Pacira Just Misses Meeting Wall Street’s 2024 Expectations

Pacira BioSciences, Inc. reported $187.3 million in sales and $24.7 million in operating profit for the quarter ending December 31, 2024, which just missed Wall Street’s expectations while meeting company guidance. Full-year net sales were $701.0 million.

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Pacira BioSciences Reports Key Progress in 2024

During the end of year earnings report, Frank Lee, chief executive officer of Pacira BioSciences said, “The considerable progress we made in 2024 leaves us well positioned for 2025 and beyond. Key highlights from last year include record revenues of $701 million, the high end of our guided range, separate Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) coverage and product-specific reimbursement codes for both EXPAREL and iovera, Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation from the U.S. Federal Drug Administration for PCRX-201 and the readout of compelling 2-year data from our 72-patient Phase 1 study.”

He added that they are focused on successfully executing their 5/30 strategy which will allow them to become an innovative biopharmaceutical organization.

Long-Range Goals

Lee said, “We expect our products to be benefiting more than 3 million patients annually by 2030. We plan to grow product revenues by double-digit Compound Annual Growth Rate over the next 5 years and achieve a 5-percentage point expansion in gross margin over 2024.”

He added that they expect to have five novel programs in their clinical development pipeline and establish at least five clinical or commercial partnerships.

“For our flagship product, EXPAREL, the NOPAIN Act is now in effect. This means we have a reimbursement pathway for 18 million outpatient surgical procedures. Approximately 6 million of these procedures have CMS coverage and 12 million had commercial coverage. EXPAREL now has its own product-specific J code with the reimbursement rate of average selling price plus 6%. Securing this code was a particularly important milestone as it will expand patient access to best practice of opioid sparing care.”

Lee said that while it is still early in the rollout of NOPAIN, they are already seeing a positive momentum.

He also emphasized that in the coming year they will be focusing on driving more awareness on the benefits of ZILRETTA, which is the first and only long-acting single-shot corticosteroid injection for osteoarthritis knee pain.

Pacira BioSciences also recently acquired the remaining ownership stake of GQ Bio, and plans on exploring more international markets as well.

Shawn Cross, Pacira Biosciences’ chief financial officer, gave more details on fourth quarter numbers. Fourth quarter EXPAREL sales increased to $147.7 million versus $143.9 million in 2023, while fourth quarter ZILRETTA sales increased to $33.1 million versus $28.7 million reported in 2023.

For iovera, sales were $6.5 million compared to $6.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Analysts Push for More Clarification on Product Performance in 2025

Gregory Renza with RBC Capital Markets asked about expectations for EXPAREL, ZILRETTA and iovera for the year.

Lee explained, “Obviously, the EXPAREL is our flagship product, and we have a good catalyst here with the J code as well as no pain—but certainly, we plan on putting a shoulder behind ZILRETTA and iovera as well.”

Cross said, “As mentioned, we are pleased by the positive early signs of NOPAIN. But you just can’t reiterate more that it will take time for the customers to integrate the new reimbursement and stay tuned for what we expect to be a more meaningful uptake to begin in the second half of the year.”

An analyst with Truist Securities asked if there are plans to accelerate development timelines or expanded indications for ZILRETTA.

Lee said, “I have to tell you, I’m excited about ZILRETTA. ZILRETTA, as I’ve always said, is maybe the one of the three products that maybe hasn’t gotten the attention it really deserves. It’s a fantastic product, does a lot to help patients with pain. And now we’re excited about this opportunity with ZILRETTA in the shoulder. And this opportunity in shoulder, we think this will be—we’ll see top line data sometime probably mid- to late next year. And this will be the first long-acting corticosteroid for the shoulder. And it’s roughly about 1 million intra-articular injections a year.”

He added, “We obviously have to conduct the studies and have good data. But those studies are now enrolling, and we feel very good about delivering that data late next year or mid to late next year.”