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spk00: Ladies and gentlemen, please continue to stand by. Your conference will begin shortly. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Good morning and thank you for your participation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Cameron Radunovic of Burns McLellan. Mr. Radunovic, please go ahead. Cameron Radunovic Thank you.
spk03: Good morning and welcome to the LENZAR Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Earlier this morning, the company issued a press release providing an overview of its financial results for the quarter ended June 30th, 2023. This press release is available on the investor relations section of the company's website at www.lenzar.com. Joining me on the call today is Nick Curtis, Chief Executive Officer of Lenzar, who will review the company's recent business and operational progress. Following his comments, Tom Staub, Chief Financial Officer of Lenzar, will provide an overview of the company's financial highlights, before turning the call back over to the operator to facilitate answering any questions you may have. Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements, including those statements regarding future results, unaudited and forward-looking financial information, as well as the company's future performance and or achievement. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results or performances expressed or implied in this presentation. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For additional information, including a detailed discussion of the company's risk factors, please refer to the company's documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be accessed on the website. This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate as of only the date of this live broadcast, August 9th, 2023. LENZAR undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this live conference call. It is my pleasure to turn the call over to Nick Curtis. Nick?
spk02: Thank you, Cam, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us on our second quarter 2023 conference call. I'm pleased to report that Lensar had a strong quarter, placing 14 systems in Q2, bringing our total number of Ally systems installed 2023 year to date to 18, well on our way to our goal of having 30 or more systems installed this year. Our second quarter revenue increased nearly 50% over the same quarter in 2022. which can be attributed to both robust system sales and an increase in lease revenue. Partially supporting these increases was the state start of multi-system placements into private equity-owned and or managed ophthalmology groups. We're beginning to see momentum in both areas and hope to see strong demand as additional private practice surgeons as well as the PE groups realize the technological, financial, and operational benefits to Ally that distinguish it from all other competitive systems, having older, slower, and outdated technology. As we highlighted in a press release in July, the adoption of Ally in private equity-owned ophthalmology groups has been steadily increasing as we have completed the installation of multiple Ally systems in five private equity-owned ophthalmology groups. Each of these groups has the potential to add multiple Allies in the future upon benefiting from the system's higher levels of precision, ability to support improved patient outcomes, and practice level efficiency in other sites within these commonly owned and or managed practices. Private equity-owned ophthalmology groups are growing, currently account for about 14% of the total cataract surgery procedures being performed in the United States, making these groups synergistic new partners for Lensar, where we're gaining traction due to the advantageous financial, and outcomes-based value of using the Ally system. Looking more closely at the U.S. market, which remains our primary area of focus in 2023 and into next year, procedure volumes grew 13% compared to the same period last year. To this point, and according to recent data published by MarketScope, Lensar continued to increase market share in the second quarter of 2023, with Lensar systems utilized in an estimated 15.6% of all FLAX procedures during the second quarter of 2023. This marks an increase from the 15% reported in the first quarter, demonstrating consistent growth and adoption, and most importantly, utilization of our technology in the market. Furthermore, we are particularly pleased with the performance of our Ally systems among users who have transitioned from or added to our previous generation LLS technology. Procedure volumes and utilization for these users increased by an impressive 15% over the first half of 2022. This level of growth has exceeded our internal expectations and demonstrates the value that Ally brings to practices in terms of operational efficiencies, yielding better economics for these practices. As a reminder, the US represents the largest premium procedure market in the world and one of significant importance to our company. The feedback we continue to receive from our growing customer base is immensely gratifying, reaffirming the positive impact that Ally is making in the field of femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery and advancing the market for premium cataract surgery procedures overall. Particularly noteworthy are those users who have switched from competitive systems to Ally. To further highlight this point, 50% of our 2023 Ally placements are new surgeons that are recognizing the benefits of Ally and leaving behind the more entrenched legacy competitive systems previously used. We believe Ally's speed, ergonomics, size, open architecture, and ability to communicate with multiple preoperative devices in managing astigmatism provide more versatility, combined with the ability to perform an all sterile procedure are compelling reasons to switch from older generation technology. Ally stands out as a state-of-the-art solution, increasing productivity with faster and more efficient procedures, and provides the necessary features to allow surgeons to not only enhance their workflow, but also improve patient care and outcomes. From a marketing and sales perspective, we continue to target and nurture nearly 160 leads from high volume competitive femtosecond laser users who have expressed interest in the Ally system. These leads are in various stages of our marketing and sales cycle. We're confident that they are more than enough to deliver on our stated 2023 goal of at least 30 systems by year end 2023. The capital equipment market and pacing from lead to close to install can be described as lumpy, more seasonal, and a bit unpredictable timing-wise. Adding complexity with PE-owned and or managed groups can extend the sales cycle timing-wise, but we remain very optimistic that at the end of the day, we will continue to take market share from the older competitive technologies while growing the overall market in femtosecond laser utilization. We are working hard at continuing to increase the interest and pipeline for Ally and have a strong belief that we have the right initiatives in place which are becoming more obvious over time. When you remove South Korea from year-to-date procedure volumes, our worldwide procedure volume has increased 15% year-over-year. We're hopeful this challenge is resolved in 2023 and that this strong contributing region returns to being a sizable piece of our procedure volume in 2024. Lastly, we ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $25.5 million in cash and cash equivalents. Following the successful completion of our May 2023 financing, we believe that Lensar is in a strong and advantageous position to drive forward with our plans for Ally's continued success by increasing our marketing efforts, expanding our sales and distribution networks, and continuing to build strong relationships with our valued customers, distributors, and other partners. Now let me turn the call over to Tom, who will cover our financial highlights for the quarter. Tom?
spk04: Thank you, Nick. Our second quarter 2023 financial results are included in our press release issued earlier this morning, but there are a few significant items for which I'd like to discuss. Revenue was $12 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared to $8 million in the second quarter of 2022, reflecting a 49% increase. As Nick mentioned, the increase was primarily due to increased system sales and increased lease revenue. We had an exceptional quarter for system placements, increasing our installed base approximately 30 units in the last 12 months. This is especially noteworthy as we were limited to 10 Ally units in our controlled launch for the latter half of 2022 and had ceased production of our Gen 1 LLS systems. Furthermore, revenue in the second quarter of 2022 from South Korea was approximately a half million dollars. So we increased revenue approximately $4.5 million or 56% for the second quarter of 2023 when you adjust for lost revenue from South Korea associated with the third party payer reimbursement issues. This issue affects Lensar as well as our competitors that operate in South Korea. and has been an ongoing issue since the third quarter of 2022. In addition, due to the timing of Ally regulatory approval in other regions, we are limited to placing Ally systems in the United States as our primary volume region. So that inherently limits our revenue and growth until Ally is cleared for commercial sale in other significant regions. We are looking forward to being able to sell Ally in the EU in 2024 And to that end, we filed to obtain commercial clearance in September 2022. We are also taking steps to obtain clearance in South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines with our distributors. With that said, the U.S. market is very important to us, and we are extremely pleased with the increase in U.S. procedure volume, which increased approximately 13% when comparing the second quarter of 2023 to 2022. Worldwide procedure volume increased by 6% in the second quarter of 2023 versus 2022, even though procedure volume continued to be negatively impacted by decreased procedure volume from South Korea. In the second quarter of 2023, there were 35,349 procedures sold compared to 33,359 procedures sold in the second quarter of 2022. Gross margin for the quarter was $6.8 million, representing a gross margin of 56%, compared to $4.9 million and 61% realized in the second quarter of 2022. Our gross margin for the second quarter and first half of 2023 is trending a little higher than we anticipated, as we had projected our gross margin to be in the low 50s. Although supply chain issues have created higher inventory costs, and eroded margins somewhat, we are seeing margin benefits associated with Ally whereby, one, Ally system margins are higher than LLS margins, and two, Ally procedure margins are higher than LLS procedure margins. With these benefits and product sales mix being more heavily weighted to Ally, we believe that future quarterly gross margins in 2023 will trend between 50 to 55%. Total operating expenses for the second quarter of 2023 were $9.6 million, compared to $11.7 million in the second quarter of 2022. The decrease in operating expenses was primarily attributable to significantly lower allied development expenses following FDA clearance in the second quarter of 2022, including the inclusion of approximately $1 million of inventory costs charged to R&D that increased R&D costs in the 2022 period. Although we will continue to innovate and invest in Ally research and development, we do not expect our R&D expenditures to fluctuate significantly from the second quarter of 2023 and expect our 2023 annual investment in R&D to approximate $7 million. Net loss for the quarter was $8.8 million, or an 81-cent loss per share, And it increased as compared to the $6.8 million loss and $0.67 loss per share in the second quarter of 2022. Our gap loss for the quarter was significantly impacted by the financing that we completed in May of this year. With this financing, we did, and we will in the future, mark our warrant liability to future market value each quarter as calculated using the Black-Scholes valuation model. This liability will fluctuate quarter to quarter based upon the inputs to the Black-Scholes model, with the company's stock price generally being a very significant variable in that calculation. Due to the variations in stock price and other input assumptions from the completion of the financing to June 30, 2023, we recorded a $6 million charge in the second quarter associated with a value change in the warrant liability. This non-cash charge significantly impacted our loss per share, thereby adding an approximate $0.55 additional loss per share to our $0.26 loss per share, which would have been the quarterly loss per share without this warrant charge. As of June 30, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents of $25.5 million as compared to $14.7 million on December 31, 2022. Cash generated in the quarter ended June 30, 2023, was $17.5 million and was derived from the $19.1 million of net financing proceeds. We believe this financing, as Nick said, significantly strengthens our balance sheet, provides us more liquidity, as well as the ability to expand our commercial operations to enhance Ally's initial success in the marketplace. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the operator, and we look forward to answering your questions.
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Questions will be taken in the order received. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. Your first question is from Ryan Zimmerman from VTIG. Please ask your question.
spk01: Good morning, and thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on a really nice quarter here, guys. Seems like the launch is progressing well. Nick, maybe to start on the launch, I want to understand, you talked about 160 potential leads. just talk to us a little bit about the pipeline process kind of the timelines you expect you know as that pipeline kind of you know narrows to you know contracts out and you know subsequently you know ally orders and kind of how you think about just the conversion rate um you know of that of that dynamic yep all right thanks ryan uh appreciate you um uh taking the time on the call today um so so we we have um
spk02: got some very strong digital marketing initiatives in place and social media initiatives where we're peer to peer. We've also started to institute these visits from an interested practice that's been, let's say, a qualified lead that they're going to be making a decision on a system. We take them to visit various accounts where they can see the ally in action, which helps to sort of condense the sell cycle, if you will. Typical of this type of equipment and the complexity of the sale or replacing a competitive device, the lead process takes about seven months on average. From the time that we make an initial contact to the time that there's a decision and it closes or it doesn't close. And so the more leads we get into the pipeline, and obviously some of those happen much sooner and some of those sort of lengthen from there. I made a comment that the private equity groups kind of increase the complexity as well because now it's not just the surgeon at the site that makes the decision and can pull the trigger to to get the system in place. But now it goes through sort of like the business process. And so the good news is that lots of opportunity there. And the bad news is that the cycle takes a little bit longer. So on average, it's a seven-month cycle, strong digital initiatives in place in nurturing these leads to get them to the point where we, in many cases, set up the call and the meeting for the sales reps then who will go into the account and take it a step further.
spk01: Okay. And, you know, all the disclosures you gave on productivity and the metrics I think are great for investors to understand. I was struck by the comment you made about a 15% increase in, I think it was procedure volume, correct me if I'm wrong, by ally users specifically. But If that's the case, I mean, you know, kind of, and talking with your, you know, Ally user base today, you know, where do you think that can go over time? I mean, do they have more capacity, you know, just off of comparing to the old base, I guess?
spk02: Yeah, so we always thought that ultimately, the volumes on a, let's say, site-for-site basis, Lensar LLS to Lensar Ally, ultimately would increase. And obviously, that's the only metric that we can compare against right now because previous technology or older technology, we come in and we do X number of cases, which may be more than what they were doing before, but we don't have that historical perspective. what we do have is that with the connectivity and with the speed of the device, we're measuring in several of these groups where we're measuring flow, efficiency, and time. We're doing these time studies, and so the time savings you'll start to see range between like three minutes and ten minutes, depending on what kind of of flow that the practice is using today. And we've seen more doctors' willingness to change their flow and move it into the operating room because of the ergonomics and the small size, which then really increases the sort of the throughput. And so we've been able to save an hour to two hours a day of a typical surgical day So that if there's a backlog, I can cite several different sites where we've taken backlogs from four months to two months, which is really good for the practice. And so we've cut the backlogs in half already with an ally. And in one of those sites, we just added a second ally. And so I would think that would continue to improve. And then they're going to be able to continue to increase their volume, if you will. and and then seeing the additional cases on on on uh you know people who are are switching from their competitive devices so where can that go um on average you know like like best practices could convert over 50 of their total volume to uh premium cases and and i think that we'll see it continue to trend that way you know other practices that are high volume practices are are much lower rates and of course you've got your more boutique practices which are in the 70 to 90 percent some are 100 but on average um the best practices when they say best practices i don't mean the best medical practices i mean the best putting best practices in place in terms of how they handle patients is in the neighborhood of between 50 and 60% on, on a, on a high volume practice. And so there's some significant upside there. Um, you know, when you look at, when you look at the, at the, at the, um, the market in general on premiums, which is including Torex and, and, uh, multifocals at what, 15%, 17% of the market.
spk01: Right. Right. Yeah, no, no question about that. So, uh, maybe turn to Tom for a couple of financial questions. I'm going to keep rolling here if that's okay. Number one, you know, you guys have previously stated, I think you haven't given formal guidance, but you said revenue can grow at least 20%, I believe, for the year. I just want to see kind of where you stand on that. I didn't hear that in your comments. And then, you know, second question, heard you on the margins for this year. You know, as the allied base steps up and consumables and procedures pick up, Just your thoughts on kind of longer-term margin trends. And then the last question, sorry, I'm hitting me with a few, Tom. How are you putting the recent cash infusion to work? Thanks for taking the questions, guys.
spk04: Thanks for the questions, Ryan, and your statement at the beginning was right, which was a really great quarter for us. In regards to revenue guidance, in Nick's remarks, you know it's very hard to predict uh you know when pe practices and when doctors are going to actually pull the trigger even with the technology what we have given is we said that we were going to place at least 30 systems and you see that year to date we've placed 18. so that gives you a little historical benchmark going forward as well as the guidance that we have given in regards to revenue and you know We do know that the placements and revenue are trending up, but we haven't given a formal percentage. In regards to your margin trends, you're exactly right. With our razor, razor blade model and the procedures, obviously they garner a much higher margin than the actual sale or lease of the laser and to the tune of more than 2X. so the more successful we are in placements the more there is a drag on um on on the margins however you know i do think that going forward uh that 50 to 55 percent will continue to increase and we certainly see it going into the 60s and it really depends on the saturation of um of lasers into the U.S. and, more importantly, outside the United States when we get clearance approval such that we can do that. And I'm sorry, Ryan. I might have forgotten your third question.
spk01: Yes. No problem. I threw a lot at you. I apologize. Just how you're putting the recent cash infusion to work. Where do we expect to see, you know, increases in spend, and how are you utilizing that cash?
spk02: So, Ryan, I can answer some of that. We are definitely looking to scale up the field organization, and so we're looking in several areas. Our digital marketing efforts, where we sort of have inside sales and contact with customers, is working well for us. And so I would think we would see some expansion in that regard. in the field as it relates to field service and and our application specialists in training and in sales where Will will continue to add some sales reps and then on the business development side Since we are so versatile on the astigmatism management side and the connectivity a lot and we're bringing on more and more competitive users and I think instituting solid astigmatism management programs and patient education at the practice level will be other areas that you'll see us growing in order to support the growing number of procedures.
spk04: And Ryan, you've been following us for a while. We've been talking about financing for some time. And with supply chain and the pandemic, we kind of delayed With the $19, $20 million that we brought in in May, that really allows us to invest in the commercial organization, invest in inventory to make sure that we have continuous supply. And you see that our inventory balances have gone up significantly. That's by design. It probably is exacerbated a little bit just because of supply chain and making sure that we have the ability to keep our production to meet demand. to meet demand in the marketplace, especially when we get approvals outside the United States. So, you know, now we're financed and we're going to make those investments that we've been talking about and potentially delayed a little bit or have already made some of those in regards to our inventory.
spk01: I appreciate the color. Congrats on a really nice quarter, guys.
spk04: Thanks, Ryan.
spk00: Thank you. If there are no further questions at this time, I will now hand the call over back to Nick for closing remarks.
spk02: Thank you. Thank you all for joining our call today and obviously your continued interest in LNZAR. We're really excited about what we're doing and we look forward to continuing to update you as we make further progress in the exciting remainder of 2023. Thanks for joining the call today.
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining me. You may all disconnect.
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