OptimizeRx - Q1 2023
May 10, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining OptimizeRx's Q1 fiscal 2023 earnings discussion. With us today is the Chief Executive Officer of OptimizeRx, Will Febbo. He is joined by Company Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Ed Stelmakh, Chief Commercial Officer, Steve Silvestro, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Marion Odence-Ford, and Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, Andrew D'Silva. At the conclusion of today's earnings call, some important cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during today's call will be provided. I would like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via webcast only. Instructions are included in today's press release and in the Investors section of the company's website. Management will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures today that they believe aid in the understanding of the company's financial results.
A reconciliation to comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to OptimizeRx CEO, William Febbo. Sir, please go ahead.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations, and revenue came in at $13 million, which was at the top end of our Q1 revenue guidance range of $11.5 million-$13 million. As a result, we are maintaining our full year revenue outlook, which calls for our top line to increase at least 10% year-over-year. We believe executing against our guidance will also result in year-over-year improvements to our KPIs by the end of 2023. While the macro environment hasn't fully normalized, the industry trough appears to be behind us now, and we continue to return to normalcy. This is the case despite the banking crisis that began to emerge at the end of Q1.
And while there was some short-term disruption with our customer base as top-down focus moved towards understanding the potential macro overhang, that was short-lived. By early in the second quarter, pharma gained comfort by the resolutions that were implemented to address the fallout. We are seeing modest improvements to tactical sales, which, if you recall, was the portion of our business that was most impacted by the transitory macro headwinds we've discussed. We expect this part of our business to continue to improve as the macros work themselves out and believe our reach, focus on accessing physicians across multiple landing pads, and ability to efficiently scale while being able to report back data, provides us with a significant competitive edge.
More importantly, our AI-driven Real World Data or RWD AI offering continues to gain momentum, we are in late-stage discussions for multiple deals and continue to believe revenue from this solution will increase at least 100% year-over-year and approach 20% of our total revenue for 2023. Our RWD AI pipeline is comprised of dozens of deals with a significant focus on top 200 brands. We view the progress and the types of discussions we're in as extremely positive for our growth, not just in 2023, but in the coming years as well. We believe this momentum is keeping us ahead of the pack as there are no other AI-driven in-workflow messaging solutions in the market.
I'm extremely proud of our RWD AI solutions as it truly showcases our ability to innovate and effectively differentiate ourselves while driving actionable insights and better outcomes for pharma, HCPs, and patients. We are now in our second full year of having RWD AI solution in the market and have seen several examples of significant expansion and growth. For example, one client scaled from pilot to now several live programs, representing our largest multi-year expansion to date of over $5 million. This expansion was unique in that it represented extending our solutions in three dimensions: disease, channel reach, and message type. Very exciting. Operationally, our technology investments, partnerships, and tuck-in acquisitions have created a robust single shop omnichannel offering, which has the ability to drive communications across multiple landing pads and is resulting in superior ROIs for the brands that we serve.
We've also made tremendous progress in building on our industry reputation and expanding awareness of our solutions. Recall, part of what makes our business model special is the fact that we continue to manage the largest in-workflow point-of-care network in the United States and are able to deliver digital solutions via the connectivity to prescribers. To complement this, we have been expanding service offerings outside of the EHR, which we believe will result in us capturing a greater portion of the available industry whitespace in the coming quarters and years. Pharma is moving a greater portion of their more than $10 billion digital commercial spend towards omnichannel solutions while looking for these solutions to deliver more impactful results by not only identifying patients known to HCPs, but also pinpointing new patients for their therapy.
We believe this bodes well for RWD AI as smarter solutions are what pharma is looking for as they continue to reallocate legacy commercial dollars to digital. We believe early proof of this trend is clearly highlighted by the momentum we are seeing with RWD AI, despite it being a newer offering with a higher price tag. RWD AI has the added benefit of moving us from a tactical player with pharma to a bigger strategic partner, where we can benefit from a top-down push by decision-makers while obtaining stickier revenue streams with stronger margins and a greater overall growth potential. As we mentioned in our last call, activity and outcome transparency requirements are continuing to gain importance at a rapid clip and is an area in which we will be investing this year.
We view pharma's focus on relevant insights very positively, as it shows they are getting more serious within our space and are looking to quickly weed out vendors with limited scale as well as spray-and-pray campaigns. In fact, we believe these capabilities will increase our market share and TAM, as we are the only platform that has integrated physician-level engagement data across EHRs, display, and social media, which provides a significant advantage over guiding engagement programs across multiple landing pads. By our estimates, the deeper insights that come from physician-level data reporting will be the new normal for our space. Moreover, the level of insights that can be derived from digital campaigns today is something that was previously unattainable, which is why pharma is embracing reporting in order to quickly catch up with the transformational best practices.
Every day, we are witnessing the influence of insights from physician-level data reporting affect additional investment spend of our customers. This new motivation to invest in a clear sign that pharma is taking digital health more and more seriously and is looking to establish standards as they continue to scale up investments in this space. Later this year, we expect to have completed an enhancement of our platform that allows for smart targeting through the use of AI on all programs, further enabling our customers' ability to effectively and efficiently utilize more landing pads and generate stronger ROIs. This will further strengthen our platform, which, when coupled with our reach, capabilities, and the over 10-to-1 ROI our customers obtain against their marketing spend, creates a significant moat for our business. Finally, during the quarter, we closed a multi-million dollar three-year agreement with a leading hub service company.
Thus far, this is the largest deal of its kind for us and is tied to last year's acquisition of EvinceMed. The engagement is focused on determining drug eligibility and affordability and will help accelerate access to coverage and affordability information for pharma-sponsored patient support programs. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CFO and COO, Ed Stelmakh, who will walk us through the financial details for Q1. Ed?
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
Thanks, Will. Good afternoon, everyone. As with all our calls, a press release was issued with results of our first quarter ended March 31st, 2023. A copy is available for viewing and may be downloaded from the Investor Relations section of our website. Additional information can be obtained through our forthcoming 10-Q, which will be filed in the coming days. Turning to our financial results for the period, our revenue for the quarter was $13 million, a slight decrease from $13.7 million we recognized during the same period in 2022. The decrease in Q1 year-on-year revenues was due to the macro headwinds we have been communicating since they started to take hold in Q2 2022.
Meanwhile, our gross margin decreased slightly from 59% in the quarter ended March 31st, 2022, to 57.2% in quarter ended March 31st, 2023, slightly below the lower end of our annual gross margin range. The decrease was due to solution and channel partner mix. We continue to expect gross margin to come in between 58% and 62% in 2023. Our operating expenses increased from $11.9 million for the three months ended March 31st, 2022, to $14.5 million for the same period in 2023, an increase of 22%. Nearly 50% of the increase was tied to higher stock-based compensation, and the remaining increase was primarily due to the full-year impact of a few 2022 hires and the EvinceMed acquisition, combined with annual merit increases and normalized bonus payouts for the year.
We had a net loss of $6.4 million or $0.37 per basic and fully diluted share for the three months ended March 31st, 2023, as compared to a net loss of $3.8 million during the same period in 2022. On a non-GAAP basis, net loss for the first quarter of 2023 was $1.6 million or $0.09 per basic and fully diluted shares outstanding as compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $0.1 million or $0.01 per basic and fully diluted share in the same year-ago period. Operating cash flow was virtually breakeven at an immaterial loss of $86,000 during the quarter, which was largely due to the timing of upfront payments to fund investments in our growing capabilities and expanded access.
Our balance sheet remains strong with cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaling $73.7 million on March 31st, 2023, compared to $74.1 million in December 31st, 2022. We are well capitalized to execute against our organic growth strategy and believe our balance sheet positions us to further expand our business solution offerings and drive profitable growth. We're also continuously evaluating M&A opportunities that fit within our strategic priorities at more attractive valuations when compared to last year. In terms of our revenue outlook for the full year 2023, the company continues to expect revenue to increase at least 10% year-over-year. Let's turn to our KPIs for the first quarter 2023. Our average revenue per top 20 pharmaceutical manufacturer now stands at $2 million as of the first quarter of 2023.
We are working with 18 of the top 20 largest pharma companies in the world and 100% of the top 20 that don't have the majority of their sales tied to COVID-19 vaccines. As a former pharma executive, I believe that this segment of the industry represents the largest opportunity for commercial digital solutions, and we continue to have a solid presence in this space. Our net revenue retention rate declined to 86% due to the macroeconomic factors and the resulting impact to several client programs that we discussed in our prior calls. Revenues per FTE held steady at $605,000 and in line with what we reported last quarter. As a reminder, our KPIs are calculated on a 12-month rolling basis and are impacted by the dynamics of the headwinds from the previous year.
As these headwinds subside, we expect our KPIs to show improvement. Now with that, I would like to turn the call back over to Will. Will?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thanks, Ed. Operator, now let's move to Q&A.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Ryan Daniels with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Jared Hassey (Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon. This is Jared Hassey for Ryan Daniels. Thanks for taking our questions. You know, first one from us. You know, we were just hoping to get some color regarding the state of financial assistance programs in pharma. You know, there was a recent report highlighting some of the tension between pharma and payers and maybe some manufacturers starting to pull back these programs, which obviously can have an impact on patient access. Just curious if you could speak a little bit to what you're seeing in the market overall. Then I guess just as a related point, could you maybe tie in sort of what percentage of your revenue comes from these programs today?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah. Hey, Jared, it's Will. Good to hear your voice, and I'll hand it over to Ed in one second. We don't break out revenue by solution because we're really moving towards that enterprise approach where it's multiple solutions and multiple pieces, and they all have a relevant play in the patient journey. Not gonna break that out. It's not a material percentage of our business. It hasn't been. We've spoken to that over the last few years. It's just a piece of the business that's important and basically making affordability accessible will always be important. I think where it's heading is it's gonna become more specific to specialty medications, where it really has the largest impact for the patient and the HCP to have a patient who's adherent.
Let me hand it over to Ed, and then maybe Steve can kick in too.
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
Yeah. Thanks, Will. Jared, great question. Yeah. I would agree with what Will just said. You know, financial messaging has been a declining slice of the overall pie for us for a while. But I think these trends driven by pharma trying to be much more targeted in financial messaging, specifically, due to the fact that co-pay programs just need to be a lot more, again, a lot more targeted, it really bodes well for our RWE and AI solution mix. That really kind of helps us identify the right types of patients at the right time at the point-of-care. I don't know if Steve, anything else you wanna add to that?
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah. I mean, I would just say, Jared, it's consistent also with the shift from sort of small molecule drugs in the marketplace. Sort of those massive, name brands, household brands to the shift to specialty. You've got that exchange from, you know, volume to value occurring. Consistent with that, the financial assistance programs need to evolve. You know, whether or not there was friction between payers and pharma, that friction has always existed. Just the general dynamics in the marketplace and the ecosystem changing from, you know, small molecule to more biologics and specific, as Ed highlighted, would necessitate the change in co-pay programs or financial assistance anyway. It's, as Ed said, I think it's a net benefit to us given our focus on our technology with RWD AI.
We're positioned really well to capitalize on that. Great question, though. Thank you.
Jared Hassey (Analyst)
Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I can appreciate the ability to target, is certainly a differentiator. I guess just as a follow-up here. Will, I think you alluded to the sort of tactical sales, that being kind of the area of the business that's been most impacted by these transitory headwinds. I'm wondering how quickly can those sales come back? I mean, do you feel like these budgets are largely set for the year at this point? Do you think if we get, you know, maybe a little bit more stability, that those types of things can maybe swing back in the second half of the year?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, absolutely. On the tactical side, it is the one that can be dialed up and down the fastest, right? They're largely going through media companies who are managing those budgets for pharma. Good news is we've worked with, you know, over 50 agencies. We've worked with obviously a lot of brands over the last year or so. As the macro does get better, that's the one they will dial up the fastest. Yeah, we're not calling that ball yet, but that is the one that would be dialed up in the H2. The good news is we're just seeing improvement in the first half.
I think that's largely due to some efforts we made mid last year to really double down on marketing and education of what we're doing with the agencies, and really being a partner that helps them differentiate with pharma. We're seeing very good early signs of that. Still hopeful in the second half.
Speaker 10
Okay, great. Appreciate all the color. Thanks.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Sean Dodge with RBC. Please go ahead.
Sean Dodge (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Oh, thanks. Maybe we'll just stay on tactical for a moment. Your comments there around that improving it. Is there anything you can share to give us a sense of the magnitude of change there? Maybe like pipeline for tactical, I guess, you know, compared to Q4, how much has that, I don't know, progressed or grown?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Well, Ed would get mad at me if I stray from our KPIs, so I'm not gonna give you pipeline numbers. You know, he's stronger than I am. But we are seeing, you know, mark-to-mark, year-over-year, year to date over year to year, just more active business already. Sean, you know, we've talked about this. We really doubled down probably August, September last year around training, marketing, holding events, speaking at conferences, and that brought a lot of awareness up for within the agency sector. I think net-net, you know, they're all catching up.
Pharma's catching up to digital, and I think we've supplied a really clear message of what we can enable and, in helping our clients find, patients through HCP access and drive, you know, script lift and ROI.
Sean Dodge (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Great. On the guidance, it continues to imply a pretty steep revenue ramp into the back half of the year. Maybe is there any update you can share on visibility you have into that? You know, I guess as we progress deeper into the year, I'd imagine a greater proportion of that's now visible kind of via being under contract. Anything you can kind of share or quantify for us there?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Sure. Ed, do you want me to start?
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
Yeah. I can take that one. Yes, sure. Yeah. Hey, Sean. How are you? Right now, basically, we would typically see between, I would say, 55%-70% of our backlog, already signed and committed, and we're tracking well in within that range. That gives us a nice, kind of view on the back half of the year from where we sit today. You know, we really feel, like it's a pretty healthy backlog and looks, pretty solid to at least meet, our current guidance.
Sean Dodge (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. The six RWD deals you all signed thus far, are those all up and running now or is there some expectation that those will begin to flow in Q2 and beyond that kind of help when we think about like the, you know, the incremental kind of revenue cadence over the year?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, they are all active now. You know, I think a key piece of the second half being heavier or at least reliant on growth there is this time last year, we didn't really have a pipeline for RWD AI. We have a very robust pipeline right now in that. That's. You know, we've talked about it as a growth driver, but that's what gives us even more confidence on the second half. Then the seasonality, Sean, as you know, that's typical that second half is higher anyway. Yeah, this year there's a little bit more reliance on the pop then.
Sean Dodge (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. perfect. Thanks again.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thanks, Sean. See you next week.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Stephanie Davis with SVB Securities. Please go ahead.
Stephanie Davis (Analyst)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. First, I know we've asked a lot of questions about the market, but one of your peers has called out some pipeline elongation across large pharma clients. I was hoping we can get your view and your take on why some of this is happening beyond the macro.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Sure. Well, Steve is in the thick of it. I'll let him talk to sales cycle and elongation.
Operator (participant)
Okay.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
Hey, Stephanie. Good to hear from you. Thanks for the question. I mean, I think what we saw there was a little bit of this sort of pause with the financial situation that went on, a little bit in the first quarter, frankly, sort of waiting to see what was going on. What we've seen post that is actually an acceleration on the pipeline. We're seeing close, you know, close time shrink at this point and marketing teams scrambling to try to get programs live faster. That pause is sort of relinquished, so we're kind of thrilled to see that. We're waiting to see what the actual shakeout will look like here post Q2 in terms of, you know, sales cycles again.
We're already back in line with what our typical sales cycle looks like. I don't have any reason to believe at this point that there'll be disruption in that. In fact, the sales cycle on some of our more sort of sophisticated targeting products is also starting to shorten as people are kind of scrambling to catch up. Very interesting dynamic. Good, great. Good question.
Speaker 10
If you're seeing the backdrop get a little bit better and you've announced a giant buyback authorization inter-quarter, why are we not seeing you buy shares hand over fist?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
There are these things called blackout periods. You know, we have to follow the rules. We obviously believe in our stock, and we have one authorized, and when we can, we will.
Speaker 10
Since March, right?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, we were in a blackout period when we actually announced that.
Speaker 10
Okay.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, we, you know, we have five days a quarter, as you know, and that was announced after that.
Speaker 10
Makes sense.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, I would just add, Stephanie, that I think if the sales cycle for peers, you know, as they also are shifting to sort of bigger enterprise deals, there's just more, more decision-makers. That's one aspect of it. The other thing is when you're doing something that may be close to another company that's claiming they can do it, well, pharma wants to see if that's true. Sometimes that slows them down to test it. We certainly saw that last year. We talked about it, sort of cluttered market landscape. As Steve said, and we believe that's gonna declutter pretty quickly because if you can't measure it and you can't present it transparently and show effectiveness, you're gonna fade pretty quickly.
Speaker 10
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from David Grossman with Stifel. Please go ahead.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
Thank you. You know, I just wanted to go back to a couple of comments, you made in your prepared remarks. One of those was that you said you were beginning to expand more aggressively outside the EHR. I'm wondering, could you just elaborate, you know, on what you're doing and strategically what you're trying to accomplish?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Absolutely. Hey, David, it's Will. When you think about where we are within our client base and how we track to the patient journey and helping them stay connected to that patient journey via HCP access, you know, doctors are not just on their EHR all day, right? They're on their cell phones. They're in, you know, care team technology meetings. There's a lot of different touch points. They're using telehealth, depending on the therapeutic area. From our perspective, because we're a tech company and we know how to API really well, it makes sense to go beyond the EHR as a landing pad. When we sit down with our clients, we can show them a much more holistic plan around HCP access.
The key piece to this is you have to do all that while being transparent, supplying position-level data. Steve, maybe you wanna add to that a little bit, but I think that's the rationale and the early signs is it's pretty good strategy. Clients are responding pretty well to that.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
I mean, Hey, David. I think you highlighted it, Will. I mean, you know, it's essentially meeting the physicians where they're at. You know, the key differentiating point for us is the ability to report back physician-level data in terms of those interactions. Unlike sort of generalist endemic website advertisements, the ability to provide back PLD and show at a physician level what's going on, I think is going to be the key differentiator for us. As you heard from Will, it's not just in the EHR that we can do that, but it's every other platform that we're looking at, we're making that a focal point. It's, you know, it's going to give us a key differentiating point from anybody in our peer set, frankly.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
Right. You know, one thing that's come up, I think in the digital ad space at least, or, you know, in media buying among other things, is the potential impact, you know, of generative AI. I know this is a big buzzword kind of media thing going on right now. That being said, I'm just wondering if, you know, how much you've thought about the impact on your business and how it can help you and where it could potentially hurt you know, if others, you know, kind of get into it before you?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
It's interesting. We obviously, like everyone, is watching that. The truth is we've been doing machine learning for the last 2.5 years through... That's our RWDAI, right? We have that implemented active. We have revenue against it in the pipeline. It's not a, you know, a dream we're hoping that someday makes our company more efficient. It already has. I think you heard in the prepared remarks that we're gonna have our platform to a place where we can enable that service for any brand, any size campaign for the entire network. That's material because if you think of this space, like all marketing, it gets more and more transparent, sophisticated. To avoid commoditization, you need to make it better. You need to innovate.
We've really doubled down on that over the last couple of years, and I think that's going to be something that people really remember this company for. I think we're way ahead of the pack. I spent two days last week with our team of data scientists, and I could tell you it's very much in the DNA of the company already. I obviously have seen other companies looking at it, using it from anywhere from note, you know, simplifying note-taking to clinical decision support. These things have been, you know, in the workflow for a while, and they're going to get better faster. The reason why we're watching it but not totally paranoid that someone could come in who's, you know, faster, smarter, smaller, whatever, is they're not in the workflow.
As we've talked about, you know, the EHRs are already full with people there and aren't really looking for more. I think we're, I think we're in a good place to be their partner with this. Just, you know, deliver great innovative solutions for the doctor and the patient.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
Have the use cases for the RWE products, you know, if you look back to the first couple deals you signed a year ago or so and what you're doing now, has there been any big change?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
They're unbelievably effective. It's like we're finding patients that our clients otherwise wouldn't find who need the medications that are out there. It's impactful for outcomes, it's impactful for the patient, the doctor, and obviously for our clients. Yeah, there's some... It's really, it's actually really firing us up because it's a smarter message, and it's based on, you know, some good intel we had, patent pending. We're really focused on building that out. I think we'll have more and more cases to share. In the prepared remarks, we certainly talked to one.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
Right. Just one financial question, maybe for Ed. It looks like stock-based comp stayed relatively flat, but your GAAP operating expenses sequentially, I think, went up, quite a more than we would have expected. I'm just trying to think through, given what's going on with the top line, what's going on in the operating expenses. Maybe these are expenses that are just fixed costs, but I was just surprised at how much the expenses went up sequentially.
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
On the OpEx side, if you just look at the cash comp, a few things at play. First of all, you're right, compensation has gone up, and that's really a product of a couple of things. Merit increases, we made very few hires last year. We also reset our bonuses for this year. You know, as you know, last year we missed our numbers, so we didn't have to pay out full bonuses. That's just a reset of bonuses for this year, back to 100%. Secondly, it's really the investment related to expansion of our channel footprint, as well as some of the reporting capabilities that Will had mentioned.
I would say if you look at OpEx run rate, you can expect a slight increase in subsequent quarters, not in the millions, more in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per quarter, just, you know, to continue to capture those points I just made.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
You would expect sequential increases the balance of the year?
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
Yes. We also expect growth in the top line.
David Grossman (Research Managing Director)
Right. Very good. All right. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Ed Stelmakh (CFO and COO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Neil Chatterji with B. Riley. Please go ahead.
Neil Chatterji (Senior Analyst and Equity Research)
Hey, guys. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking the question. Maybe just first, just curious if you could just give us, you know, maybe more color on that, I guess, the smart targeting enhancement you were talking about for the platform?
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Well, we've been talking about our RWD AI for a while. Why don't you give it just a quick overview of, you know, really the simple message to why this works for, you know, doctors, clients, and patients.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
Yeah. Happy to. Hey, Neil. I mean, essentially what we're doing is that allows us to look at it for individual patient profiles across the ecosystem of patients in the U.S. We have an intake function for data, a machine learning platform that enables us to clearly interrogate that data and identify potential candidates for a specific therapy. Then we have an execution function to go out and take an action with an HCP regarding the patient panel that they've got. I think that's one of the key differentiators for this business, Neil, is you've got businesses out there that are analytics businesses, you've got data businesses, and you have other businesses that execute.
This business is unique in that it's got all three of those components now solely connected together to be able to go out, find, identify, execute, you know, and pull through. That's the key differentiator. I think that's the simplest way I could really describe it. And that's why it's so effective, right? 'Cause you've just got this linear plugin that's very efficient and can scale. Helpful, Neil?
Neil Chatterji (Senior Analyst and Equity Research)
Got it. Okay. I might have misinterpreted that. There's not something new for later this year.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
It's okay.
Neil Chatterji (Senior Analyst and Equity Research)
That's just...
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
No.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
No. It's.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
It...
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
That's all right. Go ahead. Go ahead, Steve.
Steve Silvestro (Chief Commercial Officer)
Nope, go ahead, Will.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
I was just gonna say it's just expanding it to be available to our entire network for all brands that we work with. Just a more sophisticated trigger mechanism, which gives better targeting and better ROI.
Neil Chatterji (Senior Analyst and Equity Research)
Great. Thanks for that clarification. Just another just follow-up here, just on the hub service, you know, agreement that you got. Just curious on the kind of the expected impact from that.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
It's about $1 million a year spread out pretty evenly through each year. That's one brand, one hub. You know, it's pretty easy to see how that could scale pretty nicely. We're proud of that. It's a good, it's a good win. The team did a great job. It's, it's, we've got a solution that can really help the hubs and therefore, you know, the patient and those programs or, you know, patient assistance programs around eligibility and affordability. It's right place, right time, but, you know, we got into it early enough to have it ready. We're very excited about that. We'll keep everyone posted on others that we're able to bring across the line.
Speaker 10
Great. Thanks. That's it for me.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thanks, Neil.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star followed by the one. Your next question comes from Max Michaels with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Max Michaels (Analyst)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I know last quarter, conference call, you had mentioned that you weren't seeing any major investments in the first half of the year. I'm wondering now that we approach the midpoint of 2023, if that thought process has changed at all.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Max, what do you mean? Investments from the client's perspective or investments from our-
Max Michaels (Analyst)
I mean, with a healthy balance sheet, it could be technology improvement, M&A, if you're seeing anything out in the market. just more broader investment, I guess.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Yeah, sure. As Ed said, we are, you know, very actively looking at M&A targets. We think, you know, through this year, valuations will be more achievable for someone in our size and situation. Obviously, we'll be highly selective in that process, have several really great active discussions going on. We're investing in ourselves. We're really good at that. We've got unbelievably good ROI when we invest in ourselves, probably our best ROI to date. We continue to invest in reporting, in, you know, best-in-class technology, and then obviously solution expansion. If you think of, you know, Max, our growth drivers, it's land and expand with the client. It's add additional solutions or improve them so we can maintain price or improve price and then reach more physicians or patients wherever they are.
We're investing in all three of those.
Max Michaels (Analyst)
That's it for me, guys. Thanks.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thank you. Have a good night.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.
William Febbo (CEO and Director)
Thanks, operator. Once again, thank you everyone for joining us on our updated call this afternoon. We continue to work through the opportunities before us with the expectation that growth will come in the coming quarters. We are maintaining our focus on product execution to continue to deliver superior ROIs on behalf of our customers, which has and will continue to pay dividends as we execute against the opportunity within the vast white space that we continue to sell into. Our valuation doesn't effectively represent the current value of our company, and I believe we can provide venture-type returns off our current trading price as we execute against the opportunity at hand. As a result, we intend to set up our trading plan for our recently authorized share repurchase program once our next trading window opens.
I want to remind everyone of our key strengths, which we expect will continue to propel OPRX's story in 2023 and beyond. We have the largest in-workflow network in the U.S. that reaches more than 60% of the active prescribers. Our landing pads outside the EHR substantially increase our prescriber reach and enables us to build cutting-edge solutions. Finally, our AI enablement, which identifies HCPs whose patients are most in need of our customers' resources and therapies, is catching a toehold, and we believe favorably positions us to grow for the foreseeable future. We are firmly positioned to execute against our 2023 financial and operational goals, which we believe will be bolstered by our strong balance sheet. Which is something I'm very proud of given the current capital markets backdrop.
As such, we look forward to making a positive impact across our pharma, prescriber, and patient stakeholder base for years to come. Thanks again for joining us on our call today, and we look forward to everyone joining us at the upcoming conferences and our next earnings call. Operator?
Operator (participant)
Thank you, sir. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to provide the company's Safe Harbor statement that includes important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during today's call. Statements made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the definition of Section 27A in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements should not be used to make investment decisions. The words anticipate, estimate, expect, possible, and seeking, and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. They may speak only to the date that such statements are made. Such forward-looking statements in this call include statements regarding estimation of total addressable market size, market penetration, revenue growth, gross margin, operating expenses, profitability, cash flow, technology investments, growth opportunities, acquisitions, and upcoming announcements.
They also include the management expectations for the rest of the year. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified. Future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying these forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties to which forward-looking statements are subject to include, but are not limited to, the effects of government regulation, competition, and other material risks. Risks and uncertainties to which forward-looking statements are subject to could affect business and financial results are included in the company's annual report on the Form 10-K for the quarter ended December 31st, 2022. This form is available on the company's website and on the SEC website at sec.gov.
Before we end today's conference, I would like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay via webcast only starting later this evening, running through for a year. Please refer to today's press release for replay instructions available via the company's website at www.optimizerx.com. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes your conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.