George Scangos
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open
Okay. Thank you, Ben, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Third quarter was marked by significant progress across several key areas. We delivered a 11% revenue growth and 18% non-GAAP EPS growth, as we continue to see modification growth across the portfolio. We have several important developments in our pipeline. We initiated enrollment for our Phase 3 clinical program for aducanumab and Alzheimer’s disease. We announced Phase 3 results for TYSABRI and secondary progressive MS, which I will cover in more detail later in the call. And we continue to strengthen our pipeline by announcing an agreement to exclusively license MT-1303 for Mitsubishi Tanabe. On the commercial front, we remain committed to improving our commercial trajectory with a particular emphasis on TECFIDERA. Our market research continues to indicate that prescribers believe TECFIDERA has a very strong benefit risk profile. However, patient growth in the U.S. and Germany remains challenging, and we’re actively working to improve this dynamic. We’ve increased sales costs for TECFIDERA, as we continue to educate physicians on TECFIDERA’s strong efficacy and favorable safety profile and its label and monitoring requirements. We’ve also increased our direct-to-consumer marketing in the U.S., including a recently launched television campaign that some of you may have seen. We also made significant progress on capital allocation. Through yesterday, we’ve returned approximately $3.9 billion to our shareholders through the repurchase of our common stock. Importantly, Biogen still retains strategic flexibility to support both continued business development and potentially larger scale acquisitions. We remain focused on strengthening and expanding our early stage pipeline through tuck-in acquisitions and collaborations. The strategy that has produced assets, such as TECFIDERA, ELOCTATE, ALPROLIX, aducanumab, Isis-SMNRx and Raxatrigine. We’re actively looking for late-stage and commercial assets, which have the potential to add both strategic value and near-term revenue growth, while maintaining financial discipline. Today, we also announced the corporate restructuring that we believe will best position the company to achieve our strategic priorities. This decision to reduce our workforce was extremely difficult and we’re very thankful for the hard work and contributions of our talented colleagues and friends. As part of our effort to focus on key commercial initiatives and high potential pipeline candidate, we’ve also made a decision to discontinue several pipeline program that includes TECFIDERA in secondary progressive MS, as well as certain programs in immunology and fibrosis research, including anti-TWEAK. Importantly, we plan to reinvest the savings from this restructuring into key commercial initiatives and a number of prioritized programs across our emerging mid- and late-stage pipeline, including commercial initiatives aimed at increasing sales and marketing therapies, including new direct-to-consumer marketing programs for TECFIDERA, the advancement of aducanumab, BAN2401, and E 2609 for Alzheimer’s disease, Anti-LINGO for multiple sclerosis, Isis-SMNRx for spinal muscular atrophy, our recently acquired asset from Convergence, Raxatrigine for Trigeminal Neuralgia and other pain indications, and MT-1303 for inflammatory bowel disease and other autoimmune diseases. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Al for an update on R&D.