Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE:TEVA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Eli Kalif: Yes, so thanks Jason. So overall, the way we need to think about it, we will end up according to the guidance with higher revenue versus last year. But we will trend the OpEx at the level of close to 26% of our revenue. And that’s the way to think about it. Another point for you to consider, we’re still looking for the 53% gross margin for the yearend, which means there is a step up in Q4, which is mostly related to a further mix that we have in that quarter. And that will drive our ability to sustain the EBITDA guidance, although OpEx is still increasing in terms of dollars.

Operator: Our next question comes from Nathan Rich of Goldman Sachs.

Nathan Rich: Great. Good morning and thanks for the questions. You mentioned the higher R&D expense in the quarter. I think you kind of expected maybe a bit of a step down in the fourth quarter. But I guess going forward, what’s the right way to think about R&D expenses as a percent of sales just given the investments, you’re kind of making in the pipeline. Does that move up a bit over time? And then on UZEDY, you mentioned the positive feedback from providers. I was wondering if you could just elaborate a little bit on that and how that’s kind of informed your view on the pace of uptick and how we should be thinking about the revenue contribution from this product as we go into next year.

Richard Francis: Thanks for the questions, Nathan. So just to sort of comment on the R&D expense, we don’t expect a step down in Q4 because this is part of our strategy. And the strategy is to aggressively move our innovative pipeline through the clinic. And as I said, we have ICS/SABA into Phase 3. We have an Olanzapine full tilt in Phase 3 and obviously TL1A in Phase 2, which we’re moving very aggressively. So I think that’s on purpose and that will continue. I’ll let Eli talk a bit about where we will be in percentage of sales but obviously one thing to always consider which may be slightly new with [inaudible] our sales we have shown that we’ve grown ourselves for the second quarter in a row and we are moving the business back to growth so obviously that does allow us some flexibility although I want to assure you our focus on expenses is maniacal so that’s just an important understanding. But, Eli, do you want to give a bit more flavor?

Eli Kalif: Yes, so overall the way to think about R&D we are actually looking to trend just a bit above 6% for the yearend which means that Q4 will also have a step up and as I mentioned in my prepared remark, we are actually providing kind of more transparency here between 230 to 250 and that will be by itself very close to I would say the 6% that we see in the quarter and for the year. The way to think about is going forward of course we will provide our guidance for ‘24 on the back of Q4 on February but the way to think about it, it will be arranged between 6% to 6.5% of our revenue going forward according to our strategy and this is mostly related to the mix inside the innovative speed in the R&D.

Richard Francis: Thanks Eli. And then moving on to UZEDY and we talked a bit about the questions around the positivity we have in the next year so I will hand to Sven , Head of North America to give some flavor for the excitement in the market.

Sven Dethlefs: Yes, thank you Richard. So we have a very good uptake, our launch plan is full on track. We are of course now working towards market access, in hospital access, listing on hospital formularies, we are right on plan and Medicaid and Medicare we are also in discussions here we have secured on par access within [Bega Sustaina] in a couple of states and we are working towards this goal with all the remaining states but also with the Medicare plans so that we are quite confident that we will have a very good market access position going into 2024. What is very encouraging for us is that the product profile that we hope for will find a good reception with physicians actually played out as planned. We’ve generated so far about 4,000 prescriptions.

Please keep in mind that we have a large number of free samples in the market to get patients started so when we move forward and have utilized these samples, we will see more paid for prescriptions. But we get to so today the majority of our patients from switches from oral therapies to UZEDY and then from within the category of switches from other LAIs to UZEDY, we have here sources of revenues that come primarily of course from the respiratory market from [Procerous and Consta] but also from the other LAIs. So we believe what we always hope for or aim for that this becomes a new standard of care in the LAI segment will actually materialize and for that reason we believe that UZEDY will be then a material contributor to our role in innovative medicines in 2024 and going forward from there.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ash Verma of UBS.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi. This is Di asking on behalf of Ash. Thanks for taking our questions. So I have two. The first one is on the AUSTEDO. Can you give us some color on where the XR is taking share from. So it’s now run rate. It’s at around like 10% of total molecule. So we just want to understand is it taking shares from regular AUSTEDO, generic or Ingrezza? The second question is can you give us the rough sense for what’s the EBITDA margin for the standalone business? Also curious how that margin profile has been trending for the last few years. Thank you.