In an exclusive interview with The Fly, BioSig Technologies' (BSGM) CEO Ken Londoner talked about the company, leadership changes, COVID-related impacts and much more.
COMMERCIAL LAUNCH: BioSig is a medical technology company commercializing a signal processing platform designed to improve signal fidelity and uncover the full range of ECG and intra-cardiac signals. The company has "developed an advance signal processing platform, which is computer, hardware and software that's used to treat people with atrial fibrillation – rapid heart rhythms when the heart is beating too fast and that heartbeat can be lethal, can be debilitating. Usually is caused by age – 1 out of 4 people over the age of 60 in the United States have it. When someone has that condition, they can take medication or they can have a procedure called ablation. Our technology is designed to improve the surgical procedure. We provide new information that doesn’t exist in the industry that increases the surgeons' capabilities, both improves the time of the procedure and we hope improves the accuracy. We're just commercially launching the product now," CEO Ken Londoner explained to The Fly.
NEW LEADERSHIP: Earlier this month the company announced the appointment of John Sieckhaus as Chief Operating Officer. "John Sieckhaus is a veteran in our industry. He worked at a company called St. Jude Medical that was a very successful publicly traded NYSE company. It was a leader in cardiac medical technology and John was the head of U.S. sales. He was also responsible for other departments as well. When Abbott purchased St. Jude 3 years ago, John went over to Abbott [ABT] but then announced his retirement. He is coming in to take over the operations of the company from me. As a CEO is hard to do that job and also be the leader of the company. It's just too much work," the executive explained.
Londoner also noted that the company is now focusing on shifting from research and development of its technology to a commercial launch of the technology. "We do have FDA approval. So, John and our new Chief Commercial Officer Gray Fleming who also was a leader at St. Jude Medical will be running the day-to-day operations. John is responsible for operations, Gray is responsible for commercial and both will be reporting to me."
"The company has just recruited two of the top commercial executives in our industry to run the company. I don't think people have paid proper attention to that. Great leaders joining smaller companies is sort of a validation of what they are doing because they would not be coming in if there wasn’t something significant going on. I think there's an opportunity for investors to learn about why they made this decision. There's a story that's going to be told here from an investor perspective and that will play out this year, next year, the year after. Over a three-year cycle, I think more people will know our name and will be benefitting from the work we are doing," the executive said.
RUNWAY TO RAMP COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY: The company recently announced a $3M financing with an unnamed "family office that has deep expertise in small cap emerging growth investing." "We're not profitable so the company needs resources to grow our business. The $3M is coming along with a cash warrant that we expect will get exercised. So, essentially it will be $6M and that, plus the cash on hand, should be able to give us enough runway to ramp commercial activity. We're funded by a commercial ramp. With that our shareholders should benefit," Londoner added.
COVID-RELATED IMPACTS: Hospitals – BioSig's end market – are among the most impacted during the ongoing pandemic. "In 2020, we were shutout from the commercial market. We had just started to rollout our product in 2020. On March 4, we made our third installation at University of Pennsylvania. On March 5, we were told we couldn’t go into any hospitals. We spend 12 years getting to that point, we're on the Nasdaq, we have a full balance sheet ready to go and they say we can't do anything. That was pretty difficult. Everybody who got through 2020 thought that 2021 would be a year to recover and make up some lost ground. And we got hit with delta and omicron. So, our end market – the hospitals – were spending the majority of their money on COVID. We're in cardiology which is one of the most profitable departments in a hospital. So, this was not only difficult for us and people in our industry but also difficult for the hospitals," the executive explained to The Fly.
However, 2022 seems to be shaping up as a better year for the company's business and for the industry as a whole. "This year, we're seeing double-digit increases in elective procedure growth. There's a massive amount of pent-up demand in our industry which I believe will come to bear this year not just for us but for our industry. We will benefit. We see a lot of recovery activity and we hope it sustains. We have a war and that's terrible but from the hospital sector perspective and other areas hit are coming up rapidly," Londoner added.
"Meet the Company" is The Fly's recurring series of exclusive short interviews with Executive Officers to offer a deeper look inside the company.
