Orasis gears up for US launch of Qlosi
Orasis Pharmaceuticals is announcing the U.S. launch of Qlosi at SECO 2025 in Atlanta.
The FDA approved low-dose, preservative-free Qlosi (pilocarpine HCl ophthalmic solution) 0.4% in October 2023 for the treatment of presbyopia in adults.
More recently, the company has been focusing on the build-out of the team, Orasis President and Chief Operating Officer Paul Smith told Healio.
“We’re going on what was four people in the U.S. several months ago to about 75 by the time we’re done,” he said, “with many in commercial and sales roles. We currently have 50 folks in the field in customer-facing roles.”
This team will launch Qlosi to the market at the end of March/early April, Smith said.
The 12 team members on board in September had a combined 240 years of experience in the eye care market, he added.
“We’ll leverage that tenure, that depth of understanding and those customer insights that we think will be incredibly important to creating the right experience for patients and providers,” Smith said.
The target patient population for this product is, “at this stage in their lives, in their continuum of care, more likely to be seen in the primary eye care setting, which in the U.S. is optometry,” he said.
Smith noted that with another company’s earlier product launch in this category, more than 80% of prescriptions were written by optometrists.
“Even though all eye care providers may not engage in the same level of prescribing or patient management, we think it’s important to educate everyone, and we’ve been doing that for more than the last year,” he said.
“SECO will be the first meeting where we’ll exhibit at scale with a full commercial presence,” Smith said. The company plans to “lay the right foundation, take a responsible and disciplined approach and set this up for long-term growth to its full potential.”
He noted that Orasis is continuing to study Qlosi for additional indications and patient populations.
“We have two phase 2-ready programs that represent expanded indications that rely on the same mechanism of action, which is pupil modulation, but serve a different patient group,” Smith said. “We would consider that to be a medical or therapeutic indication vs. presbyopia, which is a natural condition of aging that many would regard as a quality of life category.”
Smith also said the company welcomes partnerships to expand Qlosi’s global availability.
“We announced at the end of last year a partnership that we signed in Korea,” he said. “We have others forthcoming. The most important thing we’re doing is launching Qlosi right as the first asset, the flagship brand in our bag.”
Orasis CEO Elad Kedar told Healio: “Long term we’re looking to expand Qlosi with a potential indication, but also additional products that will be served by the sales force and the organization we’re building.”
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