Nevro (NYSE:NVRO) yesterday reiterated its sales outlook for the rest of the year, saying it still expects to post a top line of $400 million to $410 million, but missed the consensus earnings forecast by a penny.
The Redwood City, Calif.-based neurostimulation device maker posted losses of -$4.9 million, or -15¢ per share, on sales of $98.0 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2017, paring losses by -48.5% and adding 38.9% to the top line. Analysts on Wall Street were looking for losses per share of -14¢ on sales of $95.3 million.
Full-year losses rose 15.3% to -$37.2 million, or -$1.25 per share, on sales of $326.7 million, representing a 43.0% top-line gain on 2016 – dead in line with consensus outlook and exceeding Nevro’s own forecast for between $315 million and $320 million.
President & CEO Rami Elghandour told analysts during a conference call that he’s “very confident in our ability to continue to grow and drive the market growth as we have historically.”
“[W]e have a massive opportunity ahead of us to lead and transform this market. We certainly have every confidence of achieving market leadership and simultaneously also growing this market. So we see no reason to deviate from what we’ve done over the last couple of years which is continue investing and attracting exceptional sales team members to the Nevro organization and taking meaningful share and achieving that leadership position,” Elghandour said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.
Execution on the sales side, led by recently hired global sales VP Jim Alecxih – who finished a 14-year run at Intuitive Surgical (NSDQ:ISRG) as senior vice president of sales – will be key to achieving those goals, according to Leerink Partners analysts Danielle Antalffy and Rebecca Wang.
“To us, NVRO is very much an execution story in the near-term, with 2018 upside largely contingent on delivering solid execution,” they wrote last night in a note to investors, reiterating their “outperform” rating and $95 price target.
“Jim just brings a wealth of experience, particularly as it relates to having a unique product offering and I think also in terms of launching a platform therapy and getting to $1 billion-plus in sales, close to $2 billion in sales,” Elghandour said during the call.
NVRO shares closed down -3.3% at $79.65 apiece yesterday.
