Q4 2020 Evofem Biosciences Inc Earnings Call
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Ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Apple Samsung fourth quarter and year in 2020 earnings Conference call. At this time all participant lines are in a listen only mode.
After the Speakers' presentation there'll be a question and answer session to ask a question. During the session you will need to press Star then one on your telephone.
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded if you acquire any further assistance. Please press Star then zero I would now like the hand accomplished over to your host Amy Russell. Please go ahead.
Thank you hi, everyone. This is Amy rice golf, and although some biosciences and vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you for participating in today's call. If you haven't done so already I encourage you to access our Q4 and year end 2020 presentation and the press release, we issued earlier this afternoon, well from what's your and I, both and Dot Investor room Dotcom, Florida.
Last Q4 Y E 2020 results.
During this call we will make forward looking statements regarding the company's future expectations plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements for purposes of the safe Harbor provisions under the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward looking statements and the results of various important factors, including those noted on slide two and described and the company's SEC filings, which are available at SEC Gov and in the investors section of Abu from Dot Com. These forward looking statements are made only as of today March for 2020.
And although the company may elect to update forward looking statements from time to time, the future, we specifically disclaim any duty or obligation to do so even as new information becomes available or other events occur and the future and with that I'll turn the call over to saundra pelletier above and CEO.
Thank you Amy Hello, everyone and thank you so much for joining us.
2020 was a year of execution for ever been.
I'd like to use the term WAC that inside the company words are cheap deeds are dear and 2020 showcase our team's ability to execute.
We achieved key objectives on every front, we secured FDA approval of FSC are non hormonal prescription contraceptive vaginal gel we raised critical fun from respected institutional investors, we launched vaccine and the U S. We.
We gained orange book listing for 250 patents and we initiated our pivotal phase III S. T I trial.
While we are excited to report our first full quarter of sexy revenues today, we are even more excited about the meaningful growth that we're seeing in 2020, one and in particular since we've launched the get sexy DTC campaign on Valentine's day to propels the sexy uptake curve.
This includes the 362% increase indirect searches for Betsy.
I'm going to discuss those metrics, our expectation for 2020, one and other initiatives intended to drive long term growth after our CFO Jay file reviews, the financial results.
Yeah.
Thank you Sondra and good afternoon, everyone before I start I want to be clear that I'll be rounding all numbers and today's presentation.
The fourth quarter of 2020 was our first full quarter and product sales following the U S commercial launch of <unk> in September.
For the year ended December 31, 2020 gross revenues on the E. V 600 units shipped to our wholesalers reduced by strong utilization of the vaccine co pay assistance program as well as fixed costs, primarily associated with distributor fees.
And we intentionally prioritizes and man and increasing access to Betsy for all women and commercial launch we anticipated and our co pay program will be our primary mechanism to achieve this near term low and it is working effectively.
With our strategic approach to maximize access and profitability and we will continue to assess and utilization of the various components of our co pay program as we move forward.
Operating costs from both the fourth quarter and for the year ended December 31, 2020, either beat or met our guidance on these variance as compared to the respective prior year periods increased activity from both the fourth quarter and full year results for 2000, 2020 reflect higher research and development costs for <unk>.
Clinical trial expenses related to Emerald card, which we initiated in October 2020.
Increased sales and marketing costs associated with the establishment of our sales organization, and 2020 and significantly higher media and advertising costs related to the commercial launch.
And in general and administrative costs and higher legal audit and financing advisory fees and sales force reviewed and recruiting costs and payroll related costs due to increased headcount.
For the year ended December 31, 2020, net loss attributable to common stockholders decreased to $140 million to $43 million or a net loss of $2.12 per share. This.
This is compared with a net losses and $80 million or a dollar and 99 per share for the prior year.
And Q4 2020, we raised 25 million from our strategic investment and Emerson and by Adjuvant capital, which for financial reporting purposes is reflected within restricted cash on our balance sheet due to specific use requirements and that agreement.
We closed the year with $48 9 billion and unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and 20 to $22 2 million and restricted cash related to address.
And to remind everyone. Our revenue recognition is based on unit shipments from our warehouses to distributors in Q3, those shipments where the initial stocking orders for the <unk> launch Q4 shipments were lower with Reorders coming mainly toward the end of the quarter to replenish inventory that was depleted by increasing shipments from the distributors.
To retail pharmacies during the quarter.
As expected unit shipments in Q1 2021 are on track to exceed total unit shipments last year.
We believe this reflects increased market demand even before they get sexy DTC campaign launch and gives us confidence that gross revenues are moving firmly in the right direction for the current quarter.
Also I wanted to point out that we close 2020 with approximately six months of inventory on hand, and we have ample manufacturing capacity to meet anticipated demand for the foreseeable future, including the expected impact of and get sexy campaigns with that I'll turn it back.
Thanks Jay.
There are moments in time when categories change.
And the culture and the climate and the given standard changes forever because it is no longer suitable.
And the time for women to have to take a hormone every single day when they don't have sex every day is quite frankly over.
More importantly, the solution puts control and the hands of women and men, who had an option to have sex non Jimmy and safely for years, but women had not had that same freedom or access to and SBA approved on demand method with no hormone.
That's what makes this time right per sexy there.
And there are 21 million women and the U S and are at risk for pregnancy, who are not using hormonal birth control. They have demonstrated through their option because they are not going to take one of them.
Some women are using non prescription contraception, such as barrier methods withdrawal or periodic absent and others are using no contraception at all.
The fact that they have an 85 per cent relative risk of getting pregnant within one year. If they continue to have unprotected sex.
We believe that a very conservative acquisition percentage at least 21 million women makes it potentially a billion dollar opportunity and in addition to these 21 million women Theres. Another 19 million currently using a prescription contraceptive some of whom particularly pill users.
They already be considering moving to a hormone free on demand and methods.
Factoring conservative levels of uptake from this segment as well.
Believe that sexy peak revenue potential could be as high as one 4 billion.
Point 3 billion and again.
It's based on only single digit acquisition percentages and women in each of these for it.
Sexy sales from wholesalers to pharmacies have established a very strong growth trend since launch on average we've seen greater than 20 per cent unit growth and the last three months. This is the best leading indicator of demand and I want to point out February was a short month hampered by weather events across the country that shuts.
And in several states.
Despite that it was our strongest sales volume month to date, we reached a new high for weekly sales last week and February following the launch and they get sexy AD on TV.
Becky prescriptions continue to grow despite COVID-19, despite the holidays and the recent polar vortex.
The facts do you want and September of last year, our marketing efforts have been growing and setting a strong foundation with a strong footprint with consumers, but it was crucial that we escalate those effort to ensure that we drive the mass reach and needed to breakthrough.
In 2020, one are focusing goal is to rapidly increase awareness and to drive demand and doing this will bring more women to the top of the funnel and then possibly works and move them through the funnel all the way to conversion and we estimate every one per cent increase in fact the awareness.
Translates to approximately $30 million and gross revenue.
As of today, we have IQ via data through the week ending February 12.
Total sexy prescriptions hit New weekly high in each of the first two weeks of the month, leading into the launch of our DTC campaign, and Valentine's day, which we anticipate will have a very significant impact on the sexy growth curve.
As you know, we want and sexy and September of 'twenty, and 'twenty and we launched it with a hybrid commercial team.
We have 59 apples and I'm representatives and the field working with 11 regional managers and calling on roughly the top 3500 accounts and 10000 health care provider targets there.
They are complemented by a telesales team contracted with Archer healthcare that we're using to reach HCP targets and remote geographies or where in person and access has been rendered and possible during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Both our M O M and Archer reps are focusing specifically on health care providers, who are likely to write sexy safe under contraceptive prescribing history and attitudinal segmentation.
I am very pleased to say that our well trained and focused and committed sales organization continues to deliver impressive results.
As of February 12, more than 2000, and 650 health care providers have prescribed sexes.
So he and I, both mentioned to get sexy campaigns and its impact already several times, but I wanted to take a step back.
I want to make sure that you understand what we're referring to exactly.
This high impact dynamic campaign is designed to reach women and a purposeful and targeted manner and.
This is TV streaming and digital channels and Leverages Influencers and partnership with the ultimate goal of driving demand for Texas.
To get sexy and highlight some of the struggles that women and see when they choose among the many available methods of contraception and whether it's the lack of control with condom con.
Constant daily use of the pill or absent and that's required recycled traffic.
The women featured in the commercial represent real life drawbacks that sexy can help eliminate as a hormone free on demand and birth control method.
And just the first two weeks after and get sexy launch our ads generated 115 million views and impressions across all media channel.
Z brand awareness doubled from January.
He puts his and perspective, we were tracking at about 4% and it was it was literally like flipping a switch we went immediately to 8% in one month.
Organic searches per sexy have increased 362 per cent since launch and direct web traffic, meaning people typing and sexy dotcom and their browsers is that 200 per cent.
Actions and sexy Dot Com has also increased dramatically.
Health booking and fulfillment by our third party mail order pharmacy reached new weekly highs for both weeks ending February 19 and February 26.
For the week ending February 26 over 300.
Health appointments were booked.
And 100 per cent of those were completed and sexy was prescribed and dispensed to 100% vs women.
And again and you're not even really seeing the impact of the get sexy DTC campaign on prescribers for total prescriptions, yet because we only had beat us through February 12.
Hey, Dude.
Another initiative, we expect that will positively impact the uptake is our collaboration with and coda.
Our collective goal is to support female cancer patients and they decide which contraceptive option best meets their unique individual needs.
There are more than 800000, new cases of cancer reported and women and the U S. Every single Ya.
Many cancer treatment protocols required female patients of reproductive age to use birth control, while they undergo treatment and the vast majority of oncologists will not from Mr patients to use hormonal birth control.
And you just look at breast cancer alone the American Society of reproductive medicine recommends that all women, who are suspected or known to have breast cancer or who have had it in the past should avoid hormonal contraception.
If you consider the anticipated impact of the DTC campaign, and sexy uptake as well as the heightened awareness that we aim to build among oncology pharmacy teams and the patients. They serve we expect the effects the uptake curve will increase dramatically from where it wasn't December and January.
Market access remains a priority.
Proud to have 55 per cent of commercial lives covered and additional coverage to the Medicaid National drug rebate program that covers 17 million women, aged 19 to 49 and already we have multiple plants with sexy and zero copay we.
We continue to offer our co pay support program to women, whose plans don't get covered sexy or that have it on formulary with the co pay of over $30 for Texas, because access is our near term priority.
Meanwhile, we're working diligently through multiple channels to achieve our goal of affordable access effect for all women.
This includes advocating for the office of women's health.
Nate and expand its contraceptive category to include a new category vaginal ph modulator to reflect these unique mechanism of action. We believe this would this mandate.
We will increase coverage for women of reproductive age under a C E.
Contraceptive choice should not be a luxury available just for some women.
Every woman dessert to choose the methods right from her individual health and her unique circumstance.
So now I quickly want to pivot and just talk to you briefly about our STI prevention program.
Our next asset and development its E V O 100, and for the prevention of the two most common stis chlamydia and gonorrhea.
This is a late stage program and and near term opportunity and STI prevention is another potentially large market with a clear unmet medical need.
See I prevention is critically important now more than ever because rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea had cline and 2018 for the fifth consecutive year in a row and the United States with 1.8 million cases of Chlamydia and 600000 of gonorrhea, but here's why it matters.
Many stis or eastern Tonight, and they go and diagnosed they go and treat it and that's very problematic for two reasons. One there are serious health consequences for infecting people. If it's left untreated some infections will cause health, it's worth inflammatory disease, sorry, pelvic inflammatory disease infertility or severe comps.
Patients and pregnancy and for newborn and in such a person can unknowingly insect sexual partners. That's why the CDC says and.
One who sexually active and get gonorrhea, and chlamydia and and the U S alone. There are 78 million sexually active women and they are all potentially at risk for Sci.
So in October we initiated our pivotal phase III trial for E V O 100.
This trial will enroll 1000 and 730 women at 90 U S study sites and 59 of these sites have already been activated.
We continue on track to complete our enrollment by the end of this year and we expect to report topline results and the first half of 2020 two.
And will keep us on schedule and filed the NDA for these potential indications by the end of next year.
And again I want to see and again, there are 78 million women at risk for the U S C ice and the U S alone. So we believe this makes this a significant market opportunity.
So I'd like to and with the word that I started with <unk>.
Execution.
Yeah.
<unk> is making our average challenges, but I want to assure you that.
We are an organization that continues to find solutions to create access and sexy no matter what.
We're just getting started and if you have any doubt about whether this is the right time per sexy I want to remind you and just two weeks of our get sexy campaigns.
The search for sexy is up 362 per cent.
So with that I'd like to open the call for questions.
Thank you as a reminder to ask a question you will need to press Star then one on your telephone to withdraw your question. Please press the pound key.
Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Hung with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Thanks for taking the questions.
What was the average price per script and fourth quarter and how do you view that changing over the course of 2021 as it relates to the DTC campaign, and the dynamics and duration of the Copay assistance program and they're not.
Yes, no. Thank you Jeff for the question J I'm going to have our CFO, Jay file and address that.
Alright, Thanks, Good day.
And here Jeff.
No great question, and see and you, obviously heard Andre and I talk rather extensively about how significant the co pay program is for us and launch.
And all the way through obviously building upon the DTC campaign.
So with that obviously, we've got a high.
GTS and adjustment at least through the end of the year now ultimately we do anticipate that.
And.
That is ultimately a moving target for us and it's going to continue to shift depending on the ultimate mix of usage over time, and we do though and expect that to improve as the year progresses and into 2022. So.
Right now if you just do a straight off the financials as presented it was about an 80% adjustment and I'll do the math for you.
Does that and I'll give you a little bit of clarity that you're hoping for.
Yeah, Yeah that's helpful.
Thank you.
And then I guess with regards to being coded collaboration what proportion of the 800000, new cases of cancer reported most women of childbearing age and are there specific subgroups within these women that you think are easier to read first thanks.
Yeah. So.
Basically out of the 800000 its about 60%.
And our child bearing age and to be candid.
It really is that 60% that we think our.
The main target because right now at the end of the day.
Before vaccine was approved and the only other product that these oncologists had access to was a couple of eye disease and.
And my own experience being a cancer conquer I don't say survivor.
Hunker, and but a lot of oncologists.
Women have gone through treatment and they have suffered and not see.
The oncologists are very mindful to make sure that they want to give women and something that.
They can tolerate and a lot of women have had a lot of serious side effects with copywriting and so frankly, when our product go to market and a whole oncology team that I spoke to myself personally said, it's almost like you designed this you know for cancer patients and my now certainly these women are on top of.
Of these $21 million that we talk about that currently are not using hormone and these are the women on top of what we believe are pill users who are looking for something different but we really believe this is a low hanging fruit and the one thing I want to say is that.
Being a cancer patient myself I feel like I can't speak to this audience and a way that difference that's authentic and.
And then the final thing I want to say is that one of the oncologists I spoke to and we had this and the script, but I was encouraged to take it out but now that you ask Jeff. Thank you by the way I can say is that the oncologist sits and you look when men are and treatment for prostate cancer. The number one thing. They ask is will they still be able to get and erection and.
Can you imagine if a woman in cancer treatment started talking about her sexuality can you imagine if you started talking about her orgasm from what we would think of her so theres still in equities, even and cancer patients. The reality is as these women and so much vaginal dryness they have needed and they have pain with intercourse. So the lubricating properties.
Sexy make it so advantageous from accretion so I'm really proud this is a bit of a passion project for me, but I'm very very proud that these women need and option.
And they're still seeing their doctor and no matter, what but when you're in cancer treatment and it doesn't matter, what's happening and the world you're still going to your Doctor and so we are very excited that this is a bit of a low hanging fruit that will add a lot of value to women by the way, but I think it will also really deliver in the growth of access and a prescription.
Thanks, so much.
Yeah. Thanks, Jeff.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Annabel Sammy with Stifel.
Your line is now open.
Hi, all thanks for taking my question I had a few.
And I guess the first one is to what extent.
For those patients who have started are you able to convert these patients and to repeat use or do you have and he kind of refill rate at this point are you on track with your expected per patient.
Prescriptions per year.
And then.
This somewhat goes hand in hand with the next question, but if you could give us a little bit more granularity on payer adoption and it looks like it's still at 55 per cent what are your expectations for payer adoption going forward and if there's any a.
Sense of what percent are unrestricted versus restricted and.
And you know open access preferred and non preferred and how might that play into the.
The gross net at this point, so it's a little bit loaded, but I'll continue I'll follow up later.
Yeah No no no. Thank you Annabel that's great. So Russ could I get you to start if you don't mind and talk about the refills and the patients and the conversion and then we'll circle back to the payer question.
Happy to do so.
One of the things that we are so excited about is that we were able to do a small re.
Research project with 127 women, who have completed their first full month of sexy and the questions. We ask them their relevant to this question.
Is your intention to continue to use sexy and what's your intention around recommended it to a friend et cetera. So we saw 89% which is right about almost what we saw coming out of the clinical trial work was about 90% said that they were they were intending on using sexy.
As they continue to move but this is nice because it's real world data of course, and 82%, which is a very similar number to what we saw again with the clinical trials. So that they would recommend it to a friend and now one of the things that I have to kind of just caution everyone on in terms of the refill rate is that.
Pepsi is and on demand and method that isn't bike and oral contraception or staffing or something that you might be.
And on ongoing basis.
We know that the repo rates will be different from woman to woman and we also know that what happens now that physicians are getting experience with Texas Bell for example, say to the woman.
How often are you sexually active and if she starts approaching and sexual activity of 10 or more times a month, what they will now do is write the prescription that does that.
The prescription is 424 applicators not for 12, and those don't get captured as as refills because it's.
Size difference from the initial 12, one box and in that regard. So we're gonna need data, probably four five or six.
And so seven months and order to understand what the real refill rate looks like so we're really focused now on the units what are the units that are going forward and and how and how much are new prescribers coming online and and.
And those kinds of metrics and those are all really encouraging so we do believe that.
Darren and the continuation is going to be very high per becsey, but as of yet we don't have the IQ via data to really know for sure what that rate looks like.
And then just to touch on the pay per your question.
A couple of things I want to say and then we actually have our internal expert Harry Jordan, who is in charge of all the payer initiatives, perhaps forgot more about the payer initiatives and most of us will ever know them, but I don't want to say that.
55% coverage is of commercial lives, where we are today and we do have our co pay program in place so that health care providers and patients won't feel cost constraints around prescribing or obtaining sexy.
I'd like to see Harry if you're there if you can jump in and so you could give an amount and much more Chris insight on you know what all of our initiatives and steps that we plan to do the interest coverage.
Yes, absolutely. So thank you Sandra and hopefully you can hear me. Okay. So I think your first question was about where do we expect our payer coverage to go. So we're at 55, 1% right now.
And as you know.
The Pbms pharmacy benefit managers, they control roughly about half the lives the top three pbms control about half the lives across the U S.
We currently are working with them, we continue to have communication with them.
However, they usually are looking for pretty deep discounts and rebates, especially when you have a new product and you don't have any market share. So our number one goal is to drive demand and market share and that will give us more leverage as we go into the year.
And second to that.
And when you look at zero cost right now, we roughly have about four 6% of lives covered under $0.
7% under preferred and between covered new to market and in normal coverage and non preferred tier is roughly about 49% of those covered lives. So we do have a lot of a lot of plans across the U S that have made positive coverage decisions in spite of what the P. B.
Due to try to.
And so you get more market share or getting more rebates from our new product when it first launches.
Just on that note, if there's any stalling and adoption by the Pbms is there any thought to change and the co pay assistance are the first first prescription.
And co pay all the way down to zero to maybe help with the gross to net and and and give me a little bit more juice as you're trying to work on the coverage.
Yeah, absolutely. So we can't see that's one of the nice things about our co pay assistance program is that we can change the business rules as we see fit right. So it's very important that we the payers see the demand and so we worked through the prior authorization. So they see this demand, but we also don't want.
And for the demand by holding up the process with ph and so what we do is we make sure that number one the patients get the product and then we worked with prior authorizations on the backend.
And which we're finding out and a lot of these prior authorizations are fairly simple and easy to handle.
Okay, Alright, great I'll follow up later, thank you.
Okay. Thanks Annabel.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Angela with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.
And thank so just have a couple so on on the payer landscape can you say what portion of covered commercial lives have access and zero co pay currently.
And then you know in that.
55% that you say have access would you characterize that as you know hassle free or is there some utilization management involved that we.
We should be aware of at least and a meaningful sense and that's a few hundred per cent.
And then lastly, I want to make sure I got all your comments about the 19th.
Pregnancy category, sorry, contraception category.
Straight, but I wanted to make sure I got those whose.
It was clear on that so do you have sort of a sense of when we're going to hear on that one will definitively no.
Effects, he's going to get you know it's it's.
Its unique category. Thanks.
Okay. So Harry since Youre warmed up and your role would you like to start with David's question and then once we get to the HCA, you and I can handle it in tandem.
Absolutely, yes, so thanks, David Yes zero dollar co pay right now roughly about four four and a half percentage of those lives fall under that are roughly about $8 3 million lives across the U S.
We know plans that have made decisions around it and there's also state laws is roughly 12 states that.
Mandate, either zero dollar co pay or <unk>.
Very low co pay based on on the patient so it and it's hard to track exactly you know what.
Because you can have a plan, that's covering and and non preferred tier, but because of the state was day supersede that so so.
So that four 6% could be more but there is the plans that we're tracking.
And.
And I forget your second question.
Ron I know, what's ACI, but you had a question before.
Well it was on utilization it was on utilization management and just looking at 55% yeah.
Got it and so we roughly have about seven about 18% of commercial lives that's unrestricted and.
There is some restrictions the restrictions are typically prior authorizations that required to be used to label and.
And so and again like I've mentioned, it's they're fairly mundane prior authorizations that we work through.
Okay.
And then David so speak about them and we're talking about.
And we're talking about the 19th category and you know Harry please feel free to.
Add anything I mean look one of the things that we feel is a positive lever for us is that low ph modulator and the fact that there is a huge subset of women that are clinically concert indicators for hormone. This isn't just saying, let's just put another product and the armamentarium that need to like everybody else and like everything.
We feel the serious serious clinical leverage if there is a subset of women that do not have a suitable ops. So we hired and well know lobbyists and he has 35 years history, working and the health care field and he has 28 years of experience lobbying Democrats and Congress and a democratic administered.
And to help support awareness, so sexy and.
And also had been working with these very large very serious advocacy groups that are very loud and very influential around making sure that women are prioritized and that they really believe that contraception is an essential tool and preventative health and economic well being of U S women and I can.
Assure you that day.
They are.
Completely on the Xactly bandwagon, they believed that it has been and fortune born and.
Women have not had an option like this so we're working with this lobbyists and we're working with these advocacy groups and were actually you know.
Working very heavily and trying to influence politicians and I would tell you that it is I'm optimistic about that so we're encourage but here's what I would tell you. It's COVID-19 has put everything and and.
And I'm not trying to make an excuse but COVID-19 has made this less of a priority for everybody. So we've tried to continue to escalate. This is try to continue to push on all the doors that we can simultaneously.
And.
So I don't know if Harry you want to jump in because Davids exact question was what do you think about timing around that and I don't know if you have and more clarity and I have about what would be a timing he could expect.
Here's what I will say that we've gotten some really good responses from some several senators' offices, they understand it and birth control charters.
Wait behind being updated it hasn't been updated since its inception 10 years ago.
And so they are working with us to push the office of women's helped to update the chart.
As far as timing.
And that's really out of our control all we can do is keep the heat and.
And keep the pressure on and but our hope is that we would hear something this year.
And be able to obviously act on it from a payer perspective.
Okay. That's helpful. Just just to be clear, though.
You're in parallel though.
You're working with and having discussions with with commercial plans about.
Zero copay coverage. So can you talk qualitatively how those discussions are going.
Yes, absolutely.
I think our position is that affects he should fall under the mandate and be covered.
Zero dollars you can understand that the pharmacy benefit manager will take and opposition to that because they don't want to pay for anything they don't have to.
So we continue to work and educate them about the product our mechanism of action and and we do it in a manner as you know we're in front of them as much as we can we've brought in our chief Medical officer with many of those meetings.
We recently had a meeting with the one of the larger players in the country.
So we continue to have those conversations obviously, it's easier when if you have a mandate.
And then they can't fight that but we continue to have those conversations moving forward.
Well, yeah, sorry, sorry, one more thing just said just to say is that well I mean, the tough thing right. The tough thing is balancing access versus these like Harry's to politically correct to say this.
Some of these rebates that they are requesting are exorbitant. They are seen and they want us to sign these contracts for three to five years with these deep discount that it's just not responsible it's not a responsible strategy for our shareholders and so because of that we have purposely put her.
Yields from the ground and say what was it.
You can't do that so you know we don't want to do it to the detriment of women, but what we're trying to do is push on this AC ignore its hardest possible because should that come to fruition and by the way and they're not going to have and then theyre going to have to cover us and we're not gonna have to be you know how old are feet to the fire with ease and seen rebate. So.
And.
So that's what the tough balances, it's not that we couldn't get the coverage at CIT. We right now just don't think it's prudent and we don't think it's a smart business strategy because you know they feel like.
Theyre getting these rebates from some players so they think well you either play ball by our rules or forget it. So we're trying the opposite to get this ECA coverage first and while we're continuing to try to influence them in every way that we can.
Okay. Thank sondra.
Thanks, Eric.
Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Ram Silverado and you with H C. Wainwright. Your line is now open.
Hi, Thanks, so much for taking my questions just three pretty quick ones. Firstly I was wondering.
There's likely to be.
And so disciplined and not only the level of demand level of interest from both patients as well as prescribers with it and be.
Cancer patient population.
But also whether there's likely to be a substantial difference there with regard to a willingness of commercial plans to cover the product or you. If you don't anticipate there being a significant difference between that sub segments versus the market as a whole.
Secondly, I wanted to ask if you haven't seen any clear indications emerging from among the practitioner group who have already written.
Prescriptions for factory.
Regarding what percentage of that group are likely to be definitive repeat prescribers of the product and then lastly, I wanted to know if you could comment on specifically.
Finding placement of TV ad free.
During the day, you know what times do these add.
And typically are due.
You expect that to change over time, especially over the course of the next year. Thank you.
Great. Thank you so much from okay.
Russ I'm going to ask you to answer a question around the repeat prescribers and around the timing of the TV ads and when those are place and and I'm going to just start with the with the cancer questions, Ron and I have to tell you you have.
And you have read behind the line meaning.
The short answer is yes.
Unbelievably key lever.
Is this cancer population and getting these plans to open up their mindset around coverage and look at first everybody wants to say no and there's just no driven and they think the category of contraception is crowded they think there's tons of generics out there day at first out of the gate Wonder why there's even a new contraceptive product.
But once we have the opportunity to not just talk about non hormonal, but to talk about all of these women and by the way not just cancer patients, but you know there is a huge number of patients that have clinical one country indications, whether there'd be and I as high whether they're smokers with the cancer patients because these women are so vulnerable.
It has been such an important factor in our ability to influence decision makers and looked at first I will be candid and and Russell and tell you. This that at first the commercial team you know they wanted me to go away on assignment vacation and they were like Sondra.
Not going down the cancer road and I kept saying we have to we have to and so anyway. Finally, I think I wasn't down but in the and the whole commercial team agrees now and it has been such a critical piece of the sexy story, because it's just such.
And important thing to say this is for every one of them and it doesn't matter what your BMI is it doesn't matter, what other medications and Iran, but particularly if you are a cancer patient and so so yes, it's been an important lever and getting them to the site quicker.
And getting them to not have to be so controversial right. It's easy to say almost feel like there could be coming and the good guys because youre, helping these poor cancer patients and so it's been a very very important now.
The layer of your question, which was are there sometimes if they're just covering it for cancer patients. The short answer is yes.
But we are trying to get those places to really share their stories and the oncologist to have more influence to say this should be for a variety of different women because by the way. There's a lot of young women that are worried about their health from Sir they're worried about what's going to happen and if they use different medications for periods of time.
And they should also have access to something non hormonal and so.
We are definitely utilizing that for a true benefit and.
And that was a long answer sorry about that but Russell you transitioned to the repeat prescribers and the TV ads.
Sure. So as we mentioned we currently have about 2600, plus HCP that have written a prescription and about 40% of those are repeat prescribers as you start looking at the months from.
From December January February we start seeing that the the numbers continue to be closer to 50% that have are writing second prescription and so as the.
New prescribers coming to the channel we are seeing them continue to write.
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<unk> already seen a couple of prescribers that have written over 100 prescriptions. Each so there is no varies from those who have written <unk> to those that have already adopted this into their arm and maturing them.
And then the other question is on television and and on.
And are they all see that and as Saundra already mentioned this is across all media channels, both cable and over the air and like Hulu and places like that Youtube TV as well as on Youtube streaming and.
And what we really selected to do is is that we are going out to where our audiences. So majority of those are actually Erin and evening hours.
But it can start earlier, depending on where youre at.
And the country.
The key that's really the interest and there's if there's room we got from.
Eyebrows raised by people, who said why did you go back to cable cable so yesterday.
And but what we knew was this is from our research we had worked with our media placement partner and they came back and said because of Covid. We have we have this return that's going on and where people are spending more time women are spending more time back and some of the traditional channels like cable and that has proven to be so true already.
And for US as we've just gotten the Africa total responses from our target audience over and over again.
And I was just watching this show and here whats your AD. So it's primarily evening hours, but it is where are our target audience is and it's been resonating with them as saundra already suggested with well over 350% increase and search for factory.
Just as a classic and Torrey point, there I was wondering if you could confirm whether or not and there are ads per sexy currently running on streaming platforms are not.
Yes, there are.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you.
This concludes today's question and answer session I would now and turn the call back to Saundra Pelletier for closing remarks.
I just want to thank everybody for taking your time to listen to our update and for joining us and we really appreciate your ongoing interest. We appreciate your support of women's health and we look forward to speaking to you soon and I Hope you have a great rest of your day Bye bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation you may now disconnect.
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