Anil Okay
Analyst · Vineet Agrawal from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open
Thank you, Robert, and thank you for those joining today's call. I would like to start by providing further details on our exciting launch of biosimilar to Humira in the U.S. market. As we have said on previous calls, our product profile has allowed us and our partner, Teva, to have broad engagement with the U.S. market. That engagement is starting to bear fruit. Having interchangeability with exclusivity to the dominant firms on the market, combining that with a premium auto injector that is also deemed as interchangeable and having dedicated manufacturing capacity for biosimilars, has put us in a position to address both private label and nonprivate label business. On the private label part of the market, we are very excited to have teamed up with Quallent, which is the private label arm for the Cigna network. In late April, Evernorth, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cigna announced that they will be making available Humira biosimilars at zero out-of-pocket costs through their Accredo specialty pharmacy, which supports over 100,000 patients currently utilizing Humira. It goes without saying that we are very excited about this partnership with Quallent and the Cigna Group. The changing environment in pharmacy benefit biosimilars is, in our view, a positive development not only for Humira, but also for future pharmacy benefit products, of which we have a number in our portfolio. Because of the unique nature of the arrangements, which was not contemplated in our original partnership with Teva, we have mutually agreed to change the economics from a revenue share model to a cost plus profit share model, which makes more sense for these type of arrangements where the payer is actually taking ownership of the product itself. The program kicks off in June, and we have begun supplying our partner with product. On the non-private label side, we are excited to introduce with our partner, Teva, SIMLANDI, which is an interchangeable high concentration biosimilar to Humira. While I cannot provide specific updates on today's call, what I can say is there is positive momentum, and we expect substantial coverage in the market to include at least one large payer. These changes, once finalized, will take place on 1 of July and we expect that an interchangeable biosimilar to the high concentration form can drive uptake in the second-half of the year. The product is now formally launched as of Monday by our partner, Teva, and we look forward to providing updates as we move through the year. As Robert noted, we have exceeded 1 million units in binding purchase orders for our Humira biosimilars in the U.S. market, which shows the commitment by our partners to drive biosimilar uptake within the Humira market. Moving to the second objective that Robert mentioned earlier, we are very pleased at the continued progress with our biosimilar to Stelara. First, in the U.S. market, Selarsdi has been approved, which marks the second approval in the U.S. market for Alvotech, and the second product to gain approval under our partnership with Teva. Currently, only Amgen has secured approval for a Stelara biosimilar in the U.S. We have a license date of February 21 of next year, and our commercial supply production has already begun. We expect to initiate supply of SELARSDI to our partner in Q4, which is the trigger for our revenue recognition. We also expect to gain interchangeability for SELARSDI, and expect to get designation either at the end of this year, which would be in time for our launch date or shortly after launch. Timing of interchangeability designation hinges on the FDA's interpretation of the BPCIA and provisions that determine exclusivity time lines. In either case, we believe we are in a strong position to address this high-value market on a product that costs over $150,000 per patient per year in the U.S. And of course, as excited as we are with SELARSDI, we view STELARA opportunity through a global lens. We have launched our STELARA biosimilar in Canada, March of this year, under the brand name Jamteki. Our partner in Canada is JAMP, and currently, Amgen is the only other approval. In Japan, we have launched AVT04 this month through our partnership with Fuji Pharma. In Europe, we are approved in all markets and have planned launches commencing in Q3 of this year under the brand name of UZPRUVO. We believe we are well positioned in all of those markets to be on the leading edge of the market formation, which puts us in a good position to compete broadly. We also feel, particularly in Europe, that the introduction of biosimilars can have a meaningful positive impact in overall growth of the molecule, as Stelara is a particularly high-priced product. Please keep in mind that Humira biosimilars helped contribute to four years of double-digit volume growth and we see that biosimilars may have a similar, if not more significant impact in ex U.S. volumes for ustekinumab. Moving to the next slide, I would like to discuss the progress expected within our pipeline for 2024. Alvotech is a young company. And for the first time in our history, we have a visible schedule of multiple high-value launches across multiple products and markets. This is truly an exciting time for the company. But while these launches are crucial, the ongoing advancement of our pipeline is essential to ensuring our continued success in the years to come. And 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for our R&D team that has already demonstrated their ability to navigate the global regulatory environment with efficiency and purpose. This year, we are expecting three additional filings in major markets, starting with AVT06, our biosimilar to Eylea, a leading product in the ophthalmology space. Unlike Humira and Stelara, which are primarily pharmacy benefit products, Eylea is a medical benefit medicine in the U.S. The recent success of the LUCENTIS biosimilar in accessing the U.S. market, we think, is an important precursor to Eylea biosimilar adoption. We also expect to gain interchangeability for Eylea in a similar fashion as biosimilar LUCENTIS. Finally, it is important to note that we are also developing the high dose form of Eylea. While we are not expecting submission this year, it is again validation to the market that Alvotech remains nimble in our development programs and dedicated to biosimilars broadly. We believe having high dose form of Eylea will differentiate Alvotech in the marketplace. This forward-looking message and commitment to future biosimilars, we believe impacts our current discussions in the market, and that applies to all global markets. We are also expecting to file AVT03, our biosimilar to Prolia and Xgeva. While it's the same development program, there are two distinct market segments here as both a pharmacy benefit product and a medical benefit product as well. On Tuesday, we announced jointly with Dr. Reddy's Laboratories that we have finalized the licensing agreement for the U.S. market and the EU market. Dr. Reddy's is a multinational pharmaceutical company with a substantial presence in the U.S. and in Europe. We are excited to welcome Dr. Reddy's as our partner for AVT03 in the U.S. and in Europe, and look forward to further updates on the program. Moving on to AVT05. We recently announced positive top line results on our patient trial. This provides us significant confidence in the finalization of this program in 2024. AVT05 is a proposed biosimilar to both Simponi and Simponi Aria, which also makes it a combination pharmacy benefit and medical benefit product. Again, we intend to seek interchangeability for our biosimilar candidates. For this program, I would like to highlight a couple of very important points. First of all, there is only one other company that we are aware of that has registered the patient trial. Secondly, only a handful of companies can boast having Humira and Stelara biosimilars in their portfolio. Moreover, no company can claim to have a portfolio that includes Humira, Stelara and Simponi. This is yet another example of our portfolio approach to the market, which we believe fosters a welcoming environment in discussions with customers, by both ourselves and our partners. Finally, I would like to add that all of the progress you see in our pipeline will lead to substantial revenue for the company, and we expect significant impact from the milestones in 2024 with a sharp increase expected in the second quarter. Moving to the next slide, I would like to briefly touch on our longer-term portfolio. With regards to AVT16, our proposed biosimilar to ENTYVIO, we remain on track to initiate patient trials this year. There is currently only one other registered patient trial that we are aware of, and this is for a brand that has been rapidly beating market expectations year-over-year. Initiation of patient trials for AVT16 should also generate milestone revenue in 2024. Looking longer term, we continue advancing a number of programs, including AVT33, our biosimilar candidate to KEYTRUDA. As a reminder, Alvotech aims to add one to two products every 12 months, which we believe is the optimal pace to sustain long-term growth for the company. Finally, I would like to close my portion of our prepared remarks by covering the fourth key priority that Robert mentioned in his opening statement, and that's regarding our ongoing business development efforts. I'm very proud of the fact that we have been able to build a global commercial presence through a network of sophisticated and knowledgeable partners that allow our portfolio access in nearly every market around the world. This has continued recently, as I have just mentioned, with the addition of Dr. Reddy's partnership into our network of various partners. We are extremely proud of our pipeline, which we consider one of the most extensive in the industry. Our next major target is to continue to partner our future pipeline programs, including AVT33, which is our KEYTRUDA biosimilar candidate. We remain in ongoing conversations with multiple parties for global commercialization rights, and hope to provide updates when progress is finalized. Outside of KEYTRUDA, the continued engaging potential or existing partners for our long-term portfolio in markets, both large and small. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Joel Morales for the financial update.