As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 30, 2020
Registration No. 333-239873
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
Amendment No. 1
to
FORM S-1
REGISTRATION STATEMENT
Under
The Securities Act of 1933
ACUTUS MEDICAL, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware | 3841 | 45-1306615 | ||
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) |
(Primary Standard Industrial Classification Code Number) |
(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number) |
2210 Faraday Ave., Suite 100
Carlsbad, CA 92008
(442) 232-6080
(Address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of registrants principal executive offices)
Vince Burgess
Chief Executive Officer
Acutus Medical, Inc.
2210 Faraday Ave., Suite 100
Carlsbad, CA 92008
(442) 232-6080
(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)
Copies to:
Alan F. Denenberg Stephen Salmon Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP 1600 El Camino Real Menlo Park, CA 94025 (650) 752-2000 |
Tom Sohn Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary Acutus Medical, Inc. 2210 Faraday Ave., Suite 100 Carlsbad, CA 92008 (442) 232-6080 |
Charles S. Kim Kristin E. VanderPas David Peinsipp Cooley LLP 4401 Eastgate Mall San Diego, CA 92121 (858) 550-6000 |
Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after the effective date of this Registration Statement.
If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933, check the following box. ☐
If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, please check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐
If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐
If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of large accelerated filer, accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, and emerging growth company in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):
Large accelerated filer ☐ | Accelerated filer ☐ | Non-accelerated filer ☑ | Smaller reporting company ☑ |
Emerging growth company ☑
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act. ☐
CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE
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Title of Each Class of Securities to be Registered | Amount to be Registered(1) |
Proposed Maximum Offering Price Per Share(2) |
Proposed Maximum Aggregate Offering |
Amount of Registration Fee(3) | ||||
Common stock, $0.001 par value per share |
8,455,882 | $18.00 | $152,205,876 | $19,756.33 | ||||
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(1) | Includes the aggregate amount of additional shares that the underwriters have the option to purchase. |
(2) | Estimated solely for the purpose of computing the amount of the registration fee pursuant to Rule 457(a) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. |
(3) | $9,735.00 of such fee was previously paid in connection with the initial filing of the Registration Statement on July 15, 2020. |
The registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Commission acting pursuant to said Section 8(a) may determine.
The information in this preliminary prospectus is not complete and may be changed. We may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This preliminary prospectus is not an offer to sell these securities and it is not soliciting an offer to buy these securities in any state or other jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.
SUBJECT TO COMPLETION, DATED JULY 30, 2020
7,352,941 Shares
Common Stock
This is the initial public offering of shares of common stock of Acutus Medical, Inc.
We are offering 7,352,941 shares of our common stock. Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our common stock. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price per share will be between $16.00 and $18.00. We have applied to list our common stock on The Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol AFIB.
We are an emerging growth company under the federal securities laws and, as such, have elected to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements.
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. See Risk Factors beginning on page 20.
Per Share |
Total | |||||||
Initial public offering price |
$ | $ | ||||||
Underwriting discounts and commissions(1) |
$ | $ | ||||||
Proceeds, before expenses, to us |
$ | $ |
(1) | See Underwriting for additional disclosure regarding the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses. |
We have granted the underwriters an option for a period of 30 days to purchase up to 1,102,941 additional shares of our common stock.
Certain of our existing stockholders who are affiliated with certain of our directors have expressed an interest in purchasing up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering at the initial public offering price. However, because these indications of interest are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase, the underwriters may determine to sell more, less or no shares in this offering to any or all of these entities, or any or all of these entities may determine to purchase more, less or no shares in this offering. The underwriters will receive the same underwriting discount on any shares purchased by these stockholders as they will on any other shares sold to the public in this offering. To the extent these stockholders or persons associated with them purchase any shares in this offering, the number of shares available for sale to the general public will be accordingly reduced. See Certain Relationships and Related Party TransactionsParticipation in this Offering.
The underwriters expect to deliver the shares against payment in New York, New York on , 2020.
Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of these securities or determined if this prospectus is truthful or complete. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.
J.P. Morgan | BofA Securities | William Blair |
Canaccord Genuity | BTIG |
, 2020
We and the underwriters have not authorized anyone to provide any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus or in any free writing prospectuses we have prepared. We and the underwriters take no responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may provide you. We are offering to sell, and seeking offers to buy, shares of common stock only in jurisdictions where offers and sales are permitted. The information contained in this prospectus is accurate only as of the date of this prospectus, regardless of the time of delivery of this prospectus or of any sale of the common stock.
This prospectus includes industry and market data that we obtained from periodic industry publications, third-party studies and surveys, filings of public companies in our industry and internal company surveys. These sources may include government and industry sources. Industry publications and surveys generally state that the information contained therein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Although we believe the industry and market data to be reliable as of the date of this prospectus, this information could prove to be inaccurate. Industry and market data could be wrong because of the method by which sources obtained their data and because information cannot always be verified with complete certainty due to the limits on the availability and reliability of raw data, the voluntary nature of the data gathering process and other limitations and uncertainties. In addition, we do not know all of the assumptions regarding general economic conditions or growth that were used in preparing the forecasts from the sources relied upon or cited herein.
Until , 2020 (25 days after the date of this prospectus), all dealers that buy, sell or trade our common stock, whether or not participating in this offering, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This is in addition to the dealers obligation to deliver a prospectus when acting as underwriters and with respect to their unsold allotments or subscriptions.
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This summary highlights selected information contained in greater detail elsewhere in this prospectus and does not contain all of the information that you should consider in making your investment decision. Before investing in our common stock, you should carefully read the entire prospectus, including the sections titled Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and the financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. As used in this prospectus, references to we, our, us, the Company and Acutus refer to Acutus Medical, Inc. and, where appropriate, its wholly-owned subsidiary unless the context requires otherwise.
Overview
We are an arrhythmia management company focused on improving the way cardiac arrhythmias are diagnosed and treated. Despite several decades of efforts by incumbents in this field, the clinical and economic challenges associated with arrhythmia treatment continue to be a huge burden for patients, providers and payors. We are committed to advancing the field of electrophysiology with a unique array of products and technologies which will enable more physicians to treat more patients more efficiently and effectively. Through internal product development, acquisitions and global partnerships, we have established a global sales presence delivering a broad portfolio of highly differentiated electrophysiology products. Our goal is to provide our customers with a complete solution for catheter-based treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in each of our geographic markets.
We design, manufacture and market a range of tools for catheter-based ablation procedures to treat various arrhythmias. Cardiac ablation involves using high-energy radio frequencies or extreme cold to target tissue in the heart that is responsible for triggering or sustaining an abnormal heart rhythm. Our product portfolio includes novel access sheaths, transseptal crossing tools, diagnostic and mapping catheters, ablation catheters (currently available only in our European markets), mapping and imaging consoles and accessories, as well as supporting algorithms and software programs. Our foundational and most highly differentiated product is our AcQMap imaging and mapping system, which offers a paradigm-shifting approach to mapping the drivers and maintainers of arrhythmias with unmatched speed and precision. With the ability to rapidly and accurately identify ablation targets and to confirm both ablation success and procedural completion, we believe our AcQMap System addresses the primary unmet need in electrophysiology procedures today.
Cardiac arrhythmias, or heart rhythm disorders, are common and can occur when the heart beats too rapidly, too slowly or irregularly. If left untreated, arrhythmias can result in debilitating symptoms, heart failure, stroke and sudden cardiac death. As a result, cardiac ablation is a well-established therapy for the large and rapidly growing patient population, with clear and substantial reimbursement in developed markets. We estimate that in 2019 there were over 50 million individuals worldwide with arrhythmias and approximately 1.1 million ablation procedures globally, reflecting a $5.7 billion global market that has grown 13% annually since 2016 but is still less than 5% penetrated.
While multiple trials have established that cardiac ablation is effective when the source of the arrhythmia is accurately identified and successfully ablated, visualization of various complex arrhythmias and creation of durable ablation lesions remains challenging with long, unpredictable procedure times and inconsistent outcomes. For example, data from large, multi-center trials of cardiac ablation have demonstrated that approximately 30 to 50% of ablations for atrial fibrillation result in arrhythmia recurrence within the first 12 months of the initial ablation procedure. Currently marketed mapping systems are not able to quickly and consistently identify the source of the arrhythmia in more complex cases, which can contribute to these unsatisfactory outcomes. Current competitive mapping systems sequentially collect data, point-by-point, by contacting the heart surface at multiple locations throughout the chamber. This is a time-consuming process that
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often takes 15 to 20 minutes per map. Additionally, because contact-based mapping relies on a fixed timing reference to sequence the data points, it precludes these systems from being able to quickly and reliably identify the drivers and maintainers of unstable arrhythmias, such as atrial fibrillation, many types of supraventricular tachycardias and certain ventricular arrhythmias.
We designed our AcQMap System to improve procedure efficiency and outcomes by rapidly and accurately identifying ablation targets and confirming both ablation success and procedure completion. Our AcQMap System consists of our single-use AcQMap catheter as well as our console, workstation and proprietary software algorithms. With 48 ultrasound transducers interspersed between 48 biopotential electrodes, our innovative mapping catheter collects the data required to create a comprehensive map of the cardiac anatomy and electrical propagation pathways and patterns in under three minutes, without contacting the chamber wall. Our proprietary software algorithms analyze the biopotential data and are collectively able to map any type of stable or unstable arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation, as well as all supraventricular tachycardias and ventricular arrhythmias.
We believe that by creating high definition, clinically accurate activation maps of all types of arrhythmias, our AcQMap System offers physicians better decision-making tools for determining where to ablate. Similarly, we believe the speed and ease of creating a map makes it practical for physicians to iteratively map, treat, re-map and adjust additional therapy as needed. We believe these features will drive more efficient and predictable procedures and better outcomes for a broader range of arrhythmias.
These key clinical and workflow benefits are supported by the results of our clinical trials, including our UNCOVER AF post-market approval trial, which demonstrated that use of our AcQMap System in challenging persistent AF patients resulted in 73% and 93% freedom from atrial fibrillation at 12-months following their initial procedure after one or two procedures, respectively. These outcomes compare favorably to those of other clinical trials in the field that utilized currently marketed contact-based mapping catheters and systems, including the landmark STAR AF II trial, which demonstrated 61% and 79% freedom from atrial fibrillation after one or two procedures, respectively, in a similar cohort of persistent atrial fibrillation patients.
We have established a broad portfolio of electrophysiology products that complements our AcQMap System. In addition to our AcQMap System, our commercial product portfolio includes a suite of access devices, our transseptal crossing device and full product lines of diagnostic and, in our European markets, ablation catheters. In our European markets, our portfolio provides our customers with a complete solutionfrom vascular access to diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias. In the United States, we are currently seeking regulatory approval for our ablation catheters to complement our portfolio of access and mapping devices. We also recently expanded our portfolio to include the AcQBlate gold-tip, irrigated, radiofrequency force sensing ablation catheters and control unit which we expect to commercialize once we obtain regulatory approval. We anticipate CE Mark approval and commercial launch of our AcQBlate force sensing ablation catheters and control unit in Europe in the second half of 2020, and we plan to commence an investigational device exemption, or IDE, trial for U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, premarket approval, or PMA approval, in the United States within the same time frame. We currently anticipate FDA PMA approval, and the U.S. commercial launch, of our AcQBlate force sensing ablation catheters and control unit in the second half of 2022. We believe that our ability to offer a broad and differentiated product portfolio will support the adoption and utilization of our AcQMap System and drive an efficient business model. Once an AcQMap console and workstation is established in a customer account, our revenue from that account becomes predominantly recurring in nature and derived from the sale of our portfolio of disposable products used with our system.
We market and sell our electrophysiology products worldwide to hospitals and electrophysiologists that treat patients with arrhythmias. We have strategically developed a direct selling presence in the United States and select markets in Western Europe where cardiac ablation is a standard of care and third-party reimbursement is well-established. In other international markets, we leverage our partnership with Biotronik SE & Co. KG, or Biotronik, a large multi-national, privately-held biomedical technology company with a leading portfolio across
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cardiac rhythm management, electrophysiology and vascular intervention, to sell and distribute our products. In the United States and Western Europe, our target market is highly concentrated. We plan to leverage the concentrated nature of procedure volumes and the recurring nature of our sales to drive an increasingly efficient commercial model.
Our research and development activities are focused on advancing the field of electrophysiology by increasing the AcQMap Systems utility and seeking approval for additional labeled indications as well as expanding our product portfolio to further improve and simplify the entire procedural experience. Our near-term pipeline includes products that broaden our commercial portfolio, increase functionality and/or reduce costs across catheters, accessory devices, mapping systems and software.
Early versions of our AcQMap System and certain related accessory products have been used in the United States since May 2018 and Western Europe since July 2016 in a limited, pilot launch capacity, where our focus was on optimizing workflow and validating our value proposition. We fully commenced the launch of our commercial-grade console and software products in the first quarter of 2020. Critical to our launch were a series of recent strategic transactions and regulatory approvals, including: FDA 510(k) clearance and CE Mark of our second-generation AcQMap console and SuperMap software suite; the addition of an integrated family of transseptal crossing and steerable introducer systems to our product portfolio through our acquisition of Rhythm Xience, Inc., or Rhythm Xience; and the acquisition of our AcQBlate Force sensing product line from Biotronik. Since our full launch, we have continued to enhance our product portfolio and global presence by entering into bi-lateral distribution agreements with Biotronik in May 2020, which added a full suite of diagnostic and ablation catheters to our product portfolio and significantly expanded our international distribution and market development capabilities. The diagram below depicts a chronology of these and other key events since our inception:
Our revenue has historically consisted predominantly of sales of our disposable products (principally our mapping catheters and related access sheaths, and to a lesser extent our transseptal crossing tools, ablation catheters and other accessories), as we generally loaned our first-generation AcQMap console and workstation to our customers without charge to facilitate the use of our disposable products. Beginning in late 2019, we began to install our second-generation AcQMap console and workstation with customers under evaluation contracts.
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Under these evaluation contracts, we place our AcQMap console and workstation with customers for no upfront fee to the customer during the applicable evaluation period and seek to reach agreement with the customer for purchase of the console and workstation in the form of a contractual commitment to purchase a minimum amount of our disposable products or a cash purchase. In addition, beginning in the second quarter of 2020, pursuant to our bi-lateral distribution agreements, we began marketing Biotroniks full suite of diagnostic and ablation catheters in Europe, and Biotronik began marketing our AcQMap System in Europe and certain other international markets. Each party pays to the other party specified transfer prices on the sale of the other partys products under the bi-lateral distribution agreements and, accordingly, earns a distribution margin on the sale of the other partys products.
During the year ended December 31, 2019, we generated revenue of $2.8 million and a net loss of $97.0 million (which included $15.0 million in payments attributable to the product line we acquired from Biotronik pursuant to a license and distribution agreement), compared to revenue of $2.2 million and a net loss of $47.9 million during the year ended December 31, 2018. During the quarter ended March 31, 2020 we generated revenue of $1.6 million and a net loss of $18.1 million, compared to revenue of $0.8 million and a net loss of $14.7 million during the quarter ended March 31, 2019. As of December 31, 2019 and March 31, 2020, our installed base of AcQMap consoles and workstations placed into service at customer sites was 27 and 31 units, respectively. Since our full commercial launch through June 30, 2020, we have installed 21 AcQMap consoles and workstations. In advance of our commercial launch, we made significant investments in our infrastructure, including our manufacturing capabilities and sales force, to support our commercial launch and to enable our production volumes to scale as our business grows. Accordingly, our cost structure has not changed materially since the launch. The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures imposed to contain this pandemic disrupted our business beginning in early March 2020, following the full commencement of the launch of our commercial-grade console and software products. The effects of the pandemic began to decrease in late April 2020 as electrophysiology labs began reopening and procedure volumes began increasing as compared to COVID-19 related low points in March 2020. See the sections titled Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for more information.
Our Competitive Strengths
We believe the continued growth of our company will be driven by our:
| paradigm-shifting intracardiac mapping system offering significant advantages relative to the current standard of care; |
| broad and expanding product portfolio; |
| attractive value proposition for hospitals, physicians, patients and payors; |
| large, rapidly growing and underpenetrated market with established reimbursement; |
| efficient commercial model; |
| pure-play electrophysiology-focus; |
| deep technology-driven competitive advantage supported by a robust patent portfolio, trade secrets and know-how, and in-licensed and acquired technology; and |
| highly experienced senior management team with broad cardiovascular industry expertise. |
Our Market and Industry
Cardiac Arrhythmias
Cardiac arrhythmias, or heart rhythm disorders, are common and can occur when the heart beats too rapidly, too slowly or irregularly. If left untreated, arrhythmias can result in debilitating symptoms, heart failure, stroke and sudden cardiac death.
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Between the costs associated with treatment and the downstream complications associated with arrhythmias, it is estimated that they cost global healthcare systems between $21 and $61 billion annually. These costs and the associated societal burden have led medical societies to recommend, and government and private payors to reimburse, treatment. While some types of arrhythmias can be effectively managed with medications and/or implantable devices, there is still a significant unmet need for effective diagnostic and treatment alternatives for three major categories of arrhythmias: atrial fibrillation; supraventricular tachycardias (other than atrial fibrillation); and ventricular arrhythmias.
Atrial Fibrillation
Atrial fibrillation, or AF, is the most common arrhythmia and is characterized by rapid and irregular activation of the heart. This irregular behavior increases the potential to develop blood clots within the upper chambers of the heart, which can then circulate to other organs, leading to reduced blood flow and strokes. We estimate that there were approximately 475,000 cardiac ablation procedures globally for atrial fibrillation in 2019, representing a current market size of approximately $3.4 billion in disposable product revenue. We believe this market is significantly underpenetrated. With faster and more detailed arrhythmia visualization tools that allow for an iterative mapping and adaptive ablation approach, we believe there is a significant opportunity to address a greater portion of the up to 30 million individuals worldwide with AF.
Supraventricular Tachycardias (Atrial Arrhythmias other than AF)
Supraventricular tachycardias, or SVTs, are characterized by a rapid heartbeat in the upper chambers of the heart. These arrhythmias, which include atrial flutter and atrial tachycardia, among others, can arise organically or as a result of an incomplete ablation for atrial fibrillation. We estimate there were approximately 516,000 ablation procedures worldwide for SVTs in 2019, reflecting a market size of approximately $1.7 billion in disposable product revenue. We believe that there is a significant opportunity to leverage advanced mapping and ablation tools to address a greater portion of the estimated 17.1 million individuals worldwide with SVTs.
Ventricular Arrhythmias
Ventricular arrhythmias affect the lower chambers of the heart and consist primarily of ventricular tachycardias, or VTs, and premature ventricular contractions, or PVCs. If left untreated, VTs and PVCs can lead to heart failure, ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac death. We estimate that there were approximately 90,000 global ablation procedures for ventricular arrhythmias in 2019, reflecting a market size of approximately $620 million in disposable product revenue. With the right diagnostic and therapeutic tools, we believe there is significant opportunity to address a greater portion of the estimated 5.5 million individuals worldwide with ventricular arrhythmias.
Current Treatment Alternatives and Their Limitations
Arrhythmia treatments focus on relieving symptoms, improving quality of life and reducing the risk of stroke, heart failure or lethal arrhythmias. There are two primary treatment approaches for AF, SVTs, VTs and PVCs: medical management and catheter-based ablation of the tissue causing the hearts irregular rhythm. A minority of patients may also be treated with open heart surgery, minimally invasive epicardial ablation and/or implantable devices.
Medical Management
Medical management involves anticoagulation drugs to reduce stroke risk, anti-arrhythmic drugs, or AADs, to maintain the hearts regular rhythm, or rate controlling drugs to regulate the hearts rate. Medical management is often accompanied by cardioversion, which involves the application of an electric shock to the heart in order to
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restore the regular rhythm. Medical management has historically been considered first line therapy because of its noninvasive nature. However, current AADs have been associated with low success rates and an increased risk of adverse side effects that have been shown to result in a larger burden to the healthcare system than arrhythmias alone. While medical management is a common initial treatment modality for most patients, medical society guidelines have been changing to support cardiac ablation as a first line therapy.
Cardiac Ablation
Cardiac ablation involves identifying and destroying tissue in the heart that is responsible for initiating and/or maintaining an arrhythmia. In order to perform a cardiac ablation procedure, an electrophysiologist gains access to the heart through an incision in the groin and then inserts one or more diagnostic mapping catheters. Currently marketed mapping systems then collect data point-by-point through contact with the chamber wall to create a map of the anatomy and electrical activation pathways. This map is used to determine the tissue area that is likely causing the arrhythmia. Once the area of interest is identified, an ablation catheter is inserted that delivers the desired tissue-destructive therapy.
While multiple trials have established that cardiac ablation is effective when the source of the arrhythmia is accurately identified and successfully ablated, visualization of various arrhythmias and durable ablation remains challenging with long, unpredictable procedure times and inconsistent outcomes. For example, data from large, multi-center trials of ablation therapy, including STOP AF and STAR AF II, have demonstrated that approximately 30 to 50% of ablations for atrial fibrillation result in recurrence within 12 months of the initial ablation procedure. We believe a primary reason for this is the inability of currently marketed mapping systems to reliably identify where to ablate and when ablation is complete.
Limitations of Current Mapping Systems
Because currently marketed mapping systems rely on tissue contact and a fixed timing reference to collect and align data in the proper sequence, they are designed to map simple, stable and repetitive arrhythmias, including certain SVTs and VTs. Collecting a critical mass of data points to see even a stable rhythm is time consuming with contact mapping technologies, often taking 15 to 20 minutes per map. In addition, these technologies can only map one rhythm from each data collection session and are not capable of quickly and reliably mapping unstable or complex arrhythmias such as AF, certain VTs, PVCs or many types of SVTs.
The challenges associated with contact-based mapping systems have limited the penetration of cardiac ablation therapy to a small portion of patients with AF, SVTs, VTs and PVCs. These challenges include:
| lengthy, unpredictable procedure times driving inefficient resource utilization; |
| impracticality in the use of an iterative treatment approach (map, treat, re-map, adjust therapy, etc.); |
| inability to quickly and reliably identify unstable arrhythmias including AF, certain VTs, PVCs and many types of SVTs (including those SVTs that occur during the procedure as a result of ablations for AF); |
| inability to address 4060% of SVT patients who also have AF; |
| AF recurrence rates of 3050% within 12 months of initial ablation procedure; and |
| the potential to cause ventricular arrhythmias due to contact with the chamber wall. |
We believe that with better tools to diagnose areas in the heart that require ablation and rapidly assess therapy effect in real-time, there is significant opportunity to improve cardiac ablation success, reduce procedure times and increase the adoption of ablation therapy.
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Our Solution
We design, manufacture and market a range of tools for catheter-based ablation procedures to treat various arrhythmias. Our foundational and most highly differentiated product is our AcQMap imaging and mapping system which offers a paradigm-shifting approach to mapping the drivers and maintainers of arrhythmias with unmatched speed and precision. With the ability to rapidly and accurately identify ablation targets and to confirm both ablation success and procedural completion, we believe our AcQMap System addresses the primary unmet need in electrophysiology procedures today.
Overview of Our AcQMap System
We developed our AcQMap System to address the key challenges that electrophysiologists face during ablation procedures and remove the barriers to adopting ablation for complex arrhythmia procedures.
Our AcQMap System consists of our AcQMap catheter, console and workstation. With 48 ultrasound transducers interspersed between 48 biopotential electrodes, our innovative mapping catheter collects the data required to create a comprehensive map of the cardiac anatomy and electrical propagation patterns and pathways without contacting the chamber wall. This allows us to create comprehensive diagnostic maps of the chamber anatomy and electrical propagation patterns and pathways in under three minutes. Our proprietary software algorithms analyze the biopotential data and are collectively able to map any type of stable or unstable arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation, as well as all supraventricular tachycardias and ventricular arrhythmias, as depicted in the graphic below.
(Left): Our AcQMap console and workstation. (Middle): Our AcQMap mapping catheter. (Upper Right): Ultrasound reconstruction of the heart chamber anatomy using our AcQMap System. (Lower Right): Display of the electrical propagation patterns of the heart chamber using our AcQMap System. In the map, dark red is the front edge of the rhythm wavefront, with the trailing colors showing where the wavefront has been within the heart chamber. (Anatomy Terms): LSPVLeft superior pulmonary vein, LAALeft atrial appendage, LIPVLeft inferior pulmonary vein, RSPVRight superior pulmonary vein, RIPVRight inferior pulmonary vein. PA Posteroanterior.
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Key Benefits of AcQMap
We believe the unique attributes of our AcQMap System offer significant clinical benefits relative to the current standard of care.
Allows for an Iterative Whole-Chamber Mapping Approach. With increased mapping speed and precision, electrophysiologists are empowered in real time to iteratively map, treat, re-map and adjust additional therapy as needed. This allows physicians to determine when ablation is complete, which we believe will drive more efficient and predictable procedures and better outcomes for a broader range of arrhythmias.
Increased Mapping Accuracy. Ultrasound technology allows us to create an anatomically accurate image of the heart chamber, and non-contact charge density mapping provides a more localized and sharper view of cardiac activation, resulting in images with four times higher resolution than voltage-based maps produced by currently marketed contact-based mapping systems. We believe the combination of these two features allows electrophysiologists to reliably identify and ablate the source of the arrhythmia, which will help improve clinical outcomes and reduce the need for repeat procedures.
Ability to Identify Multiple Complex Arrhythmias. The AcQMap System is the only commercially available mapping system that can quickly and reliably map both stable and unstable rhythms, allowing electrophysiologists to see changes in conduction during the procedure and arming them with an optimal solution to better customize therapy.
Excellent Clinical Outcomes. Our UNCOVER AF post-market approval trial, which assessed the effectiveness of the AcQMap System in identifying patient-specific targets for ablation, demonstrated favorable freedom from AF outcomes. The results are particularly favorable in the context of other landmark trials in the electrophysiology space, including the STAR AF II trial, which evaluated a similar population of persistent AF patients. We believe the key differentiator in outcomes was the use of our AcQMap System to map and identify key ablation patterns and targets.
Our Broad Portfolio
We have established a broad portfolio of electrophysiology products that complements our AcQMap System. In addition to our AcQMap System, our commercial product portfolio includes a suite of access devices, our transseptal crossing device and full product lines of diagnostic and, in our European markets, ablation catheters. In our European markets, our portfolio provides our customers with a complete solutionfrom vascular access to diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias. In the United States, we are currently seeking regulatory approval for our ablation catheters to complement our portfolio of access and mapping devices. We also recently expanded our portfolio to include the AcQBlate gold-tip, irrigated, radiofrequency force sensing ablation catheters and control unit which we expect to commercialize once we obtain regulatory approval. We anticipate CE Mark approval and commercial launch of our AcQBlate force sensing ablation catheters and control unit in Europe in the second half of 2020, and we plan to commence an IDE trial for FDA PMA approval in the United States within the same time frame. We currently anticipate FDA PMA approval, and the U.S. commercial launch, of our AcQBlate force sensing ablation catheters and control unit in the second half of 2022.
We believe that our ability to offer a broad and differentiated product portfolio will support the adoption and utilization of our AcQMap System and drive an efficient business model. Once an AcQMap console and workstation is established in a customer account, our revenue from that account becomes predominantly recurring in nature and derived from the sale of our portfolio of disposable products used with our system.
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The figure below shows our current portfolio of products.
Benefits for Key Stakeholders
We believe the key clinical benefits of our portfolio offer an attractive value proposition for all stakeholders that will drive its continued adoption by hospitals and physicians.
Patients. We believe our ability to improve ablation effectiveness will improve patients quality of life by reducing symptoms, hospitalizations for repeat procedures and the need for medical management.
Physicians. We believe the ability to accurately and iteratively map during the procedure improves the effectiveness of procedures and allows electrophysiologists to treat difficult cases that may have otherwise been referred for medical management or sent to an academic center of excellence. Similarly, we believe that the speed of our iterative mapping approach will ultimately result in shorter and more predictable procedure duration.
Hospitals. We believe our products will improve hospital workflow efficiency which will allow hospitals to better utilize their operating room capacity and fixed overhead as well as increase their return on capital.
Payors. We believe increased adoption of our products will reduce the financial burden of cardiac arrhythmias for payors by reducing repeat procedures for arrhythmia recurrence and extensive hospitalizations arising from complications of arrhythmias.
Our Growth Strategies
We are committed to advancing the field of electrophysiology with a unique array of products and technologies which will enable more physicians to treat more patients more efficiently and effectively. We seek
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to establish our AcQMap System as the standard of care for mapping and diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias and to leverage its paradigm-shifting nature to drive adoption and utilization of our portfolio of differentiated electrophysiology products.
Our growth strategies include:
| utilizing our superior mapping technology and open platform to establish our presence with a broad base of customer accounts and physicians; |
| strategically expanding our commercial organization across key global markets to increase physician awareness and drive adoption; |
| driving market penetration and portfolio utilization; |
| continuing to expand our portfolio of products and broaden indications for existing products; |
| leveraging our strategic partnerships to efficiently scale globally and broaden our product portfolio; and |
| continuing to build our clinical evidence base. |
Risks Associated with Our Business
Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including those highlighted in the section titled Risk Factors. These risks include, but are not limited to, the following:
| We have a history of net losses, and we expect to continue to incur losses for at least the next several years. If we ever achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain it. |
| We have a limited history operating as a commercial company; if we fail to effectively train our sales force, increase our sales and marketing capabilities or develop broad brand awareness in a cost-effective manner, our growth will be impeded and our business will suffer. |
| The commercial success of our products will depend upon attaining significant market acceptance of these products among hospitals, physicians, patients and payors. |
| We have significant international operations, and intend to further expand our business internationally, which exposes us to market, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks associated with doing business outside of the United States. |
| We rely on our strategic relationship with Biotronik to enhance our product portfolio and to distribute our products in key international markets. |
| We face significant competition, and if we are unable to compete effectively, we may not be able to achieve or maintain significant market penetration or improve our results of operations. |
| If we are unable to manage the anticipated growth of our business, our future revenue and operating results may be adversely affected. |
| We may not be able to develop, license or acquire new products, enhance the capabilities of our existing products to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and customer requirements or successfully manage the transition to new product offerings, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. |
| Our quarterly and annual results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. |
| We depend upon third-party suppliers, including single-source suppliers, making us vulnerable to supply disruptions and price fluctuations. |
| Adoption of our products depends upon appropriate physician training, and inadequate training may lead to negative patient outcomes, affect adoption of our products and adversely affect our business. |
10
| Defects or failures associated with our products could lead to recalls, safety alerts or litigation, as well as significant costs and negative publicity. |
| Coverage and adequate reimbursement may not be available for the procedures that utilize our products, which could diminish our sales or affect our ability to sell our products profitably. |
| Regulatory compliance, including compliance with U.S. federal and state fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, is expensive, complex and uncertain, and failure to comply could lead to enforcement actions against us and other negative consequences for our business. |
| If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection or freedom to operate for any products we develop and for our technology, or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products and technology similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize any products we may develop, and our technology may be adversely affected. |
| Our operations and financial results have been, and will continue to be, adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and the rest of the world. |
Recent Developments
Impact of COVID-19
We observed significant adverse impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic early in the second quarter of 2020. Hospital access across the country was significantly restricted for industry personnel, and electrophysiology procedural activity dropped well below historical operating levels as hospitals focused on COVID-19 patients. As the quarter progressed, we were able to regain access to most hospitals and procedural levels increased as hospitals reverted to more normalized activities. By the end of the quarter, electrophysiology procedural activity was nearly back to pre-COVID levels experienced in the first quarter of 2020 and we were able to install consoles and workstations in certain target accounts. These restrictions adversely impacted our financial results for the second quarter of 2020 and may impact our expected financial results for the full year 2020. In addition, we cannot assure you that we will not experience similar, or even more sustained, access restrictions or decreases in procedural activities as hospitals continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. If cases of COVID-19 increase and hospitals again prioritize those patients, additional restrictions may be implemented which would adversely impact our business and financial results.
Preliminary Financial and Operational Information
The following information reflects our preliminary expectations of results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, based on currently available information. We have provided ranges, rather than specific amounts, for the financial results below, primarily because our financial closing procedures for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 have just commenced and, as a result, we expect that our final results upon completion of our closing procedures may vary from the preliminary estimates included herein. For instance, we have not begun review of most account reconciliations or expense accruals, or prepared notes to our financial statements.
Preliminary Financial Results
Although the financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 are not yet finalized, we estimate that the financial results will fall within the following ranges, as compared to the quarter ended June 30, 2019:
Three Months Ended June 30, | ||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | |||||||||||
(in thousands) | Low | High | Actual | |||||||||
Revenue |
$ | 950 | $ | 1,150 | $ | 734 | ||||||
Loss from operations |
$ | 19,100 | $ | 20,100 | $ | 13,876 |
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We estimate that our revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 will be between $1.0 million and $1.2 million, compared to $0.7 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, a change of $0.3 million or 43%, calculated using the midpoint of the range. The change in revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 compared to the same period of 2019 is primarily due to an increase in purchase volume of our disposable products used in electrophysiology procedures as a result of a higher installed base, as well as slightly higher average selling prices on certain of our disposable products.
We estimate that our loss from operations for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 will be between $19.1 million and $20.1 million, compared to $13.9 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, a change of $5.7 million or 41%, calculated using the midpoint of the range.
Preliminary Operational Results
Although the operational results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 are not yet finalized, we estimate that the operational results will be as follows, as compared to the quarter ended June 30, 2019:
As of June 30, |
||||||||
2020 | 2019 | |||||||
Installed base: |
||||||||
United States |
20 | 8 | ||||||
International |
18 | 18 | ||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||
Total |
38 | 26 | ||||||
|
|
|
|
We define our installed base as the cumulative number of AcQMap consoles and workstations placed into service at customer sites.
Inclusion of Preliminary Financial and Operational Information
The preliminary financial and operational information included in this prospectus reflect managements estimates based solely upon information available to us as of the date of this prospectus and are the responsibility of management. The preliminary consolidated financial results presented above are not a comprehensive statement of our financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 and have not been audited, reviewed or compiled by our independent registered public accounting firm, KPMG LLP, or KPMG. Accordingly, KPMG does not express an opinion and assumes no responsibility for and disclaims any association with such preliminary financial results. The preliminary consolidated financial results presented above are subject to the completion of our financial closing procedures, which have not yet been completed. Our actual results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 will not be available until after this offering is completed and may differ materially from these estimates. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance upon these preliminary financial results. For example, during the course of the preparation of the respective financial statements and related notes, additional items that would require material adjustments to be made to the preliminary estimated consolidated financial results presented above may be identified. There can be no assurance that these estimates will be realized, and estimates are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are not within our control. See Risk Factors and Special Notes Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.
Company Information
We were incorporated in Delaware on March 25, 2011 as Acutus Medical, Inc. Our principal executive offices and manufacturing facilities are located at 2210 Faraday Ave., Suite 100, Carlsbad, CA 92008, and our telephone number is (442) 232-6080. Our website address is www.acutusmedical.com. The information on, or
12
that may be accessed through, our website is not a part of this prospectus and the inclusion of our website address in this prospectus is an inactive textual reference only.
Acutus and the Acutus logo, Acutus Medical and the Acutus Medical logo, AcQMap and the AcQMap logo, AcQBlate and the AcQBlate logo, AcQGuide and the AcQGuide logo, AcQRef and the AcQRef logo, AcQCross and the AcQCross logo, SuperMap and the SuperMap logo and UNCOVER AF and the UNCOVER AF logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of our company. Our logo and our other trade names, trademarks and service marks appearing in this prospectus are our property. Solely for convenience, our trademarks and trade names referred to in this prospectus appear without the or ® symbol, but those references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights, or the right of the applicable licensor to these trademarks and trade names. Other trade names, trademarks and service marks appearing in this prospectus are the property of their respective owners.
Implications of Being an Emerging Growth Company and a Smaller Reporting Company
We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act. As such, we are eligible for exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including, but not limited to, presenting only two years of audited financial statements in addition to any required unaudited interim financial statements with correspondingly reduced Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations disclosure in this prospectus, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation, and an exemption from the requirements to obtain a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation or golden parachute arrangements.
In addition, an emerging growth company can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. This provision allows an emerging growth company to delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected to avail ourselves of this provision of the JOBS Act. As a result, we will not be subject to new or revised accounting standards at the same time as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. Therefore, our consolidated financial statements may not be comparable to those of companies that comply with new or revised accounting pronouncements as of public company effective dates.
We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of: (i) the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the consummation of this offering; (ii) the last day of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.07 billion; (iii) the last day of the fiscal year in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, which would occur if the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeded $700.0 million as of the last business day of the second fiscal quarter of such year; or (iv) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities during the prior three-year period.
We are also a smaller reporting company as defined in the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company even after we are no longer an emerging growth company. We may take advantage of certain of the scaled disclosures available to smaller reporting companies and will be able to take advantage of these scaled disclosures for so long as our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less that $250.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenue is less that $100.0 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less that $700.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter.
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Common stock offered by us |
7,352,941 shares. | |
Option to purchase additional shares |
We have granted the underwriters an option for a period of 30 days to purchase up to 1,102,941 additional shares of our common stock. | |
Common stock to be outstanding immediately after this offering |
24,636,717 shares (or 25,739,658 shares if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full). | |
Use of proceeds |
We estimate that the net proceeds from the sale of our common stock in this offering will be approximately $112.6 million (or approximately $130.1 million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full), based on the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.
We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering to support our commercial expansion, including hiring additional commercial personnel, for the completion of all of our ongoing clinical trials, for our research and development activities, and the remainder, if any, for working capital and other general corporate purposes. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds of this offering for acquisitions or strategic transactions, though we have not entered into any agreements or commitments with respect to any specific transactions and have no understandings or agreements with respect to any such transactions at this time. See the section titled Use of Proceeds for more information. | |
Risk factors |
See the section titled Risk Factors and other information included in this prospectus for a discussion of factors you should carefully consider before deciding to invest in shares of our common stock. | |
Directed share program |
At our request, the underwriters have reserved up to 5% of the shares offered by this prospectus for sale at the initial public offering price through a directed share program to our directors, officers, employees, suppliers, customers and related persons. The sales will be made at our direction by J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and its affiliates through a directed share program. The number of shares of our common stock available for sale to the general public in this offering will be reduced to the extent that such persons purchase such reserved shares. Any reserved shares not so purchased will be offered by the underwriters to the general public on the same terms as the other shares of our common stock offered by this prospectus. Any person that participates in this directed share program will be subject to 180-day lock-up and market standoff restrictions with the underwriters and with us with respect to any shares purchased through the directed share program. For additional information, see the section titled Underwriting. | |
Proposed Nasdaq trading symbol |
AFIB |
14
The number of shares of common stock that will be outstanding after this offering is based on 17,283,776 shares of our common stock (including all shares of our convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) outstanding as of March 31, 2020, and excludes:
| 509,562 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of $0.17 per share; |
| 446,990 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of convertible preferred stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, which will be automatically converted into warrants to purchase shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering, with a weighted-average exercise price of $16.67 per share; |
| 2,746,088 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of $11.01 per share; |
| 567,509 shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting and settlement of outstanding restricted stock units, or RSUs, as of March 31, 2020, of which 269,701 units will vest upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part; |
| 2,193,360 shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan, or our 2020 Plan, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, plus shares of our common stock subject to awards granted under our 2011 Equity Incentive Plan, or our 2011 Plan, which expire or otherwise terminate without having been exercised in full or are forfeited to or repurchased by us, which shares will be added to the shares to be reserved under our 2020 Plan (up to a maximum of 3,163,780 shares), as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 Plan, including: |
| 17,976 shares of our common stock issued to certain of our consultants pursuant to our 2020 Plan with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting of RSUs granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, and having an aggregate grant date fair value of $3.8 million (which would equal 226,315 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price, and having an aggregate grant date fair value of $8.1 million (which would equal 666,964 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), and |
| an additional 219,593 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price; and |
| 387,063 shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or our 2020 ESPP, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date |
15
of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 ESPP. |
In addition, unless otherwise indicated, all information in this prospectus assumes or gives effect to:
| a 1-for-9.724 reverse split of our capital stock which was effected on July 28, 2020; |
| the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 16,572,935 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering; |
| the automatic conversion of all outstanding warrants to purchase shares of our convertible preferred stock outstanding into warrants to purchase an aggregate of 446,990 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering; |
| no exercise of outstanding options or warrants or settlement of outstanding RSUs; |
| no exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase up to an additional 1,102,941 shares of our common stock in this offering; and |
| the adoption, filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws immediately prior to the completion of this offering. |
Certain of our existing stockholders who are affiliated with certain of our directors have expressed an interest in purchasing up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering at the initial public offering price. However, because these indications of interest are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase, the underwriters may determine to sell more, less or no shares in this offering to any or all of these entities, or any or all of these entities may determine to purchase more, less or no shares in this offering. The underwriters will receive the same underwriting discount on any shares purchased by these stockholders as they will on any other shares sold to the public in this offering. To the extent these stockholders or persons associated with them purchase any shares in this offering, the number of shares available for sale to the general public will be accordingly reduced. See Certain Relationships and Related Party TransactionsParticipation in this Offering.
We refer to our Series A convertible preferred stock, Series B convertible preferred stock, Series C convertible preferred stock and Series D convertible preferred stock as our convertible preferred stock in this prospectus, as well as for financial reporting purposes and in the financial tables included in this prospectus, as more fully explained in Note 13 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus.
16
SUMMARY CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA
The following tables set forth a summary of our historical consolidated financial data as of and for the periods indicated. We have derived the summary consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have derived the summary consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of March 31, 2020 from our unaudited interim consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. You should read this data together with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the information in the sections titled Selected Consolidated Financial Data and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. The summary consolidated financial data included in this section are not intended to replace the consolidated financial statements and related notes and are qualified in their entirety by our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any other period and our interim results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the full year ending December 31, 2020.
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands, except share and per share data) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data: |
||||||||||||||||
Revenue(2) |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | $ | 2,836 | $ | 2,166 | ||||||||
Costs and operating expenses: |
||||||||||||||||
Cost of products sold(1) |
3,194 | 2,176 | 9,243 | 7,510 | ||||||||||||
Research and development(1) |
7,973 | 4,377 | 23,029 | 19,077 | ||||||||||||
Research and developmentlicense acquired |
| | 15,000 | | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative(1) |
10,235 | 4,093 | 26,847 | 13,330 | ||||||||||||
Impairment of property and equipment |
| | 786 | | ||||||||||||
Change in fair value of contingent consideration |
(2,219 | ) | | 500 | | |||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total costs and operating expenses |
19,183 | 10,646 | 75,405 | 39,917 | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Loss from operations |
(17,600 | ) | (9,859 | ) | (72,569 | ) | (37,751 | ) | ||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
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Other income (expense): |
||||||||||||||||
Change in fair value of warrant liability and embedded derivative |
581 | 841 | (1,919 | ) | (4,298 | ) | ||||||||||
Loss on issuance of convertible notes and warrants |
| | | (924 | ) | |||||||||||
Loss on debt extinguishment |
| | (1,447 | ) | | |||||||||||
Interest income |
275 | 65 | 1,164 | 297 | ||||||||||||
Interest expense |
(1,354 | ) | (5,742 | ) | (22,268 | ) | (5,231 | ) | ||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total other income (expense), net |
(498 | ) | (4,836 | ) | (24,470 | ) | (10,156 | ) | ||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Loss before income taxes |
(18,098 | ) | (14,695 | ) | (97,039 | ) | (47,907 | ) | ||||||||
Income tax benefit |
| | | | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
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|
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Net loss |
$ | (18,098 | ) | $ | (14,695 | ) | $ | (97,039 | ) | $ | (47,907 | ) | ||||
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|
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Net loss per common share, basic and diluted(3) |
$ | (25.84 | ) | $ | (22.38 | ) | $ | (144.41 | ) | $ | (87.78 | ) | ||||
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|
|
|
|
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Weighted-average shares outstanding, basic and diluted(3) |
700,505 | 656,654 | 671,953 | 545,776 | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
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Pro forma net loss per common share, basic and diluted (unaudited)(3) |
$ | (1.05 | ) | $ | (5.76 | ) | ||||||||||
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|
|
|
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Pro forma weighted-average shares outstanding, basic and diluted (unaudited)(3) |
17,273,440 | 16,851,825 | ||||||||||||||
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(1) | The following table sets forth the stock-based compensation expense included in our consolidated results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Cost of products sold |
$ | 108 | $ | 52 | $ | 209 | $ | 215 | ||||||||
Research and development |
211 | 142 | 656 | 564 | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative |
1,422 | 365 | 2,129 | 1,292 | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total stock-based compensation expense |
$ | 1,741 | $ | 559 | $ | 2,994 | $ | 2,071 | ||||||||
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(2) | The following table sets forth our revenue for disposables and systems/service for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Disposables |
$ | 1,057 | $ | 782 | $ | 2,817 | $ | 2,160 | ||||||||
Systems/service |
526 | 5 | 19 | 6 | ||||||||||||
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|
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Total revenue |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | $ | 2,836 | $ | 2,166 | ||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
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|
(3) | See Note 16 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for an explanation of the calculations of our basic and diluted net loss per common share, basic and diluted pro forma net loss per common share and the weighted-average number of shares used in the computation of the per share amounts. |
As of March 31, 2020 | ||||||||||||
Actual | Pro Forma(1) | Pro Forma As Adjusted(2)(3) |
||||||||||
(in thousands) |
|
(unaudited) |
| |||||||||
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: |
||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities |
$ | 49,880 | $ | 49,880 | $ | 162,530 | ||||||
Working capital(4) |
38,363 | 46,701 | 159,351 | |||||||||
Total assets |
87,106 | 87,106 | 199,756 | |||||||||
Contingent consideration, short- and long-term |
6,900 | 6,900 | 6,900 | |||||||||
Common and preferred stock warrant liability |
8,338 | | | |||||||||
Long-term debt |
38,398 | 38,398 | 38,398 | |||||||||
Convertible preferred stock |
260,555 | | | |||||||||
Accumulated deficit |
(277,132 | ) | (277,132 | ) | (277,132 | ) | ||||||
Total stockholders equity (deficit) |
(242,222 | ) | 26,671 | 139,321 |
(1) | The pro forma consolidated balance sheet data gives effect to: (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 16,572,935 shares of common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering, as if such conversion had occurred on March 31, 2020; (ii) the automatic conversion of all of our outstanding warrants to purchase convertible preferred stock into warrants to purchase shares of our common stock, and the related reclassification of our common and preferred stock warrant liability to stockholders equity (deficit) immediately prior to the completion of this offering; and (iii) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, which will be in effect immediately prior to the completion of this offering. |
(2) | The pro forma as adjusted consolidated balance sheet data gives effect to: (i) the pro forma items described in footnote (1) above; and (ii) the issuance and sale by us of 7,352,941 shares of our common stock in this offering at the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. |
(3) | The pro forma as adjusted consolidated balance sheet data is illustrative only and will change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing. Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share would increase (decrease) each of our pro forma as adjusted cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, working capital, total assets and total stockholders equity (deficit) by $6.8 million, assuming the number of shares of common stock offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and |
18
commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, each increase (decrease) of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares of common stock offered by us would increase (decrease) each of our pro forma as adjusted cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, working capital, total assets and total stockholders equity (deficit) by $15.8 million, assuming the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. |
(4) | Working capital is defined as total current assets less total current liabilities. See our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus for further details regarding our current assets and current liabilities. |
19
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this prospectus, including the section titled Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, before deciding whether to invest in shares of our common stock. The risks described below are not the only ones facing us. The occurrence of any of the following risks or additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects. In that event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. Please also see the sections titled Special Notes Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Market, Industry and Other Data.
Risks Related to Our Business and Products
We have a limited history operating as a commercial company; if we fail to effectively train our sales force, increase our sales and marketing capabilities or develop broad brand awareness in a cost-effective manner, our growth will be impeded and our business will suffer.
We were incorporated in 2011 and began commercializing our products in 2016. Early versions of our AcQMap System and certain related accessory products have been used in the United States since May 2018 and Western Europe since July 2016 in a limited, pilot launch capacity, where our focus was on optimizing workflow and validating our value proposition. We fully commenced the launch of our commercial-grade console and software products in the first quarter of 2020. Accordingly, our limited commercialization experience and limited number of approved or cleared products make it difficult to evaluate our current business and assess our prospects. We also currently have limited sales and marketing experience. If we are unable to establish effective sales and marketing capabilities or if we are unable to commercialize any of our products, we may not be able to effectively generate product revenue, sustain revenue growth and compete effectively. In order to generate future growth, we plan to continue to expand and leverage our sales and marketing infrastructure to increase our customer base and grow our business. Identifying and recruiting qualified sales and marketing personnel and training them on our products, applicable federal and state laws and regulations, and on our internal policies and procedures requires significant time, expense and attention. It often takes several months or more before a sales representative is fully trained and productive. Our business may be harmed if our efforts to expand and train our sales force do not generate a corresponding increase in revenue, and our higher fixed costs may slow our ability to reduce costs in the face of a sudden decline in demand for our products. Any failure to hire, develop and retain talented sales and marketing personnel, to achieve desired productivity levels in a reasonable timeframe or timely leverage our fixed costs could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, the members of our direct sales force are at-will employees. The loss of these personnel to competitors or otherwise could materially harm our business. If we are unable to retain our direct sales force personnel or replace them with individuals of equivalent technical expertise and qualifications, or if we are unable to successfully instill technical expertise in replacement personnel, our revenue and results of operations could be materially harmed.
Our ability to increase our customer base and achieve broader market acceptance of our products will also depend to a significant extent on our ability to expand our marketing efforts as we plan to dedicate significant resources to our marketing programs. Our business may be harmed if our marketing efforts and expenditures do not generate a corresponding increase in revenue. In addition, we believe that developing and maintaining broad awareness of our brand in a cost-effective manner is critical to achieving broad acceptance of our products and penetrating new customer accounts. Brand promotion activities may not generate patient or physician awareness or increased revenue, and even if they do, any increase in revenue may not offset the costs and expenses we incur in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote, maintain and protect our brand, we may fail to attract or retain the physician acceptance necessary to realize a sufficient return on our brand building efforts, or to achieve the level of brand awareness that is critical for broad adoption of our products.
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These factors also make it difficult for us to forecast our financial performance and growth, and such forecasts are subject to a number of uncertainties, including our ability to successfully develop additional products that add functionality, reduce the cost of products sold, broaden our commercial portfolio offerings and obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, 510(k) clearance or premarket approval, or PMA, for, and successfully commercialize, market and sell, our planned or future products in the United States or in international markets. If our assumptions regarding the risks and uncertainties we face, which we use to plan our business, are incorrect or change due to circumstances in our business or our markets, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations and our business could suffer.
The commercial success of our products will depend upon attaining significant market acceptance of these products among hospitals, physicians, patients and payors.
Our success will depend, in part, on the acceptance of our products as safe, effective and, with respect to providers, cost-effective. We cannot predict how quickly, if at all, hospitals, physicians, patients or payors will accept our products or, if accepted, how frequently they will be used. Our products and planned or future products we may develop or market may never gain broad market acceptance for some or all of our targeted indications. Hospitals, physicians, patients and payors must believe that our products offer benefits over alternative treatment methods. To date, a substantial majority of our product sales and revenue have been derived from a limited number of customers who have adopted our AcQMap System and accompanying products. Our future growth and profitability largely depend on our ability to increase physician awareness of our system and our products and on the willingness of hospitals, physicians, patients or payors to adopt them. These parties may not adopt our products unless they are able to determine, based on experience, clinical data, medical society recommendations and other analyses, that our products are safe, effective and, with respect to providers, cost-effective, on a stand-alone basis and relative to competitors products. Healthcare providers must believe that our products offer benefits over alternative treatment methods. Even if we are able to raise awareness, physicians tend to be slow in changing their medical treatment practices and may be hesitant to select our products for recommendation to their hospitals or patients for a variety of reasons, including:
| long-standing relationships with competing companies and distributors that sell other products; |
| competitive response and negative selling efforts from providers of alternative products; |
| lack of experience with our products and concerns that we are relatively new to market; |
| lack or perceived lack of sufficient clinical evidence, including long-term data, supporting safety or clinical benefits; and |
| time commitment and skill development that may be required to gain familiarity and proficiency with our products. |
Physicians play a significant role in determining the course of a patients treatment, and, as a result, the type of treatment that will be utilized and provided to a patient. We focus our sales, marketing and education efforts primarily on cardiac electrophysiologists, and aim to educate referring physicians regarding the patient population that would benefit from our products. However, we cannot assure you that we will achieve broad market acceptance among these practitioners.
For example, if electrophysiologists are not made aware of our products, they may not recommend ablation for their patients or the installation of our AcQMap System in their hospitals. In addition, some physicians may choose to utilize our products on only a subset of their total patient population or may not adopt our products at all. If we are not able to effectively demonstrate that the use of our products is beneficial in a broad range of patients, adoption of our products will be limited and may not occur as rapidly as we anticipate or at all, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We cannot assure you that our products will achieve broad market acceptance among hospitals and physicians. Additionally,
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even if our products achieve market acceptance, they may not maintain that market acceptance over time if competing products, procedures or technologies are considered safer or more cost-effective or otherwise superior. Any failure of our products to generate sufficient demand or to achieve meaningful market acceptance and penetration will harm our future prospects and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our reputation among our current or potential customers, as well as among electrophysiologists, could also be negatively affected by safety or customer satisfaction issues involving us or our products, including product recalls. For example, in February 2020, we initiated a voluntary recall of a total of 120 of our AcQGuide Flex and AcQGuide Mini sheaths due to product defects that we determined arose during the manufacturing process by one of our contract manufacturers. Future product recalls or other safety or customer satisfaction issues relating to our reputation could negatively affect our ability to establish or maintain broad adoption of our products, which would harm our future prospects and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In most cases, before a hospital can purchase our AcQMap console and workstation for the first time, our system must be approved for use by a hospitals new product or value analysis committee, or the staff of a hospital or health system. Such approvals could deter or delay the use of our products by physicians. We cannot provide assurance that our efforts to obtain such approvals or generate adoption will be successful or increase the use of our products, and if we are not successful, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have significant international operations, and intend to further expand our business internationally, which exposes us to market, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks associated with doing business outside of the United States.
As of March 31, 2020, we have sold our products directly in the United States, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Our business strategy includes plans for significant expansion in the countries in which we currently operate as well as other international markets and may include establishing and maintaining physician outreach and education capabilities outside of the United States and expanding our relationships with international payors. During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, 51%, 74% and 79%, respectively, of our revenue was generated from customers located outside of the United States, and we anticipate that international sales will continue to represent a substantial portion of our total sales in the future. For example, in May 2020, we entered into an expansive bi-lateral distribution agreement with Biotronik, pursuant to which Biotronik agreed to distribute our products in Germany, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland and multiple countries in Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America. In addition, some of our employees, including those of our Belgium subsidiary, suppliers and other strategic partners are located outside of the United States. Doing business internationally involves a number of risks, including:
| changes in a countrys or regions political or economic conditions, including any potential impact resulting from the U.K.s exit from the European Union, commonly referred to as Brexit; |
| difficulties in developing effective marketing campaigns in unfamiliar foreign countries; |
| multiple, conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as tax laws, privacy laws, export and import restrictions, employment laws, regulatory requirements and other governmental approvals, permits and licenses; |
| obtaining regulatory approvals where required for the sale of our products in various countries; |
| requirements to maintain data and the processing of that data on servers located within such countries; |
| complexities associated with managing multiple payor reimbursement regimes, government payors or patient self-pay systems; |
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| trade protection measures, customs clearance and shipping delays; |
| financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty collecting accounts receivable, the effect of local and regional financial pressures on demand and payment for our products and exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; |
| natural disasters, political and economic instability, including wars, terrorism, political unrest, outbreaks of disease or public health crises (including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), boycotts, curtailment of trade and other market restrictions; |
| regulatory and compliance risks that relate to maintaining accurate information and control over activities subject to regulation under the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or FCPA, U.K. Bribery Act of 2010 and comparable laws and regulations in other countries; |
| our reliance on international distributors, who we do not control, to effectively market and sell our products in full compliance with applicable laws; |
| differing protection of intellectual property; and |
| increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities. |
We rely on shipping providers to deliver products to our customers and distributors globally. Labor, tariff or World Trade Organization-related disputes, piracy, physical damage to shipping facilities or equipment caused by severe weather or terrorist incidents, congestion at shipping facilities, inadequate equipment to load, dock and offload our products, energy-related tie-ups, outbreaks of disease or public health crises (including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic) or other factors could disrupt or delay shipping or off-loading of our products domestically and internationally. Such disruptions or delays could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If one or more of these risks are realized, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.
We rely on our strategic relationship with Biotronik to enhance our product portfolio and to distribute our products in key international markets.
We entered into expansive Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements with Biotronik in May 2020 to round out our product portfolio with a full suite of diagnostic and ablation catheters, and to rapidly and efficiently establish a sales presence globally. Pursuant to our Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements with Biotronik, we obtained a non-exclusive license to distribute a range of Biotroniks therapeutic and diagnostic electrophysiology products and accessories in the United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong and multiple countries in Western Europe under our own private label. Biotronik has also agreed to distribute our products and accessories in Germany, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland and multiple countries in Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America. Accordingly, the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements significantly expand both our product portfolio and our international sales presence. If Biotronik is unable to successfully market and sell our products in these markets, or if we are unable to successfully market Biotroniks products in the United States and geographies where we have or establish a direct selling presence, it could materially adversely impact our growth prospects in these markets and our relationship with Biotronik, which would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our strategic alliance with Biotronik also includes cooperative arrangements with respect to regulatory approval and the commercialization, manufacture and marketing of our respective products in various geographic markets. While we will depend on Biotronik to sell our products in its designated territories and otherwise cooperate with us in our strategic alliance, we do not control the time and resources Biotronik devotes to such activities, and we may not have the resources available to satisfy expectations, which may adversely affect our relationship.
Either party may terminate the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements with respect to a country if the other party does not meet specified purchase targets for that country following a specified ramp-up period. Any
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termination of the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements for this or other reasons could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, recruiting and retaining qualified third-party distributors and training them in our technology and products requires significant time and resources. Further, if our relationship with Biotronik terminates, we may be unable to replace this relationship or develop a direct sales channel without disruption to our business.
We may also seek to enter into additional strategic partnerships with other third parties in the future, including distribution arrangements. If we fail to develop new relationships with any other strategic partners we seek to engage, including in new markets, fail to manage, train or incentivize distributors effectively, or fail to provide distributors with competitive products on attractive terms, or if these distributors are not successful in their sales and marketing efforts, our ability to generate revenue growth could suffer, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, these strategic partnerships may be non-exclusive, and some of our strategic partners may also have cooperative relationships with certain of our competitors. These relationships may not continue, may not be commercially successful or may require our expenditure of significant financial, personnel and administrative resources from time to time. If we are unable to leverage our existing and future strategic partnerships to achieve and maintain distribution at a global scale or establish and maintain a broad product portfolio, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We face significant competition, and if we are unable to compete effectively, we may not be able to achieve or maintain significant market penetration or improve our results of operations.
The medical device industry is intensely competitive, subject to rapid change and significantly affected by new product introductions and other market activities of industry participants. We compete with manufacturers and distributors of cardiovascular medical devices. Our most significant competitors in the electrophysiology field include Abbott Laboratories, Biosense Webster Inc. (a Johnson & Johnson Company), Boston Scientific Corporation and Medtronic plc. Many of our competitors are large, well-capitalized companies with significantly greater market share and resources than we have. Therefore, they can spend more on product development, marketing, sales and other product initiatives than we can. We also compete with smaller medical device companies that have a single product or a limited range of products. Some of our competitors have:
| significantly greater name recognition; |
| broader or deeper relations with healthcare professionals, customers and third-party payors; |
| more established distribution networks; |
| additional lines of products and the ability to offer rebates or bundle products to offer greater discounts or other incentives to gain a competitive advantage; |
| greater experience in conducting research and development, manufacturing, clinical trials, marketing and obtaining regulatory clearance or approval for products; and |
| greater financial and human resources for product development, sales and marketing and patent prosecution. |
We compete primarily on the basis that our products are designed to enable more physicians to treat more patients more efficiently and effectively. Our continued success depends on our ability to:
| continue to develop innovative, proprietary products that address significant clinical needs in a manner that is safe and effective for patients and easy-to-use for physicians; |
| obtain and maintain regulatory clearances or approvals; |
| demonstrate safety and effectiveness in our sponsored and third-party clinical trials; |
| expand our sales force across key markets to increase physician awareness; |
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| leverage our strategic partnerships and alliances to achieve distribution at a global scale, broaden our product portfolio and enable and accelerate global connectivity; |
| obtain and maintain coverage and adequate reimbursement for procedures using our products; |
| attract and retain skilled research, development, sales and clinical personnel; |
| cost-effectively manufacture, market and sell our products; and |
| obtain, maintain, enforce and defend our intellectual property rights and operate our business without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of others. |
We can provide no assurance that we will be successful in developing new products or commercializing them in ways that achieve market acceptance. If we develop new products, sales of those products may reduce revenue generated from our existing products. Moreover, any significant delays in our product launches may significantly impede our ability to enter or compete in a given market and may reduce the sales that we are able to generate from these products. We may experience delays in any phase of a product development, including during research and development, clinical trials, regulatory review, manufacturing and marketing. Delays in product introductions could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we are unable to manage the anticipated growth of our business, our future revenue and operating results may be adversely affected.
We have experienced substantial growth in our operations, and we expect to experience continued substantial growth in our business. For example, in 2019, our headcount increased by 67%, and we released five new disposable products, two hardware products, including a major generational update to our AcQMap System, and 15 software updates. This growth has placed, and will continue to place, significant demands on our management and our operational infrastructure. Any growth that we experience in the future could require us to expand our sales and marketing personnel and manufacturing operations and general and administrative infrastructure. In addition to the need to scale our organization, future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on management, including the need to identify, recruit, train and integrate additional employees. We cannot assure you that any increases in scale, related improvements and quality assurance will be successfully implemented or that appropriate personnel will be available to facilitate the growth of our business. Rapid expansion in personnel could mean that less experienced people manufacture, market and sell our products, which could result in inefficiencies and unanticipated costs, reduced quality and disruptions to our operations. In addition, rapid and significant growth may strain our administrative and operational infrastructure and could require significant capital expenditures that may divert financial resources from other projects, such as research and development of potential future products. Our ability to manage our business and growth will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, and reporting systems and procedures. If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, including by failing to implement necessary procedures, transition to new processes or hire necessary personnel, it may be difficult for us to execute our business strategy and our business could be adversely affected.
We may not be able to develop, license or acquire new products, enhance the capabilities of our existing products to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and customer requirements or successfully manage the transition to new product offerings, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our success depends on our ability to develop, license or acquire and commercialize additional products and to develop new applications for our technologies in existing and new markets, while improving the performance and cost-effectiveness of our existing products, in each case in ways that address current and anticipated customer requirements. We intend to develop and commercialize additional products through our research and development program and by licensing or acquiring additional products and technologies from third parties. Such
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success is dependent upon several factors, including functionality, competitive pricing, ease of use, the safety and efficacy of our products and our ability to identify, select and acquire the rights to products and technologies on terms that are acceptable to us.
The medical device industry is characterized by rapid technological change and innovation. New technologies, techniques or products could emerge that might offer better combinations of price and performance or better address customer requirements as compared to our current or future products. Competitors, who may have greater financial, marketing and sales resources than we do, may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. Any new product we identify for internal development, licensing or acquisition may require additional development efforts prior to commercial sale, including extensive clinical testing and approval or clearance by the FDA and applicable foreign regulatory authorities. Due to the significant lead time and complexity involved in bringing a new product to market, we are required to make a number of assumptions and estimates regarding the commercial feasibility of a new product. These assumptions and estimates may prove incorrect, resulting in our introduction of a product that is not competitive at the time of launch. We anticipate that we will face increased competition in the future as existing companies and competitors develop new or improved products and as new companies enter the market with new technologies. Our ability to mitigate downward pressure on our selling prices will be dependent upon our ability to maintain or increase the value we offer to hospitals, physicians, patients and payors. All new products are prone to the risks of failure inherent in medical device product development, including the possibility that the product will not be shown to be sufficiently safe and effective for approval or clearance by regulatory authorities. In addition, we cannot assure you that any such products that are approved or cleared will be manufactured or produced economically, successfully commercialized or widely accepted in the marketplace. The expenses or losses associated with unsuccessful product development or launch activities, or a lack of market acceptance of our new products, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our ability to attract new customer accounts and increase revenue from existing customers depends in large part on our ability to enhance and improve our existing products and to introduce compelling new products. The success of any enhancement to our products depends on several factors, including our ability to drive increased installations of our AcQMap console and workstation in customer accounts, timely completion and delivery, competitive pricing and overall market acceptance. Any new product that we develop may not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner, may contain defects or may not achieve the market acceptance necessary to generate significant revenue. If we are unable to successfully develop, license or acquire new products, enhance our existing products to meet customer requirements or otherwise gain market acceptance, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be harmed.
The typical development cycle of new medical device products can be lengthy and complicated and may require complex technology and engineering. Such developments may involve external suppliers and service providers, making the management of development projects complex and subject to risks and uncertainties regarding timing, timely delivery of required components or services and satisfactory technical performance of such components or assembled products. If we do not achieve the required technical specifications or successfully manage new product development processes, or if development work is not performed according to schedule, then such new technologies or products may be adversely impacted and our business and operating results may be harmed.
Our quarterly and annual results may fluctuate significantly and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business.
Our quarterly and annual results of operations, including our revenue, profitability and cash flow, may vary significantly in the future, and period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful. Accordingly, the results of any one quarter or other period should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Our quarterly and annual financial results may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, many of
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which are outside our control and, as a result, may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. Factors that may cause fluctuations in our quarterly and annual results include, without limitation:
| the level of demand for our products, which may vary significantly from period to period; |
| expenditures that we may incur to acquire, develop or commercialize additional products and technologies; |
| the timing and cost of clinical trials, including obtaining regulatory approvals or clearances for planned or future products; |
| the rate at which we grow our sales force and the speed at which newly hired salespeople become effective, and the cost and level of investment therein; |
| the degree of competition in our industry and any change in the competitive landscape of our industry, including consolidation among our competitors or future partners; |
| coverage and reimbursement policies with respect to the procedures using our products and potential future products that compete with our products; |
| the timing and success or failure of clinical trials for our current or planned products or any future products we develop or competing products; |
| the timing of customer orders or medical procedures, the timing and number of installations of our AcQMap console and workstation, the number of available selling days in a particular period, which can be impacted by a number of factors, such as holidays or days of severe inclement weather in a particular geography, the mix of products sold and the geographic mix of where products are sold; |
| the timing and cost of, and level of investment in, research, development, regulatory approval and commercialization activities relating to our products, which may change from time to time; |
| the cost of manufacturing our products, which may vary depending on the quantity of production and the terms of our agreements with third-party suppliers and manufacturers; |
| natural disasters, outbreaks of disease or public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; |
| the timing and nature of any future acquisitions or strategic partnerships; and |
| future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies. |
Because our quarterly and annual results may fluctuate, period-to-period comparisons may not be the best indication of the underlying results of our business and should only be relied upon as one factor in determining how our business is performing.
In addition, this variability and unpredictability could result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any forecasts we may provide to the market, it may result in a decrease in the price of our common stock.
We depend upon third-party suppliers, including single-source suppliers, making us vulnerable to supply disruptions and price fluctuations.
We rely on third-party suppliers to provide us with certain components of our products, some of which are single-source suppliers. In some cases, we do not have long-term supply agreements with, or guaranteed commitments from, our suppliers, including single-source suppliers. We depend on our suppliers to provide us and our customers with materials in a timely manner that meet our and their quality, quantity and cost requirements. These suppliers may encounter problems during manufacturing for a variety of reasons, any of which could delay or impede their ability to meet our demand. For example, in response to an outbreak of
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COVID-19, the single-source supplier of flex circuits for one of our products temporarily suspended production for a period of approximately one week in the first quarter of 2020. Our suppliers may also cease producing the components we purchase from them or otherwise decide to cease doing business with us. Any supply interruption from our suppliers or failure to obtain additional suppliers for any of the components used in our products would limit our ability to manufacture our products and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Adoption of our products depends upon appropriate physician training, and inadequate training may lead to negative patient outcomes, affect adoption of our products and adversely affect our business.
The success of our products depends in part on our customers adherence to appropriate patient selection and proper techniques provided in training sessions conducted by our training faculty. For example, we train our customers to ensure correct use of our AcQMap System. However, physicians rely on their previous medical training and experience, and we cannot guarantee that all such physicians will have the necessary skills or training to effectively utilize our products. We do not control which physicians use our products or how much training they receive, and physicians who have not completed our training sessions may nonetheless attempt to use our products. If physicians use our products in a manner that is inconsistent with their labeled indications, with components that are not compatible with our products or without adhering to or completing our training sessions, their patient outcomes may not be consistent with the outcomes achieved by other physicians or in our clinical trials. This result may negatively impact the perception of patient benefit and safety and limit adoption of our products, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Defects or failures associated with our products could lead to recalls, safety alerts or litigation, as well as significant costs and negative publicity.
Our business is subject to significant risks associated with manufacture, distribution and use of medical devices that are placed inside the human body, including the risk that patients may be severely injured by or even die from the misuse or malfunction of our products caused by design flaws or manufacturing defects. In addition, component failures, design defects, off-label uses or inadequate disclosure of product-related information could also result in an unsafe condition or the injury or death of a patient. These problems could lead to a recall or market withdrawal of, or issuance of a safety alert relating to, our products and could result in significant costs, negative publicity and adverse competitive pressure. For example, in February 2020, we initiated a voluntary recall of a total of 120 of our AcQGuide Flex and AcQGuide Mini sheaths due to product defects that we determined arose during the manufacturing process by one of our contract manufacturers. Although this issue has been corrected and did not cause any patient injury, as the recalled products had not been placed into service, customer satisfaction problems early in a products launch can have a lasting negative impact on our reputation or on our ability to sell such product. Furthermore, the reporting of product defects or voluntary recalls to the FDA or analogous regulatory bodies outside the United States could result in manufacturing audits, inspections and broader recalls or other disruptions to our manufacturing processes. The circumstances giving rise to recalls are unpredictable, and any recalls of existing or future products could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We provide a limited warranty that our products are free of material defects and conform to specifications, and offer to repair, replace or refund the purchase price of defective products. As a result, we bear the risk of potential warranty claims on our products. In the event that we attempt to recover some or all of the expenses associated with a warranty claim against us from our suppliers or vendors, we may not be successful in claiming recovery and any recovery from such vendor or supplier may not be adequate.
The medical device industry has historically been subject to extensive litigation over product liability claims. We may be subject to product liability claims if our products cause, or merely appear to have caused, an injury or death, even if due to physician error. In addition, an injury or death that is caused by the activities of our
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suppliers, such as those that provide us with components and raw materials, or by an aspect of a treatment used in combination with our products, such as a complementary drug or anesthesia, may be the basis for a claim against us by patients, hospitals, physicians or others purchasing or using our products, even if our products were not the actual cause of such injury or death. We may choose to settle any such claims even if we believe that such injuries were not due to failure of our products. An adverse outcome of any such claim involving one of our products could result in reduced market acceptance and demand for any or all of our products and could harm our reputation or brand and our ability to market our products in the future. In some circumstances, adverse events arising from or associated with the design, manufacture or marketing of our products could result in the suspension or delay of regulatory reviews of our premarket notifications or applications for marketing. Any of the foregoing problems could disrupt our business and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Although we carry product liability insurance, including for clinical trials and product marketing, we can give no assurance that such coverage will be available or adequate to satisfy any claims. Product liability insurance is expensive, subject to significant deductibles and exclusions, and may not continue to be available on acceptable terms, if at all. Any product liability claims brought against us, with or without merit, could increase our product liability insurance rates or prevent us from securing continuing coverage, harm our reputation, significantly increase our expenses, and reduce product sales. If we are unable to obtain or maintain insurance at an acceptable cost or on acceptable terms with adequate coverage or otherwise protect against potential product liability claims, we could be exposed to significant liabilities. Product liability claims could cause us to incur significant legal fees and deductibles and claims in excess of our insurance coverage would be paid out of cash reserves, harming our financial condition and operating results. Defending a suit, regardless of its merit or eventual outcome, could be costly, could divert managements attention from our business and might result in adverse publicity, which could result in reduced acceptance of our products in the market, product recalls or market withdrawals.
We are required to file adverse event reports under Medical Device Reporting, or MDR, regulations with the FDA, which reports are publicly available on the FDAs website. We are required to file MDRs if our products may have caused or contributed to a serious injury or death or malfunctioned in a way that could likely cause or contribute to a serious injury or death if it were to recur. Any such MDR that reports a significant adverse event could result in negative publicity, which could harm our reputation and future sales. See Risks Related to Government RegulationIf any of our products cause or contribute to a death or a serious injury or malfunction in certain ways, we will be required to report under applicable medical device reporting regulations, which can result in voluntary corrective actions or agency enforcement actions.
Coverage and adequate reimbursement may not be available for the procedures that utilize our products, which could diminish our sales or affect our ability to sell our products profitably.
In both U.S. and non-U.S. markets, our ability to successfully commercialize and achieve market acceptance of our products depends, in significant part, on the availability of adequate financial coverage and reimbursement from third-party payors, including governmental payors (such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the United States), managed care organizations and private health insurers. Third-party payors decide which treatments they will cover and establish reimbursement rates for those treatments. Our products are purchased by hospitals and other providers who will then seek reimbursement from third-party payors for the procedures performed using our products. Reimbursement systems in international markets vary significantly by country and by region within some countries, and reimbursement approvals must be obtained on a country-by-country basis. In certain international markets, a product must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that country. Furthermore, many international markets have government-managed healthcare systems that control reimbursement for new devices and procedures. In most markets there are private insurance systems as well as government-managed systems.
While third-party payors currently cover and provide reimbursement for procedures using our currently cleared or approved products, we can give no assurance that these third-party payors will continue to provide
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coverage and adequate reimbursement for the procedures using our products, to permit hospitals and doctors to offer procedures using our products to patients requiring treatment, or that current reimbursement levels for procedures using our products will continue. If sufficient coverage and reimbursement is not available for the procedures using our products, in either the United States or internationally, the demand for our products and our revenue will be adversely affected. Furthermore, although we believe there is potential to improve on the current reimbursement profile for our products in the future, the overall amount of reimbursement available for procedures intended to diagnose and treat complex heart arrhythmias could remain at current levels or decrease in the future. Failure by hospitals and other users of our products to obtain and maintain coverage and adequate reimbursement for the procedures using our products would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Third-party payors are also increasingly examining the cost effectiveness of products, in addition to their safety and efficacy, when making coverage and payment decisions. Third-party payors have also instituted initiatives to limit the growth of healthcare costs using, for example, price regulation or controls and competitive pricing programs. Some third-party payors also require demonstrated superiority, on the basis of randomized clinical trials, or pre-approval of coverage, for new or innovative devices or procedures before they will reimburse healthcare providers who use such devices or procedures. Additionally, no uniform policy for coverage and reimbursement exists in the United States, and coverage and reimbursement can differ significantly from payor to payor. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates, but also have their own methods and approval process apart from Medicare determinations. It is uncertain whether our current products or any planned or future products will be viewed as sufficiently cost effective to warrant coverage and adequate reimbursement levels for procedures using such products in any given jurisdiction.
Our operations and financial results have been, and will continue to be, adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and the rest of the world.
In December 2019, COVID-19 was reported to have surfaced in Wuhan, China, resulting in significant disruptions to Chinese manufacturing and travel. COVID-19 has now spread to virtually all other countries, including the United States, resulting in the World Health Organization characterizing COVID-19 as a pandemic. As a result of measures imposed by the governments in affected regions, many commercial activities, businesses and schools have been suspended as part of quarantines, shelter-in-place orders and other measures intended to contain this pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures imposed to contain this pandemic disrupted and are expected to continue to impact our business. For example, on March 19, 2020, the Executive Department of the State of California issued Executive Order N-33-20, ordering all individuals in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors. Our primary operations are located in Carlsbad, California. As a result of such order, the majority of our employees have telecommuted, which may impact certain of our operations over the near term and long term. Moreover, beginning in March 2020, access to hospitals and other customer sites has been restricted to essential personnel, which has negatively impacted our ability to install our AcQMap consoles and workstations in new customer accounts and for our sales representatives and mappers to promote the use of our products with physicians. Moreover, hospitals and other therapeutic centers have suspended many elective procedures, resulting in a significantly reduced volume of procedures using our products. In addition, all clinical trials in Europe have been suspended with follow-ups for clinical trials done via telecom, and we believe enrollment timing in our planned clinical trials will be slowed due to COVID-19 driven delayed access to enrollment sites. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread around the globe, the impact may be prolonged and we may experience additional disruptions that could severely impact our business, including:
| significant interruptions to, or temporary closures of, our operations, including our manufacturing facility or our commercial organization; |
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| adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on macroeconomic conditions as well as within the economies and financial markets of specific regions in which our products are marketed; |
| continued depressed demand for installations of our AcQMap console and workstation and for our disposable products during a prolonged delay in physicians performing elective procedures using our products, or due to focusing their resources elsewhere; |
| continued or increased delays or difficulties in enrolling patients in our clinical trials or the interruption or delay of key clinical trial activities, such as clinical trial site monitoring, due to limitations on access to trial sites or limitations on travel imposed or recommended by federal or state governments, employers and others; |
| limitations in resources that would otherwise be focused on the conduct of our business, including because of sickness or the desire to avoid contact with large groups of people or as a result of government-imposed shelter-in-place or similar working restrictions; |
| difficulties in recruitment of qualified sales and marketing personnel and mappers during a period in which we are seeking to significantly expand our commercial organization; and |
| interruption in global shipping that may affect the shipment of our products or the transport of clinical trial materials. |
We are still assessing the impact that COVID-19 may have on our ability to effectively conduct our business operations as planned and there can be no assurance that we will be able to avoid a material impact on our business from the spread of COVID-19 or its consequences, including disruption to our business and downturns in business sentiment generally or in our industry. As a result of the interruptions to our business due to COVID-19, we have enacted a cash conservation program, which includes delaying certain non-critical capital expenditures and other projects, implementing a hiring freeze and temporary compensation and headcount reductions throughout our organization.
Additionally, certain third parties with whom we engage, including our strategic partners, third-party manufacturers, suppliers, clinical trial sites, regulators and other third parties with whom we conduct business are similarly adjusting their operations and assessing their capacity in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If these third parties experience shutdowns or continued business disruptions, our ability to conduct our business in the manner and on the timelines presently planned could be materially and negatively impacted. For example, in response to an outbreak of COVID-19, the single-source supplier of flex circuits for one of our products temporarily suspended production for a period of approximately one week in the first quarter of 2020. Quarantines, shelter-in-place and similar government orders may continue to impact our third-party manufacturers and suppliers and could in turn adversely impact the availability or cost of materials, which could disrupt our supply chain.
The global outbreak of COVID-19 continues to rapidly evolve. The magnitude of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our productivity, results of operations and financial position, and its disruption to our business and our clinical programs and timelines, will depend, in part, on the length and severity of these restrictions and on our ability to conduct business in the ordinary course.
The continuing development of our products depends upon our maintaining strong working relationships with hospitals, physicians and other medical personnel.
The research, development, marketing and sale of our current products and potential new and improved products for which we receive regulatory clearance or approval depend upon our maintaining working relationships with hospitals, physicians and other medical personnel. We rely on these relationships to provide us with considerable knowledge and experience regarding the development, marketing and sale of our products. For example, physicians assist us in clinical trials and in marketing and as researchers, product consultants and public
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speakers. If we cannot maintain our strong working relationships and continue to receive such advice and input, the development and marketing of our products could suffer, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
At the same time, the medical device industrys relationship with physicians is under increasing scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, or OIG, the U.S. Department of Justice, or DOJ, the state attorney generals and other foreign and domestic government agencies. Our failure to comply with requirements governing the industrys relationships with physicians or an investigation into our compliance by the OIG, the DOJ, state attorney generals and other government agencies, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additional information regarding the laws impacting our relationships with physicians and other healthcare professionals can be found below under Risks Related to Government Regulation.
We depend on our senior management team and the loss of one or more key employees or an inability to attract and retain highly skilled employees could harm our business.
Our success depends largely on the continued services of key members of our executive management team and others in key management positions. We do not currently maintain key person life insurance policies on any of our employees. If we lose one or more key employees, we may experience difficulties in competing effectively, developing our technologies and implementing our business strategy.
In addition, our research and development programs, clinical operations and sales and marketing efforts depend on our ability to attract and retain highly skilled scientists, engineers and sales professionals. Competition for skilled personnel in our market is intense, and we have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications on acceptable terms, or at all. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we do, and any of our employees may terminate their employment with us at any time. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or we have breached legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources and, potentially, damages. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the stock awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived benefits of our stock awards decline, it may harm our ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.
Our results of operations could be materially harmed if we are unable to accurately forecast customer demand for our products and manage our inventory.
We seek to maintain sufficient levels of inventory in order to protect ourselves from supply interruptions, but keep limited components, sub-assemblies, materials and finished products on hand. To ensure adequate inventory supply and manage our operations with our third-party manufacturers and suppliers, we forecast anticipated materials requirements and demand for our products in order to predict inventory needs and then place orders with our suppliers based on these predictions. Our ability to accurately forecast demand for our products could be negatively affected by many factors, including our limited historical commercial experience, rapid growth, failure to accurately manage our expansion strategy, product introductions by competitors, an increase or decrease in customer demand for our products, our failure to accurately forecast customer acceptance of new products, unanticipated changes in general market conditions or regulatory matters and weakening of economic conditions or consumer confidence in future economic conditions.
Inventory levels in excess of customer demand, including as a result of our introduction of product enhancements, may result in a portion of our inventory becoming obsolete or expiring, as well as inventory write-downs or write-offs, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand for our products or our own
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requirements for components, subassemblies and materials, our third-party manufacturers and suppliers may not be able to deliver components, sub-assemblies and materials to meet our requirements, which could result in inadequate inventory levels or interruptions, delays or cancellations of deliveries to our customers, any of which would damage our reputation, customer relationships and business. In addition, several components, sub-assemblies and materials incorporated into our products require lengthy order lead times, and additional supplies or materials may not be available when required on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all, and our third-party manufacturers and suppliers may not be able to allocate sufficient capacity in order to meet our increased requirements, any of which could have an adverse effect on our ability to meet customer demand for our products and our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The failure of third parties to meet their contractual, regulatory, and other obligations could adversely affect our business.
We rely on suppliers, vendors, outsourcing partners, consultants, alliance partners and other third parties to research, develop, manufacture and commercialize our products. Using these third parties poses a number of risks, such as: (i) they may not perform to our standards or legal requirements; (ii) they may not produce reliable results; (iii) they may not perform in a timely manner; (iv) they may not maintain confidentiality of our proprietary information; (v) disputes may arise with respect to ownership of rights to technology developed with our partners; and (vi) disagreements could cause delays in, or termination of, the research, development or commercialization of our products or result in litigation or arbitration. Moreover, some third parties are located in markets subject to political and social risk, corruption, infrastructure problems and natural disasters, in addition to country-specific privacy and data security risk given current legal and regulatory environments. Failure of third parties to meet their contractual, regulatory and other obligations may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Cost-containment efforts of our customers, purchasing groups and governmental organizations could have a material adverse effect on our sales and profitability.
In an effort to reduce costs, many hospitals in the United States have become members of Group Purchasing Organizations, or GPOs, and Integrated Delivery Networks, or IDNs. GPOs and IDNs negotiate pricing arrangements with medical device companies and distributors and then offer these negotiated prices to affiliated hospitals and other members. GPOs and IDNs typically award contracts on a category-by-category basis through a competitive bidding process. Bids are generally solicited from multiple providers with the intention of driving down pricing or reducing the number of vendors. Due to the highly competitive nature of the GPO and IDN contracting processes, we may not be able to obtain new, or maintain existing, contract positions with major GPOs and IDNs. Furthermore, the increasing leverage of organized buying groups may reduce market prices for our products, thereby reducing our revenue and margins.
While having a contract with a GPO or IDN for a given product category can facilitate sales to members of that GPO or IDN, such contract positions can offer no assurance that any level of sales will be achieved, as sales are typically made pursuant to individual purchase orders. Even when a provider is the sole contracted supplier of a GPO or IDN for a certain product category, members of the GPO or IDN are generally free to purchase from other suppliers. Furthermore, GPO and IDN contracts typically are terminable without cause by the GPO or IDN upon 60 to 90 days notice. Accordingly, the members of such groups may choose to purchase alternative products due to the price or quality offered by other companies, which could result in a decline in our revenue.
We may not be able to achieve or maintain satisfactory pricing and margins for our products.
Manufacturers of medical devices have a history of price competition, and we can give no assurance that we will be able to achieve satisfactory prices for our products or maintain prices at the levels we have historically achieved. Any decline in the amount that payors reimburse our customers for procedures involving the use of our products could make it difficult for customers to continue using, or to adopt, our products and could create
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additional pricing pressure for us. If we are forced to lower the price we charge for our products, our revenue and gross margins will decrease, which will adversely affect our ability to invest in and grow our business. If we are unable to maintain our prices, or if our costs increase and we are unable to offset such increase with an increase in our prices, our margins could erode. We will continue to be subject to significant pricing pressure, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have significant customer concentration, with a limited number of customers accounting for a significant portion of our 2019 revenue. If we fail to retain these customers, our revenue could decline significantly.
We currently derive a significant portion of our revenue from a relatively small number of customers. Our top three and five customers accounted for 53% and 65% of our revenue in 2019, respectively. There are inherent risks whenever a large percentage of revenue is concentrated with a limited number of customers. Our revenue could fluctuate materially and could be materially and disproportionately impacted by purchasing decisions of these customers or any other significant customer. In the future, any of our significant customers may decide to purchase less than they have in the past, may alter their purchasing patterns at any time with limited notice, or may decide not to continue to purchase our products at all, any of which could cause our revenue to decline and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we do not diversify our customer base, we will continue to be susceptible to risks associated with customer concentration.
If our facilities become damaged or inoperable, or if we are required to vacate a facility, we may be unable to manufacture our products or we may experience delays in production or an increase in costs, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
We currently maintain our research and development, manufacturing and administrative operations in a building located in Carlsbad, California, and we do not have redundant facilities. Should our building be significantly damaged or destroyed by natural or man-made disasters, such as earthquakes, fires (both of which are prevalent in California) or other events, it could take months to relocate or rebuild, during which time our employees may seek other positions, our research, development and manufacturing would cease or be delayed and our products may be unavailable. Because of the time required to authorize manufacturing in a new facility under federal, state and non-U.S. regulatory requirements, we may not be able to resume production on a timely basis even if we are able to replace production capacity. While we maintain property and business interruption insurance, such insurance has limits and would not cover all damages, including losses caused by earthquakes or losses we may suffer due to our products being replaced by competitors products. The inability to perform our research, development and manufacturing activities if our facilities become inoperable, combined with our limited inventory of materials and components and manufactured products, may cause physicians to discontinue using our products or harm our reputation, and we may be unable to re-establish relationships with such physicians in the future. Consequently, a catastrophic event at our current facility or any future facilities could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Furthermore, the current lease for our manufacturing facility expires at the end of 2022, and we may be unable to renew our lease or find a new facility on commercially reasonable terms. If we were unable or unwilling to renew at the proposed rates, relocating our manufacturing facility would involve significant expense in connection with the movement and installation of key manufacturing equipment and any necessary recertification with regulatory bodies, and we cannot assure you that such a move would not delay or otherwise adversely affect our manufacturing activities or operating results. If our manufacturing capabilities were impaired by our move, we may not be able to manufacture and ship our products in a timely manner, which would adversely impact our business.
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We have limited experience manufacturing our products in commercial quantities, which could harm our business.
Because we have only limited experience in manufacturing our products in commercial quantities, we may encounter production delays or shortfalls. Such production delays or shortfalls may be caused by many factors, including the following:
| our intent to expand our manufacturing capacity, as a result of which our production processes may have to change; |
| key components of our products are provided by a single supplier or limited number of suppliers, and we do not maintain large inventory levels of these components; if we experience a shortage or quality issues in any of these components, we would need to identify and qualify new supply sources, which could increase our expenses and result in manufacturing delays; |
| a delay in completing validation and verification testing for new controlled environment rooms at our manufacturing facilities; |
| state and federal regulations, including the FDAs Quality System Regulation, or QSR, for the manufacture of our products, noncompliance with which could cause an interruption in our manufacturing; and |
| attraction and retention of qualified employees for our operations in order to significantly increase our manufacturing output. |
If we are unable to keep up with demand for our products, our growth could be impaired, and market acceptance for our products could be harmed and physicians may instead elect to use our competitors products. Our inability to successfully manufacture our products in sufficient quantities would materially harm our business.
In addition, our manufacturing facilities and processes and those of our third-party suppliers are subject to unannounced FDA and state regulatory inspections for compliance with the QSR. Developing and maintaining a compliant quality system is time consuming and expensive. Failure to maintain compliance with, or not fully complying with the requirements of the FDA and state regulators, could result in enforcement actions against us or our third-party suppliers, which could include the issuance of warning letters, seizures, prohibitions on product sales, recalls and civil and criminal penalties, any one of which could significantly impact our manufacturing supply and impair our financial results.
Technological change may adversely affect sales of our products and may cause our products to become obsolete.
The medical device market is characterized by extensive research and development and rapid technological change. There can be no assurance that other companies, including current competitors or new entrants, will not succeed in developing or marketing products that are more effective than our products or that would render our products obsolete or noncompetitive. Additionally, new surgical procedures, medications and other therapies could be developed that replace or reduce the importance of our products. If we are unable to innovate successfully, our products could become obsolete and our revenue would decline as our customers purchase our competitors products. Our failure to develop new products, applications or features could result from insufficient cash resources, high employee turnover, inability to hire personnel with sufficient technical skills, a lack of other research and development resources or other constraints. Our failure or inability to devote adequate research and development resources or compete effectively with the research and development programs of our current or future competitors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Consolidation in the medical device industry could have an adverse effect on our revenue and results of operations.
Many medical device companies are consolidating to create new companies with greater market power. As the medical device industry consolidates, competition to provide goods and services to industry participants will become more intense. These industry participants may try to use their market power to negotiate price concessions or reductions for our products. If we reduce our prices because of consolidation in the healthcare industry, our revenue would decrease, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have limited data and experience regarding the safety and efficacy of our products. Results of earlier trials may not be predictive of future clinical trial results, and planned trials may not establish an adequate safety or efficacy profile for such products and other planned or future products, which would affect market acceptance of these products.
We have performed clinical trials with only limited patient populations. The long-term effects of using our products in a large number of patients have not been studied and the results of short-term clinical use of such products do not necessarily predict long-term clinical benefits or reveal long-term adverse effects. The results of clinical trials of our products conducted to date and ongoing or future trials and trials of our current, planned or future products may not be predictive of the results of later clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. Our interpretation of data and results from our clinical trials do not ensure that we will achieve similar results in future clinical trials in other patient populations. In addition, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to various interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their products performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and earlier clinical trials have nonetheless failed to replicate results in later clinical trials and subsequently failed to obtain marketing approval. Products in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy despite having progressed through nonclinical studies and earlier clinical trials.
If our clinical trials are unsuccessful or significantly delayed, or if we do not complete our clinical trials, our business may be harmed.
Clinical development is a long, expensive and uncertain process and is subject to delays and the risk that products may ultimately prove unsafe or ineffective in treating the indications for which they are designed. Completion of clinical trials may take several years or more. Clinical trials can be delayed for a variety of reasons, including delays in obtaining regulatory approval to commence a trial, in reaching an agreement on acceptable clinical trial terms with prospective sites, in obtaining institutional review board approval at each site, in recruiting patients to participate in a trial or in obtaining sufficient supplies of clinical trial materials.
We cannot provide any assurance that we will successfully, or in a timely manner, enroll our clinical trials, that our clinical trials will meet their primary endpoints or that such trials or their results will be accepted by the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities.
We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or because of, the clinical trial process that could delay or prevent us from receiving regulatory clearance or approval for new products or modifications of existing products, including new indications for existing products, including:
| enrollment in our clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate, or we may experience high screen failure rates in our clinical trials, resulting in significant delays; |
| our clinical trials may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical and/or preclinical testing which may be expensive and time-consuming; |
| trial results may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or other regulatory authorities; |
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| the FDA or similar foreign regulatory authorities may find the product is not sufficiently safe for investigational use in humans; |
| the FDA or similar foreign regulatory authorities may interpret data from preclinical testing and clinical trials in different ways than we do; |
| there may be delays or failure in obtaining approval of our clinical trial protocols from the FDA or other regulatory authorities; |
| there may be delays in obtaining institutional review board approvals or governmental approvals to conduct clinical trials at prospective sites; |
| the FDA or similar foreign regulatory authorities may find our or our suppliers manufacturing processes or facilities unsatisfactory; |
| the FDA or similar foreign regulatory authorities may change their review policies or adopt new regulations that may negatively affect or delay our ability to bring a product to market or receive approvals or clearances to treat new indications; |
| we may have trouble in managing multiple clinical sites; |
| we may have trouble finding patients to enroll in our trials; |
| we may experience delays in agreeing on acceptable terms with third-party research organizations and trial sites that may help us conduct the clinical trials; and |
| we, or regulators, may suspend or terminate our clinical trials because the participating patients are being exposed to unacceptable health risks. |
Failures or perceived failures in our clinical trials will delay and may prevent our product development and regulatory approval process, damage our business prospects and negatively affect our reputation and competitive position.
Clinical trials may be delayed, suspended or terminated for many reasons, which will increase our expenses and delay the time it takes to develop new products or seek new indications.
We may experience delays in our ongoing or future preclinical studies or clinical trials, and we do not know whether future preclinical studies or clinical trials will begin on time, need to be redesigned, enroll an adequate number of patients on time or be completed on schedule, if at all. The commencement and completion of clinical trials for future products or indications may be delayed, suspended or terminated as a result of many factors, including:
| the FDA or other regulators disagreeing as to the design, protocol or implementation of our clinical trials; |
| the delay or refusal of regulators or institutional review boards, or IRBs, to authorize us to commence a clinical trial at a prospective trial site; |
| changes in regulatory requirements, policies and guidelines; |
| delays or failure to reach agreement on acceptable terms with prospective clinical research organizations, or CROs, and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and trial sites; |
| delays in patient enrollment and variability in the number and types of patients available for clinical trials; |
| the inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients in trials to observe statistically significant treatment effects in the trial; |
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| having clinical sites deviate from the trial protocol or dropping out of a trial; |
| negative or inconclusive results from ongoing preclinical studies or clinical trials, which may require us to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials or to abandon projects that we expect to be promising; |
| safety or tolerability concerns that could cause us to suspend or terminate a trial if we find that the participants are being exposed to unacceptable health risks; |
| reports from preclinical or clinical testing of other similar therapies that raise safety or efficacy concerns; |
| regulators or IRBs requiring that we or our investigators suspend or terminate clinical research for various reasons, including noncompliance with regulatory requirements or safety concerns, among others; |
| lower than anticipated retention rates of patients and volunteers in clinical trials; |
| our CROs or clinical trial sites failing to comply with regulatory requirements or meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all, deviating from the protocol or dropping out of a trial; |
| delays relating to adding new clinical trial sites; |
| difficulty in maintaining contact with patients after treatment, resulting in incomplete data; |
| the quality of the products falling below acceptable standards; |
| the inability to manufacture sufficient quantities of our products to commence or complete clinical trials; and |
| exceeding budgeted costs due to difficulty in accurately predicting costs associated with clinical trials. |
We could also encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs or the Ethics Committees of institutions at which such trials are being conducted, by the Data Safety Monitoring Board for such trial or by the FDA or other regulatory authorities. Such authorities may suspend or terminate a clinical trial due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements, including the FDAs current Good Clinical Practice, or GCP, regulations, or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate safety and effectiveness, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial.
In addition, we may encounter delays if the FDA concludes that our financial relationships with investigators result in a perceived or actual conflict of interest that may have affected the interpretation of a trial, the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site or the utility of the clinical trial itself. Principal investigators for our clinical trials may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and receive cash compensation and/or stock-based compensation in connection with such services. If these relationships and any related compensation to or ownership interest by the clinical investigator carrying out the trial result in perceived or actual conflicts of interest, or if the FDA concludes that the financial relationship may have affected interpretation of the trial, the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site may be questioned and the utility of the clinical trial itself may be jeopardized, which could result in a delay or rejection by the FDA. Any such delay or rejection could prevent us from commercializing any of our products currently in development.
If we experience delays in the commencement or completion of any clinical trial of our products, or if any of our clinical trials are terminated, the commercial prospects of our products may be harmed, and our ability to generate revenue from sales may be delayed or materially diminished.
We do not know whether any of our future preclinical studies or clinical trials will begin as planned, will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Any delays in completing our clinical trials
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will increase our costs, slow down our product development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence sales and generate associated revenue. Any of these occurrences may significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial, suspension or revocation of expanded regulatory clearance or approval of our products. Significant preclinical study or clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our products or allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do and impair our ability to successfully commercialize our products.
Economic conditions may adversely affect our business.
Adverse worldwide economic conditions, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic, may negatively impact our business. A significant change in the liquidity or financial condition of our customers could cause unfavorable trends in their purchases and also in our receivable collections, and additional allowances may be required, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Adverse worldwide economic conditions may also adversely impact our suppliers ability to provide us with materials and components, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The sizes of the markets for our current and future products have not been established with precision and may be smaller than we estimate.
Our estimates of the total addressable markets for our current products and products under development are based on a number of internal and third-party estimates, including, without limitation, the number of patients with cardiac arrhythmias and the assumed prices at which we can sell our products in markets that have not been established or that we have not yet entered. While we believe our assumptions and the data underlying our estimates are reasonable, these assumptions and estimates may not be correct and the conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates may change at any time, thereby reducing the predictive accuracy of these estimates. As a result, our estimates of the total addressable market for our current or future products may prove to be incorrect. If the actual number of patients who would benefit from our products, the price at which we can sell products, or the total addressable market for our products is smaller than we have estimated, it may impair our sales growth and have an adverse impact on our business.
The use, misuse or off-label use of our products may result in injuries that lead to product liability suits, which could be costly to our business.
Our products have been cleared by the FDA for the treatment of complex heart arrhythmias. If physicians expand the patient population in which they elect to use our products that is outside of the intended use approved or cleared by the FDA, then the use, misuse or off-label use of our products may result in outcomes and adverse events including stroke and death, potentially leading to product liability claims. Our products are not indicated for use in all patients with complex heart arrhythmias, and therefore cannot be marketed or advertised in the United States for certain uses without additional clearances from the FDA. However, we cannot prevent a physician from using our products for off-label applications or using components or products that are not our products. In addition, we cannot guarantee that physicians are trained by us or their peers prior to utilizing our products. Complications resulting from the use of our products off-label or use by physicians who have not been trained appropriately, or at all, may expose us to product liability claims and harm our reputation. Moreover, if the FDA determines that our promotional materials or physician training, including our paid consultants educational materials, constitutes promotion of an off-label use, it could request that we modify our training or promotional materials or subject us to enforcement action, including warning letters, untitled letters, fines, penalties or seizures. If we are found to have promoted such off-label uses, we may become subject to significant liability. The federal government has levied large civil and criminal fines and/or other penalties against companies for alleged improper promotion and has investigated, prosecuted and/or enjoined several companies from engaging in off-label promotion.
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We may acquire other companies or technologies, which could fail to result in a commercial product or net sales, divert our managements attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and otherwise disrupt our operations and harm our operating results.
We have acquired, and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in, additional businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our portfolio, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. For example, in June 2019, we added an integrated product family of transseptal crossing and steerable introducer systems to our product portfolio through our acquisition of Rhythm Xience and in July 2019, we acquired our AcQBlate Force sensing system and product line and Qubic Force device from Biotronik pursuant to the Biotronik License Agreement. However, we have limited experience in acquiring other businesses, products or technologies. The process of integrating an acquired company, business or technology may create unforeseen operating challenges, risks and expenditures, including that the acquisitions do not advance our corporate strategy, that we get an unsatisfactory return on our investment, that the acquisitions distract management, or that we may have difficulty: (i) integrating an acquired companys accounting, financial reporting, management information and information security, human resource and other administrative systems to permit effective management; (ii) integrating the controls, procedures and policies at companies we acquire into our internal control over financial reporting; and (iii) transitioning the acquired companys operations, suppliers and customers to us. It may take longer than expected to realize the full benefits from these acquisitions, such as increased revenue, enhanced efficiencies or increased market share, or the benefit may ultimately be smaller than we expected. Moreover, if any of our acquisitions or investments increase our international operations, it would expose us to additional risks relating to operating outside the United States, including increased operational and regulatory risks. Our failure to address these risks or other problems encountered in connection with our past or future acquisitions and investments could cause us to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of such acquisitions or investments, incur unanticipated liabilities and harm our business generally. If an acquired business, product or technology fails to meet our expectations or results in unanticipated costs and expenses, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
We also cannot assure you that we would be able to successfully complete any acquisition we choose to pursue, or that we would be able to successfully integrate any acquired business, product or technology in a cost-effective and non-disruptive manner. The pursuit of potential acquisitions may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various costs and expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not they are consummated. We may not be able to identify desirable acquisition targets or be successful in entering into an agreement with any particular target or obtain the expected benefits of any acquisition or investment. In addition, under our Credit Agreement, dated as of May 20, 2019, with the lenders from time to time party thereto, Wilmington Trust, National Association, as administrative agent, and OrbiMed Royalty Opportunities II, LP, or ORO II, as origination agent, or the 2019 Credit Agreement, we may require the prior written consent of such agents and the required lenders prior to consummating any acquisition or investment.
Acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity or equity-linked securities, the use of our available cash, or the incurrence of debt, whether to fund the upfront purchase price of the transaction or deferred or contingent payments we agree to as part of the transaction. For further information regarding our recent strategic transactions, see the section titled Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of OperationsLiquidity and Capital Resources.
The terms of our 2019 Credit Agreement require us to meet certain operating and financial covenants and place restrictions on our operating and financial flexibility. If we raise additional capital through debt financing, the terms of any new debt could further restrict our ability to operate our business.
On May 20, 2019, we entered into the 2019 Credit Agreement. The 2019 Credit Agreement provided us with a senior term loan facility in aggregate principal amount of $70.0 million, of which $40.0 million in aggregate principal amount is outstanding as of March 31, 2020. Of the remaining $30.0 million, $10.0 million is
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no longer available for borrowing and $20.0 million is available for borrowing by us on or prior to December 31, 2020, subject to our achievement of specified trailing revenue levels. We could also incur additional indebtedness in the future.
Our payment obligations under the 2019 Credit Agreement reduce cash available to fund working capital, capital expenditures, research and development and general corporate needs. In addition, indebtedness under the 2019 Credit Agreement bears interest at a variable rate, making us vulnerable to increases in market interest rates. If market rates increase, we will have to pay additional interest on this indebtedness, which would further reduce cash available for our other business needs.
Our obligations under the 2019 Credit Agreement are secured by substantially all of our assets and the assets of our wholly-owned subsidiary. The security interest granted over our assets could limit our ability to obtain additional debt financing. In addition, the 2019 Credit Agreement contains customary affirmative and negative covenants restricting our activities, including limitations on: dispositions, mergers or acquisitions; encumbering our intellectual property; incurring indebtedness or liens; paying dividends or redeeming stock or making other distributions; making certain investments; liquidating our company; modifying our organizational documents; entering into sale-leaseback arrangements and engaging in certain other business transactions. In addition, we are required to maintain a minimum liquidity amount of $5.0 million. Failure to comply with the covenants in the 2019 Credit Agreement, including the minimum liquidity covenant, could result in the acceleration of our obligations under the 2019 Credit Agreement, and, if such acceleration were to occur, it would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may not have sufficient funds, and may be unable to arrange for additional financing, to pay the amounts due under our debt arrangements. The obligations under the 2019 Credit Agreement are subject to acceleration upon the occurrence of specified events of default, including payment default, change in control, bankruptcy, insolvency, certain defaults under other material debt, certain events with respect to regulatory approvals and a material adverse change in our business, operations or other financial condition. If an event of default (other than certain events of bankruptcy or insolvency) occurs and is continuing, ORO II may declare all or any portion of the outstanding principal amount of the borrowings plus accrued and unpaid interest to be due and payable. Upon the occurrence of certain events of bankruptcy or insolvency, all of the outstanding principal amount of the borrowings plus accrued and unpaid interest will automatically become due and payable. The 2019 Credit Agreement also provides for final payment fees of an additional $4.6 million that are due upon prepayment, on the maturity date or upon acceleration, as well as prepayment penalties.
Our outstanding indebtedness and any future indebtedness, combined with our other financial obligations, could increase our vulnerability to adverse changes in general economic, industry and market conditions, limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry and impose a competitive disadvantage compared to our competitors that have less debt or better debt servicing options.
Our results may be impacted by changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
Our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar and our sales outside the United States are primarily denominated in Euros and British Pound Sterling. For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, approximately 51%, 74% and 79%, respectively, of our sales were denominated in currencies other than U.S. dollars. Our expenses are generally denominated in the currencies in which our operations are located, which is primarily in the United States and Europe. If our operations in countries outside of the United States grows, our results of operations and cash flows will be subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, which could harm our business in the future. For example, if the value of the U.S. dollar increases relative to foreign currencies, in the absence of a corresponding change in local currency prices, our revenue could be adversely affected as we convert revenue from local currencies to U.S. dollars. In addition, because we conduct business in currencies other than U.S. dollars, but report our results of operations in U.S. dollars, we also face remeasurement exposure to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could
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hinder our ability to predict our future results and earnings and could impact our results of operations. We do not currently maintain a program to hedge exposures to non-U.S. dollar currencies. If we are unable to address these risks effectively, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Taxing authorities may successfully assert that we should have collected or in the future should collect sales and use, gross receipts, value added or similar taxes and may successfully impose additional obligations on us, and any such assessments or obligations could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We have not historically collected sales and use, gross receipts, value added or similar taxes, although we may be subject to such taxes in various jurisdictions. One or more jurisdictions may seek to impose additional tax collection obligations on us, including for past sales. A successful assertion by a state, country or other jurisdiction that we should have been or should be collecting additional sales, use or other taxes on our services could, among other things, result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales, create significant administrative burdens for us, discourage users from purchasing our products or otherwise harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our ability to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards may be limited.
As of December 31, 2019, we had U.S. federal and state net operating loss, or NOL, carryforwards of approximately $199.9 million and $32.5 million, respectively. We may use these NOLs to offset against taxable income for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. If not utilized, our U.S. federal NOLs (and our state NOLs in conforming states) arising in taxable years beginning before 2018 will begin to expire in 2031. Deductibility of U.S. federal NOLs arising in taxable years beginning after 2017 and used in taxable years beginning after 2020 is limited to 80% of our taxable income before the deduction for such NOLs. Additionally, Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, may limit the NOLs we may use in any year for U.S. federal income tax purposes in the event of certain changes in ownership of our company. A Section 382 ownership change generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders who own at least 5% of a companys stock increase their ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have not conducted a 382 study to determine whether the use of our NOLs is impaired. We may have previously undergone an ownership change. In addition, this offering or future issuances or sales of our stock, including certain transactions involving our stock that are outside of our control, could result in future ownership changes. Ownership changes that have occurred in the past or that may occur in the future, including in connection with this offering, could result in the imposition of an annual limit on the amount of pre-ownership change NOLs and other tax attributes we can use to reduce our taxable income, potentially increasing and accelerating our liability for income taxes, and also potentially causing those tax attributes to expire unused. Any limitation on using NOLs could, depending on the extent of such limitation and the NOLs previously used, result in our retaining less cash after payment of U.S. federal and state income taxes during any year in which we have taxable income, rather than losses, than we would be entitled to retain if such NOLs were available as an offset against such income for U.S. federal and state income tax reporting purposes, which could adversely impact operating results.
If we experience significant disruptions in our information technology systems, our business may be adversely affected.
We depend on our information technology systems for the efficient functioning of our business, including the manufacture, distribution and maintenance of our products, as well as for accounting, data storage, compliance, purchasing and inventory management. We do not have redundant information technology systems at this time. Our information technology systems may be subject to computer viruses, ransomware or other malware, attacks by computer hackers, failures during the process of upgrading or replacing software, databases
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or components thereof, power outages, damage or interruption from fires or other natural disasters, hardware failures, telecommunication failures and user errors, among other malfunctions. We could be subject to any number of unintentional events that could involve a third party gaining unauthorized access to our systems, which could disrupt our operations, corrupt our data or result in release of our confidential information. Technological interruptions could disrupt our operations, including our ability to timely ship and track product orders, project inventory requirements, manage our supply chain and otherwise adequately service our customers or disrupt our customers ability use our products for treatments. In the event we experience significant disruptions, we may be unable to repair our systems in an efficient and timely manner. Accordingly, such events may disrupt or reduce the efficiency of our entire operation and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of, or damage to, our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and the further development and commercialization of our products could be delayed or disrupted.
Currently, we carry business interruption coverage to mitigate certain potential losses but this insurance is limited in amount and may not be sufficient in type or amount to cover us against claims related to security breaches, cyber-attacks and other related data and system disruptions. We cannot be certain that such potential losses will not exceed our policy limits, insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. In addition, we may be subject to changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements. We are increasingly dependent on complex information technology to manage our infrastructure. Our information systems require an ongoing commitment of significant resources to maintain, protect and enhance our existing systems. Failure to maintain or protect our information systems and data integrity effectively could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Security breaches, loss of data and other disruptions could compromise sensitive information related to our business or our customers patients or prevent us from accessing critical information and expose us to liability, which could adversely affect our business and our reputation.
In the ordinary course of our business, we may become exposed to, or collect and store sensitive data, including procedure-based information and legally protected health information, insurance information and other potentially personally identifiable information. We also store sensitive intellectual property and other proprietary business information. Although we take measures to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or disclosure, our information technology, or IT, and infrastructure, and that of our third-party billing and collections provider and other technology partners, may be vulnerable to cyber-attacks by hackers or viruses or breached due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions. We rely extensively on IT systems, networks and services, including internet sites, data hosting and processing facilities and tools, physical security systems and other hardware, software and technical applications and platforms, some of which are managed, hosted, provided and/or used by third parties or their vendors, to assist in conducting our business. A significant breakdown, invasion, corruption, destruction or interruption of critical information technology systems or infrastructure, by our workforce, others with authorized access to our systems or unauthorized persons could negatively impact operations. The ever-increasing use and evolution of technology, including cloud-based computing, creates opportunities for the unintentional dissemination or intentional destruction of confidential information stored in our or our third-party providers systems, portable media or storage devices. We could also experience a business interruption, theft of confidential information or reputational damage from industrial espionage attacks, malware or other cyber-attacks, which may compromise our system infrastructure or lead to data leakage, either internally or at our third-party providers. Although the aggregate impact on our operations and financial condition has not been material to date, we have been the target of events of this nature and expect them to continue as cybersecurity threats have been rapidly evolving in sophistication and becoming more prevalent in the industry. We are investing in protections and monitoring practices of our data and IT to reduce these risks and continue to monitor our systems on an ongoing basis for any current or potential threats. There
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can be no assurance, however, that our efforts will prevent breakdowns or breaches to our or our third-party providers databases or systems that could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to stringent privacy laws, information security policies and contractual obligations governing the use, processing and cross-border transfer of personal information and our data privacy and security policies.
We receive, generate and store significant and increasing volumes of sensitive information, such as health information, insurance information and other potentially personally identifiable information. We face a number of risks relative to protecting this critical information, including loss of access risk, inappropriate use or disclosure, inappropriate modification and the risk of our being unable to adequately monitor, audit and modify our controls over our critical information. This risk extends to the third-party vendors and subcontractors we use to manage this sensitive data.
We are subject to a variety of local, state, national and international laws, directives and regulations that apply to the collection, use, retention, protection, disclosure, transfer and other processing of personal data in the different jurisdictions in which we operate, including comprehensive regulatory systems in the U.S. and Europe. Further, various states, such as California and Massachusetts, have implemented privacy laws and regulations that impose restrictive requirements regulating the use and disclosure of health information and other personally identifiable information. California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, which creates individual privacy rights for California consumers and increases the privacy and security obligations of entities handling certain personal data. The CCPA went into effect on January 1, 2020, and the California Attorney General may bring enforcement actions for violations beginning as early as July 1, 2020. The CCPA has been amended from time to time, and it remains unclear what, if any, further modifications will be made to this legislation or how it will be interpreted. State laws and regulations are not necessarily preempted by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, particularly if a state affords greater protection to individuals than HIPAA. Where state laws are more protective, we have to comply with the stricter provisions. In addition to fines and penalties imposed upon violators, some of these state laws also afford private rights of action to individuals who believe their personal information has been misused. The interplay of federal and state laws may be subject to varying interpretations by courts and government agencies, creating complex compliance issues for us and data we receive, use and share, potentially exposing us to additional expense, adverse publicity and liability. Legal requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, and transfer of personal information and personal data continue to evolve and may result in ever-increasing public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement, sanctions and increased costs of compliance.
The collection and use of personal data in the European Union are governed by the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. The GDPR imposes stringent requirements for controllers and processors of personal data, including, for example, more robust disclosures to individuals and a strengthened individual data rights regime, shortened timelines for data breach notifications, limitations on retention of information, increased requirements pertaining to special categories of data, such as health data, and additional obligations when we contract with third-party processors in connection with the processing of the personal data. The GDPR also imposes strict rules on the transfer of personal data out of the European Union to the United States and other third countries. In July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a decision that called into question the validity of the European Commissions Standard Contractual Clauses, on which U.S. companies rely to transfer personal data from Europe to the United States and elsewhere. To the extent that we engage in such transfers, if we are unable to implement safeguards to ensure that our transfers are lawful or if any safeguards upon which we rely are invalidated, we will face increased exposure to litigation, regulatory actions, fines, and injunctions against data processing. If we are unable to engage in such transfers because there is no lawful mechanism to do so, the functionality or effectiveness of our products and services may decrease and our marketing efforts, plans and activities may be adversely impacted. In addition, the GDPR provides that European Union member states may make their own further laws and regulations limiting the processing of personal data, including biometric or health data.
The GDPR applies extraterritorially, and we may be subject to the GDPR because of our data processing activities that involve the personal data of individuals located in the European Union, such as in connection with
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any European Union clinical trials or related to any employees in Europe. GDPR regulations may impose additional responsibility and liability in relation to the personal data that we process and we may be required to put in place additional mechanisms to ensure compliance with the new data protection rules. This may be onerous and may interrupt or delay our development activities, and materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Other jurisdictions outside the European Union are similarly introducing or enhancing privacy and data security laws, rules and regulations, which could increase our compliance costs and the risks associated with non-compliance. We cannot guarantee that we or our vendors may be in compliance with all applicable international regulations as they are enforced now or as they evolve. For example, our privacy and cybersecurity policies may be insufficient to protect any personal information we collect, or may not comply with applicable laws, in which case we may be subject to regulatory enforcement actions, lawsuits or reputational damage, all of which may adversely affect our business. If we or our vendors fail to comply with the GDPR and the applicable national data protection laws of the European Union member states, or if regulators assert we have failed to comply with these laws, it may lead to regulatory enforcement actions, which can result in monetary penalties of up to 20,000,000 or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and other administrative penalties.
Compliance with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures in a manner adverse to our business. Penalties for violations of these laws vary. Moreover, complying with these various laws could require us to take on more onerous obligations in our contracts, restrict our ability to collect, use and disclose data, or in some cases, impact our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions. In addition, we rely on third-party vendors to collect, process and store data on our behalf and we cannot guarantee that such vendors are in compliance with all applicable data protection laws and regulations. Our or our vendors failure to comply with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could result in government enforcement actions (which could include civil or criminal penalties), private litigation and/or adverse publicity and could negatively affect our operating results and business. Claims that we have violated individuals privacy rights, failed to comply with data protection laws, or breached our contractual obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time consuming to defend, could result in adverse publicity and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Litigation and other legal proceedings may adversely affect our business.
From time to time we may become involved in legal proceedings relating to patent and other intellectual property matters, product liability claims, employee claims, tort or contract claims, federal regulatory investigations, securities class action and other legal proceedings or investigations, which could have an adverse impact on our reputation, business and financial condition and divert the attention of our management from the operation of our business. Litigation is inherently unpredictable and can result in excessive or unanticipated verdicts and/or injunctive relief that affect how we operate our business. We could incur judgments or enter into settlements of claims for monetary damages or for agreements to change the way we operate our business, or both. There may be an increase in the scope of these matters or there may be additional lawsuits, claims, proceedings or investigations in the future, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Adverse publicity about regulatory or legal action against us could damage our reputation and brand image, undermine our customers confidence and reduce long-term demand for our products, even if the regulatory or legal action is unfounded or not material to our operations.
Certain of our operating results and financial metrics may be difficult to predict as a result of seasonality.
While we have not yet experienced significant seasonality in our results, it is not uncommon in our industry to experience seasonally weaker revenue during the summer months and end-of-year holiday season. We may be affected by seasonal trends in the future, particularly as our business matures. Additionally, this seasonality may be reflected to a much lesser extent, and sometimes may not be immediately apparent, in our revenue. To the extent we experience this seasonality, it may cause fluctuations in our operating results and financial metrics and make forecasting our future operating results and financial metrics more difficult.
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Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Need for Additional Capital
We have a history of net losses, and we expect to continue to incur losses for at least the next several years. If we ever achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain it.
We have incurred net losses since our inception in March 2011. For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the year ended December 31, 2019, we had a net loss of $18.1 million and $97.0 million (which included $15.0 million in payments attributable to the product line we acquired from Biotronik pursuant to the Biotronik License Agreement), respectively, and we expect to continue to incur additional net losses for at least the next several years. As a result of these losses, as of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, we had an accumulated deficit of $277.1 million and $259.0 million, respectively. Prior to this offering, our operations have been financed primarily by aggregate net proceeds from the sale of our convertible preferred stock and principal of our converted debt of $253.9 million, as well as other indebtedness. Our losses and accumulated deficit have primarily been due to the significant investments we have made in our sales and marketing organization, clinical trials designed to provide clinical evidence of the safety and efficacy of our products and research and development and regulatory affairs to develop our products and support appropriate regulatory submissions. We have also invested in acquisitions of businesses, products and technologies that we believe complement or expand our portfolio, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. In addition, we have experienced negative gross margins in recent periods as a result of significant investments in our infrastructure to support our commercial launch and to enable our production volumes to scale as our business grows.
We expect to continue to incur significant sales and marketing, research and development, regulatory and other expenses as we expand our marketing efforts to increase adoption of our products, expand existing relationships with our customers, obtain regulatory clearances or approvals for our planned or future products, conduct clinical trials on our existing and planned or future products and develop new products or add new features to our existing products. In addition, as a public company, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. Accordingly, we expect to continue to incur operating losses and net losses for at least the next several years, and we cannot assure you that we will achieve profitability in the future or that, if we do become profitable, we will sustain profitability. Our failure to achieve and sustain profitability in the future would make it more difficult to finance our business and accomplish our strategic objectives, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In order to support our continued operations and the growth of our business, we may seek to raise additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all.
We expect capital expenditures and operating expenses to increase over the next several years as we continue to operate our business and expand our infrastructure, commercial operations and research and development activities. Our primary uses of capital are, and we expect will continue to be, investment in our commercial organization and related expenses, clinical research and development services, laboratory and related supplies, legal and other regulatory expenses, general administrative costs and working capital. In addition, we have acquired, and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in, additional businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our portfolio, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. For further information regarding our recent strategic transactions, see the section titled Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of OperationsLiquidity and Capital Resources.
Because of these and other factors, we expect to continue to incur substantial net losses and negative cash flows from operations for at least the next several years. Our future liquidity and capital funding requirements will depend on numerous factors, including:
| our revenue growth; |
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| our research and development efforts; |
| our sales and marketing activities; |
| our success in leveraging our strategic partnerships, including with Biotronik, as well as entrance into any other strategic partnerships or strategic transactions in the future; |
| our ability to raise additional funds to finance our operations; |
| the outcome, costs and timing of any clinical trial results for our current or future products; |
| the emergence and effect of competing or complementary products; |
| the availability and amount of reimbursement for procedures using our products; |
| our ability to maintain, expand and defend the scope of our intellectual property portfolio, including the amount and timing of any payments we may be required to make, or that we may receive, in connection with the licensing, filing, prosecution, defense and enforcement of any patents or other intellectual property rights; |
| our ability to retain our current employees and the need and ability to hire additional management and sales, scientific and medical personnel; |
| the terms and timing of any collaborative, licensing or other arrangements that we have or may establish; |
| debt service requirements; |
| the extent to which we acquire or invest in businesses, products or technologies; and |
| the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
If we determine to raise additional funds, we may do so through equity or debt financings, which may not be available to us on the timing needed or on terms that we deem to be favorable. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of common stockholders. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making acquisitions or capital expenditures or declaring dividends. If we are unable to maintain sufficient financial resources, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be materially and adversely affected, including potentially requiring us to delay, limit, reduce or terminate certain of our product discovery and development activities or future commercialization efforts.
Moreover, in the event that we enter into collaborations or licensing arrangements to raise capital, we may be required to accept unfavorable terms. These agreements may require that we relinquish or license to a third party on unfavorable terms our rights to products or technologies we otherwise would seek to develop or commercialize ourselves, or reserve certain opportunities for future potential arrangements when we might be able to achieve more favorable terms.
As of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, we had $49.9 million and $71.8 million, respectively, in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. While we believe the net proceeds from this offering, together with our existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and anticipated cash generated from sales of our products, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least 12 months following the date of this prospectus, we cannot assure you that we will be able to generate sufficient liquidity as and when needed, or that revenue from commercial sales will be adequate to fund our operating needs or achieve or sustain profitability. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Changing circumstances, some of which may be beyond our control, could cause us to consume capital significantly faster than we currently anticipate, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned.
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The report of our independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2019 includes a going concern explanatory paragraph.
The report of our independent registered public accounting firm on our consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2019 includes an explanatory paragraph indicating that there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. If we are unable to raise sufficient capital when needed, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be materially and adversely affected, and we will need to significantly modify our operational plans to continue as a going concern. If we are unable to continue as a going concern, we might have to liquidate our assets and the values we receive for our assets in liquidation or dissolution could be significantly lower than the values reflected in our consolidated financial statements. The inclusion of a going concern explanatory paragraph by our auditors, our lack of cash resources and our potential inability to continue as a going concern may materially adversely affect our share price and our ability to raise new capital or to enter into critical contractual relations with third parties.
Risks Related to Government Regulation
Regulatory compliance is expensive, complex and uncertain, and a failure to comply could lead to enforcement actions against us and other negative consequences for our business.
Our current products are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA in the United States, our Notified Body in the European Union and certain other non-U.S. regulatory agencies. Complying with these regulations is costly, time-consuming, complex and uncertain. Government regulations specific to medical devices are wide-ranging and include, among other things, oversight of:
| product design, development, manufacture (including suppliers) and testing; |
| laboratory, preclinical and clinical trials; |
| product safety and effectiveness; |
| product labeling; |
| product storage and shipping; |
| record keeping; |
| premarket clearance or approval; |
| marketing, advertising and promotion; |
| product sales and distribution; |
| product changes; |
| product recalls; and |
| post-market surveillance and reporting of deaths or serious injuries and certain malfunctions. |
Before a new medical device or service, or a new intended use for an existing product or service, can be marketed in the United States, a company must first submit and receive either 510(k) clearance or PMA from the FDA, unless an exemption applies. In the 510(k) clearance process, before a device may be marketed, the FDA must determine that a proposed device is substantially equivalent to a legally-marketed predicate device, which includes a device that has been previously cleared through the 510(k) process, a device that was legally marketed prior to May 28, 1976 (pre-amendments device), a device that was originally on the U.S. market pursuant to an approved PMA and later down-classified, or a 510(k)-exempt device. To be substantially equivalent, the proposed device must have the same intended use as the predicate device, and either have the same technological characteristics as the predicate device or have different technological characteristics and not raise different questions of safety or effectiveness than the predicate device. Clinical data are sometimes required to support substantial equivalence.
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In the process of obtaining PMA approval, the FDA must determine that a proposed device is safe and effective for its intended use based, in part, on extensive data, including, but not limited to, technical, preclinical, clinical trial, manufacturing and labeling data. The PMA process is typically required for devices that are deemed to pose the greatest risk, such as life-sustaining, life-supporting or implantable devices.
Either the 510(k) or PMA process can be expensive, lengthy and unpredictable. We may not be able to obtain any necessary clearances or approval or may be unduly delayed in doing so, which will negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, even if we are granted regulatory clearances or approvals, they may include significant limitations on the indicated uses for the product, which may limit the market for the product. Although we have obtained 510(k) clearance to market our products, our clearance can be revoked if safety or efficacy problems develop.
In order to sell our products in member countries of the European Economic Area, or EEA, our products must comply with the essential requirements of the European Union Medical Devices Directive (Council Directive 93/42/EEC), or MDD. Compliance with these requirements is a prerequisite to be able to affix the Conformité Européene mark, or CE Mark, to our products, without which they cannot be sold or marketed in the EEA. To demonstrate compliance with the essential requirements, we must undergo a conformity assessment procedure, which varies according to the type of medical device and its classification. Except for low-risk medical devices (Class I non-sterile, non-measuring devices), where the manufacturer can issue an European Commission Declaration of Conformity based on a self-assessment of the conformity of its products with the essential requirements of the MDD, a conformity assessment procedure requires the intervention by a Notified Body. Depending on the relevant conformity assessment procedure, the Notified Body would typically audit and examine the technical file and the quality system for the manufacture, design and final inspection of our devices. The Notified Body issues a certificate of conformity following successful completion of a conformity assessment procedure conducted in relation to the medical device and its manufacturer and their conformity with the essential requirements. This certificate entitles the manufacturer to affix the CE Mark to its medical devices after having prepared and signed a related EC Declaration of Conformity. If we fail to remain in compliance with applicable European laws and directives, we would be unable to continue to affix the CE Mark to our products, which would prevent us from selling them within the EEA.
Further, all of our potential products and improvements of our current products will be subject to extensive regulation and will likely require permission from regulatory agencies and ethics boards to conduct clinical trials and clearance or approval from the FDA and non-U.S. regulatory agencies prior to commercial sale and distribution. Failure to comply with applicable U.S. requirements regarding, for example, promoting, manufacturing or labeling our products, may subject us to a variety of administrative or judicial actions and sanctions, such as Form 483 observations, warning letters, untitled letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, civil penalties and criminal prosecution. The FDA can also refuse to clear or approve pending applications.
Any enforcement action by the FDA and other comparable non-U.S. regulatory agencies could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our failure to comply with applicable regulatory requirements could result in enforcement action by the FDA or state or international agencies, which may include any of the following actions:
| untitled letters, warning letters, fines, injunctions, consent decrees and civil penalties; |
| unanticipated expenditures to address or defend such actions; |
| customer notifications for repair, replacement or refunds; |
| recall, detention or seizure of our products; |
| operating restrictions or partial suspension or total shutdown of production; |
| refusing or delaying our requests for 510(k) clearance or PMA approval of new products or modified products; |
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| operating restrictions; |
| withdrawing 510(k) clearances or PMA approvals that have already been granted; |
| refusal to grant export approval for our products; or |
| criminal prosecution. |
If any of these events were to occur, it would have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, also regulates the advertising and promotion of our products to ensure that the claims we make are consistent with our regulatory clearances and approvals, that there are adequate and reasonable data to substantiate the claims and that our promotional labeling and advertising is neither false nor misleading in any respect. If the FDA or FTC determines that any of our advertising or promotional claims are misleading, not substantiated or not permissible, we may be subject to enforcement actions, including warning letters, and we may be required to revise our promotional claims and make other corrections or restitutions.
Our operations are subject to pervasive and continuing FDA regulatory requirements.
Medical devices regulated by the FDA are subject to general controls which include: registration with the FDA; listing commercially distributed products with the FDA; complying with current Good Manufacturing Processes under QSR; filing reports with the FDA of and keeping records relative to certain types of adverse events associated with devices under the medical device reporting regulation; assuring that device labeling complies with device labeling requirements; reporting certain device field removals and corrections to the FDA; and obtaining premarket notification 510(k) clearance for devices prior to marketing. Some devices known as 510(k)-exempt devices can be marketed without prior marketing-clearance or approval from the FDA. In addition to the general controls, some Class II medical devices are also subject to special controls, including adherence to a particular guidance document and compliance with the performance standard. Instead of obtaining 510(k) clearance, most Class III devices are subject to PMA. As a company, we do not have prior experience in obtaining PMA approval.
The medical device industry is now experiencing greater scrutiny and regulation by federal, state and foreign governmental authorities. Companies in our industry are subject to more frequent and more intensive reviews and investigations, often involving the marketing, business practices and product quality management. Such reviews and investigations may result in civil and criminal proceedings; the imposition of substantial fines and penalties; the receipt of warning letters, untitled letters, demands for recalls or the seizure of our products; the requirement to enter into corporate integrity agreements, stipulated judgments or other administrative remedies; and could result in our incurring substantial unanticipated costs and the diversion of key personnel and managements attention from their regular duties, any of which may have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, and may result in greater and continuing governmental scrutiny of our business in the future.
Additionally, federal, state and foreign governments and entities have enacted laws and issued regulations and other standards requiring increased visibility and transparency of our interactions with healthcare providers. For example, Open Payments requires us to annually report to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, payments and other transfers of value to all U.S. physicians and U.S. teaching hospitals, with the reported information made publicly available on a searchable website. Failure to comply with these legal and regulatory requirements could impact our business, and we have had and will continue to spend substantial time and financial resources to develop and implement enhanced structures, policies, systems and processes to comply with these legal and regulatory requirements, which may also impact our business and which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Legislative or regulatory reforms may make it more difficult and costly for us to obtain regulatory clearance or approval of our planned or future products and to manufacture, market and distribute our products after clearance or approval is obtained.
From time to time, legislation is drafted and introduced in Congress that could significantly change the statutory provisions governing the regulatory approval, manufacture and marketing of regulated products or the reimbursement thereof. In addition, FDA regulations and guidance are often revised or reinterpreted by the FDA in ways that may significantly affect our business and our products. Any new regulations or revisions or reinterpretations of existing regulations may impose additional costs or lengthen review times of planned or future products. It is impossible to predict whether legislative changes will be enacted or FDA regulations, guidance or interpretations changed, and what the impact of such changes, if any, may be.
In addition, on April 5, 2017, the European Parliament passed the Medical Devices Regulation (Regulation 2017/745), which repeals and replaces the MDD. Unlike directives, which must be implemented into the national laws of the EEA member states, the regulations would be directly applicable, i.e., without the need for adoption of EEA member state laws implementing them, in all EEA member states and are intended to eliminate current differences in the regulation of medical devices among EEA member states. The Medical Devices Regulation, among other things, is intended to establish a uniform, transparent, predictable and sustainable regulatory framework across the EEA for medical devices and ensure a high level of safety and health while supporting innovation.
The Medical Devices Regulation will only become applicable three years after publication. The effective date was further postponed by the European Commission for one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to May 2021. Once applicable, the new regulations will, among other things:
| strengthen the rules on placing devices on the market and reinforce surveillance once they are available; |
| establish explicit provisions on manufacturers responsibilities for the follow-up of the quality, performance and safety of devices placed on the market; |
| improve the traceability of medical devices throughout the supply chain to the end-user or patient through a unique identification number; |
| set up a central database to provide patients, healthcare professionals and the public with comprehensive information on products available in the European Union; and |
| strengthen rules for the assessment of certain high-risk devices, such as implants, which may have to undergo an additional check by experts before they are placed on the market. |
These modifications may have an effect on the way we conduct our business in the EEA.
Any change in the laws or regulations that govern the clearance and approval processes relating to our current, planned and future products could make it more difficult and costly to obtain clearance or approval for new products or to produce, market and distribute existing products. Significant delays in receiving clearance or approval or the failure to receive clearance or approval for our new products would have an adverse effect on our ability to expand our business.
If we fail to comply with U.S. federal and state fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, including those relating to kickbacks and false claims for reimbursement, we could face substantial penalties and our business operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Healthcare providers and third-party payors play a primary role in the distribution, recommendation, ordering and purchasing of any medical device for which we have or obtain marketing clearance or approval. Through our arrangements with principal investigators, healthcare professionals and customers, we are exposed
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to broadly applicable anti-fraud and abuse, anti-kickback, false claims and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain our business, our arrangements and relationships with customers, and how we market, sell and distribute our marketed medical devices. We have a compliance program, code of business conduct and ethics and associated policies and procedures, but it is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by our employees and other third parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent noncompliance may not be effective in protecting us from governmental investigations for failure to comply with applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations.
In the United States, we are subject to various state and federal anti-fraud and abuse laws, including, without limitation, the federal healthcare Anti-Kickback Statute and federal civil False Claims Act, federal data privacy and security laws and federal transparency laws related to payments and/or other transfers of value made to physicians and other healthcare professionals and teaching hospitals. There are similar laws in other countries. Our relationships and our distributors relationships with physicians, other health care professionals and hospitals are subject to scrutiny under these laws.
Healthcare fraud and abuse laws and related regulations are complex, and even minor irregularities can potentially give rise to claims that a statute or prohibition has been violated. The laws that may affect our ability to operate include:
| the Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, knowingly and willingly soliciting, offering, receiving or paying remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, to induce or reward either the referral of an individual, or the purchase, order or recommendation of, items or services for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program, such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The term remuneration has been broadly interpreted to include anything of value, and the government can establish a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute without proving that a person or entity had actual knowledge of the law or a specific intent to violate. In addition, the government may assert that a claim, including items or services resulting from a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act. The Anti-Kickback Statute is subject to evolving interpretations and has been applied by government enforcement officials to a number of common business arrangements in the medical device industry. There are a number of statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors protecting certain business arrangements from prosecution under the Anti-Kickback Statute; however, those exceptions and safe harbors are drawn narrowly, and there may be limited or no exception or safe harbor for many common business activities, such as reimbursement support programs, educational and research grants or charitable donations. Practices that involve remuneration to those who prescribe, purchase or recommend medical devices, including discounts, providing items or services for free or engaging such individuals as consultants, advisors or speakers, may be subject to scrutiny if they do not fit squarely within an exception or safe harbor and would be subject to a facts and circumstances analysis to determine compliance with the Anti-Kickback Statute. Our practices, such as trial periods or purchase of certain components of our Mapping Systems to customers, may not in all cases meet all of the criteria for statutory exception or regulatory safe harbor protection from anti-kickback liability. In October 2019, the federal government published two proposed regulations that would create new safe harbors for (among other things) certain value-based arrangements and patient engagement tools, and modify and clarify the scope of existing safe harbors for warranties and personal service agreements; even if these regulations are eventually finalized, the impact of the proposed regulations on our operations is not yet clear. |
| federal civil and criminal false claims laws, including the federal civil False Claims Act, and civil monetary penalties laws, which prohibit, among other things, persons or entities from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment of government funds and knowingly making, using or causing to be made or used, a false record or statement to get a false claim paid or to avoid, decrease or conceal an obligation to pay money to the federal government. A claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or |
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fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act. Actions under the federal civil False Claims Act may be brought by the government or as a qui tam action by a private individual in the name of the government. These individuals, sometimes known as relators or, more commonly, as whistleblowers, may share in any amounts paid by the entity to the government in fines or settlement. Many pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers have been investigated and have reached substantial financial settlements with the federal government under the federal civil False Claims Act for a variety of alleged improper activities, including causing false claims to be submitted as a result of the marketing of their products for unapproved and thus non-reimbursable uses and interactions with prescribers and other customers, including those that may have affected their billing or coding practices and submission of claims to the federal government. Federal civil False Claims Act liability is potentially significant in the healthcare industry because the statute provides for treble damages and mandatory monetary penalties for each false or fraudulent claim or statement. Because of the potential for large monetary exposure, healthcare and medical device companies often resolve allegations without admissions of liability for significant and material amounts to avoid the uncertainty of treble damages and per claim penalties that may be awarded in litigation proceedings. |
| HIPAA, which imposes criminal and civil liability for, among other actions, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, including private third-party payors, or knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making a materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation, or making or using any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services; |
| HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH Act, and their implementing regulations, also impose obligations, including mandatory contractual terms, on covered entities subject to the rule, such as health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and certain healthcare providers, as well as their business associates that perform certain services for them or on their behalf involving the use or disclosure of individually identifiable health information with respect to safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information. We believe we are not a covered entity or typically a business associate for purposes of HIPAA; |
| the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, also known as Open Payments, which requires manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Childrens Health Insurance Program to report annually, with certain exceptions, to the CMS information related to payments or other transfers of value made to physicians, as defined by such law, and teaching hospitals, and requires applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations to report annually to CMS ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. Beginning in 2022, applicable manufacturers also will be required to report information regarding payments and transfers of value provided during the previous year to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse anesthetists and certified nurse-midwives; and |
| analogous state and foreign law equivalents of each of the above federal laws, such as anti-kickback and false claims laws which may apply to items or services reimbursed by any third-party payor, including commercial insurers; state laws that require medical device companies to comply with the industrys voluntary compliance guidelines and the applicable compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government or otherwise restrict payments that may be made to healthcare providers and other potential referral sources; state beneficiary inducement laws, which are state laws that require medical device manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures; and state and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of health information in certain circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same effect, thus complicating compliance efforts. |
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State and federal regulatory and enforcement agencies continue to actively investigate violations of healthcare laws and regulations, and the U.S. Congress continues to strengthen the arsenal of enforcement tools. Most recently, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, or BBA, increased the criminal and civil penalties that can be imposed for violating certain federal health care laws, including the Anti-Kickback Statute. Enforcement agencies also continue to pursue novel theories of liability under these laws. In particular, government agencies have continued regulatory scrutiny and enforcement activity with respect to manufacturer reimbursement support activities and patient support programs, including bringing criminal charges or civil enforcement actions under the Anti-Kickback Statute, federal civil False Claims Act and HIPAAs healthcare fraud and privacy provisions.
Because of the breadth of these laws and the narrowness of the statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors available under such laws, it is possible that some of our business activities, including certain sales and marketing practices, and financial arrangements with physicians, other healthcare providers and other customers, could be subject to challenge under one or more such laws. If an arrangement were deemed to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, it may also subject us to violations under other fraud and abuse laws such as the federal civil False Claims Act and civil monetary penalties laws. Moreover, such arrangements could be found to violate comparable state fraud and abuse laws.
Achieving and sustaining compliance with applicable federal and state anti-fraud and abuse laws may prove costly. If we or our employees are found to have violated any of the above laws, we may be subjected to substantial criminal, civil and administrative penalties, including imprisonment, exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and significant fines, monetary penalties, forfeiture, disgorgement and damages, contractual damages, reputational harm, administrative burdens, diminished profits and future earnings and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our financial results. Any action or investigation against us for the violation of these healthcare fraud and abuse laws, even if successfully defended, could result in significant legal expenses and could divert our managements attention from the operation of our business. Companies settling federal civil False Claims Act, Anti-Kickback Statute or civil monetary penalties law cases also may be required to enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with the OIG in order to avoid exclusion from participation (i.e., loss of coverage for their products) in federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Corporate Integrity Agreements typically impose substantial costs on companies to ensure compliance. Defending against any such actions can be costly, time-consuming and may require significant personnel resources, and may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Healthcare reform initiatives and other administrative and legislative proposals may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows in our key markets.
There have been and continue to be proposals by the federal government, state governments, regulators and third-party payors to control or manage the increased costs of healthcare and, more generally, to reform the U.S. healthcare system. Certain of these proposals could limit the prices we are able to charge for our products or the coverage and reimbursement available for our products and could limit the acceptance and availability of our products. The adoption of proposals to control costs could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
For example, in the United States, in March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, or collectively, the Affordable Care Act, is a sweeping measure intended to expand healthcare coverage within the United States, primarily through the imposition of health insurance mandates on employers and individuals, the provision of subsidies to eligible individuals enrolled in plans offered on the health insurance exchanges and the expansion of the Medicaid program. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act will impact existing government healthcare programs and will result in the development of new programs.
There remain judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act, as well as efforts by the Trump administration to repeal or replace certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act, and we
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expect such challenges and amendments to continue. For example, since January 2017, President Trump has signed Executive Orders and other directives designed to delay the implementation of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act or otherwise circumvent some of the requirements for health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Concurrently, Congress has considered legislation that would repeal or repeal and replace all or part of the Affordable Care Act. While Congress has not passed comprehensive repeal legislation, several bills affecting the implementation of certain taxes under the Affordable Care Act have been signed into law. Legislation enacted in 2017, informally known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, includes a provision repealing, effective January 1, 2019, the tax-based shared responsibility payment imposed by the Affordable Care Act on certain individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health coverage for all or part of a year that is commonly referred to as the individual mandate. Further, the BBA, among other things, amended the Affordable Care Act, effective January 1, 2019, to close the coverage gap in most Medicare drug plans, commonly referred to as the donut hole. In December 2018, CMS published a new final rule further permitting collections and payments to and from certain Affordable Care Act qualified health plans and health insurance issuers under the Affordable Care Act risk adjustment program in response to the outcome of federal district court litigation regarding the method CMS uses to determine this risk adjustment. On December 14, 2018, a Texas U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional in its entirety because the individual mandate was repealed by Congress as part of the TCJA. Additionally, on December 18, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the District Court ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine whether the remaining provisions of the Affordable Care Act are invalid as well. On March 2, 2020, the United States Supreme Court granted the petitions for writs of certiorari to review this case, and has allotted one hour for oral arguments, which are expected to occur in the fall of 2020.
In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. On August 2, 2011, the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law, which, among other things, includes reductions to Medicare payments to providers of 2% per fiscal year, which went into effect on April 1, 2013 and, due to subsequent legislative amendments to the statute, including the BBA, will remain in effect through 2030 unless additional Congressional action is taken. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which was signed into law in March 2020 and is designed to provide financial support and resources to individuals and businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, suspended the 2% Medicare sequester from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020, and extended the sequester by one year, through 2030 unless additional Congressional action is taken. On January 2, 2013, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was signed into law, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several providers, including hospitals, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years.
We cannot assure you that the Affordable Care Act, as currently enacted or as amended in the future, will not harm our business and financial results, and we cannot predict how future federal or state legislative or administrative changes relating to healthcare reform will affect our business.
There likely will continue to be legislative and regulatory proposals at the federal and state levels directed at containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. We cannot predict the initiatives that may be adopted in the future or their full impact. The continuing efforts of the government, insurance companies, managed care organizations and other payors of healthcare services to contain or reduce costs of healthcare may harm:
| our ability to set a price that we believe is fair for our products; |
| our ability to generate revenue and achieve or maintain profitability; and |
| the availability of capital. |
Further, recently there has been heightened governmental scrutiny over the manner in which manufacturers set prices for their marketed products, which has resulted in several U.S. Congressional inquiries and proposed
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and enacted federal legislation designed to bring transparency to product pricing and reduce the cost of products and services under government healthcare programs. While some of these measures may require additional authorization to become effective, Congress and the Trump administration have each indicated that it will continue to seek new legislative and/or administrative measures to control product costs. Additionally, individual states in the United States have also increasingly passed legislation and implemented regulations designed to control product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures. Moreover, regional healthcare authorities and individual hospitals are increasingly using bidding procedures to determine what products to purchase and which suppliers will be included in their healthcare programs. Adoption of price controls and other cost-containment measures, and adoption of more restrictive policies in jurisdictions with existing controls and measures may prevent or limit our ability to generate revenue and attain profitability.
Various new healthcare reform proposals are emerging at the federal and state level. It is also possible that additional governmental action is taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Any new federal and state healthcare initiatives that may be adopted could limit the amounts that federal and state governments will pay for healthcare products and services, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we fail to comply with the FDAs QSR, or FDA or EU requirements that pertain to clinical trials or investigations, the FDA or the competent EU authority could take various enforcement actions, including halting our manufacturing operations, and our business would suffer.
In the United States, as a manufacturer of a medical device, we are required to demonstrate and maintain compliance with the FDAs QSR. The QSR is a complex regulatory scheme that covers the methods and documentation of the design, testing, control, manufacturing, labeling, quality assurance, packaging, storage and shipping of medical devices. The FDA enforces the QSR through periodic inspections and unannounced for cause inspections.
We are subject to periodic FDA inspections to determine compliance with QSR and pursuant to the Bioresearch Monitoring Program, which may in the future result in the FDA issuing Form 483s, including during the conduct of clinical trials. Outside the United States, our products and operations are also often required to comply with standards set by industrial standards bodies, such as the International Organization for Standardization. Foreign regulatory bodies may evaluate our products or the testing that our products undergo against these standards. The specific standards, types of evaluation and scope of review differ among foreign regulatory bodies. Our failure to comply with FDA or local requirements that pertain to clinical trials/investigations, including GCP requirements, and the QSR (in the United States), or failure to take satisfactory and prompt corrective action in response to an adverse inspection, could result in enforcement actions, including a warning letter, adverse publicity, a shutdown of or restrictions on our manufacturing operations, delays in approving or clearing our products, refusal to permit the import or export of our product, prohibition on sales of our product, a recall or seizure of our products, fines, injunctions, civil or criminal penalties, or other sanctions, any of which could cause our business and operating results to suffer.
Our global operations expose us to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal and regulatory requirements, and violation of these requirements could harm our business.
We are subject to numerous, and sometimes conflicting, legal regimes in the countries in which we operate, including on matters as diverse as health and safety standards, marketing and promotional activities, anticorruption, import/export controls, content requirements, trade restrictions, tariffs, taxation, sanctions, immigration, internal and disclosure control obligations, securities regulation, anti-competition, data privacy and labor relations. This includes in emerging markets where legal systems may be less developed or familiar to us. We strive to abide by and maintain compliance with these laws and regulations. Compliance with diverse legal requirements is costly, time-consuming and requires significant resources. Violations of one or more of these
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regulations in the conduct of our business could result in significant fines, criminal sanctions against us or our officers, prohibitions on doing business and damage to our reputation. Violations of these regulations in connection with the performance of our obligations to our customers also could result in liability for significant monetary damages, fines and/or criminal prosecution, unfavorable publicity and other reputational damage, restrictions on our ability to process information and allegations by our customers or distributors that we have not performed our contractual obligations. Due to the varying degrees of development of the legal systems of the countries in which we operate, local laws might be insufficient to protect our rights.
Our international operations could be affected by changes in laws, trade regulations, labor and employment regulations, and procedures and actions affecting approval, products and solutions, pricing, reimbursement and marketing of our products and solutions, as well as by inter-governmental disputes. Any of these changes could adversely affect our business. The imposition of new laws or regulations, including potential trade barriers, may increase our operating costs, impose restrictions on our operations or require us to spend additional funds to gain compliance with the new rules, if possible, which could have an adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations.
Material modifications to our products may require new 510(k) clearances, CE Marks or other premarket approvals or may require us to recall or cease marketing our products and services until clearances are obtained.
Material modifications to the intended use or technological characteristics of any of our products will require new 510(k) clearances, premarket approvals or CE Mark grants, or require us to recall or cease marketing the modified devices until these clearances or approvals are obtained. Based on FDA published guidelines, the FDA requires device manufacturers to initially make and document a determination of whether or not a modification requires a new approval, supplement or clearance; however, the FDA can review a manufacturers decision. Any modification to an FDA cleared device or service that would significantly affect its safety or efficacy or that would constitute a major change in its intended use would require a new 510(k) clearance or possibly a premarket approval. We may not be able to obtain additional 510(k) clearances or premarket approvals for new products or for modifications to, or additional indications for, our products in a timely fashion, or at all. Delays in obtaining required future clearances would harm our ability to introduce new or enhanced products in a timely manner, which in turn would harm our future growth.
We have made modifications to our products in the past that we believe do not require additional clearances or approvals, and we may make additional modifications in the future. If the FDA or an EU Notified Body disagrees and requires new clearances or approvals for any of these modifications, we may be required to recall and to stop selling or marketing our products as modified, which could harm our operating results and require us to redesign our products or services. In these circumstances, we may be subject to significant enforcement actions.
Our products may be subject to recalls after receiving FDA or foreign approval or clearance, which could divert managerial and financial resources, harm our reputation and adversely affect our business.
The FDA and similar foreign governmental authorities have the authority to require the recall of our products because of any failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or defects in design or manufacture. A government mandated or voluntary product recall by us could occur because of, for example, component failures, device malfunctions or other adverse events, such as serious injuries or deaths, or quality-related issues, such as manufacturing errors or design or labeling defects. Any future recalls of our products could divert managerial and financial resources, harm our reputation and adversely affect our business.
If we initiate a correction or removal for one of our devices to reduce a risk to health posed by the device, we would be required to submit a publicly available Correction and Removal report to the FDA and, in many cases, similar reports to other regulatory agencies. This report could be classified by the FDA as a device recall
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which could lead to increased scrutiny by the FDA, other international regulatory agencies and our customers regarding the quality and safety of our devices. Furthermore, the submission of these reports has been and could be used by competitors against us in competitive situations and cause customers to delay purchase decisions or cancel orders and would harm our reputation.
In addition, we are subject to medical device reporting regulations that require us to report to the FDA or similar foreign governmental authorities if one of our products may have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury or if we become aware that it has malfunctioned in a way that would likely cause or contribute to a death or serious injury if the malfunction recurred. Failures to properly identify reportable events or to file timely reports, as well as failure to address each of the observations to the FDAs satisfaction, can subject us to sanctions and penalties, including warning letters and recalls. Physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers may make similar reports to regulatory authorities. Any such reports may trigger an investigation by the FDA or similar foreign regulatory bodies, which could divert managerial and financial resources, harm our reputation and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If any of our products cause or contribute to a death or a serious injury or malfunction in certain ways, we will be required to report under applicable medical device reporting regulations, which can result in voluntary corrective actions or agency enforcement actions.
Under FDA MDR regulations, medical device manufacturers are required to report to the FDA information that a device has or may have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury or has malfunctioned in a way that would likely cause or contribute to death or serious injury if the malfunction of the device or one of our similar devices were to recur. If we fail to report events required to be reported to the FDA within the required timeframes, or at all, the FDA could take enforcement action and impose sanctions against us. Any such adverse event involving our products also could result in future voluntary corrective actions, such as recalls or customer notifications, or agency action, such as inspection or enforcement action. Any corrective action, whether voluntary or involuntary, as well as defending ourselves in a lawsuit, would require our time and capital, distract management from operating our business and may harm our reputation and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our employees, independent contractors, consultants, strategic partners, distributors and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements.
We are exposed to the risk that our employees, independent contractors, consultants, strategic partners, distributors and vendors may engage in fraudulent or illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and/or negligent conduct or disclosure of unauthorized activities to us that violates: (i) the laws of the FDA and other similar foreign regulatory bodies, including those laws requiring the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such regulators; (ii) manufacturing standards; (iii) healthcare fraud and abuse laws in the United States and similar foreign fraudulent misconduct laws; or (iv) laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. These laws may impact, among other things, future sales, marketing and education programs. In particular, the promotion, sales and marketing of healthcare items and services, as well as certain business arrangements in the healthcare industry, are subject to extensive laws designed to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, structuring and commissions, certain customer incentive programs and other business arrangements generally. Activities subject to these laws also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of patient recruitment for clinical trials.
We have adopted a code of business conduct and ethics, but it is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by our employees and other third parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent these activities may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from
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governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could result in the imposition of significant fines or other sanctions, including the imposition of civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, disgorgement, individual imprisonment, additional integrity reporting and oversight obligations, possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and curtailment of operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. Whether or not we are successful in defending against any such actions or investigations, we could incur substantial costs, including legal fees, and divert the attention of management in defending ourselves against any of these claims or investigations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Failure to comply with anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and anti-money laundering laws, including the FCPA, as well as export control laws, customs laws, sanctions laws and other laws governing our operations could result in civil or criminal penalties, other remedial measures and legal expenses.
As we grow our international presence, we are increasingly exposed to anti-corruption, trade and economic sanctions and other restrictions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other governments and organizations. The FCPA generally prohibits companies and their employees and third-party intermediaries from offering, promising, giving or authorizing the provision of anything of value, either directly or indirectly, to a non-U.S. government official in order to influence official action or otherwise obtain or retain business. In addition, the U.K. Bribery Act prohibits both domestic and international bribery, as well as bribery across both private and public sectors. We may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government-affiliated hospitals, universities and other organizations. Violations of the FCPA, U.K. Bribery Act and anti-corruption laws could result in fines, criminal sanctions against us, our officers or our employees and prohibitions on the conduct of our business. Violations would also negatively affect our business and reputation, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, our solutions may be subject to U.S. and foreign export controls, trade sanctions and import laws and regulations. Governmental regulation of the import or export of our solutions, or our failure to obtain any required import or export authorization for our solutions, when applicable, could harm our international sales and adversely affect our revenue. Compliance with applicable regulatory requirements regarding the export of our solutions may create delays in the introduction of our solutions in international markets or, in some cases, prevent the export of our solutions to some countries altogether. Furthermore, U.S. export control laws and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to countries, governments, and persons targeted by U.S. sanctions. If we fail to comply with export and import regulations and such economic sanctions, penalties could be imposed, including fines and/or denial of certain export privileges. Moreover, any new export or import restrictions, new legislation or shifting approaches in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or in the countries, persons or products targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our solutions by, or in our decreased ability to export our solutions to, existing or potential customers with international operations. Any decreased use of our solutions or limitation on our ability to export or sell access to our solutions would likely adversely affect our business.
We have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance by us and our directors, officers, employees, representatives, consultants and agents with the FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act, export control and economic sanctions laws, and other anti-corruption, anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorism laws and regulations. We cannot assure you, however, that our policies and procedures are or will be sufficient or that directors, officers, employees, representatives, consultants and agents have not engaged and will not engage in prohibited conduct for which we may be held responsible. Violations of the FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act, export control and economic sanctions laws, or other anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws or regulations may result in severe criminal or civil sanctions, and we may be subject to other liabilities, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Compliance with environmental laws and regulations could be expensive, and failure to comply with these laws and regulations could subject us to significant liability.
Our research and development and manufacturing operations involve the use of hazardous substances and are subject to a variety of federal, state, local and foreign environmental laws and regulations relating to the storage, use, discharge, disposal, remediation of, and human exposure to, hazardous substances and the sale, labeling, collection, recycling, treatment and disposal of products containing hazardous substances. Liability under environmental laws and regulations can be joint and several and without regard to fault or negligence. Compliance with environmental laws and regulations may be expensive and noncompliance could result in substantial liabilities, fines and penalties, personal injury and third-party property damage claims and substantial investigation and remediation costs. Environmental laws and regulations could become more stringent over time, imposing greater compliance costs and increasing risks and penalties associated with violations. We cannot assure you that violations of these laws and regulations will not occur in the future or have not occurred in the past as a result of human error, accidents, equipment failure or other causes. The expense associated with environmental regulation and remediation could harm our financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection or freedom to operate for any products we develop and for our technology, or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products and technology similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize any products we may develop, and our technology, may be adversely affected.
Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent and other intellectual property protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our products and technology we develop.
We seek to protect our position by in-licensing intellectual property relating to our products and filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our technologies and products that are important to our business. We also rely on a combination of contractual provisions, confidentiality procedures and copyright, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property rights to protect the proprietary aspects of our brands, technologies and data. These legal measures afford only limited protection, and competitors or others may gain access to or use our intellectual property and proprietary information. Our success will depend, in part, on obtaining and maintaining patents, preserving our trade secrets, maintaining the security of our data and know-how and obtaining other intellectual property rights.
We may not be able to obtain and maintain intellectual property or other proprietary rights necessary to our business or in a form that provides us with a competitive advantage. For example, our trade secrets, data and know-how could be subject to unauthorized use, misappropriation or disclosure to unauthorized parties, despite our efforts to enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, contractors, clients and other vendors who have access to such information, and could otherwise become known or be independently discovered by third parties. In addition, the patent prosecution process is expensive, time-consuming and complex, and we may not be able to file, prosecute, maintain, enforce or license all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost, in a timely manner, or in all jurisdictions where protection may be commercially advantageous, or we may not be able to protect our intellectual property at all. Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property, unauthorized parties may be able to obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output in time to obtain patent protection. Although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to confidential or patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, consultants, contractors, collaborators, vendors and other third parties, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose such output before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection. In addition, publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag
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behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. Therefore, we cannot be certain that we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or any licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions.
The patent position of medical device companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions, and has been the subject of much litigation in recent years. Changes in either the patent laws or their interpretation in the United States and other countries may diminish our ability to protect our inventions, obtain, maintain, and enforce our intellectual property rights and, more generally, could affect the value of our intellectual property or narrow the scope of our owned and licensed patents. With respect to both in-licensed and owned intellectual property, we cannot predict whether the patent applications we and our licensors are currently pursuing will issue as patents in any particular jurisdiction or whether the claims of any issued patents will provide sufficient protection from competitors. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain.
Moreover, the coverage claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before a patent is issued, and its scope can be reinterpreted after issuance. Even if patent applications we license or own currently or in the future issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors or other third parties from competing with us, or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Any patents that we hold or in-license may be challenged, narrowed or invalidated by third parties. Additionally, our competitors or other third parties may be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative technologies or products in a non-infringing manner. Third parties may also have blocking patents that could prevent us from marketing our own products and practicing our own technology. Alternatively, third parties may seek approval to market their own products similar to or otherwise competitive with our products. In these circumstances, we may need to defend and/or assert our patents, including by filing lawsuits alleging patent infringement. In any of these types of proceedings, a court or agency with jurisdiction may find our patents invalid, unenforceable or not infringed, in which case, our competitors and other third parties may then be able to market products and use manufacturing and analytical processes that are substantially similar to ours. Even if we have valid and enforceable patents, these patents still may not provide protection against competing products or processes sufficient to achieve our business objectives.
Given that patent applications are confidential for a period of time after filing, we cannot be certain that we were the first to file any patent application related to our products. Competitors may also contest our patents, if issued, by showing the patent examiner that the invention was not original, was not novel or was obvious. In litigation, a competitor could claim that our patents, if issued, are not valid for a number of reasons. If a court agrees, we would lose our rights to those challenged patents.
In addition, given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new products, patents protecting such products might expire before or shortly after such products are commercialized. As a result, our intellectual property may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours. Moreover, some of our owned and in-licensed patents and patent applications may in the future be co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such third-party co-owners interest in such patents or patent applications, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of our patents in order to enforce such patents against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us.
Our other intellectual property, including our trademarks, could also be challenged, invalidated, infringed and circumvented by third parties, and our trademarks could also be diluted, declared generic or found to be infringing on other marks, in which case we could be forced to re-brand our products, resulting in loss of brand recognition and requiring us to devote resources to advertising and marketing new brands, and suffer other competitive harm. Third parties may also adopt trademarks similar to ours, which could harm our brand identity and lead to market confusion.
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We may in the future also be subject to claims by our former employees, consultants or contractors asserting an ownership right in our patents or patent applications, as a result of the work they performed on our behalf. Although we generally require all of our employees, consultants, contractors and any other partners or collaborators who have access to our proprietary know-how, information or technology to assign or grant similar rights to their inventions to us, we cannot be certain that we have executed such agreements with all parties who may have contributed to our intellectual property, nor can we be certain that our agreements with such parties will be upheld in the face of a potential challenge, or that they will not be breached, for which we may not have an adequate remedy.
Failure to obtain and maintain patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights necessary to our business and failure to protect, monitor and control the use of our intellectual property rights could negatively impact our ability to compete and cause us to incur significant expenses. The intellectual property laws and other statutory and contractual arrangements in the United States and other jurisdictions we depend upon may not provide sufficient protection in the future to prevent the infringement, use, violation or misappropriation of our patents, trademarks, data, technology and other intellectual property, and may not provide an adequate remedy if our intellectual property rights are infringed, misappropriated or otherwise violated. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations and prospects.
Furthermore, our owned and in-licensed patents may be subject to a reservation of rights by one or more third parties. For example, this could arise if the research resulting in certain of our owned or in-licensed patent rights and technology was funded in part by the U.S. government. As a result, the government may have certain rights, or march-in rights, to such patent rights and technology. When new technologies are developed with government funding, the government generally obtains certain rights in any resulting patents, including a non-exclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention for non-commercial purposes. These rights may permit the government to disclose our confidential information to third parties and to exercise march-in rights to use or allow third parties to use our licensed technology. The government can exercise its march-in rights if it determines that action is necessary because we fail to achieve practical application of the government-funded technology, because action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs, to meet requirements of federal regulations, or to give preference to U.S. industry. In addition, our rights in such inventions may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products embodying such inventions in the United States. Any exercise by the government of such rights could harm our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Moreover, a portion of our intellectual property has been acquired from one or more third parties. While we have conducted diligence with respect to such acquisitions, because we did not participate in the development or prosecution of much of the acquired intellectual property, we cannot guarantee that our diligence efforts identified and/or remedied all issues related to such intellectual property, including potential ownership errors, potential errors during prosecution of such intellectual property, and potential encumbrances that could limit our ability to enforce such intellectual property rights
We may become a party to intellectual property litigation or administrative proceedings that could be costly and could interfere with our ability to sell and market our products.
The medical device industry has been characterized by extensive litigation regarding patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights, and companies in the industry have used intellectual property litigation to gain a competitive advantage. It is possible that U.S. and foreign patents and pending patent applications or trademarks controlled by third parties may be alleged to cover our products, or that we may be accused of misappropriating third parties trade secrets. Additionally, our products include components that we purchase from vendors, and may include design components that are outside of our direct control. Our competitors, many of which have substantially greater resources and have made substantial investments in patent portfolios, trade secrets, trademarks and competing technologies, may have applied for or obtained, or may in the
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future apply for or obtain, patents or trademarks that will prevent, limit or otherwise interfere with our ability to make, use, sell and/or export our products or to use product names. Because patent applications can take years to issue and are often afforded confidentiality for some period of time, there may currently be pending applications, unknown to us, that later result in issued patents that could cover one or more of our products. Moreover, in recent years, individuals and groups that are non-practicing entities, commonly referred to as patent trolls, have purchased patents and other intellectual property assets for the purpose of making claims of infringement in order to extract settlements. From time to time, we may receive threatening letters, notices or invitations to license, or may be the subject of claims that our products and business operations infringe or violate the intellectual property rights of others. The defense of these matters can be time consuming, costly to defend in litigation, divert managements attention and resources, damage our reputation and brand and cause us to incur significant expenses or make substantial payments. Vendors from whom we purchase hardware or software may not indemnify us in the event that such hardware or software is accused of infringing a third partys patent or trademark or of misappropriating a third partys trade secret, or any indemnification granted by such vendors may not be sufficient to address any liability and costs we incur as a result of such claims. Additionally, we may be obligated to indemnify our customers or business partners in connection with litigation and to obtain licenses or refund subscription fees, which could further exhaust our resources.
Even if we believe third partys intellectual property claims are without merit, there is no assurance that a court would find in our favor, including on questions of infringement, validity, enforceability or priority of patents. The strength of our defenses will depend on the patents asserted, the interpretation of these patents, and our ability to invalidate the asserted patents. A court of competent jurisdiction could hold that these third-party patents are valid, enforceable and infringed, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to commercialize any products or technology we may develop and any other products or technologies covered by the asserted third-party patents. In order to successfully challenge the validity of any such U.S. patent in federal court, we would need to overcome a presumption of validity. As this burden is a high one requiring us to present clear and convincing evidence as to the invalidity of any such U.S. patent claim, there is no assurance that a court of competent jurisdiction would invalidate the claims of any such U.S. patent. Conversely, the patent owner need only prove infringement by a preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower burden of proof.
Further, if patents, trademarks or trade secrets are successfully asserted against us, this may harm our business and result in injunctions preventing us from developing, manufacturing or selling our products, or result in obligations to pay license fees, damages, attorney fees and court costs, which could be significant. In addition, if we are found to willfully infringe third-party patents or trademarks or to have misappropriated trade secrets, we could be required to pay treble damages in addition to other penalties.
Although patent, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property disputes in the medical device area have often been settled through licensing or similar arrangements, costs associated with such arrangements may be substantial and could include ongoing royalties. We may be unable to obtain necessary licenses on satisfactory terms, if at all. In addition, if any license we obtain is non-exclusive, we may not be able to prevent our competitors and other third parties from using the intellectual property or technology covered by such license to compete with us. If we do not obtain necessary licenses, we may not be able to redesign our products to avoid infringement. Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Similarly, interference or derivation proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, may be necessary to determine priority with respect to our patents, patent applications, trademarks or trademark applications. We may also become involved in other proceedings, such as reexamination, inter partes review, derivation or opposition proceedings before the USPTO or other jurisdictional body relating to our intellectual property rights or the intellectual property rights of others. Adverse determinations in a judicial or administrative proceeding or failure to obtain necessary licenses could prevent us from manufacturing our products or using product names, which would have a significant adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Additionally, we may file lawsuits or initiate other proceedings to protect or enforce our patents or other intellectual property rights, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful. Competitors may infringe our issued patents or other intellectual property, which we may not always be able to detect. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Any claims we assert against perceived infringers could provoke these parties to assert counterclaims against us alleging that we infringe their intellectual property or alleging that our intellectual property is invalid or unenforceable. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness or non-enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant information from the USPTO, or made a misleading statement, during prosecution. Third parties may raise challenges to the validity of certain of our owned or in-licensed patent claims before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include re-examination, post-grant review, inter partes review, interference proceedings, derivation proceedings and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition proceedings). In any such lawsuit or other proceedings, a court or other administrative body may decide that a patent of ours is invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, construe the patents claims narrowly or refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology in question.
The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable. If a third party were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on our products or products that we may develop. If our patents are found to be valid and infringed, a court may refuse to grant injunctive relief against the infringer and instead grant us monetary damages and/or ongoing royalties. Such monetary compensation may be insufficient to adequately offset the damage to our business caused by the infringers competition in the market. An adverse result in any litigation or other proceeding could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly. Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may cause us to incur significant expenses and could distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such litigation or proceedings adequately. Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of such litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources and more mature and developed intellectual property portfolios. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential or sensitive information could be compromised by disclosure in the event of litigation. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent and other intellectual property litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our rights to develop and commercialize our products are subject, in part, to the terms and conditions of licenses granted to us by others.
We rely, in part, upon licenses to certain patent rights and proprietary technology from third parties that are important or necessary to the development of our products and technology. These and other licenses may not provide exclusive rights to use such intellectual property and technology in all relevant fields of use and in all territories in which we may wish to develop or commercialize our technology and products in the future. As a result, we may not be able to prevent competitors from developing and commercializing competitive products in territories included in all of our licenses.
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In addition, we may not have the right to control the preparation, filing, prosecution, maintenance, enforcement and defense of patents and patent applications covering the technology that we license from third parties. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these patents and patent applications will be prepared, filed, prosecuted, maintained, enforced and defended in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business. If our licensors fail to prosecute, maintain, enforce and defend such patents, or lose rights to those patents or patent applications, the rights we have licensed may be reduced or eliminated, and our right to develop and commercialize any of our products that are subject of such licensed rights could be adversely affected.
Our licensors may have relied on third-party consultants or collaborators or on funds from third parties such that our licensors are not the sole and exclusive owners of the patents we in-license. This could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The agreements under which we currently license intellectual property or technology from third parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement. In spite of our best efforts, our licensors might also conclude that we have materially breached our license agreements and terminate the license agreements, thereby removing our ability to develop and commercialize products and technology covered by these license agreements. If these in-licenses are terminated, or if the underlying patents fail to provide the intended exclusivity, competitors would have the freedom to seek regulatory approval of, and to market, products identical to ours. In addition, we may seek to obtain additional licenses from our licensors and, in connection with obtaining such licenses, we may agree to amend our existing licenses in a manner that may be more favorable to the licensors, including by agreeing to terms that could enable third parties (potentially including our competitors) to receive licenses to a portion of the intellectual property that is subject to our existing licenses. Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may not be successful in obtaining necessary rights to any products we may develop through acquisitions and in-licenses.
We may need to obtain additional licenses from our existing licensors or otherwise acquire or in-license any intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify as necessary for our products. It is possible that we may be unable to obtain any additional licenses or acquire such intellectual property rights at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. The licensing or acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and several more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive or necessary. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, capital resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment or at all. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to redesign our technology, products, or the methods for manufacturing them or to develop or license replacement technology, all of which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis. If we are unable to do so, we may be unable to develop or commercialize the affected products, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our other proprietary information, our business and competitive position may be harmed.
In addition to patent protection, we also rely on other proprietary rights, including protection of trade secrets, and other proprietary information that is not patentable or that we elect not to patent. However, trade secrets can be difficult to protect and some courts are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. To
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maintain the confidentiality of our trade secrets and proprietary information, we rely heavily on confidentiality provisions that we have in contracts with our employees, consultants, contractors, collaborators and others upon the commencement of their relationship with us. We cannot guarantee that we have entered into such agreements with each party that may have or have had access to our trade secrets or proprietary technology and processes. We may not be able to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of our technical knowledge or other trade secrets by such third parties, despite the existence generally of these confidentiality restrictions. These contracts may not provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use, misappropriation or disclosure of such trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information. There can be no assurance that such third parties will not breach their agreements with us, that we will have adequate remedies for any breach, or that our trade secrets will not otherwise become known or independently developed by competitors. Despite the protections we do place on our intellectual property or other proprietary rights, monitoring unauthorized use and disclosure of our intellectual property is difficult, and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property or other proprietary rights will be adequate. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. The laws of many foreign countries will not protect our intellectual property or other proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Consequently, we may be unable to prevent our proprietary technology from being exploited in the United States and abroad, which could affect our ability to expand in domestic and international markets or require costly efforts to protect our technology.
To the extent our intellectual property or other proprietary information protection is incomplete, we are exposed to a greater risk of direct competition. A third party could, without authorization, copy or otherwise obtain and use our products or technology, or develop similar technology. Our competitors could purchase our products and attempt to replicate some or all of the competitive advantages we derive from our development efforts or design around our protected technology. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could substantially harm the value of our products, brand and business. The theft or unauthorized use or publication of our trade secrets and other confidential business information could reduce the differentiation of our products and harm our business, the value of our investment in development or business acquisitions could be reduced and third parties might make claims against us related to losses of their confidential or proprietary information.
Further, it is possible that others will independently develop the same or similar technology or otherwise obtain access to our unpatented technology, and in such cases we could not assert any trade secret rights against such parties. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our trade secret rights and related confidentiality and nondisclosure provisions. If we fail to obtain or maintain trade secret protection, or if our competitors obtain our trade secrets or independently develop technology similar to ours or competing technologies, our competitive market position could be materially and adversely affected. In addition, some courts are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets, and agreement terms that address non-competition are difficult to enforce in many jurisdictions and might not be enforceable in certain cases.
We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our data and other confidential information by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems. While we have confidence in these individuals, organizations and systems, agreements or security measures may be breached and detecting the disclosure or misappropriation of confidential information and enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated confidential information is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. Further, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for any breach. Any of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Obtaining and maintaining patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.
The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. In addition, periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees and various other government fees on issued patents and patent applications will be due to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies over the lifetime of our owned or licensed patents and applications. In certain circumstances, we rely on our licensing partners to pay these fees due to U.S. and non-U.S. patent agencies. While an unintentional lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. If we fail to maintain the patents and patent applications covering our products, we may not be able to stop a competitor from marketing products that are the same as or similar to our products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
A company may attempt to commercialize competing products utilizing our proprietary design, trademarks or trade names in foreign countries where we do not have any patents or patent applications and where legal recourse may be limited or unavailable. This may have a significant commercial impact on our foreign business operations.
Filing, prosecuting and defending patents or trademarks on our current and future products in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive. The requirements for patentability and trademarking may differ in certain countries, particularly developing countries. The laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as laws in the United States. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from utilizing our inventions and trademarks in all countries outside the United States. Competitors may use our technologies or trademarks in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent or trademark protection to develop or market their own products and, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent and trademark protection but enforcement on infringing activities is inadequate. These products may compete with our products, and our patents, trademarks or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.
Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trademarks and other intellectual property protection, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents and trademarks or marketing of competing products in violation of our intellectual property rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents and trademarks at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent or trademark applications at risk, and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. In addition, many countries, including India, China and certain countries in Europe, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. In those countries, we may have limited remedies if our patents are infringed or if we are compelled to grant a license to our patents to a third party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property
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rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we own or license. Finally, our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may be adversely affected by unforeseen changes in foreign intellectual property laws.
We may be subject to claims that we or our employees, consultants or contractors have wrongfully used, disclosed or otherwise misappropriated the intellectual property of a third party, including trade secrets or know-how, or are in breach of non-competition or non-solicitation agreements with our competitors or claims asserting an ownership interest in intellectual property we regard as our own.
Many of our employees, consultants and contractors were previously employed at or engaged by other medical device, biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Some of these employees, consultants and contractors may have executed proprietary rights, non-disclosure and non-competition agreements in connection with such previous employment. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and contractors do not use the intellectual property, proprietary information, know-how or trade secrets of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these individuals have, inadvertently or otherwise, used, disclosed or otherwise misappropriated intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of their former employers or our competitors or potential competitors. Additionally, we may be subject to claims from third parties challenging our ownership interest in intellectual property we regard as our own, based on claims that our employees, consultants or contractors have breached an obligation to assign inventions to another employer, to a former employer, or to another person or entity.
Litigation may be necessary to defend against such claims, and it may be necessary or we may desire to enter into a license to settle any such claim; however, there can be no assurance that we would be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If our defense to those claims fails, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. For example, a court could prohibit us from using technologies or features that are essential to our products, if such technologies or features are found to incorporate or be derived from the trade secrets or other proprietary information of the former employers. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.
An inability to incorporate technologies or features that are important or essential to our products could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, and may prevent us from selling our products. Any litigation or the threat thereof may adversely affect our ability to hire employees or contract with independent sales representatives. A loss of key personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to commercialize our products, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship of our patents and other intellectual property.
We or our licensors may be subject to claims that former consultants, contractors or other third parties have an interest in our owned or in-licensed patents, trade secrets or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. While it is our policy to require our employees, consultants and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who, in fact, conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. The assignment of intellectual property rights may not be self-executing, or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. If we or our licensors fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, intellectual property that is important to our products. Any such events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Changes in patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our existing and future products.
Recent patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of patent applications and the enforcement or defense of issued patents. In 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or Leahy-Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy-Smith Act includes a number of significant changes to U.S. patent law. These include provisions that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted and also may affect patent litigation. These also include provisions that switched the United States from a first-to-invent system to a first-inventor-to-file system, allow third-party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and set forth additional procedures to attack the validity of a patent by the USPTO administered post grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes review and derivation proceedings. Under a first-inventor-to-file system, assuming the other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application generally will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether another inventor had made the invention earlier. The USPTO recently developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, and in particular, the first to file provisions, became effective in 2013. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. The Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, patent reform legislation may pass in the future that could lead to additional uncertainties and increased costs surrounding the prosecution, enforcement and defense of our patents and applications. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have made, and will likely continue to make, changes in how the patent laws of the United States are interpreted. Similarly, foreign courts have made, and will likely continue to make, changes in how the patent laws in their respective jurisdictions are interpreted. We cannot predict future changes in the interpretation of patent laws or changes to patent laws that might be enacted into law by U.S. and foreign legislative bodies. Those changes may materially affect our patents or patent applications and our ability to obtain additional patent protection in the future.
If our trademarks and trade names are not adequately protected, then we may not be able to build name recognition in our markets and our business may be adversely affected.
We rely on trademarks, service marks, trade names and brand names to distinguish our products from the products of our competitors and have registered or applied to register these trademarks. Our registered or unregistered trademarks, service marks, trade names and brand names may be challenged, infringed, diluted, circumvented or declared generic or determined to be infringing on other marks. Additionally, we cannot assure you that our trademark applications will be approved. During trademark registration proceedings, we may receive rejections. Although we are given an opportunity to respond to those rejections, we may be unable to overcome such rejections. In addition, in proceedings before the USPTO and comparable agencies in many foreign jurisdictions, third parties are given an opportunity to oppose pending trademark applications and to seek to cancel registered trademarks. Opposition or cancellation proceedings may be filed against our trademarks, and our trademarks may not survive such proceedings. In the event that our trademarks are successfully challenged, we could be forced to rebrand our products, which could result in loss of brand recognition and could require us to devote resources towards advertising and marketing new brands. At times, competitors may adopt trade names or trademarks similar to ours, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. Certain of our current or future trademarks may become so well known by the public that their use becomes generic and they lose trademark protection. Over the long term, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be able to compete effectively and our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
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Risks Related to Our Common Stock and This Offering
There has been no prior market for our common stock, the market price for our common stock may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance, an active public trading market may not develop or be sustained following this offering, and you may not be able to resell our common stock at or above the initial public offering price.
There has been no public market for our common stock prior to this offering. The initial public offering price for our common stock will be determined through negotiations between the underwriters and us and may vary from the market price of our common stock following this offering. You may not be able to resell your shares at or above the initial public offering price due to a number of factors such as those listed in Risks Related to Our Business and Strategy and the following:
| actual or anticipated changes or fluctuations in our operating results; |
| the failure by our customers to obtain coverage and reimbursement levels that would be sufficient to support product sales to our customers; |
| unanticipated serious safety concerns related to the use of our products; |
| the financial projections we may provide to the public, any changes in these projections or our failure to meet these projections; |
| announcements by us or our competitors of new products, significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint venture or capital commitments; |
| industry or financial analyst or investor reaction to our press releases, other public announcements and filings with the SEC; |
| rumors and market speculation involving us or other companies in our industry; |
| future sales or expected future sales of our common stock; |
| price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time; |
| changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other medical device companies generally, or those in our industry in particular; |
| our cash position; |
| the expiration of market stand-off or contractual lock-up agreements and sales of shares of our common stock by us or our shareholders; |
| failure of industry or financial analysts to maintain coverage of us, changes in financial estimates by any analysts who follow our company or our failure to meet these estimates or the expectations of investors; |
| actual or anticipated developments in our business or our competitors businesses or the competitive landscape generally; |
| our inability to obtain adequate supplies and components for our products or inability to do so at acceptable prices; |
| litigation involving us, our industry or both, or investigations by regulators into our operations or those of our competitors; |
| accusations that we have violated a law or regulation; |
| recalls of our products; |
| developments or disputes concerning our intellectual property rights or our solutions, or third-party proprietary rights; |
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| any delay in any regulatory filings for our planned or future products and any adverse development or perceived adverse development with respect to the applicable regulatory authoritys review of such products; |
| adverse regulatory decisions, including failure to receive regulatory approval or clearance of our planned and future products or maintain regulatory approval or clearance for our existing products; |
| changes in laws or regulations applicable to our products; |
| announced or completed acquisitions of businesses or technologies by us or our competitors; |
| breaches of, or failures relating to, security, privacy or data protection; |
| new laws or regulations or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations applicable to our business; |
| any major changes in our management or our board of directors; |
| changes in accounting principles; |
| ineffectiveness of our internal controls; |
| actual or anticipated changes in healthcare policy and reimbursement levels; |
| general economic conditions and slow or negative growth of our markets; and |
| other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism or responses to these events. |
Although we have applied to list our common stock on The Nasdaq Global Market, we cannot assure you that a trading market for our common stock will develop, or, if a trading market does develop, that it will be maintained. The stock markets, and securities of medical device companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many medical device companies. Stock prices of many medical device companies have fluctuated in a manner unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies.
Our quarterly operating results fluctuate and may fall short of prior periods, our projections or the expectations of securities analysts or investors, which could materially adversely affect our stock price.
Our operating results have fluctuated from quarter to quarter at points in the past, and they may do so in the future. Therefore, results of any one quarter are not a reliable indication of results to be expected for any other quarter or for any year. If we fail to increase our results over prior periods, to achieve our projected results or to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors, our stock price may decline, and the decrease in the stock price may be disproportionate to the shortfall in our financial performance. Results may be affected by various factors, including those described in these risk factors. We maintain a forecasting process that seeks to plan sales and align expenses. If we do not control costs or appropriately adjust costs to actual results, or if actual results differ significantly from our forecast, our financial performance could be materially adversely affected.
We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.
The market price of our common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our managements attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.
You will incur immediate dilution in the net tangible book value of the shares you purchase in this offering.
The initial public offering price of our common stock will be higher than the net tangible book value per share of outstanding common stock prior to completion of this offering. Based on our net tangible book value as
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of March 31, 2020 and upon the issuance and sale of shares of common stock by us at the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) if you purchase our common stock in this offering, you will suffer immediate dilution of $12.00 per share in net tangible book value. Dilution is the amount by which the offering price paid by purchasers of our common stock in this offering will exceed the pro forma net tangible book value per share of our common stock upon completion of this offering. If the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares, you will experience further dilution. A total of 2,580,423 shares of common stock have initially been reserved for future issuance under our 2020 Plan and our 2020 ESPP, and 3,313,597 shares of our common stock were subject to outstanding equity awards as of March 31, 2020 under our 2011 Plan. You may experience additional dilution upon future equity issuances or the exercise of stock options to purchase common stock granted to our directors, officers and employees under our current and future stock-based compensation plans, including our 2020 Plan and our 2020 ESPP. See the section titled Dilution.
The issuance of additional shares of our common stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our share incentive plans or otherwise will dilute all other stockholders.
Our articles of incorporation that will be in effect immediately prior to the completion of this offering authorize us to issue up to 260,000,000 shares of our common stock and up to 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock with such rights and preferences as included in our certificate of incorporation. Subject to compliance with applicable rules and regulations, we may issue common stock or securities convertible into common stock from time to time in connection with a financing, acquisition, investment, our equity incentive plans or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and cause the market price of our common stock to decline.
We currently do not intend to declare dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future and, as a result, your only opportunity to achieve a return on your investment is if the price of our common stock appreciates.
We currently do not expect to declare any dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Instead, we anticipate that all of our earnings, if any, in the foreseeable future will be used to provide working capital, to support our operations and to finance the growth and development of our business. Any determination to declare or pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws and dependent upon a number of factors, including our earnings, capital requirements and overall financial conditions. In addition, our ability to pay dividends on our common stock is currently limited by the covenants of our 2019 Credit Agreement and may be further restricted by the terms of any future debt or preferred securities. Accordingly, your only opportunity to achieve a return on your investment in our company may be if the market price of our common stock appreciates and you sell your shares at a profit. The market price for our common stock may never exceed, and may fall below, the price that you pay for such common stock.
We are an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company, and any decision on our part to comply only with certain reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies and smaller reporting companies could make our common stock less attractive to investors.
We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the JOBS Act, and, for as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may choose to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies but not to emerging growth companies, including:
| not being required to have our independent registered public accounting firm audit our internal control over financial reporting under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; |
| reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and annual report on Form 10-K; and |
| exemptions from the requirements of holding non-binding advisory votes on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. |
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We could be an emerging growth company for up to five years following the completion of this offering. Our status as an emerging growth company will end as soon as any of the following takes place:
| the last day of the fiscal year in which we have more than $1.07 billion in annual revenue; |
| the date we qualify as a large accelerated filer, with at least $700 million of equity securities held by non-affiliates; |
| the date on which we have issued, in any three-year period, more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities; or |
| the last day of the fiscal year ending after the fifth anniversary of the completion of this offering. |
We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive if we choose to rely on any of the exemptions afforded emerging growth companies. If some investors find our common stock less attractive because we rely on any of these exemptions, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and the market price of our common stock may be more volatile.
Under the JOBS Act, emerging growth companies can also delay adopting new or revised accounting standards until such time as those standards apply to private companies. We have elected to avail ourselves of this provision of the JOBS Act. As a result, we will not be subject to new or revised accounting standards at the same time as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. Therefore, our consolidated financial statements may not be comparable to those of companies that comply with new or revised accounting pronouncements as of public company effective dates.
We are also a smaller reporting company as defined in the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company even after we are no longer an emerging growth company. We may take advantage of certain of the scaled disclosures available to smaller reporting companies and will be able to take advantage of these scaled disclosures for so long as our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $250.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenue is less than $100.0 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $700.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter.
If securities analysts do not publish research or reports about our business or if they downgrade our stock or our sector, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will rely in part on the research and reports that industry or financial analysts publish about us or our business or industry. We do not control these analysts. Furthermore, if one or more of the analysts who do cover us downgrade our stock or our industry, or the stock of any of our competitors, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business or industry, the price of our stock could decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the market, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
We have broad discretion to determine how to use the funds raised in this offering, and we may use them in ways that may not enhance our operating results or the price of our common stock.
Though we currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for the purposes described in the section titled Use of Proceeds, our management will have broad discretion in the application of the net proceeds from this offering, including for any of the purposes described in the section titled Use of Proceeds. We could spend the proceeds from this offering in ways that our stockholders may not agree with or that do not yield a favorable return. You will not have the opportunity as part of your investment decision to assess whether the net proceeds are being used appropriately. Investors in this offering will need to rely upon the judgment of our management and board of directors with respect to the use of proceeds. If we do not use the net proceeds that we receive in this offering effectively, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be harmed, and the market price of our common stock could decline.
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Our directors, executive officers and principal stockholders and their respective affiliates will continue to have substantial influence over us after this offering and could delay or prevent a change in corporate control; our principal stockholders may have interests that conflict with your interests as an investor in our common stock.
As of March 31, 2020, our directors, executive officers and holders of more than 5% of our common stock beneficially owned, as a group, 74.7% of our common stock. After this offering, our directors, executive officers and holders of more than 5% of our common stock, together with their affiliates, will beneficially own, in the aggregate, 52.4% of our outstanding common stock, assuming no exercise of the underwriters option to purchase additional shares of our common stock in this offering and without giving effect to any purchases that certain of these holders may make through our directed share program or any additional purchases by these holders pursuant to their indications of interest to purchase up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering. In addition, as of March 31, 2020, we had $40.0 million in aggregate principal amount of outstanding long-term debt under our 2019 Credit Agreement with an entity affiliated with OrbiMed Advisors LLC, or OrbiMed Advisors, one of our 5% holders. Our principal stockholders, in the aggregate, will continue to have substantial influence over the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. In addition, these stockholders, in the aggregate, will continue to have significant influence over the management and affairs of our company. Accordingly, this concentration of ownership may have the effect of:
| delaying, deferring or preventing a change in corporate control; |
| impeding a merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination involving us; or |
| discouraging a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us. |
The interests of our principal stockholders may conflict with your interests as a stockholder. You should carefully consider these potential conflicts of interest before deciding whether to invest in shares of our common stock.
Participation in this offering by our existing stockholders and/or their affiliated entities would reduce the public float for our common stock.
Certain of our existing stockholders who are affiliated with certain of our directors have expressed an interest in purchasing up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering. Such purchases would reduce the public float of our shares, meaning the number of shares of our common stock that are not held by officers, directors and controlling stockholders. A reduction in the public float could reduce the number of shares that are available to be traded at any given time, thereby adversely impacting the liquidity of our common stock and depressing the price at which you may be able to sell shares of common stock purchased in this offering.
Future sales, or the perception of future sales, by us or our existing stockholders in the public market following this offering could cause the market price for our common stock to decline.
After this offering, the sale of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could harm the prevailing market price of shares of our common stock. These sales, or the possibility that these sales may occur, also might make it more difficult for us to sell equity securities in the future at a time and at a price that we deem appropriate.
Upon consummation of this offering, we will have a total of 24,636,717 shares of common stock outstanding. All shares sold in this offering will be freely tradable without restriction or further registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, except that any shares held by our affiliates, as that term is defined under Rule 144 of the Securities Act, or Rule 144, including our directors, executive officers and other affiliates, may be sold only in compliance with the limitations described in the section titled Shares
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Eligible for Future Sale, and any shares purchased in our directed share program, which will subject to the lock-up restrictions described in the section titled Underwriting.
The shares held by certain directors and officers and their affiliates immediately following the consummation of this offering will represent 38.7% of our total outstanding shares of common stock following this offering, based on the number of shares outstanding as of March 31, 2020 and without giving effect to any additional purchases by these holders pursuant to their indications of interest to purchase up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering. Such shares will be restricted securities within the meaning of Rule 144 and subject to certain restrictions on resale following the consummation of this offering. Restricted securities may be sold in the public market only if they are registered under the Securities Act or are sold pursuant to an exemption from registration such as Rule 144, as described in the section titled Shares Eligible for Future Sale.
In connection with this offering, we, our directors and executive officers, and holders of substantially all of our common stock prior to this offering have each agreed with the underwriters, subject to certain exceptions, not to dispose of or hedge any of our or their common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of common stock during the period from the date of this prospectus continuing through the date 180 days after the date of this prospectus, except with the prior written consent of certain representatives of the underwriters. See the section titled Underwriting for a description of these lock-up agreements.
Upon the expiration of the contractual lock-up agreements pertaining to this offering, up to an additional 17,283,776 shares will be eligible for sale in the public market, of which 9,536,905 are held by directors, executive officers and other affiliates and will be subject to volume, manner of sale and other limitations under Rule 144. Following completion of this offering, shares covered by registration rights would represent 65.7% of our outstanding common stock (or 62.8%, if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares). Registration of any of these outstanding shares of common stock would result in such shares becoming freely tradable without compliance with Rule 144 upon effectiveness of the registration statement. See the section titled Shares Eligible for Future Sale.
As restrictions on resale end or if these stockholders exercise their registration rights, the market price of our shares of common stock could drop significantly if the holders of these shares sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to raise additional funds through future offerings of our shares of common stock or other securities.
In addition, the shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our stock-based compensation plans will become eligible for sale in the public market once those shares are issued, subject to provisions relating to various vesting agreements, lock-up agreements and Rule 144, as applicable. A total of 2,193,360 shares of our common stock and 387,063 shares of our common stock have been initially reserved for future issuance under our 2020 Plan and our 2020 ESPP, respectively, and 3,313,597 shares of our common stock were subject to outstanding equity awards as of March 31, 2020 under our 2011 Plan.
In the future, we may also issue our securities in connection with investments or acquisitions. The amount of shares of our common stock issued in connection with an investment or acquisition could constitute a material portion of our then-outstanding shares of our common stock. Any issuance of additional securities in connection with investments or acquisitions may result in additional dilution to you.
The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert managements attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.
As a public company, we will be subject to the reporting and corporate governance requirements of the Exchange Act, the listing requirements of Nasdaq and other applicable securities rules and regulations, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Compliance with
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these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increase demand on our systems and resources, particularly after we are no longer an emerging growth company as defined in the JOBS Act. Among other things, the Exchange Act requires that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and results of operations and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, managements attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Although we have already hired additional personnel to help comply with these requirements, we may need to further expand our legal and finance departments in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses.
In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time-consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expense and a diversion of managements time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business and prospects may be harmed. As a result of disclosure of information in the filings required of a public company and in this prospectus, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and materially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We also expect that being a public company and these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified executive officers and members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee.
In addition, as a result of our disclosure obligations as a public company, we will have reduced strategic flexibility and will be under pressure to focus on short-term results, which may materially and adversely affect our ability to achieve long-term profitability.
Provisions in our organizational documents and agreements with third parties could delay or prevent a change of control.
Certain provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a merger, acquisition, tender offer, takeover attempt or other change of control transaction that a stockholder might consider to be in its best interest, including attempts that might result in a premium over the market price of our common stock.
These provisions include the following:
| establish a classified board of directors so that not all members of our board of directors are elected at one time; |
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| authorize the issuance of blank check preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a stockholder rights plan; |
| permit the board of directors to establish the number of directors and fill any vacancies and newly-created directorships; |
| provide that directors may only be removed for cause; |
| require super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws; |
| eliminate the ability of our stockholders to call special meetings of stockholders; |
| prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders; |
| provide that the board of directors is expressly authorized to make, alter or repeal our bylaws; |
| restrict the forum for certain litigation against us to Delaware; and |
| establish advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual stockholder meetings. |
These provisions could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if the third partys offer may be considered beneficial by many of our stockholders. As a result, our stockholders may be limited in their ability to obtain a premium for their shares. See the section titled Description of Capital Stock.
In addition, our agreements with Biotronik contain provisions that may have the effect of delaying, deterring or preventing a change in control transaction involving us. Under the Biotronik License Agreement, if we undergo a change in control with certain competitors of the Biotronik Parties (as defined therein), then our exclusive license to our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters and Qubic Force device in the United States would convert to co-exclusive licenses with the Biotronik Parties, certain milestone payments would become immediately due and payable (regardless of achievement) and we would be required to pay up to $25.0 million to the Biotronik Parties (to the extent such amount has not already been paid as unit-based royalties). In addition, the non-distributing party of each Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreement has the right to terminate the agreement in the case of a change in control of either party, whereas the distributing party of each Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreement has the right, in certain circumstances, to terminate the agreement in the case of a change in control of the non-distributing party. For a more complete summary of these agreements, see the section titled BusinessBiotronik Agreements.
In connection with the preparation of our consolidated financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness in the Companys internal control over financial reporting. If we are not able to remediate the material weakness and otherwise to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting in the future, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, and the market price of our common stock could be materially and adversely affected.
As a privately-held company, we were not required to evaluate our internal control over financial reporting in a manner that meets the standards of publicly traded companies required by Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and to date, we have not conducted an evaluation and testing of our internal control required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. As a public company, we will have significant requirements for enhanced financial reporting and internal controls. We may also experience situations in the future where our evaluation and testing processes required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or work performed by independent registered public accountants, may identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting that will result in our inability to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective. During our evaluation and testing, we may identify deficiencies and be unable to remediate them before we must provide the required reports.
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In connection with the audits of our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness related to our financial statement closing process, primarily related to a lack of appropriately designed and implemented controls over the review and approval of manual journal entries and the related supporting journal entry calculations. Under standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim consolidated financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.
We are working to remediate the material weakness and are taking steps to strengthen our internal control over financial reporting. In order to do so, we have taken and plan to take the following actions: (i) the hiring of additional finance and accounting personnel over time to augment our accounting staff and to provide more resources for complex accounting matters and financial reporting; and (ii) further developing and implementing formal policies, processes and documentation procedures relating to our financial reporting. The actions that we are taking are subject to ongoing executive management review, and will also be subject to audit committee oversight. If we are unable to successfully remediate the material weakness, or if in the future, we identify further material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we may not detect errors on a timely basis and our consolidated financial statements may be materially misstated.
The process of designing and implementing effective internal controls is a continuous effort that requires us to anticipate and react to changes in our business and the economic and regulatory environments and to expend significant resources to maintain a system of internal controls that is adequate to satisfy our reporting obligations as a public company. If we are unable to establish or maintain appropriate internal financial reporting controls and procedures, it could cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations on a timely basis, result in material misstatements in our consolidated financial statements and harm our results of operations. For example, in 2020 we detected an irregularity in the reported timing of the receipt of two purchase orders. While this did not result in a misstatement in our financial statements as we promptly detected the improper reporting and took appropriate action, there can be no assurance that our system of internal control will operate as effectively to detect any improper purchase orders or other irregularities in the future. In addition, we will be required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in the second annual report following the completion of this offering. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. The rules governing the standards that must be met for our management to assess our internal control over financial reporting are complex and require significant documentation, testing and possible remediation. Testing and maintaining internal controls may divert our managements attention from other matters that are important to our business. Our independent registered public accounting firm will be required to issue an attestation report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC following the date we are no longer an emerging growth company and after we meet the definition of an accelerated filer. We or our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to conclude on an ongoing basis that we have effective internal control over financial reporting, which could harm our operating results, cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information and cause the trading price of our stock to fall. In addition, as a public company we will be required to file accurate and timely quarterly and annual reports with the SEC under the Exchange Act. Any failure to report our financial results on an accurate and timely basis could result in sanctions, lawsuits, delisting of our shares or other adverse consequences that would materially harm our business. In addition, we could become subject to investigations by the SEC and other regulatory authorities, and become subject to litigation from investors and stockholders, which could harm our reputation and our financial condition, or divert financial and management resources from our core business.
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Our amended and restated bylaws that will become effective immediately prior to the completion of this offering provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forums for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our amended and restated bylaws that will become effective immediately prior to the completion of this offering provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if the Court of Chancery does not have jurisdiction, another State court in Delaware or the federal district court for the District of Delaware) is the exclusive forum for the following (except for any claim as to which such court determines that there is an indispensable party not subject to the jurisdiction of such court (and the indispensable party does not consent to the personal jurisdiction of such court within 10 days following such determination), which is vested in the exclusive jurisdiction of a court or forum other than such court or for which such court does not have subject matter jurisdiction):
| any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; |
| any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty; |
| any action asserting a claim against us arising under the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws; and |
| any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal-affairs doctrine. |
This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the U.S. federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction.
Our amended and restated bylaws further provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
These exclusive-forum provisions may limit a stockholders ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to these provisions. There is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce such provisions, and the enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies charter documents has been challenged in legal proceedings. It is possible that a court could find these types of provisions to be inapplicable or unenforceable, and if a court were to find either exclusive-forum provision in our amended and restated bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, which could seriously harm our business. For example, under the Securities Act, federal courts have concurrent jurisdiction over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act, and investors cannot waive compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.
Our board of directors will be authorized to issue and designate shares of our preferred stock in additional series without stockholder approval.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will authorize our board of directors, without the approval of our stockholders, to issue shares of our preferred stock, subject to limitations prescribed by applicable law, rules and regulations and the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as shares of preferred stock in series, to establish from time to time the number of shares to be included in each such series and to fix the designation, powers, preferences and rights of the shares of each such series and the qualifications, limitations or restrictions thereof. The powers, preferences and rights of these additional series of preferred stock may be senior to or on parity with our common stock, which may reduce its value.
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SPECIAL NOTES REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This prospectus contains forward-looking statements concerning our business, operations and financial performance and condition, as well as our plans, objectives and expectations for our business, operations and financial performance and condition. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as anticipate, assume, believe, contemplate, continue, could, due, estimate, expect, goal, intend, may, objective, plan, predict, potential, positioned, seek, should, target, will, would and other similar expressions that are predictions of or indicate future events and future trends, or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology.
These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:
| our plans and expected timeline related to our products, or developing new products, to address additional indications or otherwise; |
| the expected use of our products by physicians; |
| the size and growth potential of the markets for our products, and our ability to serve those markets; |
| our ability to identify and develop new planned products and/or acquire new products; |
| our plans to conduct further clinical trials; |
| our ability to obtain, maintain and expand regulatory clearances for our products and any new products; |
| our ability to maintain or expand our relationships with strategic partners, or to identify and develop new strategic partnerships; |
| our ability to expand our business into new geographic markets; |
| the expected growth of our business and our organization; |
| our expectations regarding government and third-party payor coverage and reimbursement; |
| our ability to retain and recruit key personnel, including the continued development of a sales and marketing infrastructure; |
| our expectations regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business; |
| our ability to obtain an adequate supply of materials and components for our products from our third-party suppliers, some of whom are single-source suppliers; |
| our ability to manufacture sufficient quantities of our products with sufficient quality; |
| our ability to obtain, maintain, enforce and defend intellectual property protection for our products; |
| our estimates of our expenses, ongoing losses, future revenue, capital requirements and our need for, or ability to obtain, additional financing; |
| our expected uses of the net proceeds from this offering; |
| our expectations regarding the time during which we will be an emerging growth company under the JOBS Act; and |
| developments and projections relating to our competitors or our industry. |
We believe that it is important to communicate our future expectations to our investors. However, there may be events in the future that we are not able to accurately predict or control and that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations we describe in our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about our
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business and the industry in which we operate and managements beliefs and assumptions and are not guarantees of future performance or development and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are in some cases beyond our control. As a result, any or all of our forward-looking statements in this prospectus may turn out to be inaccurate. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, those listed in the section titled Risk Factors and elsewhere in this prospectus. Potential investors are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this prospectus. We assume no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information becomes available in the future. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee that the future results, levels of activity, performance or events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this prospectus to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations, except as required by applicable law.
You should read this prospectus and the documents that we reference in this prospectus and have filed with the SEC as exhibits to the registration statement of which this prospectus is a part with the understanding that our actual future results, levels of activity, performance and events and circumstances may be materially different from what we expect.
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MARKET, INDUSTRY AND OTHER DATA
This prospectus contains estimates and information concerning our industry, including the incidence of certain medical conditions and procedures, healthcare costs, market size and growth rates of the markets in which we participate, that are based on industry publications and reports. We relied on industry, market data, peer-reviewed journals, formal presentations at medical society meetings and independent third-party sources for procedure data in the United States, as well as publicly available data and other sources. We also rely on our own research and estimates in this prospectus. In some cases, we do not expressly refer to the sources from which this data is derived. This information involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to these estimates. We have not independently verified the data contained in any third-party information, and cannot assure you of its accuracy or completeness.
Although we believe the market position, market opportunity, market size and medical information included in this prospectus is reliable, such information is inherently imprecise. In addition, projections, assumptions, and estimates of our future performance and the future performance of the industry in which we operate are necessarily subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in the section titled Risk Factors. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in these publications and reports.
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We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying, any cash dividends on any of our capital stock. We do not anticipate paying any dividends in the foreseeable future, and we currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings, if any, for use in the operation of our business, to finance the growth and development of our business and for future repayment of debt. Future determinations as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on then-existing conditions, including our operating results, financial condition, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects and other factors our board of directors may deem relevant. In addition, our 2019 Credit Agreement restricts our ability to pay dividends or make other distributions or payments on account of our common stock, in each case subject to certain exceptions.
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We estimate that the net proceeds from the sale of our common stock in this offering will be $112.6 million (or $130.1 million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full), based on the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.
Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by $6.8 million, assuming the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, each increase (decrease) of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares offered by us would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by $15.8 million, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We do not expect that a change in the initial public offering price or the number of shares by these amounts would have a material effect on our uses of the proceeds from this offering.
We currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering as follows: approximately $40.0 million to support our commercial expansion, including hiring additional commercial personnel, approximately $22.0 million for the completion of all of our ongoing clinical trials, which includes our RECOVER AF PMA, PLASZMA trial, ablation catheter IDEs and DISCOVER registry, approximately $24.0 million for research and development activities, and the remainder for working capital and other general corporate purposes.
Based on our current business plans, we believe that the net proceeds of this offering, together with our existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and expected revenue from sales of our products, will be adequate to support our commercialization, clinical trials and research and development activities for at least the next 12 months.
We believe opportunities may exist from time to time to expand our current business through license or acquisitions of, or investments in, complementary businesses, products or technologies. While we have no current agreements, commitments or understandings for any specific licenses, acquisitions or investments at this time, we may use a portion of the net proceeds for these purposes.
Our management will have broad discretion over the use of the net proceeds from this offering. The amounts and timing of our expenditures will depend upon numerous factors, including cash flows from operations, the extent and success of our commercial expansion, the extent and results of our research and development efforts, the timing and success of our studies and clinical trials, the timing and results of regulatory submissions, reimbursement and the anticipated growth of our business. Pending their uses, we plan to invest the net proceeds of this offering in short-term, interest-bearing, investment-grade instruments, certificates of deposit or direct or guaranteed obligations of the U.S. government.
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The following table sets forth our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and capitalization as of March 31, 2020 on:
| an actual basis; |
| a pro forma basis, giving effect to (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 16,572,935 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering, as if such conversion had occurred on March 31, 2020, (ii) the automatic conversion of all outstanding warrants to purchase shares of our convertible preferred stock into warrants to purchase shares of our common stock, and the related reclassification of our common and preferred stock warrant liability to stockholders equity (deficit) immediately prior to the completion of this offering, and (iii) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, which will be in effect immediately prior to the completion of this offering; and |
| a pro forma as adjusted basis to give further effect to our issuance and sale of 7,352,941 shares of common stock in this offering at the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. |
You should read this information in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, as well as the sections titled Selected Consolidated Financial Data and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
As of March 31, 2020 | ||||||||||||
(in thousands, except share and per share data) | Actual | Pro Forma | Pro Forma As Adjusted |
|||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities |
$ | 49,880 | $ | 49,880 | $ | 162,530 | ||||||
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|
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Long-term debt |
$ | 38,398 | $ | 38,398 | $ | 38,398 | ||||||
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Common and preferred stock warrant liability |
8,338 | | | |||||||||
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|
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|
|
|
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Convertible preferred stock, $0.001 par value per share; 172,064,796 shares authorized, 16,572,935 shares issued and outstanding, actual; no shares authorized, issued or outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted |
260,555 | | | |||||||||
Stockholders equity (deficit): |
||||||||||||
Preferred stock, $0.001 par value per share; no shares authorized, issued or outstanding, actual; 5,000,000 shares authorized, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted; no shares issued or outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted |
| | | |||||||||
Common stock, $0.001 par value per share; 220,000,000 shares authorized, 710,841 shares issued and outstanding, actual; 260,000,000 shares authorized, 17,283,776 shares issued and outstanding, pro forma; 260,000,000 shares authorized, 24,636,717 shares issued and outstanding, pro forma as adjusted |
1 | 17 | 25 | |||||||||
Additional paid-in capital |
34,993 | 303,870 | 416,512 | |||||||||
Accumulated deficit |
(277,132 | ) | (277,132 | ) | (277,132 | ) | ||||||
Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income |
(84 | ) | (84 | ) | (84 | ) | ||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total stockholders equity (deficit) |
(242,222 | ) | 26,671 | 139,321 | ||||||||
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|
|
|
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Total capitalization |
$ | 65,069 | $ | 65,069 | $ | 177,719 | ||||||
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The pro forma as adjusted information discussed above is illustrative only and will be adjusted based on the actual public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing. Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) would increase (decrease) each of our pro forma as adjusted cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders equity (deficit) and total capitalization by $6.8 million, assuming that the number of shares of common stock offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, each increase (decrease) of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares of common stock offered by us would increase (decrease) each of our pro forma as adjusted cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders equity (deficit) and total capitalization by $15.8 million, assuming the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.
If the underwriters option to purchase additional shares is exercised in full, our pro forma as adjusted cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders equity (deficit), total capitalization and shares outstanding as of March 31, 2020 would be $180.0 million, $434.0 million, $156.8 million, $195.2 million and 25,739,658 shares, respectively.
The number of shares of common stock that will be outstanding after this offering on a pro forma and pro forma as adjusted basis is based on 17,283,776 shares of our common stock (including all shares of our convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) outstanding as of March 31, 2020, and excludes:
| 509,562 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of $0.17 per share; |
| 446,990 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of convertible preferred stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, which will be automatically converted into warrants to purchase shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering, with a weighted-average exercise price of $16.67 per share; |
| 2,746,088 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of $11.01 per share; |
| 567,509 shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting and settlement of outstanding RSUs as of March 31, 2020, of which 269,701 units will vest upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part; |
| 2,193,360 shares of our common stock reserved for future grants under our 2020 Plan, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, plus shares of our common stock subject to awards granted under our 2011 Plan, which expire or otherwise terminate without having been exercised in full or are forfeited to or repurchased by us, which shares will be added to the shares to be reserved under our 2020 Plan (up to a maximum of 3,163,780 shares), as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 Plan, including: |
| 17,976 shares of our common stock issued to certain of our consultants pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting of RSUs granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, and having an aggregate grant date |
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fair value of $3.8 million (which would equal 226,315 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price, and having an aggregate grant date fair value of $8.1 million (which would equal 666,964 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), and |
| an additional 219,593 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price; and |
| 387,063 shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2020 ESPP, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 ESPP. |
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If you invest in our common stock in this offering, your ownership interest will be diluted immediately to the extent of the difference between the initial public offering price per share of our common stock and the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of our common stock immediately after this offering.
Our historical net tangible book value (deficit) as of March 31, 2020 was $(258.2) million, or $(363.30) per share of our common stock. Our historical net tangible book value (deficit) is the amount of our total tangible assets less our total liabilities and convertible preferred stock, which is not included within our stockholders equity (deficit). Historical net tangible book value per share represents historical net tangible book value (deficit) divided by the number of shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020.
Our pro forma net tangible book value as of March 31, 2020 was $10.6 million, or $0.62 per share of our common stock. Pro forma net tangible book value represents the amount of our total tangible assets less our total liabilities, after giving effect to the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 16,572,935 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering. Pro forma net tangible book value per share represents pro forma net tangible book value divided by the total number of shares outstanding as of March 31, 2020, after giving effect to the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 16,572,935 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering.
After giving further effect to our sale of 7,352,941 shares of common stock in this offering at the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us, our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value as of March 31, 2020 would have been approximately $123.3 million, or approximately $5.00 per share. This represents an immediate increase in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of $4.38 to our existing stockholders and an immediate dilution in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of approximately $12.00 to new investors purchasing common stock in this offering. Dilution per share to new investors purchasing common stock in this offering is determined by subtracting pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering from the assumed initial public offering price per share paid by new investors.
The following table illustrates this dilution on a per share basis:
Assumed initial public offering price per share |
$ | 17.00 | ||||||
Historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share as of March 31, 2020 |
$ | (363.30) | ||||||
Pro forma increase in net tangible book value per share as of March 31, 2020 |
363.92 | |||||||
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Pro forma net tangible book value per share as of March 31, 2020 |
0.62 | |||||||
Increase in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share attributable to new investors purchasing shares in this offering |
4.38 | |||||||
|
|
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Pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering |
5.00 | |||||||
|
|
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Dilution per share to new investors purchasing shares in this offering |
$ | 12.00 | ||||||
|
|
The dilution information discussed above is illustrative only and may change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering. Each $1.00 increase in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) would increase our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $0.28 per share and the dilution per share to new investors in this offering by $0.72 per share, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts
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and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, each $1.00 decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share would decrease our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $0.28 per share and the dilution per share to new investors in this offering by $0.72 per share, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.
Each increase of 1.0 million in the number of shares of common stock offered by us would increase our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $0.42 per share and decrease the dilution per share to new investors in this offering by $0.42 per share, assuming the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, each decrease of 1.0 million in the number of shares of common stock offered by us would decrease our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $0.46 per share and increase the dilution per share to new investors in this offering by $0.46 per share, assuming the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.
The following table summarizes, as of March 31, 2020, on a pro forma as adjusted basis as described above, the difference between existing stockholders and investors purchasing shares in this offering with respect to the number of shares of common stock purchased from us, the total consideration paid to us, and the weighted-average price per share paid, before deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us:
Shares Purchased | Total Consideration | Weighted-Average Price Per Share |
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Number | Percent | Amount | Percent | |||||||||||||||||
Existing stockholders before this offering(1) |
17,283,776 | 70.2 | % | $ | 259,802,274 | 67.5 | % | $ | 15.03 | |||||||||||
Investors purchasing shares in this offering |
7,352,941 | 29.8 | 124,999,997 | 32.5 | $ | 17.00 | ||||||||||||||
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|
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Total |
24,636,717 | 100.0 | % | $ | 384,801,271 | 100.0 | % | |||||||||||||
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(1) | Certain of our existing stockholders have indicated an interest in purchasing up to approximately $45.0 million of shares of our common stock in this offering at the initial public offering price. The presentation in this table regarding ownership by existing stockholders does not give effect to any purchases in this offering by such stockholders, or any purchases that existing stockholders may make through our directed share program. |
The table above assumes no exercise of the underwriters option to purchase 1,102,941 additional shares in this offering. If the underwriters option to purchase additional shares is exercised in full, the number of shares of our common stock held by existing stockholders would be reduced to 67.1% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding after this offering, and the number of shares of common stock held by new investors participating in the offering would be increased to 32.9% of the total number of shares outstanding after this offering.
Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $17.00 per share (which is the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) would increase (decrease) the total consideration paid by new investors by $7.4 million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same. Similarly, each increase (decrease) of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares offered by us would increase (decrease) the total consideration paid by new investors by $17.0 million, assuming no change in the assumed initial public offering price.
The foregoing tables and calculations (other than the historical net tangible book value calculation) are based on the 17,283,776 shares of our common stock (including all shares of our convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) outstanding as of March 31, 2020, and excludes:
| 509,562 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of approximately $0.17 per share; |
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| 446,990 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants to purchase shares of convertible preferred stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, which will be automatically converted into warrants to purchase shares of our common stock immediately prior to the completion of this offering, with a weighted-average exercise price of $16.67 per share; |
| 2,746,088 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2020, with a weighted-average exercise price of $11.01 per share; |
| 567,509 shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting and settlement of outstanding RSUs as of March 31, 2020, of which 269,701 units will vest upon the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part; |
| 2,193,360 shares of our common stock reserved for future grants under our 2020 Plan, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, plus shares of our common stock subject to awards granted under our 2011 Plan, which expire or otherwise terminate without having been exercised in full or are forfeited to or repurchased by us, which shares will be added to the shares to be reserved under our 2020 Plan (up to a maximum of 3,163,780 shares), as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 Plan, including: |
| 17,976 shares of our common stock issued to certain of our consultants pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the vesting of RSUs granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, and having an aggregate grant date fair value of $3.8 million (which would equal approximately 226,315 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), |
| shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price, and having an aggregate grant date fair value of $8.1 million (which would equal 666,964 shares of our common stock based on the midpoint of the estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), and |
| an additional 219,593 shares of our common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our common stock granted to certain of our executive officers and employees pursuant to our 2020 Plan, with a grant date of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part and with an exercise price equal to the initial public offering price; and |
| 387,063 shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2020 ESPP, which will become effective immediately prior to the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, as well as any automatic increases in the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance pursuant to the 2020 ESPP. |
To the extent that any outstanding options to purchase shares of our common stock are exercised or new awards are granted under our equity compensation plans, or we issue additional shares of common stock or other securities convertible into or exercisable or exchangeable for shares of our capital stock in the future, there will be further dilution to investors participating in this offering.
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SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA
The following tables set forth our selected historical consolidated financial data as of and for the periods indicated. We have derived the selected consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have derived the selected consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of March 31, 2020 from our unaudited interim consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. You should read this data together with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the information in the section titled Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. The selected consolidated financial data included in this section are not intended to replace the consolidated financial statements and related notes and are qualified in their entirety by our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any other period and our interim results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the full year ending December 31, 2020.
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
|||||||||||||||
(in thousands, except share and per share data) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data: |
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Revenue(2) |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | $ | 2,836 | $ | 2,166 | ||||||||
Costs and operating expenses: |
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Cost of products sold(1) |
3,194 | 2,176 | 9,243 | 7,510 | ||||||||||||
Research and development(1) |
7,973 | 4,377 | 23,029 | 19,077 | ||||||||||||
Research and developmentlicense acquired |
| | 15,000 | | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative(1) |
10,235 | 4,093 | 26,847 | 13,330 | ||||||||||||
Impairment of property and equipment |
| | 786 | | ||||||||||||
Change in fair value of contingent consideration |
(2,219 | ) | | 500 | | |||||||||||
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Total costs and operating expenses |
19,183 | 10,646 | 75,405 | 39,917 | ||||||||||||
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Loss from operations |
(17,600 | ) | (9,859 | ) | (72,569 | ) | (37,751 | ) | ||||||||
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Other income (expense): |
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Change in fair value of warrant liability and embedded derivative |
581 | 841 | (1,919 | ) | (4,298 | ) | ||||||||||
Loss on issuance of convertible notes and warrants |
| | | (924 | ) | |||||||||||
Loss on debt extinguishment |
| | (1,447 | ) | | |||||||||||
Interest income |
275 | 65 | 1,164 | 297 | ||||||||||||
Interest expense |
(1,354 | ) | (5,742 | ) | (22,268 | ) | (5,231 | ) | ||||||||
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Total other income (expense), net |
(498 | ) | (4,836 | ) | (24,470 | ) | (10,156 | ) | ||||||||
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Loss before income taxes |
(18,098 | ) | (14,695 | ) | (97,039 | ) | (47,907 | ) | ||||||||
Income tax benefit |
| | | | ||||||||||||
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Net loss |
$ | (18,098 | ) | $ | (14,695 | ) | $ | (97,039 | ) | $ | (47,907 | ) | ||||
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Net loss per common share, basic and diluted(3) |
$ | (25.84 | ) | $ | (22.38 | ) | $ | (144.41 | ) | $ | (87.78 | ) | ||||
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Weighted-average shares outstanding, basic and diluted(3) |
700,505 | 656,654 | 671,953 | 545,776 | ||||||||||||
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Pro forma net loss per common share, basic and diluted (unaudited)(3) |
$ | (1.05 | ) | $ | (5.76 | ) | ||||||||||
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|
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Pro forma weighted-average shares outstanding, basic and diluted (unaudited)(3) |
17,273,440 | 16,851,825 | ||||||||||||||
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(1) | The following table sets forth the stock-based compensation expense included in our consolidated results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
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(in thousands) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Cost of products sold |
$ | 108 | $ | 52 | $ | 209 | $ | 215 | ||||||||
Research and development |
211 | 142 | 656 | 564 | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative |
1,422 | 365 | 2,129 | 1,292 | ||||||||||||
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Total stock-based compensation expense |
$ | 1,741 | $ | 559 | $ | 2,994 | $ | 2,071 | ||||||||
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(2) | The following table sets forth our revenue for disposables and systems/service for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Year Ended December 31, |
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(in thousands) | 2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||||||
Disposables |
$ | 1,057 | $ | 782 | $ | 2,817 | $ | 2,160 | ||||||||
Systems/service |
526 | 5 | 19 | 6 | ||||||||||||
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Total revenue |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | $ | 2,836 | $ | 2,166 | ||||||||
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(3) | See Note 16 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for an explanation of the calculations of our basic and diluted net loss per common share, basic and diluted pro forma net loss per common share and the weighted-average number of shares used in the computation of the per share amounts. |
As of March 31, 2020 |
As of December 31, | |||||||||||
2019 | 2018 | |||||||||||
(unaudited) | ||||||||||||
(in thousands) | ||||||||||||
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: |
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Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities |
$ | 49,880 | $ | 71,803 | $ | 17,745 | ||||||
Working capital (deficit)(1) |
38,363 | 50,546 | (2,923 | ) | ||||||||
Total assets |
87,106 | 105,455 | 25,948 | |||||||||
Contingent consideration, short- and long-term |
6,900 | 13,900 | | |||||||||
Common and preferred stock warrant liability |
8,338 | 8,919 | 6,842 | |||||||||
Long-term debt |
38,398 | 38,244 | 14,591 | |||||||||
Convertible preferred stock |
260,555 | 253,358 | 118,319 | |||||||||
Accumulated deficit |
(277,132 | ) | (259,034 | ) | (161,995 | ) | ||||||
Total stockholders deficit |
(242,222 | ) | (225,811 | ) | (131,824 | ) |
(1) | Working capital (deficit) is defined as total current assets less total current liabilities. See our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus for further details regarding our current assets and current liabilities. |
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MANAGEMENTS DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF
FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations together with our consolidated financial statements and related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this prospectus. Some of the information contained in this discussion and analysis or set forth elsewhere in this prospectus, including information with respect to our plans and strategy for our business, includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. You should review the section titled Risk Factors for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion and analysis.
Overview
We are an arrhythmia management company focused on improving the way cardiac arrhythmias are diagnosed and treated. Despite several decades of effort by the incumbents in this field, the clinical and economic challenges associated with arrhythmia treatment continue to be a huge burden for patients, providers and payors. We are committed to advancing the field of electrophysiology with a unique array of products and technologies which will enable more physicians to treat more patients more effectively and efficiently. Through internal product development, acquisitions and global partnerships, we have established a global sales presence delivering a broad portfolio of highly differentiated electrophysiology products. Our goal is to provide our customers with a complete solution for catheter-based treatment of cardiac arrhythmias in each of our geographic markets.
Our product portfolio includes novel access catheters, diagnostic and mapping catheters, ablation catheters, mapping and imaging consoles and accessories, as well as supporting algorithms and software programs. Our foundational and most highly differentiated product is our AcQMap imaging and mapping system. Our paradigm-shifting AcQMap System offers a novel approach to mapping the drivers and maintainers of arrhythmias with unmatched speed and precision. With the ability to rapidly and accurately identify ablation targets and to confirm both ablation success and procedural completion, we believe our AcQMap System addresses the primary unmet need in electrophysiology procedures today.
We were incorporated in the State of Delaware on March 25, 2011 and are headquartered in Carlsbad, California. Early versions of our AcQMap System and certain related accessory products have been used in the United States since May 2018 and Western Europe since July 2016 in a limited, pilot launch capacity, where our focus was on optimizing workflow and validating our value proposition. We fully commenced the launch of our commercial-grade console and software products in the first quarter of 2020. Critical to our launch were a series of recent strategic transactions and regulatory approvals, including: FDA 510(k) clearance and CE Mark of our second-generation AcQMap console and SuperMap software suite; the addition of an integrated family of transseptal crossing and steerable introducer systems to our product portfolio through our acquisition of Rhythm Xience, Inc., or Rhythm Xience; and the acquisition of our AcQBlate Force sensing product line from Biotronik SE & Co. KG, or Biotronik. Since our full launch, we have continued to enhance our product portfolio and global presence by entering into bi-lateral distribution agreements with Biotronik in May 2020, which added a full suite of diagnostic and ablation catheters to our product portfolio and significantly expanded our international distribution and market development capabilities.
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The diagram below depicts a chronology of these and other key events since our inception:
We market our electrophysiology products worldwide to hospitals and electrophysiologists that treat patients with arrhythmias. We have strategically developed a direct selling presence in the United States and select markets in Western Europe where cardiac ablation is a standard of care and third-party reimbursement is well-established. In these markets, we install our AcQMap console and workstation with customer accounts and then sell our disposable products to those accounts for use with our system. In other international markets, we leverage our partnership with Biotronik to install our AcQMap console and workstation with customer accounts and then to sell our disposable products to those accounts. Once an AcQMap console and workstation is established in a customer account, our revenue from that account becomes predominantly recurring in nature and derived from the sale of our portfolio of disposable products used with our system. Our currently marketed disposable products include access sheaths, transseptal crossing tools, diagnostic and mapping catheters, ablation catheters and accessories. We plan to leverage the geographically concentrated nature of procedure volumes and the recurring nature of our sales to drive an increasingly efficient commercial model.
As of June 30, 2020, our commercial organization consisted of 60 individuals with substantial applicable medical device, sales and clinical experience, including sales managers, sales representatives and mappers. Over time, we plan to selectively add highly qualified personnel to our commercial organization with a strategic mix of sales representatives and mappers to cover the concentrated group of hospitals that we believe perform the majority of the cardiac ablation procedures in our direct markets.
Our revenue has historically consisted predominantly of sales of our disposable products (principally our mapping catheters and related access sheaths, and to a lesser extent our transseptal crossing tools, ablation catheters and other accessories), as we generally loaned our first-generation AcQMap console and workstation to our customers without charge to facilitate the use of our disposable products. Beginning in late 2019, we began to install our second-generation AcQMap console and workstation with customers under evaluation contracts. Under these evaluation contracts, we place our AcQMap console and workstation with customers for no upfront fee to the customer during the applicable evaluation period and seek to reach agreement with the customer for purchase of the console and workstation in the form of a contractual commitment to purchase a minimum amount of our disposable products or a cash purchase. In addition, we have also generated a small portion of our revenue from service agreements with our customers.
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We currently manufacture our novel access sheaths, transseptal crossing tools, diagnostic and mapping catheters, ablation catheters, mapping and imaging consoles and accessories at our approximately 50,800 square foot facility in Carlsbad, California. This facility provides approximately 15,750 square feet of space for our production and distribution operations, including manufacturing, quality control and storage. In addition, we stock inventory of raw materials, components and finished goods at our facility in Carlsbad and, to a limited extent, with our sales representatives, who travel to our customers locations as part of their sales efforts. We rely on a single or limited number of suppliers for certain raw materials and components, and we generally have no long-term supply arrangements with our suppliers, as we generally order on a purchase order basis. Furthermore, we rely on third parties to manufacture certain products we offer our customers as part of our product portfolio, including Biotronik for diagnostic and ablation catheters, radiofrequency, or RF, generators and irrigation pumps, Innovative Health for reprocessed diagnostic catheters and MedFact for robotic navigation enabled ablation catheters.
As of March 31, 2020, we have completed three clinical trials that collectively evaluated 223 subjects across 16 centers in multiple countries. We are currently conducting two post-market trials to provide physicians with additional safety and effectiveness data on the use of our AcQMap System, and we are planning two investigational device exemption, or IDE, trials to support regulatory approval of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters. Our ongoing and planned trials are anticipated to involve an aggregate of over 700 subjects in at least 35 centers in the United States and internationally. We expect to provide data readouts from these ongoing and planned trials at various points in time through 2023.
For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the year ended December 31, 2019, we generated revenue of $1.6 million and $2.8 million, respectively, of which 51% and 74%, respectively, was from customers located outside of the United States. Since our inception, we have generated significant losses. Our net loss was $18.1 million and $97.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the year ended December 31, 2019 (which included $15.0 million in payments attributable to the product line we acquired from Biotronik pursuant to the Biotronik License Agreement), respectively. As of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, we had an accumulated deficit of $277.1 million and $259.0 million, respectively, and working capital of $38.4 million and $50.5 million, respectively. Prior to this offering, our operations have been financed primarily by aggregate net proceeds from the sale of our convertible preferred stock and principal of our converted debt of $253.9 million, as well as other indebtedness.
We intend to continue to make significant investments in our sales and marketing organization. We believe increasing the number of sales representatives and expanding our international marketing programs will help facilitate further adoption of our products among existing customer accounts as well as broaden awareness of our products to new accounts. We also expect to continue to make substantial investments in our ongoing clinical trials and in additional clinical trials that are designed to provide clinical evidence of the safety and effectiveness of our existing and future generations of products. We expect to continue to make investments in research and development and regulatory affairs to develop future generations of products based on our technology, supported with appropriate regulatory submissions. We may in the future seek to acquire or invest in additional businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our portfolio, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. We will also incur costs as a public company that we have not previously incurred or have previously incurred at lower rates, including increased costs for employee-related expenses, director and officer insurance premiums, audit and legal fees, investor relations fees, fees to members of our board of directors and expenses for compliance with public-company reporting requirements under the Exchange Act and rules implemented by the SEC, as well as Nasdaq rules. Because of these and other factors, we expect to continue to incur substantial net losses and negative cash flows from operations for at least the next several years.
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Biotronik Agreements
Biotronik License Agreement
In July 2019, we entered into the Biotronik License Agreement with Biotronik and VascoMed GmbH, or VascoMed (who we refer to together as the Biotronik Parties), whereby we acquired certain manufacturing equipment and obtained from the Biotronik Parties a license under certain patents and technology to develop, commercialize, distribute and manufacture our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters and Qubic Force device. We refer to this transaction as the Biotronik Asset Acquisition. Pursuant to the Biotronik License Agreement, we paid Biotronik a $3.0 million upfront fee at the time the agreement was signed, as well as a technology transfer fee consisting of $7.0 million in cash in December 2019 and $5.0 million in shares of our Series D convertible preferred stock in February 2020.
The Biotronik License Agreement also requires that we pay the Biotronik Parties certain milestone payments as follows: (i) $2.0 million upon receipt of marketing approval for the sale of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters in Europe; (ii) $5.0 million upon the receipt of marketing approval for the sale of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters in the United States; and (iii) $3.0 million upon the first commercial sale of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters in the United States. We are also required to pay the Biotronik Parties unit-based royalties on any sales we make of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters following commercialization.
Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements
In May 2020, we entered into more expansive bi-lateral distribution agreements with Biotronik. We refer to these agreements as the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements and our relationship with Biotronik as the Acutus/Biotronik Global Alliance for Electrophysiology. Pursuant to our Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements, we obtained a non-exclusive license to distribute a range of Biotroniks therapeutic electrophysiology products and accessories (including the AlCath family of RF ablation catheters) in the United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong and multiple Western European countries under our own private label. Moreover, if an IDE clinical trial is required for these products to obtain regulatory approval in the United States, or a clinical trial is required for these products to obtain regulatory approval in China, we will obtain an exclusive distribution right in such territories for a term of up to five years commencing on the date of regulatory approval if we cover the cost of the IDE or other clinical trial and we conduct such study within a specified period. We also obtained a non-exclusive license to distribute a range of Biotroniks diagnostic electrophysiology products and accessories in each of the foregoing territories under our own private label.
Pursuant to the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements, Biotronik has also agreed to distribute our products, including our AcQMap System, our Qubic Force device and our disposable products (including our AcQBlate Force catheters) and accessories in Germany, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland and multiple countries in Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America. We also granted Biotronik a co-exclusive right to distribute these products in Hong Kong. Biotronik is required to use our branding with respect to the AcQMap console and workstation, but retains the right to distribute our disposable products and accessories under its private label. Each party will pay to the other party specified transfer prices on the sale of the other partys products under the Bi-Lateral Distribution Agreements and, accordingly, will earn a distribution margin on the sale of the other partys products.
For a further description of our agreements with Biotronik, see the section titled BusinessBiotronik Agreements.
Key Business Metric
We regularly review a number of operating and financial metrics, including the following key business metric, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections and make strategic decisions. We believe that the following metric is representative of our
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current business. However, we anticipate this metric may change or may be substituted for additional or different metrics as our business grows and as we introduce new products.
Installed Base
Once an AcQMap console and workstation is established in a customer account, our revenue from that account becomes predominantly recurring in nature and derived from the sale of our portfolio of disposable products used with our system. We believe our installed base is one of the key indicators of our ability to drive customer adoption of our products. We define our installed base as the cumulative number of AcQMap consoles and workstations placed into service at customer sites, all of which to date were originally placed without charge to the customer. Beginning in late 2019, we began to install our second-generation AcQMap console and workstation with customers under evaluation contracts. Under these evaluation contracts, we place our AcQMap console and workstation with customers for no upfront fee to the customer during the applicable evaluation period and seek to reach agreement with the customer for purchase of the console and workstation in the form of a contractual commitment to purchase a minimum amount of our disposable products or a cash purchase. Our installed base as of March 31, 2020 and 2019 and December 31, 2019 and 2018 is set forth in the table below:
As of | ||||||||||||||||
March 31, | December 31, | |||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2019 | 2018 | |||||||||||||
Installed base: |
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United States |
13 | 6 | 10 | 5 | ||||||||||||
International |
18 | 17 | 17 | 16 | ||||||||||||
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Total |
31 | 23 | 27 | 21 | ||||||||||||
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Growth in our quarterly installed base can fluctuate due to a number of factors, including the commercial effectiveness of our sales representatives and strategic partners such as Biotronik, and the procurement and budgeting cycles of many of our customers, especially those where unused funds may be forfeited or future budgets may be reduced if purchases are not made by their fiscal year end. We also believe the timing of installations has been impacted and will continue to be impacted by the timing of product introductions and transitions. In addition, the growth of our market in certain geographic regions and our continued efforts to service these regions impact unit volumes quarter to quarter.
Factors Affecting Our Performance
There are a number of factors that have impacted, and we believe will continue to impact, or that we expect to impact, our results of operations and growth. These factors include:
| Market Acceptance. The growth of our business will depend substantially on our ability to increase our installed base. Once an AcQMap console and workstation is established in a customer account, our revenue from that account becomes predominantly recurring in nature and derived from the sale of our portfolio of disposable products used with our system. Our ability to increase our installed base will depend on our ability to gain broader acceptance of our AcQMap System by continuing to make physicians and other hospital staff aware of the benefits of the AcQMap System, thereby generating increased demand for system installations and the frequency of use of our disposable products. Although we are attempting to increase our installed base through our established relationships and focused sales efforts, we cannot provide assurance that our efforts will be successful. |
| Commercial Organization Size and Effectiveness. As of June 30, 2020, our commercial organization consisted of 60 individuals with substantial applicable medical device, sales and clinical experience, including sales managers, sales representatives and mappers. We intend to continue to make significant investments in our commercial organization by increasing the number of our sales representatives, sales managers and mappers, as well as by expanding our global marketing and training programs, to |
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help facilitate further adoption of our products among existing and new customer accounts. The rate at which we grow our commercial organization and the speed at which newly hired personnel become effective can impact our revenue growth or our costs incurred in anticipation of such growth. |
| Strategic Partnerships and Acquisitions. We have in the past, and may in the future, enter into strategic partnerships and acquire complementary businesses, products or technologies. For example, we have entered into strategic partnerships with Innovative Health and Stereotaxis and, most recently, we entered into our Global Alliance for Electrophysiology with Biotronik in May 2020. In addition, we added an integrated family of transseptal crossing and steerable introducer systems to our product portfolio through our acquisition of Rhythm Xience in June 2019 and acquired our AcQBlate Force sensing product line from Biotronik in July 2019. Our strategic partnerships and acquisitions have helped us establish a global sales presence delivering a broad portfolio of highly differentiated electrophysiology products. Our ability to grow our revenue will depend substantially on our ability to leverage our strategic partnerships and acquisitions to achieve distribution at a global scale, broaden our product portfolio and enable and accelerate global connectivity. |
| Continued Investment in Innovation. Our business strategy relies significantly on innovation to develop and introduce new products and to differentiate our products from our competitors. For example, in 2019, our research and development team released five new disposable products, two hardware products, including a major generational update to our AcQMap System, and 15 software updates. We expect our research and development expenditures to increase as we make additional investments to support our growth strategies. We plan to increase our research and development expenditures with internal initiatives, as well as potentially licensing or acquiring technology from third parties. We also expect expenditures associated with our manufacturing organization to grow over time as production volume increases and we bring new products to market. Our internal and external investments will be focused on initiatives that we believe will offer the greatest opportunity for growth and profitability. With a significant investment in research and development, a strong focus on innovation and a well-managed innovation process, we believe we can continue to innovate and grow. Introducing additional, innovative products is also expected to help support our existing installed base and help drive demand for additional installations of our system. If, however, our future innovations are not successful in meeting customers needs or prove to be too costly relative to their perceived benefit, we may not be successful. Moreover, as cost of products sold, operating expenses and capital expenditures fluctuate over time, we may experience short-term, negative impacts to our results of operations and cash flows, but we are undertaking such investments in the belief that they will contribute to long-term growth. |
| Product and Geographic Mix; Timing. Our financial results, including our gross margins, may fluctuate from period to period due to a variety of factors, including: average selling prices; production volumes; the cost of direct materials; the timing of customer orders or medical procedures and the timing and number of system installations; the number of available selling days in a particular period, which can be impacted by a number of factors such as holidays or days of severe inclement weather in a particular geography; the mix of products sold and the geographic mix of where products are sold; the level of reimbursement available for our products; discounting practices; manufacturing costs; product yields; headcount; and cost-reduction strategies. For example, gross margins on the sale of our products by our direct selling organization in the United States and Western Europe are higher than gross margins on the sale of our products by Biotronik in other parts of the world. Moreover, gross margins on the sale of our proprietary products are generally higher than gross margins on the sale of products we source through our strategic partnerships with third parties. Future selling prices and gross margins for our products may fluctuate due to a variety of other factors, including the introduction by others of competing products or the attempted integration by third parties of capabilities similar to ours into their existing products. We aim to mitigate downward pressure on our selling prices by increasing the value proposition offered by our products through innovation. While we have not yet experienced significant seasonality in our results, it is not uncommon in our industry to experience seasonally weaker revenue during the summer months and end-of-year holiday season. |
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| Regulatory Approvals/Clearances and Timing and Efficiency of New Product Introductions. We are seeking FDA clearance and CE Mark for the use of our AcQBlate Force ablation catheters and Qubic Force device in the United States and Europe, as well as regulatory clearance or approval of our other pipeline products in the United States and in international markets. Our ability to grow our revenue will depend on our obtaining necessary regulatory approvals or clearances for our products. In addition, as we introduce new products, we expect to build our inventory of components and finished goods in advance of sales, which may cause quarterly fluctuations in our results of operations. |
| Competition. Our industry is intensely competitive, subject to rapid change and significantly affected by new product introductions and other market activities of industry participants. Our most significant competitors are large, well-capitalized companies. We must continue to successfully compete considering our competitors existing and future products and related pricing and their resources to successfully market to the physicians who could use our products. Publications of clinical results by us, our competitors and other third parties can also have a significant influence on whether, and the degree to which, we are able to gain market share and increase utilization of our products. |
| COVID-19 Pandemic. Beginning in early March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures imposed to contain this pandemic disrupted and are expected to continue to impact our business. For example, on March 19, 2020, the Executive Department of the State of California issued Executive Order N-33-20, ordering all individuals in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors. Our primary operations are located in Carlsbad, California. As a result of such order, the majority of our employees have telecommuted, which may impact certain of our operations over the near term and long term. Moreover, beginning in March 2020, access to hospitals and other customer sites has been restricted to essential personnel, which has negatively impacted our ability to install our AcQMap consoles and workstations in new accounts and for our sales representatives and mappers to promote the use of our products with physicians. Moreover, hospitals and other therapeutic centers have suspended many elective procedures, resulting in a significantly reduced volume of procedures using our products. In addition, all clinical trials in Europe have been suspended with follow-ups for clinical trials done via telecom, and we believe enrollment timing in our planned clinical trials will be slowed due to COVID-19 driven delayed access to enrollment sites. As a result of the interruptions to our business due to COVID-19, we have enacted a cash conservation program, which includes delaying certain non-critical capital expenditures and other projects and implementing a hiring freeze and temporary compensation and headcount reductions throughout our organization. Although the effects of the pandemic began to decrease in late April 2020 as electrophysiology labs began reopening and procedure volumes began increasing as compared to COVID-19 related low points in March 2020, the magnitude of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our productivity, results of operations and financial position, and its disruption to our business and our clinical programs and timelines, will depend, in part, on the length and severity of these restrictions and on our ability to conduct business in the ordinary course. Quarantines, shelter-in-place and similar government orders have also impacted, and may continue to impact, our third-party manufacturers and suppliers, and could in turn adversely impact the availability or cost of materials, which could disrupt our supply chain. |
In addition, we may experience meaningful variability in our quarterly revenue and gross profit/loss as a result of a number of factors, including, but not limited to: inventory write-offs and write-downs; costs, benefits and timing of new product introductions; the availability and cost of components and raw materials; and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. Additionally, we may experience quarters in which our costs and operating expenses, in particular our research and development expenses, fluctuate depending on the stage and timing of product development.
While certain of these factors may present significant opportunities for us, they all pose significant risks and challenges that we must address. See the section titled Risk Factors for more information.
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Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
Our revenue consists of: (i) revenue from the sale of our disposable products; and (ii) systems and service revenue. In the United States and select markets in Western Europe where we have developed a direct selling presence, we install our AcQMap console and workstation with our customer accounts and then generate revenue from the sale of our disposable products to these accounts for use with our system. In other international markets, we leverage our partnership with Biotronik to install our AcQMap console and workstation with customer accounts and then generate revenue from Biotroniks sale of our disposable products to these accounts for use with our system. Our currently marketed disposable products include access sheaths, transseptal crossing tools, diagnostic and mapping catheters, ablation catheters and accessories.
Our revenue has historically consisted predominantly of sales of our disposable products (principally our mapping catheters and related access sheaths, and to a lesser extent our transseptal crossing tools, ablation catheters and other accessories), as we generally loaned our first-generation AcQMap console and workstation to our customers without charge to facilitate the use of our disposable products. Beginning in late 2019, we began to install our second-generation AcQMap console and workstation with customers under evaluation contracts. Under these evaluation contracts, we place our second-generation AcQMap console and workstation with customers for no upfront fee to the customer during the applicable evaluation period and seek to reach agreement with the customer for purchase of the console and workstation in the form of a contractual commitment to purchase a minimum amount of our disposable products or a cash purchase. When a sale of a second-generation AcQMap system is made, the sale includes installation of the equipment, software updates and maintenance, and equipment service. Evaluation contracts are not accounted for as sales under ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers. In addition, we also generate a small portion of our revenue from service agreements. Revenue is recognized when the customer obtains control of the promised goods or services, generally at a point in time, and is recognized in an amount that reflects the consideration that we expect to receive in exchange for those goods or services. For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, approximately 51%, 74% and 79%, respectively, of our sales were denominated in currencies other than U.S. dollars, primarily in Euros and the British Pound Sterling, or GBP. Our revenue is subject to fluctuation based on the foreign currency in which our products are sold.
Costs and Operating Expenses
Cost of Products Sold
Cost of products sold consist primarily of raw materials, direct labor, manufacturing overhead associated with the production and sale of our disposable products and, to a more limited extent, production and depreciation of our AcQMap console and workstation that we install with our customer accounts. We depreciate equipment over a three-year period. Cost of products sold also includes expenditures for warranty, field service, freight, royalties and inventory reserve provisions. We expect cost of products sold to increase in absolute dollars in future periods as our revenue increases.
Gross profit is calculated as revenue less cost of products sold. Gross margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of revenue. Our gross margins may fluctuate from period to period due to a variety of factors, including: average selling prices; production volumes; the cost of direct materials; the timing of customer orders or medical procedures and the timing and number of system installations; the number of available selling days in a particular period, which can be impacted by a number of factors such as holidays or days of severe inclement weather in a particular geography; the mix of products sold and the geographic mix of where products are sold; the level of reimbursement available for our products; discounting practices; manufacturing costs; product yields; headcount; and cost-reduction strategies. For example, gross margins on the sale of our products by our direct selling organization in the United States and Western Europe are higher than gross margins on the sale of our products by Biotronik in other parts of the world. Moreover, gross margins on the sale of our proprietary
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products are generally higher than gross margins on the sale of products we source through our strategic partnerships with third parties. Future selling prices and gross margins for our products may fluctuate due to a variety of other factors, including the introduction by others of competing products or the attempted integration by third parties of capabilities similar to ours into their existing products. We aim to mitigate downward pressure on our selling prices by increasing the value proposition offered by our products through innovation.
In addition, we have experienced negative gross margins in recent periods as a result of significant investments in our infrastructure to support our commercial launch and to enable our production volumes to scale as our business grows. We expect our gross margins to increase over the long term to the extent we are successful in increasing our sales volume and are therefore able to leverage our fixed costs. We intend to use our design, engineering and manufacturing capabilities to further advance and improve the efficiency of our manufacturing processes, which, if successful, we believe will reduce costs and enable us to increase our gross margins. Such manufacturing cost improvement efforts may involve moving production of key subassemblies in house, volume driven supplier cost reductions and process redesigns. While we expect gross margins to increase over the long term, they will likely fluctuate from quarter to quarter as we continue to introduce new products and adopt new manufacturing processes and technologies.
Research and Development Expenses
Research and development expenses consist primarily of salaries and employee-related costs (including stock-based compensation) for personnel directly engaged in research and development activities, clinical trial expenses, equipment costs, materials costs, allocated rent and facilities costs and depreciation.
Research and development expenses related to possible future products are expensed as incurred. We also accrue and expense costs for activities associated with clinical trials performed by third parties as incurred. All other costs relative to setting up clinical trial sites are expensed as incurred. Clinical trial site costs related to patient enrollment are accrued as patients are entered into the trials.
We expect our research and development expenses to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, though they may vary from period to period as a percentage of revenue, as we hire additional research and development personnel, as well as continue to develop new products, enhance existing products and technologies and perform activities related to obtaining additional regulatory approvals or clearances.
Research and Development ExpensesLicense Acquired
In July 2019, we entered into the Biotronik License Agreement with the Biotronik Parties in connection with the Biotronik Asset Acquisition. In accordance with Accounting Standards Codification, or ASC, 805, Business Combinations, the Biotronik Asset Acquisition was accounted for as an asset acquisition as substantially all of the $15.0 million in value transferred to Biotronik was allocated to intellectual property. On the acquisition date, the products licensed had not yet received regulatory approval and the intellectual property did not have an alternative use. Accordingly, the $15.0 million paid to Biotronik was immediately charged to research and development expenseslicense acquired in our consolidated statement of operations and comprehensive loss. Additional contingent milestone payments of up to $10.0 million are to be made to the Biotronik Parties upon certain regulatory approvals and first commercial sale, as described above. In further consideration of the rights granted, beginning with our first commercial sale of the first force sensing ablation catheter within the licensed product line, we will also make per unit royalty payments. We have determined that as of the acquisition date and as of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, the contingent milestone and royalty payments are not probable and estimable and therefore have not been recorded as a liability. Upon regulatory approval of our force sensing ablation catheter in Europe, the milestone payments will be capitalized and amortized, and the royalty payments will be recorded as cost of products sold as sales of catheters are recognized.
Selling, General and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses consist primarily of salaries and employee-related costs (including stock-based compensation) for personnel in sales, executive, finance and other administrative
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functions, allocated rent and facilities costs, legal fees relating to intellectual property and corporate matters, professional fees for accounting and consulting services, marketing costs and insurance costs.
We expect our selling, general and administrative expenses to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future, though they may vary from period to period as a percentage of revenue, as we expand our sale force and increase the number of our mappers, increase our professional education and physician training, as well as to support our expanded infrastructure and incur increased costs associated with operating as a public company. These increases are expected to include increased costs for fees to members of our board of directors, increased employee-related expenses, and increased director and officer insurance premiums, audit and legal fees, investor relations fees and expenses for compliance with public company reporting requirements under the Exchange Act and rules implemented by the SEC, as well as stock exchange rules.
Other Income (Expense)
Change in Fair Value of Warrant Liability
We accounted for certain of our freestanding warrants to purchase shares of our common stock and preferred stock as liabilities at fair value. We accounted for certain features of our convertible notes issued in 2018, or the 2018 Convertible Notes (which were converted into shares of our Series D convertible preferred stock in 2019), that were determined to be an embedded derivative requiring bifurcation and separate accounting at fair value. The warrants and embedded derivative were subject to re-measurement at each balance sheet date with gains and losses reported in our consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss.
Loss on Issuance of Convertible Notes and Warrants
We recorded a loss on the issuance of the 2018 Convertible Notes and warrants for the excess fair value of the automatic conversion feature of the notes after allocating the gross proceeds of the 2018 Convertible Notes to the fair value of the warrants and the beneficial conversion feature held by the noteholders.
Loss on Debt Extinguishment
During 2019, we prepaid the entire principal amount of our loan under our loan and security agreement with Oxford Finance LLC, or the 2018 Term Loan. We recorded a loss on debt extinguishment for the write off of deferred financing fees, the prepayment penalty and related fees upon our prepayment of this loan.
Interest Income
Interest income consists primarily of interest earned on our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.
Interest Expense
Interest expense relates to our: (i) Credit Agreement with Orbimed Royalty Opportunities II, LP and Deerfield Private Design Fund II, L.P., or the 2019 Credit Agreement; (ii) 2018 Term Loan, which was repaid during 2019; (iii) 2018 Convertible Notes; and (iv) convertible notes issued in 2019, or the 2019 Convertible Notes. Our 2018 Convertible Notes and our 2019 Convertible Notes were converted into shares of our Series D convertible preferred stock during 2019.
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Results of Operations for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2020 and 2019
The results of operations presented below should be reviewed in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. The following table sets forth our results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019:
Three Months Ended March 31, |
Change | |||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | $ | % | |||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | (unaudited) |
|||||||||||||||
Revenue(2) |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | $ | 796 | 101% | |||||||||
Costs and operating expenses: |
||||||||||||||||
Cost of products sold(1) |
3,194 | 2,176 | 1,018 | 47% | ||||||||||||
Research and development |
7,973 | 4,377 | 3,596 | 82% | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative(1) |
10,235 | 4,093 | 6,142 | 150% | ||||||||||||
Change in fair value of contingent consideration |
(2,219 | ) | | (2,219 | ) | * | ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Total operating expenses |
19,183 | 10,646 | 8,537 | 80% | ||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Loss from operations |
(17,600 | ) | (9,859 | ) | (7,741 | ) | 79% | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Other income (expense): |
||||||||||||||||
Change in fair value of warrant liability and embedded derivative |
581 | 841 | (260 | ) | (31% | ) | ||||||||||
Interest income |
275 | 65 | 210 | 323% | ||||||||||||
Interest expense |
(1,354 | ) | (5,742 | ) | 4,388 | (76% | ) | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Total other income (expense), net |
(498 | ) | (4,836 | ) | 4,338 | (90% | ) | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Loss before income taxes |
(18,098 | ) | (14,695 | ) | (3,403 | ) | 23% | |||||||||
Income tax benefit |
| | | % | ||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Net loss |
$ | (18,098 | ) | $ | (14,695 | ) | $ | (3,403 | ) | 23% | ||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Other comprehensive income (loss): |
||||||||||||||||
Unrealized gain (loss) on marketable securities |
(27 | ) | 1 | (28 | ) | (2800% | ) | |||||||||
Foreign currency translation adjustment |
(27 | ) | (14 | ) | (13 | ) | 93% | |||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Comprehensive loss |
$ | (18,152 | ) | $ | (14,708 | ) | $ | (3,444 | ) | 23% | ||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* | Not meaningful. |
(1) | The following table sets forth the stock-based compensation expense included in our results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
||||||||
2020 | 2019 | |||||||
(in thousands) | (unaudited) | |||||||
Cost of products sold |
$ | 108 | $ | 52 | ||||
Research and development |
211 | 142 | ||||||
Selling, general and administrative |
1,422 | 365 | ||||||
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|
|
|
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Total stock-based compensation expense |
$ | 1,741 | $ | 559 | ||||
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|
|
(2) | The following table sets forth our revenue for disposables and systems/service for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019: |
Three Months Ended March 31, |
||||||||
2020 | 2019 | |||||||
(in thousands) | (unaudited) | |||||||
Disposables |
$ | 1,057 | $ | 782 | ||||
Systems/service |
526 | 5 | ||||||
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|
|
|
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Total revenue |
$ | 1,583 | $ | 787 | ||||
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|
|
|
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Revenue
Revenue was $1.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $0.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This increase of $0.8 million, or 101%, was primarily attributable to $0.5 million of AcQMap systems sales and a $0.3 million increase in purchase volume of our disposable products used in electrophysiology procedures as a result of a higher installed base, as well as slightly higher average selling prices on certain of our disposable products.
Revenue, classified by the major geographic areas in which our products are shipped, was $0.8 million for the United States and $0.8 million for all other countries in the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $0.2 million for the United States and $0.6 million for all other countries for the comparative period in 2019.
Costs and Operating Expenses
Cost of Products Sold
Cost of products sold was $3.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $2.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This increase of $1.0 million, or 47%, was primarily attributable to $0.5 million due to an increase in sales volume, $0.3 million due to increased manufacturing overhead and direct labor resources to support our full commercial launch and a $0.3 million increase in warranty and field service expense to support the higher installed base. Gross margin was negative 102% for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to negative 176% for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This improvement in gross margin was primarily attributable to increased sales volume of our disposable products.
Research and Development Expenses
Research and development expenses were $8.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $4.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This increase of $3.6 million, or 82%, was primarily attributable to $1.4 million in increased compensation and related costs from higher headcount, and $1.8 million in increased materials and supplies costs related to higher engineering project spending.
Selling, General and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses were $10.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $4.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This increase of $6.1 million, or 150%, was primarily attributable to $4.4 million in increased compensation and related costs due to our investment in our commercial organization in support of our full commercial launch in the United States in the first quarter of 2020, $0.9 million in increased consulting expenses and $0.7 million in increased general marketing expenses.
Change in Fair Value of Contingent Consideration
For the three months ended March 31, 2020, we recorded a change in fair value of contingent consideration of $2.2 million for the decrease in the fair value of the contingent consideration for the acquisition of Rhythm Xience.
Other Income (Expense)
Other expense, net was $0.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $4.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. This decrease of $4.3 million, or 90%, was primarily attributable to a decrease of $4.4 million in interest expense primarily related to the 2019 Credit Agreement and 2018 Convertible Notes.
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Results of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 2019 and 2018
The results of operations presented below should be reviewed in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. The following table sets forth our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018:
Year Ended December 31, |
Change | |||||||||||||||
(dollars in thousands) | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | ||||||||||||
Revenue(2) |
$ | 2,836 | $ | 2,166 | $ | 670 | 31% | |||||||||
Costs and operating expenses: |
||||||||||||||||
Cost of products sold(1) |
9,243 | 7,510 | 1,733 | 23% | ||||||||||||
Research and development(1) |
23,029 | 19,077 | 3,952 | 21% | ||||||||||||
Research and developmentlicense acquired |
15,000 | | 15,000 | 100% | ||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative(1) |
26,847 | 13,330 | 13,517 | 101% | ||||||||||||
Impairment of property and equipment |
786 | | 786 | 100% | ||||||||||||
Change in fair value of contingent consideration |
500 | | 500 | 100% | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total costs and operating expenses |
75,405 | 39,917 | 35,488 | 89% | ||||||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Loss from operations |
(72,569 | ) | (37,751 | ) | (34,818 | ) | 92% | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Other income (expense): |
||||||||||||||||
Change in fair value of warrant liability and embedded derivative |
(1,919 | ) | (4,298 | ) | 2,379 | (55% | ) | |||||||||
Loss on issuance of convertible notes and warrants |
| (924 | ) | 924 | (100% | ) | ||||||||||
Loss on debt extinguishment |
(1,447 | ) | | (1,447 | ) | 100% | ||||||||||
Interest income |
1,164 | 297 | 867 | 292% | ||||||||||||
Interest expense |
(22,268 | ) | (5,231 | ) | (17,037 | ) | 326% | |||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Total other income (expense), net |
(24,470 | ) | (10,156 | ) | (14,314 | ) | 141% | |||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Loss before income taxes |
(97,039 | ) | (47,907 | ) | (49,132 | ) | 103% | |||||||||
Income tax benefit |
| | | % | ||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Net loss |
$ | (97,039 | ) | $ | (47,907 | ) | $ | (49,132 | ) | 103% | ||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
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Other comprehensive income (loss): |
||||||||||||||||
Unrealized gain (loss) on marketable securities |
46 | (1 | ) | 47 | (4700% | ) | ||||||||||
Foreign currency translation adjustment |
(96 | ) | (43 | ) | (53 | ) | 123% | |||||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
Comprehensive loss |
$ | (97,089 | ) | $ | (47,951 | ) | $ | (49,138 | ) | 102% | ||||||
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1) | The following table sets forth the stock-based compensation expense included in our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018: |
Year Ended December 31, | ||||||||
(in thousands) | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||
Cost of products sold |
$ | 209 | $ | 215 | ||||
Research and development |
656 | 564 | ||||||