Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ed White of H.C. Wainwright.

Edward White: So just on the travel market, maybe I can ask a big picture question and you continue to say you’re seeing recovery in the travel market. Can you give us a good comparison on your thoughts for 2024 versus pre-COVID levels? And then also just on IXIARO, with the $32 million DoD contract, were any sales recorded in this quarter, if you could break that out for us? And also how we should be thinking about the cadence of that contract should it be fulfilled by the end of this year? Or should we see the impact going into next year as well?

Thomas Lingelbach: No. I think — so basically, let me answer the travel market question first. This is a very good question indeed. And as we have said multiple times, when we look at — and Peter reported this also, when we look at volume because as we have also been able to leverage price increases, we need to look at volume and compare this to pre-COVID levels. There are countries where IXIARO is being sold, where we are indeed back to pre-COVID volume levels already today. There are also countries where we are above pre-COVID volume levels today. And there are other countries where we are not yet at pre-COVID volumes. And there’s a lot to do with travel behavior. Generally, we see a trend towards higher awareness and — but it is very difficult to clearly model.

I mean we really do hope that we’re going to see next year, in the vast, vast majority of countries volumes back or above pre-COVID levels. And this is really the outlook that we’re going to take. On the military contracts and I’ll let Peter to then say something about what sales numbers we have recognized in military. But generally, the contract with the DoD is a 1-year supply contract. And therefore, the supply schedule and by the way, we have already done first shipment but the supply schedule is, of course, a supply schedule that spans over 1 year and not necessarily a fiscal year, right? So — and this supply plan is also subject to potential changes, which we continue to respond to upon the request of the DoD. Peter, on the numbers?

Peter Buhler: Yes, maybe just — so we had the first shipment to the U.S. military indeed in the third quarter. We have not disclosed the number in this quarter. And as Thomas said, we are actually now aligning with the U.S. military on the supply schedule for the rest of the contract and we might disclose numbers in the fourth quarter. But so far, we haven’t done.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Evan Wang of Guggenheim Securities.

Boran Wang: Happy to see the draft recommendation at ACIP. That’s encouraging in our view, particularly with the or I guess, both risk base and exposure risk that seems to be positive for [indiscernible]. But I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the draft recommendation as well as how you’re thinking about how the recommendation will look internationally?

Thomas Lingelbach: Well, this is — what you are asking is a little bit crystal ball reading. So first of all, I mean, the — on a positive note, as you rightly pointed out, ACIP recommended vaccination, right, which, of course, is already in its draft recommendations. It’s great news. They have, in the draft included a kind of a few caveats to it and defined what really people at risk of chikungunya may mean. But please keep in mind, these are draft recommendations. And so this is an ongoing process and it should be an ongoing independent process and not something where we are intimately involved. We provide information. We provide the science. We provide the data. And — but overall, we see this going into the right direction.