Logo of jester cap with thought bubble with words 'Fool Transcripts' below it

Image source: The Motley Fool.

CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (CTMX -2.98%)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
May 9, 2019, 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 CytomX Therapeutics first quarter 2019 financials conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press * then 0 on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this call may be recorded.

I would not like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Christopher Keenan, Vice President of Investor Relations. Chris, you may begin.

Christopher Keenan -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Thank you, Liz. Good afternoon. Joining me today are CytomX President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman Dr. Sean McCarthy and CytomX Vice President of Finance Robin Knifsend.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties and risks that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control.

10 stocks we like better than CytomX Therapeutics
When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has quadrupled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and CytomX Therapeutics wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

See the 10 stocks

*Stock Advisor returns as of March 1, 2019

Important risks and uncertainties are set forth in our most recent public filings with the SEC at sec.gov, including our Form 10-Q filed today. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise. A webcast of this call will be available on the investor relations page of CytomX website at cytomx.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Sean.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Thanks, Chris and good afternoon, everyone. I am very pleased to be here with you today to briefly review another very productive quarter for CytomX.

At CytomX, we are reinventing therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer. We see a major opportunity to more effectively target therapeutic antibodies into disease tissue, generating new classes of differentiated anti-cancer therapies as either best-in-class molecules against validated targets or first-in-class molecules against novel targets that we believe our technology can uniquely address.

Our innovative approach through antibody localization into disease tissue is called the Probody platform. Probody is our fully recombinant antibody prodrugs comprised of a therapeutic antibody, a linker, and a mask designed in a way that the antibody can't see its target until the mask is removed. Mask removal occurs specifically and selectively within cancer tissue as a function of disease associated proteases which clip off the mask in the tumor, allowing the underlying antibody to bind target and elicit its biological effect.

Probody therapeutics are designed to offer localized target binding in disease tissue while maintaining potency, reducing side effects, and enabling new targets and mechanisms to be translated into novel product opportunities. We see this as a really big idea backed by decades of research by our deep knowledge of the tumor microenvironment, innovative protein engineering, and a robust intellectual property portfolio. We are the leader in this emerging field of therapeutic antibody localization with four clinical stage programs, strong partnerships, and recent clinical proof of concept.

The first quarter saw excellent progress by the CytomX team in developing our differentiated technology platform and our lead product candidates, as we continue to build on the first Probody clinical data we presented for our lead program, the anti-PD-L1 Probody, CX-072 at ASCO last year. Since then, we've presented additional clinical and translational data, including from our second program, CX-2009, at ESMO, SITC, at our R&D day in February, and most recently at AACR.

It's been an exciting year for us and we've learned a tremendous amount about how our unique antibody technology functions in cancer patients, having checked key boxes to support proof of concept for the Probody platform. We've demonstrated encouraging anti-tumor activity and safety profiles from both of our lead wholly owned programs and we're now intensely focused on the development of next steps for the further development and advancement of theses assets.

I'd like to take the opportunity here to briefly recap what we've disclosed to date about the clinical performance of these two lead molecules. Our most advance program, CX-072, is a PD-L1 targeting Probody for which we have presented increasingly mature Phase 1 data for monotherapy and in combination with the anti-CTLA4 antibody, ipilimumab, also known, of course as Yervoy. Our vision for CX-072 is for the Probody to become a differentiated centerpiece of combination anti-cancer therapy by enabling safer, more effective combinations.

We also see opportunities for CX-072 to potentially expand beyond the existing market to settings where conventional PD pathway agents are not currently employed. Data presented on CX-072 as monotherapy at our Q1 R&D day showed that CX-072 continues to demonstrate a favorable safety profile as well as durable anti-cancer activity in heavily pre-treated patients with tumor types not typically expected to respond to PD pathway inhibitors.

Data from the completed dose-escalation phase of PROCLAIM CX-072 showed that of 24 efficacy evaluable patients, all with generally weak immunogenic tumors and treated with doses greater than or equal to 3 mg/kg of CX-072, 12 or 50% of patients demonstrated tumor shrinkage, including four partial responses. CX-072 was generally well-tolerated with a maximum tolerated dose not reached.

Preliminary results from dose escalation informed our ongoing monotherapy dose expansion cohorts, studying the dose of 10 mg/kg of CX-072 in multiple tumor types. As reported during our Q1 R&D day, CX-072 is showing activity in several tumor types at this dose and updated data from these expansion cohorts will be presented in a poster and also as part of a poster discussion session at ASCO 2019.

Turning now to CX-072 in combination with ipilimumab, as reported previously from our dose escalation phase, we have defined the maximum tolerated dose of this combination as 10 mg/kg of CX-072 and 3 mg/kg of ipi, which is the full-label dose of ipilimumab. Our preliminary efficacy data is encouraging, with anti-tumor activity, including complete and durable responses seen in advanced stage cancer patients, again, with tumors not generally regarded to be responsive to PD pathway inhibitors.

As of our most recently reported data cutoff of 19 patients available for efficacy, 4 or 21% experienced confirmed responses, including one complete response. Furthermore, among the 27 patients treated with the 072 plus ipi combination at 3 mg/kg or above, the combination was generally well-tolerated with 7 or 26% of patients reporting a grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse event. This compares very well to historical controls, which of course have shown incidents of grade 3/4 TRAEs in excess of 50%, typically for the combination of a PD inhibitor and ipi at full dose.

So, this data suggests that the combination of CX-072 plus ipilimumab could allow for the safe and effective treatment of patients in multiple indications with fully dosing schedule of ipi with the goal of reaching longer and more durable responses. Based on these important clinical data for CX-072, we're excited about the prospects of the program to make a difference for cancer patients and we're busy developing our next steps for this unique asset and we'll be laying out our plans in the near future.

Now, I would like to turn to CX-2009, a potentially first-in-class Probody drug conjugate, targeting a unique and broadly expressed tumor antigen, CD-166. Now, because Probody therapeutics are designed to minimize biding of drug to normal tissues, we're in a very unique position to address a new class of targets with attractive molecular features that were previously thought undruggable because of their high expression on normal tissues.

CD-166 is an example of this kind of target. The target is highly and homogeneously expressed in multiple solid tumor types and might be considered an attractive target for a conventional antibody drug conjugate were it not for the fact that it's also present on most normal epithelial tissues. We think it's a great target for a Probody drug conjugate, however, since Probodies allow us to more selective target tumor tissue. This is a really exciting program since it combines Probody technology with drug conjugate technology with the goal of making a transformative difference for patients across a wide range of cancer types.

During Q1, we presented preliminary clinical data from the Phase 1 dose escalation portion of the ongoing PROCLAIM clinical trial of CX-2009 monotherapy and a subset of CD-166 expressing cancer types, including certain patients that were selected for high-level expression of CD-166. The intent and design of this Phase 1 dose escalation trial was firstly, of course, to evaluate the safety of this very novel drug candidate, safety being a particularly critical question given the widespread expression of CD-166 on normal tissues.

We also wanted to understand as much as we could in Phase 1 about the contribution of the drug conjugate payload to the overall safety profile of the molecule in order to give us the maximum information in order to design our Phase 2 strategy. Lastly, we were looking for any initial signs of anti-cancer activity in a late-stage, very heavily pre-treated patient population that is, of course, typical for such highly experimental Phase 1 studies.

We've been very encouraged with the preliminary data for CX-2009 that we've shared previously. At that time data cuts off for our AACR presentation, 71 patients across all doses were evaluable for efficacy. Of the 39 patients who received greater than or equal to 4 mg/kg of CX-2009 and had at least one post-baseline on study tumor assessment, 38% of these patients achieved tumor shrinkage, including 7 unconfirmed partial responses observed in breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and also in head and neck cancer.

In addition, 74% of patients achieved stable disease or better at the time of their first on-treatment scan. This single agent activity is the first validation of CD-166 as an anti-cancer target and we believe holds much promise. CX-2009 was generally well-tolerated. The maximum tolerated dose was not reached at the highest dose level tested of 10 mg/kg. The most common treated-related adverse events were grade 1 and grade 2 and they included nausea, fatigue, and decreased appetite. The most common grade 3/4 treated-related adverse event was keratitis.

It's worth taking a moment or two to just reflect on the safety profile, given just how broadly expressed this target is on normal tissue. We believe these data are strong evidence that Probody-marking technology can really allow us to target first-in-class tumor antigens regardless of their broad normal tissue expression. We see this actually as an important advance in the field of antibody therapeutics generally.

The keratitis that we observed, principally at higher doses of CX-2009 is a well-established side effect of DM4, the drug conjugate payload that we're employing in this drug candidate. We're now engaged in further dose refinement while taking steps to manage keratitis with ocular prophylaxis, which has been shown to be effective by others. This ongoing work will enable us to finalize our strategy for phase 2 studies, which we'll be communicating in due course.

Taken together, we're very pleased with how our wholly owned CX-072 and CX-2009 have progressed to date. We look forward to providing a more detailed roadmap for these two assets in the coming months.

I'd like to comment briefly now on our pharma alliances. Firstly, on our BMS alliance, this partnership was entered into in 2014 and was expanded in 2017. In total, the alliance provides BMS with access to up to 12 discovery targets from the CytomX platform. To date, CytomX has received a total of $287 million in up front and milestone payments from BMS.

The lead program in the alliance is the anti-CTLA4 Probody, BMS-986249, which is based on ipilimumab and continues to progress to a Phase 1 clinical trial being run by BMS. Our shared vision with BMS is that the CTLA4 Probody has the potential to be a safer, more effective version of Yervoy, allowing the full realization of CTLA4 as a powerful and highly validated cancer immunotherapy target. Additional research work continues under this alliance and we look forward to additional targets that BMS may select in the future.

Now, I'd like to return to the drug conjugate space for just a moment, where our alliances with AbbVie and ImmunoGen also continue to advance. In collaboration with AbbVie, CytomX is advancing a second clinical stage Probody drug conjugate, CX-2029, directed against CD-71, which also known as the transferrin receptor.

This program has the potential to turn CD-71, a widely expressed receptor on normal tissues, into a druggable target. CytomX continues to enroll patients and PROCLAIM-CX-2029, a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, evaluating this molecule as monotherapy in patients with solid tumors or with lymphomas.

With ImmunoGen, we continue to make progress on a Probody drug conjugate targeting the highly expressed tumor antigen EpCAM. Last, but certainly not least with regard to our collaborations, research work continues on multiple targets on our broad alliance with Amgen, focused on T-cell-engaging by specific Probodies. The goal of this research is to use Probody technology to more effectively target T-cell engaging biospecifics into solid tumors, an area where toxicity has proven to be a real challenge for the field, due to the very high potency of these agents. The leading edge of this alliance is an EGFR CD3 Probody biospecific.

With these updates on the company, I'll now turn the call over to Robin for a brief review of financial highlights from Q1.

Robin Knifsend -- Vice President of Finance

Thank you, Sean. I would like to review selective financial highlights for the first quarter. We ended the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and investments totaling $396.6 million compared to $436.1 million as of December 31st, 2018. Our strong balance sheet allows us to fund operations well into 2021, assuming no new collaborations or financing.

Research and development expenses were $36.4 million for the quarter, compared to $22.5 million in 2018. The increase in research and development expenses was primarily attributable to additional cost related to our maturing pipeline, personnel-related expenses and a $5 million charge for acquired technical know-how related to drug conjugate and biospecific technologies.

General and administrative expenses increased by $2.3 million for the quarter compared to the corresponding period in 2018 and was largely attributed to personnel-related expenses. Revenues during the first quarter of 2019 were $29.5 million compared to $14.2 million in the corresponding period in 2018. This increase was largely attributable to the acceleration of revenue from upfront payments relating to certain targets within the BMS alliance.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Sean.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Great. Thanks, Robin. Now, I'd like to just briefly wrap up. From this recap of Q1 today, I hope you can see across our wholly owned and partner pipeline we have a broad range of opportunities with very unique product candidates enabled by our technology.

In addition to our pipeline progress during Q1, we also made several important additions to the senior organization, including Nick Galli as Chief Business Officer and Leslie Robbins as SVP, Intellectual Property. The additions of Nick and Leslie to our leadership team reflect our ongoing commitment to partnership formation and aggressive protection of our intellectual property as core pillars of our corporate strategy.

Nick's proven track record and transformational business development and Leslie's broad and deep IP experience across discovery, development, and commercial stages of biologic drug development will be great assets as we seek to maximize the utility of our Probody technology for patients.

I'm also delighted to welcome Elaine Jones back to our Board of Directors. Elaine recently retired from Pfizer after many years leading investments for their corporate venture fund. Elaine worked closely with CytomX in our earlier formative years. She's an accomplished life science industry leader whose broad experience across healthcare sectors and deep prior experience with CytomX will be a tremendous benefit as we continue to advance our innovative Probody platform and clinical portfolio.

In conclusion, CytomX continued to make terrific progress during Q1. We further strengthened our leadership in the field of therapeutic antibody targeting. With our Probody platform, we significantly advanced our clinical stage pipeline, moved our partnerships forward, and we further built our team. We finished Q1 with a strong balance sheet and we look forward to a very productive 2019.

Of particular note, our lead wholly owned programs, CX-072 and CX-2009 have taken great shape and we expect to provide detailed updates on next steps for the programs in the coming months. So, with that, I'll hand back to Chris for Q&A.

Christopher Keenan -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Liz, you can open the call for questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press the * then the number 1 key on your touchstone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may do so by pressing the # key. Again, that's * then 1 if you'd like to ask a question at this time.

Our first question comes from the line of Christopher Marai with Nomura. Your line is now open.

Jackson Harvey -- Nomura/Instinet -- Analyst

Hi, this is Jackson Harvey on for Christopher Marai. Thanks for taking the question. My first question is on CX-072 ASCO data. I realize you're going to update us on Part D, but I'm just curious -- will this be in the same tumor types as you presented at R&D day or will it be additional tumor types?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

It will be largely in the same tumor types with the potential for a little bit of additional information as well.

Jackson Harvey -- Nomura/Instinet -- Analyst

Got it. Also, I have to ask if BMS has given you any indication of whether they may be sharing data at ASCO as well.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

They have not.

Jackson Harvey -- Nomura/Instinet -- Analyst

My final question is on CX-2009 -- can you share some more details on the dose refinement, what you might be looking for on the status of that and also the protocol for the ocular prophylaxis?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Sure. With regard to dose refinement, I think as we reported previously, the mTPI cohort that we're enrolling as of the last update, we were enrolling patients at the dose of 8 milligrams per kilogram, the way that particular component of the study is structured, it allows us to either further escalate or deescalate depending upon what we see at that dose. So, one of the advantages, of course, of this doing this particular mTPI structure is that it gives us additional information on toxicity and overall therapeutic window over an extended period of doses as opposed to the more typical three-week DLT period within a standard dose escalation.

So, there's a lot of information that we capture in the mTPI. We may only end up doing that at 8 mg/kg. We may end up at additional doses. We'll have to see how it goes. The point, of course, as you quite rightly point out, is to dose range to allow us to select the optimal dose for Phase 2.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ying Wong with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.

Alec Stranahan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hey, guys. This is Alec on for Ying. Thanks for taking our question. My first one is on the Agensys acquisition. How do you see the conjugate linker talks and then the CD3 biospecifics contributing to your current or future pipeline? I'm trying to get a sense of how you view the assets you got from Astellas.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Yeah. That's a great question. So, as you all know, for the first two Probody drug conjugates that we've put into the clinical, we made a very deliberate decision to use linker payload constructs that were well-understood, well-precedented from a clinical standpoint.

That's been very important because as you can see from our interpretation of our 2009 data, as we look to tease apart the safety data and attribute toxicity to either payload or potentially to target, we know exactly what we're looking for from the payload. That's been extraordinarily helpful in really figuring out a reasonably complex Phase 1 data set for CX-2009. That's the DM4 payload. The payload for the 2092 CD-71 PDC is MMAE. So, we expect that to be a similar kind of situation.

With the third, the fourth, the fifth, and keep on going PDC that we've put into the clinic over the next several years, I think we will now be in a position to take a little bit more risk on payload and bring some novel payloads forward and we got quite interested in this chemistry that we've acquired from Agensys, which we think has a lot of potential. It is less proven in the clinic, but what we're evaluating is potentially putting molecules into the clinic with those payloads, which of course we now would own outright but also not come with any downstream economic burden to any kind of partner.

With regards to CD3, there's a lot of work going on in the field right now, as I'm sure you know, to answer the question what is the optimal CD3 arm for CD3 biospecifics. That can very in terms of affinity, avidity, cross-reactivity, you name it. So, we've just been interested in building as big of a portfolio of CD3 molecules as we can so that we can build large lead series to put into pre-clinical studies before we select molecules to put into the clinic. That was just a somewhat opportunistic acquisition that's given us another tool in the toolkit, if you like, for making CD3 biospecifics.

Alec Stranahan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Great. Thanks. That's' really helpful. Then in terms of the overall cost of bringing those assets in-house, are most of the expenses that hit R&D accounted for this quarter? I guess what I'm trying to get at is should we see R&D expense go down to normal levels next quarter and onward?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Yeah. That's a one-time charge that you're seeing that we're taking, that $5 million this quarter.

Alec Stranahan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Peter Lawson with SunTrust. Your line is now open.

Waleed Abdel-Naby -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Hi, guys. This is Waleed on for Peter. Thanks for taking our questions. I have a question on CX-072 combo study with vemurafenib. Can you give us an update on how the enrollment is progressing for that study and perhaps when we can potentially see some initial data?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Yeah. The study continues and we haven't yet decided exactly where we'll present data, but we are still actively considering sharing preliminary data from that arm before the end of the year.

Waleed Abdel-Naby -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. Do you have any additional clarity on when we may expect the expansion phase to begin for CX-2009?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, we're certainly optimistic that we'll have that under way the second half of this year. It really does depend, of course, on the ongoing dose optimization work we're doing. To some extent, as you can appreciate, as I commented earlier in the mTPI cohort how much dose refinement we elect to do there, but we're certainly shooting to get that up and running the second half of this year.

Waleed Abdel-Naby -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Geoff Meacham with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Olivia Brayer -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hey, guys. This is Olivia Brayer on for Geoff. Thanks for taking our questions. Just two quick ones from me. The first is one, have there been any further developments in terms of CX-188 from a potential partnership perspective, whether that's in the form of conversations with companies that have shown maybe initial interest on their part or maybe a more active approach on your end? Should we be thinking about that as more of a down the road event, if at all?

Then just one on 072, recognizing it's still very early days, but can you give us a sense of what your internal discussions have been around registrational studies down the road and also maybe if you could help us better understand how you're thinking about the Zelboraf combination as far as pipeline prioritization goes? Thanks so much.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Got it. Thanks for the questions. With regard to the partnerships on 188, I would take a step back there and say that if we think about the 072 program, our PD program as a whole, which would include PD-1 plus PD-L1, obviously, we have some interest in time in potentially forming a partnership there, but I can't comment on any specifics in terms of any ongoing discussions, as I'm sure you'll appreciate.

With regard to 072 registrational strategy, the strategy is to really play out the monotherapy expansions -- again, we'll have additional data at ASCO, as I mentioned, where we're looking at this dose of 10 mg/kg in multiple tumor types to really get a fingerprint of how this monotherapy looks best we can in the kinds of patients that we can enroll into these types of studies today. Then at that point, look at that data and evaluate the potential for moving into a full-stage registrational study for the monotherapy in one or other of those indications.

Of course, it will depend upon what we see. If we see robust enough data in any of those indications to drive into a single-arm registrational study, that would be one option. Moving into potentially randomized studies could be another option. We're just going to have to see what the data delivers for us around the middle of the year.

With regard to the Zelboraf combination, we continue to think that's an interesting experiment. We've been committed to that combination. It has taken some time to enroll. I would say the same thing. Let's see what the data tells us. The field has evolved a lot since we initiated that study. There's no question about it. So, again, I don't want to make a specific comment on portfolio strategy, but it is not lost on us how much the field has evolved externally since we started that study and that may well read on decisions that we make in the future. But let's see what the data shows.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Mohit Bansal with Citigroup. Our line is now open.

Mohit Bansal -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. So, the key programs under this collaboration, how are you thinking about the future of those programs? Do you think there will be any partnership opportunity [inaudible].

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

You're talking about the three targets for which research was stopped?

Mohit Bansal -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Yes.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

We'll see. The targets all come back to us, which is great. I would say that as you well know, the whole question of target selection and immuno-oncology has gone through kind of transformation over the last three, four years. Targets that were viewed as attractive a few years ago by leaders in the field such as BMS are viewed differently in many cases today for lots of different reasons. So, those targets do come back to us, but we're not commenting at this stage on whether we plan to advance them or not. We certainly could, but we also have a ton of other stuff going on that we're excited about in our pipeline.

Mohit Bansal -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Then coming back to the PDC target, CD-166 as well as 71, could you help us understand how when you decide that this is the target we need to go after, what the process is? I understand that it has to be a target on cancer tissue, but how do we make sure this is the right target before actually getting into clinics?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, that's a big question for the field, isn't it? I'll give you my answer. To be serious, with regard to the PDCs, the way we thought about this for the last few years is as follows. It's a triage process. So, we start with the most highly expressed antigens. We then look for the most highly expressed antigens across multiple tumor types. We then make antibodies to them, we conjugate them to payloads, we do in vitro assays to look at the ability of those conjugates to kill cells.

Also, as we move forward, looking at the internalization properties of those anitgens, which of course, are vital for ADCs and PDCs to work, we then take them en vivo, we run a handful of en vivo models to look at the breadth of activity. As we did this several years ago, CD-166 and CD-71 kind of jumped our fairly quickly at us from the first triage that we did. It was a very attractive and opportunistic target, certainly when benchmarked against other ADC targets.

So, that's really been our process. We continue to run through additional targets. We're looking for, as I said, and continue to work on the third, the fourth, the fifth PDC and we're following a very similar triage process. So, that's been our strategy. But of course, you never know until you get to the clinic.

Mohit Bansal -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Got it. Last one, can you comment a little bit on Amgen's collaboration? So, when can we see more from that side in terms of getting to clinics or something like that?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

No guidance there at this point, Mohit. It continues to be researched. What I can tell you is we're very well-positioned with Amgen, given that they're obviously very, very strong in this field at the molecular biological level. We're pooling resources in terms of our molecular toolkits, including CD-3 molecules to build a wide range of different formats and molecules to evaluate in pre-clinical studies. It just takes time.

So, that's really all I can say at this point. We are on the right track. The research is first class. The relationship with those guys is terrific. Our decision to partner with each other has been very well-received by both companies.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Boris Peaker with Cowen. Your line is now open.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen -- Managing Director

Great. So, my first question is on 072. I'm just curious -- what biomarkers are you monitoring in these patients and have you observed any correlation between biomarkers and responders versus non-responders?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Big question, important question -- we continue to look at obviously PD-L1 status. In the Part D expansions, we're not biopsying patients. So, we did that, as you know, in the A2 arm, where we collected a good deal of translational data, including immune cell infiltrates, PD-L1 status. We looked at cytokine mRNA expression, so on and so forth. The monotherapy expansions are really aimed principally at getting the efficacy fingerprint. So, there's not going to be as much translational data. So, that's really all I can say at this point.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen -- Managing Director

Right. For 2009, I'm just curious for the CD-166 space in general, is there any competitive developments that you or we should be paying attention as investors, anything we expect that ASCO, outside of your programs.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Nothing that we're aware of at this point.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen -- Managing Director

Great. Lastly, you obviously have a couple of partnered programs, any timeline for potentially when we see results from those partnership programs?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, ImmunoGen has presented some quite beautiful data on the EpCAM Probody drug conjugate pre-clinically. That data looks very strong. With regard to clinical data, it's too early to tell. That's really all we can say at this stage.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen -- Managing Director

Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Joe Catanzaro with Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open.

Joseph Catanzaro -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Just two quick ones from me, maybe the first one with regard to the 072-ipi combo -- how are you thinking about the indications and the expansion cohort of that trial? Did you plan to sort of go the route you've done with 072 and pick these checkpoint refractory-type tumors or pick indications where nivo-ipi has demonstrated clear activity or perhaps a mixture of both?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Hi, Joe. Great question, a very topical question at CytomX at this exact point in time, as I'm sure you can appreciate. We will be guiding on this as the year progresses. The only thing I would say is we're gearing up to do -- we want to make sure the next step of this combination is a meaningful next step that will really show us what this combination can do. So, I would just ask you to stay tuned.

Joseph Catanzaro -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. Then my second one -- it sounds like you can potentially get another look at 2009 data in 2019. Should we expect that to be additional follow-up for the A-A2 patients or could we potentially see data from the dose-ranging portion of the study that's ongoing?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, I think obviously for us, the main objective of the dose-ranging work is to pick our dose for Phase 2, which obviously we're going to want to communication as soon as we can to you guys to the degree that we'll be in a position to actually share the underlying data and whether we decide to do that at a medical conference this year or next year or on a more ad hoc basis, we're just going to have to wait and see. But for us, we're really focused on getting to a data set that will allow us to pick the dose and move on. So, we'll have to see.

Joseph Catanzaro -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Got it. That's all I have. Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Driscoll with Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open.

Ashiq Mubarack -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst

Hi, this is Ashiq Mubarack on for Robert. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple quick ones -- I guess regarding CX-2009, how confident are you in the ocular profile being dose responses, especially in this mTPI cohort? Any commentary there? Just a quick second one revenue with the Bristol-Myers collaboration? Any modeling thoughts for the next couple quarters?

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Got it. So, with regard to 2009 and ocular prophylaxis, I think there's pretty good evidence from others and I think in our data as well that ocular toxicity for the DM4 payload is dose-dependent. In our study, we definitely push the envelope with the dose escalation. We were able to get to doses that were significantly higher than we had originally thought when we designed this phase 1 study.

We're not entirely clear why that is, whether it relates to some property of the Probody or not, but to be able to nine and ten doses was a little bit unexpected for us and not surprising that at those doses we see fairly significant ocular toxicity, all the more so because we weren't actively prophylaxing patients in the early stages of dose escalation or actually through most of dose escalation.

The literature evidence and the work that ImmunoGen has done and has reported has shown pretty clearly that steroidal eyedrops given appropriately and with a high-degree of compliance can actually be pretty effective in mitigating this type of toxicity and we're using a somewhat similar regimen, but a further-modified regimen based on consultation with our own consultant. We're going to have to wait and see. We're optimistic but it's going to also be a function of the dose that we actually end up picking for Phase 2 as well. So, we'll know more as the year progresses.

The second question on BMS revenues, we don't have additional guidance at this point on revenue from BMS or actually from any of the other collaborations at this stage.

Ashiq Mubarack -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Biren Amin with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Sean, maybe I can just start on 2009. When can we expect, I guess, an announcement on which tumor types you would go after with the Phase B portion of the study? What would you consider in terms of factors in evaluating which tumor types? I think you looked at seven tumors in the Phase 1 portion.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, let's just recap what we know so far. As I mentioned in my comments, as we shared at ASCO, we've seen evidence of activity for 2009 in a number of tumor types which we know express target and they include breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and head and neck. We've also seen, as you can see in the waterfall plot from the poster presentation at AACR some activity in lung cancer as well. It's still early days, of course, but our vision for the program has always been that it has the potential to be active in multiple tumor types and that does seem to be the case.

What we're working through right now is for the expansion phase as we move into expansions in Phase 2. Should we take a laser shock in one indication? Should we move into more than one indication? We haven't made that decision yet. As I said earlier on, I'm very much hopefully that we'll get through the dose-ranging work in the coming months and be in a position second half of the year to pick dose and indication.

Maybe it will be more than one indication. Hopefully that will happen the second half of the year. That does require that we don't spend too long in dose refinement in the coming months. So, a little bit of a moving target, but I think we have a lot of opportunity here.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

I'm showing no further questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Dr. Sean McCarthy for closing remarks.

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Well, thanks, everyone for your time. We very much appreciate it. It's been another strong quarter for CytomX. We're super-excited about where we are as a company and very much look forward to providing additional updates as the year progresses. Enjoy the rest of your day or evening.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Duration: 42 minutes

Call participants:

Christopher Keenan -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Sean McCarthy -- President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Robin Knifsend -- Vice President of Finance

Jackson Harvey -- Nomura/Instinet -- Analyst

Alec Stranahan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Waleed Abdel-Naby -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Olivia Brayer -- Barclays -- Analyst

Mohit Bansal -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Boris Peaker -- Cowen -- Managing Director

Joseph Catanzaro -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Ashiq Mubarack -- Wedbush Securities -- Analyst

Biren Amin -- Jefferies -- Analyst

More CTMX analysis

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

10 stocks we like better than CytomX Therapeutics
When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has quadrupled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and CytomX Therapeutics wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

See the 10 stocks

*Stock Advisor returns as of March 1, 2019