LENZ Therapeutics, Inc. Common Stock 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Dan Chevallard, Chief Financial Officer of LENZ Therapeutics. We are joined today by Abe Skillepottick, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Shawn Olsson, our Chief Commercial Officer, and Dr. Marc Odrich, our Chief Medical Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements regarding LENZ's future expectations, plans, prospects, corporate strategy, regulatory and commercial plans and expectations, cash runway projections, and performance. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors and risks, including those discussed in our filings with the SEC, and which can also be found on our website.

In addition, any forward-looking statements represent only our views as of the date of this webcast and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We specifically disclaim any obligations to update such statements. The company encourages you to consult the risk factors contained in our SEC filings for additional detail, including our second quarter 2026 Form 10-Q, which is being filed today. With that, I will now turn the call over to Abe.

Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone. We are now several quarters into the launch and have a clear view of how adoption is developing. Today, I want to share the progress we're seeing, what the latest data are telling us, and how those insights are shaping our priorities for the second half of the year. Q2 reflected continued, though modest, growth. Encouragingly, in July, as we launched telehealth and expanded our existing tired-of-reading-glasses campaign on national TV, we saw a significant increase in new patient starts and over 45% growth in month-over-month total prescriptions. We recognize that one month does not establish a trend, but these early results are consistent with the direction we hope to see. We have consistently said that the second half of the year will provide our first opportunity to assess and discuss patient persistence.

Now, several quarters into launch, we have sufficient data to begin doing that, and what we are seeing is encouraging. Since launch, more than 60% of ePharmacy patients who have purchased VIZZ have purchased more than one monthly pack, either as part of their initial order or through a subsequent purchase. It is important to note that the ePharmacy is our dominant sales channel and the channel where we have access to detailed patient-level data. Looking at the more mature quarterly patient cohorts within that 60% provides a promising view of repeat purchasing and refill behavior. Among patients who first purchased VIZZ in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, our first two quarters of the launch, purchasing behavior is tracking towards an average annualized purchase rate of five monthly packs, and our Q2 cohort is showing a very similar pattern, although it is not yet mature enough for the same analysis.

These are important proof points. Persistence is essential to building a durable patient base, and the behavior we are seeing reinforces our confidence that patients who experience the benefit of VIZZ are choosing to continue using it. It also reinforces the commercial objective in front of us. We need to continue bringing more new patients into the category and making it easier for them to move from awareness to evaluation to treatment, and ultimately to continued use. That focus has shaped our work since the last call. We have concentrated on broadening consumer awareness, making VIZZ easier to introduce during routine patient conversations, ensuring patients are well-educated, and simplifying the path from initial interest to treatment. Our most recent initiatives were designed around those priorities. Telehealth gives consumers a convenient path to evaluation by an independent, licensed eye care professional and, if appropriate, a prescription with home delivery.

Expanding our existing campaign to national TV allows us to reach a broader group of consumers with a clear message about an alternative to reading glasses. Together, these initiatives create a more direct connection between consumer interest, clinical evaluation, and access to treatment. While the July data are undoubtedly encouraging, our focus now is on translating these signals into sustained growth. Our investments to date have helped establish VIZZ, build broad awareness among ECPs, expand consumer demand generation, and put more convenient access pathways in place. We will use Q3 to further understand which activities are producing the greatest impacts and where we can make the patient journey even simpler. As we assess the performance of our commercial initiatives, use those learnings to inform both the mix and the level of investment for the next phase of the launch.

Going forward, we will be even more disciplined in how we allocate capital, concentrating resources on the activities we believe have the greatest potential to drive durable patient growth and aligning our overall commercial investment with the scale and needs of the business. In parallel, we will continue to make progress expanding this globally. Our partnerships now span more than 20 countries across Greater China, Southeast Asia, Canada, the Middle East, and Oceania. During the quarter, we entered into our fifth international commercial partnership covering Australia and New Zealand. We also have nine regulatory submissions under review, with additional submissions expected by year-end. Together, these efforts are establishing the foundation for this as a global brand. In conclusion, as we enter the second half of the year, we have a clear picture of how this opportunity can build.

Patient persistence reflected in both multi-pack purchasing and the refill patterns emerging in our more mature cohorts provides meaningful evidence that patients who experience VIZZ see lasting value and choose to continue using it. July provided an encouraging early indication that our actions to broaden consumer awareness and simplify access are beginning to translate into stronger new patient activity. We clearly understand our path forward. Build on these signals, stay focused on execution, and invest with discipline behind the activities that drive durable growth. We remain confident in the value VIZZ delivers and in the significant unmet need it addresses. Our job now is to translate that value into sustained patient growth with urgency and discipline. With that, I'll hand it over to Shawn, who will provide more detail on our commercial execution.

Thank you, Ace. Good afternoon, everyone. Building on Ace's comments, I'd like to spend a few minutes on our commercial strategy and the actions we're taking to support the next phase of launch. First, I want to reinforce what we believe is one of the most important indicators we've seen since launch, our early refill trends. While we're still in the early stages of commercialization, the persistence we're observing gives us a product foundation to build upon as we continue to focus on driving new patient starts. With that foundation in place, our focus is squarely on expanding awareness and ease of access for new patient starts. In July, we began our national TV advertising campaign to broaden patient awareness, and we partnered with our e-pharmacy provider to launch a telehealth prescribing option to ease patient access.

As we evaluated the patient journey to access VIZZ, it became increasingly clear that the journey was more involved than most consumer products. A patient may first see an advertisement, decide to learn more, schedule an appointment, be evaluated by an Eye Care Professional, receive a sample, and then ultimately decide whether to begin prescription therapy. At each step along that journey, there's an opportunity for patients to delay or discontinue the process. Our objective has been to simplify that experience wherever possible while maintaining an appropriate standard of clinical care. That is why I believe our telehealth initiative is an important strategic addition to our commercial model. The telehealth channel provides interested consumers a convenient pathway to be evaluated by an independent, licensed Eye Care Professional at the moment of product interest. Let's take a moment to map out the patient journey to VIZZ through the telehealth channel.

For example, a patient is watching TV and sees a commercial promoting VIZZ and then visits vizz.com to learn more. After exploring the site, they see real patient videos and now have decided they want to try VIZZ and click on the Order VIZZ Now button. This brings them to our telehealth partner's website where they start the telehealth process. As I walk you through the telehealth process, there are two key components. One, the medical screener for telehealth eligibility, which was developed by ECPs. And two, the subsequent telehealth evaluation, also performed by independent ECPs. So continuing that journey, once on the telehealth site, the patient fills out a survey on their current vision symptoms and medical history, which will confirm their potential eligibility for VIZZ through telehealth. This eligibility must be met to proceed with the telehealth assessment.

In the case they are eligible to proceed, they are then evaluated by independent licensed eye care professionals to determine whether VIZZ is an appropriate treatment option. If approved, their prescription is sent to the e-pharmacy partner, and VIZZ is shipped directly to the patient's home. We launched this initiative concurrently with our national television campaign, which is intended to expand consumer awareness and ultimately drive adoption of this. Together, these initiatives are designed to create a more seamless path from consumer awareness to treatment initiation. While still early, we have been encouraged by the initial level of consumer engagement, which we believe is reflected in the increase in new patient starts we observed during July. At the same time, our understanding of the eye care professional channel continues to evolve.

As we shared on our previous call, aided awareness of VIZZ among eye care professionals remains in the high 90% range, while unaided awareness exceeds 80%. Those metrics tell us that VIZZ is well-recognized within the eye care community as a treatment option for presbyopia, and we believe we have successfully achieved our primary awareness objectives with ECPs. However, ECP awareness alone has not consistently translated into recurring prescribing behavior. While over 13,000 physicians have prescribed VIZZ and over 75% of them have prescribed multiple times, we see the VIZZ discussion as often being consumer-initiated. As a result, we have increasingly focused our commercial investment on stimulating consumer demand with the expectation that informed patients requesting VIZZ by name will serve as an important catalyst for future continued prescription growth. Overall, we are encouraged by our recent progress.