Profound Medical Corp. (NASDAQ:PROF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Arun Menawat: Yes, Ben, I think you’re on the — absolutely, that’s the idea, is that we have — we think we can get the BPH done quite a bit faster with virtually no risk of any blood loss, which means that any comorbidities are not likely to be an issue. And I think, as you said, the base technology of Contouring Assistant will apply, and we are already gathering quite a bit of cured BPH patients as well as the hybrid patients and we’ll be able to apply those to the new type of patients. So I think there is definitely enough information to be able to get it. I’m just a little bit cautious because we are certainly very early stage and I just want to make sure everybody recognizes it also. But the technology is there and we’re going to invest in getting it out as fast as we can. But we do need to get the Contouring Assistant FDA cleared.

Benjamin Haynor: Okay, that’s helpful. I guess I’ll leave it there. I mean, we just had the Investor Day, so lots of information already out there. Appreciate the question.

Arun Menawat: Yes. Thank you, Ben.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Frank Takkinen of Lake Street Capital Markets, LLC. Your line is now open.

Nelson Cox: Hey, this is Nelson Cox on for Frank. Apologies if I missed it, but last quarter you mentioned seven signed purchase contracts and 15 late stage prospects. Can you maybe update us on those two buckets?

Arun Menawat: Yes, I’m happy to. I think, what I was saying earlier when Rahul was asking a question, we have enough contracts to be able to get to the 50 sites. And, the problem with these numbers and so on, the reason I’m saying it the way I’m saying it is you can tell from the prepared remarks we have another major agreement with a number of sites. We also have a couple of other leading hospitals that we’ve signed with, big name hospital, cancer hospitals. So it isn’t about the pipeline. It’s not about the number of contracts. I think the message that TULSA is a versatile technology and that all these capabilities is getting there. So I think for us, the next stage is really streamlining the installation process, streamlining the startup, and ultimately, really I think we’re going to be in this transition phase at the moment when everyone is sort of waiting for 2025 when the reimbursement starts to kick in and so on.

I think for us, it’s really more about that dynamic at the moment. I think we will get the number of sites going. And I think these things that I’m talking about in terms of streamlining the startup process, so that’s going happen. It’s just, it’s starting to happen. I think there are still a couple of sites where the MR installations are delayed. And so that, a couple of them, which were supposed to have happened in Q3, didn’t, but they will happen in Q4. So I hope I’ve sort of answered your question, but I hope you can see why the number of contracts is not an issue for us at this point.

Nelson Cox: Yeah, no, that makes sense, thank you. And then one more quick one. With you skewing more heavily toward whole-gland with your early users, how do you think about this concept over a long period of time, do you think there could be a time where you only do HEMI or whole given you can effectively cover an area with limited quality of life risk?