iSpecimen Inc (ISPC) (Q1 2024) Earnings Call Transcript Highlights: Navigating Challenges and ...

GuruFocus Research

Wed, May 8, 2024, 12:19 AM 7 min read

Revenue: Q1 2024: $2.3 million; Q1 2023: $3 million.
Net Specimen Count: Q1 2024: 5,241; Q1 2023: 8,629.
Average Selling Price per Specimen: Q1 2024: $437; Q1 2023: $342.
Cost of Revenue: Q1 2024: $1 million; Q1 2023: $1.1 million.
Technology Expenses: Q1 2024: $912,000; Q1 2023: $834,000.
Sales and Marketing Expenses: Q1 2024: $660,000; Q1 2023: $962,000.
General and Administrative Expenses: Q1 2024: $2.1 million; Q1 2023: $1.8 million.
Cash and Cash Equivalents: March 31, 2024: $2.1 million.
Available-for-Sale Securities: March 31, 2024: $466,000.
Total Cash and Investments: March 31, 2024: $2.6 million; December 31, 2023: $5 million.
Quarterly Cash Burn: Q1 2024: $1.2 million (excluding one-time charges).

Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with ISPC.

Release Date: May 07, 2024

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Positive Points

iSpecimen Inc (NASDAQ:ISPC) has successfully advanced operational initiatives, creating a foundation for continued growth and scalability.
The company's Next Day Quotes program has significantly improved the quote to purchase order conversion ratio, enhancing sales flow and customer service.
iSpecimen Inc (NASDAQ:ISPC) has strategically reduced operational and capital expenditures, leading to a reduced quarterly cash burn compared to the previous year.
The company has streamlined its supplier network, focusing on quality over quantity, which has led to more efficient operations and potentially higher quality bio specimens.
iSpecimen Inc (NASDAQ:ISPC) has seen a growth in prospective collections and an increase in the average selling price per specimen, indicating strong market demand and effective pricing strategies.

Negative Points

Revenue for the first quarter of 2024 decreased compared to the same period in 2023, primarily due to a significant drop in specimen count.
Despite a decrease in the number of suppliers, there is a risk associated with relying on fewer suppliers for bio specimens.
The company experienced a decrease in technology staff, which could impact its ability to innovate and maintain technological advancements.
General and administrative expenses increased, driven by higher professional fees and taxes, which could impact profitability.
iSpecimen Inc (NASDAQ:ISPC) is still in the process of implementing its supplier network refresh program, which may involve uncertainties and execution risks.

Q & A Highlights

Q: Good morning, and thank you for taking the questions. Maybe first up a remarkable increase in the conversion rate on your next day quotes. I'm just curious, is that sustainable? How should we think about, especially as you had several more on kind of people embedded with those customers. How will that kind of drive or accelerate growth as the year progresses? A: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for that. I have a huge smile on my face because we are really excited about this, and we do believe it's sustainable. I'm going to turn this over to Leslie to talk a little bit more. That nice to meet you. And I agree, Tracy, next day quote is absolutely sustainable and will always plan to be the way we operate on two fronts with our banked and remnant business as we continue to work through our supplier network refresh program, we are working with each and every supplier to understand where they are in their ability to and provide inventory data files to us. And all of those conversations are moving them towards where they are in towards getting us more and better data were then able to have more data in our inventory. We can market more specimens. Customers can look at them directly on those are all next day quotes and how we will grow our banked and remnant Mexico program. On the prospective side, it's a little bit different. It's understanding and partnering with prospective sites, entire supplier contracts, if you will, where we understand their capabilities and trust and their ability to perform adequately. And we allow those whole sites and what they do into our program. And we have got added three sites in the last two months onto that program, and we'll continue to do so on. So yeah, extremely sustainable in the business plan going forward and automated coordinators that triangle can bottle coordinates on would be most helpful for us in a prospective area.

Q: That's fantastic. And kind of similarly on with that reduction in suppliers, how does that change access to samples? Or are your remaining 140 sites, are they able to increase their supply or the some of the things that maybe the prior suppliers weren't capable of providing data on or whatnot? A: That's a good question. It has good questions, Matt. But the answer is we've been really energized and excited about the conversations we're having with suppliers and the [15] remaining [100 plus] because we are finding out that they have more capabilities than we were aware of. And so while we are contracting the size of our supplier network, we were able to expand the capabilities of those that are existing because of the and more robust conversations we are having with them right now, frankly, maybe you can add a little bit more to that than I just did. Yes, I 100% agree, Tracy. We actually have access to more supply with less suppliers. And the reason why is we have time on to be able to focus on those suppliers and understand the breadth of their capabilities. And we I would say it's been in almost every case as we renew our relationship that those companies have grown and their ability to provide different services and different types of specimens. And we're now able to grow with them because we have the time to understand their pricing, understand their capabilities and for that to be known across the company for them to be used from sales and marketing, do acid feasibility process. And we are probably halfway through this process of recontracting and already have a greater supply, some of our investments, if you will, and with less suppliers. The last thing I'll say is the other reason that is true is that the supplier contracts that we terminated, more suppliers that we weren't working much with Matt may really weren't representing a quality supply of specimens, nor were they working with us in an efficient way on where we were able to deliver these projects on time and under expectation. So not much lost on the terminated contract and not gained on the recontracting process.

Q: That's great. Thank you. And then maybe one last one. I'll hop back in the queue. But bird flu has been hitting the headlines quite a bit here recently. And I'm just curious if that creates an opportunity for you, if so, have you already started to work with some of your supplier network to ramp up their capabilities sort of obtaining samples and the necessary data. Are you already seeing demand on the purchasing side of those types of samples? Any color on that front would be helpful. Thank you. A: And so any opportunities like that are always unfortunate for our fortunately for Acthar and unfortunate in our for the general population are an opportunity for us on we know well, we had a lot of requests for, for example, the share, but that's largely airplanes. You know, specifically? I have not yet heard of demand from bird flu, but we'll certainly follow up on that right after the call, Tom, I agree Tracey's. We're getting the usual flu A. and B and market demand wanes with the different threat to us. But I will follow up on that I have not seen any demand yet.

Q: Understood. Thank you. A: You're welcome.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.

Terms

and

WA Consumer Health Privacy Policy

Your privacy controls

News

Life

Entertainment

Finance

Sports

New on Yahoo

Yahoo Finance

iSpecimen Inc (ISPC) (Q1 2024) Earnings Call Transcript Highlights: Navigating Challenges and ...

In This Article:

Positive Points

Negative Points

Q & A Highlights

Recommended Stories