Thoratec Corporation Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript...

Thoratec Corporation Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

http://seekingalpha.com/article/120973-thoratec-corporation-q4-2008-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo

EXTRACT

Gary Burbach

Thank you, David and hello everyone. As David mentioned at the opening of the call, we concluded 2008 in a very solid manner. Beginning with our financial performance we ended the year with revenues of $314 million, a 34% increase over revenues of $235 million in 2007. Revenues in the fourth quarter of 2008 were $85.7 million, a 34% increase over revenues of $64.1 million in the fourth quarter a year ago. Cardiovascular division revenues in 2008 were $215 million versus the $144 million a year ago or an increase of 49%. Our Cardiovascular Division revenues were $60.2 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 48% over revenues of $40.5 million in the fourth quarter a year ago. The results for the fourth quarter of 2008 include approximately $1.4 million in HeartMate II stocking orders.

Excluding CentriMag, we sold 604 pumps in the quarter versus 470 pumps in the fourth quarter a year ago. For the full year, we sold 2,231 pumps versus 1,712 a year ago, again excluding CentriMag. As we did for our first half results, we will provide additional detail on product sales for the full year. In 2008 the HeartMate product line which includes the HeartMate II and XVE accounted for $161 million in sale, a 75% increase over sales of $91.8 million in 2007 while our PVAD and IVAD sales were $41.7 million, a 4% decline from sales of $43.3 million a year ago. CentriMag sales in 2009 were $9.9 million, a 50% increase over sales of $6.6 million a year ago. For the year, Cardiovascular Division revenues in North America were $173 million, a 57% increase over North America revenues of $110 million a year ago. International Cardiovascular Division revenues were $41.8 million, a 22% increase over $34.2 million in 2007. Finally of our total Cardiovascular Division revenues $165 million resulted from pump sales with $47.4 million generated by sales of equipment and accessories.

This compared to pump revenues of $109 million and equipment and accessory revenues of $32.5 million in 2007. The balance of our Cardiovascular Division revenues reflects contributions from our graft business. In the next few minutes, I would like to address some key events during the quarter and then provide you our perspectives on the Company’s operational outlook for 2009. We continue to add new HeartMate II centers during the quarter although as I am sure you would expect at rate lower than in the second and third quarters. We added twelve new centers ending the year with 55 new centers significantly exceeding our initial goal of 40 new centers. At yearend, we had a total of 101 HeartMate II centers in North America. This total includes 87 transplant and 8 open heart centers in the US and 6 centers in Canada.

It is particularly encouraging to see the level of ongoing utilization as 100% of the trial centers and 64 % of the new HeartMate II centers have reordered the device during 2008. The patient experience in the commercial setting continues to be highly positive. Reinforcing the value of our strategy to add new centers in a measured way and ensuring that the centers would have the training and clinical support necessary to achieve successful patient outcomes.

The value of our strategy is also being borne out by the early data reported in the InterMax registry in which the 169 HeartMate II patients required for the post market study were enrolled during the second and third quarters. The initial data showed that 30 day mortality was only 4% which compared favorably with the bridge trial experience. We continue to see favorable data from the HeartMate II bridge trial presented at major medical meetings. At the American Heart Association meeting in November there were a number of ad presentations including several involving the HeartMate II.

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BTW Abiomed is a small company no comparison to THOR.