Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IRWD) Q1 2023 Results Conference Call May 4, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Matt Roache - Director of Investor Relations

Tom McCourt - CEO

Mike Shetzline - Chief Medical Officer

Sravan Emany - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Tim Chiang - Capital One

Boris Peaker - Cowen

Jacob Hughes - Wells Fargo Securities

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Q1 2023 Investor Update Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded [Operator Instructions].

I will now turn the call over to Matt Roache, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Matt Roache

Thank you, Angela. Good morning, and thanks for joining us for our first quarter 2023 investor update. Our press release issued this morning can be found on our Web site. Today's call and accompanying slides include forward-looking statements. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. A discussion of these statements and risk factors is available on the current safe harbor statement slide as well as under the heading Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, and in our future SEC filings. All forward-looking statements speak as of the date of this presentation and we undertake no obligation to update such statements. Also included are non-GAAP financial measures, which should be considered only as a supplement to and not a substitute for or superior to GAAP measures. To the extent applicable, please refer to the tables at the end of our press release for reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. During today's call, Tom McCourt, our CEO, will review our strategic priorities and provide an update on the commercial performance of LINZESS. Mike Shetzline, our Chief Medical Officer, will discuss our pipeline and Sravan Emany, our Chief Financial Officer, will review our financial results and guidance. Today's webcast includes slides. So for those of you dialing in, please go to the event's section of our website to access the accompanying slide separately.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

Tom McCourt

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today. I'm delighted to announce our first quarter results this morning. We are off to a terrific start to the year as demonstrated by continued strong LINZESS demand growth, progress of our clinical studies and another quarter of delivering robust profits and cash flow. At Ironwood, we remain committed to advancing the treatment of GI diseases and redefining standard of care for GI patients. I believe the progress we've made across the organization in the first quarter demonstrate the steps that we're taking to become the leading GI Healthcare Company in the U.S. Let's begin on Slide 6 with our strategic priorities. Our strategy starts with maximizing LINZESS. LINZESS continues to experience remarkable prescription demand growth and widespread adoption amongst healthcare practitioners as a leading branded prescription treatment for adults with IBS-C and chronic idiopathic constipation. In the first quarter, LINZESS U.S. net sales growth increased 8% year-over-year. Prescription demand growth increased over 10% as compared to the first quarter of 2022, demonstrating that the momentum of the brand remains strong. We believe there's still a significant opportunity to reach appropriate new patients and drive additional prescription demand growth, including a potential midyear indication for linaclotide in functional constipation for patients six to 17 years of age, if approved.