Nephros - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Nephros Inc. third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star, then zero on your telephone keypad. 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 question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kirin Smith of PCG Advisory. Please go ahead.

Kirin Smith (President)

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for participating in Nephros' third quarter 2023 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. I encourage you to review Nephros' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the company's Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statement.

Factors that may affect the company's future results include, but are not limited to, Nephros' 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 customers, the success of its commercialization efforts, and the effect of existing and new regulatory requirements on Nephros' business and other economic and competitive factors. The content of this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live call, today, November eighth, 2023. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Nephros' Chief Executive Officer, Robert Banks. Robert, please go ahead.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

Thank you, Kirin, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to welcome you to the third quarter earnings call. We are quite happy with our third quarter results, especially our revenue of $3.7 million and a 55% increase over last year. Nephros has delivered high levels of sustained growth over the past three quarters, with gross margins up significantly from the same period last year. In addition, our cash flows in 2023 have been consistently positive, totaling over $1 million so far this year. We will remain laser-focused on financial growth and are committed to offering compelling value proposition for our infection control and dialysis customers. Furthermore, our commercial filtration business continues to mature under the efficient operating model we have in place. Overall, I am very encouraged. Next, I will explain some of the drivers of the growth we have been experiencing.

First, we have been tactically focused on strengthening our distribution channels and cultivating deeper, more worthwhile relationships with partners whose goals and priorities align with our own. So far, we have seen increased sales within existing sites and larger sales per transaction. Second, we have strengthened our emphasis on converting emergency response customers to ongoing programmatic relationships. In other words, we are working hard to convert sales that might have otherwise been one-time events into recurring, long-term business relationships. We love recurring revenue from programmatic business, and our customers enjoy the ongoing protection we provide. So far, we are seeing positive impact from these efforts across our territories. Third, we have maintained inventory resiliency, a meaningful differentiator in the infection control space, as our competitors often struggle with product availability.

We are confident that our enduring ability to provide products when customers need them while delivering high-quality solution and unmatched customer service. This will allow us to continue gaining market share. And finally, we have begun to see growth trends as a result of the ASHRAE 514 standard, which focuses on the risks and actions healthcare institutions should take to protect their patient populations from waterborne pathogens. The ASHRAE organization develops national building standards, which may influence the codes and regulations for the built environment. While the new standard is not a regulation, we believe it positively impacting demand for our products. I would now like to welcome Judy Krandel, our new Chief Financial Officer, to the call. Judy will present some of our key financial results.

Andy Astor is also on the call and will provide historical context and additional color as needed during the Q&A portion of this call. Judy, please go ahead.

Judy Krandel (CFO)

Thanks, Robert. I'm very pleased to have joined Nephros and look forward to helping build a terrific company and fast-growing business. I will now provide a closer look at Nephros' financial performance in the third quarter. We reported third-quarter net revenue of $3.7 million, a 55% increase over the corresponding period in 2022. Also, year-to-date revenues for the first nine months of 2023 were up 48%....Net loss from continuing operations for the quarter was $0.2 million, compared to $1.3 million in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was positive $11,000, compared with negative $0.3 million during the same period in 2022. Gross margins in the quarter were 59%, compared with 32% in 2022, an 84% year-over-year increase.

Research and development expenses in the quarter were $0.2 million, compared to $0.3 million for the same quarter in 2022. Sales, general, and administrative expenses in the quarter were $2.1 million, compared to $1.7 million for the corresponding period in 2022. Net cash provided by operating activities was $548,000 in the quarter, and $1.1 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2023, compared to net cash used in operating activities of $172,000 in the same quarter last year, and approximately $3 million used in the nine months ended September 30, 2022, an improvement of $720,000 and $4.1 million, respectively.

Our cash balance on September 30, 2023, increased to $4.6 million, compared to $4.1 million as of June 30, 2023, and we continue to remain 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 will be found in our filing on Form 10-K, which we plan to file later this month. I will now turn the call back to Robert for some closing remarks. Robert, please go ahead.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

Thank you, Judy. I now want to touch base briefly on a special topic mentioned in our press release. An important metric we should report each quarter is the number of active customer sites, ACS, which we will define as the number of customers that have purchased products over the past four quarters. We recently made a database change that impacted the calculation of ACS and yielded different results than those previously reported. There is a table in today's press release which shows the revised calculation retroactively over the past two years. While the absolute numbers are slightly lower, our positive growth trend over the past several quarters is not materially impacted. Indeed, for the third quarter, the ACS count increased 7% over the same period last year and increased 3% quarter-over-quarter.

To summarize, the third quarter demonstrated an ongoing trend of significant growth for Nephros. While 55% increase in net revenue over the previous year and 40% year-to-date net revenue increase and sustained positive cash flow results, we believe we have achieved a path towards sustained profitable growth. As I mentioned earlier, we have strategically focused on reinforcing appropriate distribution channels and converting emergency response sales into programmatic business and maintaining strong inventory. We believe these efforts, combined with the potential impact of the new ASHRAE standard, well position Nephros for growth and advancement in our customer markets. In conclusion, I want to thank our investors, partners, customers, and employees for your continued support and confidence in Nephros. We look forward to updating you on future achievements and continuing to create long-term value for our investors and stakeholders. Operator, please open the call to questions.

Operator (participant)

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 speakerphone, 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 question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Thomas McGovern with Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Thomas McGovern (Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So first question is just on something that you've talked about before and mentioned in this call. You know, you cited one of your, you know, key drivers for success was your ability to maintain your inventory resilience. So if you could just kind of refresh us, just go through, you know, what has caused some of these supply constraints in the infection control space, and what you guys have done to insulate yourselves. And maybe if you could talk a little bit going forward throughout the rest of the year into 2024, how you guys expect... You know, do you expect those challenges to persist, and do you expect whatever steps you've taken to insulate yourself to continue to do so, despite potential larger industry-wide headwinds? Thanks.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

Thank you, Thomas.

Judy Krandel (CFO)

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Robert.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

Andy, you start, and I'll finish at the end with some further thoughts.

Judy Krandel (CFO)

Okay. Thomas, good to hear your voice. We basically keep too much inventory on purpose. That's really the bottom line. We have a supply chain that takes about half a year from order to receipt, and so, we can't order-

Andy Astor (President and CEO, Nephros)

Instantly when our supplies are low, and yet our customers have a need to, if they have an emergency, they can't wait months for their supply. And so part of our whole financial modeling program that we've implemented from the very beginning is try to keep too much inventory on hand. If you look at the 10-Q right now, you'll see that inventory has dropped from around $5 million to about $2.5 million, which is great because we, we did right size that. But now that we're growing, we're actually ordering a lot more and doing that to make sure that we can continue to meet customers demand, particularly emergency demand, quickly. So it's really that simple. It's just we keep a lot of stuff on the shelf. I hope that answers your question.

Thomas McGovern (Research Analyst)

Yeah, no, that's helpful. So I guess just on the other part of that question, looking at the industry as a whole, is that just a practice that isn't widely exercised? Is it just, you know, is there anything that's kind of disrupted their access to supply, or is it more that they just weren't prepared and weren't able to fill some emergency orders that maybe you guys were able to pick up?

Andy Astor (President and CEO, Nephros)

You know, we're not, we're not privy to why our competitors don't have enough on the shelf. And frankly, it's not something that we focus a lot on, trying to have intelligence about. What we do know is that supply chain shortages are common in our business, and we try not to be on the list of companies that have that problem.

Thomas McGovern (Research Analyst)

Understood. I appreciate that, caller. And then one last question, then I'll jump back in in the queue. But could you guys give us an update on your relationship with Donastar, kind of how things are trending on the commercial side of the business? You know, I think last call you mentioned that, you know, it might have accounted for somewhere around 10% or something like that of the total business. If you kind of give us an idea of what it's accounting for now, and just generally high level, how that relationship is maturing and what your expectations are moving into 2024. Thank you. Appreciate the time to take my questions.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

No problem. Thank you for the questions. This is Robert speaking. Donastar is our entry to the commercial market and how we choose to go to market there, and it's been a great relationship. You know, we have regular calls. They're staffing up their business development team, and more importantly, it's taking. We've got the right products on the shelf and ready for them to go. And we've been with that big announcement that was made several calls ago with the Tractor relationship. You know, they've been installing new sites, converting existing sites and gaining that traction. They've got a very healthy funnel throughout the rest of the year, so I'm quite pleased with the progress.

But in all of these business relationships, it takes some time to get the name and reputation out there, and that's what that company and with our help have been doing over the past few months. Very pleased with the progress and looking forward to some big things coming in the future.

Thomas McGovern (Research Analyst)

Great. I appreciate it, and congrats on the quarter, guys.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Robert Banks for any closing remarks.

Robert Banks (President and CEO)

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone for joining today. I really look forward to talking to you all again in future meetings, and have a great rest of your week. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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