Pinned straw:
@Arizona you are dead right.
The management team, specifically Vince and Howie, is a core part of the $BOT investment proposition. Just consider the following summary of Vince's CV
Vince Ippolito has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals industry, including more than 20 years in dermatology. He served as the Chief Commercial Officer Executive Vice President of Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a dermatology based biopharmaceutical company until Sept 2017, where he was responsible for developing marketing and sales functions, as well as strategizing the company’s product portfolio. Previously, Mr. Ippolito was Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Medicis, an industry leading dermatology and Aestheic company. Throughout his career, he has launched more than 20 brands in dermatology and played a leading role in two of the largest dermatology acquisitions done in the past five years with combined valuations of $7.8 billion.
As far as I can tell, Howie has worked for Vince ever since he was hired by Vince into Medicis, in 2010. So 14 years and going, is a good partnership.
Although Walsh only joined Dermavant in 2022, Vince and Howie's network in the dermatology space is second-to-none. So they will have been able to do good due diligence ahead of the hiring offer. As you rightly point out, Walsh has extensive dermatology sales management experience - around 21 years - or the large majority of his career - by my assessment.
I have no doubts at all that Vince and Howie are assembling the right team, and I don't have management as a key risk. They are aligned and in this to make a motza together.
The two key risks I see are:
1. Product-market fit. KPI = patient refills in 2025. We should get a first view in early-to-mid 2025. I don't have this as a high likelihood, because of the experience in Japan with Ecclock, in addition to the clinical trials data and pre-launch market surveys. But it is Japan that provides the greatest de-risking, The market survey just indicates that the product-market fit is LIKELY to translate well to the US.
and a significantly lesser risk
2. Effectiveness of the e-commerce/ telehealth platform, which is a lesser risk because there is the boots on the ground back-up to target dispensing dermatologists from Q2 2025. The KPI here is simply the rate of new scripts. Again, we'll get to see how this trends through 2025. It will be interesting to see what granularity of information we get, i.e., if they break out number of new scripts/refills by channel. The earliest reports in 2025 will be predominantly the telehealth channel. That said, this data might give a false positive signal for 1 or 2 quarters, as many of these patients will be the targeted group identified by the IHhS. They might be more highly motivated than the general population (cf. the "DAYBUE-bolus-effect" at $NEU, which I have assessed on this forum in detail).
I don't see any SP catalysts from now until Feb, although they might amp the market anticipation by announcing when first sales have been dispensed via the Telehealth channel. But I'd rather see some solid numbers, especially refills. The refill rate and its persistency is the really big value driver here. That ultimately determines the difference between a flop, a mutli-$100m seller, or a blockbuster.
Exciting times.
Disc: Held in RL and SM