Earnings Labs

HeartBeam, Inc. (BEAT)

Q2 2008 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 22, 2008

$0.88

-0.07%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and thank you for joining us for the CardioNet Second Quarter 2008 Earnings Conference Call. Certain statements during the conference call and question and answer period to follow may relate to future events and expectations, and as such, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities and Litigation Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the company in the future to be materially different than the statements that the company’s executives may make today. These risks are described in detail in public filings within the Securities and Exchange Commission including our latest periodic report on Form 10-K or 10-Q. We assume no duty to update these statements. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be opened for questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Arie Cohen.

Arie Cohen

Management

Good morning and welcome everyone to today’s call. This is our second quarterly earnings conference call as a public company following our initial public offering on the NASDAQ on March 18, 2008. The agenda for today’s call is to review our results for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, as well as the business development of CardioNet since our last earnings call in late April. As many of you know, I joined CardioNet as CEO in November 2007. Prior to CardioNet, I was at VIASYS Healthcare. I feel privileged to welcome another of my former VIASYS colleagues, Randy Thurman, to the CardioNet team. You may have seen our press release announcing Randy Thurman as joining CardioNet as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. Randy will be an invaluable resource as we continue to build upon CardioNet’s leadership in arrhythmia monitoring and using our proprietary wireless medicine platform. Randy has a proven track record of building world class healthcare organizations with strong corporate governance and creating significant shareholder value. Before we begin the quarterly review, I would like to turn the call over to Randy to say a few words.

Randy Thurman

Management

Let me provide a little bit of background in terms of what I have done prior to CardioNet and then speak to why I joined CardioNet. As Arie alluded to, prior to joining CardioNet I was Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of VIASYS Healthcare and was the creator of the company going back to 2000 and 2001. As many of you probably know, VIASYS Healthcare was acquired by Cardinal Healthcare about one year ago. The company was public, VIASYS that is, for about 5-1/2 years during which time we more than quadrupled the enterprise value of the company and we were named by Smart Money Magazine as one of the 10 best investments of the decade. So, we’re all very proud of what was accomplished at VIASYS Healthcare and certainly our shareholders fared extremely well in that experience. Prior to VIASYS Healthcare, I was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Corning Life Sciences, which spun off both Quest Diagnostics and Covance, and for those of you who may have been involved during that period of time, you’ll know that substantial shareholder value was created for the Corning shareholders by those two transactions. Prior to that, I was President of Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals Inc., from the early 80s through the early 90s, and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer posted one of the highest returns on shareholder equity in the entire pharmaceutical industry. I have, as you can tell, devoted my entire career to building healthcare companies that focus on improving the quality of human life and have created exceptional shareholder value in doing so. Following the sale of VIASYS to Cardinal, I evaluated a significant number of opportunities, and concluded that there were few if any that had the potential both in serving the quality of human life or in creating…

Arie Cohen

Management

Also, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Jim Sweeney. As many of you know, Jim founded CardioNet in 1999 and served as the company’s CEO until my arrival in November, and as Executive Chairman until Randy’s arrival in early July. Jim assisted the company in raising over $250 million in capital since its inception and building the business to completion of a successful IPO. Jim’s leadership has been instrumental in developing the CardioNet technology and business strategy. We wish Jim all the best in his new endeavors. Now, onto the quarter. Martin Galvan, CardioNet’s CFO, will be speaking in a few moments to provide you the detailed financial highlights of our second quarter 2008, but I would like to just spend a few moments reviewing some of the recent business developments at CardioNet. I am very happy to report that for the second quarter in a row CardioNet is ahead of the analyst expectations both on the top-line where we reported 68% year over year revenue growth and on the bottom-line where we are $0.01 ahead of consensus EPS estimates. I remain very excited about our company’s recent progress and our prospects for continuous growth. As you know, CardioNet’s primary near-term focus is on cardiac arrhythmia monitoring and diagnosis. Four million Americans are affected by cardiac arrhythmias, 750,000 of which are hospitalized annually. The national average charge for a hospital admission for cardiac arrhythmias is over $26,000. Approximately 1.5 million event monitor sessions and over 2 million Holter monitoring sessions are conducted every year. These traditional technologies have suffered for one or more drawbacks including the inability to detect asymptomatic events, failure to provide real-time data, memory constraints, the need for significant patient involvement, and the inability to measure patient compliance. Our mission is to replace event…

Martin P. Galvan

Management

Now that Arie has provided you with an update on our operations, I will review our second quarter and first half 2008 financial results and will be discussing some of the key drivers that have contributed to these results. Before getting into the financials, I would like to comment that today CardioNet filed the registration statement related to a 4.7 million share underwritten equity offering of our common stock with Citi as sole book-runner. It’s important to note that we will not be receiving any proceeds from this transaction as the offering will be comprised entirely of selling shareholders who were investors prior to the IPO. For further details, I would refer you to the press release that we issued earlier today and the registration statement filed with the SEC. Now, with respect to my financial commentary, please keep in mind that unless mentioned otherwise, all of my comments will refer to financial results on a non-GAAP basis. There is a reconciliation included in the press released that we issued earlier today that describes in detail how we have calculated these non-GAAP figures. In the second quarter, revenue increased by 68% to $29.3 million compared to $17.4 million in the second quarter of 2007. Driving the growth were sales of the CardioNet System with $24.3 million in revenue, up from $11.6 million in the second quarter of 2007 or an increase of 109%. This increase was offset by decreases in event and Holter revenue. CardioNet System revenue in the second quarter accounted for 83% of our revenue compared to 79% in the first quarter of 2008 and 67% of revenue in the second quarter of last year. For the first half comparison, if you adjust the prior year as if the PDSHeart acquisition was completed as of January 1, 2007,…

Arie Cohen

Management

Thank you Marty. We remain very encouraged by the positive results in our second quarter. In closing, we have a clear vision for growth, we will continue to focus on the $2 billion market opportunity, and increase market penetration beyond the current 6% level. In parallel, we will evaluate additional growth opportunities to leverage our wireless medicine platform into our application and new markets. After joining as the CEO in November 2007, one of my top priorities was to build a high-performance management team. Over the last seven months, we have hired a VP of Sales and Marketing, a VP of Business Operations, a VP of R&D, and VP of Human Resources. I am pleased to say that my senior management team is now largely in place. I am convinced that this management team has a unique combination of deep experience and entrepreneurial spirit that would help CardioNet reach its full potential, and most importantly, build value for our shareholders. Now, I will open the call for question and answers.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Stephen Harper with Thomas Weisel Partners. Please proceed.

Stephen Harper

Analyst

On the number of sales reps that you indicated; 83, was that an end-of-period number?

Arie Cohen

Management

Yes Steve. That was the end-of-period number. We have 85 territories and as of today we have 83 numbers, two openings obviously; and again, that’s a substantial increase over the end of Q1.

Stephen Harper

Analyst

Right. So in your planning for the second half of the year, is there an expectation that that 83 goes higher in addition to filling those two slots that you have open.

Arie Cohen

Management

Yes Steve. We are growing and we are looking and hiring. The plan is probably we will reach to the 89 level and then probably beyond as we move forward. When we look at opportunities, we will increase the number of territories, but definitely we will grow it to the 89 level.

Stephen Harper

Analyst

And do you feel comfortable in terms of how some of the newly hired sales reps have ramped up?

Arie Cohen

Management

Yes. It has been an excellent progress. We have a profile that we’re looking for in our new reps and we are monitoring their performance very closely. So I think everything is moving very positively on that end.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) There are no further questions in queue at this time.

Arie Cohen

Management

Before we close the conference call, I would like to say thanks to all of you for spending time with us this morning, and we appreciate your interest and continuing support. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. And if you joined the conference late today, you may listen to the conference on digital replay which will be available from July 22 to August 5, 2008, on 888-286-8010 or 617-801-6888 with pass code 619 506 13. Again, thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect. Have a great day.