Earnings Labs

STAAR Surgical Company (STAA)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, May 3, 2017

$26.39

-1.09%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the STAAR Surgical First Quarter 2017 Financial Results Conference Call. During today’s presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the call will be opened for questions. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded today, Wednesday, May 3, 2017. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Moore with EVC Group.

Brian Moore

Analyst

Thank you, Victoria, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the STAAR Surgical conference call this afternoon to review the company’s financial results for the first quarter, which ended on March 31, 2017. On the call today are, Caren Mason, President and CEO of STAAR Surgical; and Deborah Andrews, Interim Chief Financial Officer. The news release detailing the first quarter results was issued just after 4 p.m. Eastern Time and is now available on STAAR’s website at www.staar.com. Before we begin, let me quickly remind you that during the course of this conference call the company will make forward-looking statements. We caution that any statement that is not a statement of historical fact is a forward-looking statement. This includes remarks about the company’s projections, expectations, plans, beliefs and prospects. These statements are based on judgment and analysis as of the date of this conference call, and are subject to numerous important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The risk and uncertainties associated with the forward-looking statements made in this conference call and webcast are described in the Safe Harbor statement in today’s press release, as well as STAAR’s public periodic filings with the SEC. STAAR assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or actual outcomes, and does not intend to do so. In addition, to supplement the GAAP numbers, we have provided non-GAAP adjusted net income and diluted net income per share information. We believe that these non-GAAP numbers provide meaningful supplemental information, and are helpful in assessing our historical and future performance. A table reconciling the GAAP information to non-GAAP information is included in today’s financial release. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line to questions from publishing analysts. We ask analysts to limit themselves to two initial questions during the Q&A then re-queue with any follow-ups. We thank everyone in advance for their corporation with this process. And with that, I’d like to turn the call over to Caren Mason, President and Chief Executive Officer of STAAR Surgical.

Caren Mason

Analyst

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. I will begin our discussion with an abbreviated overview of Q1 performance highlights and conclude with progress on select strategic priorities for 2017. Deborah will then review key first quarter financial results, before we open the call for your questions. We are pleased with momentum that continues to build in our ICL business. ICL highlights for Q1 includes sales growth in Canada of 65%, Japan of 65% and China of 45%. Region growth was strong in ICL units as well EMEA up 11% and Asia-Pacific up 28%. India which is included in the APAC region number did experience stronger than anticipated growth. Distributors servicing India placed stocking orders to compensate for a delay in registration renewal which could impact normal import timing in Q2. We do anticipate achieving our full year growth plan in India and signed a strategic corporation agreement in the first quarter with a large eye hospital group. As anticipated, total units were appreciately down in Korea but we are pleased with the growth in the Toric ICL orders in Korea. Globally, Toric ICL shipments hit a new quarterly record and continue account for a growing percentage of the ICL mix. In Q1 2017, Toric ICLs accounted for 51% of sales versus prior year 46% and 44% of units versus prior year 40%. For the quarter, IOL sales and injector parts were behind prior year. With the discontinuation of our U.S. silicone IOL business, we do anticipate flat to declining growth in 2017 for our IOL product line. Injector parts, however, should resume the growth trajectory in coming quarters. Turning to our progress on select strategic priorities, as you know our work in quality is continual and remains as our top strategic priority. With regard to FDA remediation, we have…

Deborah Andrews

Analyst

Thank you, Caren. Good afternoon, everyone. I will start the financial overview with the summary of topline results and then provide more details by product and market. STAAR reported net sales of $20.4 million in the first quarter of 2017, an increase of 6% over the $19.3 million of sales reported in the first quarter of 2016. The sales increase was driven by ICL revenue growth of 16% and unit growth of 20%, and partially offset by decrease IOL and injector part sales. For the first quarter of 2017, total sales for ICL product line were $15.3 million, compared to $13.2 million in the prior year quarter. Asia-Pacific ICL sales were $8.2 during the first quarter, an increase of 23% revenue and 28% units compared to the prior year period. China, Japan and India experienced strong double-digit growth that was offset by softness in Korea. EMEA and Latin America ICL sales were $5.3 million during the first quarter, an increase of 9% revenue and 11% units compared to the prior year period. All three regions within EMEA and Latin American were reported growth in sales and units, with Latin American and Middle East reporting double-digit unit growth. North America ICLs were $1.8 million during the first quarter, up 7% revenue and 6% unites from the prior year period. The increase in sales was driven by the successful commercialization of the EVO Toric lens in Canada, which was approved in the September of 2016. For our IOL product line total IOL sales were $4.6 million for the first quarter of 2017, which was down 9% revenue, but up 1% units from the prior year period. Solid growth in EMEA was offset by the phase-out of silicone IOLs sales in North America and softness in Japan sales during the quarter. Now turning…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question will come from Raymond Myers of Benchmark. Your line is now open.

Raymond Myers

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Caren congratulations on the progress with the remediation efforts. That’s been a long time in coming. So congratulations there. Can you describe what happened in the process, maybe a little bit more detail and outline the process going forward to lift the FDA's issues?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Okay. Thank you by the way Ray. I appreciate always your comment and thank you for joining us. In terms of the process with FDA, really everything from this point forward is at the evolution of the FDA, the timing, the process, et cetera, is totally up to them. Our progress was in having created a plan and having delivered on that plan as promised in terms of the amount of information. We believe the quality of information and the timing of the delivery of that information. And we did have outside console around our progress along the way which we had commented upon previously. So we do believe we are in the right position and as result of that, we did communicate with the FDA as to our readiness for inspection.

Raymond Myers

Analyst

That's great. And in Korea that was one area of weakness in the quarter. Can you help us understand, is it continuing to get weak or is it just a year-over-year comparison? What is the current recent trend?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Yes. We had an agreement with our Korean distributor around guaranteed purchases per quarter as we have talked about last year and we have paste the purchases based on Korea’s ability at that time to properly ream the market and their ability to respond. Unfortunately, toward the end of last year, we were surprised with their analysis and their ability in 2017 to keep up that pace. That is on the spheric ICLs. On the Toric ICLs we are seeing nice growth. We expect that over the next four months to six months, hopefully, certainly by the end of the year that the programs that are being put in place by our team will start to reflect to more growth from both spheric and Toric and more strategic cooperation agreements that will also hopefully take us back in Korea.

Raymond Myers

Analyst

Okay. That's great and that's my two questions. So I will get back in queue. Thank you.

Caren Mason

Analyst

Thank you, Ray.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Jason Mills of Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

David Rescott

Analyst

It is David Rescott on for Jason. Can you hear me all right?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Can you speak a little louder please.

David Rescott

Analyst

Yes. Sorry, this is David Rescott on for Jason.

Caren Mason

Analyst

Hi, David.

David Rescott

Analyst

Can you hear me all right now?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Yes.

David Rescott

Analyst

Good. Yeah. So it looks like for ASPs and IOLs, we are kind of modeling something that was higher than what we saw. Can you kind of talk a little about, what you saw kind of bring this down or driving this down and also kind of how we should think about that going forward? And I think, secondly, give a little more color on you know what gross margins were this quarter per category and how we should look at those going forward as well?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Well, I think, that in terms of IOLs, certainly the market continues to be quite competitive. Our offerings now in the United States are limited to nanoFLEX Collamer product and that is considered a moderate to premium products from many of our optometric surgeons. In terms of being competitive, they may have been some adjustments in terms of price points, yes. I think in terms of gross margin I will turn that over to Deborah.

Deborah Andrews

Analyst

No. In terms of gross margin on our IOL product line, although as repeat declines of gross marginal decline, cost structure is still good and I expect overall to be -- ASPs to be steady throughout the year.

David Rescott

Analyst

All right. Thanks. That’s it for me.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question is from Jim Sidoti of Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open.

Jim Sidoti

Analyst

Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Yes, Jim. We can hear you loud and clear. Hi.

Jim Sidoti

Analyst

Great. I am, so, can you just on, excuse me, what I invest on the FDA to inspect, I believe it took about five months or six months, is that about right and is that the time, is that about how much time you think it will take at this time?

Caren Mason

Analyst

Okay. I don’t recollect, I wasn’t on Board at the time. I think it was three months or so, but I have no idea as to the inspection timing for the FDA. So I couldn’t tell you what that would be.

Jim Sidoti

Analyst

And is there any cost that starts now for them to come in or can they come in whenever they want?

Caren Mason

Analyst

They can come within whenever they want. There is no statue associated with their response to our readiness.

Jim Sidoti

Analyst

Okay. And then the last one, you mentioned you signed a new strategic corporation agreement in India, was that the only one sign in the quarter or were there other signed as well?

Caren Mason

Analyst

No. There was another one, new one signed in the Middle East and then there were renewals from previous agreements as well and then number of others are currently in negotiation.

Jim Sidoti

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Caren Mason

Analyst

You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Caren Mason for closing remarks.

Caren Mason

Analyst

I’d like to thank everyone for their participation on our call today. We appreciate your interest and investment in our company and we look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming weeks and months. All the best to all of you. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect. Good day.