CN, it’s always been a long road, and a 2019/2020 story in my view. You’ve been disappointed with the numbers for each of the 3 quarters I’ve been here, and I predict this will continue on May 3rd.
Kite didn’t really have a commercial department and got a late start getting their medical centers up and running and laying the groundwork for insurance coverage last year. We have the reports that CMS and a few private insurers are just getting on board now, but insurers are still requiring preauthorization, so it will take a bit more time to work this out. Gilled won’t report Q1 earnings until May 5th, but I’m expecting little revenue from them this quarter.
Novartis just reported their Q1 earnings last week and had this to say with regard to Kymriah:
Kymriah produced $12 million in sales in the first quarter ($475k price = ~25 patients). (analyst’s are forecasting ~$160M for the year)
DLBCL remains on track for U.S. approval in Q2 of this year
and one question from an analyst:
Emmanuel Papadakis (Barclays)
. . . And the second quick question, if you could answer is just bit more color on Kymriah. I will tell you they have helpful sales figures you said the majority lives are now covered maybe you could talk a bit about patient centers trajectory you expect for the rest of this year? Thanks very much.
Elizabeth Doherty
Yeah, sure. Love to give a little bit more color on that. As we've talked about before, their revenue in Q1 was actually in line with our expectations. We have been focused on exactly what you're talking about expanding the sites, we now have 35 sites up and running. Just keep in mind the new therapy is the new therapy for us it's also new therapy for the hospitals and centers. So, we spent a lot of time making sure that the experience that they're having is a positive one and that we are getting the logistics down properly. And we feel very good about where we are in preparation for the DLBCL hope for anticipation of expansion soon. So, I think we saw the reimbursement, we have not had any issues as reimbursement that's going very smoothly. The sites are up and running, we feel very good about that and in anticipation again of the expansion of the label soon. So, I think so far so good, yes, we expect that we'll see the trajectory improve over time. But again, keeping in mind, not only with ALL but also with DLBCL outlook starts to launch that these patients need to be referred to the centers. And so, I think you'll see a continuous improvement quarter-over-quarter. But you will see it, it will take time for these centers to get up and running and used to use in this new therapy.
