Esperion at Jefferies Global Healthcare: Expanding Opportunities

On Wednesday, 04 June 2025, Esperion Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ESPR) presented at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2025. CEO Sheldon Koenig outlined the company’s strategic direction, highlighting the expanded market potential for their key drug, bempedoic acid, and projecting profitability by early 2026. While optimistic about market expansion and improved reimbursement rates, Esperion also acknowledged potential competition in the coming years.

Key Takeaways

• Esperion aims for peak sales of over $1 billion for bempedoic acid, driven by expanded label indications.
• The company expects to achieve profitability by Q1 2026, with potential profitable quarters before due to Utsuka milestone payments.
• Market access improvements have increased approval rates in commercial and Medicare segments.
• Esperion’s intellectual property is secured until April 2040, providing a competitive edge.
• Business development focuses on leveraging existing infrastructure for cardiometabolic assets.

Financial Results

• Revenue and Growth:

- Esperion anticipates a return to double-digit growth, aligning with current consensus estimates.

- Q1 market growth was 2%, outperforming a flat overall market.

• Profitability:

- Profitability is projected by Q1 2026, excluding Utsuka milestone payments.

- Potential profitable quarters ahead, with up to $130 million expected in Q4 from Utsuka milestones.

• 2024 Revenue Guidance:

- Revenue projections for bempedoic acid are between $165 million and $170 million.

• Gross to Net Pricing:

- Stable GTN pricing expected, supported by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

• Cash Position:

- The company holds $114 million in cash, with Utsuka milestones aiding debt repayment.

Operational Updates

• Label Expansion Impact:

- The market expanded from 10 million to 70 million patients with new primary and secondary prevention indications.

- Esperion is the only non-statin with a primary prevention indication.

• Market Access:

- Achieved 92% commercial and 72% Medicare coverage, with no prior authorization needed in some plans.

• Field Reimbursement Managers:

- Launched in April, FRMs have increased commercial approval rates from 72% to 80% and Medicare rates from 80% to 86%.

• Sales Force:

- 155 representatives focused on cardiologists and primary care physicians, with primary care adoption increasing.

Future Outlook

• Competition:

- Significant competition is not expected until 2028, with drugs like New Amsterdam on the horizon.

• IP Protection:

- Settlements with two ANDA filers extend exclusivity to April 2040, beyond the initial 2031 planning.

• Triple Combo Product:

- A triple combo product is anticipated by late 2027, potentially extending IP protection.

• Business Development:

- Esperion seeks cardiometabolic assets, focusing on Phase 3 or near-filing opportunities with high call point overlap.

• Internal Pipeline:

- ESP1336 for primary sclerosing cholangitis is a key focus, with updates expected in Q4.

Q&A Highlights

• Field Reimbursement Managers:

- FRMs are improving access and prescription rates.

• IRA Impact:

- The IRA is expected to support lower copays as more patients navigate the "donut hole."

• New Amsterdam (Obicitropib):

- No observed difference in major cardiovascular events in trials.

• Triple Combo Regulatory Pathway:

- Bioequivalence studies are expected, with a quick efficacy study under consideration.

• Business Development Focus:

- Interest in assets within the cardiometabolic space, including potential partnerships.

Esperion’s detailed strategic insights from the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference are available in the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference 2025:

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: ANTHONY L. E. part of the Healthcare Research Team here at Jefferies.

Today, we are very fortunate to have Aspirian with us and CEO Sheldon Koenig with us. Thanks for being here, Sheldon.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: For those who are kind of newer to the story, could you just talk a little bit about bempedoic acid, and especially in the last year or so, what we term Launch two point zero, and frame that kind of opportunity for us.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so first of all, you again. I really appreciate Jeffries having us at this meeting. It’s been a really good meeting for us. We’ve met with many of folks today. The history of Esperion has really been a turnaround story, and it’s something that started even as late as 2021, where we were really focusing on several different factors.

Some of them were as related to controlling our burn rate, growth, focusing on the clear outcome study, completing that study, and getting a label. To fast forward, I think as everyone knows, back in 2023, we presented the clear outcomes data, 14,000 patient outcome study. April of last year, we received our new label. And even going back to 2021, we showed high single digit growth, and then once we had our label, high double digit growth. Why is that?

Well, the label was something that allowed us to expand our market. We went from a TAM of ten million patients to seventy million patients. We received not only a secondary prevention indication, but we also received a primary prevention indication, and we’re the only non statin on the market to actually have indication in primary prevention. So, the new label has really fueled our opportunity and our growth. We always talk about the fact that this drug has an opportunity to have peak sales of greater than $1,000,000,000 We stand by that.

I think later you’re going to ask me some questions around IP, etcetera, and we’ll talk about how it could even be even more. So, we’re really happy with our growth. We’re really seeing an acceleration in this quarter of our growth as well, and that’s what we hope to continue to show.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Female Talk a little bit about coverage and how that has changed given the primary care label update. Are you also seeing more primary care docs getting on? What is the share of kind of prescriptions between primary and secondary right now that you’re seeing?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so our representatives for the most part call on both primary care physicians and cardiologists. About 1% is endocrinologists as well. And what we’ve seen with the primary prevention data, this is a story that really resonates with primary care physicians. So, we’ve seen primary care physicians continue to accelerate their adoption of the drug. It’s quite interesting that a drug that was essentially launched five years ago, but to your point, launched two point zero with the new label, we are seeing continued new writers.

So, these are people that have never written the drug before, and we’re seeing that a lot of that is based upon primary care physicians using the drug, thinking about primary prevention. What we’re also seeing is something we’re emphasizing is statin intolerance, And again, this acceleration of the growth that we’ve been seeing, we’ve been going to physicians who’ve never used a drug before, and talking to them about the fact that they can use this drug for patients who cannot take a statin. You may recall the NLA back in February issued a statement that said up to thirty percent of patients who need LDL lowering cannot take a statin. We know these patients sit in everybody’s office waiting. And so physicians, after hearing this message, have found it compelling, especially primary care, and using it there.

From a coverage perspective, we have ninety two percent coverage in commercial. We have seventy two percent coverage in Medicare, all preferred. Over 193,000,000 lives covered, and I think the biggest change with the label is you used to have to jump through a lot of step edits, multiple use of statins, you had to get through ezetimibe, that’s gone. There’s no multiple step beds through statins. As I said, if you can’t take a statin, you can go right to Nexlezet.

There’s no step edit through ezetimibe. And in some cases, we have plans, just to give you a quick two examples, Aetna, SilverScript, you don’t even need a prior authorization. So, for a branded product these days, not needing a prior authorization, that’s a real that’s a really big deal. One last fact. We’ve added 15 field reimbursement managers.

This is one person per region that’s embedded that can help offices get the drug approved if they’re having issues. We launched that on April first of this year. We’ve already seen an increase from about 72% to the 80% level in commercial, and in Medicare, we’ve gone from 80% to an 86% approval. And we think it’s because of these field reimbursement managers that were only launched in April that are helping us get there.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Great. Access has clearly improved. What about the perception of access? Is that still kind of a lingering barrier to uptake?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Well, where it is a lingering barrier, we are using these field reimbursement managers. There are some pockets. We know where that exists, and we’re addressing it with essentially FRMs is the acronym. But what we’re finding is more and more physicians, and I think even with the up ramp we’ve seen in the second quarter, are seeing that it’s easier to get Nexlazet than ever has been.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. So, terms of a revenue impact, you are already seeing these field reimbursement managers come into play and increase access and improve prescriptions?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Is No question about it.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. Great. I also wanted to ask about kind of the call points that you have right now. Is it primarily focused on primary care physicians and growing that portion of the business? Or is cardio still a focus?

And how does that make up the share of prescriptions?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah. So cardiologists are always very important. If you think about the essentially cascade of influence, cardiologists are at the top, you know, picture a triangle. They’re at the top on a regional basis, and a lot of primary care physicians look to them for information. So, right now, from a call deck perspective, if I was out in the field, about 50% of my call point, or actually a little less than 50%, would be on cardiologists, the remainder would be on primary care physicians.

We’re definitely seeing primary care physicians outpace the prescribing of cardiologists in most areas, and, you know, I think just by the sheer number of primary care physicians that are out there, you know, it’s a function of that. Keep in mind, you know, we have 155 representatives. We feel that we have found the right balance between personal promotion and non personal promotion. What do I mean by that? Personal promotion are the representatives.

Non personal promotions, we’ve been attacking via digital. So, for instance, in the EHR prescribing, a physician, when they’re prescribing bempedoic acid, or considering prescribing, they’ll see a banner ad come across. We’re also sending emails, and the representatives have the ability to send what are called virtual prescribing emails to physicians as well, and they’ve been doing that in the thousands. We actually have done a return on investment analysis, and then we actually see a seven to one return in that digital application. So, you know, question we always get is, do you need more people, etcetera?

We’ve got the right amount of people, we’ve got the right non personal promotion balance as well, and we’ve been quite effective in getting the message out there to get the prescribing.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Got it. And in terms of the cadence of revenues throughout 2025, obviously Q1 was a little softer due to insurance issues, seasonality. You mentioned kind of field reimbursement managers kicking in this quarter. Should we expect an acceleration into the back half of the year?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, right now, based upon the trajectory that we see, you know, we see growth returning to what we would say double digit. We’re comfortable with the consensus that’s out there on the street as it, you know, relates to us. I think growth will continue to accelerate. That’s one thing about this market. It’s such a large market, and we’ve shown before that, and even in the first quarter, which was a tough quarter for everyone, we showed a 2% growth in the market that’s flat.

I would go as far to say that, you know, based upon the acceleration we’ve seen, the rebound from the first quarter, just looking forward, you know, one of the questions we get is, when do we think we’ll be profitable, etcetera? We think by the first quarter of twenty twenty six, the organization will be profitable. That’s the first time we’re, you know, out there saying that. We actually think we’ll have profitable quarters even before that because of the milestone payments that we’ll be receiving from Utsuka up to 130,000,000 later into the fourth quarter. So, we’re very pleased with you know, what we’re seeing as we go into the second half of the year and leading even into the first quarter of twenty twenty six and beyond.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: And to be clear, that profitability in Q1 would be outside of those Otsuka milestones?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: That is correct, yes.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: And I think consensus has bempedoic acid doing 165 to 170. That’s the range that you feel you would be comfortable in hitting this year?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: We’re comfortable with the range that we see right now, yes.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Great. Any other kind of seasonality to pay attention to for the rest of the year? For example, with Medicare Part D redesign and the gross to net fluctuations?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, our gross to net, I think the best way of saying it, it’s going to be the most stable that we’ve ever seen ever. A part of that is just the introduction of the IRA. I think what was different this year is that typically the donut hole that patients experience is between that third and fourth quarter time period. Here, it was the first quarter. So, you had patients that didn’t understand the IRA, you had Medicare providers that didn’t understand the IRA, you had a new president that had some rhetoric out there as it related to, Should I shut Medicare down?

There’s a lot of things that occurred. Most patients are through that $2,000 donut hole already, and what’s really, I guess, cool about that is we see now patients don’t have a co pay for Nexlazet or Nexlitol in Medicare if they’re through that. So, it’s a nice tailwind for us, and I think that’s really going to help us throughout the year. So, you know, to emphasize, our GTN stable, and nothing that will be, you know, no seasonality that will create any type of negative dynamics towards our business.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay, got it. And I guess, looking forward to the next couple of years, where you have, you know, some other competitors in the LDL lowering space, how do you view those other competitors coming onto the market and how that would affect membadoic acid?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so this is a really interesting question, one that could actually take up a separate fireside chat if we have one. I’ll try to condense this in just a few minutes. Let me just first say that today physicians can write for Nexlazet or Nexlitol. Next year, in 2026, they can continue writing for it with no competition. 2027, they can write with it with no competition.

It’s not really until 2028 where you might start seeing competition with drugs like New Amsterdam, oral PCS K9, etcetera. Let me first start with New Amsterdam. So, first of all, think all new medications are welcome. This is an environment where cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the world. We’ve said that before.

But, you know, with these new assets, there’s also a couple of questions we have to address. As we know, there have been four other CETPs beforehand, and none of them have really ever made it. It wasn’t until about two or three weeks ago that we’ve actually seen the literature around New Amsterdam and Obicitropib, and I’m just quoting the literature. You know, what we hear about is this possible residual risk reduction, this possible effect on Lp, and most lately, Alzheimer’s, which I think Dennis wrote a note on. You know, personally I believe that’s a stretch, but let’s just focus on lipids.

So, lipids alone. You know, if you take a look at the data that was produced, you know, for Broadway, if you take a look at the MACE four, and they’re still deciding between MACE four and MACE three, there’s 2.6 events in the obicitropib group, and 2.6 events in the placebo group, no difference. If you look at MACE three, there was only a difference in revascularization. There’s no difference in fatal or non fatal MI Revascularization is a very soft endpoint. And as you know, the data that was shown previously crossed a confidence interval of one.

If you are to then say, well, maybe it’s effective Lp, as we know the horizon data has been extended because not enough events have occurred until 2026. But let’s take a look at the OHDSI study and the Fourier study. So, if you look at the CTT analysis for both of those, LDL reduction predicted what the residual risk reduction would be, fifteen percent. Both those drugs actually lower Lp at a very similar rate between thirteen and fifteen milligram per deciliter, and neither of those studies showed an effect of Lp. The point being is you have to have far greater Lp reduction to actually potentially show a result.

How big is that? We don’t really know. There have been some studies. I think we have to wait and see what the horizon data shows. And I think the other elephant in the room we’ve already talked about one, but bringing the other one that you have an HDL increase of 160 milligrams per deciliter.

And there’s this thought out there that LDL is bad cholesterol, that’s true. HDL is good cholesterol, we’re not sure about that. There’s been recent and not so recent publications regarding HDL raising, and how much HDL raising is actually harmful and can cause CV events. So, that’s a question that remains to be seen. But none of these will be answered until we actually see the outcomes results, which will be sometime in late twenty twenty six or 2027.

I think for the oral PCSK9 with Merck, there’s an issue with fasting for eight hours, and I think that’s going to be really hard for patients to do that. We just don’t know enough about the AstraZeneca PCSK9 at this point. But that’s my take. But in the meantime, you know, Anfio, we have to focus on the drugs that are available today that can save lives. And that’s bempedoic acid.

And this drug is going to be here today and possibly even a lot longer than 2031 based upon the news that we released in the past few weeks, as early as yesterday.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. So, key takeaway, bemdolic acid is approved and completely de risked and that should be the focus in terms of commercialization. And you speak of IP. Can you recap the end of filer settlements for us?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: And what projected exclusivity looks like?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, we’ve had two filers now out of the nine that have essentially settled at no cost, no money exchanged. They’ve settled for around the April 2040 timeline. So, that’s two out of the nine. It’s given us, you know, much more confidence of how far we think we can extend our runway. You know, in the past, we’ve always publicly said that we’re planning for June 2031 as our baseline.

We’ve actually started more strategic planning that would be beyond that 02/1931, and you can imagine just the positive benefit of having anything above 02/1931. So, we are continuing to gain more and more confidence as we have these folks come to us and settle. And to me, it seems as though there’s somewhat of a domino effect happening here. So, stay tuned. You know, we’ll see what happens over the next weeks and months and years.

But the fact that folks have come forward already gives us confidence, and also reassures what we’ve always said. We’ve always said that we believe our manufacturing patents are very strong, this is a very difficult drug to make, it’s a dangerous drug to make, And we believe that a lot of the folks that filed are looking at these patents, and they’re realizing that now.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: So, what’s the timeline for a resolution of the rest of the end of filer litigation?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, the true litigation would not was not scheduled to occur until 2027.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: But that does not stop ANDA filers coming to us. So, all the discovery is complete. So, everyone has their cards on the table. So, I know what they have, they know what we have. I don’t, but our law firm does.

And, you know, who knows? I mean, you could have people coming to us in the next couple of months and saying, we’re willing to settle, we’re willing to talk. It really remains to be seen. But the fact that two have already done it gives us confidence that there potentially could be more.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. And talk about the triple combo as well, and how that also could potentially extend IP even more.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah. So, the triple combo for Daiichi Sankyo, definitely for them, it could extend their IP anywhere from five to ten years. For us, if we continue to see this cascade of settlement, we’re looking beyond two thousand and 30 one in The United States. And this is for something that, just to remind you, is ezetimibe plus bempedoic acid, and or either atorvastatin or rosuvastatin. So, we’ll get the choice of those two statins that physicians can choose from.

And the benefit there is, this has the potential to be the most efficacious LDL lowering drug on the market. I think the other benefit about this drug, we talk about markers of inflammation. As you know, bempedoic acid reduces HSCRP, a known marker of inflammation. Statins lower HSCRP, so there’s also that pleiotropic effect that we would get from that combination. We have found physicians to be very excited about having something like this, a drug of convenience, limits pill burden, and provides overwhelming efficacy.

So, we’re on plan for that. We’ve always put a timeline of somewhere near the end of twenty twenty seven for that drug to be available. And you think about the dates I gave earlier, that’s also around the same dates either on or before competition enters the market.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. And what does the regulatory pathway look like for the triple combo in The U. S?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, we have a meeting coming up, another meeting with the FDA very soon, but this is really it’s not a true five zero five, 2B type strategy, but it is something where essentially it’s just bioequivalence that needs to be done. So, no large clinical study needs to be conducted, unless you would like to have some additional information in the label. You know, that is something we thought about. Would we ever want to do a quick study of efficacy? That’s something that we would think about, have no interference on our timeline, and it’s something that, you know, we talk to our advisors about.

We have a lipid advisory board, and you know, this is just one of the topics that we talk about as we think about lifecycle management.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. So, if you just did the bioequivalence study, would the label look just like NexoZet and Nexitol’s label?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: So, the labels, we haven’t gone through the thorough draft label, but the label would be essentially what you see today our in our labels. But there’d be no additional new information to promote.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. I want to talk about BD as well. Given that you have a ton of Otsuka milestones coming in, what is your capacity for BD right now? What is your thinking around it? And are there any specific therapeutic areas that you are looking to invest in?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so, great question. This is something we’ve been spending a lot of time on. We talked about this at J. P. Morgan, and let me just give you a quick update on where we are.

We’ve done a significant landscape analysis to look at assets, whether it be anywhere in cardiometabolic, whether it be lipids, obesity, hypertension, heart failure, anything, as I said, cardiometabolic, even diabetes. There are a lot of companies out there today that have drugs in phase three that are either close to filing, have filed, actually have PDUFA dates. Many of these companies only have one compound. Many of these companies only have three, four, 10 employees. They don’t have the ability or the infrastructure to actually launch the drug.

And so, I want to be really clear about something. We’ve always talked about business development as a way to leverage our infrastructure. One thing that we’ve had is companies come to us and say, wow, you have a sales force, you have medical science liaisons, you have a legal department, you have a compliance department. These are all things that necessitate a successful launch of a drug. And, you know, what’s interesting about the macro environment, and actually Jeffrey’s actually just put out a note about how, you know, really biotech, it’s really hard to get funding these days.

The one silver lining for us in the macro environment is that these companies can’t raise the money to spend $80,000,000 to put a sales force out there. We have 155 people you can leverage today. So, this is all about leveraging our infrastructure and coming up with a deal that could be revenue sharing, etcetera. We don’t need to own the company, but we can certainly act as a vehicle to launch that drug. And we have capacity amongst our field to do that.

So, stay tuned. We don’t want to rush. We don’t want to just go and do a deal with any company or any product. We want to make sure it’s the right product. It takes a lot of diligence to do that.

And, but I do think we’re on the right track and, you know, whether that happens at the end of this year or sometime in the beginning of next year, I can assure you it will be something where it’s the right product and it just adds more cash to our business as well.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. So, to recap, it sounds like cardiometabolic, something that’s really aligned to bempedoic acid, not necessarily a full buyout of the asset. Maybe some sort of co commercialization agreement could be possible in the next twelve months or so. That’s fair?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, that’s fair. It’s really something where there’s no layout of cash from us. It’s more of us lending our infrastructure and helping somebody. We have $114,000,000 in cash. We noted that.

You know, we can’t go out and buy something. We need that money to run our business. This is, to me, is just something where, again, leveraging our infrastructure to help another company, and also us really getting money for it.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Are you looking mostly in the public markets, or also diving into more of the private companies as well?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: We are looking at companies that are both public and private.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. And so, with that being said of not using so much cash, the Otsuka milestones would be more to pay down debt and less so to be used in BD?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, the Otsuka milestones, obviously, we have a 55 or $50,000,000 stub that’s due in November, so the milestones will be used to do that. And the milestones would, you know, would not be that’s not in our mindset right now. We don’t have those milestones, we’re thinking doing the BD, you know, today, or like I said, later in the year, early next year. But it hasn’t come into play that that’s what we’d be using the milestones for.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. Got it. In terms of cardiometabolic, can you be a little bit more specific in terms of what within that space you’re looking for? Is it really very closely aligned like lipids or more cardiology, say, afib, something in that area?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Well, I’m not going to talk about the company specifically, and I know you guys have put out notes regarding the companies you think it could be, and, you know

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: I tried.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yes. You know, you’re not far off, okay? But it could be more than that. But it’s really about a high call point overlap. You know, we’re calling on cardiologists.

Cardiologists treat arrhythmia. They treat heart failure. They treat lipids. Primary care physicians treat arrhythmias. Primary care physicians treat frequent flyers of heart failure.

So, we want something that’s a high point overlap. Many of our representatives have deep experience in cardiovascular medicine, so over and beyond just lipids, and even extending into liver. So, I think we can be really flexible, and again, we’re also one the few companies actually as a primary care sales force, And I think that’s very interesting for some of the organizations that potentially would want to partner with us.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. You bring up liver, so the internal pipeline. What are the upcoming updates we can expect from there?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so on April 24, did not too far down the street, we did a very successful R and D Day where we premiered ESP thirteen thirty six, a drug for primary sclerosing cholangitis. We feel that in all the drugs in development, we have, you know, really the one drug that can really halt the disease. We’ll probably hear more about the drug. We’ll update you more in the fourth quarter. But what I can tell you is that R and D Day generated a lot of interest for us, and that’s more of a, I guess, reverse business development, companies reaching into us.

We have bio in Boston in about two weeks, and we have a very full schedule of companies that want to talk about our pipeline and our ACLY biology science, and these are both mid sized and big companies. So, it’s an exciting time for us, I’ve always said, and it’s hard to get credit in biotech for pipeline drugs. But nonetheless, you know, the fact that we’re commercializing a drug, the fact that we can actually do research and development and bring a candidate forward is a big deal. It’s valuable to us. And, you know, other companies now are interested in the science.

That was the plan. And, but us ourselves will update you later in the fall of where we are as we march to IND with this.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: What other indications are you exploring in your internal pipeline? And can we expect updates from there as well?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Yeah, so right now we’re focusing on PSC. There are other indications from a liver perspective, but I think also what’s really interesting is we have an entire kidney program, which we have not even talked about, which we will probably sometime next year. One area that we do not have expertise in, but we have seen signals, is in oncology. Geoblastoma is one area, and that’s very, very early. We’re not the experts there, but we do have a very specific scientific advisory board where we have oncologists, we have lipidologists, endocrinologists, etcetera, that can help us think about that, and how do we move that forward.

But the priority right now is really focusing on PSC and obviously our kidney program, which is expansive.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: And you bring up external interest in these programs. Is the idea for you to fully develop it alone moving forward or to out license them?

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: We’ve always have said in our prepared remarks that we believe the pipeline really makes us an interesting candidate for partnerships. Okay. I think if we could develop a partnership, we could develop the drug much more quickly. If not, we’re prepared to develop it on our own. But I do think there’s an opportunity for partnerships to help us, and we are seeing some initial interest.

So, we’ll see, you know, exactly where that goes.

Anthony L. E., Part of the Healthcare Research Team, Jefferies: Okay. Well, thank you very much, Sheldon. Thank you for being here, and thank you everyone for joining us.

Sheldon Koenig, CEO, Aspirian: Thank you everyone.

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