Biogen Idec Earnings Call INSIGHTS: TYSABRI Discontinuation Rates, AVONEX Breakdown

On Tuesday, Biogen Idec Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) reported its second quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Take a look.

TYSABRI Discontinuation Rates

Brian Abrahams – Wells Fargo Securities: I was wondering if you could talk in a little bit more detail about the TYSABRI discontinuation rates. You mentioned that there has been some fluctuations there. I was wondering if you could talk more specifically about any differences you’re seeing in U.S. versus European dynamics there. If you think this is starting to stabilize somewhat in Europe, and whether or not you’re seeing any changes in shifts as patients who are JVC positive reach two years?

A Closer Look: Biogen Idec Inc Earnings Cheat Sheet>>

Tony Kingsley – EVP of Global Commercial Operations: Thanks, Brian its Tony. So as we’ve said in the past, country by country as we work through testing the existing patient base, we’ve seen some lumpiness in the discontinuation rates, but overall we feel like it would stabilize over the course of this year. We continue to feel that way, the discontinuation rates have continued to be within the broad ranges that we thought we have. There aren’t I don’t think significant differences between the U.S. and Europe in the discontinuation rates. We’re seeing reasonably similar patterns across countries at this point. So, no substantial shift on that front.

AVONEX Breakdown

Geoffrey Porges – Bernstein: Congratulations on a really robust quarter, some one-timers but strong underlying results. Tony. could you give us a little bit more color on AVONEX in the U.S., really strong result there and just wondering if you could break it down for how much of it was the stalking of the new product images? Then how much was price? I mean you mentioned volume was actually down. Could you also talk a little bit about the dynamics in the overall market? What you’re seeing in terms of treated patient numbers right now in the U.S. and Europe?

Paul J. Clancy – EVP and CFO: Jeff, this is Paul. Let me kind of give a little bit of a sense for the underlying strength. On a global basis, very strong quarter for AVONEX. We did try to point out that on a global basis, we benefited from some resupply from the kind of Q1 very end, that was more – the international markets as well as the Brazil tender. From a wholesaler channel perspective, our inventory levels ended up under 2.0 weeks, which is very favorable for us. We don’t have visibility with respect to the retailer inventory levels. We’re just a little bit cautious that they are probably likely managing both PEN and Lyophilized inventory levels, in that we may have benefitted a little bit modestly from that. Nevertheless, I think Tony and his team, I’ll turn it over to him, are feeling very good about the acceptance of AVONEX PEN in the dynamics and the ability to compete in the marketplace. Tony?

Tony Kingsley – EVP of Global Commercial Operations: Thanks, Paul. So in terms of sources of growth, we did – I think Paul said, we did see units down 2% year-on-year but up to 7% quarter-on-quarter in the U.S., something that reflected the dynamics in the first quarter, but we feel comfortable that we are getting good unit growth and that we’re getting some share growth within the ABCRE segment. It’s still relatively early days with the PEN in the U.S. and titration, but we track the leading indicators. I mentioned some of them on the call in terms of their percent of patients who are choosing what they had and what percent the new starts were getting and we feel comfortable that we’re seeing a (repeated) experience that we’ve seen in some other markets. In terms of the total market, we still see the U.S. market this year growing as expected in terms of total patients in low single digits. Europe is typically higher than that, a sort of mid single digits, no big change in the market growth relative to what our expectation was.