Tactile Systems Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:TCMD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ryan Zimmerman: Good evening. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask too, first, I appreciate you guys giving some context on the GLP-1 debate and the patient population, but I just want to understand it. So assuming, I think it’s about 24% of your patients have BMIs over 40, just based on the slides that you showed. What happens if their BMIs drop, assuming they are taking a GLP-1, for example, are you assuming that those patients go away completely? Because it sounds like obesity is maybe one factor in what can be driving lymphedema here. Are you assuming that if the people who are over 50, they go away or there’s just maybe less severe lymphedema going forward if they are taking those drugs?

Daniel Reuvers: Yeah, it’s a really good question Ryan and it’s — there’s a lot of variables that we’re all trying to anticipate. I think that a few things that we’ve learned, one is if a patient has done enough damage to their venous and lymphatics, meaning they’re well above a BMI of 50, it’s unlikely that their lymphedema will recover even if they lose the weight. I think the other is, we have also — our understanding is that current users of these drugs might lose 15% to 25% of their body weight, but if you’ve got a BMI over 50, you’re still going to be north of 30 and probably potentially north of 40, depending on how high you start, which still doesn’t take you out of the universe of likely developing or having lymphedema.

I think it’s going to be a long time before these patients start to show any potential impact in large part because even if these drugs help patients avoid becoming these over 50 BMIs, the existing universe of those patients are unlikely to recover and see their lymphedema get resolved without ongoing treatment. So it’s going to take a long time, we think, for this to wash itself out. Some will step down. But I don’t know if Elaine has a little bit — anything else you want to add?

Elaine Birkemeyer: No, I think — I think if you look at the very last slide, that’s what we were trying to demonstrate there is, this will take some time as the existing people who have BMI greater than 40, unfortunately, will likely not see a reduction of their lymphedema, and it’s really preventing people to take that place in the time to come in the future.

Ryan Zimmerman: Okay. Very helpful. And then the second question just on the airway clearance, can you just elaborate on what the impact of profitability is for airway clearance? If this is a headwind for the next six months or so into May, what impact or what drag does that have on the adjusted dividend margin line? What impact and drag does it have on the gross margin line? Any caller there would be helpful. Thanks.

Elaine Birkemeyer: So I think we’ve talked about AffloVest with a little accretive to growth margin, accretive to our operating income. I think this year we’ve definitely seen that impact, but we’re really excited that we’re able to maintain our $25 million to $27 million guidance in adjusted EBITDA despite that. Again, really strong focus on our OpEx, and I think we’ll be able to continue to do that as we go forward. And again, reiterating our 2025 target of growing to a 14% adjusted EBITDA margin.

Daniel Reuvers: Yeah, I would just add, Ryan, I think I agree with Elaine’s comments and I think that If we would have done better on that segment, no doubt would have done even better, I think, on the adjusted EBITDA line. That said, I think the ongoing progress we’ve been able to demonstrate now for a series of quarters in a row about Salesforce productivity expansions, operational efficiencies, all of those have led us to really solid profitability contributions from the lymphedema business. So it allowed us to maintain our full year adjusted EBITDA target, even knowing that, we saw a step down in Q3 and predictably in Q4 on that segment. So I think as we get back on the train again next year, once we lap this May thing, certainly it should be a good guide for us.

Ryan Zimmerman: Thank you.