NovaBridge Biosciences American Depositary Shares 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Thank you everyone for joining us today. For those of you I've not yet had the pleasure to meet, I'm Srishti Gupta, Chief Executive Officer at NovaBridge. It is really an honor to be here. I joined the company in July, so this is my first earnings call as CEO. Before discussing our first half results and our portfolio progress, I'd like to spend a few minutes sharing why I joined NovaBridge and how I think about the opportunity ahead of us. Throughout my career, whether as a physician, a healthcare advisor, a board member, or most recently as a CEO of a global biopharmaceutical company, I have been motivated by a simple belief. Exceptional science only matters if it reaches patients. Too often, though, promising medicines never reach their full potential. In many cases, the challenge is not the quality of the science itself.

The challenge is advancing that science through development, regulatory review, financing, and ultimately commercialization. That is what attracted me to NovaBridge. I believe the company has an opportunity to occupy a differentiated position in today's biotechnology landscape. Our goal is straightforward: to identify promising new medicines, advance them efficiently, and pursue the path that gives each program the best opportunity to succeed. We are working to bridge the gap between exceptional science and patient impact. Next slide, please. The opportunity to do this has never been greater. Today, more promising new medicines are being developed around the world than any point in our industry's history. We are especially seeing this in Asia, which has become an increasingly important source of new medicines and global licensing activity. But the point is not where the science originates. Where a medicine starts is becoming less important than how it is advanced.

We believe that the capability is becoming increasingly important across our industry, and NovaBridge is well positioned at the intersection of innovation and translation. Next slide, please. NovaBridge has three key strengths. First, access. Through our relationships, networks, and experience, we believe we can identify promising opportunities, including therapies that others may overlook. Second, development expertise. We have the experience to advance programs through clinical development, generate meaningful proof-of-concept data, and make informed decisions about the best path forward. And third, capital allocation discipline. We do not believe that every potential new therapy should follow the same path. The right development, financing, or partnering strategy should be determined by the needs of the program. Structure should follow the asset and not the other way around. For us, this is not just a theoretical framework. Our two lead programs already demonstrate different aspects of this approach.

givastomig reflects our ability to advance a promising program towards registrational development. VIS-101 reflects our ability to identify an attractive opportunity, acquire it, and build a focused organization around it. Next slide, please. Let me make this more concrete through our lead oncology program, givastomig. Beyond the promise of the medicine itself, I believe givastomig demonstrates what disciplined execution can accomplish. Since the initial phase I-B data presentation in July 2025, we have rapidly advanced the program towards a potential registrational path. Next slide, please. What stands out to me is the pace of progress over the past year. During the first half of 2026, we reported updated phase I-B results, initiated our global randomized phase II study, and made important regulatory progress.

Following our Type B meeting with the FDA, we announced that givastomig may be eligible for an Accelerated Approval Pathway in first-line, HER2 negative, Claudin 18.2 positive, PD-L1 positive gastroesophageal cancer. In June, the FDA granted Fast Track designation for givastomig in combination with nivolumab and chemotherapy. Taken together, these milestones have increased our confidence in the development pathway for the program. Looking ahead, we expect to present the updated phase I-B dose expansion data at ESMO in October and, subject to ongoing planning and financing activities, continue to target initiation of a phase III study as early as the fourth quarter of this year. Next slide, please. Let me now turn to why we're excited about givastomig.

As we look at the competitive landscape, we believe givastomig has the potential to become an important first-line treatment option for patients with HER2 negative, Claudin 18.2 positive gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer. Three characteristics really stand out. First is the strong activity when added to standard immunochemotherapy. In the phase I-B study, we observed encouraging response rates, disease control, and progression-free survival across the combination cohorts. Second, there's activity across a broad range of Claudin 18.2 expression levels. Responses were observed across both higher and lower expression groups, which could support applicability across the broader patient population. And third, we believe practical adoption matters. givastomig is being developed as a conventional antibody therapy that can be integrated into existing treatment practice across a broad range of care settings.

Taken together, we believe these attributes support the potential for givastomig to become a differentiated first-line treatment option and reinforce our continued focus on advancing the program towards registrational development. Next slide, please. I would like to turn to our ophthalmology program. VIS-101 is being advanced through Visara, NovaBridge's majority-owned ophthalmology subsidiary. We identified ophthalmology as an area with significant unmet need, particularly for therapies that can improve durability and reduce treatment burden. VIS-101 became the foundation of that effort. We acquired what we believed was a differentiated asset and assembled an experienced ophthalmology leadership team, including the appointment of Dr. Jeff Nau as Chief Executive Officer of Visara to lead the next phase of development. Today, VIS-101 remains our lead ophthalmology program, and we continue to evaluate additional opportunities within the field over time. Next slide, please. We were initially attracted to VIS-101 because of a simple observation.

In retinal vascular disease, outcomes have improved dramatically over the last decade, but treatment burden remains a significant challenge for patients and physicians. We believe durability remains one of the most important opportunities for innovation in ophthalmology. VIS-101 was purpose-designed to address that challenge. It is the only tetravalent VEGF-A and Ang-2 peptibody with two binding sites for each target and a molecular design intended to provide both robust inhibition and extended durability. That differentiated profile is what initially attracted us to this therapy. Positive phase IIa top-line results from earlier this year demonstrated improvements in visual acuity, reductions in retinal thickness, durable treatment responses, and a favorable safety profile. Based on those results, we are preparing to initiate a phase IIb study in the second half of this year with the goal of further defining the optimal dose and advancing the program towards global phase III development.

Together, givastomig and VIS-101 illustrate two aspects of NovaBridge's approach. One reflects our ability to advance a promising medicine through development. The other reflects our ability to identify attractive opportunities, acquire differentiated assets, and build focused organizations around them. These are the programs on which we are primarily focused today, and we believe both have important milestones ahead. With that, I will turn the call over to Kyler to review our first-half financial results.

Thank you, Srishti, and good morning, good evening, everyone. Next slide, please. As of June 30, 2026, NovaBridge had approximately $216 million in cash and investments, consisting of approximately $191 million in cash and cash equivalent and approximately $25 million in equity investment at fair value. Notably, this is a debt-free balance sheet continuing to be strong, which provides us with meaningful financial flexibility as we execute our strategic priorities. As you can see on this slide, our current financial resources are expected to support NovaBridge through a number of important clinical and strategic inflection points across the portfolio. For givastomig, this includes updated phase I-B dose expansion data at ESMO 2026, completion of enrollment in the phase II first-line gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma combination study, and the potential initiation of the phase III registrational program as early as year-end 2026.

Looking further ahead, our current runway extends through the anticipated Phase III interim data readout in 2028 for givastomig. Our financial position also supports continued development of VIS-101, including initiation and interim data readout of the Phase IIb neovascular AMD study and the planned Phase III initiation, as well as additional clinical milestones across the broader portfolio. As Srishti discussed, disciplined capital allocation is a fundamental strength of the NovaBridge strategy, and we intend to deploy capital thoughtfully around programs and opportunities where we believe we can create meaningful value while maintaining the flexibility to pursue the financing, partnering, or corporate structure best suited to each asset. We believe our current balance sheet puts us in a strong position to execute that strategy while advancing the portfolios through multiple important value inflection points. With that, I'll turn the call back to Srishti for closing remarks.

Srishti, back to you. Thank you, Kyler.