Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VRCA) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:VRCA) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript November 17, 2025

Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Verrica Pharmaceuticals’ Third Quarter 2025 Corporate Update Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to our host, Kevin Gardner of Lifesci Advisors. You may begin your conference.

Kevin Gardner: Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Verrica Pharmaceuticals Third Quarter 2025 Corporate Update Conference Call. With me on the line this morning are Jayson Rieger, President and Chief Executive Officer; Noah Rosenberg, Chief Medical Officer; John Kirby, Interim Chief Financial Officer; and David Zawitz, Chief Operating Officer. As a reminder, during today’s call, management will make forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the company’s current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Verrica’s actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Please see Verrica’s SEC filings for important risk factors.

Verrica cautions you not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and undertakes no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or changes in expectations. In addition, during today’s call, management will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for or superior to measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. There are a number of limitations related to the use of these non-GAAP financial measures compared to their closest GAAP equivalents. The earnings release that the company issued Friday includes GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations for these measures and is also available on the Investor Relations section of Verrica’s website.

I’ll now turn the call over to Verrica’s President and CEO, Jayson Rieger.

Jayson Rieger: Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2025 corporate update call. In the third quarter, Verrica achieved multiple commercial, corporate, scientific and regulatory milestones, providing a strong foundation for future growth in YCANTH as well as significant upside potential for our late-stage pipeline. Throughout the past year, we’ve advanced our clinical programs in two of the highest unmet needs in dermatology for future development. We are excited to embark on the first of these programs our global Phase III clinical program of YCANTH or VP-102 in common warts. This is with our Japanese development partner, Torii Pharmaceutical and is expected starting — to be starting later this year with first patients targeted for dosing in December.

Also, as I’ll discuss in more detail later on in this call, we’ve received clear and positive feedback from the FDA about the Phase III development program for our oncology asset, VP-315, for basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Even while advancing these two programs to Phase III readiness, we’ve reduced our spending by about half in the past year, while more than doubling dispensed units of our commercial product, YCANTH for molluscum contagiosum. I couldn’t be more proud of our team’s simultaneous achievement of these goals, and we are excited to see what’s ahead for Verrica in 2025 and beyond. In the third quarter, we continue to see growth in the adoption of YCANTH by health care providers in the U.S., with quarter-over-quarter growth in dispensed applicator units of about 5%, compared to last year, dispensed applicator units increased to 37,642 for the 9 months ended September 30, 2025, a 120% increase over that same month in 2024.

This year-over-year growth reflects the progress of our commercial strategy to expand distribution through the pharmacy channel and the concerted effort to expand beyond dermatology into pediatric and primary care offices. While the incremental growth in pull-through was softer in Q3 versus the prior quarter, we powered through seasonality and competitive headwinds to help providers treat more patients with what we view to be is the best-in-class therapy for molluscum. The growth and adoption of YCANTH for molluscum serves as the foundation for our strategy of establishing YCANTH as a valuable tool for treating multiple types of skin lesions as the same clinicians familiar with YCANTH will also be those who treat common warts if that is approved as an expanded indication.

Through our amended agreement with Torii, we have received $18 million in cash milestones payments in 2025, of which $10 million was received in the third quarter upon the approval of YCANTH for molluscum in Japan. Torii continues to be an outstanding and highly collaborative partner to Verrica, and this additional non-dilutive capital has helped our cash position and supported our YCANTH activities in the United States. The financial arrangement for the global Phase III program in common warts, where by Verrica and Torii split the cost of the program with the first $40 million funded by Torii has unlocked the development of this key indication with first patient dosed in the United States expected by the end of the year. It’s also important to note that Verrica retains exclusive global rights to YCANTH outside of Japan.

The recent approval of YCANTH in Japan for molluscum is the first of what we hope to and expect will be multiple approvals across the major pharmaceutical markets, including the European Union. We recently received a significant regulatory milestone towards YCANTH approval for molluscum in the EU. Feedback from the European Medicines Agency on October 20 indicated that no further Phase III clinical studies would be needed to proceed with the filing of a Marketing Authorization Application for YCANTH as a treatment for molluscum, and we anticipate the filing could occur as early as the fourth quarter of 2026. The feedback was based on compelling efficacy from the well-controlled Phase III studies successfully conducted in both the United States and Japan.

Europe represents a large and underserved market for patients who at present have no approved therapy for the treatment of molluscum as well as a large commercial expansion opportunity for Verrica. While we’ve been optimizing our cost structure and building the foundation for YCANTH as a best-in-class therapy for molluscum in common warts, our clinical teams have been developing VP-315, or ruxotemitide, our novel oncolytic peptide immunotherapy as one of the most exciting late-stage assets in oncology. We recently announced new data from our Phase II study evaluating VP-315 for basal cell carcinoma at the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer, or SITC, at their 40th Annual Meeting. The presentation revealed supportive immunologic mechanistic data that helps explain why VP-315 shrinks treated basal cell carcinomas in many patients as evidenced by a 97% objective response rate and an 86% reduction in overall tumor size.

We also observed a potential abscopal-like effect in non-treated lesions, which strongly suggests immune system engagement. We are also excited to announce that we reached alignment with the FDA on an efficient Phase III study design. We couldn’t be more excited about VP-315 and its prospects to potentially become standard of care for the most common form of skin cancer. We believe the tremendous promise of these pipeline assets may present robust partnering opportunities to advance these programs through development and commercialization as well as bring in meaningful non-dilutive capital. and we are currently exploring these opportunities wherever they present themselves. I’d like to provide a more detailed update now on our commercial activities for YCANTH.

During the third quarter, YCANTH dispensed applicator unit reached a total of 14,093, which represents approximately 5% sequential growth over the prior quarter. Not surprisingly, we experienced some seasonality in August. As in-office treatment, times of the year where there are generally fewer visits for doctors, largely driven, we believe, by scheduled vacations by both providers and patients and fewer sick child visits will have an impact on our volumes. I believe the seasonality did modestly impact our volumes in August. But as we enter the back-to-school season in September, we saw a return to the previous levels of pull-through which is consistent with the expected product utilization patterns for this indication and patient population.

We also saw that momentum continue into the beginning of the fourth quarter. Turning to reimbursement. As noted on our last conference call, the substantial investments we have made in our commercial copay assistance program continues to give providers a consistent path for treating their patients with YCANTH. As a reminder, our copay assistance program allows all eligible patients with commercial insurance to pay just $25 per YCANTH treatment for up to two applicators, which provides physicians with comfort knowing that their patients will find affordable access to YCANTH. As previously indicated, our commitment to patient affordability and ease of access to YCANTH for health care providers had an incremental impact on our gross to net and by extension, revenue for the quarter.

We view this investment as the best way to get YCANTH in the hands of providers to use as their frontline treatment for molluscum and to minimize concern for clinicians whether the prescription will be filled for their patients. One new development on the commercial front that we are excited to share is YCANTH Rx. Our new non-dispensing pharmacy that we expect to launch in the fourth quarter of 2025. YCANTH Rx will give prescribers a single place to write all YCANTH prescriptions and will assist with benefits investigations, processing any prior authorizations and enrollment in our copay program. Prescriptions written to YCANTH Rx will then be routed to a dispensing pharmacy in our pharmacy network that is contracted with the patient’s insurance plan.

We believe YCANTH Rx can improve speed to therapy for patients by navigating the prior authorization process with fewer delays. Prescribers will also enjoy this simplified, seamless experience that will reduce the paperwork burden on their offices and let them spend more time doing what they do best, treating patients. I’m also pleased to note that recent expansion of our sales force, which will continue into the next year. Our total sales force has risen to 45 sales reps this quarter, and we plan on increasing it to 50 in 2026. For the third consecutive quarter, YCANTH inventory remained at normalized levels with YCANTH applicator units shipped to distributors continuing to closely track underlying market demand of dispensed applicator units.

I will now provide an update on our pipeline programs. Regarding our common warts program, as I mentioned earlier, we remain on track to enroll our first patient in the Phase III program in the U.S. in the fourth quarter. We provide updates on estimated timing of completion of the program and estimated availability of top line data as those items become clearer in the future. Moving to our novel oncolytic peptide, VP-315, which is being developed for basal cell carcinoma. As we have previously discussed, BCC is one of the most common skin cancer indications with over 3.6 million cases per year, representing a potential multibillion-dollar opportunity. As I mentioned, last week, we presented an oral presentation and a poster on VP-315 at the SITC 40th Annual Meeting.

The new data presented at SITC underscores VP-315 potential to redefine how basal cell carcinoma is treated. We are particularly encouraged by the immunologic profile we’re seeing with VP-315, which supports our view that this local short-term therapy not only destroys tumors directly but also stimulates a potent local immune response. The histological assessment in non-injected lesions suggests a potential abscopal-like effect. These data help explain the mechanism for the clinical safety and efficacy data previously reported and support the development of VP-315 as a potential non-surgical immunotherapy option for patients with BCC and further reinforces our confidence in VP-315’s ability to address significant unmet need in dermatologic oncology.

As this data release has prompted significant inquiries into the VP-315 program and the nature of our Phase III development plan, we are also pleased to share feedback with respect to our end of Phase II meeting with the FDA and our plans to advance the asset. In the meeting, the FDA confirmed alignment with our plans for the Phase III program to encompass two placebo-controlled Phase III studies with approximately 100 subjects each and a primary endpoint of complete clearance as assessed at week 14. Based on the FDA feedback, we expect these studies will be adequate to support an NDA filing with long-term follow-up studies to be conducted as post-approval commitment. We are extremely pleased with this collaborative and thoughtful discussion with the FDA, which provides us with an efficient path to making VP-315 available for patients with BCC.

We are continuing our preparatory activities for the BCC program and are exploring new funding opportunities, which may include strategic non-dilutive partnerships for both the development as well as post-approval commercialization. As we finalize our preparation for Phase III with CROs and clinical site investigators, we will provide additional details on costs, timing and other key aspects of this exciting oncology program. As we approach the new year, we believe our company remains well positioned to realize strong organic growth as YCANTH continues to establish itself as the leading therapy for the treatment of molluscum. We are also excited about the value creation surrounding YCANTH’s potential label expansion into common warts, the potential for expansion of YCANTH for molluscum around the world and the nearly universal positive feedback we are receiving for VP-315 for basal cell carcinoma.

I’ll now turn the call over to our Interim Chief Financial Officer, John Kirby.

John Kirby: Thanks, Jayson. I’ll now take a few minutes to summarize our financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. For the third quarter of 2025, we reported total revenue of $14.3 million compared to total negative revenue of $1.8 million in the third quarter of 2024. Total revenue for the third quarter of 2025 primarily consisted of $10.7 million of Torii milestone and collaboration revenue and net YCANTH revenue of $3.6 million, compared to $84,000 in collaboration revenue from Torii and negative $1.9 million of net YCANTH revenue in the third quarter of 2024. Net YCANTH revenue in the third quarter of 2025 reflects shipments to our distribution partners, offset by standard gross to net adjustments, including actual or anticipated product returns, off-invoice discounts, distribution fees, rebates and copay assistant program expenses.

Recall that in the third quarter of 2024, negative net YCANTH revenue was due to an increase in our returns reserve for estimated returns from certain distributors and no revenues from ex-factory sales. This year, as Jayson mentioned earlier, net YCANTH revenue represents orders from our distribution partners to meet demand from their customers. Gross product margins for the third quarter of 2025 were 79.1% and cost of product revenue was $0.8 million, including $0.4 million of obsolete inventory costs. Research and development expenses of $2.2 million in the third quarter of 2025, increased by $0.1 million when excluding the impact of stock-based compensation, which is in line with the third quarter of 2024. Selling, general and administrative expenses of $9.4 million in the third quarter of 2025 decrease compared to the third quarter of 2024 by $5.8 million, excluding the impact of stock-based compensation, driven primarily by the implementation of our more focused commercial strategy for YCANTH, including decreases in compensation, benefits and travel due to reduced sales force of $3.5 million, decreased commercial costs of $1.2 million and decreased marketing and sponsorship costs of $0.8 million.

Before I discuss net income and net loss per share, I will note that on July 24, we effected a reverse stock split at a ratio of 1 for 10 shares of our common stock. As a result, every 10 shares of our issued and outstanding common stock were automatically combined into 1 share. The 2025 and 2024 per share amounts I will note reflect the impact of the reverse stock split. GAAP net loss was $0.2 million or $0.03 per share for the third quarter of 2025, compared to a GAAP net loss of $22.9 million or $4.88 per share for the third quarter of 2024. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes stock-based compensation, non-cash interest expense and change in fair value of embedded derivatives, the third quarter of 2025 net income was $1.2 million or $0.13 per share, compared to a net loss of $20.2 million or $4.30 per share for the third quarter of 2024.

And finally, as of September 30, 2025, Verrica had aggregate cash and cash equivalents of $21.1 million. As Jayson mentioned earlier, we received a total of $18 million in cash milestone payments from Torii during 2025. In consideration of the $10 million minimum liquidity covenant in our debt facility, on a GAAP basis, our cash balance as of September 30, 2025, funds operations into the late fourth quarter. We will continue to apply discretion in our uses of cash and explore opportunities to further bolster the strength of our balance sheet while still advancing our commercial and clinical development efforts. I’ll now turn the call back over to Jayson for closing remarks.

Jayson Rieger: Thanks, John. Since my appointment as CEO, just over 1 year ago, I’m incredibly proud to report that Verrica has plotted a course to build a foundation in our commercial stage asset, YCANTH and further advance our pipeline of potential products for two of the largest unmet needs in dermatology. The Verrica team is always focused on delivering best-in-class therapies, and I can say that with confidence that we are fully executing on this strategy, and doing so utilizing a highly efficient operating model that prioritizes growth while prudently allocating capital resources to the growth. We will enter 2026 with significant accomplishments across all facets of our business in 2025 that I believe will lay the foundation for continued growth and success. With that, we’d be happy to take any questions. Operator?

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll take our first question from Stacy Ku with TD Cowen.

Stacy Ku: And great to hear about the stepwise sales for expansion in YCANTH patient hub. But first, can you further speak to the YCANTH demand that you’re seeing in Q4. And then second, maybe go into more detail on the competitive headwinds. What kind of detailing are you seeing? And what has been the prescriber feedback on Zelsuvmi and maybe the efficacy that you’re seeing when it comes to the competitor.

Jayson Rieger: Sure. Thanks, Stacy. Nice to talk to you again. In terms of Q4, as we indicated earlier, the momentum we saw rounding up September, we’ve seen continue into this quarter. In terms of the competitive landscape, we continue to view the largest competitor to the treatment of molluscum as being watch and wait, and converting doctor behavior from simply watch and wait or referral to actual treatment. The Zelsuvmi launch is, in our view, a positive for the marketplace as there’s now shared voice talking about the need to treat and the ability to treat molluscum, and we’re still excited about the prospects of YCANTH as being a best-in-class option for those patients with most patients seeing their disease addressed in as few as one to two treatment.

Operator: Our next question comes from Dennis Ding with Jefferies.

Yuchen Ding: I have two. Number one, just on the recent sales force expansion, I’m just curious when you expect productivity to fully ramp? And is 2026 sort of the right way to think about it? And then number two, on EU, I appreciate the guidance around filing in Q4 ’26, but that’s still in 12 months despite no additional clinical trials, et cetera, required. So just curious, why do you need the 12 months? And is that a situation where you could find a partner first before filing?

Jayson Rieger: Sure. No problem. So in regards to your first question, sales productivity, yes, it typically takes a few months for any rep to be up to speed. So we would expect that many of our reps that we’ve hired recently to be hitting the ground running and being quite productive in the early part of next year. In terms of the EU, there are some mechanical things that relate to filing in the EU that require sequential steps in time. One of those, in particular, is around securing the pediatric waiver, even though our drug is already been completed in pediatric patients, we have to go through the process of securing that waiver in the EU, and that adds a few months to the beginning of the time line. We’re doing everything we can to expedite the process, but there are a number of sequential steps in Europe that require you to go through step 1 before you go to step 2, and we’re continuing to do all those things actually right now.

And also in terms of your question about partnership. In terms of that general run rate, that would provide us to fund a commercial plan ourselves or work with a partner and give us sort of that time line to prepare for commercial launch. So we don’t believe it’s going to adversely impact the time line to commercial.

Operator: We will move next with Serge Belanger with Needham & Company.

John Todaro: This is John on for Serge today. So first on YCANTH Rx, I guess it’s kind of getting ramped up in the next month or so. Curious what some of your feedback has been from KOLs that you’ve spoken to that kind of led you to instilling this mechanism and how it could start — could kind of kick start further dispensed applicator growth moving forward? And then back on the expansion of the sales force, just curious if this — the goal here is kind of an expansion in the breadth of your current call points or more so an increase in depth in prescribing from your current prescribers?

Jayson Rieger: Sure. Thanks. So we’re very excited about the YCANTH Rx. The feedback has been, in general, we’ve worked very hard over the past year to continue to simplify the process for clinicians and their patients. And we believe a single point of referral for writing these prescriptions to a non-dispensing pharmacy will make that continue to be easier for the clinicians. And make it easier for their patients. So there’ll be one stop shop that has familiarity with the commercial payers, the contracts, the insurance for the patients and also to facilitate expeditious ways to get that fulfilled for the patients. And the general feedback we’ve seen so far is it’s been very positive. But it’s still at early stages, and we’ll continue to explore and share details as that rolls out.

In terms of the breadth and call point, I would say it’s still a bit of both. The — we’re seeing greater demand. And given that we’re expanding into both the pediatric primary care, in addition to our core business in dermatology, this allows our reps to spend more time calling on the existing customers, but also to expand in some of their call points and high-value opportunities in the commercial space. What we see, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of the largest competitor being doing nothing or watch and wait, this means there’s lots of clinician targets out there for which there is no deciling of data, and we just need to engage with them through conferences, through trade shows and through social media and marketing efforts as well as simply knocking on the doors in the old-fashioned way.

So we’re excited about that opportunity. There’s plenty of targets for our reps, and I think that we’ll start to see that traction going into this year.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll move next with Brian Kemp with Brookline Capital Markets.

Brian Kemp Dolliver: Can you hear me all right?

Jayson Rieger: A little bit.

Brian Kemp Dolliver: Okay. A couple of questions for me, how should we think about seasonality impact in Q4 sales? And another one is on YCANTH Rx. Do we have any benchmark from a similar pharmacy model and a similar kind of indication? And what kind of KPI will you be tracking to measure on YCANTH Rx success in the first 6 to 12 months?

Jayson Rieger: Can you please repeat the first part of the first question. It was static, I didn’t hear it.

Brian Kemp Dolliver: All right. So my first question was, how should we think about seasonality impact in Q4 sales?

Jayson Rieger: Okay. No problem. So in terms of Q4, we would expect some of the traditional slowdown you could see in November, December based on vacations and holiday times and sort of the calendar in general. But we expect that, that momentum will continue into the first part of next year for prescriptions, especially as we believe that molluscum is often a secondary diagnosis for patients. And as we get into cold and flu season, we expect there’ll be more doctor visits and could be more diagnosis of molluscum going forward. In terms of the NDP, at this point, we’re not giving any expectations or metrics at the moment, but you would expect that we would follow all the core metrics of time to fill, the number of scripts that are fulfilled, et cetera. And as we get more data on that, we’ll continue to evolve and monitor that process. But those are the expectations of a typical NDP.

Operator: And this will conclude our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to CEO, Jayson Rieger.

Jayson Rieger: Thank you, operator. I’d like to thank all of you for joining us this morning, and we look forward to providing updates on our progress in 2026. Have a nice day.

Operator: Thank you. And this does conclude today’s program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.