David Moatazedi
Analyst · SVB Leerink. Your line is now live
Thank you for joining our year-end earnings call. 2021 was an incredible year. We successfully relaunched Jeuveau and the business accelerated each quarter resulting in 76% top-line growth while keeping the growth of our non-GAAP operating expense to 13%. The majority of incremental spend for the year was directed towards brand building efforts through our first-in-class co-branded media program. And we funded the company to profitability and beyond allowing us to focus on building the business in 2022. For this year, our focus is on execution. We expect our top-line to grow 43% to 50%, and we remain very confident in our ability to deliver on these above market growth expectations. At the same time, our gross profit profile also improves dramatically in the fourth quarter with the conclusion of the royalty obligation to our largest competitor. Next we plan to expand our footprint beyond North America with a launch into Europe, which represents the second largest market in the world. And we will begin enrolling patients into our extra strength Phase II study this quarter. Now, let me get into some of the details. Our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2021 were unchanged from the preliminary results we shared on January 26. For the quarter, we delivered record revenue of $34.7 million, which represents 68% growth over sales in the fourth quarter of the prior year. Our quarter-over-quarter or sequential growth rate was 30%, which we estimate was more than double the industry growth rate, against a backdrop of strong underlying U.S. aesthetic market conditions Jeuveau continued to gain market share. For the full year, we finished very strong with the total revenue of nearly $100 million, which was up 76% over prior year. After successfully resolving our legal matters in Q1, we quickly regained momentum and invested in brand building efforts, which accelerated our growth each quarter during the year. I could not be more proud of the Evolus team for their dedication to result, this team stepped up to the challenge of a relaunch and executed our plan each quarter. I would also like to take a moment to thank our customers for enabling our success, not only for their confidence in Jeuveau, but also their recognition of the value Evolus provides to our millennial focus and unique co-branded marketing program. Our strong exit to the year, along with favorable underlying trends in the aesthetic neurotoxin market positions us for continued growth and share gain in 2022. It also gives us a confidence to introduce revenue guidance for the first time that reflects another year of above industry average growth. For 2022, we expect to generate total net revenues between $143 million and $150 million, which factors in a first quarter impact from the Omicron variant and the return of normal market conditions for the balance of the year. Building on our robust growth in the U.S., we are moving forward on our international expansion. In the third quarter of this year, we plan to commence the launch of Nuceiva in Europe, the second largest neurotoxin market globally. We’ve also made great progress in entering the Australian market, one of the top 10 aesthetic markets in the world. As we announced previously, the regulatory authority recently accepted our Nuceiva submission, which we expect will lead to approval next year in Australia. Our targeted customer reengagement strategy this past year successfully resulted in our capturing a greater share of the U.S. toxin market in 2021. In the fourth quarter, we continue to build our customer base by adding 400 new accounts, bringing our full year number of new accounts to 1,400. The addition of these new accounts brings our total account base since launch to more than 7,000 purchasing customers. The acceleration of our growth was largely due to the continued adoption of our co-branded marketing, which is first-in-class and possible because of our cash pay business model. Through co-branded marketing, we offer a range of advertising options with the dual benefit of building brand awareness of Jeuveau and the customer’s practice. Our co-branded marketing program grew considerably throughout the year. During 2021, we ran more than 2,300 individualized campaigns across the country resulting in more than one billion media impressions for the year. This is more than four times the number of campaigns we ran in 2020 and 20 times the number of impressions. The latest expansion to our co-branded marketing offering is streaming TV. Now customers can select from an even wider range of advertising options, which includes digital, billboards and streaming television advertising. Available to our top tier accounts, these customized TV commercials showcase the participating practice and their injectors to a highly targeted demographic residing within a short radius of the practice. Airing on streaming platforms, such as Hulu and networks like Bravo, the ads educate consumers about getting a quick in-office treatment with Jeuveau and included direct call to action for booking appointments on the spot using their smartphone and a QR code. Co-branded marketing drives both brand awareness and consumers into practices. Once consumers enter the practice, our goal is to enroll them into the Evolus rewards loyalty program. In the six quarters, since we launched the program, we have enrolled more than 270,000 consumers and repeat treatments totaled over 120,000, which demonstrates effective patient retention. We also continue to over index against the younger demographic, nearly 40% of our user base in the loyalty program is represented by millennial and younger patients, higher than the overall category of toxin users, where millennials and younger are currently estimated to represent less than 30%. The millennial segment is the future growth driver for the aesthetic market, and our marketing and digital capabilities are targeted to reach this under penetrated demographic efficiently and effectively. Before I turn it over to Rui for an update on our Phase II extra strength clinical study, I would like to take a few moments to outline the opportunity before us, as we embark on this important trial. To date, no neurotoxin has FDA approval for two strengths in the glabellar area. Recently we conducted a pilot survey of Evolus customers to gauge their interest in an extra strength dose of Jeuveau. We found that 86% would like to have extra strength as part of their product offering. However they expected the original strength 20 unit dose would still comprise the majority of their use. This clinical program would uniquely position us to capitalize on this opportunity by offering two strengths of Jeuveau original and extra strength while optimizing pricing because of our cash pay flexibility. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Rui Avelar to provide more color around the Phase II study.