REPR visit -- 7/9/10
I visited REPR and took a tour. I didn't gain much insight on the next earnings report, but here is some of what I found particularly interesting. Met with Barry Short, Director of Administration for nearly 2 hours and the CEO Andy for a brief moment.
In no particular order...
(1) Daisy needle set FDA approval is still pending. They are in active back and forth discussion with the FDA giving them constant data feedback. The approval will come but timing is near impossible to predict as they move at a snail's pace. Upon approval they expect a significant sales jump, though they cannot promise anything of course, they expect the approval has no realistic chance of rejection but the FDA wants seemingly endless amounts of data first.
(2) Daisy set has been approved in other places around the world already. Sales to Europe for the Daisy set are being shipped this month.
(3) They think/hope the drug approval for Hizentra in March will be a significant sales/earnings boost as it allows the quality of life to be much improved for the patient and should significantly increase the number of people who choose to administer the drug at home vs. the hospital since it requires far less needle sticks. Also CSL Behring is pushing the Freedom 60 in their sales efforts which is nice for REPR to have somebody else basically advertising for them for free. They do note that new approvals like this one take time for awareness to spread and patients to switch to the new preferred drug (and to REPR's FREEDOM 60)
(4) Tour observations -- relatively simple, efficient, assembly line low-skilled labor. They seem to make and sell the tubing sets more than anything which I was happy to see since the price they charge for tubing sets has gone up 20% recently.
(5) Res-Q-Vac is being marketing to coincide with the grant funding schedules of various institutions for the first time this year. There's a bigger push than normal to sell them. There's a new marketing flyer for the RES-Q-VAC to hurricane risk areas that is a first marketing strategy for them. I will scan and post the flyer some time this week.
(6) The CEO Andy mentioned he was very busy working on the 10Q. I would like to think it's human nature to not even mention that unless you expect it to contain good news.
(7) International marketing strategy includes signing only one master distributor per country to have a distribution monopoly on the Freeom 60 or RES-Q-VAC to give them incentive to advertise within that country without fear of competition from other distributors. Also they are seeing and/or expect a pickup in sales from developing countries whose power supply is often unreliable and the Freedom60 and RES-Q-VAC both work without electricity except for a battery for the new light wand on the RES-Q-VAC.
(8) The RES-Q-VAC now comes with a bendable battery-operated light wand.
(9) They are "constantly expanding" and as such always hiring or taking applications and expect with the Daisy approval they'll need to hire a significant number of new workers as they already have orders lined up waiting for approval.
(10) More trade shows are coming this year in addition to the ones already attended which in the past tends to lead to new customers.
