Catalent, Inc. (NYSE:CTLT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Derik De Bruin: Hi. Good morning and thank you for taking my question. Just one really just looking at the cost savings. I am just sort of interested in, I mean, have you done — I assume you have done a systemic — a systematic review of all your facilities and look for potential other areas where there may need to be investment remediation. How should we think about that $150 million, $170 million number in respect to are — in terms of — I mean have you — is that a net number after you sort of look at all your facilities and what you might have to spend? Just basically just like what’s your confidence in that in achieving that cost number?

Matti Masanovich: It’s Matti. We are highly confident in getting to the cost savings number and in the overall cost sooner than that when we get to it from $25 million to $150 million to $170 million that Alessandro outline, which is the cumulative cost savings against the baseline. It’s really got hard actions behind it. So if you think about what’s been done at the company, it’s headcount related, taking down significant numbers of heads, both in the corporate section, as well as some of the underutilized facilities. So we have got that. We do have more work to do, and as we talked about earlier, the Strategic Review Committee will look at — will be looking at capacity as well, at utilization as well and will be looking — will be taking it a step further. So there could be more to come.

Derik De Bruin: And — sorry. And just one follow-up then on, when you look at the cell and gene therapy demand, I mean, obviously, a big impact from early-stage biotech. I think at one point, Catalent had said, there’s maybe like 150 programs you had ongoing and in sort of the cell and gene therapy area, sort of like how are you looking at that triaging that pipeline, looking at that pipeline longer term and basically sort of adjusting it for the health of the clients? Basically just like what your — basically your outlook in terms of the early stage for the cell and gene therapy business.

Alessandro Maselli: Sure. Look, I do believe that early-stage, it’s one part of the equation. The other part of the question is that, as we continue to have good success in bringing assets to commercialization and we build our track record of commercializing products in new modalities and now this is track record is increasing, we believe we will become and we are becoming also the partner of choice to take on assets, which maybe have been early-stage elsewhere and we are going to be able to be the partner of choice to transition them into combination. So more specifically engaging also in the later clinical phases, which is in fact, possible. So we believe that our market share in that specific stage is significant but will become even more significant as a result of our track record.

So, again, we believe that our growth in that will be both coming from our continued focus on the commercial team in winning these early-stage assets, which is a little bit of the nature of it, but also being very surgical in going after the opportunity in late-stage as this pipeline matures and position ourselves as a partner of choice for commercial assets.

Derik De Bruin: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. With our next question comes from Max Smock from William Blair. Max, your line is now open.

Max Smock: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of clarifying ones for me here, starting with GLP-1s. Alessandro, I believe I could have heard you wrong, but I believe you mentioned seeing significant assets were all coming to fruition in fiscal 2025 on the GLP-1 side. I just wanted to try to clarify that, are you expecting to be involved with another major GLP-1 besides the one that has been well discussed here over the last year or so?

Alessandro Maselli: So, what I said is that, look, the reality is that for GLP-1 there is a large amount of demand that they need capacity to be satisfied, right, across the Board, and our job as a CDMO is to bring this capacity as fast as possible online to satisfy that demand. We are trying to do everything we can possibly can across all our facilities and I believe we are pleased that almost all our therapeutic facilities are in some way in different ways involved with this therapeutic area, which, as I said, is one that will be very exciting for the years to come. So we are happy about our role, our role will increase as a result of additional capacity coming online and will be very much spread across the network.

Max Smock: Understood. Thank you. And then on SRP-901, just confirming, your guidance does not assume that the upcoming data readout from Sarepta’s positive and that the label remains restricted to boys aged four to five. I guess you mentioned, I just want to confirm there and then if that readout is positive, I want to step to told you about how manufacturing plants might change or I guess, put another way, what level of stricter growth is currently assumed in guidance and what should that go to if the upcoming readout is positive? Thank you.

Alessandro Maselli: Yeah. Look, so — look, in any way, the readout from the study is going to be an important event from us, not only from a business standpoint, but from a patient-first standpoint. So that is in fact a big deal for us. I don’t want that to be underestimated. I do believe that you need to always think about the lens of this process and how this process is really, if you like, whatever happens today is going to have an impact that delayed in time. But clearly, as you think about our growth into the future, that it is an event that will be important to us, one that we are going to be observing with a lot of attention.

Max Smock: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. With our next question comes from Rachel Vatnsdal from J.P. Morgan. Rachel, your line is now open.

Rachel Vatnsdal: Great. Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions and picking me in here. I wanted to follow up on David’s earlier question around PCH to get some additional color on the assumptions to reach that mid-single to high-single-digit growth next year. So you highlighted some of the supply chain issues that will be resolved and drive a tailwind in terms of some of the new approvals. Can you walk us through what you are seeing from some of the macro headwinds that you have highlighted this year and then what are you assuming for that magnitude and duration of those macro headwinds in 2024 for PCH?

Alessandro Maselli: Sure. Sure. First of all, look, and we said all along, PCH has some macro driven dynamics primarily related to the Consumer Health, where consumer discretionary spend is really what can drive end market demand that we have been pretty open and forthcoming about this in the fall of last year. But when you think about the rest of the footprint of PCH is in large commercial approved pharmaceutical product or products that are late-stage and due to be approved. So the way you need to think about the dynamics in that business is less macro related and more pipeline related. And as I said, last year was a disappointing one, because of some of the assets we had in the pipeline, which were expected to drive growth on top of the base business were a little bit delayed.