Bob Kramer
Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open
Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon and thank you all for joining us on the call today. Let me just start by taking a moment to thank Dan, the company had clearly thrived under his leadership and I am honored to take on the CEO role building on the momentum that we have gained over the last few years as we have executed against our strategic plan. I also look forward of leaving a talented and experienced team as we continue to broaden our reach into the public health threats market, strengthened our product portfolio, serve our customers and partners and continuing to create shareholder value, all the while working to fulfill our mission to protect and enhance life. In my prepared remarks today, I'll briefly touch on our 2018 results and then transitioned to our outlook and priorities for this year 2019 within each of the business units. Rich will follow with a walkthrough of the fourth quarter and full year 2018 financial results as well as our forecast for 2019. First, let's look at 2018. Our 2018 results reflect another strong year of financial and operational performance with year-over-year growth in revenues of 39%, growth in adjusted net income of 25% and growth in adjusted EBITDA of 13%. In addition to achieving our financial goals for the year, we also accomplished a tremendous amount operationally. I’d like to highlight a few of those. First, we submitted the Emergency Use Authorization filing for NuThrax as well as securing licensure of BioThrax in six additional countries, increasing our pipeline of advanced stage clinical candidates to a total of four and securing non-dilutive funding for a certain of the key programs. We put in place a financing package of up to $1.1 billion to support current and future M&A and finally we completed two acquisitions, PaxVax and Adapt, both of which have gotten off to a good start and we look forward to their continued growth in 2019. So, clearly, 2018 was incredibly productive year, which positions us for success as we implement plans for 2019. For 2019, let me begin with a review of our forecast for the year. Financially, we expect year-over-year increases in total revenues of over 40% to approximately $1.1 billion, which is the mid-point of our revenue range. This is the significant company milestone as it would represent achievement of our 2020 revenue growth goal of $1 billion one year in advance. We also anticipate year-over-year increase and adjusted net income of over 40%. Our guidance for 2019 contemplates the beginning of the transition from BioThrax to NuThrax following EUA as well as continued supply of ACAM2000 under a follow-on contract. As a result, it’s important to note while the pacing of revenues is expected to be similar to prior years, the pacing for earnings will be substantially backend weighted and Rich will cover this in more detail in a few minutes. Let me now turn to our operational priorities for the year across our four business units starting with Vaccines and Anti-infectives, which is headed by Abby Jenkins. Our priorities for 2019 are the following. On the medical countermeasure side, I would like to focus on the anthrax franchise and ACAM2000. In our anthrax vaccine franchise we will continue to deliver BioThrax into the SNS under the existing contract while at the same time begin the transition to NuThrax. Specifically, we're in the process of winding down production of BioThrax and preparing our manufacturing infrastructure to support the transition to the next generation vaccine. In addition, we also plan to initiate NuThrax Phase 3 clinical trial and secure Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, which will trigger initiation of deliveries into the SNS. Rich will talk about this in more detail during his comments. As the ACAM, we expect to complete current active negotiations regarding a new multi-year procurement contract and to continue to deliver product into the SNS. We anticipate deliveries under the new contract to begin in the second half of the year. On the traveler health side, we continue efforts to fully integrate PaxVax team members, products and programs into immersion operations. We're also focused on growing sales of Vivotif globally and Vaxchora in the U.S. preparing for the EU launch of Vaxchora in 2020 and advancing the Chikungunya development program to position for a Phase III. Next, the Antibody Therapeutic business unit, which is led by Dr. Laura Saward. Here we're going to focus on delivering existing contracts for raxibacumab, BAT, VIGIV and Anthrasil as well as securing new contracts to ensure uninterrupted supply of these medical countermeasures. Next, to continue to execute on the tech transfer of raxibacumab from GSK to Emergent facilities, which will provide an FDA licensed anchor product in our CIADM manufacturing facility. And finally focused on advancing our pipeline of products with a target to complete the Phase II trial for FLU-IG for severe illness caused by influenza A infection in hospitalized patients. Turning next to the Devices business unit led by Doug White will be focused on the following priorities for this year. First, continuing to drive awareness, expand availability, and maintain affordability of NARCAN Nasal Spray through a number of initiatives consistent with the Surgeon General's Advisory statement from April of last year; next fulfilling the needs of customers in the U.S. and internationally for RSDL and Trobigard; and lastly further advancing the development of our devices pipeline including investments in new delivery and treatment options for opioid overdose emergency response and opioid use disorder treatments. Turning finally to the contract, development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO, led by Sean Kirk, we're going to be focused on the following priorities for 2019. First, expanding the operational efficiency and CDMO capabilities of our network; next, continued growth in revenue generation via our external government and non-government client base. Next, completing enhancements to our Camden site where we’re investing additional capacity and capability over the next three years; and lastly continued successful execution of development and product manufacturing activities in support of our Emergent development and commercial products. In summary, we believe that we've identified and began to implement the appropriate priorities in each of our business units to achieve our 2019 plan. We remain confident in our ability to meet these goals as part of our ongoing long-term objective of diversified profitable revenue growth. We’re also in the process of developing our 2025 strategy to continue to meet that objective, and we'll provide updates on the timing of the announcement of that plan in the coming months. As a takeaway for 2019 and beyond, we remain focused on growing organically, augmenting organic growth through prudent M&A, and finally achieving continuous improvement, focusing on innovation as well as operational excellence throughout our enterprise. That concludes my prepared remarks and I'll now turn the call over to Rich. Rich?