AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Aradhana Sarin: Sure. So we do expect an increase in CapEx and we won’t give specific CapEx guidance, obviously but I can give you some color on where that increase is coming from. So firstly, as you can imagine, we have the addition of the full year of Alexion CapEx. And as Pascal mentioned, we are investing more in Alexion. The second example is we did announce a new API facility that we’re going to put in Ireland and that CapEx is going to add to the CapEx. Thirdly, we do have, obviously, investments in several sustainability initiatives and including our next-gen propellant. So that’s another investment that we’re making both in propellant as well as other sustainability initiatives. And then we are, as part of our sort of continuous improvement, making several systems and infrastructure investments in our operating systems that will also add to CapEx. Again, we’re not giving a specific guidance but those are some of the elements that go into potentially increasing CapEx. As it relates to your question on other operating income, we’re giving some color on that as part of our overall guidance based on what our current view is today.

I did mention that we expect an increase in collaboration revenue as our partnered products are very successful. We expect some increase in milestones and we do expect some increase in other income. I would say we’re sort of past most of the bigger divestitures and the history, I’d say we’re sort of through most of the portfolio reorganization but there may be certain other transactions that happen this year potentially.

Pascal Soriot: Thank you, Aradhana. Marc, before you cover the Alexion question. Let me just add a little bit on the propel and next-generation propellant is a sustainability initiative but it’s also a business continuity and a business expansion initiative because it’s very clear that over the next few years, we don’t know exactly when but it’s clear that over the next few years, propellant as they are known today will no longer be approved and a lot for market. There’s already quite a number of initiatives in many countries to ban those products. So you can imagine that we definitely need to transition our propellant-based products to the next-generation propellant that have no impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Marc, over to you.

Marc Dunoyer: Yes. Thank you for the question on iptacopan, Eric. So basically, we have — I mean, Alexion has many years of data, I mentioned 89,000 years of data on this. So we know that the complete inhibition of the terminal — the term of complement is absolutely necessary to maintain efficacy, sustained efficacy in PNH — now it is also true that a small proportion and we — in our data, we see that it’s about 10% to 20% of this population has some extravascular hemolysis — and the study that several companies have produced, we have produced our own with danicopan and we are also doing other studies with other Factor D, the same for Novartis, have done studies in this extravascular hemolysis patients. And when you do provide a proximal complement inhibitor such as a Factor D or Factor B, you can improve on hemoglobin and you can improve on anemia and so on.

So I think these are very interesting data the strategy that we are following is to provide danicopan as an add-on on the backbone of Soliris or Ultomiris; and we have seen very good results there. The question for the treatment of proximal complement inhibitors in monotherapy, they do have short-term efficacy. The question is whether this long-term efficacy will be maintained and whether the patients who, of course, with an oral treatment, you need to ensure the complete compliance of the patient for — in a therapy where the inhibition of the activation has to be complete and sustained. So that’s going to be for long-term data to be proven. I think the overall therapies can open probably in a greater field in PNH for some patients. But of course, we will need — we will be expecting longer-term data to be absolutely sure of that.

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