Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Stereotaxis First Quarter 2016 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jim Byers of MKR Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Stereotaxis, Inc. (STXS)
Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Mon, May 9, 2016
$1.90
+4.12%
Same-Day
-17.11%
1 Week
-22.37%
1 Month
-26.32%
vs S&P
-29.32%
Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Stereotaxis First Quarter 2016 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jim Byers of MKR Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Jim Byers
Management
Thank you, operator and good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the Stereotaxis conference call and webcast to review financial results for its 2016 first quarter ended March 31, 2016. Before we get started, we'd like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, the Company might make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the Company. These include without limitation, statements regarding the future operating results, growth opportunities and other statements that reflect Stereotaxis' plans, prospects, expectations, strategies, intentions and beliefs. These statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For a detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that affect the Company's business and that qualify the forward-looking statements made on this call, we refer you to the Company's periodic and other public filings filed with the SEC, including its most recent Forms 10-Q and 10-K and the Form 8-K filed today. The Company's projections and forward-looking statements are based on factors that are subject to change and therefore these statements speak only as of the date they are given. The Company assumes no obligation to update any projections or forward-looking statements. In addition, regarding orders and backlog, there can be no assurance that the Company will recognize revenue related to its purchase orders and other commitments in any particular period or at all, because some of these purchase orders and other commitments are subject to contingencies that are outside of the Company's control. In addition, these orders and commitments may be revised, modified or cancelled, either by their express terms as a result of negotiations or by project changes or delays. With that said, I would like to turn the call over to Bill Mills, Chairman and CEO of Stereotaxis.
Bill Mills
Chairman
Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today to review our first quarter 2016 results. With me today is our CFO, Marty Stammer. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open up the call to questions. After exiting 2015 with positive momentum, we continued progress in the first quarter with two of our critical strategic initiatives; increased clinical adoption in our install base driven by our third consecutive quarter of greater than 20% year-over-year growth in ventricular tachycardia or VT procedures and expansion in our newest major market, Japan. Supported by a substantial and growing body of positive clinical evidence, our global clinical teams are making good strides in leveraging the unique capabilities of our platform with VT ablation and closing the gaps in clinical adoption for atrial fibrillation or AF procedures. These initiatives help stabilize our total procedure count for the first quarter compared to the year ago quarter and led to our highest quarterly volume since Q4 of 2014. VT continues to lead our volume growth and increased 27% in Q1 from the year ago quarter. As I noted earlier this is our third consecutive quarter of 20% plus growth year-over-year in VT and demonstrates the positive results of our ongoing efforts to build greater awareness worldwide of the outstanding clinical efficacy, efficiency and safety of our technologies. We believe we’re well positioned to become a significant franchise to build a significant franchise in this relatively untapped market for us and to become the standard of care in VT therapy. Turning to our progress in Japan. We are seeing continued positive momentum and are pleased with the expertise of our local distributors and business director in navigating a complex sales process and reimbursement environment. Hospitals and physicians have responded enthusiastically to the Niobe system’s reputation for…
Marty Stammer
CFO
Thanks Bill and good afternoon everyone. Revenue in the first quarter was $8.6 million, a decrease of 9% from $9.5 million in the year ago quarter, and down 6% sequentially from $9.2 million in the fourth quarter. System revenue was $2.1 million down 27% from $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2015 and down 14% sequentially from $2.4 million in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter, we recognized revenue of $1.2 million on a one new Niobe ES system and one Niobe ES upgrade, as well as $900,000 in Odyssey solution sales. During the quarter we did not generate new capital orders following new capital orders of $5.1 million in the fourth quarter. Quarter end our backlog was $3.9 million. Recurring revenue in the quarter was $6.6 million compared to $6.7 million in the prior year quarter and $6.8 million in the fourth quarter. Total procedures were unchanged from the prior year quarter and as Bill noted we had our highest quarterly volume in Q1 since the fourth quarter of 2014. In addition, VT procedures increased 27% year-over-year. Gross margin in the first quarter 2016 was $6.5 million or 74.8% of revenue, compared to $6.9 million or 72.4% of revenue in the year ago first quarter and $6.8 million or 73.7% of revenue in the fourth quarter. Operating expenses were $8 million, a 4% improvement from $8.3 million in the year ago quarter and down sequentially from $8.2 million in the fourth quarter. Operating loss was $1.5 million in the 2016 first quarter compared to an operating loss of $1.4 million in both the prior year first quarter and fourth quarter. Interest expense was $800,000 in all three quarters related to HealthCare Royalty Partners debt. Net loss for the first quarter of 2016 was $2.3 million or $0.11 per share compared to a net loss of $3.1 million or $0.15 per share reported for the first quarter of 2015. Excluding mark-to-market warrant revaluation we would have reported a net loss of $2.3 million or $0.11 per share for the 2016 first quarter compared to a net loss of $2.2 million or $0.11 per share for the 2015 first quarter. The weighted average diluted shares outstanding for the first quarters of 2016 and 2015 totalled $21.6 million and $20.7 million respectively. At March 31st, we had cash-and-cash equivalents of $1.6 million and unused borrowing capacity of $4.9 million on our SVB revolver, resulting in total liquidity of $6.5 million. Cash burn totalled $3.2 million for the trailing 12 months, including cash burn of $3.9 million during the 2016 first quarter and free cash flow of $1.6 million during the fourth quarter. The first quarter 2016 cash burn was negatively impacted by approximately $2 million of working capital adjustments and was greater than the year ago cash burn of $3.3 million. Total debt on March 31st was $18.1 million all related to HealthCare Royalty Partners long-term debt. I will now hand the call back to Bill.
Bill Mills
Chairman
Thanks Marty. Last week we attended the Heart Rhythm Society’s scientific sessions in San Francisco, our largest pipeline building event of the year where several physicians shared their outstanding clinical results achieved through the automated optimized lesion delivery capabilities of our magnetic navigation platform. In our exhibit space, we unveiled our newly developed software based simulation platform for physician training alongside a modelled beating heart phantom to illustrate the stable focal contact of an ablation catheter guided by the Niobe system and how it translates into effective lesion creation in structurally complex regions of the heart. We also previewed our latest innovations in contact confirmation lesion assessment and prediction technologies, which are designed to further raise physician confidence in lesion creation. Potential customers from Asia Pacific also observed multiple Niobe cases in two nearby hospitals as part of their product evaluation process. This past January marked 15 years since computer controlled magnets were first used to steer a catheter inside a beating heart. We believe that the time that the ultimate clinical utility of the state of the art design was in its potential to one day address the navigational challenges of treating complex arrhythmias; more than 88,000 procedures later that vision has been realized and continues to evolve for the advancement of cardiac rhythm management in patients worldwide. With that, we’ll open up the call to your questions.
Operator
Operator
Thank you [Operator Instructions]. And we’ll take a question from Jeff Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann.
Jeff Cohen
Analyst · Ladenburg Thalmann
Just a couple of quick ones if I may, two and I’ll take off. And if you could talk a little bit about the volume numbers specific to AFib for the quarter? And then secondly if you could go into little more information about backlog, funnel pipeline, et cetera, so far as capital credit goes for 2016. Thanks a lot.
Bill Mills
Chairman
Jeff I’ll start and then I’ll let Marty chime in with some further detail. But with respect to procedure question that you asked Jeff, importantly, it's significant that we look at our procedures as a composite of principally complex left atrial or AFib related cases as well as separately lower chamber for ventricular tachycardia principally related procedures. As we’ve been saying now for some time, our push to demonstrate that we deserve to be considered the standard of care in VT has resulted in a pretty significant and now sustained I think it's fair to say development of a nice growth patterns in VT and we expect that to continue. We’re certainly resolved to pressing forward to achieve a standard of care status in that regard and we believe that we already have the tools in place to justify that ambition if you will on our part. With respect to AF as we’ve talked at certain times in the past the situation there is substantially more contested competitive and I would have to say that the science is not as well settled yet as it may appear to be on the side of the VT market. We believe that ultimately our value proposition in AF will be fully elaborated as we begin to deploy very advanced automation features that allow us not just to achieve great safety which we are already do, and not just to achieve great outcomes which we already do, but to do that in conjunction with great improvements and efficiency. Right now the biggest inroads in the AF market are being made by devices and technologies which we’re offering up considerable advances in efficiencies. And of course efficiencies get to the economics of the practice and as the consequence are very important component of the value…
Marty Stammer
CFO
Sure, as we had mentioned in our release VT procedures were up 27% year-over-year, AF procedures were actually down 11% but that was a considerable improvement over the last couple of quarters. So, it does feel like that is trending in the right direction.
Jeff Cohen
Analyst · Ladenburg Thalmann
Okay, super. Can you talk a little bit about capital and trends that you’re seeing as far as equipment goes, and maybe give us a little flavor for backlog, or how far along the funnel is, or how advanced it maybe?
Bill Mills
Chairman
I’ll talk a little bit about the trends and then Marty can again fill in behind this. But I would say that the trends that are notable are the trends that we see in Japan, which as you know and we’ve been saying now for several quarters is our newest market and the last of the major developed markets for us to enter, which situates it very nicely for us to enter a market where our newest devices are being sold into the market for the first time in an environment where robotics as a concept is I think very immediately embraced and where there is a significant and very justified concern for unnecessary exposure to ionizing radiation. So, in Japan we are seeing all the signs of a gathering sense of collective interest and we’re seeing signs that the market is evidencing a growing level of collective comfort and are more than amenable to diffusion of this system into their clinical mainstream. So the trends that we’re seeing there are clearly favorable. I would say that the trends elsewhere in the world are -- it’s hard to call them trends. I think that we often use the term lumpiness to describe the capital sales that we experience and unfortunately as long as the numbers are small per reporting period which they have been and will continue to be at least for some time, the lumpiness in our sales on the capital side does mask any clear trends. I think that what the leading indicators should be -- thought to be here though is procedural value and the utility that users are experiencing when they use this system and as they compare it to the alternative, which is to do these cases manually. And I think that the strongest case…
Marty Stammer
CFO
I really don’t have much additional detail besides that. I mean I think your point is clear that the clinical progress is where we are -- eventually what will translate into progress on the capital pipeline, and that’s something that we’re seeing in VT today with the strong procedure growth translating into pipeline there.
Bill Mills
Chairman
One of the questions that were asked Jeff sometimes is can success in VT sell new systems? In other words, can proving the value in VT as a procedure type alone regardless of other procedure types be persuasive to a potential new adopter of the system. We believe the answer is yes. It's because VT is a minority of the practice in most settings, you have to make a pretty good argument to do that. But we think we’re in a position to make that argument, and it is a pretty good one. So, one of the things that you’ll be seeing I think increasingly is the success in BT proving persuasive to those that have their fingers around the first of the capital budget in institutions that look at this technology and say we wish to be able to treat all complex arrhythmias. We certainly recognize the gravity and significance of ventricular tachycardia particularly postischemic ventricular tachycardia which has a very unfortunate natural course to it if there was arrhythmias can’t be prevented by way of catheter ablation, but rather can only be managed by defibrillation. There is a very significant medical need out there in a very much non- febrile population of patients. And for those institutions that aspire to regularly treat and confidently treat VT and have the access to the latest tools, we think that that will sell capital into those environments alone. But our ambition certainly is to also bring our automations into the -- I would say more mainstream certainly larger market of complex left atrial disease of atrial fibrillation but that is something that you will hear us talking more and more about as the upcoming quarters unfold. Right now, our principle focus is on VT but stay tuned because that focus will evolve to include a much more significant fraction of the procedures types that are done quite soon.
Jeff Cohen
Analyst · Ladenburg Thalmann
Okay, got it. Very helpful, thanks for the commentary. Appreciate it.
Bill Mills
Chairman
You're welcome Jeff. Thanks for the question.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And at this point, we have no questions over the phone. I’d like to turn the call back to today’s speakers for any additional or closing remarks.
Bill Mills
Chairman
Well, this is Bill, operator, and I’ll just take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and remind you that we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter and sharing news, further progress along many other dimensions that we’ve been talking about this afternoon. So thanks again for joining us.
Operator
Operator
This concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.