Dawn Halkuff
Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open
Thanks, James. Let’s start with the impact COVID-19 had on Q2. As Rob mentioned, COVID-19 caused a significant decrease in our portfolio scripts in March, April and May. I’m very happy to say that we have returned to growth for all products in June and July with the adaptation of our plans and the opening of access and expect that growth to continue for the remainder of 2020, even with a strong COVID headwind. Let’s now move to payer access on Slide 12. Even though COVID has impacted the sales side, we have had payer progress for the quarter across our products. Starting with ANNOVERA, commercial access is 79% with the vast majority of patients paying $0 co-pay. ANNOVERA currently has unrestricted coverage for fee-for-service Medicaid in 37 states, plus D.C. We expect a decision on California in Q4, which represents 13% of the overall Medicaid market. For IMVEXXY, we met our commercial goals and access remains at 72%. We are happy to announce Wellcare was added as a Part D payer. Moving on to BIJUVA. Commercial access increased to 73% unrestricted with the addition of CVS and Anthem. We now have nine of the top 10 commercial payers secured. Let’s move on to the plans for each of our products. On Slide 13, let’s start with IMVEXXY. As mentioned earlier, this class of drugs were heavily affected by the decreased patient flow due to COVID. Since the fourth quarter, the VVA class on a quarterly basis declined 15%. That said, IMVEXXY continued to deliver approximately 10,000 prescriptions per week in this environment and grew share modestly. The takeaway, we were less impacted than the class. As assets have started to open up, we are seeing a reengagement in the class and in IMVEXXY with eight straight weeks of new prescription growth. And we believe a precursor to TRx growth given our strong refill rates and value of each patient. Moving to Slide 14. Let’s review our initiatives that we believe will help fuel IMVEXXY growth in the second half of the year. A new consumer campaign will be launched in August, focusing on holistic care as a woman ages. We also plan to increase mediums for the consumer campaign to patient testimonials, video and social to extend our reach. In addition, we will continue to reinforce adherence messaging that has driven positive momentum for us since launch. Let’s move to ANNOVERA on Slide 15. Similar to IMVEXXY, growth for ANNOVERA has been on a strong upward trend. The month of June and July were up approximately 100% over April and May, which were the months most heavily impacted by COVID. If you compare June and July to the pre-COVID months of January and February, we were still up over 47%, demonstrating the reestablishment of our launch trajectory. We would expect continued growth throughout 2020 even with strong COVID headwinds given these results. In the second quarter, we had approximately 1,100 prescribers reading ANNOVERA, leading to approximately 2,400 total prescriptions. Turning to Slide 16. So what led to the acceleration throughout Q2. Starting with the left-hand column, our sales force has adapted to a hybrid selling model. In June, 43% of calls were live versus 11% in May. Our expectation is effectiveness no matter how the call is being conducted, and we have been focused on training the sales force on new technology and agility skills during this time. As you can see in the middle column, over 250 providers attended our virtual speaker programs in the second quarter, a demonstration that birth control and ANNOVERA continue to be a focus during COVID. Moving to the column on the right, a key driver during Q2 was telemedicine. The telemedicine segment is growing fast in the COVID-19 world and contraception is an important category within telemedicine. We believe we are well-positioned to deliver patient access through this channel as it is a trend we saw and started working on in 2019. Move to Slide 17. Although still early in the launch trajectory, we have received some great insight from early adopters of ANNOVERA. From a provider perspective, we are seeing that early adopters tend to be higher NuvaRing writers, as well as low IUD writers. From a patient perspective, we are seeing a range of ages, but an average age of 31, suggesting that this is a great option for younger women, likely switching from their original birth control. Both providers and patients are easily able to understand and relate to our value proposition of the only procedure-free, reversible, long-lasting option and see it as a viable option for their patients and women see it as something that is useful for their lifestyle. Move to Slide 18. While we are pleased with the early progress for ANNOVERA, I wanted to take a few minutes to ground us in the larger opportunity and future growth drivers. ANNOVERA has a large market opportunity with 18 million women and 28 million new prescriptions annually. To put ANNOVERA’s opportunity in perspective, traditionally, leading products in this category over time have achieved 4% to 5% market share. As you can see in the middle column, Lo Loestrin launched in 2011 and achieved this share in approximately four years. If ANNOVERA achieved this level of success, seen in the column on the right, it would mean approximately 700,000 prescriptions annually. The next big growth driver for ANNOVERA is consumer. Turn now to Slide 19 that shows an illustration of our consumer campaign called Unapologetically, ANNOVERA, which launched on July 1. Typically, you start to see positive return on the media investment at about nine months to a year as you start to see the volume of patients taking action grow over time. That said, we have begun to see early indicators that provide confidence for continued future growth. Moving to Slide 20. Here are our early indicators. You can see that the consumer campaign and ANNOVERA as a product is getting noticed. Mentioned in USA Today with a circulation of 58 million, as well as Women’s Health magazine, are differentiated and impactful public relations results for our pharmaceutical brand. In addition, our digital metrics show that the campaign has gained visibility, quickly resulting in over 100 million impressions and 3 million views of the video in less than a month. Finally, the brand and campaign has been picked up across media, showing the cultural relevance of the product and the campaign. Moving to Slide 21. You can see through the remainder of the year, we have consumer initiatives to deepen the connection of women to ANNOVERA to generate awareness and ultimately, drive pull-through of the product. Later in August, we will have a POPSUGAR Takeover, a well-known online content provider, which reaches one in two millennials every month. Millennials are who we are seeing as the initial users of ANNOVERA. In September, we plan to launch influencer programs, including a well-known influencer that will amplify the ANNOVERA message to their followers. And finally, during the fourth quarter, we will expand our consumer campaign into new medium and launch a PR initiative that will broaden our impact of the consumer campaign. Turning to Slide 22. One area we have not discussed that will be a future growth driver for ANNOVERA, are patient refills. Beginning in the fourth quarter of this year, we will begin to see that impact as the women who started in October of ‘19, have the opportunity to renew their prescription. We are confident in the opportunity of refill due to the robust data we have on patient acceptability in a study of over 1,000 women conducted by the population council. In the Phase 3 study, patient intent to refill was at 85% if free and 75% of women said they would continue even if they had to pay for it. As a reminder, the vast majority of women pay $0 out of pocket. The growth driver for refills will be significant for us in the out years as ANNOVERA volume grows. Move to Slide 23. The final growth driver for ANNOVERA are the multiple markets and channels, most of which are at an early stage, but all of which we believe will contribute volume in the back half of this year. We believe each of these channels will help us achieve the 4% to 5% market share opportunity we see for the product over time. First, in the commercial segment of the business, which is 76% of the market, we will continue with our sales force with ANNOVERA in the No.1 position and focus on building provider adoption with the 20,000 providers we call on today. Most of our progress and the prescriptions we have received to date are from this segment as we have spent the most time here. Moving on to Public Health, which is a meaningful opportunity, about 15% of the total market. In order to maximize this opportunity in a quickest fashion, we are working with Afaxys, the No.1 provider of contraception in public health clinics. We have just begun in this segment and expect acceleration throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond. In addition, we are working with WSI, a leader into selling into the military channel. We now have 14 of the 92 military facilities that have put us on formulary and 13 bases that have ordered. This is only a small percentage of the birth control category, but we expect it to be larger for ANNOVERA, given we are the only long-lasting reversible, procedure-free option. This segment has been slower to move given the pandemic, but we are seeing progress as bases open. Finally, we are working with leading online telemedicine platforms who focus on directly prescribing and filling birth control directly to patients. We saw meaningful volume in Q2 from this channel and expect acceleration as we begin working with new online providers early in the third quarter. With the early acceleration seen on ANNOVERA and the multiple channels that are just beginning, you can see why we are bullish on continued growth throughout the remainder of the year. Before I end, I’d like to quickly touch on BIJUVA. In the second quarter, we had approximately 4,200 prescribers writing BIJUVA, leading to approximately 27,000 total prescriptions. Prescriptions are encouraging, given the limited focus as a result of the decision to deemphasize BIJUVA at this stage. Our goal is to maintain the writer base through the remainder of 2020. Now move to Slide 25. We are following and aware of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that is referred to as the NASEM Report, a report commissioned by the FDA on compounding practices. Recommendations from this report on future regulation of the compounding area were released on July 1. The debate over hormonal compounding has been ongoing for decades, and we are aware of the continued pressure on the compounding community. Our approach, however, is unchanged. The largest segment of the E&P market is within the compounding market at approximately 12 million to 18 million prescriptions and ensuring BIJUVA is available is critical to future growth. We remain committed to our BIO-IGNITE program and partnership with community pharmacies, and we will continue to be advocates for women’s health and hormone therapy. Let me end with some thoughts on the back half of the year. At the current rate of growth, we are on track to meet or exceed our minimum revenue covenants. We are starting to see acceleration of our portfolio with the current plans in place. Further accelerators will be the consumer plans just launching now, growth fuel from telemedicine, as well as partnerships with WSI for the military and Afaxys for public health. COVID is a significant variable, but even with just 50% live cost today, we are seeing our ability to grow the portfolio, and we will continue to adapt to the environment as needed. In short, it is about execution now, and we are ready. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Rob for closing remarks.