Option Care Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:OPCH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Shapiro: Yes. I think, obviously, we were in liquidity preservation mode over the last 6 weeks or so. And I think, as John mentioned, we continue to remain active on the M&A front. Obviously, that wasn’t a front burner priority over the last couple of weeks. Because as we go forward, I think we go back to our capital allocation policy which we’ve been consistent with which is we think that there are a number of M&A opportunities. I think to the earlier question, there are some opportunities that are being shaken out of the tree. And we’ll continue to balance looking for those accretive and strategic opportunities. And we won’t be shy about deploying capital through share repurchase if we continue to recover on the cash front. So I think it’s a little bit of an all of the above, Lisa, because I think given our — the strength of the balance sheet, we have the ability to pursue M&A while deploying a reasonable amount of capital towards share repurchase.

Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Matt Larew of William Blair.

Matthew Larew: Over the last several years, you’ve driven quite a bit of leverage by automating processes and really improving your claims and payer interactions. Obviously, the change disruption caused a temporary disruption for you. But just curious if you think on the back end of this, do you think there’ll be long-term inefficiencies either because you will be forced to use perhaps multiple vendors that you didn’t before or perhaps establish manual or other sort of backups in place in case something like this happens in the future? Or is it the opposite that maybe you’re able to extract better pricing or terms from change as a part of your decision to move forward with them. Just trying to think less about the next 1 or 2 quarters here but more longer term, how this might impact your operations?

John Rademacher: Yes, Matt, it’s John. I think it’s a little too early to think about renegotiations with Change Healthcare. But I think at the essence of your question, look, there’s lessons learned through the process that we will use to strengthen our position as we move forward and strengthen our platform. There are and I think there will continue to be opportunities in the short run and over the long run to drive operating efficiencies. Decoupling from the clearing house or having alternatives is something that will be our strategy as we move forward. And the team has done a tremendous job not only to identify alternatives but also to utilize them as part of the solution moving forward. We still are very excited about our partnership with Palantir.

Part of that was the ability to think about some of these backroom operations and ways that we could use machine learning and artificial intelligence to drive even more efficiency with the way that we think about patient registration all the way through claim adjudication and cash posting. So the disruption certainly rearrange some of our priorities to make certain that we kept the business functioning and did the things that were necessary to respond to the near term. But I think over the long run, we’re equally more bullish that there are opportunities for us to drive operating efficiencies both in the front end, in the patient registration as well as in the back end in the revenue cycle management aspects of this business. And I think there are some really good learnings anything, an opportunity to take best-in-class tools as we look for alternatives given the disruption with Change Healthcare.

Matthew Larew: And then obviously, strong top line growth this quarter despite what was the toughest comp of the year and sort of disruptions in the end market. You also had a number of moving pieces in terms of drugs rolling off. As we just look through the remaining quarters of the year, anything to think about either additional drugs that we might have contemplated rolling off, any pricing dynamics or perhaps other procurement impact? Just to consider growth for the rest of the year?

Mike Shapiro: Yes, Matt, it’s Mike. Look, we don’t anticipate any meaningful shocks on the pricing front, the pricing and rate environment has been relatively stable. I think you know we typically will call those out if it’s a deviation of a meaningful magnitude. Look, as always, this is a dynamic market. There’s therapies that go subcu, that go biosimilar, all of that is incorporated into our calculus as we look into the back half of the year, admittedly out of the gate. But we’re thrilled with the top line in the quarter. There’s a pretty meaningful tranche of those lower-margin new chronic therapies. And we think over time, the margin profile of those and the predictability of the top line from some of those newer therapies becomes a little more predictable over time.

But overall, we’re very confident in the trajectory. Again, the majority of the growth in the back half is going to come from the established therapies. But nonetheless, we’re encouraged by the near-term progress on the LDDs and the rare therapies as well.

Operator: Our next question will be coming from Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank.

Pito Chickering: Can you talk a little bit more about the gross margin pressure coming from these orphan drugs when they launch, is there a bigger upfront cost for onboarding these new patients? And does it get more efficient over time? And how do margins typically progress as the launch continues to deleverage such as data that you can utilize to help get better margins from these drugs over time?

Mike Shapiro: Yes, great question, Pito. So look, when you’re launching a new branded therapy in a less competitive category, typically, the price and the margin is a little more limited. In some instances, it’s mid-single-digit gross margin rate. Obviously, your question is going to be why would you launch something in a mid-gross margin rate because typically, it’s on a much higher revenue base because you’re dealing with a branded unique, very limited therapy.. And so typical progress that we’ve seen is when we launch these, there is an upfront investment, you’re dealing with unique disease phase that require idiosyncrasies around patient registration and onboarding, those are investments that we make upfront to collaborate with biopharm.