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spk06: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the InfuSystems first quarter 2024 financial results conference call. I will now turn the program over to Joe Dorme.
spk04: Good morning, and thanks for joining us today to review InfuSystems first quarter 2024 financial results ended March 31st, 2024. With us today on the call are Rich Diorio, Chief Executive Officer, Barry Steele, Chief Financial Officer, and Carrie LeChance, President and Chief Operating Officer. After the conclusion of today's prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Before we begin with prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone, certain statements made by the management team of NC System during this conference call constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For the statements of historical facts, this conference call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are detailed under risk factors and documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2023. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statements were made. The company can give no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. INFI System does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligations to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Now I'd like to turn the call to Rich DiIorio, Chief Executive Officer of INFI System. Rich?
spk01: Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to INFI System's first quarter 2024 earnings call. Thank you all for joining us today. I'll get things started this morning with a quick overview of how we started the year. Barry will go into detail on our financial results for the first quarter, and then Carrie will provide updates on our biomedical wound care programs. I'll conclude our prepared remarks with a discussion of how our growth strategy has evolved over the last couple of years and the types of opportunities we are seeing and intend to pursue in the future. First quarter revenue was $32 million and represented the ninth quarter out of the last 11 that delivered a sequential increase in revenue. Our results were driven by continuing strength in our device solutions business unit. which was up 16% year over year, with both biomedical services and equipment sales being strong contributors. One of the themes I'll be developing on today's call is the increasing diversification of our business. Kerry discussed last quarter how the nature of our service business creates a cycle where we first have to invest to enable new growth opportunities, then second, we onboard the new business, followed by a third stage focused on constant process improvements driving long-term profitability. We have said that 2024 is going to be an accretion year, Just because 2023 delivered a lot of growth in our biomedical business and maximizing the profitability of that new revenue center is one of our top priorities for this year. But while our operating teams are heads down delivering on their efficiencies mandate, our sales teams are readying the next layer of biomedical contracts that we expect to close this year. And while that is happening, we have closed a large rental deal in an oncology customer that will start showing up in our second half numbers. And our wound care initiatives are ramping with material contributions expected by early next year. The reason it is now the norm for most quarterly press releases to announce a new revenue record is the presence of more and more diverse revenue sources. When one part of our business is in investment mode, it is likely another part is in a growth phase. Our first quarter operating results came in unplanned. There are diverse growth initiatives working their way forward all across our business, and we are confident in our revenue target for the year. Moving to profitability, we are seeing the operating improvements that are a big part of the plan for this year. Gross margins came in at 51.5%, with this driving a 10% increase in gross profit compared to the prior year. Unfortunately, the first quarter's strong operating performance was impacted by non-recurring expenses of approximately $1.2 million, approximately $400,000 of which impacted our adjusted EBITDA. Stepping back and looking at the long-term picture, I believe it is clear that our new and more diversified business initiatives are gaining operating momentum, that they are targeting and executing on improved efficiencies, and as I will discuss in a few minutes, our strategic outlook and our pipeline of new business opportunities have never been better. But before that, I'll turn it over to Barry, who will provide detail on the first quarter results.
spk07: Thank you, Rich, and thank you everyone on the call for joining us today. I'm going to focus on three topics, including the main drivers for our current quarter's results, our current financial position and how it changed during the quarter, and finally, I'll give you a preview on our plans to invest in our information systems. Now let me start with our financial results for the period. First quarter 2024 net revenue totaling $32 million was another all-time record. As Rich pointed out, that makes nine record-breaking quarters out of the last 11 reported. The amount represented a $1.6 million or 5% increase from the prior year. The growth came from the device solution segment and included higher revenue from the GE Healthcare contract totaling 1.2 million, strong equipment sales, and higher rental revenue. The patient services segment revenue was slightly lower, mainly due to a tough comparison to the prior year for oncology and wound care. For oncology, higher billing volumes were offset by lower per billing net revenue. The lower net billings amount, which is usually lower during the first quarter due to higher amounts of patient copays and deductibles, followed a more normal quarterly pattern in the current year after having been particularly strong during the first quarter of 2023. We anticipate sequential improvements in the per-billing net revenue in the coming quarterly periods following the normal seasonal pattern. Net revenue for wound care showed a small increase. This despite a very strong prior year amount of negative pressure wound therapy equipment sales on lease. Higher wound care treatment revenue in 2024 offset the lower equipment sales. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2024 was $16.5 million, which was $1.5 million, or 10% higher than the prior year first quarter. That was partly due to higher sales, but mainly driven by higher gross margin percentage, which was 51.5% during the first quarter of 2024, up 2.3% from the prior year. The year over year increase was mainly due to reduced startup costs for the GE healthcare contract and a reduction in estimated expenses for missing equipment. These were partly offset by the lower per billing net revenue previously mentioned. Startup costs for the GE healthcare biomedical services contract were particularly high during the 2023 first quarter when the contract ramp up pace was accelerated. These expenses have abated, resulting in the current year improvement. Additional improvements are expected as we move through the year. Selling, general, and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2024 totaled 17.3 million, representing an increase of 2.3 million, or 15%, as compared to the prior year. This increase included non-recurring expenses, totaling 1.2 million, timing-related increases of $604,000, and expense increases associated with inflation and a higher revenue buy-in totaling $700,000. First quarter expenses that we do not expect to recur in the coming periods include a fee paid to a former board member in conjunction with a cooperation agreement and related legal expenses totaling $650,000, fees paid to to the company's former audit firm for their consent to file our 2023N report, totaling $300,000, approximately $100,000 in legal and accounting fees associated with a reorganization project to simplify our legal structure, and other one-time expenses totaling $200,000. The timing impacts, which resulted in higher expenses, mainly included amounts recorded during the quarter for the company's short-term management incentive program, which was $250,000 higher in 2024, and a higher amount of expense recorded in equity-based compensation totaling $300,000. These amounts vary from quarter to quarter based on program metrics and other factors. The remaining increase in SG&A included annual increases in compensation rates, higher commission expenses tied to higher revenue, and other volume-driven increases in operating expenses. Adjusted EBITDA during the 2024 first quarter was $3.9 million, or 12.1% of net revenue, which represented a decrease of $400,000. This amount did not include some of the items I just mentioned, including the benefit related to the lower missing pump expense, the fees and expenses for the cooperation agreement, and a portion of the other non-recurring expenses totaling $200,000. Non-recurring expenses that were included in adjusted EBITDA totaled $400,000. Turning to a few points on our financial position and capital reserves. Our operating cash flow for the first quarter totaled $400,000 and improvement of $500,000 over the prior year first quarter. This was due to a lower amount of growth in our working capital levels, which reflected slower sequential revenue increases over the immediately prior quarterly periods. Additionally, our net capital expenditures were relatively low, $400,000 during the 2024 first quarter, and represented a $2.6 million decrease from the prior year amount. This lower amount is partly related to the source of our revenue growth being driven from less capital-intensive revenue sources, such as biomedical services, and from initiatives we have been pursuing to increase pump utilization, including reducing the number of lost pumps. We expect higher amounts through the remainder of 2024 as revenue growth partly shifts back to more capital-intensive product lines. Because of these factors, we continue to be positioned well to fund continued net revenue growth with the growing cash flow from operations backed by significant liquidity reserves available from our evolving line of credit and manageable leverage and debt service requirements. Our net debt increased slightly by $200,000 to $29.1 million during the 2024 first quarter. Our available liquidity continued to be strong and totaled $45.2 million at the end of the quarter. Our ratio of total debt to adjusted EBITDA was a modest 1.3 times at the end of the quarter. Our debt consists of borrowings on our evolving line of credit with no term payment requirements, nearly four years in remaining terms, and with $20 million of the outstanding balance protected from increasing interest rates through an interest rate swap having the same expiration. Finally, let me share some of our plans to invest in our information technology and business applications. As Rich mentioned, when we reported our 2023 earnings, we have embarked on a project to upgrade some of our core business applications. This includes a full replacement of our main ERP application and other upgrades. These changes will facilitate our continued growth and enhance our operating efficiency, but are also necessary due to the approaching end of life for support. The product, which has been under investigation and vendor selection for the past year, was launched in the past couple of weeks. The total expected cost of the project is expected to be between $3 and $4 million and will include software subscription expenses, integration consultant fees, staff augmentation costs, absorption of internal direct staff time where staff augmentation is not deployed, and miscellaneous expenses. The project and related expenses will occur over an 18 to 24-month period. The planned productivity improvements, particularly as we continue to grow, are expected to provide a full payback over time and a favorable return on investment after the project is complete. I will now turn over the call to carry.
spk00: Thanks, Birri. In my comments, I will be providing a brief summary of current developments related to our biomed and wound care business initiatives. First, biomed. As planned, during the first quarter, we completed the initial onboarding of facilities and pumps under the master service agreement with GE Healthcare. While there will always be changes and updates related to GE adding or dropping locations, for the most part, we are now working with facilities of which we are familiar. and we are in full swing shifting focus to operating efficiencies. We have onboarded approximately 220,000 devices to date. Our work cycle has two annual parts. First, we perform annual preventative maintenance to certify all equipment. That certification, inventory, and repair is what we focus on when each device is onboarded. We provide necessary biomedical services to maintain the equipment in good working order throughout the following year. Having completed the initial onboarding and preventative maintenance, our work now involves going back to recertify the devices we onboarded last year. The second year and subsequent years will be vastly different than the initial onboarding year, as we already know the facilities and staff we need to coordinate with, and we know the fleet and the condition of the devices. because we've had our team taking care of that equipment over the course of the prior year. Additionally, this year we have our technicians already positioned in each geography, as a big part of the onboarding was putting our team into place to maintain the equipment in each facility covered under the MSA. This is the national network of BOMA technicians we refer to on every call. Now that we have technicians in the geography, The task of doing the annual preventative maintenance cycle is a smaller lift for us. Fewer people are necessary, there is less travel cost, and the work can be staged by our local staff to minimize both time and effort. Moving into our second full year with almost all devices already onboarded in our systems and being taken care of on a day-to-day basis by our techs, operating efficiencies will be much higher than last year. That said, Our culture is to strive for continual process improvements, and we will keep managing towards greater efficiencies and higher margins as we proceed deeper into the term of the MSA. There is a second major driver that will be improving our biomed efficiencies this year and into the future. In addition to lowering costs, we plan to increase our biomed revenue by leveraging the resources that we have built over the last 18 months to execute under the MSA. The technicians we have positioned in various geographies can be leveraged to perform additional work under new contracts. Rising efficiencies will allow us to increase absorption and deliver incremental revenue with substantially higher realized margins and contribution. During and following the first quarter, we are making good progress both in delivering the planned cost efficiencies and in identifying the first round of these incremental biomed revenue opportunities. Now, turning to wound care. While revenues in this area are still relatively small, we are making significant progress in developing multiple aspects of our wound care opportunity, especially those being pursued under our joint venture with Sonera. In addition to the negative pressure wound therapy business that we saw last year, we are increasingly distributing Cenera's advanced wound care products into an expanding channel of facilities and distributors. We are confident that there will be more news about our programs in wound care in the near future. Back to you, Rich.
spk01: Thanks, Gary. In my opening, I started to communicate our excitement about the direction and growing momentum within the business. I also noted that Infosystems revenue sources are becoming increasingly and purposefully diversified. In addition to providing from the more consistent growth trajectory I referenced earlier, we are also seeing a welcome diversification in the capital intensity of our business. We have commented before that our biomed business, now that the national network has been stood up, will require relatively little incremental investment as it continues growing. Now, we are also seeing that in our wound care initiatives, that they should be less capital intensive than what we have seen historically with our oncology and rental businesses. Going further in discussing the evolution of our business, recall that a few years back when we started pursuing opportunities beyond oncology, we adopted and described a platform strategy that was one of product line extensions. That is, we would replicate our business in oncology by extending our third party payer model to other therapies. That was the fairly obvious thing to do in response to Cardinal approaching us to partner with them to improve the negative pressure offering. What they wanted was for us to create a last-mile solution for their pumps similar to what we had created in oncology and then pain management. So in announcing the cardinal opportunity, we framed it as negative pressure becoming our third therapy. But since announcing that platform strategy, our business has evolved in other directions, and we now see significant growth opportunities away from our earlier pump-centric orientation. We are evolving into more of a platform services company, offering a suite of highly developed assets and skills increasingly in demand by other companies. that see these opportunities to leverage the MFI system as a partner. This platform services model is increasingly compelling, allowing us to wrap our unique assets and skills around our partners' products and business plans. We are seeing a steady stream of opportunities, many of which are bigger, require less upfront investment by us, present the likelihood of a faster payback, and generally involve less business risk than initiatives we might pursue on our own. Along those lines, We've been saying for a while that the opportunities in front of us relating to our partnerships with GE and Sonera are more than enough to drive growth over the next several years. Let me explain this by walking through some of the opportunities we see developing in or around these new partnerships. GE Healthcare is, of course, a multibillion-dollar revenue company that, among other things, takes care of equipment in over 1,000 hospitals and clinics across the country. And they approached us looking to leverage our expertise in maintaining large fleets of small medical devices, such as infusion pumps. We have to date been focused on the master services agreement, but we have also emphasized in the beginning that the MSA is only a starting point for a much bigger Biomed growth initiative. We continue to speak with GE about additional work we can do for them beyond the original MSA. On top of that, we are seeing opportunities coming to us that result from having GE as a reference account and our new ability to deploy a national network of Biomed technicians. There are deals in the works that we hope to announce later this year. And on top of the biomed opportunities, there are developing prospects for us to expand our core rental business into the acute care channel through some of the doors the GE relationship is open for us. Turning to Senera, this opportunity came to us as a direct result of our work in wound care with Cardinal. Just as we see occurring with GE, the opportunities under this new partnership continue to expand as the relationship matures. I can't go into much detail today, but the initiatives we are currently pursuing include The original third-party payer solution, where InfuSystem distributes Sonera's advanced wound and skin care products, as well as supplies and negative pressure solutions into the channel that includes long-term care, skilled nursing, and wound care facilities. There are also emerging opportunities to distribute Sonera advanced wound and skin care products outside of that original channel. And finally, there is the Tissue Health Plus project that Sonera has spoken to on each of its last three earnings calls. Given the number and quality of the growth opportunities that are coming inbound to us, often from larger companies and involving initiatives far bigger than anything we might pursue ourselves, we have moved well past the old framework that had InfuSystem looking for additional therapies where we could extend our oncology model. We increasingly see ourselves as a platform services company, possessing unique assets and skills that could be deployed to solve difficult problems for our partners. We have proven ability to provide solutions in revenue cycle, biomedical services, logistics, patient support, and technology. And all of these skills are backed by our culture of white glove service that puts the needs of the patient first. As always, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the InfuSystem team for their unwavering commitment to our patients and for making all of this possible. Before Q&A, I'll provide more color around our guidance for the year. As we said in the press release, our targets for high single-digit revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA for the year in the high teens remains unchanged from earlier this year. We have a lot of business coming forward, and we are confident in achieving these results. If business comes forward faster than our current models indicate, we will update our guidance in future quarterly calls. As we have emphasized in the past, we provide guidance only on things we can clearly see. Accordingly, our guidance does not include anything for developing initiatives that could result in incremental revenue gains this year. Further, our current guidance does not include expenses related to the planned upgrades of the company's financial and ERP software systems. Operator, we are ready to begin the Q&A portion of the call.
spk06: And with that, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Once again, that is star 1 on your telephone keypad to join the question queue. And first up, it looks like we have Brooks O'Neill of Lake Street.
spk03: Brooks O' Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First, Rich, I might have been distracted for a second thinking about questions, but would you repeat that very last comment you made about the expenses related to the ERP system and whether they were or were not included in the guidance?
spk09: Did you hear me? I can't hear Rich.
spk06: Barry, why don't you answer it?
spk07: Okay. Yeah. So we did not include those expenses in the guidance. So we're not sure whether we'll be adding them back for our adjusted EBITDA disclosure. But when we look at the amount of EBITDA we expect for the rest of the year, we don't include those expenses.
spk03: Okay. That's helpful. And then I'm thinking about sort of a philosophical question. I understand what you said, Rich, about the guidance philosophy, and I appreciate that a lot. I think it makes a ton of sense. I'm just curious, though, as you think about the new vision you laid out and the opportunities you can envision, would you say the company's long-term expectation is for the high single-digit revenue growth, or do you see opportunities conceptually? I'm not asking you to guide, but do you see opportunities conceptually where the company could grow at a, let's call it a faster pace than that?
spk01: Can you guys hear me now?
spk03: Yeah.
spk01: Okay. All right. Good. The audio is fixed. So Brooks, I think overall long-term, it should be higher than you know, high single digits, not every single year, right? It depends on, you know, what the comps are the prior year, how fast we go the prior year, and kind of where the opportunities are in their development. I think moving forward with biomed, now that we kind of have our feet under us with GE, and as I mentioned, there's other opportunities coming, and with the scenario relationship in wound care, you know, I'm not going to put a number on our long-term growth, but, you know, getting into the double digits every year probably shouldn't be a challenge for us kind of after this year. 2025 has a lot of things, right? Wound care should really be up and running next year. The No Pains Act for pain kicks in January 1. Our biomed opportunities should start flowing in by then. So, you know, starting in 2025 and beyond, getting to double digits shouldn't be an issue. It doesn't mean there won't be another year where we grow 7%, 8%, 9%. But long-term, our growth should be more accelerated than it has been. We're just getting some of these things going. And I think they're long-term growth opportunities. It's not like GE was a one-year growth thing, right? We onboarded most of it last year. We saw most of the growth this year with a little bit this year coming in. But these other opportunities, it's not a one-time hit. They're just long-term markets we're getting into and partnerships that we have that should drive growth for years to come pretty solidly in the double digits.
spk03: Great. And then I'm just curious. Obviously, over the past few years, we've thought about adding devices On the platform you described for oncology, you were talking about a different business model today, which I assume means not so much adding devices to the mix, but would you say that these newer opportunities are going to come broadly within biomedical services and wound care, or are you thinking... that there could be opportunities that go in new directions that just leverage your capability?
spk01: So I think what we're going to see in the future and what we've seen over the last couple of years is as the businesses evolve. So if you rewind a few years ago, it started with Cardinal. I mean, we even talked about lymphedema at one point, right? The whole concept of, hey, we can take a device, we can wrap our services around it, go into the market and try to win some market share. kind of what we've done in pain, right? So let's use that as an example. It costs quite a bit of money to stand up a sales team and go do that, right? You're blazing new trails for the company. It can take a while, and there's some risk to it. The real difference is with Sonara and GE, which really opened our eyes to this, is those guys came to us with business models and products and said, we just need your support and your help, right, to get into the market. We didn't need to blaze a new trail. The trail was already built by these guys. The product was already there. They have already identified the market. And all we're doing is supporting that, right? Whether that's our revenue cycle team and leveraging our contracts, our biomed capabilities like with GE, our sales team, like it'd be great to put something into oncology that we already have a team stood up, right? And it's just them talking about new products in that market. Those are the type of things that you'll see more of. And we have, I think I said in my prepared remarks, there's a lot of those inbound to us. We don't have to go hunt them. They're already coming to us. Now it's just a matter of Barry's team modeling it out, making sure it makes sense financially, the sales team making sure we can get to the market and we have a team. It's a very nuanced change, and it's not something that was really purposely done. It's just how it evolved from where we started. And where we started kind of brought us to this point with Cardinal, right? That brought Sonara to us. One of the acquisitions, the acquisition we made with OB Health brought us GE. And leveraging... Our capabilities with their business models, their plans, their products, I think is a much better fit than us trying to build the entire building on our own. And I think that's what you're going to see more of in the future.
spk03: Great. I appreciate that. It sounds attractive. And thanks for taking my question.
spk09: Thanks, Brooks.
spk06: All right. Next up, we have Jen Sedati of Sedati & Company. Your line is now open.
spk05: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I'm sorry I had to join the call late. I was on a couple other calls. But can you just, I don't know if you said it or not already, but the oncology business there at 1%, what was really behind that, and where do you expect that to end up this year?
spk07: Yeah, so, Jim, it was actually higher volume than last year. But this year, we had our growth to net increase. model realizable revenue was a bit lower than last year, but only because last year was an anomaly. That net revenue adjustment was impactful more this year and more normalized this year, if that makes sense. So we expect a more normal pattern this year than the prior year where we're going to actually improve our gross to net as we go through the year because there's less copays and deductibles that hit months after Q1.
spk05: okay all right so i mean historically that's been a low single digital business do you think that's where it ends up again this year uh yeah absolutely that's our plan okay and then on um we'll bounce back in terms of and it'll affect our profitability in q2 and beyond compared to q1 and that's normal okay and i know you had a lot of um auditing activity in the first quarter, you know, you changed auditors. Is that one of the reasons why the G&A was up over $13 million? And, you know, where do you think that comes from?
spk07: Yeah, there's three main impacts to the first quarter generally for us that may give us a seasonality in the way EBITDA hits our quarters. Because there's some expenses in the first quarter that we don't have as much of in other quarters. And the audit's one of them. we book our audit expenses as the audit incurs, and that's predominantly in the first quarter. And by the way, now that we're doing a fully integrated audit with controls being audited, that was more, that's a higher amount just for us generally. And we had extra expenses because we had to get a consent from our old auditor because we switched auditors. So a pretty big impact just in Q1 of this year. The other thing is that some of our marketing activities, such as we have a annual sales meeting and other things, hit us much more hard in the first quarter than other places. So between the The seasonality and gross to net for the TPP oncology business, the higher amount of audit expenses in the first quarter and higher marketing expenses in the first quarter, we're always going to show a lower first quarter result from an EBITDA and profitability perspective than other quarters.
spk02: And that's a pattern you'll see in the past as well.
spk05: Okay. So those G&A expenses, you think, come back in Q2 and Q3? Yes.
spk07: That's correct. As we pointed out, there's a significant amount of not only the seasonality, but other one-time expenses that we had this year, right, that obviously won't repeat in the coming quarters. Some of that hit even, some of that didn't.
spk05: Okay. All right. And then, you know, it sounds like scenario is something that we should really expect to have more of an impact in Q3 and probably Q4 as the year progresses. Is that right?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, you know, we spent most of last year just getting ourselves ready with the licensing, accreditation, you know, the sales team starting their activities and training and everything. This year, those guys are out there hitting it hard, and we did see a slight increase even with the tough comps on the leases of equipment last year. So we're still going to have those leases and comps for the next couple quarters. That's not the real revenue we want, though, right? We want the Sonara products and the other wound care products we have to really grow. The leases, well, they're nice when they come in. Um, so this year is a much better type of growth that we want long-term than just getting some, you know, nice leases to come in, which we will have those in the future, but, uh, scenario looks really good. The team is starting to gain some traction. I think quarter to quarter, we're going to see it grow and it should start to really hockey stick up by the end of this year. And certainly in the next year.
spk05: All right. All right. And then, uh, last one for me, um, you know, it seems like, um, GE is where you want it to be at this point, but, uh, Are there other GEs out there that you're working with and, you know, you think you could land another contract with another equipment provider over the next year or two?
spk01: Yeah, I think we have more agreements coming. I don't see anything to the magnitude of GE, you know, the $10 to $12 million range. But we have some things in the works now that hopefully we can speak to by the end of the year that are, you know, they range from hundreds of thousands to, you know, a little over $2 million. And those are much nicer. They tend to be more profitable and easier to implement. So we have some things now. We've taken the governor off the sales team, which we put on on purpose because we wanted to make sure we focused on the MSA, the original MSA with GE. Now we've kind of taken the reins off those guys and we're letting them go and we're starting to see some opportunities pop up. And, you know, as we sign contracts, we'll give you guys visibility into that.
spk05: Are you looking to stay in the same geographies where you've had teams in place now, or would you expand again?
spk01: Yes, and the good news is the geography is all over the country. We pretty much have technicians everywhere, so there's not a lot of restraint on where. Got it. All right.
spk09: Thank you. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jim.
spk06: All right. I want to remind participants how to join the queue. You can press star 1 on your telephone keypad if you would like to join the question queue. Again, that is star 1 on your telephone keypad. The next up, we have Aaron Warwick of Breakout Investors.
spk02: Hey, good morning. First, I wanted to start off a question about the guidance and and relative to the first quarter. And then I wanted to talk a little bit more about conceptually what you spoke about there, which towards the end of the prepared remarks, getting into the guidance. I mean, I was a little surprised the quarter seems weak from terms of both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, but you guys obviously had a good feel when you, when you put out that guidance would have been almost towards the end of the first quarter and you're,
spk01: reiterating today so it sounds like you're planning on a pretty strong back three quarters of the year is that yeah so aaron yeah yeah i think that's right you know on the top line we were right on plan uh so this is exactly what we expected as wound care ramps um and some of these other opportunities start to show up uh on the bottom line we were effectively on plan if you take out some of the non-recurring things that happened you know like the audit fees that barry mentioned um so we're kind of right where we thought we would be um And, yeah, our revenue should grow throughout the year as these things come on board. So, yeah, we're not concerned about getting to those numbers. And Q1 is always low on the bottom line anyways. I think Barry just mentioned that with all the one-timers or stuff that just comes in in Q1, right, the timing of it. So nothing we're worried about for the last three quarters. Okay.
spk02: I mean, even still, it sounds like there's potential upside just because you're – have indicated your new philosophy of guiding for what you already sort of have in the bag, I guess. I mean, obviously, it still has to play out, but you can envision that you're not really building anything in there that's not already won.
spk01: Yeah, I mean, that's the philosophy, right, is that there should always be upside in the number. There should be more on the opportunity side than the risk side in the model. And if they play out, then we'll raise our guidance. If they don't, we can still get into our range where we want to be. So we're just trying to mitigate that risk for you guys. tell you where we are and if there's upside we'll let you know as soon as it comes but we want to wait i mean even on the biomed side right there's some opportunities that we're pretty close to but i want to wait till the contract is signed and we start working on them to be able to give you guys that visibility i don't want to jump the gun on it yeah did i understand correctly related to that you you have a new customer there is that what it said in the press release that you have already started recognized revenue in the first quarter from So we have a big oncology customer that's actually renting equipment and buying supplies from us. It just got onboarded in the last couple of weeks, and it's sizable. I mean, it's well over $100,000 a month. So we're going to start seeing that revenue a little bit this quarter, but it should really kick in in Q3 and Q4, which will obviously also help us get to our numbers.
spk02: What should we expect in terms of, I mean, because there was no press release or if there was, I missed it, about like a customer of that size. Is that something that you guys would tell us in between calls or are you just going to be updating on the quarterly calls?
spk01: Yeah, Aaron, I think it depends. If it's like a strategic customer or something different, we may put out a press release. We don't historically do it with customers. Once in a while we do. And it's also driven by whether or not the customer wants us to use their name, how long it takes to even get that permission, that sort of thing. But we open up customers that are a million dollars here and there for different parts of our business. We don't necessarily announce it. Those we'll probably keep for just quarterly results and earnings calls. But if it's something more strategic than, hey, it's just a big win, we'll give you guys basically the answer to that.
spk02: That makes sense. I guess you really have in the past, it's mostly been partnerships and things of that nature. Exactly. Yep. And I guess that kind of leads into, so you kind of talked about this philosophical change. I appreciate that because I've been wondering, and some people have asked me specifically, you mentioned lymphedema, uh, which you just, you know, up until now you hadn't talked about for, for several quarters. And I mean, just, you know, hearing you talk about the opportunities, the double digit growth, um, likely for 25 and beyond, obviously some huge opportunities. I mean, just to put this into context for myself, I guess you had mentioned at one point, I think when you started this whole lymphedema conversation three or four years ago, it was like a $300 million TAM. But as you said, that was something that you would have to attack on your own. But nonetheless, I mean, that's an enormous opportunity. So what you're seeing now with this change in philosophy is must be pretty significant for you to just back away from that type of opportunity in lymphedemas. Am I remembering that correctly, I guess, in terms of the possible size? I'm not necessarily saying you're going to have $300 million in revenue from this philosophical change, but it should be quite a contribution to the bottom line if you're sort of putting that on pause.
spk01: Yeah, so... there's a lot of factors that go into these decisions, right? So it's not just the TAM because there's some other times out there that are even bigger that we could in theory go after and maybe play around the periphery, win some market share and generate some revenue. It's how quick can we get into the market? How well does it fit what we do? Do we have the right partner? Do we have to build it from scratch? Like all those things come into play and lymphedema. So when you compare like lymphedema versus GE or scenario, right? Let's, I mean, that's really the decision making tree for us, right? So lymphedema was first. Okay, well, We have a sales team in oncology, which is only 20% of the team. So how do we approach the rest of the market, right? We thought we had a plan, but it would be blazing new trails for us. So that was one piece of the decision-making. Our experience based on our oncology products obviously makes sense, right? We can repair the device. We can support it and all that. But then you look at GE. GE was kind of presented to us. It was easy. I shouldn't say easy. I think Carrie will kill me if I say that. But we knew exactly how to do it. They had a model already built. We just had to go help them execute on that model. Pretty easy thing to do. Sonara, TAM-wise, is much bigger. Wound care in general dwarfs the lymphedema market. And we have a partner that already has phenomenal products, what I would argue the best in the world, From a product standpoint, with a model we can go after. So it's more than just one metric. When you look at the whole picture and how easy is it to get in the market, what's the risk for us? Do we have to stand up sales teams? Like all that goes into the thought process. And when we compare lymphedema to these other guys, these other opportunities are just too good. It doesn't mean lymphedema is off the list, but I don't see it coming in the next 18 to 24 months. But someday maybe we do, right? Maybe a partner shows up with a great product and model and they want us to just help them. that's probably how we would get into that market more so than just us getting a device that we could use and go in and do it on our own. It just takes a lot longer, a lot more cost, and a lot more risk.
spk02: Well, and obviously you've had other opportunities open up because of what you said about GE and Sonata. Exactly. It sounds like it opens up. Well, I know it's been a bit of a transition for you guys and still going on from that standpoint, but I think it's commend you for being willing to be flexible and do what's best for ultimately the bottom line. So thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
spk09: Thanks, Aaron.
spk06: And with that, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Richard DeOrio for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
spk01: I want to thank everyone for participating on today's call, and we look forward to our second quarter call when we'll update you on our results and progress with this year's strategic priorities.
spk09: Have a great day.
spk06: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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