NovoCure Limited (NASDAQ:NVCR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Our teams are focused on ensuring that we do all the education and the support work to make sure that this study continues to enroll because it will be important to help us understand, again, the role of Tumor Treating Fields in the first-line setting.

Lei Huang: Okay. Is there an update on the timeline? Is that mid-2024 date on clinicaltrials.gov, is that accurate?

Pritesh Shah: So, like with all studies because they are on a pace of enrollment, I would say that’s just an anchor point. As the study enrollment sort of gets closer to an end date, we will continue to provide updates on that front.

Lei Huang: Okay. Got it. And related to that, is there any way to bridge KEYNOTE B36 to your new LUNAR trials in first line to help expedite patient enrollment and the timeline of development?

Pritesh Shah: Yes. So, that’s an interesting question. I think that any time we can speed up enrollment. It’s really wonderful to take advantage of those opportunities. There are two different protocols at the moment, the B36 protocol was ahead of the LUNAR-2 study, which is now going to be in an operational setting, so we can start getting enrollment in LUNAR-2. So, this study is meant to give us a quicker read of the similar patient population, albeit they are two different protocols. So, we will look at it as the study enrolls and see if there are any advantages to accelerate our LUNAR-2 efforts.

Lei Huang: Okay. Thanks. And then just a few questions on the Q3 results. On the call, I think you actually talked about reps focusing on high-quality prescriptions in Germany. Can you just expand on that? And how do we think about the impact on the prescription volume going forward? And rest of world prescription volume was really strong, patient volume as well. Was that just France to launch, or were there other aspects of it?

Ashley Cordova: Yes. Lei, this is Ashley. Thanks for the question. So, it is patients that we would have you focus on in Germany. So, you can see that active patients were up 5% year-over-year. What that really does reflect is, now the new coverage criteria is fully understood both on our side, but also on the physician side. And so over the course of 2023, what we have seen is that physicians have stopped writing scripts for patients that will not get reimbursed. Those were not scripts that were filled last year nor were they scripts for which we are getting paid. So, that’s kind of a natural and positive maturation that these messages are understood and everybody in market understands now what we will get paid for. So, I would look at active patient growth, that’s the right anchor, and that is really trending well right there in that market.

And as you noted, rest of world as well, so I would say we saw a stable business in active patients around the rest of the world and then a really strong performance in France, as we mentioned, with more than 100 patients out there.

Lei Huang: Got it. Thanks. And then if I can squeeze in just one more. You have a zero convert that’s due in November 2025. I think you have – the company has the option to redeem at some point this year. But presumably, that’s not going to happen at this point. How do we think about the redemption or the conversion optionality before maturity?

Ashley Cordova: Yes. No, it’s another great question and one that – as you can imagine, we are getting asked a lot recently. What I will say is reiterate what I mentioned in the script that we have an incredibly strong balance sheet. We have a GBM business, which generates $0.5 billion in revenue and throws off about $100 million in free cash flow. We are an R&D organization, so we are committed to investing in these future opportunities and future growth, but we are very astutely looking at how we can both manage our short-term goals and ensure that we have a strong balance sheet to get us through our pipeline investments and to get us through successful product launches, while ensuring that we keep our eyes on kind of the long-term value creation, which we know is in hand.