St. Louis-based Stereotaxis had a slump during its second quarter, seeing its revenue decline 22.7% from $15 million during the same period last year. To help bounce back, the company has announced an operating plan for the commercialization of its new Epoch and Odyssey platforms designed to minimize the company's cash burn, while continuing to fund R&D investment in growth areas.
In its earnings release, the company also announced that CFO Daniel Johnston will resign his position as of Aug. 15. Johnston has entered into a consulting agreement through which he will provide consulting services to the company for a minimum of 10 hours per week through Dec. 31.
Stereotaxis, which designs and markets an advanced cardiology instrument control system for use in a hospital's interventional surgical suite, says its plan will reduce operating expenses by approximately 15% to 20%. The company also is working on several options to raise cash with minimal or no dilution to shareholders and expects the impact of these initiatives on operating expenses be seen in the fourth quarter.
"Our revenue and new capital order performance is being impacted by a slowdown in Niobe II momentum and the related impact on the Odyssey business due to delays of Odyssey installations in Niobe labs," said company President and CEO Michael Kaminski in a statement. "The slowdown in Niobe is due to the market's demand for a more efficient solution for complex ablation procedures. We successfully introduced our new Epoch platform, the Niobe II replacement[.] The significant interest in Epoch's dramatically enhanced efficiency in electrophysiology (EP) procedures has intensified the market shift away from the current Niobe II."
He added the company needs to take "difficult but prudent actions to significantly reduce our costs as the market awaits the availability of Epoch."
Back in May, Stereotaxis granted Johnson & Johnson unit Biosense Webster global, non-exclusive rights to resell its Odyssey products. Under the agreement, Biosense Webster will sell and deploy Odyssey products in EP labs equipped with its CARTO 3 platform, an advanced three-dimensional imaging technology used to treat cardiac arrhythmias.
- get the Stereotaxis release
- see the company's SEC filing on Johnston