Earnings Labs

ClearPoint Neuro, Inc. (CLPT)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 5, 2015

$11.02

-1.69%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the MRI Interventions Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Call Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. It is my pleasure to introduce your host Oscar Thomas, Vice President of Business Affairs for MRI Interventions. Thank you Mr. Thomas, you may begin.

Oscar Thomas

Analyst

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. With me are Frank Grillo, our CEO, and David Carlson, our CFO, Before we begin, I want to point out that some statements we make during today’s call will be forward-looking statements. Any statements we make today whether in our prepared remarks or in our response to questions that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that, to different degrees, are uncertain and involve risks and they are made based on current beliefs of MRI Interventions’ management. Uncertainties and risks may cause our actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements we make today. Detailed information regarding the risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results and the timing of events are described in the Risk Factors section of the Form 10-Q that we filed with the SEC on November 14, 2014 as well as the Form 10-K we will be filing with the SEC later this month. You can find our SEC filings in the Investors Section of our website at mriinterventions.com. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Frank.

Frank Grillo

Analyst

Thanks, Oscar. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for our 2014 Q4 and full year earnings call. On behalf of the management team and employees of MRI Interventions we appreciate your interest in our company. And for those of you who are shareholders thank you for your support. We’re honored to be working for you in building this great company and we’re product of the care patients are now receiving as a result of the continued adoption of our products and technology. We’re making progress in focusing our company and we will share our progress with you today. However I will first turn the call over to David Carlson, our CFO, to walk you through our fourth quarter and full year numbers. David?

David Carlson

Analyst

Thanks, Frank. I will first cover the results for the quarter and then we will talk about our full year results. Disposable product revenues were 704,000 in Q4 of 2014 compared with 561,000 in the fourth quarter of 2013 representing growth of 25%. During the quarter we recognized 219,000 in product revenue related to our ClearPoint capital products compared to 546,000 for the same period in 2013. Due to the nature of capital product sales ClearPoint capital product revenues and vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter, other service revenues related to mostly to ClearPoint service agreements and installation services were 37,000 in Q4 of 2014 and 54,000 for the same period in 2013. Total product and other service revenues for the quarter 960,000 compared with 1.2 million in Q4 of 2013 with the decline relating solely to ClearPoint's capital product sales. Development service revenues of 16,000 related to contract product development were earned during Q4 of 2013 and no such revenues were recorded during the fourth quarter of 2014. The decrease reflects the completion of a development project the company performed on a contract basis. The company does not expect development services to be an ongoing source of revenues. Cost of product revenues was 684,000 for Q4 of 2014 compared to 534,000 for the same period in 2013. I will talk more about changes in cost of product revenues when I discuss the results for the full year. Research and development cost were 708,000 in Q4, 2014 compared to 684,000 for the same period of 2013. Selling, general and administrative expenses were 2.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to 2 million for Q4 2013. Net other income was 1.1 million for Q4, 2014 compared to 485,000 for the same period in 2013. Net interest expense was 293,000 for Q4…

Frank Grillo

Analyst

Thanks, David. I’ve been at MRI for five months now including two as CEO. I'm excited about the company and I like what I see happening in our markets. I'm pleased with where we’re headed. On this call I want to share with you what I’ve learned over the last five months the opportunities we’re pursuing, the challenges we face and our plans for building significant value in our company. We have made progress over the last five months and we are preparing to do much more. Although my tenure as CEO did not begin until January 1 of this year, I would like to begin by giving you a few comments on the company’s results from the 2014 calendar year as well as the fourth quarter. We saw meaningful growth in revenue from the sale of disposable products in 2014 versus 2013 growing 46% from 1.8 million to 2.6 million. Disposable product sales is our most important metric. Revenue from the sale of capital equipment is important but capital sales are lumpy and they take time. The ClearPoint placement program which we began several quarters ago has been an effective tool in growing the ClearPoint footprint and it will continue to be an important component going forward. We ended 2014 with a total of 38 sites including many of the top academic medical centers in neurosurgery which provides us with a solid base for moving forward into the New Year. Surgeons at these medical centers are utilizing our technology in more procedures and applications than ever before. ClearPoint is now being used to deliver therapies for patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, Dystonia, Epilepsy, and brain tumors among others. Neurosurgeons are using ClearPoint to enable DBS electrode placement, laser ablation of epileptic foci and brain tumors and direct delivery of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Tracy Marshbanks with First Analysis. Please proceed with your question.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

Couple of questions really focusing more on the sales force and the additional training and as you pointed out last quarter one of your key metrics was increasing utilization. Could you just take me through maybe the focus of the training, were there particular elements in gaps that the new training and the launch focused on and what type of metrics are you looking at on the utilization -- what might be achievable versus where you sit?

Frank Grillo

Analyst

So first let me hit the training side of your question. when I came into the company and really through I would say mid-2014, the company was very focused on electrode placement and our folks in the field were fairly comfortable with both that procedure but also the value proposition, how to speak to doctors about it, how to speak to hospitals and radiology about it. But what we have seen over the last six months is growing interest in a few other applications particularly laser ablation and biopsy. There are quite a few subtle differences between these procedures and how our technology is utilized in them and that’s been the focus of a lot of our training to make sure that our sales and clinical people can speak and assist in the -- with their surgeons in these procedures. So that’s really been the focus of our training is to make sure all our folks are up to speed on multiple procedures. As far as utilization, yes that is definitely an area that we’re focused on and we’re already seeing few accounts where they have expanded beyond just their DBS application and other accounts that are actually driven by non-DBS procedures. So that’s something we’re very focused on going forward.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

And on utilization it's really more adding procedures versus going deeper and getting all the DBS aside or is it a sort of a mixed bag?

Frank Grillo

Analyst

You know it's probably a mix bag and there is couple of ways you go about that, if a surgeon is a doing multiple types of procedures, a single surgeon it actually begins to happen fairly naturally where they see the advantages of ClearPoint on one procedure and they start using it on another. For given accounts there might be different surgeons who do different procedures that can benefit from ClearPoint, we’re really working with our sales team to learn how to essentially sell horizontally within an account and show the value of ClearPoint to additional surgeons within the account.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

And historically I think you’ve had fairly strong economic rationale for adoption of your technology but maybe on the strategic front, you weren't viewed was strategic or have to have given your background and given your time at the company. What are your thoughts on getting there and the elements you need to get in place to get there if you think you can.

Frank Grillo

Analyst

Well it's an interesting perspective, I think the economics of the system are good. I think for an accounts, if an account is doing a small number of ClearPoint procedures per quarter you’re right, we will not end up in the strategic must have column for that account. But it relates right back to this whole utilization discussion. If an account starts to use ClearPoint in 3 to 4 procedures a month and then they add a different application that adds another 3 to 4 procedures per month and then they add another application that adds a couple more, suddenly you’re upto 10 or 15 procedures a month and you become a strategic need for that account. So this utilization thing that we have talked about and growing utilization within a given account relates exactly to your question on how we become more strategic to an account.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

Okay. A little bit more just on the financial side, in the transition, maybe David, how do you expect that to sort of flow through the P&L one charges coming and any cash usage -- what do you think your cash burn during the year might be and then on the personnel front, any people that you’re losing that you have to replace as you consolidated?

David Carlson

Analyst

So in terms of the transition itself as Frank mentioned in his comments, we would look to see an overall net reduction in our SG&A cost as a result of that with a reduction in facility cost and would also look to have a net reduction in people cost. We would plan in our first quarter call to talk in some more detail about quantifying what that impact would be on our burn-rate overtime and also what the -- any restructuring charges might be.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

Maybe did you expected in 2015 to be positive to cash?

David Carlson

Analyst

We really haven't given guidance on revenues or the date at which we would expect it to be cash flow positive. So we’re just not in a position to comment on that at this point.

Tracy Marshbanks

Analyst

I was just talking about the move. Do you think the move is positive or negative to cash for the year?

David Carlson

Analyst

Yes, I would look for that move to have a net positive impact over the next 12 months.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Gentlemen, there appear to be no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Frank Grillo

Analyst

Okay. Thank you for joining us for this call. We’re excited about the future we have and we certainly appreciate the interest of those of you who have joined the call. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.