And the pacing of that will likely be informed by the rate of enrollment in European centers and convert to because we don’t want to create — we don’t want to inhibit the ability to get that study enrolled quickly because we’re commercializing in the hospital next door to a clinical trial center. So in any case, I don’t have perfect information on that once we get CONVERT 2 underway and begin to scale. We’ll have much greater resolution on exactly when and how we will be commercializing. But we will commercialized in CE Mark countries ahead of the commercialization of AeriSeal in the U.S.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay. And then just one follow-up. You announced recently — so you’re searching for a new CFO. Is there any update you could share on that or when the company might hope to have that search complete by?
Glendon French: We — you are correct. We are in the process of trying to sort that matter out. We are in the process — we have undertaken that process. We’re going to find the right person and I do not have specific resolution on the timing. I will tell you that Derek had two extraordinarily strong lieutenants and one of them has stepped into the interim CFO role. John has been with us since the IPO, and he’s been Controller and essentially Chief Accounting Officer for one or two other companies before that, publicly traded. So we’re in good shape, but nonetheless, we are moving quickly, and we will — but we will not compromise. So I don’t know exactly what the timing will be.
Unidentified Analyst: Got it. Thank you. And again, congrats on a nice quarter.
Glendon French: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator instructions]. Our next question is going to come from Joanne Wuensch of Citi. Your line is open.
Joanne Wuensch: Thank you so much. And let me also say a very nice quarter. I want to talk about Japan and with reimbursement now in place and it’s starting to contribute to revenue next year, how should we think about the launch and the expenses that are needed for that launch?
Glendon French: Okay. I’m going to probably — I might pull John into part of that answer. But from — yes, so we got reimbursement. So that’s awesome. We couldn’t be happier. It is a monumental path to go through that process or the entire review and approval and then reimbursement process. So as predicted by the end of this year, we said we would have it. We have it now, which is great. And what that does is it allows us to commence a post-approval trial. In every other country that I have been at worked in, you do that in parallel with initial commercialization. In Japan, you do it on the path to commercialization. So literally, the first 140 patients treated will be entered into a protocol. They will be revenue generating and there’ll be expenses that go along with them, but revenue generating is a nice thing.
It’s — we expect our revenue per patient to be in the range of our global sort of revenue per patient number. So — we talk about very, very roughly $10,000 per patient. So 140 patients, about $1.4 million of revenue is expected. That’s going to throw off a little cash to help pay for this commercialization. And John, I don’t know if we break out our spending on Japan, but my guess is that the total cost — incremental cost of commencing in Japan. We’ve already got the team in place. We’ve got some number of sales reps, marketing folks, general manager are already in place. So I don’t know what we have incremental.
John McKune: Yes, Glen, you’re thinking about that the right way. We — I’ll reiterate that the patients we’re treating in Japan are going to be revenue-generating patients and that the team that we have there is largely in place. Any — their expense and any incremental expense will be factored into our 2024 guidance when we share that with you next quarter.
Operator: [Operator instructions] Our next question will be from Jon Young of Canaccord. Your line is open, Jon.
Jon Young: Hi, Glenn and John. Thanks for taking our question. And congrats on the quarter. Maybe to follow up on Joanne’s question on Japan. How long do you anticipate it will take in all those for G20 patients in the postapproval study? And do you have to wait for any follow-up in the study before commencing the full commercialization in Japan?
Glendon French: So with regard to waiting, no.; my understanding is as soon as we enroll that 140th, we can — we just don’t want to see the data, but we won’t be held up for three, six or 12 months before we can go to a broader launch. With regard to timing, as you probably know, clinical trials are — tend to be back-end loaded, they take some time to get off the ground. And then they — I think, probably half the patients come in, in the last quarter of the time that it takes to execute the trial. The good news for us is that we have — since we had approval we were able to go out and engage with all the sites that we need to engage with. And I think most, if not all of the treating physicians have gone through a training program.
I believe we sent global thought leaders in on at least two occasions into Japan that provide extensive training to those physicians. So we’re lining things up. We had to — this — we had to get finalization of the protocol before it could be presented to ethics committees and so forth. So we haven’t gotten all of the logistics and so forth out of the way. But we’ll be pushing forward. I would guess best case a year probably could bleed into a second year as well. And I think in the coming quarters, we’ll have significantly greater resolution for the — because as I said, these things tend to be back-end loaded. So there’s going to be a point in time where we’re going to have a high degree of precision on when we see that — do that closing out.
Jon Young: And then maybe just go back to some of the other questions on the optimized account base. Do you see certain types of centers, maybe like a strong academic center or certain geographies that are embracing the technology more and establishing those patient pathways. And I know you talked about clinical coordinators. Is it just a function of time? Or is it getting the interventional pulmonologist or COPD physicians to really champion there?
