Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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

Question: Matthew Hewitt - Craig-Hallum Inc - Analyst : Good morning. Congratulations on the strong year and looking forward to another strong year in 2025. Maybe first up, this recent acquisition or recent investment into Castle Creek, if I'm not mistaken, that might be your first move into selling gene therapies. Can you confirm if that was the case? And number two, are you looking at others? How does the risk profile change for that type of a program versus maybe a large or small molecule, any color on that, please?

Question: Matthew Hewitt - Craig-Hallum Inc - Analyst : That's great. And then maybe a question on Captisol and this is maybe two parts, but the SQ innovations, Lasix, is that with that launch potentially coming later this year. Is that a big user of Captisol? I'm trying to think of magnitude what that could mean for your Captisol sales. Obviously, there was a nice step up with your 2025 guidance for that segment to begin with on the Gilead news, but would this create another potential step up later this year in fiscal 2026? Thank you.

Question: Matthew Hewitt - Craig-Hallum Inc - Analyst : Got it. All right, thank you very much.

Question: Joseph Pantginis - H C Wainwright & Co LLC - Analyst : Everybody, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So very nice with the D-Fi deal, and I'm just curious, as you're looking forward with regard to all the kinds of creative deals that you're looking at, how does this deal signal your desire and ability to do even more syndicated deals?

Question: Joseph Pantginis - H C Wainwright & Co LLC - Analyst : No, that's helpful. Thank you. And then I guess two financial related questions, can you discuss any potential with your growing cash balance of thoughtful share buybacks that I know could potentially be available and then maybe Tavo, can you just discuss the asset impairment charge? Thanks.

Question: Joseph Pantginis - H C Wainwright & Co LLC - Analyst : Great, Thank you.

Question: Douglas Miehm - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Yeah, thank you. First question just has to do with the D-Fi deal. I know that you expect this to be used in combination therapy, but perhaps you could walk us through, how you see it being used that way, given that we do already have that, Krystal product on the market today.

Question: Douglas Miehm - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Okay, excellent. Second question just have to do with the potential deals that you're working on and maybe Todd, you could speak to, what proportion of the deals would be synthetic versus actual royalties that you're contemplating on buying or even companies like you did last year. And then finally maybe you could expand on potential strategic transaction as well in any way that you can, and I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Question: Douglas Miehm - RBC Capital Markets - Analyst : Great. Thank you.

Question: Trevor Allred - Oppenheimer - Analyst : Hey, good morning, everybody. My congrats on the great quarter as well. Just looking for some additional color around D-Fi. I mean, can you guys tell us a little bit about how large the population is, maybe how readily identifiable the condition is, and given it's a cell therapy, are you expecting any limitations to scale? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. FEBRUARY 27, 2025 / 1:30PM, LGND.OQ - Q4 2024 Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc Earnings Call

Question: Trevor Allred - Oppenheimer - Analyst : Yeah, no, that's helpful. And can you also give us a sense of, how much revenue Vyjuvek is generating and any op any potential population differences between the two of those?

Question: Trevor Allred - Oppenheimer - Analyst : Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks for taking the questions.

Question: Xiao Yang - Barclays PLC - Analyst : Good morning. This is Xiao Ang for Balaji. Thanks for taking our questions. So just a quick one on our through there. Seems like the uptake has been nicely in the first two quarters of the product launch, even without the Jcode, and equity market was reacting positively towards the initial traction. So can you discuss some of your expectations you have around inside re growth and your view of the overall maintenance therapy for COPD and we see your view of the, impact of the overall COPD market in the times of the biologic entrance such as dupixent. Thank you so much. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. FEBRUARY 27, 2025 / 1:30PM, LGND.OQ - Q4 2024 Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc Earnings Call

Question: Xiao Yang - Barclays PLC - Analyst : Great. Thank you so much.

Question: Larry Solow - CJS Securities, Inc - Analyst : Great, thanks. Good morning. Congrats on an exciting year, lots of, business development and things moving forward. I guess the question, for Tavo. First question would just be, I know you on the guidance you provided the analyst that you spoke about, just some increased investment in the cash expenses and the business development team in 2025. Could you just give us a little more color on how 2024 kind of struck out on the expense line and. And what you're looking for, it's still incorporated into your Outlook in 2025.

Question: Larry Solow - CJS Securities, Inc - Analyst : Okay, so it's like a 40 million plus or minus number in 2025.

Question: Larry Solow - CJS Securities, Inc - Analyst : And it sounds like the final opportunities continues to expand, Todd, it doesn't feel like you, I know you don't time exactly how much you're going to spend, per year. Of course not, it's more opportunistic, but it doesn't feel like, there's any hesitancy there. Like we could sounds like we could have another big year after 2024.

Question: Larry Solow - CJS Securities, Inc - Analyst : Got you. And if I just last follow up just on Zelsuvmi and Pelthos so it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of. Strategic planning and stuff ahead of, actually announcing a partner so you it feels like you'll be able to hit the ground running at some point once that partner comes in. I'm just trying to figure out this partner, is it just going to be an investment partner or is it someone who's going to be the marketer just trying to, or you know how that shakes out, and the launch plans thanks.

Question: Larry Solow - CJS Securities, Inc - Analyst : Got it. Great. Thanks, Todd. I appreciate that call.

Question: John Vandermosten - Zacks Investment Research - Analyst : Thank you and good morning. Regarding, D-Fi and Castle Creek, does the opportunity here assume similar pricing and penetration as vyjuvek does?

Question: John Vandermosten - Zacks Investment Research - Analyst : Okay, and what's the expected financial impact of that termination letter [toasi] on Ligand?

Question: John Vandermosten - Zacks Investment Research - Analyst : Okay, and on your opportunity set, I seem to remember at one of the events that that 200 opportunities were mentioned, I guess, they're kind of they're waiting to be acted upon. How has that changed in terms of, new additions and then ones that you said, we'll pass out, I guess I'm wondering about kind of the flow rate there and has it increased since that last update? I think that was possibly at the investor day when you when you had given that number.

Question: John Vandermosten - Zacks Investment Research - Analyst : Okay, thank you.