Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome everyone to the Legan fourth quarter 2023 earnings webcast. At this time, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the one once again. Thank you. I will now hand the call over to Tava Espinoza, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin your conference.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call for the fourth quarter and year-end 2023. During the call today, we will review the financial results we released prior to today's market open and offer commentary on our partner pipeline and business development activity. After which, we will host a question and answer session. Our earnings release can be found in the investor relations section of our website at Ligan.com. Participating for Ligan today will be our CEO, Todd Davis, our CEO, Matt Kornberg, and myself, Tavo Espinoza, CFO. This call is being recorded and the audio portion will be archived in the investor section of our website. It is our intent that all forward-looking statements regarding our financial results and commercial activity made during today's call will be protected under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected or discussed. All forward-looking statements are based upon current available information and Ligand assumes no obligation to update these statements. To better understand the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, we refer you to the documents that Ligand has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent forms 10-Q and 10-K. With that, I will now turn the call over to Todd.

Thank you, Thabo, and welcome to everyone on the call. The end of 2023 marks the completion of my first full year as CEO of Ligand. And I'm happy to say that in the last year, we've successfully transformed the company to take Ligan to the next stage of growth. Slide three summarizes our financial and portfolio achievements in 2023, which underscores our strong momentum and the strength of our business model. First, we delivered strong financial performance. We grew revenue by more than 20% when you exclude last year's COVID-related capped-as-all sales. while reducing 2023 cash operating expenses from above $90 million per year to below $40 million per year. This resulted in core adjusted diluted earnings per share of $4.06, which is 66% above the prior year. Second, we streamlined and improved the financial profile of the business through restructuring efforts. In addition to spinning out the OmniAb business, We also divested our pelican protein expression platform via equity merger or spin out to form Primrose Bio. Both of these businesses are valuable technology platforms, but they required additional investment in infrastructure that was inconsistent with our core financial strategy. This enabled a headcount reduction from over 170 to 35 employees. This operational streamlining was completed even while adding significant talent in the investment, portfolio management, and diligence functions to create a premier investment team. Accordingly, that team began to execute on our newly defined strategy in the second half of 2023. Third, we strengthened our royalty portfolio by adding several innovative and exciting new programs, including Sanofi's TZILD, and Takeda's Ceticlistat. We also expanded existing partnerships, acquiring full rights to the recently approved Zelsovmi and expanding a royalty investment in Pavela's PTX022 program, which is in development for microcystic lymphatic malformations. Fourth, as shown on slide four, at our investor day in December, we announced for the first time a longer-term outlook where we see royalty revenue CAGR of over 20% and an adjusted EPS CAGR exceeding 25% over the next five years. The breadth of our asset portfolio provides us with a lower volatility and much greater predictability than is typical in biotech businesses, which in turn provides us the confidence to share these longer term projections. The forecast is driven by our current major commercial programs, our existing pipeline, and the expected contribution from the new business development efforts. TABO will cover our financials in a little more detail, but I'd like to highlight that the increase in Viking Therapeutic stock price in 2023 has bolstered our balance sheet as we generated approximately 80 million in proceeds from the sale of Viking shares and still hold approximately 1.7 million shares. we are reinvesting these proceeds into new investments that will drive additional growth and value creation in the future. Also, there are several exciting developments across our partnered commercial portfolio and clinical pipeline during late 2023 and early 2024, and there is an opportunity for further value creation through additional important catalysts expected this year. On January 5th, 2024, the FDA approved Zelsuvime as a first-in-class medication for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum in adults and pediatric patients one year of age or older. Zelsuvime is the first and only prescription medication that can be applied by patients, parents, or caregivers at home outside of the physician's office to treat this highly contagious infection. You may recall that we own 100% of Zelsuvime rights after funding Novan through a restructuring process and acquiring a significant portion of their assets in 2023. Additionally, we have two partnered products that have PDUFA dates scheduled during June of 2024. Verona's Encephentrine and Merck's V116. Encephentrine, if approved, is expected to be the first novel mechanism available for the maintenance treatment of COPD in more than 10 years. Additionally, the FDA accepted for priority review Merck's new BLA for V116, an investigational 21-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine specifically designed to help prevent invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia in adults. Our royalty rates on encipentrine and D116 are in the low single-digit royalty range. Finally, Travere announced that it received 459 new patient start forms for Filspare in the fourth quarter of 2023, and announced net product sales of approximately 15 million through the fourth quarter, which is an increase of over 80% from the prior quarter. We have a 9% royalty on Filspare, and consensus estimates continue to show $500 million to $1 billion in peak Filspare sales. Shortly, Matt will provide more detail around these and other programs. Now let's turn to our business development efforts. In 2023, one of our key priorities was assembling a strong and experienced investment team to execute on our strategy, and we are pleased with our progress in this regard. Additionally, I can share today that we've recently added Rich Baxter and Dr. Karen Reeves to the team. Rich joins us as SVP of investment operations and a member of the investment committee. Rich brings significant commercial pharmaceutical industry experience and private equity investment experience. He co-founded the healthcare group for Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund at Fortress Investment Group, which invested approximately $1 billion in emerging life science companies. He also served as co-head of the healthcare team at Hayfin Capital Management, which deployed $1.4 billion in capital over four years. Karen is a board-certified physician and joins us as SVP of Clinical Strategy and Investments. She brings more than 20 years of experience in senior roles at top pharmaceutical companies with extensive experience in successful Phase I through Phase IV drug development across multiple therapeutic areas. Most recently, she served as President and Chief Medical Officer of AZ Therapies a private late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on neurology. Prior to AZ Therapies, Karen held multiple leadership positions at Pfizer, including VP Worldwide R&D, VP Worldwide Safety and Regulatory, and Head of Global Clinical Submissions for Quality. We welcome both Karen and Rich to the Ligand team. Paul Haddon has been leading our investment origination efforts and was instrumental in increasing our available opportunity set during 2023. Last year, we reviewed over 300 investment opportunities, signed 45 CDAs, and closed five transactions. We enter 2024 with $130 million in cash, plus we expect to generate approximately $80 million in cash from operations this year. Adding to this is our ownership in Viking Therapeutic stock, a $75 million revolving credit facility. With this strong financial position, we feel we are well positioned to have another successful year led by investment activity, providing exciting growth opportunities for Ligand. As we discussed in December, the team has built a robust pipeline of investment opportunities that span both significant breadth of therapeutic area but also diversified transaction types. We are in active dialogue with multiple counterparties and are constantly looking for new exciting opportunities in which to invest capital. The team is currently reviewing approximately $1.4 billion in investment opportunities across multiple strategies, including royalty monetization, project finance, M&A, and special opportunities. As a reminder about our investment criteria, We are primarily focused on assets that are within a few years of approval in either phase two or phase three, are highly differentiated, offer significant value to patients, provide favorable market exclusivity, and have above average probability of technical and regulatory success. Ultimately, the number and size of investments we make will depend on the quality of the opportunities we identify. We believe that we have the right team to execute and excel in this high margin, high growth strategy. It's important to note that the majority of our diligence assessment is done under confidentiality agreements, which provides us advantageous insight into our investment decisions. In summary, 2023 was an important year for Ligand in terms of our financial performance, strategic evolution, investment activity, and team building efforts. With these accomplishments, we're looking forward to a busy and productive 2024. Now, Matt will cover the portfolio highlights.

Thanks, Todd. 2023 was a transformative year for Ligand, and today I'll provide investors with an update on key developments from our partners across our commercial programs and our development portfolio. Ligand's portfolio includes more than 85 partnered programs that drive our royalty revenue, our cap to sole material sales, and our licensed milestone and contract revenue. Slide 10 shows our key commercial programs that drive the significant majority of our royalty revenue. Our current commercial portfolio includes over 25 different royalty streams and 30 commercial drivers overall. These eight programs are expected to contribute over 95% of the royalty revenue in 2024. The team at Ligand is focused on adding additional names to this list. Many of those additions will come organically from our existing partnered pipeline portfolio, and some will come through new investments generated out of our now-established field team, as Todd mentioned. A few highlights from 2023. Iprolis, which is an important drug for multiple myeloma, continued its strong performance with another solid quarter in Q4. Iprolis is marketed by Amgen and a majority of the countries around the world, as well as by Ono in Japan and by Beijing in China. In Q4 2023, these companies reported combined quarterly revenue of over $370 million. Year-over-year growth for the product was driven principally by volume growth, with 2023 reported sales exceeding $1.4 billion globally. We earn a tiered royalty of 1.5% to 3% on global sales and expect continued growth in 2024. Our partner, Travere, is marketing Filspari in the US and IgA nephropathy. Travere reported revenue of $14.7 million for Q4. Travere also continued to disclose the momentum on new patient recruitment Revere had 459 new patient forms submitted in Q4, bringing the total since launch to 1,452. The continued addition of potential new patients provides good evidence of future revenue potential. It supports the consensus estimates for 2024, which are at approximately $110 million of revenue for the year. On the regulatory front, Revere announced that the EMA CHMP has recommended approval for Sarcantin for the treatment of adults with primary IgA nephropathy. The company expects the EU approval decision in Q2 2024 and the full U.S. approval decision in Q3 2024. We earn a 9% royalty on net sales, and we expect that this will be a significant driver of our long-term growth for our royalties. Rylase is marketed by our partner, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and is a component of a multi-agent chemotherapeutic regimen for the treatment of children and adults with ALL or LBL. This product continues to do extremely well in a market that was previously constrained by supply issues. At JPMorgan earlier this year, Jazz highlighted Rylase as one of its three key growth drivers. Having received approval for Rylase in Europe in September 2023, Jazz confirmed the first European country launch occurred before the end of last year and that additional European launches will continue on a rolling basis in 2024. In Q3 of 2023, Rylase generated 104.9 million in sales, We look forward to any program updates and the JAS Q4 sales report coming later this week. VaxnuVans is a pneumococcal vaccine utilizing Ligand's CRM197 vaccine carrier protein produced using our former Pelican Expression technology platform. Merck is now marketing VaxnuVans in both the adult population and the pediatric population. Merck announced $176 million in VaxnuVans sales in Q4 2023. Full year sales for the product came in at $665 million. Ligand earns a low single-digit royalty on vaccine-based available. Turning to slide 11, we list a selection of our partner pipeline products that will have meaningful clinical or regulatory catalysts in the coming year. The first program on the list is Zelsubme. Ligand acquired this product through our Novant acquisition in 2023 and subsequently received approval for the program on January 5, 2024. Zelsubme is approved for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum in the Zalsuvi is the first and only topical prescription medication that can be applied by patients, parents, or caregivers at home, outside of a physician's office, or other medical setting. And it's used to treat this highly contagious viral skin infection. The team is extremely excited about the potential for this program. We're in process of building a new standalone company called Peltos Therapeutics that will commercialize Zalsuvi. The company creation effort is very similar to our prior efforts related to Viking Therapeutics and Primrose Bio. PELTHOS will be operated fully independent of Ligand, but we expect to own a significant equity stake in the business at inception. While we are having discussions with potential strategic licensing partners, we're also making good progress towards the creation of PELTHOS and the launch of DelSumi. We expect that PELTHOS will launch DelSumi in late 2024, and the program will join our key contributors to Ligand's royalty revenue line. Verona submitted its NDA to the FDA in June 2023 for approval of encephentrine for the maintenance treatment of patients with COPD. The due date for the product has been established as June 26, 2024, and Verona is building its commercial infrastructure as we speak. Bygain benefits from a low single-digit royalty on encephentrine, and we believe the program will be another of our key growth drivers. Encephentrine is a first-in-class drug candidate using a novel mechanism of action combining dual inhibition of PDE3 and PDE4. Verona estimates that there are over 8 million COPD patients currently receiving chronic treatment in the U.S. alone, over half of whom are dissatisfied with their current treatment regimen. If approved, ENCEF Entrant could offer an effective and highly safe and tolerable add-on or alternative treatment to address both symptoms and exacerbations. Merck is developing B.1.1.6 as part of its pneumococcal vaccine franchise. B.1.1.6 is targeted specifically at adults and has shown benefits over the existing standard of care. After reporting positive Phase III data last year in June and filing a BLA in November, there is now a PDUFA date of June 17, 2024. With successful approval, we believe V116 will continue to drive the Merck franchise growth and benefit Ligand through our low single-digit royalty. Merck received breakthrough therapy designation for V116, and if approved, V116 would be the first pneumococcal conjugate vaccine specifically designed to address the serotypes that cause post-adult invasive pneumococcal disease. Decade is developing ceticlistat, which is a first-in-class novel compound with the potential to reduce seizure susceptibility. Decade is currently running two Phase III trials and expects data in its fiscal year of 2024. Ligand earns a tiered royalty of up to 22.6% on this drug if successfully commercialized, as well as up to 86 million of milestones. There remains high unmet need in rare pediatric epilepsies, And Cetixlostat is uniquely positioned to deliver value to patients and caregivers through its demonstrated seizure reduction capability, as well as its strong safety profile and ability to be combined with a broad range of anti-epileptic treatments. Finally, during the second quarter of 2023, Viking announced positive top-line results from the Phase IIb Voyage Study, evaluating VK2809 in patients with biopsy-confirmed NASH. The company expects to report data from the secondary and exploratory objectives of the voyage study, including the evaluation of histologic changes assessed by hepatic biopsy over 52 weeks of treatment in the first half of 2024. We expect that following these results, Viking would move forward into Phase III with this important program. Viking earns a 3.5% to 7.5% royalty on potential sales of DK2809, as well as significant clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones. Mass is a very large potential market, and if Viking is successful in their development, products in this category are estimated to be multi-billion dollar opportunities. On slide 10, I'll provide, sorry, excuse me, on slide 12, I'll provide an update on our Capsule business. Before Capsule sales for 2023 outperformed our expectation for the year. Customer demand remains strong for both clinical and commercial Capsule as partners continue to find benefit from our technology platform. 2023 saw six new partner agreements, and we've already signed a few more in 2024. Last month, we saw ASI announce the approval of their IV formulation of their drug, Phycompa. That marks the 16th approved Captisol-enabled drug around the world, and we see the potential for another four approvals in 2024. Traction on this business is exemplified by the number and pace of approvals, as well as the volume of material that we've sold since acquiring the business. In addition to highlighting the names of all 16 approved drugs, along with their timing of approval, The chart on the right shows vertical bars annually that represent the cumulative volume of Capsule that we've sold and demonstrates the continued momentum with the business. We report our Capsule sales on a separate line from our royalties. This business is another of our major drivers of revenue, cash flow, and profitability. Gross profit from Capsule in 2023 equated to about $17 million, which exceeded our largest current single royalty other than Kyprolis. That concludes my summary of portfolio highlights, and I'll turn the call back over to Tavo for a financial update. Tavo?

Thanks, Matt. First, I want to highlight that I will be discussing non-GAAP results, which exclude certain items, including stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, unrealized gains from short-term investments, our share of losses absorbed from accounting, or our investment in Primrose Bio under the equity method. expenses incurred to incubate the recently acquired Novant business, amongst others. In addition, to help investors discern the performance of our core business results, we subtracted capasol sales related to COVID-19 and realized gains from the sale of Viking Therapeutics stock. I encourage you to review the gap reconciliation of these non-gap measures, which can be found in today's release available on our website. We delivered strong results in 2023 that met or exceeded the high end of our guidance range. total revenue of $131 million and core adjusted earnings per share of $4.06. We ended the year with $170 million in cash and investments and no debt on the balance sheet. Slide 14 frames up our financial results in more detail for both the fourth quarter and the full year. I'll focus my discussion first on the full year results, including last year's contribution from COVID cap to saw sales. Total 2023 revenue grew 21% versus 2022. Royalty revenue increased 16% to $83.9 million from $72.5 million a year ago, with the growth driven by strength in Amgen's Kyprolis, Yaz's Rylase, and Merckxivac's Nubanz. The increase in royalty revenue was offset by a decrease in Terra Paratide. We have been anticipating generic competition to enter the market, and it appears that may be beginning to materialize. Amgen reported total 2023 Kyprola sales of $1.4 billion, which was 13% above the prior year, and they attributed most of the increase to volume growth. Merck announced total sales of $665 million for VaxNuvance, which is an almost 300% increase over 2022. We believe these products, along with Rylase and Filspari, will continue to drive royalty revenue growth in the future. Captisol sales were $28.4 million in 2023, versus core Captisol sales of $16.4 million in 2022, with the increase due to timing of customer orders. Total Captisol sales in 2022 were $104.5 million, with $88.1 million of that related to COVID-19. We did not have any COVID-19 related Captisol sales this year. Contract revenue this year was $19 million versus $19.2 million in 2022. Total R&D and G&A operating expenses decreased by 27%, in 2023 to primarily to lower headcount-related expenses associated with the spin-out of Pelican. The decrease in operating expenses was offset by investments made to build up our investment team in Boston, as well as the increase in expenses associated with incubating the no-ban business. G&A and R&D expenses were $52.8 million and $24.5 million in 2023 versus $70.1 million and $36.1 million in 2022, respectively. Gap net income in 2023 was $53.6 million, or $3.02 per diluted share, versus gap net loss of $5.2 million, or $0.31 per share in 2022. The increase in gap net income is due largely to the increase in operating income and gains from short-term investments due to the increase in value on our holdings of Viking stock. Excluding the impact of gains from sales of Viking stock and COVID-19 capital sales, Core adjusted net income was $71.6 million or $4.06 for diluted share in 2023 versus $41.9 million or $2.44 per diluted share in 2022. Adjusted net income for 2023 was $107.3 million or $6.08 per diluted share compared with $82.2 million or $4.79 per diluted share in 2022. Now, focusing on the quarter, total revenue for the quarter increased about 5%, excluding COVID-19 Capasol sales in Q4 2022. Royalty revenue overall increased slightly, driven by Typrolis, Rylase, Vax Nubans, and Filspari, offset by a decrease in teraperitide. Total operating expenses are lower compared to the prior year quarter, large part due to the spin out of Pelican, offset by investments made and building up our investment team in Boston. well as costs associated with the no van business as mentioned on our third third quarter earnings call expect to incur incremental operating costs associated with incubating the no van business our intent is to spin out and or out license a no van business and therefore we are adjusting out these expenses for purposes of reporting adjusted non-gap earnings gap net income for the fourth quarter of 2023 was 18 million or one dollar and two cents per diluted share versus GAAP net loss of 14.5 million or 86 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2022. The increase in GAAP net income is due largely to gains from short-term investments as a result of the increase in value on our holdings of Viking stock, as well as lower operating spend. Excluding the impact of gains from Viking stock and COVID-19 cap to sell sales, our adjusted net income was 18.5 million or $1.05 per share in Q4 23 versus $13 million or $0.75 per share in Q4-22. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter of 2023 was $24.3 million or $1.38 per share compared with $23.5 million or $1.36 per share the prior year quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, as of December 31, 2023, net cash and short-term investments of $170 million which includes $32 million of our holdings in Viking common stock. We expect that current cash plus annual cash flow generation will be sufficient to fund the investment activity we anticipate over the foreseeable future. Turning now to guidance on slide 15, we are reaffirming the 2024 financial guidance we introduced at Investor Day in December. We expect 2024 royalty revenue will be in the range of $90 to $95 million sales of capital sales in the range of $25 to $27 million, and contract revenue in the range of $15 to $20 million. These revenue components result in total revenue guidance of $130 million to $142 million, and adjusted earnings per diluted share of $4.25 to $4.75. And as Todd mentioned, we also introduced in December for the first time And we reiterate today a longer-term outlook where we see royalty revenue growing at a compound annual growth rate above 20% from 2022 to 2028 and adjusted core EPS growing even faster at a compound annual growth rate above 25%. As a reminder, we exclude caps to solve for COVID-19-related sales from guidance and will update investors as orders are received and shipped each quarter. Finally, I'd like to direct listeners to our fourth quarter earnings press release, issued earlier today, which is available on our website for a reconciliation of our adjusted financial results to the GAAP results I talked about today. I'll now turn the call over to Todd for closing comments.

Thank you, Thabo. In summary, we are very pleased with our 2023 financial results, as well as the progress we've made over the last year improving our investment capabilities and growing our asset portfolio. Our diversified portfolio, including our major commercial royalty generating programs and late stage pipeline, form the foundation for compounding growth. This portfolio provides us with substantial cash flow to reinvest in new value enhancing royalty opportunities. We are well positioned to execute against our goals in 2024 and deliver attractive growth and shareholder returns over the long term. Thank you, everyone, for joining us for today's earnings call, and we will now pass it back to the operator and open it up for questions.

Thank you, sir. If any participant would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Matt Hewitt from Craig Hallam Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Congratulations on the strong finish to the year. I guess several different topics, but maybe the first one regarding the Pelthos opportunity. How should we be thinking about timing and potential structure of a partnership or your intentions with that operating asset?

Thanks, Matt. Yeah, so as... Very similar to the way we've done in the past, creating Primrose Bio recently and back in 2014-15, creating Viking and then eventually spinning out Viking as a standalone company in 2015 with the IPO. One of the things that we're pursuing with the Novant assets is creating this company called Healthos Therapeutics that is just getting started that we'll create as a standalone independent company. and we will seek external capital to fund at least a portion of. And then Ligand would license it assets the same way we license Viking four or five assets and set it up as a standalone company and that companies will be prepared to commercialize and launch the product later this year when the product's ready to be launched. It's one avenue that we're exploring, and right now it's the one that we think is pretty high probability, but we're exploring all alternatives, including a license of the asset to a strategic.

Got it. That's helpful. And then regarding your contract and milestone guidance for this year, $15 to $20 million, with two PDUFA dates in Q2, Would it make sense to be factoring in a little bit more heavy weighting, if you will, in that quarter, maybe kind of assuming one of the two has a positive outcome? Or how should we be thinking about the cadence for the contract revenues?

Yeah, Todd was taking a look just to make sure we have the numbers correct. But as we've talked about, there's an approval milestone for the end-of-entry NASDAQ. that is about 5 million U.S. dollars that will hit if it's approved in June as expected. So other than that one big milestone, I don't think there's anything else.

Yeah, there's the trivial European approval and a number of other milestones that we probability risk adjust. And so that's we do take the PDUPA dates into consideration at arriving at our range there.

Okay, got it. And then maybe one last one for me as far as, and you touched on this a little bit, obviously you've built out a really strong team to evaluate potential investment opportunities. You've got a nice backlog there, a funnel if you will. As far as timing is concerned, is it really just about when the deals come together versus Are you targeting, hey, we'd like to have two this quarter, two next quarter? How should we be thinking about the timing on those? Thank you.

Yeah, the timing on these has to be flexible because you want to make sure you get all the way through diligence and you don't have a deal done until you clear diligence and final terms. So there is, as there is in any investment business, There'll be periods where there's a lack of activity, seemingly, in terms of closes. And then there'll be periods where there's significant activity in terms of closes. But there's always this underlying deal activity going on where you're originating deals, evaluating, screening, taking a certain number of those that pass the screen into deeper diligence. without perfect predictability, a certain amount of those get to a close. So there's just a natural process to this, and we don't want to commit to closing a certain number of deals or a certain timing within a year because you really want the flexibility to maintain investment discipline around that process.

Got it. All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Our next question comes from Lawrence Solo from CJ Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Larry Works. Just a couple questions. I guess the first question, and you guys called it out, on the royalties a little bit down versus Q3, and usually they're tearing up. And you called out Terra Paratide as the driver behind that. Just curious, as you look at the 24, a few moving parts here, does the Terra Paratide number in that guidance, does that Is that lower now? Is there an offset to that? Had you kind of expected that? I guess it was only a couple months ago. And then I guess just, you know, on the royalty outlook, I guess you kind of mentioned the Phil Spahr consent. This is like 110. So I guess are you guys kind of assuming that number in your guidance? Maybe you can just give us a little color on those couple of moving parts.

Yeah, thanks, Larry. So we're reiterating what we said in December. We've learned a little bit more since, including the new consensus number for Filspare. There's a little bit of an upside there. We think that the drivers will continue to be Kyprolis, Vax-NuVance, Riley's. And we have been prudent on Terra Paratide, and we continue to be prudent going into the year. So we are seeing competition come in. We haven't received the full report yet from Alvagen, so there's still more to be learned, but we have been conservative in our assumptions.

Got it. And you're not assuming anything for Zelsumi this year, correct?

No.

Okay. And then just thoughts of Verona. Obviously, the product in Suffern is in their hands, and you mentioned, I think, that they've gotten some financing. So the current belief today is that they expect to launch that themselves. Obviously, COPD... a huge market, a lot of marketing expense and big pharma in there, dominated by big pharma. Is that something they're going to try and go up against or are they actively looking for a partner?

We have no, obviously, specific knowledge on their plans, but they have a strong team and have, over the last couple of years, built that up so that they have the ability to launch this themselves. And that is our assumption in terms of our forecast and guidance around the product. But obviously there's, we think, significant upside around a potential larger acquisition. And this is a product within a category where we certainly think some of the larger folks should be interested in this asset because it's the first significant innovation in the maintenance of COPD in a long time.

Absolutely. That makes sense. And just lastly, could you just remind us how many shares of VKTX you guys have currently?

We still hold about 1.7 million shares of Viking Therapeutics.

Got it. Okay. I appreciate that. Thanks, Todd.

Thank you. As a reminder, if any teleconference participant would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Balaji Prasad of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Shao for Balaji. Thanks for taking our question. Just a quick one on Riley. Could you add a little bit more color on your comments with regard to the supply constraints? And could you also share your view on the short-term and the long-term revenue ramp up of this asset and the implications for Ligand's portfolio? Thank you so much.

Thanks. As folks know, Rylase is marketed by Jazz, our marketing partner. The supply constraints we were referring to in my prepared comments were really related to the predecessor product. Jazz and Pelican or Phoenix, our prior technology platform, collaborated to develop Rylase to solve those manufacturing problems historically. And so those are all resolved now, and the new product is fully available as much as needed from a manufacturing standpoint. In terms of projections for the product or comments on the product's potential, we only can report what our partners report, and JAS did not provide guidance for RILAs. I'd point folks to the publicly reported consensus estimates for the product, but last year the product did about $400 million, a little bit less, I think, for the year, and we hope to see growth given that Jazz highlighted that as one of its three key growth drivers.

Got it.

Thanks.

There are no further questions at this time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will conclude today's conference call. We thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.