Brian Abrahams
RBC Capital Markets, Research Division

Senior biotech analyst here at RBC Capital Markets. Our next presenting company is Pliant Therapeutics, represented by the President and CEO, Bernard Coulie. Bernard, thanks again for being here.

Bernard Coulie
President, CEO & Director

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Brian Abrahams
RBC Capital Markets, Research Division

So maybe let's kick things off on 095. You guys had updated the dose escalation data recently at the AACR conference. Can you maybe talk a little bit about maybe the program overall and what you guys are seeing with regards to longer follow-up and responses in patients still on treatment that has, I guess, continued to foster enthusiasm around the program.

Bernard Coulie
President, CEO & Director

Yes, absolutely. So 101095 is a small molecule, so twice daily dosing, oral. It's an integrin blocker, av?8, av?1, 2 key integrins in the tumor microenvironment. av?8 is expressed on both tumor cells as well as inflammatory cells and av?1 is expressed on. So the idea behind or the hypothesis behind the program is blocking TGF-? in terms of converting from latent to active or even blocking the interaction between TGF-? and its receptor because TGF-? is thought to be a key driver of immune exclusion in these tumors in response to checkpoint inhibitors.

And so the first kind of hypothesis is like by blocking the conversion of TGF-?, we will resensitize refractory tumors. Tumors -- I mean, refractory to checkpoint inhibitors. So the initial data set in December, which was a very small Phase Ia, 16 patients in total, 5 different dose cohorts, we started to