Earnings Labs

INVO Fertility, Inc. (IVF)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 21, 2019

$1.92

-5.88%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning everyone. And thank you for joining us on today’s INVO Bioscience Science Webcast. I’m Robert Blum of Lytham Partners and I will be your moderator for today’s event. Joining us on today’s event is the Company’s recently named Chief Executive Officer, Steven Shum as well as the Company’s Chief Operating Officer and VP of Business Development Mike Campbell. During today’s event, we’ll break it down into a couple of section. First, since this the Company’s first real chance to speak to many of you via webcast or conference call type of event, management will provide a bit of a brief over-view on the company. We will then discuss the results of the recently completed third quarter. And finally, we asked shareholders to submit questions in today's -- in advance of today's event. Management is trying to address many of these within the prepared statement. Before we begin with the events, we submit for the record the following statement. Certain matters discussed on this event by the management of INVO Bioscience may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements regarding the Company’s expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategies, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as “anticipate,” “if,” “believe,” “plan,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “could,” “should,” “will,” and other statements expressions of forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the company’s control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include those set forth in the company’s filings at www.sec.gov. The company is under no obligation to and expressly disclaims any such obligation to update or alter the company’s forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. With that said, I'd like to turn the event over to Steve Shum, Chief Executive Officer of INVO Bioscience. Steve, please proceed.

Steven Shum

Management

Thank you, Robert. Good morning everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. On behalf of the entire INVO team, we appreciate the support from all of our shareholders. We are hosting this initial call, as Robert mentioned as part of our go-forward strategy to expand the dialogue with our shareholders on an ongoing and more frequent basis. The key part of our shareholder communication strategy also involves expanding upon the current shareholder base. Although we are a public company and have been for some time, not in our potential public market investors are aware of the company and its unique opportunity. We are participating in a very large and growing market with an innovative patented FDA cleared technology. I believe this will resonate with investors as we continue to build our business and increase the adoption of INVOcell in the global fertility marketplace. Today's event is one forum we will utilize to build awareness in the company and we have plans for many others in the future. We did receive some questions from several of you and have attempted to address many of those in our opening comments today. For this initial call, I'd like to spend a little time going over the history, our products, our markets and our recent execution on our business plan. I understand that part of this may be repetitive to many of you, but it's important to lay a base foundation particularly for our newer investors. We have developed an FDA approved medical device the INVOcell, which we believe is a disruptive technology. Our solution is aimed at addressing infertility in a novel and distinctly different manner. To simply describe that key difference, many people are generally familiar with In Vitro Fertilization, IVF. One of the key steps in the overall IVF…

Michael Campbell

Management

Thanks Steve. As Steve mentioned, as a component of the agreement with Ferring, we have retain the commercialization rights to the product outside the U.S. And one of our primary business objectives going forward is to enhance the rapid adoption of the INVOcell solution across the globe. We're going to do this by entering into commercialization agreements with distributors that are incentivized to support the product, typically by creating agreement that include minimal purchase requirements or similar arrangements. Fortunately, we have the advantage of having the FDA clearance which helps streamline the regulatory process to many, although not all international market. And additionally as most of you know, last month we receive the CE Mark, which permit us to do commercially distribute the INVOcell throughout the countries of the EU. So, Steve along with myself and Mr. Pressly Ahammed, our Director of International Business Development have spent the better part of this year develop, include international distribution channels and relationships with folks in Europe, Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. So we recently kicked up our planned world-wide rollout of INVOcell with the first of our international commercialization agreements for the Continent of Africa; these cover Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. Africa is a highly populated, yet very underserved in fertility market. We believe the INVOcell is a perfect solution for the African Continent where access to assisted reproductive services remains a biggest challenge. Quite simply, there just are not enough fully serviced, fully functional IVF that were [ph] developed in Africa and we believe this could be the great solution. Pressly and I have had tremendous experience working with the team at G-Systems and Quality Medical during our years at Cooper Surgical. They are trusted by top medical device companies around the world and have a reputation for exceptional customer service. But most importantly, both of these companies are specialized in the fertility sector. We then followed-up on the African agreements by signing additional agreements with our distribution teams in Turkey and Jordan. These two are also excellent markets in need of lower-cost options for the fertility treatment. We expect all of these agreements to begin to contribute to our revenue streams in early 2020. We are also systematically developing commercialization channel throughout the world with numerous potential opportunities focused on some of the biggest fertility markets in the world. We will keep you keep you posted on these additional opportunities as they become a reality. Now let me turn it back over to Steve.

Steven Shum

Management

Thank you, Mike. As you can hear from Mike, we believe we are well on our way to fully commercialized INVOcell in other parts of the world. We are being thoughtful until we partner with to ensure they will drive adoption of the INVOcell device. While 2019 was the year we took a huge first step in the U.S. to our agreement with Ferring, 2020 will be the year we expect to significantly expand our present internationally. Let me quickly highlight the recent third quarter results. Revenue increase to 143% to $303,000, on a sequential basis our product sales were lower than what we saw in the second quarter. It was the second quarter where Ferring placed their first order with us, which was larger in order for them to have sufficient initial stock. Though it wasn't a big surprise to us; that was a little lower in Q3. Remember, it's still early in Ferring launch plan. Also the required minimum purchases for next year will step up and we would expect additional contributions from international efforts next year as well. We incurred a net loss of $710,000 per quarter. Our expenses did include added legal and other costs especially with pursuing some of the various international opportunities. We also had one time cost in the period of 180,000 associated with the settlement of a long-standing legal matter. We are pleased to have that completely resolved and behind us now. We're not planning to provide specific guidance as it's too early. We do believe, we will see strong increases in revenue as we move into next year with the combination of Feering's efforts along with our additional international activities. One additional item to note, we believe one of the options we have to build awareness of the company within the…

Q - Unidentified Analyst

Management

All right. Thanks so much, Steve and Mike for that overview. You guys certainly addressed most of the questions that came in within your prepared statement there. But just a few others that hopefully you can expand upon here briefly. The first one is, can you comment on some of the international commercialization effort in particular discussing China?

Steven Shum

Management

Sure. Well, first let me describe that, as it relates to our international activities, we really see potential structures in three main kind of categories. One would be standard distributor type arrangements where they're relatively basic, short duration to be able to monitor distributor and how they perform. And these are the types of arrangements that we've initially entered into in some of the initial countries. The next type of arrangement might be something a little more advanced by the Ferring like arrangement where it would come with upfront commitments, maybe higher annual revenue commitments and maybe a longer contract duration. We have some discussions occurring in that category as well. And then lastly, potential joint venture type arrangements in certain countries. Here is where we would be working with a partner in a joint venture structure whereby would allow us an opportunity to maybe capture more than just simply device sales. We wouldn't be trying to manage the joint venture in a foreign country that would -- we would like partner to do that. But there's an opportunity for us to have more participation in the building up a particular market. And we have a few conversations in that category in select countries actively occurring as well. As far as the China market, this is a very interesting marketplace. First, as some of you may or may not realize, is result of their one child policy over several decades. They've ended up with an upside down pyramid where the age and their population is no longer balanced, in other words, more older folks than younger folks. They've also removed one child restriction and they are now the largest in fertility market in the world. Recent data suggest they are approaching 700,000 IVF cycles per year. Demand is high and they too suffer from lack of capacity as they can take a year more for patient even get into an IVF clinic. So it’s a big and exciting market. We would have clinical work to do in country and certainly we look to team up with a good partner in the country and we do have active discussions underway, but nothing more specific to report right now.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

All right. Perfect. Next question here, Steve, can you -- you talked about it briefly, but can you address the potential for the reversed docs [ph] split just further?

Steven Shum

Management

Sure. As many of you know, as part of a recent proxy filing we included a request to approve a potential split range for the board to determine if and when to implement at their discretion. Let me first state, that in the event of a split everything outstanding and everything associated with the new equity incentive plan, which is also in the proxy will be split equally. So management and the board will be treated exactly the same as the shareholders. We apologize for any confusion that some you had around that. I believe we clarify the language in the final proxy that went out. I can also state, the request is designed to add value by improving the investment field to a broader range of investors. We fully recognize the reverse splits are perceived as negative. But that is because companies often do them for the wrong reasons at the wrong time and they have a negative outcome. We plan to be careful and we do not need to be in a hurry here. Our objective would be to evaluate doing this when we feel the right time and we'll add value to shareholders. Remember, we can we can also open up our story to a much broader set of investors if we eventually do list on exchange at some point.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

All right. Thank you, Steve. Next one here, talk a little bit or expand upon your budget plan for 2020?

Steven Shum

Management

Sure. It's clear we're running at a higher operating budget currently. We see -- but we do see that this investment spending to help advance the business and put us in a position to generate much higher level of revenue. Of course, we have to make those expenditures in advance to receiving the benefits. With that said we often do not envision needing to significant, we expand our headcount or fixed costs. We are small team and believe we can generally keep it that way. We will likely look to make a few additions. Current thinking is maybe in the three to five number of people range as we move into next year to help support our activities, especially internationally. But we also expect to see some of our variable cost like legal to come down a little. So our objective would be to keep our budget as close to where they are currently. Then with revenues expect to expand nicely the next year we believe we can demonstrate a clear path to profitability.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

All right. Perfect. And we'll make this the last one here. Is there anything that is prohibiting Ferring from purchasing the company?

Steven Shum

Management

No. There is absolutely not. As some of you may remember that in the Ferring agreement, they even have a right approach for refusal. So if we were approached by any other company, we would have to reflect that to Ferring.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. Perfect. Thank you, Steve, very much. I appreciate the time. Mike, you saw of this well here. Steve, I'll turn it back over to you for any closing remarks you might have.

Steven Shum

Management

Thank you, Robert. We certainly appreciate everyone's time and interest in INVO Bioscience. Should any of you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We'll be happy to circle back to you. Thank you.

Robert Blum

Management

All right. Thank you very much all for joining us today for the INVO Bioscience webcast. Today's event will be available for replay shortly following the conclusion of this live event. Thank you all very much. Have a great rest of your day.