Nephros - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered net revenue of $4.4M (+36% YoY), gross margin of 63% (+400 bps YoY), and the company’s third consecutive profitable quarter, supported by programmatic reorders and new active sites.
• Results were a clear beat vs Wall Street: revenue $4.42M vs $3.60M consensus and EPS $0.02 vs -$0.03 consensus; two estimates were tracked, indicating limited coverage but a meaningful surprise. Values retrieved from S&P Global.*
• Sequentially, revenue moderated from a record Q1 ($4.88M) to $4.42M in Q2, but profitability and cash generation remained intact; cash grew to $5.1M and NEPH remains debt-free.
• Management cited all-time highs in programmatic sales and active-site counts, the largest dialysis filtration PO in company history, and strong retention; sales capacity expansion into non-healthcare verticals is an ongoing constraint and opportunity.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Programmatic sales reached an all-time high; trailing-12-month revenue climbed from $13.8M to $16.7M, underpinning durable demand and recurring revenue momentum.
• Gross margin expanded to 63% (vs. 59% LY), driven primarily by reduced shipping costs and inventory reserve adjustments; adjusted EBITDA turned positive to $355K (vs. -$133K LY).
• Customer metrics and commercial traction strengthened: “active-site counts reached all-time highs across infection control, dialysis water, and commercial” and the dialysis water segment delivered its second-highest performance on record.

What Went Wrong

• Sequential top-line deceleration from Q1’s record ($4.88M) to Q2 ($4.42M) reflects normalization after emergency response strength and pre-ordering ahead of a small price increase in February.
• SG&A rose 13% YoY to ~$2.2M on higher commissions, bonus accruals, and stock comp, highlighting investment intensity during growth scaling.
• Sales coverage remains a limiting factor: “We don’t have the salesforce we need in every place… we’ve been strategic… and will have to keep expanding” (Robert Banks).

Transcript

Speaker 0

Okay, and welcome to the Nephros, Inc. second quarter 2025 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Karen Smith in PTG Advisory. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Megan. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Karen Smith with PTG Advisory. Thank you all for participating in Nephros's second quarter 2025 conference call. Before we begin, I would like to caution that comments made during this conference call by management will contain forward-looking statements regarding the operations and future results of Nephros. On call here to review Nephros's bilingual statistics and exchange commission, including without limitation, the company is formed from 12, be 10 to identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

Factors that may affect the company's results include, but are not limited to, Nephros's ability to successfully, timely, and cost-effectively market and sell its products and service offerings, the rate of adoption of its products and services by hospitals and other healthcare providers, the success of its commercialization efforts, and the effect of existing and new regulatory requirements on Nephros's business and other economic and competitive factors. The contents of this conference call contain time-sensitive information. It is accurate only as of the date of the live call today, August 7, 2025. I'm going to undertake no obligation to revise or update any statements to reflect events or circumstances as to the date of this conference call, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Nephros's President and Chief Executive Officer, Robert Banks. Robert, please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Karen. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm thrilled to be speaking with you today as we share our Q2 2025 results. We've grown our total 12-month revenue from $13.8 million to $16.7 million, added more than 400 new active customer sites over the past two years, and most importantly, have continued to prove our strategy works. Q2 was another high-achieving quarter. Net revenue reached $4.4 million, up 36% over Q2 last year, and marks the third consecutive quarter of profitability. These are not just financial milestones, they are clear signals of durable momentum and strong operational execution. When you zoom out to look at the first half of 2025, the growth becomes even more compelling. The first half of 2025 revenue hit $9.3 million, a 37% increase over the same period in 2024. Every region outperformed its first half targets.

Overall, we delivered well above our internal targets, reinforcing both the resilience and scalability of our business. Much of this success is driven by our core programmatic business, which has now seen 40% compound growth over the past two years. In fact, programmatic sales reached all-time highs, confirming the efficacy of our recurring revenue model. We have also seen encouraging traction in other key areas: a thriving installation program, which has accelerated reorder rates and expanded our footprint, a record level of programmatic sales, even with lower emergency response volumes, the strategic expansion of our sales teams into non-healthcare verticals has begun to pay off, and growing customer adoption of our filter tracking app, which has improved visibility, compliance, and support, with thousands of filters now being tracked. This quarter's strong execution reflects the entire team's commitment, from sales and operations to product and customer success.

We now serve over 1,500 active customer sites and are delighted that our Q2 brought in the highest retention rate of the past six quarters. Looking ahead, we are focused on three things: expanding into underserved verticals like dental, government, and municipal facilities, bringing new innovations to market like our S100 microfilter and 20-inch HydraGuard, which have unlocked opportunities across sterile processing, laboratories, and beyond, and lastly, executing with operational discipline while continuing to protect profitability. To everyone who has supported our journey so far, thank you. I am deeply proud of what we've built and even more excited about what's next. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Judy Krandel, for a more detailed look at our financials. Judy?

Speaker 0

Thanks, Robert. I will now provide a closer look at Nephros's financial performance in the second quarter and first half of 2025. We reported second quarter net revenue of $4.4 million, a 36% increase over the corresponding period in 2024, reflecting strong growth in our programmatic business and emergency response business. Active customer sites continued to grow and were over 1,600 as of June 30, 2025, slightly higher than at March 31, 2025. Gross margins in the quarter also increased to 63% compared with 59% in Q2 2024, an improvement of 4 percentage points. The improvement in gross margins in 2025 was primarily driven by a reduction in shipping costs and inventory reserves adjustment. Research and development expenses in the quarter were $311,000 compared to $254,000 for the same quarter in 2024. R&D expenses were higher this year due to an increase in headcount.

Sales, general, and administrative expenses in the quarter were $2.2 million compared to $1.9 million for the corresponding period in 2024, an increase of 13% due to higher sales commissions resulting from our increased revenue, higher pool of employee bonuses, and higher stock compensation expense. We are very pleased to report positive net income for the quarter of $237,000 compared to a net loss of $289,000 in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was positive $355,000 compared to a loss of $133,000 during the same period in 2024. Net cash provided by operating activities was $994,000 in the second quarter of 2025 versus net cash used of $501,000 in the prior year period, an improvement of $1,495,000. Net cash provided in the second quarter reflects primarily our positive net income, a decrease in accounts receivable, and an increase in accrued expenses.

Net cash used in the second quarter of 2024 reflects primarily the net loss in that period and an increase in accounts receivable and inventory. Moving on to the six months, the first half of this year, sales for the six months ending June 30, 2025 increased by 37% to $9.2 million from the prior year period, reflecting strong growth in our programmatic business and emergency response business. Gross margins improved to 64% in the first half of 2025 from 61% in the prior year period. The increase in gross margins was primarily driven by lower product costs resulting from a more favorable product mix and a reduction in inventory reserve adjustment. SG&A expenses increased by 9% in the first half of 2025 versus the prior year period due to higher sales commission expense, increased bonus accrual, and higher stock-based compensation expense.

Net income increased to $795,000 in the first half of 2025 from a net loss of $458,000 in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA in the first half of the year was positive $1,022,000 compared to a loss of $228,000 during the same period in 2024. Our cash balance on June 30, 2025 was $5.1 million compared to $3.8 million as of December 31, 2024, and we continued to be debt-free. Please refer to today's press release for more details about the calculation of adjusted EBITDA and its reconciliation to GAAP net income or loss. Additional information about our results can be found in our filing in Form 10-Q, which we also filed this afternoon. I will now turn the call back to Robert for some closing remarks. Robert, please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Judy. With an eye towards the future, we remain focused on scaling our successes and exploring new ways to drive value. The strides we've made operationally, commercially, and financially position Nephros to lead in a future where water quality and infection control are more important than ever. This quarter shows what we're capable of when innovation, execution, and purpose come together. We're just getting started. Thank you to our team, our customers, and our shareholders for being on this journey with us. With that, we'll now open the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Speaker 0

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your questions, please press star then two. At this time, we will momentarily spin our roster. Our first question comes from Thomas McGovern with Mattson Group. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you for taking my question. To wrap on the quarter, obviously, it's great to see some of those KPIs you discussed in the prepared remarks. Our retention rate, all-time high active customer sites. As noted, it seems to be reflective of several of these initiatives that you implemented, whether that's the installation and replacement program, the app, or the expanded sales force. I just want to understand where you're at with each of those initiatives. Where do you really foresee the bulk of this growth? Is it evenly divided amongst those, or is there one initiative in particular that you think really drove growth in the quarter? Maybe beyond that, just talk a little bit about how you see the continued rollout of this, particularly as it relates to the app and some of the innovations you guys have recently launched.

Just give us an idea of the trajectories of the business moving throughout the rest of the year. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Hey, Bob, it's great to talk to you again. Good questions, really good questions. All of them make me think back to a year ago when I was looking at two quarters of not so high top-line performance. When we were marketing about things that we're doing to try to convert that back into more sustainable growth, one of the things we noted last year was that we weren't losing customers, but our customers were not reordering filters at the rates at which they were supposed to. That really is how the whole filter tracking app and some of the service initiatives were born. We saw that as how do we remind our customers not to just leave it in because it's still floating in the water, but actually do and follow the recommended procedures for how we implement. That’s where that came from.

It was a combination of the app allowing us to have visibility to where each filter is being installed, the service capabilities allowing us to help the customer if they don't have the personnel, the time, or knowledge to be able to change out the filters unless they were first installed, and really having the sales team focus on helping continue to drive those very strong relationships. By being present and finding out if they're in trouble and really giving that customer a great experience, they realized that the filter was giving them peace of mind and also helping to protect from some of the things that are causing the negative headlines and bacteria and infections. A combination of those three. I think it started with the app because it just raised visibility, but the service implementation took the visibility and turned it into action.

We created a model that is sustainable, and we can continue to capitalize on that growth because it doesn't do anything good if you close 600 customers, but then have existing customers not reorder as they're supposed to, especially in a time when the number of hospital beds has been flat over the past 5 to 10 years. That growth is deliberate, intentional, and I believe sustainable based on a lot of the SD askings that we've been talking about for the past few months here.

Speaker 1

That's good. I appreciate that response. Maybe a second question from me. Looking at your expanded sales force, you guys are obviously, as you've noticed, looking to expand your asset customer size. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that one of the big growth catalysts you see in the near term is pursuing additional verticals. I'm just curious, with that stance now, do you believe that you have efficient sales force to leverage both maintaining your current active customer size, keeping them happy, keeping kind of hands-on, as well as pursuing these growth avenues in verticals outside of healthcare? Do you expect to have to add additional sales force as you guys kind of continue to move along with your growth strategies?

Speaker 3

Another great question. You really actually hit on these only hindrances here right now for our growth. We don't have the sales force we need in every place location to grow. We've been pretty strategic about where we deploy resources, people, hands, and expertise. In the past, we've had to really focus on maybe areas where there is high population density or higher probability, whereas now we're able to go into areas and locations in the states and regions where there hasn't been much attention being paid. What we're finding is that a lot of these people just don't understand the importance of the pathological mitigation or biological remediation. It starts with education.

We've been able to reach more of these different opportunities and potential customers through different speaking engagements, different posts on LinkedIn and other social media outlets, and really getting the name known so that we are using our existing staff to cover where we can, but also having to augment with junior associates and others who can come in and help take care of what we've got while these amazing experts go out and get new business. That undergathered approach model has really been quite effective. What we're noticing is that we're just going to have to keep expanding it. It's working very well.

Speaker 1

Good. I appreciate those responses. Very helpful as always. I can hand the call off to the next person here. Thank you.

Speaker 0

This concludes our question and answer session. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.