Zai Lab Limited (NASDAQ:ZLAB) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Harald Reinhart: Yes. Thank you for the question. And again, the patient background that we’ve seen so far is really the background of those patients who were prior to NRDL reimbursement. So those patients, we would assume, are the patients who are somewhat more sick and more ill, and possibly close to the refractory part of the disease cycle. However, this will all normalize, we believe, as NRDL pricing kicks in, and we should expect a similar kind of patient population going forward that has been seen in the studies and also in the United States. So this is a drug which comes in after steroid use. It’s not a drug for the refractory patients. Only it is a patient selection that we see, right in the middle is the bulk of patients for — with gMG that starts to lose control with steroids alone or runs into side effects with steroids.

This is fairly early in the day, and we shall provide updates as time goes on and as we have a more normalized situation as far as under NRDL pricing conditions. Thank you.

Josh Smiley : Jack, your question about some of the commercialization efforts. So when we launched in September, we had 100 sales reps that we focused on the top 600 hospitals, which, as I mentioned earlier, made up about 80% of the sales opportunity that we were focused on. With NRDL listing, we always plan to move from 100 reps to 150. We’re in the middle of that expansion right now. And we would increase our target hospital list from 600 to 1,000, and that comes with the expansion of reps. We’d expect all of that to be complete over the first half of this year. So I think as you get into the second half of the year, we’ll be at what we believe to be full strength. And I think that’s sufficient to cover the opportunity given how concentrated the prescribing and the patient base is here.

So again, we’re excited about what we’re seeing so far, and we think the opportunity is well defined and in front of us. Jonathan, I don’t know if you have any comments you want to make on sort of longer-term pricing policy opportunities for medical devices and how Optune may fit in there?

Jonathan Wang : Yes, it’s also evolving very rapidly. As you recall, about 1.5 years ago, the government was having draft proposals on the medical device NRDL inclusion. So far, they haven’t come up with a more formal guidelines yet, so we eagerly wait for that. We think if that eventually, obviously, Optune would benefit. But for now, I think the commercial insurance is very important for Optune and it’s a viable market just based on that.

Jack Lin: Thank you.

Jonathan Wang : Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. I’m showing no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Zai Lab’s CEO, Samantha Du, for closing remarks.

Samantha Du: Thank you, operator. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to join us on the call today. We appreciate your support and look forward to updating you again after the first quarter of 2024. Operator, you may now disconnect the call.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers’ please standby.

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