Electromed, Inc. (AMEX:ELMD) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript November 7, 2023
Electromed, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.02 EPS, expectations were $0.1.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Electromed First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note today’s event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Cavanaugh with ICR Westwicke. Please go ahead.
Mike Cavanaugh: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the Electromed earnings call. Earlier today, Electromed Inc. released financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2024, the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The release is currently available on the company’s website at www.smartvest.com. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements that management will make on this call are considered forward-looking statements, including statements about the company’s future operating and financial results and plans. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or achievements to be materially different from those projected. Any such statements represent management’s expectations as of today’s date.
You should not place any undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, and the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please refer to the company’s SEC filings for further guidance on this matter. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jim Cunniff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Electromed.
Jim Cunniff: Thanks, Mike, and thank you to everyone joining today’s call. I’m thrilled to report another strong quarter for Electromed to kick off fiscal year 2024 as we generated quarterly revenue of $12.3 million, representing year-over-year growth of 16%. All 3 of our revenue categories, homecare, hospital and international, saw revenue growth over the same period of fiscal 2023, demonstrating that our strategic growth initiatives are yielding impressive results. In addition to the strong revenue growth in the quarter, operating income came in at $142,000 compared to $44,000 in the same quarter of fiscal 2023. Brad will provide more detail later in the call regarding our financial results. Our increased revenue are a direct result of the hard work and execution of the entire Electromed team.
We continue to attract high-quality talent to expand our direct selling efforts, which is a key component of our commercial plan. We ended the quarter with 51 sales representatives, up from 46 reps at the end of fiscal year 2023. In the second quarter, we intend to continue to thoughtfully expand the team, aiming to hire three additional reps to deepen our penetration in key markets for Electromed and to support a larger pool of physician prescribers. Additionally, we have initiated a revamp of our training and onboarding program with the goal of decreasing the ramp-up time to productivity for new sales reps. We have a track record of strong productivity from our sales reps, and the first quarter was no exception, coming in at an annualized rate of $876,000 in homecare revenue per rep, well within our target range of $850,000 to $950,000.
We look forward to sharing the results of our revamped sales rep onboarding process in future business updates and feel confident that these efforts will have a beneficial impact on our sales team and our commercial efforts at large. In addition to the continued expansion of sales force, we also recently hired a key executive, Amy Yanta to lead the quality assurance, regulatory affairs and compliance teams. Amy brings a wealth of quality and regulatory experience in the medical device industry, and we are grateful to have her with us. Also, I’m pleased to report we had a successful TUV ISO 13485 surveillance audit in the first quarter. Shifting gears to strategic growth initiatives. Helping to ensure a positive patient experience is core to Electromed’s mission.
With that in mind, we recently introduced 2 updates to our business. First, we seamlessly executed a reorganization of the reimbursement team for improved efficiency, more meaningful service metrics and service improvements for a frictionless clinical experience. Secondly, we launched an improved way of gathering, tracking and reporting patient quality of life feedback documentation to physicians. Keeping the patient front and center of our values will always be fundamental to the success of Electromed. And by introducing these new services, we believe we are positioning Electromed and our patients for success and better health outcomes. To that end, we continue to invest in direct-to-consumer initiatives. We believe that raising awareness with the end consumer, that is our patients, is an important marketing objective that can add value to our commercial strategy, especially in exposing and educating patients on the benefits of our new Clearway homecare device.
In last quarter’s call, I shared that we’re currently underway with the launch of Clearway for hospital customers. And I’d like to provide some additional color to the launch. From our limited beta launch in Q1, we have received encouraging feedback from our customers. Specifically, we have heard that they like our intuitive touchscreen design with a single button start, our easy-to-use manual and programmable therapies as well as our only-in-class single hose connect with a secure fit that does not disconnect from the generator. We also improved the product’s pedestal design to make it easier to use and included a basket for the vest. Both improvements were a result of user feedback. This feedback is fundamental to shaping our commercial strategy as we launch more broadly in Q2.
Now I’d like to take a moment to update you on our clinical studies. We place high importance on generating clinical data demonstrating the significant improvements in quality of life and reduction in the exacerbation rates, hospitalizations, emergency department visits and antibiotic prescriptions in bronchiectasis patients using the SmartVest system. We shared data supporting the use of SmartVest as an efficacious treatment for bronchiectasis at the American Thoracic Society Conference in the spring. In another new initiative, a similar focus on health care providers, we continue to support our new sponsored continuing medical education or CME program. The program is focused on early detection of bronchiectasis and HFCWO treatment for prescribing physicians, which serves to increase the knowledge, skills and professional performance of clinicians.
The CME program continues to receive favorable feedback from our clinicians. In the last quarterly update, we stated Electromed implemented a new enterprise resource planning or ERP system to help improve efficiency in our supply fulfillment and financial processes. We are already yielding benefits from the new ERP system through improved operational rigor and data insights into the business. For example, we now have better visibility on our inventory ordering and replenishment, which will enable us to reduce our overall inventory over the course of the year while increasing our finished goods inventory to ensure patient demand is supported. The Electromed team has made a significant progress executing on our strategic growth plans in the full quarter of 2024, and I look forward to maintaining this momentum into the remainder of the fiscal year.
With that, I’d like to hand the call over to Brad for a review of our financials. Brad?
Brad Nagel: Thank you, Jim. Net revenue for our first quarter grew 16% over Q1 of last year to $12.3 million. Homecare revenue for the quarter was $11.2 million, an increase of 16% over Q1 last year. This growth was driven primarily by the increase in the number of our direct sales representatives. As we continue to reduce ramp time to productivity for new hires with our new training and onboarding initiative, we expect to see continued growth. Q1 hospital revenue increased year-over-year by 30% to $507,000. This revenue increase was due to the addition of a strategic account manager focused on delivering hospital revenue. Homecare distributor revenue for the quarter was $573,000, an increase of 3% from Q1 last year. Q1 international revenue increased year-over-year by 12% to $91,000.
As mentioned in previous updates, we continue to support and maintain our current distributors in the international markets, but growing our international business is currently not a primary focus for us. Gross profit increased to $9.5 million or 77.1% of net revenues for the quarter compared to $8.3 million or 78.2% of net revenues in Q1 FY ‘23. The increase in gross profit dollars for the quarter was primarily due to increased revenue, while the gross margin rate decrease year-over-year was a result of increased material and labor costs. Selling, general and administrative or SG&A expenses were $9.2 million for Q1, representing an increase of $1.2 million or 14.5% compared to the same period last year. SG&A expenses in Q1 contained several onetime expenses totaling over $600,000 that are not expected to be recurring throughout the remainder of the year, including our annual sales meeting, investments in market research as well as recruiting and expenses associated with changes to our leadership team.
Research and development expenses decreased $92,000 or 31% versus Q1 of last year to $206,000. The decrease was primarily due to reduced costs associated with our Clearway product development. Net interest income increased $73,000 or 1,820% to $77,000 for the quarter. The increase is primarily due to increased savings rates associated with our cash balances. As of September 30, 2023, Electromed had $7 million in cash, $23.5 million in accounts receivable and no debt, achieving a working capital of $30.4 million and an increase in total shareholders’ equity of $600,000 to $38.2 million. The cash balance reflects a decrease of $0.4 million compared to fiscal year-end 2023. The decrease is primarily a result from payment of annual incentive compensation in Q1, which is not expected to occur in the remaining quarters.
With that, we’d like to move to the Q&A portion of our call. Operator, please open the call to questions.
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