Penumbra, Inc. (NYSE:PEN) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Matthew O’Brien: Well, Afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just looking at how the stock’s trading in the aftermarket down a little bit, I’m assuming that most people are thinking that the guide for the rest of the year might be a little bit at risk just given tougher comps, but it does look like the thrombectomy business is accelerating on a two year stack basis. Even the Embo and access in the U.S. seems like it’s pretty good. So just the combination of what you’re seeing from a new customer perspective going deeper in existing accounts and then this expanded salesforce, those folks don’t kick in right away. It typically takes a little bit of time. So just the combination of all those things, can you just give us a sense for what you’re really counting on to see this acceleration in the back half as or sorry, the last three quarters of the year as comps get tougher in the U.S. business?

Adam Elsesser: Yes, I really appreciate that question. Just so we can sort of level set, we addressed a lot guidance, a lot more comprehensively both on this call and in the Q4 call, where we laid out the very specifics. As you know, we said we had a lot of visibility with our international distributor orders and partners around the timing of their order and that’s the main difference in those rates together with the work that we already know and see on how our U.S. thrombectomy businesses is going to grow. We have a lot more predictability around those rates and they’re not dramatically changing those rates throughout the year. We’ve said that now twice. So it really came down the change in overall company rate was based on something we talked about last quarter’s call and it turned out to be exactly what we said.

And again, the focus on what is happening in the U.S. should be the best confident guide because the rest of that is relatively secure through what we have obtained from our distributor partners for the rest of the year.

Matthew O’Brien: Okay. Appreciate that. And then, Adam, you mentioned these new products that are coming in CAVT and at least one by the end of this year. Is that a product that’s going to be potentially going into a different part of the anatomy than we’re accustomed to with Penumbra or any kind of just general thoughts on what we should expect from that one specifically? Thanks.

Adam Elsesser: Well, as we get closer and we’re at this stage of the field, I’m not going to give more specifics for competitive reasons, but god, I can’t wait to tell you. So please be patient. It’s going to be an awful lot of fun.

Matthew O’Brien: Got it. Thank you.

Adam Elsesser: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Mike Sarcone from Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Michael Sarcone: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions.

Adam Elsesser: Of course.

Michael Sarcone: Just to start, do you think you can give us any color on, in the U.S. VTE market, what you’re viewing as kind of market growth for the quarter?

Adam Elsesser: It’s historically always hard to, really piece out market growth, i.e. new patients, other than looking at centers that we have had a 100% of their business for and see that they’ve grown. And that’s been true. We have seen continued growth for several years now. So that growth continues. Obviously, particularly in VTE, that growth we’ve seen, which was really wonderful this year, this quarter is also some market share, and that’s even before Flash 2.0. So we’ll wait to finish next quarter and see the effect of that. But I think it’s going to be a combination, as we said in the prepared remarks of some significant share shift as well as some real significant catalyzing of adoption sort of market growth initiatives.

Michael Sarcone: Got it. Thanks, Adam. And just a follow-up, you’ve been talking a lot about market access efforts, and I think you previously mentioned working with some of your hospital customers to kind of get data and work hand-in-hand with them to elucidate the benefit of CAVT in different vascular beds. Do you think you can give us any update on how those efforts are progressing?

Adam Elsesser: I’m not going to, for obvious reasons go into specific systems and work that we’re doing yet. I want to do the work first and we’ll see the benefit of it. And then we can talk about it a little more openly. But I will tell you, I’m really — I’m really optimistic. There’s a lot of understanding in the hospital community over what I think is one of the more important topics, which is people understand that clinically significant clot burden is really one of the most undertreated acute issues in health care. They understand the effect of not treating it. They understand the cost of not treating it. They understand, more importantly than anything, the downside to patients for not doing it. And I think that allows these conversations to be as positive, as they’ve been and get started on the work that we’re doing. So this quarter more optimistic. I’ve been personally involved in another a bunch of those conversations, and I’m very, very optimistic.

Michael Sarcone: Okay. Thank you.

Adam Elsesser: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Richard Newitter from Truist. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. It’s Sam on for Rich. First one on U.S. thrombectomy, and apologies if I missed this, but I think before you had said you expect 27% to 30% within that range within U.S. thrombectomy for the year. Can we still think about that holding through 2Q, through 4Q? Just kind of plug in those numbers and I get to 29% growth for this year in U.S. Thrombectomy?

Jason Mills: Yes. Thanks for the question. This is Jason. So we said last quarter, we reiterated on this call that we expect growth in U.S. thrombectomy to be within that range. Obviously, the first quarter, we were slightly above that range. It was a strong quarter, but our guidance still reflects that range each quarter for the remainder of the year and for the year. So that’s where we’re going to stick for now.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. And then similar sort of question on margin, a little over 200 basis points operating margin expansion in 1Q. Just kind of curious what you’d like to see in terms of trends in the business to get confident in increasing that 100 to 200 basis point range for the year? Thanks.