Michael Benkowitz
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open
Thanks, Martine, and good morning, everyone. Overall, we’re extremely pleased with our third quarter commercial performance. We set a number of records on an overall and product-by-product basis during the quarter. But I want to highlight three of these milestones that we’re particularly excited about. First, for the last couple of quarters, we have been saying that we’re effectively at a $2 billion revenue run rate. In the third quarter, our total revenues crossed $500 million for the first time in our history, which puts us in fact on a $2 billion run rate. Second, as Martine mentioned, we exceeded 10,000 U.S. patients and approached 12,000 patients worldwide on one of our treprostinil therapies, Tyvaso, Tyvaso DPI, Remodulin, and Orenitram. Finally, Tyvaso revenues exceeded $250 million for the quarter, which puts that product on a $1 billion annual revenue run rate. As many of you know, a drug that generates $1 billion in annual sales is widely considered to be a “blockbuster product.” So the first – for the first time in the United Therapeutics history, we have a product that has reached blockbuster status, at least on a run rate basis. These results are due to the efforts of our commercial and medical affairs teams who have been working hard all year, but have been particularly effective the last two quarters to help get us to this point. Now, I’ll provide a little bit of color at the product level, starting with Tyvaso. As I said, we reported a really strong quarter for Tyvaso, which was driven by a number of factors. First, the third quarter was our first full quarter with CMS or Medicare coverage for patients with PH-ILD, so that prescribing obstacle has been removed. Second, our continuing efforts to educate prescribers, particularly those ILD specialists, to screen their ILD patients for PAH is having an impact. Third, we continue to grow our prescriber base. Since the beginning of 2021, the number of Tyvaso prescribers has grown by approximately 50%. And finally, the big driver was a launch of Tyvaso DPI. As a result of these things, we added 500 Tyvaso patients during the quarter. Regarding the Tyvaso DPI launch, physician engagement enthusiasm around this new product is extremely high. Often in the PAH space, we see and hear enthusiasm around a new product launch, but it takes some time for that to translate into referrals, which is our term for prescriptions and then patient starts. Fortunately, the Tyvaso DPI launch has bucked that trend as referral activity has been very strong from the beginning. For some context, we’ve said in the past that we expect the patient mix between Tyvaso DPI and Tyvaso delivered via the TD-300 nebulizer to eventually settle out around 50/50 over time, while our Tyvaso new patient referral mix is already at around 50/50. Meanwhile, transitions from the TD-300 to DPI are occurring as expected. Also, while still very early, we’re really encouraged by the low discontinuation rate of patients using Tyvaso DPI as compared to other prostacyclin class therapies. Turning to Remodulin. In the third quarter, we saw continuation of the strong referral patterns we’ve seen throughout 2022 and relative resilience and stability of the business, despite the availability of generic competitors. The relaunch of the Remunity pump is proceeding well, and we expect Remunity starts and total patients on Remunity to grow over the balance of the year and into 2023. In September, we launched a patient filled version of Remunity pump that complements our pre-filled pharmacy distribution option. The patient filled option is being introduced for patients who prefer to fill their own cassettes and receive Remodulin shipments on a monthly basis rather than weekly shipments of pre-filled cassettes. Offering both pre-filled and patient filled options is expected to broaden and accelerate uptake for the Remunity pump. Continued adoption of the Remunity pump is becoming increasingly important to ensure that PAH patients do not experience a delay or disruption in their Remodulin therapy. One of the prior pumps used for subcutaneous Remodulin delivery, the Smiths Medical CADD-MS 3 pump was discontinued by the manufacturer in 2015. At that time, United Therapeutics funded the manufacturer of several thousand additional pumps, and in parallel pursued development of the Remunity pump to ensure Remodulin and patients would have a pump for their therapy. Earlier this year, we sold our remaining inventory of CADD-MS 3 pumps to our specialty pharmacy partners and hospitals. And it is our understanding that the available inventory of MS 3 pumps at those specialty pharmacy partners and in hospitals for both the pumps that we funded, as well as other MS 3 pumps that may have been on the market is winding down. Fortunately, the Remunity pump is on the market and available as an alternative for subcutaneous Remodulin patients. Moving to Orenitram. We released top line data from the recent Phase IV EXPEDITE study investigating the rapid titration and transition of functional Class 2 and Class 3 PAH patients from Remodulin to Orenitram. This study demonstrated that with this treatment approach, a patient can reach a therapeutic dose of Orenitram faster, and with fewer side effects than starting de novo. Over the long term, we expect Orenitram will continue to be an important part of our product portfolio and the PAH treatment armamentarium in patients that either prefer oral medications have failed on Tyvaso, or want to transition from Remodulin after the right ventricular function has normalized. The EXPEDITE protocol provides physicians with a roadmap to effectively use Orenitram in these patients. To wrap up, as many of you know, we established a goal last year to double the number of Tyvaso patients from 3,000 to around 6,000 by the end of 2022. We established this goal to address questions around and to frame the existence of one PH-ILD market, two, the size of that market, and three, how quickly we could tap into it. As at the end of October, we have around 5,600 patients on Tyvaso. We added – more than 250 patients in October alone. Specialty pharmacy has around 500 pending referrals for new patients that are making their way through the insurance approval process and then can be scheduled for patient start. Those 500 referrals exclude referrals to transition from the TD-300 Tyvaso DPI. Our average monthly Tyvaso referrals in each of the last three months are around 75% greater than the average monthly referrals pre DPI launch. I’m sure that might that may drop in November, December with holidays, but they should remain above the pre DPI average. So I think it’s fair to say today we’re demonstrating that there is a PH-ILD market, and we’ve tapped into it relatively quickly. Thus, the objectives of setting the 6,000 patient goal have been accomplished. Typically, the fourth quarter can be a little challenging for us because of the holidays, which reduces selling days, clinician days, and shipping days. Not to mention that new patients, especially once we get between Thanksgiving and Christmas, sometimes choose to delay therapy initiation until after the holidays. Having said that, and based on the stats that I just provided, we’re well positioned as it relates to our goal of around 6,000 patients – 6,000 Tyvaso patients by the end of the year, and we’re continuing to build really good momentum heading into next year. So with that, I’ll turn the call over to Martine to lead the Q&A session.