CARLSBAD, Calif. , Aug. 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Aurora Spine Corporation (“Aurora Spine” or the “Company”) (TSXV: ASG) (OTCQB: ASAPF), a designer and manufacturer of innovative medical devices that improve spinal surgery outcomes, today announced the financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022. All figures are in U.S. dollars.
Q2 Financial and Business Highlights
- Sales Growth – Strong quarter over quarter sales and comparable quarter growth. Sales grew 14.5% from Q1 2022 to Q2 2022 and 67.7% over Q2 2021.
- Positive EBITDAC – $96,285 in Q2 compared to ($153,972) in Q1 and ($480,837) in Q2 2021. EBITDAC is a non-GAAP financial measure (defined below).
- Zip Stenosis Indication – The Company received FDA clearance of a new Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Indication for Use for its ZIP™ family of MIS implants.
- Patent Issued – the issuance of United States Patent No: 11,331,199 entitled “Spinal Implant for Motion Preservation or Fusion.” This patent covers Aurora’s ZIPFlex™ Technology for a minimally invasive posterior interlaminar implant for motion preservation that could be adapted into a fusion or non-fusion device while implanted in a patient via a small modular attachment.
- FDA 510(K) Clearance – received FDA 510(k) clearance for its DEXA SOLO-L™ spinal fusion system. The 3D printed standalone anterior lumbar interbody fusion device (ALIF) was developed as part of the world’s first bone density matched implant based on Aurora’s patented DEXA Technology Platform.
Management Commentary
Mr. Trent Northcutt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aurora Spine, stated, “The second quarter results continued Aurora’s momentum with another record revenue quarter. These results stem directly from the sales and marketing strategy we established during 2021 and the industry’s emergence from the pandemic. Our proprietary products continue to be utilized by surgeons and pain interventionalists and we are seeing adoption of our products from more doctors that have participated in our nationwide training sessions.”
Mr. Northcutt continued, “During the second quarter we continued to enhance the company’s intellectual property, which will add value over the longer term. We obtained FDA 510(k) clearance on our second product in our DEXA series, the DEXA SOLO-L, which is a 3D printed standalone anterior lumbar interbody fusion device using Aurora’s proprietary DEXA technology to match these implants against a patient’s bone density score. We also received FDA clearance on another indication for ZIP, Lumbar Spinal Stenosis, and expect this to expand the usage for our ZIP family of MIS implants. Finally, in addition, a patent was issued by the USPTO covering Aurora’s ZIPFlex Technology, a spinal implant that can be easily interchanged between acting as a motion preservation or fusion device. Advancing these new products in our pipeline is very important to our company’s strategy and we anticipate that many of these products will pave the way for future growth for years to come.”
Mr. Northcutt concluded, “As the second quarter results demonstrated, we are executing on our plan and are very excited about our future. We are experiencing continued momentum heading into the second half of 2022 and into 2023. We have several catalysts in place for additional growth, one of them being the SiLO-TFXTM, a titanium/non-bone version of our SiLO SI Joint product, which we expect to be available later this year. We also continue to expand our training sessions and anticipate surpassing our goal of meeting with 400 doctors by the end of 2022.”
Mr. Chad Clouse, Chief Financial Officer of Aurora Spine, added, “Second quarter results were again record revenues for Aurora and cashflow positive for the quarter. We continue to make key investments for the future including building certain inventories to create additional instrument kits to ship to new customers later this year and into 2023. While receivables continued to rise, we are keenly focused on collections and expect to see a reduction in the receivables balance.”
Financial Results
Total revenues for the second quarter of 2022 were $4.07 million an increase of 67.7% when compared to $2.43 million in the same quarter one year ago and compared to $3.55 million for the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 14.5%. The improvement in revenues were due to more procedures incorporating Aurora products like the ZIP and SiLO and the hospitals and surgery centers returning to more normal operations post-pandemic and as more procedures using Aurora products being done in surgery centers.
Gross margin on total revenues were 52.6% for the second quarter of 2022, compared to 41.4% in Q2 of 2021 and compared to 53.5% during the first quarter of 2022. The year-over-year improvement in gross margins is attributable to the company’s strategy of selling more proprietary, Aurora Spine products. As the company continues to focus on growing sales of proprietary products, gross margin has the capabilities for additional improvements, dependent upon sales mix and shipping costs.
Total operating expenses were $2.368 million for the second quarter of 2022, compared to $1.879 million in the second quarter of 2021, and compared to $2.288 million for the first quarter of 2022. Operating expenses increased from the second quarter one year ago due to a return to normalized operations, the addition of new key salespeople, as well as higher research and development costs for new products and clinical studies.
EBITDAC (a non-GAAP figure non IFRS measure defined as Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, Amortization and Stock based compensation) was $0.10 million for the second quarter of 2022, compared to $(0.48) million in the second quarter of 2021 and $(0.15) million in the first quarter of 2022. EBITDAC improved sequentially due to improved sales and gross profit.
Net loss was $(0.160) million for the second quarter of 2022, compared to a loss of $(0.387) million in the first quarter of 2022 and improved from the second quarter of 2021 of a loss of $(0.700) million. Basic and diluted net (loss) income per share was $(0.00) per share in the second quarter of 2022 and $(0.01) per share for the first quarter of 2021 and $(0.01) per share in the second quarter of 2021.
Full financial statements can be found on SEDAR at (www.sedar.com).