Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (ESPR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Great. Good morning, everyone. My name is Jess Fye. I'm a senior biotech analyst at JPMorgan, and we're continuing the 2021 Healthcare Conference this morning with Esperion. I'm joined by the company's CEO, Tim Mayleben. But a quick housekeeping note, instead of moving across the hall to the breakout room this year, you've got a blue ask-a-question button as you watch the webcast, you can use that to send a question through the portal, it'll pop up on my end, and I can use those during the Q&A session that will follow the presentation. You can do that anytime either during Q&A or during the presentation, and it'll just kind of queue up for me. But without any further ado, let me turn it over to Tim.

Thank you, Jess, and good morning, everyone. I'm on Slide 1. I want to thank Jess and her team for the opportunity to tell you about Esperion this morning. My name is, as Jess said, Tim Mayleben, President and CEO. With me today are Rick Bartram, our Chief Financial Officer; and Sheldon Koenig, our Chief Operating Officer. I'm going to move now to Slide 3. So introduce you to Esperion. Our entire company is focused on one thing, helping patients with bad cholesterol. Our pedigree is incredibly strong. We were founded by the codiscoverer of Lipitor, the best-selling statin. Keys to success, we believe, in any environment, but especially today is to make things easy for patients. So we focus on 3 things: nonstatin for better tolerability, oral once-daily pills for convenience and, of course, affordability and accessibility. We've assembled a team of drug development and commercial experts with a strong history of execution that are also drawn to our mission. If you move to Slide 4. Sheldon is the newest member of our team and joins us as Chief Operating Officer, but I think I really want to highlight here that high cholesterol levels, bad cholesterol is an almost universal problem, and our leadership team actually demonstrates this. There aren't many families that haven't been touched by cardiovascular disease. We're all connected to it. And we, at Esperion, are committed to addressing it. So let's look at the problem on Slide 5. Almost 1/3 of people in the U.S. have high levels of bad cholesterol, cholesterol increases as we get older in everyone. Statins, which are the standard of care for bad cholesterol, were first approved more than 30 years ago and have been fantastic medicines. In fact, statins help over 80% of people who take them for bad cholesterol, but because so many people and families have this problem of bad cholesterol, 18 million people need a nonstatin drug to lower their bad cholesterol. Two groups, almost 10 million can't or won't take a statin, another 9 million need a nonstatin drug to lower the bad cholesterol. Let's maybe zoom in and look at a couple of patients. On Slide 6. All of us know a David, right? He's a friend perhaps, a coworker, a father, perhaps a grandfather. His cholesterol has increased as he's gotten older, he's trying to eat better, exercise regularly, even taking a statin, but he's not getting his cholesterol down to the level that his physician wants him to be. He can't take another statin. He's on the highest dose. He doesn't want or can't afford, in many cases, a nonstatin shot. So his need for an easy-to-use nonstatin medicine to reach his goal is not being met. Turning to Slide 7. All of us know an Anne too. She's a coworker, sister, aunt, wife, maybe even a mom. She has high cholesterol, like my wife. She's tried several different statins, doesn't tolerate them for long, sometimes not at all. She doesn't like shots. She needs an oral nonstatin medicine to lower her bad cholesterol, but it needs to be easy, to fit into her busy life. Moving on to Slide 8. So whether we look at the broad U.S. population or we look at individual patients, what's clear is there's a very high unmet need for easy, nonstatin medicines to lower bad cholesterol. There's been a lack of innovation over the past 2 decades, underinvestment compared to other therapeutic area. And as a result, cardiovascular disease remains the #1 cause of death. To put that in perspective, cardiovascular disease causes more deaths than all cancers combined. And perhaps more concerning, and this is even before COVID-19, the CDC estimates that deaths from cardiovascular disease are going to increase by 25% over the next 10 years. So on Slide 9, it's accepted by everyone, health care providers, payers, researchers, public health officials that elevated cholesterol is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and has to be managed better to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. So you're probably asking yourself. If everyone knows it, cardiovascular disease is such a big problem, it's so well accepted that higher levels of bad cholesterol are a big part of the problem, and we need nonstatin ways to lower bad cholesterol, why hasn't more been done? If we move to Slide 10, the answer is, there have been nonstatin medicines for lowering bad cholesterol starting 5 years ago, but they're expensive and they're shots. So-called PCSK9. Most patients just don't want. In fact, the entire pharmaceutical industry has been built on patients' strong preference for convenient oral once-daily pills for chronic conditions. And that's exactly what we at Esperion, have focused on developing and commercializing. So on Slide 11, we really emphasize that no matter who you are, where you come from, how old you are, oral once-daily pills in a bottle are familiar to everybody, especially important for chronic asymptomatic conditions like bad cholesterol. And it's obvious why. Our medicines significantly lower bad cholesterol, are easy to take and refill, they're nonstatins, patients report less muscle pain, and they complement other medicines. Moving on to Slide 12. As we show on the left, I've mentioned the limitations of statins, their standard of care for lowering bad cholesterol, but that 15% to 20% can't or won't take them. Importantly, our medicines don't compete with statins, but they're complementary to maximally tolerated statin therapy for the estimated 18 million people that need a nonstatin medicine to lower their levels of bad cholesterol. On the right side, I told you about the limitations of PCSK9. While they're nonstatin, they're expensive and they're shots. Not many people prefer a medicine that is expensive and a shot. And I told you about the patient preference for oral once-daily pills that Esperion is focused on filling this huge unmet need, this gap depicted on the slide for nonstatin medicines that are convenient oral once-daily pills to lower bad cholesterol. And we're evolving and growing while we do this. So on Slide 13, we're not just doing this in the U.S., we're doing it around the world. We've made great progress over the past couple of years, but we're not done. Our goals are briefly outlined here. And let me give you a couple of examples of how we're evolving globally. On Slide 14, we've partnered for the global success of our medicines. We count Daiichi Sankyo in Europe and Otsuka in Japan as partners. These are global companies, expert in cardiovascular medicines, really great validation for the value of our medicines, our partnerships with DSE and Otsuka represent the largest EU and Japan agreements in history. Importantly, we've already received $360 million in cash milestones from these partners, and we have over $1 billion in future development and revenue milestones combined with 15% to 30% royalties on ex U.S. sales that we'll receive in the futures. And finally, we have what we call a rest of world partnership on track to complete during the first quarter due to increased interest in the bempedoic acid franchise abroad, we extended the time line to complete this next partnership just slightly. So on Slide 15, let's turn now to the recent product launches of NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET. On Slide 16, our medicines were approved in February of last year. They were the first oral nonstatin medicines for indicated patients in 20 years. So let me emphasize the positioning and pricing of our medicines, which, along with being once-a-day pills, makes them very easy. They fill a tremendous need that I highlighted earlier. They're nonstatin. They're convenient oral once-daily pills for the almost 10 million patients that can't or won't take statins, and the almost 9 million patients that are taking statins, but need a nonstatin medicine to achieve their cholesterol goal. We priced our medicines affordably, a list price of about $11 a day. Affordability, we believe is a key competitive advantage in today's health care environment. On Slide 17, I want to just level set. Let's remember where we are. First, we're in the early days of our commercial launch, not only because of time, less than 9 months since the initial launch of NEXLETOL, 6 months since the launch of NEXLIZET, but also because of the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe our launch is going to accelerate as we, the country, emerge from the pandemic. This is a recovery story because our medicines fill a huge need for convenient, affordable nonstatin medicines to lower bad cholesterol. As I mentioned, we priced these medicines for access. They're affordable for both patients and payers. We've achieved already broad, high-quality managed care coverage. And this is the foundation on which our launch will continue to build. And we've also obviously continued or started, rather, to educate HCPs. On Slide 18, just to give you a little bit of insight, detail on our managed care coverage. After 6 to 9 months, our medicines are on payer formularies covering 95% of commercial lives, 95% of commercial lives and about 50% of Medicare Part D lives, and the majority of this coverage is Tier 2 or preferred brand coverage, the best tier achievable for a branded drug. And this is important because it provides patients the lowest co-pay or out-of-pocket cost. Let's turn now to HCP engagement. So on Slide 19. We've actually made good progress with HCPs despite the pandemic, but at the same time, our launch has been impacted by the pandemic, and I'll talk about that in the next few slides. So on the plus side, over 3,000 patients each week are already taking our medicines. Over 6,500 unique health care providers have already written at least one or more prescription. The numbers would obviously be much higher were it not for COVID-19 because as you'll recall, doctors' offices were not open for several months across the country during the lockdowns and even after the lockdowns lifted and these offices reopened, they reopened to patients, but they're not seeing industry representatives. On Slide 20, as we announced earlier today, so putting all of this into context, U.S. net product revenues for Q4 still grew to between $8 million and $8.5 million. That's 100 -- over 140% growth compared to the prior quarter. And as I mentioned, 3,000 patients on our medicines each week, and we're just getting started. Let me give you some important context here as well. I want to highlight that for our therapeutic areas, so LDL cholesterol lowering medicines for which, as I mentioned earlier, statins are the standard of care. New-to-brand prescriptions for statins to lower bad cholesterol declined for the first time in history by 25% last year. Statin prescriptions -- new-to-brand statin prescriptions declined 25% last year. But as we look ahead as the country and our economy recovers in 2021, driven by broad-based vaccinations, we expect patients and health care providers to return to taking care of their cardiovascular health. We believe that this will result in a return-to-normal prescription writing for statins and by extension, increased prescription writing for our medicines. On Slide 21, let me provide you a little bit additional context. Remember, that 2 out of every 10 patients that start a statin to manage their cholesterol can't or won't take it. As I just mentioned, new-to-brand prescriptions for statins are now down or have been down 25% this past year, unprecedented due to the pandemic and patients and health care providers not taking care of their cardiovascular health issues. But as we look ahead, we expect new prescriptions for statins to return to normal levels as patients and their physicians return to focusing on cardiovascular health. And as this return to normal takes hold in 2021, we expect the launch of our medicines to accelerate further. So let's look at the long-term opportunity. On Slide 22. Ours is a truly significant U.S. commercial opportunity and the long-term opportunity, even with the impact of the pandemic hasn't changed. Remember, there's 10 million people who can't or won't take statins. 9 million, almost 9 million patients who are taking statins, but need a nonstatin medicine, convenient nonstatin medicine to achieve their LDL goal. This is amazing and unique opportunity for the right medicines, and we believe NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET are the right medicines. They're nonstatin; they're easy, convenient, oral, once-daily pills; and they're well tolerated. And they're affordable, as I mentioned earlier, for patients and payers. Moving on to Slide 23, to reinforce our commitment to patients, especially those considered statin intolerant as well as our commitment to the NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET franchise, we're conducting a 14,000 patient cardiovascular outcome study. We're well past the halfway point of the study, having fully enrolled it in August of 2019. We announced last year that we had accumulated 50% of the primary 4-component MACE endpoints in September. This outcome study, we believe, is important commercially for us for 2 reasons. First, we are slated to receive $350 million -- up to $350 million in cash milestone payments from our partners, ex U.S. partners; and second, as evidenced by the most recent CVOT that completed, we believe it will result in significant uptake in prescription volumes upon announcement and approval for a CV risk reduction indication. So this study is expected to accumulate 100% of events next year. So let's look ahead. So 24, let's talk about the oral new -- the new oral PCSK9 program that we announced earlier today. Slide 25. We in-licensed what we believe is the leading PCSK9 program, oral PCSK9 program. PCSK9, as many of you know, is a very well-validated target for lowering bad cholesterol. Currently available PCSK9 therapies are expensive and they're shots, neither of which is patient preferred. With this program, we leverage our expertise in developing oral nonstatin LDL cholesterol lowering medicines, and we extend our commitment to patients with high levels of bad cholesterol. On Slide 26. Why now? Our track record shows we're the best in the world at developing convenient nonstatin pills for lowering bad cholesterol. We're the right team to take this on. We developed the first new once-daily pill for high cholesterol in more than 2 decades, and the first ever nonstatin combination tablet. Creating a patient preferred pill version of a PCSK9 inhibitor aligns and extends our mission and strategy. We work hard to make our medicines easy to take, easy to get, easy to have. This program targets allosteric inhibition of PCSK9, which differentiates it mechanistically from past molecule PCSK9 inhibitor programs. And it has the potential to be both first-in-class and, obviously, with a very compelling drug profile. Disrupting high cholesterol is the only thing we do. We're the only company focused exclusively on oral medicines for LDL cholesterol lowering, and we have an established track record in the development of these medicines with 8 marketing approvals in 2020. Let me turn now on Slide 27 for some final thoughts on our business. On Slide 28 first, I want to emphasize our diversified and growing revenue streams. As we announced earlier today, fourth quarter U.S. net product revenues will be between $8 million and $8.5 million. This is at least 140% increase compared to the third quarter. We also recognized over $213 million in collaboration revenue during 2020, generating total revenue exceeding $225 million in 2020. For 2021, we expect U.S. net product revenue to grow significantly, ex U.S. milestone revenue to be more modest, but still significant due to the completion of a rest of world partnership, while royalty revenue from our ex U.S. partners will grow more meaningful as Daiichi Sankyo rolls out our medicines across the EU. On Slide 29, we announced earlier today as well that we ended the year with a strong cash balance exceeding $300 million. We also provided 2021 OpEx guidance of 300 to -- I'm sorry, $320 million to $340 million, which includes $30 million of noncash, noncash stock-based compensation expense. Moving on to Slide 30 now. Just a brief look at IP. We have a very strong patent portfolio, strong patent protection for our products in major markets around the world, anchored, of course, by composition of matter patent coverage for both NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET in the U.S., the most valuable territory in the world, for which we have 100% right -- 100% rights to. And our IP coverage extends at least through mid 2031. So on Slide 31, let's take a look at both our recent accomplishments and also what's ahead in 2020. We gained FDA approval for our 2 medicines in the U.S., other regulatory approvals in the EU, U.K. and Switzerland. Otsuka is developing and will gain approval for our medicines in Japan in the years ahead. We've already received $360 million in milestone payments from our ex U.S. partners over the past couple of years. We've commercially launched our medicines in the EU -- I'm sorry, yes, in the EU and in the U.S. through DSE obviously, in the EU. We're on track to complete a rest of world partnership early this year. We have over $1 billion in milestone payments due from ex U.S. partners in the future. We have our landmark CVOT in statin-intolerant patients that's going to read out next year. And we're initiating development of the oral PCSK9 and a combination tablet with bempedoic acid in the years ahead. So with that, on Slide 32, I hope that this overview of our business and our medicines was helpful. We'll now be happy to take any of the questions that you have. And again, Rick and Sheldon are joining me for the Q&A session.

Great. Thanks for that, Tim. And we'll just give it a moment while your colleague's video comes back online in addition to my own. Maybe to start out before we get into some more detailed questions, Sheldon, I think it's our first time with you joining for one of these. Can you tell us just a little bit about your experience and why you joined Esperion as COO?

Yes. Great. Thank you. First of all, nice to meet everybody, and thank you to all of you attending here at our JPMorgan Conference. So I've been in the cardiovascular field since 2003. Even before then, I actually sold a little drug called Mevacor when I was a sales rep, the first HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor. I shut the lights off on Zocor once it went off patent. I ran Zetia, Vytorin for approximately 3 years at Merck & Company. And I also ran global cardiovascular at Sanofi, including Praluent for almost 3 years. The products that we have here at Esperion have always been interesting to me. To me, they represent an advancement in cardiovascular disease. And I think, as Tim mentioned earlier, and even as a cancer survivor, I'm always interested in new therapies to fight cancer, et cetera, but cardiovascular disease is still the #1 killer of people. And it's something that has affected my family and is something that, although not a physician or scientist, I've dedicated myself to helping bring these medications to patients. And to me, it's just an honor to be still involved in the field of cardiovascular medicine. And as Tim so eloquently presented, that's what Esperion does by bringing new and differentiated products to the market that address cardiovascular disease.

Great. Maybe we can switch gears and talk about the financial guidance you put out today. The operating expense guidance looks like it's about $100 million below the Street, with most of that coming from SG&A. And I know the 2020 SG&A guidance seemed to suggest a substantial uptick in fourth quarter spend. Can you -- maybe before we get into the forward looking, is there anything you can say about kind of where 4Q OpEx came in?

Rick, do you want to take that? Sorry.

Yes. Yes, sure. Yes. So Jess, so we'll be reporting fourth quarter full results next month as we report our final year-end results. So more to come there. But in terms of guidance ranges, inclusive of the announcements today, ranges remain intact and really no significant change in the fourth quarter for spend versus what we had previously been guiding.

Okay. Great. Maybe switching to the 2021 guidance. It looks like it maybe implies for SG&A sort of a flattish run rate relative to at least what we saw you report in the third quarter. I guess with the ever changing, ever shifting COVID backdrop, how are you -- how did you get to that number as being kind of the right amount to support the franchise this year?

Yes, Rick?

Yes. So Jess, included in the estimates today, we thought important to give everyone so that we can appropriately guide how we think the business will head this year. So as you look at the breakdown and you look at R&D expenses, going back to the primary spend in R&D is related to the CLEAR Outcomes trial. Costs related to the oral PCSK9 that we announced this morning are really insignificant. But as we mentioned for a while now, the cost in R&D related to the Outcomes study are really at steady state. However, we've been able to look at costs and really appropriately estimate what we think R&D expense will be for next year. Related to SG&A, as any commercial company who's going through their first year, building the processes and systems to support a commercial launch, there is significant cost to stand up new functions as well as new processes. That, coupled with the overall environment, we've been able to look at costs, associate the right activities to generate revenue for our products and growth for our products and feel very confident that the SG&A estimates that we have for this year, 2021, are rightsized for the operating plan. So we feel very confident with the estimates that we put out this morning.

Okay. Got it. Before I turn some of these questions coming on the portal, and by the way, thanks, everyone, for asking them, keep them coming, I did want to just see if you could elaborate a little bit on the in-licensing you announced this morning. How -- maybe talk a little bit about how you selected that asset? And realizing it is sort of an early stage product, what's the time frame within which we could see this product generating some proof-of-concept data?

Yes. Thanks, Jess. So we couldn't be more excited about the program. And just to give you some context, as we, I think, highlighted in the presentation, we said in the press release, there's one thing we do, and I think there's that old adage, if you're going to do something, make sure you're best in the world at it. If you can be best in the world at something, that's what you should do. This is a company that is best in the world at oral LDL cholesterol lowering drugs. As I said at the start, we do one thing, we do it really well, and that's the development. And now, again, in the future, commercializing oral LDL cholesterol lowering drug. So we know cholesterol biosynthesis incredibly well. The most validated, most validated target in this area, of course, as Sheldon highlighted, is HMG-CoA reductase. And the world is saturated with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, and that was really dominated -- really has dominated the therapeutic area over the last 30 years. The next most well-validated target for managing bad cholesterol levels is PCSK9. And it's a space that we've been watching for over a decade, I think, as you heard not only Sheldon, but many folks, as you know, from our development team have worked on the monoclonal antibodies over the years. And of course, those have been fantastic advances in medicine. Not so fantastic, obviously, commercially because they're expensive and they're shots. A high bad cholesterol is an asymptomatic disease. So we've long been attracted to PCSK9 as a target. It -- and especially once there was Outcome study validation of the target. And over the past couple of years, we've also seen innovations in chemistry take hold, and in particular, allosteric inhibition through chemistry. So the combination of the evolution and innovation in chemistry, along with this long-standing interest in PCSK9 as a target, we felt that those came together and in particular, Serametrix has a team that has really innovated in this area of allosteric chemistry. So we're excited about this. And again, I think as you asked about, it will be some time before we're prepared to talk about development time lines. This is an early stage program. But we're the right team to move it forward. This is a natural evolution. Just like we did with bempedoic acid, we'll be developing a combination tablet with our drug. You may remember that a couple of -- well, more than a couple -- a few years ago, we had done a study of PCSK9 inhibitor with our drug an ACL inhibitor, and we got totally additive results. So we think that a fully nonstatin combination with our drug and ACL inhibitor with a PCSK9 inhibitor is really the next great thing in LDL cholesterol lowering.

Great. I'd then turn to some of the questions coming in on the portal. A bunch of them are about cash runway. So I'm just trying to merge a few of these and summarize them. But essentially, if you end the year with -- ended the year with $305 million, and you're pointing to cash OpEx in a similar ballpark around $300 million, obviously, you've got revenue coming in, potentially a rest of world upfront coming in, but the general theme of these questions is kind of what are your other kind of sources of cash inflows you could be thinking about this year to kind of square a year-end '21 cash balance that could be getting a little tight?

Yes. Rick, do you want to take that? He loves these questions, by the way, Jess. So...

Yes. Sure, sure. So yes, Jess, as we mentioned, we thought it was important today to give our cash balance over $300 million, as Tim mentioned in the presentation. And we really have multiple, even nondilutive sources of capital at our disposal. So as everyone knows, we recently strengthened our balance sheet with the convertible debt financing that we did last quarter. It fortified the balance sheet as well as had some features to minimize shareholder dilution and really is anti-dilutive to shareholders to significant multiples of where the stock was -- the deal was done. So we're very pleased with the outcome there. As Tim also mentioned in the presentation, we do have over $1 billion of future milestones associated with our current existing collaborations. We do expect, as you mentioned, to have additional upfront monies from a rest of world partnership, as Tim mentioned, this quarter. And when you factor in the $60 million that we took in back in April of last year, the payments combined with this anticipated deal this quarter will amount to over 9 figures. And then lastly, we have our existing arrangement with Oberland Capital, that revenue-based funding agreement. There's still $50 million available under that collaboration. And we feel very, very confident that we will be able to access that capital if we want, understand that is a show-me story. So we're going to continue to execute like we have done in the past as we put these strategic agreements in place. So we've funded the organization in a very advantageous manner. We've been disciplined. We're going to continue to use that methodology to make sure that the company is appropriately funded. But as we sit today, we feel very confident and very optimistic of the outcome as well as our cash position.

Got it. Can you also just -- you do have some substantial milestones that I believe are tied to getting the CLEAR Outcomes data on the label. That data should come in, I think, back half of '22, so maybe it gets on the label sometime thereafter. But what are the options available to the company to maybe borrow against those future milestones, either before or -- either after or maybe even before that study reads out?

Yes. Thanks, Jess. Rick, do you want to take that one as well?

Yes. So as you know, Jess, a multitude of options that are out there, creative ways to look at bringing cash into the company. Again, we think pretty hard on how to bring capital into the organization when it's needed and could be a potential option. But again, economics are something that's a key consideration. So we're going to be disciplined as we always have been, but could be a possibility.

Okay. Great. I've got a question for Sheldon here. Kind of bringing a fresh set of eyes to Esperion, what are the things that you could improve about the launch so far?

Thanks, Jess. So I've been here about, I guess, 40 days so far and really enjoying it. To me, it's really about leadership and really the focus on strategy. And 2 things I've really been working on is really getting to know the field, really getting to know all of our representatives to find out what's working and what's not working. And then also just really looking at our strategy, I think when we launched, there is this true focus on let's get to a fast start and let's get selling, but right now, it's really the optimum positioning of both of our assets, really helping physicians understand the appropriate patient to use these drugs in. And that's something that we're doing right now is really refining that and working with our sales teams to really, as we start to exit this COVID environment as more people get vaccinated, more people get back to their physicians, allows us to effectively position the product.

Do you think having the Outcomes data will be needed to drive an inflection in the scripts?

I think I've been involved in many of the Outcomes studies that have reported over the past many years. And I think, of course, Outcomes studies will always create an additional inflection point later down the line. But as you mentioned earlier, the results of that will not come out until later of 2022 and won't be in the label until sometime after that. So the Outcomes data will be nice to have, but are not necessary to really drive the sales, and we'll be effectively positioning based upon the studies that have been already conducted as it relates to NEXLETOL and NEXLIZET. So we feel confident that we have a great opportunity here.

Okay. Great. And in the early days of the launches in Europe, how are you seeing initial demand trends for the product? And what countries are expected to launch next?

Yes. Thanks, Jess. This is Tim. So Germany, of course, is the initial launch country. It is the largest country in Europe, largest market in Europe. That will be followed by the U.K. and then I think there's a number of other countries. The U.K., second largest market in, well, no longer the EU, but the way we think of as Europe. But other smaller countries to follow both this year and obviously, in the next year as well. The early demand in the German market has been very good. Again, keep in mind that DS has a 1,000-person cardiovascular commercial team in the EU. So they have a strong existing footprint, they've been extraordinarily successful with the introduction of LIXIANA, which is a Factor Xa in the EU, that's generating well north of $0.5 billion in revenue. So they have established relationships with physicians, with payers, and obviously, an established distribution network as well. So we expect them to perform well. They expect to perform well, and we should have initial data on our earnings call for initial demand for the products there. Of course, that will only get more interesting as additional time goes by. So we're quite bullish on not only the EU market, but also the execution by Daiichi Sankyo there.

Great. Well, with that, we got to wrap it up since we're out of time. But thanks, everyone, for tuning in, and thanks so much to the Esperion team.

Hey, Thanks again, Jess. Good seeing you. Stay safe.

Likewise.

Talk to you soon.