Assertio Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASRT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Dan Peisert : I think that’s a good question. We’re still working through that ourselves. We tried to give you guys enough based on what we know today and those — how the months on hand has kind of changed as well as Paul gave commentary on how the ASP changed. The hard part for us is — change your, I guess, removing all those factors and getting at what is the true underlying demand? And how much could those factors change in the future still. So we’re still looking through that ourselves here in the short run. Could the take home messages that we’ve already made concrete steps to improve the product in the short term and set it up for a better long term.

Scott Henry : Do you think it’s — I mean this is saying very little, but do you think it’s safe to say Q4 should be higher than Q3?

Dan Peisert : That would be our goal. But there are both pluses and minuses on both the volume and pricing side that we have to get through. And like I said, the visibility on this product. I’d like to be able to give you what my October was relative to the July, but that will not help much. This comes down to what’s going to happen in those last couple of weeks. And right now, we don’t have a good visibility into that. So I don’t want to provide forward-looking guidance on that.

Scott Henry : Okay. And maybe just another way to ask a similar question. It seems like you had the accountants working over time, doing write-downs, restructurings. Where did you evaluate ROLVEDON for impairment? Or did you not — not enough information at this point? Just trying to get a sense if you view the short-term issues as potential for long-term impairment? Or maybe it’s just too early to even think about that?

Ajay Patel : Yeah, Scott, this is Ajay. I can take that. So our impairment evaluation was done at an entity-wide level. So all of our product rights groups were value weighted with impairment. And as I had stated in my comments, the impairment was charge was taken at the consolidated level and then allocate it to each of the product rights.

Scott Henry : Okay. And if I recall, you did not allocate any to ROLVEDON, correct?

Ajay Patel : No, there will be an allocation to ROLVEDON.

Scott Henry : Okay. And then, Dan, this is a tougher question to. I don’t know how you’ll want to answer it, if at all. But without giving guidance, aspirationally, would you look for EBITDA adjusted for this 12.9% to be a lower point or a baseline? Or could it be worse? Just trying to think about that because we should have ROLVEDON getting better, we should have the other products getting better and INDOCIN, there will be some hits there, but a lot of that’s been taken. Just any way you could think about this kind of baseline EBITDA?

Dan Peisert : Yeah, Scott, that’s not a question I can answer at this time.

Scott Henry : Okay. Fair enough. I guess —

Dan Peisert : I do appreciate why you’re asking and I really wish I could give you that visibility. I just can’t at this time.

Scott Henry : No, fair enough. I understand, but that’s why we ask them. I guess Otrexup and Sympazan, they were down in Q3. They were pretty strong in Q2. Is it fair to say that the trend is somewhere in between though? I mean do you still expect those to be growing products, just some timing here?

Paul Schwichtenberg : Yeah, Scott, I think the trend is somewhere in between the two quarters. As we mentioned — as I mentioned in my script, Sympazan prescription volume continues to increase. It was impacted a little bit by changes in wholesaler inventory levels. And Otrexup is still kind of tracking along at kind of in between the two quarter level, as you mentioned.

Scott Henry : Okay. Thank you for taking the questions.

Dan Peisert : Thanks, Scott. Sure.

Operator: Thank you. And your final question comes from the line of Thomas Flaten with Lake Street. Thomas, please go ahead.

Thomas Flaten : Yeah. Hey, guys. I guess I didn’t ask it explicitly, but are you guys being forced in the situations where you’re price matching the lower prices with your INDOCIN accounts? Or how exactly is the pricing in the market impact you at kind of an account by account level?

Dan Peisert : That’s a good question. It’s not account by account. It’s more like at the wholesaler level, if your competitors are at a far lower price than they’re obviously going to take the business to straight from you. So that’s what you’re going to see like at a Symphony or IQVIA-type basis. That’s more what we see at the wholesale. On the account by account basis or if anyone is doing any GPO contracting or things like that, you can have some individual negotiations, but we’ve been pretty strong on any individual account in terms of retaining demand. But that is where you’re seeing, I think, the greatest impact and why we think it is from the compounder is the overall price in the market is lower. But all the things that we hear about where the generic is being priced isn’t as low as what we’re hearing the market clearing price is.

Thomas Flaten : And do you have an update for us from the 5% off of WACC, which is, I believe, where Zydis started? Where are we at now in the market approximately?

Dan Peisert : The lowest. From a trade show, the lowest like screenshot or handout that we’ve seen is 9% off. We’ve heard of other things in the market that were slightly less than that. But we think that is what the general ballpark of where the generic is, the other numbers that we’re hearing, we think are all coming from the compounded product.

Thomas Flaten : Got. Appreciate taking the follow-up.

Operator: Great. Well, thank you so much. We have no further questions in the queue. So we’re going to go ahead and close our I&A section at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dan Peisert, President and Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.

Dan Peisert : Thank you. I said this last quarter and it’s still true today. We are a far stronger company than we were a few years ago. And I believe we are well positioned to come through this even stronger and create value for our stakeholders. Paul, Ajay and I speak for the collective 70 employees of Assertio. We are not here just for a quarter or two, We are here for the long term, committed to building what we all think can be a special company and over the long term, an attractive investment for our shareholders. Thank you, and have a good night.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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