I'd now like to hand the conference over to Parmjot Bains, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the Quarter One FY25 Results. I'm pleased to be here with McGregor Grant, our CFO. We will be referencing the 4C quarterly activity report and presentations we launched this morning with the ASX. The presentation is a summary of the more detailed 4C. After our remarks, we'll be taking questions. I'll begin on slide three and go through the agenda for today's call. So today, we'll start with a quick strategy recap. We'll then cover off the key metrics and quarter one results. We will briefly touch on the other highlights in the quarter, followed by an update on the work that Andrew Grant has been doing on the product roadmap. And to finish, we will cover the outlook for the next quarter before commencing the Q&A session. Now, turning to slide four.
As outlined in the last quarter, the company's immediate strategy is to execute to break even with a focus on sales, marketing, and clinical execution, and BCRL. Break even will only come through increasing sales or managing our cost base. As we will discuss in the upcoming slides, we are on track to achieving these goals. Turning to slide five. Momentum continues in the business. We have implemented the changes for the strategy that we outlined, and it is working. Momentum continues to grow and confidence within the business is strong as we see the awareness strategies translate into a growing pipeline and into higher sales. We still have a way to go, but the signs are good and our confidence is high.
Higher coverage continues to improve, and although we are still shy of the 85% nationwide target, we have enough key states above the 80% critical mass threshold to achieve our immediate goals, and we have done this while keeping our costs under control. Now, turning to slide six. There has been a lot of time and effort that has gone into implementing the new strategy. It doesn't just happen overnight, and our whole team is wholly bought into the process and is engaged. We've committed and implemented a 10% reduction on our year-on-year cash expenditure to keep expenditure more in line with where sales-focused startups should be. This has come mostly from changes in senior management compensation, with like-for-like executive base remuneration reduced by about 30%.
It's not just about rebasing remuneration, it's about holding ourselves accountable for the results, transforming the business, achieving our sales target, and aligning our bonus compensation to this. It can't be all about costs. We are a growth business. To reach break even, we need to significantly increase sales. We have also reduced costs. While we have reduced costs, we have actually increased our customer-facing staff by 15%. But it's more than just about increasing sales staff. To be successful, you have to have the basics in place. As I mentioned last quarter, the PREVENT clinical trials outcome, the FDA clearance and reimbursement are our vital building blocks, but they are only the start. Across the industry, there are fundamental sales and marketing processes that must be implemented to achieve sustainable growth.
Our new board and new executive team have all come from companies that have had successful programs in place. We have taken that experience and implemented a model that we know works, and we have confidence that it will work here. Again, as you can see from the various tasks that have been listed, it has taken time and required a lot of hard work to get us to the position to achieve sustainable growth. The processes are now in place, and it's driving strong momentum and the forward-looking KPIs, and our results to date are encouraging. Turning to slide seven. One of the keys to increasing sales starts with initiatives to drive awareness, support clinical adoption, and drive lead generation. Over the next two quarters, the company will attend 15 national and regional conferences and put 12 media placements out.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we're supporting various campaigns during the month and have helped promote new clinical study articles that support the clinical adoption of our technology, and the results are positive when we look at our forward indicators. All our metrics are heading in the right direction. The opportunity pipeline, which we will see on the next slide, has seen another strong increase on the prior quarter, up 34% to 585 units. As we mentioned earlier, we continue to make solid headway with reimbursement coverage, with three additional payers providing coverage, bringing a total of 16 states with critical mass coverage.
Pleasingly, another NCCN center has implemented a lymphedema prevention program, and we are very excited about the new National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers, otherwise known as NAPBC, part of the American College of Surgeons Standards, and the opportunity that that brings, and we will discuss more about this later. Turning to slide nine. This slide demonstrates the effectiveness of the programs now in place in driving leads and building the opportunity pipeline. We discussed internally adding a TCV line to overlay this graph to answer one of Shane Storey's questions from the last quarterly call, but it's pretty, pretty easy to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
If we were to use a AUD 2,500 per month as a reasonable proxy, then the current pipeline has a TCV of AUD 79 million, equating to incremental annual recurring revenue of AUD 26 million. As I've mentioned, it's taken time and effort by the team to improve our lead generation capabilities, and as you can see, it's working. The recent changes in the NAPBC standards is already anecdotally reinforcing this. The next step is converting these pipelines into sales, and we are working very hard on this conversion. Now on to slide 10. In the U.S., unit sales continue to go in the right direction. 28 this quarter is up from 23 in the prior quarter. I would like to use the term encouraging when describing this quarter's sales results.
In a historical context, it's clearly an improvement on what's been produced over the last three years, where all but one quarter has been in the teens. But we are not happy yet. We need to see a sizable lift in unit sales to meet our goals. We are confident we can achieve this, given the processes now in place, and it remains the focus of the whole business. I will let McGregor go through the financials in detail, but one of the most pleasing numbers was the AUD 4.5 million in TCV. The TCV trend historically had been concerning, and it's great to see that turn around over the last few quarters. With that, I'll pass it over to McGregor to go through the financials.
Thanks, Parmjot. Starting on slide 11. As Parmjot mentioned earlier, this quarter saw the financials heading in the right direction. The value of new contracts signed during the quarter, which we refer to as Total Contracted Value, or TCV, was AUD 4.8 million, compared with TCV of AUD 3.4 million signed during quarter four, FY 24. This included the renewal of one of our longest-standing and largest customers. Price of renewals increased 19% on average. This number was affected with the larger customer renewals, and it was around 25% for all other customers. Also pleasing was the placement of SOZO with another NCCN center in the quarter, and six networks contracting two or more devices.
Contracts in place as of 30 June 2024 are expected to generate core business Annual Recurring Revenue, or ARR, of AUD 11.6 million for the 12 months to 30 September 2025, equating to a 21% rise year- on- year, and compares with ARR at 30 June 2024 of AUD 11 million. Over to slide 12. Revenue was the only slightly disappointing aspect of the result this quarter. Revenue came in at AUD 2.7 million, down 7% on the previous quarter. The decrease was largely a result of two factors. Firstly, the timing of distributor inventory restocking, which we report as rest of world sales. Actual in-market rest of world sales continued at anticipated levels, but the distributors didn't reorder inventory in the quarter.
Subsequent to quarter end, distributor orders have been received, and as we've mentioned previously, we are focusing on strengthening our rest of world strategy. The second factor was the strengthening Australian dollar versus the U.S. dollar. On a constant currency basis, U.S. revenue was slightly up over the previous quarter. Now to the global installed base. We continue to clean up the business. Further work identified 78 inactive non-revenue generating units that we have respectively removed from the historical figures retrospectively. As we mentioned, they were non-revenue generating units, so the change doesn't affect ongoing annual recurring revenue, and there may be some upside, as our team are working on reactivating approximately a third of these devices. In the quarter, we did experience some churn, but it still remains low at 3% annually.
A large part of the churn came from a single customer downsizing the program following the loss of a breast surgeon. However, importantly, they remain a customer. Turning to slide 13. During the quarter, the company had net operating cash outflows of AUD 4.8 million, which was flat on the previous quarter. This was about 10% higher than budget, mainly due to timing. As the timing issues revert, operating cash flow is expected to decrease to under AUD 3.5 million next quarter, and is budgeted to remain around this level for the balance of the financial year. Cash and cash equivalents at 30 June 2024 was AUD 18.6 million, and there was a notional foreign exchange impact this quarter affecting the balance, but this is largely unrealized. I'll pass it now back to Parmjot to talk through the final slides.
Thanks, McGregor. Now turning to slide 14. One extremely pleasing aspect of this quarter was the release of the NAPBC clinical standards. These standards recommend the use of evidence-based guidelines to manage survivorship, and for the first time, included lymphedema prevention programs utilizing bioimpedance spectroscopy, this as an objective measure. A key point from this announcement, this is highly supportive of clinical adoption. NAPBC is a quality program of the American College of Surgeons, and the authors are the leaders in U.S. breast cancer care and are highly influential for clinicians. Guidelines and standards such as these can support clinical adoption and payer coverage. In an opportunity sense, the company currently has devices in 143 of the 573 NAPBC centers, leaving over 400 centers without a SOZO as a tool in their lymphedema prevention programs.
In TCV terms, using the same back-of-the-envelope calculations, this could represent a AUD 100 million opportunity. Turning to slide 15, updating on the SOZO digital product write-back project. As we announced, Andrew Grant has all but completed the project and has returned to the board as a non-executive director. I would like to thank Andrew for stepping in and helping us with this critical project. It's just one example of how the board is pitching in. There are many other examples of this along the way, from sharing inventory contacts, to Janelle taking time out of her time in Europe to review the software development program in Greece, and Christine spending a significant amount of her time looking into our company's IP portfolio. They are fantastically supportive. The board is now reviewing the extensive material that Andrew has compiled.
We're expecting to be in a position to release an update in the next quarterly. It's important to understand that this does not necessarily mean the company will be immediately acting on the recommendations. There are a lot of factors that will go into determining the next steps, the most important being the progress of the immediate priority, executing to breakeven and breast cancer-related lymphedema. Finally, over to slide 16. The outlook for Q2 is an extension of Q1. The continued focus is on executing strategy. Number one, continue activities that lead to increased lead generation. Number two, drive further improvement on sales by focusing on converting that pipeline that we've built. Number three, expansion of private payer coverage. And number four, continuing to focus on controlling costs and reducing operating cash outflows. Just a couple of final thoughts before I open you to questions.
When you focus on a quarterly presentation like this, it's easy to lose sight of how uniquely placed this company is and why we all joined. To recap, it has a platform technology that is applicable to multiple indications, providing significant growth opportunities. Number two, it has FDA clearances, not only in lymphedema, but also in heart failure and protein-calorie malnutrition. Number three, it has positive results in a level one evidence, global randomized clinical control trial for lymphedema. Number four, we already have multiple industry standards, including NAPBC and NCCN, supporting its use. Number five, there's growing reimbursement in sixteen states already at critical mass. Number six, we've got a thousand devices deployed globally. And finally, we have a large pipeline with an opportunity value that more than exceeds the company's immediate breakeven target. And that makes me very excited about the future of ImpediMed.
On that note, we will now open the call for questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Tom Godfrey from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Parmjot, McGregor. Thanks for taking my questions. Can I maybe just start with the data you've put in around the lead pipeline? I mean, the 585, just wanting to get a sense whether that's weighted towards your current install base or new customers, and just your sort of updated thoughts, Parmjot, around the sales cycle for a lot of those units, how quickly we should sort of be seeing you execute on that number?
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of it's new, so mostly new, new pipeline, but we do have, as I had previously noted, a number of customers where, you know, we think there is an opportunity to improve. So Tom, what's your second question? Mix, and then-
It was mix, and then just sales cycle. Like, so you sort of spoke the value of the opportunity and how quickly you can get to cash flow breakeven off the back of it. I just suppose, yeah, just updated thoughts around that.
Yeah, thank you. So the conversion of those leads takes a number of factors. So we know in some instances we have some very large contracts or quotes out, but those you know equating up to twenty devices, but some of those systems are waiting for reimbursement. So you know some of these are dependent on payer coverage coming on board, which you know now we're increasingly hopeful about achieving that. And then others are really just waiting through budget cycles and finance approvals and IT approvals. So Tom, what we see characteristically is a six-month sales lead time. So they will vary, but we are very confident about converting those over. Hard to give a time, because they all vary by you know different factors that are holding them back.
But the focus for the team is really converting that, and as I said, driving to cash flow breakeven as soon as possible.
Got you. No, that's clear. Second one was just around sort of the churn piece and the 78 inactive devices you've sort of taken out of your U.S. install base. Are you happy to sort of help us with how we think about, you know, the type of customers that those inactive units were sitting at, why they weren't revenue generating? And, and I suppose the last part of the question, what gives you confidence you can reactivate sort of a third of them?
Yeah. A lot of these devices go back a long time ago, for various reasons that they were sold to customers, and we don't really have a history on a lot of them. But you know, sometimes it's a bit like it's been sold to a customer years ago, the breast surgeon or you know, others have moved on, and the units have just been sitting there in banks. We've done a very detailed review of all of those units, and you know, Tim has worked with the sales team to really understand that situation. But there's a reason with great confidence that one third should be capable of being reactivated. But you know, work will need to be done to get that going.
But they certainly have looked at it very closely.
And I think, Tom, just as a note, most of these, if you go back to the historical numbers, have actually been inactive since before December 2022.
Yeah.
They've pretty much historically that same number's come out. There's a significant number of them that were placed in heart failure indications, for some of the history of some of these, so those are definitely out. Just various reasons, and we've kind of cleaned them up, and a third of those are ones where we think there's legitimate kind of opportunity to reinitiate with either existing customers or new customers, particularly as these NAPBC guidelines come on or reimbursements come on. They're very old devices placed in a pre-reimbursement environment.
Got you. No, that makes sense. And I suppose the 509 that's currently sitting in the U.S. installed base, that's the right baseline to use, like, they're all revenue generating machines now, or is there still a clean up?
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. So we did a very, very detailed cleanup of all of that base. Yeah.
Okay, great. And then I just have one other quick one, just noting the additional two units contracted with AstraZeneca. Is that sort of a very small project, or is there an opportunity to expand units delivered into that over time?
Yeah, well, it's a Phase 1b. So really that initial study at two sites, again, looking at their, you know, heart failure, renal failure study. So, hard to know, you know, hopefully the results positive. And, you know, I think it's a, it's an early stage study, but, encouraging that, you know, they continue to use this device, and I think it really builds on this view of, you know, using it as that extra vital sign, right? And, the value that the companies are seeing in this technology.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions, guys.
Yeah.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Shane Storey from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, I just had one follow-up, just on those seventy-eight devices. I understand that they've been backed out of the installed base, but McGregor, did they in isolation lead to any adjustment to the annual recurring revenue figures that you've put forward?
No, no. Because they've not been, they've not been in the numbers, you know, the last two years, and they're not part of the ARRs.
Okay. Right. So, okay, well, that's because I think you mentioned that they were all pre 2023.
Right.
That's actually all I had. Thanks. Yeah, but I just wanted to clarify that just-
Okay.
The model. Thanks. Cheers. Bye.
Thanks, Shane.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ian High, the private investor. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my call. I'm just trying to get some clarification around the NAPBC. Thanks. The announcement said that the guidelines state that accredited programs must use evidence-based guidelines to manage survivorship, and then we have examples of it. So, given the evidence from PREVENT, does that really add further weight to them using SOZO in their programs because the evidence says that nothing else really works?
Yeah, there's a number of guidelines within the evidence-based guidelines, the NAPBC references in that section. So NCCN is one, and then there are other guidelines in there, and they explicitly state, you know, to put in a lymphedema prevention program and examples include building a lymphedema prevention program using objective measures like the bioimpedance spectroscopy. So it really is a very strong endorsement as part of the accreditation program.
Oh, okay. So, just most people on this call are not doctors, so it's just we always struggle about the guideline and making doctors use it per se. So in layman's terms, the NAPBC is stronger than just the NCCN in that in the fact that they actually have audited programs that they have to monitor, et cetera?
But it's hard for me to make a call on that one, but I would just say that, you know, they are, the NAPBC is a, you know, a, the quality program of the American College of Surgeons. And so if these NAPBC centers want to be accredited as breast cancer centers, then they are expected to follow the standards, and the standards now describe lymphedema prevention. So yeah, so if you want to meet the quality standards of the program and then have that, I think it's a really key measure and a key metric for these standards. And we're already hearing anecdotally, you know, hospitals are looking at how, you know, what they need to do to put these programs in to meet these standards.
That's straight into my next question then. The current accredited centers that don't have SOZO, are they in or are there a number of those that are in states of critical coverage for insurance and were a high priority target now?
Yep. Yep, absolutely. So right now, what we're doing is just working through the list of centers and just seeing how we can help support them to drive coverage. And as you said, there's about 400 centers that don't have SOZOs, and so we're working to see how we can support them with the lymphedema prevention program.
Cool. Okay, thanks. And, insurance companies' policy reviews underway, pending, and in particular, is there any update on California and Texas?
So they are. They're all pending. So payer coverage, you know, is, you know, running through their own processes and timelines. We continue to kind of support payers. The ones that have been updated are primarily in New York, the ones that we lifted out and we put out on the press announcement, New York, Pennsylvania region, on the East Coast. And so we're continuing to see, you know, how these ones in Texas, California, come along. So no, no update on those at the moment.
Oh, okay. And lastly, a blast from the past, is the case assistance program still operating for states that don't have coverage?
There is, but you know, we're increasingly getting to the point where we have got good coverage, like in our critical mass states, so we continue to support the programs and the customers that need to be supported with this case assistance.
Okay, but it's essentially, it's naturally winding down 'cause it's less use.
Yeah, exactly. As coverage comes on and, you know, as we've got those 16 states with more than 80% coverage, you don't need those case assistance programs anymore. But yes, as need be, we continue to support those customers that need the case support.
Okay, great. Look, thanks very much.
Thank you.
That's all from me. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Katie and Lutz Steffens, private investors. Please go ahead. Your next question comes from Hamish Jones, from Beaches and Bays. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. I was just wondering whether you can give an update on how you're feeling about your current liquidity position versus, I guess, the improvement in the operating performance of the business, and I guess your tolerance to keep running the business at the moment whilst you're generating that improved performance before you kind of address the elephant in the room, which is how to bridge the funding gap, I guess.
Yeah. Thanks, Hamish. So, you know, as you were seeing the, you know, quarterly, we have four quarters of cash on hand, and we're forecasting a reduction in our operating cash outflows in the following quarter. So we expect that we'll continue to have four quarters of cash on hand at the end of the next quarter. You know, we have a budget and a plan, and, you know, our actual requirements will, you know, depend on the achievement of that plan, including delivering on sales targets and continuing to manage our costs as effectively as possible. We've also modeled the business under various downside scenarios, that where not so much revenue is generated and cash flow is lower.
You know, we have a plan to, you know, respond to that, to align costs further, as required, to ensure we can get to cash flow breakeven without raising further capital. You know, it comes down to sales and execution, and as you know, it's a high margin business, and as sales grow, that falls pretty much most of that falls to the bottom line. So at this stage, we're comfortable with the position, and we continue to monitor it closely.
Okay, that's great. And just one technical question on the churn number. Does 3% churn, does that include the 78 units that got knocked out?
No, no, that's separate to that. That churn related to six other customers, of which half of those were customers that, for various reasons, continue to use the device. They just are using less. They reduced the number of devices they're using. And there were two small customers in that, and one where a unit was replaced. So look, it's not a big issue, and you know, I think we're fairly comfortable with that.
Great. And just you said that those units that got knocked out were what vintage of units you said? They were kind of pre-2020, or what?
2022. Certainly at least prior to December 2022. So these are units that you know were installed quite a long time ago. And as Parmjot said earlier, there are a variety of reasons as to why they've ceased being used. But it's not helpful having them in the installed base, and so that's why we've taken them out. And they're out from all the data that we've shown in that deck.
Okay. That's great. That's all from me. Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. As there are no further questions at this time, I'll now hand back to Dr. Bains for any closing remarks.
Yes. Well, thank you, everybody, and thanks again for your continued support of the business. As I kind of reiterated at the end of my previous discussion, you know, we, as a team, we are very excited about the future of ImpediMed, and I think all of the critical building blocks are in place. And really now the focus is just sales, growing sales, and helping support our customers implement these lymphedema prevention programs in place. So thank you, and looking forward to connecting next quarterly.
Thanks very much.
That does conclude our conference today.