Q1 2023 Royalty Pharma plc Earnings Call
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Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by welcome to the royalty pharma first quarter earnings Conference call.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to George growth at SVP head of Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead Sir.
Good morning, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Thank you for joining us to review royalty pharma first quarter 2023 results you can find the press release with our earnings results and flights to call on the investors page of our website at royalty pharma dotcom.
Moving to slide three I would like to remind you that information presented in this call contains forward looking statements that involve known and unknown risks uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements I refer you to our 10-K on file with the SEC for a description of these risks.
All forward looking statements are based on information currently available to royalty pharma and we assume no obligation to update any such forward looking statements.
non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help you understand our financial performance. The GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are provided in the earnings press release available on our website.
And with that please advance to slide four.
Our speakers on the call today are Pablo like a writedown founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Mark will Europe , EVP head of research and investments and Terry Cohen, EVP Chief Financial Officer.
Pablo will discuss the key highlights Marshalls and provide a portfolio update after which Terry will review the financials.
Following concluding remarks, and Pablo we will hold a Q&A session. When we'll be joined by Chris height, EVP Vice Chairman.
With that I'd like to turn the call over to Pablo.
Thank you George and welcome to everyone on the call.
I'm delighted to report a strong start to 2023 as we deliver on our strategy as a leading funder of innovation in life Sciences.
Slide six summarizes our financial and portfolio achievements in the first quarter, which again highlights our strong momentum.
The power of our business model.
First we delivered strong performance.
Adjusted cash receipts, our top line grew by 11% adjusted EBITDA also by debit.
And adjusted cash flow grew by 49% August strong metrics were prior to the buyer hammer related payments.
I will discuss on the next slide.
Second on capital location.
We announced royalty position of up to $1 6 billion.
$600 million upfront payment and a multiyear share repurchase program of up to 1 billion.
I also personally intend to acquire up to an additional $50 million of royalty pharma stock given the compelling value I believe the share represents.
Third we strengthened our royalty portfolio.
Added three new therapies, including the SMA blockbusters in Russia, and the exciting development stage therapies, Pella Carson and RFP.
Both of which are potential future blockbusters are consensus estimate.
Additionally, three medicines in our portfolio were approved by the FDA.
The phase III readout for a potential label expansion with the <unk> study.
Four we are reaffirming our increased full year guidance for adjusted cash receipts.
Our guidance reflects expected underlying growth from our portfolio grew 4% and 9% prior to the buyer hammer related payments consistent with our standard practice our guidance is based on our current portfolio.
The benefit of any future acquisitions this year.
On slide seven you can see our financials in more detail.
We delivered 11% growth in our top line prior to the biogen related payments and 80% or 87% growth.
It includes a framework.
As a reminder, the major nonrecurring items here are the 475 million milestone received from Pfizer in March 2023.
Following the approval of SaaS spread for migraine as well as the $13 million fixed by headcount related payments were received in the same period a year ago.
Foreign exchange continued to represent a headwind impacting our top line by around minus three to minus 4% in the quarter.
Consistent with our top line, we grew our adjusted EBITDA by 11% in the.
Quarter prior to the buyers haven't related payments and 88%.
Including these payments.
EBITDA is an important non-GAAP measure for us which is arrived at.
<unk> payments for operating and professional costs from our top line.
Lastly, our adjusted cash flow our bottom line grew by 49% in the quarter prior to the buyers haven't related payments and 165%, including the payments.
Substantial increase in the quarter also reflected the $100 million upfront and milestone development stage payments to <unk> in the prior year.
Slide eight shows our impressive track record of strong topline growth.
IPO in June of 2012.
During our double digit growth in the first quarter.
This reflects it reflects our ability to execute successfully and consistently against our strategy.
Slide nine provides a deeper dive into our top line performance in the quarter.
The various moving parts.
The strong performance of our base business and our acquisition of the trades of royalties allowed us to deliver 11% top line growth before taking into account the impact of the bioterror and related payments.
Royalty exploration and pricing together represented a combined headwind to growth in the 7% to 8% range.
Underlying dynamics in the quarter once again underscore the unique power of our business model to replenish our portfolio and to drive compounding growth.
With that I will hand, it over to Marshall to update you on our portfolio.
Thanks Pablo.
Few sides I wanted to discuss our recent transactions in schizophrenia and also to provide a broader perspective on our approach to portfolio strategy.
Last month, we were delighted to announce the acquisition of <unk> royalty on Corona's car X team. This is a novel oral muscarinic agonist with two positive phase III trials in schizophrenia <unk> XT is also in development for the treatment of psychosis and Alzheimers disease.
In return for an upfront payment of $100 million.
<unk> $400 million in potential regulatory and sales milestones, we will receive a 3% royalty on annual sales of car X T up to $2 billion.
And approximately 1% above the threshold to provide some context for modeling the potential outflows for this transaction the vast majority of the milestones require very strong commercial performance.
Our excitement about this development stage medicines is driven by the results of the clinical program, including two phase III studies emergent two and three and a significant need for new novel therapies in schizophrenia.
Not only did the trials demonstrate early and sustained reductions in the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, but importantly.
Tolerability profile was very encouraging, especially regarding some of those common adverse events typically associated with current medications, including weight gain somnolence and extra pyramidal symptoms based on these strong results Corona plans to submit a new drug application to the FDA in the third quarter of this year.
<unk> has certainly recognize the exciting profile of this compound with consensus sales projections rising to $5 billion by 2030.
Slide 12 expands and the significant unmet need for new treatments in schizophrenia on the left hand side, you can see that close to a third of patients do not respond to current therapy and only about half have a partial improvement or suffer unacceptable side effects when taken together with the particular challenges of this disease. This result in approximately <unk> <unk>.
Three quarters of patients discontinuing treatment within 18 months, which underscores the need for new treatment approaches.
This is why we are so excited to have.
Invested in two novel mechanisms of action through car T and NK 80, 189, each potentially offers a differentiated clinical profile from current medications, most notably on Tolerability RXT as I. Just highlighted has already reported positive phase II results and will be marketed by Corona subject to FDA approval and NK.
The $81 89 is a PD <unk> inhibitor in phase <unk> or a potential royalty arises from a unique collaboration between royalty pharma and Merck.
Taken together this is another illustration of our unique ability to invest in multiple therapies in the same category, where we see the potential for innovation to transform patient lives.
Slide 13 returns to a concept that we showed at our Investor day last year on selected investment themes of interest our investments in the schizophrenia category are consistent with two of these themes. The first is to explore the potential of under innovated large markets, where there is arguably arguably been less industry focus given the shift towards specialty markets.
Smaller patient populations and higher price points.
Schizophrenia is a great example of a large under innovative market and we believe that car X T and NK 80, 189 could bring important benefits to patients in this complex and difficult to treat population.
In addition, we believe brain disease is tremendous scope for innovation with limited effective treatment options in many cases schizophrenia sit squarely in this heterogeneous category.
Lastly, on slide 14, I want to provide a long term perspective on our balanced royalty acquisition strategy.
This data shows how we have deployed our capital since 2012 between approved in development stage opportunities on the left hand side you see that since we started investing in development stage therapies in 2012.
Approximately $21 billion in capital deployed the majority of the investments have been in approved products on the right hand side, you can see that the percentage deployed annually has exhibited.
Significant variability on an annual basis in part, reflecting the opportunistic nature of our business, but in aggregate has also been skewed towards approved products on average at 59% of total capital. So while we do not have target.
Levels of investment between approved in development stage or therapeutic area agnostic approach to investing and position as the partner of choice in the royalty funding market has allowed us to fund innovation in a balanced way while <unk>.
Containing strong returns and long term growth with that I'll hand over to Gerry.
Thanks, Marshall, let's move to slide 16.
Total royalty receipts grew 72% in the first quarter versus the year ago period, excluding the bio haven related payments in each quarter royalty receipts grew approximately 8%.
The magnitude of growth reflects the $475 million last mile.
Bilestone payments together with strong contributions from the cystic fibrosis franchise, Trumpf fire and the <unk> royalty, which we acquired last July .
We also saw growing royalty contributions from Ed risky and cabin medics and from other medicines not shown on this slide.
All of it, particularly <unk> and all the data.
Lastly, we received a $35 million payment related to Astrazeneca Air Supra.
These positive factors were partially offset by the loss of the DPP four royalties by weakness in <unk> and to a lesser extent tysabri and by the adverse FX impact.
Slide 17 shows how our efficient business model generates substantial cash flow to be redeployed.
As Youre aware adjusted cash receipts as a key non-GAAP metric for us, which we arrive at after deducting distributions to noncontrolling interests.
This amounted to $1 1 billion in the quarter or growth of 87% compared with last year's first quarter as.
As Pablo noted earlier prior to the impact of bio Haven related payments growth would have been 11% in the quarter.
As we move down the column operating and professional costs were approximately 8% of adjusted cash receipts in the quarter.
As a consequence, we reported 88% growth in adjusted EBITDA in the quarter relatively consistent with our topline growth.
When we think of the cash generated by the business to be redeployed into new value enhancing royalties, we look to adjusted EBITDA less net interest paid.
Net interest paid in the quarter of $67 million reflected the semiannual timing of the payments on our seven 3 billion.
Of unsecured notes, which occur in the first and third quarters.
This figure included $16 million, we received in interest given the strong cash position on our balance sheet, which benefited from higher interest rates.
We did not have upfront and milestone payments for development stage funding in the quarter, whereas the prior year period included a $100 million payment related decided kinetics.
As a consequence adjusted cash flow, our bottomline grew significantly faster than adjusted cash receipts and adjusted EBITDA amounted to $973 million or $1 60 per share for the quarter.
This resulted in an adjusted cash flow margin of 86%, which once again highlights the efficiency of our business model.
Let's move now to slide 18, and our financial position.
We continue to maintain significant financial firepower for future royalty acquisitions.
In the first quarter, we deployed a little over $600 million of capital on royalty acquisitions, as well as around $120 million on dividends.
This was more than offset by our strong cash flow generation over the quarter.
So that our cash and marketable securities increased to $2 billion at the end of March.
Our leverage at the end of the quarter stood at a comfortable two three times total debt to EBITDA and one seven times net debt to EBITDA.
As I have previously highlighted the fixed rate average coupon on our debt is slightly above 2%, which compares to our target returns on royalty acquisitions in the high single digit to teens percentage range.
In addition around 60% of our debt matures in 2000 therapy beyond.
Taken together, we continue to believe that our cost of capital and debt maturity profile represent a durable competitive advantage for our business.
Based on our financial strength and efficient business model, we remain confident in our ability to execute our business plan and create value for shareholders.
On slide 19, I want to remind you of our capital allocation strategy and how we expect this to drive shareholder value creation.
At our Investor Day last May we outlined that over a five year period through a combination of cash generation and our debt capacity. We have we expect to have access to around $20 billion of capital.
As you can see on this slide the majority of our capital will be deployed on value enhancing royalty acquisitions with a target of $10 billion to $12 billion invested over the period.
In fact as many of you are aware, we are running a bit ahead of the schedule, having announced transactions of up to $5 billion since 2022.
Furthermore, given the tailwind in our industry and our powerful market position our transaction pipeline continues to remain robust and highly active.
We aim to balance this primary focus on royalty acquisitions with returning capital to shareholders through a combination of dividends and when appropriate share repurchases.
Recently, the board authorized a multi year share buyback program of up to $1 billion, which were which is a reflection of the compelling value we see in our share price and our focus on efficient capital allocation to drive shareholder returns.
By executing against this capital allocation strategy. We are confident we will continue to deliver on our mission of accelerating innovation and life sciences, while generating strong returns and creating significant shareholder value.
Slide Slide 20 provides our full year 2023 financial guidance.
We expect adjusted cash receipts to be in the range of 285 billion to $2 95 billion.
Consistent with the raised outlook, we provided in March following receipt of the milestone.
Milestone payments.
Importantly, and consistent with our standard practice. This guidance is based on our portfolio as of today and does not take into account the benefit of any future royalty acquisitions.
Turning to our operating costs, we expect payments for operating and professional costs to be approximately 8% to 9% of adjusted cash receipts in 2023 in line with previous guidance.
We continue to believe that the degree of margin protection provided by our unique business model is impressive and today's inflationary environment.
Similarly interest paid for full year 2023 is still expected to be around $170 million and to about followed the established quarterly pattern with de Minimis amounts payable in Q2 and Q4.
This does not take into account interest received on our cash balance which was $16 million in the first quarter.
You should also note that we expect to make a $50 million milestone payment decider kinetics in the second half of 2023 based on the company's guidance of initiating their pivotal trial of epic Hampton and non obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
This $50 million expense will be recorded as a development stage funding payments and thus reduce adjusted cash flow this year.
Lastly, as many of you are aware.
Royalties, we receive lag sales by one quarter.
<unk> product sales by one quarter. Additionally, several of our largest royalties are tiered, which typically reset at the beginning of the year and have the potential to increase throughout the year.
Therefore, there is some seasonality to our business in the second quarter tends to be lower than other quarters in the year in the first quarter tends to be higher.
Accordingly.
We would expect adjusted cash receipts in the second quarter to be slightly higher compared with the same quarter in 2022.
My final slide drills down further on our adjusted cash receipts guidance. The graphic is illustrative, but sets out the various pushes and pulls behind our outlook for 2023.
Starting with the left hand side, we have faced a high base of comparison due to the $509 million of bio Haven related payment, which we received in 2022.
Adjusting for these payments brings the underlying base for 2022 adjusted cash receipts to 2.2 dollars 8 billion.
On the right side, if we start from the adjusted cash receipt base prior to bio Haven, we expect underlying growth of 4% to 9% this year, which we anticipate to be driven by the CF franchise shrimp fire and a full year of <unk> royalties, partially offset by the losses of exclusivity.
On the DPP fours and <unk> weakness, which we believe we are conservatively reflected in our guidance.
We also expect a modest contribution from three quarters of spend RASM royalties.
As mentioned earlier this growth does not include the benefit of any future acquisitions.
Using today's U S. Dollar exchange rates FX is expected to represent a relatively modest headwind of minus 1% to minus 2%.
Putting this altogether, including the $475 million payment milestone payment on <unk>.
We are reaffirming our increased top line guidance of $2 85 billion to $2 95 billion.
With that I would like to hand, the call back to Pablo for his closing comments.
Okay.
Thanks Kerry.
Let me close by saying how pleased I am with our excellent start to 2023.
This sets us up well to deliver on our guidance for the full year and two continuing to execute strongly against our strategy.
To finish on slide 23, I would like to highlight why royalty pharma business model offers a unique ways to invest in biopharma.
<unk> growth as we announced at our Investor Day, we expect to deliver a top line CAGR of more than 10%.
Or more over the decade, which compares with consensus expectations of 4% for large biopharma.
Despite being a relatively small company in terms of share count.
Offer the benefits of scale with exposure to 15 blockbuster medicines as compared with an average of nine for the large biopharma companies.
We have a similar low cost of capital for our development stage investments tend to be lower risk as we generally do not invest in therapies before clinical proof of concept, thereby avoiding the high failure rates of preclinical and early stage clinical compounds.
We have consistently delivered an attractive low double digit rate.
Turn on our investments and our and while we are unable to provide a precise comparison with large biopharma as you know the R&D productivity of the industry and returns on acquisitions are open for debate.
We also offer a yield of around 2%.
And last but not least our management team is fully aligned with shareholders.
<unk> ownership of the company, which is significantly higher than the management ownership and large biopharma.
Ownership for named Executive officers of royalty pharma is 16%, which.
Which compares to 11, 1% for our large cap biopharma peers.
However, when we consider all employees and the board ownership of royalty pharma is even higher at around 32%.
Taken together I truly believe royalty pharma offers a unique and powerful business model with our <unk>.
Very attractive growth and return profile when compared to the biopharma industry with that we would be happy to take your questions.
We will now open up the call to your questions. Operator, please take the first question.
Okay.
One moment, Sir your first caller.
Yes.
The first question comes from the line of Chris <unk> from Goldman Sachs. Chris Go ahead.
Thank you very much good morning appreciate the updates.
You talk about a balance between the development stage and the commercial royalties do you feel that that balance is the correct. One for you roughly 59% to 60% and is that reflected in terms of the funnel historically you've talked about all the screening that you do across the different landscape and I ask that question in part in particular and I know that these were some of the select.
Investment teams, but can you talk about sort of areas, where there's under investment in terms of innovation for large Tam.
Merrell logic diseases et cetera.
Q more towards taking some development type risk and then Relatedly can you comment on what your team's thoughts are we recently in the Alzheimer's disease area had some incremental news that continues to move forward the beta amyloid hypothesis there.
Do you see opportunity neuro degeneration as mentioned, but in particular for Alzheimer's disease, where we are love to get your thoughts on.
The outlook, there and how you view that as a potential round for opportunity. Thank you.
Thanks, Chris This is a question for human Marshall, Okay, Great Hi, Chris Good morning, I think there were three three basic questions. There. The first one is how do we feel about the overall balance of approved versus development stage.
In our portfolio and overall as we've highlighted as we've highlighted we feel really confident in our overall strategy here and how our focus continues to be on finding therapies.
Are important to patients to physicians to the medical system.
That makes sense for our portfolio and I think we're going to continue to focus on notice and as you've seen as you can see on slide 14 that has yielded a really a really comfortable balance of approved and development stage therapies. So I think overall we feel.
We feel really comfortable with where we are and will continue to and will continue to prosecute that strategy as we have been.
Second question there was do the overall themes that we highlighted suggest.
That there'll be more of a focus on development stage and.
Overall, I'd say no to that for a couple of reasons I think one is.
One is that as we've said as I as I said in the prepared remarks. These investment themes are overall themes of interest, but they arent necessarily driving day today, how we how we look at the opportunities in front of US. So these are themes that we think are really interesting.
Being but.
They are just that themes and we're going to continue to stay really focused on the on the strategy that I talked about.
Yes, there are some examples on here.
<unk> developed.
Development stage investments, but at the same time I think there is other areas where we've made.
Where we've made investments in approved therapies that would be consistent with these themes.
And under innovated large market certainly we felt like when we made the <unk> investment. This was another area, where there had been less investment by large pharma and this was a leading therapy in stills.
Still a very large category. So just as an example, the third part of your question was about all timers disease, it's been great to see all the success there for patients and it looks like we're going to have multiple therapies in that category.
We think that is an exciting area and continues to be something that we're monitoring and looking for potential opportunities there as they make sense for us.
Great. Thank you.
One on the answer the next question.
Yes.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of Chris Schott of JP Morgan Chris Go ahead.
Great. Thanks, so much for the questions I just had another one on just the environment I guess could you just elaborate a bit on the I guess the tone of the conversation youre, having with potential partners I guess, specifically have kind of the needs and objectives of some of these partners changed at all given the prolonged challenges in the biotech funding environment and does that kind of.
Changing the way Youre thinking about the type of deals are structures of deals youre doing.
And then the second piece of that is just about the competitive landscape. So I guess with one hand higher interest rates, but maybe another hand seemingly more involvement of the large cap biopharma names looking to either partner or acquire assets in some of the verticals that youre targeting as well are you seeing kind of a different competitive arena than you might have thought about.
Two or three years ago or is that largely kind of the same as what you've experienced thank you.
Thanks, Chris.
Chris.
Dresser on pressure.
Thanks for your question, Chris on the first of all on the tone.
As we.
<unk> had some pretty good slides of our last quarter.
Quarterly call, which talked about just the number how the royalty market's growing and how our initial reviews have gone up I think 75% since 2019.
So in the backdrop of the.
The royalty market's growing sixfold since 2015 in the sense of number of deals tenfold since 2015 and a number.
Dollar value of transactions.
With that as a backdrop.
Of course, the capital markets environment is challenging for Biopharma right now.
And I think Thats in part what has led to a little bit of the increase in our number of opportunity set but keep in mind in 2020 and 2021, the capital markets were extraordinarily robust and we still it out.
Lots of transactions.
The tone of the market is one in which we see a lot of opportunity, but we're going to continue to be very selective in the deals that we do.
So I guess, that's how I would answer the first question and then a second question as it relates to competition once again.
We.
We see.
Some deals are competitive some deals or not.
The nature of the competition Hasnt really changed on.
On the backdrop of the overall environment growing this is a growing marketplace and biopharma land, we continue to dominate that marketplace with greater than 50% share, especially on the larger transactions.
<unk>.
We certainly see a growing environment. We welcome competition is certainly there, but we feel very confident with our competitive advantages, especially around our cost of capital and our access to capital.
I think our competitor.
<unk> have even increased since we went public.
And in many ways, but we can talk about that more later.
Great. Thanks, so much.
One moment for the next question.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of these stellar from Cowen Steve. Please go ahead.
I have two questions first.
GSK seems to be refocusing on respiratory overall after deemphasizing. It a few years ago entering their chronic cough space is a recent example of that I assume this could have.
Impact on future royalties of trilogy in a positive way is there any stipulations in the contract either positive or negative that could reflect gsk's commitment adjustments to respiratory in the future.
Secondly.
I think you've been asked this before but given how quickly the market is developing I thought it might be worth asking again and that is that royalty pharma has no exposure to obesity.
Can think of three reasons for this number one you have not come across opportunities to.
Two there are opportunities, but you know like the molecules or terms or three you are not convinced on the size of the market I'm wondering if you can tell us which of those three is the most prominent factor that you're not involved in obesity.
Sure Steve Good question Marshall of what Im sure.
Sure. Thanks, Steve Good morning, so on <unk>.
GSK and trilogy, thanks for highlighting that we are excited to see.
Excited to see GSK.
Focusing on something like chronic cough.
Which is an interesting market and as you point out is consistent with their focus on respiratory disease and the general Medicine category I don't think Theres anything to answer. Your question. There is nothing specific in the contract with respect to that although I would just highlight a couple of things. The first is.
As part of diligence on that we did get a sense of and try to diligence.
Gsk's commitment and investment in <unk> and that was part of our evaluation process, but overall, taking a little step back <unk> is a good example of the types of products that we really get excited about it's large it's growing into a as is highlighted on a previous question.
And under innovated unfocused on market.
And is really attracting investment.
By by GSK and is a really important product over there and I think when our interests are aligned with a great company like Gsk's in a category, where there are real leader.
The kind of thing that we get really excited about.
On obesity.
Thanks for bringing that up as well.
Agree with you such an exciting space with a lot going on.
It is a category of interest there and without kind of ranking. Your you are three factors. There I think we'll continue to apply our same approach there of looking for opportunities that where where we can find a win win for us for our partner and we will continue to apply the same.
<unk>.
Apply the same strategy of looking for.
Looking for the right opportunities to get involved at the right time, but thanks for the questions.
Thank you.
One moment for your next question.
Sure.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of Terence Flynn from Morgan Stanley parents. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Thanks for taking the questions maybe for me on term fire. This is one of your larger potential royalty streams and there have been.
I would say a growing interest in new oral immunology drugs here and so as you think about the implications of the entry of the TIK two inhibitors or potentially an oral IL 23.
Maybe Marshall how do you see this market evolving.
And then just one follow up on the kind of deal flow for the year, maybe any more metrics you could cite Chris in terms of how that backlog is playing out over the course of this year versus last year. Thank you.
Okay sure maybe I can I can start on the first one and Chris can comment on the second question, So untrimmed fire.
Again.
A medicine that we're really really excited to have as a part of the portfolio and having one of the best marketers in the world and Janssen behind it is some of the same themes that we just touched on with <unk> as well as why we are really excited about this.
I think the both the.
Putting together the incredible efficacy of shrimp via the dosing convenience the strength of the market their position.
Both in terms of physicians' minds their position.
Commercially label expansion into IBD I think we're really excited about about <unk> future. We are following.
The entry of oral <unk>.
We have seen historically this space has had a really interesting and underestimated capacity to to find roles for new products, just given the need for patient choice and the unmet need here and that's our view overall I think we're still really we're excited about both categories.
<unk> and the Injectables as well as some some of the really interesting things that are going on.
The.
And on the oral space so.
That's our overall view, there and Chris can talk about.
Our deal flow.
Sure.
Yes.
So.
The.
As we stated in the past deal flow in any given year, it's hard to predict and can be volatile.
Which is why we describe our capital deployment targets over a multiyear period. So I would just encourage you to keep that in the back of your head, but obviously last year, we executed $3 5 billion of announced transaction value and $2 billion of which was the front end.
And already this year.
<unk> announced $1 6 billion in transaction value.
Of which $600 million upfront so.
We feel we're off to a great year last year, we looked at over 350 opportunities in <unk>.
Less than 3% of those.
Opportunities, we actually resulted in transactions. So it's a very small percentage that we actually transact upon.
The environment as you might imagine is extraordinarily robust.
And we are extraordinarily excited about our opportunity set and that's why we raised our guidance.
Talked about the $10 billion to $12 billion.
Capital deployment over the next five years, we're very comfortable with that so I think everything is really sort of ticking in the sense of the backdrop of the overall royalty market growing as I mentioned tenfold since 2015.
And our opportunity set itself, we're really excited about the pipeline.
One moment for your next question.
Okay.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of Geoff Meacham of Bank of America, Jeff. Please go ahead.
Good morning. This is Susan Andre just first just a broader question we've seen a lot of M&A deals this year and the valuations have been relatively high have you guys seen an uptick in asset valuation with the M&A environment getting better and then Q.
On under innovative markets can you tell us more about what's new and of interest within migraines beyond anti trp's.
From our research team has really just been the dominant asset migraine so far.
Sure. Thanks for the question.
Okay.
Regarding M&A I think.
<unk> to north of that.
There are sort of different markets right, where companies are acquiring other companies.
Rising on those deals because based on different metrics than the metrics, we use when we're acquiring royalties.
<unk>.
But very different.
There is obviously.
In some respect a strategic component.
Company requires other.
Company.
<unk>.
What we are investing in royalties.
As for our financial driven analysis, where we're looking over the <unk>.
Very attractive positive returns.
And the vast covered what sort of returns we're seeking but.
Yes, I would mention is that it is.
Exciting to see all of this M&A activities.
Happening because they do present opportunities for us to acquire royalties once the company has been acquired and we acquire more interested in progressing.
Selling the non core strategic assets and there has been many transactions in the past that fall in that category. We're also working with acquirers.
<unk>.
When we're looking at potential acquisitions.
For us to partner with them and deploy capital side by side with them to make the acquisition more efficient.
Maybe I'll turn it over to Marshall for the migraine.
Sure Great question and.
And a really interesting one.
Overall, I think the things in.
In our earlier things in migraine or programs that we continue to monitor but I think the really important theme to keep in mind is the <unk> inhibitors in our in our mind are still in the early innings of their rollout and their ability to really impact how migraine. It's managed so I think it will be great to watch in.
The years to come how Pfizer and Abbvie are able to really broaden the prescriber base for <unk>.
For the <unk> inhibitors.
Continue to.
Continue to penetrate.
Into the into the still dominant Triptan class and we're excited to see them do that and also what happens globally as well so.
I think thats the real focus on in our mind right now and we will continue to follow what's happening in the earlier development stages.
Thank you.
One moment for your next question.
Your next question comes from the line of Omar <unk> of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. This is Mike jewelry in for Omar. Thanks, So much for taking my question two for me.
Respect to the IRS, the CMS guidance documents specifically.
Specifically call out the terms active moiety active ingredient.
Has it respectfully pertains to identifying qualifying single source small molecule and biologic drugs.
Whereby drug products small molecule products with the same active moiety.
We'll be considered single source and biologic products with the same active ingredient will be considered single source.
All that said what are your thoughts on this and does this influence your willingness to invest in royalties linked.
To re formulated biologic drugs.
And then similarly, but separately you thoughts on how the CMS guidance documents bodes for fixed dose combination products, such as trilogy Lipton and are super. Thank you.
Okay.
Sure <unk>.
Sure Yeah. Thanks, Mike Good morning, So two questions. There I think first on the active ingredient versus active moiety question.
That's something that we have talked with into the external consultants and advisers that we used.
As we continue to all follow IRA you guys have done some interesting work there as well in terms of defining that issue. So it's something we continue to follow I think it highlights an important point, though which is our overall.
Our overall strength of our business model in this <unk> era, which is as we learn new things.
About how the IRR will be implemented as we are.
And as we work through that we can implement that in our investment process and are right now in terms of looking at and it has become I think as for all of US a really core part of how we look at every project, which is what is the potential exposure to IRA what are the scenarios.
<unk> worked through that fits really well with our scenario based approach that we've talked about before.
On fixed dose combinations I think they're the world's seems a little bit more clear that those are considered.
They are considered kind of individual products, which was kind of consistent with our expectation and we will have their own kind of clock from an IRR perspective. So.
That's our view like like I said, we're continuing to follow it and confer with all of the outside advisors, who we use to continue to process all the new learnings about IRI.
Yes.
Great. Thank you.
One moment for your last question.
The next question comes from the line of Ash Verma of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Thanks for taking my question so.
Just a different angle on the M&A.
You'll be making environmental related to either of these biotech company do you think the M&A acreage without put them directly competes with them trying to monetize.
Assets why why is it only the route.
In your view like <unk>, just kind of prefer targeting wholly owned assets with unencumbered economics, and so biotechs might be hesitant to get into royalty agreements before if they want to sell eventually.
Thanks.
Thank you for your question on our side, we were also not really being able to listen to the first part of your question.
So I don't know.
Closer to the microphone or something better work hard just to understand sorry.
Yes, no noise so here.
Do you think when you're making these deals with the biotech companies do you think that the M&A exit route to them kind of directly competes with them trying to monetize the asset wide. The royalty route what I'm trying to get a sense is like if the strategic quite as do they prefer.
Assets with unencumbered royalty.
That's why the biotech companies might be hesitant into getting a royalty arrangement with you if they eventually want to sell.
Chris wanted to PFS.
Sure. Thanks for the question.
Generally speaking the pharmaceutical universe right I mean, just the history and I think we actually covered this in our.
Analyst day last year with a slide showing just the number of partnerships.
And royalties associated with products that are getting developed these days could be such a fragmented.
R&D process there.
Oftentimes a royalty associated with every product or partnership crop profits or however, you want to define that.
It's just the nature of the universe that.
Pharmaceuticals.
That's just the nature of the universe that we live in.
So.
When pharmaceutical companies are looking at.
Acquiring a company. They are they are modeling whatever the economics of that product are in most of the acquisitions that come with an encumbered product. So thats just very.
Our regular way for large pharma when theyre looking at a target.
And.
And they are used to that and so as you know.
The companies that we talk to them.
Obviously, we had we had.
Deals with bio Haven at Immunomedics, but where.
Where we have royalties and both ended up being acquired but.
As a former person who did a lot of those transactions representing large pharma on the banking side.
As just part of the the way they think about it is just the universe that they live in and so it's not really something that prevents M&A and it's not really something that prevents a company to do a transaction with us on the royalty side.
So it doesn't prevent our business flow in.
It's not a chilled to the M&A environment either.
Thank you.
At this time I'd like to turn it back over to Pablo for further comments.
Sure. Thank you operator.
Thank you to everyone on the call for your continued interest and royalty pharma.
If you have any follow up questions. Please feel free to reach out to absorb.
Thank you.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program you may now disconnect.
Yeah.
Okay.
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