Alphatec Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Pat Miles: Yes. George, I think it’s a good question from the standpoint of – we always think of companies as assemblies of people that are committed to a specific goal. And so if I am committed to a specific goal, and I have the opportunity to garner the type of expertise that Keith Valentine and Dave Demski have, I am going to take that every day of the week. And so if you start to think about candidly competencies, I think that Keith is someone who has 30 years of experience in the field, he has got reach that is absolutely outstanding. And so there is not a person in this industry I think that doesn’t know Keith and doesn’t think favorably of him, I guess other than at companies. The – but Dave, is again, also I think a Maven in the industry, has a ton of experience.

And it’s not that we are trying to shore up things that we didn’t have. I think any way to augment things is the ultimate effort into growing. So, I think Dave has done a great job in terms of leveraging businesses. It’s clear that we need to leverage our business. It’s clear we need to expand our sales force. So, all of those things that I think both of these guys bring to the table is valuable to our effort. So, I am thrilled with that to have association with Keith and Dave and thrilled that they have decided to join us.

Operator: Your next question will come from the line of Drew Ranieri with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Drew Ranieri: Hi. Thanks Pat and Todd for taking the questions. Just maybe wanted, I apologize if I missed this in the earlier remarks, but with the sales force that you are bringing over some of the new rep hires. Can you maybe just talk about your win rate expectations and why this would be a bit more than a typical greenfield rep hire? I would love to kind of hear your thoughts about that and maybe what productivity ramps you are kind of thinking about for some of these recent onboarding – onboarded reps?

Pat Miles: Yes. I will do the qualifying helps to quantify, if you can, the – I know these guys candidly, but I have known him for 15 years at the previous place of employment. And candidly, when you build a market with someone, it creates a special relationship. And so what happens is, I think that there becomes a surgical thesis that people buy into that ultimately, their customers buy into. And so what happens is the more of those people that we can get and the more of those people that we could insert into our company, the higher that likely would for more expedient acceptance of what we put forth of a surgical thesis. And so I think that’s such a dramatic tailwind. And really, it’s why we went and did the raises. We felt like this is such an opportunity.

It’s not just because of the lateral guys, but it’s just – it’s the building of the foundation of our company that is apparent. And so like this is spine is a small town. And so knowing people within the context of geographies that ultimately will positively affect us, which we are going to be very methodical with regard to prioritizing those geographies that most benefit us that are greenfields for us and where we have hospital access. Again, is just such an apparent opportunity. And so what’s – that’s the approach we have taken. And do you want to comment further, Todd or…?

Todd Koning: Yes. I think the point is, given the familiarity with really both, I think the sales folks as well as the surgeon base given the fact that the demographics of their businesses are so aligned to our product portfolio, the interval confidence we have in essentially achieving the kind of business results through attracting these sales reps and these customers. The real confidence is much higher in this scenario than it would be in our history for all the reasons Pat pointed out.

Pat Miles: Yes. I think the great part is we were going on a history with a linear walk with less confidence and now we are going to more confidence in a non-linear walk. And so the opportunity, I think is for us, we believe to be apparent.

Drew Ranieri: Thanks for the color. And maybe just on the recent NASS conference. I mean you highlighted the innovation pipeline. And as you look forward – and sorry, there is going to be a couple of questions here like normal. But when you are looking at kind of your R&D pipeline looking ahead, are you starting to think more or incorporating more enabling technology in the R&D pathway from developing to actually commercializing our product and then just remind us on robotic timelines and milestones. Thanks for taking the questions.

Pat Miles: Yes. Thanks for the question. Our plate run us over with opportunity. And so as you start to think about all of the opportunities to ultimately have EOS effectuate what we are doing, not only pre-operatively and inter-operatively and post-operatively, it’s like we have enough to do with the technology that we have made commitments towards – to last us a good while. And so just cannot be more excited about the next, really, 5 years as it relates to all of the things from an EOS perspective. In the middle of ‘24, we are going to launch the whole catalyst portfolio of goods, which is all of the automation, the automated planning, the inter-operative integration, integrating that to a customized rod, a lot of the analytics with regard to the post-operative elements, all of that will be done in Q2 of ‘24.

Following that immediately starts to become the bone quality elements. And for us to start to understand gosh, what’s the underlying tissue as it relates to stabilization of spine is decompression, stabilization and alignment, then we quantified alignment and now we are starting to do with stabilization from an underlying material perspective. We have years to go with regard to playing that out in the marketplace. And so I love what we are doing from an EOS perspective, I think it’s so opportune. And then when you start to layer in, gosh, how do we get more precise, how do we create this level of execution from a surgical perspective. And I think the integration of the workflow with the Valence navigation robotics element is very, very apparent.

And so by the end of this year, we will be doing cases with our fixation elements of placing pedicle screws with a robot. We don’t think that that’s an endpoint at all. Candidly, it’s kind of a bore. We think that the opportunity to ultimately create better surgery is through integrating these things into the workflow. And that’s what ‘24 is going to be our engagement in that. So, you will start to see that in the marketplace in ‘24, but really launching ‘25 of a fully integrated more precise PTP, LTP and those procedures. And so our excitement is, gosh, how do we reflect the value. We have created a heck of a conduit with regard to PTP and LTP. You start to see us putting expandable devices through those procedures in a way that we are absolutely garnering greater precision with regard to the alignment element.

It’s just – you are starting to see a greater sophistication with regards to the inter-operative element, and it’s just going to be more and more informed by what we are doing from a pre and post-op perspective. And so anyway, sorry to drone, but I think that there is so much for us to do, so much work to do and so much momentum in the business. I think what we need to do is continue to fill the conduit of surgery that we have already created.

Operator: Your next question will come from the line of Sean Lee with H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Sean Lee: Good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So, just expand upon the remarks on the tables for EOS. We have seen yields revenue kind of pulling spend more or less for the last year or so. I was wondering whether with the expected launch of Catalyst in 2024, is that going to set off a period of growth for yields, or is that – the benefit of Catalyst going to be more reflected on growth in the rest of the portfolio?