Nicholas Curtis
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets
Thank you, Lee. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. It is no doubt an understatement to say 2025 was a unique and unprecedented year for LENSAR. We take great satisfaction knowing that the leading eye care company in the world, Alcon, publicly recognized the value of ALLY and LENSAR given the joint acquisition announcement made in March of 2025. This validates our statement that ALLY is the best next-generation technology, delivering significant and relevant performance improvements in each of the critical elements of laser-assisted cataract surgery, including advanced ergonomics, efficiencies, imaging and automated treatment planning with a dual modality laser. ALLY is the only system that employs machine learning and compute power during treatment planning and optimized treatment to deliver outcomes that are better than any first-generation competitor. The termination of the acquisition agreement was a mutual pragmatic decision made after a year of focused effort and considerable expense from both sides. While this acquisition was approved overwhelmingly by our stockholders, ultimately, we made the decision to terminate because the Federal Trade Commission would seek to enjoin the merger. While both parties work towards offering acceptable accommodation to allow it to close, it became clear the FTC was not open to changing their position. We were disappointed in the outcome. However, the upside of this process is the validation of the ALLY Robotic Laser Cataract System superiority compared to all other first-generation lasers available today as well as the value attributed to LENSAR based on the success the product has achieved since its launch and its future potential. Therefore, with new resolve and new purpose, we're excited to emerge and reengage as an independent company, picking up where we left off 12 months ago. We've spent the last 2 weeks working on initiatives and jump-starting relationships with key stakeholders. I'll briefly discuss the last 2 weeks and share our high-level go-forward strategy today. Relationships are important. And before I present our strategy, I would like to take a minute to thank our partner vendors, agents and suppliers who not only provided excellent support and counsel, ultimately shared that disappointment and financial burden with us through granting reductions in fees as well as extended payment terms. These partnerships are beneficial in LENSAR returning to our prior operating cadence, allocating more of our financial resources and attention to operations. We can immediately start getting back to our business as usual and smooth return to focusing on growth and expanding our presence with increased installed base and procedures. We appreciate their collaboration and contribution to our future success. Additionally, in association with the termination of the acquisition, we received the $10 million transaction deposit that had been in escrow. In the last 3 quarters of 2025, we operated with an increasing degree of uncertainty among our partner customers, potential partner customers and distributors regarding our future and the timing of the close of the acquisition. Despite the uncertainty that delayed U.S. customer decision-making on ALLY and LENSAR and halted OUS distributor activities and purchasing systems, we expanded the ALLY installed base by nearly 50% compared to year-end 2024, while achieving 20-plus percent year-over-year growth in procedure volume for both the fourth quarter and full year 2025. There's no question the last 9 months of 2025 were negatively impacted by the acquisition process and extended time line and not just by the increased SG&A expenses associated with supporting the transaction. While our 2025 results include a 9% revenue growth, I need to be transparent and clear. We expect through the next several quarters of 2026, a gradual return to our historical operating performance. When you consider our longer-term growth metrics, the trajectory has been impressive. Our full year 2025 procedure volumes are up 50% compared to 2023, the first full year of ALLY commercial availability. By reflecting on a longer-term vantage point, you get a much better picture of what we see as the future opportunity for LENSAR and ALLY. Since the launch in August of 2022, we grew our installed base to approximately 200 ALLY systems and grew our procedure volume, gaining market share from 14% procedure share in the U.S. to 23.4% as of the end of 2025. I want to say we gained almost 9.5% of market share points in 3.5 years. These market share gains come from 3 specific areas. First, it comes from competitive accounts, replacing first-generation lasers with our ALLY Robotic Laser Cataract System accounts for the largest gain in share. Second, the gain in share is demonstrated by what happens after we replace a competitive system. LENSAR on average performs 27% more procedures annually than the national average per laser, providing evidence that we are growing the overall market for robotic laser cataract procedures. Third, nearly 50% of our systems in Q4 2025 were from Femto-naive surgeons, further expanding the market for laser cataract-assisted surgery. The data provides evidence LENSAR is addressing the shortcomings of the first-generation laser-assisted cataract surgical lasers by delivering the most technologically advanced next-generation robotic laser for cataract surgery in multiple ways. Significantly improving efficiencies and patient throughput, allowing for more procedures with faster treatments and fewer staff interactions, leading to the potential for fewer mistakes, less anxiety and a better overall patient experience. Second, customizing precise, specific reproducible treatments optimized by utilizing features such as machine learning and surface anatomy recognition, imaging and optimizing data for treatments by communicating with preoperative devices in the surgeon offices, leading to better outcomes in refractive cataract surgery using astigmatism management. To put in perspective, our competitors have the ability to bundle more products using cataract procedures, more feet on the street and much deeper financial human and operational resources. Despite this, we've been incredibly successful in increasingly growing ALLY's market share. Why? LENSAR is a small, nimble and resilient organization. We're known for innovation that aligns with surgeons' practices and patients' objectives. LENSAR is and always will be a surgeon and practice-centric organization. We have extensive clinical evidence that is giving surgeons the confidence to make the decision to implement ALLY in their practice. Over the last 3 years, ALLY's performance, placements and procedure volume speaks for itself. All I can say as we start the second quarter of 2026, we expect to compete as we have in the past. Listen here, we are back. I'd like to spend a few moments talking about our business outside the United States. As a reminder, while LENSAR started commercializing ALLY in the U.S. in August of 2022, it wasn't until 2 years later that we received the European certification and began to sell ALLY internationally. Looking at the time line, ALLY had been on the market outside the United States for roughly 7 months when the transaction was announced. The uncertainty over the post-acquisition ALLY distribution landscape had a greater impact on our outside United States distributors than our U.S. customers, and that uncertainty caused a meaningful slowdown in our international business expansion over the last year. With our distributors, the ALLY launch got off to a very successful start, quickly gaining acceptance with new sites and meaningful momentum, which came to a hard stop. After meeting with the distributors post-acquisition termination announcement, I believe we will begin to return to significant system growth in these international markets over time. Most, if not all, the distributors were both happy and relieved with the termination of the merger. Although they have all indicated their enthusiasm and are ready to support the business going forward, their conservative immediate forecast indicate this will take some time. We will work together on the transition timing to regain the lost momentum and begin to contribute to an increase in worldwide system and procedure market share. I'm confident in our ability to drive long-term success and create value for our surgeon partners in the United States, our distribution partners overseas, our global customers, the patients they serve and our shareholders. We also continue to rely on our long-term existing physician partners and private equity groups as they are our partners in success. These partners recognize we are working hard to deliver and provide the most responsive service, support and best product in the market. Going forward, we'll be focusing on a few key areas. Continuing to grow our procedure volumes and recurring revenue will be critical to our success. This will come through a combination of additional system placements and increased utilization on the 200 ALLY systems currently in the field. Our procedure revenue is recurring in nature. It is stable. It has a predictable trajectory following an install and importantly, carries a significantly higher margin than system revenue. The acceleration of system growth discussed in my remarks will contribute to significant long-term growth in procedure volumes, which will further strengthen our recurring revenue base. An important statistic to consider here is system utilization rates, another area where we are well positioned for success and driving overall market growth. Once again, LENSAR systems in the U.S. perform an average of 27% more procedures than the national annual average of lasers currently installed. There is not another robotic femtosecond laser available in the marketplace. We're excited to speak with you, answer your questions, and we appreciate the confidence and support you put into the LENSAR team. Now let me turn the call over to Tom, and he'll cover our financial highlights for the quarter. Tom?