Champions Oncology, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Champions Oncology third quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Ronnie Morris, Chief Executive Officer of Champions Oncology. Sir, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon. I am Ronnie Morris, CEO of Champions Oncology. Joining me today is David Miller, our Chief Financial Officer. Thank you for joining us for our quarterly earnings call. Before I begin, I'll remind you that we'll be making forward-looking statements during today's call and that actual results could differ materially from what is described in those statements. Additional information on factors that could cause results to differ is available in our Forms 10Q and Form 10K. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed during the call to GAAP financial measures is available in the earnings release. Overall, our financial results were weaker than our previous quarter. However, we continue to make good progress on strengthening our platform as well as furthering our drug discovery efforts. As we reported last quarter, due to the macroeconomic environment, we encountered some headwinds in our services business in two main areas. First, during our second quarter, we experienced a decline in quarterly bookings for the first time in over a year as we saw our customers reevaluating their discovery efforts and realigning priorities within their budgets given the new economic reality. This manifested itself by customers taking longer to commit to signing a study or not signing at all. Second, we saw an uptick in study cancellations, especially on work that had not yet started. Both of these factors impacted future revenue, and as we indicated on last quarter's call, our second half results will be yet adversely impacted. On a more positive note, I also discussed that despite these negative trends, we were seeing a strengthening of our bookings pipeline and we were cautiously optimistic that we had turned the corner and weathered the worst of the decline. While we still need to reiterate the cautious sentiment, we finished our third quarter with a new record high in bookings and we've started the fourth quarter with strong bookings as well. Cancellations are still higher than our historical average but have come down from the prior quarter. These positive developments should enable us to re-accelerate our revenue growth next fiscal year, which starts May 1st. With regard to our drug development effort, we continue to make good progress. Our lead discovery programs are progressing well through the therapeutic discovery stages. The two wholly-owned lead programs continue to advance with exciting results, and we are now at a stage where we are beginning to collect in vivo data on therapeutic hits for each program. These data sets will help to gauge the level of progression for these compounds and programs and the relative significance. We are also establishing in vitro data for the therapeutic kits established from the Fannin collaboration with possible in vivo studies forthcoming. In summary, we view the third quarter and second half of the year as a bump in the road of our longer-term strategy. We continue to invest in expanding our platform, and we are optimistic on our long-term growth prospects. We anticipate that our target discovery effort will progress into the preclinical phase, marking a significant milestone. Now let me turn the call over to David Miller for a more detailed review of the financial results.

Thanks, Ronnie. Our full results on Form 10-Q will be filed with the SEC on or before March 16th. As Ronnie mentioned, our previously disclosed dip in bookings and an uptick in cancellations, as expected, impacted our third quarter financial results, leading to revenue of $12.8 million compared to $13.2 million in the year-ago period. A decline of $420,000 was 3%. Year to date, our revenue is $40.8 million compared to $36.2 million last year, an increase of 13%. For the quarter, we had a loss of $2.5 million compared to income of $829,000 in the year-ago period. Excluding stock-based compensation and depreciation, we had an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.6 million. Focusing as we do on results, excluding non-cash expenses such as stock comp and depreciation, our total cost of sales was $7.5 million compared to $6.3 million in our third quarter last year, an increase of $1.2 million or 19%. The increase was primarily from compensation expenses as we staffed our operational teams during the year to meet the demand of our expected bookings growth. While our revenue took a hit this quarter, demand is still strong and we anticipate the revenue downturn will be relatively short-lived. Accordingly, we kept our operations teams intact to meet the expected increase in study volume without any delays executing for our customers. As a result of maintaining our staffing levels on lower revenue, the gross margin was 41% versus 52% in the year-ago period. We anticipate a return to margins in the 50% range in our fiscal 2024. R&D expense was approximately $3.2 million compared to $2.2 million in the year-ago period, an increase of $1 million or 47%. The increase is primarily due to compensation expense in our discovery business along with sequencing and mice costs as we added proteomic data, too, and replenished our tumor bank. Sales and marketing expense was $1.7 million compared to $1.5 million in the year-ago period, an increase of $200,000, or 14%. Our G&A expense was at $1.9 million for the quarter compared to $1.7 million a year ago, a 14% increase. The increase was primarily due to compensation and IT expense as we invest in upgrading our infrastructure to support company growth. In total, our cash-based expenses were $14.3 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 compared to $11.7 million in the same period last year, an increase of approximately $2.7 million, or 23%, with the increases primarily stemming from cost of sales to support booking growth and R&D for advancing our discovery efforts. Now turning to cash. At the end of the quarter, we had $11.6 million of cash on the balance sheet, an increase of $800,000 from our prior quarter. For the quarter, net cash generated from operating activities was approximately $1.6 million, primarily due to an increase in deferred revenue, which includes billings from recent bookings. Cash used in investing activities of $750,000 was for equipment purchases for our laboratory. Our balance sheet is strong with approximately $12 million in cash and no debt. In summary, we experienced an anticipated decline in revenue in the quarter, primarily from an increase in cancellations on study signs during the first half of the year. The pace of cancellations has slowed, and we're optimistic that the bookings reacceleration will continue. setting the stage for a return to revenue growth and positive adjusted EBITDA in 2024. We're well positioned to weather the small downturn, and we are excited about the company's overall progression and long-term prospects. As our next call is for year-end results, the call will be in late July. We look forward to a positive outlook for 2024. We would now like to open the call for your questions.