Assertio Holdings, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Assertio Holdings Incorporated fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Max Nemes, Head, Investor Relations and Administration. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Assertio's fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial. The news release covering our earnings for this period is now available on the investor page of our website at investor.assertiotx.com. I would encourage you to review the release and the accompanying presentation as it is important to today's discussion. With me today are Dan Pizer, President and Chief Executive and Paul Schwichtenberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Dan will open the arcs and provide an overview of the business, followed by Paul, who will review our financial results. After that, we'll open the call for your questions. During this call, management will make projections and other forward-looking statements regarding our future performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those noted in this afternoon's press conference. as well as ASSERDIO's filings with the SEC. These and other risks are more fully described in the risk factor section and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K. Our actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, and ASSERDIO specifically disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dan. Dan?

Thank you, Max. Welcome to everyone joining us here this morning. Last quarter, I made some remarks about everything that had happened in the prior year and how much change had taken place here at Asserdio. In addition to what I made mention of at that time, we've also closed the acquisition of Atrexa from Antares and have now integrated it into our business. This was the first acquisition of a product by Asserdio since 2015 and the first by our new management team. And to date, all has gone extremely well. As you can see from the results we released this morning and that Paul will expand upon in a few minutes, we had a very strong fourth quarter. We delivered top line growth of 7% versus the prior year despite discontinuing our product line and 23.8% versus the prior quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA results reflect an increase of 118% versus the prior year and 12.7% versus the prior quarter demonstrating the success of our restructuring. In a short period of time, we were able to transform this company such that we generated more in the fourth quarter of this year versus the entire year of 2020. And I'm looking forward to the next 12 months and see a lot to get excited about. To build on our momentum, I've created our corporate priorities for 2022 to ensure continued success. These are as follows. First, retention of our employees, attraction to new talent, and to continue to build upon our culture of teamwork, inclusion, and results. Second, prove the efficacy of our new commercial model as we transition or tracks up from traditional in-person to non-personal promotion in what looks like it could be an environment where COVID-19 is moving to endemic. Third, reduce our concentration in industry. Fourth, executing on a comprehensive lifecycle management program for Indusim, and finally, improving our balance sheet and reducing the cost of capital. We're keenly focused on integrating Atrexa, expanding upon the reach and frequency of promotion, improving upon its market access, finding new avenues of growth, and doing so in a capital-efficient manner. This should allow us to build confidence and interest in the business model, not only from investors, but also potential new business partners. We're also aggressively targeting new business development opportunities and have added both internal and external resources aimed at accelerating our efforts here. It is largely through acquisitions that we expect to reduce our reliance on Induson. We have not wandered from our goal of adding $50 million in incremental gross profit to the business by 2024. or trex up accounted only for one-fifth of this goal we believe there is a favorable acquisition environment right now we're seeing a lot of new product acquisition opportunities increasing activity from those looking to sell as conditions ease up post the pandemic and many of our peers who have been and would like to be buyers are far more levered than we are there is no doubt that indusin is currently an important part of the business and we intend for that that to continue into the future. We're actively working on our plans to grow and expand the label for the product. And once we have clarity on the timing and cost of these development programs, we'll communicate those to investors. Paul and I are both extremely focused on our balance sheet and are looking for the right balance of reducing our cost of capital, leaving flexibility for future acquisitions, extending our maturities, and balancing our debt to market cap. We're currently evaluating multiple proposals for refinancing and weighing the appropriate options and timing. Execution against our business plan and these priorities over the next 12 to 18 months will be key to our success. Fortunately, management time looks like it won't be distracted by the legacy legal liabilities that have chewed up a lot of our time historically, thanks to first, the resolution of the antitrust and shareholder litigation that we drove to settlements recently, and second, As was the case in 2021, we expect no movement in the opioid lawsuits for what is likely the next 12 months and possibly longer. Recently, we were dismissed from two additional cases, bringing the total to 82 dismissals. These two cases were on track to go to trial sometime in early 2023. But now we can focus our time on managing the business and executing on these priorities. In addition, we're optimistic that our investment in NES will mature inside of this timeframe. This represents a nice source of upside optionality for Assyria, as we have the potential to be approximately 12% equity owners of a life-saving drug for an ultra-orphan condition for which there is no available treatment and a priority review voucher. Our strategic interest in this investment is not simply to be an equity participant, but to be either the marketing partner or owner. Before I turn the call over to Paul to discuss our quarterly results, I'll spend a minute on our guidance for 2022. We expect to generate net product sales of 126 to 136 million and adjusted EBITDA of 64 to 72 million in 2022. This represents growth of 15 to 24% in the top line and 31 to 47% in EBITDA. Our revenue forecast reflects a net pricing benefit for Innocent, offset by the loss of exclusivity for ZipSor, which we expect later this month, as well as the inclusion of Atrexa. For your awareness, after completing the acquisition, we did not sell any Atrexa in December, nor through most of January this year, as we normalized the level of inventory in the distribution channel. For Anderson, we have seen an increased mix of heavily discounted product sales through 340B in the last few months of 2021 and early 2022. This mix is unpredictable and ebbs and flows through the year. Our full year forecast, however, assumes that we continue to see an elevated mix from this channel. Our EBITDA forecast reflects the full year benefit of the restructuring we completed in the third quarter last year, as well as the elimination of nearly 6 million in one-time costs in 2021, for the legal settlement's net of insurance proceeds. Now I'll turn the call over to Paul, who will walk through our quarterly results and guidance in more detail.