Athira Pharma Inc at Stifel CNS Days (Virtual) Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Very good. Maybe a couple questions on P300 and then we can get into the trials. Does that work?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : I think just to think about different angles for P300, you've talked a lot about how Alzheimer's drugs in the past all moved P300 in the same erection as 1017 in that early study. I guess maybe at its core what exactly is P300 telling us? And when we had gone through the literature we had found some studies of ADHD drugs improving P300 in ADHD or wakefulness drugs improving it in insomnia. Is this a surrogate for cognition or is it a surrogate for, I guess, performance? And does that distinction really matter?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Okay. Okay. And I guess when you looked across the literature, have you been able to find a drug that improves P300 but doesn't have a downstream impact on cognitive capacity?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Okay. Okay. And I guess in terms of looking at natural history data, other dementias, aging -- to what degree can we see across a population level P300 latency levels being tied to actual baseline cognitive capacity? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 28, 2022 / 6:30PM, ATHA.OQ - Athira Pharma Inc at Stifel CNS Days (Virtual)

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Okay. Okay. So, I guess maybe not to belabor it, but at its core, when an investor asks me what's the biggest risk of this Phase 1b study not being replicable, it's hard to know what to say. But my gut is always, well, it looks amazing but it's 11 patients. What do you say to that? If you think about any -- I don't want to say holes in the data, but major risks to replicability, what would come to mind?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, yes, okay. All right, great. Do you want to maybe just kind of briefly set the stage and talk about the designs of the ACT and LIFT studies and then we can come up with a bunch of questions? Is that cool?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Great. Sorry, unmute. Okay, very good. And do you want to talk, Hans, about some of the baseline data you shared and any other sort of indicators that ACT and LIFT are well-run clinical trials that have accrued patients to your original intention? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 28, 2022 / 6:30PM, ATHA.OQ - Athira Pharma Inc at Stifel CNS Days (Virtual)

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, okay. So, that's actually really great, Hans, because it gets at my next question which was -- we've been just trying to pull all the old cholinesterase studies. And you do always see a temporary boost for a placebo and then it declines. But in some studies it ends up below baseline, in some studies it ends up above. Is that just largely based on the clinical severity of the population you enroll? Is that your thought process?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Okay. Okay, great. Let's switch gears to the ACT-AD readout. And you talked about numerical trends on your call on these clinical measures as being positive. Maybe you could expand upon that. I guess is LIFT-AD powered well that if the difference is only a few points on something like ADAS-Cog that it should succeed statistically? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 28, 2022 / 6:30PM, ATHA.OQ - Athira Pharma Inc at Stifel CNS Days (Virtual)

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, okay. Now I think when you talked about your primary outcome, you said you were going to share P300 and ADAS-Cog. How important is it that ADL or CGIC is trending robustly?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes. Yes, okay, okay. So yes, to that point, Hans, I think when you look at historical trials for cholinesterase inhibitors or memantine, I think the functional endpoints only succeed half of the time. And the majority of the time it's CGIC that works, not even ADL. So, what's your take on the best enriched functional endpoint? Is it mostly that you use CGIC as the second component [and then] the GST? How are you thinking about that? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 28, 2022 / 6:30PM, ATHA.OQ - Athira Pharma Inc at Stifel CNS Days (Virtual)

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes. Yes, okay. I have an interesting question from someone in the audience, if you don't mind me reading it. What gives confidence that P300 impact was a result of broader cognitive impact versus something that's maybe related to working memory that might not extend broadly to other measures of cognition? Another theoretical what is P300 telling us question.

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, okay. Okay. Maybe last couple questions just on safety. I know your tolerability data has looked fairly clean so far. The one question I get is just related to the association with MET as an oncology target. And I was curious how you think about this mechanism and, if there is any carcinogenicity risk, then what work you've done so far to characterize that.

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, okay. Great. Well, I think we're at time. Anything you'd like to add before we finish up?

Question: Paul Matteis - Stifel Nicolaus - Analyst : Yes, all right, I can't either. Well, thank you all very much. I appreciate it.