization?

Because there’s already people that will be getting tirlatumab, and then by the time your drug is on the market in twenty seven, twenty twenty nine, many people will have already had the opportunity to get Tarlatumab. Does your drug work in those patients? Does that complicate things? How do you think about that?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah. In the data that we’ve seen so far, we do have patients who’ve been exposed to Tarlatumab who do respond to RDL3.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Can you give me some numbers? Is that like five people or 10 people?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Think we had four patients, two of which had And the other two have had some tumor shrinkage or stable disease. I think from what we have seen, I think we’re encouraged that the patients can respond after tarlatumab. I think as we think about the path forward, first in the second line study, FDA hasn’t asked us to include in the control arm tardolotumab as a choice. It’s basically a dealer’s choice of chemo. If they do ask us based on the data that’s just been released, we’re Okay with that.

I wouldn’t Well,

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: that’s interesting because they don’t have the confirmatory study just read

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: out. Right, right. They’re not approved.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: So that was literally this week. So they have to file for the confirmatory. That could take a while. At that point, you’ve already completed enrollment in your study. The point is they could allow that as one of the dealer choice chemos in the control arm, which could it’s a good drug.

It could impact the design of your power

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: and things like But not significantly, don’t think. So we’re not again, we’re we would not nervous that they may ask that. If they do, that’s fine.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: It’s more that they’re in the first line. And maybe when you get out to market that drug’s ahead

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: of Maybe they will start to see some first line utilization. Again, what we see is patients respond even after prior DLL3 targeted.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: It’s a big market too. I don’t think

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: that’s right. Now, of course, we’re pursuing the first line indication as well. We’re doing dose optimization.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: With chemo?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yes, with chemo. Again, I think given the profile of the drug, this looks like a really good first line opportunity. What we’ve said is we’ll have data by the end of this year in our dose escalation and optimization work in first line and look to start a first line study next Right.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: So you’re right there. Yeah. And you’ll be there too. Okay. All right.

So that’s exciting about DLL3. Now maybe I could just shift to more of a strategy question because you do have other pipeline products. So if we think that Xi has done a great deal here on the DLL3, You have at least one or two other I think they’re antibodies, and in some cases, bispecifics, ADCs. Yes. C serine, I think, is an ADC.

IL-thirteen 31 is a bispecific. Let’s talk about those two, because those are right behind. And if you think you did a good job here and people are just trying to figure out, is this going to play out? Next year, we could be paying attention to those. So tell me about those two.

I guess I’m focused on IL-thirteen thirty one. Yeah. Tell me about that. And is that a differentiated drug in immunology?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: We think so. So we have an IL-thirteen thirty one bispecific that came out of our own labs. It’ll start a phase one study later this year in both healthy volunteers, but also in patients with atopic dermatitis. We have three potential differentiating factors here versus Dupi or lebrikizumab. The first would be dosing.

This has a long half life. We think we can get to once every at the minimum, once every two months, but maybe as long as once every six months dosing. So I think we know dosing is differentiating factor. I think we see it with lebrikizumab in the market today. We also think there could be a faster onset of action.

Need again, is based on preclinical work. But I guess the home run differentiating factor would be differentiation on itch. And I think we know from atopic dermatitis, that’s the most compelling unmet need. And we’ll have to see that in

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Because you’re combining two mechanisms. Because we’re combining two mechanisms. So you have thirteen thirty one. Lebrikizumab is out there. Yeah.

Dupixent is out there. They, if you go take a look, we were positively surprised. Lebrikizumab has actually been putting up hundreds of millions of dollars already.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: And the efficacy is similar to Dupixent, but it’s a monthly. So there’s some advantage there, but it’s doing hundreds of millions. And also on its way to become a blockbuster drug. Here you have a dual bispecific, could be more efficacious or faster

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: on be faster

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: on And longer acting excuse me, frequent dosing. So all of that.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Right. That’s right. And we’ll generate as I say, we’ll get it into patients this year, early next year, and begin to generate data. And we’ll have to see. But I think there are lots of reasons to be excited about that opportunity.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: So that would be a second wholly owned global rights drug. This is not just selling into China. That’s right. How are you thinking about commercialization of your DLL3? Are you actually going to field a sales force in The United States next year?

You’d be a year in advance. But in the next year, you’re going to to figure out as chief operating officer what you want to do. And that could be trying to sell your own, and come up with your own sales force in The United States against other big cancer companies like Amgen. Would you partner? What would you do there?

You’re going be a fully commercial company in The United States.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, I think first we don’t have any sort of a priority thing that says we have to have our own sales force in The US or anything there. We’ll do what’s best for patients and for shareholders. So we’re open to partnerships, but I think what we know and what I know have from having done business development for a long time, the longer you hold on to an asset, the more leverage you have economics are. So we certainly are prepared in The US to take this all the way to launch and to field our own sales force. I’m not saying that’s we have blinders on.

That’s all we’re going

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: to do. Well, in eighteen months, this thing is going be filed to the FDA. So there’s nothing that you should have. But you’re going have a much more big value creation once you get. So once we get to that, what if a pharma company says, hey, we want that asset or want to partner with you?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: And if the economics look good, if the NPV is better than we think we can do on our own, of course, we’ll entertain that and look to do it. I think as we think about the markets, I think The US frankly is worth the effort. Again, it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t partner, but it’s worth the effort. I think our view is it’s probably less than a hundred person Salesforce. Think, Mike, you’ve probably written some stuff on this.

But I’ve seen if you look at the last 20 launches in The US and rank them by success, I think 10 of the top 20 have come from biotech companies who otherwise hadn’t had a commercial presence. So if you have a good drug, there are lots I’m impressed.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Verona, TG Therapeutics, Madrigal.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah. So I don’t think we shy away from that. At the same time, if there’s a good partner who wants to pay for the rights and partner with us, we’re certainly interested in doing that. In Europe and Japan, we’ll need some kind of partner. It’s not worth it to do it ourselves.

China, of course, we’ve got our own commercial I would say IL-thirteen thirty one is probably a little bit different story. This is a there are lots of subtle differences that go into how you run registration trials. There’s lots of payer impacts and other A

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: lot of money, big studies.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Would love a partner with the right we need to generate the right data. But I think that’s one that we would

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: lean more speaks to whether Xi has an ability to not just sell drugs in China, which is obviously important and are going to be profitable. Do you have the capabilities to bring in innovative drugs from China or elsewhere to do good business developments, that you have your own drugs? And you feel like we’re going to go do more deals, and you feel like you have a good edge in China or other regions to pick up good drugs?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Yeah, I think first look at our history over ten years and the drugs that we brought in for China. I think we’ve got a great success rate in terms of identifying products I think Jonathan’s here somewhere who’s done a lot of this. So I think our instincts and scientific acumen is really good. Whether you’re looking at that for China or for the globe, these are global products that we partnered early. All biotech, they ended up getting most of them get acquired by a big pharma.

I think if you look at our deal with MetaLink on DLL3, we did that early and it moved fast. There’s good emerging innovation in China. We’re well positioned to tap into that. So I think, yeah, you should expect over the next number of years that we’re active on the business development front, that we use our scientific expertise and instincts to do good deals, mostly probably in the early phase where we can where they’re affordable and we can add our own value from a development perspective. So I don’t think Well, we’d do plenty of money to

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: do this. If you were to bring in something are you focused on oncology? Bring in something meaning you’re going to probably do another deal to bring in, again, a potential blockbuster drug around the world. I’ve been like, oh my gosh, if you took one of the 10 GLP-1s, what’s wrong with that? That doesn’t take a lot to get to phase one.

And obviously, everyone’s laughing. But you never know. But if you had a VEGF PD-one, there’s 20 of those. You Well, you want to do oncology?

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Is that I think our expertise certainly is oncology and immunology. That’s and we’re going to launch cobemfi in the Yep. China. But I think scientifically, those are the places we’ll start. Doesn’t mean we won’t branch out.

And yeah, of course, everybody looks at weight loss and metabolic and otherwise. But I think you should more often than not expect us to play to our strengths, which is oncology and immunology.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Well, Josh, thank you very much. Fantastic. I appreciate it. Thank you for the updates at ASCO. And we look forward to the progress this year.

Josh Smiley, Chief Operating Officer, Xi Lab: Great. Thank you.

Mike, Sell Side Analyst: Thank you, Josh.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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