Good morning, and welcome to the Assertio Holdings Inc. First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listening only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Kreps from Darrow Associates, investor relations for Assertio. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Assertio's first quarter 2023 financials. The news release covering our earnings for this period is now available on the investor page of our website at investor.assertiotx.com. I'd encourage you to review the release and tables in conjunction with today's discussion. With me today are Dan Peisert, President and CEO, and Paul Schwichtenberg, Senior Vice President and CFO. Dan will open the remarks and provide an overview of the business, followed by Paul, who will review our financials. After that, we'll open the call for your questions. During this call, management will make projections and other forward-looking statements regarding our future performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those noted in this morning's press release, as well as Assertio's filings with the SEC. These and other risk factors are more fully described in the Risk Factors section and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K. Our actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Assertio specifically disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dan. Thank you, Matt. I want to start by welcoming our long-term shareholders, new shareholders, and those that are considering investing in Assertio. On my very first public call as CEO of Assertio, a short 26 months ago, I laid out my go-forward strategy and priorities. My strategy was ambitious, but necessary to put Assertio on a path for success. We needed to develop a sustainable business model that repositioned the business to compete more effectively in a changing environment, improve our profitability and cash flow generation, improve our balance sheet, and reduce our cost of capital, protect INDOCIN, add new products to diversify our business and extend the portfolio's duration, create internal opportunities for growth, and mitigate our legacy legal uncertainties. The recent announcement of the acquisition of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals and their key asset ROLVEDON was just one of the many tactics that we have completed in the aim of achieving that strategy. I'm proud to say that by the time we close the acquisition, currently expected to be sometime this third quarter, we will have largely checked the box on everything we set out to do. I want to offer a heartfelt thank you to not only the executive team, but to all of the employees of Assertio who have worked so hard in helping us achieve our goals. After the close of the acquisition, we'll have a business aligned with the realities of the business environment of today and the future, where contracting and market access are critical to success as opposed to pure sales force size. In addition, we'll soon have complementary digital and in-person promotional platforms that we can continue to add products into, providing further value to patients, our customers, and our shareholders. The execution of our strategy has had the most profound impact on our balance sheet to date. On March 31, we had $68.6 million of cash and $40 million of long-term debt with a 2027 maturity. This is the first time we've been in a positive net cash position since March 2020. For an even more dramatic comparison, in December of 2020 when Paul and I took over as CEO and CFO, we had $20.8 million of cash and $85 million of debt maturing early 2024. In just a little over 2 years, we flipped from net debt to net cash, a positive swing of almost $94 million, extended our maturities by 3.5 years, reduced our cost of debt from 13% to 6.5%, and achieved this all while spending $60 million in cash to acquire two new assets with patents extending into the 2030s. This was a strong first quarter for Assertio. We started with a $5 million hole due to the loss of exclusivity for both Cambia and ZIPSOR, and the discontinuation of the SoluMatrix product line. Instead of declining, net product sales grew 18% versus the prior-year quarter. Growth in INDOCIN and the addition of SYMPAZAN more than made up for those losses. We entered the year expecting to see some of the normal seasonality in our business affect our top line, but it didn't materialize to the extent we thought, and the products outperformed our demand forecast, including Cambia. Adjusted EBITDA also grew 7% year-over-year, maintaining our margin at 60% while making investments in our non-personal platform and putting marketing effort behind our two newest products in SYMPAZAN and Otrexup. As a result of the strong performance this quarter, we're increasing our full year guidance for both net product sales and Adjusted EBITDA. We now expect net product sales to be $157 million-$167 million, representing growth of 1.2%-7.7% versus the prior year, and Adjusted EBITDA to be between $90 million and $98 million. Those numbers do not include the full potential benefit of the ASC guidance change on INDOCIN or our Spectrum acquisition. In the first quarter, INDOCIN's volumes were flat with the prior year quarter, yet net product sales increased 42%. 98% of this growth was from the channel strategies we executed in the fourth quarter last year, where we have dramatically improved our gross-to-net on this product by eliminating non-commercial discounts. We've also begun to roll out awareness campaigns about the recent guideline changes from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, or ASGE. The first was an email campaign in mid-April, which was well-received, but it's too early to see if the additional awareness has or will change any behavior. We also recently attended an important medical conference this last weekend to conduct some advisory boards as we plan our next effort, which is to sponsor a continuing medical education program that is expected to launch in July. We've increased our outlook for INDOCIN slightly in our revised guidance based on trends, but it's still too early to say definitively if there will be a material increase in demand as a result of the change in treatment recommendations from the ASGE. We remain focused on our lifecycle extension efforts for INDOCIN, primarily our label expansion strategy for the prevention of pancreatitis and ERCP procedures. We announced the appointment of Dr. Howard Franklin, our SVP of Medical, in early March. Dr. Franklin has been busy working with the biostatisticians and incorporating the feedback we received from our pre-IND meeting with the FDA. We now believe that we need to go back to the FDA and seek some clarification through a Type D meeting request before filing the IND. This will delay the IND submission. However, based upon our revised timelines, we still expect the IND approval sometime later this year, and we still have the same expected $3 million-$4 million of clinical spend in the back half of this year included in our Adjusted EBITDA guidance as we did last quarter. SYMPAZAN is performing well so far with the expanded promotional reach and frequency from our non-personal platform. In our first full quarter with the product, we achieved record quarterly prescription demand. Looking at TRx count as measured by Symphony Health, we beat the previous record in the third quarter of 2022 by 1.5% and beat the prior year quarter by 7.3%. The March 2023 TRx count was also a new monthly high, beating the previous peak in August of 2022 by 2% and the prior year month by 8.2%. While one month does not make a trend, this new high is important since the comparison is to a peak before the sales force disruption and transition to non-personal promotion. In addition, our ex-factory shipments this quarter were 7% above the previous peak, and we're starting to see a mix shift towards the higher strengths, which come at a higher ASP, further benefiting revenue growth. I'm sure our friends at Aquestive who developed this drug will agree that to date, we're just scratching the surface of this drug's potential. As we continue to learn more about this market and the role SYMPAZAN can fill, we're getting more excited about its potential. We will give investors more clarity on what we think that potential could mean as we improve and refine our longer-term plans for the product. Finally, turning to our pending acquisition of Spectrum, which released their results for the quarter earlier today. They reported 54% sequential sales growth to $15.6 million in the first quarter. That team is clearly doing a tremendous job with the launch of ROLVEDON. What's great about that number is that if integrated under Assertio's platform, ROLVEDON is now recording revenue at an annual run rate that would be nearly break even for Adjusted EBITDA. Since we expect to only bring over approximately $60 million of operating expenses from Legacy Spectrum. Our number one priority is a meticulously planned integration of Spectrum into Assertio after closing to ensure the continued successful launch of ROLVEDON. The combination of these two companies increases the business development opportunities we can pursue and effectively commercialize. Our business environment has been moving more towards one of contracting and market access as contrast to the historical share of voice. Both Spectrum and Assertio have positioned themselves in this manner. Combined, we're stronger than apart now with both digital and personal promotional execution. We believe that oncology is an area that is both receptive to non-personal communication and has many assets that fit our objectives of size, growth potential, patent protection, and exclusivity. The oncology offices and clinics were almost forced to adapt to non-personal communication during COVID because of the immunocompromised nature of their patient populations and the importance of guidelines like NCCN in setting treatment algorithms. There are many interesting patent-protected commercial and late-stage products in oncology and supportive care that are below the size of large pharma's purview. The combination of the two companies doubling down on our contracting and market access capabilities and optimizing the strengths of each other's promotional platforms is what opens the door to a larger M&A opportunity set. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul. Thank you, Dan Peisert. This morning, I will review the financial highlights from our first quarter of 2023. For full details, please refer to the tables and financial statements in our earnings release and 10-Q. Net product sales were $41.8 million for the first quarter of 2023, compared to net product sales of $35.5 million in the prior year quarter and $49.9 million last quarter. The increase in net sales versus the prior year quarter is primarily driven by INDOCIN and the addition of SYMPAZAN, which more than offset the expected declines in Cambia and ZIPSOR. INDOCIN family net sales in the first quarter increased by 42% over the prior year quarter, primarily due to a volume mix shift to more profitable channels. Otrexup and SYMPAZAN combined net sales for the first quarter were $5.3 million. SYMPAZAN achieved its highest quarter of unit sales volume in its history as we are seeing a positive response to Assertio's digital promotion model. Overall portfolio net sales were up 18% versus the prior year quarter, despite the Cambia loss of exclusivity on January first. Gross margin as a percentage of product net sales was 86.9% in the first quarter versus 88.2% in the prior year quarter. The decline in margin is partly due to a shift in product sales mix as a result of the Cambia loss of exclusivity, along with a one-time inventory reserve recorded in the quarter. We continue to remain focused on profitability across the portfolio, and we expect gross margins to remain in the high 80s throughout the remainder of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $25.6 million, compared to $33.4 million last quarter and $23.9 million in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year increase was driven by $6.2 million of additional product net sales, partially offset by higher selling general administrative expenses due to increased sales and marketing expenses for Otrexup and SYMPAZAN. Adjusted EBITDA margin reflected as a percentage of total revenue in the first quarter was 60.3% versus 65.3% in the prior year quarter. The first quarter non-GAAP adjusted earnings per share was $0.29 versus $0.32 in the prior quarter and $0.38 in the prior year quarter. Please note that earnings per share is calculated using diluted shares, including the if converted impact of the convertible notes as is required under GAAP. The full weighted additional diluted share impact is 14.5 million shares in the first quarter. Adjusted SG&A expenses in the first quarter were $11.9 million, compared to $11.1 million last quarter and $9.5 million in the prior year quarter. The increase versus the prior year quarter is primarily due to additional costs for both SYMPAZAN and Otrexup, along with personnel costs due to new headcount additions. Net loss for the first quarter was $3.5 million, compared to net income of $88.6 million last quarter, which included an $80.4 million tax benefit and $9.1 million in the prior year quarter. The first quarter net income was impacted by $9.9 million of expenses related to the convertible debt exchange, a $7.5 million non-cash increase in contingent consideration associated with future INDOCIN royalties as a result of continued sales growth, and increased operating expenses, primarily reflecting $2.4 million in transaction costs associated with the acquisition of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals as announced on April 25th, 2023. Net cash provided by operating activities as reported in the company's statement of cash flows for the first quarter was $22.7 million versus $26.7 million last quarter and $27.4 million in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year decline in operating cash flow is due to an income tax receipt of $8.3 million in the prior year quarter, partially offset by improved financial performance versus the prior year. This quarter, like those that have come before it, shows the continued cash generation power of the business and the quality of our reported Adjusted EBITDA measure in predicting the cash generated by the business. Ending cash on March 31, 2023, was $68.6 million, reflecting a $3.7 million increase versus the prior quarter, despite making a $10.5 million cash payment in conjunction with the convertible bond exchange that was executed during the quarter. This convertible bond exchange will save the company $2 million in annual interest payments. On March 31, 2023, our long-term debt balance was $38.2 million, reflecting the $40 million of convertible debt balance, less unamortized debt issuance cost. Lastly, our updated annual guidance for 2023 is as follows. Full year product net sales are expected to be $157 million-$167 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $90 million-$98 million. Our updated guidance for the full year of 2023 incorporates the Q1 actual results and reflects the following factors. One, favorable INDOCIN price due to continued volume and more profitable channels, higher volume for INDOCIN, partly due to the updated ASGE guidelines. Two, higher SYMPAZAN volume due to the initial success of our digital marketing activities. This guidance does not include the financial impact resulting from the recently announced acquisition of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. Our guidance will be updated after the transaction closes sometime in the third quarter. It is again worth noting that because of our commercial execution and strategic actions in 2022, our 2023 updated guidance reflects a net product sales increase over 2022 despite the loss of exclusivity on Cambia, which was our second-largest product. The first quarter results once again show the positive impact of our commercial and operational execution. We look forward to the transaction close and integration of Spectrum later in the year, which we expect to further strengthen our results, provide product diversification, and continue Assertio's journey toward long-term sustainable growth. Now I'll turn the call back over to Matt. Thank you, Paul and Dan. At this time, we've completed our prepared remarks from the management team, and we'll take questions from our research analyst and institutional investor community. Operator, can you please provide the instructions for Q&A from our listeners? Thank you. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star one again. Again, that is star one to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Thomas Flaten with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you. Appreciate you taking the question. Congrats on the quarter. Dan, I was wondering if you might be able to provide some more color on the upcoming meeting that you're gonna request from FDA. Was there something in particular you saw there? Like, just wondering if you could give some color on what you're looking for input on from FDA. It's us providing them with additional information to see if we can avoid some of the things in their original you know, IND feedback. One of those specifically would be, we do not or would not like to do the dose ranging that they had suggested. We're gonna be providing them with some additional information to see if we can eliminate that from the clinical trial design, which would allow us to enroll and complete it far quicker. Got you. Switching over to SYMPAZAN, I'm just curious on a kind of a same-store sales basis. Is the growth you're seeing from traditionally productive accounts, or are you seeing any impact from maybe non-touched accounts under the Aquestive model? I don't have any information on that. Do you, like, on existing prescribers? [inaudible] We can get back to you on that, Thomas. We'll check with our sales team on that. Yeah. Then just finally, I think you guys have your AGM tomorrow. Is it safe to assume that the merger vote will happen at that meeting? Then secondly, any insight into when Spectrum might be planning their AGM? I think last year was in June. The AGM is not going to address the Spectrum acquisition. It's just the information that was in the proxy that was provided to shareholders in April. We will be submitting a new S-4 here in the coming weeks that is in combination with Spectrum, and we will be having a shareholder vote in the late July, early August timeframe. Got it. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Your next question comes from the line of Scott Henry with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Congratulations on quite a run these past couple years. I did have a couple questions. First, I guess I'll start with the income statement. The SG&A number, you talked about why it was a little higher in the quarter. My question is, was there any one-time noise in there, or is that kind of the number we should think about going forward? Scott, there were a couple of differences in the quarter. There was the one-time charge, as I mentioned, related to SYMPAZAN. Or I'm sorry, the Spectrum Pharmaceuticals acquisition. The other is just the timing of stock-based comp. The annual grant this year was in February. Last year it was in May. There's a little bit of a timing difference there that's driving it. The rest is gonna be the sales and marketing expenses that I mentioned related to Otrexup and SYMPAZAN. Okay. Great. Shifting gears, ROLVEDON, it looked like a really good quarter for Spectrum. As far as you know, and I know it's not your product right now, was that a clean quarter? Meaning, is there any stocking in there, or is that a pretty good demand-based quarter for where the launch is at currently? From what we know of it from conducting diligence, it's a good clean quarter. It reflects demand. Okay. Great. appreciate that. I don't recall. Could you talk about what kind of gross margins we should expect for ROLVEDON, at least relative to your current business? The ROLVEDON gross margins I think are gonna be in the high 70s%, 80% range. Okay. Great. I'm sorry. Uh- Scott, I'm sorry. Let me clarify that point. I'm sorry. It was mid-80s% is gonna be the margins on ROLVEDON. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Shifting gears, SPRIX, how should we think about that, you know, not just this year, but, you know, next year and the following year? How, how do we think about that franchise from a growth standpoint? It's a good question. It's clearly a product four on our list, but it requires a heavy lift. There's a lot of things that need to be done in what I call break medical inertia, and think about this one a little bit differently. The number one thing that we need to do to improve sales here is improve market access. It's got very poor coverage today. I think less than 15% of covered lives or of lives are covered for this product. It's incredibly important if you're gonna be getting an acute pain med that it be reimbursed and paid for. We've got a very effective, I guess, patient access program in place. It also becomes expensive if you start growing the product. We need to look for things that are outside their traditional routes to increase coverage for the product. Some of the things that we're exploring also include a price decrease for that product. We haven't come up with all the answers yet, Scott, but right now it's been bouncing in this, what, roughly eight... Hello? Sorry, Mr. Peisert, your line cut out. Are you still there? I am still here, Scott Henry. Yeah. Looks like we may have lost that line. Give us just one minute here. One moment. This is the operator. I'm just going to place the call on a short music hold while we rejoin the speakers at this time. Thank you for your patience. Thank you everyone for standing by. Please continue. Sorry about that, everyone. We had a little technical difficulties. Our equipment shut down. Are we ready for the next question? Yes, we're ready. Your next question comes from the line of Mayank Mamtani with B. Riley. Please go ahead. Pardon. Hi. Yes, this is William on from Mayank. Congratulations on a great quarter as well as your recent Spectrum acquisition. A couple of questions from us. Maybe when thinking about the continuing the early impressive growth of ROLVEDON going forward, could you discuss your strategy for maintaining the growth of your of targeting clinics, 340B and then the non-340B hospitals? How do you view having a J-code in place will make you more competitive in your execution? One follow-up. We don't anticipate doing anything different. The targeting that they've done, we think is right on point. And if anything, what we intend to do is help them reach a broader number of clinics sooner, and without increasing additional operating expenses. By pairing their in-person promotion with our non-personal platform, we think we can target a far greater number of clinics than just what you're limited to by geography, with the current sales force that they have. Right now, we don't intend to do anything different. The J-code, we think it just facilitates reimbursement and makes things easier. We were very excited to see that went into effect on April first, and we're looking forward to closing this acquisition so we can help them out. Got it. Then also just in regards to your CVR-related milestones for 2024 and 2025, just curious of your level of confidence on meeting these. Also, could you remind us if there is a CVR or a milestone for 2023 that's in place? Thank you. There is no 2023 milestone. We're not going to be giving forward-looking guidance or confidence for what we think this product can do in 2024 or 2025 at this point. Got it. I appreciate you taking our questions and best of luck with continued success. Thanks. Thank you very much. Next question, operator. My apologies. Your next question comes from the line of Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Please go ahead. Hi. The first question I had was about INDOCIN, and is it still too early for you to see what the kind of impact or benefit this new guideline from ASGE is having for you? Yes, it is. It's too early to see it. We still see the product performing inside of statistical control with what it's been doing the last 24, 36 months. What's driving the SYMPAZAN sales increase for you, is that because of what you've undertaken ever since you acquired it, or was that in place before you acquired it, the success that it's seeing? The product had been on a growth trend, but it was slowing as they were essentially losing reps. Then I believe they exited the sales force in September timeframe. To see it actually perform well and hold in there without much disruption and then start to set new quarterly and monthly peaks here in the first quarter was incredibly encouraging. So far, all signs are that the increased reach and frequency of our promotion is starting to drive awareness and uptick of the product. We're excited about what we can do with this. My last question was just about having, the Otrexup samples, you know, in Q1. How does that build momentum for you going into Q2? Are you expecting any momentum in sales for Otrexup now that you have the samples available? It's certainly gonna help. What I can tell you is I've been actually pretty pleased with the first couple of weeks of April that we have data on. It's not, you know, gonna double this product or anything by any means, but it has been coming in at least the first couple of weeks in April, a little bit ahead of our trends. Volumes were fine, a little bit better in the first quarter, but it was a gross-to-net hit. Most of those volumes came in more discounted channels. Okay. Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up and comes from the line of Scott Henry with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Thank you. just a couple of very technical questions around the merger. You may not have the answers, but, given that it's a merger, will there be any amortization expense here that'll be added on from this transaction? There should be, but, I don't have a good handle on what it will be. We can give you that later, Scott. Okay. I assume we'll get that post the transaction. Then as well, I, you know, I'm looking at putting out, you know, doing a joint model for the company, even though the vote still has to happen. When we think about total shares outstanding, I mean, it looks like we should be thinking about 110 million. Am I in the ballpark there? Yeah. Let me just give you the high level. As it stands right now, we have 55.6 million shares outstanding as of March 31st. I can't give you the exact share count that's gonna or the increase in shares that's gonna result from the merger. That'll be released then when we release our S-4. Very big picture, you could take the Spectrum outstanding shares and divide it by the exchange ratio to get an estimate of what those additional shares will be. Okay. I don't think it'll be quite 110 million. [Crosstalk] Add that onto your fully diluted? Correct. Okay, great. I guess just final question. Company's making money pretty regularly now. How should we think about, you know, not in 2023, but in 2024, do you expect it to be taxed at, you know, at around 24% at that point? I assume you'll take a gain on any tax losses you still have. How should we think about that kinda next year? Scott, from a cash tax rate, effective tax rate perspective, we're expecting it to be around 10%-12%, kind of low double digits. Obviously, our book tax rate is going to be the federal, you know, the state combined rate of 25%. Perfect. Thank you for taking the questions. Thanks, Scott. I'm sorry we interrupted you earlier. Your next question comes from the line of Mitra Ramgopal with Sidoti. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on a strong start to the year. Dan, you certainly checked all the boxes in the 2-plus years you've been there. It's been a great job, and look forward to that continuing. Just a couple of questions around the Spectrum Pharmaceuticals transaction. Might be getting a little ahead of myself here, but do you plan to use their sales force to also sell your products, or would it be strictly for ROLVEDON? It's gonna be strictly for ROLVEDON. We don't wanna do anything to impact that launch. We've already got some ideas of other products that we could acquire in the future that would fit with them. I think the initial people that would likely be able to help both sides of the house from the Spectrum side would be their market access, the contracting folks that work with both the payers as well as the clinics. I think I see a good potential overlap between what they're doing and what we're trying to do in our business. Okay, thanks. It sounds as though, this is certainly the biggest deal you're doing, since you took over. Business model changing a little, et cetera. It seems like there might be some heavy lifting near term, but by the same token, you sound pretty interested in pursuing additional BD opportunities. Is that fair? It's fair, but don't get me wrong. Number one priority is making sure there's a successful integration of these two companies. We're not gonna do anything to distract either team from that, 'cause that's gonna be the critical success factor for us this year. Okay. Thanks. Again, it seems just from the real guidance, the underlying business remains, it's in good shape and obviously adding on Spectrum is a game changer. Any potential headwinds we're missing here, or is it pretty much under control right now from your standpoint, just executing on the transaction, et cetera? There's not any headwinds that we're aware of. We've been pretty keen at steering clear of them. There might be turbulence upcoming, but we don't see any of it right now. Okay. Thanks again. Great quarter. Thank you, Mitra. There are no further questions at this time, so this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dan Peisert, the President and Chief Executive Officer, for any closing remarks. Thank you all for participating in our call today. I look forward to seeing many of you in our upcoming trip to New York and Boston next week with Roth Capital and at the Craig-Hallum conference in Minneapolis at the end of this month. If you'd like to set up a meeting with us, please contact Matt Kreps at Darrow. As a final note, I'd like to congratulate the Blackhawks in getting the first pick in the NHL draft. Go Hawks. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.