Executives
Bob Yedid - IR
Rick Brajer - President & CEO
Lucy Martindale - EVP & CFO
Tim Fisher - COO
Analysts
Bill Quirk - Piper Jaffray
Dan Arias - UBS
Matt Taylor - Barclays
LipoScience (LPDX) Q4 2012 Results March 27, 2013 4:30 PM ET
Operator
Good day ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by and welcome to the LipoScience Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions). It's now my pleasure to turn the floor to Bob Yedid with ICR. Please go ahead.
Bob Yedid
Thank you Joey. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to LipoScience’s fourth quarter 2012 financial results conference call. Before we begin I will read the following Safe Harbor Statement. Statements or comments made on this conference call maybe forward-looking statements and may include but are not necessarily limited to financial projections or other statements regarding the company’s plans, objectives, expectations or intentions. These matters involve certain risk and uncertainties. The company’s actual results may differ materially from those projected or suggested at any forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors which are discussed in detail in the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Joining the call today are Rick Brajer, President and Chief Executive Officer and Lucy Martindale, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks we will turn the call back to the operator for your questions. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Rick. Rick?
Rick Brajer
Thank you Bob and good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining the call. So this is our first call as a public company, I will describe both our strategy and our current priorities in detail. I’ll then turn it over to Lucy Martindale our CFO to review the fourth quarter and full year results.
As many of you know LipoScience is a high growth diagnostic company which is pioneering a new field of first life diagnostics based on NMR with events to quality of patients here. Our first proprietary diagnostic test the NMR LipoProfile test measures the number of low density lipoprotein particles or LDLP in blood sample and provides physicians and their patients with actual information. The personalized management of risk for heart disease, physicians have ordered our first test over 9 million times to manage their patients. For the full year 2012 the company generated revenues of $54.8 million in revenues up 19.6% over prior year at gross margins of 81.6%.
We have just begun to penetrate the market opportunity in the U.S. The 1.95 test physicians ordered in 2012 represent less than 3% of the market for cholesterol test or lipid panels that are used for managing patients. Lipo science is now driving toward becoming a clinical standard of care by decentralizing our technology and expanding our venue of first life diagnostic test. We received 501(k) clearance from the FDA for the Vantera our fully automated version of our proprietary platform in August of last year made it commercially available in December and are currently negotiating agreements replacement at national and regional clinical laboratories. More over we’re working in partnership with leading academic centers to develop new high value test for that platform.
On Friday January 25th, LipoScience began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol LPDX, LipoScience Diagnostics. This is clearly the most important financing and company branding events in our company’s history today. We rate net proceeds of $44.4 million as a result of the offering. This IPO has supplied the growth capital that will allow our company to continue to execute on the three core elements of our strategy. Market conversion, platform expansion and driving towards clinical standard of care. Now the primary focus of this growth plan is on market conversion, by market conversion we mean expanding our sales force nationally, increasing market awareness to gain new users, educating new and current users about the clinical benefits of our test to broaden test utilization and their practice, broadening medical policy coverage and listing local key opinion leaders and cardiologist and expanding relationship with clinical diagnostic laboratories. We’re excited about the $1 billion market opportunity for the NMR LipoProfile test which we calculate by taking the 78 million cholesterol test performed in the U.S. annually for patient management applying an estimated 40% market conversion rate and then multiplying by our current CMS reimbursement rate of $43.36 for the NMR LipoProfile test.
We have shown on a regional basis that we can achieve solid market penetration when these various drivers of market conversion come together. For example we have four states in the South-East where we have 6% to 11% penetration of the market because we have all the right resources in place. Our critical massive sales reps, solid payer reimbursement, the support of key hospitals and the support of our lab partners. At the time of the IPO in January we had a total of 50 sales reps, several of which were in sales training. We have another sales training class currently process which will bring the number of sales reps in the field of 54 by early Q2.
We expect the increase to 60 in the field by late second quarter, in addition to sales reps and we call cardiovascular consultants. We will be expanding the number of medical science liaisons that work with leading academic centers, key opinion leaders and cardiologist to influence community standards of care as well as healthcare policy and reimbursements experts to obtain even broader medical policy coverage for the NMR LipoProfile test. Now the second core element of our strategy is platform expansion. By platform expansion we mean decentralizing access to our technology with Vantera and developing new essays using our NMR phased technology platform. Availability of Vantera in commercial laboratory is a key step towards providing broader access for the NMR LipoProfile test. Discussions of activity regarding commercial placements with national and reference labs and hospitals are occurring.
We’re also placing Vantera systems with academic centers that are collaborating with us to develop additional high value diagnostic essays based on NMR technology. In order to place a Vantera and get it into service there is essentially a four step process, contracting, installation, laboratory validation, and finally go live with clinical reporting. Here is what we mean for each term. Contracting initiates the process, installation is defined as instrument installation, laboratory information system integration and establishing remote access for support and training. Laboratory validation been defined as laboratory training, validation and CAP and CLIA certification and finally go live with clinical reporting which includes sales training medical education and report customization.
The time required for completing all four steps varies for each partner and is dependent on the completion of a contract, time, timing for space availability, familiarity with the NMR LipoProfile test and internal policies and practices for the laboratories. As a team with significant diagnostic industry experience, we have a clear understanding of how of some of the hurdles our lab partners have in rapidly adopting new technology such as the Vantera system and we continue to enhance our capabilities to assist them in more efficiently overcoming these hurdles especially for labs migrating from an existing Sun-Dow (ph) relationship with LipoScience to bringing the platform in house.
We have some customers that are progressing through each of the first three stages in preparation for go live reporting. We believe that we will achieve our 2013 installation plan and has built sufficient inventory for the plan. Note that we will not be reporting on the number of placements each quarter to investors or routinely providing specifics regarding the status of laboratory partners but instead we will stay focused on our progress in broad market conversion and our test volume and revenue growth. We often described the Vantera platform as an information rich scalable platform. As such it's an important part of our future and the R&D team is working internally as well as with several leading academic medical centers to further leverage the new essay potential for our automated NMR clinical analyzer.
Three months ago we filed a 510(k) application HDL particle number and we’re currently working with the FDA to address comments on our submission. The HDLP measurement is already provided by LipoScience to physicians as a laboratory developed test on the second page of our current NMR LipoProfile test report. FDA clearance will be perceived allow the HDLP information to be included as an FDA clear test on the first page of the report and provide the physician with added information to more effectively manage their patients residual risk for disease.
As a remainder LipoScience started collaborating with a Cleveland clinic in August 2011 to exclusively develop and commercialize the diagnostic test for cardiovascular disease risk based on Dr. Stan Hazen’s research that discovered a link between gut flora and individual in intestinal microbes and cardiovascular disease risk. Our specific work is focused on a trimethylamine N-oxide or TMAO for short.
LipoScience has developed the initial research version of an essay that quantifies TMAO via NMR technology on the Vantera system. During the first quarter of this year we successfully installed a Vantera system at Cleveland Clinic in Dr. Hazen’s research lab with the goal of furthering our understanding regarding the potential clinical utility of TMAO as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease risk.
We will continue to work with the Cleveland clinic and other centers of excellence with a goal of developing a new field of first life diagnostics based on NMR technology. We’re also moving forward with test in metabolic area such as our diabetes risk index. There are approximately 70 million people in the U.S. that are pre-diabetic. Our test is indented to help identify which of those patients are at greatest risk of Type-2 diabetes. This could potentially be a clinically relevant tool for primary care physicians and internist to risk stratify patients that are likely to progress the Type-2 diabetes. We will discuss our plans for our diabetes risk index as well as our expectations for timing and financial impact after we have completed development, validation and are ready to communicate our launch timing.
The third core element of our strategy is driving towards clinical standard of care, by driving towards clinical standard of care we mean sustaining and driving a publication and studies pipeline, developing and expanding relationships with leading academic medical centers and key medical societies, pursuing inclusion in treatment guidelines and developing meaningful pharma partnering relationships. We’ve a significant and growing body of clinical evidence that supports our test. There are over 300 research publications that reference our test and technology.
Of this total we estimate that 59 were published in 2012 alone. Previous studies have shown that many patients with relatively normal levels of low density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDLC still have high number of LDL particles demonstrating discordance between these two measures of LDL. The medical community is increasingly aware of the clinical importance of measuring LDLP by NMR to help personalize management of patient’s risk of cardiovascular disease. LipoScience has strong presence at the American College of Cardiology Meeting which was held from March 9 through 11th in San Francisco. Important data were presented on successive days of the meeting, on March 9; Dr. Pam Morris from the Medical University of South Carolina presented a data from a study that examined the relationship between Apo B particle numbers by NMR two important measures of cardiovascular risk in 1196 subjects.
The data presented indicated that a significant percentage of patients with normal levels of Apo B have higher LDL-P levels further demonstrating clinical situations where there can be hidden risk for cardiovascular events in seemingly healthy patients. On March 10, a team from Duke University led by Dr. William (inaudible) presented data related to the associations of LDL particle number with coronary artery disease in 1736 patients undergoing cardiac catheterization.
The study showed that LDL-P by NMR is a novel measure to help discriminate the severity of coronary artery disease discrimination and to predict mortality. Finally on March 11, there expert cardiologist Dr. Matthew Budoff and Dr, Richard Wright both affiliated with UCLA and Dr. Pam Morris from Medical University of South Carolina presented data on the role of LDL-P by NMR for individual patient management of cardiovascular disease risk.
These presenters emphasize that cardiovascular disease risk can be managed in a more efficient and cost effective manner than traditional population health approaches using LDL-P by NMR is a management guide for therapy. In summary we believe that we have brought opportunities for growth, our focus is on building a diagnostic company of significance and scale and our public company stats energizes us. With that I’ll turn over the call to our Chief Financial Officer, Lucy Martindale.
Lucy Martindale
Thanks Rick. I’m going to review our fourth quarter and year-end financial results before providing commentary on our revenue guidance for 2013. We will then open it up for questions.
Total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012 was 13.6 million an increase of 8.9 million compared with the fourth quarter of 211. For the quarter the number of NMR LipoProfile test was approximately 490,000 units an increase of 14.8% over the prior year period. Our unit growth continues to exceed revenue growth as a result on our ongoing and planned mix shift to clinical diagnostic labs from our direct distribution channel. We will continue to expand the number of lab partners and increase test volumes through these clinical diagnostic lab as we believe access through this distribution channel is key to our market conversion strategy. In 2012 approximately 95% of our units were derived from clinical lab partners compared to 5% ordered directly from positions. As a result of this ongoing and planned mix shift our average selling price or ASP in the fourth quarter of 2012 was $26.18 as compared to $27.48 in the fourth quarter of 2011, a decrease of 5.8%.
For the full year 2012 LipoScience generated revenues of 54.8 million up 19.6% year-over-year. We continue to see solid growth in the NMR LipoProfile test volumes with 1.95 million test ordered during 2012 an increase of 29.2% over 2011. The number of tests order has grown at an compound annual growth rate of approximately 28% from 2007 to 2012. For the year ended December 31, 2012 the average selling price of the NMR LipoProfile test decreased 5.5% to $26.56 compared to $28.10 for the year ended December 31, 2011.
We expect that our ASPs will continue to decrease as we decentralized Vantera and execute on our market conversion strategy. Our pricing with lab partners includes volume thresholds that provide economic incentives for them when they achieve greater test volume growth. We believe the potential increase in test volumes resulting from these clinical lab relationships will substantially offset any lower negotiated price per test thereby continuing to drive solid revenue growth for our company over several years. Gross profit margin in the fourth quarter of 2012 was 82% compared to 82.7 in the prior year period. For the full year ended December 31, 2012 gross profit of 44.7 million compared to 37.3 million in the prior year an increase of 20%.
Gross profit margins were 81.6% for the year ended December 31, 2012 compared to 81.4% for the year ended December 31, 2011.
This improvement we experienced in gross margin resulted primarily from increased sales volumes coupled with operating efficiencies in our clinical laboratory. Research and development expenses during the fourth quarter of 2012 were 2.6 million a 21.1% increase compared to 2.1 million in the prior year period. For the full year ended December 31, 2012 research and development expenses were 10 million compared to 7.8 million at 2011. The 27.7% increase over the prior year primarily reflects the continued investment in the company’s research and development infrastructure and capabilities during the year including medical affairs and medical science liaisons to enhance clinical awareness, free publications and key opinion leader development.
As a percentage of total revenues R&D expenses increased to 18.2% for the year ended December 31, 2012 compared to 17% for the year ended December 31, 2011. Sales and marketing expenses for the fourth quarter of 2012 were 5.7 million as compared to 5.9 million in the prior year quarter down 3.5%. As a percentage of sales, sales and marketing expenses were 41.7% for the fourth quarter of 2012 as compared to 46.9% in the prior year period. For the full year ended December 31, 2012 sales and marketing expenses were 22.4 million or 41% of revenue and this compares to sales and marketing expenses of 21.3 million during the full year of 2011, 46.9% of revenue.
This decrease in sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of revenue resulted from a (inaudible) delay in sales force expansion prior to the IPO as Rick discussed earlier with the completion of the IPO we expect sales and marketing cost to increase with the expansion of the company’s direct sales force, expanded geographic presence and continued marketing and medical education initiatives to drive awareness and adoption of the NMR LipoProfile test. General and administrative expenses during the fourth quarter of 2012 were 2.6 million a 13.4% increase compared to 2.3 million in the prior year period for the year ended December 31, 2012 G&A expenses increased by 21.3% to 10.4 million from 8.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2011.
This increase was primarily the result of 1.8 million in higher compensation and benefit as well as increased staffing level. We also experienced 0.5 million in higher professional fees largely from additional legal fees due to expanded compliance efforts. On a year-over-year basis our bad debt expense was 0.6 million lower as a result of our ongoing in plan channel mix shift.
Net income for the full year of 2012 was 1.3 million compared to a net loss of 0.5 million in the full year of 2011, the company has effectively being self-funding its growth for a number of years with a net proceeds from the IPO we’re now expanding the company’s commercial foot print to drive toward making NMR LipoProfile test the standard of care and attempting to capture the substantial market opportunity in front of it.
From a cash flow perspective we generated 7.6 million in cash from operations during the full year of 2012 and we stand approximately 8.1 million on capital expenditures. We also generated 12.8 million in cash from financing activities which was primarily attributable to the new credit facility we signed in late December 2012. On the balance sheet we ended the year with 24.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and 20.7 in total debt including 5 million under our revolving line of credit. As mentioned earlier we raised 44.4 million in net proceeds for the company with a completion of our IPO in late January this year. Turning to our outlook we forecast 2013 revenue of 59 million to 61 million which would represent approximately 8% to 11% growth over 2012. We expect to generate operating and net losses for the next two to three years as we execute on our market conversion strategy.
With that I would like to turn the call back to Rick for closing remarks.
Rick Brajer
Thanks Lucy. We want to thank our employees, our board and our business partners for their incredible efforts in making 2012 a very solid year, in summary we’re optimistic about the opportunities for LipoScience as we execute our strategy which focuses on market conversion, platform expansion and driving towards clinical standard of care. We believe that we have brought opportunities for growth with our first diagnostic test, the NMR LipoProfile test and we’re driving towards clinical standard of care by decentralizing our technology and expanding our menu of personalized diagnostic test to address a broad range of cardiovascular, metabolic and other diseases. We would now like to open the call to your questions. Tim Fisher, our Chief Operating Officer is in the room with Lucy and me, as appropriate we will involve him to participate in the Q&A session as well. Operator?
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). And our first question comes from the Bill Quirk with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Bill Quirk - Piper Jaffray
So couple of questions here, first off I actually just had quick house-keeping one, Lucy you happen to know or would you mind disclosing what the lab partner volume was for the fourth quarter just trying to make sure we got our model correct.
Lucy Martindale
Well we had 490,000 units for the quarter and it was 95% for the year, fourth quarter was probably 96% through lab partners.
Bill Quirk - Piper Jaffray
And then just a couple of different questions from me. I’m realizing that we’re only still pretty early in the process, Rick can you talk a little bit about Vantera in terms of how long would you expect it will take to get some of these customers to the four steps that you outlined.
Rick Brajer
I think that you’ll both hear about and see that we will make really steady progress during the second quarter and so well obviously we’re towards the end of the first quarter but I think that you will hear more ahead in the second quarter.
Bill Quirk - Piper Jaffray
I recognize that you don’t necessarily want to put a tight timeline around it it's a stronger development but as we think about additional test specifically Type-2 diabetes Rick is there something that we should be thinking about hearing an update in a year from now or is this something that potentially is longer or out in other words or we should be thinking about maybe three to five years out. Thanks.
Rick Brajer
So in terms of updates we will certainly provide you updates during these calls and when I presented investor conferences I will also discuss it, as indicated in my notes we won't be discussing actual launch timing until we have completed the development process, the validation process and we’re about to launch the launch the test laboratory developed test.
In addition Bill we will continue to publish that you will see publications and you will see posters as well at appropriate conferences.
Operator
Our next question comes from Dan Arias with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Your question please.
Dan Arias – UBS
I’m wondering Rick if you can just talk about the early days of the Vantera obviously LabCorp early adopted it, can you talk about their experience with the system, how the validation process go, what are they thinking about in terms of granting--
Rick Brajer
Well why don’t I allow Tim to answer the experience that they have had from the validation process because Tim was closer to that last summer when we were going to validation process and then I’ll talk about more broadly our relationship with LabCorp so Tim?
Tim Fisher
As you’re aware we did participate in the generation and the data for the FDA submission and then subsequent to that they have been working on completing their validation as well and to the best of our knowledge we have worked through all of the necessary studies and procedures that we had to execute on to successfully complete that validation on that initial unit.
Rick Brajer
Good and in terms of our relationship with LabCorp it's obviously a strong and positive one we had it in place since I believe early 2005 and I think that I believe that both LabCorp and LipoScience look forward if you will be at appropriate time and place in which they will be processing all of their samples on Vantera units.
Dan Arias – UBS
And can you just talk a little bit about the way in which you’re thinking about labs viewing Vantera placements as being appropriate just given test volumes being maybe at a particular level or not, I figure a level that makes sense for them and how you go about targeting the accounts going forward.
Rick Brajer
Sure, so first is the joint process not only the lab will be interested but we also view it as a positive business arrangement from our perspective as well. Fortunately because of the vast potential what we believe is the vast potential with our test there are many labs that would qualify in terms of having sufficient volume today of traditional cholesterol test that we would view as opportunities for converting to the NMR LipoProfile test so what we do is we first take a look at how many cholesterol tests are they currently performing in a given year. We access their degree of commitment to the cardiovascular disease space and their ability to engage in positive productive way with LipoScience in educating positions and driving conversion in that marketplace and those are really some of the if you will the initial sets, so it's both around their capacity for conversion as well as their desired engagement in that conversion process.
Dan Arias – UBS
I guess Lucy just given that you do have some reps in training how should we think about volumes trending through the quarter’s this year as you think about the ramp needs for the sales force.
Lucy Martindale
Well as Rick said we have got sales training class that’s in process now. We will be building to 54 reps by during the second quarter and continuing to recruit and look to the 60 reps in the by the end of the quarter, as you know early days reps generate relatively small volumes. It's takes us several months for them to get up to speed. If you think about the revenue guidance that I gave you for the year you know the corresponding volume growth that we would expect to see with that revenue growth is in the 22% to 28% range for the year, we’re really not getting any kind of quarterly guidance at this point; does that help answer your question?
Dan Arias – UBS
It does thank you. Okay last one from me maybe just given what we’re doing on the sales force expansion, can you give us a sense of SG&A levels for 2013 relative to 2012 levels.
Lucy Martindale
Well we certainly expect I’m not going to give specific guidance in terms of percent of revenues. We certainly expect that the we’re going to see an increase in sales and marketing spends over the next two or three years in terms of a percent of sales, it will take two to three years to get leverage on that and so our absolute dollars will grow. We’re expanding both in terms of the reps, also expanding in the health policy reimbursement area in the commercial arena.
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from the line of Matt Taylor with Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Matt Taylor – Barclays
I wanted to I guess just ask on the other variable as to what kind of range you’re expecting on price for 2013 in terms of getting to that revenue number if it was as lot of a range as the volume number.
Lucy Martindale
So we expect the ASP price change to be in the range of 10% to 12%. So (inaudible) on revenue volumes and then ASP.
Matt Taylor - Barclays
Certainly early days in you don’t want to provide the quarterly Vantera numbers for the three but can you give us some sense of how things are progressing now through the first few months here of your expansion process relative to your prior expectations whether it's on the Vantera side or on the sales force training side or are there any trends in new volume.
Rick Brajer
So as we described kind of in our prepared remarks we have customers progressing through the first three stages of that four step process and so we feel very good about if you will be the partners that are progressing through that process and we feel very good about the degree of interest in Vantera as we have described during the IPO roadshow, it's brought people to the table in meeting with the LipoScience historically we haven't had brought discussions with and so whether those are independent clinical laboratories or leading academic and medical centers or whether those are major research centers we feel we’re very encouraged by the interest to-date and the way that we believe that it will support our strategy in the future. Obviously you always want to go faster than slower and therefore our whole organization is very much focused on putting in place resources and processes to accelerate that process whether it's related to Vantera implementation or gearing up the sales force.
There is no doubt that the months of December and January because of the impending IPO took a lot of focus by Lucy and by Tim Fisher and myself and obviously we have a broad team that runs the company but Lucy, Tim and I are an important piece of it as well. Now that we have got if you will be the net proceeds in the bank and we have all of our attention focused on operating the business, we feel very good about acceleration and progress in those key initiatives. It's not lost importance of making of those two factors that you identify and that we feel like we’re making good progress now.
Matt Taylor - Barclays
And in addition to commercial trends, is there any other guide post that you point to over the next 6 to 12 months that you’re looking out or we should be looking for in terms of clinical updates or coverage also be curious to hear your thoughts on how you view HDLP as a potential driver and differentiator.
Rick Brajer
Yes so let me start with that last one first, first in terms of HDLP we do believe that it will be an important contributor to our conversion and efforts. Just as many physicians are beginning to understand the limitations of LDL cholesterol or cholesterol measurements for lipoproteins even what we believe if what we’re exposed to even at greater percentage of certainly key opinion leaders recognize if you will the weakness of HDL cholesterol and they are looking for better measures of the functionality of HDL.
We believe that HDL particle number addresses that need and that concern and so we believe that HDL particle number in combination with LDL particle number can be an important contributor to our market conversion efforts, this is number one, number two in terms of guide post along the way we have been very, we tried to be very transparent and describing what our strategy is in the area of market conversion, platform expansion and driving towards clinical standard of care. So the guide post that you should be looking at in terms of progress around for example market conversion is increasingly during the balance of the year you begin to see an acceleration of the year-over-year unit volume growth rates would be an important guide post to be looking at.
What’s happening with market conversion especially in our lead states, are we beginning to expand to new lab partners or not? Are we beginning to make progress either in terms of publishing economic model or demonstrating new clinical data either the clinical value proposition or economic value proposition of either LDL-P or HDLP or diabetes risk index, what’s happening in terms of our organizational capacity for really influencing managed care and influencing sales and obviously when we talk about trading Vantera who is trading Vantera and at what rate and how are they using Vantera? So those are important milestones but I think that you will see coming out so it's really things that you would naturally align with the three components of our strategy once again market conversion platform expansion and driving towards clinical standard of care.
Matt Taylor - Barclays
Just a clarification on HDL I wanted to just ask what questions the FDA was asking whether or not HDL any contribution from that within the guidance?
Rick Brajer
Sure so without providing too many specifics the way I would describe the nature of the question from the FDA is I would say it was nothing out of the ordinary however it's important to remind everybody on the line that even though this is a 510(k) that required clinical data as an end point so it's not a standard comparison study, so it's requires clinical data to support which is the reason why obviously it's a longer process than maybe a typical 90 day submission process but that’s how I would kind of characterize it. So we continue to be in discussions with the FDA on that.
By the way going back to your question on guide post I thought about one another guide post as well which is it frequently at the major meetings you will also see pharma companies releasing data or studies that utilize NMR LipoProfile data and so for example we frequently ask during the IPO roadshow and even in the most recent investor conference at Barclay’s are you included in PCSK drug trials or not and then example of if you will a milestone along the way is the most recent ACC meeting I believe had slides or had an oral presentation RN316 effect on lipoprotein particle by NMR and so our progress in the area of pharmaceutical data, clinical study that increasingly relies on the NMR LipoProfile test or the components of the NMR LipoProfile test I think can be an important guide post as well.
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Dan Arias with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Dan Arias – UBS
Just a quick follow-up, LabCorp reported being an impact from Hurricane Sandy on volumes I believe in 4Q just wondering if that play a role at all in the quarter for you guys?
Lucy Martindale
Yes we did see an impact in the north-east from Hurricane Sandy during the fourth quarter, our estimation is that during that period of time when there was disruption up along the north-east coast line it was about 9000 units that we were impacted by.
Operator
Thank you and presenters there appears to be no additional questions in the phone queue. I would like to turn the program back over to President and CEO of LipoScience, Rick Brajer. Please go ahead, sir.
Rick Brajer
We appreciate everybody’s time today. For those of you who want to continue to staying close to the LipoScience story we would like to let you know that we will be present at upcoming Medical and Professional Society Meeting including the National Lipid Association Annual Scientific Sessions in Las Vegas, the ADA Meeting, June 22nd through 24th in Chicago and also the AACC Meeting in July 30th through August 1st in Houston, Texas. We also anticipate presenting in a number of healthcare investor conferences and we will continue to update those on our website. So we look forward to seeing you at future events and updating you on our progress, on our first quarter earnings call. Operator this concludes our call.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. Attendees you may log off at this time.
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