Apellis at BofA Conference: Strategic Growth and Challenges

On Tuesday, 13 May 2025, Apellis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:APLS) presented at the BofA Securities 2025 Healthcare Conference, offering a strategic overview of its current operations and future plans. The company highlighted its growth prospects amidst challenges such as market volatility and funding reductions. Apellis remains optimistic about its products, Cyphovri and the upcoming Evolva, while addressing potential impacts from macroeconomic events.

Key Takeaways

• Apellis anticipates moderate growth for Cyphovri, focusing on efficacy and dosing differentiation.
• The company is preparing for the August launch of Evolva, a treatment for C3G.
• Apellis ended the quarter with $358 million in cash, sufficient to reach profitability.
• The company is leveraging AI instruments to enhance physician feedback and patient care.
• A new DTC campaign featuring Henry Winkler is showing early success in increasing patient awareness.

Financial Results

• Cash Position:

- Ended the quarter with $358 million, sufficient to reach profitability without additional financing.

• Sales Guidance:

- No specific sales guidance for Cyphovri due to market volatility; awaiting Evolva’s launch results.

• Market Growth:

- Despite funding challenges, injection numbers for Cyphovri increased quarter-over-quarter.

• Pricing:

- Evolva will be priced similarly to the PNH product, contributing meaningfully to revenue.

Operational Updates

• Cyphovri Market Share:

- Gained market share due to differentiation in efficacy and dosing schedule.

• C3G (Evolva) Launch:

- Scheduled for August, with a significant overlap in practices covering C3G and PNH.

• Manufacturing:

- Drug substance by Bachem in Switzerland; polyethylene glycol by NAF in Japan.

• DTC Campaign:

- Featuring Henry Winkler, showing success in driving patient awareness.

• Sales Force:

- Comprises 50 to 60 persons, deemed sufficient for sales targets.

• Pipeline:

- Phase two and phase three clinical trials are underway for various indications.

Future Outlook

• siRNA Program:

- Developing subcutaneous injections for geographic atrophy to synchronize with intravitreal injections.

• Nephrology Indications:

- Phase three trials planned for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and delayed graft function.

• Market Growth:

- Anticipates GA market growth once funding issues are resolved.

Q&A Highlights

• Executive Order Impact:

- Limited exposure to Medicare; potential carve-outs for non-ex-US pricing control.

• Foundation Funding:

- Donation to Good Days made; no coordination with other companies.

• Competitive Landscape:

- Market share gains driven by efficacy and safety stabilization.

• Discontinuations:

- Trends similar to those observed with anti-VEGF drugs.

In conclusion, Apellis Pharmaceuticals is strategically navigating challenges while focusing on its product pipeline and growth initiatives. For more details, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - BofA Securities 2025 Healthcare Conference:

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: I can’t okay. Great. Now I can hear myself talking. All right. Good morning, Thanks for joining us.

Welcome to the Bank of America Healthcare Conference. I’m Tazeen Ahmad, one of the senior SMID biotech analysts here at the bank. Our next presenting company is Apellis Pharmaceuticals. Presenting for Apellis this morning is Cedric Francois, who is co founder, president, and CEO of the company. And sitting next to him is Tim Sullivan, who is the CFO.

Good morning, Thanks for making the trip over.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Good Thank you, Tazeen. Great to be here.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So we’ll go into the specifics of the company in a second, but I wanted to go through a couple of macro questions. And again, I’m always finding myself surprised lately that as a SMID analyst, I’m addressing macro questions with companies. But the most recent one, let’s talk about what happened yesterday with the executive order. As it relates to most favored nation, can you maybe walk us through the impact to the company, if at all? Again, details are not that specific.

One thing I’ll point out is, of course, Cyfoviry is a US sales company as a product, not company. Maybe can you talk to Empivalli and how that could be impacted?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Sure. I’m happy to do that. Thank you for having us. So Empivalli is, you know, in terms of total exposure, right, it’s limited to, at least at this point, it looks like it’s limited to Medicare, but we don’t know what the full impact is. But typically, at least historically, there have been carve outs for companies where they don’t control the pricing ex US, and we obviously don’t.

Sobe has all of the ex US rights. So there’s a lot to figure out with all of this, You know? And and at least at this point, you know, it’s hard for us to comment. Right? But that’s one factor we’re definitely monitoring.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. And then, can you talk about manufacturing? Where does that occur?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: We can. We can talk about what we’ve disclosed so far, which is where, our drug substance is manufactured. That’s by Bachem in Switzerland. We also talk about our polyethylene glycol component that’s manufactured by NAF in Japan. What we haven’t disclosed is where our, our drug product is manufactured, so we we can’t talk about that right now, but, we think our exposure is not very large.

And why is that? Because of where we manufacture.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Do you think that the impact to, gross margin would not be, meaningful relative to where you are now?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Well, look. We’re we’re obviously monitoring the tariff situation, and we’re analyzing for any potential impacts and what we can do to mitigate those. And, you know, we’re gonna keep you updated as those thoughts evolve and as we know more.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. And then last question is about FDA, just given changes that have been occurring at the agency for the last couple of months. In your interactions with the people that you normally speak to, have you noticed any changes in timelines, any changes to the people that you’re speaking with, etcetera?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: No. That’s the short answer. So, you know, it’s it’s there’s a bit of a division specific aspect, I suppose, but our division so far has been functioning very well. We got our priority review, as you know, and we also have a very very clear readout in our phase three clinical trial, which would hopefully help to make this an easy review for them. So so far no indications that, any delay may be coming.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. So, let’s talk about Cyphovri, some of the trends that we’ve seen, let’s say, over the last year and most recently this quarter. So top of mind is the impact from the resourcing related to foundations. So, Cedric, can you just talk to us about that in general for those who might not be as familiar with how foundations play into retina disease drug space in general?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah, thank you Tazeen. Well, so maybe the broad picture first. The patients who are on treatments, with either anti VEGFs or with GA treatments like Cyfoviry, are responsible for a copay of approximately twenty percent, of the product. So, you know, it’s about $400, worth of co pay every time a person receives an injection. Now that co pay can be addressed either through advantage plans or can be addressed through foundations that are independent charitable organizations to which companies like Apellis, etcetera, can donate.

But there is a Chinese world. We do that because we care about patients. There is absolutely no commercial context to that. Those donations are then used to help patients in need cover that $400. Now of the overall GA population, and it probably translates to the anti VEGF population as well, approximately twenty percent of patients are affected by all of a sudden the drop in funding that happens at the most important foundation calls, good days.

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Mhmm.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: There’s a, you know, lots of stories around there as to why that funding dropped, but pretty much over the course of the end of last year and the beginning of this year, that funding suddenly fell away. And so these patients now are faced with a couple of choices with their physicians. The first one is, you know, maybe as a patient, you find a way to still afford that co pay. The second one is you could, you know, maybe try to get funding through your advantage plan. It was easy to get funding from these charitable organizations, so sometimes maybe not enough effort was put into it.

And the third one is certainly some patients as well, you know, but are seen by the physician who makes much less money if they use a sample. Right? They can use a sample for the patient, or they can tell the patient come back in a couple of months. So there

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: is an

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: important impact on revenue that we get from that, of course. But what we’ve also seen is a very meaningful uptick in sample usage. So that is indicative of physicians caring about patients, wanting to make sure that they keep on being treated. And now in the next couple of quarters, we’re going to see how that all settles out.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Yeah, so one of the companies that has been contributing over the last several years is Regeneron. And for a number of reasons, they’ve, as you said, been one of the companies to have pulled back. But are we just waiting for a company to start funding the foundation again? Because they seem to have made the statement that they wanted to be a little bit more evenly distributed among all of the different companies that have products. And so maybe one question I have for you is, are all of the companies planning on talking to each other about this or how is it actually going to get resolved?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. There there’s no and there there cannot be coordination around this. Okay. These are charitable donations that are made, agnostic of what the outcome is on on commercial impact. So we make our donation or made a donation at the beginning of the year to Good Days as we did last year as well.

You know, that is that is all we can do, unfortunately.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So if the timeline for resolution remains it seems murky, What is Appellis going to do about making sure that that market stays robust and resilient? Maybe that’s a question also for Tim.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. Thank you, Tazeen. Well, I think maybe I’ll touch briefly on something that was really, you know, very nice to see for us in the first quarter. So if you take the commercial injections and you add the number of sample injections, which increased dramatically, then we actually saw four percent quarter over quarter growth between q four and q one. So more patients were treated in q one than in q four in spite of what happens with good days.

Because, again, you’re gonna have patients where the physician says come back later. So that is good organic growth that we see happening in this space. And again, linked to the fact that we’re only at about ten percent of patients with geographic atrophy that have been treated. There’s an enormous, kept up demand there still that exists. As to what we can do is, you know, patients that I think especially in the advantage plan category, we can help, and we can do that compliantly.

We can help patients and practices figure out how they can find the proper mechanisms available to them through their insurance plans to be able to afford that copay. I think that’s the most important. Yeah.

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: I would add that we can also help these physician offices track their patients to see when they’re getting close to their copay and then bring them in. So there’s certain things we can do there to help as well. And one thing sort of analogous or adjacent to what Cedric mentioned is there were patients who had secondary insurance who the doctors were still going to Good Days because it was just administratively easier. So there’s a certain percentage of patients who can quickly, you know, go back to commercial product just with their secondary insurance. And then for the ones who can’t, samples may, you know, get them to the point where they can hit their copay on in other ways or or whatever.

So

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And are all those things happening, like, right now?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: All those things are happening. Right.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And are you seeing the benefit of that already?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: We see the benefit of that already. Yes.

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: I mean, I think one of the benefits is in the total injections. You see the fact that those are still increasing. So that’s a good sign. That means some patients are getting treated. And we’re certainly missing out on patients for sure.

We just don’t We can’t quantify it.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Right. So maybe the better question to be asking is you’re still seeing growth despite this, clearly it’s a little bit of a growth that is not at its full potential.

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: It’s a headwind, yes.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Right. And so I think most people are of the view that if you can reach the full potential, that would be meaningful from a total market opportunity standpoint. The debate that I’ve been having with a lot of investors is how big is the practically addressable GA market right now. So, you know, can you can you talk to us about what you know, you you don’t give official guidance, but thinking about the rest of this year, how should we be thinking about, you know, modeling what what sales could be?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: So I think, you know, we did what we could in terms of guidance on the on the earnings call, which is to say we think the growth will be moderate this year as as the physicians figure out what they’re gonna do about this. Right? And I think that’s that’s the best way to think about it because retinal specialists these are smart people. They’re gonna figure out how to get these patients treated. They have all the incentives to do that, right, including just wanting to treat patients.

So I think all that gets kind of figured out over time. And, yeah, this is a little bit of a reset on maybe the size of the market, call it, at the end of the day, maybe 10%. It’s just a guess. Right? But it’s gonna grow normally from there once everything gets kinda figured out, and that’s that’s kinda how we think about it.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. So maybe let’s talk about the competitive landscape between Apellis and Astellas. One thing that was encouraging is you talked about market share gains that have been made in in the first quarter alone. What what do you think are the drivers that have been allowing that to happen?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Differentiation on efficacy and stabilization on safety. That is the that is the simple answer. So we all know that there was a CRL for our competitor in November. That CRL got resolved in February. But when you really look at the trends and the the gradual takeover that we’ve had on new patients treated, right, that trend started before the CRL and continued after the CRL resolution.

Right? So to put that in perspective, you know, at the end of the summer, we dipped as low on new patients treated, as low as forty percent for Cyphoviri and sixty percent for our competitor. That has now flipped over into fifty five percent Mhmm. For us versus forty five percent for our competitor, which is really not a 15, but a 30% flip over. Right?

So, that is a very encouraging trend over time. And to answer your question, it is very clearly rooted in the perception, the accurate perception that there’s a differentiation and meaningful differentiation on efficacy paired with an advantage with every other month dosing. So, you know, that is an advantage that we have. We also continue to generate data, of course, over time. We just have the forty eight month data from Gail, which looks amazing.

Right? I mean, it’s something that, really gives an idea of how much you can do for these patients over time. Those are all elements that I think factor into that trend.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And then in terms of the switch market, just since, like you mentioned, Cedric, about the language in the Astellas label, it still says to dose it monthly, whether or not doctors are following it is a different question, but have you been made aware from your sales force about patients who may have started on the competing product that because of the more favorable language, less frequent dosing allowed per the label have chosen Cypho Free going forward?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yes. So we see an advantage on switchovers as well as on new treatments.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And as you think about, you know, what is going to make, you know, the market number that you have built into your expectations achievable, what is the major variable that you think needs, to continue to go well?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Well, I think, look. There was I don’t need to tell you. There was a lot of turmoil in this space right over the past two years. Right now, we are in a very quiet period where physicians, you know, you know, under understand the safety profile, understand that, you know, it was kind of it’s it’s much rarer and much less severe than than people at some point thought maybe it was. You know, we we haven’t seen a case of vasculitis in in a long time now.

I mean, so there’s all these elements that play into it, and physicians know about this. So now people can look at the efficacy and kind of with a more quiet mind look at what does this mean for my patients. And I think that is really rooted in the the overall growth that we will see in front of us. Now in terms of the real difference maker rather than kind of a gradual increase in treatment patients, something to look forward to are the AI instruments that we have available to us. In the anti VEGF markets, anti VEGFs are amazing drugs for patients with wet AMD, but they became as great as they did because you can do an SDOCT investigation and see the liquid go away in the eye.

Right? We have the ability to do something similar for patients with GA, where you don’t see your patient after a year and the patient asks, is the drug working for me? And the physician has to say, well, we don’t know, but we have to count that it does. We have the tools to actually provide the feedback that the drug is doing what it’s supposed to do. So now we have an engineering job to make sure that that is made easily available to physicians and patients.

And that I think not just for us, but for the category is going to make a difference.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So even with all this evidence that you’re collecting for some patients that just might be difficult to be able to maintain the frequency with which they have to go see doctors, even if it’s every other week, this is something that they can’t actually notice themselves. So can you talk about trends that you’ve seen about discontinuations from the time that the product launched through now?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. So we have the trends are similar to what you see with the end of edge apps. It’s pretty remarkable. Right? So, we’re very encouraged by that, and I think, again, these these AI tools are gonna help us further increase that.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Is your Salesforce right sized?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yes.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Have you talked about how big that is?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. I think I think we’ve we’ve discussed it. It’s in the, you know, 50 to 60 person range if you include medical affairs.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And, if you think about where you want sales to be, do you think that this size is the right size for that?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. Absolutely. We spend a lot a lot of time scoping that, and we you know, I I can tell you that we have a conversation with a commercial lead for for this launch maybe once a week where I say, is there anything else you need? Is there anything you need? And the answer is no in terms of new personnel.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Maybe related to that point, I wanted to ask about cash needs. As we continue to focus on this launch, and you have another one that’s going to be upcoming, we’ll talk about that in a second. Tim, can you talk to us about where you are on that front? And if you were going to think about any kind of financing, what options, additional options outside of an equity offering could be attractive?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. Well, I’ll I’ll just start by saying, you know, we ended the quarter with 358,000,000 in cash, and we reiterated our our view that that’s, you know, that’s sufficient to get us to profitability. We aren’t, looking to raise capital to become profitable. We have what we need to do that.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay, perfect. So now let’s talk about C3G. Maybe Cedric, can you just give us a quick summary of that program, who the addressable patient populations are, and why Appellis is excited about it?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah, thank you Tazeen. So very exciting launch for us coming up, you know, right around the corner. So Evolva is going to plant starting in August. This is our third launch in four years. So I think that I’m very proud of that.

I mean, it’s it’s rare to be able to do that, and it’s rare to do be able to do it with the quality of the data that we have. Right? So in the Valiant study, we studied one hundred and twenty four patients with c three g, but also with ICMPGN, kind of the sister indication where you can find antibodies in the kidney. That overall population is approximately five thousand patients split between those two. We then also within those populations looked at pre transplant, but also post transplant.

We looked at adolescents. We looked at adults. So we kind of covered the gamut of all the patients that are suffering from this condition. And and I would say, you know, the the readout was as good as we could have hoped for. The one aspect that I always tell people to remember or focus on is that after six months of dosing, already in about seventy percent of patients on histopathology, histopathologists could not find a trace of the disease anymore.

So really impressive data that we believe are going to make a huge difference for patients.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: How is this administered and what is the dosing frequency?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Same as with PNH. It’s a subcutaneous self administered product at home twice a week.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay, so as we think about the competitive landscape here, Novartis has Vapalta that’s delivered as an oral. So how are you thinking about simply comparing them on ease of use for patients? Have doctors told you about their feelings on that inclusive of incorporating the efficacy data?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. So there are very important differences in terms of the readouts and on the efficacy differentiation that we have. And, again, I want to point out the one that is most impressive and and truly differentiated is the histopathological evidence that we have. So we have that advantage squarely in our hands. I also want to point out something that is equally relevant.

The fact that the patient population that was studied by our competitor is probably only about fifteen hundred to two thousand out of those 5,000 patients. The patients with c three g, not iCMPGN, pre transplant, not post transplant, and adults, not adolescents.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So is what portion of of their population that would be ideal for their drug is overlapping with the Pellus.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Well, I think if you have this disease and you have serious symptoms, you are going to want to treat this disease with a product that you believe is best going to help the patients. And you know, we believe that the convenience aspect will be secondary to them.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Can you talk a little bit about what to expect in terms of pricing range because this would be a rare disease?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: It will be priced similarly to what we do with PNH. Okay,

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: and so I guess doing the math on that, this could be a meaningful contributor to a Pellus. In terms of the resources that you would have to devote in getting this launch off the ground, can you talk about the obvious thing about this is a rare disease versus But what are some learnings from Cyphovri that you think you’ll be able to apply to this launch to help make it strong from day one?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: I think the main learnings actually came came from PNH. Right? I mean, the launch that we did there, we about we have about 20% overlap between the practices that cover c three g and those that cover PNH, but those cover approximately seventy percent of the patients with c three g and SEMPgen. So we have a very good existing presence already in the most relevant practices, and we believe we’re very well set up to launch this product.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So as we think about, you know, Apellis moving forward, so you’re very busy focusing on continuing to gain traction with Syphova and you’ll be adding C3G. What else should we be thinking about in terms of what the company could be focused on going forward indications wise?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. Thank you for that question. So we have a very exciting pipeline, preclinical, soon to be clinical, that we’ll talk much more about in the near future. One program that I would like to highlight is our siRNA program in geographic atrophy. So this is a subcutaneous injection with siRNA that brings the systemic c three levels down by 90%.

What we try to do there is we’re gonna synchronize that subcutaneous injection with the intravitreal injection. Try to do that intravitreal injection every three months instead of every two, so have a convenience benefit, and then further improve on the efficacy profile of cifluvirin. That phase two clinical trial is starting to enroll this quarter, And and, you know, I believe will really represent the most exciting developmental program within this disease of geographic atrophy, when the readout comes, you know, when it’s ready. Okay.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And then how are you thinking about potential for other indications in nephrology?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: So we have two phase three clinical trials that are gonna start in the second half of this year. Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and then delayed graft function to, we believe, wonderful indications to still build on what we have right now in the kidney. What was remarkable about c three gen, I c m p gen is what is clearly exquisite target engagement of c three in the place where it matters. So in the glomerulus, that is something we’re gonna build on with those two additional indications.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And are those also indications where others are, developing products?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yes. There are. But, you know, the competition competition was one of the important aspects, of course, that we took it under consideration to understand the NPV, and and the investment that had to be made. These are two indications where we believe we will be very well positioned.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So I guess ultimately, when would you be comfortable? Because this is a question I get all the time about providing sales guidance. Think maybe, Tim, you answered the question on the earnings call about perhaps you wait until c three g is also launched before getting comfortable providing sales guidance overall. But is that the correct interpretation?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: It feels like it would be odd for us to give sales guidance. First of all, it’s been a very challenging period with Cyphobia to give sales guidance, what with the CRL for the competitor and then with the good date. I mean, it’s just, you know, that that place of calm that Cedric’s talking about hasn’t really been there where he can, you know, think about guidance. I think the other the other aspect is I don’t I don’t know that it makes sense to give guidance on one drug and not the other. So I think we need to see how that launch goes, and then, you know, get a sense for what’s steady state growth in that market, and then then we can start thinking about it.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. And then I will ask it. It’s a question that I’m also getting about the your competitor providing sales guidance last year as well as this year and metrics that they use versus metrics that Pellus uses. So one thing that’s different is the number that that you give for market share, new patient market share for for, like, OvaRate versus what they’re saying their market share is. So can you can you talk about that?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. We the dataset that we use represents, you know, more than 50% of all injections and is retrieved from the point of care. The data that our competitor uses represents approximately 15% and is claims based data. Also, in the earnings call, it stood out that there was only data provided up to February, you know, which again is indicative of what we know is happening. But, know, beyond, I think, whether, you know, believe that one you believe that one database is better than the other, look at the trends over time.

Right? I mean, when you think about what’s been happening since September up till now, there’s a clear takeover that is happening, and that favors us.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: And then maybe last question on Cyphoviry DTC campaign. You launched another commercial with Henry Winkler. How do you correlate those DTC ads with success in terms of, I don’t know, patient awareness, getting patients to ask their physicians about the drug, etcetera?

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Yeah. So look, we have early indicators that it’s successful. We get to see things like number of patients and number of clicks on websites and things like that. Then there’s more long term data where we can see how it really drives patients into physicians’ offices. So there’s a lag on that, but so far the metrics are suggesting that it’s very successful.

We actually already, we won an award for ad as well. I don’t if you wanna talk about that.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: The first one or the second one? The second one.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: The second one. Yeah. Fear style had a whole a whole, like, what was it? It’s like a Yeah. Like, March madness thing for ads, and we won it.

Yeah. We won it. Now we have a gigantic cut out of office of Henry Winkler in our office.

Tim Sullivan, CFO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: If you walk into our office late at night, there’s a you’d think there’s a person there holding up a congratulations on Palace sign. It’s actually a cut out of Henry Winkler. It’s scary. Yeah. Okay.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: So gonna be your spokesperson for the duration. Maybe one more question on that topic. You did have a little bit of a gap between the first ad campaign and and then and the current one. Why is now the time to invest in that again?

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: I think the timing was very much in sync with, again, kind of that moment of quiet coming into, into universe. I think the you know, again, I think I’m I’m I’m personally incredibly proud of how we managed kind of that scare that happened two years ago and how we got through that. And now again, we want physicians to take a look at the efficacy, and understand how important this product is for patients. So it seemed like the right time.

Tazeen Ahmad, Senior SMID Biotech Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. With that, we are out of time for today. We look forward to catching up with you guys again, on how the Cyphovri launch as well as hopefully the new launch is going in the early innings. So thanks for coming again. Thanks, guys, for joining.

Cedric Francois, Co-founder, President, and CEO, Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Thank you, Kazooie.

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