United Therapeutics' CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

United Therapeutics (

UTHR

)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call

February 14, 2012, 9:00 a.m. ET

Executives

Martine Rothblatt - Founder, Chairman and CEO

Roger A. Jeffs - President, COO and Director

John M. Ferrari - CFO, Principal Accounting Officer and Treasurer

Andy Fisher - EVP

Analysts

Salveen Richter – Collins Stewart

Liana Moussatos – Wedbush Securities Inc.

Geoff Meacham – JPMorgan

Mark Schoenebaum (Omar) – ISI Group, Inc.

Robyn Karnauskas – Deutsche Bank AG

Philip Nadeau – Cowen and Company, LLC

Terence Flynn – Goldman Sachs

Robbie (Merofa) – Credit Suisse

Bret Holley – Oppenheimer & Co.

Matthew Kaplan (Susan) – Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.

Presentation

Operator

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Good morning. My name is Ben and I will be the conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the United Therapeutics Corporation Fourth Quarter and annual 2011 financial results earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions].

Remarks today concerning United Therapeutics will include forward-looking statements, which represent United Therapeutics' expectations or beliefs regarding future events based on current assumptions. United Therapeutics cautions that such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.

Consequently, all such forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary language and risk factors set forth in United Therapeutics' periodic and other reports filed with the SEC. There can be no assurance that the actual results, events or developments referenced in such forward-looking statements will occur or be realized. United Therapeutics assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes and assumptions or changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements. Thank you.

Dr. Rothblatt, you may begin your conference.

Martine Rothblatt

Thank you, operator. Good morning to everybody here in North America, and good afternoon or evening to our friends overseas.

I am pleased that we have met our annual revenue target for 2011, which highlights the favorable operating results that we’ve enjoyed this past year.

In addition, we are reaffirming today, our revenue guidance for 2012 and 2013, as revenues from our commercial product lines continue to grow.

I’m pleased to be joined on the call this morning’s conference call by three of our top level executives, Dr. Roger Jeffs who is our President and Chief Operating Officer, and is responsible for clinical development as well as sales and marketing will be joining me this morning and can help field the questions. John Ferrari who is our Chief Financial Officer, and is also responsible for all matters relating to distribution of our product, is also on the call and will be happy to field any questions. And finally, Andy Fisher, who is our Executive Vice President in charge of intellectual property, as well as our Chief Strategy Officer, will also be joining us, and he can help out with any questions relating to IP or strategic matters.

Operator, if you could please open the lines, we can now take the callers’ questions.

Operator, if you could please now open the lines to any questions.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator instructions). Our first question today comes from the line Salveen Richter from Collins Stewart. Your line is now open, please go ahead.

Salveen Richter – Collins Stewart

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to get a sense of what accounted for the negative quarter-over-quarter growth for Remodulin and Tyvaso in 4Q. And then also looking at 2012 guidance, where do you see the majority of the 17% year-over-year revenue growth coming from?

Martine Rothblatt

Thanks for those questions. I would say both of those fall more in the sales and marketing category, so I'm going to ask Dr. Jeffs, our President, to kindly address those.

Roger A. Jeffs

That you, Martine. The way, as we said before, that there is quarter-to-quarter fluctuation in ordering patterns from our main customers, which are the specialty pharmacies. And I think this quarter is reflective of normal variations within quarters.

When we look going forward into 2012, we see the majority of the growth coming from Tyvaso and Adcirca in terms of incremental revenue addition. However, the core base of Remodulin revenue, we expect to remain stable and grow slightly as well. So we think there should be growth within the full suite of products that we sell and we remain confident on guidance for 2012 at the 875 range as previously stated.

Martine Rothblatt

Thanks, Roger. Thank you, questioner from Collin Stewart. Operator, could you please open the line to the next question.

Operator

Absolutely. Our next question comes from the line of Liana Moussatos from Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open, please go ahead.

Liana Moussatos - Wedbush Securities Inc.

Thank you for taking my question. Can you give us the geographic breakdown of Remodulin sales, Europe and U.S.?

Martine Rothblatt

Thanks Liana, nice to hear your voice this morning. I think it probably would be more in John Ferrari's category to give the breakdown of revenues ex-U.S. and U.S. So John could you please help with that question?

John M. Ferrari

I'd be happy to. We haven't seen any significant fluctuation between U.S. and non-U.S. sales for Remodulin that we reported over the years, so somewhere between 13 and 15% of our Remodulin revenues come the rest of the world or outside the U.S.

Martine Rothblatt

Thanks, John. Thanks, Liana. Operator, can you please take the next question?

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