Peter Anevski
Analyst · JPMorgan. Anne, your line is live. Please go ahead
Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We're pleased to report that Progyny had a very solid second quarter with record quarterly revenue of $195 million, reflecting 52% growth over the second quarter of 2021. Over that same period, we also grew adjusted EBITDA by 78% to $32.9 million, while expanding our adjusted EBITDA margin to its highest level -- highest ever level of 16.9%. The strength in this quarter results reflect that member activity continues to be healthy and at the levels we would expect to see further affirming both the essential need for fertility treatment as well as the strong desire our members have in pursuing the care necessary to realize their family-building goals. I'll pause for a moment to underscore why we believe the essential nature of fertility is a critical point. There is historical data demonstrating that the utilization of fertility services endures even during periods of economic uncertainty. The significant reason is that treatment is time-sensitive for many patients or even a short delay can become a factor in whether or not they have a successful outcome. Another reason is that people looking to add a child to their family have a very strong sense as to when it's the right time for them to do so, which often overcomes any financial concerns they may have over the short term. We've seen this durability take place over the past two years when the vast majority of people who have needed fertility treatment continue to pursue care even against the backdrop of a global pandemic. This trend was also consistent with what happened during the great recession a decade ago when overall volumes remained healthy even though the significant majority of the market at that time was cash pay and presumably much more economically sensitive than a covered patient would be. Although we've seen -- although we've all seen how inflation and a potential softening in the economy has become a major focus for companies and investors this year, we aren't seeing any related impact on our business thus far. Member engagement with the benefit continues to be strong. We continue to have positive and productive renewal discussions with providers, and we aren't seeing employers change the way they think about the benefit, either in terms of adding it if they don't already provide coverage today or in keeping it if they do. In fact, consistent with prior-years, a healthy portion of our employer customers are planning to expand their coverage for next year. This enthusiasm among employers of all sizes, fertility and family-building solutions isn't surprising given two factors. First, despite the presence of inflationary headwinds and tighter monetary policy, unemployment remains at historic lows and the labor market remains extremely tight, with more than two job listings for every one employed -- unemployed person. And second, recent survey data continues to reveal that fertility is one of the most sought-after benefits amongst the millennial population in their workforce. That generation now ranges in age from their late 20s to their early 40s, which happens to be the most common age cohort for a fertility patient, so it isn't surprising for these employees to expect fertility as an essential component of their health benefits. A recent survey from Mercer highlights that compensation alone doesn't build engagement as much as a well designed benefits program does and goes on to site women's reproductive health and fertility, in particular, as the top areas employers are focused on to meet the needs and expectations of employees. In short, we believe the macro trends continue to be very supportive for fertility benefits, and we're seeing that reflected in the positive momentum of our current selling season. We begin each season with focused priorities for growth: one, to expand our market share through the acquisition of new clients; two, to retain clients whose agreements are up for renewal; and three, to grow with our existing clients through expansion and upsells. With respect to the first priority, new client acquisitions, we are now in the heart of our selling season and at this point, overall pipeline size and commitments received to date continue to be favorable relative to the record level of activity that we experienced a year-ago at this time. We've built a strong pipeline of active opportunities that we're continuing to pursue over the remainder of this year's selling season. As with prior selling seasons, in the majority of opportunities we pursued this year, we are competing against the incumbent carrier who is often participating solely on the basis of being the manager of a prospect's overall health plan. As you would expect to see in a growing market, buyers are becoming more sophisticated with some choosing to use an RFP process. Although the majority of opportunities aren't using an RFP, we believe a more in-depth review of fertility benefits provides Progyny with an advantage as it reveals our leadership scale, depth of expertise and the superiority of our solution. While we typically receive a certain number of early commitments, which reflect not only the client's readiness to make a decision, but also their eagerness to begin preparation for the launch, this year, we've received a record number of commitments as of this point in the season. We believe this is a strong indication that the demand for fertility and family-building benefits is robust and continuing to grow, reinforcing the macro trends I referred to earlier. And as usual, we expect that the majority of client decisions will come in the late summer and early fall, which is when most companies finalize decisions in time for their open enrollment. Some themes have emerged so far this season that are worth noting. First, we continue to break new ground by adding clients in new verticals. Some of our early wins are leading brands who are first-time logos for us in that industry, including our first automobile manufacturing client, our first hotel and hospitality client and even our first major state university program. While the systems -- I'm sorry, while the clients we already serve today represent a broad cross-section of more than 30 different industries, we are extremely pleased to be diversifying even further for 2023. Second, we're pleased to see continued momentum this year from industries that we brought on in previous years. For example, we're seeing some early momentum this year in health care and hospital systems, which is particularly exciting for us as these are amongst the most sophisticated buyers of a medical benefit, given their awareness of what's important in assessing the quality of that benefit. We also continue to see companies benchmark themselves against a specific industry leader. These companies don't aspire to be the first adopter of a new benefit like fertility but once the leader separates itself by adding it, these companies respond by adding the benefit in order to reestablish parity and maintain their competitiveness as an employer in that industry space. While this dynamic provides opportunities within those industries we already serve, we believe it lends further importance with respect to the new verticals we are bringing on as well. In that it lays the groundwork for more opportunities to pursue in future seasons. A third theme is that our early wins are establishing benefit coverage levels that are comparable to what we've historically seen. This reveals the companies aren't pursuing some light version of the benefit in response to the economy. We're also pleased to see the takeaway on Progyny Rx continues to be high. In any selling season, our goal is to grow the absolute number of new clients and covered lives over what we achieved in the prior season. And with the results we've seen thus far, we believe we're on pace to meet this objective once again. Turning now to the second priority in our selling season. At this point in the year, we've seen that renewals have once again been consistent with our typical rate of near 100% retention. This is a testament to both the quality of our solution as well as the integrity in our sales and account management process. Clients know what to expect when they sign with Progyny. And once they've launched, our frequent communication and detailed reporting around our program ensures that they clearly understand how we're improving the efficiency of their health care spend, while also helping their workforce realize their family-building goals. The strong renewal rates are a positive sign and it's noteworthy that we aren't seeing existing clients look to reduce their benefit for next year, which is yet another validating point to the resilience of fertility as a benefit even when adverse economic conditions are present or on the horizon. Turning now to upsells and expansions. In any sales year, we pursue multiple pathways to grow relationships with existing clients. These include adding services like Progyny Rx, expanding coverage with additional smart cycles or adding newer populations within the client. This year, again, we're seeing clients expanding their relationship with Progyny by adding new services. As usual, we'll provide you with a recap of the complete selling season on our next call in November. But at this point in the season, we're pleased with where we are. As the leader in value based care in the fertility industry, we understand that measuring and comparing clinical outcomes is one of the best means of objectively demonstrating value to our clients and members. By now, most of you know that our clinical outcomes outperform national averages across every critical measure of fertility success. That means our members get pregnant, meaningfully faster, experience significantly fewer miscarriages, have healthier pregnancies and deliver healthier babies. And while we've been publishing our outcome since we began offering the benefit in 2016, we've not seen either the traditional carriers or newer point solutions demonstrate their value by improving their outcomes or, in some cases, having a meaningful enough level of activity to report on. This quarter, we sought to set the standard for what a fertility program should provide to their clients regarding outcomes by engaging Milliman, a global leader in actuarial services to conduct an evaluation of the methodology that we use to calculate our outcomes and compare them to the national averages. This means Progyny is the only fertility solution that is not only publicly publishing its outcomes, we're the only one to have taken the additional step of having an independent validation of those results. We believe this study raises the bar with respect to what companies should expect from their benefits provider and further advances Progyny's position as the industry leader in fertility solutions. Let me now turn the call over to Mark to talk about the results for the quarter. Mark?