I just read the earnings call transcript and there is so much interesting info and I have a lot of thoughts, but not much time to post, so it’ll have to wait. First, I would agree that there was a lot of dancing around during the Q & A. Second, It was interesting that the same peak annual revenue of $8M-10M was given for the KITE contract even though the patient population is about 7 times the size of Novartis’s patient population for pediatric r/r ALL. Was this the first time that the $ size of the first indication of the Kite contract was shared?
Third, one of the things I was most interested in is the Bristol Myers and other Big Pharma outsourcing contracts. This is all Jerry had to say about it:
“Cryoport has been successful in landing a large pharma support project, supporting the global biologics manufacturing. Although the transition of these types of projects has been complex and slower than anticipated they are approaching completion on the contractual and quality related aspects before onboarding to be finalized. Once fully converted, these will ramp throughout the next fiscal year. Cryoport anticipate additional program adds in this space in the coming quarters as the market awareness in this space develops.”
Well it’s nice to know that they are finally nearing completion (after a year and a half) and will fully ramp within the next year, but I have to say that answer (and many others) was disappointing. On the bright side, I guess now that it’s known how difficult and lengthy the conversion is, it is very unlikely they will change to a competitor once transitioned. I wonder if it’s a little concerning to other potential Pharma customers considering outsourcing though. I anticipated AT LEAST one more contract (Merck?) signing in the last 2 quarters.
