Aquestive Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AQST) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more.
Access the full call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/ots5ysbb/
Summary
Aquestive Therapeutics reported Q1 2026 revenue of $14.4 million, a 66% increase year-over-year, driven by higher license and royalty revenues.
The company completed a Type A meeting with the FDA and is on track for a Q3 2026 resubmission of the NDA for ANAFILM, with efforts to expedite the review process.
Aquestive secured a $150 million debt facility with Oaktree, improving financial flexibility and supporting the potential launch of ANAFILM.
The company is advancing its AQST108 program, showing promising early phase biomarker data, and is planning further studies contingent on ANAFILM's progress.
Management emphasized aggressive efforts in market awareness, with plans for a 75-person sales force for ANAFILM, and significant international regulatory progress, including potential submissions in Canada, the UK, and the EU.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first quarter 2026 Aquestive Therapeutics Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we'll open up for questions. Please ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star one one on your telephone. You then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question. Please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand it over to our first speaker, Faith Pomeroy Ward. Please go ahead.
Faith Pomeroy Ward
Thank you operator. Good morning and welcome to today's call. On today's call I'm joined by Dan Barber, Chief Executive Officer and Ernie Toth, Chief Financial Officer, who are going to provide an overview of the Company's reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026 and a progress update on the Company's key 2026 objectives, followed by a Q and A session. During the Q and A session, the team will be joined by Dr. Matt Greenhot, Chief Medical Officer Melina Chaffee, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Sherry Korchinski, Chief Commercial Officer and Dr. Matthew Davis, Chief Development Officer. As a reminder, the Company's remarks today correspond with the earnings release that was issued after market close yesterday. In addition, a recording of today's call and related supplemental materials will be made available on Aquestive's website within the Investors Section shortly following the conclusion of this call. To remind you, the Equestive team will be discussing some non GAAP financial measures this morning as part of its review of first quarter 2026 results. A description of these measures along with a reconciliation to GAAP can be found in the earnings release issued yesterday which is posted on the Investors Section of Aquestive's website. During the call, the Company will be making forward looking statements. We remind you of the Company's safe harbor language as outlined in today's earnings release, as well as the risks and uncertainties affecting the Company as described in the Risk Factors section and in other sections included in the Company's Annual report on Form 10K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 4, 2026. As with any pharmaceutical company with product candidates under development and products being commercialized, there are significant risks and uncertainties with respect to the Company's business and the development, regulatory approval and commercialization of its products and other matters related to operations. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward looking statements which speak only as of the date made. Actual results may differ materially from these statements. All forward looking statements attributable to Aquestive or any person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement and the cautionary statements contained in the earnings release issued yesterday. The Company assumes no obligation to update its forward looking statements after the date of this conference call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. Now I would like to turn the call over to Dan
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Good morning and thank you for joining us today. In the last 62 days since our earnings call we have progressed the Company significantly for Anaphylm Dibutyl Epinephrine sublingual film. We have completed our Type A face to face meeting with the FDA, completed a teleconference with the UK regulatory body known as MHRA, submitted our Pediatric Investigational Plan to the European Medicines Agency and submitted our Human Factors Protocol for review by the FDA. In addition, we have closed on a new debt facility with a leading life sciences debt provider and completed our phase one safety study in humans for our pipeline program AQST108. We are also on track to attend over 40 conferences and submit over 20 publications this year. It is a testament to the equestive team that they were able to complete so much important work in such a brief period of time. The question of course is where does this work take us and how do we expect the coming months to unfold? Today I am providing guidance that we currently expect to have our human Factors data and potentially our pharmacokinetic data for anafilm available in time for our August earnings call. Now the completion of this data is dependent on the FDA providing responses to our Human Factors protocol on time and the responses being within expectations including with respect to the scope and content of that feedback. With these assumptions in mind, we continue to guide to a third quarter resubmission to the FDA. Recognizing this timing remains subject to FDA feedback and ongoing review processes. As we've stated in the past, we currently expect our resubmission of the NDA for ANAFILM to be classified as a type 2 submission with a six month review. Although final classification is determined by the FDA, we will request an expedited review upon our submission and will do everything we can to communicate with the FDA and support their review process. Recognizing that any decision on review timing rests solely with the FDA, we believe the comments by FDA's leadership on the need for the agency to provide more timely feedback and review points to a broader agency focus and in this case may create the possibility of aligning with the FDA on a faster process. This of course cannot be guaranteed. Our commercial preparations continue to progress. Importantly, we were pleased to enter into a $150 million debt facility with Oaktree, a leading life sciences debt provider. While Ernie will talk about this in more detail at a global level, this agreement unlocks several important things for equestive 1 we have improved the interest rate terms on our existing debt and principal payments will not begin for several years two this completes the pre approval requirements for the RTW funding and 3 we have the ability to access $20 million in additional capital if ANAFILM is approved by the FDA. Taken together with our existing cash and the RTW deal, we currently project that we will have greater than $150 million in cash at launch and this is before considering ex US anafilm and US Libervan out licensing deals. We plan on using this cash to focus on building intense awareness and access within the allergy community for Anafilm. We have already shared our plans for launch of Anafilm with you if approved by the FDA, including a strong medical affairs presence, a 75 person sales force and a focused marketing effort. We have also been watching and learning from the launch of a nasal spray product in the market. Our research within the allergy community indicate that building clarity, trust and support for allergists is key to unlocking prescriptions. This may seem obvious, but just think of the daily pressures allergists face in running the practices. Fitting into their world in a meaningful and credible way in furtherance of patient access to anafilm is task number one, two and three for us. While the US market is incredibly important to us, we can't forget that 96% of the world's population does not live in the US. I truly believe Anafilm is a product that will save lives and we want as many people as possible on this planet to ultimately have access to it. Our lead ex US strategy continues to be Canada and Europe and we've made significant progress. As I mentioned before, we recently completed a comprehensive and positive interaction with MHRA, the UK's regulatory body. I am pleased to say we received confirmation that we do not need to conduct additional studies before submitting our application to MHRA in the uk. We also recently submitted our Pediatric Investigational Plan to the European Medicines Agency, or ema. For the European Union, aligning with EMA on this plan is essential to submitting our application. We now know that we can submit applications in the eu, UK and Canada without conducting further clinical studies between the us, Canada, the UK and the European Union. Our product, if approved in each of these regions, could eventually be available to almost 1 billion people in the next several years. Now let's talk about our product pipeline. Given the excitement around anafilm, people often forget that we are utilizing our epinephrine prodrug platform Adreniverse to advance treatment. In other indications, our lead asset is AQST108 and we recently completed a phase one safety study in men with androgenic areata. I am pleased to say that there were no drug related adverse events observed in the study and we also saw no appreciable signs of systemic absorption of our epinephrine prodrug or of epinephrine itself. We did, however, see something intriguing. Now keep in mind this is very early phase one study data. Our Chief Development Officer, Dr. Matthew Davis added biomarker assays to the study to see if we could detect changes in key proteins associated with with both alopecia areata and androgenic areata along with other dermatological conditions such as atopic dermatitis. While this information is not statistically powered and should be viewed as directional only, we were pleased to see in subjects with alopecia that the cytokine TSLP appeared to be impacted by AQSD108. This was not the case when subjects were given placebo. This is very exciting as the signaling pathway for TSLP involves the activation of JAK1 and of JAK2. We have included preliminary data on this work in our Supplemental Material available under the Presentations section of the Investor page on our website. We will talk more about the next studies for AQST108. If you in the coming months, Once we have resubmitted our anafilm application in the US our business development efforts and base business continue to move forward. Our business development team is currently in active negotiations on multiple programs for Europe, the US and South America. We have also had outreach from additional regions of the world, including China in Australia. We are prioritizing this work based on the territory and program involved. We expect to have more to say on this topic in the months to come. In summary, we expect to provide a significant data update in August, assuming the FDA keeps to its review timeline and provides constructive comments to our Human Factors study protocol. We continue to drive awareness in the epilepsy community ahead of a potential product launch of anafilm if approved by the FDA. Our international filing efforts continue to be a priority and our AQST108 program continues to show promise for expansion into potential multiple indications. With that, I will turn the call over to Ernie.
Ernie Toth (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you Dan and good morning everyone. By now you will have seen our first quarter 2026 financial results in the earnings release issued last evening and detailed in our Form 10Q filing. As we typically do, we will address most of the detailed discussion regarding the quarter during QA and I will focus my remarks on financial performance, operating spend and liquidity during the first quarter. Our primary financial focus remains supporting progress on Anafilm following receipt of the FDA Complete Response Letter on January 30, 2026 while maintaining a strong balance sheet and financial flexibility. Subsequent to quarter end, we completed a Type A meeting with the FDA and aligned on the remaining requirements for approval, including a Human Factors Validation Study and a PK study, both of which are currently underway during the quarter. We extended our strategic funding agreement with RTW Investments through June 30, 2027, further strengthening our liquidity Runway and financial flexibility as we work towards anafilm resubmission. Additionally, we announced the refinancing of our existing debt with a new $150 million debt facility with certain funds and accounts managed by Oaktree Capital Management. This transaction reduces our interest rate, extends the interest only period, saving $45 million in principal payments over the next three years on the existing debt that were scheduled to commence on June 30th and provides additional flexibility to fund the launch of Anafilm if approved by the FDA. The new debt facility is available in four tranches with Tranche A of $55 million refinancing the existing debt Tranche B of $20 million available upon FDA approval of Anafilm Tranche C of $25 million available upon achieving certain sales levels and tranche D of $50 million available upon mutual consent of Oaktree and the company. Now let me walk you through our first quarter results. Total revenues increased to $14.4 million in the first quarter 2026 from $8.7 million in the first quarter 2025. The 66% increase was primarily driven by increases in license and royalty revenue and increases in manufacturer and supply revenue. License and royalty revenue increased to $5.4 million in the first quarter 2026 from $0.8 million in the first quarter 2025 primarily due to the recognition of royalty revenue from Zepyr. Manufacturer and supply revenue increased to $8.8 million in the first quarter 2026 From $7.2 million in the first quarter 2025 primarily Due to increases in Suboxone revenues partially offset by lower Endiv revenues. Research and development expenses decreased to $4.2 million in the first quarter 2026 from $5.4 million in the first quarter 2025. The decrease in research and development expenses was primarily due to lower clinical trial costs associated with the anafilm development program partially offset by increases in RD personnel cost. Selling general and administrative expenses decreased to $11 million in the first quarter 2026 from $19.1 million in the first quarter 2025. The decrease primarily represents the one time Anafilm PDUFA fee of $4.3 million in the prior year period, lower legal fees of approximately $3.4 million, lower commercial spending of approximately $2 million and lower regulatory and licensing fees of approximately $0.5 million, partially offset by higher severance costs of approximately $0.6 million, higher personnel costs of approximately $0.5 million and higher share based compensation expenses of approximately $0.5 million. Acuesta's net loss for the first quarter 2026 was $8.1 million or $0.07 for both basic and diluted loss per share compared to the net loss in the first quarter 2025 are $22.9 million or $0.24 for both basic and diluted loss per share. The decrease in net loss was primarily driven by increases in revenues, decreases in selling general and administrative expenses and research and development expenses partially offset by decreases in interest income and other income. Net non GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss was $1.7 million in the first quarter 2026 compared to non GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss of $17.6 million in the first quarter 2025. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the first quarter 2026 with approximately $110 million in cash and cash equivalents. This cash position provides us with sufficient capital to complete the remaining FDA required studies for ANAFILM, continue advancing AQST108 and our Adreniverse platform and support ongoing operations and regulatory planning including potential ex US Regulatory filings and preparing for the US Commercial launch of anafilm if approved by the fda. At this time we are not updating full year financial guidance and as our near term focus remains on execution of the remaining Anafilm study requirements and achieving regulatory milestones, we expect to provide additional financial and operational updates as those milestones are reached. For 2026 the company expects total revenue of $46 million to $50 million and non GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss of $35 million to $30 million as of May 13th, 2026. In summary, the first quarter of 2026 reflects disciplined financial execution, a strong cash position and continued focus on advancing anafilm towards resubmission while carefully managing expenses across the organization. With that, I will now turn the line back to the operator to open the line for questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from the line of Rhonda Reese from Learning Partners. Your line is open.
Rhonda Reese
Great. Good morning everyone. So a couple from me first on Anafilm. Could you give us a little bit more detail on how things are going, preparing for the US Filing and ongoing study interactions or activities? It sounds like you reiterated your timeline. What gives you added conviction to be able to hit that milestone?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. Good morning, Rhonda. Nice to hear your voice. So I think that the way to think about this moment in time for questive, especially with Anafilm, is we're ready to go. We have a great team here who has the study designs completely ready. We have the sites standing by ready to start the studies. We've given guidance on timing of when we expect to have top line data in our August earnings. The only trigger that we are waiting for is, as we told you in our last release, the FDA reviewing our human factors protocol, which we have commitment from the FDA on the turnaround of that, which we expect to be in the next few weeks. And as soon as we have that, we will start our studies and be on our way. So that's where the conviction on our timing comes from. And I think when you look across the broader business, you can see that we're ready to go, whether it be medical awareness or our balance sheet as well.
Rhonda Reese
Sounds good. And I wanted to ask a question about AQST108 as well. The biomarker data sounds interesting. Can you help frame that? How does that compare to other programs you've seen going after similar indications, even if they're different mechanism agents? How should we think about this early signal?
Matthew Davis
Sure. And I'll let Matthew Davis Take that one. Think about TSLP. What's intriguing about this signal is the fact that 1 it crosses across TH1/TH2 driven inflammation. JAK-STAT 1. JAK-STAT 2. So when you think of dermatology, you would think of mechanisms that would be beneficial for alopecia areata, androgenic alopecia, atopic derm, and there's a lot of optionality that this gives us the fact that we also saw the correct orientation of CCL3 and CCL4 would be conformational. Remember, this is directional only data that we're looking at the right things right now. So this gives 108 topical a lot of optionality in the dermatologic space.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
So Ruana, just to add on to what Matthew said, what we like about this moment for this program is one we obviously are not going to lose focus on anafilm. Our attention remains there. But we've been looking to create the data and the reasons to believe on why our Adreniverse platform is a meaningful way to build a company. And as Matthew just walked you through these early results show, we think we're starting to find that proof.
Rhonda Reese
Sounds great. Thanks.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question will come from the line of Kristin Kuska from Kanter. Your line is open.
Kristin Kuska
Hi, good morning everybody and congrats on all of the progress. So I wanted to ask how your market research and conversations have been going about coverage and reimbursement. I think there's been a lot of great work to support. The enthusiasm is there. But assuming you get an approval, what gives you confidence that you will get the coverage that the patients that want Anafim will be able to get their hands on it?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. And good morning, Kristin. Well, look, I think I hopefully have been consistent on this point all along. Coverage and reimbursement is a struggle for every company in life sciences. So there is no doubt when we launch that Sherry and her team have a lot of work to do to get coverage for the product at the level we want the product to be available to people. So Sherry and I'll pass it over to her in a second here. Her and her team are doing a lot of the great foundational work to make that happen. But I do want to set the expectation right for everyone listening today. It will take time and it will be something that we have to build as we go through our launch. And with that, I'll let Sheri provide her view.
Sherry Korchinski (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Hi, Kristin. Good morning. As we've been talking about, ensuring as many patients have access to anafilm is our number one priority. And rapid payer coverage and reducing the Friction at our HCP's office is key. Like Dan mentioned, we have watched and learned from the recent nasal launch. We see what has worked, what hasn't worked. We're adjusting our strategy accordingly and we continue to have very robust discussions with the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and the payers from the research and from our one on one meetings, there is significant interest in our product. But as Dan has mentioned, you know, it's going to take some time. But what I can assure you with Kristin is we are setting up a best in class hub and patient support services. We are investing heavily into ensuring that there is as little friction even with those prior authorizations, that there's as little friction and pain for our physicians offices. That's the one thing we've learned. And so we've taken our learnings and we're applying them to how we what, how and what we will do. And so at the end of the day, we are very, very invested, ensuring that Both patients and Healthcare Providers (HCPs) are aware of Anafilm and then are prepared to prescribe Anafilm and ultimately that our patient gets their Anafilm prescription. Okay, thank you. And then just on that awareness angle, what do you think is going to be the biggest push that you're going to have to do in terms getting the word out there and how would you say potentially having this extra time since the CRL and your original planning has benefited that?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, look, when it comes to awareness, Dan, do you want to. When it comes to awareness, I'm incredibly pleased with where we are as a company. We're definitely, in my view, I'll use the phrase punching above our weight and I'm going to pass it over to Matt Greenhaught in a second. But a lot of that is because of his efforts in the team around him and with him and their efforts out in the field. As I mentioned in the prepared comments, this year we'll be at 40 conferences and have 20 publications and that is an extensive awareness campaign. But Matt, maybe you could provide some of your thoughts on what you see.
Matt Greenhot
Yeah. Good morning. Hope everybody's doing well. I mean, we've been busy. We've gone to 13 conferences to date. We're going to hit over 40. Ideally, you know, just writing papers is a lot of data. There's a great story to tell here and you know, doing my best to get this out and hopefully, you know, this will go through publication, you know, some point this summer to early fall. You know, we go and we meet with people at these meetings. There's a lot of enthusiasm, there's a lot of excitement and it's great to have the opportunity to just sit and talk about what our story is, what we believe this product can do and just be there to reassure and answer questions about really anything that they want to know. So we have a nice opportunity to really get out and meet everybody. And again, these are mostly my former colleagues. So it's a. So it's nice to be able to interact with them and share my enthusiasm about this product. And again, where we believe that this
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
is going to go and I think we see that coming through in the survey work we do when we ask are you aware of our products? And you see those numbers steadily going up over time.
Kristin Kuska
Thanks everyone.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes David Amsalom from Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Hi everyone. This is now gone for David. Thanks for taking our question. Just a couple quick ones from us. So first with Nesse, now that that's been on the market for around 18 months, can you elaborate on the learnings from that launch that are influencing any changes to your commercialization strategy? That's number one. And number two, with the Oaktree financing in place and the pre approval conditions for the additional our TW financing net, is that sufficient Runway through the launch of anafilm? So if you could provide some clarification there, that'd be great. Thank you.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. Yeah. Well, let me go in reverse order and let's start with Oaktree. And I'm gonna pass it over to Ernie for a minute here from our perspective. I'll open with that piece by saying, look, we're incredibly excited about the relationship with Oaktree. And now with both RTW and Oaktree as key factors of the organization, we think we're well positioned. But Ernie can give you his thoughts on Runway through the launch. Certainly you mentioned with the refinancing of the existing debt with Oaktree, that satisfied. The second condition under our first condition under RTW was that we refinance our existing debt so we have access to that capital. Second being that we get approval on Anafil. As we've said publicly both in our oral and written statements, that this provides us Runway through the launch next year. If approved, it puts the company in probably the best capital position it has ever been. And we feel confident that we'll have the funds in place ready to launch on approval of Antepil. And let me go back to your first question which was on the learnings from nefi. I'll give you my thought and then I'll ask Sherry to also give hers for me. I think the key learning is no matter how innovative your product, and we clearly believe our product is innovative, innovative and potentially transformative in this space, you can't take anything for granted. All of the hard work, the basic blocking and tackling work of launching a drug, being out in front of the doctors, telling your story, getting coverage. All of that you have to do, no matter how innovative your product is. So we are definitely focused on making sure we're ready to do all of that hard work. But Sherry, I'll let you add your thoughts to the
Sherry Korchinski (Chief Commercial Officer)
sure. Thanks so much and thanks so much for the question. Look, as you know, having a non device oral easiest to carry epinephrine, it is a game changer in the marketplace. But again, as Dan mentioned, no matter you build a better mousetrap, that doesn't necessarily mean it will come. And we've seen this in this marketplace. As you know, I ran the EpiPen brand and we saw the same thing happen with Aviq. So just because you build a better mousetrap doesn't mean that everyone will come. So what have we learned? I think one is how do we reduce that friction. And so as I just mentioned to Kristin, we are really working hard in our very robust discussions with the PBMs and payers, but also working on setting up the best in class hub and support services to support the offices. I think we heard from Ars back in their March earnings call is that they were kind of doubling down in the allergist space, increasing reach and frequency in the allergist. We know that this market is driven by the allergist and high prescribing pediatricians. Our plan, as you know we've moved to 75 reps as well as then obviously the managers and the support around that is critical to drive the product forward. Look, I think at the end of the day reducing friction in the physician's office is critical, ensuring that physicians and patients have awareness and really driving believability in the product. So Matt's team is out there doing a fantastic job. I mean our market research shows the awareness with the HCPs has gone from a 33% to 66%. So the increased effort in publications and all the medical work that is being done will only continue to do that. But that only gets us so far right with the awareness we have to have doctors believe in it. So all of the scientific work Matt and his team are doing, the publications we will continue to put out are critically important. And then physicians have to get experience with the product in their office. And so we will look to launch a program upon approval so physicians can get that actual real world experience.
David Amsalom
Great. Thank you. Does that answer your question, David?
OPERATOR
It does. Thanks. Thank you. And our next question comes in line of Francois Brisbach from Lifesight Capital. Your line is open.
Francois Brisbach
Hey guys, thanks for the questions. Here. So I was just wondering on that friction pain in the physician's office, is this something where it's kind of, it's always the same issue. Is there one problem that seems to be recurrent everywhere, that's easily fixable, or is this a situation where it depends on the practice, it depends on the state, it depends on the doctor. How, you know, how, how far can you guys go in terms of better understanding if you have to do like a custom approach to each office? Or is there something where it's like I think we've got something here that is the main problem most of the time.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Morning, Frank. Good to hear your voice. So I'll say let me position it this way while we're working on it and Sherry gave you the kind of the big overview, we definitely will be keeping a decent amount of our playbook to ourselves. So yes, we do see opportunity on how to manage the friction. We do, as Sherry talked about, see some of the basic steps that every company takes, like having a good hub, like being there with frequency. But in terms of the tailor made approach and how we tackle that, some of that we're going to hold back on for right now. But I guess the way I'll leave it with you is more to come.
Francois Brisbach
Okay, great. And on the, in terms of the fda, there's just so much with you guys with the FDA right now. Has the personnel changed, any updates on. There's obviously been quite a bit of change with the fda. Anything in terms of your case that has changed or has been more worrisome about this? I think you guys are waiting on the review from the Human Factors protocol. If you just in terms of timeline and expectations and comfort. And then you mentioned there could be a possibility where things even accelerate. Can you just dig a little bit more into your, what you can share about FDA interactions?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. Well, I'll talk about the acceleration piece and then I'll pass it over to Melina to talk about her view on the stability of the people we're interacting with. So to be clear, we believe we will be assigned a six month review clock because that would seem to be what the statutes are saying. However, we firmly believe that the package we're going to be putting in, as all of us are aware, will be the human Factors study and the PK study that we're doing and that's it. So we do believe there's an opportunity to say to the FDA, this is a limited package and it shouldn't require the full six months. We also would note there's precedence for that in the other recent branded product in this space. So that will be our approach on pushing for hopefully action sooner than the full six months. But in terms of the stability of the individuals of the fda, I'll pass it over to multiple.
Melina Chaffee (Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs)
Thank you. Good morning Frank. The team, the review team, across the board, across the various divisions remain intact, meaning that these are the same individuals that have worked with us early on during the development of the product as well as during the review. So we foresee no abrupt changes at this point.
Francois Brisbach
Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes Alimo Omahad from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Alimo Omahad
Good morning everyone. Thank you for taking our questions and thank you for the really comprehensive earnings call. So just a couple from us, I guess the first one is in terms of the Zebra royalty, how should we think about this? 5.4 million. Is that a run rate figure or were there any catch up payments in Q1 that make this a high watermark for the year and then kind of one more, a little bit more mechanistic on the TSLP biomarker. So it kind of seems like JAK1 2 sits downstream of TSLP signaling and that JAK inhibitors which currently carry the black box warning largely due to their exposure, could limit the uptake. So I guess how confident are you that aqsts topical delivery profile would avoid the systemic JAK inhibition risks that currently limit the oral agents? Thank you.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
So I'll let Ernie start with the Zephyr royalty and then go to Matthew for the tslp. Hi Mazi. So no, you should not think of this as run rate for the year. We've got to remember that what we received from Zebra is a part of an agreement we have with them where we have an economic interest in one of their products. As Taurus Zebra recently sold that product and as a result of that received a $50 million payment of which we were entitled to 10% of. So that is what accounts for the $5 million, approximately $5 million in the first quarter. And let's turn to your question on TSLP which is.
Matthew Davis
That's an absolutely great question. So when you think about the broad based nature of immunomodulation when it comes to the adreniverse, you should think that we're not a specific actor inhibiting one pathway. So the healthy normal subjects that volunteer for this trial did not have an elevated TSL tape, they did not have elevated CCL3, CCL4 and the topical AQ ST108 did not actually modulate those patients. So the patients that had androgenic alopecia is not a broad based inflammatory condition, but they did have elevated TSLT and the topical 108 did reduce that directionally. So our preclinical research and also the published literature says that topical beta 2 agonists have a broad based immunomodulator, not specifically targeting one pathway. A JAK inhibitor specifically basically targets one pathway now as a program advances. We'll find out more about it and we will inform you as we get more data. That's sort of the differentiation between a broad based modulation versus a single pathway inhibitor.
Alimo Omahad
Very helpful. Thank you for the added color.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes to the line of Raghuram Savaraju from HC Wainwright. Your line is open.
Raghuram Savaraju
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. This is Yanzi sitting in forum. So I have a few questions. The first is for anafilm. So for Anafilm Xus, you said that you have existing clinical data that's enough to support filings in Canada, eu, UK and so on. And I'm just wondering how are you thinking about sequencing partnering price access, all the works and the retained economics across those markets?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure, yeah. So, and we can go into further detail if you want on the existing clinical piece, but as Melina and her team have worked very hard, we've met with the regulatory bodies in Canada, UK and ema. So that's where our comfort comes from that the existing clinical package is sufficient and we are working rapidly for its regulatory filings and multiple jurisdictions. So from that perspective, we're in good shape. From the partnering perspective, we're well on our way. In Europe in particular, I would say the economics are similar to what you would expect for a program at this stage. So we do understand the markets, we've done our work in those markets. We understand what we should retain versus what a partner should be able to also be rewarded and feel good about. So I think those I would guide you to being within industry norms and in terms of timing, I've learned over the year with BD deals, timing is always a tricky thing. So what I would tell you is we are on our way and when we get to the right place, you guys will be the first to know.
Raghuram Savaraju
Great, thank you. And now with respect to the Oaktree facility, would you be able to disclose what the prepayment provisions are there, for example, like what are the cash restrictions, for example?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
I think everything is disclosed in the 8K. It's pretty extensive disclosure on the covenants and the restrictions and everything. So I would refer you to Ed. I would just broadly say we are happy with not only the quality of the debt provider we have with Oaktree, but the ability to run our business and grow our business without being restrained. So we think that is a key part of this announcement.
Raghuram Savaraju
Great. Thank you so much.
OPERATOR
Thank you once again. That's Star 11 for questions. Star 11, our next question comes from the line. Jim Malloy from Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.
Laura
Hello, this is Laura in for Jim Malloy. Thank you for taking our questions. So for AQST108, you've touched on this already a bit, but how do you think you're going to further look into the TSLP biomarker data in Future studies for 108? And how meaningful do you think this finding is for the atopic dermatitis indication specifically that you're looking to study?
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. Well, I'll pass it over to Matthew in a second. But I would say, you know, we're definitely excited, it's definitely a positive thing and something that we're happy to see and confirmatory of what we thought we would see. But as Matthew guided it is early stage is early stage information. And I also do want to just reiterate that in the short term. So over these next few months, everyone's brain power, resources, time, including Matthew's will be heavily geared towards making sure we get our anatomy resubmission right. So that is definitely priority number one. But I'll let Matthew give you his thoughts on what might come next.
Matthew Davis
I'm very, very excited about the directional discovery of the tflp. But please remember this is one of many biomarkers so it guides you towards inflammatory states dermatologically, topically, but also in additional programs. We want to expand upon the biomarkers and the utilization of biomarkers because we believe based on literature and based on our own pre clinical work that there is a lot of opportunities and we believe that topical beta 2 blockers and the adrenal verse in general really can have the potential of being a broad based aminomodulator. And as we develop our programs, once we're done with anafilm, we will guide everyone of what direction we're going and what information we're going to be looking at. But this is a really exciting first step.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Got it, thank you. And also for anafilm, with plans to expand globally, are you still on track to file for full submission to the EMA and Health Canada by the end of the year? And how would you just Compare the overall U.S. versus ex U.S. timing. Thank you. Yeah. With the U.S. timing, obviously, we've been very open about. We continue to guide to a Q3 submission. We think it's a six month review. We're going to try to get the review to be faster. So obviously the map there is pretty basic. On Canada, we continue to see a 2026 filing. On Europe, we're definitely shooting for a 2026 filing. We're going to be right up against the New Year's holiday where that falls. So whether that is late Q4 or early Q1, I'm not sure that the calendar turn is what matters on that so much as getting it right and getting it in as fast as we can.
Laura
Great. Thank you for taking the questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. I'm not sure we have any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back over to Dan Barber for closing remarks.
Dan Barber (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Victor. As I said earlier in the call, we are, in our view, ready to go. We're ready to conduct our studies. We're ready to build our awareness even further. And if approved by the fda, we're on track to launch anafilm. And we look forward to updating you on our additional progress in the months to come. And with that, thank you for joining us and have a great day.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
Login to comment