NASDAQ:IRWD Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 2024 Earnings Report $1.48 0.00 (0.00%) Closing price 10/14/2025 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$1.54 +0.06 (+4.39%) As of 10/14/2025 07:56 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Ironwood Pharmaceuticals EPS ResultsActual EPS-$6.71Consensus EPS $0.17Beat/MissMissed by -$6.88One Year Ago EPS$0.31Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$94.40 millionExpected Revenue$107.10 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$12.70 millionYoY Revenue Growth-12.10%Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2024Date8/8/2024TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, August 8, 2024Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsIronwood Pharmaceuticals' Q3 2025 earnings is scheduled for Thursday, November 6, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q3 2025 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 8, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Negative Sentiment: LINZESS demand grew 11% year-over-year with new-to-brand prescriptions up 15%, but higher than expected Medicaid utilization drove pricing headwinds and prompted a full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance reduction. Positive Sentiment: Late breaking STARS Phase 3 data for apraglutide was well received at DDW, and a rolling NDA submission targeting Q1 2025 positions it as a differentiated once-weekly therapy for SBS dependent on parenteral support. Positive Sentiment: The company generated $33 million of operating cash flow in Q2, repaid $20 million of convertible notes, and maintains a strong capital structure to support pipeline advancement and debt obligations. Neutral Sentiment: CMP-104 Phase 2 proof-of-concept results for primary biliary cholangitis are on track for release this quarter and will inform Ironwood’s decision to exercise its U.S. license option. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallIronwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xThere are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. My name is Irene, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 2024 Investor Update Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Operator00:00:38Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Roche, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:47Thank you, Selene. Good morning, and thanks for joining us for our Q2 2024 Investor Update. Our press release issued this morning can be found on our website. Today's call and accompanying slides include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Speaker 100:01:11A discussion of these statements and risk factors is available on the current Safe Harbor statement slide as well as under the heading Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in our subsequent SEC filings. All forward looking statements speak as of the date of this presentation, we undertake no obligation to update such statements. Also included are non GAAP financial measures, which should be considered only as a supplement to and not a substitute for or superior to GAAP measures. To the extent applicable, please refer to the tables at the end of our press release for reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. During today's call, Tom McCourt, our Chief Executive Officer, will begin with a brief overview Mike Schutzlein, our Chief Medical Officer, will discuss our pipeline and Shravan Imani, our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, will provide a commercial update and review our financial results and guidance. Speaker 100:02:13Andrew Davis, our Chief Business Officer, is available for the question and answer session following our prepared remarks. Today's webcast includes slides. So for those of you dialing in, please go to the Events section of our website to access the accompanying slides separately. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom. Speaker 200:02:31Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We continue to make progress across our strategic priorities in the Q2. Starting with LINZESS, prescription demand remains robust, increasing 11% in the 2nd quarter with continued strength in new to brand prescriptions, which grew 15% versus the prior year. This marks the 6th consecutive quarter of double digit new to brand volume growth, underscoring that patients and providers are consistently choosing LINZESS. Speaker 200:03:02While demand is up, LINZESS is continuing to experience pricing headwinds driven by a higher than expected Medicaid utilization, which is impacting our U. S. Net sales. As a result, we are revising our full year 2024 guidance. Sravan will speak more to the specifics on the call later. Speaker 200:03:22From a financial perspective, even with the continued LINZESS pricing pressure, we believe we are in a fortunate position with meaningful cash flows generated by LINZESS and a capital structure to support continued execution of our strategic priorities over the upcoming years. Moving to our pipeline, in May, we presented our late breaking STARS Phase 3 data at the Digestive Disease Week meeting, which was very well received. Since DDW, we've continued to receive positive feedback on apraglutide's clinical profile from physicians, key opinion leaders and patient advocacy partners. The positive feedback was reinforced through a recent advisory board meeting supporting our belief that if approved, apraglutide would be the drug of choice among physicians to treat adult patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support based on its differentiated profile included demonstrated efficacy, tolerability and once weekly dosing convenience. We believe these three distinguishing factors will drive uptake, adherence and improve quality of life for patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support. Speaker 200:04:35We also continue to make strides in our commercial planning activities for apraglutide and we are encouraged that patients identified by the recently implemented ICD 10 codes have supported our estimates of between 8,101,000 adult SBS patients who are dependent on support actually exists in the U. S. Today. We believe a significant portion of these patients remain untreated by currently available therapies. The ability to identify these unique patients using ICD-ten codes is an important development to enable a more targeted and informed go to market strategy. Speaker 200:05:14And we continue to believe vafraglutide is well positioned to address the ongoing unmet needs because of its strong clinical profile, including the convenience of once weekly dosing, the low incidence of both injection site reactions and GI tolerability issues, and a demonstrated high rates of compliance as seen in the STARS Phase III study. Moreover, we are developing a robust patient service program to help drive uptake and adherence to therapy. We are advancing our launch planning and are confident we are well equipped to commercialize apraglutide if approved, with an established sales force with a very strong presence in offices of GI specialists across the United States. Over the past few months, we've continued to progress towards the apraglutide NDA submission, a label focused on adult SBS and expected to complete the filing in the Q1 2025. Mike will provide additional details on our submission strategy in a few minutes. Speaker 200:06:19Next, CMP-one hundred and four for the potential treatment of primary biliary cholangitis. We are on track to share Phase 2 proof of concept top line results this quarter, which will inform a decision on our option to acquire an exclusive license from Core Pharma for CMP104 in the U. S. Moving to our 3rd strategic priority of delivering sustained profits and cash flow. In the Q2, we generated $33,000,000 of operating cash flow. Speaker 200:06:50Also in June, we repaid the $20,000,000 principal amount of our 2024 convertible notes upon maturity using a combination of cash on hand and funds drawn from our revolving credit facility. Looking ahead, we are intently focused on managing LINZESS pricing pressure to maximize profits and cash flow, while simultaneously progressing our pipeline to extend Ironwood's growth horizon beyond LINZESS. With that, I'll hand it over to Mike to discuss our pipeline in more detail. Mike? Speaker 300:07:27Yes. Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with an update on the NDA submission for apraglutide for patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support. As Tom mentions, we've made steady progress in preparing the NDA submission. Our plan is to pursue a rolling NDA review. Speaker 300:07:47The rolling review allows us to submit completed sections of the application as they become available and continue to engage with the agency as we proceed with the submission process. We expect the rolling review process to begin in the quarter. The early modules will include the non clinical and clinical components. As we progressed work on the regulatory filing in conjunction with our commercial planning activities, we decided to make enhancements to the presentation of the vial kit to optimize it for commercial use. As a result, we expect to fully complete the NDA submission in the Q1 of 2025. Speaker 300:08:25Moving to Slide 8, as Tom pointed out, we continue to receive positive feedback on apraglutide's clinical profile and believe it has the potential to improve the standard of care for patients living with SBS who are dependent on parenteral support based on the combination of demonstrated efficacy, tolerability and once weekly dosing convenience. In cell based assays of receptor activation, apriplutide retained potency and selectivity at the GLP-two receptor compared with native GLP-two and tadalotide and is uniquely designed to accelerate intestinal growth for improved gut function and absorption. Epiglutide is the only GLP-two analog to achieve a statistically significant reduction in weekly parenteral support volume with once weekly dosing. Patients achieved the clinically meaningful parenteral support reductions as early as week 8 in the STARS Phase 3 study. In addition, we saw a powerful parenteral support volume reduction with apraglutide as some patients achieved 2 3 days off per week. Speaker 300:09:32Furthermore, 7 patients were able to achieve enteral autonomy by week 24, including patients with a stoma versus none on placebo. Importantly, apraglutide demonstrated high rates of compliance and similar rates of adverse events were observed between treatment and placebo groups with no malignancies and discontinuations due to GI tolerability issues. We look forward to continuing to evaluate the robust dataset from the largest ever GLP-two study in short bowel syndrome with intestinal failure and plan to disclose further findings at additional medical meetings, including the American College of Gastroenterology meeting in October, where our Phase 3 subgroup analysis was accepted for an oral presentation. Before moving on, I'd like to take a moment to highlight that August is Short Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month. As part of our unwavering commitment to people suffering from SBS, I want to say a big thank you to this rare disease community of patients, advocates, caregivers, investigators, and healthcare professionals for their dedicated support and ongoing devotion to raising awareness around the serious and chronic malabsorptive disorder. Speaker 300:10:45Moving to CMP-one hundred and four on Slide 9, this is a tolerizing immune modifying nanoparticle for the treatment of primary biliary cholangitis, which is a rare autoimmune disease that causes the liver's bile ducts to slowly deteriorate and can lead the irreversible damage and scarring of the liver, ultimately requiring liver transplant. As a reminder, the Phase 2 study is a 42 patient placebo controlled study evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacodynamics and efficacy of CMP-one hundred and four in patients with PBC who are unresponsive to UDCA and or Ocaliva. Top line results will be based on data through day 120 of treatment. A positive signal liver function markers in addition to T cell response would further support the potential for CMP-one hundred and four. Top line data from the Phase 2 proof of concept study in patients with PBC remains on track and we look forward to sharing top line results with you later this quarter. Speaker 300:11:47With that, I'll turn it over to Shrivan. Speaker 400:11:51Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on Slide 11. As Tom mentioned earlier, LINZESS continued to deliver impressive demand growth in the 2nd quarter. LINZESS volume grew 11% year over year in the 2nd quarter, while new to brand prescriptions increased 15% compared with the Q2 of 2023. On a year to date basis, LINZESS extended units and new to brand volume growth increased 10% and 16% year over year respectively, reinforcing the patients and healthcare practitioners continue to choose LINZESS in a growing market. Speaker 400:12:25Next, I'll discuss collaborative arrangements revenue on Slide 12. LINZESS U. S. Net sales as reported by Ambi were $211,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. In the Q2, Ironwood recorded a $17,000,000 adjustment to collaborative arrangements revenue. Speaker 400:12:41This $17,000,000 adjustment is comprised of 2 components. Ironwood increased collaborative arrangement revenues by $30,000,000 related to the 2023 LINZESS change in gross to net estimate that Ironwood previously reported in the Q1. As this change in estimate is now reflected in the Q2 LINZESS U. S. Net sales as reported by AbbVie. Speaker 400:13:03In addition, Ironwood reported a $13,000,000 reduction to collaborative arrangements revenue in the 2nd quarter to reflect Ironwood's estimate of LINZESS gross to net reserves as of June 30, 2020. With this adjustment, Ironwood's U. S. Collaboration revenue was $91,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. Before moving on to our financial highlights, I'd like to take a moment to discuss what is happening with Medicaid in more detail. Speaker 400:13:31Over the past few quarters, we have seen growth in LINZESS Medicaid prescription volumes and an increase in Medicaid prescriptions as a percent of our overall LINZESS business. We now believe the higher than expected Medicaid utilization which we saw in 2023 will also be higher than expected in 2024 based on a combination of legislative and market factors which include Medicaid redetermination having a lower than expected impact on LINZESS. While fewer patients are enrolled in Medicaid across the country, Speaker 500:14:08we have Speaker 400:14:08not seen that correlate to lower LINZESS utilization to date. We have also seen state by state changes with some states actively expanding Medicaid enrollment eligibility and some making changes to Medicaid formulary position. Additionally, as we had shared at the beginning of the year, in 2024, we face uncapped rebates on LINZESS Medicaid volumes from the AMCAP repeal legislation, which has led to higher rebates on our Medicaid book of business than we had in 2023. While these rebates have played out as expected to date, higher Medicaid utilization trends have further magnified the pricing headwinds associated with the AMCAP appeal for 2024. We continue to monitor these trends closely and remain focused on maximizing LINZESS profits and cash flows and optimizing our investments as we seek to mitigate these increased pricing pressures. Speaker 400:15:02Now turning to our financial highlights on Slide 13. Ironwood revenue in the 2nd quarter was $94,000,000 a decrease of 12% year over year. GAAP net loss was $1,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA was $28,000,000 In June, we repaid the $200,000,000 principal of the 2024 convertible notes upon maturity using $50,000,000 of cash on hand and $150,000,000 draw on our revolving credit facility. The outstanding principal balance on the revolver was $425,000,000 sorry, dollars 425,000,000 at end of June. We ended the 2nd quarter with $106,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet. Speaker 400:15:46We continue to believe LINZESS cash flows will support our existing portfolio, including the potential apriplutide launch, further progress on our development programs and repay our debt. Moving to Slide 14. We are revising our full year 2024 guidance to reflect additional pricing risk, primarily associated with the higher than expected Medicaid utilization trends I just mentioned. As a result, we now expect a LINZESS U. S. Speaker 400:16:15Net sales between $900,000,000 $950,000,000 Ironwood revenue of between $350,000,000 $375,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of greater than $75,000,000 In the second half of twenty twenty four, disciplined expense management remains a priority as we seek to offset top line revenue headwinds to optimize profits and cash flows. To wrap up, LINZESS prescription demand continues to be healthy, but it's currently being more than offset by pricing headwinds, primarily due to higher Medicaid utilization. Moving forward, remain focused on maximizing LINZESS profits and cash flows until generic entry in 2029. In terms of our pipeline, I'm excited for the future of apraglutide where we see an attractive market opportunity and have significant lifecycle management initiatives ahead of us. Furthermore, we look forward to providing an update later this quarter on CMP-one hundred and four and the potential treatment of PBC. Speaker 400:17:17I want to close by thanking all of our employees, patients, caregivers and advocates for their shared dedication to advancing and supporting therapies for GI diseases. Operator, you may now open up the line for questions. Operator00:17:33Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of David Amsellem with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Speaker 600:18:12Hey, thanks. So just a few. So as you think about 2025 and maximizing the net economics of LINZESS. How do you think about you and Abby think about contracting and maybe backing off widespread preferred access as a means of driving a narrower gross to net, maybe sacrificing some volumes, but also driving better net economics. So just help us understand the thought process as we move beyond this year. Speaker 600:18:46So that's number 1. And then number 2 on 104, help us level set expectations in terms of what you want to see in order to move forward and then what next steps would look like to the extent that you see an adequate efficacy signal, particularly on markers of liver function? Speaker 700:19:03Thank you. Speaker 300:19:05Sure. Speaker 400:19:05So why don't good morning, David. Hope you're well. Why don't we start with the second component on CMP-one hundred and four, hand that over to Mike and then Andrew will answer the second question sorry, your first question regarding the contracting strategy. Speaker 300:19:22Yes. Thanks, David. Yes. The primary thing we're looking at really is in the top line results for the T cell response. We certainly believe that the T cell response and T cell effects will be a leading indicator of the clinical benefit and we'll also then evaluate several markers of liver function. Speaker 300:19:40And the linkage obviously between the T cell response and liver function is also equally important for us to look at. As I said, we're on track to deliver that this quarter. What comes after that is a little bit premature at this stage, right? This is the 1st in human study, proof of concept study. We certainly look to learn a lot. Speaker 300:19:59But again, we did the deal primarily because we thought we'd have a good look at this T cell response and that this T cell response could be a leading indicator for clinical outcomes. So until we get that, we'll have to wait on what to determine to do after that. Speaker 400:20:15Thanks, Mike. And then Andrew will respond regarding the contracting question. Speaker 800:20:20Yes. David, thanks for the question. I mean, I think the point is net economics definitely is key for us as we look across the book of business from here to LOE. So I think that's fine as we look at our contracting strategy both for next year and the future. We're really looking at what is the net economics that get driven over the life of the product. Operator00:20:47Your next question comes from the line of Amy Lee with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Speaker 900:20:55Hey, thanks so much for taking your question. On apraglutide, given the Q1 2025 submission completion timeline, do you still expect launch in 2025? And then also, can you give us some color on how you are optimizing the commercial use kit? I know you alluded to it earlier. Is there going to be any formulation changes, format changes? Speaker 900:21:19Any color would be super helpful. Speaker 400:21:21Yes, sure. Thanks, Amy. Good morning. I'll take those questions. Look, I think our view on approval could occur in 2025 or early 2026 depending on whether we receive priority or standard review. Speaker 400:21:33I think that standard review will be early 2026 from our perspective. With respect to the kit, look, I think it's industry it's common industry practice that what's used commercially is different than what's used in clinical trials. I think we view we take a very long view on aplutide here that we have IP out into the 2040s and we want to make sure that the launch is as successful as possible. And so we've, as we conducted human factor trials, we've learned ways to make the commercial bio kit presentation easier for patient use and we're implementing those changes. And so not to get into a lot of detail, but I think the goal here is to make it easier for patients to administer themselves. Speaker 900:22:20Excellent. Thanks so much. Operator00:22:24Your next question comes from the line of Mohit Bansal with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:22:32Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. And I have 2 different questions. So one is, it does seem like that the pricing pressure is more than you anticipated. And last quarter you said that it seems like earlier than anticipated and you did anticipate this pricing pressure starting 'twenty five. Speaker 500:22:53So that's why like I think last quarter it was more like 'twenty five and onward it should be similar to what you are previously expecting. But has anything changed in that thought process now that like how should we think about the revenue growth trajectory versus 24% from now at this point? And then the second question is regarding CNP-one hundred and four. Can you just remind us like when you saw the healthy wonder study which Ku did, what kind of T cell responses they saw in those patients and how could they how could how do you correlate that with the sicker patient trial? Speaker 400:23:36So, Mohit, could you repeat the second part of that question? Did you was the question that the T cell response that CORE saw in there? Speaker 500:23:46Yes. I think that was the study. I don't know whether it was a healthy volunteer study or was it I think it was a PBC study as well, right? I cannot recall it. It was a 40 patient, right? Speaker 300:23:58Yes, I can just put in some pieces of information. I mean, this is the 1st in human study for CMP in PBC patients, this 42 patient study, there's no other clinical data set. You may be referring to a study many years ago that was done with the core platform in celiac. That data was celiac is a different autoimmune disease. It's a poly kind of valent autoimmune disease, right? Speaker 300:24:24Gliadin, the peptides of insult, right, for celiac have a lot of different epitopes and it's driven by a lot of different deaminated gliadin peptides. And you can also externally challenge those T cells with gluten differently than the T cells that are primarily in the liver for PBC. So there are differences across those two diseases, but we certainly think our approach is a valid way to look at the potential benefit of this platform technology in the autoimmune disease like PBC. We're certainly using different techniques given the T cell antigen specific T cell responses, but that's sort of how it plays out on the different diseases. Got it. Speaker 400:25:05Yes. And then with respect to the guidance, looking in Q1, I think as we mentioned, we did anticipate higher utilization for the full year 2024 and that was our best estimate at the time. Since Q1, we've seen higher than even higher than anticipated Medicaid utilization of LINZESS and felt that it was prudent to revise guidance. And therefore, you can see we've meaningfully modified our guidance to account for that even higher utilization. And that's driven again by the three things we talked about, which is even though there are less patients on Medicaid, LINZESS use continues to increase in terms of our book of business in terms of share. Speaker 400:25:47The AMCAP removal is pretty significant. And then there's also just changes that are occurring on the state level with respect to enhanced increased eligibility and then also just formulary So all of that has just led to an even greater increase than we anticipated at the start of the year for the book of Speaker 200:26:06business. Got Operator00:26:13it. Your next question comes from the line of Jason Butler with Citi and JMP. Please go ahead. Speaker 1000:26:26Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple of aftergloo tonight. Can you just talk about what the remaining gating items are to submitting the BLA in 1Q 'twenty five? And then just as you continue to get ready for launch, what is the work that you're doing? What is the feedback that you're getting from potential prescribers on the data? Speaker 400:26:48Yes, great. Mike, do you want to tackle that one in terms of outstanding remaining items to file? Speaker 300:26:54Yes. So for in terms of what's going on, we've obviously made steady progress in preparing the NDA. We've had a focus on obviously the quality of data package. The early modules that we're working on now will include the non clinical and clinical components. We've continued to progress on the regulatory filing in conjunction with the commercial planning activities, also have some additional information we've been giving as we talked about in terms of the best application of how to pursue the vial. Speaker 300:27:20We decided to make those enhancements to the presentation of the vial to optimize it commercially and we're in the process of finalizing the commercial supply chain and the supporting documentation for the CMC components of the application. And as I said, we as Tom and I both said, we expect to complete that in the quarter Q1 of 2025. Speaker 400:27:43And then with respect to the feedback, Mike, on clinical profile from physicians and other key leaders? Speaker 300:27:50Yes, we've gotten great we continue to get great feedback from externals whether they be prescribers, people, the KOLs, the key opinion leaders, thought leaders in the area. They really are quite impressed with the fact that we are the 1st and currently only once weekly to hit the primary endpoint in SBS I F. That was a pretty significant achievement. They certainly I think our tolerability profile is excellent as well. As Tom mentioned, we had an ad board to review that with a lot of externals and prescribers and really was very well received. Speaker 300:28:21So, there's quite a lot of enthusiasm out there and we're looking to continue that engagement with the prescribers and the community and push forward the submission to get to market as early as possible. Speaker 200:28:33Jason, this is Tom. I'll ask Andrew to jump in here as well. But as we think about next steps, this is really about preparing the market and preparing the organization for a successful launch. We've already initiated some disease awareness programs. This is really about identifying patients and making sure that we get patients into the programs, these patient support programs to get them on therapy as quickly as possible and retain them. Speaker 200:29:03One of the really big pieces of data that nobody ever had access to is this implementation of the new ICD-ten codes, which are actually labeling a lot of these patients and it's validated how many patients are really out there. But it also allows us to target and really guide our go to market strategy, which is data that didn't exist before. So as the commercial team continues to evolve its go to market strategy, We're going to do our best to increase the overall awareness of the disease, proactively identify the patients and their location and then how do we align that with our commercial capabilities, including certainly the sales force that's already in these offices, many of these offices and these patients hub services, which is really going to be critical to be able to pull the business through. Andrew, is there anything else you'd like to comment beyond that? Speaker 800:30:01No. I think we're excited here, Jason. I think we're getting great feedback. Operator00:30:10Your next question comes from the line of Tim Chiang with Capital One. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:30:18Hi, thanks. Mike, Speaker 500:30:20could you talk Speaker 700:30:20a little bit about how much interaction or discussion you've had with patient advocacy groups in the short bowel syndrome disease area with apiglutide? I mean, what sort of responses have you gotten so far? And then just sort of have you already started to talk with payers on epiglutide? Speaker 100:30:43Yes. Thanks, Tim. We've Speaker 300:30:46go ahead, sir, Mike. Speaker 400:30:48I apologize. Go ahead. Speaker 300:30:51Yes. So we certainly have a strong link with the patient advocacy groups. This is a disease that has a very vocal and actually long standing advocacy among patients. We have started way back decades ago, 5 of them with the Oli foundation. So there's a lot of good networking out there by patients and the feedback we've gotten from patients is very enthusiastic. Speaker 300:31:11Many have participated in our trial. The compliance in our trial has been very high. People have talked about how nice, if I could say it that way, the drug is from a utilization perspective. They don't suffer some of the adverse effects that they know other agents might be a little more common at achieving. So that overall has been very, very good. Speaker 300:31:32And obviously, the weekly administration is just a big bonus in terms of you don't if you're not on Printero support 7 days a week and you have to take something every day, that's one position. But if you're really only on Printerial Support 4 or 5 days a week, you would have to take something more than that, that can be a little bit more work than you might want to do. And so the opportunity for the patient population to just have a weekly administration really broadens the utility across the SBSIF community. But in general, I could say it's been very, very positive. Speaker 700:32:05Okay, great. And Trevor, I have one follow-up just on the LINZESS JV. Commercial margins, I think they were what 62% this quarter. Do you think that number can stay at around that figure in the back half of this year? Speaker 400:32:21Yes. So look, from a commercial margin perspective, I think since the spin, Tim, I think the company has been very focused on maximizing the brand profit and then improving it as much as possible. I think we had opened this year, I think, based on our guidance, we thought it would be close to 70 percent. And I think our goal is I think our guidance reflects our best estimate in terms of our profit as of now and where we sit today. Speaker 100:32:53Okay. And I know you Speaker 700:32:56did comment about the $17,000,000 gross to net adjustment, but you're not going to get that in future quarters this year. Is that right? Speaker 400:33:05Well, I think the point of that is that we've adjusted our guidance down to $900,000,000 $950,000,000 of net sales for LINZESS, accounting for increased Medicaid utilization throughout the back half of the year.Read morePowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Earnings HeadlinesIronwood Pharma Regains Nasdaq ComplianceSeptember 3, 2025 | msn.comIronwood (IRWD) Q2 EPS Jumps 600%August 8, 2025 | theglobeandmail.comURGENT: The Market's 3 Red Flags Are FlashingHere’s the uncomfortable truth: The smartest investors in the world are already preparing for a crash before 2025 ends. | StockEarnings (Ad)Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results; Maintains Full Year 2025 ...August 7, 2025 | gurufocus.comIronwood Pharmaceuticals Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results; Maintains Full Year 2025 ...August 7, 2025 | gurufocus.comIronwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 2025 Earnings: EPS of $0.15 and Revenue of $85.24M Surpass EstimatesAugust 7, 2025 | gurufocus.comSee More Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Ironwood Pharmaceuticals? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Ironwood PharmaceuticalsIronwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IRWD) is a commercial‐stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of medicines for gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. The company’s flagship product is linaclotide, marketed under the brand name LINZESS in the United States for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC). Through a strategic collaboration with Allergan (now part of AbbVie), Ironwood also commercializes linaclotide in select ex-U.S. markets under the brand name CONSTELLA. In addition to its marketed therapy, Ironwood maintains a diversified pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs targeting GI motility, inflammation and neurological conditions. Lead pipeline candidates include novel small molecules designed to modulate gut motility and secretions, as well as agents aimed at central nervous system targets to address pain and neurodegenerative disorders. The company leverages in-house research capabilities alongside external partnerships to advance its portfolio. Founded in 1998 as Microbia Biosciences, the business rebranded as Ironwood Pharmaceuticals in 2010 concurrent with its initial public offering. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ironwood conducts research and development activities in the U.S. and collaborates with global pharmaceutical partners to extend its reach into European, Canadian and other international markets. Ironwood is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Hecht, who brings extensive experience in both commercial operations and strategic development within the biopharmaceutical industry. Under his leadership, the company continues to pursue innovative therapies aimed at addressing unmet needs in GI health and related therapeutic areas.View Ironwood Pharmaceuticals ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Why Congress Is Buying Intuitive Surgical Ahead of Earnings3 Reasons to Buy Sprouts Farmers Market Ahead of EarningsTesla Earnings Loom: Bulls Eye $600, Bears Warn of $300Spotify Could Surge Higher—Here’s the Hidden Earnings SignalBerkshire-Backed Lennar Slides After Weak Q3 EarningsWall Street Eyes +30% Upside in Synopsys After Huge Earnings FallRH Stock Slides After Mixed Earnings and Tariff Concerns Upcoming Earnings ASML (10/15/2025)Abbott Laboratories (10/15/2025)Bank of America (10/15/2025)Kinder Morgan (10/15/2025)Morgan Stanley (10/15/2025)Progressive (10/15/2025)Prologis (10/15/2025)The PNC Financial Services Group (10/15/2025)CSX (10/16/2025)Interactive Brokers Group (10/16/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. My name is Irene, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Q2 2024 Investor Update Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Operator00:00:38Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Roche, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:47Thank you, Selene. Good morning, and thanks for joining us for our Q2 2024 Investor Update. Our press release issued this morning can be found on our website. Today's call and accompanying slides include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Speaker 100:01:11A discussion of these statements and risk factors is available on the current Safe Harbor statement slide as well as under the heading Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in our subsequent SEC filings. All forward looking statements speak as of the date of this presentation, we undertake no obligation to update such statements. Also included are non GAAP financial measures, which should be considered only as a supplement to and not a substitute for or superior to GAAP measures. To the extent applicable, please refer to the tables at the end of our press release for reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. During today's call, Tom McCourt, our Chief Executive Officer, will begin with a brief overview Mike Schutzlein, our Chief Medical Officer, will discuss our pipeline and Shravan Imani, our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, will provide a commercial update and review our financial results and guidance. Speaker 100:02:13Andrew Davis, our Chief Business Officer, is available for the question and answer session following our prepared remarks. Today's webcast includes slides. So for those of you dialing in, please go to the Events section of our website to access the accompanying slides separately. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom. Speaker 200:02:31Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We continue to make progress across our strategic priorities in the Q2. Starting with LINZESS, prescription demand remains robust, increasing 11% in the 2nd quarter with continued strength in new to brand prescriptions, which grew 15% versus the prior year. This marks the 6th consecutive quarter of double digit new to brand volume growth, underscoring that patients and providers are consistently choosing LINZESS. Speaker 200:03:02While demand is up, LINZESS is continuing to experience pricing headwinds driven by a higher than expected Medicaid utilization, which is impacting our U. S. Net sales. As a result, we are revising our full year 2024 guidance. Sravan will speak more to the specifics on the call later. Speaker 200:03:22From a financial perspective, even with the continued LINZESS pricing pressure, we believe we are in a fortunate position with meaningful cash flows generated by LINZESS and a capital structure to support continued execution of our strategic priorities over the upcoming years. Moving to our pipeline, in May, we presented our late breaking STARS Phase 3 data at the Digestive Disease Week meeting, which was very well received. Since DDW, we've continued to receive positive feedback on apraglutide's clinical profile from physicians, key opinion leaders and patient advocacy partners. The positive feedback was reinforced through a recent advisory board meeting supporting our belief that if approved, apraglutide would be the drug of choice among physicians to treat adult patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support based on its differentiated profile included demonstrated efficacy, tolerability and once weekly dosing convenience. We believe these three distinguishing factors will drive uptake, adherence and improve quality of life for patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support. Speaker 200:04:35We also continue to make strides in our commercial planning activities for apraglutide and we are encouraged that patients identified by the recently implemented ICD 10 codes have supported our estimates of between 8,101,000 adult SBS patients who are dependent on support actually exists in the U. S. Today. We believe a significant portion of these patients remain untreated by currently available therapies. The ability to identify these unique patients using ICD-ten codes is an important development to enable a more targeted and informed go to market strategy. Speaker 200:05:14And we continue to believe vafraglutide is well positioned to address the ongoing unmet needs because of its strong clinical profile, including the convenience of once weekly dosing, the low incidence of both injection site reactions and GI tolerability issues, and a demonstrated high rates of compliance as seen in the STARS Phase III study. Moreover, we are developing a robust patient service program to help drive uptake and adherence to therapy. We are advancing our launch planning and are confident we are well equipped to commercialize apraglutide if approved, with an established sales force with a very strong presence in offices of GI specialists across the United States. Over the past few months, we've continued to progress towards the apraglutide NDA submission, a label focused on adult SBS and expected to complete the filing in the Q1 2025. Mike will provide additional details on our submission strategy in a few minutes. Speaker 200:06:19Next, CMP-one hundred and four for the potential treatment of primary biliary cholangitis. We are on track to share Phase 2 proof of concept top line results this quarter, which will inform a decision on our option to acquire an exclusive license from Core Pharma for CMP104 in the U. S. Moving to our 3rd strategic priority of delivering sustained profits and cash flow. In the Q2, we generated $33,000,000 of operating cash flow. Speaker 200:06:50Also in June, we repaid the $20,000,000 principal amount of our 2024 convertible notes upon maturity using a combination of cash on hand and funds drawn from our revolving credit facility. Looking ahead, we are intently focused on managing LINZESS pricing pressure to maximize profits and cash flow, while simultaneously progressing our pipeline to extend Ironwood's growth horizon beyond LINZESS. With that, I'll hand it over to Mike to discuss our pipeline in more detail. Mike? Speaker 300:07:27Yes. Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with an update on the NDA submission for apraglutide for patients with short bowel syndrome who are dependent on parenteral support. As Tom mentions, we've made steady progress in preparing the NDA submission. Our plan is to pursue a rolling NDA review. Speaker 300:07:47The rolling review allows us to submit completed sections of the application as they become available and continue to engage with the agency as we proceed with the submission process. We expect the rolling review process to begin in the quarter. The early modules will include the non clinical and clinical components. As we progressed work on the regulatory filing in conjunction with our commercial planning activities, we decided to make enhancements to the presentation of the vial kit to optimize it for commercial use. As a result, we expect to fully complete the NDA submission in the Q1 of 2025. Speaker 300:08:25Moving to Slide 8, as Tom pointed out, we continue to receive positive feedback on apraglutide's clinical profile and believe it has the potential to improve the standard of care for patients living with SBS who are dependent on parenteral support based on the combination of demonstrated efficacy, tolerability and once weekly dosing convenience. In cell based assays of receptor activation, apriplutide retained potency and selectivity at the GLP-two receptor compared with native GLP-two and tadalotide and is uniquely designed to accelerate intestinal growth for improved gut function and absorption. Epiglutide is the only GLP-two analog to achieve a statistically significant reduction in weekly parenteral support volume with once weekly dosing. Patients achieved the clinically meaningful parenteral support reductions as early as week 8 in the STARS Phase 3 study. In addition, we saw a powerful parenteral support volume reduction with apraglutide as some patients achieved 2 3 days off per week. Speaker 300:09:32Furthermore, 7 patients were able to achieve enteral autonomy by week 24, including patients with a stoma versus none on placebo. Importantly, apraglutide demonstrated high rates of compliance and similar rates of adverse events were observed between treatment and placebo groups with no malignancies and discontinuations due to GI tolerability issues. We look forward to continuing to evaluate the robust dataset from the largest ever GLP-two study in short bowel syndrome with intestinal failure and plan to disclose further findings at additional medical meetings, including the American College of Gastroenterology meeting in October, where our Phase 3 subgroup analysis was accepted for an oral presentation. Before moving on, I'd like to take a moment to highlight that August is Short Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month. As part of our unwavering commitment to people suffering from SBS, I want to say a big thank you to this rare disease community of patients, advocates, caregivers, investigators, and healthcare professionals for their dedicated support and ongoing devotion to raising awareness around the serious and chronic malabsorptive disorder. Speaker 300:10:45Moving to CMP-one hundred and four on Slide 9, this is a tolerizing immune modifying nanoparticle for the treatment of primary biliary cholangitis, which is a rare autoimmune disease that causes the liver's bile ducts to slowly deteriorate and can lead the irreversible damage and scarring of the liver, ultimately requiring liver transplant. As a reminder, the Phase 2 study is a 42 patient placebo controlled study evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacodynamics and efficacy of CMP-one hundred and four in patients with PBC who are unresponsive to UDCA and or Ocaliva. Top line results will be based on data through day 120 of treatment. A positive signal liver function markers in addition to T cell response would further support the potential for CMP-one hundred and four. Top line data from the Phase 2 proof of concept study in patients with PBC remains on track and we look forward to sharing top line results with you later this quarter. Speaker 300:11:47With that, I'll turn it over to Shrivan. Speaker 400:11:51Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on Slide 11. As Tom mentioned earlier, LINZESS continued to deliver impressive demand growth in the 2nd quarter. LINZESS volume grew 11% year over year in the 2nd quarter, while new to brand prescriptions increased 15% compared with the Q2 of 2023. On a year to date basis, LINZESS extended units and new to brand volume growth increased 10% and 16% year over year respectively, reinforcing the patients and healthcare practitioners continue to choose LINZESS in a growing market. Speaker 400:12:25Next, I'll discuss collaborative arrangements revenue on Slide 12. LINZESS U. S. Net sales as reported by Ambi were $211,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. In the Q2, Ironwood recorded a $17,000,000 adjustment to collaborative arrangements revenue. Speaker 400:12:41This $17,000,000 adjustment is comprised of 2 components. Ironwood increased collaborative arrangement revenues by $30,000,000 related to the 2023 LINZESS change in gross to net estimate that Ironwood previously reported in the Q1. As this change in estimate is now reflected in the Q2 LINZESS U. S. Net sales as reported by AbbVie. Speaker 400:13:03In addition, Ironwood reported a $13,000,000 reduction to collaborative arrangements revenue in the 2nd quarter to reflect Ironwood's estimate of LINZESS gross to net reserves as of June 30, 2020. With this adjustment, Ironwood's U. S. Collaboration revenue was $91,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. Before moving on to our financial highlights, I'd like to take a moment to discuss what is happening with Medicaid in more detail. Speaker 400:13:31Over the past few quarters, we have seen growth in LINZESS Medicaid prescription volumes and an increase in Medicaid prescriptions as a percent of our overall LINZESS business. We now believe the higher than expected Medicaid utilization which we saw in 2023 will also be higher than expected in 2024 based on a combination of legislative and market factors which include Medicaid redetermination having a lower than expected impact on LINZESS. While fewer patients are enrolled in Medicaid across the country, Speaker 500:14:08we have Speaker 400:14:08not seen that correlate to lower LINZESS utilization to date. We have also seen state by state changes with some states actively expanding Medicaid enrollment eligibility and some making changes to Medicaid formulary position. Additionally, as we had shared at the beginning of the year, in 2024, we face uncapped rebates on LINZESS Medicaid volumes from the AMCAP repeal legislation, which has led to higher rebates on our Medicaid book of business than we had in 2023. While these rebates have played out as expected to date, higher Medicaid utilization trends have further magnified the pricing headwinds associated with the AMCAP appeal for 2024. We continue to monitor these trends closely and remain focused on maximizing LINZESS profits and cash flows and optimizing our investments as we seek to mitigate these increased pricing pressures. Speaker 400:15:02Now turning to our financial highlights on Slide 13. Ironwood revenue in the 2nd quarter was $94,000,000 a decrease of 12% year over year. GAAP net loss was $1,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA was $28,000,000 In June, we repaid the $200,000,000 principal of the 2024 convertible notes upon maturity using $50,000,000 of cash on hand and $150,000,000 draw on our revolving credit facility. The outstanding principal balance on the revolver was $425,000,000 sorry, dollars 425,000,000 at end of June. We ended the 2nd quarter with $106,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet. Speaker 400:15:46We continue to believe LINZESS cash flows will support our existing portfolio, including the potential apriplutide launch, further progress on our development programs and repay our debt. Moving to Slide 14. We are revising our full year 2024 guidance to reflect additional pricing risk, primarily associated with the higher than expected Medicaid utilization trends I just mentioned. As a result, we now expect a LINZESS U. S. Speaker 400:16:15Net sales between $900,000,000 $950,000,000 Ironwood revenue of between $350,000,000 $375,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of greater than $75,000,000 In the second half of twenty twenty four, disciplined expense management remains a priority as we seek to offset top line revenue headwinds to optimize profits and cash flows. To wrap up, LINZESS prescription demand continues to be healthy, but it's currently being more than offset by pricing headwinds, primarily due to higher Medicaid utilization. Moving forward, remain focused on maximizing LINZESS profits and cash flows until generic entry in 2029. In terms of our pipeline, I'm excited for the future of apraglutide where we see an attractive market opportunity and have significant lifecycle management initiatives ahead of us. Furthermore, we look forward to providing an update later this quarter on CMP-one hundred and four and the potential treatment of PBC. Speaker 400:17:17I want to close by thanking all of our employees, patients, caregivers and advocates for their shared dedication to advancing and supporting therapies for GI diseases. Operator, you may now open up the line for questions. Operator00:17:33Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of David Amsellem with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Speaker 600:18:12Hey, thanks. So just a few. So as you think about 2025 and maximizing the net economics of LINZESS. How do you think about you and Abby think about contracting and maybe backing off widespread preferred access as a means of driving a narrower gross to net, maybe sacrificing some volumes, but also driving better net economics. So just help us understand the thought process as we move beyond this year. Speaker 600:18:46So that's number 1. And then number 2 on 104, help us level set expectations in terms of what you want to see in order to move forward and then what next steps would look like to the extent that you see an adequate efficacy signal, particularly on markers of liver function? Speaker 700:19:03Thank you. Speaker 300:19:05Sure. Speaker 400:19:05So why don't good morning, David. Hope you're well. Why don't we start with the second component on CMP-one hundred and four, hand that over to Mike and then Andrew will answer the second question sorry, your first question regarding the contracting strategy. Speaker 300:19:22Yes. Thanks, David. Yes. The primary thing we're looking at really is in the top line results for the T cell response. We certainly believe that the T cell response and T cell effects will be a leading indicator of the clinical benefit and we'll also then evaluate several markers of liver function. Speaker 300:19:40And the linkage obviously between the T cell response and liver function is also equally important for us to look at. As I said, we're on track to deliver that this quarter. What comes after that is a little bit premature at this stage, right? This is the 1st in human study, proof of concept study. We certainly look to learn a lot. Speaker 300:19:59But again, we did the deal primarily because we thought we'd have a good look at this T cell response and that this T cell response could be a leading indicator for clinical outcomes. So until we get that, we'll have to wait on what to determine to do after that. Speaker 400:20:15Thanks, Mike. And then Andrew will respond regarding the contracting question. Speaker 800:20:20Yes. David, thanks for the question. I mean, I think the point is net economics definitely is key for us as we look across the book of business from here to LOE. So I think that's fine as we look at our contracting strategy both for next year and the future. We're really looking at what is the net economics that get driven over the life of the product. Operator00:20:47Your next question comes from the line of Amy Lee with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Speaker 900:20:55Hey, thanks so much for taking your question. On apraglutide, given the Q1 2025 submission completion timeline, do you still expect launch in 2025? And then also, can you give us some color on how you are optimizing the commercial use kit? I know you alluded to it earlier. Is there going to be any formulation changes, format changes? Speaker 900:21:19Any color would be super helpful. Speaker 400:21:21Yes, sure. Thanks, Amy. Good morning. I'll take those questions. Look, I think our view on approval could occur in 2025 or early 2026 depending on whether we receive priority or standard review. Speaker 400:21:33I think that standard review will be early 2026 from our perspective. With respect to the kit, look, I think it's industry it's common industry practice that what's used commercially is different than what's used in clinical trials. I think we view we take a very long view on aplutide here that we have IP out into the 2040s and we want to make sure that the launch is as successful as possible. And so we've, as we conducted human factor trials, we've learned ways to make the commercial bio kit presentation easier for patient use and we're implementing those changes. And so not to get into a lot of detail, but I think the goal here is to make it easier for patients to administer themselves. Speaker 900:22:20Excellent. Thanks so much. Operator00:22:24Your next question comes from the line of Mohit Bansal with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:22:32Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. And I have 2 different questions. So one is, it does seem like that the pricing pressure is more than you anticipated. And last quarter you said that it seems like earlier than anticipated and you did anticipate this pricing pressure starting 'twenty five. Speaker 500:22:53So that's why like I think last quarter it was more like 'twenty five and onward it should be similar to what you are previously expecting. But has anything changed in that thought process now that like how should we think about the revenue growth trajectory versus 24% from now at this point? And then the second question is regarding CNP-one hundred and four. Can you just remind us like when you saw the healthy wonder study which Ku did, what kind of T cell responses they saw in those patients and how could they how could how do you correlate that with the sicker patient trial? Speaker 400:23:36So, Mohit, could you repeat the second part of that question? Did you was the question that the T cell response that CORE saw in there? Speaker 500:23:46Yes. I think that was the study. I don't know whether it was a healthy volunteer study or was it I think it was a PBC study as well, right? I cannot recall it. It was a 40 patient, right? Speaker 300:23:58Yes, I can just put in some pieces of information. I mean, this is the 1st in human study for CMP in PBC patients, this 42 patient study, there's no other clinical data set. You may be referring to a study many years ago that was done with the core platform in celiac. That data was celiac is a different autoimmune disease. It's a poly kind of valent autoimmune disease, right? Speaker 300:24:24Gliadin, the peptides of insult, right, for celiac have a lot of different epitopes and it's driven by a lot of different deaminated gliadin peptides. And you can also externally challenge those T cells with gluten differently than the T cells that are primarily in the liver for PBC. So there are differences across those two diseases, but we certainly think our approach is a valid way to look at the potential benefit of this platform technology in the autoimmune disease like PBC. We're certainly using different techniques given the T cell antigen specific T cell responses, but that's sort of how it plays out on the different diseases. Got it. Speaker 400:25:05Yes. And then with respect to the guidance, looking in Q1, I think as we mentioned, we did anticipate higher utilization for the full year 2024 and that was our best estimate at the time. Since Q1, we've seen higher than even higher than anticipated Medicaid utilization of LINZESS and felt that it was prudent to revise guidance. And therefore, you can see we've meaningfully modified our guidance to account for that even higher utilization. And that's driven again by the three things we talked about, which is even though there are less patients on Medicaid, LINZESS use continues to increase in terms of our book of business in terms of share. Speaker 400:25:47The AMCAP removal is pretty significant. And then there's also just changes that are occurring on the state level with respect to enhanced increased eligibility and then also just formulary So all of that has just led to an even greater increase than we anticipated at the start of the year for the book of Speaker 200:26:06business. Got Operator00:26:13it. Your next question comes from the line of Jason Butler with Citi and JMP. Please go ahead. Speaker 1000:26:26Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple of aftergloo tonight. Can you just talk about what the remaining gating items are to submitting the BLA in 1Q 'twenty five? And then just as you continue to get ready for launch, what is the work that you're doing? What is the feedback that you're getting from potential prescribers on the data? Speaker 400:26:48Yes, great. Mike, do you want to tackle that one in terms of outstanding remaining items to file? Speaker 300:26:54Yes. So for in terms of what's going on, we've obviously made steady progress in preparing the NDA. We've had a focus on obviously the quality of data package. The early modules that we're working on now will include the non clinical and clinical components. We've continued to progress on the regulatory filing in conjunction with the commercial planning activities, also have some additional information we've been giving as we talked about in terms of the best application of how to pursue the vial. Speaker 300:27:20We decided to make those enhancements to the presentation of the vial to optimize it commercially and we're in the process of finalizing the commercial supply chain and the supporting documentation for the CMC components of the application. And as I said, we as Tom and I both said, we expect to complete that in the quarter Q1 of 2025. Speaker 400:27:43And then with respect to the feedback, Mike, on clinical profile from physicians and other key leaders? Speaker 300:27:50Yes, we've gotten great we continue to get great feedback from externals whether they be prescribers, people, the KOLs, the key opinion leaders, thought leaders in the area. They really are quite impressed with the fact that we are the 1st and currently only once weekly to hit the primary endpoint in SBS I F. That was a pretty significant achievement. They certainly I think our tolerability profile is excellent as well. As Tom mentioned, we had an ad board to review that with a lot of externals and prescribers and really was very well received. Speaker 300:28:21So, there's quite a lot of enthusiasm out there and we're looking to continue that engagement with the prescribers and the community and push forward the submission to get to market as early as possible. Speaker 200:28:33Jason, this is Tom. I'll ask Andrew to jump in here as well. But as we think about next steps, this is really about preparing the market and preparing the organization for a successful launch. We've already initiated some disease awareness programs. This is really about identifying patients and making sure that we get patients into the programs, these patient support programs to get them on therapy as quickly as possible and retain them. Speaker 200:29:03One of the really big pieces of data that nobody ever had access to is this implementation of the new ICD-ten codes, which are actually labeling a lot of these patients and it's validated how many patients are really out there. But it also allows us to target and really guide our go to market strategy, which is data that didn't exist before. So as the commercial team continues to evolve its go to market strategy, We're going to do our best to increase the overall awareness of the disease, proactively identify the patients and their location and then how do we align that with our commercial capabilities, including certainly the sales force that's already in these offices, many of these offices and these patients hub services, which is really going to be critical to be able to pull the business through. Andrew, is there anything else you'd like to comment beyond that? Speaker 800:30:01No. I think we're excited here, Jason. I think we're getting great feedback. Operator00:30:10Your next question comes from the line of Tim Chiang with Capital One. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:30:18Hi, thanks. Mike, Speaker 500:30:20could you talk Speaker 700:30:20a little bit about how much interaction or discussion you've had with patient advocacy groups in the short bowel syndrome disease area with apiglutide? I mean, what sort of responses have you gotten so far? And then just sort of have you already started to talk with payers on epiglutide? Speaker 100:30:43Yes. Thanks, Tim. We've Speaker 300:30:46go ahead, sir, Mike. Speaker 400:30:48I apologize. Go ahead. Speaker 300:30:51Yes. So we certainly have a strong link with the patient advocacy groups. This is a disease that has a very vocal and actually long standing advocacy among patients. We have started way back decades ago, 5 of them with the Oli foundation. So there's a lot of good networking out there by patients and the feedback we've gotten from patients is very enthusiastic. Speaker 300:31:11Many have participated in our trial. The compliance in our trial has been very high. People have talked about how nice, if I could say it that way, the drug is from a utilization perspective. They don't suffer some of the adverse effects that they know other agents might be a little more common at achieving. So that overall has been very, very good. Speaker 300:31:32And obviously, the weekly administration is just a big bonus in terms of you don't if you're not on Printero support 7 days a week and you have to take something every day, that's one position. But if you're really only on Printerial Support 4 or 5 days a week, you would have to take something more than that, that can be a little bit more work than you might want to do. And so the opportunity for the patient population to just have a weekly administration really broadens the utility across the SBSIF community. But in general, I could say it's been very, very positive. Speaker 700:32:05Okay, great. And Trevor, I have one follow-up just on the LINZESS JV. Commercial margins, I think they were what 62% this quarter. Do you think that number can stay at around that figure in the back half of this year? Speaker 400:32:21Yes. So look, from a commercial margin perspective, I think since the spin, Tim, I think the company has been very focused on maximizing the brand profit and then improving it as much as possible. I think we had opened this year, I think, based on our guidance, we thought it would be close to 70 percent. And I think our goal is I think our guidance reflects our best estimate in terms of our profit as of now and where we sit today. Speaker 100:32:53Okay. And I know you Speaker 700:32:56did comment about the $17,000,000 gross to net adjustment, but you're not going to get that in future quarters this year. Is that right? Speaker 400:33:05Well, I think the point of that is that we've adjusted our guidance down to $900,000,000 $950,000,000 of net sales for LINZESS, accounting for increased Medicaid utilization throughout the back half of the year.Read morePowered by