Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Masimo's third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. The company's press release is available at www.masimo.com. At this time, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I'm pleased to introduce Eli Kammerman, Masimo's Vice President of Business Development and Investor Relations.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. Joining me today are Chairman and CEO, Joe Kiani, and Executive Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer, Micah Young. This call will contain forward-looking statements which reflect Masimo's current judgment, including certain of our expectations regarding fiscal 2019 financial performance. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our projections and forecasts are discussed in detail in our periodic filings with the SEC. You will find these in the investor relations section of our website. Also, this call will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. We generally refer to these as non-GAAP financial measures.
In addition to GAAP results, these non-GAAP financial measures are intended to provide additional information to enable investors to assess the company's operating results in the same way management assesses such results. Management uses non-GAAP measures to budget, evaluate, and measure the company's performance and sees these results as an indicator of the company's ongoing business performance. The company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures increase transparency and better reflect the underlying financial performance of the business. Reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included within the earnings release and supplementary financial information on our website. Investors should consider all of our statements today, together with our reports filed with the SEC, including our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q, in order to make informed investment decisions.
In addition to the earnings release issued today, we have posted a quarterly earnings presentation within the investor relations section of our website to supplement the content we will be covering this afternoon. Now I'll pass the call to Joe Kiani.
Thank you, Eli. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Masimo's third quarter 2019 earnings call. Once again, we're happy to report third quarter results that exceeded expectations for both revenue and earnings. Our third quarter performance demonstrates the value of our innovative products for improving patient care and reducing the cost of care as we've won new customers and expanded our business with existing customers. Our product revenue increased approximately 13% to reach $229 million, which was driven by strong performance across our major geographies and product platforms. This growth reflects the clinical advantages of our breakthrough technology. Due to the strong performance we realized in the third quarter, we are once again raising our revenue and earnings guidance for 2019. I'll discuss more developments later in the call today.
Now I'll ask Micah to review our third quarter results in more detail and provide you with an update on our 2019 financial guidance.
Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon, everyone. Before we get started, let me remind you that the financial measures I will be covering today will be primarily on a non-GAAP basis, unless noted otherwise. Please refer to our website for today's earnings release, supplemental financial information, and the quarterly earnings presentation, as well as the Form 8-K we filed with the SEC for further information regarding our non-GAAP measures and reconciliations. As Joe mentioned, we're happy to once again not just meet but exceed expectations. Our results for the third quarter reflect another strong quarter of product revenue growth, operating margin expansion, and earnings performance that exceeded expectations. During the quarter, we shipped 60,700 technology boards and monitors, consistent with our guidance of roughly 60,000 drivers per quarter this year.
For the third quarter of 2019, our product revenues were $228.9 million, reflecting growth of 13.3%, or 13.6% growth on a constant currency basis. Please note that our product revenues for the quarter included approximately $2.7 million of monitoring equipment revenue recognized under ASC 842, which contributed roughly 1% to our growth rate this quarter. Our revenue performance this quarter was driven by strong performance across our major geographies and product platforms, which are performing better than the growth rates that we had originally laid out in our long-term plan. Moving on to the rest of the P&L. For the third quarter, our non-GAAP product gross margin increased 270 basis points to 68.3%, compared to 65.6% in the prior year period. This improvement was primarily driven by favorable customer and product mix, increased manufacturing efficiencies, and the additional cost reduction activities we've implemented to improve margins.
Non-GAAP selling, general, and administrative expenses decreased 30 basis points to 34.7% of product revenue, compared to 35.0% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP research and development expenses increased 40 basis points to 10.6% of product revenue, compared to 10.2% in the prior year period.
The higher R&D spend was primarily due to increased staffing levels and project-related costs reflecting our commitment to investing in innovative technologies that improve patient outcomes while reducing the cost of care. For the third quarter, our non-GAAP operating margin increased 260 basis points to 23%, compared to 20.4% in the prior year period. Non-operating income on a non-GAAP basis was approximately $3.6 million for the quarter, compared to $2.3 million in the prior year period. The increase is primarily driven by an increase in net interest income. Turning to taxes, our non-GAAP tax expense in the third quarter was $12.6 million, resulting in a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 22.4%, compared to a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 22.5% in the prior year period. Our weighted average shares outstanding for the quarter were 57.3 million, compared to 56.2 million in the prior year period.
The 2% increase in our weighted average share count over the prior year is primarily due to the dilutive impact that a higher stock price has under the treasury stock method. For the third quarter, our non-GAAP net income was $43.7 million, or $0.76 per diluted share. In comparison, the third quarter 2018 non-GAAP net income was $33.7 million, or $0.60 per diluted share. This reflects non-GAAP EPS growth of 27% over the prior year quarter. Turning to our GAAP results, GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2019 was $49.1 million, or $0.86 per diluted share. In comparison, third quarter 2018 GAAP net income was $57.1 million, or $1.02 per diluted share. The decrease was primarily due to the impact of lower royalty revenues and lower tax benefits from stock option exercises.
To recap, our global organization delivered constant currency product revenue growth of 13.6%, non-GAAP operating margin expansion of 260 basis points, and non-GAAP EPS growth of 27%. Now I'd like to provide you with an update on our full-year 2019 financial guidance. As a result of our strong performance in the third quarter, we are increasing our 2019 product revenue guidance to $932 million, which reflects year-over-year growth of 12.3% on a reported basis, or 13.1% on a constant currency basis. This represents an increase of $7 million above our prior guidance of $925 million. Please note that we are now projecting approximately $7 million of year-over-year currency headwinds and $8 million of monitoring equipment revenue under ASC 842 within our full-year revenue guidance. Our non-GAAP product gross margin guidance remains unchanged at 66.8%, and our non-GAAP operating expense guidance remains unchanged at 42.8% of product revenue.
Based on these assumptions, we are continuing to project Non-GAAP operating profit margins of 24%, which represents 200 basis points of improvement over the prior year. Moving further down the P&L, we expect to generate approximately $13 million in Non-GAAP non-operating income in 2019, which is primarily comprised of interest income. Our Non-GAAP tax rate remains unchanged at roughly 23%, and we are estimating that our weighted average shares outstanding for the year will be 57.2 million shares. Based on all these assumptions, we are now increasing our Non-GAAP EPS guidance to $3.18, which represents an increase of $0.03 above our prior guidance of $3.15. As a result, our Non-GAAP EPS is projected to grow 20% in 2019.
From a GAAP perspective, we are now projecting a GAAP tax rate of 17.8% and GAAP earnings per share of $3.37 for the year, which represents an increase of $0.07 from our prior guidance of $3.30. For additional details on our full-year 2019 financial guidance for GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share, please refer to today's press release and supplemental financial information within the investor relations section of our website at masimo.com. With that, I'll turn the call back to Joe.
Thank you, Micah. The first three quarters of 2019 have been strong, despite the challenges we face, sometimes unfair and unexpected. Through it all, we never forget our guiding principles and mission to improve patient care and reduce cost of care. We take our mission and opportunity to do good for the world seriously. In August, we received a CE mark for neonatal use of our continuous hemoglobin monitoring technology. This is the first time our breakthrough SpHb technology, which has been shown to optimize blood transfusion and reduce mortality in adults, is available to neonatologists outside the U.S. In September, we announced Pathway, a new monitoring feature for guiding neonatal resuscitation. Pathway software, available on Root, provides clinicians with a way to visualize a hospital's recommended resuscitation protocol for a struggling newborn's oxygen saturation while continuously monitoring SpO2 and pulse rate during the first 10 minutes after birth.
Masimo was the first company to create a specialty sensor for neonatal resuscitation, called the Newborn sensor. We are delighted to now be the first to offer Pathway in our pursuit of helping clinicians take care of this very fragile and promising patient population. Also in September, we announced the delta cerebral hemoglobin, delta oxyhemoglobin, and delta deoxyhemoglobin indices available on our O3 regional oximetry offering. With these indices, O3, in addition to providing cerebral oxygen saturation, can now provide clinicians with additional visibility into blood flow and regulation of the flow in the brain by indicating relative changes in underlying total hemoglobin, as well as oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin components used to calculate cerebral oxygen saturation or RSO2.
Our hospital automation platform continues to be received well by our customers, as we achieved installations for hospital automation systems in the third quarter at seven hospitals in the U.S., Kuwait, Morocco, Portugal, and U.A.E. These hospitals are using Root with UniView, Replica, and Patient SafetyNet to improve the continuum of care in their hospitals. Our other major strategic initiative, the Opioid SafetyNet system, is progressing well. We are still targeting submission to the FDA by the end of this year. We're committed to providing access and affordability for Opioid SafetyNet. We believe existing reimbursement codes will cover limited use cases. We plan to apply for new codes for broader coverage. In closing, Masimo is on track for a strong finish to 2019 and great beginnings in the new decade ahead.
Our breakthrough technologies are available in over 150 countries and are being used on over 100 million people annually, improving outcomes and reducing cost of care globally. We will continue to take advantage of the opportunity that we have to improve patient safety, to make the world a bit better, and create value and hope for all of our stakeholders, including our amazing team, caring customers, and long-term shareholders. With that, we'll open the call to questions. Operator?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star and then the number one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Your first question comes from Rick Wise of Stifel. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good afternoon to everybody and congratulations on another excellent quarter. Thank you. Maybe just to start off at the big picture level, there's been some concern, frankly, based on Philips' comments, and sort of general vague comments that suggested U.S. market growth slowing, it seemed, in their connected care business, which is obviously multiple franchises, but which led to concerns about slower hospital spending or capital spending. My question is, your results obviously don't suggest it, but are you seeing any new or incremental hospital spending delays, cancellations, or anything that might suggest more challenging times ahead? Not for the next quarter, but as we look ahead to 2020, just that might impact Masimo.
We are not. Our business model is different than Philips. Philips relies heavily on capital dollars spent, and our business model is more of razor-razorblade, and even when it comes to capital, more of a SaaS model. That might be why you're seeing a divergence between Philips and Masimo's results and outlook.
Yeah. Thank you, Joe. Turning to a couple of products. It's great to see the hospital automation platform story evolve, seven installed. Maybe you'd remind me how many installations you have so far, and help us think through with just a little more color and detail, if you could. One, remind us how many you have installed to date. Two, what's next? How do we think about the ramp there? I've got to believe, obviously, that that's not just growth sustaining. This could be an incremental driver for you, again, as we look ahead to next year and beyond.
Sure, Rick. I'll do my best. First of all, off the top of my head, and I might be wrong, different pieces of this technology are available at different rates. For example, Patient SafetyNet, it's in hundreds of hospitals. Root patient monitoring for automating the spot check mode is, again, available in at least 100, if not more, hospitals. What I'm referring to as hospital automation is the convergence of all the pieces. Root connectivity, so that everything in the room is connected to it and the data is then sent to central locations like EMR or central networking systems where patients are being followed, as well as being able to display the information in a way that's more logical and less burdensome to the team that's caring for the patients, whether it's in the OR or the ICU, with technologies like UniView.
Remotely, from wherever these clinicians might be, alerting them to issues or on their own, checking on their patients with things like Replica. As the patient gets discharged, following them home, both by providing care pathways that are better adhered to and reminded to through our automated system, and monitoring them as necessary in the full continuum of care. Bottom line, when it comes to the full implementation, I may be wrong, but I don't think the number is that much more than seven. Remember, we've launched hospital automation early this year, the full suite of everything that we think optimizes the continuum of care.
Okay. Thank you, Joe. Just two last from me. Maybe, Micah, I'll turn to you. You highlighted the 60,700 board driver number reported. Maybe you could give us a little more color. I understand it's in line with your guidance, but for folks who are maybe looking at this for the first time, or we're sort of seeing it level off a little bit sequentially, that number. Help us understand why. I mean, it's obviously a great number relative to the past, but what's next there? What's going to be the driver, so to speak, of the next leg up? Maybe you could help us understand that.
Yeah. Rick, if you go back several years ago, our driver growth was somewhere around 5%-7% range. Over the last few years, that growth has been between 8%-10%, on average, over the last three years. If you look at our overall revenue growth rates over this period, it's higher. The reason being is because we're seeing more and more revenue per driver. It's not just generating revenue with SET, but it's now generating with those advanced parameters like capnography. We now have the disposables out there that we've launched this year. SedLine, brain function monitoring, and O3 cerebral oximetry, as well as Rainbow. We're able to generate more revenue per driver as we're able to deeper penetrate into our customer base and add new customers.
Okay. Just last from me for now. The opioid story seems to be on track. No change in your submission by end of 2019. Maybe help us understand what's left to do and just as you contemplate next year, is your excitement about the opportunity and your plans and your ability to ramp manufacturing and everything connected with that story, are you still basically on track, and are you still as optimistic about the potential there? Thank you.
Sure, Rick. Yes, we are basically on track, still optimistic about it. As you know, we were selected as one of eight companies out of over 250 by the FDA to deal with the opioid epidemic, the only monitoring company for that. That means we've been working really closely with the FDA, and we've been getting excellent guidance. The things we've been working on is really supplying the FDA of the information they've requested to hopefully not only clear it for a prescription model, but even for illicit users that could benefit from it. Everything's looking good. The product's looking good. One major piece of the product is the Radius PPG, which we are now finally at full production capacity at the American Society of Anesthesiologists. We'll let about a couple of thousand anesthesiologists try it for themselves. All signals are looking good.
Thank you so much, Joe.
Thank you, Rick.
Thank you, Rick.
Your next question comes from Bill Quirk of Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open.
Great, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone.
Hi, Bill.
Hi, Bill.
All right, a couple of questions. I guess first off, following up on Rick's last one on opioid safety net. Can you give us an update? I know you were kicking around a couple of different models, where are you thinking now in terms of the distribution model for that?
Well, we haven't yet finalized it. I think our biggest challenge is getting the word out. We're trying to figure out how to best get the message out there to potential users and potential prescribers. We of course have a nice footprint today in the clinical space. When it comes to the average consumer, they don't know Masimo, and we need to try to elevate that. As far as distribution, it hasn't changed. Obviously, there'll be some towards meeting with hospitals and physicians that prescribe opioids with our direct sales force, but also through our own website, maybe depending if we get the illicit use model through websites like Amazon and other, and even retail pharmacies is how we hope to get the product in the hands of the most people.
Joe, just to follow up on that, is it reasonable to assume then that you have kind of several different options in place and it really kind of comes down to the kind of breadth of the FDA approval or the claim rather?
Correct, Bill. We believe there's a chronic user of opioids. There is the naive users of opioids who go in for, say, a tonsillectomy and get prescribed opioids, and then there's the illicit ones. We think on the chronic and the naive use, we have an established distribution channel that we'll be able to leverage, albeit they'll need some reinforcement. Depending what the FDA does, if they do give us the illicit use, then that will be more consumer-facing model.
Okay, got it. A couple questions for Micah, if I may. First off, Micah, can you just give us some sense of the pace of growth across the three groups you've talked about historically, SET, Rainbow, and other products? I'm just wondering if they're continuing to perform at or above the expectations that you've laid out. Secondly, I was hoping to come back to your gross margin comments. Certainly appreciate the favorable mix impact. It does look like there's a few other things going on there given the magnitude of the year-over-year increase. I was hoping you could expand upon that. Thanks, guys.
To answer your first question on the product revenue. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, we're performing well across our major product platforms and geographies. We're also seeing our SET, Rainbow, and our advanced parameters, all those are performing above our long-range plan targets. The growth targets we laid out at Investor Day, we're continuing to see performance above those ranges. The other thing too, that we were happy to see in the quarter was we're now starting to see strength coming from our capnography and gas now that we've launched the disposable line, and that's even allowing us to perform even better, with those advanced parameters such as SedLine, NomoLine, and O3. Again, just to recap, we're seeing it above the long-range growth targets, and good results across our major geographies.
On the gross margin front, where I mentioned before is we're seeing favorable customer and product mix. Some of that too is we're seeing some benefit too from ASC 842. A lot of that gets into timing. That had some contribution in the quarter, but we've seen that ebb and flow throughout the year. We've also seen very strong results from a lot of our design for manufacturing initiatives as well as our procurement initiatives that are coming through and delivering good results for us on reducing the cost of our products.
Got it, guys. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Larry Keusch of Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Thank you. I don't know if this is for Joe or Micah or both. As we start to think about 2020, just curious if there's any puts or takes that we should be thinking about as we sort of contemplate where the business goes next year.
I think, Larry, I go back to Investor Day. As we've laid out our long-term growth targets, where the business is heading, again, we want to be very thoughtful and prudent about our guidance. As we head into next year, we're not going to give guidance on this call, but we always want to be thoughtful and provide guidance that we feel confident that not only can we meet, but we can exceed. We've laid out our revenue growth profile of 8%-10% growth. We've been guiding more recently at the high end of that range. That's how we would think about it. We've said that we're going to be trying to average 100 basis points per year as we march towards that long-term operating margin goal of 30%. That's what we laid out, and that's where we're sticking to.
Okay, perfect. Just a couple of other quick ones. Joe, I think you alluded to, on opioid safety, some potential reimbursement sort of as you get out the gates. Could you share a little more what you might have been talking about there?
Yes, certainly. In January of this year, remote patient monitoring was introduced as a potentially reimbursable service. It's possible that the way our product has been designed for the prescription usage, it can take advantage of that and allow patients to have access to our product with reimbursement. What other channels that we're going to be looking at is looking at a specific code for the system. There's also some talks from the administration to give products that have Breakthrough Device designation immediate reimbursement and review that reimbursement three years afterwards. If that does come to effect, that could be something we can take advantage of as well.
Would that all be predicated that this is a prescription product, or does it not matter?
Yes. That would be just for the prescription product. Our plan is to create two different products, one for prescription and one for over-the-counter illicit use type of a model. Subject to FDA, of course, clearing it, for both usages.
Okay, perfect. Lastly, just two quick ones here. Just definition, Joe, so that we're all on the same page because this will start to come up in the future. When you talk about hospital automation and placements, obviously there are, as you noted earlier, a lot of different aspects of this comprehensive offering that you have. What is the right way when you talk about hospital automation and a placement to define that? Is that Root, Iris, UniView, and Replica or some portion of that? Does it also mean that those are all subscription-based as well? The second question, just separately is, I may have been wrong on this, but I thought that opioid safety, the anticipation was that you guys were expecting clearance by the end of this year.
Not that it matters whether it's at the end of the year or early next year, but again, I just wanted to make sure I was thinking about it correctly.
I'm going to have to say yes to all three questions. Yes, when we think of hospital automation, we think about Root, Iris, UniView, Replica. If it could follow the patient home for the continuum of care at home, it would add Doctella and Rad-97, for example, which is a telehealth patient monitoring hub. As far as your thinking about our original thinking that we could get clearance by end of the year, that is also correct. That's what we thought, and we think that's still possible. Obviously, I can't control that. That is something that is clearly in the hands of FDA.
Given that we've had regular dialogue since the first time that the FDA designated this as one of eight products they thought could help the opioid epidemic, we have been working hand in hand in making a product and testing it in a way that FDA will find, hopefully, safe and effective and will clear it shortly.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Your next question comes from Matt Taylor of UBS. Your line is now open.
Hi, thanks for taking the question. Micah, I wanted to follow up on your comment on the revenue per driver. It's a little bit hard to calculate now because you don't give all the disclosures that you used to, but can you comment on whether revenue per driver is growing materially faster than some of the mid-single-digit rates that we saw in years past? Sort of where you think that could go as you start to see increased penetration of these other advanced parameters and Rainbow products?
Yeah, Matt, we see that as a steady ramp. Over time, as we continue to expand and more of our business becomes a higher mix of the Rainbow and advanced parameters. Those products are growing at faster growth rates than our core SET technology. We think that that's a steady pace of revenue per driver. We are seeing internally an increase in revenues per driver. We haven't given that specific number, but it's definitely ticking up, and we continue to expect that tick up moving forward, just based on the mix of where our growth is coming from in those product lines.
Just related to that, can you just remind us the current timelines that you expect for Philips to incorporate some of those other advanced parameters onto the boards? Just any kind of general update on how things are going with the Philips arrangement?
Matt, we mentioned that earlier in the year that we would have two of the three integrated by the second half of the year. This quarter, we did integrate our technologies into their devices, their monitors. Now it's just a matter of, we expect that we'll start launching that probably early next year, Q1 as far as getting everything ramped up in terms of volumes. Two of the three have been integrated, and that is NomoLine capnography as well as O3 cerebral oximetry.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Mike Matson of Needham & Company. Your line is now open.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Guess just a couple of pipeline-related ones. I guess first, anything new to report on the partial pressure of oxygen PaO2 parameter or the malaria product that you talked about at the investor day in May?
Yes. We weren't planning to report on it, but I can answer your question on those two things. On partial pressure of oxygen, we have finally prepared it and gotten clearance for beginning clinical studies on patients in the operating room. That should start in the next few days to 30 days max. On the malaria project, we're buttoning up the product to begin clinical trials in the field in affected countries for malaria in 2020.
Okay, thanks. Just wanted to ask about the ASC 842 accounting change. It's adding to growth this year. What is the impact going to be when we get into 2020?
Yeah, Mike, if you look at our results so far this year, you'll see it's adding about a point of growth on the top line. The full year, we're of course guiding 13% constant currency growth, and it's adding about a point of growth there. Our implied guidance without that is about 12% growth for the full year. As we think about next year, we're still working through, because there is a lot of variability in that because it's really related to the timing of installations and where we're putting our equipment out there at customers. At the moment, we expect that it's going to be relatively flat. You wouldn't see it repeating, and the reason why we're providing that disclosure this year is because we expect that it'll be flat next year and not provide another one-point contribution to our growth next year.
Hopefully that helps.
All right. Thank you. That's all I have.
Thank you all for joining us today. Oh, do we have any more?
One more.
Okay. All right. One more question, sorry.
Your last question comes from Ravi Misra of Berenberg Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question, I'll keep it brief. Just on that core business growth commentary that looked stronger across those three portals. Micah or Joe, could you help us think about where the strength is coming? I mean, is this an increase in licensing from kind of new driver activations of Rainbow or SedLine or capnography, or is the growth coming from kind of increases of sensors going to those existing boards? Thanks. Have a great night.
Sure. Thank you. Yeah, it's really, like I said earlier, all of the above. It's not only through multiple of our major product lines, but geography as well. The SET business is doing very well. The install base is growing, and our sensor volumes have been solid. As you know, we're about to walk into the flu season, which if it matches what happens in Australia, could even be a stronger quarter than last fourth quarter in Q1 of 2019. Excuse me, 2018 and Q1 of 2020. 2019, excuse me. The strength is all around. Rainbow's picking up. SpHb is doing very well. We're getting some incredible results from both clinically as well as customer demand and performance. It's all across the board.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Rick Wise of Stifel. Your line is now open.
Hey, sorry to bother you with a couple more, just, I was hoping it would get asked. Obviously, excellent quarter, you've sort of hinted at indirectly, but should we assume that everything with Philips is actually on track, going well? Where are we now in rolling out and getting those contracts after the board installations, the contracts for the single-use products?
Well, I would say Philips is going well. Some things are behind. We would've expected the NomoLine and O3 to have been released end of last year. We are behind. SedLine was supposed to be introduced this year. Now it looks like it'll get introduced next year, following NomoLine and O3. Overall, we don't have complaints. It's a relationship that, as you know, got kickstarted after a successful IP litigation and settlement, and we're learning how to get along and we're doing the best we can.
Okay. Just two last quick ones. Micah, any balance sheet updates, quickly, and, I hate to be the one who asks, but any more strategic thoughts, updates in your latest thinking, Joe?
Yeah.
Well, I think Micah would like to answer that, so go ahead, Micah.
Yeah. Rick, just an update on, I'm assuming you're asking a question on how we're deploying our capital.
Yes
our cash on the balance sheet. Our strategy hasn't changed there. We're continuing to reinvest in the business. You've seen our R&D. As a percentage of revenue, I think it was 10.6% this quarter. We continue to make investments internally because the bar is extremely high internally for what we think we can do. We also want to execute acquisitions that are aligned with our strategy, and really, as we think about those, most of the things that we're looking at right now are primarily bolt-on acquisitions that we would use our cash for. That's some of the things we're evaluating. Third is, we continue to be selective on share purchases. We have a share repurchase program in place right now, and we have about 4.8 million shares remaining on that program. That's kind of how we think about our cash.
Just as we think about just a more broad strategy, with the acquisition side is, we want to leverage our strengths of our business. Leverage our core competencies, which are signal processing capability, our clinical footprint, as well as our manufacturing capability in some of the things that we look at. Hopefully that summarizes it.
Yeah. Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you all. Thanks for joining us. We wish you all a nice week. Those who celebrate Halloween, Happy Halloween. Those who don't, watch out for the ghouls and goblins running around. Look forward to talking to you guys again in February. Thank you so much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.