Tarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Eddie Hickman - Guggenheim Securities LLC - Analyst : Just a few questions from me. Will the MGD expansion that you're planning require another sales force expansion or another targeted DTC? And then you noted you're not seeing too many impacts of retreatments. Can you talk about when you might expect to see that impact and sort of how payers are thinking about reimbursing those?

Question: Eddie Hickman - Guggenheim Securities LLC - Analyst : Just one quick follow-up. I noticed that the sort of IQVIA capture rate evolved a little bit this quarter. I'm wondering if you have any comments about that and if you think it'll sort of maintain in that range. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 13, 2024 / 9:30PM, TARS.OQ - Q3 2024 Tarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc Earnings Call

Question: Lachlan Hanbury-Brown - William Blair & Company - Analyst : I'll add my congratulations. I guess I'd just be interested to know a bit more on how you're sort of measuring the effectiveness of the new sales reps. Like are there hard KPIs or metrics that you can talk about or share to kind of help us understand how you're evaluating the impact they're having?

Question: Lachlan Hanbury-Brown - William Blair & Company - Analyst : Got it. And Jeff, if I could add one on just the Medicare donut hole is impacting the end of this year. But obviously, next year we've got changing dynamics there with the out-of-pocket caps. Is there any -- I know you're not providing '25 guidance, but is there any commentary you have on maybe just like the cadence of the donut hole over 2025 with those changes?

Question: Andrea Newkirk - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Aziz, maybe a follow-up here regarding the strategy for these patients who have MGD and overlapping DB. Just curious if this suggests that you wouldn't look to expand to the broader MGD population for those who don't have the overlapping DB that would be already covered by your label? And then can you just remind us what would be needed to pursue such an expanded label if the latter is still the case?

Question: Andrea Newkirk - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Great. And then, Jeff, maybe one question just here on the gross to net adjustments. Can you just remind us what analogs you're using or maybe what assumptions you're making to get to that long-term estimate of 42% exiting 2025?

Question: Oren Livnat - HC Wainwright - Analyst : On SG&A, it's interesting to see that down quarterr over quarter despite some onboarding of those reps and other investments. I'm just curious, is the -- if you can talk about the moving parts there, but specifically, the benefits you're seeing with the new contracts in Medicare and other commercial coverage, is the reduction in perhaps bridging supply or free drug that's maybe going to previously uncovered patients, is that coming out of SG&A now? Maybe it was previously almost like treated like sampling. So we're seeing that benefit in Q3 already? And I have a follow-up.

Question: Oren Livnat - HC Wainwright - Analyst : Okay. And on Europe, can you give us your thinking? I know it's quite early. But what's your understanding of relative pricing for a category-creating product in eye care in Europe? Should we assume that that's going to be more favorable than the pretty extreme compression on pricing we've seen in other eye care products that are in competitive markets relative to US pricing?

Question: Oren Livnat - HC Wainwright - Analyst : All right. So TBD.

Question: Balaji Prasad - Barclays - Analyst : Couple from me. Firstly, could you, with around one year of launch now, provide some color on seasonality and trends one should expect to see? Asking as we had Q2 where you had commentaries around Memorial Day holidays and medical conferences and Q3 had summer holidays being called out. So how should we think about broad seasonality during the year? That is one. Two, on the R&D side, can you comment on the nature of more evidence generation that you plan to provide? And how would you plan to leverage this for any incremental impact with the sales force?

Question: Jason Gerberry - Bank of America - Analyst : A couple for me. Just on the Part D tailwinds, trying to think about that going into next year. I guess the previous assumption was that there might be some slow play of the increased access over the course of '25. So should we think about half the market that wasn't in play in '24 kind of switching on the spigot in the beginning of 2025? If you could just kind of dimensionalize that, that would be helpful. And then on the retreatment question, I'm wondering, are plans limiting these patients at all in any way through policy to single script per year and thus patients may get retreated, it just may not be in the same calendar year when they do get retreatment? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 13, 2024 / 9:30PM, TARS.OQ - Q3 2024 Tarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc Earnings Call

Question: Cory Jubinville - LifeSci Capital LLC - Analyst : Congrats yet again. This one has been quite exciting to watch. One from us. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that you've now reached 13,000 ECPs out of that original target of 15,000. Curious as you approach those treatment goals or target goals, what's kind of next in terms of the goals for your sales force? Is the future to really expand even further beyond that 15,000 into prescriber segments that might be less overlapping? Or is it more sort of concentrate on the rate of repeat prescribers? We've seen that increase quarter over quarter up to about 70%. And I guess as a follow-up to that of that, prescriber base, 70% are repeat prescribers. But do you have a sense of what percentage of those prescribers fall within this prolific prescriber category or those that might have made it beyond that initial 5 to 10 script trial period? And then a follow-up from us on repeat prescribers after.

Question: Cory Jubinville - LifeSci Capital LLC - Analyst : And on patient retreatment, from the field, what have prescribers been reporting back to you in regard to their plans for patient retreatment? And I guess on the flip side, how are you presenting the idea of retreatment to them and pitching that?

Question: Frank Brisebois - Oppenheimer - Analyst : Sorry for the background noise. Not to put Dr. Yeu here on the spot, but I was just wondering if you can maybe discuss a little bit what -- I know you were always involved with Tarsus, but why the move now to join as CMO? Is this -- how do you view the launch and the future potential of XDEMVY? And then I have one follow-up. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 13, 2024 / 9:30PM, TARS.OQ - Q3 2024 Tarsus Pharmaceuticals Inc Earnings Call

Question: Frank Brisebois - Oppenheimer - Analyst : That's great. And then maybe one last one that I don't think has been brought up, but MGD obviously gives you another touch point. It seems like doctors are very responsive to the sales team. But I was just wondering, any thought as you guys are doing well here about M&A? And if so, would it be -- are we sticking to ophthalmology? Are we seeing back of the eye, front of the eye? Just any color on M&A would be helpful.