Earnings Labs

Assertio Holdings, Inc. (ASRT)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Mon, May 11, 2020

$18.05

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Dihanna, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q1 2020 Assertio Therapeutics Incorporated Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to present any background noise. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Max Nemmers. You may begin sir.

Max Nemmers

Analyst

Thank you, Dihanna. Good morning and welcome to our investor conference call to discuss Assertio's first quarter 2020 financial results announced. The news page covering our earnings for this period is now available on the Investor Page of our website at investor.assertiotx.com. I would encourage you to review the release, as it is important to today's discussion. With me today are Arthur Higgins, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Peisert, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I remind you that some statements we make today may be considered forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Assertio cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. These and other risks are more fully described in the Risk Factors section and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K. Assertio undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. References to current cash and cash equivalents are based on balances as of March 31, 2020. The non-GAAP financial measures Assertio uses are not based on any standardized methodology prescribed by GAAP and may be calculated differently from and therefore may not be comparable to non-GAAP measures used by other companies. Before making any voting or investment decisions with respect to the proposed merger, investors and stockholders of Assertio and Zyla, I urge to read the definitive registration statement including the joint proxy statement, regarding the proposed merger and other relevant materials when they become available carefully and in their entirety because they will contain important information about the proposed merger. With that, I'll turn the call over to Arthur.

Arthur Higgins

Analyst

Thanks, Max and thanks, everyone for joining us this morning. I trust you're all staying safe and healthy during these challenging times. Today, we reported positive first quarter results. And in a moment, Dan Peisert, our CFO will discuss our Q1 financial results. These results are even more satisfying, when considering they were achieved at the same time we took significant steps to transform the company. In the first quarter, we closed the sale of the NUCYNTA franchise to Collegium for $375 million. We also closed the sale of Gralise to Alvogen for $127.5 million. We repaid $188 million of our senior debt and successfully tendered for the conversion of the remainder of our convertible debt. Q1 was indeed a milestone quarter for our company. It was a quarter in which we saw the completion of the three key objectives I set out for myself, when I joined the company. Firstly, to reduce our debt which at the time was over $800 million; secondly, address the concentration of our business which had over 70% of our revenues coming from opioids; and thirdly, to build a leaner more entrepreneurial company. As we speak today, we are a company that is debt-free. We have 0% of our revenues coming from opioids. And by reducing our SG&A base by over 50%, we have created a leaner, more entrepreneurial company. The careful sequencing and execution of this strategy is the reason we were able to announce our merger with Zyla Life Sciences. This transaction has compelling industrial logic and offers a tremendous opportunity for us to unlock shareholder value. The combination brings together our complementary products to create a company with the largest portfolio of branded NSAIDs. It's a portfolio for the times we live in, where physicians are looking for non-opioid pain solutions.…

Dan Peisert

Analyst

Thank you, Arthur. This morning I'll review the financial highlights from our first quarter of 2020. My comments will focus primarily on our non-GAAP results unless otherwise noted. Year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter comparisons are all clouded by the many transactions we completed in the first quarter including the sale of Gralise to Alvogen, the sale of NUCYNTA to Collegium, the repayment of our senior secured notes, and the repurchase of the majority of our outstanding convertible indebtedness which was followed by the tender that was completed in April. Therefore, I will limit the discussion of any historical comparisons to the continuing portion of our business. Also we will not be providing any financial guidance at this time. There are two key contributing factors to this decision which are our pending merger with Zyla as well as the overall impact of COVID-19. In the first quarter, we reported $20.9 million of total revenues. This included $11.3 million of GAAP NUCYNTA commercialization agreement revenues that were recorded from Collegium prior to the close of our sale. Our results also included $0.6 million of Gralise and other divested product sales or accrual adjustments which is excluded from our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. Our neurology product sales from CAMBIA and Zipsor totaled $8.6 million versus $13 million in the prior year period and $12.2 million in our fourth quarter. These results are primarily a reflection of fluctuations in channel inventory levels that our business has experienced in the last two years. These inventory shifts have made our year-over-year comparison in the first quarter difficult. In planning for 2020, we had anticipated this and expected our first half results for CAMBIA and Zipsor to be broadly in line with the prior year before taking into account any COVID-related impact. Late in the first quarter, we believe that…

Max Nemmers

Analyst

Thank you, Dan, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. A replay of this webcast and conference call will be available shortly and for the next 30 days. We also look forward to seeing you at our Virtual Annual General Meeting on May 19 2020. Please contact us if you have any follow-up questions or if we can assist in any way. As a reminder, our earnings release and other materials are posted to the Investor Relations section of the Assertio website. Thank you for your interest. Have a good day. End of Q&A: Thank you for participating in today's Q1 2020 Assertio Therapeutics Incorporated conference call. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.