Vir Biotechnology, Inc. (NASDAQ:VIR) Q4 2023 Results Conference Call February 22, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Sasha Damouni Ellis - Executive Vice President, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer

Marianne De Backer - Chief Executive Officer

Phil Pang - Chief Medical Officer

Sung Lee - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Nik Gasic - Leerink Partners

Eva Privitera - TD Cowen

Patrick Trucchio - H.C. Wainwright

Eric Joseph - JP Morgan

Alec Stranahan - Bank of America

Joseph Stringer - Needham & Company

Michaels Ulz - Morgan Stanley

Operator

Hello. Welcome to Vir Biotechnology’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results and Business Update Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

I will now turn the call over to Sasha Damouni Ellis, Executive Vice President, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. You may begin, Ms. Damouni Ellis.

Sasha Damouni Ellis

Thank you, and good afternoon. With me today are Dr. Marianne De Backer, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Phil Pang, Chief Medical Officer; and Sung Lee, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements we are making today are forward-looking statements under the securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause our clinical development programs, future results, performance or achievements, to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties and risks associated with our business are described in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Marianne De Backer.

Marianne De Backer

Thank you, Sasha. Good afternoon, to everyone on the webcast, and thank you all for joining us today. Before we discuss the tremendous progress we made in 2023 and what's ahead in 2024, I want to touch on the announcement we made earlier this week that Phil Pang, our Chief Medical Officer, has decided to step down at the end of March to spend more time with his family. We have initiated a search for a successor. I want to sincerely thank Phil for his leadership. He leads a strong clinical development team in place, positioning us well for continued success, and I wish him the very best. Stepping in as Interim Chief Medical Officer is Dr. Carrie Wang, currently Vir’s Senior Vice President Clinical Research. As I reflect on 2023, I'm proud of the clinical progress we have made towards developing a potential treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis delta, a potential functional cure for the millions living with chronic hepatitis B, as well as a differentiated approach to preventing HIV. Our priority is to deliver on our mid stage clinical pipeline, while also refocusing our research and early pipeline to programs beyond infectious disease. We anticipate significant data readouts this year, which build off last year's programs across all our clinical programs. Specifically, already in the first quarter, we anticipate completing the enrollment of approximately 60 participants across two cohorts in SOLSTICE, our Phase 2 hepatitis delta trial. We attributed rapid rate of enrollment to the positive clinician and patient interest following the initial data we reported at AASLD last year.