LENZ's July Inflection: Telehealth, National TV, and the First Refill Data for VIZZ
After a lackluster launch, LENZ reports a >45% month-over-month script jump in July and reveals that early e-pharmacy cohorts are refilling at a pace that could support a durable franchise.
LENZ · Earnings Call · 2026-08-11
LENZ Therapeutics (NASDAQ: LENZ) has had a brutal year on the tape — the stock is down 48% over the past 90 days and has shed 94.7% from its 2021 peak. The market has clearly been skeptical about the launch of VIZZ, the company's once-daily eye drop for presbyopia. But the second-quarter earnings call on August 11 offered the first concrete evidence that the product might be taking hold, and that the company has pivoted its commercial strategy to meet the consumer where they are.
A Consumer Marketing and Access Overhaul
Since the launch, LENZ has been iterating on its go-to-market approach. Early on, the company focused on educating eye care professionals and relied heavily on sampling. In the March call, Shawn Olsson described the strategy as mainly digital, with linear TV only in select test markets: “With the addition of linear, we're also seeing there are select markets where the patients are early adopters. And therefore, as we continue to evolve and optimize that media mix, it's a good opportunity to bring linear TV in those select markets and test that response.” — Shawn Olsson, Chief Commercial Officer · 2026-03-24. That test appears to have paid off. In late June, LENZ launched a national TV campaign and simultaneously rolled out a telehealth channel to allow patients to be evaluated online by independent licensed eye care professionals, with prescriptions fulfilled via the e-pharmacy and shipped home. The impact was immediate. CEO Evert Schimmelpennink reported: “In July, as we launched telehealth, and expanded our existing reading glass campaign on national TV we saw a significant increase in new patient starts and over 45% growth in month-over-month total prescriptions.” — Evert Schimmelpennink, President and Chief Executive Officer · 2026-08-11. He was careful to note that one month does not make a trend, but the direction is clear. The company has shifted from a physician-driven launch to a consumer-activated model, with consumer awareness campaigns at the center. The telehealth initiative is also a crucial access innovation, reducing the friction from advertisement to prescription. As Schimmelpennink summed it up: “The combination of positive early patient persistence, expanded access through telehealth, and growing consumer awareness provides a foundation for the next phase of VIZZ's commercial growth.” — Evert Schimmelpennink, President and Chief Executive Officer · 2026-08-11.First Data on Refill Behavior
The more significant development on the call was the company's first disclosure of patient persistence metrics. In previous quarters, management consistently said they would wait for mature cohorts before sharing refill data. As CFO Dan Chevallard said in May: “We will start to share cohort-based refill data in the second half of this year.” — Evert Schimmelpennink, President and Chief Executive Officer · 2026-05-11. That promised data arrived. Schimmelpennink revealed that more than 60% of e-pharmacy patients who have purchased VIZZ have bought more than one multipack. For the two most mature cohorts (Q4 2025 and Q1 2026), purchasing behavior is tracking towards an average annualized purchase rate of five monthly packs. These figures are notable because they address the central question for investors: is VIZZ a one-and-done product or a durable prescription franchise? The comparison to VUITY, the only other approved presbyopia drop, is striking. As Schimmelpennink noted in the Q&A:. The patient persistence signal, derived from the e-pharmacy channel, suggests that patients who experience VIZZ are choosing to continue, and the annualized five-pack run rate aligns with the company's earlier assumption of roughly five months of use per year. The company is also expanding the global footprint, signing its fifth international partnership (Australia & New Zealand) and advancing nine regulatory submissions. While these are non-U.S. milestones, they add to the long-term optionality. The financial picture remains early stage. Total revenue in Q2 was $5.5 million, including $1.7 million of product revenue on roughly 27,000 monthly packs sold (a 9% increase over Q1). The company continues to burn significant cash — net loss was $31.9 million in Q2 — but it ended the quarter with $220 million in cash, which provides ample runway to sustain the commercial push. Total revenue has climbed from zero to $5.5M in the latest quarter, driven by early VIZZ sales and licensing revenue.we are now actually selling more on a weekly or monthly basis than VUITY. And importantly, if you compare the VUITY refill rate at that peak, it was about 10% to 12%. We are tracking at that 42%.