Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (REGN)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call

February 13, 2012 8:30 am ET

Executives

Dr. Leonard Schleifer – President, Chief Executive Officer

Murray Goldberg – Chief Financial Officer

Robert Terifay – Senior Vice President, Commercial

Dr. Michael Aberman – Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations

Analysts

Jim Birchenough – BMO Capital

Jason Kantor – RBC Capital Markets

Josh Schimmer – Leerink Swann

Alethia Young – Deutsche Bank

Chris Raymond – Robert W. Baird

Steve Byrne – Bank of America

Biren Amin – Jefferies

Mani Mohindru – ThinkEquity

Yaron Werber - Citigroup

Geoff Meacham – JP Morgan

Phil Nadeau – Cowen & Company

Presentation

Operator

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Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Conference Call to discuss the fourth quarter and full-year 2011 financial results. My name is Latoya and I’ll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session towards the end of the call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the call over to Dr. Aberman, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations for Regeneron. Please proceed, Dr. Aberman.

Dr. Michael Aberman

Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2011 conference call. An archive of this webcast will be available on our website under Events and Presentations for 30 days.

Joining me on the call today is Dr. Leonard Schleifer, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; Murray Goldberg, Chief Financial Officer; and Robert Terifay, Senior Vice President, Commercial. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions and answers.

I would like to also remind you that remarks made on this call that are not of historical nature may be forward-looking statements about Regeneron and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events and our actual results may differ materially. Such remarks may include but are not limited to those related to Regeneron and it’s products and business, sales forecasts, development programs, collaborations, finances, regulatory matters, intellectual property and competition, all of which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. A more complete description of these and other material risks can be found in Regeneron’s filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including it’s Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010 and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2011. Regeneron does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law.

GAAP and non-GAAP measures will be discussed on today’s call. Information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of these measures to GAAP is available in our financial results press release, which can be accessed on our website. Once our call concludes, the IR team will be available to answer further questions.

With that, let me turn it over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Len Schleifer.

Dr. Leonard Schleifer

Thank you, Michael, and good morning to everyone. I apologize in advance – I have a cold and a cough, and there’s been nothing coming from the labs to deal with it. I want to state that this is our very first quarterly conference call. Some of you may say it’s about time, but we think now it’s time we start as we transform ourselves into a commercial company to start having these calls.

2011 was truly a transformational year for us. It was the year when we advanced our vision of becoming not only a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company, or a FIBCO, but also hopefully a long-term biopharmaceutical growth company. We submitted three BLAs in the U.S. and celebrated the approval and launch of a potentially major product, EYLEA. We also reported positive Phase II results for two antibodies in our collaboration with Sanofi which are now in Phase III testing. In a survey conducted by the Journal of Science, we were voted the second best biopharmaceutical company to work for.

As we look forward to 2012, we see another exciting year ahead of us with the continued launch of EYLEA for wet AMD in the U.S. and the potential for FDA approval for our products or product candidates in three new indications: EYLEA for central retinal vein occlusion, ZALTRAP for previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer, and ARCALYST for the prevention of gout flares. Beyond the U.S., we see potential approvals and launches across the globe for both EYLEA and ZALTRAP with our partners, Bayer Healthcare and Sanofi.

Turning to the launch of EYLEA for wet AMD in the U.S., we are pleased to report that the launch continues to go extraordinary well and exceeds our expectations on many fronts. Only a relatively short time ago in early January, we reported that our fourth quarter 2011 EYLEA sales were 24.8 million, which was many-fold higher than most analysts were predicting for the six weeks of sales at that time. We also provided a preliminary forecast for 2012 EYLEA U.S. sales of 140 to 160 million. As we said back then, this forecast was based on only six weeks of sales data.

With another six weeks of EYLEA sales results, we have some added confidence in the EYLEA sales trends. In the first six weeks of 2012, we have seen an increase in weekly demand from a large number of doctors and practices, good repeat ordering trends, favorably reimbursement trends, and positive feedback from physicians. In fact, we have now shipped over 30,000 vials to physicians offices since our launch in November.

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