Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Reshma Kewalramani: Robyn, I’ll just add, we’ve been talking about long-term growth, our five and five goal. This is five new medicines launching in the next five years. And then if you think about what qualifies in there, the very near-term opportunities are exa-cel and sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, Vanzacaftor in CF and VX-548 in pain. Those are just right in front of us. And then we have AMKD that’s in Phase 2/3 with VX-147, the Type 1 Diabetes program that we spoke about, the neuropathic pain program that we spoke about. And there’s also the mRNA program and the AATD program, which is also in Phase 2.

Operator: The next question will come from Mohit Bansal with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Mohit Bansal: Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. And maybe can you talk a little bit about the capital allocation priorities? I know you announced a buyback program today, but your 2022 year-end cash is almost 14% of your market capitalization at this point. Did you think outside of internal R&D, you could think about some mid-size acquisition at this point given the cash position and the market at this point? Thank you.

Reshma Kewalramani: Charlie?

Charlie Wagner: Yes. Mohit, thanks for the question. On capital allocation probably it sound like a broken record, but our priorities are the same, investing in innovation both internal and external is the top priority. We clearly see that as the best way to create value for patients and for shareholders. We have for the last five years now maintained share buyback program, where we focus on offsetting dilution from employee share programs and for some opportunistic buying. And so we have this new larger authorization at $3 billion, but it’s simply a reflection of the growing strength of our balance sheet and cash flow.

Mohit Bansal: Thank you.

Operator: The next question will come from Michael Yee with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Michael Yee: Hey guys, thanks. Appreciate it. Two pipeline questions for you. One on the vanza triple. I know that you have commented that you think it could be better. I recall that in the Phase 2 there was although difficult to compare across trial debate around whether it was truly better on FEV or more about sweat chloride, and you would see the effects, I think more peripherally. Can you just comment on whether you actually think FEV actually would be better in the Phase 3 given the chloride transport data is so much better? I know David Altshuler has also sort of commented on that. And then on the mRNA program VX-522, I think you made a nice comment earlier in this call about how at least an animal models that was getting into to tissue. Can you just reiterate what you were saying about your view of or testing in HBS is about whether the LMP is actually getting in and how confident you are in CF tissue that the LMP is getting in? Thank you.

Reshma Kewalramani: Yes. Sure thing, Mike. With regard to the vanza triple, if you look at the Phase 2 data, and you’re right, these are cross study comparisons, but if you’re trying to glean and get a general sense for what the data are telling you in the Phase 2 trials, what you can see is on average the vanza triple compared to what we have shown with TRIKAFTA, it’s about 5 points better on sweat chloride. And if you look closely and look at the ppFEV1 values that we’ve generated there are some patients in the vanza triple where we’ve seen 20% improvement in ppFEV1. So if you ask me, gosh, can the vanza triple be better than TRIKAFTA? Yes. And I would say that the strongest evidence for that is the chloride transport in our HBE assays, which have proven themselves time and time again as well as sweat chloride because that’s simply a less variable measure.