Joel Becker
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Jermey. And good afternoon everyone. I will start out today’s call by reviewing our performance in the third quarter as well as providing additional insights around our key business priorities for the remainder of the year before turning the call over to our CFO, Rebecca Kuhn, to present the details of our financial performance for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, which will be followed by a Q&A Session. Let’s get started. We are very pleased with the performance of the business in the third quarter of 2024 as we generated record revenue, delivered on track gross margins and demonstrated disciplined operating expense management, as we continue to execute against our multi-phase growth strategy. For the third quarter of 2024 we reported total revenue of $21.1 million, an increase of 28% compared to the same period last year. Revenue growth for the quarter included contributions from sales of the RNS System and DIXI Medical SEEG products, with the majority of the year-over-year growth coming from sales of the RNS System. This Q3 2024 performance was driven by execution in a number of areas across the business. With regard to the top line, we continued to demonstrate execution of the first part of our strategy of increasing adoption and utilization of RNS Systems in Level 4 centers and increased the number of active prescribers of RNS therapy to record levels. Adding to RNS System growth, we began to see a meaningful increase in the number of implants at centers that are part of our Project CARE pilot program and in the number of referrals for RNS implants from these centers to Level 4 CECs. We also continued to expand the market penetration and utilization of DIXI Medical products which contributed to our revenue growth in Q3. In the middle part of the income statement, we delivered a gross margin that was on track with our target range. And when combined with a disciplined investment strategy in our key growth and development priorities, reduced our cash burn to $1.8 million for the quarter. Combined with opportunistic use of our ATM facility, our cash balance increased in the quarter from $55.5 million at the end of the second quarter to $56.8 million at the end of the third quarter. We believe that our current cash position is sufficient to fund operations for the foreseeable future. We also focused on leveraging and developing our organization to increase our level of current performance as well as prepare for the significant opportunities in front of us. The placement of additional sales representatives in the U.S. has helped build momentum in the launch of the Project CARE program this year, which has contributed to our revenue growth over the past several months, while also increasing our field capacity so that we will be well positioned to take advantage of the multiple market development and indication expansion opportunities to come. Additionally, given the significant opportunities in the business, we’ve also been focused on strengthening our leadership team. We recently announced the hiring of new senior leaders including Katie Keller to lead our Marketing function; Brett Wingeier to lead our Research and Development team; and Amy Treadwell to head up Human Resources. I would like to take a moment to touch on each valuable new team member’s background. We are excited to now have Katie Keller leading our Marketing function. Katie brings specific experience in the neurostimulation market and expertise in market development that position her well to manage our market development efforts around key strategic initiatives, namely: expansion of the CARE program, planning for launch of our indication expansions, guiding our direct-to-patient outreach and digital marketing efforts, and working with our research and development team on our product pipeline. We are pleased to welcome Brett Wingeier back to NeuroPace to lead our Research and Development team. With his significant experience and expertise in neuromodulation and medical device development, Brett is uniquely well suited to oversee the exciting work underway to both enhance the efficiency and ease of use of the RNS System and to amplify our focus on device and data innovation and the use of RNS to continue to advance our technology leadership position. And most recently we appointed Amy Treadwell as Vice President of Human Resources. Amy brings an impressive track record of success in healthcare and technology roles and she will be instrumental in helping us continue to build an engaged, high performing culture to support our growth. We continue to make progress in the quarter on the third phase of our growth strategy, expanding the approved indications for the RNS System. The primary focus for this element of our strategy is the NAUTILUS study. As previously mentioned, all implants are complete, the trial is in the patient follow up phase and remains on track to complete the required one year follow-up in Q1 2025. As a reminder, if approved, our RNS System would be the first device with an FDA approved indication for idiopathic generalized epilepsy. We were also pleased to submit positive three-year safety and effectiveness data from our ongoing five-year prospective post-approval study of the RNS System in adults with drug-resistant focal epilepsy. We look forward to publishing and presenting the full study results pending the expiration of a publication embargo. With that as an overview of our operational progress in Q3, let me now turn the call over to Rebecca to review our financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Rebecca?