CVRx, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the CVRX Inc. Q1 2022 earnings conference call. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Mike Valley from the ICR Westwick. Sir, you may begin.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for CVRX's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me on today's call are the company's President and Chief Executive Officer, Nadeem Yared, and its Chief Financial Officer, Jared Oersheim. The remarks today will contain forward-looking statements, including statements about financial guidance. The statements are based on plans and expectations as of today, which may change over time. In addition, actual results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties including those identified in the earnings release issued prior to this call and in the company's SEC filings, including the upcoming Form 10Q that will be filed with the SEC. I would now like to turn the call over to CVRX's President and Chief Executive Officer, Nadim Yared.

Thank you, Mike, and thank everyone for joining us. I'll begin today's call by providing an overview of our first quarter performance, followed by an operational update, a review of our financial results by our CFO, Jared O'Shine, and then I will conclude with our thoughts for the rest of 2022 before turning to Q&As. Starting with the review of the first quarter, our total revenue was $4.1 million, slightly exceeding the top of the range of our guidance for Q1. These results were driven by continued strong growth within our US heart failure business which generated $2.9 million, an increase of approximately 133% over the first quarter of 2021. I am very proud of the resilience our business displayed during the first quarter, which was heavily impacted by COVID spikes in both the U.S. and Europe. We experienced significant headwinds in January, followed by an improvement in February and ending with a very strong March. Despite the challenges faced early in the quarter, we were able to grow our U.S. heart failure business revenue, expand our U.S. active implanting centers by 22%, and deliver the highest number of revenue units in a quarter. Turning to an update on the operational progress we made during the first quarter aimed at driving the increased adoption and utilization of Parastim. As a reminder, our focus areas are one, the continued expansion of our commercial infrastructure, two, innovation of our product portfolio, and three, the expansion of the clinical body of evidence. First, let's focus on the continued expansion of our commercial infrastructure, specifically our US direct sales. During the quarter, we added three new territories, bringing the total to 17. We continue to be very impressed with the quality of the sales organization that we are assembling. Our employees remain motivated by the buzz generated by our therapy and its visible impact on our patients. On our last earnings call, we announced two newly launched programs to support physician and patient education. First, a direct-to-consumer marketing pilot program in conjunction with a new branding campaign. We continue to see great early traction with the direct-to-consumer pilot within the select geographic locations where it is running. Additionally, we have started a pilot to expand the patient education component to few select institutions to alleviate the workload of healthcare providers. If successful, we plan on rolling out this educational program out to a greater number of institutions across the country. Another area of focus is the innovation of our product portfolio. Earlier this year, we highlighted three recent PMA supplement submissions made to the FDA related to our barostim platform. We received approval for the new implantable pulse generator during the first quarter. And subsequent to the end of the quarter, We received approval for the new programmer, which is a tablet form factor with an even simpler programming software. With the approval of both the new IPG and the new programmer, we are now planning an initial commercial launch of the new platform in 2022. We are incredibly proud about what we have been able to accomplish in the first quarter, despite the significant headwinds we continue to experience from COVID. The performance seen in February and particularly in March is very encouraging as it validates the growing demand for barostem even during a challenging macro environment. We remain on track to deliver continued growth in the balance of 2022 and help bring relief to patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases. I'll now turn the call over to Jared to review our financials. Jared?