Gelesis Holdings Inc (GLS) 2022 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Gelesis Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Daisy, and I'll be coordinating today's call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to hand the call over to your host, (inaudible)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Gelesis' financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022. Joining us today are Yishai Zohar, Founder and CEO of Gelesis; and Elliot Maltz, CFO of Gelesis. They will be discussing the fiscal 2022 second quarter and providing business updates on the company's commercial products planned to date. Following their remarks, we will open the call for your questions. In addition to Yishai and Elliot, joining us for the Q&A portion will be David Pass, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Commercial Officer of Gelesis.

Before we begin today, I want to remind everyone this conference call may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to Gelesis estimates of its future business outlook, prospects and financial results, including projected sales and EBITDA. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by words of anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, intends, plans, predicts, projects, will be, (inaudible) the reach result and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our amended 8-K and Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and (inaudible) discussed in other documents we filed in his Securities Exchange Commission. All sentiment written and oral forward-looking statements attribute Gelesis or pricings acting on Gelesis behalf are expressly qualified in the entirety by the cautionary statements included in this conference call. We undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release results of any revision to these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Given these risks and uncertainties, listeners are cautioned to not place undue reliance on this forward-looking statement.

Also the following discussion may contain non-GAAP financial measures. For a discussion and reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures, please see our earnings release for the second quarter of 2022. A webcast replay of this call will be available via the Events and Presentations section of the company's Investor Relations website at ir.gelesis.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to the Founder and CEO of Gelesis, Yishai Zohar. Yishai?

Thank you (inaudible) and good morning, everyone. We are happy you can join us today. I will start by providing updates on our business and then turn the call over to Elliot to walk you through our second quarter 2022 financial results and full year outlook. As a reminder, Plenity is a novel orally administered FDA-cleared weight management therapy that helps people feel satisfied with smaller portions so they can eat less and lose weight while still enjoying the food they love. Plenity is the only approved weight management treatment for people with a BMI as low as 25 and all the way up to a BMI of 40.

We believe we have the largest addressable market of any prescription weight management approach on the market today. We are seeing strong uptake in Plenity across the BMI spectrum with roughly 35% of members with a BMI between 25 to 30, demonstrating that our marketing efforts are successful in reaching consumers that are not currently served by other prescribed solutions.

We launched the first wave of our national broad wellness media campaign in February. And since then, demand through both our telehealth and our traditional health care provider channels has reached record highs with significant growth achieved for the second quarter in a row.

Following the launch of the campaign, we have seen a dramatic increase in web traffic and the record numbers of individuals seeking a new prescription. During the second quarter of 2022, we acquired over 43,000 new members, which is more than 3x the number of new members acquired in the second quarter of 2021 and recognized $9 million of product revenue while selling approximately 130,000 units.

Furthermore, we have seen growth over the first quarter of 2022, with second quarter product revenue increasing by around 20%. In June, we announced that our distribution partner, Ro, placed an additional $15 million preorder for Plenity, bringing gross total prepaid orders for Plenity to $55 million. Our partnership will continue to help us reach new customers for Plenity as Ro is the leading direct-to-patient health care company with a strong distribution network.

We offer 2 ways to seek out Plenity through a free telehealth consultation or by visiting their own health care provider. Either way it's approved. The product arrives to their home within 2 business days at an affordable price of $98 for a 4-week supply.

We were very pleased with the results we saw both through telehealth as well as more traditional channels since the launch of the campaign. Importantly, about 70% of Plenity members have never tried a prescription weight management product before.

As consumer awareness grows for Plenity, we are uniquely positioned to continue to penetrate this category of new users, which should provide a long runway of growth for us over the next several years. We believe this is just the beginning for Plenity, and I will now take a few minutes to talk about what we are doing looking forward to position us for success.

As we expect, the obesity market to reach more than $50 billion by 2030 and as focus shifts primarily to treatment of obesity before downstream consequences, we are well positioned and differentiated in the overweight and pre-obesity category to support both episodic and long-term needs.

We also see an important opportunity to support individuals in more advanced stages of obesity as the therapy before or after other interventions. As the obesity therapeutic category is growing rapidly. We are excited to deliver a differentiated option for patients that have advantages and synergies compared to and with other options.

Health care professionals, payers and patients are engaging more than ever in this critical area, affecting over 150 million people in the U.S. alone. Launching a new product and creating consumer awareness is capital-intensive. It is prudent given the uncertainty in capital markets to reduce investments to preserve our resources and focus on the most cost-efficient ways to drive value.

While driving awareness with the launch of a new brand has been our primary use of capital, we are now choosing to reduce commercialization spend and adjust accompanying guidance. Over time, we believe we will be able to grow and ramp sales more efficiently to reduce our reliance on the capital markets as we build towards the long-term potential of Plenity to become a foundational therapy for weight management.

Now I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, Elliot Maltz, to walk through our financial discussion.

Thank you, Yishai. I will start with our financial results for the second quarter of 2022 and then turn to our guidance for the full year. For the 3 months ended June 30, 2022, we acquired over 43,000 new members, more than a threefold increase compared to the 14,000 new members acquired in the same quarter in the prior year.

Units sold during the second quarter of 2022 were approximately 130,000 compared to 33,000 in the same quarter in the prior year. This drove our product revenue to $9 million during the second quarter of this year, representing a 310% increase year-over-year. The strong growth was driven primarily by the mix of new and returning members since we kicked off Plenity national media campaign as well as the mix of monthly and quarterly treatments being ordered by members.

We have realized significant improvement in the cost of manufacturing the product since we commissioned our commercial manufacturing facility at the end of last year and streamlined our packaging supply chain. Our gross margin increased to 46% during the second quarter of 2022 compared to 8% in the same quarter in the prior year. With the increase in sales volume, this resulted in gross profit of $4.2 million for the second quarter of 2022 and $6.8 million year-to-date compared to less than $200,000 in the second quarter of 2021 and less than $0.5 million for the 6 months then ended.

We're very encouraged by our success in controlling costs while drastically scaling up production levels to meet growing demand. Net loss for the 3 months ended June 30, 2022, was $12.5 million compared to a net loss of $24.7 million in the same quarter in the prior year. while adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2022 was a loss of $24.2 million compared to a loss of $16.6 million in the same quarter in the prior year.

The change in adjusted EBITDA between the comparative periods is due to the increased marketing activity to drive broad consumer awareness of Plenity and sell the product at a full commercial level this year. Selling and marketing expenses were consistent between Q1 and Q2 of 2022, but increased by about $15 million this quarter compared to the same quarter in the prior year.

Despite being in the early growth phase of Plenity's full commercial launch, it's encouraging to see product revenues grew quarter-to-quarter, while our selling and market expenses remained stable.

Moving on to the balance sheet. At June 30, we had $25.3 million in cash and $10.7 million in receivables with $18.8 million of inventory in our supply chain. We are also pleased to note that in July, we closed a private placement of $25 million of promissory notes with existing investors, which further improves our financial position.

Also last week, we entered into a $50 million committed to equity financing agreement with B. Riley, which we expect will provide us with increased financial flexibility. Any issuance of equity under this facility will be taken opportunistically as business and market conditions warrant and with the best interest of our shareholders at the forefront. We remain encouraged that our long-term investors and partners see the enormous potential in front of us and recognize our continued growth, especially in our first full launch year.

Now I will turn to our outlook for the full year 2022. While demand for Plenity remains strong and we are increasingly confident in the trajectory of our business, our projections have always been contingent on the timing and amount of raising additional financing. As noted earlier by Yishai, we are anticipating reduced levels of investment in selling and marketing in the second half of this year relative to the first half. Accordingly, we are adjusting our guidance for the full year 2022.

Product revenue is expected to be in the range of $27 million to $30 million compared to an estimate of $58 million previously. Gross profit is expected to be in the range of $11 million to $13 million compared to a range of $25 million to $30 million previously. And adjusted EBITDA loss is expected to be in the range of $75 million to $80 million compared to a loss in the range of $55 million to $60 million previously.

These estimates, however, could improve if the company raise additional capital this year beyond what we have already disclosed. Now I'll send it back to Yishai to provide closing remarks. Yishai?

Thank you, Elliot. We continue to focus on creating strong consumer awareness for Plenity to build on the foundation that we established during the first 2 quarters of this year. There has been incredible momentum in the obesity care industry, and we are well positioned with our uniquely differentiated product to take an important place in this growing category as a foundational therapy.

We are more than excited by the feedback we are getting from our members some directly to us and many others on social media. Plenity is changing people's lives. The long-term potential of Plenity and Gelesis is stronger than ever, and we are working hard to bring this important solution to many millions of people struggling with excess weight and to deliver value for our shareholders. With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions) We have no questions on this occasion. So we'll hand back over to the team for any closing remarks.

Thank you. I would like to thank everyone for listening to today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you when we report our third quarter results. Thank you again for joining.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a lovely day.