Sage Therapeutics, Inc. (SAGE) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Sage Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SAGE) Q2 2022 earnings call dated Aug. 02, 2022

Corporate Participants:

Helen Rubinstein — Director of Investor Relations

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Al Robichaud — Chief Scientific Officer

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

Kimi Iguchi — Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Ritu Baral — Cowen — Analyst

Paul Matteis — Stifel — Analyst

Ami Fadia — Needham — Analyst

Jay Olson — Oppenheimer — Analyst

Swapnil Malekar — Piper Sandler — Analyst

Yatin Suneja — Guggenheim Partners — Analyst

Marc Goodman — SVB Leerink — Analyst

Gospel Enyindah-Asonye — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Gary Nachman — BMO — Analyst

Neena Bitritto-Garg — Citi — Analyst

Stephen Mallon — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst

Alex Nackenoff — Raymond James — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to Sage Therapeutics Second Quarter 2012 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being webcast live on the Investors and Media section of Sage’s website at sagerx.com. This call is the property of Sage Therapeutics and recording, reproduction, or transmission of this call without the expressed written consent of Sage Therapeutics is strictly prohibited. Please note that this call is being recorded.

I’d now like to introduce Helen Rubinstein, Director of Investor Relations at Sage.

Helen Rubinstein — Director of Investor Relations

Good morning, and thank you for joining Sage Therapeutics Second Quarter 2022 financial results conference call. Before we begin, I encourage everyone to go to the Investors and Media section of our website at sagerx.com where you can find the press release related to today’s call as well as the slides that contain supplemental details.

I’d like to point out that we will be making forward-looking statements which are based on our current expectations and beliefs. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and our actual results may differ materially. Please consult our risk factors discussed in today’s press release and in our SEC filings for additional details.

We will begin the call with prepared remarks by Barry Greene, our Chief Executive Officer, who will provide an overview of our progress during the second quarter. We will also be joined by Al Robichaud, our Chief Scientific Officer, who will review recent progress in development activities across our programs; Chris Benecchi, our Chief Business Officer will provide an update on our progress preparing for the launch of zuranolone in MDD and PPD if approved; and Kimi Iguchi, our Chief Financial Officer, will review the financial results for the quarter.

With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Barry.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Helen, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. The first half of 2022 was important for Sage, as we continued our focused execution across our pipeline. We started the year by meeting our goals and achieving expected milestones on or ahead of planned timelines. We have a tremendous sense of urgency to create innovation and meaningful medicines for people who currently lack adequate treatment options. Our goal is to decrease disability and suffering, while improving the health and productivity of people, their families and the health care system. We’re making progress across the entire company as we work to further establish Sage as a leader in brain health and a top tier biopharmaceutical company.

I’d like to now take a moment to review our progress in the second quarter and offer some context as to how we are thinking about the future of Sage. Starting with the depression franchise, we and Biogen recently announced positive results from the Phase 3 SKYLARK study, evaluating zuranolone in women with postpartum depression or PPD. We believe the totality of the data generated with zuranolone support the potential of zuranolone as a rapidly acting, generally well-tolerated oral therapeutic to treat major depressive disorder or MDD as well as PPD sustained effect. People with depression deserve new treatment options. We believe zuranolone has the potential to deliver that important new option.

With the placebo controlled studies of zuranolone in MDD and PPD reported, we are focused on completing the NDA filing for zuranolone, which we announced the start of in May as a rolling submission. As we’ve shared, our NDA will include both MDD and PPD in one filing and we believe this is an exciting opportunity to accelerate our planned submission in PPD, providing the opportunity to bring zuranolone to people with MDD and PPD as efficiently as possible. Our planned filing timeline, if we receive priority review, provides us a possible PDUFA date for zuranolone in the third quarter of 2023.

Work is well underway and on track for the potential launch of zuranolone in MDD and PPD. Strategically, we’re thinking big about the opportunity in both MDD and PPD as we develop a focused launch plan, which we expect to scale with success. To launch successfully, we need to continue to deepen our engagement with key stakeholders around the profound unmet need that exist for those living with MDD and PPD. We plan to educate payers on the zuranolone value proposition, which is supported by the weight of the clinical evidence from the LANDSCAPE and NEST programs

Lastly, we expect to further built internal capabilities intended to enable strong launch execution. We believe that if we continue to successfully act on these items and execute on our launch plans, clinicians will prescribe zuranolone in MDD and PPD with the sense of urgency. Patients with MDD and PPD will ask for zuranolone and payers will enable access to this critically needed treatment. All of this is important if both indications are approved. To further support these preparations, we announced this morning that Chris Benecchi has been promoted to Chief Business Officer. Chris will provide more details on our ongoing commercialization preparation efforts later in the call.

Additionally, we made progress during the quarter in our neuropsych franchise led by SAGE-718, a wholly owned first-in-class NMDA PAM. As you know, SAGE-718 is being developed as a potential oral therapy for certain cognitive disorders, starting with neurodegenerative diseases, specifically Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Impaired cognition is a significant morbidity of these diseases, and it can have a dramatic impact on people’s ability to live life independently and to thrive. We’re committed to advancing the SAGE-718 program with the goal of further demonstrating its therapeutic potential and novel approach.

Our neurology franchise led by SAGE-324 is being evaluated as a potential treatment for people suffering from a central tremor and other neurological disorders. Movement disorders can make the simplest activities of daily life difficult, if not impossible. We and our collaboration partner Biogen believe based on the data seen to date, with the potential to make a meaningful impact on the ability of those living with the central tremor to fulfill activities of daily living. We’ve made encouraging progress across all our therapeutic areas in the second quarter and to date. We’re closer to delivering our science to patients and creating value for society, ultimately advancing our mission to fearlessely lead the way to create a world with better brain health so every person can thrive.

I want to thank the entire Sage team, the patients in our clinical studies, their families, all those involved in running clinical studies and our collaborators for the hard work and dedication. The next 18 months will be pivotal for us as we continue to execute on our zuranolone program and across a broader pipeline, and we’re excited for the journey ahead. Even in these extraordinary times, I’m confident we can deliver the next chapter in our success.

With that, I’ll turn the call over to Al, for more detailed discussion of our portfolio progress and current clinical expectations. Al?

Al Robichaud — Chief Scientific Officer

Thanks, Barry, and good morning everyone. As Barry mentioned, we made important pipeline progress during the second quarter. I’m pleased to detail our advancements, as well as comments on our early development programs. Starting with our depression franchise, we announced in early June that the SKYLARK study of zuranolone 50 milligrams in postpartum depression met its primary endpoint, a change from baseline in HAM-D 17 total score at Day 15 compared to placebo, and all key secondary endpoints changed from baseline in HAM-D 17 total score at days three, 28 and 45 compared to placebo, as well as change from baseline in the CGI-S score at day 15.

Notably, zuranolone 50 milligrams demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction in depressive symptoms compared to placebo, as measured by change from baseline in in HAM-D 17 at day 15 of 4 points and a corresponding p-value of 0.0007. These results are remarkable and reinforce the data observed across zuranolone clinical development program in which treatment with zuranolone resulted in a rapid reduction in depressive symptoms that was sustained throughout the follow-up period with a generally well-tolerated safety profile. The SKYLARK study underscores the potential for zuranolone to be an important and differentiated therapy if approved and completes the placebo-controlled trials in both our LANDSCAPE and NEST programs in MDD and PPD.

We also presented data from a Human Abuse Potential study with zuranolone in the second quarter. In this study zuranolone 30 milligrams and 60 milligram, both doses in the therapeutic range demonstrated lower abuse potential compared with alprazolam 1.5 milligrams and 3 milligrams, and 90 milligrams of zuranolone was comparable to alprazolam. These data along with our clinical data support viable medical use and lower likability and abuse potential for zuranolone. We do expect that zuranolone will be a Schedule IV drug if approved. And findings from our market research have shown that clinicians are both experienced and comfortable prescribing Schedule IV drugs.

I’d also like to highlight that we announced in early June that enrollment is complete in the SHORELINE study of zuranolone in MDD. SHORELINE is the largest naturalistic study done to date in depression and is examining as needed intermittent dosing over the course of one year. We recently presented data from the previously reported cohort of the SHORELINE study at the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology annual meeting. As a reminder, in the 50 milligram cohort of the SHORELINE study, 80% of patients who responded to the initial two-week treatment with zuranolone 50 milligrams only received one or two treatment courses during their time in this year long study with a median time, the second treatment course of 249 days. These data support our belief that zuranolone could have remarkable durability. We look forward to sharing more data from the zuranolone clinical development program in key scientific forums over the next several quarters.

I’ll highlight specifically our upcoming data presentations at the 2022 Psych Congress in September. In addition, we are sharing, an update on both the RAINFOREST and REDWOOD studies today. As a reminder, the RAINFOREST study was designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of 30 milligrams of zuranolone on sleep architecture in MDD, the same objective primary endpoint measured in trials of insomnia disorders. The REDWOOD study was designed to examine fixed schedule intermittent dosing of 30 milligrams of zuranolone throughout the course of the year. This study was also designed to complement the SHORELINE Study, which examined the as needed intermittent dosing of zuranolone. Based on our discussions with the FDA at the time, we suspended both the RAINFOREST and REDWOOD studies in early 2020 before they were completed. These decisions were based on our plans to advance the program with the 50 milligram dose of zuranolone. Furthermore, we believe and confirmed with the agency that neither study is needed to support our NDA filing.

That said, I’d like to share some high level findings from these studies. Starting with the RAINFOREST study, although terminated early, the study provides important insights on the potential effect of zuranolone in the improvement of sleep parameters in patients with MDD. The study was not fully enrolled with only 87 patients randomized. The rationality of the improvement in sleep architecture was clear, with zuranolone 30 milligrams showing numerical advantage over placebo in objective measures of quality of sleep, including wake after sleep onset, total sleep time, latency to persistent sleep, median number of awakenings, mean duration of awakenings, and endpoints involving REM sleepwake.

Insomnia is one of the most common symptoms associated with depression and disturbances of sleep are associated with decline in quality of life. It’s very clear that improving sleep and depression is associated with better outcomes, making the findings from our RAINFOREST study encouraging as they suggest that zuranolone may provide a sleep benefit to patients suffering with MDD. As antidepressants can negatively impact sleep architecture, this would be an exceptional potential benefit of zuranolone treatment. We believe that data across the zuranolone clinical development program along with the directional learnings from the RAINFOREST study, reinforce that zuranolone as a mechanism of action may address multiple aspects of depression, including the core depressive symptoms as well as symptoms of anxiety and insomnia.

Turning now to the REDWOOD study. The fixed schedule intermittent dosing of 30 milligrams of zuranolone, 53 patients with MDD were enrolled in the open label phase of the study, and two patients proceed to the randomized phase before it was terminated. Given the low number of patients randomized, there isn’t enough data from the REDWOOD study to identify any trends. What we can say is that no additional safety findings were reported.

In terms of retreatment, we do have data from another study in the clinical development program, the open label SHORELINE study in MDD that I mentioned earlier. We believe these data afford the closest real world evidence we have to date on the potential of zuranolone therapy in the treatment of MDD and may help guide patients and healthcare providers in treatment choices if zuranolone is approved. Additionally, in the SHORELINE study, for those patients who use one or more retreatments, efficacy and safety outcomes were similar to those observed in the initial treatment course. We look forward to sharing the data collected from the RAINFOREST study, as well as additional data across the entire clinical development program at upcoming conferences.

Now I’d like to turn to our neuropsychiatric franchise, led by SAGE-718 or lead NMDA receptor positive allosteric modulator, that is an investigational oral therapy being developed for certain disorders where impairment of cognition is one of the main drivers of disability. SAGE-718 is one of our wholly owned programs and was granted Fast Track designation by the FDA as a potential treatment for cognitive impairment in Huntington’s disease or HD. We also investigated SAGE-718 in people with mild cognitive impairment due to Parkinson’s disease or PD, and people with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease or AD. SAGE-718 data have been consistent in demonstrated improvements on important tests of executive function across multiple open label studies to date, including the PARADIGM and LUMINARY studies in people with mild cognitive impairment due to PD, and people with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to AD respectively. Additionally, in the placebo-controlled ketamine exposure study, subjects treated with SAGE-718 demonstrated statistically significant improvement on several cognitive tests including the [Indecipherable] test compared to those treated with placebo at multiple time points.

In our HD clinical studies, we are making progress in enrolling the Phase 2 DIMENSION study and the Phase 2 SURVEYOR in people with HD cognitive impairment. We believe the complementarity of these two studies will help us understand the potential benefits of SAGE-718 in HD. The DIMENSION study will evaluate the difference between treatment with SAGE-718 and placebo and cognitive performance in Huntington’s disease, and the SURVEYOR study on the other hand will help us interpret the clinical meaningfulness of the cognitive effects observed in dimentia study. Basically, the SURVEYOR study will help us to answer so what question, as in, so what do these cognitive effects mean for patients in activities of daily living and what impact the SAGE-7-8 have on their everyday lives. Based on the results of the DIMENSION and SURVEYOR studies, we will sort of opportunities to engage with regulators with the goal, if our studies are successful, to bring SAGE-718 to people with HD cognitive impairment as quickly as possible as there are no current therapies available today.

Turning to our other clinical programs in neurodegenerative diseases, enrollment in the PRECEDENT study, a Phase 2 placebo-controlled study of SAGE-718 in people with mild cognitive impairment due to PD is going very well. We also remain on track to initiate a placebo-controlled Phase 2 study with SAGE-718 in people with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to AD, planned to begin in late 2022. We look forward to sharing data from studies complete with SAGE-718 to-date at the upcoming European College of Neuropsychopharmacology and American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Annual Meetings later this year.

Lastly, I also like to highlight recent advancements in our neurology franchise, led by SAGE-324, a next generation positive allosteric modulator of GABA A receptors, which we believe holds significant potential in the treatment of neurological conditions like essential tremor or ET, but these disease that has limited treatment options for patients and has had no innovation for over 50 years. We are pleased to announce that we have initiated our Phase 2 long-term open label safety study with SAGE-324 in ET. The aim of this study is to assess the long-term safety and tolerability of SAGE-324 over a multi-year period with the incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events as a primary endpoint. In addition, we are continuing to enroll at our Phase 2b KINETIC 2 dose ranging study evaluating SAGE-324 ET to optimize the dose and frequency and continue to expect enrollment completion to occur in late 2022. As with our other franchises, we look forward to sharing data from previously completed studies with SAGE-324 in the coming months, including in our upcoming presentation at the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society Annual Meeting.

To close, for me it has been a rewarding journey over the last decade and I’m proud of the team who has moved this dynamic pipeline forward. We are excited about what’s to come in the next 18 months and believe our organization is poised to continue building the momentum generated in the first half of the year as one of the leaders in brain health.

Now, I will turn the call over to Chris to provide additional context on our planned approach as we prepare for the potential commercialization of zuranolone in MDD and PPD. Chris?

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

Thanks, Al. I’m pleased to be with you all this morning to share updates on our commercialization preparations for zuranolone. Patients with depression urgently need new treatment options that are safe, work quickly and offer lasting effects. An increase in the global prevalence of depression has been consistently reported since 1990, and approximately one in five adults in the United States will experience MDD at some point in their lives. Current treatments for MDD and PPD are often not adequate to address the profound challenges of treating depression. This, on top of more people seeking treatment for depression, a health care system that fails to appropriately screen and assess and a significant portion of the population failing to receive care. To put it simply, the current treatment paradigm relies on a try and fill approach that does not meet the needs of many people with MDD and PPD. Something must change, because those who suffer from depression, many of whom are family and friends deserve better. Sage is prepared to be at the forefront of that solution with our plans for a single NDA filing for zuranolone that will include both MDD and PPD indications. We have a clear commercialization strategy which prioritizes stakeholder engagement, leverages disease state awareness and build capabilities that we believe will enable us to execute at a high level and scale with success. To rapidly and effectively reach clinicians in patients with MDD and PPD at launch, if zuranolone is approved, we working with our collaboration partner Biogen on an omnichannel approach that prioritizes digital channels right from the outset.

I’d also like to provide some high-level thoughts on our approach to market access. Payers are telling us that the unmet need for patients with MDD and PPD is clear. The prevalence of depression continues to rise despite available treatments and new treatment options that work quickly are desperately needed. In our early engagements with payers, we have also heard that they believe zuranolone has the potential to be a promising new option for the treatment of both MDD and PPD, with the new MOA and with clinical data suggesting the potential to provide rapid and sustained release in depressive symptoms for patients, and a generally well-tolerated safety profile. To that end, we are thinking strategically about pricing and access and working to design an approach that considers the needs of payers, health care professionals and most importantly, patients and their families. Our overall goal with zuranolone if it gets approved is to ensure that appropriate patients with MDD and PPD who are prescribed zuranolone can quickly receive it. As such, we believe that it’s essential that we work with payers to try to minimize barriers that can impact the health care professionals ability to prescribe zuranolone to treat MDD and PPD, so their patients have the potential to obtain rapid and sustained relief of their depressive symptoms. We look forward to sharing more details regarding our efforts to lay the foundation for the successful commercialization of zuranolone in an upcoming commercial spot event which we plan to host later this year.

Now, I’ll turn the call over to Kimi for a review of our financials. Kimi?

Kimi Iguchi — Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Chris. Our financial results for the second quarter of 2022 are detailed in our press release issued this morning. I’d like to take a moment to provide some context and highlight a few key points. At the end of the second quarter, we continue to be in a strong cash position that we believe will provide our organization with the flexibility to make strategic investments across our franchises and support the launch of zuranolone if approved by the agency. Our net loss for the second quarter of 2022 was $126.3 million, and we ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $1.5 billion.

Turning to operating expenses, R&D expenses increased to $77.3 million in the second quarter of 2022 compared to $66.2 million for the same period in 2021. The increase in spend was primarily related to spending on SAGE-324 and our wholly-owned pipeline which includes SAGE-718. Looking forward, we expect R&D spend to continue to increase in the coming quarters as we advance the sixth planned and ongoing Phase II study with SAGE-718 and SAGE-324 that Al mentioned earlier. Importantly, the flexibility provided by our strong cash position allows us to invest in our wholly-owned pipeline, where our confidence is demonstrated by our advancement of three potential indications for SAGE-17 [Phonetic] and continue to work across a SAGE-689, SAGE-319, and SAGE-421.

SG&A expenses increased to $52.4 million in the second quarter of 2022 compared to $43.3 million for the same period of 2021. The increase is primarily related to hiring employees to support ongoing activities in anticipation of potential future product launches of our product candidate. As you heard from Barry, we are preparing for the potential launch of zuranolone and we expect that SG&A expenses will increase as we continue commercial preparation. As part of our collaboration with Biogen, we are jointly developing zuranolone and SAGE-324 with a 50:50 cost sharing in the United States. During the second quarter, we recorded $23.8 million in reimbursement from Biogen related to our collaboration and license agreement. We believe that the work we’re doing to prepare for commercialization now will provide an important foundation for our organization going forward, including potential future launches with our wholly-owned programs if we’re successful.

Looking ahead into the rest of 2022, we’re reaffirming the financial guidance that we provided earlier this year. We anticipate having cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of approximately $1.3 billion at the end of 2022. We do not anticipate receipt of any milestone payments from collaborations in 2022. We believe that our current cash, cash equivalents and anticipated funding from our ongoing collaborations and potential revenue will support operations into 2025. Despite the uncertain market environment we all face, Sage continues to act from a position of strength. I’m confident that we’ll continue to execute throughout the remainder of 2022 in our pursuit to deliver life-changing brain health medicines so every person can thrive. Moreover, our approch in Sage enables quick decision making, facilitating disciplined investments that we believe will provide value over the long term as we execute our efforts to lead in brain health. While we’re thinking bigger about the zuranolone opportunity, wWe are very mindful of the capital allocation prior to launch. We plan to invest appropriately and be prepared to scale with success.

I’ll now turn it over to Helen to handle the Q&A with the operator. Helen?

Helen Rubinstein — Director of Investor Relations

Thanks, Kimi. Before I turn it over to the operator, I’ll ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you have an additional question, please feel free to return to the queue.

Now, I’ll turn it over to the operator to handle the Q&A. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Salveen Richter with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is Tommy [Phonetic] on for Salveen. And your question is about RAINFOREST. While RAINFOREST was terminated, are there plans to shared the data with the agency? Is there a possibility that findings from the study could be included on the label in some way? And are there plans to restart these studies with the 50 milligram dose? Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Tommy, thanks for the question. So we will be presenting data from the RAINFOREST study, which as you mentioned, the 30 milligram dose was terminated early. We made that decision in conjunction with the agency. And as a reminder, neither RAINFOREST or REDWOOD data are required for the NDA filing. Of course, those data will be shared. The data we saw in RAINFOREST was consistent with the totality of data seen to date was zuranolone, reduction in depressive symptoms, reduction in anxiety and importantly, this is what specifically being studied, improvement in sleep and sleep architecture. It’s too early to talk about exactly what’s in the label or what we’ll be able to use in promotion, but these findings will be important as we commercialize zuranolone. Chris, anything to add.

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

No, Barry, we’re excited about the opportunity and we’ll continue to see the impact of RAINFOREST as with future opportunities moving forward.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks. Thanks, Tommy.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ritu Baral with Cowen. Your line is now open.

Ritu Baral — Cowen — Analyst

Good morning, guys, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about how confident you feel about the regulatory pathway that you’re going to be embarking on shortly, specifically if there are any learnings from the AdCom [Phonetic] precedent and the ongoing AdCom review that you’ve taken away or that you’ve gleaned that will better prepare you for what the FDA wants on the outset versus in the process.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Ritu. Thank you for that question. I would say we’re highly confident in the interactions we’ve had with FDA stemming back to 2020 when we outline the LANDSCAPE and NEST programs. We’ve confirmed multiple times with the agency the totality of the data required for NDA filing. We started that rolling submission in May of this year and plan to complete a single filing for both MDD and PPD by the end of the year. I can tell you that all modules are in hand and going very well. The non-clinical CMC modules as well as the clinical modules are all well on schedule. Obviously, there are — there are things that can happen that are unforeseen, but we feel very good about all the modules that are in preparation and the interactions we have with the agency. And I believe that a fast-acting antidepressant that’s oral and short course is desperately needed in the world today and we believe the agencies understand that.

Ritu Baral — Cowen — Analyst

Have the conversation still been interactive relatively real time, I guess?

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

I’d say — I’d say this regular interaction and updates with the FDA, there is both the formal and then informal kind of email interactions. But yes, there has been — there’s been regular interactions and things are going — things are going well. We anticipate the filing by the end of the year and as we said on the call, if we get priority review, a PDUFA date in the third quarter of next year and we’re excited for the interactions.

Ritu Baral — Cowen — Analyst

Great, thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Ritu.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Matteis with Stifel. Your line is now open.

Paul Matteis — Stifel — Analyst

Hey, thanks so much. Following up on Ritu’s question, on the regulatory side, can you clarify how are you framing SHORELINE in the NDA? Are you framing the study as a maintenance study or are you framing this as sort of a broader open label safety study with more qualitative conclusions? And then to that point, what are you proposing for for re-dosing in the real world? Are you proposing something that is as restricted as SHORELINE where you have to wait at least six weeks and you have very specific criteria for monitoring or are you kind of proposing a paradigm where physicians have a lot more discretion than that? Thanks so much.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks, Paul, for the question. So let’s — SHORELINE is the largest naturalistic study ever run in depression. It’s a study where patients were enrolled and then asked every other — every two weeks how they were doing. And as — as you’re aware, 80% of those enrolled in SHORELINE that responded required only one or two weeks — two-week course in the course of the year. So two to four weeks of drug in the course of the year and the majority of those that responding SHORELINE only need one course of treatment in the year. And of course, retreatment from patients that responded wasconsistent and no additive safety issues. So the totality of the SHORELINE data will be included in the NDA filing. It’s a large safety database and we believe it will be instructive to clinicians on when retreatment can be used. And I’ll ask Chris to comment on how this is a paradigm shift in the treatment of depression, but not necessarily a paradigm shift in a clinicians practice. So we’re going to submit the SHORELINE as a safety data. We believe it will be instructive to retreatment. It’s a little early to talk about exactly what will be in the label or the guidelines for retreatment, but I’ll remind you that — that physicians can use zuranolone or any other approved drug as they see fit and as they learn more about the opportunities of how to use these medicines.

Chris, you want to talk about impact of practice?

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Barry. So the profile seen with clinical trials to date, in particular the LANDSCAPE studies have demonstrated that with respect to zuranolone we’ve seen rapid and sustained reduction in depressive symptoms and a generally well-tolerated safety profile with a short 14-day course of treatment [Technical Issues] the physicians to prescribe the product. So with respect to see the product being used, this will enable physicians opportunity to offer patients treatment free periods in between depressive episodes so the patients don’t have to [Technical Issues]on a chronic basis.

Now what we’ve heard from key opinion leaders that we’ve engaged with in market research — this in and of itself is an advancement in treatment functionally with regard to how they’ve been treating depression, this is a change in the treatment paradigm. But this does not really reflect a change in the way the physicians are actually managing patients. What we would expect is that with zuranolone that physician would prescribe the patient a two-week course of therapy. They would second with the patient at the end of that two-week period where they would hear about the efficacy and the tolerability profile of the product. Patients would then go on to experience some symptom free life and as needed at the six-month period the patient then check back in with the physician with an update. Now obviously in between that two-week period [Technical Issues] period if there were one of the [Technical Issues] symptoms of depression, if that were to return for the patient, the patient then certainly would reach out back to the clinician and the clinician could prescribe the second two-week course. So again, as I said, this really reflects change in the treatment paradigm, not a change in the way that clinicians are actually managing their patients and we’re very excited about the opportunity to introduce this as we hear from clinicians they’re waiting for zuranolone.

Paul Matteis — Stifel — Analyst

Thank you. And I really just want to clarify on the regulatory side, given the whole back history with REDWOOD and the utility of that study versus SHORELINE, do you look at SHORELINE as a maintenance study with the ability to have maintenance claims from that? Or, yeah jst trying to get a little more specific there.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Paul, thanks. So again, we’re going to submit SHORELINE as part of the filing. It’s a large safety database, we believe it will be instructive to retreatment. When we met with the agency and think it was the fall of last year, we confirmed that SHORELINE would be sufficient as part of the filing in the REDWOOD study no longer needed to be run because we had sufficient data of re-treatment. So we’ll provide more as we — as we interact with the agency and get into a label negotiations.

Paul Matteis — Stifel — Analyst

Okay, that’s great.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Paul.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ami Fadia with Needham. Your line is now open.

Ami Fadia — Needham — Analyst

Good morning, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just a follow-up to the previous question. Do you mind is to the indication for the product to be just treatment of depression or would it be classified at something more specifically such as acute treatment and do you expect the FDA to limit the number of treatments in the year? And then I have a question on the pipelines.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Ami, thanks for the question. So in terms of the specifics of the label, again it’s too early to talk about label specifics until we really get into it with the agency. We’ve said previously and we anticipate an indication statement something like for the treatment of MDD and PPD, so pretty straightforward, pretty straightforward indication statement. As we talked about with Paul’s question, we believe SHORELINE will be instructive for retreatment. We’ve got data up to five treatments in the course of the year and we believe that the total dataset will be instructive for re-treatment. As Chris highlighted, the normal course of practice would be to prescribe a medicine. In this case if it’s zuranolone rather than instructing the patient that hang in there, this could take four weeks to eight weeks to work. We believe that patients will be instructed that please take this at night with your dinner, you may feel better than two or three, take the full two course treatment and as normal, check back in two weeks. If you’re dark in mood, anxiety increases or sleep disruption occurs again, please check back in, otherwise we’ll see in six months. So as Chris highlighted in the normal course of practice. And if there is a retreatment required, we believe that we’ve got data that instructs on retreatment.

Ami Fadia — Needham — Analyst

So Barry, do you still anticipate a AdCom or that’s left clear at this point?

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

No change in anticipation or not. Weather an AdCom [Phonetic] is used or not, its the sole discretion of the agency. There is no regulatory statuted for exactly how or when they share with us. We think that we’ll learn more clearly after our NDA filing and again, if we get priority review, a PDUFA date in the third quarter of next year. Of course, we’re preparing for an AdCom and we are going to be very well prepared if the, if they choose an AdCom. If they don’t want an AdCom and it signal speed of approval, that will be great. If they do hold that AdCom, we look forward to that as well because it allow us to feature the totality of the zuranolone data and really put it on display.

Ami Fadia — Needham — Analyst

Got it. I guess I’ve asked roughly one or two questions, but maybe just one quick one on 718. When do we anticipate data from one — from any of these ongoing studies? And if you start to see positive data come through, would you anticipate developing all of these three indications on your own or would you consider partnering? Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks, Ami. We’re really excited by the SAGE-718 program, a first-in-class NMDA PAM. We recently announced the initiation of studies for SAGE-718 in Huntington’s, mild cognitive impairment, and MCI due to Parkinson’s disease and we anticipate starting a placebo-controlled Alzheimer’s study by the end of the year. And as you’re well aware, we presented data from from the various studies showing consistent improvement in executive function learning and memory. So as we get these studies up and running and enrolling, we’ll provide further guidance on exactly the timing of data readouts.

In terms of Phase 3s, that’s something that we’ll make a determination on once some of the Phase 2s readout. Clearly, the Huntington studies have been designed in a way that if positive, will meet with the agency to discuss the fastest way of getting SAGE-718 to the market.

Ami Fadia — Needham — Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Ami.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Jay Olson with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Jay Olson — Oppenheimer — Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for the update and for taking the question. Can you please remind us the original objectives of the REDWOOD and RAINFOREST studies and whether or not you plan to continue pursuing those objectives, and whether any of those study results are going to be included in the NDA filing? Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks for the question, Jay. Let me first comment that the this discussion you led with Greg Mattingly was just outstanding, thanks for doing that. I think it really highlighted how someone who uses zuranolone thinks about — thinks about that drug. That was very instructive not only for us, but I think for many in the community trying to understand the use of zuranolone. So, thanks for that.

In terms of, in terms of RAINFOREST and REDWOOD, we don’t anticipate running a REDWOOD study now or anytime in the future. As we’ve highlighted, we believe that the retreatment data in SHORELINE which will be part of the submission will be instructive not only from a safety database perspective but in terms of how retreatment can be used. In terms of RAINFOREST with the study MDD, those with insomnia, directionally saw very positive results consistent with the totality of zuranolone data, and that study we might run in the future. We have more to do with our collaborators Biogen through that — outline the unmet needs in the Phase 3 before. So stay tuned for more on that later.

Jay Olson — Oppenheimer — Analyst

Great, thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Jay.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Yasmeen Rahimi with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Swapnil Malekar — Piper Sandler — Analyst

Hi, this is Swapnil on for, Yas. Thank you for taking our questions. So regarding the SHORELINE study, you mentioned that the median time to the second treatment course was 249 days. Can you tell like what’s the shortest and the longest duration before which the patient needed the second dose, and what’s the longest time duration for safety analysis in the SHORELINE to date? Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Swapnil, thanks for the discussion. So SHORELINE is a very instructive study. Again, it was the largest naturalistic study run to date in depression. We’ve enrolled over 1,500 patients and it was a one-year duration study. So the majority of patients that responded in SHORELINE required only one, two-week course in the course of the year and the 80% of patients had of one or two, two-week courses in the course of the year. So that’s really speaks to the effectiveness and durability of SHORELINE. The fact that the median time to retreat was 249 days, I think is demonstrable that the majority of patients first depressive episode was treated in treated well and then potentially another trigger event caused another depressive episode requiring a retreatment. But again, the majority of those responded did not require re-treatment. In terms of short and long duration, we’ll be providing more data as we prevent a SHORELINE — as we presented a SCP, more details from SHORELINE and meetings to come.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Yatin Suneja with Guggenheim Partners. Your line is now open.

Yatin Suneja — Guggenheim Partners — Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. Just a question in line, I mean we recently seen the strategy HAP study, so just trying to get a sense of some of the DDI work that you might have done. Can you just comment on that? And also you showing positive impact on sleep across multiple studies, so can zuranolone become combined with some of the sleep aids or sedative anxiolytics that are out there. So just trying to get a sense of the combo use. And also if you can characterize some of the driving study that you might have conducted, what were the key findings? Thanks. Yeah, Yatin, so I guess a few questions there. Let me start with half driving and I’ll ask Al to comment on the drug to drug interaction studies. So any CNS drug entering the market must be analyzed for abuse potential. The HAP studies are one of the standard elements used by the agency when considering abuse potential for CNS active medication. And as a reminder, there is a 90-day DA review period following if that happens PDUFA approval. So the HAP study was around, was consistent with the FDA guidance on this type of study and we expect the FDA to consider data from the HAP study and the entire development program of zuranolone for recommendation to the DEA. We believe that given what we know and the brain penetrants of zuranolone, that will be scheduled for drug, which is not an issue for prescribing. And again, we are entirely excited about the totality of zuranolone in both MDD and PPD. Clinically meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms with consistent improvements in mood and anxiety. The rapid onset of action which we’ve talked about as little as two or three days, the two-week treatment course and the well-tolerated potential certainly is an oral therapy that we clearly believe the world needs. In terms of driving studies, those are complete and was part of the submission. There are, I’ll call them checkbox studies that required to be run. We anticipate as in many drugs including over-the-counter drugs, there’ll be a warning in the label, something like, please don’t operate or drive or operate heavy machinery until the full use of the drug is known. That’s consistent with many drugs, even drugs like Benadryl which are used over the counter. Al, you want to talk about the DD&I — DDI studies?

Al Robichaud — Chief Scientific Officer

Sure. Barry. Great questions. We call it, most of the studies that we’ve done in the past — most of the studies done in the past were — many of the patients were on drepressors at the time. So and what we’ve seen consistently through our all the studies that we’ve seen no differences in response to our safety profile of those patients on whether they’re on with one another drug or they’re not. In addition, you’ll recall the CORAL was run concominent with a dose of a antidepressant and we did again saw pretty much the same response as well as the safety profile of those molecules not accounting are in fact associated with the antidepressant. [Technical Issues] and all clinical data suggest that we don’t see any issues with dosing compound with other antidepressants. As I said, and most of our clinical trials had patients in them on [Indecipherable] So it doesn’t play with the use and we don’t see any differences in the response rate between those two patient sets.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Marc Goodman with SVB Leerink. Your line is now open.

Marc Goodman — SVB Leerink — Analyst

Yeah, hi. You mentioned about the launch and how you’re going to scale appropriately with respect to spend. Can you give us a little more color what you mean? Or are you trying to say that we should not expect 500 person sales force between the two companies and aggressive DTC on the TV, six months after launch. Are you trying to say that it’s really something different than that or it maybe you could just give us a sense of what you meant there? And then just on DIMENSION and SURVEYOR, what’s the timeline — best timelines you can tell us for what do you think there’s Phase 2s will readout. Thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mark. And I’ll ask Chris and actually Kimi to comment as well. So what we’re — what we’re saying is we and Biogen are actually thinking very big about the MDD and PPD opportunities and will use an omnichannel approach leaning in on digital to start. We’re also saying that we’re going to be smart about capital allocation and think about starting at an appropriate size with salesforce with DTC and other omnichannel tools and then scale with success. I think it’s a best practice to put the right capital allocation to launch. And as you see, uptake with psych with primary care to continue to scale with that uptake rather than scale ahead of that uptick. Lessons learned from many, many drug launches that sometimes companies over overcapitalized the launch. So we’re being very clear that we’re going to spend appropriately to launch well, and we anticipate success launch and then we’ll scale with that success rather than scaling before the success. Chris, Kimi, anything to add?

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

Yeah, Barry, I’ll take it first and then I’ll pass it over to Kimi. So with respect to what we’ve learned from key opinion leaders and clinicians from both market research and scientific exchange is that functionally they want faster relief and they want a therapy that can not only deliver that fast relief but sustain that relief over a period of time without the stigmatizing side effects associated with other antidepressants that they become all too familiar with over the last 30 years to 35 years. With that said, that in and of itself is something that we’ve seen from zuranolone over the course of the landscape in that studies. So with respect to our go-to-market approach, it’s going to be absolutely important that we get out there quickly with that message with the data that we have to reach those clinicians that you talked about getting to with an omnichannel approach, also making sure that we’re able to reach patients with that message around what zuranolone has the potential to deliver and it’s without saying, but I will mention that it is important for us to think about educating and proactively partnering with payers to make sure that they’re aware of zuranolone at its approval and what it ultimately can deliver. As you might imagine, we’ve already had those conversations with payers and we’ll continue to stay engaged with payers, educating and proactively preparing for the launches of zuranolone with that — that important stakeholder group. Kimi? Yeah. So, Marc, I think — again your question around scaling is a great one right now especially in this environment. We’re going to be very smart about how we ramp up our costs in the SG&A side and that’s part of that scaling that Chris just talked about. But you know we’re thinking about that across the entire organization. So even in the R&D space we’re thinking about it, across G&A we’re thinking about it is how to be very smart and disciplined in our investing, and a good example of that was really the decision we made with SAGE- 904 to hold that program because it didn’t meet the criteria that we had set for us. And so we’re going to continue that. We have the balance sheet, but we’re still being very disciplined in how we think about investing our capital.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

And then, Marc, your question about SAGE-718, we highlighted earlier in the call the initiation of Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and by the end of the year the Alzheimer’s study. And as those studies ramp up and sites come online and accrual is clear, we’ll provide updates on when the data will read out.

Marc Goodman — SVB Leerink — Analyst

Thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Marc.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vikram Purohit with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Gospel Enyindah-Asonye — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Good morning. This is Gospel on for Vikram. Thank you for taking our question. You mentioned in the release that no label changes for ZULRESSO. I expected that based on December the study, could you provide a bit more detail on what you observed in the study?

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Gospel, thanks for the question. So the SUNBIRD study was evaluating the safe use administration ZULRESSO in a home use setting. As you highlighted, we don’t plan to make any label changes. There were no new safety signals related to ZULRESSO identified and the study was kind of a a human use potential study rather than a placebo-controlled efficacy study. The study enrolment is expected to recruit on time and importantly, the SUNBIRD study allowed Sage to develop the operational capability to run a virtual or decentralized study model that will leverage in future studies. So we remain committed to providing optionality to moms with PPD and we’re really optimistic that, particularly with the output of SKYLARK, that zuranolone if approved, will significantly improve access for women in need of treatment for PPD.

Gospel Enyindah-Asonye — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Thank you for the update.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Gospel.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Gary Nachman with BMO. Your line is now open.

Gary Nachman — BMO — Analyst

Thanks guys, good morning. So in your early payer discussions on zuranolone when you consider pricing, what will you assume for average number of treatment courses per patient per year based on the SHORELINE data and how you think that’s going to factor into pricing, and how payers are going to do to drug given its profile? And then just I guess more generally, what is the market research telling you about each of the MDD and PPD opportunities, and where you seeing zuranolone may have a bigger impact early on when it’s launched, both from a payer standpoint and also in terms of physician and patient desire for the drug? Thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Gary. Let me turn it over to Chris and I’ll loop back at the end.

Chris Benecchi — Chief Business Officer

Yeah, thanks, Barry. So with respect to the first question around pricing, obviously tis early to get into a discussion specifically on where we’re going to be with pricing. Sage and Biogen will provide that clarity on pricing in and around the time of approval if we’re successful. What I can say is that as we think about pricing, we’re thinking about it in relation to how it interplays with access at the same time. So with respect to both pricing and access, it’s critical that we design an approach that considers the needs of payers themselves, physicians, as well as importantly the patients who opt for the product. Now our overall goal if zuranolone is approved to ensure that appropriate patients are able to get zuranolone for both MDD and PPD, so they can get it when they need it and that clinicians can drive the product out without any sort of [Technical Issues] in the process. Now what that means is that we as an organization need to partner with payers to make sure that things like prior authorizations and steps that its mitigated by virtue of the way that we collaborate and think about the contracting process. I know historically we’ve talked about opportunity for us to introduce proactive value based agreements with this important stakeholder audience and that’s going to be an important piece of the strategy as we think about how we’re going to make sure that the product is ultimately available. So we’re leaning in on those VVA conversations that we’re having right now in and around conversations around unmet need and the data that we’ve been able to demonstrate with respect to LANDSCAPE and NEST around how zuranolone has the potential to offer a distinct opportunity for payers to make the product available for those with both MDD and PPD. So more to come on price, but we’re the approach holistically in and around pricing and access. And again, making sure that we’re educating and proactively partnering with payers with the goal of enabling at launch access.

I think the question around some of the opportunities and where see a bigger impact with respect to HCPs, payers and patients. Taking a step back and thinking about the opportunity in the marketplace, we expect the depression, there are 21 million or so people that experience one or more depressive episodes in a given year. And given that number, there still our 7 million patient in MDD who are either new to therapy, adding therapy or switching therapy. What we know from the market research given that there are a number of generic medications that have been available now for 30 years to 35 years, there still is profound unmet need and patients need new therapies with new MOAs like zuranolone that offer rapid and lasting relief without the tolerability issues and the stigmatizing side effects that you see with other therapies that they become [Technical Issues] with all with just a 14-day course of therapy. Again, I think in MDD for those patients that are new to therapy, adding therapy or switching, it offers a profound opportunity. Our opportunity there is to really make sure that out of the gate at the launch of zuranolone that we are engaged with those clinicians and we demonstrate the opportunity to introduce zuranolone early in the treatment process where patients can have the best expected effects with both MDD and with PPD.

Now with respect to payers, I covered all payers and what I think the opportunity there is in and around to educate and proactively partner with those payers. So I’m not going to say [Technical Issues] And last but not least, I think patients. I think as Barry noted in our, in his comments about our go-to-market approach, it’s going to be really important from an omnichannel perspective that patients early are aware of zuranolone and the distinction that is zuranolone offers relative to perhaps the way that they’ve experienced other antidepressants in the past with respect to the rapid onset of action and the sustained relief all over just requiring a two-week course of therapy. So with that said, Barry, hand it back to you to cover off on anything I may have missed.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Chris, you covered it well and, Gary, I hope that’s the answer. I guess just a point on use. We believe that since ZULRESSO is the only approved drug in PPD and zuranolone if approved will be the only oral medicine that — that if we do our job right, zuranolone will quickly become standard of care in PPD, one in eight live births, about 0.5 million women a year experienced PPD and with the available drug we do believe that that diagnosis rates, risk factor assessments will go way up because now there something to do about it.

In MDD, Chris covered it well. There is a significant opportunity. There are some places where zuranolone we used to interrupt the cycling of many antidepressants of patients experience and other groups like young adults where we believe that zuranolone should be used as quickly in the treatment paradigm as possible, but more on that to come.

Gary Nachman — BMO — Analyst

Okay, great, very helpful. Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Gary.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Neena Bitritto-Garg with Citi. Your line is now open.

Neena Bitritto-Garg — Citi — Analyst

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to go back to some of the questions on SHORELINE that were asked earlier. I was just wondering if you could give us an update on how physicians that you interact with and the FDA are thinking about the retreatment criteria, specifically that were used in SHORELINE and how well that aligns with physician practice and how they would actually think about re-treating a patient. I’m really just trying to understand if the one to two treatments versus per year will translate into the real world setting? Thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks, Neena. We believe that SHORELINE represents a real world evidence study. The agency is looking for more and more real world evidence and SHORELINE checks most of the boxes for what you’re looking for with real world evidence studies. Keep in mind that patients were diagnosed with MDD, they were given drug for two weeks, then on day 15 and on they know they’re not on drug. So if there was a liability or any need to be on drug, we’d see a lot more retreatment. The fact that a majority of patients stayed well after one course of treatment for a full year is a testament to the durability of zuranolone and in fact that 80% of patients who responds initial two-week treatment with zuranolone 50 milligram only received one or two treatments the course of the year, with a median time of 249 days.

So as you heard from Chris, today’s practices to to diagnose the patient, give them a prescription instead of instructing them that to hang in there — hang in there, this could take four to eight weeks to work. I believe physicians will tell their patients that they should feel better in as little as two or three days after two evening courses of zuranolone. And as is done with practice today, physicians offices often checked back in two weeks. Today, they’re checking back to understand the side effect profile and if any other drugs are required to minimize side effects, GI effects, potential sexual dysfunction that’s seen at that time. And then in this case it’s how patients are doing after the two weeks and then classically there is a six-month follow-up. So as Chris highlighted, this is a paradigm shift in how depression is treated, but not necessary a paradigm shift in how a physician practices with a depressed patient.

Neena Bitritto-Garg — Citi — Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Neena.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Mallon with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Stephen Mallon — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst

All right, thanks. This is Steve on for Brian. Congrats on the progress and thanks for taking our question. Curious if you can provide a bit more color on what you’re expecting to see in the Phase 2 work with the NMDA PAM? And how you think about making a go-no-go decision here on efficacy, especially given the significant variability and potential responses in volume periods from the Phase 1, we give a statistic there on efficacy or just trends and what would give you confidence to move forward? Thanks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Steve. Thanks for the question and thanks for the congratulatory note. I’ll start and then ask Al to comment. So what’s remarkable about SAGE-718 first-in-class and NMDA PAM is that in the early work to date, the ketamine placebo-controlled studies, the Huntington’s Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s study, we actually saw a rapid improvement in cognition in a short period of time, either in two or in some study is four weeks, we saw it in two weeks, but continued out to four weeks. As you’re well aware, studies drawn in cognition to date or DIMENSION to date have with a very large and with a very long time tried to demonstrate most not successfully the slowing of cognitive decline over a period of time. So we’re looking for improvement in cognition.

If you think about the Huntington’s study where we’re running parallel studies demonstrating the numerical change but also kind of what it means in real life, we believe that that if dramatically positive, that translates into a package that we’d be enthusiastic to meet with the agency and talk about the fastest path to clinic. For the Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s study, we’re looking for a broad benefit risk profile trends in that improvement, but likely Phase 3 studies to follow. So Al anything to add there?

Al Robichaud — Chief Scientific Officer

Yeah, Barry, I think it’s interesting that most of the studies that are involved with these diseases in the past with other drug approaches or other approaches are specivic to that — those disease types. You have a specific study trying to reduce A beta or [Technical Issues] diseases as well. Our approach is looking to improve brain circuitry and synaptic function and what we’re seeing as you pointed out, very similar results in all three of those studies, which is very encouraging. We’re seeing very rapid improvement in executive function and memory with most of the approaches that are looking [Technical Issues] disease by changing the position of the plaque which each respective disease. What we’re seeing is those take long because you’re looking to modify the course of disease and stop the degradation of the brain. What we’re doing is we’re improving static function and that’s why I think we seeing results in a very early amount of time as you pointed out.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yes, If hopefully that answers your question. But what we believe we are are developing with SAGE-718 is a disease course modifier and the idea here is to improve executive function learning and memory, allowing patients living with these conditions to live more independently for much longer period of time.

Stephen Mallon — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst

Great, thanks. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joon Lee with Truist. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Good morning. This is Olson [Phonetic] on for Joon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just another question on 718. We were just wondering if you could provide a little color on why you’re starting a Phase 3 safety study on 718 before the Phase 2? Thank you.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Olson. Thanks for the question. So with SAGE-718, we’ve been pretty clear that we are running a series of Phase 2 studies. Huntington study and Parkinson’s studies have been kicked off. The Alzheimer’s study will be kicked off by the end of the year. We’ve designed the Huntington study in a way that will have numerical changes in kind of real world evidence on what that means as Al talked about in the comments and if those data are robustly positive, we’ll meet with the agency on the most rapid approach to get SAGE-718 to market for Huntingtons. For Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s following the Phase 2 studies, we’ll likely run Phase 3 studies based upon the learnings from the Phase 2.

Unidentified Participant — — Analyst

Ookay, thank you and congrats on the progress.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Danielle Brill with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Alex Nackenoff — Raymond James — Analyst

Hi guys, this is Alex on for Danielle. Just a quick one going back to RAINFOREST. I know you qualitatively addressed this question in the most part, I wonder if you could expand a little bit more on the depression symptom amelioration, specifically what the point delta was for HAM-D at the end of the 14-day treatment period?

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Alex. What– we’ll at upcoming medical meetings present RAINFOREST. Just as a reminder, it was — it was — we stopped both that and REDWOOD with the 30 milligram dose after consulting with the agency. They’re not required for regulatory filing and it enrolled very — it did not fully enroll. So the stats plan can’t really be looked at. What we can say today is that the profile of zuranolone in RAINFOREST was consistent with data seen to date, that is improvement in depressive symptoms, anxiety and as the purpose of the study, trends to improve sleep, sleep architecture and again, we’ll report more out in upcoming medical conferences.

Alex Nackenoff — Raymond James — Analyst

Great. Appreciate the color.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

That concludes today’s question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the call back to Barry Greene for closing remarks.

Barry Greene — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, operator, and thank you all for joining us this morning to review our second quarter progress. as we work to advance clinical and preclinical programs across our franchises, move zuranolone closer to launch, commercialization if approved, and reinvest our learnings in efforts to develop the launch of transformative brain health medicines across organization, we’re deeply committed to continuing our focused execution in the balance of 2022 and beyond. Look forward to future updates on our progress in our mission to pioneer solutions to deliver life-changing brain health medicines so every person can thrive thrive. Thanks again, everyone, have a great day.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]