Earnings Labs

Sonoma Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SNOA)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jun 11, 2015

$1.07

+2.88%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-6.36%

1 Week

-12.14%

1 Month

-10.98%

vs S&P

-10.53%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Oculus Innovative Sciences’ Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2015 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference maybe recorded. I will like to introduce your host for today's conference Mr. Dan McFadden. Sir, please go ahead.

Dan McFadden

Analyst

Thanks, Michelle. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. With me on the call today our CEO, Jim Schutz; and our CFO, COO, Bob Miller. We will open the call with Bob Miller's review of our financial results for the quarter and year, followed by Jim's update on our business strategy moving forward. This afternoon Oculus issued a press release detailing fiscal fourth quarter 2015 financial results and recent corporate developments. A copy of the release can be downloaded from our website, which is at oculusis.com, that’s oculusis.com or you can call Investor Relations at (425) 753-2105 and we’ll be happy to assist you. Before we begin, I'll remind listeners that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are identified by use of words such as expect, to expand, would, and anticipate, among others. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks inherent in the development and commercialization of potential products, the risks that potential clinical studies or trials will not proceed as anticipated or may not be successful or sufficient to meet regulatory standards or receive the regulatory clearance or approvals. The company’s future capital needs and its ability to obtain additional funding and other risks detailed from time-to-time in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the quarterly report on Form 10-Q and the annual report on Form 10-K. Identified product applications and/or uses are intended to highlight potential applications for the investment community and does not infer that the company is marketing for these indications. The company does not provide any assurances that such applications will receive regulatory approvals. Oculus disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. So I will now turn the call over to Bob Miller, our CFO and COO.

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thank you, Dan. As you all probably know, recently our trading volume has been extremely high. In fact, over the last 8 trading days according to our calculation, our trading volume in total was over 45 million, triple our 15 million shares outstanding and over the past two weeks our stock price and market cap has almost doubled. We appreciate the attention we are receiving as a small cap company and we are happy to see the recognition of higher value for our shareholders. As most companies, we believe we are still a strong value play with a high cash value of about $11 million, coupled with a $13 million of revenue with expectations of double-digit growth for the full fiscal year. I'll first discuss the financial presentation of our businesses, secondly our key strategies we successfully used to achieve the double-digit revenue growth for the fourth quarter in which we plan to use during fiscal year 2016, then summarize our financial results for the fourth quarter, and lastly provide some general revenue growth guidelines for fiscal year 2016. First of all, we have modified the detailed financial presentation of our businesses by separating the product revenues which are shown on the last page of the press release, on to new table into the two categories, one, revenue from direct product sales, and two revenue in the form of product licensing on royalty fees. For instance, all of our revenue related to our former partner Innovacyn in animal healthcare is a royalty. This provides more transparency on our true sales growth of our products in various geographic category areas, especially as we focus on growing the sales in the United States with our direct sales force. Secondly, one of our key strategies to ignite double-digit revenue growth for fiscal year…

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thank you, Bob. I'd like to cover two areas in the next seven minutes or so and then open the call up for question and answers. So two topics. The first, I are often asked why we picked dermatology and plastic surgery as our core markets to focus on. Why focus on derm and plastics and why not focus on our other therapeutic areas. I'll share a few thoughts in those core markets. And then topic two, spend just a few minutes on our recent FDA approval clearance for our new atopic dermatitis product. And by the way you will often hear healthcare professionals interchange the words atopic dermatitis and eczema and we'll do the same in today's presentation. But back to topic two, I'll share a little bit of color on Monday's FDA news. So topic one, Bob and I are often asked why we picked dermatology and plastic surgery for our core markets. I use to have a long convoluted answer when speaking with shareholders and then I saw David Steinberg, who is the Managing Director of Equity Research for Jefferies. I saw him present during JPMorgan week in January and then again at a Satellite event associated with American Academy of Dermatology in March. David's power point and message focused on dermatology up hue [ph] from Wall Street and why dermatology is hot. So with apologies to David, and because his answer was much better than mine, I share his thoughts with you today. So why is derm hot, why are investors positive on the dermatology sector. David had six answers. One, shorter development timelines, two, lower clinical trial costs, three, perceived lower regulatory hurdles, four, high cash pay compounded for aesthetics, five, our recent track record of success and finally, six are really active M&A market…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Bob Robbins

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thank you. Well, a whole lot of congratulations for a great quarter. It’s been a while and you guys deserve to – the best and [ph] all you hard work. I've got two questions. One is, is there a common thread of why so many things went right, in so many different areas of geography and product and government bid and so forth, jut a lot of things seemed very desperate and more than coincidental with maybe some management initiative or whatever. And then the other question I have is kind of the other side of the coin, what if anything is – well there is something unsustainable about this surge with – for example the inventory stocking, how much of the revenues are unsustainable related to you – any unsustainable factors?

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Good questions. Thanks, Bob. You want to me handle one, you handle two.

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Sure.

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

So let me summarize one, I’d make sure I get the question, why we had such a terrific quarter, and we have two terrific answers for that Bob. We have a terrific team in place that really helped us design the plan that we're all executing towards. And I know that sounds basic, but the fact that this terrific team made up of sales experts, regulatory people, manufacturing, R&D and the like. The fact that they helped us craft the plan that we're executing towards, means all of us sort of pushing and pulling in same direction. And I can't tell you how meaningful that is. Bob you've got the more difficult question on the inventory stocking.

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes. So there were a couple of things and I guess your question also was, is this sustainable. And there are a couple of things that occurred during the quarter that are probably really not, one is the stocking that was about $400,000 worth of revenue actually or close to it, that we would not say that would be happening going forward. The other thing, the large order for the Middle East is probably not – that’s a larger order than we’d normally get. We're more generally in the 250 range if we would see for a quarter for that business. So at the same time, on the other scale, we also had a fairly strong dollar. So the impact of the peso that’s going to – that’s going to continue at least the difference that exist now between now and last year both for the peso and the euro, it will terribly [ph] depress our growth going forward, but that was also a factor relating to this quarter too. So I think those are probably the areas that were not continuous, the Sanfer Group as brand new. We think that they are going to expand – they've expanded a lot in Mexico, and they put the product not in pharmacies, not only behind the counter, but in front of the counter at this point and expanded that substantially. But they've also started taking it to other Latin Americans countries, and we haven’t seen much of that in this quarter at this time. Does that answer your question Bob?

Bob Robbins

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes. Let's see how many other questions there are, I may have more later. Thank you.

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] with Crawford Group. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

Hello. Can you guys hear me?

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

Okay. Sorry I just kind of stepped out. So I just wanted to ask two big questions. The first of which is so with the [Technical Difficulty] as a shareholder, how do you view that. I just wanted to ask who you guys believe to be a closer competitor with for eczema specifically.

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. Good question. We think we heard it’s a big question, but why don’t we repeat it to make sure that we heard it correctly. Who is the closest competitors in the atopic dermatitis eczema space? Why don’t we just assume - that hope is the question, did you hear a different question?

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

You're breaking up a little bit.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

Sorry about that. I just stepped out, let me – I'll ask again. Basically so two questions, two big questions. The first one is who do you guys believe to be the main competitors for your new eczema drug, that’s one? And second of all, I heard that you said that you don’t believe there are any side effects with this drug, which really set it apart from atopical steroid. I am a bit vary about that I mean, I feel like almost all drugs have side effects, whether they be minor or major. Now do you believe there to be no side effects or whatsoever or do you believe there are minor side effect that really won't have impact for the drug in general?

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Well, two good questions. Closest competitors for atopic dermatitis, Bob you want to recite the script data, because I think that’s…

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes, actually if you look at the script that is there, as Jim pointed out they are about, our best estimate on topical scripts for atopic dermatitis is 13.5 million. We think about 12.5 million of that are the steroids and there are a whole different set of strengths of steroids that can be used down to the 1% that’s in the over-the-counter front stores. And there is – the Tim's [ph] product in the large…

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes, the two big products they are Post Topic [ph] and Eligo both of whom have black box warnings which are somewhat controversial, great products but safety issues.

Robert Miller

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

And they sell about 8000 of the 13.5 million, and so right now our – the HRC [ph] product is 100,000 to 200,000 small in light of this whole market. In terms of the safety profile, we – our product is, Hypochlorous Acid, it’s actually part of the body process that kills the bacteria in the body, and because of that it’s a very safe product we can use on – we estimate over 4 million patients at this point, both wound care and dermatology, and we really have not had one adverse affect. We're clear that we used around the eyes, nose, and mouth. We actually have a clearance for in the mouth. We know other people that are actually using it outside and had clearance outside the US to use it in the eye. So it’s a very safe chemical compound.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Raymond Patel. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

My question is you had about 21 employees last quarter I believe, so what is the headcount now and how do you expect to grow them in the year. And the second question was you have projected around $10 million in all cash, and how are you planning to use that? Thank you.

James Schutz

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

Apology, it could be phone, but the two questions I heard, $10 million in cash how do we intend to use it and then second one was headcount. We – headcount hasn’t changed from last quarter, by a good size manufacturing group in Mexico and in the US sales forces in Philadelphia and Atlanta, handful of folks in Europe. But I don’t think headcount had substantially changed from the last quarter. Bob?

Robert Miller

Analyst · Raymond Patel. Please go ahead

No. And another way to benchmark our sort of our expenses other than headcount is the number that we use in the press release, our cash operating expenses that are now about three – for the quarter they were $2.3 million and we would expect them to be in that range to maybe up to the $3.5 million. In terms of the cash, how do we plan to use it, we are currently - have a EBITDAS negative even though for the quarter it was $1.1 million. We are using the cash outlay for quarter of about $1.5 million which will decline as our sales and especially in the derm business grow. So we will be using it to make sure that we can grow that business aggressively and - but we think it should be an up cash to get us about through that – through the breakeven process.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I am showing a follow up question from the line of Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Bob Robbins

Analyst · Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you, again. Sanfer, a couple of questions on Sanfer, roughly what percent of Sanfer's Mexico – Mexican business, for example number of pharmacies, roughly what percent of that have been stocked that will – that are eligible for I assume all of it would be selling your products, and same question on all other Sanfer Central and South American business?

James Schutz

Analyst · Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes. Well, right now we don’t really have much in it. They don’t have much sales in the other Latin American countries at this point. But in – Sanfer is a very, they are about $400 million US dollar company. They are Mexican company privately held there and be going through the IPO process they tell us. So in terms of – I think at this point they probably covered most of the pharmacies throughout Mexico with our product at this point. In terms of the number, I am not sure I can point at that at this point, I can get back to you Bob on that number.

Bob Robbins

Analyst · Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

I don’t need the exact number. I get the picture pretty much. All right. And I am sure I have to think if I got one more quick question for you. India, yes, tell us a little bit more about India, why now or why not earlier, what's - can India become as big potentially, is Mexico in a few years bigger?

James Schutz

Analyst · Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Good question. We're excited to have a new partner in India. We know we got quite a few telephone calls and quite a bit of interest from our partner’s press release. So the regulatory process we've learned in India is that the new partner has to get through the regulatory approval process in India under their name. And our gurus [ph] there tell us that’s close to being finalized and we're working on stocking and voting in our partner as we speak. Second good question, why now? Our former partner contractual agreement came to a friendly end. We [indiscernible] it had some robust interest from good guys companies and I'll tell you they guy who runs India for us was very, very enthusiastic about Genentech.

Bob Robbins

Analyst · Bob Robbins with Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Great. Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I am showing no further questions at this time. And I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Jim Schutz for any further remarks.

James Schutz

Analyst · Robins Capital Management. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Hey, thanks for joining us. We're on standby for questions.