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Unum Therapeutics (NASDAQ:UMRX)
Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Aug. 13, 2018 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Unum Therapeutics 2018 Q2 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] Following management's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session and our instructions will be given at that time. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded for replay purposes.It is now my pleasure to hand the conference over to Ms.
Mary Conway, investor relations. Ma'am you may begin.
Mary Conway -- Investor Relations
Good afternoon. And welcome to the inaugural Unum Therapeutics quarterly investor conference call. Today we'll be sharing updates on our company's progress and our financial results for the second quarter of 2018 ended June 30, 2018. With me on our call today are Chuck Wilson, chief executive officer; Michael Vasconcelles, chief medical officer; and Christiana Stamoulis, president and chief financial officer.
Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the line for questions.Before we begin our prepared remarks, I need to remind you that estimates and other forward-looking statements included in this call represent the company's view as of today, August 13, 2018. Unum Therapeutics disclaims any obligation to update these statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Please refer to today's press release, as well as Unum's filings with the SEC for information concerning risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Please also note that this call is being simultaneously webcast online.With that, let me introduce Chuck Wilson, chief executive officer.
Chuck?
Chuck Wilson -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Mary. And let me personally welcome everyone to our first corporate update and quarterly financial results' call. We're pleased that you're taking the time to join us today. Because it's our first call, we'll be diving a little deeper into Unum's novel platform pipeline to provide those who are newer to the company with a little more background.It's been a busy four months since we completed our IPO in early April of this year.
In today's call, I'll start with a high-level overview of the science underlying our mission to transform cancer treatment and deliver patient cures. Then I'll share more details on our recent progress.Unum is a clinical-stage company, working to develop a next-generation engineered T-cell therapy. In contrast to approaches pursued by others, we're creating a single universal product that can be directly applied to a number of different cancers, including both hematologic as well as solid-tumor cancers. We call this product ACTR, spelled A-C-T-R, which stands for Antibody-Coupled T cell Receptor.
As the name implies, this is a receptor, which couples the targeting specificity of an antibody to the tumor-killing capabilities of a T cell. Patients are treated with a combination of an ACTR T cell, derived from their own white blood cell, together with an antibody that recognizes a marker on the surface of their tumor cell. The antibody effectively targets the ACTR T cells to attack and kill the patient's tumor cells.As we'll describe, we believe our ACTR technology is highly differentiated and has the potential to address many of the limitations of current generation cell therapy approaches. One of the most important distinguishing features of ACTR is its universal nature.
We can use the same ACTR T cell product in potentially many different types of cancer. This is because the extracellular portion of ACTR, derived from immune cell receptor called CD16, combine to a wide range of different antibodies. As such, the same ACTR receptor can be used in combination with many different targeting antibodies to direct the patients' T cells to different tumor types. We don't need to engineer either the ACTR receptor or the therapeutic antibody to drive tumor cell killing.A second key benefit of the ACTR technology is the ability to control or tune in the level of its activity.
In preclinical experiments, we've shown that we can alter the intensity of tumor cell killing simply by adjusting the dose of targeting antibody. This ability to control T cell activity really doesn't exist with any other current generation T cell therapy. As Mike will describe in a few minutes, we're now beginning to explore this potential in the clinic, adjusting the dose of the targeting antibody and attempt to optimize the balance between efficacy and safety. Changing antibody dosing to modulate ACTR T cell activation may provide a straightforward means of limiting certain T cell related toxicities.Over the last year and a half, much of our efforts have been focused on clinically validating the ACTR approach by advancing our lead program through clinical testing.
In two separate but parallel clinical trials, we have been testing ACTR constructs, combined with the antibody rituximab, to treat patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Results from the dose escalation phase of our first clinical trial have answered a number of important questions about how ACTR works in patients and really to establish clinical proof of concept for the ACTR technology. As Mike will describe in more detail shortly, we've been able to show that ACTR is highly potent, driving complete responses in cancer patients. In addition, we've learned about the impact of ACTR dose on efficacy and safety, and defined an optimized cell dose that sets the stage for larger trials that shall establish the true product potential of ACTR in NHL.
Because we use the same ACTR T cell in combination with different antibodies, we can leverage many of these learnings as we launch new programs with other antibodies in other cancer indications.With that background, let me move into an update on our pipeline. We have a rapidly expanding set of programs, with three ongoing clinical trials and an additional trial poised to begin soon per the IND that we announced today that has been cleared by FDA. We are very excited about this new trial, ATTCK-34-01, our first solid tumor program, which represents a significant new development for our technology.Mike will cover our whole pipeline in depth in a minute, but let me start with a quick overview. At a high level, all of our product candidates are currently comprised of one of two distinct ACTR constructs, either ACTR087 or ACTR707, combined with a tumor-targeting antibody.
ACTR087 was originally discovered by our scientific co-founder, Dario Campana, and has been exclusively licensed by Unum. ACTR707 is a new ACTR construct discovered by the research team at Unum. It was selected from more than 100 other candidates based on functional properties believed to be critical for activity in solid tumors. While ACTR707 has particular promise in solid tumor setting, it is a universal construct that can be combined with a broad set of antibodies to pursue both hematologic as well as solid tumor cancers.In our first program, we're exploring ACTR087 in combination with rituximab, treating patients with relapsed/refractory NHL.
In our second program, we're using our second ACTR construct, ACTR707, also in combination with rituximab in the same patient population. On the basis of clinical data from these two programs, we expect to select one ACTR constructs to move into pivotal study. In our third program, we're testing ACTR087 in combination with SEA-BCMA. This is a proprietary antibody developed by Seattle Genetics, and we're using it to treat patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.
In the coming months, we expect to initiate our fourth program, in which we'll be testing ACTR707 in combination with trastuzumab to treat patients with HER2-positive advanced cancers.The depth of our pipeline at this stage is the best demonstration of the potential power of our ACTR combination approach. And it's a key reason why companies like Seattle Genetics are interested in partnering and collaborating with us, as Christiana will explain further. We see partnering with companies, who share our interest, and expanding the range of potential application for our technology as a compelling element for our long-term strategy.Now let me share a few of our recent business highlights. We announced today an active IND for our ATTCK-34-01 clinical trial for ACTR707 used in combination with trastuzumab for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive advanced cancers.
We expect to initiate this Phase 1 study by year end. We're very excited about the potential of this ACTR candidate targeting solid tumors. Importantly, we've been able to show that ACTR is able to selectively target tumor cells that express high amounts of HER2, while simultaneously sparing normal cells that express low levels. This cell activity is absolutely critical for a safe and an effective therapy.
As you know, solid tumors remain a major challenge for cell therapies and we see this as a significant opportunity for Unum.Last month, we presented preclinical data on ACTR T cells used in combination with daratumumab, a CD38-specific antibody, at the ASH Summit on Emerging Immunotherapies for Hematological Diseases. We see opportunity to use this combination to treat patients with acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma. These preclinical data highlight another advantage of the ACTR technology, namely the ability to pursue T cell targets like CD38. CD38 is a difficult antigen to target using traditional CAR-T because it's expressed on activated T cells.So in summary, we're very pleased with our progress since we completed our IPO in early April and look forward to providing more updates in the second half of the year.
With that, let me turn the floor over to our Chief Medical Officer Mike Vasconcelles. Mike?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Thanks, Chuck. It's a pleasure to be participating in our first quarterly call. We're very excited about the potential of our product candidate as well as the productivity of the ACTR platform. In addition to the three clinical trials that we are currently conducting and the newest that we're initiating shortly, we expect to continue to build a pipeline with new ACTR antibody combinations in the future.
But for now, let me turn to our current pipeline of clinical programs.Let me start with an update on our non-Hodgkin lymphoma program in related clinical study. In the trial we call ATTCK-20-2, we are testing ACTR087 in combination with rituximab. In a second trial called ATTCK-20-3, we are testing ACTR707 also in combination with rituximab.First, let's discuss ATTCK-20-2. This is an open-label, single-arm Phase 1 trial designed with an initial three plus three dose escalation phase, followed by a cohort expansion phase with the recommended Phase 2 dose.
Patients recruited for this study have been heavily pretreated in most refractory available therapies. All patients have previously received rituximab and chemotherapy, and many patients have also received an autologous stem cell transplant. Once enrolled in the study, patients undergo the co-paresis to generate the starting material for ACTR T cell manufacture. After ACTR T cells have been produced and shipped back to their clinical sites, patients are pretreated with a standard lymphodepletion regimen that includes fludarabine and cyclophosphamide.
ACTR T cells are then infused, following a standard dose of rituximab, and rituximab infusions then continue on an every three-week basis until disease progression. We completed the dose escalation phase of this study earlier this year. And in the second quarter of 2018, we initiated the cohort expansion phase of the recommended Phase 2 dose. Data from the dose escalation demonstrated proof of concept for the ACTR platform as evidenced by dose-dependent ACTR cell expansion, persistence of ACTR T cells in all patients while on study, evidence of anti-tumor activity and no signs of autoimmunity.
A favorable profile with best-in-class potential has emerged at the right dose level. Dose Level 1 has shown anti-tumor activity comparable to CD19 CAR-T therapies and NHL, with an encouraging tolerability profile. Specifically in fixed response to valuable study subjects, we observed three tumor responses, two of which we're complete responses. One of those complete responses is ongoing as of our last data cutoff.
This profile was observed without any evidence of severe cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, or autoimmune events. We saw a significantly different picture of dose Level 2. At this threefold higher dose level, the maximum tolerated dose was succeeded based on the observation of life-threatening or fatal events to CRS and neurotoxicity. These adverse events may have additionally confounded the ability to observe anti-tumor activity although three partial responses were seen in six evaluable study subjects.
One of these subjects remains on study with an ongoing response at the time of our last data cutoff.Analyzing data from both dose levels, we determined that the safety events correlated most strongly with the administered dose of ACTR T cell. On this basis, we were able to define a recommended Phase 2 dose for cohort expansion, which is intermediate between a two-dose level study during dose escalation. To deliver this dose consistently, Unum has decided to move away from weight-based dosing, which was used in the dose escalation part of the study [Inaudible] dosing. This decision has been applied to all of our clinical programs going forward.In addition, Unum has now filed a protocol amendment to the ATTCK-20-2 trial that allows us to explore lower doses of rituximab from what has been studied today.
As Chuck described previously, preclinical experiments have shown that the level of ACTR T cell activity depends upon the amount of a co-administered antibody. As such, ACTR087 safety and the anti-tumor activity may be even further optimized by an alternative rituximab regimen. Testing of this alternative regimen is incorporated into the expansion core of the study, which is already under way, to support subsequent clinical trials with the combination. We expect to have updated data from the ATTCK-20-2 trial, including preliminary data from the cohort expansion phase in the fourth quarter of 2018, and to report this data at the end of 2018 or in early 2019.I'd like to move now to our second lymphoma program, which is ACTR707 in combination with rituximab.
We initiated patient enrollment in ATTCK-20-3 in the fourth quarter of 2017. Patient population is essentially the same as that enrolled in the ATTCK-20-2 trial testing ACTR087, enabling a direct comparison of data for the two active product candidates. Patient enrollment and dosing in the dose escalation part of the study is ongoing and we expect to report preliminary data from the trial in the fourth quarter of 2018.Let's turn now to our third program, which is the first collaboration program with Seattle Genetics to enter the clinic. We are combining ACTR087 with a novel glyco-engineered antibody called SEA-BCMA, which bonds to BCMA, a validated target for multiple myeloma.
In nonclinical studies, we have demonstrated that this antibody combines effectively with ACTR087, leading to efficient killing of myeloma cells based on contributing mechanisms of action from both combination partners. This combination, therefore, creates the opportunity to provide a meaningful therapeutic benefit for myeloma patients, who have been heavily pretreated with other therapies.The ATTCK-17-01 clinical trials of Phase 1 multicenter dose escalation study designed to optimize the dose of both SEA-BCMA and ACTR087 using Bayesian study design. The treatment regimen differs slightly from our Lymphoma study as we begin treatment with SEA-BCMA immediately following the leukapheresis required to generate the ACTR T cells. The reason for this change is twofold.
First, this provides a safety information with SEA-BCMA alone, which is important since [Inaudible] a first in-human study with this antibody. And second, this allows patients to receive a component of the treatment regimen as early as possible after study enrollment. The BCMA antibody alone may provide some therapeutic benefits to myeloma patients and we will be able to provide this treatment without having to wait for the T cell component of the combination to be manufactured. Patient's enrollment in this study began earlier this year and preliminary safety data from our lowest antibodies dose cohorts are expected in the fourth quarter of 2018.
This will be important information, given that this represents the first in-human experience with this antibody.Our fourth and newest study is ATTCK-34-01, which tests the combination of ACTR707 with trastuzumab. As Chuck mentioned, we announced today that the IND is now active for the treatment of patients with HER2 advanced cancer, and we are in the process of preparing for patient enrollment in this study. Trastuzumab has been previously shown to provide clinical benefit to patients with over-expressing HER2-positive breast cancer and gastric cancer. However, for many of these patients, their cancer's progressed after treatment, leaving them with few alternative options.ATTCK-34-01 is a Phase 1 multicenter, open-label, single-arm clinical trial with a Bayesian study design.
Following leukapheresis and ACTR707 manufacturing, patients will undergo lymphodepletion followed by the first infusion of trastuzumab, and then a single infusion of ACTR707. Trastuzumab infusions will continue on a regular, prespecified schedule of safety, and efficacy assessment, as previously described with our other study. At the recommended Phase 2 dose, cohort expansions are planned. We anticipate beginning site initiations later this year to facilitate study enrollment.So as you can see, we continue to have an extremely active clinical development program here at Unum, and we're looking forward to the multiple data readouts coming out in the back half of the year and into 2019.
Now let me turn the call over to our President and Chief Financial Officer Christiana Stamoulis.
Christiana Stamoulis -- President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Mike. I'm very pleased to be with you today. My remarks will cover our financial results for the second quarter, along with key business strategies, including our manufacturing and partnering strategies. First, on the manufacturing front.
We have developed a process based on an automated close system that has proven to be very robust with 100% access in manufacturing across all our clinical programs. Manufacturing is currently taking place at the centralized CMO facility that supports the different clinical sites of our studies. Going forward, we are continuing to advance our processes. And as our pipeline progresses, we would look to build our own GMP manufacturing capacity.Turning now to the partnering front.
Our active platform provides us the ability to enter into value-added partnerships to great lengths, expand our pipeline of ACTR antibody combinations and pursue new targets in cancer types. Our first partnership is with Seattle Genetics to codevelop two products candidates combining ACTR with proprietary Seattle Genetics antibodies targeting the different antigens. The first program under this collaboration is ACTR in combination with the SEA-BCMA antibody for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. As Mike mentioned, this program is currently in the Phase 1 clinical trial.
The target of the second program in this collaboration has not yet been disclosed. Our collaboration with Seattle Genetics exemplifies our partnering strategy, which gives us access to proprietary antibodies of interest and enables us to leverage both Unum's and our partners' expertise. It also allows us to retain active participation in the development and commercialization of the resulting ACTR antibody combination products, and it provides non-dilutive funding for Unum.Turning to our financing activities. As Chuck mentioned, in early April 2018, we successfully completed our IPO and concurrent private placement with Seattle Genetics, raising approximately $77 million in gross proceeds.
We currently trade under the symbol UMRX.Turning now to the financial results for the second quarter. Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balance was $94.4 million at the end of the second quarter of 2018, compared to $41.5 million at the end of the same period last year. The increase reflects the IPO and private placement transactions completed in April 2018. We believe that this capital is sufficient to fund our operations and capital expenditure requirements through at least the end of December 2019 without considering available borrowings under our loan and security agreement.
Looking at the second quarter of 2018, we recorded collaboration revenue of $1.7 million, compared to $2.1 million in the same quarter last year. This decrease was due to the adoption in January 1, 2018. With the new revenue-recognition standard, we changed the manner in which we recognize revenue from our collaboration agreement with Seattle Genetics. R&D expenses were $9.1 million in the second quarter of 2018, compared to $7.1 million in the same quarter last year, primarily reflecting the expanded clinical development activity this year.
G&A expenses were $2 million, compared to $1 million in the same quarter last year with the increase primarily due to the expenses around operating asset public company as well as higher personnel-related costs. Net loss for the second quarter of 2018 was $9 million, compared to $5.9 quarter for the same quarter last year with the increase largely reflecting the increased operating costs in the 2018 period. We also increased the number of shares outstanding in our IPO and concurrent private placement, and then move to the second quarter of 2018 with approximately 30 million shares outstanding. In terms of other recent news on the corporate front, as you may have seen, our common stock was recently added to the Russell 3000 Index.Looking now forward, we expect an active second half of 2018 with the following milestones: We expect preliminary data from our lymphoma program; including from the dose escalation of the ATTCK-20-03 trial, we expect to receive preliminary data and report this data in the fourth quarter.
And from the cohort expansion of the ATTCK-22 trial, we expect to receive preliminary data in the fourth quarter and to report these out by 2018 year end or early 2019. In addition, in the fourth quarter we expect to receive and report preliminary data from the ATTCK-17-01 trial. Finally, by the end of 2018, we expect to initiate the ATTCK-34-01 trial.With that, we'll open the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you, ma'am. [Operator instructions] And our first question will come from Matthew Harrison with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Vikram Purohit -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Hi, this is Vikram on for Matthew. So, two clarifying questions from our side. So, first on the lymphoma program, what could be some of the reasons that may push the year-end '18 data readout into '19? And secondly on the BCMA combination, how many dose levels have you been able to advance to-date? And just also wondering if you have any comments around when you maybe finished with the monotherapy component and you could start dosing the combination? Thanks.
Chuck Wilson -- Chief Executive Officer
Hello, Vikram. It's great to talk again. Let me turn it over to Mike Vasconcelles, who will address the clinical question.
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Hi, Vikram. To your second question first. We haven't gone into specifics about the number of dose cohorts treated, but the 17-01 study, in other words, the study combining ACTR087 with SEA-BCMA is ongoing and progressing as we anticipated. With respect to your first question, we're really looking at the data availability in ATTCK-22 study at the end of the calendar 2018, and really linking that up with the opportunity to share those data either at the end of 2018 or early 2019.
Vikram Purohit -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
OK. Makes sense. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question will come from David Nierengarten with Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open.
David Nierengarten -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst
Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering if there were any changes to your thoughts or just new findings that you had about maybe standardizing or thinking about ways you can change the dosing of the antibody with the CAR-T construct, either 087 or 707. Just generally speaking, are there findings that you've had from preclinical studies, or is it going to be an empirical process going forward on what antibody doses are best to use in combination? Thanks.
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Right. So, again, this is Mike. Thanks for your question. And so, I think very consistently we find across our non-clinical data that the antibody concentration used in combination with ACTR can predictably adjust the level of ACTR T cell activity.
Based on those findings, in addition to the cohort expansion that's under way for ATTCK-20-2, we've chosen to formally test that question in parallel effort within that study, as we've already mentioned. And we've done that by amending the current study to allow that alternative dosing. In addition with all of our subsequent studies outside of lymphoma, we've incorporated those questions formally in the way in which we've designed those studies to be able to ask those questions with other partner antibodies with ACTR. So I think in summary across all of the programs, we'll gain important information around the relationship of ACTR activation and antibody doses and schedules.
David Nierengarten -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst
So, just to be clear then, you have a plan for kind of a standard dose reduction or at least a dose reduction or increase depending on the case from findings from preclinical work?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Right. I think that's a fair summary. It varies a little bit program by program. But if we extrapolate our non-clinical data to our clinical dosing strategies with antibodies, I'd say we're confident that with the rituximab dosing, we-- the approach that we're taking with alternative antibody dosing is to back away from the antibody dose compared to the dose that we've tested to-date in the clinic.
With the other programs, the newer programs SEA-BCMA and trastuzumab, we believe that we're starting at doses where we'll build up to the optimal dose and then we'll, off course, define that in the context of the clinical studies that are ongoing.
David Nierengarten -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst
Got it. OK. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And our next will come from the line of Mark Frahm with Cowen and Company. Your line is now open.
Mark Frahm -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Can you give us a little bit more details on the, kind of, alternative rituximab dosing schedule? How much are you really going to change the exposure of patients to rituximab? Or what percent saturation of the ACTR constructs do you think that's really going to change?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Yes, thanks for the question. We haven't really gone into those details as of yet. We filed the amendment and we want to make sure that there are no outstanding questions in terms of the specificity of that amendment. And so when that's all free and clear, I think we'll have the opportunity to go into a little more detail.
But suffice it to say, as I already mentioned, we'll be altering the dose so that the dose will be lower on a per-dose basis from what we've studied to-date in the ATTCK-20-2 study.
Mark Frahm -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
OK. And then since you're still kind of finalizing that amendment with, I guess, the FDA and your IRBs, should we not expect that cohort until a decent amount into 2019 then? And this initial updates still just going to be on the first dose expansion?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Yes, we've maintained flexibility in the way in which we enroll the cohort expansion. And just keep in mind that this cohort is a part of the overall cohort expansion, but we really want to build on the dose Level 1 experience from the ATTCK-20-2 study with the existing regimen. In another words, the 375 per meter square rituximab every three weeks. And so we're going to be focused primarily on building out that dose expansion with that dose of rituximab and the recommended Phase 2 dose of ACTR087 and then layering on the alternative rituximab dosing at the right time.
Mark Frahm -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
OK. Great. Thanks a lot for taking my questions.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question will come from line of Peter Lawson with SunTrust Robinson. Your line is now open.
Peter Lawson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Thanks for taking the questions. So, Michael, just around, kind of, the broadening of that timeframe for ACTR087. Is that really to a delay because you want to get the 707 data available? Or is it mostly because of the change in dosing, so you can kind of have all that data in hand before you release the 87 data?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
It's really consistent with what we've been saying all along is that we expect the preliminary data availability at the end of the year and then that's really linking that up with reportability of those data. So that's essentially the scenario that we're looking at for ATTCK-20-2. And then as you said as well as 20-03, we expect to have those early dose escalation data at the end of the year as well.
Peter Lawson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
And what venue for the ATTCK-20-2 would you be targeting in that kind of first half '19 arena?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Yes, we haven't really gone into the specifics of the scientific conference that we intend to share our data. We will look to reconcile that with the data availability and the venue that's most important to investigators and other stakeholders.
Peter Lawson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Got you. And then the multiple data readouts you already have in the second half, is that presumably ASH but are there other venues you're thinking about?
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Yes, there are a lot of important and meaningful scientific meetings in the second half of '18 and early '19, and I think there is many, many possibilities for us to be looking at.
Peter Lawson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Got you. OK. Thanks for taking the questions.
Operator
Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. So now it is my pleasure to hand the conference back over to Chuck Wilson, chief executive officer, for some closing comments or remarks.
Chuck Wilson -- Chief Executive Officer
Great. Thanks for joining us this afternoon for our first quarterly investor call. I think you'll agree Unum has a highly differentiated approach based on its universal ACTR platform with the potential to address a wide range of different cancers. And as Christiana has noticed, we're off to a fast start this year.
We look forward to continuing dialog with our investors and plan to participate at following upcoming conferences, including the Wedbush PacGrow Healthcare Conference in New York on August 15; the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference in Boston on September 6; and the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Conference in New York on September 14. Please look for us in any of these events, or if you'd like any further information, please feel free to reach out to us directly.With that, we'll end today's session and wish you a good afternoon. Thank you very much.
Operator
[Operator signoff]
Duration: 33 minutes
Call Participants:
Mary Conway -- Investor Relations
Chuck Wilson -- Chief Executive Officer
Michael Vasconcelles -- Chief Medical Officer
Christiana Stamoulis -- President and Chief Financial Officer
Vikram Purohit -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
David Nierengarten -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst
Mark Frahm -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Peter Lawson -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
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