Full Press Release Details
Moderator: Ali, Kevin
| Operator: | Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Organon First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star, one on your telephone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Jennifer Halchak, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please begin your conference. |
| Jennifer Halchak: | Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Organon's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. With me today are Kevin Ali, Organon's Chief Executive Officer, who will cover strategy and operational highlights; and Matt Walsh, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review performance, guidance and capital allocation; Dr. Sandra Milligan, Organon's Head of R&D, will also be joining us for the Q&A portion of this call. Today, we'll be referencing a presentation that will be visible during this call for those of you on our webcast. This presentation will also be available following this call on the Events and Presentations section of our Organon Investor Relations website at www.organon.com. Before we begin, I would like to caution listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business, which are discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 10-K and subsequent periodic filings. In addition, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call, which should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures is included in the press release and conference call presentation. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Kevin Ali. |
| Wrapping up the financial discussion, we're off to a solid start to the year. Operationally, the business is performing well, with strong demand trends in NEXPLANON, structural tailwinds in fertility, double-digit growth in biosimilars and the stabilization of the established brands business that we have been signalling for some time. | |
| At this point, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. | |
| Operator: | Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question you would need to press the star, one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, to ask the question press star, one on your telephone. Our first question comes from the line of Jason Gerberry from BofA. |
| Jason Gerberry: | Just on biosimilar, Sonera, can you confirm, do you have a target action date yet for the high concentration version of the product? And then, what do you hope to benefit from an interchangeability study? I mean, in terms of timing, presumably, you're not going to be first. And by the time you have it, a good chunk of the volume will be in biosimilars. So just curious sort of what you see as the value of running that study. |
| Kevin Ali: | Yes, Jason. So, Kevin. So good question. So, in regard to HADLIMA, our Humira biosimilar, we are planning to launch in July of next year. So it's rapidly approaching. We've got exciting plans for HADLIMA and in regard to -- and we think it's going to be a very important contributor to our future growth. But in regard to interchangeability and the importance of interchangeability, clearly, I think that's one of the many variables that various PBMs are looking at in terms of the fact that those variables being interchangeability, I believe real-world evidence. Do you have -- does this product, as asset, been launched in other markets? And how is it doing and what's the issue -- what's the safety and regulatory issues around it? Innovative applicator, high concentration, high concentration dose being -- actually being launched, and we have all of that. Now, nobody is going to be coming to the market, Jason, at the time of launch, or at the time of LOE of Humira with a perfect profile of what you're looking for. Some may have interchangeability and high constant high situated concentration, but others may not have real-world evidence, may not have the type of backbone that we have with Samsung in terms of their production capabilities and excellence in being able to manufacture. So, we feel very good about the fact that interchangeability will be one of many variables that PBMs are looking for. And by the way, probably most important that people are not considering in terms of the biosimilar segment is your relationships with the PBMs. Do you have long-term relationships? Is there a lot of trust built up there? Are there long history of being able to work with and develop credibility with these folks? And we do. Back to the fact that many of these people that we have in the biosimilar group in the U.S. have been working on these assets since before the days of the spin for almost a decade now and have really good relationships with payers in order to be able to get formulary access, which is a key variable in terms of how well you do in the business. |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of Terence Flynn from Morgan Stanley. |
| Terence Flynn: | Great. Maybe, two questions for me. One, a follow-up on HADLIMA. I'm assuming you've already had some preliminary discussions regarding contracting in 2023. So just wondering if you're confident you'll be able to secure a decent piece of the volume second half of the year, as I think, some investors are assuming that biosimilars now, really, won't be able to participate until 2024 in a meaningful way. So that's kind of the first question. And then, as you think about the rest of the year for China, maybe, Matt, just remind us, what's embedded in your guidance for the outlook there? Particularly, given some of the rolling lockdowns on the COVID side? Just help us think about any impact or is that already baked into your guidance? |
| Kevin: | Yes, Terrence. So I'll start with the first part of your question in regards to HADLIMA as a follow-on. We believe 2023 is going to be very busy. There's no doubt. There's quite a few assets coming to the market, quite a few players will be essentially second to market. We do believe that the way that PBMs are going to approach this business is not going to be a full wholesale like a small molecule segment of a shift, but rather, there's going to be probably, I would guess, 2 to 3, it depends on the PBM, 2 to 3 biosimilars on any given formulary. Probably, obviously, the originator will be there as well as a few others. And so I think the others being all the variables that I talked about, the citrate-free, high concentration dose, the ultimate interchangeability indication coming down the line, the real-world evidence, the unique applicator and so on and so forth. And so I do believe that probably, PBMs, currently as we speak, are working on the 2023 contracts. And so there will be some volume. But clearly, it's going to start to increase. And then, in 2024 and beyond, you'll see much more of a penetration. But ultimately, getting on formulary is going to be critical in the near term as we start to come online, and we're very happy that we've got all of excellent asset in HADLIMA. We've got good relationships with the payers and various PBMs across the country, and we're ready to go. I'll hand it over to Matt to talk about your question regarding second half of business in China. |
| Matthew Walsh: | So for China, we did not see much of an impact in our business related to COVID lockdowns. We have factored, though, into our forecast for the rest of the year an impact in Q2 recovery in the latter half of the year. So we feel like we've incorporated appropriate consideration for COVID lockdowns in China that can be absorbed within the affirmation of guidance. And we see, really, on a constant currency basis, China will grow this year. |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of Umer Raffat from Evercore ISI. |
| Eric Musonza: | This is Eric calling in for Umer. I just had a quick question on the NEXPLANON R&D. How are recruitment going for the 5-year study? Has COVID slowed down any timelines there? And separately, is Organon planning any trials in other indications like dysmenorrhea or nausea? |
| Jennifer Halchak: | Eric, thanks for the question. So with regards to the enrolment for the 5-year indication, it's generally on track. We saw about a month slowdown based on the COVID impact, but we're not concerned that we're not going to bring this in on the previously shared timeline. And with regards to additional indications, the team is taking a look at the additional indications right now and formulating our development strategy around our key asset of NEXPLANON. |
| Eric Musonza: | Got it. And just the last one on biosimilar growth. You mentioned drivers before in Australia and Brazil. Can you give more detail on what kind of trends you're seeing there, maybe, on uptake or upcoming tender offers? |
| Kevin Ali: | Yes. So Eric, in regards to -- So there's 2 parts that I look at in that question. First of all, as I mentioned, U.S. obviously, is going to be the key market, the key market for our HADLIMA, [indiscernible] biosimilar, as you start to look at our overall biosimilar business footprint across the world. But part of that is the real-world evidence. And as you said, we have Canada, we have Australia as 2 countries that have been doing very well, with ultimately and growing double digits -- strong double digit with those products. And the uptake has been really nicely across all of -- late 2021 and 2022, we see great movement in those 2 countries. |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of Chris Shibutani from Goldman Sachs. |
| Chris Shibutani: | I wanted to ask 2 questions relating to the women's health business, particularly to the contraception focus area. Can you comment about the market in general, what you're seeing in terms of U.S. growth, perhaps the share of the [indiscernible] in general? And any colour as well on contraception broadly, about gaining further approvals outside the U.S.? And then, within that, specific to NEXPLANON, can you talk about some of the metrics further? I think you provided about the U.S. international mix has been shifting from 75%, 25% to more of a 2/3? How do you see that trending? And then maybe, more quantification further that you've also previously provided on what the engagement has been like with your digital marketing and direct-to-consumer? |
| Kevin Ali: | Chris, thanks for the question. Let me address that first part in terms of the lark movement, in terms of growth, [indiscernible] have been growing worldwide as well as in the U.S. And I think that's a shift, a lot of times, from the daily pill business segment into Lark , both in terms of long-acting reversible contraceptives, by the way, as well as short-acting reversible contraceptive as well, like, for example, NuvaRing and others. And in regard to how is it going with NEXPLANON. As I mentioned, we had a fantastic Q4. Last year was our all-time high. There was a bit of pull forward because we had a price increase in the end of last year. There's a bit of pulling forward in terms of the overall business. But -- And so that's why we saw a relatively slow January. But when I start to look at the February and March and April data, it clearly shows that there's sequential growth month, over month, over month. And we feel that there's a very strong signals in terms of sales from distributors to physicians as we -- a lot of the business is bought and bill, in clinics that is clearly showing a very strong kind of receptivity to some of the things that we're doing, as you mentioned, in terms of the digital media, issues that we're doing as well as other things that we're engaging in. |
| It's an all-time high in terms of what we've been able to do versus the previous 2 years in terms of the clinical training program, in terms of all the certifications that we're doing, we are seeing tremendous improvement of -- for example, when you mentioned in terms of nexplanon.com, or internet sites. So, we have a physician locator exceeded benchmark, almost 32,000 searches out of 58,000 total visitors in the first quarter. As I mentioned in my initial statements, we started a new telehealth capability at nexpelon.com, and in April 2022 to enable women to immediately talk to a health care professional about NEXPLANON and our contraception offers. So we're doing quite a bit in terms of tactically, when you talk about rep visits being back to pre-pandemic level, when you talk about clinical training program certification on the 1-minute insertion and 2-minute removal being really at an all-time high since the pre-pandemic phase. When you talk about our digital strategies in regard to the things that we're doing on nexplanon.com, as well as our social media campaigns. We have really, really great, and I'm very confident that for the year, we'll see the same type of double-digit growth as we saw in last year in 2021. | |
| Chris Shibutani: | And to follow-on, you had commented previously that there was about a 20% decline in wellness business, as a proxy, perhaps, for patients returning to engagement with practitioners on the wellness front that has bearing for NEXPLANON. Any update on what you're seeing, trends there? |
| Kevin Ali: | Yes. That's a great point, Chris. Let me say this, that, that number continues to be kind of lingering at around 20% in terms of a reduction of women seeking health visits, health checks. We're hoping that, that does better over time, that people are able to move forward. Because remember, though, that there's been an increase in telemedicine. So, telemedicine is an increase, and I think that's what's probably taking the place of some of these women who are not going to seek help directly in terms of their health checks. And we think that, that's kind of stabilizing to the point as the fact that the pandemic has kind of changed the market dynamics a bit. And I think that there are some women, especially who are going to getting new forms of health care that is non-traditional as opposed to what they used to do before in terms of going to the office for those health checks, health visits. But having said that, NEXPLANON continues to do, I think, extremely well because of all the activities that we do. So for example, for the whole market, you might see a 20% reduction, but for NEXPLANON, we see double-digit growth because we have all-time highs in a number of areas, because of the fact that the promise of Organon was really, about putting emphasis, support, resourcing, senior management attention into NEXPLANON and we're starting to see some of the dividends pay off in that in the early phases. |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of David Amsellem from Piper Sandler. |
| David Amsellem: | So, I just had a couple of questions. First, I just wanted to get your overall thoughts on vertical integration in biosimilars. Obviously, you have shared economics. Here, in light of what [indiscernible] did with Biocon. I wanted to just pick your brain on that model, something that's vertically integrated versus what you are trying to accomplish with your distribution model and how you see, I guess, the wisdom of what you're doing in terms of your shared economic model in biosims. So that's number one. And then, number two, can you just remind us how you're thinking broadly, longer term, about the direction of the established brand portfolio ex U.S., how you think about sort of a natural rate of erosion, if you will, in terms of price? Or how competitive dynamics come into play? And what's a good way of thinking about erosion, longer term, for that business? |
| Kevin Ali: | Thanks for the question, David. Thanks for the question, David. Let me just answer and address the first question with regards to around biosimilars and doing a vertical play there. We are very comfortable both in terms of our relationship with Samsung, which is going almost now almost a decade long, in terms of the way that we perceive our part of the overall -- the business process going forward. Look -- I mean, our focus right now is you don't know what really is going to happen to biosimilars in a decade from now. Things could change in terms of the overall erosion of price being more aggressive. And there are a number of variables out there. We though, see this as a very strong opportunistic play at least for the next 6 to 10 years. And beyond that, we'll have to see. So as a result of where we put our capital allocation, it's really better for us to really focus on our vision, a better and healthier every day for every woman, which is to grow our women's health portfolio. We see opportunities there. We see kind of what I would call, responsible valuations in the space. And that's where we've done the 5 deals, we've done before even being a year old in the market. So we see biosimilars as a very important contributor to growth, but we also see the opportunity of being very smart in terms of capital allocation and putting it where we see long-term viability of women's health as being a real strong growth player going over for time. |
| Now, in regard to the second question of established brands, specifically ex U.S. business, look, we saw a phenomenal quarter, but that was predicated on a number of onetime events that were very positive in our favor. If I look at the long-term view, I've had a lot of experience with these products. I've worked with these products for well over 25 years. I know them well. And I knew coming into this spin that with the right type of attention, the right type of resourcing, the right type of focus, entrepreneurial focus, country-by-country -- because there's no single country or single region that has the same level of opportunities. They all vary from one to the other, that this business could go from a very strong erosion pattern, almost double-digit erosion, to actually being flat. And now, over the last quarters, the 3 quarters, we've proven that now. Given the fact that we've had strong double-digit growth of established brands, 2/3 of our overall company in the first quarter, that I want to temper that, because of the fact that there was again some very favorable onetime events, but we see some headwinds coming over in the next -- in the second half of the year that we expected, we planned for, things like volume-based procurement around 7 round 8, Things like, for example, pricing for Atozet, our second biggest product in Europe. Things like, for example, our annual review that you get in Japan for some of these products. These are some of the pricing headwinds that we factored in. But overall, I am very, very confident that this year, we'll see a flat business overall. And potentially, if things go our way, it could be slightly better. So, for the long term, I would say it would be very, very low single-digit erosion. But for the short term, I would say flat. | |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of Greg Fraser from Truist Securities. |
| Gregory Fraser: | I apologize if you covered this already, but on established brands, how much of that strong growth in Q1 was related to easy comps and the onetime items that you called out versus fundamental drivers that could be more sustainable? And then, on NEXPLANON, do you expect new patient share to be driven primarily by patients switch from daily products? Or is there an opportunity to take share from IUDs? And I'm curious if an IUD is something that might make sense for your portfolio. |
| Kevin Ali: | So, for the first part of your question, established brands for the first quarter, we had about half and half, really. I would say, half would be attributable to onetime items and the other half, was just underlying volume growth in the base business. And in regard to the second question, with regards to NEXPLANON and we're ultimately where we're going to get our business for -- in the future. We're really focused on a couple of things. Unintended pregnancies for the last decade have been hovering around 50% worldwide, just south of that in the U.S. in the high 40s. That's clearly an unmet need that needs to be addressed. And we do feel that, for example, the biggest opportunity we have is from women who are not very happy with pills and ultimately, the daily compliance issues that continue to lead to unintended pregnancies being way, way too high. And that could be one area that is definitely going to be the key area of moving over. But I don't think that we're going to be fighting against other LARCs. I do believe, though, the big opportunities -- because we've only got about 10% share worldwide in terms of value and a much lower number in terms of volume. And so there's a huge runway for us. And clearly, COCs or pills are the #1 prescribed product out there, and there's clearly a lot of dissatisfaction in a number of communities in terms of women really wanting to have something that's convenient, much higher efficacy rate and so simple and easy to administer. So, I think that's really the way that we look at the future of NEXPLANON. |
| Operator: | Our next question comes from the line of Michael Nedelcovych from Cowen. |
| Michael Nedelcovych: | Another on HADLIMA, if you don't mind. Are there any external circumstances that would inhibit Organon from launching HADLIMA in 2023? For instance, are you reasonably certain that other IP, maybe, not contemplated by the contract, won't block such a launch? |
| Kevin Ali: | So, Michael, I don't see any issues right now. I think we're late in the game right now, and all those issues have been worked out in regard to the IP challenges and all the things of that nature. So, I don't see anything right now, in my view, that would inhibit us from launching in July of next year. |
| Operator: | There are no further questions at this time. Presenters, you may continue. |
| Kevin Ali: | So I'd like to just -- some concluding remarks. Look, in Organon short history as an independent company, we've made tremendous progress executing on our state of business objectives. From the outset, we have known that the right level of investment and management focus would enable all 3 of our franchises to reveal their true potential. That is what we are now seeing. Of particular significance is the stabilization of our established brands business. I am delighted with our efforts to unlock the full potential of these brands and to deliver sustained, significant cash flows to fund our vision of a better and healthier every day for every woman. We're well on our way to building a suite of products that address important unmet medical need in women's health and our ability to deliver on what we say and remain focused on making a difference for women is what sets Organon apart. Thank you for your time and attention today, and we do look forward to speaking with you throughout the quarter. Thank you very much. |
| Operator: | This concludes today's conference call. Thank you, everyone, for participating. You may now disconnect. |