Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNS) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Pfanstiel: Yes, sure, Andrew, I think, in terms of the bolus, maybe I’ll start there. We had just over 20 patients in our EAP open-label program that would come over time. So, it’s not a huge bolus that we from that program. And I’m not sure if that’s what you were specifically referencing. But I think the other piece that’s really important is when we had talked about this previously, we had said, hey, it could take three months or more on average for patients to work through the reimbursement process. We know payers will put NDC blocks or other things in place, which just can take some time to work through. But I think our payer team has done a really phenomenal job of really being out there, getting good patient access.

I think our pricing strategy has paid off extremely. And in fact, we’re seeing about 50% of our patients being reimbursed and approved within 30 days. Some are going to take longer, but we’re really proud of what we’ve been able to do. So, these patients are just going to come in over-time as they work through that payer process. But to have that many patients on after nine weeks, I think, shows the work we’ve done on the payer side. Christy, I don’t know if you wanted to add anything there?

Christy Shafer: Yes, thanks for the question, Andrew. I think that Steve hit it on the head there. However, just to reiterate those numbers, 20 patients in our EAP programs with just over 30 patients that were naïve to ganaxolone. Of those 30 patients we saw a nice balance of when we saw those enrollment forms. So there certainly was no bolus of them in the first couple of weeks, and we’ve continued to see interest that is equal to that that we saw early in the launch day. So only a few weeks in, but we’re encouraged by the effort as well.

Andrew Tsai: Thanks. That’s all I had. Thank you.

Scott Braunstein: Thanks, Andrew.

Operator: And we will take our next question from Joon Lee with Truist Securities, your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst : Hi this is on for Joon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wondering if you’ve seen an uptick in enrollment site that have implemented the new protocol for RAISE, given that it should be easier to recruit eligible patients. And then maybe on the previous question, if you could just talk a little bit more about the three months or more to work the reimbursement process. Just a little bit of color on that would be interesting. Thank you.

Scott Braunstein: Yes, I’ll take the first one on the RAISE trial. We couldn’t feel more confident about where we are today relative to even six or nine months ago. I think there are a lot of factors playing an important role here. First, I think the hospital system was really overrun a year ago. We’ve had several 100 personnel changes in hospitals where the studies have been taking place, and we really feel like that is now stabilized to a meaningful degree. And we’ve talked about that on the call. So we really kind of feel from an overall hospital standpoint, the worst is behind the hospital systems. I’d say secondly, we have done everything in our power to really help with those hospital systems. We’ve added several teams to the core clinical team, including three great Pharm Ds who are interacting with pharmacists and personnel.