Glaukos Corporation (NYSE:GKOS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ryan Zimmerman: Okay. Fair. We’ll have to wait till the 22nd of December. Second question for me, just with the LCDs likely finalized from what we saw with WPS the other week, I’m less concerned with how this impacts your Surgical business and more interested in how you think about derisking the iDose launch next year. So how does it change your calculus on iDose and what you need to achieve next year? I mean when we spoke kind of mid-quarter, your messaging that second half 2024 really would be the inflection for iDose, but I have to imagine that this takes some pressure off of the first half of the year because there is some benefit that will come from the LCDs. And so how has that in the past week, maybe shifted your thinking on the cadence for iDose next year?

Tom Burns: Yes, Ryan. I think — I don’t know if I would make that far of a leap in the context of the LCDs as related to iDose. I think the key drivers of iDose in 2024 go back to a little bit more of what I said previously. It’s really going to come down to the pace in which we can — and we’re comfortable training these doctors and the pace in which you establish predictable recurring reimbursement, particularly on the facility and the prof fee side alongside of that. So you want to get through the miscellaneous J or C code phase. You want to get through the initial stages of determining regular and recurring professional fees and that you’re going to get paid on the facility side. I think those are the things that ultimately shift a lot more of the shifting from the walk into the jog into the run to the back half of the year versus the first half.

It is possible that across all of our portfolio there’ll be incremental demand associated with procedures, whether that be stenting. But I think iDose probably won’t benefit from that until certainly later in the year going into 2021.

Ryan Zimmerman: Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.

Tom Burns: Thanks, Ryan.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Larry Biegelsen from Wells Fargo. Larry, please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi. This is Charles on for Larry. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on the nice quarter. I want to just follow up on the LCD again. So I appreciate you talked about there’s puts and takes before and so maybe I wanted to follow up on to make sure you understand that positive negative of that. So on the positive side, I mean, iStent infinite and may be the competitive procedures like Canaloplasty, Goniotomy, maybe some of those stents pick up some of those. But on the negative side, it sounds like we read that sensor only covered as a second-line therapy the language seems to eliminate the stacking of multiple MIGS procedures. Are those the puts and takes you’re talking about for first there, can you confirm that? And then I have a follow-up.

Tom Burns: Okay. Yes, Charles, I think, first and foremost, anytime you have a policy like this, there’s always some inherent ambiguity in it. That’s the first line. I mean, I think exactly how the MAX will adjudicate these policy changes will matter over the course of the next several years. And that’s hard to always know from the literal reading of a policy that comes out like this. So I think that’s one factor that folks have to take into consideration. You referenced, obviously some of the adjustments that they are proposing or finalizing as it relates to canaliclasty, some of the shifts on the gondatomy side. When it comes to the combining of procedures, is correct, the WPS LCD does restrict the clinical decision-making as it relates to combining of these procedures.

And we think it restricts the options that surgeons have and the fight against what’s a multifactorial disease using tools that have complement mechanism of action. That is one of the puts and takes that have to be considered here. And certainly, is an offset to any pickup of share that you might anticipate associated with the restrictions that are being placed on canaloplasty and goniotomy and something that we’re going to take our time to assess from an overall standpoint.