Okay. Welcome, everyone, to the third day of Citi's Global Healthcare Conference. I'm Yigal Nochomovitz, biotech analyst here at Citi. So we have a really, really super interesting company next. It's LENZ Therapeutics. I have with me the CEO, Evert Schimmelpennink. Thank you, Evert, so much for joining. Obviously, a tremendous amount of progress since you did the reverse merge, did the phase three data, successfully built the commercial infrastructure, got the approval, and now, of course, have launched the product viz. So tell us where you are. Tell us a little bit about the early launch, how it's going, what you're preparing for for Q1. Just set the stage.
Absolutely. Thanks, Yigal. Obviously, thanks for the invite. Great to be here at the Citi Conference. Yeah, we're very excited about everything that we're seeing. And to your point, and just placing our focus on the last couple of months, from the approval that we got early to late July, to the launch, which we executed early October, and then now eight or nine weeks into the launch, it's been an extremely exciting time for the company. Everything that we're seeing, either from the numbers side, and we're obviously seeing a lot more than what's in the public domain, to the feedback that we're getting from doctors on how the product works in real life, to, frankly, what we're hearing from investors at all these conferences that are all doing their own doctor checks as they should.
The feedback is very, very aligned on how the product works in the real world. It works really well for pretty much every patient, which is very aligned with our clinical trial. It works very rapidly. People notice their near vision improve and get back to real good near vision in 10, 15 minutes. It's got a very long duration, so it absolutely works for the full workday, just as we saw in the clinical trial. Anecdotally, we're hearing 11, 12 hours. The distance vision impact that we noticed in our clinical trial as well is real. People talk about that as, "Hey, my distance vision is getting crisper, clearer, more vivid." So that's great to hear. That's not a label claim, but it's a very nice, obviously, added benefit that patients or consumers experience. And that's a very comfortable product in its use.
In the clinical trials, we were very much focused on the headache rate. Miotics, as this class of drugs are, have a tendency to create mild headaches. We saw very little of it in the clinical trial to begin with, and hardly anything we're hearing about it in the real world, so that's great. The two things that come up is the product might give a little bit of a sting on first instillation. That's a 10-15-second thing if it happens. Doesn't happen anymore on day two, day three, and similarly, people may notice a little bit of hyperemia. Also, that's very transient. If it happens, it lasts maybe up to 30 minutes on day one, maybe half of that in duration on day two, and then day three, four, five, no longer really happens.
So highly tachyphylactic and something that doctors feel is very easy to manage for patients. And we're seeing that again in our numbers. The numbers continue to give us a lot of confidence in the launch, especially in this stage where it's really around getting doctors to recommend us. And I'm sure we're going to talk about that. And not yet have we turned on the DTC, which is what we'll do in Q1.
So you started with e-pharmacy at the very beginning.
Yep.
Before that, I guess you just started with the samples, and then you sort of dialed in the e-pharmacy. Now you're starting to dial in the retail component, the retail pharmacy component. Can you speak to that as far as how that's going to start to boost the trajectory? That's before, of course, you officially turn on the direct-to-consumer.
Absolutely. Both channels are now fully available. If you think about how we launched the product, early October, October 4th is when we first had samples in the market. At that moment, we also had product available at the e-pharmacy. The e-pharmacy, in our case, is more of a fulfillment station where we have product sitting there, and as orders come in, they get fulfilled and they get shipped to the consumers. Pretty much at that moment, we also had product at the wholesalers, but that just takes a little bit of time to get propagated into the channels. We've always been very clear on the fact that we expected that by mid-November, both channels would be fully up and running, and that's exactly the case.
So you can order your product through e-pharmacy and get it delivered to your home, guaranteed fixed price, or you can just get it sent to your local CVS or Walgreens and pick it up there. And again, both are fully available now.
Is it a bit too early to tell as far as utilization for patients that have gotten scripts? They're probably still in their first 25 days, right? So it's maybe a little early to know about the refill rate. That's more of something you'll learn later next year.
Absolutely. No. So it's good to see that without going into numbers, but we are seeing people refilling. We are seeing people ordering three packs, but indeed, it's much too early to go into. And it's not really telling a whole lot at this moment. So as I think about what we'll start to share with the street going forward, we'll continue to focus initially on the numbers or the stats that we gave at our November earnings call, which were all around what's our awareness. It was already up over 90%, which is phenomenal for a new product to have a 90%+ awareness. We're then talking about how many practices, how many doctors have access to samples.
And just to double-click on that a little bit, for us, it's really important that ultimately we get to a stage where most, if not all, of our target doctors have samples available. So we want to make sure that as a consumer, especially once we turn on DTC, if you think, "Hey, this is something I want to try," that you don't have to go and look for which practice has samples. You can go into your local main street, and the three optometrists there should all have samples available. So that's one thing that we continue to strive for. So we'll give an update around where we are there. And then we'll give updates around what are the unique amount, what are the unique doctors that have prescribed.
So four weeks in, we had two and a half thousand doctors that already wrote, which I believe is a phenomenal number. Four weeks in, 40% had already written more than once. So we'll update that number for the end of the quarter. And similarly, we'll update the amount of scripts that have been filled. So that was 5,000 the first four weeks in. And again, we'll give an update on that number. We'll then turn DTC on. And I think what we'll focus on in, let's call it roughly the first half of the year is how is that driving new patient starts. So that's the main metric for the first half of the year. Turning DTC on usually takes a couple of months to see that effect. That's not unlogical. Somebody sees the ad, they usually need to see it a couple of times.
Then, make an appointment, get their eyes checked, get their sample turned in or turned towards buying a script. And then, if there's a one month, which is the minimum, it obviously takes at least a month before they refill. If they buy a three pack, it's going to take at least three months. So, first half of the year, think of it really as you want to see that nice steady growth in new patient starts. Then, more towards the first half or in the middle of the year, we'll start talking about, "Okay, what is the refill rate that we're seeing on that?" Because that's the key second metric for this to all work. So, long-winded to your answer on when is it that we'll start to get insight in the refill rate, think of it more as a Q2, Q3 type metric.
So tell us more. There's a lot of components to DTC. It sounds simple, but it's not simple. There's a lot of strategy. You've hired a really strong head of marketing. We'd love to hear more about the choice of the celebrity spokesperson. What are the facets of the DTC campaign? How do you target? The technology is obviously really good where if you're near a place where you potentially are a customer, you could be tagged on your phone. Just kind of go through all that and where the ads are going to appear, who you're going to target, what that's going to look like.
Yeah. No, and indeed, there's a lot of different aspects in it. So let's maybe start with our spokesperson, Sarah Jessica Parker, who we've had her as our top pick from day one. But it's great that I thought she was great and Shawn thought she was great. Obviously, while we're decision makers, we're not the experts in this. So how that works is you think about who's your target customer. And we know that a product like this skews slightly female. We're seeing that even in our current scrip data coming in. It's like 60-40 female/male. It skews a little bit more to the 45 year-55-year-olds. We're seeing orders all over the age spectrum, up to 75-year-old, but a little bit more in that age group. And then it's a little bit more city center, urban buying there.
So if you think about how do you get that group activated, you look for somebody that really speaks to that group. We also look at our product, which we really look at as a category of one. So this is the only product that gets below two millimeters. It's the only product that really improves your near vision. So we also want a category of one spokesperson. So this needs to be somebody that's an A-lister, the lead character in her movies needs to be a female. So that's how you build that list. We ultimately will wind it down to about five with Sarah on the top. And then you start to do what's called E-scores.
So here's where companies do a lot of surveying where they show somebody the name or show somebody a photo and go across all age groups and dynamics to see if this is somebody that really resonates. And she does. She's the ideal person for this. So her role in the DTC, to get to your question, is she needs to stop people when they're scrolling through on their Instagrams or their TikToks or their Facebooks where they go, "Oh, what she's talking about." So you click on, you look at the ad, and then she brings you into our campaign, into our website, gets the brand awareness. So that's really her role. So you'll see her show up in all our commercials. And those commercials are showing up mostly digitally.
So on the same platforms that I was just talking about, on the Hulus, the Disneys, all the non-linear TV, because that's where we can really target people. We don't need to target 128 million people or 300 million people and fight the ones that have presbyopia. Because we know if you're over 45, you have it. We know if you're over 45 and in contact lenses, you're even over index and interest, LASIK, if you're active aging, if you use Botox. So those groups we can target very easily digitally. So that's what we'll do. Now, underneath that brand figure, there's a lot of influencers that you'll start to see coming up. Those are the people that you actually follow. So you even have more of a confidence and interest in what they're saying. So that is how that all wraps together.
And the nice thing is that you can fine-tune that almost minute by minute. You can run something different in Houston versus Phoenix and see how that difference works and what plays better. And think of it as a huge dashboard that has a lot of dials that you continue to fine-tune.
I'm sure you've hired the right people in the advertising world to measure the effectiveness of these digital ad campaigns, and as you say, they can be rapidly fine-tuned to shift if necessary as you collect more data on where the uptake is.
Absolutely, so frankly, from the beginning, let's call it five years ago when we restarted into what's now LENZ, our approach has always been to work with the best. That means we work with the best team. We bring the best people in-house, but we also work with the best companies to support us, and we've done that with manufacturing. We've done that for development. We've now done it logically also with everybody, everything commercially, so the companies that are and the firms that are supporting us are the number one firms in their fields, whether it's on the commercial side, on the marketing side, whether it's on the ad buys, which is what this is all about, whether it's on how do you find your talent, how do you do the commercials. These are all the top firms.
So I mean, I know you can't speak to specific numbers post the earnings call, but just sort of generally speaking, you see the data. How are you feeling about the trends post the earnings call and as you move? And the update, in addition to that question, you mentioned the update. So is that going to be like an early January update where you're going to give a snapshot of what 4Q looked like? Or are you going to get that on the 4Q call in late February?
Yeah.
Can you tell us about that?
Yeah. And let me answer both. So first off, again, we strongly believe that we had great data and great stats coming out of the first four weeks. I don't think there's a lot of products that in the first four weeks drive 500 scripts, 2,500 doctors that have written a script right off the bat. So that shows that there's a lot of interest in the products and a lot of confidence in the product. And that's what this phase is all around. I mentioned before, creating awareness in the doctor community, giving them confidence by giving them samples. The first thing they do is they open up a pack, use it in their own eyes, give it to a couple of staff members, maybe one or two patients in that early phase. So already get to that amount of scripts.
5,000, just to clarify, 5,000.
5,000 scripts, 2,500 doctors that have written, so that's great data right there, and we're seeing that trend continue, and again, this is all before we turn on DTC, so all these patients are patients that are getting it because their doctor talks to them about it. That's going to change once we turn on DTC, like we just spoke about. We know how focused everyone is, rightfully so, on script data and all the other stats. We also know that neither Symphony nor IQVIA is accurate at all in giving you insight in how the launch is going, so you can imagine that early January, we'll give an update around those stats that I just said, doctors that are prescribing, how often, and how many scripts in the first four weeks, then there'll be another update around our earnings call in March.
The next update is going to be in May around the Q1 update. You'll see that there's roughly a two-month cadence that we'll give insight into how the launch is going, just to make sure that not everyone has to keep on guessing.
Right. But it's an important point you made that IQVIA and Symphony are not doing a good job of tracking or if people attempt to use those channels to project or model. There was a point where you were saying it was good, but that was in the first week or something, right?
Yeah, correct.
Now it's diverged.
Yeah. So we'd always said that don't look at IQVIA or Symphony because it's not going to be accurate. And the reason that it's not accurate is we use both the e-pharmacy channel, like we just said, and then the retail channel. Both those firms buy retail data and then extrapolate it into what ultimately will become a pretty accurate number. Nobody on the e-pharmacy side sells that data. So we were always saying that they're not going to catch anything on the e-pharmacy. You'll need to rely on us. We were a little bit surprised in the first four weeks to see that Symphony, not IQVIA, but Symphony somehow had piped into some data, which was directionally correct.
It wasn't perfect, but it was correct enough for us to want to explain or at least highlight that to the street that in those first four weeks, they were picking up scripts and directionally it was correct. Now, that accuracy has gone down, and it's not like it's off week by week, so the percentage is different week by week that they catch, but it's definitely wrong, and the same is on the retail side, so as much as I'm going to continue to say, don't look at it, I know everybody will, but it's not correct.
Okay. So then tell us a little bit more about the plans. Of course, you're launching in the United States, but you do have some agreements and partnerships in place, ex-US. Let's hear a little bit about that.
Yeah. So you all may have seen that on Monday, we announced that the submission of the NDA went in South Korea. That's through our partnership with Lotus. That's something that we signed earlier in the year for Southeast Asia. So obviously, South Korea, huge market and very interesting markets around that. So that's with Lotus Pharmaceutical. Then we have a partnership in place for Greater China. We actually signed that a couple of years ago, like three years ago, because they had to do their own clinical trial. That clinical trial read out identical to our trial, which in itself was great validation that different company, different cohort of patients, different PIs, obviously, exactly the same data, highly validating for the product. And again, a great predictor for what we see in the market now. So they submitted their NDA in June.
Then we signed an agreement with Théa for Canada earlier this year as well. So those are the partnerships that are in place. Other key markets, obviously, Europe is one. We're actually pushing our own registration there. We want to make sure that we give that market the time to realize what the value of the product is. There's a lot of interest already, but you can imagine that the better we launch and the more value we show in the U.S., the more valuable that license becomes. And you'll continue to see us do deals in other territories as well. So there's a huge market opportunity, ex-U.S. There's 1.8 billion presbyopes outside of globally, 128 million in the U.S. So a very large market that we'll start to tap into.
Speaking about globality and everything related to manufacturing and supply chain, I mean, you had some important wins in terms of how the United States borders and customs treated or characterized your product. Can you talk about that?
Absolutely. Yeah. And it was suddenly a question that we got a lot six, nine months ago on how the tariffs were going to impact us. If you think about our supply chain, the Aceclidine is made in the U.S. The IP around the products also sits with the company and therefore in the U.S. So it's a completely wholly owned product for us. Those two make that this is a U.S.-based product and is a U.S.-manufactured product, even though we ship the API to Europe to have the full finish done. So that's where the actual little Blow-Fill-Seal or little containers get made. And then it comes back into the U.S., but it comes back into the U.S. duty-free, tariff-free. So it's a U.S.-based product for all those reasons. Excellent supply chain.
Like I said earlier, we wanted to work with only the best firms out there. The supplier of these blow-fill seals is actually the company that way back when invented how to do that technology. Having said that, and even though the supply chain is fully capable of doing massive volumes, just for redundancy, we're making sure that we have second-source API and second-source fill-finish in place as well, and that's very near to their submissions.
So that's a very good summary. As far as other products, is that something you would consider or you're fully focused on Viz at the moment?
Yeah, we're fully focused on Viz. I mean, there's not that many, let's call it $3 billion plus opportunities out there. So it's in our interest and frankly, our shareholders' interest to make sure that we fully focus on getting this one right. So the majority of all the brain cells, all the human power that we have is focused on that. Having said that, this can and will be a phenomenal cornerstone product of a much larger portfolio. That's all going to be BD and M&A driven. So a few of us keep our eyes out, no pun intended, on what's out there. I see that more as a post-2026 opportunity. So we'll definitely be active, but we want to make sure that in the next 12 months, we really show the opportunity and the success around Viz. And then we'll start to pivot into the broader company strategy.
And I think it's also important to spend a few minutes just talking about what's happened in the past in the presbyopia field and some of the products that have seemed successful, but then not been so successful. So if you could just speak to that. And then are there other competitors that are noteworthy that you need to pay attention to currently?
Yeah. Not a great question. So there's three, just to sketch it at a high level. So there's three miotics, so three active ingredients. You got pilocarpine, which is what Vuity launched with. Vuity was the AbbVie drug that launched three years ago. And you have the aceclidine, which is obviously our active ingredient. We're the only ones with aceclidine. And you got a miotic called carbachol. The aceclidine is the only pupil-selective miotic. So there's two muscles in the eye that are important for presbyopia. There's the iris sphincter. That's the muscle that you want to stimulate. That gives you that small pinhole pupil. And then there's the ciliary body that you want to avoid because that impacts your distance vision and can drive other side effects. That's also the reason why both Vuity, what you saw there, was mostly focused in a study on emmetropes.
And then Carbachol, which is a 10-point product, is 100% focused on emmetropes because they impact that distance vision. So if you work with people that are emmetropic, which have good distance vision, you hope to minimize the effect there. So Vuity had a good launch because they sold the promise of an eye drop that solves for presbyopia or clears up your blurry near vision. But in order to do that, your pupil needs to be below two millimeters. That's undisputed. All the data shows that. It's not only our data. It's actually AbbVie's data, the Vuity data that shows that, all the academic data. If you're not below two millimeters, you're not going to see a good near vision impact. The smallest pupil size that Vuity got to was two point three millimeters. Then they quickly bounced back up. Their statistical significance, they lost that at hour three.
So in the market, once people use the product, they actually realize that one doesn't work on a whole lot of people. It only works in one in four people. If it works, it works maybe for two, two and a half hours. That's why Vuity failed. So they sold the promise. A lot of people bought into the promise, bought one bottle, and never refilled. We obviously have a completely different profile. If you compare our profile to Vuity, we're at least three times more efficacious. So up to 75% of efficacy on clinical trials, 93% if you look at 20-40. So this works for almost everyone. Our 10-hour data is better than Vuity's peak efficacy. So it works at least three times longer for a six times larger population because we're not that effective in an all-comers study.
So if you now compare some of the other profiles and there's not that many left, either the other pilocarpine product or the carbachol product, it is like Vuity. So if you just overlay the pupil size and efficacy, it's like Vuity. So we'll pay attention to any competitor, but we continue to really see this as a category of one, our market to frankly build because there's no market at the moment, and our market to dominate.
The commercial strategy also is quite different than what Vuity did, right? Because Vuity was focused more on the ophthalmologists and less on the non-ophthalmologists, the optician market.
Yeah. No, good point. So Vuity obviously was part of the bag that Allergan AbbVie already carried, which was heavily focused on ophthalmology. So their core points were mostly ophthalmology. But you see that this product gets sold mostly or written, I should say, mostly through optometry. And we've always looked at it like an 80-20, 80% optometry, 20% ophthalmology. That's why our sales force is set up in that way. That's why our core points are like that. And we see that split exactly like that coming through in these first eight, nine weeks of data. It is truly 80% optometry, 20% ophthalmology. So that's one difference. I think the other big difference is that, and I touched on it earlier, very heavily sample-focused. Vuity did the opposite.
They started with samples, but then realized if you give somebody a sample of Vuity, they're not going to buy it because the product doesn't work. So they actually pulled the samples away from the doctors. Like I said a couple of times now, our Q4 is focused on getting as many samples in doctors' hands predominantly to make sure that they get that confidence and that then patients can use it. So I would expect us to have the uptake that we're currently seeing, a nice, steady, good growth at a good clip, but then continued growth where Vuity tapered off real quickly because they obviously showed that they didn't work.
I mean, that was an important point that I think some investors may have gotten confused by around the earnings call related to the samples and how to think about the samples relative to the paid scripts. And maybe you could just spend a minute or two just clarifying or helping people understand that you will continue with the samples as you continue to build the paid market.
Absolutely. No, thanks for bringing it up and giving me the opportunity to clarify that. So during our earnings call, we indicated or we shared that we had at that point distributed 70,000 samples into the market, which roughly equates to about 7,000 offices or doctors. That didn't mean that there's 70,000 consumers that have tried to sample, obviously, and in our mind, that was not something that we had to clarify because we're continuously putting samples out there as we are still doing today. I think some investors willingly are not moved to, well, if you have 70,000 samples in the market, there's 70,000 consumers that use the product and you get 5,000 scripts. What's that conversion rate? That's obviously not how it works, so we have those samples in doctors' offices, like I said earlier.
The first pack, the second pack, the third pack is used by the doctor themselves. Then some go to the office staff. By the time that a patient gets a pack, that's maybe pack nine or 10. And then a lot of offices just had those samples. So we're going to move to describing the amount of offices that have samples because that's the more important thing like I referred to earlier. We want to make sure that all those offices have samples. So what we're currently seeing is that our reps are going back in. So we have a three- to four-week call cycle. First thing to do is check how many samples are left. If there's zero samples and the doctor's written 20 scripts, great. They're going to get 20 samples the next time or maybe even 30.
If there's zero samples left but no scripts, clearly the samples are used in the wrong way. So that's the dynamic that's happening now. There's doctors' offices that are on there. There's second, there's third refill already. So we're going to focus on the next updates, like I said earlier, say these are the amount of doctors that have samples. That's a relevant metric. And then to your second point, yes, we'll continue to do this. There's four million new presbyopes every year. There's 128 million out there. So the samples are a very cost-effective way for us to get people to try the product. It's not a huge line item in our P&L. So you can continue to see us sample widely.
The other one, which would be good to clarify, is you've mentioned hyperemia earlier. Help people understand, well, for those that haven't read my explanation, you've had the explanation. What happened there in terms of how in the clinical trials there was somewhat of a disconnect in how that was recorded or not recorded versus what people are seeing in the market?
Yeah. So if you think about hyperemia happening here, it's like I said, it's very short-lived. It's maybe a maximum of 30 minutes or so for most people. And it's very tachyphylactic. So after a couple of days, it doesn't even occur anymore. So how the clinical trial is set up, like in most instances, patient gets the drop in their eye, gets sent into the waiting room. Hyperemia is not something that you notice as a person. You notice that you don't notice that your eyes are red unless you look in the mirror. It doesn't itch, it doesn't burn, it doesn't hurt. So these people are sitting in the waiting room and actually being very excited because within 10, 15 minutes, they can see their phone again. So they're focused on that. They go, "Wow, this thing works.
This is pretty amazing that an eye drop can do that." And 30 minutes later, they're actually called back in. That's the first time that the doctor sees them. And actually, they obviously do all the vision tests and they get their eyes looked at. 30 minutes. And like I said earlier, for most people, the hyperemia is dissolved. And for those that it's not, it's very mild. So that's how we, if you combine the two, had about a 15% hyperemia rate in the clinical trial. So that's why that was out there. In real world, you know I have all these doctors that are using it, using it on themselves, and they are looking in the mirrors, and they are looking at other people's eyes, and they are realizing that, oh, maybe it happens a little bit more. For them, that's not really an issue.
When we were talking to them, they're going, "Why is this a big issue? If I fit somebody with contact lenses, they're going to get red eye for the first day or two. If I fit somebody, if I give somebody a dry eye drop, it's way worse than what we're seeing here. It's so transient. If it's really an issue for somebody, even in those first two days, then put a drop of Lumify in and it clears up in two days." So I think that clarification of how we've changed the messaging around that has landed very well, as we can see in all our data now.
Interestingly, it's the opposite with the headaches. Why are you seeing less headaches, which is good? You're seeing less headaches now versus in the studies. Is there an explanation for that or that's just?
Yeah. Now, we saw it, frankly, like 11% in the study, which is, if you take out the normal rate, it's not that high to begin with. Think about this. People would come in seven, eight, nine times over the course of their study. And every time they're asked, "How are you doing?" If you score, "I feel a little bit of a headache once," then your score obviously is 100%. That's how it works. So I think it's something that if you focus on it enough, you'll see it. In the real world, it's something that doesn't really happen. But also there, and we saw it in a clinical trial, that's also highly tachyphylactic. What we saw in the trial is that if you're one of the 11% that has a headache, chances that you have it on day two are only 44%.
Seven days in, it's like 25%, roughly. So it's tachyphylactic to begin with. And it's great to see that we're not seeing it in the real world.
Yeah. I think we talked earlier about refill rates, and since you have the one-month and the three-month, just talk a little bit about how you're going to talk about the refill rate. If I go and get a three-month, it's as though I could have gotten two refills, right?
Yeah. That's how it comes.
How are you going to just mathematically talk about that to the market?
Yeah, so a three-pack gets registered as one NRx, so one new script and two refills.
It does. Okay.
So that's how we'll report it. That's also how IQVIA and Symphony will pick it up. So you'll see it there as, again, two refills on your first script. We're seeing people ordering three-packs, which is encouraging. But frankly, we're not reading too much into it at the moment. At the moment, I don't even know if that person had a sample, yes or no, or whether they were just intrigued by the idea and want this. We won't know if they're reordering that three-pack logically until at the earliest month four. So again, it's great to see that people are ordering them. But this is something that will be much more focused on. Let's call it Q2, Q3. This period is really around how many patients are starting.
I know over the years, since you've been talking about the launch, you identified certain market segments that you would expect to have high uptake. Are there areas where you're seeing uptake? I know that's very early and you're still analyzing the data. But are there areas where you're seeing surprisingly higher uptake than you would have expected based on some other demographics? And you said, "Oh, that's interesting. We wouldn't have expected to see that piece of the market demonstrate interest.
Yeah. So what we're seeing at the moment from a data perspective or a segmentation perspective is relatively limited. So we have obviously up-to-date and daily information coming through the e-pharmacy. And that's where we see age of the patient group, male, female, and their location. That's the basic information that we're getting. But a good thing there is that it's playing out exactly like we predicted and how we planned and how we put a strategy around it. So like I said earlier, LNZ is slightly female. So 60% female, 40% male in the orders that we're currently seeing. 45 year-55-year-olds order more than the 55-65-year-olds who order more than the 65 and over, but we see scripts in all categories. And we are seeing it more being ordered in those urban areas that I spoke about. So it's playing out exactly like we thought.
Those other groups that we've spoken about before, the people that are wearing contact lenses, the people who have had LASIK, the people who are active aging, that's info that we'll start to get once we turn the DTC on because that's when you specifically start to target them and you can do metrics on that. So a little bit too early to see that. But given that everything that we're seeing now is spot on, we have confidence that we are right there as well.
And you picked a, I mean, you did a lot of work, as I understand, to pick the price. So just kind of walk us through how you did that. Why was that the right number?
Yeah. So how you set pricing on a product is that most of us will work with a company called Kantar, who are the, again, the best company to do this with. So you do large pricing studies where you have whole panels of consumers or future consumers that basically price point by price point ask, "Would you still buy this?" So that's how you build your price elasticity curves. And we've done that multiple times over. It very clearly shows that the $79 that we sell at a monthly pack maximized price. Interestingly, or maybe not so interestingly, that was exactly the price that Vuity sold at as well. They might have used the same company. So $79, that's where your revenue optimized. Now, you do see a smaller but still interesting other price point that people buy at. That's around $65-$66.
So that's why we're having that three-pack that's at $198, which works out to be $66 a month. If you buy the three-pack, that's the price that you pay there. So that's how those two price points came to be. We're not hearing any pushback on price. We're not hearing back from the market that, "I want to use this, but $79 is too much for me.
Just to emphasize, it's cash pay.
Yep.
But you need a prescription.
Correct.
What else has to happen for the physician to give the prescription? What other tests or checks do they have to do before they give the prescription?
Yeah. So nothing mandatory, but recommended. And it's good practice to begin with is an eye exam. So we encourage that. And we train our sales force and our physicians on it that the ideal patient comes in, either you tell them about this or they come asking about this. Once we've turned DTC on, you do your normal eye exam, then you do a retina exam. And then following the retina exam, you tell them about the product, how to use it, what to expect, let them leave with a sample and a script. So that retina exam, again, it's good practice to begin with. To do that annually is good practice for a product like this.
And last question. So Sarah Jessica Parker, obviously big name. Is there a date or is there a reference point? When in one Q are we going to start to see her face on your site and on the phone? Can you characterize when is it actually going to happen? Is there a launch date for her being the spokesperson?
Yeah. No. So what we're saying is this is going to happen. We'll turn DTC on in Q1. We're ready for it. And the reason that we did Q1 and not Q4, and frankly, most companies would wait 12 or 18 months is that we're a self-pay product, so we don't have to wait until our product is formulary and covered by insurance. So we're not held on the back end by that. At the same time, you don't want to do it too early because you want to make sure that your doctor base is ready to serve all those patients that are coming in, that they know about the product, going back to that, that there is awareness, that they have confidence because they've used it, and therefore they're ready to prescribe. We're at that point now.
We feel, yes, we'll continue the next couple of months and it will continue to grow, but we're getting very close to, in our mind, being ready to start the DTC. There is a practical component to it. We shot the commercial a couple of weeks ago in New York. That needs to go through production. That needs to be signed up. That needs to go through an MR, what's called MLR. Then it needs to be shown to the FDA. So there's just steps involved, logistics involved that need to take their course. But you'll see it and you won't be able to miss it.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Dave.
Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. Thanks, everyone.
Okay. Thanks.