Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator instructions) Our first question is coming from Tom Russo with Robert W. Baird. Please state your question.
Tom Russo – Robert W. Baird
Good morning and congrats on all the progress in the last three months.
Paul Friedman
Thank you.
Tom Russo – Robert W. Baird
Just, first on the partnership front. It would seem as if you have everything in hand now that you 424 outside North America in oncology. Is that statement also true for diabetes? Can you give us a sense of what kind of discussions have gone like in the last month and a half I guess it’s been, and what kind of questions you are getting and whether you feel like you have what you need at this point to partner that asset?
Paul Friedman
I would say the answer is, yes to both of those questions. We are having I think fruitful discussions on both programs with multiple potential partners.
Tom Russo – Robert W. Baird
Okay. And just the timeline for filing 424 and MF, I just wanted to confirm what the enrollment time and the duration of the studies. Do you need COMFORT-II to be complete in order to file in the US?
Paul Friedman
No, we don't. We will do an analysis of the data as it stands at the time we plan to file COMFORT-I, and I think that's been agreed to.
Tom Russo – Robert W. Baird
Okay. And then last one and I'll jump out. The design of the Phase 2 trial for 050 and RA, just curious, your thoughts on including biologic failures, I guess in light of what we saw from Rigel last week, just maybe any thoughts you guys have their. And why that’s included in the design?
Paul Friedman
Why or if it’s included in our design?
Tom Russo – Robert W. Baird
I guess, if first, it looked from clinicaltrials.gov like it was included but whatever you can share on that both in terms of design and your thoughts.
Paul Friedman
I mean, if you look at -- if you look at what happens to the lipids with Actemra, with a Pfizer drug, and from what we anticipate and see with our drug, you see the effect of blocking interleukin 6 signal. If you look at the Rigel comp results, you don't see that effect. We don't know how the Rigel drug works, frankly. But despite the fact that you can show in self resistant that it is fairly potent against certain enzymes, it could be key. It's also very highly protein bound and when you do cell assays with it you get very dramatic shifts in activity. In other words, you’ve got to go to much higher concentrations to see anything inside the cell.
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