A rather weak Q3 from Hansa. One can probably already conclude that there simply isn’t a proper market for Idefirix in Europe for the kidney transplant indication.
Revenue 30.8 MSEK, significantly less than a year ago. This corresponds to about ten treated patients. Sales in Germany are in trouble after Germany suspended its participation in the Eurotransplant prioritization program, and there are also problems in Spain. This also indicates weak future quarters. The “launch,” if the sales effort can still be called that, is thus going in the wrong direction in Europe. The cash situation is, of course, good after a directed issue made at a surprisingly good price. The issue raised 671.5 MSEK (71.5 MUSD) at the beginning of October, with a subscription price of almost SEK 40. The dilution with these issues is quite significant.
Quote from the Q3 report:
As mentioned in the Q2 report, the German Eurotransplant Prioritized Program has been paused, and as a result no product sales were reported in Germany during Q3. While physicians in Germany can continue prescribing IDEFIRIX under the standard Eurotransplant Kidney Allocation System (ETKAS), we expect that the pause of the prioritized program will continue to have a negative impact in the near- to mid-term.
This situation in Germany was explained in the Q2 Q&A session mainly by concerns in Germany about patient equality:
When it comes to these highly sensitized patients, you – they end up in this priority program for specific reasons. Let’s say, they’ve had a previous transplant, they have been pregnant, they’ve had a blood transfusions. You know the reason why they’re highly sensitized. And in Germany, what they have really been discussing is this health equity. That certain patients end up in this program.
Here, it seems to be implied that at least some patients are sensitized “due to their own reasons,” meaning they might not have properly managed their immunosuppressive medication with the first transplant or otherwise cause problems with their lifestyle. At least such a comment came from a German doctor earlier. Since kidneys are a very limited resource, they are preferably given to a non-sensitized recipient without the cost of Idefirix. This perspective is quite bad for Hansa. And there are also problems with Idefirix reimbursement in Spain.
The story relies increasingly on the USA and, of course, on future indications in the development pipeline. Unfortunately, the FDA is also currently closed, which is unlikely to speed up the project… Fortunately, I realized at some point to start trading this – buying below SEK 30 and selling above SEK 35 has been a significantly better strategy than ‘hodling’ in recent years. At some point, this might still take off if the USA succeeds, and before that, it would be good to be involved if one believes in the story. After the Q3 report, we are at least back at buying prices.
Of course, there is a lot of optimism in the report about the future and indications in the development pipeline, but in the short term, it left a rather melancholic feeling nonetheless.