Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc
Analyst · Gary Nachman of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Thank you, Kathy. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. During the past few months, we've made significant progress on multiple fronts. We received approval and launched both Vyxeos in the U.S. and Defitelio in Canada, submitted the Marketing Authorization Application or MAA for Vyxeos in the EU, submitted the New Technology Add-on Payment application for Vyxeos for CMS's fiscal year 2019, announced a collaboration and option agreement with ImmunoGen, and issued $575 million of senior exchangeable notes due in 2024, allowing us to fully repay our outstanding revolver balance. After providing more detailed updates on key commercial, legal, regulatory and clinical activities and highlighting some key events expected before year-end, I'll turn the call over to Matt to review financial results for the quarter and update our financial guidance. In our sleep therapeutic area, Xyrem delivered 6% sales growth in the third quarter and 7% year-to-date compared to the same periods in 2016. This quarter, Xyrem revenue bottle volume declined 1% compared with third quarter of last year. This was due in part – this quarter had one fewer shipping day than the third quarter last year. And it was a Friday, which is typically our highest volume day. We estimate that this negatively impacted volume growth by approximately 2%. Year-to-date revenue volume growth was 1% compared to the same period last year, largely due to the continued effect of the losses in government pay patients as disclosed earlier this year. The average number of active Xyrem patients increased to 13,350 in the third quarter, up 4% compared to the same period last year. This number includes patients who receive both revenue and non-revenue bottles of Xyrem. This quarter, we experienced consistent high payer reimbursement approval rates, and patient enrollments continued to grow steadily during the quarter and year-to-date. However, we have recently seen modest delays in a portion of existing patient refills, and new patient fills, due to operational changes in fulfillment process at the pharmacy. The pharmacy is taking steps to rectify the situation. We have not seen an increase in new or existing patient prescription abandonment. The volume impact of these delays was approximately 1% to 2% in the third quarter. Based on the fill and refill delays and the ongoing 3% to 4% reduction in bottle volume from the loss of some government pay patients reported earlier this year, we now anticipate low-single digit volume growth for the full year 2017. We have observed consecutive quarterly improvements in new narcolepsy patient diagnosis rates based on our review of insurance claims data through the second quarter of 2017. This is the first positive growth we have seen in recent years. We believe that the investments we've made in narcolepsy awareness are making a difference, helping patients obtain an earlier accurate narcolepsy diagnosis. The improvements in narcolepsy diagnosis, new patient enrollments and first time fills give us confidence that over time we can continue to generate volume growth from new patients. Next, I'll highlight our R&D plans for Xyrem and other oxybate related programs, starting with our planned supplemental New Drug Application or sNDA for Xyrem in pediatric narcolepsy patients with cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness. In order to provide data to support the use of a new dosing dispenser with the sNDA submission, we now plan to submit the sNDA which includes the response to the pediatric written request in mid-2018. The new dosing dispenser will help ensure accurate dosing of smaller amounts of drug for pediatric patients. Now, we'll turn to a brief progress report on our low sodium oxybate development programs. The goal of our low sodium oxybate development programs is to identify the best therapeutic option for patients in terms of safety and efficacy. We have two late stage product candidates, JZP-507 which represents a 50% reduction in sodium compared to Xyrem, has demonstrated bioequivalence to Xyrem in a pilot study. And we are currently enrolling patients in a Phase 3 study in the U.S. and EU for JZP-258 which has a 90% reduction in sodium content compared to Xyrem. As we consider our options in advancing these oxybate development programs, we are focused on delivering the best product to patients while considering any patient disruptions that could occur during a transition to a new product, as well as a number of other factors. As we continue to assess these variables and seek to maximize the value of our programs, we plan to be ready to submit an NDA for JZP-507 in mid 2018. We continue to expect an NDA submission for JZP-258 in 2019 assuming positive safety and efficacy data from our ongoing Phase 3 study. Turning to a brief legal and intellectual property update on Xyrem, patent litigation continues against four of the companies that have filed ANDAs for a generic version of Xyrem, Amneal, Par, Watson and Lupin. Although no trial date has been set, trial could be scheduled in this consolidated litigation as early as mid-2018. In August, we settled litigation with Ascent Pharmaceuticals, another ANDA filer, granting Ascent a license to manufacture, market, and sell its generic version of Xyrem on or after December 31, 2025. Turning to JZP-110, we had our pre-NDA meeting with FDA in September and are on track for a planned year-end NDA submission for the treatment of excessive sleepiness in OSA and narcolepsy. We are excited about the long-term opportunities for JZP-110 and look forward to working with the FDA to bring this novel wake-promoting agent to patients where there is a real unmet need. We expect that the FDA review process will take approximately one year followed by DEA scheduling. We expect to be ready for a JZP-110 launch in early 2019. Now onto the hematology/oncology franchise, in the third quarter, we continued to experience Erwinaze supply challenges on a global basis including in the U.S. from mid-August through mid-September. Once the product was in inventory at our distributor, we observed strong ordering that we believe included some stocking of inventory at various institutions. We anticipate that we may continue to experience further disruptions in our ability to supply the product in 2017 and into 2018. We remain focused on delivering Erwinaze to patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who need this critically important therapy. And we're pleased that the batch released in September included special handling instructions to again allow for intravenous administration of Erwinaze. This was well received by healthcare providers. We're also pleased that we continue to experience growth in new accounts order in Erwinaze with a majority of these accounts treating adolescent and young adult patients. Continued progress by Porton Biopharma Limited, the manufacturer of Erwinaze, to improve processes and quality controls is essential to making headway toward ultimately increasing capacity and ensuring consistent supply and we continue to work with PBL toward these objectives. Now we'll turn to Defitelio. We continue to make progress in our U.S. commercialization efforts. Since launch, 150 accounts have ordered product with re-orders from 88% of these accounts representing approximately 87% of the total transplant volume in the U.S. We continue to observe additional accounts order in Defitelio with eight new accounts in the third quarter. In the U.S. our sales initiatives remain focused on increasing healthcare providers' knowledge and recognition of the seriousness of veno-occlusive disease with multi-organ dysfunction and the clinical benefits of initiating Defitelio treatment in those VOD patients including the urgency to treat patients in a timely manner once VOD is diagnosed. With the introduction of new leukemia therapies known to increase the frequency and severity of VOD, we expect awareness of the signs and symptoms of VOD in transplant patients to expand and the value of Defitelio treatment to become better recognized. In the EU and rest of world markets, our team remains focused on ensuring that physicians, key hospital administrators, and pharmacists are aware of the clinical and health-economic benefits associated with Defitelio. We believe that Defitelio remains an important growth opportunity for us globally and we continue to focus on gaining Marketing Authorization in additional countries. Our Defitelio Phase 3 study for the prevention of VOD in high risk patients post-transplant is enrolling well. And we are planning to initiate a Phase 2 proof of concept study for the prevention of acute graft versus host disease post-transplant in 150 adult and pediatric patients before year-end. Now to Vyxeos, the launch is progressing well in the U.S., with strong demand in the third quarter in both the top targeted academic institutions and the number of community accounts. As a reminder, we launched Vyxeos commercial activities upon approval and began shipping product in the U.S. on August 11. Our U.S. launch efforts are focused on 75 targeted institutional accounts, representing deciles 7 to 10 by volume of chemotherapy treated AML patients. 44% of these key targeted accounts ordered during the seven weeks of initial launch in the third quarter. In total, 86 accounts ordered during the quarter. Of these accounts, 52% were academic institutions. We continue to drive our U.S. launch initiatives which are designed to achieve three key objectives. First, we are rapidly building awareness and establishing Vyxeos for the treatment of adults with newly diagnosed therapy related AML or tAML or AML with myelodysplasia-related changes or AML-MRC, primarily through our sales force as well as promotional speaker programs that began in mid September. Second, we're working closely with customers to ensure that patients who were started on Vyxeos induction therapy are able to receive Vyxeos for their entire course of therapy, whether subsequent consolidation cycles are given inpatient or outpatient. And finally, we're communicating the health economic benefits of Vyxeos to payers and institutions through our market access team and providing patient assistance programs to ensure that patients are able to receive Vyxeos when appropriate. Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee discussions and decisions are progressing well, with several key institutions already including Vyxeos on their formularies. As you may know, the process for a new product to get on formulary and be fully incorporated into electronic medical records systems can take some time at certain institutions. However, even if Vyxeos is not on formulary, it can be possible for physicians to obtain it if needed on an exception basis and we've already seen this happen at some institutions. We are expecting NCCN to include Vyxeos in the AML guidelines and submitted data to them shortly after approval. NCCN's regularly scheduled AML panel meeting was in July before Vyxeos was approved. We are hopeful that NCCN will make recommendations in the near term. We are looking forward to working with the EU regulators throughout the Vyxeos MAA review process to bring this important potential treatment option to patients in the EU with high risk AML as defined by tAML or AML-MRC. Vyxeos was granted an accelerated assessment from the European Medicines Authority, which has the potential to reduce MAA review timing by up to six months or to mid 2018. In order to maintain accelerated assessment, we will need to adequately address all questions that we receive within the specified timelines. Additionally, we were pleased that Vyxeos received recognition as a promising innovative medicine by the MHRA. The American Society of Hematology or ASH 2017 abstracts were posted this past week and we're excited to have 19 abstracts accepted for presentation, posters or online publication. The ASH annual meeting in Atlanta takes place from December 9 through December 12. The data being presented on Defitelio, Vyxeos and Erwinaze underscore our commitment to continue to advance our scientific understanding of our hem/onc products and provide further evidence to support their use in appropriate patients. Our partner at ImmunoGen expects to present updated data from the Phase 1 study of IMGN779 in AML patients and preclinical data on IMGN779 and cytarabine in combination. ImmunoGen also submitted an IND in the third quarter for IMGN632 and expects to open a Phase 1 study before the end of the year. To-date, 2017 has been an exciting year for Jazz as we continue to diversify our portfolio with new products, execute on product launches, submit multiple global regulatory packages, advance our R&D pipeline and prepare for multiple new product launches over the next couple of years. We look forward to the rest of 2017 as we prepare to submit the JZP-110 NDA for excessive sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy and obstructive sleep apnea. We remain focused on growing Xyrem and execution of our sales initiatives for the hem/onc products. Planning for successful product launches for Vyxeos in the EU and JZP-110 in the U.S., advancing our R&D pipeline projects and further extending our product portfolio through new areas of research and corporate development transactions. As we move into 2018, we are gratified by the significant achievements and transformation of our company over the past several years. We now have multiple new products, product candidates and indications advancing toward the market in our sleep therapeutic area with JZP-110, our low sodium oxybate programs and Xyrem for pediatric patients. We've continued to expand our business in the hem/onc therapeutic area beginning with Erwinaze in 2012, expanding with the worldwide rights to Defitelio, and more recently with the addition of Vyxeos and the CombiPlex platform along with multiple opt-in rights on other potential hem/onc assets. This growing portfolio is the result of our corporate development transactions involving products that meet our criteria for clinical differentiation, as well as our research efforts to improve on our current products. We believe that our transformation from a strong primarily commercial organization to an integrated biopharmaceutical company with strong R&D, regulatory and commercial operations along with our growing global infrastructure will support sustainable growth over the mid to long-term. Matt, let me now turn the call over to you.