Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

But I think the business has evolved into two segments, public reimbursement channel and private pay channels. And we have adopted our business so that we can capture the patient from the — when it moves from the public reimbursement channel to the private pay channel. And just from the modeling perspective, yes, we have modeled a flattish small decline, but the business is hitting on all cylinders.

Michael Goettler: And then I’ll touch base on the eye care portfolio and pipeline. I think what’s important here is these numbers that we’ve shared are really risk adjusted. And when you look at the entire portfolio, we see that of that $1 billion target, about 60% will come globally from dry eye disease assets, about two-thirds of those from the US and about one-third of those from the rest of the world. Approximately 20% will come from Blepharitis globally and approximately 20% will come from all other assets in the pipeline. But as you can see, we have a robust pipeline with a number of different indications with significant unmet need.

Rajiv Malik: And if I can just add, just to highlight, Blepharitis, Presbyopia and Reversal of Mydriasis, these are some unmet need or there is no prescribed established therapy. So that’s why these products fit in very nicely over there.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Elliot Wilbur with Raymond James.

Elliot Wilbur: Thanks. Good morning. A question for Rajiv. Just to respect — with respect to new product launch expectations in 2023, actual performance in 2022, those numbers never seem to overperform expectations. I’m wondering if you could just maybe provide a little bit of color in terms of performance in 2022, whether revenue from new products was lighter than expected due to performance of the assets, or was it more about the timing of approvals? And then thinking about some of the factors that sort of should give us more confidence in your expectations for 2023, looking at some of the expected approvals, I mean products like Iron Sucrose, I mean those been through multiple iterations at FDA, not sure how important that is in terms of its contribution to the total. But just if you could highlight one or two factors that we should be thinking about that sort of bolster your confidence in the new product outlook for 2023? Thanks.

Rajiv Malik: Yeah, let me first answer your 2022 question. And it was not underperforming of the approved asset. It was more from some delay. And if you recall, Elliot, 2022 included a couple of biosimilars where we were getting — waiting for the first approval of Aspart, biosimilar to Aspart and biosimilar to Avastin. And that didn’t happen because of the issues with the Biocon facility. So that was primary reason behind that miss. But going into 2023, as we have always said to you, we’re not dependent upon one product over here. Every product is risk-adjusted, products like Symbicort and we still have the tailing effect of the products like lenalidomide this year. But yes, iron sucrose, it is a complex product you will appreciate.

And when you are trying to bring a first to the market, there can be sometimes more iterations. But we are at a point with a science where we see it happening. And all those factors have been considered to build this 2023 number. And I feel very confident at the beginning of the year that this number, as I said, put out 98% of these products are either approved or already launched or a couple of products are pending approval, that’s where the iron sucrose comes in.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Ash Verma with UBS.

Ash Verma: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So I have two on capital allocation real quick. So what drove the decision to keep the dividend per share flat this year? I know, last year, we saw a 9% growth. And then on share repurchases, any change in thinking on the timing here in the light of President Biden calling for a quadrupling of tax and buybacks? Thanks.