Cara Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CARA) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Chris Posner: Hey AJ, it’s Chris. So what I can say is the first eight weeks and we said this in the prepared remarks are certainly more than all of Q4, won’t give a range yet. But I will say also on Fresenius, namely, when we look very closely at Fresenius in terms of them pulling through the first eight weeks of this year is significantly more than the eight weeks ending December 30th of 2022. So, we’re really encouraged with those trends.

AJ Velasquez-Mao: And I have one kind of follow-up question. So, I feel like it’s been a while since you’ve mentioned the NKS educational campaign. Do you have any visibility on what kinds of engagements you are getting there in terms of awareness of efficacy?

Chris Posner: Actually the NKS is just one of a couple of campaigns out there right now. So, the KPIs that we look at are very positive. If you look at the awareness numbers among the providers, it’s very high. And what we’re seeing from a patient standpoint is very good advocacy building at the patient — from the patients. CSL Vifor is partnered with most of the patient advocacy groups, and programs are initiated to raise the awareness. And I mentioned one of the things AJ, and I think you and I spoke about this before. That’s a critical lever in terms of driving the trajectory of KORSUVA injection. I look at multiple stakeholders in terms of in dialysis clinic care teams, dialysis care teams, nephrologists and patients. And CSL Vifor has done a very, very good job across the board on each of those levers. And I think that’s why you’re seeing this acceleration in demand following the purchase, the large purchase from Fresenius in Q3.

Operator: Our next question comes from Oren Livnat with H.C. Wainwright.

Oren Livnat: I’m going to keep along the same track as most people are asking, for obvious reasons. The inventory work-through at the site level isn’t totally surprising to me. But of course, we’re all just trying to figure out some way to gauge or to understand what your level of understanding is around the demand side of this equation, right? What are you — what information do you get from CSL with regards to volume, including what’s still sitting at the wholesaler in terms of vials? Maybe what’s sitting at the center level, which that sounds more difficult to ascertain? And/or just prescription levels? Because obviously, we can say, hey, the first half of this year we’re going to keep working through, but if we don’t know how much is there to begin with, how much we’re working through and what the underlying culture demand is, we have no idea what the exit rate is come mid-2023, right? So, any help you can give us there with clarity, and then I will follow-up.

Chris Posner: Sure, Oren. I mean, so we committed to providing a couple metrics, right, net sales, and that’s shipments from CSL to the wholesaler. And then we committed to orders being — well orders from the dialysis clinics from the wholesalers. And those are the critical metrics. So, we have visibility into what’s at the wholesaler. And we have visibility to what clinics order. You’re right, what’s hard is the visibility at the clinic level from the stocking. So to your question as you model this, as we think about this, and we think about this with our partner, we look very closely — and I’m going to speak specifically to Fresenius. We look very closely at the orders, the reorder rate for Fresenius. And what gives us a lot of confidence is that we are seeing that accelerate in Q4.