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Operator
My name is Lance, and I will be your conference operator today.
At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the EyePoint Pharmaceuticals Second Quarter 2019 Financial Results Conference call.
(Operator Instructions) Please be advised that this call is being recorded at the company's request.
I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Kimberly Minarovich from Argot Partners.
Ma'am, you may begin.
Kimberly Minarovich - MD
Thank you, Lance, and thank you all for joining us on today's conference call to discuss EyePoint Pharmaceuticals' Second Quarter 2019 Financial Results and Corporate Developments.
With me today is Nancy Lurker, EyePoint's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Jones, Chief Commercial Officer.
Nancy and Scott will provide an overview of the recent progress made in our commercial launches as well as highlight upcoming milestones and the second quarter 2019 financial results.
We will then open up the call for your questions.
Earlier this morning, we issued a press release detailing these financial results as well as commercial and operational developments.
A copy of the release can be found in the Investor Relations tab on the corporate website www.eyepointpharma.com.
Before we begin our formal comments, I will remind you that various remarks we will make today constitute forward-looking statements for the purpose of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These include statements about our future expectations, clinical developments and regulatory matters and time lines, the potential success of our product candidates, financial projections and our plans and prospects.
Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the SEC and other filings that we may make with the SEC in the future.
Any forward-looking statements represent our views as of today only.
While we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any objection (sic) [obligation] to do so, even if our views change.
Therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today.
I will now turn the call over to Nancy Lurker, President and Chief Executive Officer of EyePoint.
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Thank you, Kimberly.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.
We're very excited to be able to announce our results for second quarter.
The second quarter marked our first full quarter of our 2 product launches, YUTIQ and DEXYCU.
As a reminder, our previous revenue performance shared on our first quarter earnings call in May only accounted for the initial few weeks following our February YUTIQ launch and March DEXYCU launch.
Our well trained and eager 43-person sales force of key account managers or KAMs, 10 for YUTIQ and 33 for DEXYCU, continue to call upon specialists across the U.S. for high-volume surgery centers and cataract surgeons for DEXYCU and uveitis and retinal specialists for YUTIQ.
We are very happy with the second quarter's strong momentum of our ongoing U.S. product launches for YUTIQ and DEXYCU, and we are focused on expanding the commercial reach of these truly innovative treatments that have such tremendous value to patients and physicians.
Let me first start with YUTIQ or fluocinolone acetonide intravitreal implant 0.18 milligrams for the treatment of chronic noninfectious uveitis affecting the posterior segment of the eye.
As a reminder, YUTIQ is a remarkably tiny intravitreal micro-insert that is designed to consistently release a steady micro-dose of fluocinolone, a well-known and frequently used steroid, for up to 36 months.
YUTIQ has a highly differentiated product profile compared to existing therapies because of its onetime administration that delivers a consistent and steady amount of drug consistently for up to 3 years.
And this is important.
It avoids the drug-level peaks and valleys often seen with short-acting corticosteroids.
Please note, posterior segment uveitis is unlike other back of the eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema, retinal vein occlusion or wet AMD.
These diseases are primarily characterized by blood capillaries leaking fluid and the first-line anti-VEGF therapies such as Eylea and Lucentis.
For uveitis, however, anti-VEGF therapy is not indicated as uveitis is caused by inflammation in the back of the eye, also known as the posterior segment of the eye.
First-line therapy for posterior segment uveitis is steroids, which are highly effective anti-inflammatory.
The critical need in treating uveitis is to prevent inflammation which comes in unpredictable flares.
Thus, a critically important goal of treatment is to provide a therapy that can provide a consistent micro-dose of steroid over a long time period to reduce the number of devastating, unpredictable and potentially blinding uveitis flares.
Because of this, we were very excited to introduce YUTIQ to the uveitis market earlier this year, and we are even more excited about the initial launch trajectory of YUTIQ which is exceeding our internal expectations.
As of July 31, approximately 95% of our top target uveitis specialists have now been visited by our key account management team.
Feedback from physicians has been highly positive from both patients as well as physicians, and YUTIQ has been widely acclaimed among those doctors who have used it.
Physicians continue to cite the compelling long-term clinical data of YUTIQ that showed a reduction in the recurrences of these potentially blinding uveitic flares out to 36 months as a key driver to include YUTIQ to treat patients in their own practices.
Our KAMs have had great success getting initial meetings with doctors given the high interest in YUTIQ.
We expect that physician interest in YUTIQ will remain strong.
July sales data is also showing positive upward trajectory for YUTIQ with the number of ordering physicians increasing month-over-month.
To maximize YUTIQ's potential during this period of rapid growth and high market demand, we plan to dedicate more resources to our KAM team by hiring 2 more representatives through our contract sales organization to further support our efforts.
As our ramp continues, we may hire additional representatives.
On the reimbursement front, we have received an early assignment of a permanent specific YUTIQ J-code, J7413, which will take effect October 1, 2019.
This key milestone is 1 quarter earlier than under the prior CMS policy, allowing for a more streamlined, best-in-class approval and reimbursement process to be in effect earlier than we had previously anticipated.
We continue to receive positive payer support with reimbursement for YUTIQ being approved for its labeled indication and we've seen minimal prior authorization requirements.
We've seen very few rejections on the reimbursement front.
More than 20 academic formularies have approved YUTIQ for use with 8 pending today and under review.
EyePoint Assist, a program to ensure access to YUTIQ, is available for eligible patients in need of financial assistance.
In July, we presented supportive YUTIQ data at the 37th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists in Chicago as part of our medical affairs and education initiative.
We were proud to have 3 oral presentations at the conference highlighting positive data from the 36-month follow-up of the Phase III clinical trial of YUTIQ.
Data included a recurrence rate in YUTIQ randomized eyes that was significantly lower than in sham treated eyes, 56.3% versus 92.9%, respectively, with a p-value of less than 0.001.
And product and safety data that showed improvements in best corrected visual acuity and a lower need for adjunctive assistance compared to sham.
Now recall in this study, sham often means standard of care since you cannot deny patients rescue medication.
The vast majority of these patients had received rescue medication on sham.
Feedback and buzz from the meeting was exceptionally positive, with members of the medical community applauding the long-term activity of YUTIQ for up to 3 years, and again, a real advance for treating this devastating and potentially blinding eye disease.
Physicians have cited YUTIQ's remarkable results as finding the sweet spot when treating this disease by balancing durable efficacy and solid safety.
Based on the continued positive data about YUTIQ, the lack of comparable favorable treatment options for an extremely serious disease, we remain very bullish about YUTIQ's revenue and market share prospects going forward.
Let me now turn to DEXYCU, dexamethasone intraocular suspension 9% for postoperative ocular inflammation.
DEXYCU is a single injection of dexamethasone, a commonly used steroid administered at the end of cataract surgery that provides a tapered release of drug for up to 22 days.
This avoids the burdensome and complicated 4-week eye drop schedule associated with steroid eye drops.
Like YUTIQ, we expect that over time, and in particular given DEXYCU's very positive initial reception from physicians, that DEXYCU can become the standard of care for treating post eye surgery inflammation, such as cataract surgery, based on its effective and highly convenient product profile, ease of use and supportive clinical results.
In the cataract surgery suite, it's vital that any procedure or drug administered not only be effective and safe, but also can be easily administered with minimal time required to complete the administration.
Physicians often perform cataract surgery in 8 to 10 minutes and they do not want any new procedure to slow them down.
Remember, there were over 4.8 million cataract surgeries performed in 2018, a huge market, and we expect that volume of procedures to continue to grow.
These surgeons are extremely busy.
Just as reference, I personally have attended 5 surgery days.
And I can tell you, these surgeons want to move very quickly from patient to patient to patient.
They want efficacy, safety, convenience, speed, no reimbursement hassles and control of the medication to ensure that they can get 100% compliance because they administer it, not the patient.
DEXYCU meets these needs.
It takes only approximately 30 to 60 seconds on average to administer DEXYCU at the end of cataract surgery.
That ease of use, with one simple injection of DEXYCU, coupled with its excellent efficacy data and safety data, is why we are now continuing to see high interest after surgeons are trained on DEXYCU.
Our KAMs dedicated to DEXYCU have been focused on a phased launch program to ensure that cataract surgeons and their ambulatory surgery center or the ASC support teams are fully trained and certified on the preparation, application and administration of DEXYCU through product sampling prior to being cleared to purchase.
As I noted earlier, we have continued to receive extremely positive and supportive feedback from cataract surgeons who have expressed their intent to use DEXYCU due to its nondisruptive administration process at the end of cataract surgery and quick injection time, allowing the surgeon to remain on schedule with the day's surgeries.
I mentioned our phased launch strategy, which consisted of initial physician product training first with our top key opinion leaders before being rolled out to a broader group of physicians to allow for certification and sampling.
Of the highest quality ASCs where we have the greatest ability to make inroads, over 275 and over 400 surgeons -- excuse me, over 400 surgeons have completed their training and certification program and are now certified to purchase DEXYCU since its launch.
Over 3,000 medical professionals and office staff have been called on to discuss DEXYCU.
And since launch, over 4,200 patients have been injected with DEXYCU, predominantly with samples.
And again, that's part of our certification program.
These patients have exhibited the remarkable efficacy seen in our clinical studies where they return on Day 8 with a significant majority of them having 0 inflammation.
Surgeons have told us how impressed they are by the fast-acting activity so soon after surgery.
Safety and adverse events reports have been consistent with our label, including very low to no IOP elevation, below the actual clinical label numbers of 5% to 15%, which is one of the key common side effects physicians pay attention to and a very low incidence of corneal edema, about 1% in our real-world setting, which is less than the clinical label numbers of 2% to 3%.
Since DEXYCU dissolves within 24 to 36 hours, these side effects so far have been transient.
DEXYCU clearly is a step ahead compared to alternative options like eye drops and other postsurgical steroid devices or compound drugs because it is fast to administer, a reimbursement J-code is in place now, patient inflammation relief reaches statistical significance on Day 8 and a potentially much easier treatment regimen for the physician and patient versus steroid eye drops.
Physician and patient feedback has been very positive.
And I urge you to look at our firsthand video testimonials that can be viewed on our corporate website at www.eyepointpharma.com and on our Twitter feed.
The reimbursement code that a product is given can make an enormous difference in how quickly it is reimbursed or if it is rejected for payment.
Reimbursement for DEXYCU has been secured through the issuance by CMS of a specific and permanent J-code.
A J-code is very important because it's universally recognized by virtually all payer systems, including Medicare fee-for-service, which is administered by CMS; Medicare Advantage plans, which are administered by private payers and commercial plans, again, administered by private payers.
Because DEXYCU has a J-code, reimbursement by Medicare Advantage and other commercial plans as well as Medicare fee-for-service has become straightforward.
Commercial payers are accepting the product for reimbursement under prior authorization to label.
Other ocular surgery drugs have not been consistently reimbursed because they have a C-code, which is not often recognized by the private payers, causing some ASCs to experience lost revenue which has made some in the past, I might add, which has made some of them skeptical about reimbursement for new products.
As we have educated ASCs on the streamlined J-code process and presented them results showing benefit investigations being approved for over 90% of Medicare Advantage and commercial plan patients and 100% on Medicare fee-for-service, their concerns have been largely alleviated and we are seeing DEXYCU volume pick up with the perceived reimbursement risk now gone.
As a reminder, DEXYCU is sold under a title model with Cardinal Health.
Revenue is recognized upon sale to the third-party logistics providers under the title model which maintain certain inventory requirements per our agreement.
Given these complexities, sales reporting may not always be aligned with product demand.
Scott will provide additional color on physician demand and physician feedback to help clarify sales trajectories under this model for DEXYCU.
Due to the adequate inventory stocking by our distributor Cardinal Health at the time of our launch in mid-March, late in the first quarter, DEXYCU did not generate product revenue under the title model during the second quarter of 2019 as we were training surgical physicians and staff, waiting for DEXYCU claims to be paid at each ambulatory surgery center and then working down the inventory.
Our sampling and surgical training efforts have shown strong demand following the completion of certification, and ASCs are increasingly seeing their DEXYCU claims being reimbursed, with July data showing a significant increase in orders for DEXYCU early in the third quarter.
We remain very bullish about DEXYCU's revenue and market share prospects especially after our 4,200 patients have now been injected and physicians are seeing the clinical results.
Let me now turn the call over to our new Chief Commercial Officer, Scott Jones, to discuss our commercial initiatives further.
We're excited to have Scott join our team in June as he brings a wealth of ophthalmology experience, many payer and KOL relationships and a proven track record of success in leading commercial organizations.
Scott?
David Scott Jones - Chief Commercial Officer
Well, thank you, Nancy.
And it's a pleasure to be here today.
And I must say, I'm delighted to be part of this dedicated EyePoint team.
I joined EyePoint from Notal Vision, where I served as the Chief Commercial Officer and Vice President of Business Development, where I was really focused on developing and executing the commercial and growth strategy for the company.
I previously served as President at Notal Vision, where I helped create the business model in the United States that would allow for a telemonitoring platform to be covered by Medicare.
And before Notal Vision, I held senior commercial and strategy roles at QLT and Novartis.
What drew me to EyePoint was really the cutting-edge product portfolio for the ocular disease state and really targeting very attractive patient markets with significant commercial value.
I believe YUTIQ and DEXYCU both provide several key advantages to the standard of care in each indication, including convenient and fast administration, long-acting activity, strong clinical data that's really backed by the product portfolio and profile.
And the initial product launches, I must say, have been really strong so far.
But my goal is to elevate the initiative and expand the reach across the country.
On DEXYCU, each ASC has been trained, certified before an account is set up and the orders can be placed.
The initial ASC orders are relatively small, and that's to allow for the reimbursement process to take place.
The claims are being submitted.
The accounts are waiting for them to be paid before the bulk orders are placed and really to ensure that the firm is comfortable with the process and the payment plan.
The J-code streamlines this process.
And as Nancy discussed, it alleviates the concerns previously faced by ASCs from other ocular surgery drugs which cause many headaches due to the lack of consistent reimbursement.
We have identified areas to help optimize the sales cycle and expedite the training and increase adoption to promote orders.
And we're seeing now that the initial targeted group of ASCs have completed their training.
They're beginning to make orders and we're now moving to accelerate to the next tier of customers by making the process as efficient as possible.
Our data are showing that ASCs are increasing their orders following that first initial purchase.
And this is really a sign of early adoption and it's setting the stage for our future growth.
My team is working to optimize this trend and increase ASC orders across the country.
And we're also actively educating the ASCs on our J-code to help eliminate concerns around reimbursement and to reinforce the streamlined process.
We're highly enthusiastic about the opportunity for DEXYCU.
The feedback that we've gotten from the early adopters really highlights DEXYCU's advantages specifically around the efficacy and the rapid injection time, which is less than 1 minute.
And that doesn't materially alter the patient schedule for the physician and provides an improved treatment regimen for patients given the potential elimination of the steroid eye drops.
On the YUTIQ side, we believe that we're really in the early phase of the growth trajectory and we're just beginning to address this high unmet need.
I want to applaud the clinical team who continue to showcase YUTIQ's long-term efficacy and safety through the well-managed cadence of data publications and presentations at some of the high-profile scientific conferences.
These efforts provide additional continued support for YUTIQ's value in treating this chronic disease.
And both DEXYCU and YUTIQ are very exciting new treatment paradigms in ophthalmology, and we're extremely excited about their forward prospects.
Now let me turn it back over to Nancy.
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Thanks, Scott.
We look forward to providing further commercial updates on our next quarterly call.
I'm very proud of our commercial team, our launch results to date and the very positive reception we've received so far from patients, physicians and the greater medical community.
We will continue to work to make these products the new standard of care for both indications.
Now from a corporate standpoint, we continue to build our clinical team and we welcomed to Dr. Said Saim in the new role of Chief Technology Officer, where he will oversee drug formulation, preclinical research up to clinical development, pharmaceutical sciences, manufacturing and operations.
Said has 25 years of product development experience with recent senior science roles at Collegium Pharmaceutical and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.
We also announced the appointment of health care finance and corporate development veteran Wendy DiCicco to our Board of Directors, where she will serve as Chair of the Audit Committee, replacing Mike Rogers, who stepped down from our Board and Chair of the Audit Committee after many years of service in June 2019.
We thank Mike for his many years of service to EyePoint.
Wendy most recently led the finance and corporate development functions at Centinel Spine as their Chief Operating and Financial Officer, and she has held similar roles at many other health care companies.
We welcome her aboard and look forward to her guidance as we continue to grow.
Moving now to an update on our pipeline.
Our sustained-release bioerodible device containing a tyrosine kinase inhibitor or TKI being studied in preclinical efficacy and safety studies in animal models for wet AMD is ongoing and additional preclinical studies are planned for this year.
We continue to seek out opportunities through business development activities to augment our product pipeline for new ophthalmology treatments for areas of high unmet medical need and to evaluate partnerships surrounding our Durasert and Verisome technologies.
To close, I will review top line financial results for the second quarter.
For the 3 months ending June 30, 2019, total revenue was $7.2 million compared to $715,000 for the 3 months ending June 30, 2018.
Net product revenue was $6.7 million led by YUTIQ.
And as previously mentioned, no DEXYCU revenue was recorded in the period due to its late in the first quarter launch in March and sufficient inventory in place under our title model with Cardinal Health.
Neither of these products had net revenue in the corresponding quarter in 2018.
Net revenue from royalties and collaborations for the 3 months ended June 30, 2019 totaled $505,000 compared to $715,000 in the corresponding quarter in 2018.
Operating expenses for the 3 months ending June 30, 2019 increased to $17.4 million from $10.5 million in the prior year period due primarily to investments in sales and marketing infrastructure and program costs, professional services, stock-based compensation and cost of sales related to product revenue.
Nonoperating expense net for the 3 months ended June 30, 2019 totaled $1.3 million of net interest expense.
Net loss for the 3 months ended June 30, 2019 was $11.5 million or $0.11 per share compared to a net loss of $34.4 million or $0.62 per share for the prior year quarter.
As of June 30, 2019, cash and cash equivalents totaled $44.2 million compared to $45.3 million as of December 31, 2018.
There were approximately 106 million common shares outstanding at June 30, 2019.
We expect that existing cash and cash equivalents at June 30, 2019 and cash inflows from anticipated YUTIQ and DEXYCU product sales will be sufficient to fund our operating plan into 2020.
Given our 2 commercial product launches, we've not yet established a consistent sales trajectory.
And therefore, guidance regarding the timing of positive cash flow is not being provided at this time.
I'll now turn the call back over to the operator for your questions.
Operator?
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Andrew D'Silva from B. Riley FBR.
Andrew Jacob D'Silva - Senior Analyst
I'll start with a couple on YUTIQ.
Do you have any sense of how end-user demand is aligning right now with the initial stocking orders that you obtained during the quarter?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Yes.
So I actually like to use the phrase physician demand.
We are able to see that, again, because this is a Medicare Part B product and we're shipping to Cardinal and then it flows out from there.
But through our hub, where a fair number of benefit investigations occur, we've got a good sense for things.
I don't want to, in this quarter, give out those metrics because, again, they're fluctuating.
But suffice it to say, and I alluded to this in the call, that we're seeing very strong physician demand.
Certainly increased, honestly, week-over-week, month-over-month.
Andrew Jacob D'Silva - Senior Analyst
That's really great to hear.
Do you think though that the current inventory would be at least worked through during Q3 so that there might be another reorder?
I just know that in the buy-and-bill model and just the initial stocking orders can kind of create a little bit of volatility in the early period.
I don't want to be in a situation where I'm having too bold of estimates for YUTIQ right out of the gate.
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Yes.
Actually, we are taking a conservative approach because, again, with drug launches, again, you have various vagaries.
However, as I said, current reception is very positive.
We're seeing positive upward trajectory.
I think that's reflected in our revenues for YUTIQ this quarter.
We're not giving forward-looking projections right now because of the very reasons you say.
However, I want to stress, we remain very bullish on this product's prospects.
So the best way to look at this, we will do our best to shine as much info as we can each quarter, but it is important that people take a long-term view of this because, again, as you say, in the initial launch trajectory plus with the title model, you can get some swings going on.
I'm not giving any forward look on things.
We're very bullish about this, but we're not going to give any kind of next quarter look into inventories.
Andrew Jacob D'Silva - Senior Analyst
Okay.
Great.
And then as far as DEXYCU goes, could you refresh my memory?
I know you referenced this a little bit.
There have been other products, not necessarily competing with products in the space, that have used the pass-through status before.
They had some issues.
I don't believe they necessarily had J-codes.
Could you just highlight the significance of getting a J-code and how that resolves some of those potential issues?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Yes.
And I can't stress enough how critical this has been and will be for DEXYCU having a J-code.
Now I know for our listeners that can be confusing because these reimbursement codes are confusing.
They just are.
But when you get pass-through status, which is a special category that CMS designates for devices, drugs, materials that are used in the surgical suite, they will give you a pass-through code.
You have to meet certain criteria, which we met.
And when you get that pass-through code, in the past, they always just gave people a C-code.
That's a special code for pass-through status.
The problem is, is that the C-Code is usually not recognized by the private payer systems because, again, it's not used that often.
There aren't that many drugs used in the surgical suite.
The devices used are very inexpensive.
They don't really go through a reimbursement process.
So what happens is the systems just don't recognize a C-code because it's not used that frequently.
And so those claims just get rejected.
And when they get rejected, they just sit on a desk and you got to -- let me paint the picture for you here.
Usually a high school graduate because these are claims processor.
They may just sit on it for a while so it's not a priority to process those claims.
And so as a result what happens is, some of these ASCs that we're now calling on, they lost thousands upon thousands, in some cases, we're told $50,000 to $100,000 in revenues because of claims that did not get paid under a C-code.
As a result, what they've told our team is that they want to see that DEXYCU gets reimbursed first for a few claims before, as Scott mentioned, they put the bulk orders in.
And we have a J-code.
CMS is now starting to award J-codes.
We were the first.
I'll take some credit.
We led the effort on that to get J-codes for drugs being used in the surgical suite.
And as a result, the J-codes are generally uniformly recognized by all payer systems so it makes it much easier to automatically adjudicate the claim.
So usually, you'll see the claims paid within 4 weeks, as opposed to with a C-code it could be, in some cases, up to 4 to 6 months to get those claims paid.
So again, it's a critically vital part that we now have a J-code.
However, because these ASCs got burned, they want to wait and it's sort of a, it's a show me and prove to me that this claim is being paid and then I'll start to order.
The good news is, we're absolutely seeing almost all of our DEXYCU claims being paid within a short time period.
Andrew Jacob D'Silva - Senior Analyst
That's actually great to hear.
And the last question for me, again, on DEXYCU, as far as the initial use of the product, I'm sure majority have been samples to date.
How has the transition with early adopters from a sample standpoint gone as you're going into Q3?
Have they started to move over to actually start ordering the product from a sales standpoint?
David Scott Jones - Chief Commercial Officer
Andy, this is Scott Jones.
And thanks for the question.
And what we're really excited about is we're seeing a high percentage of those customers who have sampled the product making that first, again, small initial investment to understand the reimbursement environment.
But beyond that, those who have completed that initial reimbursement, we're seeing consistent ordering over time now.
So we think it's a really good predictor of how the product is going to move into the future.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Yi Chen from H.C. Wainwright.
Yi Chen - MD of Equity Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst
The first question is, can you confirm that both YUTIQ and DEXYCU revenues are recognized based on shipment to distributors but not the physician demand?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Yes.
That is absolutely correct.
It actually recognizes it from Cardinal which is our 3PL.
And then as they take that into the title model -- and we've got 2 other distributors that take it into a title model -- and that's when revenue is recognized, not when it is shipped out to the physicians.
Yi Chen - MD of Equity Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst
Okay.
Okay.
So does that mean what happened to DEXYCU in the second quarter, meaning that the unit has been depleted from Cardinal Health's stock could happen to YUTIQ in the third quarter because possibly they made a large stocking order in the second quarter?
So in the third quarter, the revenue from YUTIQ could be lower?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Well, I want to put some caution around this.
We're not going to project what could happen.
We absolutely could show revenue and right now it looks like we're on that track because of us bringing down so much inventory on YUTIQ.
But again, I just want to caution that's why we will start to use more physician demand metrics because, again, this title model you're seeing is more -- think of it more like bulk orders that go in.
We recognize the revenue, then you got to work the inventory down.
So I don't want to give any forward projections on YUTIQ other than to say that the physician demand and the current reception has been highly, highly bullish.
So again, we don't want to get into quarter-by-quarter projections at this point in time.
Yi Chen - MD of Equity Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst
Okay.
And would you be able to provide any information regarding Cardinal Health's remaining stock for DEXYCU?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
No.
We can't do that.
We're not going to provide that, Yi.
Yi Chen - MD of Equity Research & Senior Healthcare Analyst
Okay.
Got it.
So last question, how should we look at the SG&A cost for the remainder of 2019?
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
Basically, it's going to be flat to just potentially a very, very slight decline, but we're managing our costs, I want to assure investors.
We are managing our costs very tightly.
However, we also do not want to prematurely not invest at the appropriate level to take advantage of the tremendous upside these products have.
So what we're seeing is, remember too, our YUTIQ studies are winding down.
So you should start to see R&D costs come down slightly, consider SG&A to remain relatively flat.
Operator
I'm showing no further questions at this time.
I would like to turn the conference back to Nancy Lurker for closing remarks.
Nancy S. Lurker - President, CEO & Director
I thank everybody for participating on today's call and for your time.
We look forward to keeping you updated on our commercial launch progress as well as other business matters in the coming quarters, and we're very excited about our 2 product launches for YUTIQ and DEXYCU.
Thank you and enjoy your day.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call.
You may now disconnect.