Earnings Labs

Precipio, Inc. (PRPO)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 13, 2019

$31.65

+3.09%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Precipio Third Quarter 2019 Commercial Update Call. All participants will be listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note that the conference is being recorded. Now, let me hand the call over to Miri Radomski, Precipio’s In-House Counsel. Please go ahead.

Miri Radomski

Analyst

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon. Statements made during this call contain forward-looking statements about our business. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as these statements are based upon our current expectations, forecasts and assumptions and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. These statements may be identified by words such as may, will, should, could, expect, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, forecast, continue or the negative of these terms or other words or terms of similar meaning. Risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those set forth in any forward-looking statements include that are not limited to the matters listed under risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as other risks detailed in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports are available at www.sec.gov. Statements and information including forward-looking statements speak only to the date they are provided unless an earlier date is indicated. And we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update any statements or information, including forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as required by law. Now let me hand the conference over to Ilan, Precipio's CEO.

Ilan Danieli

Analyst

Thank you, Miri, and good afternoon everyone and thank you for taking the time to connect today. As you probably saw, we just filed our 10-Q and released our third quarter results. I know most of you probably haven't had the time to go through the full report yet, so I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the company’s result all at a high level and address some of the points coming out of the Q. Carl Iberger, our CFO, is here with us and he'll share a few thoughts as well. The first point to discuss is our revenues, which are lower than the prior quarter. Let me start by saying we are not happy with this result. I want to share with you a few of the reasons why our revenues this quarter are lower. My goal is to get everyone comfortable with the fact that this is only a temporary drop and not a trend. Let me begin by discussing our revenue comp position. To refresh your memory, our revenue has historically been comprised of two main components. The first is our pathology services revenue generated from patient’s specimens sent to us by oncologists for diagnosis. The business has been growing consistently, driven by the continuous onboarding each month of new customers, who send us their business. The revenue can go up and down from month to month for individual customers, but as the company develops a large customer base, revenue growth are typically consistent because each customer that continues to use us becomes a recurring revenue generating customer. And so, our growth is achieved by adding new customers while keeping the existing one. That's pretty straightforward. The second source of revenue is pharma, which is based on various pharma projects that the company has hired…

Carl Iberger

Analyst

Thank you, Ilan. Good afternoon and to our shareholders thank you for joining our call today. I am Carl Iberger, Precipio’s Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, I'll cover our 10-Q filing, operating performance and cash requirements. First, as Ilan noted, we have completed and filed our 10-Q with the SEC today. Consistent with prior reporting, the company is filing a clean quarterly review and audit from Marcum LLP. Moving on to operating performance and on the revenue front, in his remarks, Ilan discussed our Q3 revenue. While Q3 revenue was lower from the prior quarter Q2 of 2019, our reported revenues on a year-to-date basis were $2.4 million for the nine months and more favorable to the nine months ending 2018 by 12%. While reporting a 12% year-over-year increase and to Ilan's point, our expectations were higher. We projected a 15% increase and we were attracting to that forecast through August. However, we fell short in the month of September. Our testing revenue decreased as a result of a decrease in patient referrals from several key farmer accounts and certain other ordering accounts. While disappointed with September, ordering patterns have rebounded in Q4. Moving on to lab operating costs. At present, it is difficult to show improvement in gross profit because our testing volumes did not allow us to realize economies of scale. Both fixed and variable expenses are required at their current level to appropriately operate a functioning CLIA and CAP certified diagnostic lab. Simply put, we are staffed at an appropriate level of effort to manage the lab and provide industry standard turnaround. But taken as a whole, lab operating costs have remained constant over the last 18 months. As testing volumes grow, our margins will improve. That just stands today we do have excess capacity. Estimates…

Ilan Danieli

Analyst

Thank you, Carl. I'd like to reiterate some of the commitments we've made to our fellow shareholders. First, we are committed to growth. While this quarter didn't show that in numbers, I know that our lower shareholder base has a long-term commitment, believes in what we're doing and it's going to be there when the company delivers, so that they can reap the rewards of their patients. Every road has it bumps. We have a strong team that knows how to overcome any bumps we face and we are committed to continuing down this path of growth. Second, is our commitment to fiscal responsibility? As I've said before, we continue to manage our cash extremely carefully. As Carl has shared some of the elements of how we manage the finances of the business. We remain committed to not conducting any substantial capital raise that will be diluted to our shareholders. We're driving our company towards profitability, so that if and when we want to raise capital it will hopefully be when we don't necessarily need it and when our share price as a point where the capital raised is relatively small compared to the company's market cap. Lastly, our commitment to patient care. I'm proud to be a part of and inspired by a team who cares so deeply about what we do, and the cause that gets us out of bed every morning. We are privileged to be part of an organization that brings such meaningful clinical value to patients battling the scariest disease in healthcare. And we're privileged to have a shareholder base that is committed to sharing this exciting ride with us as we build a meaningful, growing, valuable and important business. I constantly think about the mission and vision of the company and continuously communicate it…

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Q -

Analyst