BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCRX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Unidentified Analyst: Okay, thank you. And then if I could also ask about the retention rates of patients were on the drug. You had mentioned that the same number of patients were dropped off by the higher I guess — the higher denominator there. And so what do — are those retention rates and in regards to the retention rates are they kind of the same in the US and the ex-US or are you seeing any differences in what those rates look like in those geographies?

Charlie Gayer: Great question. So what we’re seeing at this point and we’ve got a lot of history now that gets us confidence in saying this is — that the pattern of discontinuation is very consistent. So when a patient starts in the US, a patient starts on therapy about 60% of them make it to one year and then we lose very few people after a year. And so what that means in the US market is every month as we’re getting a consistent number of patients coming on to product, we can predict how many people are going to drop off and our base is growing. So the absolute discontinuation rate as a proportion of our base keeps going down. Ex-US, we’re seeing the same pattern of when people discontinue but actually the overall retention rate has been better and we think a lot of that has to do with just in Europe you tend to have larger HA treatment centers where the health care providers are very focused on their patients and may be just generally providing better education.

Overall the key to retention is and we’re very focused on this, is setting expectations with patients so that they know what to expect in those few — first few months of therapy and if they hit any bumps then they don’t — they don’t panic and drop off therapy and we’ve seen that that has been very effective and I think that’s what we’ve got the stable pattern that we’re seeing now.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jon Wolleben with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Jon Wolleben: Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. On the free drug dynamic, Charlie you mentioned a goal to get to at least 20% or less on free drug. I’m wondering when you think that could happen and then with the guidance for the second half of year with steady revenues between 3Q, 4Q, should we expect any movement on the free drug status in the back half of the year if you’re seeing steady patient and steady revenue seems like that should be stable, but why don’t you talk a little bit about those two most points?

Charlie Gayer: Sure, yeah, so kind of the second question yeah, we expect to make just continued incremental progress in the second half of the year getting people to pay drug. It’ll contribute, but I think the patient growth is really what’s going to drive our sales growth in the second half of the year. As far as when do we expect to get to the 20% or better, it’s going to take a few years to get there, but the early you as we’re really focused on this what we’re seeing in the last few months is new patient starting on therapy are already getting to an 80% plus paid rate and so that gives us that confidence that over time we’re going to be able to get everyone there. So I think it’s the team focus, our patient services team our market access team, our sales team working to educate patients and healthcare providers about this and to continue to work with payers that all of that together is what’s making the difference.

Jon Wolleben: And ex-US you mentioned things are going well. Wondering if we should expect to see an acceleration any point if there’s tipping point or this going to be grind higher is well there and maybe a little bit about if it’s going to be certain countries contributing the most or this going to be you know consistent geographic expansion driving the revenue ex-US.

Charlie Gayer: Yeah I wouldn’t expect a tipping point or acceleration. We’re really seeing the same pattern of patient growth. As we’ve talked about it takes a good four patients ex-US to add up to one US patient just from a revenue perspective. We will keep at so the steady patient growth is the number one thing we’ll keep adding countries. So we expect next year to launch in our way two of Europe. So countries like Italy and Spain and Benelux. So we’ll have those continued additions to our revenue stream, but I wouldn’t expect a big inflection point steady growth.

Jon Wolleben: Thanks Charlie. I appreciate the color.