Achieve Life Sciences Inc (ACHV) 2006 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Sonus Pharmaceuticals First Quarter 2006 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

As a reminder this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, May 10, 2006. I would now like turn the call over to Pamela Dull, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you Rod, and good afternoon everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Sonus's First Quarter Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and broadcast live on our website at www.sonuspharma.com. An archive of the webcast will available through the same link.

We’ll use the following agenda for today’s call. First, Mike Martino, Sonus President and CEO will make some opening remarks; next Michael Stewart, our Chief Medical Officer, will update our product development activity including TOCOSOL Paclitaxel, then Alan Fuhrman, our Chief Financial Officer will review our financials. Mike will wrap up the call and finally, we’d be happy to take your questions.

Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that some of the statements made today may include predictions, estimates, and other information that might be considered forward looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our predictions and estimates as a result of various risk factors, including those identified in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005, as well as our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2006. Copies of these can be accessed on our website.

Now I’ll turn the call over to Mike Martino.

Thanks Pam and welcome everyone. In our last update, we outlined our key objectives for 2006. In the short 8 weeks since that call, we’ve remained focused on those objectives, specifically first completing patient enrollment in the Phase III pivotal study of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel; second collaborating with our partner Schering AG to expand the global development of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel; and third, advancing our second Oncology project candidate, SN-2310 injectible emulsion into clinical development.

The short story for this call is that we’ve sustained momentum throughout Q1 and we’re making solid progress towards achieving these objectives. The registered direct offering we announced just over a week ago puts us in a much stronger financial position to implement the programs to achieve these objectives. the financing netted $28.6 million; Alan will discuss the details of the offering later in the call, but I think the key takeaway is that our pro forma cash position of $76.8 million at the end of Q1 provides the means to operate through the first quarter of 2008 to fund our share of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel development expenses and to move SN-2310 injectible emulsion first into Phase I trials and then depending upon the success of that trial, into Phase II trials, and developing one additional IND candidate over that period.

From both the financial and program perspectives, this is clearly the strongest position our Company has been in since we redefined it at the end of 2000. Let me confirm that the most important issue for us, the most important objective for us, and the most important use of our resources continues to be collaborating with Schering AG to secure marketing approval of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel and commercialize it globally.

I’ll now turn the call over to Michael Stewart for a quick update of our product development activities. Michael?

Thanks Mike; I’ll start with the ongoing Phase III trials for TOCOSOL Paclitaxel. As you know, this study was initiated in September 2005 and will enroll 800 evaluable patients. We’ve continued to make very good progress and we expect to meet our goal of fully enrolling the study by the end of September this year. We have enrolled more than 500 women thus far at 140 sites around the world. The Daily Monitoring Committee has met regularly to review all clinical data emerging from the trial. Due to the rapid enrollment, there are no planned interim analyses of efficacy and we do not expect the DMC to release the objective response rate results to us until some time in the second quarter of 2007.

In collaboration with our partner, Schering AG additional clinical trials will be starting this year that will ultimately provide supportive safety and efficacy data for inclusion in the MDA next year or to support the commercial launch of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel in 2008, including data about the use of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel in combination with other therapeutic drugs that are used in the treatment of breast cancer. The details of these studies will be finalized in the coming months, and each study will be announced as it is initiated.

We hope that some of you will be able to attend the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta. As a point of information, Educational Concepts Group will sponsor a satellite symposium entitled “Targeting the Micro-Tubule” on Friday evening, June 2. The symposium is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Berlex Oncology and the presentations will include comments from key opinion leaders about their experience with TOCOSOL Paclitaxel.

I’d also like to mention that the intellectual property protection for TOCOSOL Paclitaxel and for the entire TOCOSOL technology portfolio continues to strengthen. Two new patents have issued since the beginning of this year. We now have 6 U.S. patents and 4 patents outside the U.S. that are specific to TOCOSOL Paclitaxel. In addition, we have 5 U.S. patents covering our proprietary TOCOSOL technology. The entire patent estate includes more than 20 additional applications throughout the world.

In parallel with the activities for TOCOSOL Paclitaxel, we have also made good progress in preparing to submit an investigational new drug application for the first in-human Phase I study of our novel camptothecin product candidate, SN-2310 injectible emulsion. The IND will be submitted to the FDA soon; we’re finalizing the arrangements with investigators, and we look forward to announcing the initiation of the Phase I trial later this year.

With that, I’ll turn the call over to Alan for a review of our financials.

Thank you Michael. I’ll briefly review the financial results for the quarter, which we reported in our press release this afternoon.

For the first quarter of 2006, we reported a net loss of $5.3 million, or $0.17 per share compared to a net loss of $4.8 million, or $0.22 per share for the first quarter of 2005. The planned higher net loss reflects primarily an increased level of spending as we continue to execute the clinical and regulatory plans for TOCOSOL Paclitaxel. Our loss for Q1 2006 is offset in part by revenue we recognized in the first quarter related to our partnership with Schering AG. As previously discussed in our Form 10-K filed in March, there are 2 elements to the revenue; the first is the amortization of the $20 million up-front license fee that Sonus received under the Schering agreement, and the second is the reimbursement of expenses for Schering’s 50% funding of the TOCOSOL Paclitaxel U.S. Core Development Program.

In the first quarter of 2006, we recognized $2.7 million for reimbursed expenses for work completed on the Phase III trial, and $1.4 million for amortization of the up-front license fee. We anticipate increased revenue in 2006 due to higher reimbursement levels of R&D funding from Schering AG for the spending on the clinical programs for TOCOSOL Paclitaxel.

We ended the quarter with $48.2 million in cash and we continue to have no long-term debt. As Mike mentioned, we further strengthened the balance sheet last week through a registered direct offering that netted $28.6 million. On a pro forma basis, our cash position at the end of the first quarter was $76.8 million. In this financing, we sold approximately 6.1 million shares of our common stock to an outstanding group of institutional investors. This brings the number of outstanding shares to 36.8 million, or 45.1 million on a fully-diluted basis. The proceeds from this offering combined with our quarter-end cash balance give us a strong foundation as we continue to fund our share of the remaining development of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel and to expand our efforts to bring additional product candidates forward.

We continue to anticipate that our net cash burn for 2006 will range from $38 million to $40 million consisting of the following; clinical costs in the range of $21 million to $23 million; R&D costs of approximately $8 million; manufacturing costs of $4 million; and general and administrative costs of $6 million. Offsetting this is the interest income we expect to receive in 2006 of $1 million.

Our pro forma cash position provides funding for activities through the first quarter of 2008. Based on our current timeline, we expect TOCOSOL Paclitaxel will receive U.S. marketing approval in the second half of 2008. Product launch in the U.S. will trigger a milestone payment from Schering AG of $15 million if we are approved with non-inferior objective response rate to Taxol, or $40 million if the label is for superior response rate to Taxol.

That completes the financial review and I’ll turn the call back to Mike for some closing remarks.

Thanks Alan. In closing the first quarter was one of sustained progress in the implementation of our business plan. Of course, 2006 is another important year, and our objectives are clear and pretty concise. First, completing patient enrollment in the Phase III trial of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel; secondly, collaborating with Schering AG to initiate additional clinical studies of the product in order to optimize commercial launch; and third, moving our second product candidate, SN-2310 injectible emulsion into clinical development.

With that, we’d like to thank you for joining us today and for your interest. We’ll now open the line up for questions. Rob, would you please take the first question?

Thank you sir. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

Mark Monane, Needham and Company.

Thank you; good afternoon and greetings from the East. Congratulations on your progress. I have 2 questions for the 2 Mikes; the first question is according to the SPA as I understand it, there are a number of ways that Sonus Pharmaceuticals can submit an application based on one well-powered Phase III trial. Maybe Michael Stewart could go over with us what those options are, or either Mike, and what progress has been made, or maybe hasn’t been made outside of Sonus in thinking about some of those issues and those opportunities.

Michael?

Sure Mark; I assume that what you’re referring to has to do with the basis for which the FDA, the agreement that we hammered out with them, which is actually outside of the SPA but it’s the discussions we had with them last summer.

Yes exactly.

To them being able to use the weekly Taxol regimen as the reference regimen as the basis for approval. Certainly, the SPA that includes that very specific regimen that was something the FDA spent a lot of detail on was using the weekly Taxol regimen and the very specific dose they wanted to use in that weekly Taxol regimen. And so I suspect your question has to do with the fact that because this is 505-B2, the very first thing that has to be proved is that we are not taking any efficacy off the table. And therefore, the first statement is to show that you’re no worse than the effect of weekly Taxol on response rate, which is the primary end point that the FDA wanted us to use. And that requires something called a non-inferiority analysis; very specifically what we agreed to do was to show that we use a non-inferiority margin that’s half of what the FDA normally uses.

In other words, we have to use a 25% margin or demonstrate that we preserve at least 75% of the effect of Taxol. And that's the statistical basis, obviously we intended to do better than that. We think we have a chance of going for superiority, so we have built that analysis into the SPA as well.

So the first thing you do is prove non-inferiority and then you analyze the same data set for superiority. And that’s the primary end point and the set of analyses that basically constitute the basis for approval.

Now, from the FDA’s perspective about what they wanted to do in order to get themselves in a position from a regulatory standpoint to use that reference regimen, clearly if we prove superiority there is no issue, then nothing else needs to happen.

If, on the other hand, what we show is non-inferiority but we don’t meet the superiority threshold on that response rate end point, then we have to do then several different things; one of several different things has to happen. One would be that the FDA could under some other reason from some other sponsor change the labeling for the use of Taxol in breast cancer to include a weekly dosing regimen. And that’s something that as you know as we’ve said before that’s something that they are limited in what they can tell us about other than that’s their intention or desire.

The second is that if they don’t do that, then -- and if we are still in a situation of having only prove that we’re non-inferior to the weekly Taxol regimen but not superior -- then the other thing they would like to see is reviewable data from a study that’s already been conducted that compares the effect of Taxol given every 3 weeks to the effect of Taxol given every week in breast cancer. And there were a few studies of that, that have already been conducted. They’ve been, most of them have been publicly reported and basically, it’s an issue of being able to assure that those data are provided to the FDA.

And without going into any further detail, I can tell you what we’ve been saying for the last year since we made these; we spelled this out in our filings with the SEC, which is that we do not believe that any of these requirements will in any way delay or alter the potential approvability of our application. We don’t see a problem with meeting any of these conditions.

Mark, what I would add to that from a business perspective is if you consider the possible outcomes and what may be perceived as inherent risk and how we would manage that risk, I would offer the following; strategy is always about making choices and we believe that success is based on focusing on those things you control and influence.

So from that perspective, we would say that while we continue to be very hopeful that TOCOSOL Paclitaxel will be superior to Taxol, the product is either going to perform or not perform and we can’t base our strategy on that.

Secondly, while FDA has indicated to us that they are intent on changing the label, we don’t control nor influence that nor is it apparent to us that there is a regulatory mechanism in place for them to do that, so our strategy isn’t based on that. So one should anticipate that at least as an insurance policy, we believe that we will have access to data that is reviewable, that will support the filability of our application if it comes to that.

Thank you; that’s a very thorough answer. And I just have 1 follow-up question and then I’ll get back in the queue. I recently saw that Abrexane marketing rights moving over to AstroZeneca. Mike could you comment on that from a commercial point of view, and how you’re thinking of that in terms of the future development and commercialization plans of TOCOSOL Paclitaxel?

Sure, you know Mark I think that if you look at the U.S. market today in the Taxane space, it is Taxotere and it is generic Paclitaxel. Even though Taxol has $750 million in sales globally, the vast majority of that, in fact I think the last accounting only $10 million to $15 million of that was in the U.S.

So the market opportunity today is really Taxotere and generic Paclitaxel. As we have researched the potential for our product and shared data both in primary blinded research studies as well as in interviews with key opinion leaders, we think the performance of our product, of course assuming that it continues to perform this way in the Phase III study will stack up very nicely against Taxotere, Taxol, or Abraxane. We clearly think that we stack up pretty well against Abraxane and frankly it is, we’re indifferent as to whether we have to compete against Taxotere of Abraxane by the time we’re launched.

However, we think the extent to which Abraxane is successful in converting the market from Taxotere and generic Paclitaxel, that plows the ground for us and I might add that the willingness to share their revenue and income stream with a partner is a clear indication that they didn’t like the way things were going with the current plan.

Thank you very much for the update and for the added information.

Mark thanks for your questions.

Matt Kaplan, Punk, Ziegel & Co.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Could you comment on -- it seems like you are making rapid progress with respect to the enrollment in the Phase III trial with over 500 women enrolled already. What’s your enrollment rate right now, and where does that put you in terms of potentially wrapping up the study in terms of enrollment?

Hi Matt; it’s Mike Stewart. We are very much on the upper end of that enrollment curve. As you know people often talk about this as being a hockey stick enrollment and it goes up and down a little bit each week. But basically we’ve been looking at being on a very steady slope. And there recently as you know have been both religious and civil holidays across Europe that have changed things just a little bit over the past couple of weeks. But we’re still enrolling at a very respectable rate and nothing that is making us think that we’re going to have any difficulty meeting our enrollment projection right now.

Great, and one question for Alan; Alan do any of the numbers that you reported in terms of your expenses, do they include any 123-R assumptions in terms of options?

That’s a good question Matt; I’m giving -- I was giving cash burn projections so they do not. I think at this point, we would expect that our 123-R expense -- well first let me give you the first quarter; that was just a little less than $400,000 for the first quarter and we expect that will continue at that rate, probably growing slightly towards the end of the year, but that’s really kind of hard to project. But that was our current rate and the numbers do not reflect that because it’s non cash.

Okay, but those are reflected in your expenses for the quarter?

That’s correct, at the rate of about $400,000.

And we should expect that rate going forward?

Yes, it will be determined by a number of factors that you put into the valuation model, but without any substantial changes in those assumptions, that should be a good rate to plan.

And I guess Mike Martino, could you comment on the recent activity overseas with respect to Schering AG and the acquisition? And also I’ll follow up with another question with respect to that. And how that impacts potentially your partnership.

Sure; I assume Matt that you’re referring to the pending Bayer Schering merger, and I think frankly the short and very honest answer is I really don’t know what impact that will have and I venture to guess that probably no one at Schering or Bayer quite knows that yet. What I can tell you for sure is a couple of things; first is that we continue to receive assurances from the very senior levels of Schering that TOCOSOL Paclitaxel is an important priority for their Oncology business, and we certainly continue to see day-to-day actions from project and sub-project team members that support that level of insurance.

Secondly, I think if you look at the reports of the analysts who are trying to dissect the pending merger and where the value might be, then Oncology is an important part of that equation. And so I would believe that to the extent our data continues to support that this is an exciting brand of all differentiable product that it will play a role in our Oncology strategy that will be as important to that merged company as it is to Schering.

Thirdly, I think if you look at the pipelines of the prospective companies, there are no obvious product candidates in there that are significant competitors to this entry. I think just 2 final points; the first is very specifically our contract does not contain a termination for convenience or a termination for change of control provision, so we anticipate that we would continue to roll forward with a new organization.

And then, finally although we have seen no indications of this to date, and in fact are very, very pleased with the level of enthusiasm and responsiveness from our Schering colleagues, nonetheless at least some investors have raised the question of what this could mean short term if people’s focus is diverted by a merger. And the answer with regard to the 1075 trial and the timelines is that we think there should be little impact on that because Michael and his team continue to manage that day to day.

And then in terms of have you actually beyond looking at the reports, have you actually spoken to the management team at Bayer and do they know Sonus and do they know the management team at Sonus?

Well we certainly know, Matt of individual members of the management team at Bayer; the short answer is no we have not talked to them and I might add it would be inappropriate for us to do that. Our contractual agreement is with Schering and as of today, Schering continues to be an independent public company who is delivering on the commitments they've made to us.

Great; thank you.

Thanks Matt; I might add on the option question, just because it’s timely following our Annual Shareholders’ Meeting yesterday, we also had a Board Meeting, I think in our proxy statements for at least the last 2 if not last 3 years the Compensation Committee has been quite clear regarding their compensation philosophy of executive officers. With the new regulations, the Compensation Committee is actually had engaged Towers Perrin to study the issue of executive compensation and to advise on the appropriateness of the various components of the executive compensation plan as well as the philosophy. Towers Perrin came back and recommended, and the Board has embraced that for a Company at our stage of development, with our anticipated growth, that options are still an appropriate and necessary part of the compensation plan not just for executives but for all employees.

At some future point where there is greater predictability to earnings and the stability of earnings, that may well be reevaluated. But as of today, I can tell you that as recently as yesterday the Compensation Committee reconfirmed the philosophical belief that options are an important part of executive and employee compensation.

Rob, are there further questions?

Yes sir; Vinny Jindal, ThinkEquity.

Hi guys; I just had a quick question regarding the very rapid enrollment you guys have for the TOCOSOL Paclitaxel trial. Is there any sense, or can you guys share with us if there is any geographic balance or lack of balance between Eastern Europe and the United States or if it’s fairly well distributed across geographies?

Well I would say I don’t think there is any -- hi Vinny, it’s Michael Stewart -- I don’t think that there’s anything that anybody would call an imbalance, and certainly the Data Monitoring Committee has not identified any issues. They’ve looked at all the data coming in; they, of course, have access to a lot of detail. But since it’s an open -- it’s stratified only for [anti-cyclin] exposures; it’s not stratified by country, and there’s a central randomization so the patients come as they come. The primary determinant about which countries they’ve come from is which countries opened in which order.

And so I think that it’s no secret that it’s easier to get patients into clinical trials outside of North America; that’s true across all diseases, not just cancer. And enrollment rates in the U.S. tend to lag behind those in other parts of the world. But there have been no issues raised by the statisticians or the data monitoring committee with respect to enrollment statistics or the quality of data that we’re likely to have.

Okay, that’s great; and you had mentioned that there are 2 patents that had already issued this year, 2 new patents. Can you go into any detail about what those patents might be?

I don’t have the details in front of me. I know one of them was related to [methods of making] and I’ll have to check on what the other one was. I think it might have had to do with applications; it’s a continually evolving thing because as I said there are now ten patents issued for the product; there are another 5 issued for the technology and there are another 20 that are pending applications around the world. And so our Patent Attorney very kindly prepares a little map which I don’t have in front of me that goes over the entire patent estate.

And then as they issue, we just announce that they have come. But I think that we’ve got a -- as you probably know, we’ve got a very, very robust patent estate, multiple layers. Obviously, as we were going through the partnership process last year, that patent estate got scrutinized exquisitely by the IP groups of many large companies and patent law firms. And the one thing that was very consistent was the durability, the rigor, the robustness of the patent estate.

Vinny the other thing I would add to that is as you know, as we’ve discussed before, there are really 2 essential components to an IP strategy; one is, of course, your patents, and as Michael said we are very confident in the strength and durability of our own patent estate and we continue to add to that aggressively and to grow that. And of course, what that does is give us the ability to block anyone else from practicing the art as specified in our patents.

At the same time, the second essential element is a freedom to practice search, which looks at other patents that are out there in the face and evaluates our ability to practice the art in TOCOSOL Paclitaxel without infringing those patents. We conducted that first freedom practice search some 5 years ago; since we have diligently updated it on a quarterly basis. I think it’s fair to say we are well aware of every patent, real or pretend or potential that’s there and we feel very confident that we have the ability to practice TOCOSOL Paclitaxel without infringing valid patents.

Fair enough; and then a more general question. In the reconnaissance work that you’ve done, those people pushing Abraxas, is the marketing message that’s well received by Oncologists or being received at all by Oncologists, is it about the benefits that Abraxas or Abraxane has relative to the taxane formulations of TAXOTERE and Taxol, i.e. no Cremophor for a shorter infusion, etc. or is it the superiority claim on the label that seems to be energizing them? And obviously you would enjoy all the benefits of Abraxas's advantages of not having Cremophor etc. and I’m curious how much of that is weighing in Oncologists' mind versus the claim of superiority in terms of response rate.

Well frankly, at this point I don’t think we want to get into a detailed discussion of Abraxane’s data and what claims it supports or what claims it doesn’t support except to say that’s between Abraxas and FDA and clinicians.

What we are hearing from the market is that the people that are using Abraxane, and again today if you look at the U.S. market most people are using Taxotare and generic Paclitaxel on metastatic breasts, but with the feedback we’re receiving is that the people that are using Abraxane are using it primarily for 2 reasons; one the reduction in steroid pre-meds; and 2 the reduction in share time from 1 to 3 hours to 30 minutes. And we think we stack up well on both of those points and additionally, we continue to believe that we have the potential to demonstrate real superior efficacy, and that we have the potential to demonstrate a better side effect profile in addition to the convenience and ease of use of a ready-to-use formulation that can be given in 15 minut4es.

So we think we will stack up pretty well again, if our Phase III data continues to support those value propositions.

The other thing that we are hearing in the market is frankly that there is a significant disconnect between the perceived value and the price point, and I can’t go into more detail than that from our research, but I can tell you that we’re hearing that is an issue.

And one last question for Michael Stewart is that obviously the end points for this trial are non-inferiority and superiority for response rate. But I was wondering, are you going to follow patients out to be able to assess any differences in progression-free survival as well?

Oh yes, the MDA goes in on the basis of response rate because that’s what the FDA asked us to do. But the study is with all good studies continues to follow patients not only for in this case for progression-free survival but also for overall survival duration. And those again, part of the analysis that will be done when those data are mature will be analysis for superiority on those end points as well. And that’s something that’s not only built into our protocol; it’s built into the SPA, the statistical analysis plan, it’s even built into our agreement with Schering in terms of the kinds of milestones that are achievable.

And based on your experience of weekly taxane treatment in the setting, what do you expect the general ballpark to be for when we would see PFS and OS data?

Well, I think what we’ve said is that if the enrollment goes as planned and then we have the NDA submitted as planned that our current timeline is that we might be seeing PFS data by the middle of ’08 and that we might see OS data by middle to late ’09. Again, it’s difficult to predict because if the product is truly superior, those dates will be extended because the duration of progression-free survival would be longer and the duration of overall survival will be longer.

Got you; thanks guys.

Alan Long, Biotech Stock Research.

thanks for taking my question; first one are you done raising money between now and the Phase III data release? I know you may have commented on time to raise money before approval, but I guess I’m getting a little more specificity here.

Yes David I think that when you’re a small public company you should probably steer away from specific guidance on when you’re going to raise money or not. I think the short answer is that you’re going to raise it when you need it. But with that caveat I think if you consider the $78 million plus on a pro forma basis, we have in the bank at the end of Q1 that is sufficient to get us through the end of Q1 ’08 and fund our commitments on TOCOSOL Paclitaxel, move the second product into Phase I and conceivably into Phase IIs and if in fact, we meet the enrollment target and therefore are in a position to get the data by Q2 of ’07, that does put us in a position to wait until after we have that data before raising money again.

And that in fact is the plan based upon what we know today.

I might be a little redundant here, but it’s really to just go over what the Bayer acquisition did. If I heard you right, the Bayer acquisition of Schering did nothing to delay the time launches of trials and even getting to more general questions, there haven’t been any changes. Do you expect any future changes given the acquisition? And if I heard you right, it’s been no to all 3 questions.

Yes and Alan I’m sorry, we appreciate the questions. I just don’t know how to speculate on that except to repeat what I have said which is we continue to get assurances for this high priority. The folks on the Schering team continue to behave that way, and so based on that I would say that based upon what I know today the answer is no to all 3 questions. And I don’t know how to predict or speculate on how or when or why that’s going to change.

That’s all right; there have been no changes up to now though?

That’s correct.

Okay, thanks Michael.

[OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

Right now it looks like we have no further questions. I’d like to turn the conference back to management for any concluding comments. Please go ahead.

Thank you Rob. To wrap up, I’d like to mention that our next opportunity to speak to you will be at 3 upcoming investor conferences; those include the Bear Stearns Biotech Confab in Boston on May 31; the Pacific Growth Equities Life Sciences Growth Conference being held June 12 - 14 in San Francisco, as well as the Needham & Company Annual Biotechnology and Medical Technology Conference being held in New York City June 14 through the June 15. Our presentations at these conferences will be broadcast live and archived on our website.

That concludes our call for today and we thank you for your support.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the Sonus Pharmaceuticals First Quarter 2006 Conference. If you would like to listen to a replay of today’s conference, you may dial 1-800-405-2236 or 303-590-3000 and use access code 11059290# to access the conference.

Thank you again for your participation in today’s conference and you may now disconnect.