Earnings Labs

Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (HALO)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 9, 2016

$63.70

-1.23%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-3.37%

1 Week

-4.23%

1 Month

-3.27%

vs S&P

-1.02%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Antares Pharma Second Quarter 2016 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand the conference over to Jack Howarth, Antares’ Vice President of Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead, sir.

Jack Howarth

Analyst

Thank you, Audra, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we released our second quarter 2016 financial results and recent operating achievements and a copy of the press release can be found on the Antares Web site at www.antarespharma.com under the News section. In addition, this morning’s teleconference also contains an interactive slide presentation. If you have dialed into the audio-only teleconference, you can follow along with the slides, which can be found on our Web site under the Investor Information section. The conference call and slide presentation will be simultaneously webcast on the Investor Information section of the Antares Web site under the Webcast tab. If you are currently unable to access our Web site, the conference call and slide presentation will be archived under the Webcast tab at the conclusion of today’s call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of our statements made during this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to statements concerning the growth of prescriptions and sales of OTREXUP, Teva and our ability to adequately and timely respond to the complete response letter received from the FDA for the VIBEX Epinephrine auto-injector ANDA and approval by the FDA of the same; and any future purchase orders and revenue pre or post FDA approval; the timing and results of the supplemental safety study for QuickShot Testosterone, or QST; and the Company’s ability to prepare and submit an NDA for QST and FDA actions with respect to the QST program; the market acceptance and…

Bob Apple

Analyst

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our call. I’m very pleased to discuss this morning the excellent progress we are making as we successfully execute on our 2016 plans. This morning we report a terrific financial results. Total product sales of $8.7 million grew 49% versus the second quarter of 2015. We recognized $3.3 million in development revenues, which are related to pre-commercialization activities for various alliance projects including generic Byetta, generic Forteo and branded Makena. This represents 8% growth versus the second quarter of last year, but is nearly triple the amount booked in the first quarter of this year. We also saw our operating expenses drop by 2% compared to the second quarter of 2015. We successfully met the commitment that we made to our shareholders, provide Teva with the quantities of generic sumatriptan needed for a midyear launch and we shipped $2.9 million worth of product to Teva in the second quarter. On June 27, we jointly announced the commercial availability of both dosage forms of the product. Sumatriptan injection is indicated for the treatment of migraine and cluster headaches in adults. Teva introduced the product into the market in July, which means we will see our first profit share revenues recognized in the fourth quarter of 2016. Turning to OTREXUP. Total prescriptions grew 16% versus the second quarter of 2015 and increased 9% versus the first quarter of this year. We believe that the various changes that we made to our sales and marketing strategy over the past few months will continue to have a positive impact on our OTREXUP prescriptions, and we remain confident that these ongoing efforts will continue to help drive growth in OTREXUP sales. We are making excellent progress on our QuickShot testosterone development program. In June, we made another…

Bob Apple

Analyst

Thanks, Jim. Let’s turn to Slide 7, and talk a little bit more about the excitement around the sumatriptan launch. Early indications are that Teva is pleased with the progress of the launch. This product launch is a high priority for both companies, and Teva has reiterated its commitment to strengthening its presence in the treatment of migraine and its global generic injectable business. As you can see on Slide number 8, according to Symphony, total retail prescription sales in the U.S sumatriptan auto injector market, for 2015, were approximately $200 million. Historically, there have been three primary players in this market. However, [indiscernible] will be only company supplying both the 4 and 6 milligram dosage forms as a generic. We believe that having both dosage forms combined with Teva's distribution expertise, puts the product in position to gain meaningful market share and profits for us into the future. We are truly excited by the potential for this product. Slide number 9 gives you a historical perspective of OTREXUP quarterly revenues since launch. Second quarter revenue increased 15% versus the first quarter this year and 14% versus the second quarter of 2015, resulting in the highest quarterly revenue since the product was launched. We believe the changes to our sales and marketing tactics along with the recent FDA approval of three new interim strengths will provide further opportunity for growth for OTREXUP. As the graph on Slide number 10 indicates the market for testosterone replacement therapy remains very large and is showing growth since the beginning of 2015. Injectable prescriptions have increased 20% since June of 2015 and represents almost 60% of the total prescriptions written in June of this year. We believe the switch from topical and all other low T treatments to injectables bodes well for our approach…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to Anthony Petrone at Jefferies.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst

Thanks and good morning guys. Congratulations on the quarter and all the progress. I’ll start with Sumatriptan, and maybe just an update on market sizing. Teva’s initiatives with managed care organizations, where the discussions are at this point? And once Sumatriptan begins to roll in, maybe the overall impact of gross margins of the company, and then I have a couple of follow-ups.

Bob Apple

Analyst

Sure. I’ll take the first part of the question, and Jim, can take the second part on the margins. Obviously for -- the Sumatriptan market it remains pretty constant in the injectable space. People who don’t have an effective treatment with oral tablets clearly move on to the injectables, and it's used pretty widely across the country. There is four generic players in the market today including us. And Teva has done a really good job of presenting to the market the reasons why their product is superior with regards to various things considering -- we think we have the best device, and on top of that there are certain storage conditions that clearly are better for our product as opposed to our competitors. So, I think that they’ve had some initial positive response from the market, and we believe that their ability to negotiate with third party players as well as the retailers will board well for this product, and we remain excited about it going forward. And I’ll turn it over to Jim, to talk about how the product works as far as margins and stuffs like that.

Jim Fickenscher

Analyst

Sure. So, good morning, Anthony.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst

Good morning.

Jim Fickenscher

Analyst

So, as I mentioned on the prepared remarks, obviously what we’re doing right now for this quarter and for the third question is simply selling final packaged product to, Teva. We do that at our cost. After the product is put into the market, Teva will do a calculation that looks at their end-sales, they’ll deduct the cost of goods that we’ve already charged them and their profit allowing for some cost of distribution to Teva is split 50-50 between the partners. So we expect that that first, that first profit share check should come in, in the fourth quarter because they actually started to put the product into the retail channels in the third quarter, so there’s a one quarter lag in reporting on that. So, when you look at it, the exact gross margin is going to highly dependent upon on what the actual selling price ends up being and what they need to do in order to get the volume, so it's a little difficult to give a precise number. But if I try to put it in the context; our development revenue and device revenue gross margin is typically somewhere in the 30% to 40% level. On OTREXUP we typically see gross margins that are kind of mid 70s. My expectation for Sumatriptan is that, when you consider the profit share which that profit share calculation will run through product revenue, and then the ongoing sale of devices, I would think that our gross margin is going to be somewhere in between the device/development gross margin rate of 40% and the 75% that we see on OTREXUP.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst

Very helpful. And then maybe to shift gears over to OTREXUP with the new dosage forms that you have out there and the enhanced sales force -- restructuring of the sales force. Can you give us a sense of quarterly run rates from here into the expectations for OTREXUP from this quarter? I’m not sure if this quarter had a full quarter of all those doses on the marketplace and the sales force being restructured. So correct me if I’m wrong. What are the doses out there for the full quarter if they were not, what can we expect from OTREXUP with the full quarter of all doses on the market?

Jim Fickenscher

Analyst

Yes. So on the -- on a couple of things, clearly the effect of having the three additional interim strengths was not reflected in this quarter. They basically didn’t get into the trade until the end of the quarter. And so, we do expect to see some movement into those interim strengths over the next couple of quarters. We did not reorganize the sales force per se, what we did was reorganize kind of tactics that we were using to increase prescription growth. So we really focused on making it easy for the patients and the physicians to get the prescriptions filled. We’re making it easy for -- the messaging is much clearer, things like that. So, we didn’t do anything per se with the sales force other than reinvigorate them with better tools and better messaging, and some better programs that we think will drive prescriptions. With regards to going forward, we really don’t give guidance, but I think that what we continue to commit to is continue growth in OTREXUP. I think the market grows slowly over time, and we’re going to continue to participate in that growth and we remain committed to the program, and we think that it's a long-term value driver for OTREXUP -- I mean for Antares and our shareholders.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst

Thank you. And the last one would just be on Byetta. When can we expect development units to be shipped to Teva and recognized for Antares? Thanks again.

Jim Fickenscher

Analyst

Yes, so obviously we’re still working on all the commercialization equipment finishing that up, and you’ve seen that and are reflected and our development revenue is increasing and we expect to see that continue through the balance of this year. I think that with a launch, certain date of October of ’17 assuming we get FDA approval in that interim, that gives us some time to produce the devices. So it's likely going to happen in 2017 based on the timing of where we are today. I think that again what we’re really looking to do is finish up all the tooling this year and be prepared to launch assuming approval in late ’17.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we’ll go to Wansey Lee at Ladenburg.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Hi, good morning. This is Wansey Lee on for, Matt Kaplan. So I have a quick question, would you mind reminding us for the QST trial. How do you do the dose titration and I think that is based on the two level -- at week six and then you do the titration either at [indiscernible] at week seven. How do you exactly measure the two level, and how is the titration, is it based on [multiple speakers] OTREXUP?

Bob Apple

Analyst

Right. So to kind of clarify the question, I think that really it spurs out of the lipozene issue that they saw with their dosing in their study. What I can do, I’ll tell you how kind of ours works and then you’ll see what it's pretty simple approach, and we believe the right approach. Based on our Phase II PK data that we had done before we went into our Phase III study, we knew that the 75 milligram dose will get the patients into the normal range. And so, every single patient in our study started on 75 milligrams, and of course it showed that everybody was within range is the data that we announced. At week six, they took a blood draw and based on C-trial [ph]. So basically on the lowest level of your C-max [ph] levels, we -- there was a dose -- a blinded dose adjustment made based on the level that you had. So if a patient was on the lower end of the range, they went to 100 milligrams, and if they’re on the higher end of the range, they went to a 50 milligram. And that was already preset, predefined in the study, so there was no real decision made by the physician or the patient at all. They were fully blinded, and even the physician didn’t know what dose they were getting. So at week six they took a blood draw, at week seven they started taking the new dose whether it was high or low or they stayed on the 75. And essentially our data through week 12 showed fantastic PK results where everybody was within range. We had no excursions whatsoever outside the normal range. And our average across the population was around five, six year or so. And so, we think that we hit it out of the park on the PK. We think that dosing schedule is extremely predictable and really there was no need to make any decisions even at the start of its study. Everyone started at 75, we got everybody at the normal range within 24 hours, and then they continued within that range through the whole period.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Okay, great. That's very helpful. So just to follow-up on that, I mean, at week seven do you -- could you remind us what percentage of patients are you now up titrated and down titrated?

Bob Apple

Analyst

I don’t think we gave specifics on that, but it was roughly that about half the patients stayed on 75. And I would think that around on the balance, it was almost equally split between the low dose and the high dose. And what we found and what we know in the literature too is a lot of it is based on BMI. And so, the larger patients tended to go up to the higher dose, and then the -- I would say that people with a lower BMI went down to the lower dose. And so it's very -- it's kind of predictable, and it actually resonated in the study. But it really gives the patient -- or it actually gives the physician the ability to titrate quite accurately based on the C-trial [ph] level. So, we’re really excited about the product.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

That's great.

Jim Fickenscher

Analyst

Maybe one other. So going back to the first question. So the important thing about the titration schedule is that it's something that's very reproducible within a clinical setting. So the physician after having the patient on the product will do one morning blood draw, very typical, and then based on what that PK result is that's the blood levels are and that's the decision point for whether they increase or decrease the titration. So it's very simple and reproducible titration methodology.

Bob Apple

Analyst

Right. And in the study itself, the doctor didn’t even make that decision. It was based on the blood draw that was sent to the lab, and they then received a blinded dose for the next week number seven. Obviously in practice assuming approval, the doctor will get that blood level, be able to make that determination them self based on where he thinks that patient needs to be. So again, we’re really excited about the results of our study and how easy it is to predict or to titrate a patient based on their blood levels.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Great. So, if I can just to clarify about that. So -- when you say the two level, you mentioned the morning level and how many blood draw you’ll take on week six? Do you get that till it matches the two level?

Bob Apple

Analyst

Well, when you started the study just like the FDA requires, when you enter into study to show that you are hypogonadal, and you have low T, you had to take two blood draws, and that's normal, that's in the literature that in order to access whether or not the patient needs to be on the study, you take two blood levels. One in the morning, one at night. On the study when we titrate it, it was one blood draw. And we took C-trial [ph] and we based it off of that and that's where we basically then the week seven their dose was adjusted to [multiple speakers].

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Okay. All right. So you’re just basically taking one blood draw on week six compared on that level do the titration, right?

Bob Apple

Analyst

Exactly. One blood draw period.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Okay. Great. Wonderful. And maybe a last question, return regarding the epinephrine pen, you have more confidence that the question can be addressed. Do you also have any guidance, additional color on to the timeline when you think you can to the [multiple speakers]?

Bob Apple

Analyst

No. I mean, we’re following the lead by, Teva. It's Teva’s end. They’re the ones driving the regulatory process. What we’re doing is supporting that process by providing any data that they need from us or any additional information. And at this point we’re not giving any additional guidance as to when any kind of submissions we’ve made or whatnot, that's something you’ll have to talk to Teva about.

Wansey Lee

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Bob Apple

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude the question-and-answer session at this time. I’ll turn the conference back over to Mr. Howarth for closing remarks.

Jack Howarth

Analyst

Thank you, Audra, and thanks everyone for joining us on today's conference call. If you have any follow-up questions, you can reach me at 609-359-3016. That completes today's call.

Operator

Operator

And it does conclude today's conference again. Thank you for your participation.