Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc Citigroup’s Biopharma Back to School Summit 2026

It is a real pleasure.

Yeah. As you know, it has been a long, steady journey.

Yeah. It's not like things have happened overnight.

We have been able to process it. We are appreciative of what we have been able to achieve, right? Statistically speaking, I'm like, "Yeah, we got two drug approvals this year, and a total of 30-plus approvals have happened this year," so the statistics are great. But then in the same breath, I'll be like, "Oh, by the way, it took more than a decade- Right with each drug." That's the reality.

I'm glad we had a great outcome. For both the drugs, it was backed up by amazingly strong phase III data, right? With MIMRYLO, the recent approval of the hepcidin mimetic, such a clean and broad label. We are very thrilled. Things are going exactly what we anticipated, the way we anticipated, but we are not taking anything for granted. It is biotech. We will always be on our tippy-toes.

Yeah, no, definitely there are some implications and differences from how we were acting and behaving, let's say a decade ago or even five years ago, right? With the two drug approvals, and partnered with J&J and Takeda, we believe we are going to have a healthy revenue stream. That should be more than enough not to support our own internal R&D pipeline, but also, in a mindful way, return some value to shareholders. As you know, yesterday after market close, we announced a $300 million share repurchase program. It's going to be a balancing act, but R&D will always be our top priority. We don't want to be labeled as a royalty play because truly, genuinely, we are first and foremost an R&D center. We would like to be recognized as a company with special expertise and achievements in the field of peptide therapeutics.

And in terms of the strategy, I guess the simplest change is that we can afford to continue to develop assets on our own a little bit longer than what we might have done previously, let's say with icotrokinra, which was partnered with Johnson & Johnson all the way back in 2017 when it was a preclinical asset. Now, we may want to hold on at least up to clinical proof of concept, right? So that way, the terms could be better, and it would be a more fair win-win deal for both a pharma partner as well as ourselves. We are big believers of pharma partnerships. We believe in the expert system. They are great at doing certain things. We are good at certain things. So, let the experts do what they are good at doing.

Having said that, for some of the rare disease indication niche markets, we wouldn't mind taking those all the way through the finish line. In fact, if you think about it with rusfertide, the hepcidin mimetic, we were already in phase III when we did the partnership with Takeda, right?

Yeah. So over there, the original intent was the simple play.

Big indications, partner. Small indications, develop on your own. But the terms were amazingly good for both parties, so we took that deal, and I'm glad we did it because now it's like giving away the first two, not actually giving it away, but it's like in return creating almost a financial independence.