iRhythm (Nasdaq: IRTC) shares dipped slightly today on first-quarter results that topped the consensus sales forecast.
Shares of IRTC fell 1.7% to $108.96 apiece in mid-morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — rose slightly.
The San Francisco-based cardiac monitoring technology maker reported losses of $45.7 million. That equals losses of $1.47 per share on sales of $131.9 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2024.
iRhythm recorded a more than $6 million slide further into the red on a sales increase of 18.4% year-over-year. The company’s losses per share fell well behind projections for losses of 98¢ per share. However, sales topped expectations of $128.4 million.
The company attributed growth to primary care prescribers, further penetration within existing accounts and expansion into near-record new account openings for Zio long-term continuous monitoring services.
“During the first quarter of 2024, we were very pleased with the continued momentum in our core markets that enabled record unit volumes as well as strong new account openings,” said Quentin Blackford, president and CEO of iRhythm. “We have been very encouraged with the growing traction within the primary care channel, highlighting Zio’s value proposition as a workflow efficiency tool to expand ambulatory cardiac monitoring capacity within large care networks. When combined with progress that we are making with electronic health integration and emerging clinical evidence on the potential for EKG data to provide future clinical insights, we could not be more excited about our positioning to create significant value for patients, clinicians, healthcare systems, and stakeholders.”
iRhythm expects revenues to grow between 17% to 19% in 2024, ranging from approximately $578 million to $588 million. That marks an uptick from the previous projection for between $575 million and $585 million.
The analysts’ take on iRhythm
BTIG analysts Marie Thibault and Sam Eiber view the full-year sales outlook for iRhythm as “quite achievable.” They also say that the company made two FDA 510(k) filings this year, with clearance expected in the second half of 2024.
iRhythm also plans to submit the Zio Mobile Cardiac Telemetry (MCT) system to the FDA later on in 2024, the analysts said.
They also say the company’s work on the its FDA warning letter remains on track. BTIG maintains a “Buy” rating for iRhythm.
“On the whole, this was a fairly clean report with a strong selling start to the year and margin metrics maintained,” the analysts said.
