Kens, I appreciate your concern that net patient growth for DayBue slowed considerably in 2024 as patient recruitment transitioned from the Centres of Excellence to the general hospital setting and neurologist offices. I also acknowledge your concern that, despite revenue approaching US$1bn, Acadia profit margin is very slim.
With respect to net patient numbers, looking forward, what I want to know is does Acadia have a plan to boost net patient numbers for DayBue? If so, what are the strategies to be used and are these strategies likely to be effective?
The size of Acadia’s profit margin, which you mentioned as a concern last week, is of little concern to me. As a Neuren shareholder, what I want to see from Acadia at this stage is a commitment to devotion of adequate resources to solving the DayBue patient recruitment and retention challenge rather than prioritising penny pinching and profit at the expense of product sales growth. And I want evidence of that.
Catherine Owen Adams was only appointed Acadia CEO at the end of Q3 last year. She has already articulated the company's broad goals for DayBue in 2025 and the strategies that will be used to reach these goals
Outlook for DayBue 2025
- Increasing new patient growth in the U.S.
- Maintaining stable persistency
- Initial revenues from Managed Access Programs in select EU countries
- Growing body of real world experience, including updated data from LOTUS study
Strategies to Grow DayBue Sales
- Substantially increasing field force
- Use of predictive analytics
- Launching branded Direct-to-Consumer campaigns
- Omni-channel strategy to bring DAYBUE clinical data to life
With respect to the strategies to be used to grow sales, there have already been signs of the direct-to-consumer and the “bringing clinical data to life” approaches being put in place. But what of "substantially increasing field force" and "use of predictive analytics"?
As indicated by the positions currently advertised on the Acadia website, Ms Owen Adams’ plans are not just idle words.
Listed below are some of the positions being created to support the DayBue sales team with a brief description of each role.
Director and Assoc. Director, Commercial Field Leadership Training
Develop and maintain strong business partnerships with commercial leaders at every level to understand business goals and strategies, and identify opportunities for learning and development programs or support
Evaluate training programs, curriculum, tools, platforms and corresponding training materials for multiple layers of management, to ensure alignment with business goals and strategies
Director Field Force Effectiveness, Neuroscience
… ensuring that the field teams are optimally deployed with the correct territory alignment, they are targeting the right customers with the right call plan, they are providing the right level of services to optimize the patient on-boarding journey, they have the right incentive compensation bonus plan that properly rewards/motivating their performance, and they have the right insights to elevate their performance.
Senior Manager Patient Services and Distribution Effectiveness
Support the deployment, targeting, and activity prioritization of Field Access Managers (FAM) and Patient Access Managers (PAM) teams with the ability to deep-dive into detailed data analytics to identify key performance drivers around patient on-boarding process, the payer reimbursement process, and on-going patient treatment adherence/prescription refill process.
Patient and Community Educators, Rare Disease
…responsible for educating patients, caregivers, families on disease state and product information to help empower them as they navigate through their disease journey. Using approved materials, the PACE will educate on the disease state, DAYBUE treatment, and Acadia services, through phone-based, in-person, and virtual meetings.
Senior Family Access Managers
…provide expert, field-based access and reimbursement support. This position is a dedicated point of contact for healthcare providers and Rett families, addressing on-label Trofinetide access-related questions within the assigned geographic territory.
As a key liaison, the FAM will facilitate communication and coordination among healthcare providers, patient families, hub/specialty pharmacies, and payers.
Senior Flex Family Access Manager
Subject matter expert in preventing and addressing access and reimbursement issues through education and problem-solving
Educate healthcare providers and patient families on navigating the patient access process
Proactively work with assigned Center of Excellence (COE) and HCP accounts to build and maintain Trofinetide access related knowledge
Work seamlessly and in coordination with Acadia customer support services, hub/specialty pharmacy, and other field teams while supporting patient access
Senior Manager Incentive Compensation for Rare Disease teams
…working with leadership to design and administer field incentive compensation and award programs at Acadia that serve to attract, retain, and motivate top field talent.
Senior Manager People Operations
…create, implement, and manage processes and programs that address and optimize employee life-cycle, recordkeeping, reporting, compliance, workers compensation, and data compilation and analysis. Aligns goals with the company’s business strategy for highest level of efficiency and effectiveness.
Manager, Forecasting
Responsible for supporting global forecasting efforts by working with commercial leadership (US, Canada and EU), brand/franchise leads, patient services and finance to develop multi-year monthly patient, unit, and revenue forecasts for products within the neuroscience or rare disease franchise, by leveraging historical product performance trends, the primary/secondary market insights, and soliciting team inputs.
Responsible for providing demand (patients on product, shipments, & units) and revenue estimates and projections for month-end, quarter-end and year-end performance to commercial leadership, executive team, brand leads, finance, and investor relations groups.
https://acadia.com/en-us/careers/job-board
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