Ventripoint Diagnostics Ltd. (VPT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's shareholder update call. My name is Hugh MacNaught and I'm the President and CEO of the company. Before we begin, I want to remind listeners that today's call may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. For today's call, we will be following the overall outline of the recent news release and providing greater depth of information on a number of points. To begin, I would like to start by framing the year and really to explain where we think we're going in 2026. So as communicated during the most recent update, our strategic focus has shifted from product development to commercial adoption and market expansion. The core of the strategy is to move VMS+ from research settings into routine clinical use beginning with the congenital heart defect centers and expanding into additional cardiac indications where accurate right ventricular measurement and comprehensive chamber assessment are critical. We'll continue to execute on the strategy to expand commercialization of VMS+ to strengthen clinical adoption and to position the company for revenue growth. To these ends, the company has made progress across regulatory execution, commercialization planning, clinical engagement and operational readiness. These include, first of all, commercial and market development. So we're continuing to refine the company's American go-to-market approach. This is being designed to reduce friction in the sales process and to accelerate adoption. We've invested quite a bit of time and effort into implementing our CRM and better characterizing the sales funnel. We're now evolving the CRM implementation to automating customer outreach. On our first outreach, the response rate to e-mails was 95% of these being opened in the Canadian market and nearly 80% in the U.S. market. Both of these metrics are very encouraging to us. And the result has been in the last week, we booked 11 new appointments, which indicates that the approach is sound and is establishing a base on which we're able to scale. Our ongoing engagement with prospective customers for virtual demonstrations and pipeline development activities is continuing. Where we're going with this is that we're evolving to a more standard practice of virtual demonstrations and workshops with the intention of really building a more cost-effective and scalable alternatives to on-site demonstrations. We're continuing our alignment with distributors and partners in Europe and the United Kingdom to advance near-term opportunities. Our relationship with AngioPRO in Germany, in particular, is deepening. As you may recall, AngioPRO participated in our financing last September and recently hired a new product specialist. This person will be attending on-site training in our Toronto office for -- during next week. We've engaged a professional named, Dana Friesen, and his company, Summit Sciences. This is proven to be very productive. The work that Dana is overseeing will result in a much more sophisticated ROI modeling, a stronger product proposition and better alignment with the needs of hospital administrations. Our relationship with Providence Health is progressing. This week, we submitted an expression of interest, supporting placement of several systems at Providence. This will be followed by a more detailed project plan by the end of March. We anticipate engaging with additional First Nations. The first one to collaborate with us is the Nisga'a First Nations in Northern British Columbia. We're anticipating an integrating certain of the First Nations into the project with Providence. We expect successful execution of this product will enable expansion to national scale in Canada and eventually to other countries. As we progress, we're building increasing awareness of underserved communities around the world and the potential for VMS to enable improved diagnostic imaging capabilities to these communities. At the level of anecdote, we're receiving new orders for stickers from a number of users. These stickers are used to fix the VMS sensor to the patient. While this does not generate a meaningful amount of revenue to the company, it's a very real indication that the systems are being actively used and the procedure volumes are increasing. So this is very supportive of our drive to begin advancing the use of VMS into routine clinical settings. We also have several signed MOUs in place. These have not yet progressed to the level of sales agreements but are expected to do so. We anticipate announcing each of these within the next 4 to 8 weeks. In the category of partnerships and strategic initiatives, we're continuing the collaboration with Ascend Cardiovascular. This is really focused on integration -- a deeper integration and stronger commercial alignment. We now have a development plan for a more sophisticated level of integration within the Ascend platform. Concurrently, we're collaborating on joint sales outreach with initial focus on pediatric sites. There is a level of introduction to each other's customer sites that will enable cross-selling opportunities. We're continuing to work with the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation supporting American system placement opportunities. The foundation has committed to placement of a number of systems initially in the U.S. Midwest. We've conducted virtual meetings with certain of these and are currently following up to advance these sales through the hospital administrations. We're continuing to work with Lishman Global in China to support manufacturing and regulatory preparation activities. These will underpin market entry. Lishman is right now just completing the translation of documentation that Ventripoint has provided and are expected to very shortly make their submission to Chinese FDA. Our current understanding is that a submission will qualify for expedited review, which means that clearance should be obtained within this calendar year. In the interim period, Lishman will have the ability to sell or place systems for research use in a number of centers in China. We're continuing to evaluate potential distribution and strategic opportunities in Asia, including active discussions with family offices. We're particularly interested in India and have recently received inquiries from Brazil. So both India and Brazil are significant market opportunities. We're continuing our efforts to better assess and develop strategies around ways to engage with valvular and structural heart applications. Valve dysfunction is an extremely dynamic market segment. We believe that VMS+ is well positioned to support decisions considering tricuspid valves, which is, of course, located in the right ventricle. In the U.S. in 2025, we saw the clearance of replacement tricuspid valves plus CMS reimbursement approval, as well clinical guidelines have evolved to recommend earlier intervention. So the confluence of these factors is resulting in significantly greater demand. And the outcome of that is a bottleneck in patient selection. We believe VMS would be extremely helpful in meeting this challenge. In the category of technology, product and regulatory affairs, we're continuing really on executing commercialization activity for VMS 4 including customer upgrade readiness and clinical workflow integration planning. We're continuing to upgrade existing customers to Version 4. The process has been longer than expected because some sites are engaged in ongoing research projects, and they are unable to alter their protocols midstream. We're keeping in close touch with them and affecting these conversions as soon as the research projects end. There's an expanded internal focus on training installation and customer support systems, including development of scalable training materials and videos. This will be increasingly important as we begin to scale, and we'll have more users on the platform. We're engaged in discussions with third parties who are able to provide echo and VMS training. This is helpful both in terms of addressing the potential anticipated workload but also with regarding existing relationships with health care providers to include Ventripoint. We're strengthening internal process that's supporting quality and manufacturing readiness, built on -- building on our prior successful audits. We recently had an unannounced quality inspection, which we successfully passed. This is an aspect of our business that is not visible to many people, but it's fundamental to the continued operation of the company. Passing these audits and unannounced inspections is a testament to the skill and organization of our entire team, and it's really given us a strong vote of confidence that we've been able to successfully pass this without exception. We're continuing progress on improving the connectivity and integration workflows. This will support adoption into routine clinical practice. VMS Version 4, as many of you will recall, was incorporated meaningful advancements to the product user fit. We will, of course, continue to evolve and improve the capabilities of VMS+, but the greatest focus now is on further automation and integration into clinical workflow. We recently received notice that Ventripoint is qualified as a finalist in the 2026 Edison Awards. The Edison Awards are owned and managed by the American Marketing Association. The applications for these awards typically number more than 5,000, and the short list is reviewed by approximately 2,000 judges who are comprised of CEOs, engineers and subject matter experts. We regard this as a very prestigious award and a recognition of the level of innovation represented within VMS. In terms of corporate development and team expansion, we're continuing to engage with experienced commercial professionals. The intent of this is really to identify individuals who we can transition into initial or expanded roles upon completion of additional financing, recent sort of evidence of this would be the recruitment of the Director for our Congenital Heart Defect program, our new CFO, and Dana Friesen from Summit Sciences. We're continuing to engage with governance-level candidates with the view to strengthen the Board and our advisory capacity, both with respect to commercialization, as well as access to capital, which leads us to capital markets and financing. We're continuing to focus on advancing financial incentive or financial initiatives that will underpin our growth. During this process, of course, we will maintain a strong discipline on financial management. This is an extremely lean organization. I think it's fair to say that over the past year, we have successfully de-risked the technology and product in compliance with the regulatory requirements. We're now able to focus on steering the company into growth and building the team to enable that evolution. This will require additional capital to achieve. We're continuing our outreach to capital markets, advisers and awareness partners to build the visibility of the company and to broaden awareness of our opportunity. So in conclusion, we're actively advancing our commercialization strategy. We're building the operational foundation that's necessary to support adoption and growth of VMS. We appreciate the support and ongoing interest of all of our shareholders and look forward to a very transformational 2026. We're now at the point in the call where I'd be happy to entertain questions. Those with questions, please enter them via the chat function at the bottom of your screen.

Question from Nigel. Mayo has had VMS for a year now. We know you have a proposal in front of them for additional units. Can you update us on this? Any color on why this hasn't moved forward yet? Yes. So Mayo was actually one of the sites that is requesting additional stickers. So we've been in close communication with them. They've been using it initially in research settings. Our interactions with them to date have really indicated that the procedure volumes are climbing. And of course, this recent order of additional stickers validates that point. We're now in the process of reengaging at a corporate level with them to deliver a new proposal to really hopefully result in additional placements of units. One of our challenges with Mayo is the scale of the operation. They have 40 echo rooms in their cardiology department. They do not have the ability to accurately predict the status or specific challenges with each patient. So it really is a question of determining the optimal number of VMS units for that site and to come up with a proposal that is financially acceptable. From P. Coleman, any update on China? I spoke to where we are with Lishman Global, who is our partner in China. So to recap, they're very close now to submitting their application to the Chinese FDA. We've been informed that this is anticipated to be an expedited review, which is defined as taking less than 6 months. And in the interim, they will have the ability to sell products into research settings. With regards to GE, we've been in touch with GE. There has not been any advancement on the so-called Edison program with them. From previous calls, you may recall that our follow-up with them indicated that the VMS or Ventripoint was the only company -- we're the first and only company to actually qualify with the integration on that platform. However, this was affected by the aftermath of COVID and the spin out of GE HealthCare to Danaher. So this is somewhat on hiatus. We're trying whatever is possible on our end, but we'll have to see when and where GE will be more receptive to a reengagement. Here from a Zoom user. Have the Nisga'a Health Authority started using VMS? Do they have units? Yes. In terms of the Nisga'a and the First Nations, this is really the second step to what we're constructing with Providence Health in St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. So what is being created as a hub-and-spoke model. So St. Paul's s is a tertiary care center in Vancouver. It is the British Columbia Center of Excellence for cardiac. So the program and the plan is to really establish the strong base of support at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, and once that is in hand to expand that out to remote small and indigenous communities such as Nisga'a. So we anticipate sort of activating sort of on-site capabilities with the First Nations probably in the last half of this year. Okay. So again from Nigel on the valve angle, what kind of agreement would this look like with, say, an Abbott or Medtronic? Is this like a highly recommend sticker or will those be HMOs be recommending VMS+ to their users? The short answer to that is we're in the process of better characterizing what this will look like. One scenario that we believe is possible is that for those clinical or hospital sites that are entering into agreements with an Abbott or Medtronic or similar company that upon commitment to a certain number of valve replacements that the manufacturer would provide at their own expense access to VMS. So the idea would be for an Abbott or Edwards to commit to purchasing or subscribing to a number of VMS units that would then be placed on their customer sites. So that really is the most attractive approach from the Ventripoint perspective. Tobias Breiten. I believe you mentioned last year that a number of potential sales were hoped to complete before year-end. For the MOUs you've referred to the same sales. Is there a primary point that the sales process stalls? How is that being moved beyond? So a couple of points regarding this. the sales that we were aspiring to close in Q4 of last year, they're still sort of active prospects. Several of these are in the DACH region of Europe, which is managed by our partner, AngioPRO. So with the training of the new product specialist, the plan is to get back in there to do these on-site demonstrations to get these closed. Given that we are entering March, I would say the timing of that is probably Q2, hopefully early Q2. As well, there's a couple of sites in the U.K. I think we're very close on. One of them, in particular, is undergoing a significant reorganization. We believe that ultimately, this will double to quadruple the demand or opportunity for VMS, but it's really a case of working through their reorganization. So please stay tuned on that front. The MOUs that I've mentioned are additional to these, and we will be able to disclose more in the coming weeks on that. The other question of whether there is a primary point that the sales process stalled and how we're moving beyond that? Yes. Some of this is sort of bureaucracy and administrative matters. So we're trying to better characterize these and be more proactive in our outreach and how we're addressing it. As well, again, going back to Summit Sciences and Dana Friesen. We believe that having a stronger ROI model and more compelling financial arguments will enable even more engaging and powerful discussions with hospital administrations, which hopefully will enable us to move faster. I think also it's become evident in a number of cases that despite enthusiasm for the product at the department level. Some of these folks do not really have the ability or capability of presenting the case to their management. So we're developing ways to better support them in those initiatives. Just scrolling on two additional questions here. Here from Samsung. Do you expect to see meaningful revenue in 2026? And if so, which quarter do we expect it? So yes, we really are driving to get meaningful revenue this year. Again, at the level of anecdote, we've ordered components for 25 systems, I expect to have those delivered on site today, and the intention will be to get those placed during the year. Revenues, we believe, will begin to accrue in Q2 and build strongly throughout the year. Next question, how long will the trial run with Providence to gather data -- I'm paraphrasing here, sorry, how long will the trial run with Providence? So the trial of Providence is anticipated to actually evolve over several years. This initial expression of interest and submission is focused on a single year with expansion to remote sites such as small remote and indigenous communities and beginning in the latter half of this year. This will build through years 2 and 3. We will be getting data points as we progress. So I think there will be usable data generated this year that we'll be able to exploit or expand in commercial outreach in 2026, and we will build on this in the following years. Here from Zoom user, has there been any discussion with the Canadian health system on how smaller hospitals without access to MRI could benefit from VMS? Yes. The point with the system, we're engaged with individual sites. Providence, of course, covering multiple sites. So this is really where the rubber hits the road. We believe that once we've engaged with multiple First Nations that this will open the doors for discussions at higher levels of government and additional financial support -- non-dilutive support that would enable expansion of the program, both provincially and federally. Here again from Nigel, you mentioned using VMS for inpatient scans to create a baseline from the get-go. This is still a main objective for Ventripoint to increase revenue for better economics? Yes. So with regards to the engagement of Summit Sciences, to date, the traditional approach has been to look more at outpatients and the reimbursement per procedure, the ROI calculation on that, it's fairly straightforward. What is becoming increasingly evident through our work with the Summit is that there is a very significant proposition and opportunity within patients. For many institutions, diagnostic imaging is a bottleneck particularly with MRI. So if someone is admitted to hospital with a cardiac complaint and they require a scan to support future action, whether that's a clinical intervention or discharge, it can result in a multiday wait before that decision is enabled. So the idea being that echo is a more accessible modality. Decisions can be made faster and that will reduce cost to the institution. And our belief is that the ROI on this vastly eclipses that for the outpatients. So we're just in the early stages of this, but this is what Dana is driving towards. We are engaging health care economics expert from UBC, as well as one in Pennsylvania. So the underpinnings of this will be very strong from an academic perspective. There's a question regarding the recommendations of the European Society of Cardiology regarding a unified approach to echo. No updates on this. This is a large organization. There's 27 countries represented within the union. The aim or the objective with this is to unify procedures and process throughout the EU. So we remain engaged. We're continuing to maintain contact with these folks. And doing our best, of course, to position VMS as a viable solution to at least part of this challenge. There's a question regarding joint meetings with pediatric hospitals, with Ascend. Are we close to placements and also regarding their partnership with Konica to expand our footprint. So yes, I believe there -- the relationship between Ascend and Konica Minolta will actually be accretive to the platform that we are collaborating with Ascend. So we will continue to build on that, and I believe it will open more doors for us. And in terms of getting closer to placements, yes, we believe that is true. We've referred some of our customers now to Ascend. There have been presentations to them, and we're in the process now of organizing reciprocal visits to their customer sites. India was noted as an expansion for VMS. How is this coming along? It is such a massive market. We completely agree. There's a little bit of leg work to be done here, but I think we're positioning ourselves properly for this. So to enter that market, we'll need local partnerships for sales and support. We've recently signed an NDA and noncompete with the group that is in the process of selling one hospital -- or controlling interest in one hospital to a major health care provider there. So this private network of hospitals has over two dozen sites, each with over 1,100 beds. So huge user by at least North American standards. So this is in the very early stages, but I think these guys would make an ideal partner for us. And once we're at a further point of development or engagement with them, I think we could see very rapid adoption and scale. So the first step really is to get the foundation or support in place, and then I think we should be able to move much faster. Germany updates with AngioPRO. Are they seeing good feedback and response? Yes, as previously mentioned, AngioPRO has invested in Ventripoint. They've hired a new product specialist. We've had initial virtual training sessions with them. They'll be in Toronto next week for hands-on training. And then they're back to Germany and actively visiting customers. The feedback from AngioPRO is that the sales team is very excited and have reestablished contact with all of the more than 100 leads that they have in their system. So any further questions? Well, seeing that, I thank you very much for your time. We've had a very good start to this year. I think we're building towards something substantive and transformational for the company. I look forward to providing you additional information, whether that is through news releases or LinkedInsight, lots to share in the coming weeks, and we're very excited with the prospects for this year. So thank you very much for your interest and continued support. And 2026, I think will be a great year for Ventripoint.