NuVasive (NSDQ:NUVA) today posted first quarter earnings that missed the Street on non-GAAP earnings per share and saw profits turn to losses.
The San Diego, Calif.-based company posted losses of $27.1 million, or 53¢ per share, on sales of $260.5 million for the three months ended March 31, seeing an over 300% shift into the red on the bottom-line while sales grew 4.6% compared with the same period last year.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were 39¢, below the 45¢ consensus on Wall Street, where analysts expected too see sales of $259.4 million.
“In the first quarter 2018, NuVasive’s International business continued its momentum of 20% growth year over year on a constant currency basis, with our core U.S. hardware business showing solid case volume growth. As we look forward to the remainder of the year, we expect our continued innovation—including the expansion of our lateral procedural solutions with the integration of lateral single-position surgery, further build out of our advanced materials science portfolio and the initial launch of our surgical intelligence platform—to drive further differentiation of NuVasive technologies with surgeon partners. We also anticipate our Ohio manufacturing facility production ramping up in the second half of the year and we begin to realize the 400 basis point improvement in gross margins through this in-sourcing manufacturing effort,” NuVasive chair & CEO Gregory Lucier said in a prepared statement.
The company reiterated its full year 2018 financial guidance, expecting to see non-GAAP EPS of between $2.44 and $2.47 with sales of between $1.095 billion and $1.105 billion.
NuVasive saw light trading today before its earnings release, down 0.1% to close at $53.14.
In late March, NuVasive released results from a study of the company’s Porous PEEK material compared against titanium-coated PEEK and smooth PEEK material used in interbody fusion devices, touting advantages of its proprietary materials.
