Modulight Oyj (MODU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I come home back to Finland yesterday around 4 a.m. and have a little bit cough. So apologies for any inconvenience this might cause during the webinar. But all is well, and so let's go to the topic. So as usual, myself, Seppo Orsila, Founder and CEO. And with me is our CFO, Mrs. Anca Guina, as always.

Hello.

So today, we're going to go through the usual agenda and starts with what is Modulight about. So we are about fighting the cancer and same technology is being used in other high value-add applications. So Q3 in brief, we accelerated the implementation of the pay per treatment business model. And we were pleased with the Phase III trials progressing. And as mentioned earlier, the trials are now global. And this resulted also us to being deploying a PPT device also to the Australian continent. The pipeline remained at 30 projects versus 27 a year ago. The main focus in the pipeline was on the Phase III projects, but there was a number of progress within the -- within the other projects, too. And thanks to some of you who have been active in contacting us during the non-silent period, we decided to add here also a remark, which I guess is clear to all of you or at least many of you that all these projects are about commercializing our own products. This is nothing new. This has been so always discussed in the prospectus also, but we may not have emphasized it enough based on the investor feedback. And this time, we also have some good news about utilization of our high-power single-mode laser technology in other high value-add applications. We've been very pleased looking at the order collection, it has clearly increased quarter-over-quarter this year, and this is obviously a good thing. Anca will discuss the finance in a moment, but I'd like to highlight that cash flow from operations as well as net cash flow continues to improve as we have been predicting for a long time and now 64% better than a year ago. Revenue was growth year-on-year. But yes, it was not where we wanted it to be, but the rationale and reasons for that are also discussed. EBITDA improved, but still on the negative side. Anca, will you please go through the numbers?

Of course. Thank you. So Q3 highlights are improved efficiency and profitability to the vertical integration we built with the help of the investment program, which we started in '19 and ended last year. We made investments across the board to widen the offering, increase differentiation and product capacity as well as enable the speed up of our R&D pipeline projects, which we discuss in every webinar. The completion of the investment program as well as the operational efficiency are reflected in the cash flow, as Seppo already mentioned. Both operating cash flow and net cash flow will increase if compared to the same period previous year. Both product development activities and geographical expansion have increased and the cost savings, which Seppo mentioned have not been achieved through the reduction of the activities, but rather improving the efficiency and the focus. The geographical expansion has led us to finding new customers in our most important market, which is the U.S. The product pipeline remained at certain projects, and they are focused on the commercialization of our own product platforms in several different indications. The order collection increased steadily every quarter this year. And in Q3, we received a couple of orders which are in the production phase already. The orders in this order book we collected are expected to accumulate revenue mainly in 2025. Next please. Our role as a customers partner has grown over the time, both in terms of scope of what we do and the importance of our solutions for our customers. Due to the PPT model, this is not yet reflected in the revenue. EBITDA was minus EUR 3.8 million, which was 31% higher than last year. The expenses related to the implementation of the investment program decreased, and we expect the trend to continue also in Q4, as we announced earlier as well. Next please. Yes. So PPT is still limiting the revenue development, but the related revised deliveries progressed in the third quarter more quickly than we expected and then before. Profitability improvement continues as announced, and it is reflected in EBITDA for the quarter and as well for the whole or all 3 quarters year-to-date. We have still a strong cash position of EUR 18.5 million. FTE in the end of the period was 67 million compared to EUR 70 million for the same period a year ago.

Thank you, Anca. So as discussed, R&D pipeline remained at 30 projects from the previous quarter and versus 27 a year ago. The main focus of the activity has been in the Phase III trials. And while it is mostly highly operational work with no exciting feedbacks, that can be also considered a good thing as some of you may know that at the Phase III, the probability of completion is usually somewhat higher according to industry consensus. And this is obviously due to the fact that quite a few people believe that it's not a good idea to start Phase III if you are not certain because the cost is extremely high to the pharma companies. And I still wanted to give some kind of context to that, but I think the best thing that we can say about those is that key customers have passed us to increase our role and they have been extremely grateful for our quick feedback, quick and efficient way to work with the sites and the key opinion leaders and finding out the answers, whether it's regulatory or clinical topics. So this is something that makes me feel the best out of this quarter. We also made successfully some prototype deliveries to a major quantum computing company. And I think this nicely demonstrates the capabilities that we've been able to build here in Tampere. The full vertical integration of this magnitude is not common and the expertise of the people is clearly unmatched. Actually, this particular customer from California, even mentioned that they didn't believe that anybody could do this fast. So very, very proud of the achievement of our engineers. We also got some new customers, some are potential to be active into the pipeline. But as we have been trying to be quite careful with the pipeline, we chose not to acknowledge none of them yet in the R&D pipeline. As explained earlier, there are some set criteria before a project gets included into the pipeline. And definitely, as mentioned earlier, our role as customers partners has grown both in terms of scope, what we do, but as well as importance of the solution our product is bringing to their solution. Customer base of the pipeline, thus no changes versus the previous quarter, but we continue to strive for larger companies, and we like to see these more mature companies taking larger and larger share of our business. Revenue model, I always explained this in our webinars. But this time, I'll keep it very short and just note that predictability of the revenue stream is increasing as projects are materializing. A quick look on the strategy and targets. Here are the 5 strategic projects/focus areas that we announced in 2022. No changes to those, but a little bit of a recap about progress during the Q3. First, in the area of geographical expansion, I'd like to highlight the fact that while we have been progressing quite a lot in Asia and Europe, it's also good to see that these investments in the market in Europe and Asia are actually bringing us up more business also in the United States. This is nothing new to us, but I think it is good to highlight this as it might not be obvious to all. Our presence in the U.S. market is strengthening as reported earlier this year, thanks to our local sales and clinical support and both are increasingly being appreciated by current and potential customers, developing business in Europe and Asia continues to be the activity that we do in parallel with the U.S. market development that remains the core focus of the company. And as mentioned at the beginning, the vertical integration of our factory clearly brings speed for the customers' time to market, as well as supply chain security to our customers. Both are increasingly appreciated elements of our offering. About new business models, the implementation of the pay per treatment is progressing. We have added more installed base during the Q3 than during the beginning of the year, and we see this going forward. During the summer, we implemented actually a new sales model and this has given us much better results than our earlier sales model is signing up pay per treatment customers for approved therapies. We believe that this is something that can be expanded to other areas of the company's business going forward. Several leading hospitals from both East and West Coast are now regularly using our technology. And while the revenue streams are still modest, they are growing. And PPT sales funnel continues to increase, particularly in ophthalmology, but we expect it to grow also in the other life science applications going forward. New indications and applications, more customers and leads with synergies to existing and existing customers and indications, so in layman's terms, what this means is that customers with same indication are coming to us and with whom we have been working already with another pharmaceutical company. So this creates a lot of synergies to us, but also to the new customers who can expect faster time to market. And I also mentioned this very high-profile one computing company becoming a customer in Q2 and now a successful delivery in Q3. And we'll see what will be the next steps, but as mentioned earlier, it's usually a very good sign that when customers from California are coming to visit in Tampere and Senior Vice President from this company also visited us a few weeks ago and according to the feedback was pleased what he saw. Commercial and operational excellence, I believe Anca's numbers are the best evidence of progress here but I'd like to point you out to some of the underlying things. The focus of the operational efficiency continues to improve as we predicted over a year ago. This is -- thanks to, I would say, 2 elements. One is that is perhaps the most important, is the fact that we have, by and large, completed the onetime costs related to taking use new tools and processes, as discussed during many calls, particularly last year. And this has reduced the costs while simultaneously relieving more resourcing to actual product R&D and even to sales and marketing. Strategic distribution partnerships have developed and led to customers in existing primary markets, also in the new continents. Less work on taking use machinery was mentioned as well. And we have also been making good progress with our activities in ESG, whether that's carbon neutrality or diversity of the organization at all the levels from the Board to the shop floor. State-of-the-art laser technology expertise, this is obviously another activity across strategic program that benefits from our major investment program and we have been taking these technologies in the use and now being able to focus more on product and customer as the onetime, they can use activities have been largely accomplished. Obviously, we keep on doing this also in the long run. Remember that our previous big investments were done more than 20 years ago. And the one that we now completed started in 2019, and I would like to kind of -- to keep everybody aware and understand the full picture. Some of the machines that we bought more than 20 years ago are still getting upgrades and new benefits. So it's not just about the machines that we started buying in 2019, but very much the process is developing also with the fairly vulnerable equipment older than 20 years. But the primary thing is that there is no more focus on product R&D than ever. And as mentioned a few times, our vertical integration basically offers customers faster time to market, differentiation in their product and supply chain security. Especially the latter one seems to be more and more appreciated by our customers in the Western Hemisphere. And thanks to the investments, we are in a unique position to deliver these products requiring lasers for high value-added applications. So we're not introducing outlook, as I said, also earlier. But in summary, R&D pipeline remains at 30 projects. New customers are coming and the potential adds to the pipeline, both cash -- operating cash flow and net cash flow improving year-on-year. PPT business model implementation progressing and new customers are signed up now also in Asia. Investment in R&D and geographical expansion continue and are accelerating. Actually, our Investor Relations Director, who serves in her primary as Marketing Director and is also part of this call. Thank you, Ulla. Ulla is actually still in Chicago selling and marketing the lasers at the American Academy of Ophthalmology, which is the major show in ophthalmology worldwide every year -- every other year in Chicago and every other year, somewhere else in North America. Revenue at EUR 640,000, a little bit more than the last year, obviously, not where we want it to be or needed to be, but at least growth year-on-year EBITDA also improving, thanks to work by Anca and the engineers on the operational efficiency. And this is all we had at this time in the presentation, but thank you, and we'll be happy to take any questions you might have.

I see on the left, so there is some -- yes. How about Antti? Do you have a questions if we call the analysts first, as we have usually done?

Can you hear me, okay?

Yes. Hello.

Yes.

Great. I have 3 questions. So first, I wanted to ask about the Phase III trials. So are all of those trials already recruiting patients and are they generating revenue for Modulight at this point?

I cannot say for sure for every single one of them, but for example, the ones on which we have pictures in this presentation, they are generating modest revenues and the reason being that I know that at least those trials, I know our engineers was requested to participate to the first treatment of the patient and every single treatment generates. Thus, the answer, yes. But whether it's every single one of them at this time, unfortunately, cannot say for sure. Obviously, if you take a longer perspective, then the answer to all would be yes. But whether they -- everyone generates for this month, this is not something I can confirm at this time.

Okay. And my second question was on the -- your personnel. So I think the headcount was a little bit lower compared to at the end of Q3 compared to previous quarter. So I wanted to ask about your plans. Do you plan to recruit or maintain a slightly lower headcount going forward?

We will probably maintain similar headcount as we have had. We will probably not do replacement recruitments as predicted a long time ago, the personnel of the company becomes increasing attractive to other companies, but we are lucky not to lose key people. So I think that at this time, we can say that we expect the headcount to remain similar level to today.

Okay. Great. And final one, I wanted to recap if there are any kind of seasonal effects that affect Q3 specifically?

The numbers are rather small. So commenting on the seasonality makes -- I should say that you should take it with a bit of a grain of a salt. But we analyzed many, many times in the history, more than 10 years of the company. And very often, the company generated the lion's share of its revenue during the Q4, this is what we said also earlier. We are not implying that this would happen this year. I won't emphasize it, but I'm just repeating it because it was discussed also earlier about the seasonality. I don't see necessarily any seasonality elements in our business that I could highlight to you thus just basically repeating what has been discussed earlier. But no, I also don't see any particular seasonalities for Q3. Kimmo? Are you there? Do you want to come next? If Kimmo is not there, so maybe Daniel? Are you there? I get a signal that Kimmo should be here, but I...

Can you hear us now?

Yes, Kimmo. Go ahead.

Okay. Having a little bit trouble on the microphone. Okay. Maybe I'll have a little bit the same questions and as was asked before. But first on the Phase III projects. So they are generating revenue at the moment. But in Q3, did you have also revenue from this computing -- quantum computing deal that you mentioned, did it also have revenue to be recognized in Q3? Or will it be in Q4?

There was revenue in Q3 because we delivered the prototype.

Okay. Okay. Then the pay per treatment model, I guess, you now don't comment any of the volumes, but is there anything that you can highlight from the business. So is there -- is the Bausch + Lomb still the only source of revenue? Or is there any other indication that you get the pay per treatment revenue? And is there any customer volumes or anything that you can share from these numbers?

Thank you, Kimmo. And actually, this may help me also comment a little bit about anti-seasonality question. I was a bit slow. First of all, I believe we have shared with this audience earlier that there are several customers now in PPT, not just the AMD customers. But yes, very much coming from the Phase III and other trials. And also from several cancer indications. And this means that there are a number of legal entities who are nowadays PTT customers are related to AMD therapy proposed by Bausch + Lomb, but also a very significant portion to cancer therapies and different cancer therapies. But now actually, this -- this question reminds me about the seasonality. And while many people believe that July is a very active month in the Rest of the World. We at least see several years that the amount of therapies given to patients in United States as well as elsewhere is significantly lower in July than for example, June or August. And thus, yes, there is a minor seasonality element. I wouldn't, at this time, take it to project our revenue number about which Antti was asking. But yes, there seems to be this kind of seasonality that for -- at least based on our example, there are less treatments being given in the U.S. health care system based on our sample at least, in July, then as said, any month in Q2 or August or September. Then Kimmo, you had a second part to your question?

Yes, or you answered already on that. But then my third question is on the -- as you said, you had a good order collection or it has increased Q-on-Q this year. So is there anything that you can share about what is the size of your order book or when it will be delivered? Or what is the...

While we can't we -- I guess -- while we can't probably share the amount of order book, so it's not included in the release. We can probably say that it was well over 50%. That was the amount of orders collected in Q3 versus Q1 and Q2 was -- sorry, somewhere in the middle. So giving more than 2/3 increase from Q1 to Q3 in the amount of orders collected during the quarter. Okay. Then we have a question on the line, which is you say the following, we believe that our operations and strength in accordance to our growth strategy, blah, blah, blah, blah. And -- but I guess the question is that, do you still believe in returning to strong profitability and growth in 2025? The short answer to this is yes. Yes, we do believe. The the moment, we stop believing that, we will obviously state that. Then previously, you told that typically when a medical project nearly reaches Phase III, Modulight will receive tens of millions in milestone payments. Now there are several projects in that reached III phase and have been ongoing for considerable amount of time and have received negligible income from them, at least compared to the previously indicated. Despite the fact that you have changed into PP model which should push the revenue somewhat further in time. It looks very clear that there is a massive difference between this and what you -- previously. So I believe what we shared about the Phase III remains is that, that was for the duration of the Phase III, what is the revenue potential in those, it was obviously based on estimates, as at that time, we didn't have any ongoing Phase III projects. It was based on the inputs we have received from customers as well as based on our kind of analysis of the market in general. It should be noted that we are at the rather early phase of the Phase III trials. Yes, the PPT models would impact as well. But at least for me, I'm not ready to conclude how much revenue we will be making out of these Phase III trials and none of the fundamentals have changed in that respect. But yes, it is true that we have not asked reached EUR 10 million of revenue from any of the Phase III trials. But as I said, I believe that it was given as a figure that is typically coming overall, from the Phase III, not at the beginning of that, but more like up during the entire Phase III. Then another question. Thank you for the presentation. In my understanding, history of revenue comparison seems to get distorted given Modulight's transition to PPT. Yes, that is definitely applicable how should investors think about this transition, temporary top line impact? Can you give any indications of the PPTs percentage of this quarter's revenue? I think that this is a very relevant question. We discussed this earlier. Overall, the numbers as you have seen, are very small and thus giving splits is only prone to kind of random variations due to the small quantity of the numbers. But I think we can only discuss what Anton is obviously implying here that PPT has a certain impact, at least kind of biologically delaying some of the revenue streams, but on the other hand, are making them longer and more steady probably. I believe that if you take a comparison to the software world, there, people seem to have that as a kind of temporary top line impact whereas in the long term, the absolute value is larger. And I can say that we are already clearing with some of the individual sites, the level that the amount of revenue from a single site would have been very difficult to do with the existing CapEx model. So I would say that it's too early to conclude on this, but we definitely believe that the PPT model is good for us and patients and customers are liking. So thus, we believe that it will result in more steady and more total revenue in absolute terms also to the company while simultaneously offering and making the therapy more readily available to larger numbers of patients as well as ease the deployments and time the markets for customers and making it operationally more straightforward for payers and hospitals. Anca, would you like to add something to this?

No, I think this is clear. Hopefully.

If no other questions, we thank everyone for participating, and look forward to seeing you in our Q4 webinar early next year. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye.

Bye.