Inspire Medical Systems, Inc. (NYSE:INSP) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

And then finally, talking about the trends in obstructive sleep apnea. Not only with the awareness that the GLP-1 drugs can create and those elements, such as [opera] on a TV show really creates awareness and when those patients go to their general practitioner, they will be diagnosed for diabetes, for heart failure and for obstructive sleep apnea. So we believe that will increase the diagnostic rate of obstructive sleep apnea. Secondly, patients are aware of how well they sleep. We have smart beds. There are watches that were coming out that will track the quality of your sleep. So generally, the societies become more aware of their quality of sleep and we believe that will just continue to increase the awareness and the diagnostic risk for sleep apnea and therefore, the opportunity for Inspire.

Operator: And I show our next question comes from the line of Jon Block from Stifel.

Jon Block: So maybe just the first one. Any update on other privates, coverage policies changing for the higher BMI AHI? Any update there? And do you expect most on board by the end of 2024? And then the follow-up, Rick, just to shift gears, I’m just curious about the guidance and profitability for the year. You guys continue to be a solid beat and raise story. So let’s just say hypothetically, the year ended at, I don’t know, $825 million top line and not the $790 million midpoint. How are you going to handle that? Do you see that flow through to the bottom line on the incremental dollar or is it one of those things where you sort of take that upside and plow it back into the business? I’m just curious if the $0.10 to $0.20 should move higher proportionally to the potential upside to the revenue targets?

Tim Herbert: Jon, let me take the first one and then hand it off to Rick. As far as the payers go, we have an active program, sending communications out to each of the payers to make sure that they are aware of the FDA approvals for the new indication and encouraging them to update their policies. We’re making very good progress. We would like to have most of them taken care of by the end of the year, although, Medicare is always challenging because with the MAC you have to run through a fixed process to be able to meet with CMS, meet with the MAC go through the update process to be able to get the policies updated and reviewed and implemented. So Medicare is always a little bit of a delay getting through there. But the commercial policies have responded quite well and we expect to continue to keep pushing that as you mentioned for the rest of the year. Let me hand off to Rick on profitability response.

Rick Buchholz: First of all, we have not changed our guidance philosophy and that goes across all of our guidance metrics. But we also — we’re stayed focused on improving center capacity and utilization. And so as we continue to improve utilization, want to let it be known that we continue to make investments in our business for our long term growth. Our revenue has — revenue growth has been outpacing our OpEx growth, and we’re excited to to announce that we would be profitable for the full year on a GAAP basis. As we continue to make those investments with our 84% gross margins and our OpEx not growing quite as fast as revenue, could we see improved leverage? Yes. But we’re not guiding to that at this point.

Operator: And I show our next question comes from the line of Mike Kratky from Leerink Partners.

Mike Kratky: The first one, is there a scenario where some of the secondary endpoints from SURMOUNT-OSA that we could see at ADA could make you or you’ve heard KOLs think GLP-1s maybe could have a more negative impact on the business?

Tim Herbert: From the top line data that was put forward, I think that’s going to be a little bit of a struggle. If I understand the question, I think, we look forward to seeing the detailed data, and it’s hard to hypothesize on what that data is going to show. But I think if you look at the 51% reduction in AHI in the specific arm that was just therapy alone, I think that it’s pretty indicative of what we can expect as we come into the summer. And that shows that they’re able to help those patients with a higher BMI lose weight thereby addressing their lateral wall collapse. So I think you’ll see more of the same as we move into the summer months and be able to look at more specific details, specifically with different groups of BMI after they lose weight and then be able to look at the specific AHI reductions of different ranges of BMI.

So really look forward to seeing that data but believe that data is going to be in line with what we’ve talked about to show that these GLP-1s will be complementary to Inspire.

Jon Block: And then maybe just separately, you mentioned the impact of some of the wearable devices. I know Samsung got FDA approval for their watch earlier this year, it seems like you might get a commercial launch of that in 3Q. Is there any consideration of that in your guidance? And then to what extent does that represent a source of potential upside either near term or longer term?

Tim Herbert: I don’t think specifically, we’ve included the new technologies into our guide. I know it’s still early days for the watches to come out, but smart bets have been in existence for some time. And I think our outreach programs are really key to driving our awareness and don’t — and we continue to spend a lot of time with general practitioners and cardiologists and working our referral networks, which is the classic medtech marketing as well to continue to drive referrals. So we aren’t that specific into our guide to be able to pin down that we’re specifically dealing with the new technologies, but we do believe that they will have a positive impact in the future for sure.

Operator: And I show our next question comes from the line of Michael Sarcone from Jefferies.

Michael Sarcone: Just one from me. So on the competitive front, you’ve got a competitor overseas, they released some US data and it seems like they’re going to stress positive data or good results across both non-supine and supine positioning as maybe a point of differentiation when they start detailing in the US. Just wanted to get your take on, have you had conversations with physicians, your thoughts on how meaningful that could be and an effort or potential to counter detail those claims?