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

Michael Goettler: And so when we talk about the eye care franchise and dry eye, in particular, I think one of the things that’s really important to appreciate what the pipeline is Tyrvaya really has a very unique mechanism of action. It’s the only product out there that stimulates the production of natural tear film. When you think about dry eye disease, it’s a multifactorial disease. So we won’t stop understanding how to treat this disease just because we’re launched Tyrvaya and we’re selling Tyrvaya. There may be other mechanisms that can be added in there. And that’s the nice part about Tyrvaya’s. It really is a product that stands by itself and is able to be used with any other dry eye product that’s out there in the market.

The other thing that I think is really important is we haven’t really scratched the surface outside of the US, and that’s really important market to go into and with the power of Viatris and all the supply chain and the ability to grow outside the US, I think that’s something that we look forward to as well. Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Umer Raffat with Evercore ISI.

Umer Raffat: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I have two, if I may, and both for Robert today actually. Robert, I feel like I don’t have a good explanation for why Michael is leaving. And I’d be curious how you lay that out, especially also in the context of with all the divestitures that Viatris is doing, the Upjohn component of the business only got bigger, but also just the timing of the departure — like I don’t think this was telegraphed and everyone is quite confused candidly. And the second one is, I know Ian Read left in December as well. Are these two things related or not? And it’s hard not to think about these two things together?

Robert Coury: Well, Umer, you can look at the glass half empty or you can look at the glass half full. So you’re looking at it from that perspective, thank you for the question and the opportunity. Quite frankly, the glass is only half full and just half full and still filling. This is a very natural — let’s start with Ian Read, okay? You should probably know that Ian was on the Board and could not have gotten more support from Ian when it came to Scott Smith, okay? Ian was absolutely a part of the vote to bring them on. Ian actually, quite frankly, given his deep industry knowledge. Ian actually gave us quite a bit of strong advice and support for Scott. And I can tell you that he’s fully supportive of Scott, understands the strategy.

Ian brought a lot of value to us on that Board. And quite frankly, I’m sorry, he wanted to move on. He’s got a lot of other things going on. But I think Ian hit departure was all again for all the right reasons. So, I’m very thankful for Ian, and I’m very thankful he was here to give the advice to us about Scott. Ian’s obviously had a long history with Scott’s former boss and having that insight was really invaluable to us from the Board. Let me just say this when you say about where we are in our business life cycle? Look, most companies make transitions when there’s a problem. Most companies make transitions when something is going on in the company or there’s an event. Why is it — why should it be viewed any — why should be viewed as the glass half empty versus half full when we were highly articulated about what we wanted to get done in Phase I, I articulated why Michael was absolutely the right one to bring the organizations together, given him and Sanjeev actually ran the Upjohn division, we’re integration, managing that product portfolio.