Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARQT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Burrows: Yes. And then a question on SG&A trajectory. I would say that we’re still obviously quite early in the launch of psoriasis. You can expect that to grow a little bit as we bring on new sales and marketing tactics over time. And then importantly, we just had our NDA accepted a couple of weeks ago for seborrheic dermatitis, and so we want to make sure we’re well prepared for that line. So we’ll be investing ahead of that launch that could commenced late this year or early next year. So we’ll start to invest in the launch there.

Rohit Bhasin: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question coming from the line of Uy Ear with Mizuho Group. Your line is open.

Uy Ear: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering, I think you guys indicated that there’s some 4,000 physicians that have already win prescription. Just curious to know how many physicians have your sales reps reach out to? And Yes so that’s the — and I guess, why — what would it take for the rest of these physicians to write a prescription? And the second question I have is, could you help characterize the opportunity for plaque psoriasis in pediatrics, I guess? And would you need — would you launch this on your own, or do you think you need a partner? Thanks.

Scott Burrows: Sure. So let’s first start with the sort of 4,000, vis-à-vis the targeted. So at this point, we think of the target universe in total between 12,000 and 13,000 physicians are targeted. We’ve reached or spoken to about 10,000 of those thus far and so, gaining momentum in both awareness as well as trial. As for the specifics of why they would or wouldn’t. I can’t pinpoint exactly those reasons. Obviously, sometimes we need to reach out to them several times in a row or they need to get some additional confidence for one direction or another, whether clinically, from a colleague, by patient request or ultimately kind of seeing or reading about the product a little bit more. But it takes several cycles. In other words, one conversation is typically not enough to get a prescription secured.

We obviously are driving as hard as we can. And we continue to look to evaluate other instruments to improve our reach and more importantly, our frequency of those physicians. So that’s all I can really say. I don’t really know sort of the absolute by position reasons. But those that have adopted, clearly, they’ve adopted robustly. And we’re happy to see that. On the second question, you mentioned the — I think the pediatric psoriasis opportunity, is that what you’re asking?

Uy Ear: Yeah.

Scott Burrows: So that opportunity remains to be, it’s pretty small actually in terms of absolute prevalence, sort of single-digit percentage prevalence for that group. And so first and foremost, we wouldn’t be looking to expand into pediatrics as a result of this particular opportunity. What this confers for us is really an additional halo or additional sort of confident signal in terms of the safety profile of the product. As with, for example, other like biologics and such typically, you see that with psoriasis well they’ll go all the way down to two, recognizing that really, that’s more of a marker and sign, a signal of safety than it is a sort of absolute market opportunity. Where we would do that, obviously, for atopic dermatitis where the sort of the prevalence of that is significantly higher in pediatrics and we’ve spoken before about, how we would do that, which is largely through a partnership mechanism with a company that would have a footprint in pediatrics already.

I don’t know that we would expand our team that much, because it’s a very large footprint to get into primary care.