Barry Greene: Yes. Thanks, Anupam. That’s a really important question. We are certainly with Biogen moving with urgency, which is why we highlighted that we’re going to make ZURZUVAE commercially available in December with fuller launch capability early next year. And the payer and payer engagement with [indiscernible] and I’ll ask him to comment further, we’ve already started. One of the tailwinds we’re seeing here, given the clinical profile of ZURZUVAE is an appreciation that on or undertreated PPD costs payers, cost to health care system a significant amount of money. And I think, of course, there’s the humanistic side, which is really what we’re focused on, helping that mom, helping that mom connect with her baby. So that another undertreated PPD, mom does not have generational impact and become a burden for themselves or baby.
So that’s a big focus. From a payer front, I think the payers are recognizing the value of ZURZUVAE and Chris can talk about some of the economics. Now of course, formulary review takes some amount of time. And there are certain plans that will be online quickly and other plans and everyone knows this, unfortunately, part of their policy is kind of a 6-month wait until they will review. So we’ll be moving as quickly as possible. That being said, we’ll have programs in place which Chris can talk about, so that when a prescription is written for someone suffering with PPD, that prescription is filled. Chris, do you want to provide some more color there?
Christopher Benecchi: Yes. Barry, what I would add is that we’ve engaged with payers. And as I noted earlier, we’re engaging with national retail and government payers. What resounds is that they appreciate the unmet need that exists in the PPD market. They certainly appreciate the clinical value that ZURZUVAE has the potential to offer to many of their enrollees. And they also understand that there’s an economic impact of untreated depression, whether it’s societally or on their plans themselves. So all of those conversations have really bolstered the dialogue that we’ve had with payers over the course of the time that we’ve spent with them specifically talking about PPD since the PDUFA announcement. With that being said, we’re going to do everything that we can to enable broad and affordable and equitable access with minimal restrictions so that patients that are part of these plans where appropriate, have little to no co-pay when possible because we don’t want financial barriers to prevent any mom for being able to access this medication as we’re out doing work with payers.
Operator: We go next to the line of Tazeen Ahmad with Bank of America.
Tazeen Ahmad: Two relatively simple ones. Maybe, Barry, can you tell us how long it’s going to take, I know it’s a little bit difficult because you’re just starting, from the time a script is written to the time it’s actually dispensed to the patients on a commercial basis, at least early in the launch? I’m just trying to get a sense of how the early ramp could progress even though clearly there’s high demand. But assuming that payment is the major driver holding back uptake. Just want to get a better sense of how you’re thinking about it? And then secondly, on your pricing, you talked about it in the prep remarks, but I wanted to get a sense of, can you give us a little bit of color on how this price might have differed from the price that you would have gone with if you were also launching with MDD?
Barry Greene: Yes, Tazeen, thanks for the question. Let me start with the wholesale acquisition cost side and then Chris can talk about how we’ve set up the specialty pharma and time from scripts. That’s the patient of course, Chris, you can certainly weigh in on the wholesale acquisition cost. So as I said earlier, Tazeen, we were very thoughtful and very deliberate in setting the wholesale acquisition cost through ZURZUVAE that we believe reflects the clinical and economic value and importantly, other key considerations, including access for women with PPD, the unmet need, the cost effectiveness, innovation, some of which we’ve talked about before. We believe that the wholesale acquisition cost set helps the idea that will limit complex prior auths, step edits.
And if you kind of go too high, you have some of those, if you go too low, clearly leaving a tentative value on the table. Chris mentioned this before, but it’s important to understand that in a health — in a model done by in 2017 study, the value that we’re potentially adding the health care system, they understood that the multiyear average societal cost of untreated PPD and broader perinatal conditions is approximately $32,000. So we believe that with the wholesale acquisition cost, we are providing value to the health care system. You can’t really compare that against how we might have approached the different indications. As I mentioned earlier, we’re solely focused on a successful launch with helping as many suffering from PPD as we can.
And if another indication comes back on the table later, we’ll make those adjustments later. Hopefully, that helps Tazeen. Chris, do you want to talk — I don’t see any color there, but talk about time from script to patients getting through ZURZUVAE.
Christopher Benecchi: Yes, Barry, what I would add is that both Sage and Biogen expect to make ZURZUVAE commercially available in December of 2023. And then to do that, we’ve created a distribution model designed to provide rapid access and high-quality patient experience for women with PPD. So in effect, when a prescription is written, that the physician can get the medication seamlessly for the patient. And when the patient is able to access the medication, he or she can do so affordably. And we have the educational resources, the support services and the financial assistance programs in place to make sure that the patient is able to access the medication within days. And as I mentioned earlier, we know that for this population, days matter. So that’s where we’re squarely going to be focused on with respect to the distribution model that we’ve set up.
