The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Glen Santangelo - Jefferies - Analyst
: Scott, I have just two quick questions for you. The first one is a lot of comments around the base business continuing to have strong
momentum and that sort of continuing into '25. And I appreciate you don't want to give any forward guidance, but when we look
out over the next couple of years, is that sort of $500 million contribution from new product revenues? You're obviously generating
a little more than that this year. But is that sort of the right ZIP code for us to think about as a starting point for the next couple of
years?
And then secondly, on the capital allocation, the company said repeatedly that you want to use half the free cash flow for business
development and the other half, you want to return to shareholders through repurchases and dividends.
Is sort of getting the leverage down to 3 times by the end of the year, is that the trigger to start that? And based on what you see in
the market with respect to business development versus Viatris trading at only 6 times EBITDA, does that push you one way or
another as you move into '25?
Question: Jason Gerberry - Bank of America - Analyst
: A couple for me. We saw one multinational company operating in China recently get investigated regarding some reimbursement
matters. I'm just trying to get a sense from your perspective, if that's an isolated incident or if this is part of some broader effort
around cracking down on different reimbursement practices. Just it would be helpful if you can just offer any color around that?
And then I didn't -- apologies if I didn't hear this, but were there any updates just thinking about Sandostatin LAR and a potential to
get that approved in the near term and status of the GA Depot resubmission?
Question: Ashwani Verma - UBS - Analyst
: Good to see some steady progress here. Just a capital allocation question. So with bulk of the debt paydown that you were sort of
driving towards behind you and the stock trading at like sub 4 times run rate EPS, like how do you think about balancing business
development investment and share repurchases?
And then secondly, for emerging markets, yes, I saw this like ARV supply chain impact. I think you have talked about this for a little
bit of time. Just curious like when does this start to lap that we don't see this as a drag on the business going forward?
Question: David Amsellem - Piper Sandler - Analyst
: Well, I don't want to belabor the topic of new launch contribution for '25. And I know that you've drilled down a little more because
it does feel to me that there is less in the way of transparency regarding new products going forward than there has been historically.
So one question I had is you've talked historically about products like Sandostatin LAR. You talked about Victoza as contributors.
Can you talk to how much products like that are going to be contributors for next year? Other products like iron sucrose, Venofer,
is that going to be a contributor? You talked about glucagon, injectable glucagon in the past. Is that going to be a contributor.
And then also, one of your competitors, Teva has talked about potentially entering the Symbicort market next year. I'm wondering
if you can talk to potential competitive dynamics regarding Symbicort. So I know there's a lot there on specific products but hoping
to get granularity.
Question: Balaji Prasad - Barclays Investment Bank - Analyst
: Just two sets of questions from me, and apologies if one of them are -- both have been asked earlier. Firstly, could you comment
about sotagliflozin in terms of the contributions and the number of markets that you plan to launch in the next one to two years?
And how should we think about modeling this into our thoughts?
Secondly, a big picture thematic question. With the new administration, it's likely that we could see a pushback towards Make in
America. I want to understand how could that change your priorities towards the US generics market? Is this something that you
will want to refocus or increase in terms of focus and future revenue contributions from this region?
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