I thought the Goldman analyst was very smooth, diplomatic but to the point in conveying "investors' concerns", presumably their clients', with the Halo story -- mainly, the issue of the patents' expiry, the lack of new deals and the concern that the $1B in royalties by 2027 projection is not realistic. Helen did as good a job as she has done lately in responding to these questions. The analyst also asked if the infusion time of any of the products in the pipeline is similar to Darzalex's and she said no but that the reduction of administration time is only one factor in determining conversion rate. He also asked about competition, mainly from the company Argx made a deal with. She just said she did not know much about it but that they are not in clinical trials yet, so it's very early and competitors are not a threat for now. So, nothing particularly new but it was interesting to have one conversation that covered everything and that these concerns are still lingering. Helen did confirm that they are "in discussions" with several companies.
The GMAB chat: they said Darzalex FasPro is exceeding their expectations and they think it is mainly because existing patients are converting from IV just as much as new patients, which apparently is unusual. They think that Covid has been a big factor in accelerating the conversion. (They said it's "over 60%" and increasing in US. I believe they had said 60% in their previous call.) This suggests to me that Halo may do better with new drugs like ARGX's and HZNP's where the pool of existing patients who are used to the IV infusion formulation will be smaller.
The ARGX chat: they seemed very bullish on efgartigimod and very interested in getting the SC formulation approved as soon as possible because they see it as an important differentiating factor. They are working on 4 indications but I did not know that they are hoping to eventually get 10 indications approved in both IV and SC formulations. They did say that they expect sales to rise "gradually".
Stock is finally acting well today. Did we get an upgrade?
