Assertio Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Assertio Holdings Inc. First Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listening-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 Meemers, Head Investor Relations and Administration. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Assertio's first quarter 2022 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 Peyser, President and CEO, and Paul Schwichtenberg, Senior Vice President and CFO. Dan will open the remarks and provide an overview of the business, followed by Paul, who will review our financials. After that, we will 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 future performance, and involved risks and uncertainties, including those noted in this afternoon's press release, 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 afternoon. 2021 was a year of change. By comparison, the first quarter of 2022 was quiet because it lacked change. However, the results of the quarter provide validation of the benefits from the changes we made since you can see the direct impact of those efforts that were completed last year in the positive change reflected in the numbers we were reporting this quarter. Net product sales increased 37% versus the prior year, with one-third of the incremental growth coming from our newly acquired product, Otrexib, which in this quarter we recorded $3.1 million in sales, slightly ahead of our internal forecasts. Net product sales were $35.5 million. This is the highest quarterly result since the first quarter of 2018, when we were known as DepoMed. The last partial quarter, we recognized sales of Nucenta. Adjusted EBITDA of $23.9 million increased 52% versus the prior year. It was up 34% sequentially, as we were able to maintain and even slightly improve our operating costs relative to the fourth quarter of last year, despite adding more trucks up. In addition, we had very strong gross profit margins this quarter, which Paul will elaborate on in more detail in his prepared remarks. We are reiterating our full-year revenue guidance of $126 to $136 million and increasing our adjusted EBITDA guidance range by $2 million, which is now $66 to $74 million. On the revenue front, there are a few factors that we're still paying attention to, and we simply need more time to pass before we can assess if the impacts will be positive or negative relative to the current assumptions. We're still seeing the increased mix of heavily discounted Indusim product that we discussed on our March call, and it has grown since that time as well. We're not only trying to understand it, but also stop it and turn it back around. In addition, we're very early into the loss of exclusivity for ZipSor, and we want to see how that plays out, both for the brand and our authorized generic. We also believe that it won't be until about the time that we report our third quarter that we'd be in a position to fully assess to what extent our sales and marketing efforts are bending the curve on Atrexo. We're introducing a new metric, which we think will be meaningful for investors this year, adjusted earnings per share. This quarter, Certio is reporting 38 cents per share versus 27 cents in the prior year quarter, representing growth of 41%. This measure should be more comparable across companies that report similar numbers. It includes interest expense and the accrued royalty for Indison and better represents Asserdio's operating cash earnings on a per share basis. As a reminder, we don't pay any royalties in the first 20 million in Indison sales, so as we progress throughout the year, we'll start to see the royalty impact our adjusted earnings per share. We continue to be acutely focused on achieving the priorities for our business in 2022 that were laid out last quarter. Many of those priorities focus around business development. We're looking to bring on new products to help us diversify and transform our business, which at the same time can help serve as a catalyst to improve the balance sheet and reduce the cost of capital, as well as reduce our revenue concentration. That yardstick that we put out there of adding $50 million of incremental gross profit by 2024, of which a truck stop represents about one-fifth of this goal, still stands. I think that's a meaningful and reasonable growth goal for Assertio. That incremental $40 million will be on top of what should be approximately $110 million of gross profit this year, based upon the midpoint of our guidance using the 85% margin we reported last year. With the leverage we can achieve in our operating model, that should allow us to deliver a low-teens three-year growth CAGR in adjusted EBITDA. Now I'll turn the call over to Paul, who will walk through our quarterly results and guidance in more detail.