Liquidia Corporation (NASDAQ:LQDA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Kaseta: Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter 2023 financial results can be found in the press release and the 10-Q filed this morning. As you will see Liquidia continues to operate and spend on value-creating activity in a judicious manner. We ended the third quarter with $76.2 million in cash equating to a net burn of $17.1 million over the first nine months of this year. During the quarter, revenue from treprostinil injection increased $0.5 million compared to the same quarter last year due to favorable gross to net chargebacks and rebate adjustments which offset lower sales quantities compared to the same period in the prior year. Cost of sales decreased slightly to $0.6 million as compared to third quarter of 2022 primarily due to lower intangible asset amortization due to the extension of our agreement with Sandoz to commercialize treprostinil injection.

R&D expenses in the quarter were $7.4 million, an increase of $2.9 million compared to second quarter 2022 and included increased spending to build prelaunch commercial supply advance the recently licensed L606 clinical program and support headcount increases. General and administrative expenses were $10.6 million for the third quarter of 2023 compared to $6.7 million for the same quarter in 2022. The increase of $3.9 million was primarily driven by legal fees related to our ongoing litigation, personnel and commercial expenses in preparation for the potential launch of YUTREPIA, and an increase in stock-based compensation expense. As we look into December, and the year beyond we will continue to apply the same financial discipline to manage through the time line of legal and regulatory events while also being opportunistic as those events unfold.

I’d like now to turn the call back over to Roger.

Roger Jeffs: Thank you, Mike. I hope investors can hear our enthusiasm and level of excitement. We are now fully prepared to enter the marketplace and upon approval promote the full benefits that YUTREPIA can provide to patients in their journey to feel better. With that, I would now like to open the call for questions. Therese, first question please.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our question is from Greg Harrison with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Greg Harrison: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Wondering how you’re thinking about the opportunity in PH-ILD in terms of size of the addressable market and any segments that would be a focus for your efforts. And are there any learning’s you’ve gained from your competitors’ launch in ILD?

Roger Jeffs: Yeah. Great question, Greg. Thank you for the question. Scott, if you wouldn’t mind if you could give your commercial view of that question?

Scott Moomaw: Yeah, sure. So we feel like the market for PH-ILD, the prevalent market is about 60,000 patients and we all know that there’s a significant potential here because of the unmet need. We think that actually two companies in this space educating center physicians, you probably see these patients already, but also community physicians who may see these patients, but not recognize it should grow that market quickly. So we’re excited about it. We think it’s all addressable. Rajeev can chime in if he sees that differently, but we think that we have a significant potential here.

Roger Jeffs: Yeah. Rajeev, any further comments on that?

Rajeev Saggar: Yeah. Greg, just to highlight regarding the type of patients and the classification of these patients. As you know, there’s over 200 different types of interstitial lung diseases. We obviously are still learning which one of those continue to unfortunately develop this condition of pulmonary hypertension. But I think we remain focused on identifying broad categories idiopathic interstitial pneumonia as sort of immune diseases, hypersensitivity pneumonia. These are the categories inclusive of combined pulmonary fibrosis and phenotype that portend to develop pulmonary hypertension. So focusing on earlier diagnosis and earlier treatment opportunities, we believe will be quite impactful for these patients and also the physicians who are treating these cohorts.