Earnings Labs

IRIDEX Corporation (IRIX)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Sun, Aug 9, 2015

$1.04

-3.70%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the IRIDEX Corporation 2015 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It’s now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Will Moore, Please go ahead Mr. Moore.

Will Moore

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us as w discuss the results of second quarter of 2015. My name is Will Moore, I am the CEO of IRIDEX and I am joined by Jim Mackaness, our CFO and COO. Jim and I will be delivering some prepared remarks and then we will open the floor for questions. Before we get started Susan Bruce will read the required Safe Harbor statement. Susan?

Susan Bruce

Analyst

Thank you, Will. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934, as amended, relating to the effective currency exchange rates and other global and domestic market conditions; on the company’s business. The products mix composing sales on future periods demand for the company’s products and market acceptance of the company’s new products, the timing and outcome of any steps that the company may take to address supply chain issues, the launch date and adoption of the company’s iClip Closure Device, the adoption, continued development, pricing model and contribution to earnings in future periods of the company’s Cyclo G6 product platform, the impact of these and other new products on the company’s business, trends in the global healthcare marketplace with respect to the treatment of eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema and glaucoma, the company’s growth strategy and growth opportunities including acquisitions, technology investments and strategic relationships, pricing of the company’s products, the company’s operating expense controls and cost reduction programs, and the impact of these controls and program’s on the company’s financial results, the company’s changes in personnel, the company’s share repurchase program, the company’s financial outlook and performance in the second quarter of 2015, fiscal year 2015 and future periods; changes in the company’s margins in future periods regulatory developments and approval for company products and the impact of sales cycles; tax rates and cash requirements related to tax obligations in future periods and other industry like factors affecting the company’s business. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors. Please see a detailed description of these and other risks contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2015, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this conference call are made as of this date and will not be updated. I will now turn the call back over to Will.

Will Moore

Analyst

Thank you, Susan. I would like to begin today with an update on our revenue pre announcement. If you did not see the announcement a few weeks ago, we notify the investors that IRIDEX felt the need to delay or halt a number of distributor shipments due to dislocation in the supply chain cause by some quality issues. I will make two general points in addition to what was in the announcement and we will be happy to answer question in this topic later on in the call. First, the causing a disruption in quarter two revenues, were not on the demand side, I want to make that very clear. The demand for our product to remain robust and in fact the buzz around our recently introduced laser system for the treatment of glaucoma continues strong and is very encouraging. Second, there is no safety issue, our lasers and all of our ophthalmology devices are built for safety and that has not changed. I would characterize the issue we faced in the second quarter as straightforward growing pace. IRIDEX success with MicroPulse has taken us from a company generating around $8 million per quarter to a company generating $11 million plus per quarter. It’s our decision to slow things down in the second quarter we had delivered 10 successive quarters of record revenues. It is not an excuse, and we ought to do, and will do better. I am pleased to say we have identified the causes of the issues that arose and are well into the process of taking corrective actions. The issues include an RFID antenna, a software glitch and a small motor malfunction. We see fixing these items as a short-term production issue in terms of internal controls and making sure we avoid these issues in the…

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

Thanks Will. As we noted in our press release and in Will’s comments, our revenues to Q2 2015 were $9 million compared to $10.6 million in the Q2 2014. Overall, system sales in Q2 2015 were $4.3 million compared to $5.8 million in Q2 2014. Domestic system sales were $2.2 million compared to $2.9 million in the second quarter of last year. While international system sales were $2.1 million down from $2.9 million in the 2014 second quarter. The shipment delays we noted in our preannouncement impacted overall revenue with international distributor shipments particularly impacted due to our decision to slow the business down until we had resolved the production challenges as we experienced. The international system sales also continue to be impacted by the movement in exchange rates although to a lesser extent than we reported last quarter. Recurring revenues were $4.8 million in Q2 2015 consistent with recurring revenues of $4.8 million in the year earlier period. The launch of the Cyclo G6 system had a positive impact on this year’s second quarter recurring revenues and we expect this to continue as we build on the momentum and carry on with the stage rollout. Gross margins in the 2015 second quarter came in at 46.7% compared to 50.0% for Q2 2014. Margins were impacted by the lower overall revenues during the quarter and reflect the challenges we faced and with the foreign-currency movement creating some downward pressure on international system prices. We see opportunities for margin improvements during the second half of this year through volume efficiencies with anticipated revenue increases and anticipated increases in consumables sales associated with the launch of the Cyclo G6 system. Initially, we launched the Cyclo G6 system with a very disruptive pricing model with the thought of accepting some gross margin compression…

Will Moore

Analyst

Thank you, Jim. I would like to conclude by reiterating that the chance that rose in the second quarter and our response that will take us through the third quarter have nothing to do with demand of our products. We are disappointed that we had to break our string of ten successive record revenue quarters, unfortunately, we are not seeing competitors take business away from us. Demand remains strong and we continue to see a growing rate of orders. That said, we are in no way taking anything for granted and know we need to maintain our track record of the highest quality and dependability in the field. We have identified the specific issues that effected our production and are only a short term away from winning back to 100%. We continue to make inroads with our value based management approach from emerging markets which is additive to our growth in the U.S. We continue to develop new products and product platforms like the Cyclo G6 that show a huge potential in the growing glaucoma marketplace. Our products are a natural fit for this market and we are focused on capturing a large part of it. As we continue to build a recurring revenue stream, there will be removed dopiness from our results. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session [Operator Instruction] Our first question comes from the line of Sam Bergman with Bayberry Asset Management. Please proceed with your question.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Good afternoon Will or Jim and best of luck Jim on your new indebtedness.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

Thank you, Sam.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Well couple of questions, on the product issue, can you tell you how you cited the issues at the end are going to be fixed and how do we know those issues won’t come up in the future, what you do have for protection against all those issues?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Well first thing we had is our Vice President of Operations formed a steering committee to identify the one issues that came up, we categorize them and then we begin to attack them. We have hired two new individuals one of which is an RFID expert and within a very short period of time we discovered what the problem was on the RFID antenna issue and that’s really not a scientific issue, it’s simply that the antenna and the tags must work in harmony and when their peak performance values drift a little bit, you know, it’s kind of like a cell phone if you will, you start to lose package you lost communication, and Howard [ph] the new gentleman discovered that, went back to the vendor and they tightened up the speck and that’s what we are seeing improvements there. In regards to software things, that this is just working a way through that you find a little bug and you go back and you deal with it and the last one I would say the malfunction on the motor, that was simply a using trimp pods that with for some reason we are drifting shipment, we can change that to fix resistors and then put this back in place. I don’t think these specific problems will arise again but again any manufacturer can have little glitch here and there but I think the big piece is procedures and policies have been put in place to prevent us from letting those kind of vendor issues drift and cause us some problem in the supply chain.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Okay, got…

A - Will Moore

Analyst

No, no go ahead.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

So going through all these the ten quarters that you had all this growth, none of these quality issues arose at all at that point or at any point during the ten quarters, I am just wondering who was the IM, on the ball to have those happen, I mean this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, you had all those issues in one quarter?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

I think it’s like the perfect storm and I don’t think we really took the eye off the ball in that regard, Sam. My interest is fixing the problem and solving it and then putting corrective action in place. I will give you some examples of what is going to happen. You have a vendor shipping you something on a regular basis for years and it just drift a little bit out of spec, okay you catch it, you solve it, it drifts a little bit, we don’t catch and that is what it happens. But the problem that happened, we have issues and we’ve had since the day I have been here little problems that come and go, you never know about them. Okay, but what happened approximately six weeks ago as we watch the what I will call it the complaint ratio go from the 2% to 3% range jumped overnight and all that means is something got in the production line and there was a problem and that’s when we said, hold back, let’s identify it, let’s fix it and deal with it and that’s what was done.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Okay, going to the second feat, let me ask you that product line, the G6, how many modules do you have of that now?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Well, we delivered through the quarter 25 to new customers, these are not our investigative customers, these are new customers and we put our demos in the U.S., the U.S. sales force now is totally outfitted with demos, we have revenue up 25 and demos has another, I would say 18 or something of that nature as we’ve got somewhat in the independence. There is nothing outside the U.S. on that product at this point in time.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

How much of a market is there outside the U.S. at this, I mean even though you haven’t put any out there?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

A general rule of thumb in the medical device business you look outside the U.S. and you say its equivalent to the U.S. market.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

So, if you look at what you do with your other products it seems like the ratio of 60:40 or 55:45 overseas U.S. when should we expect some overseas in terms of alliances with the partners to bring that product there?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Well, I think that has more to do with our ops department, every time you bring out a brand new product you are going to run into little glitches or bugs when you start, so as Ron, our VP of OPs goes through this, he will give me the green light that says, we can produce – going from 20 or 30 a month to a 100 is relatively straightforward but going from 0 to 20 or 30 is the difficulty. Once he says, green light then we will deliver. I suspect that sometimes towards the end of the year, first of the year. The other part of that is Sam, we have to create, we know the science and this works well, but there is limited art or technique on how you use it and you want to make sure that the doctors get into using it correctly, so that if it doesn’t give him the results they want, they know that it’s there, issue not the products to use and as we build that community and Ron tells us that he has got the ability to gear up, we will expand and do the same thing outside the U.S.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

I see. So, it will become a terrific product once you start reaching those hundred plus numbers?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Well, I think you are a great model builder, you can look at it and say it how many sites there is roughly 1500 to 1800 sites in the U.S. that are doing this type of treatment, each one doing one to three lasers and each laser doing 10 plus probes per month that are price point between 150 and 200 each probe, you can see how it works.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

And the last question is on R&D what’s your expectations on R&D the rest of the year?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

I don’t understand the question, what do you mean by expectations?

Sam Bergman

Analyst

In terms of low growth increase in R&D, I mean do you have any numbers for us on that?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Expenditures wise?

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Expenditure wise, right.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

Sam, I will give you, I think probably we got two mitigating forces which means probably end of it, little bit level, in other words having finished off the Cyclo G6, we got a couple of the other probes that we are looking to ramp up is ultimately you want more probes that will see a little bit of diminishment in the expenditures but at the same time back to one of Will’s earlier comments, we are looking to increase a little bit of the bench strength and it gets back to your comment about how we are going to make sure that we don’t end up with these types of sort of spec issues on our products going forward, so the net of it is probably it will be somewhat flat through the next couple of quarters.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

And just the glaucoma product with illumination, what is that expected to be out?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

It’s really awaiting FDA clearance. In other words, we have all of the componentry, we’re just finishing up on the illuminated probe, one of the illuminated probes but we really think the gating item is that is with the FDA and as you know that’s a little bit difficult for us to forecast but we anticipate putting our submission in very shortly and then just see how long the review process is to get it out. We don’t think it’s a high risk because it is just really getting the clearance on the illumination concept but we do have to go through that process to make sure we got everything lined up.

Sam Bergman

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, our next question comes from the line of Larry Haimovitch with HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, operator. Hi, Jim. All the best in your new position.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, Larry.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

We are going to miss you. Checking with some of the doctors the feedback I have been receiving on the glaucoma initiative is very positive, I am wondering, if you can share some of your own experiences, I know you get out in the field, I know you talk to doctors pretty regularly, what kinds of feedback are you getting both good and or bad regarding the product itself at this point?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Okay Larry, I’m going to answer it in two parts, one is just a general statement from a physician and then I will give you a three different patient data points. A local physician here has said from the beginning he has achieved a success rate of approximately 70 to 75% reduction in IOPs to a level that he is satisfied with and that has improved to about 80% as his experience has gone up. He says this is compared to about a 50% success rate with SOC over six to twelve month period, that’s pretty exciting for me, on one side now if I look at the patients just give you kind of an array of patients, patient one was the patient that had a risk of incisional surgery, it’s a 52-year-old man in New York presented with IOP of approximately of 32 on max meds, he was prone to heavy bleeding thus the risk with the surgery. To form the MP3 the pressure was decreased to 19 and reduced to two meds. Another female patient presented herself with excessive eye pain caused from high-pressure, she was from Ohio, presented with an IOP of 38 and a massive pain on max meds, performed the MP3, IOP reduced to 23 in the first day and she felt much better and it has reduced her pain from the pressure eye. A third patient had a cornea donor, the patient in New York presented with an IOP of 44 on three meds, previous [indiscernible] removal and penetrating donor cornea from the MP3 pressure decreased significantly to 18 without disturbing the donor cornea and nor creating any intraocular information, I think those kind of responses are just a sample and I can go through a number of them but I think that’s what give me the excitement, the product works, the product delivers results and doctors seem to be very happy.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

And as you get more mature in that product line the disposables become a much bigger part of the mix and I am assuming those disposables would carry considerably better margins, gross margin, manufacturing margins than you do on your capital equipment.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Well I think first part of that question is absolutely correct, we have a few customers now that are in excess of the 10 probes per month so I believe that that is working fine. I will let Jim answer the question on the margins.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, Larry, you are absolutely correct. The launch we have is on the probe side as we have very healthy, that we come in at the top end of our range on our margin product so that makes it very exciting for us.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

So this product line as it grows in importance overtime lifts up over all corporate margin.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Yes I mean if you, if you have seen any of our investor presentation you will notice that within the financial goals we have stated idea of being able to get ourselves to a target of greater than 55% on the long-term gross margin and drivers have always been the first foremost the volume, recently up until the last quarter we saw the benefit of that, we have done little but of cost reduction which is helping and the third component was always the growth on the consumable part of the business and I think now we are starting to be at a show to the external world what we meant by that statement and so Larry to your comment, yes, one would anticipate that that would drive us to a more heavier mix on the consumables to capital in the same presentation, it kind of looked to the 60:40 mix and net of that is it’s pretty self-apparent if you grow the highest margin contributing product line you would anticipate your overall average margin to continue to move up.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Great, I have one more question and I will jump back in the queue, well you are going to ship a 100 this year that’s the target, I am assuming that next year you could do better than that given that you wouldn’t be in a controlled launch is that a reasonable assumption that you could easily do much better than a 100 next year and by the end of next year, you could have well over 200 installed base, is that, am I thinking correctly here?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

You are thinking correctly.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Yes and….

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Are you working for a guidance number or the idea is…

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

No, that was a very turn centered, you want to give me a little more on that?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Okay, I will try to answer your question.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

[Indiscernible]

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

I would say we are going to do 100 units within the U.S. with our sales force here and we should be in full operation early 2016 on a global basis. I don’t see why the U.S. can’t duplicate what they are doing this year, and I don’t see why we can’t be equivalent on an international basis for 2016.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

And the international business model would be the same it would be still all the disposable you know capital equipment first followed by an unarmed growing consumable?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Now, we haven’t talked about it but the issue with the probes in the past we produced very high quality probes that would last for example the G-probe they would use it 10, 15, 20 plus times, these new probes have a like to the – that would assure us that they can only use them a few times for their discard it and they get another one.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. So, in fact it’s just a onetime use and thinking about my model I was thinking 10 probes per month would be 10 procedures but you are saying that could actually be more than 10 procedures.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, I think it’s possible Larry, I mean, I think what’s going to, this is conjecture opinion is that physician A is going to buy them and treat patients one at a time, it’s normal way one a time and then here she is going to say, I am going to have a IRIDEX G6 day and I am going to line patients up and that probe has a life of…

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

90 minutes.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

90 minutes before it dies.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Oh I see, okay.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

I can do three or four patients that day and then I want to do another one.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

I see okay. That’s how you could get more than one, you saw the probe as you line up several patients and go from patient to patient and do it.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

That’s the only way you are going to get it and I think doctors will try to figure out when to do so.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Sure.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, I hope they don’t but that’s my belief what’s probably going to happen.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

So I will keep it a secret, we won’t tell anyone.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Alright, or maybe tell you.

Larry Haimovitch

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Okay, doctors don’t read the transcript, so we are okay. Thanks.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · HMTC. Please proceed with your question.

Alright. Well, thank you, Larry.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Sweps, a Private Investor. Please proceed with your question.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

Thank you. Half a dozen questions, but brief answers will be fine. You folks stress the fact that there were no safety issues involved, does that also mean that there was no requirement to notify the FDA of whatever recall you did?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

First of all, we did not recall and the reason I saw there is no safety issues is because the instruments performed as described and if they did not receive appropriate communication they would not turn on.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

Got it. And second thing is the expenses for replacement on units in the field already are and I am just looking for, just a rough ratio, most of them in this quarter will there be some expenses in next quarter, how should we look at it?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

They have been bleeding through, so most of the impacted units have already come back in and being repaired, one way of looking at your question, one way we looked at here is with regards to the warrant reserve, the good news with all of this with in that context is because of the nature of what the issue is it’s a relatively low cost fix, in other words component parts and the labor involved are very, very minimal. So we’ve really been work through with any customer complaint real time and as you can see to-date, we’ve really not see any really material impact on the cost side.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

I see. So you treated this as a repair issue?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Yes.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

And the third question is the – and I was going to ask this relative to international sales but its looks like you haven’t gotten there yet and that was the impact on the quarter of the strength in the dollar?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

Well, the strength in the dollar has impacted us, Jim mentioned it on his remarks that quality had a bigger impact that the currency exchange rate had a lesser impact but the issue comes from variety of things, one, we all know about the euro being getting closer and closer parity to the dollar which gave our European competitor a pricing advantage of 25 plus percent or so, the yen is doing the same type of things and we have a Japanese competitor that also is enjoying a little bit of a benefit and we have an Australian competitor and when the commodity issues took place in China began to buy less or sell less than the Aussie dollar, the Canadian dollar, they all dropped, so it has an impact and I would feel better next quarter, we have the quality issue behind us to give you a better understanding of what that impact is because it’s kind of hidden into this quality issue but it does have an impact.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

So you feel your differential advantage in the marketplace will overcome the additional expense people are looking at?

A - Will Moore

Analyst

I think there is couple of answers to that Paul one of which is when we talk about MicroPulse, yes I do believe that. When we talk about legacy lasers that’s a difficult answer, when it comes to our existing customers buying probes, it’s not a factor.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

I understand. And the other and the last question has to do with the new probes because I haven’t had an opportunity to really look and understand about it, but if they are going to be reused, are these devices that need to be sterilized each time, they will reuse?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

No, so the probes on the Cyclo G6 are FDA approved for single use, so they are in a single use and there is no IFB voiding concept with the idea of how to sterilize frequency. The comment Will alluded to a little bit based on Larry’s question was the way we if you like sort of facilitate the single use of it, we have a 90 minute expiration clock but it’s all set up with the idea of allowing the doctor sufficient time to go ahead and take and treat one patient.

Paul Sweps

Analyst

Well and Jim thank you for your service here, I know you guys made a very good team and I appreciate the communication over time.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst

Well, thank you Paul. It’s very kind.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stan Mann with Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Hello.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Hi Stan.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Hi Stan.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, I have several questions, one cash on hand, I don’t have the sheet in front of me, is it $9 million, $10 million?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

It should be 12 point I am looking at it right now, $12.2 million.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. Can you kind of give me a frame on plans for usage other than stock buybacks?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Stan, it’s going to be the same as we said, that’s one, I am very predictable, we will use it as a buyback, I just said when we think it’s undervalued, otherwise, it’s there and it will be used for development and it will be used for opportunistic acquisitions if they come about.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. My question is Jim has done a great job and we don’t have great depth, so my question is how to plan to handle the transition and keeping the accounting and everything going which Jim leaving I think after this call?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Well, I asked the question in a couple of ways, one, we have great depth in the financial department, Jim has done a great job in his group, and our controller has been with us for quite a while, I don’t want to take anything away from Jim, but Romea [ph] produces the Qs, the Ks and the proxies and everything comes out on time without issue. Where I will have a hold is on the forward-looking planning session, the financial modeling in that area. We had an individual in this week, he is coming back to see Jim next week and he will be a tip as to deal with that part of the modeling side. I have no issues with his ability to do so, and it will be a short term fix while we go through the CFO search. Now, Jim may have another comment, I want him to respond if he has.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

I just want to say, thank you, Stan.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. I have a couple more questions. One we are thinking of a larger company and it seems to me we need to add some depth to our team and experience, can you talk to that Will, what you see as you know the building of a team so we are back up, we can grow to $100 or plus million.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Sure. I mean, we don’t disagree. Howard came in, he is a PhD at Caltech, where research in Bell Labs has been in the view other medical device companies and he joined us six weeks ago.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

In R&D well.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Engineering R&D.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

And he will be responsible for the continuation of advancement in our current laser systems, he is a systems engineer. RFID expert, and so then we’ve hired, recent hired a fellow by the name of Jeff Smith who has become the head of our software development team and as you know in our products there is always a lot of embedded software and he has been in the medical device business for quite a while, so we have been adding bench like that, we have added to the sales department, we have gone from having, we are up to 11 indirect and now I think we are 19 independent, so we are nearly 30 people in the field, you know, so and we’ve added people in marketing, so the OpEx goes up for a reason and there is your bench streak one of them, as we have been adding….

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

I would like to see the OpEx move up more to get our sales and products, I have one other comment, it may disturb you, but my experience in investing is that for some reason laser companies, laser companies even ones with good products like Cimarron or elos do not get high PEs, and the ones that have devices, I think I have communicated with you a like stent there are very few companies with devices for glaucoma, so can you kind of talk to us about what you see in your vision on expanding us into an area that will kind of give us a better value, is that the way to put it, so you know what I am talking about because I think you are not…

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

I think our value in our PE was pretty darn good before we stop our test, and I agree with you on the comments about the PE and laser companies but the ones you are talking about are in esthetics or in dental. The big issue with laser product is you build something, you sell it once to the doctor, the doctor gets tremendous value that day and it gets better for him or her as they go over time because they keep using it more and more and more and we receive none of that residual value. We have changed the model and Jim has said in his piece, we are going to get the margins up because we are going to keep building more and more high margin disposables, the glaucoma is a perfect example of that and where you will start to see that PE or that valuation metric increase is when we can show that we have expediential growth caused by the use of those probes on an ever increasing install base. What has happened over the years at IRIDEX, we had a small, I won’t say, I shouldn’t say small, we had a reasonable disposable business but every year we had to start over and start selling hardware again and what we need to do is increase the number of disposable products that are predictable and high margin and augment that with hardware versus the other way around.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay. So, you don’t see an opportunity with all our cash to do anything in spreading beyond lasers and the model you have, that’s a long pass?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

That is not what I am, and I am sorry if I left you with that impression. No, we have made the change here from being a laser company to an ophthalmology company, it’s not clear to the outside world yet, but to an ophthalmology company that works in both retina and glaucoma.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Very different then just being a laser company trying to find new markets for lasers, we have come out with the green chips, we sell a few million dollar a year of those, we continue to find ways to expand and deliver new products to those two customer bases, we are not looking for new customers, we are looking for, we are not looking for new markets and new customers, we are looking for new customers in our existing markets and we are looking for widgets, gadgets, and small and inexpensive hardware that we can sell to that customer.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

And you can vision us over a $100 million near-term you know reasonable term your vision?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Give me what reasonable is.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Well I don’t know, I am just trying to see what you think we can be, that’s all, I mean…

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Well I can, some of you may know from previous slides, I just don’t think hundreds enough, so there you go.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

So I just have one another question and I think you have done an amazing job both of you Jim and you Will as a team, so what do you do with this Australian and Japanese competition since we both know there are no borders any more worldwide?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Well, I think that the issue is on our legacy lasers we will see some margin compression due to the currency issues, the pricing and therefore you have to come out with newer products that have defensible niches, so you can get your margins back.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

So you think that your products are more innovative, better and can hold market share worldwide, I mean in Japan?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, I can tell you, G6 is innovative and no one is doing what we are doing. MicroPulse is innovative and we are able to maintain our position on that. All blind continuous wave lasers that we have been making for 20 years, there is a number of people fighting it out on a daily basis for those customers and we will do we can to maintain that business because it does and generates a disposable revenue, so we are going to focus on finding newer little technologies and newer markets or newer products who have taken to our markets that is defensible with higher margins, I mean we operate in a business where there is a couple of really giant people and with Jim and I talk about as try to operate between the elephant’s toes with highly defensible, high margin niches and we will continue to do that.

Stan Mann

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Okay, thank you and thank you Jim for the great job you have done overall with creative time.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, Stan.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Mann Family Investors. Please proceed with your question.

Very well. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Raymond Myers with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks gentleman. And Jim, I would like to reiterate what others have said. Thank you for your services, it’s been – talking with you over the years.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you, Ray. Thank you very much.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

So kind of question that’s discussing two related factors, one was the visibility to customer demand following this interruption in production and, I don’t know if Will maybe you can talk about that in terms of some sort of an order backlog or something and how that relates to the currency issue and the potential for software demand due to that, so let’s start with visibility to customer demand?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

I am trying to formulate that question Ray, I think I have it, I can, what I like to, let me get the currency thing out of the way first, I don’t know that I agree with you on software demand on currency, what I think I see is a demand remains but pressure on us to reduce prices to be able to stay in there and so I don’t think it’s not a software demand, now when it comes to visibility on how that affects us going forward, as I said earlier, we are better able to say that one is a quality issues completely out of the picture. Now when it comes to timing of when we saw the problem is that…

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

I guess the crux of it is making sure that we are not missing a loss of whether it is customer demand or pricing issues where customers may take your business elsewhere but you may not see it because of the interruption in manufacturing. Do you have visibility that those orders are firm and in place?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

I mean, we always lose some business here and there to a competitor. I haven’t seen an uptick on that, I mean our guys are really good and this are – many of them have been with us for quite a while and they, I mean there is only first of all in the U.S. there is only a few thousand doctors and you have 30 people roaming the streets and talking to them, you know quite real fast when something changes, so I’m not worried about what you are talking about, I mean, sure we lose a few and there to Quantal [ph] or an Idec or LX or something that’s just kind of normal operation, we stay in that 28% kind of market share range on legacy stuff that has been the same for years.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

That sounds good. Just checking. Next, on the other side of this margin point you are increasing price of the Cyclo G6 starting pack and can you elaborate a little as to why the increased price is up, because the demand is there to support a higher price or you just need the higher margin due to currency or other factors?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

No, I will take first swing of that Ray, the whole premise coming down with the Cyclo G6 was to launch this with a compelling bundle package opportunity, you can buy the lasers as standalone and you would be paid typical laser prices, but the idea was given that we really value to the recurring business stream, the decision was hey let’s not make the purchase, the laser necessarily be that much of an impediment to get into the recurring procedural site, so right at the gate we thought okay, how low basically can get the laser price to make sure we are stimulating that demand, hence we went out with 45 and you know honestly we were marginally covering the cost of the laser which is why in the package it wasn’t too bad but it was overall still a little bit lower than our norm which is why we sort of said, hey, if we stay here we may send up seeing some gross margin compression, we were very pleasantly surprised by the strength of demand and we continue to do that, we talked to the sales guys last night, one guy you just got his demo unit has ten demos lined up coming up in the upcoming months and that’s just one of the sales guys. So recognizing that we sort of seem to have a pretty strong demand coming in from the customer, which is okay, we still want to stay with the philosophy which is really we really don’t want to make the laser that much of an impediment in the buying decision but let’s take 45 up to 85 because by doing that we’ve now got ourselves into little bit more normative margins and the package itself it has started to look healthy, so that’s where we move to two, it doesn’t seem to have impacted you know anything with regards to customer demand, so we seemed to have nailed that and as I said there are ongoing discussions about whether we should move it up even further but I think at the moment the bias is winning is again, why would we want to get an extra couple of thousand dollars upfront on the laser when the real name of this game is to get laser out there in a generation to procedure volume. So, 85 is where it is and we think that’s the right place for it for now.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Well, that sounds like a positive dynamic, thank you. And then finally maybe I will just maybe nitpicking but I have to ask the share buyback is about the same as it has been roughly in part over the years and with the stock where it is, I think the question why not do something more dramatic?

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Well, I think it’s been like it is and I understand your question about being more dramatic. But I think when you go through these discussions, our viewpoint came to the point, we had the discussion around what do we do with tender again, that was one discussion, and you know what we just kind of came back to this point of saying, look we got a plan, let’s just keep extending it, it’s very simple, you don’t have to do any more, SEC or stuff, do you don’t have to do anything else, just add an addendum or amendment to it and you just keep going and I think where Jim and I are at this point in time, our focus is, I mean the buyback is great but our focus is on getting the quality behind us and the growth going and that’s where it is.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Good, that looks good, yes, thanks and I got one other question which was the old legacy lasers where you do see the margin compression, I understand those are not really not your focus but can you help us to quantify what proportion of your revenue is in that more commoditized bucket?

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

My just trying to think, I am going to, I look at some of these numbers, just have to pull that off me, I would say, let me just give you some color, I think what we see is particularly in the U.S. it’s a relatively small component, what we are seeing obviously is that technology refresh opportunity with MicroPulse but I think where we stay there and we focus because we like it but it is, if you like the poster chart of this dynamic is the tenders on the international side because typically the tenders are coming in where you got a health system that is looking for just getting in the game if you like, so it’s looking for a fully featured all style laser and looking for good price. So that is historically made up, a reasonable proportion of the international business and that’s probably where we see the challenge the most.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, I think Ray, if you look at just, Jim, I am looking at this different numbers, we got lots of skews but take it in rough things, it’s a small portion of our U.S. business which is about half our business, but maybe its 10% in the U.S. and then the other half outside the U.S. is it could reach as much as maybe 25% of that, so you probably on an overall basis maybe 15, maybe 20% at most I think.

Raymond Myers

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

That’s great. Thanks guys.

A - Will Moore

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks Ray.

Jim Mackaness

Analyst · Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks Ray.

Operator

Operator

I would now like the call – turn the call over to management for any closing remarks.

Will Moore

Analyst

Thank you, operator. I appreciate everybody’s time and attention today and we hope that we continue earning your trust and we will be back on the record string of quarters going forward, look forward to talking to you on the next call. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.