Earnings Call
Biotricity Inc. (BTCY)
Earnings Call Transcript - BTCY Q2 2021
Mark Forney, Investor Relations
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Biotricity’s fiscal 2021 Q2 earnings conference call. As a reminder, Biotricity’s quarter ended on September 30, 2020, so all figures presented for this period will reflect that end date. On Tuesday, we issued our fiscal 2021 Q2 financial results press release. A copy of the press release is available on the Investor Relations section of our website and the financials are posted on EDGAR. Before beginning our formal remarks, I'd like to remind listeners that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views with respect to future events. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Biotricity does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements except as required. At this point, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Biotricity’s founder and CEO, Waqqas Al-Siddiq. Please go ahead.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Thank you, Mark, and thank you everybody for joining us today. Today's an exciting day for us because this is our first earnings call, marking an important step as a public company. We believe that we have all the pieces in place to emerge as a leading growth stock in the med tech sector in 2021. So, today's discussion provides a glimpse into management’s view that growth will be a common theme in our future earnings calls. Our core business is centered on remote patient monitoring or RPM as I will refer to. And one of our key differentiators is our technology platform that we built from scratch to serve multiple chronic care conditions. This gives us a significant competitive advantage because very few players in the space have built a fully extensible software platform and FDA approved hardware to match. We also took the time to integrate the 4G, 5G cellular tech ourselves, creating a complete IoT platform with global reach. We believe that our rapid revenue growth shows that we have incorporated the right features and functionality to become a major force in the complex cardiac remote patient monitoring market. A couple of key points that define our strategy. First, our vision is to utilize our platform for diagnostic and post-diagnostic solutions where we can develop solutions for chronic patients. We chose the cardiac space as our first market chiefly because it was underserved. Secondly, we strategically built solutions that aligned with insurance reimbursement codes where a physician and healthcare organization can use our platform in a technology as a service model or TaaS. This is a hybrid approach of the traditional software-as-a-service model, which shares a common theme of a recurring revenue stream with long-term customer retention. This approach of developing solutions that align with reimbursement within a service model, creating a revenue stream for both our customers and Biotricity, is a core component of our strategy as a company and the foundation upon which everything is built. Thirdly, and perhaps the most important strategic differentiator is that our TaaS model enables the physician to drive incremental revenue while increasing patient care. This is the kind of win-win scenario that is highly desirable in any medical practice or healthcare system. Our first commercial platform, called Bioflux, is a real-time remote patient monitoring cardiac diagnostic solution for high-risk patients. We received FDA clearance at the end of 2017 and launched a limited market release in early 2018 to gain valuable on-the-ground feedback while we refined our go-to-market plan. We officially launched the product in early 2019. The Bioflux addresses two key problems. First, it enables patients to be monitored in the home, and secondly, it does so in real-time. Typically, patients have to use passive recording devices where data is recorded off a patch held device returned and then downloaded for analysis, sometimes taking up to two weeks for that data to get back to the patient. The traditional 'batch' data approach does not work for high-risk patients who could suffer an episode and can be hospitalized before data is sent to the doctor. Bioflux is an FDA approved high precision single unit mobile cardiac telemetry device with cloud-based software that provides real-time active monitoring and transmissions of patient ECG information. Our vision during the development phase of this product was to create a best of breed, easy-to-use platform that seamlessly integrates with physicians' existing workflows while also creating an immediate revenue stream. Our geographical rollout has been well received and ahead of schedule. We have grown rapidly and now our solution is across 18 states to-date, and we anticipate doubling that coverage by the end of calendar 2021. We now have approximately 500 cardiologists with a 99% retention rate and 100% reorder rate, which we are very proud of. Our product pipeline and platform expansion are focused on touching more of these patients on a regular basis than we do today. It is our goal to become the world's leading complex cardiac cloud. Recently, in July, we announced a partnership with Verizon to develop applications for first responders. This is the first validation of our technology platform outside of the traditional doctor's office and our core focus in cardiac. Our long-term plan is to adapt our platform technology into other clinician markets as well, and that is something I will touch on in the second half of this call. Our solution actively monitors the patient and transmits the data in real-time to clinical personnel, giving medical professionals the confidence and the time to take action if and when it's appropriate. This communication function is a clear advantage and highly valued by insurers and physicians because it helps prevent costly emergency room visits and hospitalization, and most importantly, creates a better level of care and peace of mind for the patient. The extra time and resources we spent during our R&D phase can be seen in a critical measure, monthly sales. With the exception of one month due to COVID, we have experienced month-over-month growth now for 18 months. This record is a testament to the recurring nature of our business model but also serves as an important measure of the sustainability of our revenue streams. Those of you who already know our story understand how much work has gone into bringing us to this pivotal point in our growth trajectory. For those of you hearing our story for the first time, we have perhaps the most milestone-rich period in our history lined up over the next few quarters. We believe the events on the horizon will cement our reputation as a leader in the complex cardiac monitoring space. Revenue growth will continue to provide strong confirmation of our TaaS model and allow for better comparisons to med tech companies in parallel industries that have evolved beyond just diagnostics to monthly care services and in turn are growing faster and valued at higher multiples. We have already proven that our solution has built traction and recurring revenue to maintain resilient, open-ended growth. Now, we are adding sales and building our revenue pipeline further. Our business partners and customers are cardiologists, and by extension, so are their pool of patients. We serve chronic patients who have a need that is lifelong in duration. In terms of important recent milestones during our fiscal Q2 - in August 2020, we received a 510(k) clearance from the FDA of our Bioflux Software II System. This product upgrade is an important milestone for the Company because it enhances our standing as the best-in-class solution. The software upgrade represents a quantum leap, improving workflows, and reducing analysis time. Cardiac monitoring, no matter how automated, still requires human oversight, so reducing the time between initial data collection and clinical intervention can be lifesaving during periods of crisis. These kinds of improvements also reduce operational costs for Biotricity and ultimately for our doctors and healthcare systems, particularly among high-risk patient populations who require a greater degree of oversight. It has only been three months since we received this FDA approval, so we are just beginning to realize the positive financial impact. The pandemic created an unexpected test platform for all remote practices in all parts of medicine. We made a key strategic move this quarter with the new telemedicine offering, enabling remote prescribing of Bioflux. Telemedicine is a perfect expansion of our Bioflux platform by providing enhanced value-added services to our network of cardiac specialists and supports the additional prescribing of Bioflux, a core solution. A central question for both investors and practitioners is, what will a post-pandemic world look like in remote monitoring and remote patient-doctor interaction? For us, we already have the answer: remote cardiac monitoring is one of those categories that is positively correlated to the pandemic, but was already a major focus in healthcare prior to COVID. The pandemic simply cemented the need for remote care and brought it to the forefront of people's minds. We believe that remote monitoring represents a best practice for both patients and the healthcare system, making it an area of tremendous potential growth for years to come, especially as COVID winds down and clinics return to the new normal and people are more willing to attend healthcare clinics and organizations. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, John Ayanoglou, to review some of the highlights from our recently completed quarter.
John Ayanoglou, CFO
Thank you, Waqqas, and thanks to everyone who joined us this afternoon. This quarter has demonstrated another period of strong growth for Biotricity. I want to start by highlighting our revenue, which rose from $346,000 in the second quarter of fiscal 2020 to $745,000 in the second quarter of fiscal 2021. This marks an impressive 115% increase year-over-year and a sequential growth of 65% over the $452,000 we achieved in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The accelerating revenue over consecutive quarters is a true indicator of our sales growth, and we are very pleased with the improvement in this important metric. To recap, last quarter, we recorded a sequential growth of 24.5%. Notably, this growth occurred despite initial pandemic-related challenges, such as clinic closures in late March and April. Our business still exhibited a sequential growth of 24%, underscoring its resilience and robust growth trajectory. Through our technology-as-a-service model, we empower cardiologists to leverage our technology to conduct cardiac studies for their patients, resulting in predictable, recurring revenue. As we grow, our sales team enhances our presence in existing clinics and adds new ones, allowing us to project consistent quarterly growth. This gives us confidence in maintaining solid revenue growth in the coming quarters, especially as we introduce new products and services. For the three months ending September 30, 2020, Biotricity faced a net loss of $3.2 million. During this phase of initial commercialization of the Bioflux and the establishment of our expanded technology ecosystem, we committed and expect to continue committing significant resources to hiring a high-quality sales team. We also allocated funds to our research and development initiatives, anticipating additional operating losses as we build the infrastructure necessary to support increasing sales volumes. We are at a crucial point in our shift from product development to sales. Consequently, our operating expenses rose by approximately 21% year-over-year to $3.2 million, consisting of general and administrative expenses and R&D costs. Our general and administrative expenses totaled $2.8 million, an 18% increase compared to the same period last year. Our R&D expenditures reached $402,000 this quarter, marking a 43% rise from last quarter and aligning with the previous first fiscal quarter. This spending is aligned with the substantial product line enhancements and new product developments we pursued during these periods. We expect to see the benefits of these investments in 2021 and beyond. In the first half of fiscal 2021, the Company successfully secured funding of $4.2 million to meet our ongoing financial needs. This includes $1.6 million from federal loan programs related to the pandemic. Currently, we are in an expansion phase, investing in our sales team and technology solutions that will make up our ecosystem, thereby increasing our presence in the remote patient monitoring market. The outcomes of our efforts are promising. During the first half of fiscal 2021, the Company achieved 84.4% of the total revenues earned in the entire fiscal 2020. This positions us well for favorable results in fiscal 2021 and beyond. With our recurring revenue model, we are optimistic about achieving triple-digit growth for both fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022. Now, I would like to hand the call back to Waqqas for his closing comments.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Thank you, John. We spent a great deal of time layering on extra functionality to ensure our solutions were best-in-class for cardiologists both from a business and customer care perspective. The attributes of our platform are obvious. We offer a one-piece wearable device that we believe is the most accurate, cost-effective, and smallest in the market, and we give doctors a new fully reimbursable revenue stream. A doctor who fully adopts our platform could realize a substantial increase in their remote monitoring revenues, all reimbursable while drastically improving patient care. Our long-term goal is to expand our solution to go deeper into the complex cardiac space and follow chronic cardiac patients through their entire journey. Our ultimate goal is to expand across the spectrum of cardiac complexities and address the needs of these patients who have more than one condition. Our recent launch of telemedicine is the first step in this journey, where physicians will be able to remotely prescribe the Bioflux and perform follow-up visits. Our telemedicine offering, Biocare Telemed, provides user-friendly access for patients to receive medical care and remote patient cardiac monitoring. It also has some very practical applications for the future, particularly given the difficulty of travel for a percentage of the chronic patient population. We can now give a cardiologist office the ability to book and manage appointments, connect diagnostic tools, report, monitor, and diagnose remotely using our Bioflux device. Most importantly, our platform is EMR agnostic, which means it can be adapted to handle various electronic patient medical records. We recently passed the midpoint of an aggressive four-quarter R&D window, with a series of new product enhancements and functionality just completed and more on the way. Currently, we are working on a cardiac recording solution to address the needs of lower-risk patients while addressing the gaps in the technologies available today. This solution tripled our total addressable market, increasing it from $1 billion today to $3 billion, and also opens up larger customer targets. We expect to have this product in early 2021 after FDA clearance. We have built and are building the catalysts that we anticipate will accelerate our growth starting next year. First step, we will apply to receive FDA clearance for Biotres, which is a three-in-one monitoring device solution, offering event holter and extended holter functionality. It is difficult to predict the timing of FDA clearance due to COVID, but our timeframe for expected approval has now been compressed down to months rather than quarters. The approval will widen our competitive advantage on the device side and greatly increase our appeal to cardiologists. We are well into the product commercialization phase in the cardiac category, but longer-term, we have additional targets available. During our R&D stage, we developed tools and expertise that constitute a highly scalable, automated, artificial intelligence and data-centric, secure platform that can be replicated for other diseases. We have competition in each part of our current market in the cardiac segment, so that will be our focus in 2021, but we are also prioritizing the most medically synergistic complexities for strategic entry. We believe that our platform can be adapted for other remote monitoring applications such as fetal ECG, COPD, renal, sleep apnea, and diabetes to name just a few. Our focus is to move from cardiac to complex cardiac where we can expand our platform to meet the needs of cardiac patients who have multiple conditions. We are at the best place in our company history in terms of product development, industry growth, and near-term milestones. Our cash model is proven, and monthly growth rates are accelerating. Creating a customer base that is a partner in revenue generation gives us a tremendous strategic advantage in maintaining continued market penetration. Our revenue is recurring, scalable, and high-margin and about to show significant acceleration. We aren't well-known yet to investors, but we believe that we are well on our way to establishing ourselves as a leader in the cardiac segment of the remote medical monitoring business. Our ultimate goal is to change the standard of care by becoming the world's leading complex chronic care cardiac cloud service. At this point, I would like to open up the call for some questions.
Operator, Operator
And we will go first to Kevin Dede of H.C. Wainwright.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Thanks for taking my question. Congrats on the sequential revenue growth, especially given the overarching environmental considerations. I’ve got a few for you and I guess I ought to just apologize for my ignorance to the story. It's still relatively new to me. So, please forgive me for that. But could you talk a little bit about your device first, just so I have a handle on it? Were there FDA design requirements that mandated your incorporation of a 4G, 5G modem versus a Bluetooth connection with a smartphone that most all of everybody, especially cardiac patients might already have?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Excellent question and no problem, we totally understand and happy to take questions. So, regarding the device and why cellular? So, the FDA mandated for real-time monitoring that you need to have, you need to be able to transmit the data in case that an event has occurred because these are smart devices, intelligent devices. So, at the moment you are bluetooth dependent and you're going to the patient cellphone, what if someone uses the cellphone? What if you forgot to charge the cellphone? So, the FDA wants to remove the risk of some situation occurring, and the device tries to transmit and the application is turned off or it's not running properly in the background or something else is happening. So, what is happening in the cardiac space, you are provided a dedicated cellphone, so the patient carries their cellphone plus a dedicated cellphone, which is Bluetooth connected to a device for transmission, and you are correct, that is the standard today. We integrated 4G, 5G cellular into our device for two reasons. One is because if you consolidate it, it's easier for the patient than charging two units. Having their cellphone plus this other special cellphone just for transmission creates a whole problem in terms of ensuring effective diagnostics. So, we integrated all of that into a one-piece device simpler and easier to use for the patient. And the second reason is, because we see that and our vision for the Company, we see everything going into remote monitoring. And in order to go to remote monitoring, you really need to have a platform approach where you have control of the communication fabric, as opposed to always being dependent on a cellphone manufacturer, and then giving you access and then installing a custom version of your operating system and all of that. So, our approach was to control that and build our platform, and it's actually working really well and has given us an edge and also allows us to think globally.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Congratulations on the Verizon announcement for first responders. Can you walk us through your existing business model? I understand that patients work with their physicians, who use insurance codes, and the standard payment process applies to your existing model, which seems to fit within the current device setup. However, I'm unclear about how your business model aligns with the Verizon application.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Yes, so what happened with first responders is, it's a completely different application, a completely different business model, completely different approach. And this is where I was talking to earlier about how our platform can be applied to different areas. So, first responders, they have a challenge of getting information from a patient into the field, and getting it in front of the doctor as quickly as possible, right. And since we're cellular connected, we collect that data and feed it off to the position. There is reimbursement available for that. It's just done with a different code because it's not long-term monitoring. Now, it's a short-term quick check. So, there's less revenue associated with that, but it would become a part of a first responder kit and allow for faster response time. So, there's still an insurance reimbursement around quick spot check ECG or quick spot check cardiac monitoring. The codes are different, but there is a model that still exists there.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Okay, okay, that helps, all right. So, the $1.2 million that you recognized for the first six months of the fiscal year, is it fair to assume that that's all tied to Bioflux? I know that you've introduced some other products and services. I'm just wondering, especially telemedicine. I'm just wondering if you've launched any of that and you're recognizing revenue for any of those yet.
John Ayanoglou, CFO
All of that revenue is Bioflux oriented right now. We've just launched Bioflux, just launched a bundled telemedicine and the other products and services, some that are loss leaders vs. add-ons are going to be showing up in our revenue cycle next year, in the next quarter, you'll see some of those line items show up.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Okay. I think the big sort of elephant in the room is the biz dev strategy, and how, I guess, do you plan on continuing the growth track, making sure that people recognize Biotricity versus to your point during your prepared remarks about the, I guess, just the growth in telemedicine in general and the increasing competition that you're finding? So, sort of a couple of questions rolled in there, if you can handle it or if you want to handle it, and just sort of maybe give us a little insight on who you think some of your better competitors might be?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Yes, absolutely. I'll kind of divide that up into a couple of different components since you had rolled up. So not to oversimplify it, but when you talk about what's going to help us to continue our growth and achieve our business goals of countrywide coverage, I mean, simply put, we need to add more sales people. We have a product that's in the market that's got insurance reimbursement that's working, it's accepted. Having 500 cardiologists across 18 states using a product every single day is no small feat. So, we need to expand our sales force and we do not see anything changing the need to maintain cardiac health that has been proven under the most demanding times. And I believe that it will not only accelerate because of COVID, but as offices come back and open up, I think our growth has that opportunity of accelerating as well. In terms of we're talking about telemedicine, you mentioned in competition, so telemedicine in its current form is really meant for non-high risk non-chronic patients. It's really for basic visits, right? And I have a fever, what do I need to do? You get onto telemedicine. You talk to a general practitioner. It's a simple visit. We've introduced telemedicine for cardiologists. So, you should get specialist access on telemedicine. And that is primarily for them to provide access to their patients and as well as remotely prescribed the Bioflux. So, our approaching telemedicine is really chronic cardiac, which is very unique, and there's really no competition in that space. So, that's how we kind of see our approach in terms of how telemedicine competes with us and then how we see our growth in terms of cardiac, it's about expanding our sales force.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
So, where is your headcount now and where do you think it needs to be by, I don't know, maybe this year and next year?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
We have 12 full-time sales reps right now, and we want to be at 25, call it, this time next year.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Okay, all right. So, you pushed through your product rollout timeline a little too quick for me. I was just kind of wondering, if you wouldn't mind just sort of take a step back and walk through that again and explain how your total addressable market goes from $1 billion to $3 billion? I mean, your website talks to a pain product, but I imagine there are many other sensors that you could incorporate into Bioflux. So, could you just give us some insight on those?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Yes. Currently, our product is designed for high-risk patients with real-time monitoring. Low-risk patients utilize a passive recorder, which is a patch that gathers data and is later analyzed. This segment represents a $2 billion market. We plan to submit our Biotres product for FDA approval in the next 90 days, and we expect to launch it next year. Once it's available, our existing customers, who handle both low-risk and high-risk cardiac patients, will adopt it. At the moment, Biotricity is focused on high-risk patients. This new product will broaden our market opportunity by allowing us to serve both high-risk and low-risk cardiac patients.
Operator, Operator
And we'll go to our next question from Chris Jarrous, Dunlop Equity.
Chris Jarrous, Analyst
Hey Waqaas, I have two questions for you. Kevin already asked one question I was planning to ask about where the extra $2 billion in total addressable market came from, which I understand now. However, I'm curious about the concept of telemedicine monthly care. It seems like you have the doctors in place, but what insights do they have? What is the business case for them to adopt this service, considering there are so many products available? Why choose yours, and if it performs well, what does the total addressable market look like?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Excellent question, Chris. Our approach is important for several reasons. First, let's discuss what Bioflux is used for. Bioflux is a diagnostic tool that helps screen patients and determine if there are any issues. Following that, the doctor can provide treatment, which could be medication, surgery, or other procedures. Once patients become chronic cases, they need ongoing monitoring, typically every six to nine months, to assess if the medication is effective and how the patient is progressing. However, cardiologists are limited in the number of patients they can see due to time constraints and their practice's capacity. This is where monthly care and telemedicine come into play. They help manage the 30% to 40% of stable patients more efficiently. Instead of scheduling in-person visits every three months, doctors can conduct telemedicine appointments to check in on these patients, confirming stability and managing prescriptions without requiring them to come into the office. This method frees up valuable time for physicians to focus on patients who need more immediate attention, such as those requiring procedures or more intensive care. Our differentiator is that doctors rely on our product for initial diagnostics, and they will likely continue using the Biotricity Bioflux platform for ongoing patient management. This creates a seamless experience since, if a patient becomes unstable, they will return to Biotricity for diagnostics. The total addressable market in chronic and cardiac care is estimated at $50 billion, as heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States and worldwide. It's also a significant cost burden due to the prevalence of various comorbidities such as diabetes, sleep apnea, and kidney disease alongside cardiac issues. This positions us well in this market, reinforcing our value proposition and importance in this sector.
Chris Jarrous, Analyst
Okay. And what's intriguing about what you guys are doing is the business model differences, competitive advantage you have versus other players in the space. Did the same business model advantage apply what you have in Bioflux in Biotres and into the telemedicine in the chronic care product?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Yes, absolutely. So, one thing that we do and I obviously the call is a little bit long, and one of the things that I was trying to stress is, we place an importance on advanced technology or best of breed technology. So, with the Biotres, we've solved all of the challenges with current Holter solutions. And we align that with a revenue stream for the physician. So, that creates that competitive advantage, not only are you getting the best in breed technology, you're providing it in a framework that the physician has generating the revenue or the healthcare organization is generating the revenue, and of course Biotricity is generating a recurring revenue from it as well. So, that's structured technology as a service, that remains, and that competitive advantage remains because not only are you creating a revenue center for the physician, you're doing it by creating, by providing the best in breed technology to improve the quality of care.
Chris Jarrous, Analyst
Okay, all right. A question on sales people, you mentioned you have 12 now. What's the kind of the average tenure? I'm trying to understand, have they, they seasoned to the point now where they're hitting all cylinders or are they're still working their way up to that point?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
We underwent a significant sales expansion at the beginning of the year, during which we were hiring. However, the onset of COVID disrupted our recruitment efforts for a time, as many offices were closing and not all clients were comfortable with salespeople visiting. Currently, we have four members on our team who have extensive experience, while the remaining eight are relatively new. Everyone is finding their rhythm, and as reflected in our numbers, we are experiencing strong growth. It's worth noting that most of these new hires joined within the last 9 to 10 months. We are optimistic that next year will be very prosperous for us.
Operator, Operator
And we'll move to our next question from Kent Williams of Alta Vista.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
This is Kent Williams. Thank you very much for the good informative call. I have a question relative to your successful competitors Livongo well on track. It seems as though they're very, they're not proactive, they're responsive from platforms and telemedicine. It seems like there's an opportunity to differentiate yourself and also for joint venture opportunities for your diagnostics to support new platforms as well, part of licensing or any other types of business model extensions, you might be thinking about?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Excellent question, Kent, and happy to have you on the call. So, there are several factors that we believe will allow us, not only to compete, but also to align ourselves if there is a strategic alliance there. The complex cardiac market is basically a wide-open market, if you look at the companies that you mentioned, none of them are in the cardiac space; and more importantly, when you go into the cardiac space, you need the link to the cardiac specialty, which Biotricity has because we come from the diagnostic side. So, there's a natural alignment that if someone wants to look at in terms of partnering or aligning patients that have diseases that they're supporting and that we're also supporting like diabetics that Livongo supports also have cardiac disease. So, the one thing that we have is we have this ecosystem of cardiac specialist cardiologists. And then we've got a solution in a platform that is focused on cardiac in and of itself, which these other vendors are not going into because cardiac is complicated and you need diagnostics to understand where and how they are managing and improving. And the key thing that we bring, and this is where the Bioflux is such an important product for us, is bringing diagnostics into the equation, not only facilitates management, but it also facilitates intervention because if the patient is stable, then the doctor is going to go back and use Bioflux to diagnose and make sure that they're stable. But if they're not stable, again, you do need the Bioflux to show that they're not stable and then make a treatment decision. So, you need this connection into the diagnostics and that is going to be a key component that I think is a differentiator for us. It's going to allow us to compete. And also bear in mind that we are very early on, we talked about our product lifecycle and how we came to be in this call. Our product, it was officially launched in April of 2019. So, we're like 18 months old. Livongo and some other companies that you had mentioned have been around for a very long time. And Livongo was an example started with the glucometer. And then they moved deeper and wider and we think the same approach is available for cardiac.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
One last question. Relative to your sales force reaching out to the doctors, isn't there a better approach to dealing with clinics and electrophysiology labs?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Absolutely. So, we do both, right. So, there are EP labs that are aligned with cardiac centers and cardiology centers and then there are EP specialty groups and then there is EP within multi-care groups. So, we are going after the bigger groups, multi-care groups and independent cardiologists. And wherever we end up in the healthcare system, the healthcare system sales cycle is a lot longer. Our sales cycle on the cardiac side in terms of independent multi-groups is a lot shorter. So, the answer to your question is, we're going after the EPs and there is an approach where, you know, sales guys don't have to go door to door to go after a group. And we are layering that along within our go-to-market strategy, but we obviously go after low-hanging fruit, because if the sales cycle is short and we can close sales immediately, we will close those first while also working the bigger market.
Operator, Operator
And we will go to our next question.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Thank you very much. And again, guys congrats on the great quarter, a couple of quick questions. If you could just add a little color on when you expect to achieve profitability? And then I have a follow-up after that.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Thank you, Chad. Thank you for joining next and excellent questions. So, profitability becomes a focus for emerging growth companies facing a small addressable market and for those that can be severely impacted by a recession. Fortunately, we face neither of those difficulties and, in fact, we have a recession-resilient recurring revenue business. And if you look at the most successful companies, they have focused on growth until the economy of scale is realized and then they become focused on efficiency or hyper-efficiency. So, take a look at Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Uber, all of these companies focused on growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, and then, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. So given the market size, our priority and focus is growth, but in alignment with our market opportunity and increasing shareholder value. So, what does that mean? As the market and our TAM increases our growth and focus on growth is aligned to how that market is expanding. And of course, the root of all of this is our focus and commitment to increasing shareholder value.
Unidentified Analyst, Analyst
Very good. Thank you. And just one more question. Could you give a little color on a lot of what we're seeing out there in terms of the consumer devices like the Apple Watch and the Fitbit getting into biometrics and what that means to Biotricity?
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Another excellent question. We see a lot of activity in the space and whatnot. And what I would say is, Apple Watch and those types of products, I mean, they really are opening up the market for a product like Bioflux. And to state it in a simpler way, a doctor is not going to crack somebody's chest open based on what your Apple Watch or Fitbit says. Apple Watches are going to grow this market. They are acting as a screening tool or early identifiers, but an efficient physician cannot prescribe medication or perform surgery based on what these devices provide. But today and every day, based on what the Bioflux provides, they do. And in fact, if one of these devices screens a patient today, they would end up getting referred to a cardiologist office, and that cardiologist would then prescribe the Bioflux to perform the appropriate diagnosis before making a treatment decision. So, I'm not trying to be be cheeky here, but the key focus here is really the differentiator between diagnostics and screening. So, there are many, many Americans that are living, that don't understand that they actually have a cardiac condition, they're asymptomatic and whatnot. And so, these tools are actually quite valuable for them. But ultimately, they will end up at a cardiologist office with a diagnostic tool to perform a proper study so that the physician can actually take action.
Operator, Operator
And we do have a follow-up question from Kevin Dede of H.C. Wainwright.
Kevin Dede, Analyst
Apologies for taking up your time. I'll wrap up. However, Kent made me consider your business development focus on existing practices and groups where you can shorten the sales cycle. Have you thought about forming a partnership? You came to my mind because there's been significant discussion around partnerships with companies like Pfizer and Biotech. I'm curious if you're exploring other strategies to enter the market more effectively.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
No, that's an excellent question. And absolutely, I mean, like I was saying, we've taken a lot of time, we've gotten to build this ecosystem out. We've got a good footprint now. And now that we have that footprint, and we kind of have that network, we're going to by 2021. It's really about a network effect. And how does the network effect take place is, is really when you have something like what we have today, where we are on the cusp of this type of growth, but we have a network in an ecosystem that's big enough that it is of interest to partners. So why did Verizon look at us, because the device aligned, and they also have 500 cardiologists that can if need to be, we can connect our ecosystem into them and access these physicians. So, what is going to change I think for us as a company is partnerships and exploring these partnerships, there's going to be a lot of synergies, there's going to be a lot of opportunities. And that is really a product of where we are at today, a year ago, our footprint was not big enough. As the footprint grows, these partnerships are going to become more and more available to us. And absolutely, we will take advantage of them when their strategic alignment and we can access, because at the end of the day, we're focused on complex cardiac. But there are going to be other patients where the primary issue is something else, but they're at risk for cardiac. So, they are not a patient that we would ever see in our ecosystem or a physician that would come into our ecosystem. But we want to be aligned, because at some point, they may want to screen their patient with a diagnostic tool.
Operator, Operator
And I would like to turn the call back to our presenters.
Waqqas Al-Siddiq, CEO
Thank you. So, a couple of concluding remarks. In this environment, we can't really be certain of the timing of every event on our agenda. We discussed a lot of things here. But what I can say is we have a full pipeline of revenue-enhancing events on our near-term calendar. So, we look forward to sharing those details and the details of the progress along those lines as we continue to build our leadership position in cardiac remote patient monitoring and focus on increasing shareholder value. Thank you, everybody for joining us today.
John Ayanoglou, CFO
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
And this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.