Earnings Labs

Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (JAZZ)

Q4 2017 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 27, 2018

$201.42

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc fourth quarter and full-year 2017 earnings conference call. Following an introduction from the company, we will open the call to questions. I will now turn the call over to Kathy Littrell, Head of Investor Relations at Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Katherine A. Littrell - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Thank you, Taquia. Thank you for joining us today on our investor call. Today we reported our fourth quarter and full-year 2017 financial results and provided financial guidance for 2018. The press release and the slide presentation accompanying this call are available on the Investors section of our website. On the call today are: Bruce Cozadd, Chairman and CEO; Matt Young, CFO; Dan Swisher, President and COO. Mike Miller, our Executive Vice President U.S. Commercial; and Karen Smith, our Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Medical Officer will join for the Q&A session. I'd like to remind you that some of the statements we will make on this call relate to future events and performance rather than historical facts and are forward-looking. Examples of forward-looking statements include those related to our future financial and operating results, including: 2018 financial guidance and goals; corporate development efforts; future growth and growth strategy; future product sales and volumes; litigation and intellectual property-related events; inventory and supply challenges; product launches; expected benefits of the U.S. tax reform; ongoing and future clinical trials; and other product development and regulatory activities and the timing of these events and activities. These forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty that could cause actual events, performance, and results to differ materially. They are identified and described in today's press release and the slide presentation accompanying this call and under Risk Factors in our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2017 and our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, which we will file shortly. We undertake no duty or obligation to update our forward-looking statements. On this call, we will discuss several non-GAAP financial measures, including: adjusted net income and related per-share measures; adjusted SG&A and R&D expenses and measures derived there from; adjusted net interest expense; and adjusted effective tax rates. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are helpful in understanding our past financial performance and potential future results. They are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable reported GAAP measures. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call are included in today's press release and slide presentation found in the Investors section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Bruce.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

Thanks, Kathy. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2017 was a pivotal year in the continuing evolution of Jazz as a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company, with significant advancements on many fronts. We received two marketing approvals, Vyxeos in the U.S. and Defitelio in Canada, and completed key regulatory submissions, including our NDA for solriamfetol in the U.S. and our MAA for Vyxeos in the EU. We continued to make substantial progress in multiple late-stage clinical programs in both sleep and hematology/oncology, and announced positive results in three Phase 3 studies of solriamfetol for the treatment of excessive sleepiness, or ES, in narcolepsy and obstructive sleep apnea or OSA, and the Phase 2/3 study of Xyrem in the pediatric narcolepsy population. We also announced multiple corporate development transactions, including our collaboration with ImmunoGen on three innovative antibody drug conjugate programs and with Nippon Shinyaku to develop and market Defitelio and Vyxeos in Japan. We enhanced our debt structure to provide significant capacity to move quickly on opportunities to expand our business. We are excited to carry our momentum into 2018, advancing pre-clinical and clinical development activities, moving forward with multiple regulatory submissions, further investing in the commercialization of our products, and evaluating corporate development opportunities to expand our portfolio. We are also pleased with the expected benefits of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, should allow us to increase our investment in new innovative therapeutic options for patients. After providing more detailed updates on key commercial, legal, regulatory, and development activities and highlighting key events expected before year-end, I'll turn the call over to Matt to review financial results and provide 2018 financial guidance. Before moving on, I want to take the time to thank Russ Cox for the strong leadership that he brought to Jazz for…

Matthew P. Young - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Thanks, Bruce, and good afternoon, everyone. 2017 total revenues increased 9% compared to 2016, driven primarily by higher sales of Xyrem and Defitelio as well as the launch of Vyxeos in the U.S. Net sales of Xyrem for 2017 were $1.19 billion, up 7% from $1.11 billion in 2016. Net sales of Xyrem for the quarter were $312 million, up 7% from $291 million in the fourth quarter of last year. 2017 Xyrem net sales and volume growth compared to 2016 were impacted by the loss of some government-pay patients through 2017 and operational changes at the pharmacy during the second half of the year. Excluding these factors, volume growth would have been in the mid-single-digit range in 2017. Our Xyrem net sales guidance for 2018 is in the range of $1.31 billion to $1.34 billion, representing expected growth of 10% to 13% over 2017. This guidance reflects the 7% price increase that we took in early January and our expectation of low to mid-single-digit volume growth for 2018. For 2018, I'll remind you that first quarter Xyrem net sales have historically been impacted by payer churn across our industry for specialty products as well as higher gross-to-net adjustments that typically occur during this period. Turning to Erwinaze, worldwide net sales for 2017 were $197 million compared to net sales of $201 million in 2016. Fourth quarter net sales were $48 million, a decrease of 16% compared to net sales of $57 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. Fourth quarter 2017 net sales were negatively impacted by a supply disruption. And, as a reminder, the higher than usual fourth quarter 2016 worldwide net sales reflected increased ordering upon re-availability of supply following an extended supply disruption. Keep in mind that the timing and duration of interruptions in ordering patterns…

Katherine A. Littrell - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Thanks, Matt. We request that you limit your questions to two at a time, and then feel free to reenter the queue if you have further questions. With that said, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line up for your questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Ami Fadia with Leerink Partners. Your line is now open.

Ami Fadia - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the question, two questions. First of all, just on the recent settlement with Par, could you elaborate a little bit about what ability Par has to launch its own generic starting the end of 2025 and whether they would need to have their own independent REMS program in order to launch that? And separately, just on Erwinaze, what is your near-term and longer-term solution for the continued disruptions in supply? Thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

All right. On the first question, I believe you were asking when Par is free to launch its own generic. As of December 31, 2025, will they need their own REMS? And the answer is yes. We assume that REMS would be the waiver REMS that exists on paper right now as a result of some of the early approvals of ANDAs. But the answer is yes, they would need a separate REMS. On Erwinaze, continuing supply disruptions, I'll say it remains one of the great disappointments of our team that we have been unable working through our contract supplier to fully remedy that situation to-date. And I can only tell you we're doing everything we can on the quality side, on the capacity side, in many ways to improve availability of product for patients, both near-term but also long-term. And I'll remind you that our efforts are not limited to just the existing Erwinaze product. We continue to look for potential ways to improve upon that product while also improving supply availability for patients in the future. So I don't have a good short-term answer for you, which is why we are predicting some supply disruptions throughout this year. But I can tell you we're doing everything we can think of to solve that problem as quickly as we can.

Ami Fadia - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

Thank you. And if I may ask a follow-up on the comment about the settlement with Par. Does that in any way impact your settlement terms with Hikma?

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

No, and I'll just say your question about the need for a separate REMS would have been the exact same answer as if you had asked about the previous settlements we reached for December 31, 2025, entry date. Same thing goes with respect to those.

Ami Fadia - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst · Leerink Partners. Your line is now open

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Risinger with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yes, hi. Can you hear me?

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

We can. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. So I was hoping that you might be able to provide a little bit more color on specifically your plans to launch JZP-110, the timing of that relative to, I guess, the FDA action date will be in December of 2018, and then just how you think we should start to think about the first year of launch of that product. Thank you very much.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

On timing of launch, as we said, we need two things to launch. We need an FDA approval. We also need DEA scheduling. Our best estimate is that would happen within 90 days of FDA approval, which brings us to a planned first quarter 2019 launch. Mike, I don't know what you want to say at this point in terms of how to think about early launch of solriamfetol.

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes, so we would begin this year to look at what would be the extent of sales force expansion. There are a lot of efficiencies already built into our current call audience, since we call on specialists. We would expand to maybe some of the pulmonology audience members. I think we would be doing – we're working right now on the value prop. We'll be working with creating awareness around excessive sleepiness in OSA and narcolepsy. But we're very, very excited about the product and the launch. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And could you just remind us – excuse me, how you've talked about the longer-term commercial potential for the product? And I don't know if you've quantified sales potential long term, but if you could discuss the opportunity as you see it, that would be very helpful.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Sure, the opportunity we have not discussed sales forecasts. But we have – when you look at the OSA population in the U.S., it's quite extensive. When you look at it on a worldwide basis, it's pretty remarkable. It's about 9 million patients with OSA. And many of them have excessive sleepiness associated with OSA We believe that the unique mechanism of action of this molecule will, I think, perform very well in those patients. And we think that it also serves a very important role as a daytime med for narcolepsy patients suffering from ES as well. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great, thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

And then as we think beyond that initial launch, of course we're already studying the drug in excessive sleepiness in Parkinson's, which would be one of a number of other conditions that have significant associated excessive sleepiness. We've hinted that we may go beyond excessive sleepiness. If you look at where other stimulants and awake-promoting agents have been studied, here we have another drug that we think has strong efficacy and might have use in other arenas. And then of course, there's the geographic potential of the product. We mentioned submitting an MAA late this year in the EU. So if you think about the initial desired label of excessive sleepiness in narcolepsy and OSA, that's the starting point, moving broadly to excessive sleepiness perhaps beyond that to other indications. And moving from the U.S. to a global market gives you a sense for the potential of the molecule longer term. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great, and just one more, Bruce, since you mentioned it. What's the timing for the Parkinson's data?

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

We said we want to complete enrollment this year. David R. Risinger - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay, thanks again.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jessica Fye with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Jessica M. Fye - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. First is can you talk about your confidence in the clinical trial for JZP-258 in idiopathic hypersomnia? I'm curious if there is any evidence of Xyrem working in these patients, and also whether they're a homogeneous group with a predictable degree of sleepiness in the absence of treatment. And then the second one was just I'd just be curious if you can give any color on the proportion of the labeled patient population for Vyxeos that you assume is treated when you guide to $130 million to $155 million this year? Thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Okay. So let me have Karen talk a little bit about the potential for JZP-258 in idiopathic hypersomnia. And then maybe, Mike, you can comment on the Vyxeos question.

Karen L. Smith - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

So hi, Jess. It's Karen here. When you think about idiopathic hypersomnia, there are a couple things to think about. One is that it's definitely a debilitating disease, and it's an area of significant unmet need, which at present doesn't have any approved therapies. When you think about why this could actually apply in this patient population, if you look at the idiopathic hypersomnia patients, you can see that there's definitely an overlap in terms of the potential that we could use this compound in this patient population. The current treatment patterns are generally very similar to that of narcolepsy, but there's no approved therapy in this area, and what physicians are looking for is a new treatment option. So when you also add that together with the clinical experience that we have and the anecdotal evidence along with single cases, also recent case series and the literature that we've seen, our own clinical trials instead of looking at the patients that could be diagnosed in idiopathic hypersomnia as opposed to with just narcolepsy, then we're actually seeing a signal in these patients. And then you overlay that with JZP-258, which has an improved safety profile, and I think that we believe that it would be a good product candidate for these patients.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

And, Jess, I would just to say it's a little harder to answer your question about is it a homogenous group. I'm not sure we'd say the narcolepsy group is a completely homogenous group in terms of a variety of severity of different symptoms and response to treatment. And I would just say in general the idiopathic hypersomnia population is probably a little less well-characterized than that of the narcolepsy population. Mike, do you want to take a shot at the Vyxeos, or did you want to add something, Karen?

Karen L. Smith - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

I was just going to add, just adding to what Bruce has just said that it is a fairly well-defined chronic neurological disorder, and there is a degree of overlap. When you go to diagnose these with these patients and remembering these are sleep docs that would be diagnosing with idiopathic hypersomnia, much of them would be diagnosing narcolepsy. And there is definitely an overlap in terms of the types of clinical parameters that you'd look at with these patients. So what is the MWT, what is the MSLT, these sorts of things they're looking at, and they're seeing the overlap. And that's why we know there are some patients who we have seen coming through clinical trials or have been treated in the past perhaps diagnosed as a narcolepsy patient. When the physician goes back and relooks at the patient, actually it's perhaps more of idiopathic hypersomnia. And the other thing to note too is that one of the classic hallmarks of idiopathic hypersomnia is that these patients have this excessive sleepiness, and excessive sleepiness is beyond feeling tired. This is an uncontrollable need to sleep, and this has to persist for more than three months. So there are clear diagnostic parameters around identifying this patient population versus narcolepsy, and there are clear signals that we have for this molecule that it could be effective. Mike?

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Hi, Jess. It's Mike. And I would say that Vyxeos to date I think has very much been being used according to label. A lot of that has to do with the cost difference between Vyxeos and the 7+3 and the P&T oversight of that. I would say that the reason NCCN Guidelines, which strongly support our label but also include some other populations, I think we have to monitor that as we go forward. We have not done chart studies. We don't know what the spontaneous use will be. We'll continue to monitor that, but we are pleased with the NCCN Guideline output.

Jessica M. Fye - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Umer Raffat with Evercore. Your line is now open.

Umer Raffat - Evercore Group LLC

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is now open

Hi, thanks so much for taking my questions. Bruce, how many patients on Xyrem had become free patients in 2017 because of the foundation issues? And since January 1, how many of them have actually rolled back to being commercial patients? I guess what I'm trying to get at is in this 2018 guidance for Xyrem, is there any contribution from foundation patients included already or not, number one? And secondly on Vyxeos, my question is, are you seeing utilization in MDS and/or in patients younger than 60 years of age? Thank you very much.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is now open

So on the first question, Umer, we don't necessarily know where patients that end up in our free drug program come from. They're not tracked in the way you're asking the question. But to respond a little bit to what we're seeing in the first quarter, we are seeing better trends with respect to government-pay patients, which is the change in patient mix we saw, particularly starting in the first quarter last year, although it continued throughout the year. So we're seeing actually more government-pay patients at this time in 2018 than we did in 2017. So I think that trend is essentially going the opposite direction from how it did last year. Now, we're only part way through the quarter. Our guidance is for the full year, so let's see how things play out. But that's the best sense I can give you right now for how that's playing. Mike, on the MDS question?

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is now open

Sure. As I've said, I think most of our – we have not done a chart study yet, but I believe most of our use of Vyxeos to date has been very much around the label.

Umer Raffat - Evercore Group LLC

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is now open

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Randall Stanicky with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Randall S. Stanicky - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Great, thanks. Bruce or even maybe Matt, just a bigger picture question, the top line is clearly growing, but when we look at the spend, obviously this is a big investment year. So how do we think about on a multiyear basis the operating leverage in the business from what has been mid-50% operating margins? And then the follow-up is just a quick question for Bruce. On the once-nightly dosing oxybate, is that a low-sodium formulation? Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

So I'll let Matt take the question on margins, and I'll just quickly answer the second question, which is yes. So the once-nightly program does incorporate a low-sodium version of oxybate.

Matthew P. Young - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Thanks, Bruce. Randall, as it relates to margin trend over time, as we tried to elucidate in the numbers this year, $55 million to $65 million of increased spend in SG&A is tied very specifically to launch and prelaunch-related activities in various geographies for various products. I think if you were to fast-forward to more of a mature point in the sales curve across our portfolio, you'd clearly start to see significant P&L leverage emerge. The G&A embedded inside of the SG&A is actually as a percentage of revenue going down. So we are seeing that in the base G&A. The sales and marketing-related activities and some related to medical, which is – much medical spending is in your SG&A line are going the other direction, and we're making some significant investments there. So again, that would assume a static portfolio, so not continuing to launch products, which we of course hope to bring in and secure a more diversified set of product drivers over time. So while we may have other launches we'll be funding certainly across the existing portfolio, we would expect P&L leverage to emerge as we get past a pretty heavy period of launches, which would of course also include solriamfetol in 2019. So I think you'd start to see more of that leverage emerge really post-2019 on the SG&A side.

Randall S. Stanicky - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay, great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Maris with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

David Maris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Hi. Bruce, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the deal flow that you're seeing and whether or not the pickup in M&A so far this year has had any impact on the prices that folks are demanding or some of the recent deals by larger pharma defy some traditional financial metrics. Does that make it more difficult for you, or are you still happy with what you're seeing? And we've heard for a while about the likelihood of completing more deals. Are you as confident as you have been? Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

David, I would say while this year, as has been true of many years in the past, we have seen the occasional deal priced at a level where our math wouldn't work to earn a return for our shareholders. That doesn't mean that we aren't seeing lots of opportunities that we think are actionable at prices that would in fact provide really nice returns for us while achieving a number of our strategic objectives to broaden our portfolio and diversify the business. I think the deal flow is really good. You can argue that a couple transactions at high prices may increase people's expectations about what they've been paid. It also of course encourages a lot more people to think about transacting, which itself can be helpful. Am I as optimistic as I've been historically? I am. Matt detailed the $4 billion in transactions we've done over the past number of years, and I talked about the cash flow we've got upcoming over the next couple years in addition to our existing balance sheet strength. So I think we've got the capacity. Financially, I think we've got the capacity organizationally to do a range of transactions across commercial products, R&D programs, global deals, Europe deals, U.S. deals, collaborations, licensing, a variety of things that I think all go in the direction of broadening our business and putting capital to work in ways that we believe do earn good returns for our shareholders.

David Maris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is now open

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Amsellem with Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open. David A. Amsellem - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thanks, just a couple on solriamfetol. First, any color on where you think the controlled substance designation will shake out? I wanted to get your thoughts on whether you think it will be a Schedule III or a Schedule IV in particular. And then, some commercialization questions, how heavily do you expect to contract with payers? And maybe just remind us the mix between Medicare Part D and commercial. Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

So on the first part of your question on scheduling, not our decision. We believe the data we're submitting would support a Schedule IV. But we'll wait and see where that turns out. In terms of exact details of our contracting, I'm sure Mike's ready to share all that, so let me turn it over to Mike.

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Look, we're right now building the value proposition for the product, which we think is significant. We believe that ES is an important unmet medical need that I think commercial payers will respond well to. And I think the product's efficacy sparkles quite frankly. So I think when we put that together, I think we'll feel very good going into the year.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

And then payer mix, Mike?

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Payer mix is predominantly commercial. David A. Amsellem - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Liav Abraham with Citi. Your line is now open.

Liav Abraham - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Your line is now open

Good afternoon, just a couple of quick ones. Firstly, Matt, can you give some color on R&D expense trends beyond 2018 as we think about modeling? There's an uptick this year. I just want to get a sense of whether this is expected to continue at the same level beyond 2018. And then just to follow up, Bruce, on some of your comments on your capital allocation strategy a few minutes ago. Just curious as to whether you're still interested in adding a so-called third leg to the company, especially given your investments in SG&A and R&D this upcoming year. Is this still the case, or is your focus from a capital allocation perspective on your current therapeutic areas? Thank you.

Matthew P. Young - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Citi. Your line is now open

Thanks, Liav. With respect to R&D, we'll try not to give long-term guidance for just that metric. But I would say, as we've indicated in the past, R&D as a percentage of our sales has been increasing over the last few years. We want to make sure we balance that financial line item with measuring operational capacity and making sure we make investments that we believe can earn an attractive return. So we're excited to see our pipeline growing and the portfolio of investments we're making grow across the spectrum in terms of phase and across our therapeutic areas. So I would expect we will continue to make the most of our existing molecules as well as bring other molecules into the company, as we have with our ImmunoGen collaboration. So I would expect we'll continue to certainly see the dollars spent on R&D going up, given we are growing revenues right now as we guided this year 15% to 20%. Obviously, going up as a percentage of revenue means it's going up even faster than that. Whether that will persist will come down to what our portfolio review says internally our operational capability and what molecules we're identifying externally. But we're certainly open to that idea and continue to believe that deploying capital to grow and diversify our business over time through innovation is a very important thing for the company.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Citi. Your line is now open

And then on the second part of your question in terms of interest in entering a new therapeutic area, I think, if you think about a sustainable growth strategy over a three-year, five-year, 10-year period, I would say it's almost certainly true that we will enter a third therapeutic area. Will that be in 2018? Hard to say. We know we're going to do it at some point. If we found the right opportunity to do so now, another area where we see a good fit with our strategy and our capabilities, an area where we see a good lead commercial product to bring us into that, a therapeutic area with other opportunities we can see on the horizon to add to the commercial portfolio and have an R&D portfolio behind it, if we see all that, we certainly would act to do that. But it's not a must-do in 2018. It's a must-do over time to meet our longer-term growth objectives.

Liav Abraham - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Your line is now open

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dana Flanders with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Dana Flanders - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Hi. Thank you very much for the question. So my quick one here, just to follow up on OpEx and maybe just specifically on the ex-U.S. build-out and opportunity. I mean how should we just think about what's needed to launch Vyxeos ex-U.S. into 2019? And then will that commercial strategy that you've employed here in the U.S., will that mirror what you plan to do in Europe, or are there any key differences? Thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Dana, I would say probably too early to address that question. Remember that we're talking about submitting for solri in Europe late this year, which would put it a full year behind the U.S. as a starting point. We're gearing up now with pre-commercial activities for a U.S. solri launch in early 2019. We need to be talking about a European launch that would be lagged from that. And I think we'll want to leverage our learnings in the U.S. as well as take into account some of the differences in the European market but probably a little early for us to be trying to comment in particular on ex-U.S. commercial plans.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Marc Goodman with UBS. Your line is now open.

Marc Goodman - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open

Hi. Could you give us a little more color on Defitelio? It just seems like this product is not growing that much, and I'm curious whether we've reached a point of high penetration and we should expect very slow growth from here. I mean U.S., what were U.S. sales in the quarter? It looks like if you put up $10 million or $11 million or $12 million in the quarter, you'd hit $40 million something and you're guiding to $40 million something in the U.S. for 2018. So maybe you can talk about the U.S. and then specifically you could talk about Europe separately. Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open

Marc, I would say we have been experiencing and we are expecting growth both in the U.S. market and in the ex-U.S. market. I think we've seen in the U.S. market over the first year and three quarters of being on the market something fairly similar to what we saw in the early years of our European launch, which started back in 2014, which is pretty rapid pediatric uptake, a little slower to get traction in the adult accounts, although we have succeeded in Europe in gaining some momentum there, and we've seen really good growth in Europe, but that took some time. It took some educational efforts. We had to change some minds in terms of recognition of incidence of severe VOD and the need to intervene quickly and treat completely until resolution or 21 days. But we've made real progress. And in the U.S. again I think we saw rapid pediatric penetration. I think it's a tougher go on the adult side. You heard in our comments today that a separation of our efforts on the adult side with Defitelio to have a dedicated transplant-focused sales team I think will benefit Defitelio in the same way that it benefits Vyxeos. So we're doing it in part to give ourselves more bandwidth on Vyxeos beyond the core academic centers, but I think it will also help us on Defitelio as well. So we remain really optimistic about what we can do with this molecule. Again, much like you heard me describe our opportunity for solri, part of it is how do you continue to make progress with your existing label. Part of it is how do you explore new indications. We talked about three new indications we're exploring through clinical work with defibrotide, and there may be more coming in the future. We talked about geographic expansion. Obviously, we're trying to take Defitelio into Japan as well over time and investigating other markets. So as with all our molecules, optimize within your existing indications, look at promising new indications, explore those appropriately, and then expand geographically. I feel good about the growth potential for Defitelio for a long time.

Marc Goodman - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open

What were U.S. sales in the quarter?

Matthew P. Young - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open

$10 million.

Marc Goodman - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Annabel Samimy with Stifel. Your line is now open. Annabel Eva Samimy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. On Vyxeos with the new NCCN Guidelines, can you help us understand? Is that a tool that you can use to help facilitate changes to the DRG payment? Is that something that's in your control at all? And how are you talking to I guess the P&T committees looking at Vyxeos and seeing that patients may be staying in the hospital a little bit longer on the tail end? Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Stifel

So, Annabel, I'm going to cheat a little bit and go back and add an answer to Marc's question just before we move on. I do want to point out that we have experienced and expect to experience continued intra-quarter variability of Defitelio sales. And I would say don't get too excited when they pop way up, which happened at least once last year, but also don't get too discouraged when they're a little bit low for a quarter. It will bounce around. It's an ultra-rare condition. We've seen that over time and expect that going forward. On the first part of your question, Annabel, on the NCCN Guidelines, those don't effectively or a directly impact DRG rates. Remember that DRG rates are set looking back a couple years at actual data. Right now, that doesn't help us because we're looking back at periods when there was no Vyxeos available. A couple years from now, they'll be looking back at periods where Vyxeos was available. And so DRG rates do tend to reset over time. Of course, there is a mechanism to bridge that, which is NTAP. We've applied for it. We don't know that we'll get it, but that's a possibility. But even without that, realize that over time, DRG rates do reflect actual spending in prior periods. Mike, do you want to talk a little bit about Vyxeos treatment time and what you're hearing from payers on that?

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Stifel

Sure, so the P&T committees have gone very well for Vyxeos, and that was even before the NCCN Guidelines. The NCCN Guidelines were only a recent event, and we feel very good about those, but P&T interactions have been very positive. And what we're actually seeing is more consolidation in the community setting and the outpatient setting. We had expected that, but we didn't expect it quite as early as we're seeing it now. So this is a great event for patients and their loved ones that the patient does not need to be in the hospital. It also saves the system some money, and the patient can go home after consolidation treatment in an infusion center. So it's really a great benefit of the product.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Buck with B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open.

David George Buck - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Yes, thanks for taking the question. Bruce, can you remind us how the launch of your follow-on reduced-sodium products are going to be impacting the settlements with Xyrem and just the timing of that? And separately, for solriamfetol in 2019, can you talk a little bit about as opposed to generic orals in that category, how you're looking at things like direct-to-consumer advertising and what the timing of that might be?

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Sure, so on the first question, David, I think you're bringing together a couple concepts. One is what do we expect in terms of results from a launch of a reduced-sodium version of oxybate, and of course, we're not quite ready to talk about that yet. We haven't submitted yet. But clearly, we think this could be a benefit to patients with narcolepsy who currently have no choice but a therapy that has very, very high sodium levels. And we know the long-term health benefit of avoiding that high salt intake is considerable. So we're looking forward to that opportunity both to offer a better product to current patients but potentially to expand the number of patients who receive therapy because we know doctors tell us today that there are patients for whom they think oxybate would be a great therapy but for the sodium load and don't prescribe it for that reason alone. You're talking then about what impact that may have on existing settlements. There is a provision in our existing settlements I think that's pretty typical for generic settlements, which is a market decline provision that protects generics against significant erosion in the market for the product where they're sitting on the sidelines waiting for a future launch date. And there's a mechanism that if sales fall precipitously that they can enter the market sooner. That is not tied in any way specifically to our low-sodium products. That could be anything that happens to sales of our existing product, other competitors' changes in treatments, new safety findings, I don't know what else to bring up but anything that could impact sales. So I wouldn't link the two directly. We have a successful product out on the market in Xyrem that we think is helping a lot of patients. We'd like to come along with products that are even better for patients and continue to expand that franchise for many years to come.

Katherine A. Littrell - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

And, operator, let me speak for a minute before we go to the next person.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Let's take the second part of the question too, which was thinking about solri launching into a genericized world, Mike.

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

So launching solri into a market that would have a generic, a new visual and core visual as well as branded in both those products, we would envision probably a Tier 3 step-at-it process, largely done in a retail pharmacy setting. You had one question around DTC. And I think to be clear, branded DTC in the first year would not be something we would look at. But we are big believers in disease awareness, and I think an unbranded disease awareness around ES is an important component of the launch, and it can be done at a fraction of the costs as a branded DTC would.

Katherine A. Littrell - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

And we have a number of people on the line still. And so we want to be able to give everybody a chance to get in a question. So if you all would, please help us by limiting to one, unless there's an absolutely urgent second one. We'd appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Gary Nachman with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Gary Nachman - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Hi, thanks. On Vyxeos, I know right now it's mostly on label. But how long before we get data on combination with some of the targeted therapies for AML that might lead to some of that use? Could that potentially come this year? Will it be next year? It's just something that we've heard physicians excited about. So I'm curious about that. Thanks.

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

This is Mike, and I'm looking at Karen. I think I agree with you there's excitement around it and there is interest. And, Karen, maybe you can speak to that.

Karen L. Smith - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

I think we are equally excited about the potential to utilize Vyxeos as the backbone of therapy. And certainly there, we've had a lot of inbound interest in the form of IST. So at the moment, we have over 20 ISTs that are running some of those, do look at things like Vyxeos in combination with a FLIP-3 (1:09:34) or other combis that currently are utilizing a 7+3 regimen. So I think that we are equally excited by the potential there.

Gary Nachman - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay. And is it something we can see this year, or probably it wouldn't be until next year...

Karen L. Smith - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

It's difficult to say...

Gary Nachman - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

...in terms of data?

Karen L. Smith - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

...because we don't control the timing of an IST.

Gary Nachman - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay, all right. Thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

And different types of data take different amounts of time to get. You can start a trial and get some reviews as to how patients respond initially safety data to get long-term survival data. It's not going to happen this year, but there are various types of data that will come out over time.

Gary Nachman - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg Fraser with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Gregory D. Fraser - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

Great, thanks for taking the question. It's Fraser on for Gregg Gilbert. On Xyrem, of the 50,000-plus patients that are diagnosed with narcolepsy in the U.S., what proportion would you say are candidates for Xyrem? You know that the average number of patients on Xyrem was north of 13,000 last year. I'm just wondering how penetrated do you think the current diagnosed population is.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

So given the indication of Xyrem, which is to treat excessive sleepiness and cataplexy and narcolepsy and given that all narcolepsy patients have excessive sleepiness, theoretically just about every patient is a potential candidate for Xyrem therapy. We know also that the drug has limitations and risks, including a black box warning. That black box warning warns against, among other things, concomitant use of alcohol as a depressant, which would be dangerous used in combination with sodium oxybate. So you can eliminate patients who are unable or unwilling to give up alcohol, patients with a history of drug abuse or other things that would cause them not to be good candidates for this controlled substance. We certainly know docs are more likely to try other therapies first, including daytime use of stimulants and awake-promoting agents. So while I can't say there's a huge fraction of the patients that you couldn't get to, I think practically, the product tends to get used in a smaller fraction of patients. That fraction has grown over time to be closer to 20% to 25% of patients, whereas that used to be once upon a time 10% to 15% of patients. And as we've said, we continue to think we can grow volume and maybe grow volume faster than market growth. But is that suddenly going to jump up to close to the diagnosed and treated patient population? No, we don't think so. Mike, do you want to add anything?

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

Yeah. I would just say that, again, we remain very encouraged around the disease awareness campaign and the response of the diagnosis claims to it. So we're going to do that full year in 2018.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

Yes.

Michael P. Miller - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

So while we continue to grow our penetration in the diagnosed population, we also look to grow the diagnosed population.

Gregory D. Fraser - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

Got it.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

So, Gary (sic) [Greg], the other part of the equation is what about the 100,000-plus patients out there who haven't yet received an accurate diagnosis of narcolepsy who should they get that diagnosis might become future candidates for Xyrem therapy.

Gregory D. Fraser - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

Great, thanks for the color.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Tanner with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

William Tanner - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open

Thanks for taking the question. Just quickly, Bruce, on solriamfetol in PD, so you get Phase 2 POC data, and I'm wondering. Obviously, it's going to depend on the data, whether you'd be inclined to move straight into Phase 3 knowing what you know about the compound and about sleepiness, and then if that would create a new physician call point to where it might make sense to bulk up with PD with maybe another asset. Thanks.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open

Good questions, Bill. Let's see the data out of the POC trial. We clearly went into this disease because we believe the unmet medical need is very significant here, and we think it's an interesting place to study. Solriamfetol, given some of the things we know about PD patients and we know about the mechanism of action of this drug, so there certainly is that potential that we would move right into a registration trial. But let's wait and see the data. On your second part of your question, with success, would we potentially be moving into a slightly different call audience, and might that bring opportunities to have a different selling point and to potentially bring other products in development or other commercial products along with that move? Absolutely.

William Tanner - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open

Okay, thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Douglas Tsao with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Douglas Tsao - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for the question, just maybe a quick question on Erwinaze. Obviously, you've been supply-constrained for some amount of time now. If you had unfettered or unlimited supply, Bruce, do you think that this – would you be able to be growing the product? I know it's certainly a more mature product than others in your portfolio. But how much additional opportunity do you think there is with Erwinaze? Thank you.

Bruce C. Cozadd - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open

It's a great question, Doug, and the answer is an emphatic yes. We absolutely could be growing this product. We're limited in our willingness to invest resources behind trying to grow it right now because we don't want to create demand we can't fill. That's not fair to our customers and patients. But as we said for some time, while we think there's good appreciation of the use of asparaginases, including Erwinaze, on hypersensitivity in the pediatric population, we think there's less appreciation for the use of asparaginases in the adolescent and young adult population, and we see real opportunity there. And with reliable unlimited supply, we would, for sure be investing in generating that, I think, better treatment outcome for those adolescent and young adult patients. And potentially over time, you could imagine even broadening beyond the core ALL market. But right now, we've got to address the near-term supply issue.

Douglas Tsao - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kathy Littrell for closing remarks.

Katherine A. Littrell - Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc

Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Your line is now open

Thank you again for joining us today. We really appreciate it, and we will be participating in the upcoming Cowen conference as well as the Barclays Healthcare conferences and hope to see many of you at those conferences. This will now end our call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes today's program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.