 Want to learn about stocks, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the metaverse? Join RichTV.io. Hi, how are you doing today? I'm your host, Rich, here on behalf of RichTV Live with our very special guest, the CEO of Equilium, Inc. Bruce Steele. How are you doing today, Bruce? I'm very well, thanks, Rich. Very much appreciate you having me on the show today. Very excited to have you on the show and learn more about Equilium, Inc. And Bruce, my first question is, once again, pleasure to have you on the show, really looking forward to learning more about Equilium, Inc. Can you tell us how you got involved in the company and how long you've been involved with the company? Sure, so I've been involved with the company from the very beginning days. My colleague, Steve Connolly, our chief scientific officer and Dan Bradbury, our executive board chair. The three of us started the company back in 2017 around a desire to build a leading biotech company focused on developing novel therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory disorders of high end medical need. And so we kind of conceived of the company and started this together, I guess it's now coming up on six years. Fantastic, congratulations on all of your success so far. Now, 2022 was a very rough year in the markets and despite the market conditions, can you tell us what were your top three milestones that Equilium hit that shareholders should be excited about? Sure, definitely a very challenging year for the sector. And notwithstanding those challenges, we decided to kind of build the company during the year. So in terms of three major objectives and accomplishments, first was we acquired a local Southern California biotech company, Bionist Therapeutics to expand our pipeline first in class novel therapeutic agents. So through that acquisition, we added two drug candidates to our portfolio and as well an underlying novel discovery platform for the ability to generate additional drug candidates. But importantly, two drug candidates to the pipeline including one that had already been through significant proof of concept evaluation in the clinic. Both of those drugs are now back in clinical development which was a primary objective following that acquisition was to get those programs back into patients. And then the next was reading out the interim data from our Lupus nephritis study of Edelizumab which was our foundational program. So we provided some key interim updates around that program back in September timeframe showing that Edelizumab appears to be quite active in terms of addressing the underlying high levels of protein area afflicting these patients that drive comorbidities and potential mortality in that patient population. We also related to Edelizumab started a phase three study in a QG VHD. So that study is now actively enrolling and recruiting patients. So we crossed from sort of an early stage development company into a late stage development company with that program with the initiation of our phase three equator study in a QG VHD. And then based on those two events during the course of the year in terms of a third key milestone which we announced in December was a strategic partnership with Ono Pharmaceutical out of Japan. This is one of Japan's top pharmaceutical companies where we struck a strategic partnership whereby they have now an option to acquire Edelizumab based on delivering additional data from those two studies that I just mentioned. Very importantly, that strategic partnership very much stabilized equilibrium from a cash standpoint and a runway standpoint where we now based on that partnership expect to have operating runway as we stand today comfortably into the 2025 timeframe. So completely removing any near term needs for us to raise additional capital. If Ono exercises their option during the option period we would expect that would significantly further extend our operating runway probably into 2026 or beyond based on what we'll be developing at the time. So really gave us both kind of a near term reprieve from the capital markets and potentially even a longer term one if they exercise their option but basically gives us a very strong cash balance at the end of the year which included approximately a $26 million up front payment for the option exercise as well as reimbursement from Q3 and Q4 expenses related to Edelizumab. So we're very pleased with that transaction and what it does to stabilize equilibrium and allow us to fully fund our wholly owned assets with our EQ 101 and 102 programs that I mentioned that we acquired earlier this year. Wow, sounds like you guys have had a really busy year and congratulations on achieving all of your milestones. Now with 2023 just getting started I'm sure the company has a lot of goals that you wanna hit this year. Can you tell us what are the three main milestones that shareholders should be looking for this year? Yeah, so as mentioned, we have initiated now our phase two study of EQ 101. This is our first in class novel therapeutic targeting aisle two, nine and 15. And we've initiated this phase two study in patients with alopecia ariata. This is an area of high line medical need. We've just seen the first drug approved which is a Jack inhibitor for this therapy indication that approach looks good but continues to have sort of the baggage that affects all Jack inhibitors based on cytotoxicity and other side effects. So we know patients across therapeutic areas that respond to Jack inhibitors are in need of programs that are potentially as are more efficacious but with a better safety profile. And we think our approach with EQ 101 may be able to provide that. So we have initiated that study during the second half of last year. We expect to see some initial data from that program during the course of 2023. So we think that's gonna be some potentially very exciting data for us. And we're the only drugging development with this targeting approach of targeting IL-2, 9 and 15 to treat these patients with alopecia ariata. The second program that we wholly own EQ 102 is again a first in class novel therapeutic targeting IL-15 and 21 selectively. We during the second half of last year initiated our initial study in patients under a sad and mad program in patients, sorry, in normal healthy volunteers. We're moving quite quickly through that course of the sad mad program. And then following that, we expect to initiate the evaluation of that program in patients with celiac disease. Again, an area very high in the need where today there are no drug approved, no drugs approved to treat patients with celiac disease. So during the course of this year, we hope to move into that proof of concept study in patients with celiac disease, assuming the sad mad portion of the study is successful. And then the third key milestone is that we expect to deliver top line data from our study in lupus nephritis of elizumab. This is our program that's partnered with Elinoparmaceutical. And that top line data is one of the key deliverables under that partnership that Elinot was expecting to see in addition to data from our QGVHD phase three study and that's ongoing as well that we would expect to follow the LN data. So I'd say during 2023, three key data events, the EQ-101 alipishariata phase two initial data, data from our study of EQ-102 and sad mad healthy volunteers moving into celiac disease patients and then our LN study of elizumab. Wow, sounds like 2023 is gonna be a busy year. A lot of catalysts. Now you touched on revenue and we love to learn about revenue guidance here at Rich TV Live with our community of retail and institutional investors. In the next three years, what would you say are the revenue goals for Quillian? So in terms of revenue, the strategic partnership we struck with Onoparmaceutical company earlier, sorry, at the end of last year in December provided us some revenues in terms of upfront payments from Ono for that strategic partnership agreement. They will continue to reimburse us for R&D expenses related to the development of elizumab through their option exercise period which we expect will be approximately a two-year period. If they opt in on the program we would get additional revenue from their option exercise fee as well as potential milestone revenues from certain events related to elizumab development and approval. So we think we have some nice revenue opportunities from the partnership with Ono. The first product revenue would likely be achieved on the approval of the acute GVHD indication if that program is successful in phase three development and that revenue would either accrue to Ono or to Quillian depending upon the outcome of their option period. So we're still a few years away from product revenue but we've had some nice revenue realized from the Ono partnership and expect to continue to receive payments from Ono as we're going through the research and development program and potentially when they exercise. And again, our runway guidance has extended considerably based on prior to that transaction into the 2025 timeframe virtually sort of alleviating any near-term financing requirements which certainly in this challenging capital market environment gives us a pretty enviable position from that standpoint. Absolutely agree with you. Obviously right now cash is king. Can you give us a quick review of your capital structure that's very important to us understanding your total shares, total shares outstanding, how much money the company also has in the bank? Can you give us an update on those two key areas? Sure. So we have approximately 34 to 35 million shares outstanding and all of this information obviously is available in our regulatory filings. From a cash standpoint, we have not provided our year-end cash just yet. You can refer to our Q3 cash position and we have based on the Q3 cash which was a $44 and a half million cash balance at that standpoint. And our operating cash burner in Q3 was around 13 million. You can sort of back into what our cash number should be at the end of the year when you factor in the Ono transaction where we brought in an additional 26 million up front plus reimbursement for Elismab spending for all of Q3 and the advances for Q4 and Q1 of this year. So we haven't given a specific cash number but I think people will be very pleased to see our cash balance when we come out with our 10K following the end of the year. Bruce, another thing that's really important to our community is finding companies that have CEOs and directors that have skin in the game. Can you talk a little bit about your position in the company and how many shares you're holding? Yeah, Rich, that's a great question. So when we started the company, we had a very concentrated shareholder base with the three founders as well as our strategic partner Biocon. And so we've been very judicious about how and when we've raised capital over the duration since we started the company. And so of the roughly 34 and a half million or so shares outstanding, my co-founder and our executive chair, Dan Bradbury and I still own all of the shares we've ever owned. We've not sold any stock since inception of the company. And I think collectively we own over 20% of the company as we sit here today. So we are completely aligned with shareholders. And it's worth noting that the biotech sector is highly capital intensive. And unfortunately, a lot of companies, and I would say, perhaps a majority of companies do get to a point where the manager teams are somewhat misaligned with shareholder interests in that, they'll raise money at sort of any price, not worry about dilution with the expectation that they'll kind of get re-upped on their stock options. We've never had that mindset here. We've always had the mindset of wanting to be highly aligned with our shareholders and our cap structure today still indicates that alignment. So we think carefully about what we do here. We think carefully about dilution and how we're planning to kind of build and grow the company. And as mentioned earlier, the recent announcement around the strategic partnership with Ono Pharmaceutical has really eliminated any near-term financing requirement for the company. And we were very pleased to have been able to accomplish that recognizing that we expect 2023 to continue to be a challenging year for the sector, certainly from a capital market standpoint. The corollary to that is it presents a great opportunity for investors to think about focusing on companies that can create significant value on their existing pipeline, on their existing cash. And we very much fit that sort of mode and thesis right now. Fantastic. And is there anything else you want? Institutional investors, retail investors, anyone that's watching to take away from this interview today? Yeah, I think it's that, you know, our mission really is to dramatically change lives of patients with severe autoimmune inflammatory disorders. We have three distinct novel first in class programs that we think mechanistically are highly differentiated from other programs that are approved and in development for the indications we're pursuing. We have, you know, strategic collaboration, partnership with Ono Pharmaceutical, you know, a leading Japanese pharma company that really gives us great financial foundation going forward where we don't need to go to the capital markets certainly during the course of this year and, you know, likely not until sort of the 2025 timeframe, which is the runway guidance we've provided at this point. And perhaps longer if, you know, the Ono partnership continues to play out as we hope that it may. And we're looking forward to some key catalysts this year from our wholly owned pipeline of EQ 101 and 102 in both the Alopecia Ariata Study as well as our initial first in man development program with the EQ 102. So it should be a very exciting year for us and we're, you know, incredibly pleased to have very strong, you know, partnership with Ono that gives us, you know, very sound footing as we head into the beginning of the year. My last question, Bruce, what is the best way for investors that have any questions to get in touch with the company? Yeah, so they can reach out to us on our website is our email address that goes into our head of IR and we're, you know, happy to follow up with investors that may have questions about the programs and our strategy. So they can, you know, we would refer them to our website for additional information on the clinical development programs on our Ono partnership as well as information on how to reach us. So it's QuillianBio.com, EQ, UI, LL, IUM, BIO.com and we'd be happy to follow up. Fantastic. Now I must remind investors that Rich TV Lab is strictly for information and education purposes. Please do your due diligence, do your research before you invest in anything we talk about or discuss. In saying that, we feel that this is a company that's very undervalued, under-appreciated and under-exposed. Take a look at the symbol EQ on the NASDAQ and thank you so much for joining us today as the CEO of Equilium Inc, Bruce Steele. Thank you for joining us today, Bruce. Rich, greatly appreciate your time and we hope this was useful for your audience. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time and we'd love to have you back in the future. And for those of you that are watching, thank you for watching. For those of you that are not watching, if you're not winning, you're probably not watching. We bring you the winners, we bring you the news, CEO interviews, chart analysis and we bring them to you first. Thank you for watching everybody. This is Rich from Rich TV Live with the CEO of Equilium Inc symbol EQ on the NASDAQ with Bruce Steele saying, have a nice day. We'll see you soon.