Dan Gladney
Analyst · Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is now open
Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had a very productive third quarter in which we meaningfully moved our platform forward and executed on the strategy to build our organization into a full scale obesity company. As many of you know, we recently announced the acquisition of ReShape Medical, and subsequently the change of our company name from EnteroMedics to ReShape Lifesciences. This acquisition represents not only the combination of our stated strategic goal of product expansion but it also shows the strength of our team to execute and deliver on our promises. We believe that our new name, ReShape Lifesciences, reflects the company we have grown into and our vision as we move forward as a comprehensive provider of solutions, the obesity continuum of care. On today's call, I will talk in more detail about the direction of ReShape Lifesciences and our strategy, inclusive of our expanded product offering and company integration, and then we'll provide an update on commercial and clinical areas and on our third quarter results. Scott will then provide more detail on our financials. Finally, I will wrap up and then we will look forward to taking your questions. As we discussed over the past several quarters, the strategic focus of EnteroMedics has been to offer a full suite of transformative technologies for obesity. With the acquisition of ReShape Medical, we now have two FDA approved products on the market and a third exciting product about the Enter IDE and CE studies. And as we look at the body mass index, or BMI, our products can serve patients across the spectrum. From our ReShape balloons for patients with BMI between 30 and 40, to the vBloc therapy for patients with BMI between 35 and 45, and finally, our gastric vest which is intended for morbidly obese patients with BMI of 40 and above. With the product portfolio that has been built over the past six months through our acquisitions of BarioSurg and ReShape, which now includes over 110 issued patents and the transition from a one product company to a full scale provider of medical devices for obesity, a fresh new name that better reflects our mission and value proposition was called for. Our team concluded that keeping ReShape in the company name was important, because not only does it have name recognition and established equity, as a patient of friendly solution but the name accurately represents the company and the underlying goal of our technologies. We also felt that the word life sciences plays into obesity as a lifelong disease and the fact that we as a company are committed to our patients and their care for the long-term, and so ReShape Lifesciences was born, and I could not be more excited for our future. For those of you who are less familiar with the ReShape balloon technology, it is a non-surgical removable dual weight loss balloon that is approved for people with a body mass index between 30 and 40, with one or more related co-morbid conditions, who have failed previous attempts to lose weight through diet and exercise. The ReShape balloon which is differentiated by its interconnected dual balloon configuration is designed to improve comfort by confirming to the natural shape of the stomach. The dual balloon has more potential fill volume; takes up more stomach space in the stomach compared to other products on the market which aid in patient's weight loss. Studies have shown fewer early retrievals due to intolerance of ReShape versus other sailing balloons, as well as shorter duration of negative symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. The ReShape balloon, which is the only inter-gastric balloon design to increase safety by mitigating the potential for migration is inserted through the mouth endoscopically during a 20-minute outpatient procedure with no incisions and no scars. As you may know, more than one in three adults in the United States are considered obese, yet currently only approximately 200,000 surgeries a year are done to address obesity in the United States. This implies a surgical penetration of less than 1% of the obese population. Clearly, there is a market need that is not being meet and there is a significant obesity treatment gap between medical management and the current surgical standards-of-care for treatment, bariatric surgery, which is invasive, complex and has multiple associated complications. And having just come off Obesity Week, which is the largest national conference focused on obesity, it became even clear to us that this market need exist. In addition to a strong presence that included three presentations on ReShape products, our booth was one of the busiest on the convention floor. Interest is high and the market is looking for new minimally invasive durable solutions. With the acquisition of ReShape Medical, we now have another product to help fill the treatment gap. The addition of the ReShape balloon expands our addressable market, both in terms of patient profile and price point and complements our existing vBloc and recently acquired Gastric Vest technologies. We can now offer to bariatric surgeons and GI specialists a tool box of patient-friendly transformative alternatives to traditional bariatric surgery to offer better outcomes and to reduce cost to the healthcare system. With the building blocks in place and having delivered on our goal of adding technologies to address different market segments within obesity, our internal focus is on customer acquisition, operational execution and market expansion. I have strong confidence in our products and in the team that we have in place to execute and expand the footprint of ReShape Lifesciences. We began recognizing ReShape revenues at the beginning of our fourth quarter and plan to build on the organizations established sales relationship as we integrate our teams and work together to maximize value for our patients, customers and shareholders. Turning to the integration; we're off to a strong start and have initiated focused integration efforts with highly engaged team members for both, EnteroMedics and ReShape, working towards a common vision. As we refine our commercialization strategy, we are retaining ReShape's dedicated sales team and combining it with our sales force under common leadership while ensuring steady focus on vBloc and ReShape. And we believe we have the right leadership team and structure in place to set us up for success. In sales, we are putting into place a very deliberate strategy that groups our team into three strategic areas of focus. Sales to the Veterans Administrations Hospitals, which as you know are pivotal relationship for vBloc. Sales into international markets and all non-VA hospital sales are products within the United States. We are incredibly excited about the operational and potential revenue synergies of our ReShape and EnteroMedic sales organizations. With similar call points and customer education requirements, we expect cross-selling opportunities to benefit sales of both, ReShape and vBloc products. As we head into 2018, we will have a team of 14 sales reps, an increase of about 40% from the ReShape team at the time of the acquisition, and we expect to grow the team to 16 in early 2018. Our direct sales representatives will be complemented by seven clinical field trainers and three field marketing managers. The marketing teams at ReShape and EnteroMedics are also very synergistic with similar existing structures and marketing programs in place which are being cross-trained to handle all customer leads. Both organizations utilize direct-to-consumer marketing for products that are currently not reimbursed and therefore the marketing strategies are very different and very much in sync with the integration and has been smooth and straightforward so far. From a cost saving standpoint, we expect to recognize synergies in marketing and G&A, as well as back office operations as we evaluate and develop plans to leverage resources and infrastructure. Scott will provide more details on synergies, as well as costs associated with the acquisition later in the call. Finally, while we will maintain a satellite office in Minnesota, we are excited to be moving our corporate headquarters to the ReShape offices in San Clemente, California. The team at ReShape Medical has been commercializing product for almost two years with a reputable experienced sales force and in-house manufacturing capabilities. With these already established pillars of commercialization, the move to ReShape Medical's existing headquarters made operational sense and affords us additional cost saving opportunities as we continue to integrate our two exciting organizations. On the clinical front as you know, we have several ongoing studies to support marketing and reimbursement of vBloc. First, is a 60-patient Type 2 Diabetes study that is being done in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente; the goal of which is to validate vBloc therapy for the treatment and possible prevention of Type 2 Diabetes in moderate to morbidly obese patients. The second study is our FDA post-approval renew study that was kicked off in September. As a reminder, this five-year multi-center study will evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of the vBloc system for weight loss in obese patients in a real world clinical setting. While both of these studies continue to move forward and interests are strong, an enrollment was put on temporarily on hold during the quarter due to an issue at our sterilization supplier. The supplier's inability to sterilize our products led to a short-term inventory shortage of vBloc units and subsequently enrollment in our trials was on-hold for approximately three months. The supplier has resolved the issue and we are currently preparing to resume shipping units. Turning to the Gastric Vest, we plan to kick-off the CE Mark study for this product in early 2018. We are currently in discussions with the CE authority on study design and the number of patients. As previously announced, we do already have approval from the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality in Spain, and are in the process of evaluating additional sites in Europe. Additionally, we are finalizing protocol development for our IDE study for the Gastric Vest in the United States and expect to initiate our formal discussions with the FDA in the first quarter of 2018. Now turning to our third quarter performance; our underlying business is showing solid traction. We are seeing strong interest in our vBloc Now program, our company's subsidized program that we believe will provide us with real world published data on vBloc to support reimbursement. While this program was also impacted by our inventory issue, we were able to implement 22 vBloc Now units during the third quarter bringing total vBloc Now implants to 58 with a strong backlog of demand. With our supply situation now resolved, we expect our two implanting vBloc Now centers will be able to meet pent-up demand and get our product back on-track. Our goal to implant 125 to 150 patients remains intact, and we believe we will achieve this by the end of the first quarter of 2018. Our third quarter revenue totaled $360,000 comprised of $110,000 in revenue from vBloc and $250,000 related to our previously announced partnership with Galvani. Including the 22 vBloc Now units, we implanted a total of 30 vBloc devices in the third quarter of 2017 compared to 22 units in the third quarter of 2016. Finally, we were excited to complete $20 million financing early in the third quarter and our cash position remains strong with $23.4 million on the balance sheet at the end of the third quarter. Please note, that this cash balance does not reflect a $5 million cash consideration related to the ReShape Medical acquisition in early October. Before handing the call over to Scott, I wanted to reiterate three key points. One, with our recent successes in executing our strata strategic goals we have grown from a single-product company to a full-scale medical device company with multiple technological solutions that address the obesity continuum of care. Two, as we focus on execution, we intend to leverage our footprint, market expertise and commercial infrastructure which we believe will help both expand the market and accelerate our topline growth. And three, we will leverage our intellectual property footprint with strategic opportunities. I will now turn the call over to Scott Youngstrom, our CFO, to provide more details on our financial results. Scott?