Vericel Corporation (NASDAQ:VCEL) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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George Sellers: Okay, that’s really helpful. And then maybe switching to that burn care franchise, I know it’s still very early days with the NexoBrid rollout, but could you just give us any color on maybe some initial indications of what the cross selling opportunity or the pull through of Epicel might look like?

Nick Colangelo : Yeah, we mentioned on even the second quarter call, once we had the initial group of NexoBrid only reps in place, that we had actually received biopsies and orders from, what we kind of refer to as dormant or naive Epicel centers. Because again, we have NexoBrid reps in there talking not only about NexoBrid, but Epicel as well and that continued into the third quarter. So as you noted, it’s early days, we did kind of fill our remaining couple of NexoBrid positions recently, once product availability was clarified, and so we really haven’t had the full force out there yet. So I think time will tell. But there’s absolutely no doubt that part of our strategy was in having a larger footprint in both the Epicel only initially and then the NexoBrid reps, they’re going to be talking about both products, and we would absolutely expect that that pull through would continue.

George Sellers: Okay, that’s really helpful. Thank you all again for the time.

Nick Colangelo : Okay, thanks, George.

Operator: One moment for the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Arthur He with HCW. Your line is now open.

Arthur He : Hi, good morning, Nick and Joe. This is Arthur on for RK. Congrats on another strong quarter. Most of my questions have been asked. Just a quick one on the MACI, for when we’re looking beyond the arthroscope, how — could you give us more color on the future new product development in the ankle for MACI? And is there any more color on the exact timing for starting the study?

Nick Colangelo : Yeah, thanks. So as we talked about previously, we think obviously the MACI ankle opportunity is kind of a, as you paint sort of a long-term vision, strengthen our core current indication layer on arthroscopic MACI kind of mid-decade and then a potential ankle indication towards the end of the decade. And this gives MACI a really, really long runway with, no near-term competition. So we’re pretty excited about that opportunity. The initial steps there, as I’ve mentioned previously, is that there is some pre-clinical work that needs to be done. But that work is ongoing. And we’d expect that potentially towards the end of 2024, we may be in a position after discussions with the FDA to initiate that study or sometime in early 2025.

Arthur He : Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Nick Colangelo : Okay. Thank you.

Operator: And we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Nick Colangelo.

Nick Colangelo : Okay. Well, thank you very much. And just in closing, I just wanted to kind of reiterate that, at this point, the company continues to operate at a very high level across the entire business. And as we’ve delivered strong financial results and achieved significant milestones throughout 2023, we believe we’re very well positioned for a strong close to the year and an even stronger year in 2024. From a revenue perspective, as we mentioned, total revenues grow nearly 20% through the first three quarters of the year. We expect total revenue growth to increase in 2024 based on continued strength in our core products, as well as the anticipated contributions of arthro MACI and NexoBrid. From a profitability perspective, we’ve delivered sustained positive adjusted earnings and operating cash flow each quarter for more than three years.

And we expect further strengthening of our profitability metrics and margin expansion in 2024 driven by sustained high revenue growth. And obviously, we’re starting from a very strong financial position with $150 million in cash and investments and no debt. So overall, really excited to deliver a strong finish to the year and look forward to continuing our momentum in 2024 as we as a company remain focused on continuing to deliver on our long-term strategy to bring innovative products to even more patients and drive significant growth and profitability in the years ahead. So look forward to providing further updates on our next call. Thanks again, and have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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