Indivior Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (INDV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

November 21, 2023

US special 60 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#1

I'm delighted to be here with you all this afternoon with the Indivior team. We've got Mark Crossley, our CEO. We've got Ryan Preblick, CFO. We've also got the [ Tim Owens ] from IR team as well. So thank you all very much for your time this afternoon. Lots of questions, interesting kind of Q3, and we're getting a lot of incoming. So really good opportunity to have a discussion, which we're looking forward to. Perhaps, Mark, if I can hand over to you to give a brief introduction in terms of the highlights you wanted to have at Q3, and then we'll get straight into Q&A. And people on the line, if you do want to ask a question, probably the easiest thing is to either send me an e-mail at jvane-tempest@jefferies.com or Bloomberg IB message, and we'll make sure we can put that to management. So with that, Mark, over to you.

Mark Crossley

executive
#2

Sounds great, James. And listen, thanks for hosting the session. And good morning and good afternoon to everyone on the call today. Appreciate the continued interest in Indivior. Before we begin, I just -- I have to point out the legal side of things, which is that comments today may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially. We list some of the factors that may cause actual results to differ in our third quarter materials, which are available on indivior.com. So I think for me -- we just had our Q3 results, let me summarize a few bits that have come out from one-to-ones and from our engagement with the brokers. I think probably the first thing that came across was litigation as a topic where people were looking in just from a high level standpoint. I think we are pleased to settle the antitrust multi-district litigation with the resolution with the direct purchasers as the settlement was reached, you've seen in the third quarter that with those results was going concern language has been removed that came in, in July. So we're happy to have the certainty that the settlement provides for stakeholders. With regards to the remaining litigation, as indicated by the removal of the going concern, we believe it's manageable. You'll also have seen that we initiated a $100 million share buyback that we announced just this past Friday after our Board meeting. And we hope that, that continues to give confidence in the good remaining flexibility and that we expect to continue to generate strong cash flow moving forward off the backs of our medium-term profitable growth thesis that we shared last December. The buyback is also really pretty fulsomely aligned with our capital allocation strategy that we've been sharing over the last 3 years. It balances investment in the business, financial flexibility meeting our commitments as well as the potential for business development and/or capital returns. I think we got a demonstrated track record at the management and board level of delivering against that allocation. So where the shares are currently trading and it also offers an attractive return for shareholders with regards to the buyback itself. The second comment we've heard and again at a high level is with regards to SUBLOCADE momentum. And I do want to just start with that we remain extremely confident in our peak -- net revenue goal for SUBLOCADE of greater than $1.5 billion. We -- I continue to be pleased with SUBLOCADE's net revenue progression this year. At the midpoint of our 2023 guidance, we expect to deliver greater than 50% year-over-year growth and understand that some investors are concerned about the sequential net revenue growth. But we believe it's part of some seasonality that we've seen and observed over the last couple of years. And when you look -- while quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter, it may have dropped to 8%. Year-over-year, it's still at 55% growth. So that's seasonality is there, but the strong momentum continues. We believe the commercial investments that we're making in SUBLOCADE will pay off by providing access to SUBLOCADE for HCPs and patients who just previously weren't able to use SUBLOCADE due to the administrative burden in these small independent practices. And given that this was enabled by the recent change kind of from a macro sort of impact of removing DATA 2000. The incremental revenue that we see from this opportunity was not part of our initial greater than $1.5 billion peak net revenue guide. So this is incremental to the foundation we'd already built and the guidance we'd already given. And then lastly, what we haven't guided for next year, we do expect to have strong momentum exiting the year and entering for year-over-year -- strong year-over-year growth in SUBLOCADE. The third comment we've had from the Q3 results is margin expansion. And I think we continue to expect ultimately to show demonstrable operating leverage in our P&L that we committed do at last year's Capital Market. I think a great example of this is even after acquiring the Opiant business and the costs associated with that earlier this year, we still expect to generate year-over-year adjusted operating profit growth this year. And just as a reminder, with regards to Opiant, strategically, if it's squarely in our expertise, our disease space, it's financially attractive. But the acquisition came with some short-term sort of cost that came in without revenue of $40 million to $50 million of costs in 2023, represents about 400 basis points of adjusted operating margin at the midpoint of our 2023 net revenue guidance. So for me, the clarity here is on driving value via different vehicles. One is the base business, the margin expansion, which we would have had significant margin and the other is by bringing in assets, which drive value on a cash flow sort of basis. So very exciting there. And I think the last piece that we've kind of heard about a bit is that we kind of altered from our virtual sort of manufacturing strategy. And when -- and acquired a manufacturing site and just really at its essence, really simply put, we believe this is an extremely prudent move, and it's in the best interest of shareholders as we look to secure the long-term production of SUBLOCADE and it's greater than $1.5 billion peak net revenue. We expect to complete the tech transfer go-live in 2026. And when we have a full year of manufacturing in 2027, we expect savings of $20 million from production at that site. So not only does it provide BCP, but it is better and cheaper with having this site in-house with -- under our control. So just a quick kind of conclusion, major antitrust behind us, we believe the rest of the matters are manageable, great confidence in SUBLOCADE's trajectory towards our peak net revenue goal of greater than $1.5 billion, and we expect to demonstrate the inherent leverage in our operating model that absent the acquisition of Opiant this year, you would have seen that over 400 basis points of margin expansion. So with that, I'll hand over to James. I know he's got some questions, and I'm sure some questions will come in virtually.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#3

Quite a few things for us to kind of unpack there. I guess start off let's talk a little bit about the MDL. You mentioned here that there's 3 main tranches. That's kind of behind the company now, which is a great step forward. But one of the questions we've kind of been get that is it doesn't seem to be at the end of it. Because I guess when you do look in the Q3 release, there does seem to be some other new plaintiffs or whether losses cannot be estimated. And so can you help us sort of understand essentially what's left? And can you help us essentially understand what the settlement of that means?

Mark Crossley

executive
#4

And I think the key here is we're trying to control the controllables we can and bringing resolution on these things, certainly, the right value and bringing the antitrust classes, the states, the end payers that were the certified class as well as the direct purchasers to conclusion, we think is in the best interest of the shareholders, it also removes that going concern issue. Now there are some counterparties that have strategically gone and broken off from the class. We do have some end payers there. And probably the other one that's mentioned the most from a legacy issue is our inclusion in the opioid pain sort of MDL and we recognize that those are there. Those aren't at conclusion yet, but these are long-term legacy issues that we're continuing to actively manage to bring to conclusion. Obviously, the end payers, [ are -- is ] carved-out of a class that we settled for about $30 million. And while we can't guide to that. We know that the end payers do have some issues with their damages model. The film was cheaper during the time it's out there. So we don't have provisions against each of these because, again, we just don't see from a legal standpoint, the merits in the counterparty's case or potentially any sort of damages sort of model. So we continue to believe these are manageable. We'll look to actively manage them to bring them conclusion and provide certainty for shareholders.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#5

Sorry to push, but I guess just to make sure I understand that you said it's a subset of the class of $30 million. So would -- again, it's not a guidance but a reasonable assumption to be what's kind of left is less than $30 million. I think where, I guess, a lot of the discussions I've had investors have been is you've made such good progress settling 3 MDLs, but in terms of what's left, simplistically, people are trying to understand if that's $1 million, $10 million, $100 million to $300 million. I mean literally because it's sort of where losses are unable to be estimated, any kind of kind of directional stair would just kind of be useful on the best efforts basis, even if there's no kind of specific guidance. I appreciate that might be what you can say, but that's kind of one of the main areas you'll be getting some feedback.

Mark Crossley

executive
#6

Yes. And I respect the question. I think all we can do is we've provided Note 13, which is very robust and its disclosures have provided a bit of context and perspective. But I think the key here is for us to focus on bringing these to resolution moving forward. And unfortunately, we can't provide the level of sort of numbers that folks are looking forward with regards to that change.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#7

Understood ,and then I guess the process will take its time, I guess. -- do you reckon this could be kind of behind with these outstanding things in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 2 years, so just give us a feel in terms of where -- the way the U.S. legal system works. How long you would expect before we can hopefully get some kind of resolution?

Mark Crossley

executive
#8

Yes. I think from a time duration, it's also tough to guide. Obviously, I think you've got a management team who's been really focused on bringing these legacy matters to conclusion. I think we have good track record to date, and have been focused on the larger ones first and we'll continue to actively manage these moving forward and with a focus on bringing them to resolution as soon as we can.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#9

Okay. Switching gears then to, I guess, the market and SUBLOCADE. It would be helpful if you could give us a little bit more color on market trends, where you can either in terms of volumes and pricing? And where you see some volume changes. Because certainly, you mentioned sort of seasonality in your kind of opening remarks, but some people are wondering that in terms of the competitive environment, you're either seeing greater use of generics. You obviously be seeing a new entrant kind of SUBLOCADE with kind of Brixadi so any changes since September would be helpful to sort of understand those moving parts.

Mark Crossley

executive
#10

Sure, James. And let's just start with the overall market first. I mean, addiction continues to have a huge unmet need. Self-reported over 10 million people that have used opioids, just over 3 million that are diagnosed and a small number, less than 2 in 10 actually in treatment at any 1 time. So there's a huge unmet need. We expect the market to continue to grow. It's kind of growing in the mid-single digit sort of range at this time. And we continue to see good tailwinds from the administration of funding and making interventions to help with access -- breaking down -- increasing access and breaking down barriers, [indiscernible] DATA 2000 removal. So that, I think, from an overall market continues to be incredibly attractive. And as you look towards SUBLOCADE and LAIs as a subset of the broader buprenorphine medically assisted treatment, and I think there's a huge opportunity here to really help patients and certainly plenty of room for multiple players to be in here. As we look to where things have been in the short term, again, quarter-over-quarter, when we look at the front half and the back half, we were obviously in mid-teens quarter-over-quarter growth in Q1 and Q2. People have seen that slow to 8%, but again, this bit of seasonality that's in the back half of the year, we had a 55% year-over-year growth in Q3, right? And when you look at the top end of our SUBLOCADE guidance in Q4, it's a 50% growth rate that we're seeing there, too. So people quarter-over-quarter, I think, are saying, "Hey, is it slowing? Is this going to be the new normal?" Again, when you look back to last year, we saw similar rates of slowdown in the back half on a quarter-over-quarter and trying to figure out exactly what that certainty is about has been a bit tough for us in market research. But we don't see the same seasonality with the orals. And we seem to think that it's -- as we look at the data, when you're going from abusing opioids into treatment and you're doing daily medication, it's less of a transformation than going to long-acting with once a month sort of injectable. So we think that has some of the seasonality in it.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#11

Okay. I've had a question which I'll kind of throw in here as part of my follow-up question to that. And that is, I guess, when we look at sort of the second half of this year versus last year. One of the kind of the understanding [indiscernible] is Medicaid ending the automatic enrollment on July 1. And so if patients kind of have to enroll annually, if people aren't either on the drug for kind of a whole year, how disruptive has that been? And I guess the second part to second half -- the second part of the question is Q4 this year, you obviously got the ramp of kind of Brixadi. So I guess what are you seeing either in terms of the scale of the launch or the areas of the market where you're kind of stronger, just to kind of -- I know you don't talk about other companies, but I guess just in terms of the market impact that is having, either it's creating the market, cannibalizing patients or whatever that kind of might be what's setting is used, few things in that but...

Mark Crossley

executive
#12

Let me handle both of these James. I think, the first one is if there is an impact with regards to this Medicaid renewal, the fact that the COVID emergency sort of renewal has ended and the muscle memory at renewing your plans has led to some people dropping out. If there's somewhere around from 94 million, 95 million lives covered. We've seen over 5 million sort of folks fall out of treatment. By the time you take -- a portion of those are children, a portion of those aren't potentially OUD patients, we think the net impact might be a point or two of growth, but it is not what's driving the -- it's the seasonality that's driving kind of the quarter-over-quarter. So there is an impact tough to really isolated but that might be a point or two with regards to that. And we'll continue to assess that. I think most of the people on the call know that just due to the nature of the journey that our patients have been through, we do have a disproportionate share of our patients on government payer programs. So we are disproportionately impacted this versus maybe other medications out there. So I think the second part of the question is Q4 and when we look to the impact of having a competitor in the market. And what I can say is, listen, let's just drop back. There is such a huge opportunity for both players. Their launch is in such early stages. I think you need to really talk to Braeburn and to Camurus with regards to how they're doing. We're not seeing anything in the early stages of this. That is different than we expected that is impacting anything to do with our guidance this year. Our interim guidance of exiting 2025 at a like $1 billion run rate or our peak revenue guidance. There's nothing surprising with regards to the launch of any disproportionate impact in the early days.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#13

I've had a clarification question to come in when you mentioned there was an aspect of SUBLOCADE, which wasn't included in your also $1.5 billion peak sales target. Can you just remind just the benefit of the person and everyone else, what that is to help us understand how that may have shifted?

Mark Crossley

executive
#14

Yes, certainly we upped our guidance at our Capital Markets Day early December last year to greater than $1.5 billion that included sort of the market dynamics that were in place at that time. And before that, we've always talked about, listen, if something major that were to change in the landscape, such as enabling alternate sites of care, that could change our footprint, and it could potentially lead to incremental revenue. And it's exactly what happened just before Christmas last year, the U.S. government eliminated DATA 2000. And DATA 2000, it was put in place, James, back in 2002 to shift buprenorphine from a restricted class similar to methadone that had to have individual dosing to actual take-home medication. Now DATA 2000 never envisioned anything other than an oral daily dose take-home medication. It didn't envision the fact that there would be long acting in the market and the inadvertent side of it is that it prevented alternate sites of care for small independent doctors' offices. They didn't want the administrative burden of a specialty product that's controlled substance that put a real burden on their practice. And in other spaces they typically could setup and send their patients to someone else to inject the medication. But DATA 2000 eliminated that, the interpretation of the law was that you weren't allowed to. So by taking that away in December, suddenly, it opens up to these independent physician offices, remember our strategy is in organized health systems, large systems that have the administration and back office to manage this product. It suddenly opens us back up. And the early signal of that was having our first alternate site of care provider up in June. That's Albertsons, they're on the front end of this. They see it as their role in helping with the opioid epidemic and they now have 1,000 storefronts where they can inject long-acting buprenorphine, SUBLOCADE. And for us, these are patients that we hadn't built in to our revenue projections when we built up to the greater than $1.5 billion. So it's incremental revenue and thus, incremental value for shareholders. So a really great development in the space.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#15

That's very helpful. And I guess, at the time when you gave your guidance, you gave a sense in terms of what the number of patients could be. Are you able to give us a number in terms of what the patient number you expect that would increase the opportunity by.

Mark Crossley

executive
#16

No. We haven't gotten down to that level of granularity, James. What we have said is -- well, it was a great try. But this will take quarters and years. We have to build up a full national sort of network here. So Albertsons is great, but it's 1,000 storefronts. We want to get as close as we can to a retail experience, which means the proximity of going for these injections needs to be close to the patients, and we'll be looking for additional partners to add on and the beauty of that is, as we've done our sales force expansion, adding this incremental 40 customer-facing people out there, in addition to 8 in criminal justice, we'll be able to have now the increased capacity to reach these independent positions that SUBLOCADE can be in there and we'll be able to pull through as the network build out.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#17

The other question, which we get quite a bit is at least kind of in the comparison to Brixadi. The headline price is lower, I think 17% lower. So with cash conscious payers, is there a risk that some contracts don't get renewed or you have to be lower to be competitive?

Mark Crossley

executive
#18

Yes. What I'd say, James, is we believe that from a net price and from a usage, we're more than competitive with any other long-acting out there. And so for us, we've not seen pricing pressure in the category and continue to retain. We have almost 90% of lives that are covered. We have a co-pay card that for commercial patients, albeit a smaller percentage of our patients, it does take their co-pay down to 0. So there isn't kind of an elasticity issue when you get at a patient level from a walk away. So still great lives covered almost 90%. And from a patient standpoint, there shouldn't be a price issue.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#19

Understood. We've also had some feedback that a smaller needle size. And I guess the weekly option from Brixadi is a real kind of differentiator. So again, some investors are kind of -- we get sort of push back why the volume growth won't slow down. So I guess I'd be curious to get your thoughts on that.

Mark Crossley

executive
#20

Yes. Rather than getting into features, right, I think, which I kind of see those as features. And I'd say, I think with SUBLOCADE, what you're getting is a paradigm shift in treatment. One that we just don't see from other long-actings in this space and in an inherence based sort of area with synthetic opioids that are ending up causing overdoses of almost 80,000 a year, of which 90% of them are synthetic opioids, we think our paradigm of treatment is a huge differentiator in the space. So we just don't see other long-actings that are up to therapeutic levels in 4 to 8 hours, right? And we just don't see that with other long-actings. We don't see that therapeutic level being maintained for the full 28 days, payers are paying for a medication. Patients expect that therapeutic dose to last the full month, we just don't see that. And then the uniqueness of our therapeutic dose that we maintain the entire month, we believe, is quite differentiated also. The maintenance dose of our medication does 2 to 3 nanograms per ml, which occupies the receptors in the mu receptor where the opioids work, with a higher affinity buprenorphine at a level that they're saturated. So there's no room for those full agonist opioids that cause the euphoria and the respiratory depression to be able to gain access. So it protects those patients in a moment of weakness. And we also see that for our 300-milligram dose, which is an option for people that physicians feel there's a benefit in maintaining the 300, it has about a 5 to 6-nanogram per ml concentration. And we see about 40% of the volume remaining on that. So it's a very unique therapeutic sort of paradigm of treatment that we have that we just don't see differentiated. Listen, I think some of these features that get talked about are interesting, but I think in the market with the performance for the patient, I think they are important, and we haven't seen any of those be a barrier to treatment in the years that we've been out there in driving the year-over-year growth, we've been seeing.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#21

Switching gears then to manufacturing. I guess you talked a little bit about that in your kind of opening remarks. I mean you successfully use contract manufacturers for many time, at least as far as I can remember, acquiring a facility was never really kind of part of the road map. So it was a surprise to me as well. I know that was kind of announced. So I guess -- now what are the issues of the contract manufacturer -- I guess what are the kind of the drivers which kind of potentially led to this decision? Because this is a material investment for you?

Mark Crossley

executive
#22

No, it is. It is an investment. And I think strategically, it's one that's certainly in the best interest of shareholders to have the supply of this build up secured well beyond greater than $1.5 billion, we think is key. And currently, we have one partner with 2 sites, and we think the diversity of this in the BCP is a key investment. And with that as a given -- we had to look at our strategy with regards to this product. Do you find another partner or do you bring this in-house and given the nature of this product, this is a hard to manufacture very unique product, and it leads to a great product profile and a great paradigm shift in treatment, but the manufacturing is tougher. And so we think by bringing this in-house, given there's so few parties that are -- have the capability to -- just by bringing this in-house, it shows up the capability and it's worth the investment. The capital would have been spent if we've gone to any third party, so it really is about the upfront and the $30 million that we would have had. And so we kind of looked at that investment versus a greenfield to have this sort of flexibility and getting and acquiring an FDA-approved sterile manufacturing with a team extremely capable and have had good inspection sort of history, we think it gives us a nice fast head start on getting that additional site.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#23

It's a risk mitigation measure because I think you say kind of conspiracy there in terms of -- when we had sort of conversation with investors. Some people have tried to understand, I guess, previously, you've cited supplier issues in Australia. And I think something we're looking at is thinking, are there potentially sort of supply issues in the U.S., potential canceled contract on CDMOs, are you are not going to have CDMO capacity to kind of deliver in your peak sales. So I think as those sort of types of things where I think there have been a little bit more caution in some of the discussions we have more recently. I'd love to have any thoughts on that, if you can?

Mark Crossley

executive
#24

Yes. So let me be very clear. This is not an issue with regards to the supply of the business over the next few years. This is looking to the future. When you're doing supply in pharma and even more in sterile manufacturing, you're not navigating a speedboat that you can turn on demand. This takes years to build up your sites and be ready to go. And so you have to think 3 years in advance. And as we said, we're not going to be up and running at the site until 2026. So I think for me, that is a key element. And I respect folks remembering our issue in Australia. That was not about capacity of supply or our partners -- issues with our partner that we currently have. That was very specific. There's a different spec product in Australia with regards to that, and we had a batch failure. And that's what caused the disruption in supply over in Australia for 3 months. It doesn't have anything to do with capacity or the capabilities of our current partners. So this is a truly -- we have a greater than $1.5 billion product, and we want to make certain that we're able to provide it moving forward.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#25

Thank you for providing that reassuring commentary. I guess another question is, you've obviously announced this investment, and I guess, will tackle the cash impact separately. You talked potentially about $20 million worth of operational savings by '27, but there's kind of like a ramp-up phase in order to get there. So can you help us think about what the investments are either starting this year, going into next year and then thinking about kind of like the net benefit. I mean, as you know the largely kind of fixed cost operating model can be quite sensitive to changes in spend. So can you help us think about when that's likely then going to be rationalized or you can get the full operational benefits from being scaled up. Can you tell me over this kind of period, there's new investments to help us understand that would be really helpful. On the P&L level and then we'll talk about cash.

Mark Crossley

executive
#26

I think Ryan did a really good job outlining this in our third quarter results. Obviously, $5 million cash upfront, some contracts that had losses with current partners that we take to the balance sheet and some very modest kind of losses over the next couple of years just operationally that don't go to the balance sheet. So I think when you think of that, it's a very little impact in the adjusted P&L moving forward. And we'll continue to look at that team and operationalize it. Now the investments we'll make in tech transfer, getting the line in there. We can do all of that while the team continues to function and continues to keep their muscle memory the sterile manufacturing with the current customers. And then what we'll look to is go live in '26. And as we start to have a full year sort of impact, we start to see $20 million of savings over a year. So if I was to kind of summarize this, we're doing it for BCP. We would do it even if there weren't cost savings to make certain you had supply of this, but we're going to get at least $20 million a year in savings. So it's not just better, but it's also cheaper, and there's a huge NPV on this project.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#27

Just to peel one more layer on the onion, if I may. And that is modest costs that we're talking low single digit, low double digit, to help us sort of understand that? And I guess you're talking about adjusted -- so are there actual larger kind of costs, which will maybe be reported kind of over that period? And I guess if it's $20 million when that sort of ramped up, at what point do you expect that to be breakeven in terms of the net cost on the part to $20 million?

Mark Crossley

executive
#28

So let me kind of ease it out. We'll put the $30 million of contracts on to the balance sheet. As the costs that relate to that come through the [ P&L ], those will go against the balance sheet. The impact from a margin standpoint is mid- to low single digits is what I would say, over those couple of years. So we're very modest when we say that. And listen, as you look at $20 million a year of cost savings in 2027, those are net savings to the bottom line on the site. You'll twilight the current contracts as SUBLOCADE comes up, and so it will be just producing for our demand. So this can breakeven pretty quickly.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#29

Okay. So it will be $20 million in 2027. And then I guess you say how it's very [indiscernible] accretive, I guess when you consider the cost upfront, just kind of curious what the return hurdle you had or when you expect the payback period over the X number of years to help us understand the value creation from the site as well.

Mark Crossley

executive
#30

Yes, listen, we did not talk through all that, but I think it's pretty easy if you're getting $20 million a year of savings starting in 2027, I think you can back into the payback period with regards to the site.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#31

Okay. Switching gears a bit to PERSERIS and Opiant. I guess you cited some near-term challenges of PERSERIS for the competitor. So I guess how much spend is required to address this?

Mark Crossley

executive
#32

Yes. I don't see incremental spend on this, James. I think what we've got is that the competitor has entered. The competitor has more than tripled the amount of reps out in the field that we do with well over 400 and what we're seeing is a bit of share of voice and a bit of noise in the system in that they've come to market also with a risperidone subcu injectable. And as we look at our product, we look at the experience that the physicians continue to have, we see these as short-term headwinds with regards to SUBLOCADE. Once the noise settles and folks see the difference between their asset and PERSERIS. We expect to continue to return to growth. If you -- even if you look at the front half of the year, we were growing at nearly 60% year-over-year. So physicians like this product. It was at a very good growth trajectory. And when we -- if we hit the low end of our guidance, which is what we've guided to, we're at a kind of a breakeven run rate exiting '23, entering '24. So from a cost standpoint, this is truly about winning in the physician's offices. There isn't a lot of ancillary spend supporting this asset.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#33

And how long do you think it could take to get to the low end of your peak sales of $200 million to $300 million because I guess when you look at the ramp, obviously, it was launched during a tricky time anyway, but it has been kind of quite slow. Some people also ask us the question that ROVI potentially has a competitor on the market, in February if Risvan gets approved and we don't know if they're going to partner that or what that means. So there's going to be another competitor in that space, but I guess, potentially. And so I guess with the kind of the progress that you've got, can you help us understand the inflection of this product because some people sort of wonder why you keep them. I mean, obviously, it's good from a diversification perspective, but if you continue to not see the inflection that I guess -- we all sort of expect, I think people just look at it from a value accretion perspective as well?

Mark Crossley

executive
#34

Yes, yes. And we do also, right? And so exiting this year, we're kind of at a breakeven and then everything else is accretive to this asset with a relatively modest sort of investment of the sales force. We see that as in the interest of shareholders from a diversification play from a return on investment sort of play. When in hits the $200 million to $300 million of revenue, we've not guided to that timing. But when -- as it starts to return back to growth with the teams, call platform being totally up to the -- we had some vacancies in Q3 back up to full complement. We'll guide on '24, which will be a nice interim step for investors to kind of traject -- make their own trajectory up to the $200 million. We haven't seen anything. Maybe the last thing is we haven't seen anything really from [ UZEDY ]. We knew they were out there when we gave our $200 million to $300 million peak revenue. We kind of had a feel for their product profile. We haven't seen anything that precludes that. Obviously, the competitor has a bit different aspirations as they go into the market. But we're looking to carve out $200 million to $300 million of sale in a $4 billion to $5 billion market.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#35

One of the things that probably didn't get the light of day, the results, which it probably should have done actually, if you signed a really good long-term contract for OPVEE. So perhaps for the benefit of everyone here, just remind everyone the scale of that, cadence in terms of delivering the revenues and materiality of that? Because there's a lot of other things kind of going on, this is a nice little beacon. It'd be lovely to learn more about where the kind of the value prospects of that could be also following this contract.

Mark Crossley

executive
#36

Yes. I think before I get to the contract, maybe I'll talk a little bit more about the rate, James, because I think for folks when we bought Opiant, OPVEE was the crown jewel. And there are a few other elements in the pipeline, but we saw those as extra, the whole value of that acquisition was on OPVEE, which is a nalmefene nasal injection, very fast-acting, very long-acting and a very strong affinity to the new receptors. And we believe perfect for dealing with the synthetic opioid sort of supply chain. It's the only asset in here that specifically mentions that it works within synthetic opioids. So we believe in this asset. We had talked about a Q4 launch. And because of the nature of the launch and having to do a lot of foundational sort of government affairs work, we talked about de minimis revenue this year. The work and the foundational efforts have been ongoing. We've got 26 standing orders that now have been shifted over to FDA-approved rescue medications. We're working on going to the people that provide the grants or apply for them to have those be also for all FDA-approved medications. So you get your standing orders, you get your funding and then as we engage with first responders, we're able to engage with them on what their protocols are as they start to shift over potentially to a nalmefene. So those are kind of the 3 efforts that have to be done to open up this market and really gain the potential, which is because that has to happen over the coming year. We've guided to de minimis revenue in Q4. Now that said, we are making progress. There are shipments going out. We'll talk about that at fiscal year-end. And BARDA is a great external affirmation of what we believe about OPVEE. I think their contract is a continued partnership. They and NIDA partially funded the Phase III study. And the BARDA contract has 2 components of it. I think the first one is what you said, James. There is a volume commitment for their fiscal year '24, which runs kind of October 1 through into next year for 100,000 units, which is about $8.5 million to $9 million of revenue. So a very nice commitment from a revenue standpoint for next year and then they have options for the next 9 years for 100,000 units a year, $8.5 million to $9 million of revenue. So a really nice sort of baseline there. Again, those are options in the out years because that's how they do their budgeting. The other thing they've done is they've committed resources for all the follow-on studies that we engage with the FDA on and have commitments to -- from how does this work with adolescents, shelf-life stability, et cetera, that are about $23 million worth that are also funded in this contract. So for me, their belief -- I mean this is the agency -- BARDA is the agency that deals with [indiscernible] activities. And if you weaponize synthetic opioids and the fact that they've chosen OPVEE as their partner of choice, I think it's just a great outward signal.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#37

And I appreciate their options, right? But I guess, if you have the $8 million to $9 million of revenue, I guess, under what parameters would that not be renewed in the following year. I mean, for all intents and purposes, should we really think that this is a contract that can be delivered or in what instances will it not be renewed next year?

Mark Crossley

executive
#38

I think it's very tough for me to talk about a government agency and their budgeting and their choice on whether they exercise an option. We believe that in preparedness, we think our asset is the right one. We're happy that they've chosen us. But I think that's one that gets me stepping out of bounds with regards to the...

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#39

That's fine. Maybe about the international business, I guess this -- I think probably has disappointed in constant currency terms. So I guess just taking a step back, obviously, you've got a global business. And you do really only have one bigger competitor. And I think people look at the success that kind of Camurus has had ex U.S., and I guess, versus your success. And I think people asked the question, why? And now since they're going into the U.S. we do kind of get the question, well, is this going to be more kind of competitive in your kind of home markets. So there's 2 questions putting there as well.

Mark Crossley

executive
#40

Yes. And I respect the question. I think, listen, our ex U.S. business has had a heritage sort of tablet business and only recently have we brought our new technologies over there with the film with SUBLOCADE. And it has taken a trend, which over the last 5 years has been 3% to 5% kind of erosion each year due to austerity measures, which happened across Europe in the socialized medicine and due to sort of generic and competitive pressures in those markets. And it's returned that to in the quarter flat. In the previous quarters, we had growth. And on the full year, we expect to have growth in our rest of world business. So we've seen that new technology enable that growth and SUBLOCADE for us is a major part of that. Now our go-to-market, our approval process from R&D focused on the U.S., and I think that's really benefited us. It's the largest market. It's been disproportionately impacted by the opioid epidemic. And so we're second to the market and entering -- we've just entered in Germany. Beginning of 2023, we entered in Nordics, and we were a follower in Australia, and we've been in Canada. And so we're seeing good strong growth, $30 million year-to-date in those markets. But we are a follower and having to enter after physicians who built muscle memory on the competitor. And what we're seeing is growth in line with expectations coming into the market.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#41

And I guess another question we sometimes get is the incremental return of the dollar vested in the U.S. potentially is going to get a greater return than kind of international. So the question being why keep the international business to some extent, right, if you can basically get greater monetization in the U.S.?

Mark Crossley

executive
#42

Yes. Listen, I think the U.S. -- or the ex U.S. business is an extremely -- first of all, we help a lot of global patients, right, with the medications we have that are suffering from opioid use disorder. And that sets up a very, very profitable business model over there that spins off a lot of cash for shareholders. And so given that high cash generation from that business, we think it's right to maintain that. It has optionality as the pipeline comes to market for potential expansion globally for other areas of substance use disorder that we see in other areas. Now the U.S., again, it's just disproportionate with OUD, the impact of it. The fact that it's -- in Canada are about the only markets that have really been flooded with synthetic opioids, so the epidemic is disproportionately in there, but we see that platform for growth moving forward in other areas of substance use disorder.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#43

And I guess the other observation is the market is a lot more mature in the U.S., I think, both in terms of access and I guess, market understanding, treatment facilities, in terms of actually kind of getting treatment, right? And so with the kind of a more challenged reimbursement outlook also in Europe, perhaps because there isn't a greater kind of understanding of the overall kind of condition. We sometimes sort of get the question, what scope is there for kind of SUBLOCADE? Why is SUBOXONE film kind of really underrepresentative -- underrepresented? And is there a market for those products? Or is it literally a case of you really need to have that kind of generic tablet and it's unlikely to get greater traction on the other products?

Mark Crossley

executive
#44

Yes, again, I think we've had our heritage tablet business and those new products have been in there a relatively short period, are in launch. They're on board paper, and we believe doing a good job and have returned that from eroding year-over-year to growth on the year. So I respect the question, but I think this is a significant portion of revenue. When you look at it, it's about 20% of our overall revenue for the company. And it spins off a lot of cash and provides a lot of flexibility for shareholders. So we see it as -- while it's not the same potential margins as in the U.S., we see it as a highly profitable portion of our franchise where we're able to help a lot of patients. And we -- for a long period of time, we were the only people in those markets, helping these patients suffering from opioid use disorder.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#45

Switching gears to outlook. So we talked to a lot of different moving pieces of things going on in Indivior kind of this year. I know you're going to get '24 guidance in Feb, I'm not expecting you to give that now. But I guess there are a lot of moving pieces to help people sort of understand what's happening, whether that's the momentum in SUBLOCADE, the step-up and the analyzation of the investments in SG&A, thinking about the investments in the new facility, any other kind of mix or inflationary changes, you've got a bigger pipeline, thinking about kind of R&D. And so given -- again, the fixed cost nature of the business, the operations can be relatively sensitive to relatively small changes in kind of input. So at this stage of the year what -- how can you sort guide us appropriately in sort of the directional of those kind of different impacts to help us get a feel as to where it can have -- approximately could be -- I appreciate budgeting sort of ongoing at the moment. But just to kind of help us both kind of Q3 to see where things should land vaguely in '24.

Mark Crossley

executive
#46

I think we'll guide '24 in February on our normal cadence. But I think if you rewind the clock to last December, we committed to this medium-term profitable growth framework, right? Strong top line growth driven by SUBLOCADE, driven by PERSERIS and potentially in the short term, offset by potential film erosion if that should return to analogs. And we've seen a fourth generic come in and we know there's 2 other parties out there between Par and Teva. So you think in the future as we do that, the continued strength of SUBLOCADE, partially offset by the film. We've continued to invest with a bit of sales force expansion to take that opportunity for these patients that weren't included in our peak net revenue guidance of greater than $1.5 billion to help those independent physician offices have SUBLOCADE as an option. So there's some incremental cost there. Our pipeline continues to advance. We haven't talked about the inbound in the partnership with the Alar having a potential longer-term acting injectable that's able to help with unmet patient needs. The Orexin 1, which we've had a positive end of Phase I that will go into Phase II. This is a swallowable tablet, and that's a non-opioid that we think will -- from a hypothesis standpoint, reacts a lot like buprenorphine but isn't addictive. And so from a trend and the normalization of treatment, we think that's a huge opportunity. So we'll see some uptick in R&D as those assets are in and continue to move forward. But we do, despite those investments, despite that, we continue to see progress and margin expansion moving forward. And so I think as people think through their models, they just have to model in kind of each of those components, but we believe we still have good strong operating leverage moving forward.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#47

Okay. So the visibility today, it wouldn't be crazy to see margins could go up next year despite the annualization of all these kind of effects. Is that a fair comment? Or I guess what could go wrong?

Mark Crossley

executive
#48

Yes, we'll guide more specifically on that in February, but listen, I could see that if I was [indiscernible], I could see some margin expansion.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#49

And how much of a benefit is low litigation? Because I guess also you made some settlements, right? So I guess, is there an element of spend which you could have had next year? I guess we always get requests in terms of trying to figure out incrementally what goes more into the SG&A budget. But I guess, I know you sort of go down to that level of granularity. But what are the potential kind of benefits to SG&A from lower legal costs as we go into next year? If we...

Mark Crossley

executive
#50

Ryan covered this off at the Q3 results that there's high single digits potentially that could come down, and it depends on what the pace of litigation is next year, given Note 13. So I know some people have said, "Oh, you must be spending a $60 million or $70 million on legal expenses with everything that's going on." It certainly isn't that amount. We're talking about low tens of millions that are on legal. So it isn't like there's going to be next year, potentially 400 basis points of margin expansion due to a slower pace of legal.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#51

That's pretty helpful. And I guess coming back to the sort of the SG&A point, I guess we talked a little bit about this earlier, but I guess, it's probably worth reiterating the point and that is, you've got this kind of incremental spend. And I guess the other kind of question we get is, is this sort of offensive or defensive, right? Are you having to spend this because there's a new competitor in the market to maintain there is? Or are you actually sort of spending this and you're finding this is kind of contributory to the overall top line?

Mark Crossley

executive
#52

Yes. Again, this is about patients who currently aren't able to get access to SUBLOCADE because their physician is one of these small independent practitioners, the administrative burden of a controlled substance specialty product that would have to be stored on site, the REMS, the local federal laws that are required to get that, just have not allowed it to be in their decision set. So this is about helping those patients. It's about enabling them to have that, and it brings incredible shareholder value to the shareholders. Whether there's a competitor in the market, we would be doing this anyway to get this opportunity. We've signaled for -- since I've been CEO that we had a good footprint for getting the reach and frequency to drive the organized health systems. And the only time we probably need to increase is if there was a material change in the landscape that opened up access [ allowed ] the elimination of DATA 2000 that provide alternate site of care. But that happened -- we've messaged kind of each of the quarters and quite firmly at the half year that we were considering how to best take advantage of that and help those patients, and now we're acting on it.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#53

Another kind of point just thinking about over the midterm is, there is inherent operating leverage within the model, right? But then when kind of the revenues kind of increased and saying, okay, we're not going to see a whole bunch of margin expansion, we don't sort of see more SG&A, right? And so to some extent, you got that kind of underlying earnings path and then the investments, obviously, you are kind of wanting to invest in sort of the overall growth. But when we just sort of take a sort of step back and think how the margins could phase over the next few years. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds as if the manufacturing is going to be a big piece of that. So would a fair way to think about it is if there is a sort of gradual kind of progress, hopefully, you start to see maybe more of a kind of inflection from '27 if that's when you're going to start to see the real benefits from this $20 million net savings from manufacturing? Or given the investments you've got today, is that sufficiently scaled up? We could potentially see that kind of earlier, just given you've got well-established kind of sales force and the incremental contribution margin from SUBLOCADE is quite good.

Mark Crossley

executive
#54

Yes. What I'd say is similar to the investment decision with regards to the expansion for the independent physicians, we obviously hadn't made the decision with regards to the model for the SUBLOCADE expansion when we gave our guidance. So we see in that medium term, good margin expansion and operating leverage that increases our cash flow generation as we have the strong top line growth. We don't see any disconnect in that model and the choices we've made, we believe, actually could enhance that moving forward. I would also highlight there are different ways to drive value that can potentially cause the optics in the short term to be a little different. And I think coming all the way back to how I opened in the comments, folks are forgetting that we bought Opiant in the early part of this year, increased our guidance on cost at $40 million to $50 million with no increase in revenue. And if you took those out, that operating model that we talked about in December would be producing upwards of kind of 400 basis points of margin expansion. So while we're there, I think there's different ways. There's the current P&L leverage, and then there's the cash flow generation. And if you believe in [ OPVEE ] the way we believe in [ OPVEE ], you know there's tremendous value there, not just strategic fit, but tremendous value. And so there's different ways to do that. I just have to remember that when we start to look at the current P&L and start to look back. We have to remember the things that have been added in as a value creator also.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#55

That's a great remind that. Ex Opiant is over 400 basis points of margin expansion despite the kind of the higher investments which you're making in the underlying business this year. I definitely think in some of the conversations, that message has kind of got lost in terms of the underlying earnings path because you bolted on this sort of loss-making business initially until that gets better? We got about only about 8 minutes left. Anyone on the line, if you do want to ask more questions, feel free to ping me at Bloomberg IB or send an email. I guess in the time remaining, maybe we can focus on capital allocation because, obviously, that's a big driver of the business, I guess, particularly thinking about beyond sort of SUBLOCADE. Maybe to start off with is, at least in terms of the other pipeline, which you've got, you obviously talked about investing more kind of in R&D. But what are kind of like the key assets we should think about because some people wonder what's going to happen to the business beyond SUBLOCADE. We'll tackle M&A separately, but I guess, at least in terms of the existing business, that would be great.

Mark Crossley

executive
#56

So maybe 2 pieces on that. One is the existing pipeline, which is -- we've been expanding through time, and we're very happy with and then a little bit on the capital allocation moving forward. Listen, we started to really bolster out and if you're one of the [ leaders ] in addiction -- it can't just be about opioid use disorder. It has to be about other substance use disorders also. And we have a partnership with Aelis and we're in IIb on that cannabis use disorder asset. We expect last patient last visit kind of end of Q1, beginning of Q2, readout and the engagement with the FDA kind of Q4 next year. So we're at a good inflection node with regards to that on whether we take that into Phase III. And just a reminder, James, I mean, the U.S. has gotten to this very unique spot where with the medicalization, the legalization of cannabis with high THC products, you're starting to see more addiction happening there and impacting people's lives. We've talked about earlier, the Alar asset with potentially a 3-monthly sort of product that we're doing some Phase II-like studies, tox study and some multiple ascending dose to try and look at the optimal duration and doses with regards to that. We think there's a huge unmet need with longer duration, great examples in prison systems where LAIs, based on their resources, increase the number of patients they can treat. I was in a prison system in August. And they had a ceiling on how many patients they could treat with orals. The fact that we had long actings, they could treat 4 to 5x the number of patients based on the same number of resources that we're going in. So a tremendous development. If you could take it from monthly to 3 monthly, it's another huge benefit there. So we like that Alar product that's Phase 2 that we're going to be doing those studies in preparation for what should be a single Phase III. Then you start to look, we've got a Phase II readout on a nasal spray for alcohol. This was inherited from the Opiant acquisition. We'll see where this comes out. I just will remind you we bought Opiant for OPVEE, and we'll see where this reads out, but it's a Phase II alcohol-use disorder asset. And then we've got an early stage. We've just done the lead candidate with a GABAB for alcohol use disorder also and then there's the OX1, which is going into Phase II. So we've got a nice pipeline across the existing business for unmet needs across alcohol use disorder, cannabis use disorder that we think will provide shareholder value and we'll be entering markets and helping patients to -- similar to how we did with opioid use disorder back in 2002. So really attractive there. Now how does that -- that's the pipeline. That's future value that we'll continue to invest in with the P&L. When we think about capital allocation, we're going to remain incredibly boring, James, with regards to this. We're going to continue to invest in SUBLOCADE and that pipeline. We will continue to maintain financial flexibility and meet our commitments. And once that's done, we'll look at potential business development towards diversification and that could be tuck-ins. That could be something like Opiant or shareholder returns. And I think if you look at the short-term decision we've made, we've just done $100 million buyback, I think we're focused on making the OPVEE launch the integration of that site success. And so what we're signaling is there won't be business development for a period of time, and we think this buyback is in the best interest of shareholders with our excess cash.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#57

Okay. So no real M&A for the next couple of years is probably a prudent sort of point to think about at the moment.

Mark Crossley

executive
#58

Certainly, as we think towards 2024, our focus is on SUBLOCADE, OPVEE and integration of that plant.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#59

Okay. I think a number of investors we speak to are kind of happy that this is a business that is net cash just given there's a lot of moving pieces and kind of dynamics and stuff which is going on. I guess the timing of the announcement of the buyback, we did get some kind of questions on that. And I guess: a, the rationale behind that; b, I guess, there's a lot of outgoings in kind of Q4 in terms of some of the settlements, which you've been able to kind of get. So I guess just kind of curious in terms of the headroom, which you feel the business needs, given kind of all the investments from a cash perspective, to give you that confidence to announce the buyback now?

Mark Crossley

executive
#60

Yes. Listen, it was interested as we have had a call on that. And I kind of said, well, listen, we're on a cadence and we do every board meeting we do a review of our capital allocation. And our Board meeting was Wednesday, Thursday last week, and we came out Friday with that. Maybe there were some shareholders who wish we'd deviated from talking at the Board and tried to accelerate the discussion to put it out at the same time as Q3 earnings, but we wanted to keep the same cadence, the same diligence in reviewing that and came to that conclusion as we looked at where we were post settlements, post Q3 results that we had the confidence and that was the best use of capital after consideration by the Board. So we announced it on Friday.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#61

And maybe just to ask a follow-up question to that. And that is, is there a certain amount of operational cash, which you need certain minimum kind of levels? And I guess if I can come back to a minimum headroom because we do sort of [indiscernible], just to also kind of help us sort of anticipate that the business is kind of tracking ahead of that. You did sort of mention that you could look to maybe do something like that in the future of the business so allows. Just kind of wondering if there is like a kind of like a minimum level of cash you feel the business actually needs to have within the company.

Mark Crossley

executive
#62

Yes. Listen, our debt covenants have a minimum cash level that we have to do, which is 50% of the outstanding debt and then a certain amount of sort of operating protection there. But remember, I mean, we've still got -- after this -- if you take away the settlement, we still got $400 million of cash on the balance sheet. We're extremely cash generative moving forward from our operations. And again, from a -- we believe we have the free cash flow to do this buyback, the $100 million for about a 10-month period, very similar to the previous programs that we've run.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#63

Excellent. [indiscernible] for everyone's time still very precious. We're coming up to the top of the hour. Really, Mark, just to -- hand over back to you, just for any kind of closing remarks before we close the call to make sure you've had the opportunity to give all the messages you'd like to give this afternoon.

Mark Crossley

executive
#64

No, listen, I think in the opening, I covered most of the messages, so I'll just thank people for their interest. Listen, I think we're at a great spot with Indivior and where we're headed moving forward for driving value for shareholders. We brought resolution to the antitrust MDL believe the rest of our legal overhangs are manageable moving forward, and we'll look to bring certainty on those and actively manage those. But the underlying business continues to have strong top line growth margin expansion, and the management team is looking at every way they can to drive value acquiring Opiant or having a plant that both provides BCP as well as strong NPV moving forward and margin expansion. So a great time to be investing in Indivior.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#65

That's great. Well, on behalf of Jefferies, thank you very much for your time. Thank you, everyone, for your questions and dialing in and look forward to [indiscernible] other companies doing as we get to the full year.

Mark Crossley

executive
#66

All right. We do too, James, and thanks again for putting this session together. Really enjoyed it.

James Vane-Tempest

analyst
#67

Thanks for the discussion. Bye-bye.

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