Alimera Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALIM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Alex Nowak: And then just two more questions, if I can. Just the first one on the NEW DAY study, I think we all know that’s a very important study for ILUVIEN. Maybe expand a little bit on the differences between the 2 YUTIQ studies. And just how can those outcomes there, how would that start to change adoption in the market like — is it the same level as NEW DAY? Or are these more confirmatory studies?

Rick Eiswirth: Yes. So I’ll start with CALM. So CALM is a registry study to collect real-world evidence on the use of YUTIQ in treating noninfectious posterior uveitis. One of the — I guess, one of the challenges of the pivotal studies was there were no cohorts defined to look at specific types and specific cases of uveitis. And there’s probably 25 to 30 different types of uveitis that are studied and treated in the back of the eye, right? So the idea is to hopefully develop some cohorts in the more specific types where ILUVIEN or an anti-inflammatory steroid would be used locally more effectively. And we hope to get that out of the CALM study. And we should continue to be able to produce some of that next year. There are also some consensus papers coming out of Europe that we’ll talk about specific types of uveitis where a long-term acting steroid is more applicable as well.

So I think it will help doctors with patient identification earlier in their evaluation of uveitis in those patients. The synchronicity study is really — it is very, very similar to the pivotal studies. However, the focus is around the more traditional retina specialists and the type of uveitis that they may treat that doesn’t get referred out to the uveitis specialists. So one example of that is post-operative inflammation, a lot of times when physicians look at that, there are characteristics of uveitis in that, right? And that’s maybe a direct result of vitrectomy surgery or cataract surgery and a patient with postoperative inflammation is referred to that retina specialist. And so it’s to identify the types where uveitis is present in those eyes because they’ve developed some sort of long-term inflammation in those types of situations or maybe a less severe type of uveitis, as I said, that is just going to be treated typically by the retina specialists.

Alex Nowak : Very helpful. Last question. You guided to $20 million of adjusted EBITDA. You confirmed that again this morning for 2024. But it also looks like you’re almost at that run rate to begin with in Q3. When do we start to up that target for next year?

Rick Eiswirth: As I said, we are — Alex, we’re very bullish on next year. We do want to work through some of the rest of the pieces of the integration, as I said. We made a lot of progress there and some of our plans for 2024 before we update that guidance. I do think there are some places where we have been very conservative in spending in Q3 to make sure we could get the integration right and waiting for the working capital to turn, as Russell alluded to, but we do want to make sure we maximize the effort next year in getting in front of doctors and this cross-sell opportunity as well as looking at some opportunities to expand that label with potentially other indications. So right now, we’re going to stick with over $100 million and over $20 million, but we’ll give you updates on that as we move into the next year.

Alex Nowak: Thanks for the update. Appreciate — congrats on all the progress.

Rick Eiswirth: Thanks, Alex. We appreciate your support.

Operator: Next question will be from the line of Yi Chen of H.C. Wainwright.

Yi Chen : My first question is, do you plan to add additional sales reps throughout 2024?