AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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David Fredrickson: So starting, Simon, on your first question on Calquence, what I had mentioned in the prepared remarks was about half of the consensus beat, we believe is a result of stalking in the U.S from maleate. Just to put a little bit more on that, U.S demand continues to be quite strong in frontline, new patient share and CLL is now greater than 55%. And I also would like to note that I think it’s important with the maleate tablet approval in the U.S. We now really address an important patient need, which is the ability to be able to combine with PPIs, and this really adds to the value proposition of Calquence more broadly. Susan, do you want to comment on cami?

Susan Galbraith: Yes, so we remain confident in the profile that we’ve got with camizestrant and also the role for a next generation SERD in improving and becoming a backbone, best-in-class endocrine therapy, particularly in the endocrine sensitive disease which is in first-line metastatic hormone receptor positive and in the early stages of breast cancer. In order to achieve that profile, you have to have the right safety profile which is absolutely key and the combined ability with other medicines such as CDK4/6 inhibitors. So the profile that we have with camizestrant is: one, we’re confident in, we’re happy to discuss the data more once we share it at San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference.

Pascal Soriot: Thanks, Susan. Next one is Sachin at Bank of America. Over to you Sachin.

Sachin Jain: Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. I’ve two piece. One financial, one pipeline. Firstly on financials, Pascal, very kindly noted pace of margin expansion would depend on pipeline and FX. Could you give us based on what you know today your best view of how you think margins progressed? And I guess I’d frame a comment related to consensus, which has 500 basis points over the next 2 years and roughly half of that next year. So based on what you know today, does that look fair or not? Second question is on the PD1-CTLA4 bi-specific. Wonder, Susan, if you give some more details, you’ve referenced a comprehensive program. Is that next step Phase III? Or do you need more Phase II? How many tumors are you debating? I’d be thinking sort of four to five, and any more color on the lower dose efficacy, where we had only limited data and estimate. Thank you.

Pascal Soriot: Susan, do you want to start with the first question, and maybe Aradhana, you could take the other one.

Susan Galbraith: So obviously, as we’ve said, at ESMO, we’re continuing to look at both the 750 and 500 milligram dose levels for Volrustomig. You can see that we will be looking at the discontinuation rate as well as the longer term progression free survival rate in those settings. And again, we’re confident based on the data that we’ve seen that we’ve got a good profile there. And as we develop the development plan, we’ll be happy to share those — that progress with you.

Aradhana Sarin: So your second question regarding margins. So again, our ambition relating to improving margins consistently remains very much the same. You’ve seen this year we’ve continued to improve our margins. And I talked about several productivity initiatives that we have to continue to improve that. I think looking forward, we continue to see very strong business performance across our various units. We talked about 19 approvals this quarter. And obviously we’re looking forward to some more later this year and launching all of that in 2023. We’re seeing strong growth in our emerging markets business. R&D, we are committed to continuing to invest in. You’ve seen strong pipeline success and track record there. And then obviously, there are external factors, including currency inflation.

Key variable is the — what happens with our COVID medicines in the coming year and then also the NRDL and VBP. So there’s a lot more variables that I just laid out. So again, we won’t be giving guidance for 2023 until we announce our full year results.

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