Travere Sales Jump on FSGS Launch, Loss Widens on Debt Charge
Travere Therapeutics said FILSPARI sales rose 96% to $141.1 million in the second quarter as its new FSGS approval drove record patient starts, even as a $40.0 million debt-refinancing charge widened the net loss.
Travere Therapeutics (TVTX) reported a 96% jump in FILSPARI sales for the second quarter, as the kidney-disease drug's first full quarter of availability for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis pushed prescriptions and revenue to new highs. The rare-disease drugmaker's total U.S. net product sales climbed to $161.4 million, up from $94.8 million a year earlier.
The quarter marked the first full period in which FSGS contributed to results following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's April 13 approval of FILSPARI for the condition. New patient start forms more than doubled to 2,012 from a then-record 993 in the first quarter, when the drug was still limited to IgA nephropathy.
FILSPARI U.S. net product sales reached $141.1 million, accelerating from 88% growth to $105.2 million in the prior quarter. Total revenue growth also picked up pace, with the first quarter's year-over-year gain of 64% giving way to a steeper climb in the second quarter.
The company's operating result turned positive, with GAAP operating income of $4.0 million compared with a $12.7 million operating loss a year earlier. Spending rose alongside the launch: selling, general and administrative expenses jumped to $96.1 million from $80.3 million in the first quarter, reflecting stepped-up commercial investment behind FSGS, while research and development costs rose to $60.3 million from $57.1 million on higher enrollment and manufacturing costs tied to the HARMONY Phase 3 program.
Net loss widened to $34.8 million, or $0.37 a share, from $12.8 million, or $0.14 a share, a year earlier, though it narrowed from the prior quarter's $37.1 million loss. The year-over-year widening stemmed from a new $40.0 million inducement expense tied to the repurchase of roughly $221 million of 2029 convertible notes, an item that had only been described as proposed in the prior release. On a non-GAAP basis, results swung to a $9.0 million net loss from non-GAAP net income of $11.9 million a year earlier, reversing the first quarter's return to a $4.1 million non-GAAP profit.
The convertible-note transaction reshaped the balance sheet. Travere completed a $525 million offering of 0.5% notes due 2032 in May, using the proceeds to retire the 2029 notes and lifting convertible debt to $602.8 million at June 30 from $311.7 million at the end of 2023. Cash, equivalents and marketable securities rose to $489.2 million from $264.7 million at the end of the first quarter, aided by roughly $158 million in net refinancing proceeds, though that balance was partly offset after quarter-end by a $112.5 million upfront payment tied to a new licensing deal.
That deal closed in July, when Travere brought in civorebrutinib, known as EVER001, from Everest Medicines, adding a pipeline candidate aimed at pMN, immune-mediated FSGS and minimal change disease that was absent from the prior quarter's disclosures. The addressable FSGS population is more than 30,000 patients, a narrower figure than the combined IgAN-and-FSGS population of over 100,000 cited a quarter earlier.
The refinancing and licensing moves left Travere with a larger debt load and a broader pipeline heading into the second half of the year, with FSGS uptake now the primary driver management is tracking alongside continued HARMONY enrollment.