SANUWAVE Health, Inc 8-K, filed May 27, 2020
SANUWAVE Health, Inc. (SNWV)
8-K
2020-05-27
For: 2020-05-18
View Original
Added on
April 10, 2026
About this 8-K
SANUWAVE Health, Inc filed this 8-K on May 27, 2020, reporting on events of May 18, 2020.
Items reported
- Item 2.02: Financial results
- Item 9.01: Financial statements and exhibits
UNITED
STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, DC 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of report (Date of earliest event reported): May 18,
2020
SANUWAVE Health, Inc.
(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Charter)
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Nevada
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000-52985
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20-1176000
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(State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation)
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(Commission File Number)
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(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
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3360 Martin Farm Road, Suite 100
Suwanee, Georgia 30024
(Address of Principal Executive Offices, and Zip Code)
(770) 419-7525
Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area
Code
(Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last
Report)
Check
the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K is intended to
simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the Registrant
under any of the following provisions:
☐
Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities
Act (17 CFR 230.425)
☐
Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act
(17 CFR 240.14a-12)
☐
Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the
Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))
☐
Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the
Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))
Securities
registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
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Title
of each class
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Trading
Symbol(s)
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Name of
each exchange on which registered
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Common
Stock, par value $0.001
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SNWV
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OTCQB
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Indicate
by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company
as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (17 CFR
§230.405 of this chapter)
or Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (17 CFR
§240.12b-2 of this
chapter).
Emerging
growth company ☐
If an
emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant
has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying
with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided
pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Item 2.02
Results of Operations and Financial Condition.
On May 18, 2020, SANUWAVE Health, Inc., a Nevada Corporation (the
“Company”), announced its financial results for the
first quarter ended March 31, 2020 and provided a business update
via conference call. A copy of the transcript of such call is
furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to this Form 8-K.
The information in this Item 2.02 of this Current Report on Form
8-K and the exhibits attached hereto shall not be deemed to be
“filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and shall not be deemed
incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of
1933, as amended, except as shall be expressly set forth by
specific reference in such filing.
Item
9.01
Financial Statements and Exhibits.
(d)
Exhibits.
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Exhibit No.
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Description
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Transcript of the May 18, 2020, SANUWAVE Health, Inc. conference
call to discuss the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended
December 31, 2019 financial results and provide a business
update.
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2
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the
requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant
has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
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SANUWAVE
HEALTH, INC.
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Dated:
May 27, 2020
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By:
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/s/ Lisa E. Sundstrom
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Name:
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Lisa E.
Sundstrom
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Title:
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Chief
Financial Officer
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3
Exhibit
99.1
SANUWAVE HEALTH, INC.
CONFERENCE CALL TO DISCUSS FIRST QUARTER 2020
FINANCIAL RESULTS AND PROVIDE A BUSINESS UPDATE
MONDAY, MAY 18, 2020
10:00 a.m. Eastern Time
Operator
Good
day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your SANUWAVE First
Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder,
today's call is being recorded. At this time, it is my pleasure to
turn the floor over to Kevin Richardson. Sir, the floor is
yours.
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Thank
you, Melinda. Today, we'll be doing our safe harbor statement at
the end of the call. When we -- we'll have that. We're going to
dive right into the conference call, and then we'll cover it with
financials. We'll follow that with some follow-up and then open it
up to Q&A.
I will
review some highlights and other points during the quarter. We will
also review the financial highlights, and then we'll come back to
discuss what's taking place at SANUWAVE. We last spoke to you at
our year-end conference call and we'll provide today an update on
Q1 and forward looking.
We have
just begun to see and quantify the effects and the impact from the
coronavirus on the last call. It has had an impact, but we are
quickly adapting to grow in the current market conditions. At that
time, we mentioned the pandemic would have an impact on revenue and
new placements but that we were working on initiatives to address
our clients' needs and even use the technology to treat patients
with respiratory issues. I will discuss these items
momentarily.
Regardless of
COVID, the Q1 revenue was not up to par and not what we expected,
partially due to the timing of international licenses and
international orders, but the main shortfall was from the
recognition of procedural revenue. We recognize the revenue
basically when the cash is received. And in the first quarter, this
was a disappointment, which has since been addressed.
During
the quarter, as you will hear, we have taken corrective action
within management at the account level and our claims and billing
education for training. These actions were implemented in April and
they began to show progress in May. We currently have over $300,000
in billings outstanding, and that number will increase to $700,000
soon and hopefully even higher as we head through the summer. I
will address this issue and specifically, what we have done to
correct it and why we are very encouraged by the team's efforts to
reignite the top line.
I would
also like to point out that we have recently begun to place devices
again. Just last week, we had 4 new placements occur. And with the
renewed focus on revenue per account, I believe we will be very
happy with the momentum occurring. Also, just so I'm clear, wound
clinics have still been treating
patients. They've
still been using our device and are still helping patients, most
importantly, show fantastic clinical results with the dermaPACE
System.
So DFUs
are not going away. They're only getting worse. We have had a great
technology, and we can help and we see tremendous demand,
especially now as we have begun to figure out the reimbursement
game a lot better and more effectively.
I'll
talk about home care right now. We are pleased to announce that we
recently rolled out our home initiative for wound clinics, which
allows the dermaPACE System to be brought into patients' homes and
treat their wounds. It is one of the only advanced therapies, which
is mobile and can be used in the home setting. You cannot roll a
hyperbaric chamber into someone's house.
We are
rolling this out in 10 sites initially, but we have had a lot of
interest from existing and more importantly, new accounts wishing
to get our device so they can treat in the home. These clinics have
seen volumes during COVID decrease 10% to 30%. And many have had to
look at furloughing staff.
The
dermaPACE mobile solution allows clinics to have their physician
assistant or registered nurse treat patients, and they will receive
85% of what they would normally receive in the clinic. Not every
office will use our mobile capabilities, but it does allow us to
enter a new realm in paradigm and wound care.
Regarding
placements and backlog. As I have mentioned, we have seen open
states begin to loosen restrictions, and we're beginning our sale
and account managers entering the sites and the backlog we've
developed means we will have -- be having a very busy summer. You
will see an increase in placements occurring in May and June, then
accelerating throughout the year. Based on our current backlog,
July should resume to the normal monthly placements of over 15 a
month.
Most
important, these sites we are targeting and the training we have
instituted will result in faster revenue for the sites and
importantly, for SANUWAVE. We have worked through many of
the
reimbursement
hangups that hurt us in 2019, late in the year, and we feel
confident to see revenue quickly recover as we roll this out this
summer.
Internationally,
Korea and Italy are our 2 biggest markets, and they were impacted
directly by corona. But as of last week, we began to see some
activity out of both. As we have said, you cannot eliminate a wound
due to COVID. It just gets worse. So we do expect pent-up demand to
kick in, in the third quarter this year from our international
markets. We'll also add a few more countries, some quite large in
the Q3, Q4 time frame.
At 9:00
a.m. this morning, we also announced an agreement with Shri Parikh.
Shri was our President. He's resigned to begin his entrepreneurial
endeavor to start a mobile health unit. They will treat wound
patients in their van at their home. They will be using dermaPACE.
They're initially targeting Atlanta but have future expansion
plans. The business model looks promising, and we know they will be
extremely successful, and dermaPACE will become a critical part of
their solution.
I just
gave you an update on revenue and our at-home initiative, which
will begin to show up in earnest in the second and third quarters.
But given the pandemic, we have taken corrective actions on the
expense structure as of May 1. We have eliminated some positions,
the entire team has taken voluntary pay reduction, we have
eliminated T&E budgets and importantly, trade shows are now
done virtually, so the cost has been eliminated.
Our
customer outreach has been with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, webinars,
e-mails, Skype, whatever works to get in front of our customers,
all of which has been working extremely well during this downtime.
We also eliminated many outside consultants we were working with.
These savings are just under $200,000 a month and will extend our
runway to get to breakeven this year.
We also
expect to receive our PPP as our bank has notified us that we will
-- that it will be received in late May, early June. So with the
lower cash burn, PPP money, international placing orders again,
revenue
collection being a
new focus -- a renewed focus for us, we're feeling very good about
where we're headed.
On the
IP and partnership front, as you know, we released a press release
about treating COVID, our respiratory patent and also proposes for
grants to these studies and these activities. We hope to hear from
those agencies this summer.
We also
spoke about NanoVibronix on the last call, which is our wound
shield product. We are always looking for ways to partner and work
with other wound products that can help our patients. We'll have
more to update on the new products and partnerships in the near
future.
Finally, on
reimbursement, we have met with over 4 payers since the beginning
of the year. We would, most likely, have some positive news to
announce on coverage. But with the COVID crisis, these have delayed
the implementation of reimbursement policies. We are confident that
once these agencies' load from COVID decreases, we will have new
coverage announcements to share.
We have
a very compelling offer to the states [ in the max ] and commercial
payers, our device works extremely well and saves money for the
system, it's easy to use and patients like to be healed. Throughout
2020, we have a long list of appointments already in place and set
up to help with these reimbursement carriers. It is a large
priority for 2020 to get in front of the folks on policy
adoption.
We'll
go into detail later, but we have no -- we have now been paid in
over 15 states. The issue has not been policy coverage so much as
making sure that the sites are billing correctly and coding
correctly at the office treatment level. Claims are being paid,
which means we can collect our procedure fee. The issue has been
when claims are done improperly, which we began to address in
earnest in April and May on an account-by-account
basis.
Overall, before I
go into financials, I want to summarize. COVID has had an impact on
us, we're adapting to this new environment with mobile solutions,
Q1 revenue was not up to what we wanted, so we implemented changes
quickly on how we do business, which is now showing an increase in
billings in April and May and driving more revenue in Q2 and
beyond.
We made
other changes in how we manage to make sure revenue per account is
the main metric. We lowered our cost structure dramatically. We are
receiving PPP money. Orders are coming back. Treatments are picking
up. We have kept moving on strategic alternatives. We cannot say
everything is rosy, but we are very optimistic we have made the
right decisions for the company to reach our goals over the next
few years.
To
review financials. Revenues for the 3 months ended March 31 were
$148,000 compared to $177,000 for the same period of 2019. Revenue
resulted primarily from sales to Europe of our orthoPACE devices,
related applicators, spare parts performed by our Italian
distributor. The decrease was primarily due to lower upfront
international distribution fees as compared to the prior year. This
was partially offset by higher sales of spare parts and
refurbishment of applicators.
Operating expenses
for the 3 months were $2.8 million compared to $1.9 million.
Research and development increased $25,000. The increase was due to
higher salary related to hiring temporary employee and cost of the
Poland clinical trial started April 2019. Selling and marketing
expenses increased
$450,000. The
increase in sales and marketing was due to increase in hiring
clinical account managers and salespeople, increased T&E for
placement and training related to the commercialization of
dermaPACE and increased commissions.
G&A
was increased $390,000. The increase was primarily due to the
engagement of specialists to assist with distribution partner
searches, increase in legal and consulting fees related to merger
and acquisition opportunities, increased D&O insurance, which
was partially offset by a decrease in outside consulting
services.
To
conclude, after going over the financials, we spent some time at
the beginning discussing the environment and the things we are
doing to adapt and cope in this environment. I think it is
important for investors to know we use data to drive a lot of these
decisions. The data is both clinical and account- based. I'd like
to share some of this data with you today.
On the
clinical front, we have done over 4,500 treatments. The average
treatment period has been 6 weeks, roughly 6 treatments per
patient. We are seeing wound area reduction of 20% per week, which
is extremely encouraging. 35% of the DFU patients are fully or near
fully healed at 6 weeks. This compares to our clinical study, which
led to the FDA approval of the same time to reach that of 12 weeks.
We are closing wounds 50% faster because we increased the dosage
and have done a great job on the clinical training side of the
equation.
These
numbers also do not include patients whose wounds may have healed
and then was not put into our register. So the number could
actually be even higher. The sites are using the device on average
1.1 per -- time per day when training has occurred and they are
getting paid from a reimbursement standpoint. Other sites, newer
sites, are running at 0.5 per day.
The
main issue is around reimbursement, which we discussed and is more
a site-specific issue, not a policy issue. We have implemented
changes as discussed to address this. We have also had some of our
KOLs doing research on perfusion, bacterial load and other key
metrics for wound healing. The results have been great and will
soon be published in peer review journals later this
summer.
On the
reimbursement front, we spent a lot of February and March analyzing
account by account what was occurring. The deep data dive revealed
that clinically, the doctors love the device. Patients love the
device.
But we,
quite frankly, did not do a great job on the education needed
upfront in filling out the forms and claims correctly. This is a
completely new procedure and completely new code, and we
underestimated the ability of the sites to understand the
requirements for getting paid.
Let me
be clear, when the forms are filled out properly, the sites are
being paid 80-plus percent of the time. When they are not, they are
not getting paid. When they are paid, the range is between $319
and
$1,200
per treatment. The average currently is $528 per
treatment.
Now
remember, we charged $211. So they are making roughly $300 per
treatment when they perform the claims process properly. With 3,619
DFUs being treated, doctors would have generated $1.8 million in
revenue and paid us $700,000, if the process is done properly. The
value proposition is extremely compelling to the sites and to
SANUWAVE. But it's also important to note that we save payers
money. We save them because our treatment is as good, if not
better, and less expensive than the other
alternatives.
As an
example, if we were used in Georgia for Medicaid, we would save the
state close to $10 million. It's a huge number. And with our
healing rates at that level, they are even more excited about this
as we roll out.
In
April, our new Head of Sales and Team implemented a reeducation and
training process site by site so we can drive revenue on an
account-by-account basis. They have used the COVID down period to
help educate accounts and discuss claims with them. We feel this is
now in place and we can move 80% of our accounts to that 1 to 2
treatments per day now that we have fixed the reimbursement issues
we were dealing with at the site level. Based on the current
installed base, that equates to roughly $3 million to $6 million of
annualized revenue. The sales team has been incented on this
revenue per account, and I believe we'll see dramatic success as it
is already showing up in the May numbers.
Before
we move to Q&A, let me just review quickly. We have been
impacted by COVID like any other medical device and medical
services company. We responded quickly and adapted, which will lead
to more revenue for the at-home use, open up for new customers but
also help our customers in a time of need.
We've
lowered our cost structure. We're seeing the recovery beginning. We
have addressed our billing issues and are seeing positive results
occurring in May, and we'll see placements accelerate throughout
the summer months. International is beginning to show signs of
coming back, and strategically, we're working hard to make SANUWAVE
a great company.
But
most importantly, our goal as a company remains the same, a device
anywhere and everywhere a wound is treated so we can save limbs,
which saves lives. Our clinical results have been better than our
trial results and are better than a lot of the existing modalities.
The renewed focus on execution on revenue will drive that revenue
and save many patients' limbs and lives. With that, Melinda, I'm
open to Q&A. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator
Instructions] Our first question comes from James Terwilliger with
Northland Securities.
James
Melvin Terwilliger
Northland Capital Markets, Research Division
Kevin,
can you hear me?
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
I can
hear you.
James
Melvin Terwilliger
Northland Capital Markets, Research Division
So my
first question is really about, in the press release, where you
talked about moving to home care. Can you talk more about what are
the initial 10 sites? And how does that progress work from your
standpoint, moving from the clinic to trying to treat patients at
home?
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Sure.
Thanks, James. So it's not moving from clinic to home. It's, we'll
be treating in the clinic and at home. And so it's an opportunity
to incrementally add revenue and treatments to our business where
the clinics have patients who are unwilling or incapable of coming
into the outpatient clinic setting.
Most of
the sites we're working with have been wound centers and they're
all driven by a lot of patient flow. These are patients who come in
once, 2, 3 times a week. These are wounds that are chronic. They're
nasty. And if they're not treated, they will become infected. If
they've become infected, they will -- sometimes we do an
amputation.
So we
listen to them and worked with how we could get that device in the
home, make sure that it was the right quality and have the
procedures in place, the protocols in place so that they could do
that treatment. They're also going to use telemedicine. So they're
analyzing and evaluating the patient in that home setting as well.
So I view -- really view this as incremental.
The
reason it took us until only last week to get it done really was --
it had to do with CMS and what they were willing to pay and making
sure the right documentation on the pain was done properly. So when
they came out and said, effectively, you'll be able to -- this site
will be able to bill as if it's in the clinic but at 85% of what
they would normally get because the alternative person who's
treating them is a physician assistant or a registered nurse
instead of the physician, that was really what we were waiting
for.
We'll
begin rolling those out this week. Since we've announced it, we've
got other sites come to us and say, "Hey, I didn't know you could
do this in the home. Tell me more." I think it's going to be a
great lead generator for us as well as more sites that want to use
it mobilely can then be sites that could use it in their clinics
when things do return back to normal eventually.
James
Melvin Terwilliger
Northland Capital Markets, Research Division
Well,
that sounds -- that's very interesting in terms of that shift.
There's a lot of companies that are going through with this with
COVID. The press release with Mobile Health Systems, can you expand
a little bit more on what that means for SANUWAVE?
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Yes,
sure. So our former President, Shri Parikh, has gone off and
started a company called Mobile Health Systems. He's got a lot of
wound care background, orthopedic background and they're
retrofitting certain types of vehicles so that they can work with
local clinics, local doctors, hospitals and become their mobile
arm, be able to go out with the best quality devices, dermaPACE and
other types of treatment modalities so they can go and deliver
patients treatment.
They're
targeting Atlanta initially. And I know they've got an aggressive
rollout plan that should be extremely positive. And so it's
exciting to work with someone that we know, we trust and are
willing to -- who knows our product extremely well and knows how it
will work. So we're excited about that opportunity.
And
again, there'll be other opportunities like that. We're -- this is
one where we're going to -- I think it will be really beneficial.
It will also help us because companies like Shri's are out there.
It will lead to new sites that we hadn't even targeted becoming
customers. And it's about adding that revenue to the
mix.
That's
really what we're talking about right now.
James
Melvin Terwilliger
Northland Capital Markets, Research Division
And
then my last question. I'll jump back in queue. You've already
announced some in-licensing of products. How does that look now
with what COVID has done to not just public companies, but also
private companies? I would believe that a lot of companies are
looking for some sort of strategic relationship right now with
what's happened on the capital side for both public and private
companies. Can you talk at all about your ability to in-license
products or your appetite to in-license products as we move through
2020 and 2021? And then I'll jump back in queue.
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Great.
Thanks, James. So first and foremost, the team we have on the
ground is very focused on making sure account by account, we're
doing the best we can for our customers in treating diabetic foot
ulcers, and they're doing a super job engaging in this tough time.
But we also know that there are lots of opportunities that exist
today with smaller companies that don't either have access to
capital, who don't have a distribution channel like ours, don't
have a partnership like Ametus, don't have an international
footprint.
So many
of these smaller folks that we've developed relationships in the
wound care space over the years, some go back 10 years that we've
been talking with them, we're all realizing that there's some
economies of scale that can be driven when you start to
cross-license each other's products, whether it be -- the
NanoVibronix is a great example. We've known their CEO and Chairman
for years. Their focus on PainShield and UroShield is extremely
important. They're getting tremendous traction in that area, but
they weren't going to be able to build a sales force to focus on
wound shield. And so we work with them on bringing that in, and it
will add one more product, one more service that's very
complementary.
So
James, when we're looking at these, we're really looking at what's
complementary and what's not a commodity. So it has to have certain
criteria for us to partner with someone. It has to be something
that's complementary to our product, which is dermaPACE and how our
system works, and have to have -- it can't just be a commodity.
We're not going to go into the dressings market. There's 60
different dressing companies, and I don't think SANUWAVE is going
to be able to compete with 3M, just crazy guess. They probably have
a little more scale than we do.
So
we're going to focus on unique opportunities that will be
beneficial. We've got a great team at SANUWAVE of people who can
look and analyze these situations on the clinical benefits. And we
also always leverage our KOL network, our clinicians that we're --
and advisers that we're tight with to help us when we're analyzing
opportunities.
I would
say the opportunity set right now is extremely high. And we'll have
more to talk about in the very near future on that because there
are some things that are -- that could be transformative for us out
there. But as you know, it's never done until it's done. So we're
going to continue to explore opportunities and see how we --
it's about finding product. It's value add that we can bring to our
clinics and help patients.
James
Melvin Terwilliger
Northland Capital Markets, Research Division
Yes.
It's never done until it's done. But keep up the good work.
COVID-19 has been difficult for everyone. It seems like you're
almost on the verge of the other side. I'll jump back in
queue.
Operator
Next,
we go to private investor, [ Satyan Shah ].
Unknown
Attendee
I just
wanted to sort of make sure -- in terms of reiterating what you
feel for the company in terms of profitability, like is your
projection still sort of third, fourth quarter that SANUWAVE
becomes profitable?
And
then on a bigger scale, looking out a year, 1.5 years from now, if
we sort of look at, from a bigger picture, what does the company
look like to you within after a year with all this stuff having
passed now with COVID?
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Yes.
The goal is still to get to profitability. We're very fortunate in
that we were -- we've been through the whole cost savings thing
for, I don't want to say for 10 years, but we know how to do that
really good.
We've
learned to survive that way. And so for us, we're -- the cost
cutting, we've -- we're good at. So we've cut costs where we can
just focus on what's going to drive revenue.
I think
knowing what we've implemented and the sales teams implemented in
April and May gives me a lot of -- I don't know if it's Q3 or Q4,
but I know we'll get there this year. I mean we know we need to. We
know that we're seeing good traction on the revenue side now.
Again, it's slow because we're kind of starting from, I don't want
to say scratch, but we -- I think our approach wasn't necessarily
-- we didn't
focus
on that account-by-account basis. And that's what we've done and
that gives me a good hope to get there.
The
breakeven for us is not that high. And so it's not that much of a
stretch, and we have a pretty good installed base of customers that
we can get the revenue to get to breakeven from. It's going to take
probably 1 or 2 of the international deals to close to get their
sections. So this year, that's the game plan of -- outside of
anything strategic, the game plan is to get to profitability in
that time frame and use international and other means to help us
get there from a capital standpoint.
So we
really aren't -- we aren't looking at dilution. That's, I guess,
the other part. We don't -- we aren't going down that raise money
path right now. It's about doing it internally and again, with our
international partners.
Where
do I see things in a year from now, a year or 2 from now? I still
think that this has been a speed bump in some regards relative to
our 3- to 4-year plan of getting to $100 million, but it's just a
speed bump. Our clinical evidence has been coming in tremendous,
better than any of us internally even thought. We were kind of
joking recently that -- how well our product works and it's
exciting.
So I
think you'll still see us drive to get to the 2,200 sites. I think
you'll -- which are the wound clinics that manage for the hospital
outpatient treatment, wound clinics so that we can be treating
patients on diabetic foot ulcers. We'll also, over time, be adding
venous leg ulcers, arterial leg ulcers, pressure
ulcers.
These
are all areas that we know we can treat and help the patients, and
so we'll continue to go down that path.
And
we're going to do the rollout so that we do it in a way that we're
not hurting with shareholder money. There are some other wound
companies that have gone a different route, where they raised a lot
and kind of do a lot of
different clinical projects, different sales forces and they're now
cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting.
And
we're in a different opportunity where we're finding different ways
to get clinical support and evidence in a creative fashion, not
necessarily the full-on FDA study side, but using the tools that
exist, the technologies that exist out there in the wound space to
help our -- us understand the patient better and how dermaPACE
works, but also helping the clinicians and the reimbursement world,
and that's really the most important, the reimbursement world
understand the benefits of dermaPACE and what it
brings.
And
I'll tell you, we've been -- we've had some great meetings with the
different Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations, and they're all
extremely happy when they see an alternative. And there really
haven't been many alternatives that come on the wound care market
in a decade. And so we're something fresh and new that can help
them save money while, at the same time, helping the patients
tremendously. And that's what we're really focused on.
Unknown
Attendee
Sounds
good. Just one additional question is what about the other uses for
shockwaves, like how is that being implemented or part of your plan
over the next year or 2 in terms of biofilm and using it in other
different ways? What are your views there?
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Well,
as you know, we've done -- we have 80-plus patents. Our team and
science team has done a great job expanding where the uses could
be. And again, the focus right now is very singular on diabetic
foot ulcers from a sales, marketing and account support
perspective. But as you can see, we've filed some grants with
different agencies to explore other verticals and other
opportunities.
Part of
this stems from the biofilm work that we've done with the Center
for Biofilm Engineering out of Montana state, and I think that's
where we are going to see some other initiatives come out. But we
won't be -- we're not going to come out with a biofilm initiative
in the next week or so. We're very driven by doing the clinical
work and science to support everything. So you'll see that happen
first. And that's really where we're focused.
Unknown
Attendee
Okay.
Great, Kevin. And all the best to you guys and the whole
team.
Operator
Mr.
Richardson, at this time, we have no further signals for
questions.
Kevin
A. Richardson
Chairman & CEO
Great.
Well, thank you, Melinda. Thank you, everyone, for being on the
call.
Just to
summarize, we've gone through COVID, we're seeing things start to
pick up again, we've addressed it by being adaptable to the
situation and we're still focused on the diabetic foot ulcer
market, and we're really making a name for ourselves in wound care,
both on the strategic front through partnerships and other
opportunities. And I also look forward to speaking to everyone in
about a week or so when we'll have an announcement on those type of
initiatives. So looking forward to talking to everyone in about a
week. Thank you.
Operator
Thank
you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for
your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.
Have a great day.