Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (SRPT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Dr. M. Kathleen Behrens. The floor is yours.

Good morning, and welcome to the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders for Sarepta Therapeutics. It is now a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, and the meeting will please come to order. My name is Dr. M. Kathleen Behrens. And as Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Sarepta, I will be presiding over this meeting. Doug Ingram, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sarepta, will also preside over a portion of the meeting. Ryan Brown, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, will record the proceedings. I will turn to the order of the business of today's meeting, which will follow the agenda that is attached to the document section of the webcast. If you have questions or comments during the meeting, we ask that you post these questions by clicking on the messages icon at the outline meetings -- on the online meeting site. We will conduct the business portion of our meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible. Joining me today are the following current members of the Sarepta Board of Directors: Doug Ingram, who will be speaking later; as well as Richard Barry; Dr. Claude Nicaise; Dr. Hans Wigzell; and Dr. Stephen Mayo. Also joining us are our nominees, Dr. Kathryn Boor and Michael Chambers. I would now like to call your attention to the individuals who have agreed to stand for election as Class I directors to the Board of Directors at this meeting. Dr. Kathryn Boor, Michael Chambers, Douglas Ingram and Dr. Hans Wigzell are standing for election to the Board of Directors. Also present today are the company's members of the executive community: Douglas Ingram, President and Chief Executive Officer; Ian M. Estepan, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer; Diane Berry, Senior Vice President, Global Health Policy, Government and Patient Affairs; Bill Ciambrone, Executive Vice President, Technical Operations; Dallan Murray, Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer; Ryan Brown, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Alison Nasisi, Vice President, Chief People Officer; Louise Rodino-Klapac, Executive Vice President, Head of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer; and William Tilton, Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff, Corporate Strategy and Program Management. In addition, Bryan McCorry and Stacey Farese of KPMG, the company's independent registered public account, have joined us today. This morning, our program will proceed as follows: First, I will conduct the official business of the 2022 Annual Meeting as presented in the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This year, the following are the following proposals for stockholders to vote on: First, the election of Class I directors; second, the advisory vote on named executive officer compensation; third, the approval of an amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan to increase the maximum aggregate number of shares on the stock that may be used under the 2018 equity incentive plan by 2.5 million shares to 10,687,596 shares; and fourth, the ratification of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2022. The company has not received notice from any of its stockholders as required under its bylaws or any other matters to be considered at today's meeting. And therefore, no other proposals may be properly introduced by stockholders. After we complete the official business of the meeting, Mr. Ingram will address those attending today and open up the meeting to a general question-and-answer session with stockholders on the company's business. We have a quorum present, which allows us to proceed to the official business of this meeting. We also have an affidavit from Computershare, the company's inspector of election, certifying that the proxy materials, including the proxy statement, proxy card, annual report and other material necessary to vote at this meeting, were mailed and deposited with the United States Post Office, commencing on or about April 27, 2022, to each stockholder of record as of April 8, 2022. The Board of Directors has appointed Computershare to serve as inspector of election. Jeffrey Seiders of Computershare will determine, first, the number of shares outstanding; second, the shares represented at the meeting; and third, validity of the proxies and ballot. Mr. Seiders will also tabulate the votes for this annual meeting. I will now turn to the official business of the meeting. The first matter to be voted upon is proposal 1, the election of Class I directors. Nominations are now in order for Class I Directors on the Board of Sarepta for the 2-year term expiring at the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Stockholders and until their successors are duly elected and qualified. The current Board of Directors favors the election of the following individuals: Dr. Kathryn Boor, Michael Chambers, Doug Ingram and Dr. Hans Wigzell. Do we have a nomination?

I hereby nominate for election as directors of the company to serve a term expiring on the date of the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Stockholders and until his or her successor is duly elected and qualified, Dr. Kathryn Boor, Michael Chambers, Douglas Ingram and Dr. Hans Wigzell, who were named as director nominees in the company's proxy statement for this annual. May I have a second?

I second the motion.

The second matter to be voted upon is proposal 2, the advisory vote on 2021 named executive officer compensation. May I have a motion?

I hereby move to approve the advisory vote on 2021 named executive officer compensation. May I have a second?

I second the motion.

A motion to approve the advisory vote on the 2021 named executive officer compensation has been made and seconded. The third matter to be voted upon at this meeting is proposal 3, to approve an amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan to increase the maximum aggregate number of shares on the stock that may be issued under the 2018 equity incentive plan by 2.5 million shares to 10,687,596 shares. May I have a motion?

I move to approve the amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan. May I have a second?

I second motion.

A motion has been made and seconded to approve the amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan. The fourth matter to be voted upon at this meeting is proposal for the ratification of the selection of KPMG as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for 2022. May I have a motion?

I move that the selection of KPMG as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for 2022 be ratified and approved. May I have a second?

I second the motion.

A motion has been made and seconded to ratify and approve the selection of KPMG as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. . We will now proceed to vote on the motions for proposal 1 through 4 in the company's proxy statement, which are the proposals relating to the election of Class I directors, the advisory vote on named executive officer compensation, the approval of an amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan and the ratification of the company's auditors for fiscal year 2022. Stockholders who returned their proxy card or voted via telephone or Internet and do not wish to change their vote do not need to take any further action. If you wish to vote at this meeting and have not yet done so, you may do so now by clicking on the Cast Your Vote button on the web portal and following the instructions there. I am now going to pause briefly to allow you to vote. [Voting]

We will now close the voting polls with respect to the 4 proposals in the proxy statement. Since the voting polls are now closed, I now move that the official business portion of this meeting be concluded. May I have a second?

I second the motion.

Thank you very much. I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. Ingram.

All right. Thank you very much, Kathleen, and welcome, everybody, here today on line. I will keep my remarks brief in the interest of time. I will be making a number of forward-looking statements. So please, I'll take a moment to look at our slides on the webcast regarding forward-looking statements as well as our public fillings. 2021 was a productive and consequential year for Sarepta and for the patient community that we serve and they depend upon us. So in February of 2021, you will recall that we obtained the approval of our third therapy, AMONDYS 45, indicated to treat Duchenne patients with exon 45 amenable mutations. With EXONDYS, AMONDYS and VYONDYS, we achieved full year product revenue of $612.4 million, growing at 34% over the prior year and overperforming to our original 2021 guidance by some $70 million. We had positive study we announced for a number of our pipeline therapies, including our gene therapy, SRP-9001 for Duchenne; our next-generation RNA therapy, SRP-5051, for exon 51 amenable mutation; and our lead LGMD gene therapy, SRP-9003, for patients living with LGMD type 2E. And importantly, based on these positive readouts, we entered into pivotal trials for both our lead gene therapy platform program, SRP-9001, and our lead next-generation RNA platform program, SRP-5051. Also, to leverage on success and continue to build, we executed a $550 million equity raise in the fourth quarter of 2021, bringing our cash balance to over $2.1 million as we enter 2022. Now looking forward to 2022. 2022 will be another consequential year for Sarepta. Our guidance on revenue is over $800 million. Achieving this guidance, we will grow product revenue to over 30%, and our 5-year compounded annual growth rate will be approximately 40%. And this represents true execution of patient service as we have achieved all of these results with absolutely no price increases in our portfolio overall. At the same time, we entered -- we advanced our pipeline. We are currently recruiting, investing and borrowing as our pivotal trial for SRP-9001 and intend to complete that in the middle of this year, and we are recruiting and dosing momentum as our pivotal trial for SRP-5051. Additionally, we are advancing our LGMD portfolio and intend to commence our next study with SRP-9003 once our CMC work is complete. And we are also advancing additional candidates in our next-generation RNA platform, the PPMO platform as well as additional LGMD assets. And we are executing our plans as one of the strongest execution-oriented genetic medicine teams in biotech. We are growing our employee base by about 40% this year across research, development, regulatory and importantly, technical operations. We have the strongest executive team in our history, in my opinion. And I'm honored to say that we have bolstered our Board of Directors, first with Dr. Steve Mayo late last year and today with Dr. Kathryn Boor and Mr. Michael Chambers. We have the talent, we have the pipeline, and we have the resources to translate our vision to reality, to drag tomorrow into today and to bring a better life to countless patients with rare disease. I look forward to updating all of you on our progress over the course of this year. And with that, I will turn the call back to Dr. Behrens. Kathleen?

At this time, we will take questions or comments from our stockholders. [Operator Instructions]

I believe there are no questions.

Well, we thank you for participating in our annual meeting today, and I would like to ask Mr. Seiders to summarize the tabulation of stockholder votes on the proposals raised at this annual meeting.

Thank you, Dr. Behrens. The preliminary tabulations of results are as follows: Proposal 1, election of directors. Our preliminary tabulation of votes received immediately prior to and at this meeting indicate that the director nominees named in the proxy statement, Dr. Boor, Mr. Chambers, Mr. Ingram and Dr. Wigzell have been elected to serve for the 2-year term expiring at the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until his or her successor is duly elected and qualified. And with that, let me move to the next item, proposal 2, advisory vote on named executive officer compensation. Our preliminary tabulation of votes received immediately prior to and at this meeting indicate that the advisory vote on the 2021 named executive officer compensation has been approved. Proposal 3, approval of an amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan. Our preliminary tabulation of votes received immediately prior to and at this meeting indicate that the amendment to the company's 2018 equity incentive plan has been approved. Proposal 4, ratification of the selection of KPMG as our independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. Our preliminary tabulation of votes received immediately prior to and at this meeting indicate that the selection of KPMG LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for 2022 has been ratified and approved.

Thank you, Mr. Seiders. I would like to welcome Dr. Boor and Mr. Chambers to the Sarepta Board of Directors. We are honored to have you join us on this journey and are all confident that we will benefit immensely from your insight and guidance. I would also like to thank Dr. Mary Ann Gray who is retiring from our Board for her service, and we wish you well in the future. Thank you all for attending Sarepta's 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The meeting is now adjourned with respect to all matters. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.