Vitasora Health Limited (VHL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
August 31, 2023
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Michelle Stephens
executiveGood morning. Welcome. The presentation will be beginning shortly. Just a little bit of housekeeping from the Respiri end. The CEO, Marjan Mikel, will be providing a 30-minute update of the company's achievements and progress in the U.S.A. post completing the acquisition of Access Telehealth Services, LLC. Marjan will then proceed to answer any of the questions that were submitted for Q&A prior to today's presentation to the e-mail address, [email protected]. Time permitting, Marjan will also, at the end of the session, answer any additional questions. They may be submitted during the presentation, either to the e-mail on your screen or via the Zoom chat function. And very shortly, we'll be handing over to Marjan Mikel. I'm now handing over to Marjan Mikel.
Marjan Mikel
executiveThank you very much, Michelle. I'll just share my screen now. And if you -- fantastic. Thank you very much, Michelle, and welcome, everyone. And once again, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today and making time, and I'm sure your very busy days, to get an update on what's been a very exciting time for the organization. And I thought I'd take the time not just to give you an update on where we're at with our progress in the United States, but also to remind us a little about the things that have been achieved and what we are building our very successful business platform around. The interesting thing is that with the acquisition of Access Telehealth, which I'm sure everyone knows, has been a pivotal moment for the organization. And we continue as an organization to build on a foundation of strategic firsts. Today, we are the only Australian organization that delivers an end-to-end remote patient monitoring solution to patients on behalf of providers, insurers and organize -- healthcare organizations and with our own IP. That's really important, and you will understand the importance of this, the further we get into this narrative. We are a very unique organization, and we are an organization that has blazed new ground as a healthcare organization in the United States. We are the first organization that has an FDA-approved device for the management of people with respiratory disorders within wheezo. And really the only device that is easy-to-use and reimbursed in the United States for remote patient monitoring. We are also the first organization that was successful in having its services through remote patient monitoring, be reimbursed through CMS, that's the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid in the United States and private health insurers. So that is the first. Nobody else has done that since, in my understanding. And with the acquisition of Access, we are now the first organization that delivers a true end-to-end solution when it comes to remote patient monitoring services to or through providers to patients in the United States. Now that's all happened in just over 1 year, and I'm very proud of the work that our team has done -- your team has done in delivering these particular milestones, which are groundbreaking for an organization like ours. I've been in healthcare for a very, very long time. And as most of you know, I don't know much about anything else to be quite honest with you. I've been in healthcare for over 35 years. And one of the things and one of the narratives that hasn't changed over that period are the megatrends to try and move patient care delivery from high-cost tertiary care institutional delivery such as hospitals into lower-cost settings such as primary care and ultimately in the home. Now that narrative has been around for as long as I've been in the industry. And unfortunately, even with the improvement in enabling technologies such as the cloud, 5G, and technology generally, such as the -- introduction, sorry, of various medical care devices that allow for the monitoring of patients in a remote patient setting. The transition from expensive care to a cheaper cost care hasn't been as successful as the industry would like. And we are still having that particular conversation today despite all these advancements. It is an expensive healthcare problem, and it's not just unique to the United States, but right across the globe. It's important to note that still today, the model is still reactive. So people don't do anything about disease states really until there's a problem with the patient. Problem is that 99% of the patient's time, there is no problem. And that's the time that we need to interact with the patient to make sure that that 1% of a problem doesn't occur. So essentially, we're dealing with patients and asking patients to do things when there's nothing wrong with them in the hope that they won't have a problem happen. And if we do our jobs really well, nothing will happen. And that feeds into the narrative around, okay, well, why is the patient wanting to do this when nothing is happening? And I'll get into a lot of why, what it is we're doing with remote patient monitoring and how important that is to, I guess, address that particular situation. Readmission rates in the United States are still too high. They are still putting strains on the United States healthcare system. And there are initiatives put in place by CMS and private health insurers to get hospitals to reduce readmission targets so that they can reduce the cost of healthcare delivery and force healthcare delivery into the lower cost environment of primary care and the home. As I've said many times, CMS finds hospitals today for breaching readmission rates. Over 60% of institutions in the United States have been fined by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services for breaching these conditions, and they are significant fines when it comes to their operating income. The size of the market that we deal with today with wheezo, is over 50 million Americans. That's about 1 in 8 Americans has a lung problem. And we, with our wheezo device today, or yesterday, I should say, we're in a position to be able to provide a device, a platform, and a service to deliver better remote patient monitoring to those patients and provide a service and greater transparency that allowed for interventions with these patients to occur in the real world before there were problems. Now important to note, as I said, this scenario has not really changed over the last 30 years. What I thought I'd take the time to remind us all about is remote patient monitoring, the solution, is a way of helping address this particular issue. If we can get to patients with a service, a device, and a platform that allows for greater transparency of information to the treating healthcare professionals from the real world in real time to address deteriorating parameters with the patient before they become a problem, it's an obvious way to try and address the whole situation of hospitalizations and other exacerbating events. But for this to happen, a device on its own does not work. Not on its own. It's not a complete solution. For a remote patient monitoring solution to work, you need an easy-to-use device. You will always need a platform that allows for data transfer to those people involved in that patient's care. And no matter which way you cut it, you need a person to interact with the patient to help them understand why it is they're doing what it is they're doing, help them understand when they're doing something, will help them understand when something is deteriorating and making sure that those people who are involved in the care of that patient know when that patient's condition is deteriorating before it becomes a problem. Now the beauty in the United States, all 3 of those things, an easy-to-use device, a platform for data, and patient services through a patient advocate or a patient service person, are all reimbursed through CMS. So not only are we in a position where it makes clinical sense to do this. But in the United States, there is a financial reward to doctors to provide this service. We don't get paid, they get paid. There's an incentive for hospitals to provide this service or support this service to keep patients out of hospital, so they don't get fined. And there's an obvious benefit to insurers to provide this service and pay for this service to keep patients out of hospital, which is the high-cost healthcare provision that I spoke about previously. It is important to note that it is a very lucrative market. It's growing by over 20% per annum, and it will be worth more than $85 billion by 2026, and it will double in the United States by 2028. So it's a great market to be in. And it is a great market to be in for all the reasons I've just described. Everyone has a vested interest in making it work because it's good for the patient. And when it's good for the patient, it reduces -- improves outcomes, I should say, which reduces costs. Now I just wanted to focus on what exactly customers want for remote patient monitoring. For patients, they don't want to be in a position all their lives. They just want to get on and be doing what it is they want to do. For that to happen, as I said, you need an easy-to-use device. Now wheezo, there's nothing easier in respiratory medicine than wheezo. And the other devices that we use for other therapeutic areas that we provide RPM services through Access Telehealth are equally is easy-to-use. That patient also wants to have an ongoing relationship with someone they know, a friendly consistent voice, if you will, and staff through Access Telehealth provide that continuity. They also want to know and have peace of mind that people who are looking after them do get the information that we are gathering through the remote patient monitoring process and are able to enact whatever needs to be enacted, should an intervention be required. They want to know that, but they want all that to happen in the background and we provide that service. For a doctor or a provider, they don't want to do anything that they don't want to do on a daily basis. So a doctor wants to keep being a doctor and a hospital administrator wants to continue administering hospitals. They do not want to create competencies related to remote patient monitoring solutions. In my experience, if you want something to fail in healthcare, that's a new way of doing things, you give it to a doctor or a hospital to execute on their own. And 9 out of 10 times it won't work because it's not part and parcel of the way they do business. So the providers want an easy-to-use outsourced model, which we provide. They want to [Technical Difficulty] in people or systems or dollars [Technical Difficulty] cash out of their pocket for something that they're not very good at. And they all want to be rewarded for providing this service moving forward, whether that's getting paid for doing the services or not getting fined for keeping hospitals -- keeping patients out of hospital. It's really important to note, and you'll notice a very similar scheme across all of these 3 stakeholders. They just want to keep doing what it is that they do. Similarly, for payers, they want to be good at being an insurer and a payer. Their job is to do whatever is they need to do to reduce costs. They do that from reducing costly tertiary and hospital care delivery. They want to deploy their assets and cash to initiatives in their core competencies to deliver that. They don't want to be taking on board things that they're not very good at doing. They'd rather get other people to do that for them. And they want to differentiate themselves from their competition. It's -- I mean, there's no rocket science involved here. People are much more comfortable doing what it is that they do every day of their lives, whether that be personally or for a business perspective or from a vocational perspective. And that's really important to note as we go through this presentation. The Access acquisition was really an opportunity not to change the way that the actual remote patient monitoring solution is delivered, but to give us greater control over how it's delivered and improve our margins in doing so. So the Access acquisition hasn't really changed the way that remote patient monitoring, for instance, wheezo is delivered. We just own more of that vertical to make sure that it is delivered and we get a better margin out of doing that. We also now have an ability to take what it is that we've spent the last 1.5 years working with Access to differentiate their RPM services from others and own that ourselves. As I said, for a remote patient monitoring service to work, you need 3 components, wheezo does this, and it's one of the reasons that Access loved wheezo as a point of differentiation. It was easy to use. The information was transferred to people seamlessly to make sure that decisions could be made on the patient. And clinical staff were engaged with patient on behalf of physicians to make sure that if there was a deterioration of their condition, that something would be done about it before it became a problem. Now that's wheezo. That is the point of differentiation that Access used to secure many of the contracts that they secured over the last 12 months. But also, we got to a situation where wheezo was only part of the solution. When we talk to customers generally, what we currently have as -- sorry, what we currently had as Respiri prior to the acquisition of Access was we could solve the problem for respiratory disorders with wheezo. Our customers wanted more. When we spoke to customers, they didn't want necessarily just a remote patient monitoring solution for respiratory disorders. They wanted one for reducing the conditions in people that are high risk to them. And in the United States, like everywhere else in the world, 60% of the United States population live with 2 or more chronic disease states. So there's no shortage of patients that need this service, yet only about 4% of providers still provide remote patient monitoring services to them. So when we look at what it is we used to do, there were 50 million Americans with lung disorders, almost 1 in 2 patients or patients in the -- 1 or 2 people in the United States are eligible for chronic diseases and remote patient monitoring. So over 150 million Americans have got other conditions that require this sort of service to be delivered to them. And it costs the economy a lot of money, $4.1 trillion in annual healthcare costs. So clearly, there's an opportunity for something here to reduce those healthcare costs by intervening earlier. I just wanted to use an example of an account that I had the pleasure of bringing to closure. And that was Arkansas Heart Hospital, just to give you a flavor of why it's so important that we're in a position today with the acquisition of Access to deliver a broader solution that just lands. Access (sic) [ Arkansas ] Heart Hospital is one of the largest privately held cardiovascular institutions in the United States. They, like other hospitals, have a significant issue, which is they need to keep their 30-day readmission rates below a threshold level or they get fined, and they are getting fined at the moment. When I was lucky enough to speak to the CEO there, Bruce Murphy, who's a cardiologist, we went in there -- we were invited in there because of Respiri's wheezo, which is interesting because they're a cardiovascular hospital. And they saw great value in wheezo because up to 2 in 5 patients with cardiovascular disease have COPD, that is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as a comorbidity and one of the comorbidities that often led to people being hospitalized. A long story short, they saw the value in delivering remote patient monitoring in wheezo. But then they said, we want a solution for all of our patients, including the obvious ones, which are those with cardiovascular disease. Now we got that deal and I had to turn around and say, well, and deliver the lung part of that equation, but I'm going to hand over the rest of that business to Access Telehealth to work with you to [Technical Difficulty] solution to those eligible patients. Now that didn't sound like a very good idea to me at the moment -- at the time. And one of the additional reasons why we pushed forward with the Access acquisition, why would we cut a deal with an institution and give away more than half of the business to a third party because we couldn't deliver it because we didn't have the infrastructure that will do that? The acquisition of Access Telehealth allows us now to continue to use wheezo as a differentiator, deliver remote patient monitoring solutions in patients with respiratory disorders, but also use other devices to deliver remote patient monitoring solutions to patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. So it opens up a huge market for us. And much more importantly, it's the solution that our customers are asking for. It's a very exciting time. And this is a classic example and very typical of the discussions that we have with clients that I'll talk to in a moment, moving forward and in the past. Just a quick update on why we bought acquisition -- why we bought Access. As I said, we have an end-to-end remote patient monitoring solution that we now have complete control over. And this isn't a new rodeo for me. I mean, my time at Healthy Sleep Solutions, we developed a remote patient monitoring solution for patients with sleep apnea. And we went on to become Australia's largest provider of these services and had ResMed as a cornerstone investor in that organization on the back of what it is we promised we could deliver. So this is not new to me, and I understand the importance of being able to deliver a turnkey solution that goes beyond a single disease state. Access gives us that. Access has a remote patient monitoring platform, which is device agnostic, which means we can tap into whatever device we need to, to deliver the services that are available. And apart from the wheezo device, which is very differentiated, the others are freely available and are easily incorporated into what it is we do. The device, if you recall, isn't the solution, it's part of the solution. And we're already integrated into their platform. So we can kick off very, very quickly. And as I said previously, we go from a total addressable market of 50 million patients to 150 million patients. The dollars and cents speak for themselves. We go from a margin of $10 to $20 per patient per month with wheezo alone; 2, $70 to $100 per patient per month to deliver the full turnkey solution, but not just for wheezo, but for other disease states where other devices might be required or other devices may already be in place. And one of those I'll talk -- one of those opportunities I'll talk to in a moment. So it's much more profitable. And with that profitability comes a reduction in what it is we need to achieve to get to cash flow positivity. It's now 9,000 active patients on remote patient monitoring. For us, they've reached monthly breakeven, which we will reach in H2 of next year, calendar year, as opposed to the 30,000 originally from the original economics. Importantly, the people that have come across with the acquisition are also very critical to us being successful. All key hires have come across with the acquisition of Access, which is testament to the fact that they believe in the synergies that exist between the 2 organizations and what it is we can deliver together. And I also know that I've done this in the past and we can bring things to that organization to help shore up their position with clients and make sure that we accelerate our patient acquisition but also time to revenue generation with those particular clients. Important to note that the solution that we deliver includes clinical support and a clinical staff member will cost us depending on their level of qualifications up to $70,000 per annum, but the medical associates that do the work via the telephone and otherwise, cost between $40,000 and $50,000. Each one of those people will generate about $240,000 to $250,000 per annum. So it's a very, very profitable model, and it's all underpinned with reimbursement. That's really important and very different to the Australian [Technical Difficulty] where remote patient monitoring is not reimbursed. You would have noted this week some exciting stuff that happened in terms of new customer acquisition. And again, further vindicates why it is we bought Access because VDO Cardiology, the initial 300 patients and about $310,000 in annualized revenues, would not have been something that would be contributing to our revenue stream under our old model because it doesn't involve wheezo. Angelic Health, again, we're starting with 150 patients. This is a little more integrated when it comes to what it is, we'll be providing patients when it comes to devices. Wheezo is part of this solution, but this particular deal was done on the back of what it could do for cardiovascular patients. And although it starts with 150 patients, Angelic has operations in 4 states. And once we get to that 150 patients, which will generate about $150,000 in annualized sales, the program will be expanded across a broader audience. So these are where we're starting, not where we're going to finish when it comes to revenues. Our customers' Minnesota Lung Centers. We've expanded that relationship with a remote therapeutic monitoring solution, which is sort of similar to RPM, but it doesn't use physiological parameters like breathing and heart rate and things like that, but it's still reimbursed. Now this is in patients with sleep apnea, which I know a little bit about who have been given or prescribed the device to treat their condition, but there are things that need to happen with that device to make sure that the condition is treated. Hence why they've got into bed with us to deliver a remote therapeutic monitoring solution to patients to make sure that the patient is doing what it is they need to do to get optimum treatment and solution. Now these 3 things would not have happened had we not bought Access Telehealth. So when I say they wouldn't have happened, they would not be part of our P&L. So this is really exciting and another example of broadening the value proposition that we are delivering and have been delivered. Important to note that we are in extremely advanced discussions with arguably the most important decision-makers in the healthcare industry and that are the insurers. From the day that we launched in the United States, I've made the narrative very clear that we would start with small providers, doctor organizations move to hospitals, they would all be a little difficult because we need to integrate into the way that they operate. But that's where we'd get our low-lying fruit. And the ultimate goal was to get into bed with insurers that can mandate that certain things happen to patients through their doctors. We're at that discussion point right now. We're in a position where we're in advanced discussions with 2 insurers. The initial patient contracts of 4,500 patients for these 2 insurers with revenues of $2.2 million in annualized sales as the first quarter call, but much more importantly, a clear line of sight to 40,000 patients in 12 months' time, which generate about $20 million in recurring revenues, that's U.S. dollars. The 40,000 patients come from 7 other states that the Medical Services Organization working on behalf of the insurer, a major insurer in the United States, both of them are has the contract to deliver on. So we deliver on the 4,500 patients successfully, which I have -- every conference we will do because I've done it before. There's a clear line of sight to the 40,000 in 12 months' time. It's not a 5-year plan, 12 months' time, and then discussions to be had with the organization's U.S. heads around how we get to the 1 million patients that fall into these same high-risk categories. We have received data on the patients and they've asked us to analyze that data to work out what patients need to be targeted first and with what particular devices to ensure that those savings that we are promising them, somewhere between 10% and 20% on expenditure actually happening. This is a serious catalyst for us, and I'm extremely excited about where we're at with this because it is about a year ahead of where I thought we'd be when it came to insurers and our single biggest priority moving forward. We're also working with 3 accountable care organizations. Now these are organizations who only get paid on delivering savings to insurers. So they aggregate a whole bunch of healthcare providers because the insurers are telling doctors and hospitals, if you save us money, we will share the savings with you. Issues doctors, like they are with remote patient monitoring, don't know how to save the money. So accountable care organizations were created to create a business around the doctors where the doctors still get paid, but the accountable care organization then strikes a contract with the insurers to ensure the insurers get the savings from a bigger number of patients moving forward. So again, they've got these contracts, again, their job is to reduce costs to the insurers. And again, remote patient monitoring is not a core competency for these people, but they see remote patient monitoring as an obvious way of reducing costs. Now those particular organizations today, an initial patient pool of about $2,000 or $1 million in annualized revenues. And again, a clear line of sight contractually to 30,000 patients. So that's roughly $14 million in annualized revenues. Now we still need to get through the contract finalization process. But the point that I'm making is in the short term, there are significant revenue opportunities that we've already delivered with VDO, Angelic and MLC on top of the revenues that Access already has. But a very clear line of sight to tens of millions of dollars in recurring revenues. And that's an exciting time for us and for all of you as well. Our footprint is very quickly covering the entire United States. And it's important to note that no RPM provider, remote patient monitoring provider, has a geographic stronghold really. They have customers that they secure and Access is no different, or Access and Respiri are no different. So we're in a position where we're delivering healthcare solutions or in the process of finalizing contracts right across the United States, and importantly, with doctors, hospitals, ACOs, and insurers. So we've got the full gambit of opportunity. But just to reinforce, the key catalysts for us moving forward is the fact that we brought forward the insurer contracts 1 year, and they are risk share agreements. So from day 1, we'll get paid for all the patients that were then asked to look for -- look after. Our job is to make sure that we introduce the savings, which are somewhere between 10% and 20% of the contracted value of our contract to the insurer. So it's not a fee for service, it's a fee per member, which is really, really exciting because it gives us for the first time a clear line of sight to how much money we're going to make out of the contract. Important to note that I'm sure everyone's heard about artificial intelligence and really access and the data that we're capturing through the broader remote patient monitoring solutions is adding to our AI strategy. And AI has been something that we have undertaken for some time now. Artificial intelligence is inherent in the Respiri wheezo algorithms. We use AI to be able to generate and identify abnormal breath sounds. So it's something that we're familiar with. We've introduced AI into our product development process. And you would have no doubt remember that we have an IT architecture team in the Philippines, but also in Australia. The introduction of AI into that product development process has resulted in more than a 50% increase in technological output and productivity, which is huge, and it's only the beginning. We're using AI right now because some of the insurers have already given us data, understand this with all the HIPAA compliance, which is privacy security in the United States. We have been given 5 years of billing data for patients to identify who are the most vulnerable, who are the most costly, what are the issues that they're actually resulting in their hospitalizations. And for us to develop recommendations around what it is we believe needs to happen to keep them out of hospital and deliver that 10% to 20% productivity -- sorry, cost reduction. Now we're experimenting with AI right now to be able to do that for us. And the results are early, but they're looking very, very good. And our potential clients in the insurer space are very happy with the work that we've done. So the datasets that we're getting through the acquisition of Access, but also these new clients, are very important for us for delivering to patients right now. But there's obviously an inherent value to what it is we'll be able to work out from these datasets moving forward. And that's certainly a narrative that I hope to be able to provide you more about once we start getting more of the data that we need to be able to develop solutions that we might be able to commercialize elsewhere. So the AI strategy is going to allow us to continue to optimize our programs and deliver a greater value to our stakeholders and customers. So the Respiri difference and what that means in the near term growth. What you should be looking out for? It's important to note that the Access acquisition has improved our revenue streams and is underpinned by reimbursement. There's a clear path to breakeven by the middle of next year, and there are near-term contracts of about $5 million in annualized sales. We go from delivering in one disease state to delivering across multiple disease states. We've got the infrastructure to put in place and an existing customer pipeline and some very exciting contracts we're working on. And we've got the team to deliver. That's really important and puts us in a good position to take advantage of the situation. So milestones for the second half of the year, new contracts, obviously. First contract for FiMed, one of our other partners around wheezo remote patient monitoring. We will be continuing to grow our revenue over that period. The wearable device is approaching its clinical study period, and we hope to be enrolling our first patient in the next few months. And the Birmingham wheezo lung function study results will be finalized by the end of this year. So they are the things you're going to see from us over the next 4 months and an exciting time for all of us. So thank you very much. Look, thank you very much for listening to me and investing your time. And before I leave, just a reminder of where we were and where we are. Yesterday, we made a device and delivered a remote patient monitoring solution to lung patients through Access Telehealth. Today, we are a fully diversified and integrated remote patient monitor provider that delivers remote patient monitoring solutions not just to patients with lung problems, but right across the spectrum of disease states. That's what our clients want, and that's one of the reasons why I announced those 3 contracts this week. And one of the reasons I know that I'll be announcing more great things to you in the market over the coming months. So thank you very much for that. And with that, oops, I might just leave that up. I might go to some of the questions that have been posed to me.
Marjan Mikel
executiveThe first one is, with the acquisition of Access, you are no longer only just a respiratory health company, but now service the 4 major disease states. Can you explain how revenues are generated from these new disease states? Good question. Remembering that remote patient monitoring is a reimbursement for services that are delivered to patients if you're capturing physiological parameters. Now physiological parameters include, if you're not breathing you're dead, so that's not a good thing. So that's a physiological parameter. Heart rate, that's a physiological parameter, okay? Those 2 are obvious examples. So with Access, we now have the capability with a device agnostic platform and clinical staff to be able to use different devices to capture information and still provide that service and use the same remote patient monitoring reimbursement codes to generate revenues for us. That's how we do it. So whether it's wheezo, whether it's a blood pressure cuff, whether it's an OSA, a sleep apnea device or whether it's a glucose monitor. If we provide the services to patients who have got those devices, we claim a fee for service for doing that. And as you would remember, when it comes to the insurers, they want us to be able to deliver all of those services to the different disease states to give them their savings. So they all do need to involve devices, and they all need to involve remote patient monitoring. The question around how we make money is we either get a fee per member through issuers or a fee for service per patient. So we're already making money on wheezo. We're already making money with cardiovascular with either blood pressure cuff or ECGs, and we're already making money with obesity patients and enabled scales. So I hope that makes sense. If you just look at the wheezo model and change the device to another device, that's how we make money. Another question was, what is the overall strategy and objectives for entering the -- and gaining a strong market position in the United States? Well, we always knew that we would be entering the United States on a platform of reimbursement through remote patient monitoring, even when all we had was wheezo. As I've said, our clients want more than just a remote patient monitoring solution for one disease state. They have high-risk patients, and they don't want to deal with 10 organizations that deliver different things in the same space. So our strategy very clearly is to provide an integrated solution for remote patient monitoring on the back of a differentiation that wheezo provides. No one else can provide remote patient monitoring for lung patients as well as we can. And with the acquisition of Access, which further underpins our strategy for dominating the U.S. market, we now are in a position to deliver across many disease states and importantly, improve our financials when it comes to delivery. The message also -- so the question also goes and ask, will we have a major distributor? We don't really have distributors. It's important to note that a distributor, a wholesale, if you will, does not engage with clients when it comes to getting them to do things. And no matter which way you look at it, when it comes to remote patient monitoring, we need to get customers to think differently and to do things differently and to partner with us and outsource the remote patient monitoring to us so that we can get the work done. Even though we bought Access Telehealth and the clients that come along with that and their pipeline, we are still very active with other remote patient monitoring and services companies. I mean, FiMed a recently announced version that we're working with. And we don't really see -- and I don't really see competition between the acquisition because the remote patient monitoring market in the United States is so fragmented. So there is no national provider of these services in the U.S. So when we get into bed with another potential RPM provider, they'll have a completely different customer base to what it is we have with Access. And they won't have a respiratory solution like wheezo provides. So it's a 2-pronged attack that allows us to build our partner network, but also dig deeper into the acquisition of -- that the acquisition of Access provide us. Where are we here? How is the wearable device progressing? Okay. We have finalized the protocols for the study. The study will kick off next month. We've been waiting on a few other outside devices that we need to actually make the study work for us as part of the protocol. But Minnesota Lung Center will be conducting the study on our behalf. So everything is ready to go. Everything on our side of the fence has been finalized for some time now. We're just waiting on a few other devices to be able to conduct the protocol the way that it's been written so that we can get the data that we need to continue to develop the algorithms that will be generated by the studies to give us a device that will monitor more parameters when it comes to respiratory health. So we're in a position now where that study will kick off. It's not a long-term study. It will involve about 40 patients, and we should have results once we kick it off by quarter 1 next year, which allow us to then analyze those results and then come up with improved algorithms, but also be in a position to publish this work moving forward. And one final question because I know we're running a little behind time. There's been a lot of talk in presentation about reaching out to breakeven at 9,000 patients enrolled, where do we sit with the numbers currently? I'm pretty happy to be able to announce that the number of patients with the new contracts that we've just announced sit between 1,000 and 2,000 patients. So we're well on the way to getting to the numbers that we need to get to, to get breakeven. But the contracts that are pending, and I spoke to it before, clearly, Catalysts are getting to the 9,000 and importantly, very catalytic in the way that we operate moving forward because we've got a bunch of people who aren't interested in the money that they make, but in the savings that they generate and aren't interested in a fee for service, but are interested in a fee per member. Now that is company redefining. That is just around the corner. That is a situation that has a very clear line of sight to 40,000 patients for 1 insurer and a longer line of sight of 1 million patients that, that insurer looks after or ensures at a high risk across the entirety of the United States. So there's a very clear line of sight to where we need to be. The beauty of the situation with the Access acquisition. The only way that's not going to happen is if we screw up delivery, no other reason. And I have every confidence in the team that we've got and in the experience that we all bring where we've actually delivered on this. I mean we delivered patients -- remote patient monitoring solutions to over 110,000 patients in Australia, 110,000. So I sort of know what needs to happen, and I also know what some of the pitfalls are. And the team that we've assembled are equally expert in being able to do this. So it's an exciting time moving forward. We will continue to keep you updated on our progress, and I'm very much looking forward to sharing more of what it is that we achieve moving forward. And I guess I'd like to ask you to watch this space for announcements as we move forward. And again, thank you very much for your support and patience. And just a reminder, although share prices are where we'd like it to be. We're really in a position that we've achieved quite a lot in just over a year in the United States and are very, very excited about the prospective deals that we've got coming through. So with that, I thank you all, and you've got my contact details. If you need any more information, have any questions that I haven't answered today, please give either myself or Nick a ring, and we're very happy to take those calls. Thank you all very much.
Michelle Stephens
executiveThank you, and that concludes our webinar this morning.
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