Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

We did really well year-on-year with that product. We did really well year-on-year with Revalia. We’ve got a lot of really good individual pieces that like Active Century Hemp piece for our older Centurion which really does upgrade the performance of the unit. So we’ve got a lot to talk about and a lot going on. And I do think that all that strength was offset by a decline in the refractive equipment which, again, I think hadn’t been even flat, we’d have done better than we said. Going forward, I would — we have a belief that this has to return to normal at some point. And I think probably we’ll start again next year with a belief that this should probably run close to what procedural growth is. Generally, equipment runs a little bit in front of the growth rate of procedures because, of course, you need more equipment to do more procedures directionally.

And that has been the view that we had. This year, it was kind of, I think, underestimated by probably where competitors ended up. There were some supply chain challenges with some of our competitors. We thought we’d face more competition than we actually did. But I think directionally, we were really pleased with the business and I think expect to have a good year next year. I just don’t think it’s going to be a double-digit year next year.

Cecilia Furlong: Great. And if I could follow up also, just TOTAL30, some of your comments, both around toric, the recent launch planned OUS expansion in ’23. If you could just level set what you’ve seen from both a growth as well as share standpoint through ’22 and then your outlook for ’23 as well?

David Endicott: Yes. I mean, we’re really pleased with the product. It’s a very unique product. It’s a unique material that allows for water gradient to be on a different kind of material and material that actually sheds bacteria over time. So it’s a durable material but can still hold water at the surface. That’s — nobody has been able to do that before. So what you feel on your eye at the end of 30 days is really cool. I mean it basically feels like the first day you put it on. So we’re really excited about the potential lens. The doc response has been terrific and the new prescriptions for the lens are quite good in terms of share. What we’ve — what I want to be careful about on T30 is that the monthly lens takes a longer time to come up the curve.

And I think it’s kind of obvious when you say it but if you have a dailies patient and you start them on a trial, you give them a week’s worth of product and they come back and they buy a month supply or 3-month supply in a week. If you give somebody a couple of boxes of TOTAL30, they’re off for 2 months before they decide to come back and purchase the lens. So there is a natural delay in both the purchase cycle and the return cycle for reusable patients. And again, reusable patients tend to be folks who’ve been in their lenses a longer time or they’re just starting. So we’re real keen on the new patient starts. Again, we’ve been watching that as a leading indicator and we’re very pleased with the lens. How fast it comes up the hill, we’ll have to see as we get into next year.

But I think directionally, we’re pleased with that. I do think putting the TOTAL30 toric out there, particularly because are typically in reusable lenses are a lot more often in reasonable lenses. And we have a particularly good 1 I think will help the family a good bit this next year. So those 2 ledges together, I think represent the premium product in the entire market for reusability. And so we look forward to seeing a really good response but the response so far has been as expected, maybe a little better than that.