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Earnings call · FY2024 Q4
Executive readout · one minute
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| Metric | Period | Guided | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
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Consolidated net sales
full-year 2025
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$475M – $485M | — |
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Welcome to Glaucos Corporation's first quarter and full year 2020 for a financial results conference call. Copies of the company's press release and quarterly summary documents, both issued after the market closed today, are available at www.glaucos.com. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. We ask to please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. This call is being recorded and an archived replay will be available online in the Investor Relations section at www.globcos.com. I will now turn the call over to Chris Lewis, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon. Joining me today are Glockos Chairman and CEO Tom Burns, President and COO Joe Gilliam, and CFO Alex Thurman. Similar to prior quarters, the company has posted a document on its investor relations website under the financials and filings quarterly results section titled quarterly summary. This document is designed to provide the investment community with a summarized and easily accessible reference document that details the key facts associated with the quarter, the state of the company's business objectives and strategies, and any forward statements or guidance we may make. This document is designed to be read by investors before the regularly scheduled quarterly conference call. As such, for this call, we will make brief prepared remarks in transition into a question and answer session. To ensure ample time and opportunity to address everyone's questions, we request that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you still have additional questions, you may get back into the queue. Please note that all statements, other than statements of historical facts made on this call, that address activities events or developments we expect believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future our forward-looking statements these include statements about our plans objectives strategies and prospects regarding among other things our sales products pipeline technologies and clinical trials u.s and international commercialization market development efforts the efficacy of our current and future products competitive market position regulatory strategies and reimbursement for our products financial condition and results of operations as well as the expected impact of general macroeconomic conditions including foreign currency fluctuations on our business and operations these statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks uncertainties and factors relating to our operations and business environment all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control. Therefore, they may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Review today's press release and our recent SEC filings for more information about these risk factors. You'll find these documents in the Investors section of our website at www.glaucoast.com. Finally, please note that during today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including results on an adjusted basis. We believe these financial measures can facilitate a more complete analysis and greater transparency into Glaucos' ongoing results of operations, particularly when comparing underlying results from period to period. Please refer to the tables in the earnings press release available in the investor relations section of our website for reconciliation of these measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measure. With that, I will turn the call over to Glaucos Chairman and CEO, Tom Burns.
Tom Burns Thanks, Chris. Good afternoon and thank you all for joining us today. Today, Glacos reported record fourth-quarter consolidated net sales of $105.5 million, up 28% versus the year-ago quarter. These results reflect a continued acceleration of our business and cap off a successful year of global execution, both from a commercial and development perspective, leaving us ideally positioned to sustain our momentum and execute our strategic plans in 2025 and beyond. For the full year 2024, consolidated record net sales of $383.5 million grew 22% versus 2023. We have also introduced full year 2025 net sales guidance range of $475 to $485 million. Our record performance in the fourth quarter in full year 2024 reflects our unwavering dedication to advancing our mission to transform vision by pioneering novel droplets platforms that can meaningfully advance the standard of care and improve outcomes for patients suffering from sight-threatening chronic eye diseases. At Glaucoast, we are in the business of pioneering entirely new marketplaces within ophthalmology. Innovation is at the core of everything we do. Our mantra, we'll go first, embodies our commitment and determination to take chances, push the limits of science, and disrupt the legacy treatment paradigms in glaucoma, rare disease, and retinal diseases through our pursuit of game-changing technologies. Our fourth quarter and full-year record of results were primarily driven by both our U.S. and international glaucoma franchises, where we continue to accelerate efforts to pioneer and develop the interventional glaucoma, or IG, marketplace with new standalone therapies designed to slow disease progression and reduce drug burden for the benefit of physicians and patients. Our goal to advance and improve glaucoma treatment by driving earlier intervention continues to build momentum as we educate surgeons and thought leaders globally to organically drive this broader evolution in the standard of care for the benefit of patients. While we remain in the early stages of these IG efforts, we are encouraged with the increasing levels of clinical interest for this paradigm-changing evolution. Within our U.S. Glaucoma franchise, we delivered record fourth quarter net sales of $56.3 million on strong year-over-year accelerating growth of 45%, driven primarily by growing contributions from IDOSTR. As we passed the one-year anniversary of our controlled launch of IDOSTR, I could not be more pleased with our team's execution of our plans for this first-of-its-kind intracameral procedural pharmaceutical that was designed to continuously deliver glaucoma drug therapy for up to three years. Over the course of 2024, we accomplished several key objectives that together create a strong foundation to support our future IDOS growth plans that include, one, developing and implementing a superlative training program to support a growing number of trained surgeons and accounts. Two, building an expanding set of clinical literature, now consisting of nine different peer-reviewed publications highlighting IDOS-TR as a transformative new treatment alternative for patients suffering with glaucoma and ocular hypertension. And three, establishing key market access objectives to create an optimal reimbursement environment through a permanent J-code, a a facility fee, a published ASP from CMS, building professional fee coverage and payment for a max, and expanding commercial and Medicare Advantage coverage. Most importantly, clinical outcomes and product feedback from a growing number of cases and trained surgeons continue to be very positive and reaffirms our view that with the launch of IDOSTR, we are pioneering a brand new therapeutic category that has the potential to reshape glaucoma management as we know it today. Coming off of our national sales meeting earlier this month, the energy and excitement from our sales team and commercial organization Varietos TR and our broader interventional glaucoma strategy was profound. Our primary near-term focus remains on broadening market access among MACS, commercial, and Medicare Advantage payers, while there is certainly more work to do here, particularly as we expand efforts into the commercial arena over the course of 2025 and beyond. We are encouraged by the overall progress our teams are making to support increased reimbursement confidence through more streamlined and consistent J-code coverage and payment in the majority of MACs to date with more to come. Alongside this, we are also making good progress securing professional fee coverage and payment with three of the seven MACs now including CPT code 0660T in their professional fee schedules at rates in line with our expectations and generally consistent with comparable standalone glaucoma procedures. As noted in the past, we expect increasing adoption as reimbursement confidence is gained by our customers over the course of 2025. This will further be supported by our plan to accelerate marketing investments evidence as the universe of trained surgeons and accounts continue to expand. While we advance our IDOSTR efforts commercially, we also plan to expand the robust body of clinical evidence for IDOSTR. On that front, we recently announced several positive IDOS clinical studies. First, a new 36-month follow-up analysis of IDOSTR's two Phase III pivotal clinical trials demonstrating sustained substantial ILP reductions as approximately 70% of IDOS-TR subjects remain well-controlled on the same or fewer ILP-lowering topical medications at 36 months after a single administration of IDOS-TR versus 58% of Timolol control subjects. In addition, IDOS-TR continued to demonstrate excellent tolerability and a favorable safety profile through 36 months across both phase III trials. Second, a new six-month follow-up analysis of a phase IV single-arm clinical study demonstrated that IDOS-TR implanted in combination with cataract surgery achieved a profound mean ILP reduction of 11.3 millimeters of mercury, or 44% at six months compared to baseline. And last, but certainly not least, we commenced a phase II B3 clinical program for I-Dose T-Rex, our next generation I-Dose therapy. I-Dose T-Rex is designed to be very similar in size and form factor to the original I-Dose TR, but it has nearly twice the drug capacity. Shifting to our U.S. stent business, the utilization of I-Stent Infinite for Glycoma patients that have failed medical and surgical therapy continues to expand as our ongoing clinical educational efforts and improving market access landscape take hold. During the fourth quarter, five of the seven MACS implemented final updated MIGS LCDs that established coverage for ISTEN Infinite that is consistent with our original reconsideration request. In addition, these final LCDs also eliminated coverage for cases that utilize two different MIGS devices in the same procedure. As anticipated, we believe these LCDs did cause some transient turbulence in the market during the fourth quarter, and we expect this may continue into 2025 as providers continue to navigate the impacts associated with these LCDs. Moving on, our international glaucoma franchise also delivered record net sales of $27.9 million on year-over-year growth of 28% on a reported basis and 29% on a constant currency basis. This strong growth was once again broad-based as we continue to scale our international infrastructure and execute our plans to drive MEX forward as a standard of care in each region and major market in the world. Consistent with prior quarters in 2024, our new French Health Authority rebate agreement was favorable to our fourth quarter reported revenues. This year-over-year growth tailwind will sunset in 2025. We remain in the early stages of expanding our IG and product portfolio initiatives globally ahead of anticipated new product approvals and expanding market access in the years to come. As previously discussed, we expect the trialing of new competitive products in some of our major international markets may become an increasing headwind this year, alongside the material foreign currency exchange headwinds that emerged at the end of 2024 and have continued into 2025. And finally, our Corneal Health franchise delivered net sales of $21.4 million, including Fortrexa net sales of $18.8 million. As discussed throughout 2024, our fourth quarter results reflect the growing impact of Fortrexa realized revenues as a result of our entry as a company into the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, or MDRP. Going forward, we will continue to focus on expanding access for keratoconus patients suffering from this rare disease. Staying on corneal health but shifting to our pipeline, in December 2024, we were pleased to announce NDAPE's submission of Epioxa, our next-generation corneal cross-linking eye-link therapy for the treatment of keratoconus, a site-threatening disease. This submission sets up an anticipated FDA approval decision by the end of 2025. The NDA submission for Epioxab represents an important milestone for our company, as it brings us one step closer in being able to provide keratoconus patients and the ophthalmic community with the first FDA-approved, non-invasive, corneal cross-linking drug therapy that does not require the removal of the corneal epithelia, the outermost layer of the front of the eye. We look forward to working closely with the FDA in their pending review process and continue to believe that Epioxa, which is designed to reduce procedure times to improve patient comfort and shorten recovery time, represents a potentially meaningful advancement in the treatment paradigm for patients suffering from keratoconus. We are already well underway with a team of cross-functional leaders across our commercial and market access organizations in the preparation and planning of the Epioxa commercial launch targeted for next year. It is worth reminding investors that an Epioxa approval also provides us with the opportunity to launch a rare disease pharmaceutical supported by the right long-term pillars to optimize patient access, a persistent and, at times, frustrating challenge for us historically with Fortrexam. We also continue to advance a Phase II clinical program for our third-generation i-link therapy designed to use biomechanical modeling to deliver a customized pattern cross-linking treatment tailored to each patient's unique corneal topography. Beyond our cross-linking franchise, we continue to prudently invest in and successfully advance our broader pipeline of novel promising platform technologies that we believe have the ability to significantly expand our addressable markets and fundamentally transform our company over time. In addition to our pipeline milestones already discussed, we anticipate commencing a phase two trial for ilution blepharitis along with a US IDE trial for pressive flow micro shunt in 2025. As we've discussed, we continue to prioritize the cadence of our investments as we strive to strike the right balance of risk-based spending and our capital position now and in the future. One such area of planned investment is in our operations function, where we recently announced plans to build an expansive research, development, and manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama to augment our current infrastructure and support our future expansion plans. Over the course of 2024, we successfully executed several transactions designed to further solidify our already strong capital position, including the retirement of the full $287.5 million in principal amount of our convertible senior notes due 2027, leading to a de-leveraging and de-risking of our balance sheet, as well as a significant reduction in future cash interest expense. In addition, during the fourth quarter, we successfully unwound 50% of our cap call transactions associated with this convertible node issuance, generating cash proceeds of approximately $53 million for our company. As a result, we ended 2024 in a strong capital position with cash and equivalents of roughly $324 million and no debt. In conclusion, I'd like to recognize of more than 1,000 employees around the globe for whom our company mantra of we'll go first is more than just a company tagline. Rather, it is something that defines who we are as an organization and how we lead every day. I believe our foundation has never been stronger and our prospects never as promising. We are excited to build upon the growing momentum in our business in 2025 and beyond as we advance our mission to transform vision for the benefit of patients worldwide. So with that, I'll open the call for questions. Operator?
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press PAR1 on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. And your first question comes from the line of Tom Steven with Stifol. Your line is open.
Great. Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. Tom or Joe, to start with you, can you elaborate a bit on just the trends you saw with Eidos in the quarter and then maybe observations year to date? Obviously, a lot of investor focus on the ramp. So I guess I'm just wondering if there was anything to call out in terms of new factors that have emerged of late and maybe anything that's different from planned.
Sure. Hi, Tom. It's Joe. I'll start, and if Tom wants that, I think he can at the end. You know, I would really characterize the, you know, through the quarter, another strong quarter of performance, really heads down execution on all fronts. And that led to what I believe would be probably a doubling of IDOS TR revenues in most of your models in the quarter relative to what we saw in the third. Yeah, I think more importantly, underneath that, as we think about the building blocks of what it takes to build the foundation for long-term success and kind of our progress there, first and foremost, we continue to be really pleased with the real-world outcomes clinically, and that's further supported by the growing body of peer-reviewed evidence that Tom mentioned in his prepared remarks. We continue to see the number of surgeons trained expand rapidly on eye dose and parallel the education of the office staff on the reimbursement dynamics associated with a procedural pharmaceutical like idos and then on the reimbursement front you know we we continue to make progress in establishing confidence it's subjective as i've said before but i can now say that five of the seven max are adjudicating and processing the j code in a normalized and efficient matter that's really kind of emerged here over the course of the beginning of 2025 but an important you know milestones we continue to make progress on that front and then as tom you know mentioned And we've recently added Novotovs and First Coast alongside Neridian as having established formal professional fee schedules associated with IDOS. And finally, as I think about us, as we move forward here, we'll begin to slowly and methodically roll out that commercial and Medicare Advantage policies and support that as we enter into Q2 and certainly in the second half of the year. These are all consistent with what we've been saying now for a couple of quarters, and we continue to remain on track. So from a macro standpoint, as we sit here today, I think we have growing confidence on the impact that IDOS is going to have in the years ahead, including the impact it's going to have on 2025, as reflecting our guidance I'm sure we'll get into here in a bit. Of course, having said that, I'll continue to remind folks that as a procedural pharmaceutical, the adoption ecosystem is pretty complex, just as it was when we launched ISTENT many years ago. So progress from a reimbursement confidence and established pro fee schedules are exactly that. They can sometimes take a few quarters and move the needle, but we're excited about what we just did in the fourth quarter and what it means as a setup for 2025 and beyond. That's a great caller.
And then my follow-up just on guidance, Joe or Alex, can you just elaborate a bit on the components of the 2025 revenue guide between the different segments? And any caller on the core U.S. STEM business growth as well would be helpful. Maybe it seems like that slowed a bit due to the LCDs in 4Q, but just any color on the component of guidance – components of guidance would be great. Thanks.
Yeah, it did, Tom. And so let me break down kind of how to understand, I think, the fourth quarter, and then certainly, as we think more importantly, I think in the guidance looking forward. Specific to the latter part of your question, we did see the new LCD restrictions slow our non-IDOS or stint growth, if you will, down to kind of the mid-single digits for the quarter. Obviously, that was more than offset by, you know, the IDOS performance that I referenced in the first part of your question. And so, as we think forward on the guidance around that specific point, and I'll save more color for, you know, other folks to ask the questions on. As we think about that guidance, you know, we do expect those LCD headwinds and the volatility that we told you all to expect, as well as the expiration of the hydrous royalty to generate, you know, flat to maybe even down low single-digit growth for our non-IDOS revenues in 2025. And so when you kind of put all that together, and again, we'll talk about it a bit more throughout the call, you'll see that applying our guidance is very healthy expectations around the IDOS franchise and really growing as we've made our way into 2025 and what we think we'll accomplish this year with IDOS.
That's great, Collin. Thanks, Jeff.
Your next question comes from the line of Larry Vigilson with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks for taking the questions. This is Simran on for Larry. Maybe just to follow up a bit on the 2025 guidance. So U.S. glaucoma, it sounds like the core business, should continue to see some of those headwinds from the LCDs. is that um for how do we think about cadence in terms of impact is that first half weighted and some return to growth in the second half or um do you sort of expect to see depressed volumes throughout the year um and how do we think about the cadence of idos um throughout 2025 yeah it's joe so maybe i'll start in reverse and just talk about seasonality for a second then i'll get into, you know, the question around the LCD headwinds.
So, as you know, having been around the story for a while, typical seasonality patterns for us are underweight in the first quarter and sort of equal weight in the middle part of the year and then pretty heavy into the fourth quarter. Clearly, the dynamics around Eidos are going to drive an increasing weighting towards the second half. I would point investors to something that's probably a little closer to, you know, We call it 21% contribution in the first quarter, 23, 24% in the second quarter, 25% in the third, and 30% in the fourth. And again, that's really largely driven by just the continued expectations of ramp for Eidos within that. And that leads into sort of the second part of your, maybe it was the first part of your question. You know, I think we certainly would expect that the LCD headwinds would be at their peak here in the first half of the year and start to abate a little bit as we get in the second it certainly is getting the fourth quarter where you already experienced a little bit of that headwind related um slowing in the fourth quarter 2024 so i don't think it's just something that's equal throughout the year i think we should see some improvement over that um but as i said in the prior question we do expect for the overall year the combination of those max headwinds as well as the expiration of the of the hydras royalty which really begins in the second quarter um driving you know, flat to potentially even down a low single digits growth for the non-IDOS part of our U.S. Qualcomm business.
Got it. That's very helpful. And maybe just a bigger picture question on how we should be thinking about IDOS sales. You know, if I look at total MIGS procedures in 2024, it looks like there were about 100,000 procedures, and the patient population is only about 500 to 700,000 eyes. Could the number of eye dose procedures eventually surpass the number of implantable MIGS procedures in the U.S.?
I think over the medium to long term, absolutely, especially with the numbers that you just put out there. And maybe to supplement that, what you just said a bit, I think the overall, I'll call it glaucoma procedures market, which includes MIGS as we define it, maybe some of the more tissue destructive procedures, is probably more like two to 250,000 procedures a year that are being done that's largely today as you know done in combination with cataract and that's where you reference the five to seven thousand eyes market when we talk about eidos or quite frankly ice and infinite or interventional glaucoma overall you are going after a much much larger market so when we think about that there are north of 20 million eyes at any given time that that have either ocular hypertension or glaucoma in the U.S., somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 to 14 million of those are diagnosed at any given time, and around 10 million are actively treated. So, Eidos and Isid-Infin, as well as a handful of other products with much broader labels, are all going after a much larger market in that 10 million eye market versus the 5 to 700,000 that we've been constrained with in combination with cataract surgery historically.
Got it. That's helpful.
Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG. Your line is open.
Hi, this is Izzy on for Ryan. Thanks for taking the questions. So I just wanted to stick with IDOS. So over the course of 2024 and as you guys have rolled out the limited launch, I was curious if you are seeing any share gains from Darista or has the growth you've seen so far been more of expansion of the market and bringing in new users?
Hi, Aziz. It's Joe. I would characterize it as more overall market growth. I think we're, you know, just as an extension of the prior question that was asked by Simran, you know, we're in such the earliest phases of a, you know, much, much larger market movement towards standalone interventional care. I think there's a lot of opportunity for many products, including obviously Dorista Antidose, to be growing for the foreseeable future in lockstep. So I see it as an opportunity, it's less about share. I think the real question is, as an industry, how do we continue to take share from legacy eye drops and the shortcomings that are on that front from a clinical perspective?
That's helpful. Thank you. And do you have any updates on the status of re-administration?
Yeah, we do. I'll be happy to take that one and see. This is Tom. And so, as I promised investors, this is going to be a process that will take several months. Indeed, it has. As we've been in negotiation with the FDA for some time, I think we're in a good position now to be able to submit a post-approval supplement to the FDA for appeal during the first half of this year. And the FDA has a statutory guideline of 180 days once we submit that. And so we should know by the end of this year whether we're successful or not getting a re-administration claim of the IDOS. I remind investors, though, that the belt and suspenders approach that we have of having iDose T-Rex already in a clinical trial and potentially being available during the planning period for commercial entry, I see that as a de facto next implantation design product for our current iDose product. So I think either way we're covered. We continue to be hopeful, but as I have strongly said in the past, we're not counting on anything.
Understood. Thanks for taking the questions.
Your next question comes from the line of Richard Newiter with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe on Eidos to start here, can you give us any color on what your doctor install base of Eidos performing physicians looks like? And anything on how you're going to progress that training effort? I know you at the last quarter said you're moving into kind of a full commercial launch. And I just want to get a sense for, you know, especially exiting the quarter and you have some of the reimbursement and MAC progress being made. You know, how should we think about that in terms of the number of docs being trained?
Yeah, sure, Richard. Thanks for the question. You know, we have not gotten that granular around the specific numbers. What I can tell you is, and there's a reason for that, training of doctors that relate to IDOS is not really a primary gating item for the continued progress of that product. The reality is that there are more than several thousand, as you know, surgeons who have sufficient training on angle-based surgery, and IDOS is an extension of that already existing training. Of course, we make sure that they're armed with the pearls around the little nuances of a successful outcome with the procedure, but that's really not a gating item. We've had a lot of success in training doctors to date across the country at a pretty rapid rate. I would expect that to continue in 2025, in particular as professional fee schedules are turned on and general reimbursement confidence continues to be solidified. But that really has not been a gating item to date. We do make sure that, as I referenced earlier, that we're also delivering, you know, the kind of training and education of office staff on the reimbursement dynamics associated with a procedural pharmaceutical like IDOS. It's a little different. And so we want to make sure that we're there up front through those early cases afterwards. And in some ways, that is probably a bigger gating item, if you will, towards the launching and scaling of IDOS. surgical training of the doctors themselves.
That's helpful. And then a similar kind of question. So we recently pulled some doctors and granted, you know, a small sample, but the utilization rate that Eidos implanters are talking about, even currently as a baseline and where they expect to go, quite high, you know, in teens per month. You know, I'm just curious, can you talk at all about, you know, what you're seeing in the range of utilization rates from kind of newer users, more timid users, maybe even users that are in more constrained reimbursement regions versus others.
Change markedly except for continuing to improve. In most cases, when an account or a doctor comes online, they might do a couple of procedures to a handful and then wait and see, you know, how the the payment mechanisms play out um and if they've got confidence with that they start to scale from there we certainly have um more than just a handful of doctors if you will that are now doing the kind of numbers that you're talking about on a monthly basis and uh and our job at this stage of launch um alongside of of you know the the reimbursement confidence is to turn on both the hunting and the farming element of what i just said and and we're really just still you very much in the early days of a 10-year process, if you will, of driving the optimization of both those factors. But we see a wide range. And most important underneath that, and I said it earlier, is that the outcomes clinically continue to be terrific. And when you have that and you're going after an obvious patient need, you know where this is ultimately going.
And the question is how fast can you turn on the the spigots um you know doctor by doctor and account by account thank you your next question comes from the line of ellen gong with jp morgan your line is open hi thanks for the question um i guess just touching on the rest of the business you closed out the year with another really strong quarter from international you know understand that you're losing a bit of a tail and from france next year but how should we think about the growth outlook for 2025 and you know what kind of catalysts you might have in new geographies or any other academics to keep in mind over the course of the year yeah that's a good question
alan um you know we we did have another strong quarter um some some ways surprisingly strong quarter from um uh our teams internationally delivered broad-based growth of 28 percent uh in the quarter highlighted a year that we grew north of 20 percent um uh in its entirety Now, you referenced a couple things, so I'll give you the puts and takes. I think as we move forward in 2025 and apply it in our guidance is something closer to high single-digit growth for that business. The slowdown of that relative to what I was just describing really comes from a combination of things. First, FX headwinds, probably at this point of the earnings calendar. That's not a surprise to anyone here, but it's pretty material on a year-over-year basis as we look at the setup for 2025. second is you know uh potential trialing and trying of competitive product launches in japan and france um that's also not new we we referenced that uh on our last uh quarterly call and we certainly expect um as as uh as in particular alcon gets their feet underneath them in these markets that we'll see some uh impact if not transient impact on our business there and the last is what you referenced the lapping of the the tailwind from the the amended french rebate agreement. And so when you put all the things together, that lands us on that sort of high single digit expectation for the international glaucoma business. There are things that, you know, we're waiting on. For example, we've been talking for a little while. It's opaque process to us, but getting the MDR approval for Einstein Infinite in Europe in particular is a big growth driver that, you know, we've not currently baked into our forecast. We really can't until we've received that given, again, the nature of the way the regulatory process now works in Europe. But that has a broader implication to many of the markets around the world for that product and reimbursement associated with it. So that probably being the single biggest one, I would say, could drive upside to the guides that we just provided.
Got it. That's all for me.
Your next question comes from the line of mics for Cody with Jeffries. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the question. Just to start, I was hoping you can give us an update on iDose Trio, where you stand there, any change, or give us a reminder of what you're expecting on commercial timeline.
Yeah, I'd be happy to, Mike. This is Tom. And so the iDose Trio, as we talked about, is going to be really a modification of our existing applicator. And we believe that it will take us, right now, typically the incision size for an iDose implantations about two and a half millimeters and so our hope is to get that down with idos trio somewhere in the neighborhood of one millimeter at one millimeter you have a significantly closed chamber you have very reduced risk for any dehiscence of the uh aqueous humor coming out of the eye and you you're able to maintain chamber pressure so for those reasons we think that that proportionally this will will be a uh in the favor of moving into the in-office for clinicians which has been part of our plan uh during this planning period process the fda um has in in the drug division requires a small safety study to be done and so we'll be in the process mid-year or so of beginning a small safety study with the fda we'll need to follow those patients for a period of time and so our expectation is to have the i-dose trio product available in 2026 which is going to align quite nicely with our approach with MACs as we seek MAC by MAC to establish the appropriate payments for this modified code to be able to give surgeons the reimbursement capability and predictability of doing these in office. So we like what we see. We like how it lines up. And we think certainly by year end, 2026, we'll have this product in the commercial marketplace.
Great. Thanks, Tom. That's helpful. And I guess just a follow-up for me. As you think about 2025 guidance, I guess, can you talk about how you're thinking about IDOS growth expectations just in the context of, is this primarily a continuation of penetrating the Medicare population, or do you have anything baked into expectations for starting to see some benefit from any traction on the commercial side? Thank you.
Yeah, Mike, I think, you know, you can imagine the lion's share, if not all um of what the expectations at this point in the year are really being driven by the continued um uh mac progress if you will both in terms of the reimbursement certainty around the j code and those final two max as well as um the professional fee schedules that we expect to continue to come out um as we make progress there that that really forms i'll call it the the foundation of it as we make our way in the latter part of the year we do expect um but we some commercial Medicare Advantage, you know, volumes to come in. But I will tell you that as you can expect from us, we are going to be very, very methodical in the launch of that. You want to make sure that these customers can master that process of the prior authorizations and the various things that come along with an expansion outside of traditional Medicare fee-for-service. So we're not going to chase volume there. We're going to make sure the the customers are ready, and then we're going to continue to expand there as we make our way through the year.
Great.
Your next question comes from the line of Mason Carrico with Stevens. Your line is open.
Thanks for the questions here. Could you talk about initial doc reception to the Phase IV data in that Convo cataract trials? Has there been a noticeable change at all in utilization following you guys releasing that? And then just as a second follow-up there, for the max where payment dynamics for the J-code and pro-fee are farthest along, could you just talk about what utilization looks like in the combo cataract setting in those jurisdictions?
Yeah, hi, Mason. It's Joe. I think, well, obviously the data that we've now put out there around combination cataract utility phytos is terrific and sort of goes in line with what we would expect given the strength of IDOS as a standalone procedure and when you can add a benefit of the catering procedure in it. It's certainly taken notice, I think, to the second part of your question, what you see in those MAC zones where you have, I'll call it, a little bit more seasoned J-code experience around with certainty and now established professional fees is growth across the board. You see, you know, expansion within the accounts, the number of doctors, et cetera, doing the procedure and doing it largely as standalone. But as a percentage of the mix, you're starting to see a little bit more combo cataract, which you'd expect. So as they've got their sea legs with the procedure and confidence in the outcomes, and you combine with this data, it's only natural that they would start to utilize this as well in combination with cataracts surgery for those patients that they think it qualifies for. So we are seeing it, but I would tell you that our reason for being obviously is driving the much larger opportunity of interventional glaucoma and standalone procedures, but it doesn't surprise me that falling on behind that is some cataract utilization as well.
Got it. I'll keep it at that. Thanks, Mason.
Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Petrone with Mizuho. Your line is open.
Thanks. Thanks. Maybe sticking on just the MAC dynamic here, the two MACs that issued the pro fees this quarter, when did that happen in the quarter A? And in those MACs, when do you think they'll catch up just in terms of billing cadence to Meridian? And then I'll have a quick follow-up.
Yeah. Hi, Anthony. I'd say first, the professional fee schedules were announced in mid-January. They were, I think, retroactive to January 1. And that's one piece of that equation, a very important one. As you know, then it's got to be all in their systems and adjudicated properly. Sometimes that can take a little bit of time before you start to see the recurring, consistent nature of those payments. But we have started to see that. And then, you know, realistically, the impact of the rollout of that, and it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, these things don't just happen overnight. there's an education process that goes along there there's a confidence building process that the account the doctors see that they're being you know properly compensated for their time for the procedure so it's something that rolls out over many you know quarters if you will in getting that confidence and then expanding that confidence in many more surgeons we've seen that in radiant to your point where the professional fee schedule was was was put out earlier in the end of the third quarter going into the fourth quarter of last year and and we're still in the process of making sure that accounts and surgeons are aware of that update and driving increasing utilization clinically alongside of it. So it's a journey on that front and one that we've done many times in the past and we're executing quite well on, I think, today.
And just a quick follow-up for modeling. U.S. MIGS and U.S. Corneal, They'll claw out headwinds. You referenced it, Joe, in a prior question. I think the message here is to, you know, essentially have U.S. MIGs maybe flat. I don't know if you were messaging down, but maybe to just touch on that a little bit. And then just, you know, the comments in the presentation there. U.S. Corneal seeing some headwinds, too. Maybe just a little direction there would help. Thanks again.
Yeah, maybe I'll just bring it all back together again for each of the franchises on the guidance side. You know, you heard me reference earlier the seasonality, so I won't go through that again. On the corneal health side, you know, I think we believe that the year-over-year growth headwind from MDRP will probably peak somewhere in Q1, certainly in the first half, and then ultimately this franchise can deliver kind of low single-digit growth for the entirety of the year. Certainly ahead of what we expect will be an exciting year in 2026 with the launch of Epioxa. This year is all about navigating the continued MDRP headwinds and sunsetting the overlapping, some of the impact we even saw in 2024 as we make our way through this year. So low single-digit growth in 2025 for Cornea. You heard me talk about international growth, glaucoma, and the growth expectations there of high single digits. And then on the U.S. side, you know, what I said was we expect the combination of the LCD headwinds and volatility and the expiration of the hydrous royalty to generate flats that potentially down low single digit growth for our non-IDOS revenues in 2025. Obviously, that's something we're going to watch closely and continue to update you all on as we make our way through the year. But when you put all that together, I think it's going to imply in your model's initial IDOS expectations that are certainly well north of $100 million for the year, which, as you would expect, are more weighted towards the second half and q4 in particular given the continued progress we expect to make throughout the year very helpful thanks your next question comes from the line of steven leishman with open hyper your line is open hi this is ryan i'm for steve today i just wanted to ask a little bit about what you guys are seeing in terms of uptake and idos in different facilities
and systems um given the high cost of carrying the inventory are you seeing that you know any difference between larger and smaller facilities uh wanting to adopt the device and do you have any plans on working working with people to make sure that they can carry it to make it affordable for them yeah so i mean i think first off um the the relative cost and the carrying cost of it you You know, we mitigate a lot of that, as is often the case with pharmaceutical launches as like Eidos with longer dated terms.
You've probably seen that in our accounts receivable balance. Again, very common with, you know, pharmaceutical industry standards. And so the actual, you know, I'll call it cash component of that for facilities, we mitigate that way, and we've been pretty successful in doing it. I think there's always a delta between the administration and bureaucracy of larger, you know, hospital systems and things like that, where you have to go through committees and get a lot more sign-offs, if you will, to get going, even when the physician customers themselves are ready and want to do it clinically, versus the nimbleness that exists with your average ASC customer, if you will. So, I think so far, we've certainly been much more indexed, if you will, towards the ASC side of things, but we certainly expect, with the progress we're making, the hospital side of our business will continue to make progress, certainly in 2025.
Great. Very helpful. Thank you.
And your next question comes from the line of Daniel Antalfi with UBS. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for taking the question. I just have a kind of high-level question. Sorry, I'm going to stick on IDOS for a second. You know, when we were working on our initiation, we looked back at iStent in the first few years of launching, and it looked like you guys sold over, call it 100,000 iStents in the first three years of launching, but back in 2012, you know, 2012, 2015. So I guess my question is, what's different about the iDose launch versus when you launched iStent? I appreciate it was like 12 years ago, but that it wouldn't happen quite as quickly because obviously at a 13.5 ASP, You know, you don't need, you know, a high volume to get to pretty big numbers. So just if you could help me better understand the difference between the two launches and what the gating factors are, that would be great.
Sure. And I'll start, and candidly, you know, Tom was a part of that first launch much more than certainly I was. But, you know, when we think about the comparison here of the two, there are pluses and minuses in each, right? The most similar element of the launch is that you're pioneering a new category, period, and you're doing it in a procedural-based environment. And so that means you're not just delivering clinical excellence and training, but you're changing practice and physician behavior. That was true back then with iStent and the combination of cataract surgery, and it's true now with iDose in the context of driving procedural pharmaceutical and certainly standalone interventional glaucoma as a general, you know, matter. The, you know, today, we obviously have a lot more doctors, to the point of some of the earlier questions, who are trained on angle-based surgery. So the training element to these physicians, that hurdle is much lower than it was 10 years ago when we were in the middle of really launching iStent. At the same time today, you know, we're obviously going after a much larger market, but we know that's going to take, you know, many years to continue to develop and shift the standard of care within it. Those are all positives. On the flip side, reimbursement, which was always a consideration back then it is today, when you're dealing with a more premium priced, you know, procedural pharmaceutical, is front and center as are patient economics. And I would also add in that, you know, the Medicare Advantage dynamic is much more real today than it was, you know, 10 and 15 years ago. And so we have to navigate, you know, Medicare-covered lives that are covered in a less comprehensive way than traditional fee-for-service. And so that's an impact, obviously, to the overall opportunity that's there. But I think when you put it all together, you know, candidly, there's a lot of apples and oranges there. And it's hard to draw a direct correlation. I think it's probably better to just focus on, you know, what you think around the opportunity first within fee-for-service, Medicare, these standalone patients and combination of cataract, and then ultimately in the commercial and Medicare Advantage, and the individual situations that can drive it, you know, the kinds of patients that are ideal candidates, whether they're, you know, suffering from things like mobility issues or forgetfulness or all the various things that really present more lower hanging fruit for why a surgeon would make the move in interventional glaucoma versus just prescribing.
Okay, super helpful. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Neil.
And that concludes our question and answer session. I would not like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks.
I want to thank you all for your time and attention today, and thank you as well for your continued interest and support of Glauco's.
Thanks again. ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's call thank you all for joining you may now disconnect
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