DURECT Corporation (NASDAQ:DRRX) Q2 2024 Results Conference Call August 13, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Tim Papp - CFO & Secretary
Jim Brown - Co-Founder, CEO, President & Director
WeiQi Lin - EVP, Research & Development and Principal Scientist

Conference Call Participants

François Brisebois - Oppenheimer
Ed Arce - H.C. Wainwright
Carl Byrnes - Northland Capital Markets

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DURECT Corporation Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Tim Papp. Thank you. You may begin.

Tim Papp

Good afternoon, and welcome to DURECT Corporation's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This is Tim Papp, Chief Financial Officer of DURECT.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you of our safe harbor statement. During the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding DURECT's products and development, expected product benefits, our development plans, future clinical trials or projected financial results.

These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks can be found in our SEC filings including our 10-K and 10-Qs under the heading Risk Factors.

To begin, I would like to review our second quarter 2024 financial results. Total revenues in the second quarter of 2024 were $2.2 million, compared to $2.1 million in 2023. 2024 revenues were slightly higher due to a small increase in revenue from collaborations.

R&D expense was $2.2 million in the second quarter of 2024, compared to $7.9 million for the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to lower clinical trial-related expenses, facility and lower employee-related costs.

SG&A expenses were $3 million in the first quarter of 2024, compared to $3.8 million for the prior year. The decrease was primarily due to lower employee facility, market research and professional services expenses.

As of June 30, we had cash and investments of $15.8 million and our cash burn for the second quarter was $5.8 million. We believe our cash on hand is sufficient to fund operations through the end of 2024.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to Jim for a business update.

Jim Brown

Thank you, Tim. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today.

I'm excited to share an update on our progress towards initiating our confirmatory Phase III clinical trial for larsucosterol in alcohol-associated hepatitis. As I mentioned on previous calls, we have been in discussions with the FDA about our proposed clinical trial design, and I'm happy to say that the dialogue with the agency has been positive. The FDA has confirmed that a single pivotal trial would be sufficient to support an NDA filing in AH. They also clearly recognize the unmet need in AH and the strong results of larsucosterol and our Phase IIb trial AHFIRM.