Q1 2024 SI-BONE Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Saqib Iqbal; Senior Director of IR; SI-BONE, Inc.

Laura Francis; CEO; SI-BONE, Inc.

Anshul Maheshwari; CFO; SI-BONE, Inc.

Ian Lee; Analyst; Jevco

Craig Bijou; Analyst; Bank of America Global Research

Matthew O'Brien; Analyst; Piper Sandler Companies

Drew Ranieri; Analyst; Morgan Stanley

Dave Turkaly; Analyst; Citizens JMP Group, LLC

Caitlin Cronan; Analyst; Canaccord Genuity Group, Inc.

David Saxon; Analyst; Needham & Company, Inc.

Sam Brodovsky; Analyst; Truist Financial Corp.

Ross Osborne; Analyst; Cantor Fitzgerald LP

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to SI-BONE First Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of today's call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Saqib Iqbal, Senior Director of Investor Relations at SI-BONE for a few introductory comments.

Saqib Iqbal

Thank you for participating in today's call. Joining me are Laura Francis, Chief Executive Officer; and Anshul Maheshwari, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, SI-BONE released financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, which are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Any statements contained in this call that relate to expectations or predictions of future events, results or performance are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and inherently involve risks and uncertainties. These risks include everyone's ability to introduce and commercialize new products and indications and levels ability to maintain favorable reimbursement for its products and procedures, changes in payer requirements for authorization of procedures involving everyone's product, the impact of potential economic weakness on the ability and desire of patients to undergo elective procedures.
Hexagon's ability to manage risks to its supply chain, the impact of future capital requirements driven by new product introductions and risks to the continued re normalization of the healthcare operating environment. Other forward-looking statements include our examination of operating trends and our future financial expectations, such as expectations for physician training and adoption, active physicians, new products and clinical trial enrollment and are based upon our current estimates and various assumptions. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated or implied by these forward-looking statements.
Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. For a list and description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10 K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call, management may also discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including the company's adjusted EBITDA results. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP accounting, please see the Company's full earnings release issued earlier today. Si-bone disclaims any intention or obligation, except as required by law to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise. Conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today, May 6, 24, but that was good again.

Laura Francis

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I'm pleased with our solid first quarter results, driven by continued robust procedure demand in the U.S. across all our target markets, we delivered $37.9 million in worldwide revenue, representing growth of 16% over the prior year period. I'm particularly impressed with our performance in the first quarter. When you compare to typical industry seasonality trends and our stellar performance in the prior year, the demand momentum was also evident in our impressive physician engagement trends. In the first quarter, we maintained a near record number of active US physicians and completed a record-breaking number of new physician training.
As we look at the rest of 2024 remain enthusiastic about the revenue growth acceleration fueled by three key tailwinds. First, the continued growth in our physician base, driven by the record level of engagement. We're seeing second building on a strong success of i2's 3D and expanding adoption of torque across all our coal plants. And third, the exciting opportunity to leverage the expanded family of branded implants with our active physician base to accelerate adoption within pelvic fixation and increased procedures per physician. In the first quarter, we received five 10 K clearance from the FDA for our 9.5 millimeter diameter ICs, Bedrock branded implants with market expanding indications for placement in the U.S., one pedicle and pediatric deformity. These are new but adjacent market opportunities for us.
We launched this implant at the end of April with Dr. CJ click a key opinion leader at the University of Colorado, Dr. Ali Masila, a surgeon who guided the development of our Granite technology and Dr. random Lehman, a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of adult and pediatric spine conditions at Columbia University, utilizing both open and closed had options performing the first cases in the country, given the high level of enthusiasm and anticipation in the surgeon community and among our commercial organization from Granite 95 as well as the 130,000 annual target procedures. We're confident that this line extension will augment Granite's pace of adoption.
The addition of Granite Line five is the continuation of our strategy which we laid out in 2021 to build a broad portfolio of innovative products to address unmet clinical needs and accelerate our growth. In the last three years, we successfully launched IP's torque in 2021, Granite in 2022, a close 10 Granite line extension in 2023 and now intra and grain at 95 in 2024. We've leveraged this industry leading franchise of highly differentiated solutions to diversify our revenue stream, expand our call points and create new markets and pelvic fixation and pelvic trauma. The impact of this strategy is reflected in our strong results since 2021 as we delivered 24% cumulative annual revenue growth and doubled our active physician base.
Before I get into the details of our strategic priorities, I wanted to take this opportunity to recognize a major milestone in the Company's history. We recently celebrated the completion of 100,000 procedures using our products. We take pride in our market leadership and an execution which includes focusing on education, market access and awareness of sacral pelvic conditions. We feel honored to work with so many impressive physicians who help give patients their lives back every day.
Now let me provide an update on our key initiatives as we look to extend our leadership position drive strong long-term growth and create shareholder value. Starting with sales infrastructure, our sales, marketing and professional education teams provide us with a tremendous competitive advantage. We're impressed with the continued effectiveness of our sales and commercial teams known for their industry, leading expertise and extensive experience across our target markets. We've expanded operating leverage in sales and marketing infrastructure by creating hybrid models with select sales agents while consistently delivering unparalleled support and education for physicians. This is evident in our P&L with three year cumulative growth in revenue of 24%, while sales and marketing.
France grew 14% during that period. We ended the first quarter with 85 quota-carrying U.S. territory managers. We augment our territory manager bandwidth with clinical support specialists and third party sales agents for case coverage. The expanded portfolio as well as the hybrid commercial model resulted in trailing 12-month revenue per territory at the end of the first quarter of 2024 of approximately $1.6 million, reflecting 26% growth compared to the trailing 12-month period ended the first quarter of 2023. We expect the annual revenue per territory to steadily grow toward $2 million. We plan to methodically add territories over the next few years to ensure we maximize the potential of our growing portfolio and facilitate deeper engagement with our physicians.
Moving on to physician engagement, we exited the first quarter with over 1,100 active physicians, an increase of over 150 active physicians in the quarter compared to the prior year period. The 16% growth in U.S. active physicians over the first quarter of 2023 was the 13th consecutive quarter of double digit year-over-year growth with nearly 12,000 potential target physicians, we remain confident in our ability to grow our active physician base. Our sales force is also leveraging our growing portfolio of proprietary products to drive deeper physician engagement. In the first quarter of 2020, for 15% of our active physicians perform more than one procedure time with our grain at 95 implants targeting degenerative spine procedures, which account for a significant portion of the procedure volumes for our active physicians. We have an exciting opportunity to increase revenue per physician over time since 2018.
Another important initiative to grow our active physician base has been our academic training programs. We've since trained nearly 1,600 residents and fellows, including over 250 in the current 2023, 2024 academic year. We're excited to see strong adoption trends from these physicians in the quarters and years that follow their education in the first quarter of 2024. Strong adoption resulted in revenue from this group growing 50% compared to the prior year period.
Turning to products and solutions, we have a demonstrated track record of building innovative and proprietary products and surgical techniques to address unmet clinical needs and improve patient outcomes. The sustained procedure volume growth we've experienced in the U.S. substantiates the value of our innovation. We have an active product pipeline with over 10% of our revenue being reinvested in development of new products and clinical evidence. We expect to launch differentiated products in the coming year to further extend our portfolio leadership and accelerate revenue growth with applications across SI, joint dysfunction, pelvic fixation and pelvic trauma IQ three D and our two-store give physicians access to industry-leading solution, one performing sacral pelvic procedures over the last three years. Ic's torque is built on the success of IQ 3D and been a key contributor to demand acceleration as well as strong active physician engagement across all our target markets.
As we engage select interventional pain physicians, we're leading with ICU's torque and also training them on IPUs intra or allograft solution. The interventional pain physicians have expressed their excitement about our comprehensive portfolio as well as better surgical technique and interoperative support to increase the likelihood of the best patient outcomes. Adoption trends in the first quarter suggests that IP's torque has been the preferred implant for active interventional pain physicians based on this experience, as well as the guidance of our interventional advisory board are encouraged by the growing confidence of interventional pain physicians to adopt IP's torque after being treated in the lateral trans fixing technique.
When performing an SI joint fusion procedure, which is reimbursed under CPT code two seven two seven nine. We're encouraged by the pace of ICU's torque adoption for treating pelvic trauma patients toward the end of 2024, we'll launch a complementary pelvic trauma product was over 120,000 sacral insufficiency fractures a year and a one year mortality rate of up to 25% for the patients treated with bed rest. Currently, the most common approach, the China market will be a long-term growth driver for us within pelvic fixation IC's, Bedrock, Granite, our breakthrough device continues to be a game-changing addition to our portfolio. We're just scratching the surface in terms of market penetration and adoption agreements, and we're pleased with the increasing demand for the product as we target 30,000 annual adult deformity procedures.
We believe that Granite will become the standard of care for fixation and fusion of the SI joint providing a strong foundation at the base of the long construct since 2020 to over 40% of our granted case volume has been in shorter two to four level lumbar fusion procedures typically used to treat degenerative spine conditions. The current adoption of the larger diameter granted in the shorter level fusion procedure illustrates the increasing interest among the surgeon community to include pelvic fixation in high-risk patients undergoing these procedures.
As I highlighted earlier, in April, we initiated our launch of the Granite nine carbon plant and are planning an expanded rollout in June. We believe the grant at 95, including shorter lengths, appropriate replacement in the F1 pedicle will provide a best-in-class offering for the approximately 100,000 annual fusions to the Seagram as well as engage deformity surgeons who have breadth an additional preference for smaller diameter implants.
Before I hand the call over to Anshul, I want to congratulate our employees for helping nearly 100,000 patients get their lives back to our world-class team. Your grit and relentless commitment enables us to develop breakthrough products backed by high-quality clinical evidence, educate payers and physicians and ensure that the nearly $0.5 million annual target patients have access to best-in-class solutions. Thank you for all that you do. With that, I'll hand the call over to Anshul to discuss our financial performance.

Anshul Maheshwari

Thanks, Laura. Good afternoon, everyone. My comments today will be focused on first quarter revenue growth, gross margin trends, productivity and liquidity. Additionally, all the comparisons provided will be versus the same period in the prior year, unless noted otherwise. Starting with revenue growth, our first quarter worldwide revenue was $37.9 million, representing growth of 16%. U.s. revenue also grew 16% to $35.4 million due to increasing U.S. procedure volumes with our procedure ASP in the first quarter being relatively flat. International revenue in the first quarter was $2.4 million, representing 8% growth.
Moving to gross margin and operating leverage, our gross margin for the first quarter was 79%. The gross margin reflects the impact of product and procedure mix, higher freight driven by revenue growth as well as depreciation from deployment of additional instrument trees. Operating expenses were $41.9 million in the quarter, representing 10% growth. The increase was driven by higher commissions related to revenue growth, impact from stock-based compensation and research and development investments. The increase in operating expenses was also impacted by the timing of our global sales meeting, which was held in the first quarter of this year versus the second quarter of last year. Our net loss improved by 2% to $10.9 million or $0.27 per diluted share. Net loss per diluted share for the first quarter of 2024 also reflects the increase in shares outstanding due to our follow-on common stock offering in May 2023.
Our adjusted EBITDA loss in the first quarter was $4 million which was nearly flat compared to the prior year period. Turning to liquidity, we exited the first quarter of 2024 with a robust balance sheet, including $157.8 million in cash and marketable securities. We delivered 30% improvement in our net cash flow from operations. Given our strong liquidity position, our relatively asset-light business model and a clear line of sight to adjusted EBITDA breakeven. We have the financial resources to self-fund our long-term growth priorities going forward.
Finally, moving to our updated outlook for 2024 based on our first quarter results, we are increasing our 2024 worldwide revenue guidance. We now expect 2024 worldwide revenue of between $164 million to $166 million dollars, implying year-over-year growth of approximately 18% to 20%. Considering the potential to ex operating leverage in the business, we expect significant adjusted EBITDA improvement for the full year 2024, putting us within reach of our adjusted EBITDA breakeven goal.
With that, I will turn the call over to Laura essential based on the momentum in the portfolio, we're set up to deliver a strong 2024. As we look beyond 2024, we're confident that the combination of our commercial footprint, differentiated portfolio across multiple target markets and planned new product launches in the coming years will allow us to continue delivering top-tier medical device revenue growth.

Laura Francis

With that, we're happy to take questions. Operator, thank you.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) [Ian Lee, Jevco].

Ian Lee

Hi, great. Thanks for taking our questions. I guess to start, I wanted to hear a little bit about the progress of interest since you launched the early feedback from a I mean, it still sounds like targets the focus for a lot of the interventionalists. And I guess I'm just kind of curious you know, is that combined on interventional portfolio opening doors to new physicians who weren't referring before? Is it pending the market for it?

Laura Francis

Yes. Thanks for the question, young, and we are pleased with what we're seeing with Entra thus far. So we're still obviously very early in this journey, but we like the early results and how they're setting up, especially from the perspective of our strategy, we wanted to engage a subset of interventional interventionalists and get access to this discrete and untapped patient funnel. As you said, this is this is additive to our to our current sales with our surgeons. So we're pleased with the level of interventionalists engagement and their interest in being trained with torque as well as with intra, we're not planning to break down revenue by physician or per procedure type. But what's impressive is the adoption trends of torque with interventionalists as they're being trained in the lateral technique with ensure we're still in the early days.
And but we do believe that there's a subset of physicians who are going to be initially hesitant to use a metal implant. And so these physicians are going to be for use or so. So we're positioned to be a preferred partner to this call point regardless of what their needs actually are. And as a market leader. We we really felt a strong need to address this market. We have the best commercial sales force. We have unparalleled educational and advocacy infrastructure. We have a comprehensive product portfolio. And and we've gotten clear feedback from interventionalists that SI-BONE is highly respected for for our market leadership position. And and we are particularly impressed by the large number of interventionalists who are already working with us or have begun the process of getting trained.

Ian Lee

Great. That's very helpful. I guess maybe to follow up on that, I wanted to ask about rep productivity. I think the territory managers are doing about $1.6 million before you had a goal of $2 million plus it's more of a milestone, not a ceiling and but wanted to hear a little bit about as you get closer to that two plus million range, what's the next milestone or target you think they can hit before Max and now and also your agent base has increased a lot in recent quarters. Maybe thoughts on their contribution so far and adding more agents going forward?

Laura Francis

Yes. Yes. So we are extremely proud of the 26% growth that we had in trailing 12 month rep productivity getting us up to the $1.6 million. And the commercial leadership team has done a really great job of leveraging hybrid commercial models here. So we have junior clinical support specialists that are working with our territory managers that help to identify new physicians as well as to cover cases. And then as you said, we've also added a significant number of some of third party agents that are also selling the product and covering cases as well. So that really has helped us to grow our productivity and it in a significant way. So really four key drivers to that productivity.
First is just the caliber of our increasingly seasoned sales force it complemented with these hybrid commercial models. Secondly, our highly differentiated portfolio of solutions through the synergistic physician call point, which is allowing us to drive physician density and then finally, the increase in the field surgical capacity with the rollout of instruments and implants to reduce the logistical workflow.
So in terms of where we're going, we, as I said, our intention is to continue to grow over time to that $2 million per territory manager level. And we do have a significant number of reps. They're already selling in excess of $3 million per territory. And so that's been a guide for us. And in some of those particular territories, they're actually working with two clinical support specialists in others. They are heavily leveraging third party agents. And so those are just some of the ways that we're that we're getting out at this opportunity to continue to grow territory manager productivity and give us a lot of confidence that we can actually do more than than where we're at currently.
But overall, we're going to continue to selectively add to our sales force and maybe exit the year, a little with a little over 90 territory managers, but remain focused on driving strong, sustainable and profitable growth. And we do expect that year over year sales force productivity to continue to improve in the year.

Ian Lee

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Laura Francis

Thank you.

Operator

Craig Bijou, Bank of America Securities.

Craig Bijou

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on a good start from onshore. Maybe for you to start, wanted to talk about your expectations for operating expenses growth? And then even some of your comments to the last question, more on sales reps spend, so or adding sales reps and what the what the spend would be would love to just kind of get your thoughts on operating expense growth for the rest of the year and your comments on EBITDA, does that mean that we should or we could see EBITDA positive EBITDA in Q4 of this year. Is that something that's on the table?

Laura Francis

Craig, thanks for the question. We're really pleased with how the how the quarter played out, both on the top line and also on the leverage side. So just to provide some context, as I've shared in my prepared remarks, the first quarter included the impact of our global sales meeting, the timing of that, you've got OpEx being a bit higher in the first quarter than you did prior year because of when the global sales meeting happened. And what we've said in our remarks also is we do expect to see two times OpEx growth rate revenue growth rate being two times OpEx growth rate sorry. So what that would imply is if you think about the midpoint of the guidance at about 19%, you're looking at OpEx growth of 9.5% and it's primarily driven by the higher commission rates that you could earn because of the higher revenue and as well as some of the accounting on the stock-based side. So the leverage continues and we feel really good about that.
Now in terms of in our adjusted EBIT EBITDA breakeven, look, we're early in the year. And as we've always articulated, our strategy is to just have our results speak for themselves and get there in terms of adjusted EBITDA breakeven time line. And as we go through the year, we'll be able to provide more information on the progress we're making towards that breakeven. But what I would leave you with is we're feeling really good about the trajectory that we're on, and we feel good about our ability to get to adjusted EBITDA breakeven and also very quickly to cash flow breakeven given our asset-light model kind of.

Craig Bijou

Thanks. Thanks for that. And then maybe a follow-up. I did want to talk about your guidance for the year, so you beat by roughly $1.5 million. I think that was the raise for the year. Obviously good to see the raise. But maybe if you could just talk about is that conservatism to start the year? Or what do you see or how do you see the year progressing and maybe a little bit on the cadence of revenue? And how should we think about that?

Anshul Maheshwari

Yes. No, happy to take that as well, Greg. So if you look at the midpoint of the range midpoint of the raise is about 1.5 from the prior midpoint, which is pretty much what we did in Q1. In terms of the upside on our performance, it is still early in the year. So you're right, we just want to be thoughtful. We've got a lot of things that are going in our favor when you think about and the number of physicians that were treating. It was a record number of physicians that had the first training still seeing really good adoption. The surgeon side seeing good traction on the interventional side and with credit nine five being sort of site rollout in the second quarter, more in June.
And then yes, all of those things make us feel really good about the business, but it's still coming out of the first quarter. So you want to be thoughtful in terms of cadence, we do expect revenue growth to accelerate on a year-over-year basis in each of the quarters going forward from. So even the typical seasonality that you see in the third quarter in our expectation is with the rollout of the grad at nine five in June should help us offset some of that seasonality. So net-net, feel really good about the setup that we have in the business coming out of the first quarter.

Craig Bijou

Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

Matthew O'Brien, Piper Sandler.

Matthew O'Brien

And thanks so much. For taking the questions and learned and actually, you've kind of touched on a couple of these here, but the two year stack growth rate in the US was really strong, much better than we saw the last four quarters for the four quarters of last year or so. What is it specifically that's really driving that? Is it a function of those new reps, MEMBER productivity amongst the new reps that's really driving that. And then the momentum there again seems really good with easier comps kind of Chris' question earlier. Is there anything you're factoring in that could disrupt some of that momentum. I don't know if it's these LCDs and that are proposed or other things like that, that you're really worried about. But what would slow down some of that momentum that we really saw in Q1.

Laura Francis

So Matt, thank you so much for highlighting that point to. As you know, last year, we grew at 46% in the first quarter. And if you do your two year stack with the 16% growth, you're talking about a very strong quarter that we have here. So out of the gates, we really feel great about the way the year has started. And even if you think about historical seasonality trends as well as that tough comp, it was just a strong quarter across all of the key KPI.s. And it is a continuation of the strong demand that we've seen over the last few quarters. So in the US. We saw robust robust demand across all our target markets and across all our call points. And it allowed us to deliver 17% procedure volume growth and as well as maintaining a relatively stable ASP in the US, we are near record physician engagement with over 1,100 active US users, up 16% and then getting five 10 K clearance for grant at nine five, which is positioning us to build on Granite momentum and further accelerate adoption within pelvic fixation.
And then if you even just look beyond the strong top line drivers. We continue to see strong operating leverage with a 30% improvement in cash flow from operations versus a year ago. So but we're also continuing to invest in our growth priorities, as you can see from the different product introductions. So what we really wanted to do thinking about kind of that, that longer-term trajectory, given that we're just starting the year what we wanted to do was to be thoughtful about our guidance, but as Anshul said, really expect to see continued acceleration of our growth rate throughout the year. We're not concerned on the LCD side that you mentioned on.
As I said, most of the adoption that we're seeing currently with interventional is with our torque products and that that product is coded to CPT code two seven two seven nine on where there are no issues. We're not surprised at seeing some of the challenges with a CPT code two seven, two seven eight and because it's it's a it's early days on this right now. But we think that we have the products and solutions in order to address whatever needs are. Our physicians have whether they're surgeons or interventionalists. And given our market leadership position here and our incredible field force, we were really excited about where we can go for 2024.

Anshul Maheshwari

And Matt the only thing on the guidance side, I would add like Laura said, we we've got a lot of experience in the reimbursement side and our strategy anticipated some of this reimbursement challenge. So we don't expect this to have any impact in the guidance we just said of the one $64 million to $66 million.

Matthew O'Brien

Okay. Appreciate those comments. And then as far as that LCD goes, is there the two seven eight one specifically, I'm I'm obviously new to covering the name, but you guys, but just it seems to me like that would be more of a tailwind for your business because now everybody is going to transition to two seven nine, they're going to use torque, and that's going to be better than intra for you. Is that a dynamic that we should potentially be thinking about later throughout this? Yes, you're correct, opposed to somebody?

Laura Francis

Yes, you're correct that, you know, we have seen interest from interventionalists starting last year already in our procedure, the lateral procedure using torque, and we're continuing to see strong interest in that particular procedure over allograft procedures currently likely due to the uncertainty around reimbursement for two seven two seven eight versus two seven two seven nine. So and given given where we're at as the market leader in this particular space, we're able to provide a number of different products for able to provide the right education. We're able to provide the right support from a reimbursement perspective. And finally, our our sales team with 85 territory managers and a few less clinical support specialists provides us with the opportunity to to adequately support those interventionalists.

Matthew O'Brien

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Drew Ranieri, Morgan Stanley.

Drew Ranieri

And Laura. Hi, Oswald. Thanks for taking the question. Questions. Of maybe just to start, Laura, you mentioned in your comments of maintaining near record docs positions in the quarter. I know that there's a little nuance here. It's declining a bit sequentially. But can you just help us better understand maybe some of the dynamics that were happening here and there what's embedded from a new doc add dynamic to reach your full year guidance at all, and I'll stop there for it now.

Laura Francis

And so we're actually very pleased with where we're at having over 1,100 docs. That is it is a few less than we had at the end of Q4. That is typical for us last year, I think was the exception to that particular rule, but it is very typical from a seasonality perspective that we will have a few left. Doctors that are performing procedures in Q1 versus Q4 were very pleased, however, and we did throw in a little bit of qualitative information about training here. We had very strong training trends in the first quarter with a combination of surgeons as well as enter interventionalists as well.
And that's a great forward-looking indicator for us, the active surgeon numbers, just the number of surgeons that performed at least one case in the quarter. But all of these even more forward looking indicators such as training gives us a lot of confidence in this acceleration into the next few quarters, also with new product coming out as well. And it gives us a lot of confidence too. So in particular, if you think about Granite 95 is targeting 100,000 degenerative spine procedures and the expectation that that's going to increase physician density in the future is exciting and finally, with the addition of interventionalists, it's increased our target physician number from around 7,500 to around 12,000 in total. So gives us the opportunity to sell to additional physicians and also the opportunity to increase the number of procedures per physician per quarter.

Drew Ranieri

And maybe just on the utilization side for a moment, I mean that looks relatively stable on a quarter over quarter, piggybacking off of the grid at night five launch. Just maybe help us better understand some of the utilization drive or some of the more utilization drivers kind of what you're expecting. And I know that there's surgeons physicians are using your products far in excess of that. But when do we really start to see like a real true inflection in utilization. I mean, you're making great progress on the surgeon side. But when do we kind of see the utilization really kind of pickup?

Anshul Maheshwari

Yes. So we did talk a little bit about physician density. Now we're in these early innings of expanding our portfolio, but we are seeing a growing number of physicians that are performing multiple procedure types. We did mention specifically that in the first quarter, around 15% of our active physicians perform more than one type of procedure. But once again, if I go back to Granite 95, Granite 95 is targeting degenerative spine procedures, and that's the bread-and-butter procedure of our target surgeon. And so the majority of their practice is going to be in that particular category. And we just had our first procedures with Granite nine five completed in the month of April. And then we're rolling out and we expect to exceed it expanded rollout and launch in June.
So I think you're going to start to see the impact in the second quarter, but I think you're going to really start to see that accelerate in the second half of the year. So very excited about the opportunity that's there with with our surgeons and increasing our density there. And then with interventionalists, the opportunity to do further increase the number of physicians active physicians we're working with quarter by quarter.

Operator

Dave Turkaly, Citizen JMP.

Dave Turkaly

Good evening, Larry, maybe one for you. Just on the competitive front, it seems like there is a several sort of vast imitators on the core as a joint LMIS. market. And I'm just curious, like what are you seeing in terms of torque or Bedrock Granite or some of these other items sort of markets that you're kind of creating are targeting. But I don't know that I've seen the competition follow as quickly, and I'm curious to see you get your thoughts on what's happening there and what you expect moving forward?

Anshul Maheshwari

Yes, I think, Dave, thanks for the question. And what we pride ourselves on is identifying unmet clinical needs and then developing differentiated products around those unmet clinical needs. And so we're identifying new markets in some cases. So where there are typically a physician is not operating on a on a patient performing a procedure on a patient. So SI Joint Fusion was within that category and certainly sequel insufficiency fractures. Most of those cases are are treated conservatively as well. So our goal is to either identify these unmet clinical needs and develop new solutions around them or to develop a significantly improved and technique or product or both that that addresses an unmet clinical need in Granite really falls more into that category.
And so we expect to see competition coming in what they're doing is creating widgets basically and and selling those into into the market. And we think that, especially when you're in a market where there is an unmet clinical need, having the capabilities that we have are really important. So whether it's a differentiated patent-protected product, whether it is the level one level two clinical data that we have reimbursement support, including the end tasks, for example, for Granite and then just taking an educational approach to the market as well, which really is supported by both our professional education group as well as by our sales force. Those are the ways that we really are leading in all of these markets and we are and we know that that's appreciated by physicians in these markets, and that's what we're going to continue to do. So I think that we're going to keep disrupting the market.
We've launched two products so far this year, we've talked about a third that we're going to launch by the end of the year. You're going to continue to see us, innovate and grow and utilize these competitive advantages that we have in order to build these markets. It treat these patients, support the physicians and build the Company.

Dave Turkaly

Great. Thank you for that. And then I think you even mentioned ASPs, I think you said they're flattish. But given the differentiation you're talking about and what we've seen from some of your peers I'm just curious, I mean, is that an opportunity for price increases? I know we've kind of modeled it declining, you know, over time, but you seem to have some things that are pretty unique. And I'm just curious, as you look ahead, do you think there's an opportunity potentially for price or is that something we shouldn't think about? Thank you.

Laura Francis

Yes. So So Dave, this is I'm sure, thanks for the question. In terms of the ASPE., though, when you when you think about the opportunity that's ahead of us, we've got almost a 0.5 million annual target procedure that we're going after. And so there's a huge opportunity. So for us, we're focused on market development. We maintain ASPs that allow us to maintain our attractive gross margins so that we can continue to reinvest in the business.
From an R&D standpoint, this is something Tony and team review on a very regular basis on how to make sure we can we can manage the ASP. alongside driving adoption. We feel good about that. You know, our ASP trending generally is based on the procedure mix versus price erosion to some extent when you're doing the deformity procedure using four implants versus the degen procedure using three versus SI joint fusion using three. So those things can have an impact. But overall, from a part implant AFC. recent, we're pretty disciplined on holding down.

Operator

Caitlin Cronan, Canaccord Genuity.

Caitlin Cronan

Okay. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on a great quarter. Just to start with the on training. You mentioned a record number of docs with first training this quarter. How many of those were interventionalist? And just thoughts on you've given the uptake and interest of torque and lateral trajectory for this interventionalist, would you start thinking about training in 3D as well?

Laura Francis

Yes. Thanks for the question, Caitlin on. So yes, we are excited about the record number of first trainings that we saw. And there certainly was some heightened interest from interventionalists during the quarter, and that definitely was a contributor to the number first trainings. But we also saw strong surgeon interest and demand for being trained across our procedures. So pelvic fixation, in particular, with the knowledge that the grant at 95 had been cleared and was imminent was certainly a driver as well. And then some of the work that we're doing on the trauma side, too. So it's really across the board that we actually saw that interest. And then remind me of the second part of the question.

Caitlin Cronan

One, just some any thoughts given kind of the uptake of torque in the lateral trajectory for those interventionalists that we're training them. Would you expect to start training them in 30 days at some point?

Laura Francis

So we're not on a torque really has been the product of choice for those interventionalists that are interested in the lateral technique. The IQ three D procedure falls into a category that I would call more orthopedic in nature. So that's not a product that interventionalists are naturally gravitating to it is definitely a product that's the gold standard product that's out there. It has the most clinical data around it, and we have some some very loyal users of that particular product. But the the the interventionalists are actually a little bit surprised at the ease of use with torque and the technique and the outcomes that they're starting to see with this some of the early interventionalists that are performing the procedure.
So torque really as it relates to the lateral technique is the is the product of choice. And then there certainly are interventionalists right now that that prefer a bone allograft product. And so that's that's the product that some of these interventionalists are at least I'm thinking about before they get more comfortable with the lateral technique. But I know you mentioned I use three D and as I said, there's we have the most data on that product and when when physicians think about SI-BONE, they really do think about level one clinical evidence and level two clinical evidence. And so we have one study called the Sally study, which was evaluating a few three D, and we expect to see the five year Sally study results coming up in the second half of this year. So we're continuing to to work closely with our portfolio of products, whether it's I use three D with Sally, whether it's torque with the Stacy study or with the Saffron study and then some Granite and the Bedrock technique with our Silvia study with our Polish study, we're continuing to really focus on clinical data and being the market leader in this space.

Caitlin Cronan

Just jumping off of that really quickly. Any updates to the progress on the Stacy, all data from studies?

Laura Francis

Yes, I think you'll be seeing a little bit more here later this year. So enrollments in Stacey is expected to be completed this summer, and the early results are very promising and exciting. And yes, for the purposes, Stacy was to provide post market information on lateral, minimally invasive SI joint fusion procedures performed with torque one performed by interventionalists. So it's going to give us more information on on the interventional physicians performing lateral SI joint fusion procedures using our torque product as Saffron you're going to actually expect to see some initial results that will be available later this year. So that will be in line with the launch of our new trauma product as well, you'll you'll see some clinical data coming through as well as and new product as well. So those are those are a couple of things in addition to Sally UK that can expect to see.

Caitlin Cronan

Thanks so much.

Operator

David Saxon, Needham & Company.

David Saxon

For. Great and good afternoon, Lauren onshore. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the quarter. I wanted to follow up on a previous question around pricing. It is probably for onshore. So the pricing is tracking better than I think it's the low to mid single digit decline that's assumed in guidance. Is there anything that would cause pricing to get worse throughout the year. I don't know if it's the 95 on or is that more of an area of conservatism as we think about the guidance?

Anshul Maheshwari

Yes, Dave, thank you for the question. So when you think about the low end of the guidance, some of that conservatism money is being reflected there. We haven't really changed our ASP expectations for the rest of the year and the guidance now in terms of what could have an impact on the ASB., you're right, with the nine five launch, even though there is no delineating, there is no change in price for implant. The potential for the shorter construct procedures using two implants versus the deformity procedure using floor could have an impact. But we think there's potential for upside on the ASP front as we progress through the year. But again, it's the first quarter is early in the year. So we think it's just prudent to hold some of that conservatism to see how it unfolds in the second quarter and the third quarter.

David Saxon

Okay. Great. And then maybe for Laura, to the direct Granite and tap, I think that runs out next October. So how should we think about that as it relates to Granite volume procedure volumes? How impactful has that up been to add Granite adoption that you've seen over the last couple of years, is there any way you can do work around like granite coating to preserve this premium facility for a fee or even a prophy Thanks so much.

Laura Francis

So on the Granite and tap, we have approximately 18 more months left on the Granite and tap. It'll go through October first of 2025 and what we've been doing is looking at the utilization of the and tap with with Medicare, seeing strong utilization on that and tap and pay. And so what that's going to help us to do is to quantify the value of of GRANITE and pelvic fixation in these particular cases. And so right now, we're looking at a number of different ways in order to make sure that the incremental payment continues after the end TAP is complete. So it could be with the new code, for example, or could potentially be with an increase in the existing code or pointing to a higher value code.
Those are all those are all three different options that we have right now, but we're midway through this and we do think that reimbursement is important. We have we have always focused as a company on ensuring that that we have covered lives across the United States, U.SU.S. building the SI joint fusion market. When I started in 2015, there was no coverage. And now we have complete coverage in SI-BONE. And our clinical data was was a very big part of the work in order to build that reimbursement for for SI joint fusion. So I see Granite and pelvic fixation in a similar way to that. And and we expect to continue to focus on using our clinical data and as well as the health economic data in order to support incremental reimbursement for pelvic fixation with Granite.

David Saxon

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Sam Brodovsky, Truist Security.

Sam Brodovsky

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in. And again, congrats on the good quarter, especially the solid EBITDA result. I'll just ask a quick one to start on gross margin. A little bit above the high end. The guide for this year. How should we think about that progressing through the year?

Anshul Maheshwari

Yes. Hey, Sam, thanks for the question. On the gross margin side, it is still early in the year and we're really pleased with how the quarter played out in terms of coming on some of the high end of the gross margin range. But again, we're just holding onto our guidance for 78% gross margin at this point, you know, the key reason being we are going to put more surgical capacity out there, especially as we get into the second half of the year, and that might have a timing impact on gross margins. So we want to see how it plays out again in the first half of the year before we we make any changes to the guidance there?

Sam Brodovsky

And then I'll just ask a bit of that broader one thinking more long term. But the two to one ratio rep growth to OpEx growth. Is that something we should think about happening this year? Is that a consistent operating model?

Laura Francis

You can think of the Company being able to hold onto for a while here Thanks for taking the question, and thanks a lot. I mean, look, we haven't provided long-term guidance in terms of how OpEx leverage would work out. You know, our view is our top line growth is going to remain strong with all the tailwinds that we have in 2024 plus like we've talked about, we've got a pretty significant investment in R&D so we expect new product launches to come out. So our focus on leverage is going to be more driven by how do we drive more product to the call point how do you drive more density or more procedures per physician, and that should translate into sales force leverage.
And like Laura said earlier, our next milestone is sort of getting to that $2 million, but we've got reps that do more than $2 million today with additional ancillary support, whether it's junior reps or our coverage agent. So we think leverage will continue. We feel really good about that. We'll just stay with what we've provided for the year at sort of that two times leverage. But we don't think it's the end of leverage. We think it will continue at a pretty healthy clip going forward.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Ross Osborne, Cantor Fitzgerald.

Ross Osborne

Guys. Congrats on the results and thanks for squeezing me in just one with regard to the smaller diameter Ganite launch, which you discussed feedback or level of early adoption within the pediatric population? Thank you.

Laura Francis

Yes, we're actually excited about the the expanded indications for Granite nine five, so and including pediatric deformity as well as in the F1 protocol as well. So we have gotten inquiries from pediatric deformity surgeons that would actually like to I'll use a smaller Granite implant with their patients. And we think that that grant at nine five is going to be a potential solution for them. So we're happy to be able to address that particular need for for those surgeons and for those patients. But in the F1, pedicle opportunity is quite significant for us to that's a significant part of the market that we're not addressing at this point in time and with our previous product. And so some of these newer surgeons that we talked about in our prepared remarks, there. They're starting to use the product already for that purpose. And then that's that's the second area of focus.
And then the third is that we did get some feedback from surgeons that just said that the 10 five or 11 five product was just larger than then what they wanted to use or they felt uncomfortable using stacked implants or two implants on both sides, which provides both pelvic fixation and Fusion. And so the smaller diameter implant also provides an opportunity for surgeons who are currently using two implants instead to use for implants. So there's a lot of opportunity that's here with the grant at nine five products, whether it's pediatric deformity, as you mentioned, whether it's the F1 trajectory that I talked about or or whether it's surgeons that previously felt that they needed a smaller implant or finally, those that that have said I'd like to use form, but I want something that's a little bit smaller. So great opportunity for us going forward. Just getting started just had those first few cases done in April. You're going to see some acceleration into May and June. And really excited about what we can do in the second half of the year.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it over to Laura for closing comments.

Laura Francis

I just wanted to say thank you for your participation in today's call, and we look forward to seeing you those of you that are going to be at the Bank of America Healthcare Conference. We will see you there. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.